2015

The remarkable evolution of human society over the centuries has been driven by information. As information became digitalized thanks to silicon technologies, creating, sharing, and searching of data have become much eas

One of the greatest achievements of human kind is undoubtedly its ability to build tiny machines that marry the functionalities of computers and wireless communication devices so cheaply that almost anyone in the world c

The most important application of ICs, today, is most probably the Internet-ofThings. It involves sensor nodes and communications at the lowest-possible power levels. Similar low power levels are required for the next-ge

Modular smart phones have been attracting attention (Fig. 10.1.1) because users can freely customize their phones by purchasing modules and assembling them

Technology scaling has enabled RF-CMOS circuits that operate in the millimeterwave frequency range (30 to 300GHz) where large bandwidths are available. These bandwidths can be exploited to increase data-rates of wireless

Advancements in CMOS technology have enabled exponential growth of computational power. However, data processing efficiency also relies on sufficient data communication bandwidth between different units of a computing sy

precursor shape and main cursor peak level. The summing integrator then sums and integrates the duobinary equalizer output and signals from DFE taps to generate a duobinary signal free of ISI and high-frequency noise. Th

links integrated in advanced CMOS are ubiquitous in modern microprocessor systems. These commodity links have fixed performance specs and therefore realize the benefit of technology scaling in area and power reduction at

Christian Menolfi, Marcel Kossel, Thomas Morf, Lukas Kull, Toke Meyer Andersen, Hazar Yueksel, Alessandro Cevrero, Danny Luu IBM Zurich, Rüschlikon, Switzerland We report the implementation of a continuous-time linear eq

University of Illinois, Urbana, IL Sub-harmonically injection locked oscillators provide a simple means for generating very-low-noise high-frequency clocks in a power, and area efficient manner [1-5]. Ideally, a free-run

Ring PLLs play an important role in mobile baseband applications. In cases where fine frequency resolution and low jitter are both needed, wideband fractional-N PLL architectures with quantization noise (Q-noise) cancell

as in reconfigurable radio and radar applications, is the generation of a clean clock signal supporting a wide range of frequencies. The introduction of fractional-N synthesis capability for wide-tuning-range application

degenerative brain diseases, such as stroke and Alzheimer’s disease, is rapidly increasing. It is imperative for those suffering from such slow progressing and recurring brain diseases to continuously monitor and manage

Taishi Takasawa1, Yoshimasa Kawata1, Nobukazu Teranishi1, Zhuo Li1, Izhal Abdul Halin2, Shoji Kawahito1 Shizuoka University, Hamamatsu, Japan Putra University, Selangor Darul Ehsan, Malaysia 1 2 Fluorescence lifetime ima

image sensors able to gather information about photon position, number and time distribution, enabling cost-effective devices for scientific imaging applications like fluorescence lifetime imaging microscopy (FLIM), Rama

Andrew J. Holmes2, Bruce Rae2, Lindsay A. Grant2, Robert K. Henderson1 University of Edinburgh, Edinburgh, United Kingdom, 2 STMicroelectronics, Edinburgh, United Kingdom 1 Time-correlated single photon counting (TCSPC)

In addition to minimizing input-referred noise and lowering power consumption, a good multi-channel neural amplifier system should be able to significantly reject common-mode electrical interference (CMI). The dominant s

tissue-specific physiological behaviors under external biochemical stimuli. External biochemical stimuli trigger endogenous cellular mechanisms that produce a cascade of physiological changes, resulting in easily measura

solution for accurate assessment of body fat is presented that addresses a growing consumer interest in economical and easy-to-use solutions for monitoring personal health and fitness. Unlike the prevalent present soluti

to integrate more DC-DC converters into the power-management IC. Consequently, there is a growing need for an area-efficient and simple controller design for DC-DC converters. A simple hysteretic control without any addi

in terms of high output power, low ripple, fast load transient response, high efficiency across a very wide range of load currents, and alleviated output filter requirements. However, the need for complex controllers tha

Implantable biomedical systems usually operate in energy-limited environments and exhibit large variation of power consumption ranging from constant lowpower (bio-signal sensing) to sporadic high-power (stimulation and/o

semiconductor-based systems. It is expected that solid-state lighting (SSL) will dominate general lighting in the near future. Two main challenges that must be met in SSL are the reduction of the bill of materials (BOM),

very important issue for Power-Management ICs (PMICs). Single-Inductor Multiple-Output (SIMO) converters are excellent candidates to meet this requirement [1-3]. However, there are several issues with SIMO converters, su

Shin-Hao Chen1, Ting-Jung Lo1, Ke-Horng Chen1, Chin-Long Wey1, Ying-Hsi Lin2, Chao-Cheng Lee2, Jian-Ru Lin2, Tsung-Yen Tsai2 National Chiao Tung University, Hsinchu, Taiwan, Realtek Semiconductor, Hsinchu, Taiwan 1 2 Sin

Georgia Institute of Technology, Atlanta, GA 1 2 A wide variety of applications can benefit from near-field wireless power transfer using coupled inductive links, such as wireless sensors and implantable microelectronic

Wireless power transfer (WPT) in the range of 10 to 100mW [1] is widely used in implantable medical devices (IMDs) to eliminate the use of a battery. Due to load and coupling variations, the output voltage of the rectifi

of Technology, Atlanta, GA 1 3 Wireless power transfer (WPT) systems are becoming ubiquitous with applications in powering medical implants and a range of portable consumer electronic devices such as smart phones and wea

The OOK demodulator and symbol timing-recovery circuits convert the ED output into final digital bit streams. In Fig. 13.1.2, for the incoming OOK signal, the initial tuning for the VCO frequency is done by the AFC. The

Ao Ba1, Benjamin Busze1, Ming Ding1, Pieter Harpe2, Gert-Jan van Schaik1, Georgios Selimis1, Hans Giesen1, Jordy Gloudemans1, Adnane Sbai1, Li Huang1, Hiromu Kato3, Guido Dolmans1, Kathleen Philips1, Harmke de Groot1 Hol

Rahul Todi, William Aartsen, Wim Kruiskamp, Johan Haanstra, Enno Opbroek, Søren Rievers, Peter Seesink, Harrie Woering, Chris Smit Dialog Semiconductor, 's-Hertogenbosch, The Netherlands Wireless sensor nodes present a d

Kenichi Shibata2, Kenji Toyota2, Tatsuhito Saitou3, Hisayasu Sato1, Koichi Yahagi2, Yoshihiro Hayashi4 Renesas Electronics, Itami, Japan, 2Renesas Electronics, Kawasaki, Japan, Renesas System Design, Kawasaki, Japan, 4 R

University of Lille, Lille, France 1 3 Wake-up receivers are considered as practical solutions to enable ultra-lowpower (ULP) wireless sensor nodes (WSN) in a dense environment. A low data-rate (<~50kb/s) wake-up receive

*Now at Qualcomm, San Diego, CA One of the main goals for the next generation of radios for wireless sensor and body-area networks (WSN and WBAN) is a sub-mW receiver (RX) compliant with energy-harvested supplies. In thi

Extreme energy constraints inherent in many exciting new wireless sensing applications (such as [1-3]) virtually dictate that such systems operate with extremely low duty cycles, harvesting and storing energy over long p

network (WSN) application would deeply exacerbate the spectral congestion issue, RF-powered sensor nodes [1,2] still support only low spectral-efficiency modulation such as OOK. State-of-the-art standard-compliant RF tra

Systems-onChip (SoCs), which contain microprocessors, I/O interfaces, memories, power management, and communication systems. Fully synthesizable PLLs [1-2], designed using a pure digital design flow, have been proposed t

Security is a key concern in today’s mobile devices and a number of hardware implementations of security primitives have been proposed, including true random number generators, differential power attack avoidance, and ch

Physically unclonable functions (PUFs) enable information security down to the chip level [1-4]. Arrays of PUF bitcells (Fig. 14.3.1) generate chip-specific keys that are unpredictable, repeatable and cannot be measured

proposed for a low-power, low-noise fractional-N frequency synthesizer. Among the various innovations, a reference-multiplied architecture offers distinct advantages compared to conventional DPLLs [1]. First, low quantiz

(ADPLLs) offer faster locking time, easier portability and better performance in advanced semiconductor processes as compared to analog PLLs. Advanced FinFET devices exhibit better gm and ION than planar devices [1], but

ARM, Cambridge, United Kingdom The current trend for System-on-Chip (SoC) compute subsystems is to improve energy efficiency, while operating at a similar power budget as previous generations. Reduced supply voltages and

SRAM register files have sensitive circuitry and often operate with high switching activity and at high temperature. This makes them particularly vulnerable to aging by negative-bias temperature instability (NBTI) degrad

architectures, from a planar structure to a FinFET to achieve decreased leakage, further downscaling, and better sub-threshold slope, even under a lower power supply [1]. Downscaling trends have forced the analog semicon

Seyed Arash Mirhaj1, Yen-Cheng Kuan1, Huan-Neng Chen2, Chewn-Pu Jou2, Ming-Hsien Tsai2, Fu-Lung Hsueh2, Mau-Chung Frank Chang1 University of California, Los Angeles, CA, 2TSMC, Hsinchu, Taiwan 1 The noise performance of

MediaTek, Woburn, MA 1 2 A multi-stage noise-shaping (MASH) architecture is an attractive approach for its aggressive noise-shaping capability and relaxed stability requirements. However, in practice the quantization noi

front-end filter design for wireless communication applications. To achieve high resolution (DR>90dB) and low power dissipation (FoMs>170dB), architecture selection and circuit techniques are the main design issues. In [

Delectronics, Enschede, The Netherlands, 3 Teledyne DALSA Semiconductors, Enschede, The Netherlands 1 2 Out-of-band noise (OBN) is troublesome in analog circuits that process the output of a noise-shaping audio DAC. It c

sensed signal. State-of-art SAR ADCs can accomplish this goal with high power-efficiency (<10fJ/conversion-step) [1-4]. The reference voltage design is critical for the ADC performance to obtain good PSRR, low line-sensi

timing information in modern mixed-signal circuits such as digital PLLs, DLLs, ADCs, and on-chip jitter-monitoring circuits. To build high-resolution TDCs, many researchers have focused on minimizing the unit delay of qu