Periodic Reporting for period 1 - NANOPOWER (Intelligent power management integrated circuits for a greener, more efficient Internet of Things)
Reporting period: 2024-01-01 to 2024-12-31
Sensors, wearables, and other battery-powered electronics with wireless communication are being deployed in large quantities. This year, it is expected that 78 million batteries will be discarded from such devices alone. Not only is this unsustainable from an environmental and resource-use point of view, but power consumption is a key limitation for enabling new and large-scale applications. The semiconductor industry continues to push towards lower power consumption. Sensor, wireless SoC, and other component manufacturers continue to improve, but a key element has been missing, and power consumption is still the key challenge for any hardware designer. Through a unique approach to decreasing the system level power consumption, and using our own subthreshold designs, Nanopower is giving hardware designers a new tool to create systems with lower power consumption and more functionality than ever before possible. The radically changed power consumption enables new applications, new functionality, smaller form factor, and energy harvesting technologies as a key power source. The project will bring the Nanopower power saving IC to TRL8 with a product ready for commercial scale up.
Nanopower has designed, produced, and verified its unique power-saving IC.
The design has been completed and produced for the first product to be available for customers on EVBs and samples in order for customers to start their work on testing and designing in the IC.
Through the project to date, Nanopower has
- Extensively tested and verified prototypes
- Developed improved designs
- Produced full wafers of the Gen1 intended for customer use
- Developed and tested Evaluation Boards / Development Kits, as well as API and configuration tools for developers using the Nanopower IC.
- Developed full system integrations with prototype ICs, and ongoing for Gen1, for various use-cases and demonstrators
Nanopower has proven capabilities and is ready to start working with customers, using the Gen1.
The design has been completed and produced for the first product to be available for customers on EVBs and samples in order for customers to start their work on testing and designing in the IC.
Through the project to date, Nanopower has
- Extensively tested and verified prototypes
- Developed improved designs
- Produced full wafers of the Gen1 intended for customer use
- Developed and tested Evaluation Boards / Development Kits, as well as API and configuration tools for developers using the Nanopower IC.
- Developed full system integrations with prototype ICs, and ongoing for Gen1, for various use-cases and demonstrators
Nanopower has proven capabilities and is ready to start working with customers, using the Gen1.
Results and potential impacts:
- Testing of physical samples has proven that the Nanopower IC can be achieved with the expected performance and operating envelope
- Gen1 production enables us to start commercial sales processes to achieve design wins – proving the commercial value of the technology and product
- We have overcome design challenges identified before and during the project and implemented these on silicon
- Through extensive testing and characterization, we have established unique competence in subthreshold design that will facilitate transfer to production and future generations
Key success criteria and requirements:
- Distribution of samples on EVBs with adequate support from the Nanopower team, creating ambassadors and reference users
- Establishing the necessary sales team and channels. Key hirings have been ongoing to date.
- Expanding with value-generating distribution channels; design houses, specialist distributors, full-service distributors.
- Tools that enable designers to implement the Nanopower IC with minimum efforts
- Continued work towards transfer to production to achieve targeted yield
- Testing of physical samples has proven that the Nanopower IC can be achieved with the expected performance and operating envelope
- Gen1 production enables us to start commercial sales processes to achieve design wins – proving the commercial value of the technology and product
- We have overcome design challenges identified before and during the project and implemented these on silicon
- Through extensive testing and characterization, we have established unique competence in subthreshold design that will facilitate transfer to production and future generations
Key success criteria and requirements:
- Distribution of samples on EVBs with adequate support from the Nanopower team, creating ambassadors and reference users
- Establishing the necessary sales team and channels. Key hirings have been ongoing to date.
- Expanding with value-generating distribution channels; design houses, specialist distributors, full-service distributors.
- Tools that enable designers to implement the Nanopower IC with minimum efforts
- Continued work towards transfer to production to achieve targeted yield