Integrated Computational Materials, Process and Product Engineering – IC-MPPE 2022

Featuring "ultralow power consumption" challenges all the components of a smart system: starting from a power saving sensing device (the key enabling component of the application), but also continuing with efficient signal conditioning, acquisition and processing electronics, and ending with low energy protocols in the components in charge of data comunications. In this talk we will present our recent progresess on the optimization as a whole of a wireless gas sensor system with a really constrained power budget: less than 50 microwatts. Our gas sensor technology is based on the Micro Light Plate concept, a power efficient approach towards light activated semiconductor gas sensors. Turning the conductance signal generated by the sensor and driving its LED-based conditioning elements called for application-specific integrated circuits (ASICs) that involved a number of design strategies to keep the power budget under control. Finally, out of the many comunication protocols available, several options were choosen, tested and implemented; making compromises between datarate, range and energy needs. To meet these global requirements, simulations and models of different kinds were a must, and we will show how they guided us along the system integration path.