A Very Low-Complexity 0.3–4.4 GHz 0.004 mm$ ^{2}$ All-Digital Ultra-Wide-Band Pulsed Transmitter for Energy Detection Receivers

IEEE Trans. Biomed. Circuits Syst.

Ros

et al. 2016

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The thresholding of Surface ElectroMyoGraphic (sEMG) signals, i.e., Average Threshold Crossing (ATC) technique, reduces the amount of data to be processed enabling circuit complexity reduction and low power consumption. This paper investigates the lowest level of complexity reachable by an ATC system through measurements and in-vivo experiments with an embedded prototype for wireless force transmission, based on asynchronous Impulse-Radio Ultra Wide Band (IR-UWB). The prototype is composed by the acquisition unit, a wearable PCB 23 × 34 mm, which includes a full custom IC integrating a UWB transmitter (chip active silicon area 0.016 mm(2), 1 mW power consumption), and the receiver. The system is completely asynchronous, it acquires a differential sEMG signal, generates the ATC events and triggers a 3.3 GHz IR-UWB transmission. ATC robustness relaxes filters constraints: two passive first order filters have been implemented, bandwidth from 10 Hz up to 1 kHz. Energy needed for the single pulse generation is 30 pJ while the whole PCB consumes 5.65 mW. The pulses radiated by the acquisition unit TX are received by a short-range and low complexity threshold-based 130 nm CMOS IR-UWB receiver with an Ultra Low Power (ULP) baseband unit capable of robustly receiving generic quasi-digital pulse sequences. The acquisition unit have been tested with 10 series of in vivo isometric and isotonic contractions, while the transmission channel with over-the-air and cable measurements obtained with a couple of planar monopole antennas and an integrated 0.004 mm(2) transmitter, the same used for the acquisition unit, with realistic channel conditions. The entire system, acquisition unit and receiver, consumes 15.49 mW.

Section: Acquisition Unit Architecturementioning

confidence: 99%

On Integration and Validation of a Very Low Complexity ATC UWB System for Muscle Force Transmission

Sapienza

IEEE Trans. Biomed. Circuits Syst.

Ros

et al. 2016

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“…Moreover, recent advances have shown that alldigital IR-UWB transmitters are feasible, thus making their adoption very attractive, considering the area occupation, flexibility (also in terms of scalability with respect to the technology node), robustness. The enclosed IR-UWB is the one designed in [20], mainly due to its wide frequency range (0.3 − 4.4 GHz), low power consumption (32 pJ /pulse at 4 GHz), area occupation (0.004 mm 2 ) and its all-digital design suited for OOK/S-OOK modulation. Further, its ability to operate in Sub-GHz band, where best tissue penetration conditions are possible, is a key feature to deploy Wireless Body Area Networks (WBAN) [21].…”

Section: Design and Implementationmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…1.4nJ ( 32 pJ /pulse at 4GHz [20]), corresponding to a power consumption (at full event rate) of P T X 0.47mW . Summing all the contributions, at full event rate in the above configuration, the estimated overall power consumption is P total = 8 × P R2F + P digital + P T X 1mW .…”

mentioning

confidence: 99%

Wireless Multi-channel Quasi-digital Tactile Sensing Glove-Based System

Ros

2013 Euromicro Conference on Digital System Design

Bonanno

et al. 2013

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The design of a wireless data-glove is introduced in this paper; the aim is to provide an effective and complete solution wherever a tactile sensing system has to be integrated to correctly interact with the surrounding environment (e.g., astronaut's extravehicular activity glove). The focus is on the design of the whole system, starting with the readout circuit, the digital signal encoding and ending with the data transmission.The system is made of eight quasi-digital readout circuits to convert the analog information into a pulse-density modulation. The pulse streams are then temporally ordered to form a single streams of events. By integrating a Impulse Radio UltraWide Band (IR-UWB) transmitter and choosing the proper protocol and modulation, we can aim to minimize the power consumption and provide error detection; the design has also taken into account the minimization of the complexity of the receiver.The whole system, fully asynchronous, has been designed as a single full-custom chip; besides having multiple independent inputs, it can be configured both to deploy a multi-chip system (with a single receiver) and to optimize wireless transmission parameters.

“…microcontrollers). Moreover, a quasi-digital signal is directly compatible with asynchronous IR-UWB transceivers for low-power wireless communication [19], [20]. Therefore, we can design a wireless M4N chip able to transmit the nanosensor data to a remote acquisition and elaboration unit.…”

Section: Fast Zno-nws Assembling Onto M4n Chipmentioning

confidence: 99%

A low-power Read-Out Circuit and low-cost assembly of nanosensors onto a 0.13 μm CMOS Micro-for-Nano chip

Bonanno

Cauda

5th IEEE International Workshop on Advances in Sensors and Interfaces IWASI

et al. 2013

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This paper describes the Micro-for-Nano (M4N) approach as effective solution to overcome challenges related to the nanomaterial assembly with electrodes, the low-noise measurement of nanomaterial electrical properties and the CMOS design of the nanosensor electronic interface. This paper presents both the fabrication process of a nanodevice onto the IC surface using Dielectrophoresis (DEP) and the ReadOut Circuit (ROC) used for the inspection of the electrical properties of nanowires (NW). The ROC includes a Time-overThreshold circuit which has been characterized stand-alone. It shows maximum measurement error of 0.8% with a maximum linearity error below 1.86% in the range 300 kΩ-100 MΩ. The ROC occupies 0.0067 mm 2 silicon area and simulation data shows that the maximum power consumption is 8.9 µW at 1.2 V. The paper presents first measurement results obtained on fabricated prototype chips based on ZnO-NW.