Abstract
Since the emergence of the first computers in the 1940s, many different classes of computing systems, such as workstations, desktop PCs, and laptops, have been introduced to meet the ever-changing market needs, as predicted by “Bell’s Law.” Light-weight mobile computing devices were introduced in the early 2000s, and we expect to be surrounded by millions or trillions of small sensing/computing systems in the upcoming internet of things (IoT) era.
Sensor systems in the IoT era are expected to be several orders of magnitude smaller in volume than their predecessors, consistent with the general trend of increasing compactness observed as computing systems evolve. This means that computing systems with a volume on the order of cubic centimeters or even cubic millimeters are likely. Recent research shows that mm-scale systems can be realized with advances in low-power electronics design, packaging, and battery technologies. These miniature systems are expected to be the driving force for unprecedented IoT applications, such as implanted diagnosis sensors and pervasive environment monitoring sensors.
The key challenge for achieving mm-scale volume is to significantly reduce the power used by every component of a system due to the extremely limited amount of energy storage. Therefore, in this chapter, state-of-the-art low-power design strategies for a few core components which enable such mm-scale systems are reviewed. System-level design approach is also presented with a few recently demonstrated mm-scale sensing systems.
This is a preview of subscription content, log in via an institution.
Buying options
Tax calculation will be finalised at checkout
Purchases are for personal use only
Learn about institutional subscriptionsReferences
Bell G, Chen R, Rege S (1972) The effect of technology on near term computer structures. Computer 5(2):29–38. doi:10.1109/C-M.1972.216890
Bell G (2008) Bell’s law for the birth and death of computer classes. Commun ACM 51(1):86–94. doi:10.1145/1327452.1327453
Oh S, Lee Y, Wang J, Foo Z, Kim Y, Jung Y, Blaauw D, Sylvester D (2015) A dual-slope capacitance-to-digital converter integrated in an implantable pressure-sensing system. IEEE J Solid State Circuits 50(7):1581–1591. doi:10.1109/JSSC.2015.2435736
Jeong S, Foo Z, Lee Y, Sim JY, Blaauw D, Sylvester D (2014) A fully-integrated 71 nW CMOS temperature sensor for low power wireless sensor nodes. IEEE J Solid State Circuits 49(8):1581–1591. doi:10.1109/JSSC.2014.2325574
Kim G, Lee Y, Foo Z, Pannuto P, Kuo YS, Kempke B, Ghaed M, Bang S, Lee I, Kim Y, Jeong S, Dutta P, Sylvester D, Blaauw D (2014) A millimeter-scale wireless imaging system with continuous motion detection and energy harvesting. In: Symposium on VLSI circuits. doi:10.1109/VLSIC.2014.6858425
Chen YP, Jeon D, Lee Y, Kim Y, Foo Z, Lee I, Langhals NB, Kruger G, Oral H, Berenfeld O, Zhang Z, Blaauw D, Sylvester D (2015) An injectable 64 nW ECG mixed-signal SoC in 65 nm for arrhythmia monitoring. IEEE J Solid State Circuits 50(1):375–390. doi:10.1109/JSSC.2014.2364036
Jung W, Jeong S, Oh S, Bang S, Sylvester D, Blaauw D (2015) A 0.7pF-to-10nF fully digital capacitance-to-digital converter using iterative delay-chain discharge. In: 2015 I.E. international solid-state circuits conference—(ISSCC) digest of technical papers. doi:10.1109/ISSCC.2015.7063137
Choi M, Gu J, Blaauw D, Sylvester D (2015) Wide input range 1.7 μW 1.2 kS/s resistive sensor interface circuit with 1 cycle/sample logarithmic sub-ranging. In: Symposium on VLSI circuits. doi:10.1109/VLSIC.2015.7231311
Souri K, Chae Y, Makinwa KAA (2013) A CMOS temperature sensor with a voltage-calibrated inaccuracy of ±0.15°C (3σ) from −55°C to 125°C. IEEE J Solid State Circuits 48(1):292–301. doi:10.1109/JSSC.2012.2214831
Seok M, Kim G, Blaauw D, Sylvester D (2012) A portable 2-transistor picowatt temperature-compensated voltage reference operating at 0.5 V. IEEE J Solid State Circuits 47(10):2534–2545. doi:10.1109/JSSC.2012.2206683
Myers J, Savanth A, Gaddh R, Howard D, Prabhat P, Flynn D (2016) A subthreshold ARM cortex-M0+ subsystem in 65 nm CMOS for WSN applications with 14 power domains, 10T SRAM, and integrated voltage regulator. IEEE J Solid State Circuits 51(1):31–44. doi:10.1109/JSSC.2015.2477046
Lim W, Lee I, Sylvester D, Blaauw D (2015) Batteryless sub-nW cortex-M0+ processor with dynamic leakage-suppression logic. In: IEEE international solid-state circuits conference. doi:10.1109/ISSCC.2015.706296
Jung W, Oh S, Bang S, Lee Y, Foo Z, Kim G, Zhang Y, Sylvester D, Blaauw D (2014) An ultra-low power fully integrated energy harvester based on self-oscillating switched-capacitor voltage doubler. IEEE J Solid State Circuits 49(12):2800–2811. doi:10.1109/JSSC.2014.2346788
Lee I, Lim W, Teran A, Phillips J, Sylvester D, Blaauw D (2016) A >78%-efficient light harvester over 100-to-100 klux with reconfigurable PV-cell network and MPPT circuit. In: IEEE international solid-state circuits conference, San Francisco, CA. 370–371. doi:10.1109/ISSCC.2016.7418061
Bang S, Wang A, Giridhar B, Blaauw D, Sylvester D (2013) A fully integrated successive-approximation switched-capacitor DC-DC converter with 31 mV output voltage resolution. In: IEEE international solid-state circuits conference. doi:10.1109/ISSCC.2013.6487774
Ng V, Sanders S (2012) A 92%-efficiency wide-input-voltage-range switched-capacitor DC-DC converter. In: IEEE international solid-state circuits conference. doi:10.1109/ISSCC.2012.6177016
Ramadass YK, Fayed AA, Chandrakasan AP (2010) A fully-integrated switched-capacitor step-down DC-DC converter with digital capacitance modulation in 45 nm CMOS. IEEE J Solid State Circuits 45(12):2557–2565. doi:10.1109/JSSC.2010.2076550
Ramadass YK, Chandrakasan AP (2007) Voltage scalable switched capacitor DC-DC converter for ultra-low-power on-chip applications. In: IEEE power electronics specialists conference. doi:10.1109/PESC.2007.4342378
Seeman MD, Sanders SR (2008) Analysis and optimization of switched-capacitor DC–DC converters. IEEE Trans Power Electron 23(2):841–851. doi:10.1109/TPEL.2007.915182
Molnar A, Lu B, Lanzisera S, Cook BW, Pister KSJ (2004) An ultra-low power 900 MHz RF transceiver for wireless sensor networks. In: IEEE custom integrated circuits conference. doi:10.1109/CICC.2004.1358833
Cook BW, Berny A, Molnar A, Lanzisera S, Pister KSJ (2006) Low-power 2.4-GHz transceiver with passive RX front-end and 400-mV supply. IEEE J Solid State Circuits 41(12):2757–2766. doi:10.1109/JSSC.2006.884801
Yoon DY, Jeong CJ, Cartwright J, Kang HY, Han SK, Kim NS, Ha DS, Lee SG (2012) A new approach to low-power and low-latency wake-up receiver system for wireless sensor nodes. IEEE J Solid State Circuits 47(10):205–2419. doi:10.1109/JSSC.2012.2209778
Yadav K, Kymissis I, Kinget PR (2013) A 4.4-μW wake-up receiver using ultrasound data. IEEE J Solid State Circuits 48(3):649–660. doi:10.1109/JSSC.2012.2235671
Kim G, Lee Y, Bang S, Lee I, Kim Y, Sylvester D, Blaauw D (2012) A 695 pW standby power optical wake-up receiver for wireless sensor nodes. In: IEEE custom integrated circuits conference. doi:10.1109/CICC.2012.6330603
Shi Y, Choi M, Li Z, Kim G, Foo ZY, Kim HS, Wentzloff D, Blaauw D (2016) A 10 mm3 syringe-implantable near-field radio system on glass substrate. In: IEEE international solid-state circuits conference, Feb 2016
Yakovlev A, Jang J, Pivonka D, Poon A (2013) A 11 μW sub-pJ/bit reconfigurable transceiver for mm-sized wireless implants. In: IEEE custom integrated circuits conference. doi:10.1109/CICC.2013.6658501
Allan DW (1966) Statistics of atomic frequency standards. Proc IEEE 54(2):221–230. doi:10.1109/PROC.1966.4634
Yoon D, Sylvester D, Blaauw D (2012) A 5.58 nW 32.768 kHz DLL-assisted XO for real-time clocks in wireless sensing applications. In: IEEE international solid-state circuits conference. doi:10.1109/ISSCC.2012.6177043
Hsiao KJ (2014) A 1.89 nW/0.15 V self-charged XO for real-time clock generation. In: IEEE international solid-state circuits conference. doi:10.1109/ISSCC.2014.6757442
Jeong S, Lee I, Blaauw D, Sylvester D (2015) A 5.8 nW CMOS wake-up timer for ultra-low-power wireless applications. IEEE J Solid State Circuits 50(8):1754–1763. doi:10.1109/JSSC.2015.2413133
Jang T, Choi M, Jeong S, Bang S, Sylvester D, Blaauw D (2016) A 4.7 nW 13.8 ppm/°C self-biased wakeup timer using a switched-resistor scheme. In: IEEE international solid-state circuits conference, San Francisco, CA, 31 Jan 2016–4 Feb 2016
Kuo YS, Pannuto P, Kim G, Foo ZY, Lee I, Kempke B, Dutta P, Blaauw D, Lee Y (2014) MBus: a 17.5 pJ/bit/chip portable interconnect bus for millimeter-scale sensor systems with 8 nW standby power. In: IEEE custom integrated circuits conference. doi:10.1109/CICC.2014.6946046
Chen YP, Fojtik M, Blaauw D, Sylvester D (2012) A 2.98 nW bandgap voltage reference using a self-tuning low leakage sample and hold. In: Symposium on VLSI circuits. doi:10.1109/VLSIC.2012.6243859
Choi M, Lee I, Jang TK, Blaauw D, Sylvester D (2014) A 23 pW, 780 ppm/°C resistor-less current reference using subthreshold MOSFETs. In: European solid state circuits conference. doi:10.1109/ESSCIRC.2014.6942036
Lee Y, Bang S, Lee I, Kim Y, Kim G, Ghead MH, Pannuto P, Dutta P, Sylvester D, Blaauw D (2013) A modular 1 mm3 die-stacked sensing platform with low power I2C inter-die communication and multi-modal energy harvesting. IEEE J Solid State Circuits 48(1):229–243. doi:10.1109/JSSC.2012.2221233
Acknowledgments
This work is supported by Center for Integrated Smart Sensors funded by the Ministry of Science, ICT & Future Planning as Global Frontier Project (CISS-2012M3A6A6054193).
Author information
Authors and Affiliations
Corresponding authors
Editor information
Editors and Affiliations
Rights and permissions
Copyright information
© 2017 Springer International Publishing Switzerland
About this chapter
Cite this chapter
Lee, I., Lee, Y. (2017). Circuit Design in mm-Scale Sensor Platform for Future IoT Applications. In: Kyung, CM., Yasuura, H., Liu, Y., Lin, YL. (eds) Smart Sensors and Systems. Springer, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-33201-7_3
Download citation
DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-33201-7_3
Published:
Publisher Name: Springer, Cham
Print ISBN: 978-3-319-33200-0
Online ISBN: 978-3-319-33201-7
eBook Packages: EngineeringEngineering (R0)