WBAN: Low Power IC Platform & Baseband, PI: Dr Zheng Yuan Jin, IME

 

Background

Rapid advances in science and technology are paving the way for improvement of human life.  It, in turn, will change the way in which we think about medicine, sports and entertainment and how we experience them. Wireless Body Area Networks (WBANs) are networks whose nodes are usually placed close to the body on or in clothing everyday.  A WBAN topology comprises a series of miniature sensor/actuator nodes, each of which has its own energy supply, consisting of storage and/or scavenging devices, and is also able to communicate with other sensor nodes or with a central node worn on the body.  The central node communicates with the outside world by using a standard telecommunication infrastructure such as wireless local area and cellular phone networks and with the higher computation capability.  The WBAN can deliver the services such as: management of chronic disease, medical diagnostics, home-monitoring, biometrics, and sports and fitness tracking, etc. A typical low power IC platform architecture of the intelligent sensor node for the WBAN is shown as in the following figure, and this project is to develop the building blocks and subsystems of the WBAN based on the architecture.

 

Text Box: An low power IC plat form for WBAN Intelligent Sensor node

 

Project scope

The project is to develop a system on chip (SoC) or system in package (SiP) device for wearable WBAN. The device integrates analog and digital building blocks to build a self-functional low power integrated circuit (IC) platform. It could be used as a reconfigurable sensor node to form a WBAN for various healthcare applications. In details, this project will work on:

●  R&D on the system architecture of the PHY of WBAN systems. Design on the low power low cost building blocks including interface circuits, transceiver signal processing ICs, and baseband ASICs etc.

●  R&D on the integration of building blocks to build a prototype of intelligent node which itself is a self-functional embedded IC sub-system. This intelligent node could be delivered as a cost effective, flexible low power IC platform that allows easy customization, run-time configuration, and energy efficient computation and communication.  

●  R&D on the optimization and customization of the SoC and SiP device. Participate in integrating the nodes with other layers such as MAC, middleware layers etc. to demo a realistic application, e.g. real-time stress (ECG, EEG) monitoring, older population tracking, pulse oximetry conditioning, or homecare/telemedicine etc.

 

Design Challenges

This project will deal with the challenges of ultra low power integrated circuits and system design and optimization, where the challenges come from following aspects:  

●  A low power IC and system platform will be developed for WBAN applications consisting of miniaturized devices.

●  The technologies such as novel ultra-low power analogue and digital circuit design will be developed. Especially, weak inversion and/or asynchronize circuit design technique will be explored.

●   Pulsed ultra low power circuits for communication and localization.

●  Reconfigurable signal processing and system developed, potentially for various low power networking system.

●   System in package scheme for multi-chip system.

 

Information of PI and Institute of Microelectronics

The principle investigator (PI), Zheng Yuanjin received his B.S. (first class honours) and M.Eng from Xi'an Jiaotong University, P.R.China in 1993 and 1996 respectively, and Ph.D. from Nanyang Technological University, Singapore in 2001. From July 1996 to April 1998, he worked in the National Key Lab of Optical Communication Technology, University of Electronic Science and Technology of China as a Research Scientist. In March 2001, he joined the Institute of Microelectronics, Singapore as a Senior Research Engineer. His research interest is on the RF transceiver and communication system, analog and digital IC, and DSP algorithm design and implementations. He has published over 55 international journal and conference papers. He has 2 US patents granted and 3 US patents pending.

The Institute of Microelectronics (IME) is a member of the Agency for Science, Technology and Research (A*STAR). Established in 1991, our mission is to increase value-add to the electronics industry in Singapore by engaging in relevant R&D in strategic fields of microelectronics; supporting and partnering the electronics industry; and developing skilled R&D personnel. R&D at IME covers the semiconductor technology chain, viz integrated circuit design, wafer fabrication process technology, packaging and assembly, and reliability testing and analysis, as well as niche areas such as micro-electro-mechanical-systems (MEMS) and bio-electronics. For details, please refer http://www.ime.a-star.edu.sg.