Fabless semiconductor vendor Haila Technologies Inc., which won the startup of the year award at Sensors Converge 2024, and energy harvesting house e-peas Semiconductor have collaborated on what they claim is the first monolithic Wi-Fi passive backscatter radio frequency (RF) chip powered by ambient light collected by a small photovoltaic panel.
The solution combines Haila’s BSC2000 Wi-Fi passive backscatter RF chip with e-peas’ AEM10941 photovoltaic energy harvesting device that provides real-time temperature and humidity data updates from commercial sensors communicated over Wi-Fi. The companies claim it is the first-time ambient light has powered sensing over Wi-Fi.
The device could be used for multiple applications to reduce and eliminate reliance on standard batteries to improve sensor network operating costs and environmental waste. Additionally, the device paves the way for brownfield sensor deployments, the companies said.
“Leveraging the e-peas team’s deep expertise in PMICs, we’ve been able to demonstrate an energy-harvested power source for Wi-Fi-based sensor connectivity,” said Patricia Bower, VP of product management at Haila. “This is a critical step forward towards HaiLa’s mission to enable sustainable scaling of IoT on Wi-Fi.”
Haila said this combined device is part of its strategy to focus on Wi-Fi as a key infrastructure enabler for internet of things deployments as it is the most common wireless technology in residential, enterprise and industrial sectors.
