An all-digital transmitter for pulsed ultra-wideband communication

Thesis (S.M.)--Massachusetts Institute of Technology, Dept. of Electrical Engineering and Computer Science, 2008.Includes bibliographical references (p. 91-96).Applications like sensor networks, medical monitoring, and asset tracking have led to a demand for energy-efficient and low-cost wireless transceivers. These types of applications typically require low effective data rates, thus providing an opportunity to employ simple modulation schemes and aggressive duty-cycling. Due to their inherently duty-cycled nature, pulse-based Ultra-Wideband (UWB) systems are amenable to low-power operation by shutting off circuitry during idle mode between pulses. Furthermore, the use of non-coherent UWB signaling greatly simplifies both transmitter and receiver implementations, offering additional energy savings. This thesis presents an all-digital transmitter designed for a non-coherent pulsed UWB system. By exploiting relaxed center frequency tolerances in non-coherent wideband communication, the transmitter synthesizes UWB pulses from an energy efficient, single-ended digital ring oscillator. Dual capacitively-coupled digital power amplifiers (PAs) are used in tandem to generate bipolar phase modulated pulses for spectral scrambling purposes. By maintaining opposite common modes at the output of these PAs during idle mode (i.e. when no pulses are being transmitted), low frequency turn-on and turn-off transients typically associated with single-ended digital circuits driving single-ended antennas are attenuated by up to 12dB. Furthermore, four level digital pulse shaping is employed to attenuate RF side lobes by up to 20dB. The resulting dual power amplifiers achieve FCC compliant operation in the 3.5, 4.0, and 4.5GHz IEEE 802.15.4a bands without the use of any off-chip filters or large passive components. The transmitter is fabricated in a 90nm CMOS process and requires a core area of 0.07mm2. The entirely digital architecture consumes zero static bias current, resulting in an energy efficiency of 17.5pJ/pulse at data rates up to 15.6Mbps.by Patrick Philip Mercier.S.M

Energy autonomous systems : future trends in devices, technology, and systems

The rapid evolution of electronic devices since the beginning of the nanoelectronics era has brought about exceptional computational power in an ever shrinking system footprint. This has enabled among others the wealth of nomadic battery powered wireless systems (smart phones, mp3 players, GPS, …) that society currently enjoys. Emerging integration technologies enabling even smaller volumes and the associated increased functional density may bring about a new revolution in systems targeting wearable healthcare, wellness, lifestyle and industrial monitoring applications

CMOS indoor light energy harvesting system for wireless sensing applications

Dissertação para obtenção do Grau de Doutor em Engenharia Electrotécnica e de ComputadoresThis research thesis presents a micro-power light energy harvesting system for indoor environments. Light energy is collected by amorphous silicon photovoltaic (a-Si:H PV) cells, processed by a switched-capacitor (SC) voltage doubler circuit with maximum power point tracking (MPPT), and finally stored in a large capacitor. The MPPT Fractional Open Circuit Voltage (VOC) technique is implemented by an asynchronous state machine (ASM) that creates and, dynamically, adjusts the clock frequency of the step-up SC circuit, matching the input impedance of the SC circuit to the maximum power point (MPP) condition of the PV cells. The ASM has a separate local power supply to make it robust against load variations. In order to reduce the area occupied by the SC circuit, while maintaining an acceptable efficiency value, the SC circuit uses MOSFET capacitors with a charge reusing scheme for the bottom plate parasitic capacitors. The circuit occupies an area of 0.31 mm2 in a 130 nm CMOS technology. The system was designed in order to work under realistic indoor light intensities. Experimental results show that the proposed system, using PV cells with an area of 14 cm2, is capable of starting-up from a 0 V condition, with an irradiance of only 0.32 W/m2. After starting-up, the system requires an irradiance of only 0.18 W/m2 (18 mW/cm2) to remain in operation. The ASM circuit can operate correctly using a local power supply voltage of 453 mV, dissipating only 0.085 mW. These values are, to the best of the authors’ knowledge, the lowest reported in the literature. The maximum efficiency of the SC converter is 70.3% for an input power of 48 mW, which is comparable with reported values from circuits operating at similar power levels.Portuguese Foundation for Science and Technology (FCT/MCTES), under project PEst-OE/EEI/UI0066/2011, and to the CTS multiannual funding, through the PIDDAC Program funds. I am also very grateful for the grant SFRH/PROTEC/67683/2010, financially supported by the IPL – Instituto Politécnico de Lisboa