A Sub-nW 2.4 GHz Transmitter for Low Data-Rate Sensing Applications

Author

Mercier, Patrick P. ; Bandyopadhyay, Supriyo ; Lysaght, Andrew C. ; Stankovic, Konstantina M. ; Chandrakasan, Anantha P.

Author_Institution

Dept. of Electr. & Comput. Eng., Univ. of California at San Diego, La Jolla, CA, USA

Volume

49

Issue

7

fYear

2014

fDate

Jul-14

Firstpage

1463

Lastpage

1474

Abstract

This paper presents the design of a narrowband transmitter and antenna system that achieves an average power consumption of 78 pW when operating at a duty-cycled data rate of 1 bps. Fabricated in a 0.18 μm CMOS process, the transmitter employs a direct-RF power oscillator topology where a loop antenna acts as a both a radiative and resonant element. The low-complexity single-stage architecture, in combination with aggressive power gating techniques and sizing optimizations, limited the standby power of the transmitter to only 39.7 pW at 0.8 V. Supporting both OOK and FSK modulations at 2.4 GHz, the transmitter consumed as low as 38 pJ/bit at an active-mode data rate of 5 Mbps. The loop antenna and integrated diodes were also used as part of a wireless power transfer receiver in order to kick-start the system power supply prior to energy harvesting operation.

Keywords

CMOS analogue integrated circuits; amplitude shift keying; diodes; frequency shift keying; loop antennas; network synthesis; optimisation; power consumption; radio transmitters; radiofrequency oscillators; CMOS process; FSK modulations; OOK modulations; active-mode data rate; aggressive power gating techniques; antenna system; bit rate 1 bit/s; bit rate 5 Mbit/s; direct-RF power oscillator topology; duty-cycled data rate; energy harvesting operation; frequency 2.4 GHz; integrated diodes; loop antenna; low data-rate sensing applications; low-complexity single-stage architecture; narrowband transmitter; power 39.7 pW; power 78 pW; power consumption; radiative element; resonant element; size 0.18 mum; sizing optimizations; standby power; system power supply; voltage 0.8 V; wireless power transfer receiver; Antennas; Frequency shift keying; Oscillators; Radio frequency; Radio transmitters; Sensors; Wireless communication; Body-sensor networks; energy harvesting; low power electronics; power amplifiers; radio frequency integrated circuits; voltage-controlled oscillators; zero-power electronics;

fLanguage

English

Journal_Title

Solid-State Circuits, IEEE Journal of

Publisher

ieee

ISSN

0018-9200

Type

jour

DOI

10.1109/JSSC.2014.2316237

Filename

6803091