What is the CLEAN-Boost® Technology?

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  1. What is the CLEAN-Boost® Technology?
  2. CLEAN-Boost® technology generates electricity from harvesting sensor
  3. System of the Power storage and voltage boost circuit used in CLEAN-Boost®

CLEAN-Boost®(*1) technology enables battery-less power generation for IoT devices making it the ideal technology for energy harvesting. CLEAN-Boost® technology exploits tiny sources of harvesting sensor, so far left unused, to operate IoT devices.

CLEAN-Boost® technology offers the following IoT solutions


  • Eliminates the need for batteries in IoT devices.
  • Sensors and BLE modules can be located
    practically anywhere as no power lines are needed.

CLEAN-Boost® technology contributes to
building environmentally friendly and safe IoT society.

1. What is the CLEAN-Boost® Technology?

CLEAN-Boost® technology is a Power storage and voltage boost circuit technology that boosts small amounts of electricity accumulated over time by discharging it to instantaneously obtain a large amount of electricity.

The Power storage and voltage boost circuit used in CLEAN-Boost® technology operates in much the same way as a dam.
A dam stops the flow of river water and releases it when a certain amount of water has accumulated. Similarly, CLEAN-Boost® accumulates small amounts of electricity and discharges it when a certain amount of electricity has been generated.
CLEAN-Boost® technology can boost the collected small amount of electricity by up to 30,000 times.

The power strage and voltage boost circuit used in CLEAN-Boost technology functions like a dam

CLEAN-Boost® technology generates electricity from tiny and so far unused harvesting sensor sources (vibrations or heat) and boosts it to enable operation of IoT devices with built-in wireless functionality such as BLE.

2. CLEAN-Boost® Technology generates electricity from harvesting sensor

The tiny sources of electricity that CLEAN-Boost® Technology can use are in plentiful supply all around us.

CLEAN-Boost Technology generates electricity from harvesting sensor

CLEAN-Boost® technology requires only a harvester (sensor) to convert the energy from sources such as vibrations, heat, sunlight or microbes into electricity before turning it into electricity IoT devices can use.

The basic requirement for powering IoT devices is an energy harvester (sensor) capable of generating 150nW or more.*2

A solar cell the size of the cross section of the mechanical pencil lead can generate 150nW
150nW is the amount of electricity generated by a solar cell the size of the cross section of the lead in a mechanical pencil when exposed to indoor lighting.

3. System of the Power storage and voltage boost circuit used in CLEAN-Boost® Technology

Let's take a closer look at the system of the device that stores and boosts small amounts of electricity.
The figure below shows the configuration of a system using CLEAN-Boost® technology to power wireless transmission.

System of the Power storage and voltage boost circuit used in CLEAN-Boost<sub>®</sub> Technology

When the Power storage and voltage boost circuit used in CLEAN-Boost® technology is connected to an energy harvester (sensor and generator unit), the small amounts of electricity generated by the sensor are stored in the storage unit of the Power storage and voltage boost circuit.
When a certain amount of electricity has been accumulated, it is boosted by the boost circuit and used to operate the wireless unit.

How CLEAN-Boost<sub>®</sub> technology stores, boosts and discharges electricity

CLEAN-Boost® technology can perform this sequence of events using only electricity from the harvesting sensor.
Capable of storing and boosting small amounts of electricity, CLEAN-Boost® is the outstanding technology that can operate IoT devices without a battery.

ABLIC received the “Best Paper Award”
at the IEEE S3S Conference 2019


-CLEAN-Boost® technology is internationally recognized
for its potential as a semi-permanent source of electricity-

Our paper on CLEAN-Boost® technology that generates electricity for IoT devices by using an energy harvester was awarded the Best Paper Award at the “IEEE S3S Conference.”

For more details

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Let's start energy harvesting with “CLEAN-Boost®

*1 The Power storage and voltage boost circuit technology, the core of CLEAN-Boost® technology, is the result of joint development with Ritsumeikan University.
CLEAN-Boost® and the logo mark are registered trademarks of ABLIC Inc. (Product registration number 5997416, product registration number 5997417)

*2 Minoru Sudo, Fumiyasu Utsunomiya, Ami Tanaka, and Takayuki Douseki, “150-nW FD-SOI Intermittent Startup Circuit for Micropower Energy Harvesting Sensor,” in 2019 IEEE SOI-3D-Subthreshold Microelectronics Technology Unified Conference (S3S), Oct 2019.