To showcase the opportunities for smart energy harvesting, Linear Technology and Energy Micro have brought together their understanding of energy harvesting power supplies and ultra low power 32-bit micro-controllers in a demonstration based on energy Micro’s starter development kit at electronica 2010.

The kit has two main components: Linear Technology's LTC3588 piezoelectric energy harvesting power supply and Energy Micro's ARM Cortex-M3 enabled EFM32 Gecko micro-controller. This reportedly creates a wireless sensor node that gathers data from a three-axis accelerometer, transmitting it over a Zigbee RF transceiver.

"Using sustainable, kinetic, photovoltaic and thermal energy sources to power micro-controllers requires energy harvesting power supplies capable of both very high efficiency conversion and very low quiescent power loss," stated Don Paulus, Vice President & General Manager of Power Products at Linear Technology. "At the same time, micro-controllers have to offer very low power operating modes and the application software flexibility to make the best use of the harvested energy – the EFM32 Gecko MCU provides such attributes."

According to Øyvind Janbu, cto at Energy Micro, "Linear Technology's ultra low power energy harvesting power supplies match perfectly well with the needs of the EFM32's energy modes. This demonstration illustrates the tremendous opportunities open to designers of smarter energy harvesting products."

Energy Micro has the aim of developing, marketing and selling the most energy friendly microcontrollers in the world, that are based on modern and powerful microprocessor architectures.

In an event organized by the Electroniques magazine in France, Energy Micro won the "Electron d'Or 2010." The jury selected the ARM Cortex-M3 enabled 32-bit EFM32 microcontroller as the best product in the Processors and Memories category.

The ultra low power EFM32 Gecko microcontroller won the Environmental Design Award  at UK’s annual e-Legacy Awards. This award specifically recognizes electronic designs that are energy-saving or fuel/power- efficient. E-Legacy awards represent Corporate Social Responsibility and reflect an ethos of making a contribution to the common good.

The company was also given Product of the Year 2010 Award by Elektronik, Germany’s leading bi-weekly technical journal. The EFM®32 Gecko microcontroller was the best product in the active devices award category.

Linear Technology Corporation works on designing, manufacturing and marketing a broad line of standard high performance analog and mixed signal integrated circuits. The company’s products have applications in industrial instrumentation, process control, telecommunications, notebook and desktop computers, automotive electronics, factory automation, military and space systems, etc. Principal product categories of Linear Technology Corporation include amplifiers, data convertors, battery management, high frequency, interface, voltage regulators and voltage references.

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