A 61 μA/MHz reconfigurable application-specific processor and system-on-chip for Internet-of-Things

This paper presents a SoC design that combines general purpose control and application-specific acceleration within a reconfigurable ASIP core for Internet-of-Things applications. Sufficient processing capability and re-configurability are provided by highly customizable data path and efficient sequence control loop. By fully utilizing the data path of proposed architecture, the processor significantly reduces >4X code size and offers superior performance compared with MSP430 and Atmega128 in FIR and Whetstone benchmarks. More than 10X speedup can be obtained in executing encryption algorithms by optimized micro-instructions without extra hardware accelerators. Fabricated in 0.18 μm CMOS, our SoC's energy efficiency beats most of the microcontrollers with a value as low as 61 μA/MHz.