A Fully-Digital 0.1-to-27 Mb/s ULV 450 MHz Transmitter with sub-100 µW Power Consumption for Body-Coupled Communication in 28 nm FD-SOI CMOS

Guillaume Tochou (1, 2, 3) , Robin Benarrouch (1, 2, 3) , David Gaidioz (1) , Andreia Cathelin (1) , Antoine Frappé (2, 4) , Andreas Kaiser (2, 4) , Jan Rabaey (3)

1 ST-CROLLES - STMicroelectronics [Crolles]
2 MICROELEC SI - IEMN - Microélectronique Silicium - IEMN
3 BWRC - Berkeley Wireless Research Center [Berkeley]
4 IEMN - Institut d’Électronique, de Microélectronique et de Nanotechnologie - UMR 8520

A 0.5 V fully-digital 450 MHz transmitter for surface wave capacitive body-coupled communications is realized in 28 nm FD-SOI CMOS and consumes 17 to 76 µW for data rates from 0.1 to 27 Mb/s with up to 14 % system efficiency. The heavily duty-cycled transmitter uses a 90 MHz free-running oscillator and edge combiners to generate OOK Gaussian-shaped pulses through a switched-capacitor PA. Body-biasing allows frequency tuning and adaptive efficiency optimization as a function of data rate.

Mots clés: Body Area Network; Ultra-Low Power Transmitter; Body-Coupled Communication; 28 nm FD-SOI CMOS Hub: e.g. Neural Recording; Motion sensor (EMG); Prosthesis Leaf: e.g. Temperature; ECG; oxymetry; chemicals sensors

Domaines: Micro et nanotechnologies/Microélectronique

Guillaume Tochou, Robin Benarrouch, David Gaidioz, Andreia Cathelin, Antoine Frappé, et al.. A Fully-Digital 0.1-to-27 Mb/s ULV 450 MHz Transmitter with sub-100 µW Power Consumption for Body-Coupled Communication in 28 nm FD-SOI CMOS. 2021 IEEE Radio Frequency Integrated Circuits Symposium (RFIC/IMS), Jun 2021, Atlanta, United States. pp.195-198, ⟨10.1109/rfic51843.2021.9490464⟩. ⟨hal-03306898⟩