ULSNAP: An ultra-low power event-driven microcontroller for sensor network nodes

Author

Otero, Carlos Tadeo Ortga ; Tse, Jonathan ; Karmazin, Robert ; Hill, B. ; Manohar, Rajit

Author_Institution

Comput. Syst. Lab., Cornell Univ., Ithaca, NY, USA

fYear

2014

fDate

3-5 March 2014

Firstpage

667

Lastpage

674

Abstract

We present the architecture of and measured results for ULSNAP: a fully-implemented ultra-low power event-driven microcontroller targeted at the bursty workloads of the sensor network application space. ULSNAP is event-driven at both the microarchitectural and circuit levels in order to minimize static power, energy per operation, and wake up energy while maximizing performance. Our 90nm test chip offers 93 MIPS at 1.2V and 47 MIPS at 0.95V, consuming 47pJ and 29pJ per operation respectively. Compared to state-of-the-art processors in its class, ULSNAP is on the Pareto-optimal front of the energy-performance space.

Keywords

low-power electronics; microcontrollers; wireless sensor networks; Pareto-optimal front; ULSNAP; bursty workloads; circuit levels; energy 29 pJ; energy 47 pJ; energy-performance space; microarchitectural levels; sensor network application space; sensor network nodes; size 90 nm; ultra-low power event-driven microcontroller; voltage 0.95 V; voltage 1.2 V; Cogeneration; Coprocessors; Delays; Pipelines; Radiation detectors; Random access memory; Synchronization; Low power electronics; Microcontrollers; Microprocessors; Ubiquitous Computing; VLSI;

fLanguage

English

Publisher

ieee

Conference_Titel

Quality Electronic Design (ISQED), 2014 15th International Symposium on

Conference_Location

Santa Clara, CA

Print_ISBN

978-1-4799-3945-9

Type

conf

DOI

10.1109/ISQED.2014.6783391

Filename

6783391