The premier event in the European electronics industry calendar, the Elektra Awards ceremony in London, UK, recognizes outstanding best practice achievements of individuals and companies throughout Europe. Linear Technology has won the award for Renewable Energy Design for its innovative work with its LTC3109 energy harvester power supply. The judges said: 'The finalists demonstrate the speed at which this relatively new area of product design is developing'. Linear Technology's expertise in ultra-low power products targeted at energy harvesting applications is already widely known. These power management products convert energy from Vibration (Piezo), Photovoltaic (Solar) and Thermal (TEC, TEG, Thermopiles, Thermocouples) sources provide high efficiency conversion to regulated voltages or to charge batteries and super capacitor storage elements. Linear's LTC3109 is a highly integrated step-up DC/DC converter and power management IC designed to start up and run from millivolt input voltage sources such as thermoelectric generators (TEGs) and thermopiles.
The device's groundbreaking and proprietary auto-polarity topology allows it to generate usable power from input voltages as low as +/-30mV, enabling temperature differences as low as +1°C to be harvested in lieu of traditional battery power. This makes it ideal for energy harvesting applications in which the input voltage polarity is unknown or is subject to reversal. Using two compact step-up transformers and external energy storage elements, the LTC3109 provides a complete power management solution for wireless sensing and data acquisition. The 2.2V LDO can power an external microprocessor, while the main output can be programmed to one of four fixed voltages. The power good indicator signals that the main output is within regulation. A second output can be enabled by the host. A storage capacitor (or battery) can also be charged to provide power when the input voltage source is unavailable. Extremely low quiescent current and high efficiency maximizes the harvested energy available for the application. www.linear.com