Energy harvesting ICs for sustainable battery management now at Computer Controls
Miniaturization in chip design in combination with efficient energy yield and simultaneous energy generation is a constant challenge for product designers, especially with regard to wireless industrial and IoT products. The battery performance must be extended, flexibility increased and replacement costs reduced.
The PMICs (Power Management ICs) from e-peas are characterized by a very small form factor and “harvest” energy from the sources of light, heat, vibration or high-frequency waves. Corresponding to the respective environment, powerful ambient energy management solutions are available that harvest, store and optimize energy. For example, the integrated energy management system AEM10941 generates energy from light by drawing direct current from 7-cell solar panels and storing it in a rechargeable element. The actual application, e.g. asset or animal tracking, is supplied with sufficient charge via two independent control voltages and a primary battery is no longer required. Without energy harvesting, an unlimited lifetime of IoT sensors cannot be achieved, because the battery life usually limits the lifetime of a sensor.
Our customers benefit from the new partnership with e-peas in particular because it brings considerable synergy effects in connection with enormous knowledge potential to the already existing product range. Product designers receive all tools and expert advice from a single source, such as special evaluation boards from Silicon Laboratories or DevKits from Miromico, which have been driving the low-power approach for a long time. Experience with energy harvesting in LoRaWAN (Long Range WAN) applications can also be used. 1st level support is ensured by CCAG's own design support and thus the company has taken another successful step towards becoming a full-service provider.