Powering the Internet of Things: New Technologies for New Markets

ELECTRONICS.CA PUBLICATIONS announces the availability of a new report entitled “Power Sources for the Internet-of-Things: Markets and Strategies”. The Internet-of-Things (IoT), a proliferation of multitudes of interconnected sensors and processors, is arguably the most disruptive shift in technology since the origination of the Internet itself. It’s a complex universe spanning communications, identification, location tracking, and security, enabled by multitudes of electronic equipment & devices and sensors.

Powering the Internet of Things

Several technology advancements have been driving the IoT. The brains of these devices (embedded chips) are becoming more sophisticated and cheaper, as have reliable communications capabilities. Another reason: cloud storage for data and applications. And as the IoT expands, there are huge new opportunities for manufacturers of power source devices to make it all run.

Why Conventional Batteries Won’t Work in the IoT

Let’s look at the key criteria that are pretty common to the various types of IoT devices and functionalities:

–    Various shapes and sizes

–    Low power requirements

–    High range and frequency

–    Increasingly interconnected

To align with those criteria, power sources for IoT devices will need several key features of their own:

–    Small/thin size and flexible shape

–    Wireless connectivity — able to charge a device on the go, easy to use anywhere

–    Able to detect and select available energy resources (for wireless charging)

–    Self-recharging, never needing to be replaced, with lifetime comparable to the device they’re in

–    Environmentally friendly, since IoT devices are used everywhere in all environments.

Consider this: the energy density of the lithium-ion battery in Apple’s iPhone 5 is 142 mAh/cm3. That’s 63% higher than conventional Li-ion batteries from nine years ago, and is far outpacing the ~5%/year energy density rate for Li-ion batteries. For all IoT devices including and beyond smartphones, future power source requirements — rigid use (cycle life, specific energy and power), high tolerance capacity, flexibility (including wearability) — don’t bode well for bulky conventional batteries.

IoT Power Source Alternatives

Conventional batteries can’t meet those IoT power-source requirements in most cases — but other power sources can.

Inductive power supplies: Basically this involves wirelessly transferring energy from one device (transmitter or charging station) to another (receiver or portable device). Wireless charging was initially introduced for smartphones and still revolves around this utility; by the end of this year nearly all smartphones and tablets are expected to support it. Other inductive power applications include transcutaneous energy transfer systems in surgically implanted devices (e.g. artificial hearts) and environment-monitoring robots.

Inductive coupling is typically used to power RFID tags (IoT and RFID have common origins and extensive overlap). Such “passive” battery-free RFID sensor tags have an “on-demand” reliable source of energy, with no dependence on environmental conditions for the sensor to transmit data. They can be embedded in concrete (e.g. walls and pillars), inside piping systems, sealed within enclosures, and at many relatively inaccessible locations — and they will never require battery-change maintenance.

With increasingly vast numbers of wirelessly connected IoT devices, the technology to power them is likely will evolve from inductive to resonant — and from charging one device at a time to charging multiple devices concurrently. This could open up a myriad of IoT applications from smartphones to smart cars.

Thin-film and printed batteries

Thin-film batteries are being considered for, and even replacing conventional batteries in, several IoT applications such as smartphones, sensors, RFID tags, and smart cards and labels (including “smart packaging for food and medicine). Printed batteries are somewhat further away from commercial deployment for IoT applications such as electronic shelf labels and “smart shelves,” though there are some efforts to bring products to the market. 3D printing of microbatteries is one intriguing area of research, with batteries as small as a grain of sand; another is in combining thin-film material layers and coatings with textiles.

Energy harvesting

This is arguably the most important sector for powering IoT devices, encompassing several technologies to facilitate ambient energy conversion and storage: PV solar cells, piezoelectric, thermoelectric, pyroelectric, geo-magnetic, electrostatic, and microwave conversion. The varying nature of ambient energy sources also means IoT wireless sensor nodes require microbatteries as backup energy sources, rechargeable once the nodes have harvested enough ambient energy.

Where IoT Power Sources Must Improve

Power source options for IoT devices currently have a number of hurdles to overcome:

Power efficiency: Technology for inductive and energy harvesting falls short of conventional wired charging in terms of power transfer efficiency, roughly 70% vs. 85%. That means it’s significantly slower to charge a device, and/or requires tradeoffs in size and cost to close that gap.

Range: For wireless power (inductive/resonant coupling or energy harvesting), the range to devices must cover at least an entire room, and eventually a house.

Frequency choice: Selecting frequency to be compatible with charging standards around electromagnetic interference (EMI) and electromagnetic compatibility has been an issue for wireless charging technology.

Standards compliance and security: There are more than a dozen types of wireless communication technologies woven together to support the Internet of Things. Broad adoption of wireless charging will require standards compliance across several areas: frequency, induced electric field, induced current density, and specific absorption rate. This is a major issue, solvable by integrating them all into a single standard — which also will solve security issues.

Between the most ubiquitous of those wireless technologies — Bluetooth, WiFi, and ZigBee — we see ZigBee expanding as the preferred protocol for IoT devices in terms of cost and efficiency.

Cost: Nearly all the devices in the IoT are small and low-cost, therefore so must be their power sources. Conventional chargers are generally provided with devices at no extra cost (or at least a transparent one), but wireless chargers generally come extra at cost, and often it’s substantial (think $50 or more). Even thin-film and energy-harvesting batteries come at a higher cost than conventional power supplies.

Basically, two things need to happen for these power source technologies to usurp conventional batteries and take over the IoT: deliver better efficiency at lower cost, and create/adopt a wireless charging standard common for all devices and charging ports. If those happen, and limitations of these alternate power sources are overcome, then we see these technologies becoming dominant to power IoT devices.

By the Numbers: The Evolution of IoT Power Source Markets

IoT power-source technologies such as thin-film and printed batteries, energy harvesting modules, small flexible solar photovoltaic panels, and thermoelectric sources have enjoyed niche success and marginal revenues up to now. With the IoT’s emergence, however, NanoMarkets sees these products potentially generating hundreds of millions of dollars in annual revenues.

Thin-film and printed batteries make up the vast majority of today’s total $57.1 million market for IoT power sources. Most of that is for mobile phones, considered the “eyes and ears” of applications connecting all the other IoT devices and networks, and mobile phones will continue to represent the main IoT application for these batteries. However, we anticipate several other applications — notably smart cards, semiconductor/computing, and wearable electronics — each will blossom into hundred-million-dollar battery markets by the end of this decade.

The biggest growth opportunities over the next several years in IoT power sources addressed by inductive and energy harvesting technologies. Inductive power sources, almost exclusively used in wireless chargers, are barely a $5 million market today, but we look for this segment to crack the $100 million mark by 2018 and accelerate to $760 million by 2021. This is largely due to adoption in RFID tags, a segment that will surge to a $100 million market by 2019 and $583 million by 2021.

We see energy harvesting power sources remaining a small ($7 million) market through 2015, but then spiking to $41.5 million in 2016 thanks to rapid uptake for sensors/sensor networks. From there we see energy harvesting devices really establishing their IoT stride, to $161 million by 2018 and ultimately $557 million by 2021. Within that period we also anticipate the long-awaited arrival of wearable devices, ramping from next to nothing today to $82 million 2018 and a $200 million market by 2021.

Details of the new report, table of contents and ordering information can be found on Electronics.ca Publications’ web site.  View the report: Power Sources for the Internet-of-Things: Markets and Strategies.

 

 

Powering the Internet of Things: New Technologies for New Markets

Stationary Fuel Cells Technology, Fuel Cells Market Shares and Forecasts

ELECTRONICS.CA PUBLICATIONS announces the availability of a new report entitled Stationary Fuel Cells Market Shares, Strategies, and Forecasts, Worldwide, 2014 to 2020.  Worldwide markets are poised to achieve significant growth as the Stationary Fuel Cells used to provide distributed power for campus environments achieve better technology and economies of scale. They have achieved grid parity in many cases. They improve and lower energy costs. They threaten to erode utility profitability.Stationary Fuel Cells are on the cusp of becoming commercially viable, creating companies that are profitable and produce electricity at or below parity with the grid giving every user alternatives to the grid. Bloom Energy has solved the SOFC engineering challenges. Breakthroughs in materials science, and revolutionary designs give Bloom SOFC technology a cost effective, all-electric solution. Vendors have solved the SOFC conundrum, developing new materials that make units affordable and provide energy device economies of scale and support for wind and solar renewable energy sources.

Stationary fuel cells represent the base for distributed power generation worldwide. No more new coal plants, no mare extensions to the grid. Distributed power has become mainstream. Distributed generation (DG) refers to power generation at the point of consumption.

Generating power on-site, rather than centrally, eliminates the cost, complexity, inter-dependencies, and inefficiencies associated with energy transmission and distribution. Distributed energy is evolving in a manner like distributed PC and laptop computing, cars for transportation, and smart phones. As distributed Internet data and telephony have found a place in the market, so also will distributed energy generation become widespread. Distributed power shifts energy generation control to the consumer much to the consternation of the existing utility companies.

Renewable energy is intermittent and needs stationary fuel cells for renewables to achieve mainstream adoption as a stable power source. Wind and solar power cannot be stored except by using the energy derived from these sources to make hydrogen that can be stored. Stationary fuel cells are likely to function as a battery in the long term, creating a way to use hydrogen that is manufactured from the renewable energy sources. It is likely that the wind, solar, and tide energy will be transported as electricity to a location where the hydrogen can be manufactured. It is far easier to transport electricity than to transport hydrogen. Hydrogen servers as an energy storage mechanism.

Stationary fuel cell markets need government sponsorship. As government funding shifts from huge military obligations, sustainable energy policy becomes a compelling investment model for government.

Stationary fuel cells market at $1.2 billion in 2013 are projected to increase to $14.3 billion in 2020. Growth is anticipated to be based on demand for distributed power generation that uses natural gas. Systems provide clean energy that is good for the environment. Growth is based on global demand and will shift from simple growth to rapid growth measured as a penetration analysis as markets move beyond the early adopter stage. The big box retailers including many, led by Walmart, the data centers, and companies like Verizon are early adopters.

Eventually hydrogen will be used as fuel in the same stationary fuel cell devices. The hydrogen is manufactured from solar farms. Stationary fuel cells have become more feasible as the industry is able to move beyond platinum catalysts.

The report covers: Stationary Fuel Cell Forecasts, Stationary Fuel Cell Market Development, Continued Fuel Cell Commercialization, Fuel Cell Operation, Fuel Environmental Issues, Power of a Fuel Cell, Hydrogen Fuel Cell Technology, On Grid And Off Grid Issues, Impact of Deregulation, Fuel Cell Issues, Fuel Cell Reliability, Laws and regulations, Solid Oxide Fuel Cells (SOFC), Alkaline Fuel Cells (AFC), Phosphoric Acid Fuel Cells, (PAFC) , Molten Carbonate Fuel Cells, (MCFC), PEM Technology, Proton Exchange Membrane, (PEM), Fuel Cells, PEM Fuel Cells, Platinum Catalysts, Vision For The New Electrical Grid, Fuel Cell Clean Air Permitting, Cycle Efficiency, Gas turbine, Hybrid Solid Oxide Fuel Cell, Energy Efficiency, Fuel Cell, Fuelcell Energy, Smart Grid, Utilities, Increased Power Density, Stationary Power Applications.

Details of the new report, table of contents and ordering information can be found on Electronics.ca Publications’ web site.

The 2014 study has 603 pages, 258 tables and figures.

View the report: “Stationary Fuel Cells: Market Shares, Strategies, and Forecasts, Worldwide, 2014 to 2020”

 

 

 

Stationary Fuel Cells Technology, Fuel Cells Market Shares and Forecasts

Strong Investments in Life Sciences R&D Drives Market Demand for Spectroscopy Equipment and Accessories

Global market for Spectroscopy Equipment and Accessories is projected to reach US$19.5 billion by 2020, driven by increasing use of spectrometers in life science research, growing number of end-use applications, and rising demand for handheld instruments. Spectroscopy represents a key market in the global analytical and life science instrument industry. Demand from various industries such as metals, chemicals, semiconductors and automotive is expected to drive growth in the market in the coming years.

Especially poised to spur growth is the increasing demand from security and defense industries. Handheld molecular spectroscopy systems are especially expected to find lucrative applications in military security applications. Advancements in the field of drug discovery, metabolomics and pharmacogenomics, also bodes well for the market’s future outlook. Spending on environment and effluent monitoring equipment, over the last few years, witnessed significant increase with the tightening of effluent regulations by local governments. The scenario benefited demand for spectrometry equipment. Government stimulus initiatives have played instrumental roles in supporting demand for spectroscopy instruments not only in North America but also in emerging countries in Latin America, India, and China.

Mass spectrometry is a rapidly growing market worldwide supported by the rising use of the technology in the food safety, pharmaceuticals and proteomics industries. Several new products have been launched in this space, reflecting the rapid rate of technological innovation in areas such as Q-TOF, LC/MS and triple quadrupole. Cutting edge new generation mass spectrometry devices with better quantitative and qualitative capabilities, efficiency and productivity, are finding use in newer applications, thus benefitting market growth.

Miniaturization of spectrometry devices represents a key trend which brought about a major revolution in mid 1990s and still continues to drive product development efforts worldwide. Miniature spectrometers have played a crucial role in the development and growth of the photonics sector. Fiber-optic-based spectrometers given their compact size, strength and low cost, find diverse on-field applications enabling researchers to take their research out of the laboratory for more productive results.

As stated by the new market research report on Spectroscopy Equipment and Accessories, the United States represents the largest market worldwide. Asia-Pacific ranks as the fastest growing market worldwide with a CAGR of 8.9% over the analysis period. Expanding research and industrial markets in China and India spell new opportunities for growth. Molecular spectroscopy represents the largest product market, while mass spectrometry devices will continue to spearhead global growth.

Major players covered in the report include AB SCIEX, Agilent Technologies Inc., Bruker Corporation, JEOL Ltd., Ocean Optics Inc., PerkinElmer Inc., Rigaku Corporation, Shimadzu Corporation, Spectris plc, Thermo Fisher Scientific Inc., and Waters Corporation among others.

Spectroscopy Equipment and Accessories – Global Strategic Business Report

The research report titled “Spectroscopy Equipment and Accessories – Global Strategic Business Report” provides a comprehensive review of market trends, drivers, and strategic industry activities of major companies worldwide. The report provides market estimates and projections in US dollars for all major geographic markets including the US, Canada, Japan, Europe (France, Germany, Italy, UK, Spain, Russia and Rest of Europe), Asia-Pacific (China and Rest of Asia Pacific), Latin America and Rest of World. The report also analyzes the global market for Spectrometers and Spectrophoto/Fluorometers by product segments such as Molecular Spectroscopy (UV-Vis Spectrophotometers, Raman Spectrometers, NMR-EPR Spectrometers, Near Infrared (NIR) Spectrometers, IR Spectrometers, Color Measurement and Other Molecular Spectrometers); Atomic Spectroscopy (Ark/Spark Spectrometers, Plasma Spectrometers (ICP, ICP-MS), Atomic Absorption Spectrometers, XRD/XRF Spectrometers and Other Atomic Spectrometers); Mass Spectrometry (LC-MSGC-MS, MALDI-TOF and Other Mass Spectrometers); and Accessories.

Details of the new report, table of contents and ordering information can be found on Electronics.ca Publications’ web site.   View the report: Spectroscopy Equipment and Accessories – Global Strategic Business Report.

 

 

 

Strong Investments in Life Sciences R&D Drives Market Demand for Spectroscopy Equipment and Accessories

Phase Change Materials: Technologies and Global Markets

This research report incorporates an in depth analysis of the global PCM market including market estimations and trends through 2019. This report analyzes market dynamics of such applications across geographies of North America, Europe, Asia-Pacific and the rest of the world. Major players, competitive intelligence, innovative technologies, market dynamics and geographic opportunities are discussed in detail in the report. The report also discusses recent developments and product portfolios of the major players. Patent analysis provides trends over the past two to three years in the U.S., Europe and Japan. Details of the new report, table of contents and ordering information can be found on Electronics.ca Publications" web site. View the report: Phase Change Materials: Technologies and Global Markets.

Car Security Systems Market - Industry Trends & Forecast to 2019

Security systems form a major part of any vehicle as they prevent it from getting stolen or hijacked. The market for these systems is anticipated to grow at a significant rate in coming years as the consumers are getting aware about the importance of these systems. The major factors driving the demand for passenger car security system market are increase in vehicle sales, customer’s inclination towards sophisticated and reliable vehicle security systems, government regulations, requirement of insurance companies, and growing vehicle thefts. Sustainable growth in the passenger car security systems market will largely depend upon upcoming legislations related to vehicle security in various countries. Some countries already have their own vehicle security regulations. For example, Brazil, Malaysia, Australia, Canada, Germany, U.K., and Finland have installation of immobilizer mandatory in each vehicle sold. Many insurance companies charge low premium and give priority to vehicles that are equipped with standard security systems, such as alarms and immobilizers. This report classifies and defines the passenger car security systems market in terms of volume and value. This report provides a comprehensive analysis and insights on the passenger car security systems (both qualitative and quantitative). The report highlights potential growth opportunities in the coming years and covers review of the market drivers, restraints, growth indicators, challenges, vehicle theft statistics, competitive landscape, and other key aspects with respect to market. The major players in the passenger car systems market have also been identified and profiled. Details of the new report, table of contents and ordering information can be found on Electronics.ca Publications" web site. View the report: Car Security Systems Market - Industry Trends & Forecast to 2019.

Thin Film Encapsulation for Flexible Electronics 2015-2025: Technologies, Markets, Forecasts

A large opportunity lies in the development of devices in a flexible form factor that can operate without deterioration in performance, allowing them to be more robust, lightweight and versatile in their use. In order for flexible displays and photovoltaics to be commercially successful, they must be robust enough to survive for the necessary time and conditions required of the device. This condition has been a limitation of many flexible, organic or printable electronics. This highlights the fact that beyond flexibility, printability and functionality, one of the most important requirements is encapsulation as many of the materials used in printed or organic electronic displays are chemically sensitive, and will react with many environmental components such as oxygen and moisture. Details of the new report, table of contents and ordering information can be found on Electronics.ca Publications" web site. View the report: Thin Film Encapsulation for Flexible Electronics 2015-2025: Technologies, Markets, Forecasts.

IPC Working Group Focuses on Nuances of Conformal Coating

As products get smaller and denser, factors that used to be fairly easy to deal with can become areas of concern. Conformal coatings are getting increased interest now as usage grows and the quality of coatings comes under more scrutiny.

These coatings have typically been applied and examined using a range of related standards. For example, IPC-CC-830 addresses some basic testing of materials properties, while IPC J-STD-001 and IPC-A-610 define how a cured film should look.

A new IPC working group, 5-33awg, Conformal Coating Requirements Working Group, was formed to leverage the considerable amount of coating experience of the 5-33c IPC Conformal Coating Handbook Task Group, and focus on areas not covered by existing specifications. Among their areas of interest are the differences in the ways that an aerospace OEM might test coatings for NASA for outer space, or for the FAA’s tests on humidity condensation. Testing automotive OEM coatings in a damp heat environment is another area being examined.

5-33awg is working to develop criteria for conformal coating application and evaluation. Its goal is to come up with methods that allow a user of conformal coating to determine how conformal coating performs in particular end-use environments.

Learn more about conformal coatings market and  IPC Standards that provide informed perspective and relevant analysis of emergent technologies.

 

 

IPC Working Group Focuses on Nuances of Conformal Coating