A Modular 1 mm $^{3}$ Die-Stacked Sensing Platform With Low Power I $^{2}$ C Inter-Die Communication

Author

Yoonmyung Lee ; Suyoung Bang ; Inhee Lee ; Yejoong Kim ; Gyouho Kim ; Ghaed, Mohammad Hassan ; Pannuto, Pat ; Dutta, Pranab ; Sylvester, Dennis ; Blaauw, D.

Author_Institution

Dept. of Electr. Eng. & Comput. Sci., Univ. of Michigan, Ann Arbor, MI, USA

Volume

48

Issue

1

fYear

2013

fDate

Jan. 2013

Firstpage

229

Lastpage

243

Abstract

A 1.0 mm³ general-purpose sensor node platform with heterogeneous multi-layer structure is proposed. The sensor platform benefits from modularity by allowing the addition/removal of IC layers. A new low power I²C interface is introduced for energy efficient inter-layer communication with compatibility to commercial I²C protocols. A self-adapting power management unit is proposed for efficient battery voltage down conversion for wide range of battery voltages and load current. The power management unit also adapts itself by monitoring energy harvesting conditions and harvesting sources and is capable of harvesting from solar, thermal and microbial fuel cells. An optical wakeup receiver is proposed for sensor node programming and synchronization with 228 pW standby power. The system also includes two processors, timer, temperature sensor, and low-power imager. Standby power of the system is 11 nW.

Keywords

energy harvesting; integrated circuit interconnections; low-power electronics; microbial fuel cells; microsensors; multilayers; protocols; system buses; I²C protocols; IC layers; battery voltage down conversion; die-stacked sensing platform; general purpose sensor node platform; heterogeneous multilayer structure; interlayer communication; low power I²C inter-die communication; low-power imager; microbial fuel cells; multimodal energy harvesting; optical wakeup receiver; power 11 nW; power 228 pW; self-adapting power management unit; sensor node programming; temperature sensor; Batteries; Digital signal processing; Monitoring; Phasor measurement units; Program processors; Random access memory; Standards; Ultra-low power; smart dust; wireless sensor node;

fLanguage

English

Journal_Title

Solid-State Circuits, IEEE Journal of

Publisher

ieee

ISSN

0018-9200

Type

jour

DOI

10.1109/JSSC.2012.2221233

Filename

6380562

A Modular 1 mm Die-Stacked Sensing Platform With Low Power I C Inter-Die Communication

Yoonmyung Lee ; Suyoung Bang ; Inhee Lee ; Yejoong Kim ; Gyouho Kim ; Ghaed, Mohammad Hassan ; Pannuto, Pat ; Dutta, Pranab ; Sylvester, Dennis ; Blaauw, D.

jour

A Modular 1 mm $^{3}$ Die-Stacked Sensing Platform With Low Power I $^{2}$ C Inter-Die Communication