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AN-72-1036 Rev A

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AN-1036

Application Note

Using the EnerChip™ CC in Energy Harvesting Designs

EnerChip CC Overview

profile, surface mount, solder reflowable packages. Their low self-discharge, high charge-discharge cycle life,

and ability to accept very low input charging current combine to make them ideally suited as energy storage

devices in low power applications. These include backup power sources for real-time clocks, microcontrollers,

and memory chips to maintain operation during periods when main power is interrupted. EnerChips are also

well suited as energy storage devices for wireless sensor nodes where energy is harvested from ambient

power sources. The integrated battery and power management circuitry included in the EnerChip CC products

provides supply voltage threshold detection, an automatic energy storage switchover function, and EnerChip

charge-discharge control circuitry - all in a compact surface mount package that includes the EnerChip storage

device. Figure 1 depicts the EnerChip CC surface mount package and the CBC-EVAL-10 development module

designed for evaluating the EnerChip CC devices in energy harvesting applications.

Figure 2. Implementing Energy Harvesting with the EnerChip CC CBC3150

EnerChip CC Energy Harvesting

The EnerChip CC can be configured to collect energy from transducers such as low power photovoltaic (PV)

cells and use that harvested energy to charge the integrated EnerChip and deliver self-sustaining power to

components such as microcontrollers, sensors, and radios in wireless systems. Figure 2 illustrates a typical

implementation of the EnerChip CC in energy harvesting applications. In order to make most efficient use

of the power available from the transducer (for example, a PV cell), it is necessary to know the electrical

characteristics including voltage and peak power point of the transducer being used. This Application Note

describes a low cost energy harvesting circuit using the EnerChip CC to collect, convert, store, and deliver to the

Figure 1. EnerChip CC CBC3150 (left) and the CBC-EVAL-10 Energy Harvesting Evaluation Kit (right)