14 ms·

ONiO.zero: ultra-low-power wireless MCU using energy harvesting technology

100 points by thinxer 7y ago

spzb 7y ago
"Product under development". Might be a complete pipe dream.
- crtlaltdel 7y ago
  I worked on a line of wireless energy harvesting based occupancy sensors. It's doable.
  - spzb 7y ago
    Doable and commercially available aren’t the same thing though
    - crtlaltdel 7y ago
      Well...I mean we did sell the products so there was a market for them. And yeah, before we released them they were not commercially available...so you got me there ;)
- peterloron 7y ago
  Functioning RF power harvesting MCUs have been demonstrated for a number of years now. Obviously there are challenges when the state-of-the-art is pushed forward, but the claims don't seem far fetched.
- mrlambchop 7y ago
  There are a lot of interns working at the company! IDK much about Norway - is that the name for a graduate? I assume the micro itself is not developed by them given the team size - even with 1 guy looking after this, we're looking at a factor of 30+ in terms of effort to develop, test and certify this type of IC
wallacoloo 7y ago
The combination of a mask rom and reprogrammable flash on the same product surprised me. Why would you want a customizable mask rom if you’ve already got 8x or more of flash? Is it a power consideration: are mask roms lower-power to read from?
- irq 7y ago
  One possible explanation could be the desire to have a guaranteed-never-modified bootloader that is rock solid, which allows for firmware updates on the flash (in addition to booting the system in normal use). This is how Apple's iOS devices are designed, for example.
- pjc50 7y ago
  Not unusual - the mask rom can't be bricked. So it's not unusual to put a first-stage boot loader there.
- dmitrygr 7y ago
  NOR flash is also slow. That is why a lot of microcontrollers that run at hundreds of megahertz have very strange flash accelerators that read slowly in parallel (STM uses a 128-bit-wide bus for example), and then dispense data/code to the CPU quickly in 16 or 32-bit pieces. Most ROMs can be read very quickly.
ricardobeat 7y ago
Seeing as they hail from Norway, is it a spin-off of Nordic?
- baybal2 7y ago
  They are ex-Nordic cadres. You can note, they keep their own key tech cadres incommunicado :). Unlike business people, they have not a single bit of their contact information listed on their page.
etaioinshrdlu 7y ago
Have any hobbyists ever done something similar in a approachable manner? Obviously this could be great for some iot tasks.
rkagerer 7y ago
Would love to peek at the datasheet without going through their email harvester.
- 1024core 7y ago
  http://www.mailinator.com/ http://www.mailinator.com/
fit2rule 7y ago
Would love to know if this is going to capitalise on the 5G rollout .. I seem to remember a few years ago someone making claims that once 5G was deployed, ULP sensors would be more feasible ..
osivertsson 7y ago
Very interesting. They have open positions on their career page: https://www.onio.com/career.html https://www.onio.com/career.html Seems like a great time to join this company and help make this product come alive after years of work. I would guess they are an efficient and driven team where everyone knows everyone else. I am not affiliated with them, but working at companies when they start to gain traction and to feel how proud everyone is at getting a product out with a relatively small team is great fun!
KaiserPro 7y ago
Hmm, without a datasheet, its very difficult to asses how useful it is. Does it have the RF harvesting bits built in? or is it a bunch of passives that I have to add after. How low power is it? are we talking microamps per mhz(I know we're not...) How much useful time do you have per charge cycle? the articles section seems to be full of generic health mumbojumbo, which isnt a good start... https://www.onio.com/article-list.html https://www.onio.com/article-list.html
- miohtama 7y ago
  You can request the data sheet at the bottom of the page.
  - dmitrygr 7y ago
    Nope. They collect contact info but send nothing. At least not automatically. No email sent to my trash email account when I filled out the form as Johny Smith
    - veba 7y ago
      This is correct. And I would not encourage using what is likely not your real name. The initial versions of the datasheet will be watermarked.
      - dmitrygr 7y ago
        Um, no. The initial versions of the datasheet will be read by NOBODY if this is kept up! If you make it hard to see what your product does, who will care? Learn from STM32 - public datasheet!
    - Rebelgecko 7y ago
      When you give them your info, there's a popup with a link to download the datasheet. They don't email anything. edit: my bad, that's just for the "key features", not the full datasheet
Rebelgecko 7y ago
If this comes out and is affordable, it'll have some really cool applications. As per datasheet, it also has UWB support so you could make a "where's my keys????" (or inventory tracker) without having to worry about dead batteries or limited range of RFID.
SlowRobotAhead 7y ago
> 1KB of mask ROM (stdlib, math etc). 2KB RAM. 8/16/32KB ULP Flash. 100k Writes. Read supported down to 850mV. Even 32kB of rom is going to be very tight to fit a wireless stack like BTLE. It’s not clear if their BTLE peripheral includes the stack or just the radio. I would hope it’s the latter.
veba 7y ago
The harvester(s) are of course built in. There are some pasives - one resistor for a master bias and a handful caps. The antenna is taken directly in - or solar cell type. How low power is it - it all depends is the correct answer. The chip is tuned for a few different application scenario: 1. DVFS mode: Here you select a clock speed/voltage your application require - and you will get the associated voltage/clock speed in return. You can doctor your code with calls to have various performance levels. 2. Deadline based: You select a deadline for the work to complete within - and the device will throttle by setting clock speed to match this requirement. The voltage is matched for the selected clock speed. IO voltage is maintained from a seperate regulator - so internal logic voltage can vary with stable IO voltage. Mask rom + flash...why? Maskrom for some secure boot stuff, stdlib and math - it is less energy per fetch from mask rom vs. flash. Ideally everything should be in ROM - but that makes it hard for the end user to add his/her application

100 points by thinxer 7y ago

spzb 7y ago

"Product under development". Might be a complete pipe dream.

crtlaltdel 7y ago
I worked on a line of wireless energy harvesting based occupancy sensors. It's doable.
- spzb 7y ago
  Doable and commercially available aren’t the same thing though
  - crtlaltdel 7y ago
    Well...I mean we did sell the products so there was a market for them. And yeah, before we released them they were not commercially available...so you got me there ;)
peterloron 7y ago
Functioning RF power harvesting MCUs have been demonstrated for a number of years now. Obviously there are challenges when the state-of-the-art is pushed forward, but the claims don't seem far fetched.
mrlambchop 7y ago
There are a lot of interns working at the company! IDK much about Norway - is that the name for a graduate? I assume the micro itself is not developed by them given the team size - even with 1 guy looking after this, we're looking at a factor of 30+ in terms of effort to develop, test and certify this type of IC

wallacoloo 7y ago

The combination of a mask rom and reprogrammable flash on the same product surprised me. Why would you want a customizable mask rom if you’ve already got 8x or more of flash? Is it a power consideration: are mask roms lower-power to read from?

irq 7y ago
One possible explanation could be the desire to have a guaranteed-never-modified bootloader that is rock solid, which allows for firmware updates on the flash (in addition to booting the system in normal use). This is how Apple's iOS devices are designed, for example.
pjc50 7y ago
Not unusual - the mask rom can't be bricked. So it's not unusual to put a first-stage boot loader there.
dmitrygr 7y ago
NOR flash is also slow. That is why a lot of microcontrollers that run at hundreds of megahertz have very strange flash accelerators that read slowly in parallel (STM uses a 128-bit-wide bus for example), and then dispense data/code to the CPU quickly in 16 or 32-bit pieces. Most ROMs can be read very quickly.

ricardobeat 7y ago

Seeing as they hail from Norway, is it a spin-off of Nordic?

baybal2 7y ago
They are ex-Nordic cadres. You can note, they keep their own key tech cadres incommunicado :). Unlike business people, they have not a single bit of their contact information listed on their page.

etaioinshrdlu 7y ago

Have any hobbyists ever done something similar in a approachable manner? Obviously this could be great for some iot tasks.

rkagerer 7y ago

Would love to peek at the datasheet without going through their email harvester.

1024core 7y ago
http://www.mailinator.com/ http://www.mailinator.com/

fit2rule 7y ago

Would love to know if this is going to capitalise on the 5G rollout .. I seem to remember a few years ago someone making claims that once 5G was deployed, ULP sensors would be more feasible ..

osivertsson 7y ago

Very interesting. They have open positions on their career page: https://www.onio.com/career.html https://www.onio.com/career.html Seems like a great time to join this company and help make this product come alive after years of work. I would guess they are an efficient and driven team where everyone knows everyone else. I am not affiliated with them, but working at companies when they start to gain traction and to feel how proud everyone is at getting a product out with a relatively small team is great fun!

KaiserPro 7y ago

Hmm, without a datasheet, its very difficult to asses how useful it is. Does it have the RF harvesting bits built in? or is it a bunch of passives that I have to add after. How low power is it? are we talking microamps per mhz(I know we're not...) How much useful time do you have per charge cycle? the articles section seems to be full of generic health mumbojumbo, which isnt a good start... https://www.onio.com/article-list.html https://www.onio.com/article-list.html

miohtama 7y ago
You can request the data sheet at the bottom of the page.
- dmitrygr 7y ago
  Nope. They collect contact info but send nothing. At least not automatically. No email sent to my trash email account when I filled out the form as Johny Smith
  - veba 7y ago
    This is correct. And I would not encourage using what is likely not your real name. The initial versions of the datasheet will be watermarked.
    - dmitrygr 7y ago
      Um, no. The initial versions of the datasheet will be read by NOBODY if this is kept up! If you make it hard to see what your product does, who will care? Learn from STM32 - public datasheet!
  - Rebelgecko 7y ago
    When you give them your info, there's a popup with a link to download the datasheet. They don't email anything. edit: my bad, that's just for the "key features", not the full datasheet

Rebelgecko 7y ago

If this comes out and is affordable, it'll have some really cool applications. As per datasheet, it also has UWB support so you could make a "where's my keys????" (or inventory tracker) without having to worry about dead batteries or limited range of RFID.

SlowRobotAhead 7y ago

> 1KB of mask ROM (stdlib, math etc). 2KB RAM. 8/16/32KB ULP Flash. 100k Writes. Read supported down to 850mV. Even 32kB of rom is going to be very tight to fit a wireless stack like BTLE. It’s not clear if their BTLE peripheral includes the stack or just the radio. I would hope it’s the latter.

veba 7y ago

The harvester(s) are of course built in. There are some pasives - one resistor for a master bias and a handful caps. The antenna is taken directly in - or solar cell type. How low power is it - it all depends is the correct answer. The chip is tuned for a few different application scenario: 1. DVFS mode: Here you select a clock speed/voltage your application require - and you will get the associated voltage/clock speed in return. You can doctor your code with calls to have various performance levels. 2. Deadline based: You select a deadline for the work to complete within - and the device will throttle by setting clock speed to match this requirement. The voltage is matched for the selected clock speed. IO voltage is maintained from a seperate regulator - so internal logic voltage can vary with stable IO voltage. Mask rom + flash...why? Maskrom for some secure boot stuff, stdlib and math - it is less energy per fetch from mask rom vs. flash. Ideally everything should be in ROM - but that makes it hard for the end user to add his/her application