VLSI Design on Software Radio for multi-standard and wireless sensor application

这是一份改进的提案，基于“给申请人的信息”和“推荐人报告”给申请人去年的发现资助申请(申请编号：2014 - 04791)。本文主要研究多标准软件无线电的VLSI设计，并利用摩尔定律对CMOS技术进行缩放。应用于无线传感器，同时结合无线加密和认证在无线电（通过设计真随机数生成器）将继续进行。这些应用可以在物联网的概念中找到。为了处理多标准，软件无线电的思想是在接收机中尽快将输入信号数字化，同时在发射机中尽可能长时间保持输出信号的数字化，这样数字信号处理/软件技术就可以用来执行大部分数据处理并允许灵活性。为此，模拟/数字混合电路（如模拟/数字转换器）的高效设计仍然是关键的瓶颈。同时，无线传感器等应用的重点是低能耗。因此，该方案的主要挑战包括设计电压供应电路和降低功率/能耗。我们将探索克服这些挑战的技术，以及利用CMOS技术不断缩放所带来的速度提升的优势。特别是基于时间的电路技术（可以在降低的电源电压下工作并且节能），例如基于时间的sigma-delta调制器的使用将被研究。基于时间的电压控制振荡器，如环形振荡器，弛豫振荡器，和时间分辨率提高电路，如相位插值器，将被探索。这将基于申请人在σ δ调制器设计和相位噪声/时序抖动模型方面的独特经验。这些基于时间的电路是软件无线电收发器和无线传感器的关键构建模块，如时间到数字转换器，基于时间的A/D转换器，低通/带通sigma-delta调制器，分数n频率合成器。此外，还将设计基于时间的真随机数发生器，该发生器采用环形振荡器和弛豫振荡器。这包括使用松弛振荡器和低摆率环形振荡器，两者都会产生大量的噪声/随机性，并可以解决无线应用的安全问题，例如加密和认证码的生成。***总之，基于时间的技术将在整个方案中用于软件无线电的VLSI设计

This is an improved proposal, based on the "message to applicant" and "referee reports" to the applicant's last year Discovery Grant application (application no. 2014-04791). The proposed research focuses on the VLSI design for multi-standard software radio and takes advantage of Moore's law in scaling of CMOS technology. Applications towards wireless sensor, while incorporating wireless encryption and authentication in radio (via design of true random number generator) will be pursued. These applications are found in the concept of  internet of things. ***To handle multi-standard,  the idea of software radio is to digitize the incoming signal in a receiver as soon as possible while staying digital as long as possible for the outgoing signal in a transmitter, so that digital signal processing/software techniques can be used to perform much of the data processing and allow flexibility.  Towards this end, the efficient design of mixed analog/digital circuits, such as analog/digital converter, remain the key bottleneck. Meanwhile application such as wireless sensor focuses on low energy. Therefore main challenges in this proposal include designing circuit as voltage supply and power/energy consumption is reduced. Techniques that overcome such challenges, as well as taking advantage of increased speed offered by constant scaling in CMOS technology will be explored. Specifically circuit techniques that are time based (can operate under reduced supply voltage and is energy efficient), such as the use of time based sigma-delta modulators will be investigated. Time based voltage control oscillators, such as ring oscillator, relaxation oscillator, and time resolution improvement circuits, such as phase interpolator, will be explored. This will be based on the applicant's unique experience, in sigma delta modulator design, and in phase noise/timing jitter model. These time based circuits are key building blocks in software radio transceiver and wireless sensor such as time to digital converters, time based A/D converter, lowpass/bandpass sigma-delta modulators, fractional-N frequency synthesizers. In addition, time based true random number generators employing ring and relaxation oscillators will be designed. This includes the use of relaxation oscillator and low slew rate ring oscillator, both generating exceptionally large amount of noise/randomness and can tackle security issues for wireless application, such as encryption and authentication codes generation.***In summary the time based technique will be used throughout this proposal in the VLSI design of software radio.**