CAREER: Reconfigurable Communication Interface using Ultra-Low-Power Technique for Future Heterogeneous Mobile Devices

随着智能手机、平板电脑和便携设备等移动设备不断增强图形/媒体计算能力和卓越的电池续航能力，更高的电源和带宽效率变得尤为重要。此外，CPU、存储器和其他IP等异类关键电路的不断增加的完全集成化也带来了另一个具有挑战性的问题，如不可重构的数据通信。该方案的目标是开发高能效和可重构的接口，以解决移动设备的带宽有限、能效和数据通信灵活性等关键问题。该方法是一种新的可重构多调制互连(MMI)技术，作为CPU和存储器之间的移动通信接口，有望提供显著降低系统功耗、增加计算带宽、同时进行多种数据通信和可重构数据访问能力。此外，拟议的MMI通信系统可能会对行业和学术界产生重大影响，并提高美国微电子行业的竞争力。这项研究是跨学科的，将为各级学生提供良好的教育机会，获得与模拟/混合信号和射频/微波集成电路和系统设计相关的广泛知识和技能。这项研究将通过研究和教育相结合的方式来招募和培训来自代表性不足群体的少数族裔学生和妇女。这项研究将通过克服当前与有限带宽、高功耗和不可重构数据访问相关的技术挑战，开发新的节能和可重构的接口电路架构。具体地说，PI提出了可重构的多调制互连(MMI)，通过结合先进的脉冲幅度调制和多频带信令互连，使得移动CPU和存储器之间的能效和带宽都有了显著的提高。这将是分析、设计和制造完全兼容于移动设备的基于MMI的存储器接口的第一次尝试。拟议的创新MMI技术还有望通过在共享链路上实现并发和可重新配置的数据通信，同时显著延长电池寿命，对移动计算和通信设备以及计算机体系结构产生影响。

As mobile devices such as smartphones, tablets and portable devices continue to have enhanced graphic/media computing capabilities and superior battery life, higher power and bandwidth efficiency is becoming significantly important. Furthermore, ever-increasing full integration of heterogeneous key circuits such as CPU, memories and other IPs is creating another challenging problem such as non-reconfigurable data communication. The objective of this proposal is to develop power-efficient and reconfigurable interface to address key issues such as limited bandwidth, energy efficiency and data communication flexibility of mobile devices. The proposed approach is a new reconfigurable multi-modulation interconnect (MMI) technology as the mobile communication interface between CPU and memories, which is expected to provide dramatically reduced system power consumption, increased computing bandwidth, simultaneous multiple data communication and reconfigurable data access capabilities. Moreover, the proposed MMI communication system could have significant impact on industries and academia and improve the competitiveness of the U.S. microelectronics industry. This research is interdisciplinary, which will provide excellent education opportunities for students at various levels to acquire broad knowledge and skills related to analog/mixed-signal and radio frequency/microwave integrated circuit and system design. Minority students and women from underrepresented groups will be recruited and trained by integrating research with education.This research will develop new energy-efficient and reconfigurable interface circuit architecture by overcoming the current technological challenges associated with limited bandwidth, high power consumption and non-reconfigurable data accesses. Specifically, the PI proposes reconfigurable multi-modulation interconnect (MMI) to allow significant advances in both energy efficiency and bandwidth between mobile CPU and memories through incorporating advanced pulse-amplitude modulation and multi-band signaling interconnect. A prototype of MMI signaling in CMOS will be demonstrated, which will be the first effort in analyzing, designing and fabricating fully CMOS-compatible MMI-based memory interface for mobile devices. The proposed innovative MMI technology is also expected to impact on mobile computing and communication device and computer architecture by enabling concurrent and reconfigurable data communication on a shared link and extending significantly battery life simultaneously.