Wireless power receiver charges smart cards and other compact devices over the air

Powercast Corporation has announced a smaller Powerharvester wireless power receiver and RF-to-DC converter chip (PCC114) for its Powerharvester Chipset (comprising of a wireless power receiver chip and complementary boost converter IC). Designed for embedding in space-constrained consumer designs like smart cards or hearing aids, the new chip builds on the company's existing receiver (PCC110), which has been deployed in industrial and commercial wireless power systems for seven years. The company used that experience to refine and reduce the size of its technology specifically for the consumer market. The new PCC114 receiver chip’s footprint (1mm x 0.6mm x 0.3mm) is seven times smaller than the existing PCC110 (2mm x 2.1mm x 0.9mm) and has 20 times less volume, facilitating the design of ultra-compact, wirelessly-powered devices. Operating across a wide RF power (-17dBm to +20dBm) and frequency (10MHz to 6GHz) range, the new PCC114 converts RF to DC with up to 75% efficiency, harvests from all modulation types, works with standard 50Ohm antennas and is RoHS compliant.