Sol Chip

The need for everlasting energy is ever-present and has multiple applications in a wide range of fields and domains:

Billions of small Internet-connected devices need a power source that does not rely on batteries or wires.

There are several reasons why batteries or wires are a limiting factor for devices:

• Limited Lifespan: Batteries run out and must be replaced or manually recharged. Depending on the device's location, replacing the battery can be expensive and inconvenient, such as driving to a remote site every few months or even servicing equipment that is filed based.
• Wires and power cords are also limiting: They constrain the mobility of a device and require a nearby power outlet.
• Freedom from batteries and wires can open new opportunities for manufacturers and deliver convenience and genuine value to customers.

Precision agriculture, a multi-billion-dollar market, desperately needs such a solution, especially during the climate crisis.

Farmers and growers use data from various in-ground and above-ground sensors to make smarter decisions about irrigation, fertilization, and other aspects of crop management. This process helps crops reach their genetic potential and result in a higher quality product, better yield, and significant savings on water and chemical costs. But such solutions rely on the ability to sample a wide variety of sensors, to frequently transmit the information to the cloud, receive irrigation and fertilization commands, and then execute them by powering valves and switches in the field.

All these activities require power, and an ideal solution does not require the farmer to go out to the field and replace batteries every few months. Similarly, powering agricultural devices using large and cumbersome solar panels is a problematic solution: these panels need to be taken down during harvesting and are often subject to theft. What is needed is a compact solution that takes care of these applications' energy and communications needs without constant maintenance. Such devices also require efficient data-communication cover that is typically not present in large agricultural areas. Also, the ability to integrate different sensors that each have a different protocol and operation system allows aggregating all sensing data on a single platform with single data management point.

Other markets have similar needs.

The need for everlasting energy for small Internet-connected devices coupled with dedicated low-power bi-directional data communication extends to other markets beyond precision agriculture. Smart cities, for instance, need smart utility meters and smart infrastructure. Industrial plants have remote locations and sensors that cannot rely on receiving power from the electrical grid. Location trackers – whether for large containers or small dogs – need portable power. Owners of smart home devices would like to install them without wires or the need to replace batteries from time to time. A typical retail store might have tens of thousands of electronic shelf labels and replacing batteries for them is a never-ending full-time job. The need for small, efficient energy harvesting technology is nearly universal.

The Solution

Sol Chip developed a revolutionary patented 'solar-panel-on-a-chip'. The tiny chip efficiently converts indoor or outdoor light into energy. Sol Chip provides an everlasting power source for IoT applications with its unique control circuit.

Sol Chip integrated the Light Chip into a powerful precision agriculture platform, which can read data from dozens of sensors, send that data to the cloud through dedicated LoRaWAN data-communication connection, and remotely turn on irrigation valves, backed by ML technology. This is a zero-maintenance solution that eliminates the need for manual measurements, manual operation of valves as well as frequent trips to replace batteries.

Moreover, Sol Chip's IoT solution is already integrated into other industries. Sol Chip is developing a Proptech solution for monitoring, controlling, and energy saving for offices and private houses through the digitalization of hot water radiators' operations. The ability to monitor and operate and control devices within a building allows integrating Sol Chip's technology in various industries and applications, including monitoring for industrial facilities, conveyance, and storage of goods. For example, it is possible to receive real-time information from valves, upload the data to the cloud, identify defects in advance, and remotely fix them while controlling the valves.

The Sol Chip solution, called SolTag, includes the following key components:

• An everlasting energy source, based on the company's Light Chip modules
• A large number of entries and the ability to support multiple types of sensors
• The ability to power valves and switches without an external power source.
• Twoway communications, based on the LoRAWAN technology, allowing units to communicate at distances of up to 15 km with a central gateway. This technology, now adopted as part of the Amazon Sidewalk effort, is ideal for low-power IoT applications.

The technology

The Sol Chip SolTag solves the key issues that have held back the deployment of high-quality energy harvesting and IoT solutions for agriculture and additional sectors:

• It supplies energy to sensors and powers valves and pumps without needing large solar panels or battery replacements.
• It can support numerous types of sensors, allowing the selection of the correct sensors based on the crop being grown. New types of sensors are easy to add.
• A reliable communications link that does not rely on cellular connectivity.
• Bidirectional communications that allow the system to communicate the data from sensors to the cloud and then to receive commands for execution with AI, thus providing a closed loop solution.

Sol Chip now offers a decision-support software module that optimally provides irrigation recommendation for dozens of different crops to provide automated irrigation for different types of crops. Sol Chip is unique in its ability to connect to the different sensors important to each crop, automatically provide crop-specific recommendations, and then present them to the farmer with the option to execute them remotely through ML.

While Sol Chip provides a complete end-to-end solution for those interested in precision agriculture, it can also act as the power, data, and communications backbone to upgrade existing ones. For instance, if a customer is unhappy with the service or the price of their current solutions, or if their current 3G network will stop working soon, they can replace the communications backbone with Sol Chip's modern equipment. Such applicability is shown in operations in Indiana, USA where Sol Chip is targeting the replacement of existing weather stations regional network that is cellular based with its systems that are LoRaWAN based.

Sol Chip access to extensive information from numerous sensors, geographies, and crops provides unique opportunities to leverage the data in other ways.

Precision agriculture is just the tip of the iceberg. There are many additional applications where a compact and environmentally-friendly method to provide everlasting energy is a solid competitive advantage. These include smart cities, industry 4.0, asset trackers, smart home devices, security systems, and many more. Sol Chip already conducts a wide range of pilots with companies worldwide and has signed several contracts with customers from Japan and Europe to supply its technology for solar fields, asset management, industrial IoT, and leading consumer goods companies.

Sol Chip's technology is protected by several granted patents, including:

The Light Chip includes a patented manufacturing process that enables the integration of photovoltaic cells in the existing standard silicon manufacturing industry. It is thus the optimal way to incorporate solar energy into today's silicon powered IoT devices.

The Sol-Chip platform is based on a unique ultra-low-power design that enables autonomous operation.