Austin, Texas-based Freescale Semiconductor has developed a technology that it says can harvest ultra-low voltages from solar cells that generally go to waste.
The company said its ultra-low-voltage DC-to-DC converter
technology will enable solar cell startup and
operating performance at levels as low as 0.32 volts (V), as
well as operation down to 0.25 V.
This compares to roughly 0.7 V needed to turn-on a transistor without external assistance. Freescales says its technology overcomes this limitation, which reduces system
design options and increases the complexity of power conversion.
Freescale said its power conversion technology enables efficiency of 82% for solar and up to 90% for other types of energy harvesting.
Potential applications include solar-powered battery chargers, trickle chargers for automotive systems, chargers for cell phones and laptops, remote data acquisition and industrial HVAC systems, PV-based traffic signals, solar-powered home and commercial lighting products, and self-powered wireless transponders.
Freescale is demonstrating the technology
for photovoltaic (PV) applications this week at the Applied Power
Electronics Conference and Exposition (APEC) in Washington D.C.
Using a single solar cell, Freescale’s analog, power-conversion chip is engineered to charge a Li-Ion battery cell at 100mA. Present charging systems require multiple solar cells in series, which drives up cost, reduces efficiency, and increases sensitivity to shading and cell mismatches.
“We see no IC solutions currently available approaching the ultra-low-voltage capability and power conversion efficiency of our analog technology demonstrated at APEC,” said Arman Naghavi, vice president and general manager of Freescale’s Analog, Mixed-Signal and Power Division. “Freescale has demonstrated a single-chip solution that addresses one of the most difficult technological and practical challenges of extracting power from a single solar cell. This breakthrough can be used to help reduce the cost and streamline the development of innovative solar chargers, energy-harvesting systems and other low-voltage energy sources.”
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