Energy Harvesting, Micro Batteries and Power Management ICs series

As an emerging market, the ultra-low-power, wireless sensor system market is defined in many different ways. Applications, power levels, architectures and technologies vary widely, making forecasts difficult. Some applications use single sensor units; others employ large wireless mesh networks. Powering can be wired or wireless; active or passive; battery back-up or battery-less. Power levels vary from <1mW to 1W or above.

Wireless sensor devices package together a circuit board with networking and application software. Interfaces to sensors can detect changes in temperature, pressure, moisture, light, sound or magnetism. A wireless radio can report on these findings, usually powered by batteries. Sensor networks can include 10 to 100,000 nodes, and scalability can be a problem. Node position may not be predetermined. The lifetime of a sensor network depends on the battery lifetime, and relocating and recharging a large number of sensing nodes is difficult

Energy harvesting has been proposed as a way of addressing some of these problems. In terms of a forecast, however, these kinds of technologies are also emerging and further complicate the industry landscape. For manufacturers of energy harvesting modules, micro-batteries and power management ICs, the potential opportunities are considerable but still uncertain.

This report defines and forecasts five Wireless Sensor System markets by Application, Power Levels, Microbatteries, Energy Harvesting and Regulators. Since this report focuses on energy harvesting, the forecasts begin at the ""served available market"" level, not the total available market. The latter would include wired sensor networks and applications not considered good opportunities for energy harvesting. All the applications included in this report have been filtered with energy harvesting opportunities in mind.

Our forecast assumptions are included at the beginning of each section. Four regions are analyzed: Worldwide, North America, Europe and Asia. Energy harvesting is expected to have some distinct trends geographically, and these are noted where appropriate.

Topics Covered Include:

• World and Regional Unit Sales Forecasts
• Assumptions and Methodology
• Application Segment Analysis
• Power Level Analysis
• Microbattery Analysis
• Energy Harvesting Analysis
• Regulator ICs Analysis

Companies Mentioned

Advanced Cerametrics, Advanced Linear Devices, Akustica Inc, Ambient Micro, Ambio Systems LLC, Applied Materials, ARM, Arvin Meritor, Atmel, Berkeley TinyOS Project, Bosch Siemens, BP, Cadence, Clarkson University, Continuum Control, CSIRO Information and Communication Technology (ICT) Centre, Decktron, Department of Energy, Ember, EnOcean, Enpirion, EPFL, Exxon, FACE, Ferro Solutions, Flexion, Fraunhofer Institute, Freescale, Front Edge Technology, Georgia Institute of Technology, Hewlett-Packard, Holst Centre, Honeywell, IDS Microchip, Infineon, Infinite Power Solutions, Institute for Microsystems Technology, Intel, Laboratory of Electronics and Technology Information, LV Sensors Inc., Maxim, Microchip, Micropelt GmbH, Micropower Technologies, MicroStrain, Microtrend Systems, Millenial Net, MIT Media Lab, Moteiv Corp., Motorola Labs, Nanoexa, Nanotron, NASA , National Resource Management, North Carolina State University, Oak Ridge Micro-Energy, Inc., Organic Electronics Association, Perpetuum, Philips Electronics, PolyIC GmbH & Co. KG, Powercast LLC, PowerPaper, Pruftechnik AG, PulseSwitch Systems, Radiocrafts, Rockwell Scientific, Saft, Sandbridge Technologies, SAP, Shockfish SA, Silicon Clocks, Silicon Design Chain Initiative, STMicroelectronics, Symmorphix, Tadiran, Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Co., Texas Instruments/Chipcon, The Australian National University, Therm-o-Tech GmbH, Tyndall Institute, U.S. Navy, Ubiwave, Uniqa Insurance, University of California, Berkeley, University of California, Los Angeles, University of New York at Buffalo, University of Singapore, University of Southern California, University of Tokyo, US Department of Defense, Wearable Computing, XtraMart.