FAQ
General
Nowi is a semiconductor company that specializes in the development of energy harvesting power management technology. Through the development of its NH2 PMIC, it simplifies the design process and lowers the threshold for any company to develop “Plug & Forget” products.
Nowi Headquarters are located in Delft, the Netherlands. Nowi also has sales offices in San Francisco and in Hong Kong.
Nowi was founded in 2015 by Simon van der Jagt (CEO) and Omar Link (COO). After 5 years of product development, the company launched the commercialization of its innovative PMIC on the market, the NH2.
Nowi believes that for the physical world to be connected to the digital world, a new approach for powering devices is required. Traditionally, we power devices by bringing energy to them, in the form of batteries and cables. However at the incredible scale of a connected world, this has become a limiting factor. Instead of bringing energy, Nowi aims to enable products to use the energy that is already available at its location. Bringing connectivity to life.
The chips are manufactured in Taiwan.
Energy harvesting positively impacts the environment by reducing the number of batteries being discarded and also by lowering the volume of raw materials being mined because rechargeable batteries have a longer lifespan.
We invite you to send us a message through our contact page for any technical or sales related question.
Nowi NH2 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 super-capacitor, with the help of one external capacitor.
Usages are multiple and include a large array of applications: consumer electronics, IoT (including smart devices and wearables), retail (ESL), industrial (sensors), etc. Find more about different applications on the dedicated page on our website.
Nowi Open Innovation Program was created to support academic research and innovative projects. The program is designed to be a close collaboration between the engineering team at Nowi and selected researchers, wherein Nowi provides the Nowi NH2 EH PMIC and engineering support to assist the most cutting-edge innovations.
With a team growing rapidly, Nowi prides itself on being an open, innovative, ambitious company with an informal and challenging working environment.
You can find useful documentation on our website. Datasheets, application notes, user guides and reference designs can be downloaded here.
Technical
The NH2D0245 is designed to extract low power from an energy harvesting source, for instance, photovoltaic (solar), or rectified output of piezoelectric harvester. We are currently developing a new PMIC with a higher boosting factor that can support other types of harvesters like TEG and RF.
It is possible to connect multiple units of the same harvester either in parallel or in series to provide power within the specification range of the PMIC. However, connecting two different harvesters, for instance solar and rectified output of piezo or two solar panels with different characteristics simultaneously is not recommended. Otherwise, using individual PMIC for each source is recommended.
We invite you to learn more about the NH2 technical specifications in the datasheet.
NH2 does not support RF energy harvesting. We are currently developing a new PMIC with a higher boosting factor which will be able to support RF harvesting.
The NH2D0245 is designed to work efficiently in the range of microwatts (μW) to milliwatts (mW) of power.
NH2 is a boosting PMIC that requires a typical input voltage from the harvester as mentioned in the datasheet. The PMIC can tolerate an absolute maximum voltage of 5V.
NH2 is a boosting PMIC. The PMIC can effectively extract power from energy harvesters, boosting the voltage by a factor of 2 or 2.3.
NH2’s main function is to charge the storage element which powers up the system.
The NH2 has a pre-charge feature that can support battery-less applications under certain conditions.
Nowi can provide technical support as well as evaluation boards and reference designs to test the compatibility of the PMIC with customers’ applications.
Sales
Nowi has launched its first energy harvesting PMIC, the NH2, in 2020.
Nowi is currently working on a number of energy harvesting PMIC designs which will broaden the application of energy harvesting in new domains.
No, but we work closely with our clients to customize the energy harvesting solution which best fits their requirements.
NH2 has the smallest PCB footprint, the lowest BOM cost and the highest average harvesting performance in frequently changing environments, thanks to its design and its unique MPPT technology.
You can file a request for a sample via the contact page.
You can request an application board via this dedicated page.
Please visit our Where to buy page for more details.
Some of our boards are available on Digikey for the US market. For other markets, please contact us directly.
For low volume requirements (< 1,000 units) of NH2 PMIC, we ship within 6 weeks. For higher volume requirements, please contact us.
For low volume requirements, please refer to our Digikey page.
For higher volume requirements, please contact us.
No. However, we work closely with our clients to choose the components required to customize the energy harvesting solution which best fit their requirements.
We released our first product, the NH2 PMIC in 2020. Please visit our Where to buy page for more details.
The NH2 PMIC is optimized for solar energy harvesting and is currently used in TV remote controls, electronic shelf labels, IoT sensors, etc. More details can be found in the dedicated applications page.
We have clients and active projects in all major markets across the globe.
We work closely with global OEMs to integrate energy harvesting in their products. A list of our partners and clients can be found in the About Nowi section.
Most of our current projects are under strict NDA and we cannot divulge specific information. However, public information on our previous projects can be found in the publications page.
Sales team & support
Based on our clients’ requirements, we often get involved in the product development phase and work closely to customize our energy harvesting solution in order to fit the application requirement.
To contact our sales team directly, please fill in this form.
Design Support
You can learn more about the applications which include our NH2 chip here. Visit the dedicated documentation page to download the applications notes required.
You can learn more about reference designs in the dedicated section of the applications page. Visit the dedicated documentation page to download the reference designs required. Use our Design Advisor Tool to design your custom schematics for solar Energy Harvesting applications.
We invite you to contact our engineering team for such requests on this page.