Linear Technology has introduced an energy harvesting power IC for low energy sources, including piezoelectric transducers.
This follows the launch of the company's first energy-harvesting power device in December.
The chip has a 450nA quiescent current undervoltage lockout mode with a wide hysteresis window enables charge to accumulate on the storage capacitor until the buck converter can efficiently transfer a portion of the stored charge to the output.
It is designed to interface directly with a piezoelectric or alternative AC power source, rectify a voltage waveform and store harvested energy in an external storage capacitor while dissipating any excess power via an internal shunt regulator.
The LTC3588-1 integrates a low-loss, full-wave bridge rectifier with a buck converter to harvest ambient vibrational energy via piezoelectric transducers and then convert it to a well-regulated output to power application microcontrollers, sensors and wireless transmission components.
The buck DC-DC converter delivers up to 100mA of continuous output current or even higher pulsed loads. Its output can be programmed to one of four (1.8V, 2.5V, 3.3V or 3.6V) fixed voltages to power a wireless transmitter or sensor.
Quiescent current is only 950nA with the output in regulation (at no load), maximizing overall efficiency.
The LTC3588EDD-1 is available in a 3mm x 3mm DFN package and the LTC3588EMSE-1 is available in a thermally enhanced MSOP-10 package.