Low-Power Sensors

Apr 27, 2016

Sensors are critical for Internet of Things and biomedical devices. We are interested in developing highly digital and ultra-low-power circuit techniques to replace conventional high-precision analog circuits in sensor nodes. Our interest spans active and passive sensor interfaces for bio, chemical, and MEMS sensors, as well as on-chip temperature and optical sensors.

A MOS-based low-power temperature sensor achieving −0.22/+0.19/°C inaccuracy, 0.6 nJ/conversion, and 73 mK resolution.

The high accuracy and resolution are achieved by leveraging exponential subthreshold oscillation dependence and the linesensitivity is improved by orders of magnitude over previously reported oscillator-based temperature sensors. [ISSCC17]. The compact and low-power sensor design further enables a fully-integrated, batteryless dust for cellular temperature sensing [VLSI18].

A mm-scale high-temperature wireless sensor node with embedded low-power Flash memory [ISSCC17]

ULP Circuits and Systems

Related

Publications

Wei Wang, Liwen Jiang, Shayok Dutta, Yumin Su, Zhiyu Chen, Zhanghao Yu, Caleb Kemere, Kaiyuan Yang. A 36nW CMOS Temperature Sensor with <0.1K Inaccuracy and Uniform Resolution. 2023 IEEE Symposium on VLSI Circuits, 2023.

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Xiao Wu, Inhee Lee, Qing Dong, Kaiyuan Yang, Dongkwun Kim, Jingcheng Wang, Yimai Peng, Yiqun Zhang, Mehdi Saliganc, Makoto Yasuda, Kazuyuki Kumeno, Fumitaka Ohno, Satoru Miyoshi, Masaru Kawaminami, Dennis Sylvester, David Blaauw. A 0.04mm3 16nW Wireless and Batteryless Sensor System with Integrated Cortex-M0+ Processor and Optical Communication for Cellular Temperature Measurement. 2018 IEEE Symposium on VLSI Circuits, 2018.

Project Project DOI

Kaiyuan Yang, Qing Dong, Wanyeong Jung, Yiqun Zhang, Myungjoon Choi, David Blaauw, Dennis Sylvester. A 0.6nJ -0.22/+0.19°C Inaccuracy Temperature Sensor Using Exponential Subthreshold Oscillation Dependence. 2017 IEEE International Solid-State Circuits Conference (ISSCC), 2017.

Project DOI

Sechang Oh, Wanyeong Jung, Kaiyuan Yang, David Blaauw, Dennis Sylvester. 15.4b Incremental Sigma-Delta Capacitance-to-Digital Converter with Zoom-in 9b Asynchronous SAR. 2014 Symposium on VLSI Circuits Digest of Technical Papers, 2014.

Project DOI