Energy Harvesting Devices as Die/Component or Sub-Modules to Discretely Integrate

Integrated or Separate Energy Harvester Electronics or Energy Harvester System including Energy Harvesting Device and Harvester Electronics

There is no greater explosion of a fundamental technology that can compare to the massive phenomena of the infrastructure of connected devices known as the "Internet of Things" (IoT) except for the Internet itself, which it will eclipse.

According IC Insights, about 30.0 billion Internet connections are expected to be online globally by 2020, with 85% of those being IoT-meaning a wide range of commercial, industrial, and consumer systems, distributed sensors, vehicles, and other connected objects serving embedded systems, remote sensing, instruments and measurements, control, cameras, wearable electronics, and other objects that require machine-to-machine communications.

The success of the emerging IoT revolution will depend on finding an adequate and efficient way to power each device. The energy required to power these devices and their internal sensors is enormous with demand outpacing supply. Analysts believe the next wave of IoT devices will not be able to rely entirely on batteries and wired power.

Fitting a battery into a tiny package in an inaccessible space is not an effective solution. In addition, the cost of maintaining, replacing and discarding billions of batteries would be astronomical and impractical. Energy Harvesting devices are fast emerging as the most practical solution to guarantee the future of IoT and Banpil is at the forefront of Energy Harvesting Devices for IoT with innovative, mature and market deployment ready solutions available today.

Banpil specializes in providing energy harvesting devices and solutions, which continuously generate energy round the clock i.e. day and night, whether for indoor or outdoor IoT applications, and utilize that power to meet the increasing and critical energy demands for IoT applications in powering systems, modules, and sensor devices for monitoring, connectivity, and external remote communications applications and functions, and therefore eliminate the need for drawing on batteries or wireline power sources.

While there are alternative energy harvesting devices and solutions for outdoor environments normally centered on solar technologies of which Banpil also has highly efficient day energy harvesters, we are uniquely qualified and endowed with Indoor energy harvesting device technologies, which generate energy from the ambient environment. A majority of IoT nodes and sensors will be used in applications indoors without the benefit of the abundance of day harvester energy sources, so the capability for indoor energy harvesting is particularly important for IoT applications.

We provide two types of Energy Harvesting Device solutions:

• Energy Harvesting Devices for Monolithic IoT Device Integration and
• Energy Harvesting Devices for Discrete/Hybrid IoT Device Integration

Banpil's energy harvesting devices convert relatively low levels of energy from the ambient environment into an amount that can provide enough power for IoT nodes and applications. The Banpil Energy Harvesting Device is provided as an IP Block or Component, which is monolithically integrated on silicon by the IoT Device Maker. In addition, Banpil provides a Harvester Electronics IP Block separately or together with the Energy Harvesting Device as an integrated IP Block or sub-module.

In this option the Banpil energy harvesting device is an IP Block or Component, which is monolithically manufactured on silicon. Silicon wafers with IoT devices are manufactured such that the devices interconnect seamlessly with the Banpil energy harvesting device monolithically integrated on to the back-side of the silicon substrate.

The Banpil Energy Harvesting Device is capable of providing power to the IoT Device to support 2-way communications. It is capable of fitting into the small form factor of IoT applications, which can be as small enough to house processor, transmitter and without room for batteries. The Banpil Energy Harvesting Devices for IoT are capable of generating sufficient energy to support the duty cycle of the IoT application. The mode of operation includes the following:

Once ambient energy is harvested it can either be used in a burst when it reaches a specified power generation level or it may be stored to provide the required energy at a time when:

1. It is needed (IoT nodes have low duty cycles, that is, a sensor taking periodic air temperature samples might only be active a few milliseconds per hour, and can be in sleep mode the rest of the time) or
2. When the source of energy is not sufficiently available for the IoT node.

The area requirements for the energy harvesting devices can be as small as needed depending on the duty cycle and the power generation requirements of the application from small compact IoT devices to larger applications depending on the available space committed to the IoT device module.

In this option the Banpil Energy Harvesting device is provided as a component in the form of a die or a sub-module, which is discretely or hybridly integrated with an IoT system or module to provide power to it. Similar to the monolithic integration case, the energy harvested and power requirements depend on the application duty cycle for monitoring or communications, which could vary from hours to days with modes from burst to drawing from temporary storage for any excess generated energy that cannot be used.

The die size area requirements for the sub-module can be as small as needed depending on the duty cycle and the power generation requirements of the application from small compact IoT devices to larger applications depending on the available space committed to the IoT device module. In addition there are options for mounting the die on a sub-carrier if required for application system it is going to be used for.

Banpil has mature and advanced technologies, IP and capabilities for interfacing its energy harvesting devices to the electronics necessary for the IoT applications. Harvest electronics and voltage regulators are mixed signal devices that are well understood. However, these devices in die form need to be integrated and assembled with the systems making up the IoT application. There is a critical need to meet the input power requirements and output regulation requirements to support the specific application environment for proper functionality. Banpil specializes in the interface electronics needed for interconnection of the energy harvesting devices to electronics that will control harvesting energy, boosting voltages as necessary, storing energy on storage media and then regulating the output power to the IoT application.

Integrated or Separate Energy Harvester Electronics or Energy Harvester System including Energy Harvesting Device and Harvester Electronics

Banpil continues innovate on our Energy Harvesting technologies and solutions with a specific focus on Energy Harvesting Devices for IoT applications. To explore new IoT applications, significantly extend the capabilities of existing applications, or for licensing, development, and manufacturing partnership opportunities with Banpil Photonics, please contact us at .