WEARABLE/IMPLANTABLE

SHORT COURSE
Thursday February 4 th , 8:00 AM
Sensor interfaces for IoE
Nick Van Helleputte, imec, Leuven, Belgium
While IoE spans very diverse and broad application domains, a lot of those require extensive
sensing. Individual nodes in the IoE can be equipped with a multitude of diverse sensors like
gas, temperature, humidity, pressure, position and various biomedical sensors. Area-efficient,
high-performance and low-power sensor interface design is thus an important prerequisite
for successful deployment of the IoE. This short course chapter will address exactly these
topics. A brief overview of various sensor types and how to interface them will be discussed.
The unique design challenges for sensor interfaces will be addressed. The short course will
discuss in depth state-of-the-art instrumentation amplifier designs as well as transimpedance
amplifier designs, both of which are at the heart of sensor interfaces. Advanced circuit design
techniques like chopping, bootstrapping, and offset cancellation will be explained. Finally, a
look into novel and promising research areas like time-domain sensor interface design will
conclude the short course.
About the presenter:
Nick Van Helleputte received the MS degree in electrical engineering in 2004 from the
Katholieke Universiteit Leuven, Belgium. He received his Ph.D. degree from the same institute
in 2009 with research on RF and analog circuits for (ultra-)wideband low-power wireless
receivers. He joined imec in 2009 as an Analog R&D Design Engineer and is currently team
leader of biomedical circuits and systems at imec. His research focus is on ultra-low-power
circuits for biomedical applications.
Frequency References for IoE
Fabio Sebastiano, Delft University of Technology, Delft, The Netherlands
The IoE nodes need radios that are small, cheap and energy efficient. Frequency references
are required for those radios to select the right band for wireless communication. Moreover,
a frequency reference enables time synchronization between the nodes in the IoE network,
which allows the radio to turn off when transmission or reception are not expected, thus
resulting in power saving. Highly accurate frequency references can be implemented using
quartz crystals but since such external components would limit the miniaturization and energy
efficiency of IoE nodes, fully integrated alternatives must be adopted. In addition, such
references must guarantee the required accuracy over the wide temperature range expected
in several IoE applications and over the supply voltage variations caused by the energy
scavengers or the batteries powering the IoE node. This last part of the short course will
present the requirements for such fully integrated frequency references and review several
alternatives for their implementation. The main sources of inaccuracy and the techniques to
minimize their effect will be analyzed, with particular emphasis on supply sensitivity and
temperature compensation.
About the presenter:
Fabio Sebastiano holds degrees from the University of Pisa, Italy (B.Sc., 2003 - M.Sc., 2005),
from Sant’Anna School of Advanced Studies, Pisa, Italy (M.Sc., 2006) and from Delft
University of Technology, The Netherlands (Ph.D., 2011). From 2006 to 2013, he was with
NXP Semiconductors Research in Eindhoven, The Netherlands, where he conducted research
on fully integrated CMOS frequency references, deep-submicron temperature sensors and
area-efficient interfaces for magnetic sensors. In 2013, he joined Delft University of
Technology, where he is currently an Assistant Professor. His main research interests are
sensor read-outs, fully integrated frequency references and cryogenic electronics.
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