Flexible Multi-Channel Analog-Frontend for Ultra-Low Power Environmental Sensing

Flexible Multi-Channel Analog-Frontend for Ultra-Low Power Environmental Sensing

The trend towards ubiquitous electronics drives the development of autonomous hardware components with longer operating times. This work presents a novel ultra-low power analog sensor frontend (AFE) for environmental sensing applications. Relevant operation parameters like resolution (6 to 13 bit),...

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Bibliographic Details
Main Authors: Marcel Jotschke, Peter Reichel, Wilmar Carvajal Ossa, Jeongwook Koh, Torsten Reich, Christian Mayr
Format: Article
Language:English
Published: IEEE 2021-01-01
Series:IEEE Open Journal of Circuits and Systems
Subjects:
Analog to digital converters
low power/low voltage circuits
SAR ADC
sensor/actuator interface circuits
switched-capacitor circuits
Online Access:https://ieeexplore.ieee.org/document/9494747/
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Summary:The trend towards ubiquitous electronics drives the development of autonomous hardware components with longer operating times. This work presents a novel ultra-low power analog sensor frontend (AFE) for environmental sensing applications. Relevant operation parameters like resolution (6 to 13 bit), sample rate (1 to 7.5 kS/s), voltage gain (&#x2212;6 to 12 dB), transimpedance (1.5 to 12 M<inline-formula> <tex-math notation="LaTeX">$ \boldsymbol {\Omega }$ </tex-math></inline-formula>), and moving average (1 to 128 taps) are real-time programmable. Four input channels are separately configurable to process voltage, current and potentiometric signals of external or internal sources. The flexible channel-wise configuration enables processing of various signal types and therefore offers a versatile solution for sensors from the Internet-of-Things (IoT) market segment. The AFE integrates switched-capacitor amplifiers, 13 bit, 10 kS/s successive approximation analog-to-digital converter (SAR ADC), bias references, oscillator, digital signal pre-processing and communication in a system-on-chip. A novel sensor power regime supports the flexible read-out of commercial IoT sensors, resulting in excellent power consumption. Fabricated samples in 180nm technology show an ultra-low power consumption of <inline-formula> <tex-math notation="LaTeX">$8.8\,\mu \text{W}$ </tex-math></inline-formula>. The SAR ADC achieves 10.6 effective bits while consuming <inline-formula> <tex-math notation="LaTeX">$1.8\,\mu \text{W}$ </tex-math></inline-formula>, resulting in a Figure-of-Merit of 116.0 fJ/conv.-step. Measurements with commercial sensors prove the AFE&#x2019;s suitability for an energy-harvester-powered IoT environmental sensor node.
ISSN:2644-1225

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