Wireless autonomous transducer solutions
Ultra-low power DSP
Autonomous sensor nodes will enable revolutionary applications from ‘go-anywhere’ healthcare monitoring to ‘install-and-forget’ home and industrial automation. To make this a reality, imec at Holst Centre is developing ultra-low power (ULP) signal processing, and architectures and devices that will improve the intelligence and power consumption. Initially, we are focusing on secure biomedical sensor networks.
Adding a ULP DSP to a sensor node means the node can do more advanced data processing. So it can independently react to input changes without contacting the base station. This speeds up the response times and reduces the power used for wireless transmissions.
We target DSPs that will reduce power consumption for complex algorithms to below 20 µW. This will allow to run the DSPs on energy scavenging. But to achieve these levels, the DSPs should be optimized for the applications that will run on them.
The program looks at all aspects of DSP creation from algorithm to IC design, up to demonstrator level and FPGA prototypes. Success relies on involving experts from a wide range of areas – from concept to silicon. This is becuase the DSP algorithms, hardware architectures, embedded memories, circuit design and manufacturing processes all need to be optimized for the target application.