Fraunhofer’s new options for integrating RFicient receivers

Now, in addition to development services and IPs, customers can also order evaluation kits, cost-effective breakout boards, and individual chips. The particularly energy-efficient technology combines ultra-low energy consumption with extremely fast response times – a unique combination resulting in reliable IoT and tracking solutions that last longer. Fraunhofer IIS is presenting the evaluation kit, breakout board, and individual chip options at embedded world in Nuremberg from March 11 to 13, 2025.

Wireless communication always faces one main problem: efficient energy consumption. Standard receivers require a lot of power, so they have to be switched off briefly on a regular basis, leading to long response times. Alternatively, the receivers can remain active, but this drastically shortens the battery life. This is a particular concern for battery-powered applications that nevertheless require fast response times, such as IoT sensors or asset tracking.

RFicient technology – highly efficient, extremely fast, sustainable

Fraunhofer IIS’s wireless receiver resolves this conflict between energy consumption and response time: the RFicient technology works with an extremely low power consumption of less than 5 µW, while also enabling a fast response time of less than 32 ms. Selective wake-up and group addressing make it possible to target which systems to activate, but without unnecessary energy consumption. Reception takes place on the 433 MHz, 868 MHz, 915 MHz, and 2.4 GHz frequency bands, which means that RFicient can be used worldwide.

Expanding the product portfolio for faster development

In addition to development services, hardware solutions are now also directly available. Manufacturers of IoT and sensor network solutions can choose from a complete evaluation kit, breakout boards for simple tests, or individual chips. These can be purchased from the High-Performance Center Electronic Systems store, LZE, as well as the EBV Elektronik catalog.

The evaluation kit provides a comprehensive test environment with a preconfigured transmitter and receiver module, plus user-friendly software for easy customisation of the chip settings. This allows companies to directly evaluate the technology’s performance and test its suitability for specific applications – without any additional development effort.

Breakout boards offer a compact and inexpensive alternative for cost-conscious users and experienced developers. Featuring the RFicient chip on a base board for direct control, these boards provide greater flexibility regarding integration, but require additional expertise and external hardware, such as microcontrollers, for activation.

The RFicient chip is also available as an individual component (IC) and can be integrated into existing circuit boards. This requires an adaptation of the control system and a new board design. Integration generally takes place in the final product design, after testing with the evaluation kit or the breakout boards.

These new hardware solutions greatly simplify access to RFicient technology – from the initial test phase to direct product integration.

Asset tracking with ultra-low energy consumption

RFicient ensures that a standard button cell battery can last up to 14 years. This slashes maintenance costs, as battery changes are required less frequently. By reducing battery waste, RFicient also helps shrink the application’s ecological footprint. In addition, the technology ensures reliable 24/7 wireless channel monitoring and offers a way to implement IoT, asset-tracking, and sensor-network solutions with particularly low energy consumption. A practical example from logistics highlights the potential: logistics companies can precisely place multibeam antennas to monitor their storage areas, and then use a periodic wake-up sequence to efficiently locate objects equipped with RFicient receivers. This enables a highly scalable solution – regardless of whether the customer wants to monitor 100 objects or 10,000.

These newly available hardware solutions give users improved access to the technology and accelerate implementation in existing and new applications. The evaluation kit, breakout board, and individual chip options are available from the High-Performance Center Electronic Systems store, LZE GmbH, as well as the EBV Elektronik GmbH catalog. Visitors can see the options at Booth 422 in Hall 4 at embedded world in Nuremberg from March 11 to 13, 2025.