Power Management

Harvesting energy from ambient energy sources such as solar and thermal gradients is one solution to address the dramatic increase in energy consumption of personal electronics. In this paper, an ultra low quiescent curr

In the upcoming field of e-mobility roof-integrated photovoltaic systems are used to extend the cruising range of electric vehicles. Due to the roof’s curvature the solar cells (SC) show different inclination angles to t

Solar Semiconductor, Sunnyvale, CA 1 2 Solar photovoltaic (PV) energy has increased in importance in recent years as a viable alternative to carbon-producing sources of energy. In an effort to drive PV energy towards gri

density of 38.6mW/mm2 at 81% efficiency and 3.8mV output voltage ripple (ΔVo) in baseline 90nm CMOS. The design implements two different conversion ratios to maximize efficiency for a wide range of input voltages, and th

Pressure to integrate more functionality and complexity on chip, to lower area and cost and to reduce time to market, drives IC technologies towards standard nanometer low voltage CMOS. A common practice to bridge the ga

voltage range ideal for use with lithium batteries [1-4]. The high efficiency of Class-D amplifiers makes them ideal for operation from boosted supplies. Moreover, in order to provide a better user experience in all mult

exhibits improved energy efficiency compared to nominal super-threshold operation [1, 2]. Two critical bottlenecks prevent mainstream adoption of low-VDD operation: degraded logic delay resulting in significantly lower t

François Durvaux1, Sarah Boyd2, Denis Flandre1, Jean-Didier Legat1 1 2 Université catholique de Louvain, Louvain-la-Neuve, Belgium P.E. International, Berkeley, CA The vision of the Internet of Things with ambient intell

and correcting transient delay errors have been proposed [1-5]. These Razor-style systems replace critical flip-flops with ones that detect late arriving signals, and use architectural replay to correct errors. However,

Scaling power supply voltages (VDD’s) of logic circuits down to the sub/nearthreshold region is a promising approach to achieve significant power reductions. Circuit delays in the ultra-low voltage region, however, are e

digital systems with limited energy budget (e.g. mobile, battery-powered devices, radio frequency identification (RFID), wireless sensor networks, or biomedical applications). Subthreshold operation allows for such low p

University of Siena, Siena, Italy 3 University of Michigan, Ann Arbor, MI 4 University of California at Berkeley, Berkeley, CA 1 2 Flip-flops (FFs) are key building blocks in the design of high-speed energy-efficient mic

Unlike human brains, where various kinds of visual recognition tasks are carried out with homogeneous neocortical circuits and a unified working mechanism, existing visual recognition processors [1-4] rely on multiple al

building blocks of on-die interconnect fabrics that are critical to overall throughput and energy efficiency of high performance systems [1,2]. Conventional routers use distinct logic blocks for routing data and handling

Recently, many applications have emerged that use wireless power delivery technology. A new standard “Qi” [1] has been established for battery operated portable devices. The rechargeable battery acts as a power buffer an

Modern implantable microelectronic devices (IMDs) require higher performance and power efficiency to enable more efficacious therapies, particularly in neuroprostheses such as retinal and cochlear implants [1]. Inductive

Nowadays, there is a high demand for highly efficient power converters that can be put in systems such as power factor correctors or solar panels. A silicon carbide (SiC) based power switch has a very good performance wh

The traditional inductor-based buck converter has been the dominant design for step-down switched-mode voltage regulators for decades. Switched-capacitor (SC) DC-DC converters, on the other hand, have traditionally been

Several emerging portable applications require high-efficiency LED drivers [1-4]. An LED driver is basically a current source that forces the current required for achieving the desired light emission into the LED. In ord

terms of efficiency and lower fabrication cost. However, some areas such as bar-typed fluorescent lamp retrofit applications still require a solution with isolation. Even for replacement of the incandescent and compact f

JDA, Daejeon, Korea 1 2 Several types of DC-DC converters for active-matrix organic LED (AMOLED) displays have been introduced to date [1-4]. Single-inductor multiple-output (SIMO) converters with current-mode control ha

For minimizing the power consumption in portable devices, efficient DC-DC converters with a wide range of regulated voltages and currents are needed. Considering the required footprint area, cost, and chip count, integra

Harvesting energy from ambient vibrations is a promising technology for fully autonomous wireless sensor nodes, which can give birth to new applications in biomedical, industrial, and environmental monitoring. There have

Energy harvesting provides a means to supply wireless sensor networks in building environments with autonomous and sustainable power [1,2]. Indoor light can be converted into electricity by a solar cell and stored in a r

–e.g. retinal prostheses [1]– necessitate very low-voltage, low-leakage, and energy-efficient image sensors that preferably produce their own power from ambient sources. A natural energy source for an image sensor that p

Vrije Universiteit Brussel, Brussels, Belgium In Fig. 6.6.4 the linear law applies to a voltage step that is 1/20th of the range; the exponential law shown applies to a ratio C2/C1=20. In the real circuit this ratio is 1

Precision thermocouples and bridge transducers such as strain gauges and thermistors require read-out ICs with low noise, high accuracy and low drift. In such applications, the sensor and the read-out IC (ROIC) are usual

Germany 2 With ongoing miniaturization in technology and increasing complexity in assembly and packaging, stress-sensing microsystems gain importance for the evaluation of IC packages [1]. Additionally, integrated stress

Tsinghua University, Beijing, China, Delft University of Technology, Delft, The Netherlands 2 This paper describes a smart CMOS wind sensor that measures wind speed and direction without moving parts. It combines a 2-D t

Chebyshev filter and amplified by a variable-gain amplifier (VGA). The VGA gain is automatically tuned by an outer automatic gain control (AGC) loop to regulate and verify the amplitude of the sustained oscillation at th

versatile multimedia applications with semantic processing abilities. Realtime applications, such as face detection, facial-expression recognition, scene analysis [2] and object recognition [3], have become indispensable

Graphics processing generates pixels from descriptors, while vision generates descriptors from pixels [1]. Since augmented reality (AR) requires both graphics and vision abilities (Fig. 18.6.1), we report a unified proce

Takayuki Gyoten1, Tetsu Nishijima1, Hiroyuki Yamasaki1, Yuta Imai2, Masakatsu Ishizaki1, Takeshi Kumaki2, Yoshihiro Okuno1, Tetsushi Koide2, Hans Jürgen Mattausch2, Kazutami Arimoto1 1 Renesas Technology, Itami, Japan Hi

applications are emerging. The first involves more vivid perceptual experience and is leading to the next generation of TV specifications – Quad Full HD (QFHD, 4096×2160p) and 3D/multi-view TV. The second is the scalable

Himanshu Kaul, Farhana Sheikh, Rajaraman Ramanarayanan, Suresh Srinivasan, Ram Krishnamurthy, Shekhar Borkar Intel, Hillsboro, OR Computationally intensive DSP/media processing applications require specialized hardware a

Hideaki Yamamoto, Yousuke Hagiwara, Tetsuya Fujita, Manabu Watanabe, Takayoshi Shimazawa, Yasuo Ohara, Takashi Miyamori, Mototsugu Hamada, Masafumi Takahashi, Yukihito Oowaki Toshiba, Kawasaki, Japan Today’s multimedia m

and drain voltages can reside anywhere among Vi, (Vi/2+Vo/2), Vo, and (Vo/2) in the 3 modes of operation. Fortunately however, the physical/logical ordering of the standard cells can be leveraged to realize a simplified

Massachusetts Institute of Technology, Cambridge, MA Iowa State University, Ames, IA 3 Texas Instruments, Dallas, TX 2 Reducing power consumption through VDD scaling is a major trend in nanometer CMOS circuits. In modern

in a low-voltage process can be attractive for smaller and lighter portable devices powered from single-cell batteries (i.e., NiMH, Fuel cells). To reduce the size of the off-chip components both high frequency (10 to 10

Nowadays switching DC-DC converters have become indispensable in powerefficient VLSI systems. As operation frequency increases, load fluctuations in such a device require high switching frequencies in DC-DC converters fo

Digitally controlled DC-DC converters enable design portability as well as reconfigurable compensation and control schemes. Digital controllers are also resistant to process and temperature variations making them attract

particular for portable systems where typically multiple voltage levels are required to achieve multi functionality. To meet these requirements, a singleinductor multiple-output (SIMO) switching converter is a very stron

TSMC, Austin, TX The growing complexity and small form factors of hand-held consumer electronics are the driving force of more integration. This increases the need for truly embedded DC-DC converters in advanced processe

Emerging polar transmitters for highly efficient and linear power amplifiers (PAs) demand for high-efficiency, high-bandwidth and low-ripple supply modulators. In [1], a linear regulator is used; however, its efficiency

Many mechanical vibration-based energy harvesting systems use a piezoelectric transducer as an AC power source, whose output voltage must first be rectified before being delivered to a load. For ultra-low power (<1mW) sy

U.Leuven, Heverlee, Belgium R. M. A., Brussels, Belgium 3 Energy scavenging [1] is an emerging method to power energyautonomous wireless sensor systems by converting ambient environmental energy into electrical energy. M

solutions for highspeed short-range wireless communications between stacked chips. Figure 15.7.1 plots data rate and communication distance of the capacitive and the inductive-coupling links [1-12]. A capacitivecoupling

on-chip computing power, higher speed and more memory, a second “More-than-Moore” trend is becoming increasingly important. These strongly application-driven technologies focus on the interface between the “analog world”

Yoshiaki Noguchi1, Shintaro Nakano1, Koichiro Zaitsu1, Tadahiro Kuroda2, Takao Someya1, Takayasu Sakurai1 1 University of Tokyo, Tokyo, Japan, 2Keio University, Yokohama, Japan Low-power wireless communications between e

M. J. Beenhakkers3, C. W. Sele3, N. A. J. M. van Aerle3, G. H. Gelinck4, J. Genoe1, P. Heremans1,2 1 IMEC, Leuven, Belgium, 2K. U. Leuven, Leuven, Belgium Polymer Vision, Eindhoven, The Netherlands 4 TNO Science and Indu