Ultra low power transceivers for wireless sensors and body area networks

A transceiver suitable for devices in wireless body area networks is presented. Stringent requirements are imposed by the high link loss between opposite sides of the body, about 85 dB in the 2.45 GHz ISM band. Despite this, minimum physical size and power consumption are required, and we target a transceiver with 1 mm² chip area, 1 mW active power consumption, and data rate 250 kbit/s. The receiver is fully integrated., fabricated and measured in 65-nm CMOS, and size and power consumption are carefully considered at all levels of circuit and system design. The modulation is frequency shift keying, chosen because transmitters can be realized with high efficiency and low spurious emissions; a modulation index 2 creates a midchannel spectral notch. A direct-conversion receiver achieves minimum power consumption. A tailored demodulation structure makes the digital baseband compact and low power. The channel decoder has been implemented in both analog and digital domains to find the most power efficient solution. Antenna design and wave propagation are studied via simulations with phantoms. The 2.45 GHz ISM band was chosen as a good compromise between antenna size and link loss. An ultra-low power medium access scheme based on a duty-cycled wake-up receiver is designed.