ONIO AS

Their core work

ONiO is a Norwegian semiconductor company developing ultra-low-power microcontroller units (MCUs) designed to run on harvested energy — solar, RF, thermal, or vibration — eliminating the need for batteries in IoT and smart sensing devices. Their chip architecture targets applications where battery replacement is impractical or uneconomic: embedded sensors, disposable electronics, medical patches, industrial monitoring, and antenna-integrated devices. They combine chip design expertise with energy harvesting engineering, positioning themselves at the intersection of semiconductors and sustainable electronics. The company operates as a commercial SME, not a research lab — their H2020 funding supported scaling a product rather than exploratory science.

What they specialise in

How they've shifted over time

Across a narrow 2020-2022 window, ONiO moved from core MCU commercialization (WISE, 2020) toward deeper integration of the energy-harvesting layer itself — specifically the antenna structures that feed both power and data to the chip (ASSET, 2021). The trajectory suggests they are expanding downward from the silicon into the RF/electromagnetic front-end. With only two projects, the shift is directional rather than decisive, but it aligns with a product roadmap moving from "chip that works on harvested energy" to "complete battery-less sensing node."

ONiO appears to be extending their chip-level expertise into full battery-less sensing-node architectures, making them relevant for partners building complete self-powered IoT systems rather than just silicon.

How they like to work

ONiO coordinated both of its H2020 projects, which is typical for SME Instrument / SME-2 grants where a single company drives commercialization of its own product. The CORDIS record shows zero listed consortium partners, consistent with solo SME-track projects rather than collaborative consortia. This means they are experienced at running EU-funded product development internally, but have limited documented experience of multi-partner consortium work.

No consortium partners are recorded in H2020 for ONiO, reflecting the single-beneficiary nature of their SME Instrument projects. Their European footprint is therefore based in Oslo, Norway, with no documented cross-border collaboration inside these grants.

What sets them apart

ONiO is one of very few European SMEs that owns an actual ultra-low-power MCU product designed from the ground up to run without a battery — this is a hardware niche dominated by large semiconductor firms, making an agile Norwegian SME in this space unusual. They combine real silicon with energy-harvesting know-how, which most IoT integrators must source from two separate suppliers. For a consortium needing a battery-less compute node or a business needing a chip that runs on harvested energy, ONiO is a direct, commercially-oriented partner rather than a research group.

Highlights from their portfolio

• WISE
  Received EUR 2.5M under SME-2 to commercialize their battery-less, energy-harvesting MCU for smart sensing — their flagship and by far their largest EU grant.
• ASSET
  A smaller CSA-LSP award extending their work into antenna structures that jointly handle energy harvesting and signal transmission — signals a roadmap beyond the chip itself.