An Ultra Low-Power Single Chip Intelligent Sensing Platform

An ultra low-power intelligent sensing platform has been developed by the authors. The platform is based on a novel single chip solution, designed and fabricated using a 0.18 mu m CMOS technology. To that end, quad-channel low-power sensor front end sections composed of event-driven amplifiers and ADCs have been integrated with a custom low-power microcontroller and a wireless interface on the same chip for extended battery life. A sensor node using only this chip can support multi-sensor interfaces, processing of the sensor signals, and provide wireless communications between a central coordinating node. On the other hand, the smart sensor platforms reported in literature are based on COTS solutions that result in significantly higher power consumption levels as well as larger footprints due to their multi-component nature. The low-power operation was verified in a range of applications that includes detection of radiation and sensing the arrival angle of acoustic signals.