Redefining Embedded Power: A Standalone PMIC for Sensor Power Management

Embedded World Exclusive: Power Management, Reimagined

Embedded systems engineers, brace yourselves—because Nanopower is flipping the script on how you manage power across sensors, hosts, and power sources. At Embedded World 2025, we saw their standalone PMIC for sensor power management in action, and it’s not just a smarter PMIC—it’s a whole new system architecture.

Not Your Average PMIC

Traditional PMICs sit as passive peripherals, outputting fixed voltages and hoping the rest of the system behaves. Nanopower’s approach? Put intelligence and autonomy between the host and the sensors. This standalone PMIC wakes, configures, powers, and even changes sensor behaviour without the host lifting a finger.

With ultra-low standby consumption (down to 90 nA) and adaptive logic baked in, this chip acts as a gatekeeper—deciding when and how sensors operate, and waking up the host only when necessary.

Behavioural Power Management

Why just power sensors when you can manage them? Whether it’s changing the operating frequency of a light sensor during the day, shutting it off at night, or selectively cycling peripherals based on real-world conditions, Nanopower’s platform allows pre-programmed or host-defined logic to adapt dynamically over time.

And thanks to built-in memory blocks for configuration storage, sensor behaviour can evolve without host intervention—saving energy and extending system lifetimes 10–100x over conventional MCU-driven designs.

Gen 1: Now with SPI & TDK ToF Integration

The Gen 1 standalone PMIC, launched at Embedded World, adds support for SPI-based sensors, unlocking higher-bandwidth peripherals like TDK’s time-of-flight modules. It now manages full sensor ecosystems running on less than 15 µA—all while harvesting energy and juggling complex power chemistries (think: supercaps, organic batteries, ceramic cells).

What’s Next? Ecosystem Intelligence

Nanopower’s vision isn’t just about better PMICs—it’s about holistic energy-aware systems. The platform is evolving to manage charging, storage, chemistry-switching, and even selecting the best power path based on load and leakage.

Want to see it in action? Their GUI-based SDK, shipping April 2025, will allow engineers to configure everything—no code required. Just drag, drop, and optimise your sensor strategy.