Dedicated network for distributed configuration in a mixed-signal Wireless Sensor Node circuit

This paper introduces a novel asynchronous communication network for reconfiguration purposes inside an adaptive Wireless Sensor Network (WSN) Node. To insure an efficient energy consumption, both analog and digital reconfigurable blocks, able to adapt their performances depending on the available energy budget, are integrated in such a node. The proposed communication network serves to pass along configuration data between the microcontroller and the adaptive circuits, which have different speed and latency constraints than the functional data. This article presents the current state of the art for on and off-chip communication networks, an analysis of which topology is the most suitable in this application, and a comparison between two possible topologies.