The Onio Batteryless Vision with Kjetil Meisal

Kjetil Meisal, CEO and co-founder of Norwegian semiconductor startup ONiO , joins Chris to discuss the development of ONiO.zero —a revolutionary batteryless microcontroller powered entirely by ambient energy harvesting. They dive into Norway’s rich semiconductor heritage, custom RISC-V architecture, sub-microwatt cold starts, paper-based biofuel cells with BeFC , and making “stick and forget” IoT sensors a reality. Timeline Welcome Kjetil Meisal: Chris welcomes Kjetil Meisal , CEO of ONiO , to discuss their vision for truly batteryless microchips. (00:00:15) Stick and Forget: Exploring the core dream of deployment-friendly IoT sensors that run indefinitely on harvested energy without maintenance. (00:02:15) Nordic Silicon Heritage: Kjetil highlights Norway’s deep semiconductor roots and ecosystem spanning Oslo and Trondheim. (00:05:00) Norwegian Chip Companies: A breakdown of global heavyweights built on Norwegian acquisitions, including Texas Instruments (former Chipcon), Silicon Labs (former Energy Micro), ARM Trondheim (former Faltung), Microchip (Atmel AVR team, discussed on The Amp Hour #633 ), Nordic Semiconductor , Novelda , and startups like ONiO. (00:07:45) The ONiO.zero Platform: Banner specs of the ONiO.zero MCU—a custom RISC-V CPU core, multi-protocol 2.4 GHz radio, power management unit, and multi-domain energy harvesting. (00:13:00) Energy Storage Options: Moving from ceramic capacitors and supercapacitors to rechargeable cells under a “batteries not required” philosophy. (00:15:45) Going Back to 2016: The origin story of ONiO with co-founders Kjetil Meisal, Runar Finanger, and Vemund Bakken exiting Novelda to solve low-power challenges. (00:19:15) From Fever Patches to Silicon: Transitioning from a single-use temperature monitoring patch concept to general-purpose ultra-low-power silicon. (00:22:15) Mature Process Nodes and In-House IP: Why ONiO chose a robust, mature silicon node and developed 100% of their IP in-house without third-party licensing. (00:25:00) Developer Mental Shift: How clock gating, powered-off blocks, and GCC-based toolchains require firmware developers to think in terms of energy scarcity. (00:27:45) Sub-Microwatt Cold Start Sequence: How the Power Management Unit harvests ambient voltage, triggers ultra-low voltage monitoring loops, and safely boots the RISC-V core. (00:30:00) Pomegranate Seed Power: Demonstrating extreme low-power operation by booting the chip and transmitting Bluetooth signals off citrus fruits, tomatoes, blueberries, and a single pomegranate seed. (00:32:30) Energy Harvesting Sources: Matching ambient indoor light, outdoor solar, Peltier thermal gradients, and RF signals with ultra-efficient silicon. (00:37:00) Managing the Energy Reservoir: Transmitting data in bursts, managing duty cycles, and running a wireless thermostat for two weeks on a supercapacitor in total darkness. (00:40:00) Custom 2.4 GHz Radio Stage: Achieving -100 dBm sensitivity at 3 mA RX and 0 dBm at 6 mA TX with custom RF integration supporting 5+ protocols. (00:42:30) Why RISC-V over ARM?: Why ARM’s licensing fees and instruction restrictions led ONiO to custom RISC-V microarchitecture tweaks, echoing open-architecture