Single Active Nanoelectromechanical Tuning Fork Front-End Radio-Frequency Receiver

Nanoelectromechanical systems (NEMS) offer the potential to revolutionize fundamental methods employed for signal processing in today's telecommunication systems,1-4 owing to their spectral purity and the prospect of integration with existing technology. In this work, we present a novel, front-end receiver topology based on a single-device silicon nanoelectromechanical mixer-filter. The operation is demonstrated by using the signal amplification in a field effect transistor (FET) merged into a tuning fork resonator. The combination of both a transistor and a mechanical element into a hybrid unit enables on-chip functionality and performance in silicon previously unachievable. Signal mixing, filtering and demodulation are experimentally demonstrated at very high frequencies (>100 MHz), maintaining a high quality factor of Q=800, and stable operation at near ambient pressure (0.1 atm) and room temperature (T=300 K). The results show that ultimately miniaturized, silicon NEMS can be utilized to realize multi-band, single-chip receiver systems based on NEMS mixer-filter arrays with reduced system complexity and power consumption

A Statistical View of Architecture Design

Computer architectures are becoming more and more complicated to meet the continuouslyincreasing demand on performance, security and sustainability from applications. Many factorsexist in the design and engineering space of various components and policies in the architectures,and it is not intuitive how these factors interact with each other and how they make impactson the architecture behaviors. Seeking for the best architectures for specific applicationsand requirements automatically is even more challenging. Meanwhile, the architecture designneed to deal with more and more non-determinism from lower level technologies. Emergingtechnologies exhibit statistical properties inherently, such as the wearout phenomenon inNEMs, PCM, ReRAM, etc. Due to the manufacturing and processing variations, there alsoexists variability among different devices or within the same device (e.g. different cells onthe same memory chip). Hence, to better understand and control the architecture behaviors,we introduce the statistical perspective of architecture design: by specifying the architecturaldesign goals and the desired statistical properties, we guide the architecture design with thesestatistical properties and exploit a series of techniques to achieve these properties.In the first part of the thesis, we introduce Herniated Hash Tables. Our architectural designgoal is that the hash table implementation is highly scalable in both storage efficiency andperformance, while the desired statistical property is to achieve as good storage efficiencyand performance as with uniform distributions given non-uniform distributions across hashbuckets. Herniated Hash Tables exploit multi-level phase change memory (PCM) to in-placeexpand storage for each hash bucket to accommodate asymmetrically chained entries. Theorganization, coupled with an addressing and prefetching scheme, also improves performancesignificantly by creating more memory parallelism.In the second part of the thesis, we introduce Lemonade from Lemons, harnessing devicewearout to create limited-use security architectures. The architectural design goal is tocreate hardware security architectures that resist attacks by statistically enforcing an upperbound on hardware uses, and consequently attacks. The desired statistical property is that thesystem-level minimum and maximum uses can be guaranteed with high probabilities despite ofdevice-level variability. We introduce techniques for architecturally controlling these boundsand explore the cost in area, energy and latency of using these techniques to achieve systemlevelusage targets given device-level wearout distributions.In the third part of the thesis, we demonstrate Memory Cocktail Therapy: A General,Learning-Based Framework to Optimize Dynamic Tradeoffs in NVMs. Limited write enduranceand long latencies remain the primary challenges of building practical memory systems fromNVMs. Researchers have proposed a variety of architectural techniques to achieve differenttradeoffs between lifetime, performance and energy efficiency; however, no individual techniquecan satisfy requirements for all applications and different objectives. Our architecturaldesign goal is that NVM systems can achieve optimal tradeoffs for specific applications andobjectives, and the statistical goal is that the selected NVM configuration is nearly optimal.Memory Cocktail Therapy uses machine learning techniques to model the architecture behaviorsin terms of all the configurable parameters based on a small number of sample configurations.Then, it selects the optimal configuration according to user-defined objectives whichleads to the desired tradeoff between performance, lifetime and energy efficiency

Optical Wireless Information Transfer with Nonlinear Micromechanical Resonators

Wireless transfer of information is the basis of modern communication. It includes cellular, WiFi, Bluetooth and GPS systems, all of which use electromagnetic radio waves with frequencies ranging from typically 100 MHz to a few GHz. However, several long-standing challenges with standard radio-wave wireless transmission still exist, including keeping secure transmission of data from potential compromise. Here, we demonstrate wireless information transfer using a line-of-sight optical architecture with a micromechanical element. In this fundamentally new approach, a laser beam encoded with information impinges on a nonlinear micromechanical resonator located a distance from the laser. The force generated by the radiation pressure of the laser light on the nonlinear micromechanical resonator produces a sideband modulation signal, which carries the precise information encoded in the subtle changes in the radiation pressure. Using this, we demonstrate data and image transfer with one hundred percent fidelity with a single 96 micron by 270 micron silicon resonator element in an optical frequency band. This mechanical approach relies only on the momentum of the incident photons and is therefore able to use any portion of the optical frequency banda band that is 10,000 times wider than the radio frequency band. Our line-of-sight architecture using highly scalable micromechanical resonators offers new possibilities in wireless communication. Due to their small size, these resonators can be easily arrayed while maintaining a small form factor to provide redundancy and parallelism.Comment: 6 pages, 4 figure

Remote dynamic actuation of an electrostatically driven microcantilever by a wireless power transfer system

Altres ajuts: acord transformatiu CRUE-CSICThe design, modelling, fabrication and test of a device prototype, based on a microcantilever capacitively connected to a folded-end half-wave dipole antenna, which is remotely actuated by a wireless power transfer (WPT) system are presented here. The microcantilever and the antenna, which are coupled at the antenna feeding point, work as a new device, is able to harness the radiated energy wirelessly transferred from an emitter antenna to directly excite the mechanical vibration modes of the microcantilever. The response to an amplitude-modulated (AM) RF radiated signal excitation produced by a transmitting antenna is experimentally analysed and fit to a simple model when the distance between both antennas varies from the near field to the radiated far field regime

Wireless Power Transfer: Survey and Roadmap

Wireless power transfer (WPT) technologies have been widely used in many areas, e.g., the charging of electric toothbrush, mobile phones, and electric vehicles. This paper introduces fundamental principles of three WPT technologies, i.e., inductive coupling-based WPT, magnetic resonant coupling-based WPT, and electromagnetic radiation-based WPT, together with discussions of their strengths and weaknesses. Main research themes are then presented, i.e., improving the transmission efficiency and distance, and designing multiple transmitters/receivers. The state-of-the-art techniques are reviewed and categorised. Several WPT applications are described. Open research challenges are then presented with a brief discussion of potential roadmap

Daily weather direct readout microprocessor study

The work completed included a study of the requirements and hardware and software implementation techniques for NIMBUS ESMR and TWERLE direct readout applications using microprocessors. Many microprocessors were studied for this application. Because of the available Interdata development capabilities, it was concluded that future implementations be on an Interdata microprocessor which was found adequate for the task

Wireless Patient Monitoring over 4G Network

The purpose of this thesis is to explain how remote patient monitoring systems work over the 4G network using wearable sensors and corresponding interface devices. Gathered data from the sensing devices are carried over the Monitoring Wireless Sensor Network to the more elaborate 4G Network where the data is then relayed to the interface devices for reading, storage, interpretation and effective utilization. This thesis describes the underlying technologies and principles of sensors and sensor net-works, the concept of the 4G Network and how it integrates with the sensor network. The goal of Wireless Patient Monitoring over the 4G Network is link the spatial gap that exist between Healthcare and ICT, this will in turn enhance patients care efficiency while cutting costs, maximising profits and increase security while monitoring patients. This thesis is important in that it gives the reader an overview and basic idea of how a wireless patient monitoring system works over the 4G Network. An increasing number of ICT firms, healthcare and medical institutions are investing heavily on remote patient monitoring systems technologies and this thesis provides the reader the insight of how such systems work and how they can be implemented

Single-Ended-to-Differential and Differential-to-Differential Channel-Select Filters Based on Piezoelectric AlN Contour-Mode MEMS Resonators

This paper reports on the first demonstration of single-ended-to-differential and differential-to-differential (S2D and D2D) channel-select filters based on single-layer (SL) and dual-layer-stacked (DLS) AlN contour-mode MEMS resonators. The key filter performances in terms of insertion loss (as low as 1.4 dB), operating frequency (250-1280 MHz), and out-of-band rejection (up to 60 dB) constitute a significant advancement over all other state-of-the-art RF MEMS technologies. The fabrication process, namely stacking of two piezoelectric AlN layers (600 nm each) and three Pt electrode layers (100 nm each), is fully compatible with the previously demonstrated AlN RF MEMS switch process (also post-CMOS compatible), which makes it possible to implement multi-frequency switchable filter banks on a single chip. The S2D configuration is also able to combine the balun, filter, and impedance transformer functions in a single MEMS structure and only takes on a very small form factor (60×200 μm). These unique features will potentially revolutionize the field of RF and microwave IC design by enabling MEMS-IC co-design and the development of unconventional and low-power RF architectures

Novel Electrode Configurations in Dual-Layer Stacked and Switchable AlN Contour-Mode Resonators for Low Impedance Filter Termination and Reduced Insertion Loss

This paper reports, for the first time, on the design and demonstration of two novel electrode configurations in dual-layer stacked Aluminum Nitride (AlN) piezoelectric contour-mode resonators to obtain low filter termination resistance (down to 300 Ω, which also results in better filter out-of-band rejection) and reduced insertion loss (IL as low as 1.6 dB) in multi-frequency (100 MHz – 1 GHz) AlN MEMS filters. The microfabrication process is fully compatible with the previously demonstrated AlN RF MEMS switches, which makes it possible to design and integrate multi-frequency switchable filter banks on a single chip