A 1.6mm3 Wirelessly Powered Reconfigurable FDD Radio with On-Chip Antennas Achieving 4.7 pJ/b TX and 1 pJ/b RX Energy Efficiencies for Medical Implants

Abstract

This paper presents an integrated wirelessly powered radio with two on-chip antennas and a total volume of 2.4×2.2×0.3 mm3 achieving ×7 smaller footprint than state-of-the-art wirelessly powered transceivers. The system is fabricated in TSMC 180nm process and is designed to operate under stringent power budgets of medical implants. Power and downlink data are carried to the system via an AKS-modulated RF link with an energy efficiency of 1 pJ/b. This design can operate under various power budgets and utilizes a power management technique to adjust the effective data rate and power consumption. TX block is based on a power oscillator structure and utilizes an on-chip dipole antenna at the load. Reconfigurable TX block can transmit uplink data with OOK and UWB modulation schemes and supports a maximum data rate of 150 Mbps achieving an energy efficiency of 4.65 pJ/b at a 15cm distance. In UWB modes, the TX block operates continuously for data rates of up to 40 Mbps.