Colloquium: David Blauuw, Professor of Electrical Engineering and Computer Science

Minituarized sensor nodes are increasingly in demand for applications ranging from structural monitoring (such as bridges and buildings) to implantable medical devices. In current systems, form factor is dominated by the size of the battery and/or energy harvesting unit, making energy consumption the fundamental barrier to minituarization. In this presentation, we present our recent work on ulta-low power sensor design, including a sensor processor, as well as other key components, including low power timers, memories,and inductive communication. The key to our low power approach is to operate circuits at subthreshold supply voltages (300 - 400mV). We discuss the gains and hurdles involved and finally present our progress toward an intra-occular pressure sensor which is designed for gluacoma treatment.