VLSI Seminar: Dennis Sylvester
Professor Dennis Sylvester
University of Michigan, Ann Arbor
September 15, 2009, 11-12:30am.
Avaya Auditorium (ACE 2.302)
Circuit design advances for wireless sensing applications
This talk describes new integrated circuit building blocks for emerging wireless sensing applications, particularly those where volume, and therefore power consumption, constraints are orders of magnitude below current state of the art. Developments in sub-nW timekeeping circuits are described, along with extremely low leakage memories and efficient DC-DC voltage conversion circuits at µA-level current loads. Taken together, these circuit design advances point to a vision of true mm^3 low-cost sensing nodes with hybrid power sources, i.e., scavenged + microbattery, providing long lifetimes and reliable operation.