This book explores the design of ultra-low-power radio-frequency integrated circuits (RFICs), with communication distances ranging from a few centimeters to a few meters. The authors describe leading-edge techniques to achieve ultra-low-power communication over short-range links. Many different applications are covered, ranging from body-area networks to transcutaneous implant communications and smart-appliance sensor networks. Various design techniques are explained to facilitate each of these applications.

Over the past two decades we have witnessed the increasing popularity of the internet of things. The vision of billions of connected objects, able to interact with their environment, is the key driver directing the development of future communication devices. Today, power consumption as well as the cost and size of radios remain some of the key obstacles towards fulfilling this vision. Ultra-Low Power FM-UWB Transceivers for IoT presents the latest developments in the field of low power wireless communication. It promotes the FM-UWB modulation scheme as a candidate for short range communication in different IoT scenarios. The FM-UWB has the potential to provide exactly what is missing today. This spread spectrum technique enables significant reduction in transceiver complexity, making it smaller, cheaper and more energy efficient than most alternative options. The book provides an overview of both circuit-level and architectural techniques used in low power radio design, with a comprehensive study of state-of-the-art examples. It summarizes key theoretical aspects of FM-UWB with a glimpse at potential future research directions. Finally, it gives an insight into a full FM-UWB transceiver design, from system level specifications down to transistor level design, demonstrating the modern power reduction circuit techniques. Ultra-Low Power FM-UWB Transceivers for IoT is a perfect text and reference for engineers working in RF IC design and wireless communication, as well as academic staff and graduate students engaged in low power communication systems research.

This book provides readers with a state-of-the-art description of techniques to be used for ultra-low-power (ULP) and ultra-low-cost (ULC), short-range wireless receivers. Readers will learn what is required to deploy these receivers in short-range wireless sensor networks, which are proliferating widely to serve the internet of things (IoT) for “smart cities.” The authors address key challenges involved with the technology and the typical tradeoffs between ULP and ULC. Three design examples with advanced circuit techniques are described in order to address these trade-offs, which special focus on cost minimization. These three techniques enable respectively, cascading of radio frequency (RF) and baseband (BB) circuits under an ultra-low-voltage (ULV) supply, cascading of RF and BB circuits in current domain for current reuse and a novel function-reuse receiver architecture, suitable for ULV and multi-band ULP applications such as the sub-GHz ZigBee.

This book covers the fundamental principles behind the design of ultra-low power radios and how they can form networks to facilitate a variety of applications within healthcare and environmental monitoring, since they may operate for years off a small battery or even harvest energy from the environment. These radios are distinct from conventional radios in that they must operate with very constrained resources and low overhead. This book provides a thorough discussion of the challenges associated with designing radios with such constrained resources, as well as fundamental design concepts and practical approaches to implementing working designs. Coverage includes integrated circuit design, timing and control considerations, fundamental theory behind low power and time domain operation, and network/communication protocol considerations.

Wireless sensor networks have the potential to become the third wireless revolution after wireless voice networks in the 80s and wireless data networks in the late 90s. Unfortunately, radio power consumption is still a major bottleneck to the wide adoption of this technology. Different directions have been explored to minimize the radio consumption, but the major drawback of the proposed solutions is a reduced wireless link robustness. The primary goal of Architectures and Synthesizers for Ultra-low Power Fast Frequency-Hopping WSN Radios is to discuss, in detail, existing and new architectural and circuit level solutions for ultra-low power, robust, uni-directional and bi-directional radio links. Architectures and Synthesizers for Ultra-low Power Fast Frequency-Hopping WSN Radios guides the reader through the many system, circuit and technology trade-offs he will be facing in the design of communication systems for wireless sensor networks. Finally, this book, through different examples realized in both advanced CMOS and bipolar technologies opens a new path in the radio design, showing how radio link robustness can be guaranteed by techniques that were previously exclusively used in radio systems for middle or high end applications like Bluetooth and military communications while still minimizing the overall system power consumption.

Analog Circuit Design contains the contribution of 18 tutorials of the 20th workshop on Advances in Analog Circuit Design. Each part discusses a specific to-date topic on new and valuable design ideas in the area of analog circuit design. Each part is presented by six experts in that field and state of the art information is shared and overviewed. This book is number 20 in this successful series of Analog Circuit Design, providing valuable information and excellent overviews of: Topic 1 : Low Voltage Low Power, chairman: Andrea Baschirotto Topic 2 : Short Range Wireless Front-Ends, chairman: Arthur van Roermund Topic 3 : Power Management and DC-DC, chairman : Michiel Steyaert. Analog Circuit Design is an essential reference source for analog circuit designers and researchers wishing to keep abreast with the latest development in the field. The tutorial coverage also makes it suitable for use in an advanced design course.

Fully-depleted SOI CMOS Circuits and Technology for Ultralow-Power Applications addresses the problem of reducing the supply voltage of conventional circuits for ultralow-power operation and explains power-efficient MTCMOS circuit design for FD-SOI devices at a supply voltage of 0.5 V. The topics include the minimum required knowledge of the fabrication of SOI substrates; FD-SOI devices and the latest developments in device and process technologies; and ultralow-voltage circuits, such as digital circuits, analog/RF circuits, and DC-DC converters. Each ultra-low-power technique related to devices and circuits is fully explained using figures to help understanding.