ONiO.zero: ultra-low-power wireless MCU using energy harvesting technology • Hacker News Board

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

#21

Post by dmitrygr » Mon, Jan 06, 2020, 2:17 AM UTC

miohtama wrote: post #18

KaiserPro wrote: post #16

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/artic…

You can request the data sheet at the bottom of the page.

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

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

#22

Post by mrlambchop » Mon, Jan 06, 2020, 2:19 AM UTC

spzb wrote: post #2

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

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

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

#23

Post by SlowRobotAhead » Mon, Jan 06, 2020, 3:25 AM UTC

> 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.

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

#24

Post by veba » Mon, Jan 06, 2020, 8:39 AM UTC

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

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

#25

Post by veba » Mon, Jan 06, 2020, 8:47 AM UTC

dmitrygr wrote: post #21

miohtama wrote: post #18

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You can request the data sheet at the bottom of the page.

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

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.

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

#26

Post by dmitrygr » Mon, Jan 06, 2020, 8:29 PM UTC

veba wrote: post #25

dmitrygr wrote: post #21

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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

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.

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!

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

#27

Post by Rebelgecko » Mon, Jan 06, 2020, 9:31 PM UTC

dmitrygr wrote: post #21

miohtama wrote: post #18

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You can request the data sheet at the bottom of the page.

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

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