Adaptive Integrated Circuits for Wearable Technology

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The proposed research area is “wearable technologies” and the focus is on advanced hardware implementation of circuits that will enable the upcoming fourth generation of wearable technologies. Just as the smart phone replaced the personal computer as the interface technology of choice for a large segment of the world’s population, wearable technologies are now supplanting the smart phone. While the smart phone has become nearly ubiquitous across an enormous segment of the world's population, wearable technologies are spurring an even greater level of connectedness between humans and technology and information stores. There is an ongoing and rapidly accelerating move towards wearable technologies as the preferred interface modality. Early first-generation wearable technologies only displayed information. Second-generation wearable technologies also collected information. Third-generation wearable technologies apply machine intelligence and pattern recognition on collected information in order to provide actionable recommendations to the wearable technology user. The upcoming fourth-generation of wearable technology collects fine-grained rich data from a vast population of users in order to mine the data for trends and signature features that enable the system to predict future events. The amount of interface and processing technology present in a fourth generation wearable technology implementation eclipses that of even a third-generation wearable technology device implementation by a very wide margin. The proposed research will produce circuitry components that are of critical importance for fourth generation wearable technology implementations where there is a simultaneous drive towards decreased size, lower power requirements, higher performance, and lower cost. These desirable features are generally achieved by process technology scaling, for example moving to smaller feature sizes in CMOS technologies, but doing so creates a host of problems related to circuit performance. The circuit performance required for fourth generation wearable technology will be achieved through innovative integrated signal measurement circuits, analog signal multiplexing circuits, signal processing circuits, and feedback circuits that will adjust the operating point and configuration of each primary circuit that requires adaptation. Such circuits are essential for upcoming wearable technology implementations that have demanding performance requirements on par with current medical grade equipment, while targeting the general consumer at an order of magnitude lower cost and operating complexity. Integral to the proposed research is training highly qualified personnel in the areas of microelectronics, wireless and wireline communication systems, and sensor technologies focused on bio-sensing and environmental monitoring.