Professional Documents
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David Wentzloff
University of Michigan
Everactive
wentzlof@umich.edu
1 / Person
10B
100M
1
Lifetime w/ Energy Power
100m
AA Battery Source Density
Power [Watts]
Available at
https://wics.engin.umich.edu/ultra-low-power-radio-survey/
Total of
191
Receivers
https://wics.engin.umich.edu/ultra-low-power-radio-survey/
David Wentzloff Ultra-Low Power Wireless Receiver Design 7 of 74
ULP Receiver Survey (2005-2020)
Ultra-Low Power
< 100µW
10x power
= 20dB sensitivity
= 10x distance
(free-space PL)
Slope = 1
10x rate = 10x power
Constant 𝐷𝑎𝑡𝑎𝑟𝑎𝑡𝑒
FOM
𝑆 = 𝑆 − 10𝑙𝑜𝑔
1𝑘𝑏𝑝𝑠
10x / 20dB
Constant
FOM
10x / 10dB
<-100dBm
Sub-GHz
<10nW
Sub-GHz
“Coherent” receiver
Over-simplified definition: Receiver must recover the phase of the incoming signal
“Non-coherent” receiver
Receiver only needs to recover the amplitude or frequency of the signal
ULP Receivers
Amplitude-only: Frequency-only:
OOK (on-off keying) FSK (frequency shift keying)
PPM (pulse-position modulation) GFSK (Gaussian frequency shift keying)
ASK (amplitude shift keying)
Phase-only:
PSK (phase shift keying)
QPSK (quadrature PSK)
FSK
PSK
Signal-to-Noise Ratio
𝑆 Ratio of Signal power
𝑆𝑁𝑅 𝑑𝐵 = 10 log
𝑁 to Noise power
10-1
10-2
BER
10-4
-84 -83.5 -83 -82.5 -82
Signal Power (dBm)
Signal-to-Noise Ratio
𝑆 Ratio of Signal power
𝑆𝑁𝑅 𝑑𝐵 = 10 log
𝑁 to Noise power
Signal power (S) varies with transmit power, distance, and path loss due to
the wireless channel
Sensitivity is the minimum detectable signal power, S
Noise power (N) depends on the thermal noise floor + noise added by the
receiver circuit
C = B log 2 (1 + SNR )
Datarate Ratio of powers
[bits/s] Bandwidth [Hz] [not in dB]
Signal Power 𝑆 = 𝐸 · 𝑅
Total Noise Spectral
Density N0 [dBm/Hz]
Thermal noise floor:
Power kT = -174dBm/Hz
Spectral Thermal + Circuit Noise
Density
Frequency
fRF
Channel Bandwidth B Total Noise 𝑁 = 𝑁 · 𝐵
Signal
S = Eb C Data rate
Power 𝑆 𝐸 ·𝐶
[bits/s] 𝑆𝑁𝑅 = =
[Watts] 𝑁 𝑁 ·𝐵
Energy per bit
[Joules/bit]
Rb/B
B N0 B N0 C/B
1
We can now derive the Shannon Limit Rb < C
Eb
= ln 2 = −1.6dB 0.1
N0 B =∞ -6 0 6 12 18 24 30 36
Eb/No [dB]
Pe [BER]
Target bit-error-rate (BER) PSK
Type of “detector” in the receiver
10-3
Refer to Proakis reference
10-4
Power Band-Select
Spectral Filtering
Density
Frequency
fRF
Desired Signal
𝑃
𝑆𝐼𝑅 [𝑑𝐵] = 10 log
𝑃
David Wentzloff Ultra-Low Power Wireless Receiver Design 31 of 74
and Many More…
Sensitivity, Datarate, SIR, and…
Power
Center frequency
Fully integrated RF front-end
Standard compliance
Error vector magnitude (EVM)
Noise figure
Linearity
Total gain
We will see how performance trades off with some of these, but will not go
into great detail
David Wentzloff Ultra-Low Power Wireless Receiver Design 32 of 74
Agenda
ULP Receiver Survey
Background – Measuring Receiver Performance
Receiver Architecture – Where does the power go?
nW Receivers
Interference Rejection
Wakeup Receiver Adoption in Standards
Wrap up
Down-Conversion
LNA Mixer
Variable gain
and filtering ADC
~
RF Local Oscillator
Down-Conversion
LNA Mixer
Variable gain
and filtering ADC
[Belostotski and Jagtap, “Down with Noise,” IEEE Solid-State Circuits Magazine]
ω0 γ 1
F = 1 + ( ( ) )
1 − 2 c χ d + 4Q 2 + 1 χ d2
ωt α 2Q
g δ 1 1
α≡ m χd ≡ α Q= ω =
C gs (LS + LG )
0
gd 0 5γ 2ω0C gs RS
PGA
FSK M.N. A/D
0º / 90º f2
Back-scatter Tx
Analog correlation
ED-first,
eliminate LNA,
low-BW, low-
freq LO
[Mangal, JSSC’19]
stages (LNA, LO, passive mixer) RF gain stages High-linearity and sharp rolloff
are high power ~
All active gain and filtering at baseband filters drive up power
RF Local Oscillator
frequency
LO generation and buffering
Low-IF or Direct Conversion to minimize requires RF gain as well
ED BB Amp Comparator
Pin Bond-wire + 1 + 3 5
50Ω RF Input GBB Correlator Wakeup
- -
64 Clk Clk
RXO
Look-up Level PID
Table ÷ Clk Shifter Ctrl
CMOS Chip
2
4 6 Clk
All figures courtesy
64
PGLA Temperature Binary to SPI Digital
S. Bowers, U. Virginia
12 Sensor Thermometer Controller
𝑉 = 2𝑁 · (𝑉 −𝑉 )
𝑉 𝑉
𝑉 = 2𝑁 · 𝑉 · 𝑙𝑛 𝐼 𝑉 ≈ 2𝑁 ·
4𝑉
𝐼 =𝐼 ·𝑒 1−𝑒
𝐼 =𝐼 · 𝑒 −𝑒
𝐼 =𝐼 · 𝑒 −𝑒
In steady –state, 𝑄 = 𝐼 𝑑𝑡 = 𝑄 = 𝐼 𝑑𝑡
𝑉 𝑉
∴𝑉 = 𝑉 · 𝑙𝑛 𝐼 𝑉 ≈ 𝑖𝑓 𝑉 ≪ 𝑉
4𝑉
David Wentzloff Ultra-Low Power Wireless Receiver Design 46 of 74
Measurement Results
Transient Response of Vout Input power vs Vout
3 3
Vout(V)
1.5 -30dBm 1.5
1 -32dBm 1
-34dBm
0.5 -36dBm 0.5
-38dBm
0 -40dBm 0
0 10 20 30 40 50 -40 -38 -36 -34 -32 -30 -28 -26
Time(ms) Input Power(dBm)
C_RECT
R_RECT
Off-chip voltage boosting circuit
can be applied
(e.g. matching network)
1 𝑅 ⫽𝑅 𝑉 𝑅 ⫽𝑅 𝑉
𝑉 = 2𝑁 · 𝑉 · 𝑙𝑛 𝐼 ≈ 2𝑁 · ⋅
2 𝑅 𝑉 𝑅 4𝑉
BB
Passive Passive
A C Proc
Xform ED
Gain
BB
Passive Passive
A C Proc
Xform ED
Gain
2
Quadratic
Vout(V)
𝑉 𝑉 1.5
𝑉 = 𝑉 · 𝑙𝑛 𝐼 𝑉 ≈ 𝑉 ≪𝑉
4𝑉
1
0
-40 -38 -36 -34 -32 -30 -28 -26
Input Power(dBm)
BB
Passive Passive
A C Proc
Xform ED
Gain
BB gain stages:
Gain, filtering, integration, comparator
Limitations and tradeoffs
Vmin is minimum detectable voltage
Quadratic ED: Lower Vmin by 10x results in 10dB better S
Ex: Vmin 1mV to 100μV
S improves 10dB, Energy / comparison ~100x higher
BB
Passive Passive
A C Proc
Xform ED
Gain
10m
1m
JSSC‘19
100µ RFIC‘19 (Freq.
Power (W) Hooping)
10µ
1µ
100n
High Interference Rejection is RFIC’19 (CW)
a Challenge for ULP Design
10n
JSSC’19 (CW)
1n
Only 43 out of 179 LP RX report SIR
0.1n
-80 -60 -40 -20 0 20
SIR (dB)
Can still achieve good selectivity levels with sub-mW power by down-
converting + baseband filtering
Add frequency hopping to further improve SIR
Dominant power consumption block is the local oscillator and its buffers
Reduce LO frequency to save power (harmonic mixing)
Gm-C BPF
3x Harmonic Mx fcut-off: 2 MHz RX data
IF
MN Gm TIA
VGA+
ENV. ∫ · dt
BUFN<2:0>
BUFP<2:0>
Φ1 Φ2
1/3 x fRF FLL
DIV / 4
RVCO
DAC Counter CLK
3H.R
Total Power: 220µW
B2 0° 360° 720°
5
-10
DC -15
A …….. RF filter response
-20
≈
LNA VGA
Fine
Med. Wake-up
Symbol
Pattern A/D
Coarse Correlator
Correlator
10 6 4 Clock
Frequency DSP
Hopping
Controller
3
5 Scan
Scan Chain
Clock ÷ 13 Input
(250 KHz)
FPGA
[A. Alghaihab, JSSC 2019] Wake-up Detected Data Symbols
-35
-45
-50
-55
-60
2402 2410 2420 2430 2440 2450 2460 2470 2480
Interference Offset Frequency (MHz)
Bridging this gap will significantly lower active power / with widespread
adoption
Emerging research area for ULP Radios: How to lower power given network
complexity of cellular standards?
H. Guo, 30.3,
ISSCC 2020