Demo: Ultra-constrained sensor platform interfacing

Abstract

In this work we expose the challenges of interfacing both conventional and new systems with an extremely resource constrained platform. We find that even when attempts are made to utilize an industry standard protocol (I2C), necessary protocol modifications for ultra-low power design means that interfacing remains non-trivial. We present a functional 0.4mm × 0.8mm ARM Cortex M0 with 3KB of RAM, 24 GPIOs, and an ultra-low power I2C interface. This chip is part of the Michigan Micro Mote (M3) project, which is designed to build a complete software and hardware platform for general purpose sensing at the millimeter scale. We demo an I2C interface circuit allowing commercial hardware to program and interact with the chip and present the beginning of the millimeter scale sensing revolution.