industry news
Subscribe Now

Nanopower announces volume production of Award Winning nPZero Power-Saving IC for battery-powered and energy harvested IoT

Nuremberg, Germany – 10th March 2026 — Nanopower Semiconductor, a European fabless semiconductor manufacturer, announces that their award winning nPZero power-saving integrated circuit (PSIC) is now in volume production enabling, original equipment manufacturers (OEMs) to move from evaluation to high-volume deployment in power-constrained Internet of Things (IoT) products. Nanopower’s nPZero is a power-saving integrated circuit (PSIC) designed to reduce the energy consumption of battery-powered applications by up to 90%. Samples and development kits are immediately available.

At Embedded World in Nuremberg, visitors can meet Nanopower Semiconductor at Hall 4 / Booth 4-460 to see nPZero in action and discuss design-in options and evaluation hardware. Nanopower will showcase demonstrations focused on battery-powered and energy-harvesting, helping embedded engineers extend operating life and reduce maintenance by keeping the microcontroller in deep sleep for longer periods.

Rewriting IoT power budgets: Meet nPZero

nPZero is a power-saving IC that enables always-on monitoring and control of sensors with the host microcontroller powered down. In operation, nPZero powers down the microcontroller, takes over the controller role, and autonomously handles power-up, configuration, and data reading from up to four sensors or other peripherals. The host is powered up, and control is returned when triggered by user-defined rules, allowing to remain off for long periods while the system continues to detect and respond to events.

nPZero is designed for battery-powered and energy-harvesting IoT devices where energy budgets limit sensing frequency, uptime, or maintenance intervals. Typical deployments include smart buildings, smart cities, and smart agriculture, as well as tracking, logging, and monitoring applications where devices must remain in the field for long periods and respond reliably to threshold events.

In a reference use case, nPZero has been empirically shown to significantly reduce current consumption for peripheral polling compared to a baseline system without nPZero. The measured system included a wireless microcontroller development kit plus a temperature sensor and a three-axis accelerometer.

Why energy efficiency is now a competitive advantage

Design teams building sensor-based IoT devices are under pressure to do more with less energy. In many systems, the microcontroller is woken frequently just to poll sensors, burning power even when nothing has changed. This creates a direct cost and operational burden as product fleets scale: shorter battery life, more maintenance visits, and tighter constraints on what can be measured, logged, or transmitted.

nPZero changes that system-level power profile by moving routine sensing and decision-making into an ultra-low-power companion IC, so products can remain responsive to real-world events without repeatedly waking the host processor.

To support fast evaluation and design-in, Nanopower provides access to the nPZero Configurator, which enables developers to adjust settings through a graphical user interface and automatically generate the necessary application programming interface (API) code, reducing manual bring-up effort.

For technical resources, visit the company website. To book a meeting or request more information, email info@nanopowersemi.com.

About Nanopower Semiconductor

Nanopower was founded based on the invention of the ultra-low-power nPZero technology in 2017 and has developed nPZero to create a scalable solution for high-volume IoT markets. The company is incorporated in Norway, with operations and offices in Kristiansand, Norway, and Porto, Portugal.

Leave a Reply

featured blogs
Apr 2, 2026
Build, code, and explore with your own AI-powered Mars rover kit, inspired by NASA's Perseverance mission....

featured paper

Quickly and accurately identify inter-domain leakage issues in IC designs

Sponsored by Siemens Digital Industries Software

Power domain leakage is a major IC reliability issue, often missed by traditional tools. This white paper describes challenges of identifying leakage, types of false results, and presents Siemens EDA’s Insight Analyzer. The tool proactively finds true leakage paths, filters out false positives, and helps circuit designers quickly fix risks—enabling more robust, reliable chip designs. With detailed, context-aware analysis, designers save time and improve silicon quality.

Click to read more

featured chalk talk

GaN for Humanoid Robots
Sponsored by Mouser Electronics and Infineon
In this episode of Chalk Talk, Eric Persson and Amelia Dalton explore why power is the key driver for efficient and reliable robot movements and how GaN technologies can help motor control solutions be more compact, integrated and efficient. They also investigate the role of field-oriented control in humanoid robotic applications and why the choice of a GaN power transistor can make all the difference in your next humanoid robot project!
Apr 20, 2026
691 views