Nowi and Murata to develop LoRa energy autonomous platforms

Murata and Nowi have announced a strategic partnership that aims to enable and simplify the development of sustainable energy autonomous IoT platforms for use in ‘Plug & Forget’ solutions.

The collaboration aims to bring reference platforms and designs which use Murata’s ultra-small, ultra-low power consumption LoRa modules, powered by Nowi’s compact and efficient energy harvesting PMIC to market.

The modular platform, measuring 60 x 65mm, is designed to maximise development versatility, offering users LoRa connectivity by embedding Murata’s 1SJ or ABZ module and sending the data from the external sensor attached to the onboard sensor socket. Combined with Nowi’s NH2 energy harvesting PMIC, the platform allows for simple and fast development of low-cost energy autonomous LoRa connected products. The NH2 PMIC has been designed to efficiently extract power from ambient energy sources to charge a wide variety of energy storage elements.

The platform’s MPPT feature, when combined with Murata’s ultra-low power consumption LoRa modems, will help customers to build more sustainable systems.

Commenting on the announcement Koichi Sorada, Murata Product Manager, IoT Connectivity Modules, said, “Nowi’s small energy harvesting technology and its highly efficient MPPT feature is certainly the perfect sustainable choice to power our world’s smallest LoRa modem. Our partnership will bolster the initiative to support customers in rapidly developing compact and energy efficient “Plug and Forget” LoRa solutions.”

Murata’s Type 1SJ module is a stand-alone or optionally AT-command controlled LoRaWAN modem solution and is based on the second-generation Semtech SX1262 radio frequency IC (RFIC). It incorporates several low power modes that allow the real time clock (RTC) to operate while drawing a typical current of just 1.3µA. Additionally, the resin mold package provides physical ruggedness with a -40ºC to +85ºC temperature range.

The Type ABZ is another stand-alone compact module constructed in a metal shielded package and comprising a Semtech SX1276 ultra long range spread spectrum wireless transceiver.

Both are integrated with an STMicro STM32L0 series ARM Cortex M0+ 32 bit microcontroller (MCU), which includes 192 kB flash and 20 kB RAM and has enough memory to embed customer applications and host other modulation stacks.