e-peas Reveals Energy Harvesting PMICs for Remote Control Units and Wireless Keyboard at CES 2024

By Tiera Oliver

Associate Editor

Embedded Computing Design

January 10, 2024

News

Louvain-La-Neuve, Belgium – At CES 2024, e-peas announced new members of its Ambient Energy Managers family optimized for Remote-Control Units (RCU) and Wireless Keyboard (KBD) design.

The new PMICs, AEM00920 & AEM10920, support advanced features: maximizing transfer of energy harvested from Photovoltaic (PV) cells, storing energy in off-the-shelf storage elements, and delivering a reliable power supply for the application circuitry.

Per the company, the PMICs reach up to 95% energy conversion efficiency from the harvester to the storage element. AEM00920 is optimized for PV cells featuring constant voltage regulation between 0.25V and 3.2V, while AEM10920 is optimized for PV cells with light dependent maximum power point, ranging from 0.25V to 3.2V, with configurable MPPT ratio from 35% to 90%.

Storage elements like Hybrid Lithium capacitors, small Lithium-Ion batteries, or even triple NiMH cells require dedicated protection mechanism that are implemented in these PMICs. A specific 5V boost circuitry has been integrated in both devices allowing designers to add a charge boost function to their product design.

According to the company, both AEM00920 & AEM10920 provide an efficient energy conversion path to the application thanks to the integrated buck DC-DC converter. GPIO configuration enables output voltage selection with output voltage range of 2.2V, 2.5V or 2.8V interfacing the most recent connectivity chipsets. Both PMICs offer ultra-low cold-start allowing the application to start even in low light conditions.

New control and configuration features introduced in both devices include a shipping mode to protect the storage element from being drained during shipment. With their high level of integration, both ICs simplify system development and minimize bill-of-materials.

Both AEM00920 and AEM10920 are available in a 24-pin QFN package with a board footprint of 4x4sqmm. AEM00920 is available for sampling now, AEM10920 will come later in January 2024. 

For more information, visit: https://www.e-peas.com.

 

Tiera Oliver, Associate Editor for Embedded Computing Design, is responsible for web content edits, product news, and constructing stories. She also assists with newsletter updates as well as contributing and editing content for ECD podcasts and the ECD YouTube channel. Before working at ECD, Tiera graduated from Northern Arizona University where she received her B.S. in journalism and political science and worked as a news reporter for the university’s student led newspaper, The Lumberjack.

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