A gated oscillator clock and data recovery circuit for nanowatt wake-up and data receivers

This article presents a data-startable baseband logic featuring a gated oscillator clock and data recovery (GO-CDR) circuit for nanowatt wake-up and data receivers (WuRxs). At each data transition, the phase misalignment between the data coming from the analog front-end (AFE) and the clock is cleared by the GO-CDR circuit, thus allowing the reception of long data streams. Any free-running frequency mismatch between the GO and the bitrate does not limit the number of receivable bits, but only the maximum number of equal consecutive bits (Nm). To overcome this limitation, the proposed system includes a frequency calibration circuit, which reduces the frequency mismatch to ±0.5%, thus enabling the WuRx to be used with different encoding techniques up to Nm = 100. A full WuRx prototype, including an always-on clockless AFE operating in subthreshold, was fabricated with STMicroelectronics 90 nm BCD technology. The WuRx is supplied with 0.6 V, and the power consumption, excluding the calibration circuit, is 12.8 nW during the rest state and 17 nW at a 1 kbps data rate. With a 1 kbps On-Off Keying (OOK) modulated input and −35 dBm of input RF power after the input matching network (IMN), a 10^(−3) missed detection rate with a 0 bit error tolerance is measured, transmitting 63 bit packets with the Nm ranging from 1 to 63. The total sensitivity, including the estimated IMN gain at 100 MHz and 433 MHz, is −59.8 dBm and −52.3 dBm, respectively. In comparison with an ideal CDR, the degradation of the sensitivity due to the GO-CDR is 1.25 dBm. False alarm rate measurements lasting 24 h revealed zero overall false wake-ups

Nanowatt Wake-Up Radios: Discrete-Components and Integrated Architectures

This work focuses on nano-watt wake-up radio architectures designed to improve the energy efficiency of medium range wireless communication. An integrated solution is presented with the aim of pushing the sensitivity vs. power trade-off to the limit. The key blocks are an envelope detector based on a MOSFET operated in the subthreshold region and an amplifier partly sharing the same bias current. According to simulations, a design based on the STMicroelectronics 90-nm BCD technology achieves an estimated 1254-dBm sensitivity at 1.2-V supply with 11-nA total bias current for the envelope detector, the amplifier and the Schmitt trigger. We also present a comparison between integrated solutions and a solution based on discrete components in terms of power consumption, bitrate, addressing capabilities and sensitivity

The city of care. Strategies to design healthier places

The book explores care as a transition strategy to a healthier and more sustainable world. After the lesson learned from the pandemic, health as a fundamental human right is increasingly related to a care component: caring for sick people, persons with disabilities, elders, migrants and refugees, women and children, caring for bodies, minds, cities and nature. Endorsing the care system as a female knowledge based on complexity, flexibility, management of the unexpected, sense of responsibility, the project culture can extract this paradigm from the domestic perimeter, bring outside and make it accessible to all in work, politics, relationships, places and communities. The systemic connection between planet and people wellbeing will be grasped through a transdisciplinary perspective that allows to deal with the city of care at a mental, physical, social and global level. The first section addresses care and interior space, dealing with dwelling, working, proximity and cities on a human scale, with a particular attention to the post Covid conditions. The second section deals with healthcare design, the evolution and trend of healing spaces, the influence of technology and robotics on inclusive design processes. The third section considers a social care attitude and deals with the multiethnic urban dimension, the care system as a female knowledge, the right to health of immigrant people