面向物联网的自供能电路理论与系统芯片

Internet of things will be a strategic application in the next decade and power consumption is one of the critical challenges. Energy harvesting techniques provide the solution from the aspect of increasing supply. However, circuit techniques enabling the chips to work reliably and efficiently under the power intermittent environment are badly needed. Recently, with the development of nonvolatile memory and low power circuits, nonvolatile processor and near-threshold circuits are emerging and the research of self-powered circuits under energy harvesting environment is well prepared. The project will be deployed from the level of fundamental theory, architecture, critical circuits and system-on-a-chip. A quantitive metric and simulation platform will be first proposed, and the research is pushed from the processor-only architecture to the full system-on-a-chip including input/output interface and other peripherals. Area-efficient near-threshold nonvolatile memory cells and high-efficient and wide dynamic range power supply circuits will be investigated. Finally, a fully-integrated self-powered system-on-a-chip will be implemented to support execution under power intermittent supply. The execution energy consumption and backup/restore speed of the self-powered system will be improved by more than one magnitude.

物联网有望成为未来十年的战略级应用，能耗是其面临的主要挑战之一。能量采集技术从增加供给角度给出了有效途径，但是急需相关的电路使得芯片在频繁中断的能量采集条件下也能够可靠、高效地工作。近年来，非易失存储和低功耗电路技术的发展，催生了非易失处理器、近阈值超低功耗芯片等一系列新型电路研究成果，并为开展面向能量采集环境的自供能电路的研究奠定了基础。本项目拟从自供能电路的基础理论、体系架构、关键电路以及系统芯片等四个层次展开: 拟提出一套自供能电路的量化评估指标和系统仿真平台，把自供能芯片的体系架构从单一的非易失处理器研究拓展到包括供能系统、输入输出接口的自适应系统芯片，重点突破低面积开销的近阈值非易失存储单元和高效率宽动态范围的供能电路，最终实现一款全面支持电源不稳定环境下运行的自供能系统芯片，比起现有技术在系统的运行能耗、恢复/备份速度等方面，预期获得至少一个数量级的提升。

物联网有望成为未来十年的战略级应用，能耗是其面临的主要挑战之一。能量采集技术从增加供给角度给出了有效途径，但是急需相关的电路使得芯片在频繁中断的能量采集条件下也能够可靠、高效地工作。本项目主要研究内容有自供能电路的基础理论、体系架构、关键电路以及系统芯片。经过项目研究，建立起初步的自供能电路理论框架，指导自供能电路与系统的设计与优化；设计了仿真器软件，支撑自供能芯片架构研究；设计了非易失存储电路、供能电路等自供能系统的核心电路单元；设计了自供能超低功耗非易失系统芯片和可穿戴原型。完成论文48篇，专利6项，获得奖项3个。