Nexperia buys Nowi to move into energy harvesting
Nexperia has bought Dutch energy harvesting power management chip designer Nowi Energy for an undisclosed sum.
The deal is part of Nexperia’s move into more integrated chips alongside its discrete power devices as it aims for $10bn of revenue.
Nowi was founded in 2016 in Delft and had raised $10.5 to develop chips with the smallest PCB footprint with the lowest BOM cost and the best average harvesting performance.
Nexperia plans to use its manufacturing capacity and capability of Nexperia as well as its global infrastructure to speed up production of these solutions enabling higher volume production and shipping by the end of 2022 and early 2023.
- Nowi teams for world’s smallest energy harvesting NB-IoT
- Nowi adds automatic MPPT to energy harvesting power chip
- Sigfox teams for its first energy harvesting module
Nowi works closely with Murata which is a direct competitor to Nexperia. It also worked with collapsed IoT network provider Sigfox earlier this year on energy harvesting for sensor nodes as well as Chinese silicon designer HiSilicon that is now subject to trade restrictions.
However the move will boost interest in other European energy harvesting chip designers such as Trameto in the UK and e-peas in Belgium which is integrating its PMIC design into a microcontroller.
- Trameto raises funds as it ships first universal PMIC silicon
- e-peas details ultra low power microcontroller for energy harvesting
“Nowi represents a strategically important investment because energy harvesting is the perfect complement to Nexperia’s existing power management capabilities,” said Dan Jensen, General Manager Business Group Analog & Logic ICs at Nexperia.
“This decision means Nexperia can now offer customers a sustainable alternative to battery power for their products, that will be available in the market quickly. The team at Nowi has built a strong foundation on which we are only looking to build and facilitate the ability to scale – both from the production side, but also the business and the team. We are excited to be bringing the Nowi team into the Nexperia family.”
- PMIC eliminates battery replacement in IoT sensor board
- HiSilicon, Nowi improve energy-autonomous NB-IoT platform
- Nowi, Murata partnership allows battery free LoRa
“Becoming part of Nexperia makes sense on many levels,” said Simon van der Jagt, CEO of Nowi. “Having access to the fabrication, sales, and marketing infrastructure of a large semiconductor manufacturer will allow us to bring better products to market much faster. Our shared Dutch heritage will bring added synergy to future activities. The team is very excited about the future as part of Nexperia and together achieving our mission. We will be better together, stronger together.”
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- Energy harvesting evaluation board supports four sources
- E-Peas teams for three phase energy harvesting
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