How do you make an RF energy harvester even better?

For Powercast, whose Powerharvester receiver (PCC110) has been deployed in industrial and commercial systems for seven years, today’s answer is reduce the footprint and volume.

The company’s new PCC114 receiver chip’s footprint (1 x 0.6 x 0.3 mm) is seven times smaller than the PCC110 (2 x 2.1 x 0.9 mm) and has 20 times less volume. This size reduction simplifies placement in the design of ultra-compact, wirelessly-powered devices. Ideal applications include space-constrained consumer designs like smart cards or hearing aids.

Embedded in a device, the Powerharvester takes radio frequency (RF) energy sent over the air from either intentional RF transmitters, or from anticipated RF sources such as UHF RFID readers or near-field communication (NFC) point of sale (POS) readers and converts it to DC for powering a batteryless device or recharging a device’s batteries.

In the home, office, public place or industrial setting, Powercast’s new FCC-approved PowerSpot® far field (up to 80 feet) transmitter provides an intentional RF source for automatically charging enabled devices over the air by creating a coverage area similar to Wi-Fi.

The PCC114 chip can harvest energy from the RF source ranging from centimeters for NFC to a few meters for UHF RFID to power the device and enable contactless payment, ticketing, or data-change transactions.

One way to learn more about the RF energy harvesting technique is to attend the Energy Harvesting and Energy-Efficient Solutions for Sensors Application – Tutorials pre-conference Symposium at Sensors Expo 2018 in San Jose, where Charles Green, the Chief Operating & Technical Officer of Powercast Corporation, will present “Real-World Deployments of Remote Wireless Power in Wireless Sensor Networks and Other Applications” on Tuesday, June 26.