Low-power Design of Radios for Wireless Devices

Sponsor: ICTAS

Group: Kwang-Jin Koh (PI) and Dong S. Ha

Low-power design is an essential goal for electronic devices. One recent aproach to lower power consumption in electronics is to harvest ambient energy and resue the harvested energy for charging battery. In this project, we propose to harvest radiated radio frequency (RF) energy otherwise wasted, and recycle the RF energy to supplement the power from the radio battery power.  The two most power hungry blocks of a radio are voltage controlled oscillators (VCOs) and power amplifiers (PAs). A VCO generates an RF carrier signal to be applied to a mixer, and a PA transmits the RF signal to an intended receiver(s) over the antenna. The RF signals generated by a VCO and a PA are very strong, and the signals also radiate to the entire chip through wires and the substrate (acting as antennas) wasting its energy and causing interference to other blocks. The goal of the proposed research is to capture and reuse the unintended RF energy radiated from VCOs and PAs, thus saving power and prolonging the battery life.

Course: RF and Analog IC Tracks