A Low-Voltage Processor for Sensing Applications With Picowatt Standby Mode

Author

Hanson, Scott ; Seok, Mingoo ; Lin, Yu-Shiang ; Foo, Zhiyoong ; Kim, Daeyeon ; Lee, Yoonmyung ; Liu, Nurrachman ; Sylvester, Dennis ; Blaauw, David

Author_Institution

Dept. of Electr. Eng. & Comput. Sci., Univ. of Michigan, Ann Arbor, MI

Volume

44

Issue

4

fYear

2009

fDate

4/1/2009 12:00:00 AM

Firstpage

1145

Lastpage

1155

Abstract

Recent progress in ultra-low-power circuit design is creating new opportunities for cubic millimeter computing. Robust low-voltage operation has reduced active mode power consumption considerably, but standby mode power consumption has received relatively little attention from low-voltage designers. In this work, we describe a low-voltage processor called the Phoenix Processor that has been designed at the device, circuit, and architecture levels to minimize standby power. A test chip has been implemented in a carefully selected 0.18 mum process in an area of only 915 times 915 mum². Measurements show that Phoenix consumes 35.4 pW in standby mode and 226 nW in active mode.

Keywords

emergency power supply; low-power electronics; microprocessor chips; microsensors; random-access storage; Phoenix processor; low-voltage processor; picowatt standby mode; power 226 nW; power 35.4 pW; sensing applications; size 0.18 mum; size 915 mum; ultralow-leakage memory cell; ultralow-power circuit design; wireless monitoring system; Batteries; Biomedical monitoring; Circuits; Computer applications; Energy consumption; Micromechanical devices; Millimeter wave devices; Pressure measurement; Robustness; Voltage; Low voltage; ultra-low leakage; ultra-low power;

fLanguage

English

Journal_Title

Solid-State Circuits, IEEE Journal of

Publisher

ieee

ISSN

0018-9200

Type

jour

DOI

10.1109/JSSC.2009.2014205

Filename

4804999