A collaborative effort from BRIDG and Face International Corporation may have taken a big step toward solving problems associated with powering IoT-related sensors via a new power cell the companies call the Evercell Power Source. Namely, although those sensors are exceptionally efficient, with regard to the amount of energy each actually requires, they are still dependent on batteries or a direct power source. Evercell could sidestep that dependence entirely through thermal energy collection delivered in a scalable format, with high efficiency and a huge range of uses. In fact, according to BRIDG, financial support from Castlepines Equity means that plans are now underway to begin mass production by 2019.
The power cells themselves sound spectacular, at least on paper. There really won’t be any way to gauge how well they work until they see real-world implementation or, at the very least, some real-world testing results are released. In the meantime, the company says that not only are they scalable, but they will also be able to draw thermal energy from any environmental temperatures above absolute zero. For those who may not already know, that’s minus 459.67° F and is a temperature that has yet to be found naturally occurring anywhere in the universe or achieved in a laboratory. That’s also the temperature at which atoms cease moving entirely so it’s not immediately clear how well Evercell would work once it begins approaching those temperatures. However, BRIDG has said that scalability is its primary focus since most use cases won’t occur in the types of environments where super low temperatures are found. For example, the company says that for a device requiring 5-microwatts with an output of 1.2V and 4.2-microamps of continuous current, a cell that’s only 34mm in diameter and 1mm thick would suffice. In another example, BRIDG says a 960-nanowatt device requiring nearly double the continuous current could be scaled to 50mm x 75mm x 0.1mm. Meanwhile, the power cells are built in a solid state structure, use current semiconductor manufacture processes, contain no toxic materials, and are highly compatible with SiP and PCB heterogeneous integration.
As mentioned above, the Evercell power cells are not, currently in production. So there’s no real way to know whether they will ultimately make it to market. Having said that, BRIDG hopes to begin to finish developing and producing its prototype at its NeoCity facility in Florida over the course of the next year. If successful, the power cells will certainly have a far-reaching impact on the entirety of both the IoT and technology industries.