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First Sigfox Energy Harvesting Module in Partnership with HT Micron and Nowi

Sigfox | January 10, 2022

Sigfox, a world’s leading IoT (Internet of Things) communication service provider and 0G network pioneer, today announces its partnership with HT Micron, a Brazilian expert in advanced semiconductor solutions, and Nowi, a semiconductor company that specializes in the development of energy harvesting power management technology, to explore and unlock the benefits of integrating energy harvesting into Sigfox devices.This collaboration marks the first step for Sigfox towards a commercial development of energy harvesting modules to equip IoT devices and contribute to more sustainability in IoT. Key use cases are applications in Smart metering, industrial sensoring, asset tracking and air quality monitoring.

During the research phase, HT Micron has worked on creating the innovative semiconductor solution to be integrated with Nowi’s Energy Harvesting PMIC (Power Management Integrated Circuit) designed especially for low power IoT devices. Equipped on Sigfox devices and powered by the 0G technology, this solution will help reduce battery consumption and offer longer autonomy while reducing the total cost of ownership.

Nowi PMIC is designed to efficiently extract power from ambient energy sources like light and vibration to charge a variety of energy storage elements such as a rechargeable battery or a capacitor. It is best suited for most low power applications like distributed IoT sensors and TV remote controls for example.

“The low power consumption of Sigfox solutions is particularly well suited to being powered by ambient energy harvesting. As many Sigfox-based applications require intermittent communication intervals, this allows for trickle charging a storage element with energy harvesting in between transmissions,” explains Chris Juliano, CCO at Nowi.

Sigfox and HT Micron have been working together for several years already and HT Micron was identified as a strategic partner for this project as they have the expertise to create innovative modules and they consider energy harvesting essential for IoT mass adoption with sustainability.

“We are glad to take this next step with Sigfox and explore energy harvesting solutions as a new way to create added value to our end customers and help them improve their environmental impact.”

Edelweis Ritt, CIO at HT Micron

“This collaboration with Nowi and HT Micron is another proof point towards our ambition to create IoT solutions that will help our clients preserve the environment by greatly reducing their energy consumption. We are looking forward to the development of this new kind of devices and to the positive impact they will generate” says Benjamin Jooris, Client & Ecosystem Success Director at Sigfox.

The first step of this project is a development kit integrating Nowi’s PMIC solution with HT Micron’s Sigfox system-in-package, to be used for testing purposes by R&D and product development teams. First information will be presented at CES 2022 (5-7 January in Las Vegas) at Nowi’s booth (#51733) to gather customer and developers’ feedback. Customers can register to receive the development kit. Next, Sigfox, Nowi and HT Micron will create a mass production module that can be used by any type of device maker.

This announcement comes as part of strengthening Sigfox's strategy to help reduce the human impact on the environment with IoT, and it will be soon followed by other solutions based on energy harvesting as new projects are already in discussion.

About Sigfox
Sigfox is a world’s leading IoT (Internet of Things) communication service provider and 0G network pioneer. Sigfox offers a unique combination of ultra-low cost and ultra-low power solutions enabled by a single global network, owned and operated by 75 Sigfox Operators, enabling businesses to gain visibility and track their assets worldwide. With more than 19 million connected devices and 75 million messages sent a day, Sigfox helps its customers to extract data at the lowest cost of production and accelerate their digital transformation in key areas such as asset tracking and monitoring.

ISO 9001 certified and supported by a strong partner ecosystem, Sigfox was founded in 2010 and is headquartered in Labège, France, with offices in Boston, Dallas, Dubai, Madrid, Paris, Sao Paulo, Singapore, and Tokyo.

About Nowi
Nowi is a semiconductor company founded in 2016, based in Delft, the Netherlands, with regional offices in the US and in Shanghai. Nowi has developed energy harvesting power management ICs that combine top harvesting performance with the world’s smallest assembly footprint and lowest BOM cost. Thereby it simplifies the design process and lowers the threshold for any company to develop ‘Plug & Forget’ products.

About HT Micron
HT Micron provides advanced semiconductor solutions. The portfolio includes memories for computers, cell phones and smart TVs, as well as System-in-Package connectivity solutions for the Internet of Things. HT Micron is a Brazilian company, having as the main shareholder the South Korean group HANA Micron, and is based in the city of São Leopoldo, RS, in South Brazil.

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