A Low-Voltage Processor for Sensing Applications With Picowatt Standby Mode

Abstract

Recent progress in ultra-low-power circuit design is creating new opportunities for cubic millimeter computing. Robust low-voltage operation has reduced active mode power consumption considerably, but standby mode power consumption has received relatively little attention from low-voltage designers. In this work, we describe a low-voltage processor called the Phoenix Processor that has been designed at the device, circuit, and architecture levels to minimize standby power. A test chip has been implemented in a carefully selected 0.18 mum process in an area of only 915 times 915 mum <sup xmlns:mml="http://www.w3.org/1998/Math/MathML" xmlns:xlink="http://www.w3.org/1999/xlink">2</sup> . Measurements show that Phoenix consumes 35.4 pW in standby mode and 226 nW in active mode.