Silicon Labs Unveils Wireless Networking Solution Using Energy Harvesting System
- As a turnkey energy harvesting reference design
Powers industry-leading power-efficient wireless sensor node applications –

May 31, 2011 – Silicon Laboratories Inc. (NASDAQ: SLAB, Country Manager Jong-Chan Lee), a global leader in high-performance analog-intensive mixed-signal ICs, has launched the industry's most energy-efficient wireless sensor node solution powered by solar energy harvesting sources. Through the new turnkey energy harvesting reference design, developers can implement self-sustaining, ultra-low-power wireless sensor networks for home and building automation, security systems, industrial control applications, medical monitoring devices, asset tracking systems and infrastructure, and agricultural monitoring systems.

Over the past decade, the energy harvesting device market has grown exponentially. IDTechEx predicts that 10 billion energy harvesting devices will be released by 2019, a figure approximately 20 times the 500 million released in 2009. While systems powered by harvested energy sources have existed, developers have struggled to implement wireless sensor nodes with very low power. Silicon Labs has solved these design challenges by developing a wireless energy harvesting system based on its Si10xx wireless microcontroller (MCU) family. The Si10xx wireless microcontroller is the industry's most power-efficient single-chip MCU and wireless transceiver solution, capable of performing control and wireless interface functions at very low power levels.

Environmentally friendly and virtually inexhaustible energy harvesting offers an economical and convenient alternative to batteries used in various applications, such as wireless networking systems. Batteries have the disadvantages of being expensive and inconvenient to replace. In particular, battery replacement in large-scale wireless sensor node applications is not only very inconvenient but also suffers from low reliability under extreme temperature conditions. Wireless sensor nodes rely heavily on batteries because they are used in locations where main power cannot be supplied or is difficult to operate. Energy harvesting can simplify these applications by reducing the number of waste batteries for recycling and landfills, while simultaneously resolving the issue of inconvenient battery replacement in inaccessible locations.

Silicon Labs' complete energy harvesting reference design includes complete circuit designs for the wireless network, USB software, and RF layout, as well as BOMs, drawings, and Gerber files. This design consists of three parts:

• Solar energy-powered wireless sensor node measuring temperature, light level, and charge level using Si10xx wireless MCU: The Si10xx wireless MCU is used for the sensor system and for controlling thin-film batteries that store wirelessly transmitted data and harvested energy.
• Wireless USB adapter connecting a wireless sensor node and a PC for sensor data display: The adapter features Silicon Labs' Si4431 EZRadioPRO® transceiver, equipped with an MCU to run USB-HID class software and the EZMac® wireless software stack.
•