Ultra-Low Power SAR ADC for Low-Activity Signals (I2I-Lab2Market - Market Assessment)

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Nowadays designing low-power sensor signal interfaces for Internet-of-Things (IoT) devices is an appealing subject owing to widespread utilization. Accordingly, devising a low-power analog-to-digital converter (ADC) can help facilitate more sensor nodes involved within one IoT application on a tight power budget. This proposed project presents a new successive approximation register (SAR) analog-to-digital converter (ADC) search methodology and its integrated circuit implementation for boosting IoT applications. Most of the natural signals in the real world are low-activity signals, such as voice, electrocardiogram (ECG), ultrasonic signals, etc., where the difference between two adjacent samples is near zero for most of the samples. This proposed work is aimed at low-activity signals for reducing comparator activity and switching energy of digital-to-analog converter (DAC) by using statistical characteristics of the low-activity signals for facilitating IoT applications. Our simulated 10-bit SAR ADC for voice signals shows that by using our proposed method, the comparator activity, DAC switching energy, and activity of DAC switches can be reduced by 62.09%, 85.90%, and 39.66%, respectively, compared to the conventional method. To help commercialize our developed technology, in this project we propose to conduct market research and technology validation. We will seek for the following information: an assessment of the technology versus what is currently available in the market, to identify and characterize potential target markets, to identify specific market players for potential partnership / licensing, and to build on existing market assessment conducted to date. With such a market assessment, we can more objectively understand the pros and cons of our developed technology towards market status and commercialization opportunities. Based on the market assessment in this project, our continued commercialization strategy includes further market practice and technology enhancement. This project will be beneficial to Newfoundland and Labrador, and in turn to Canada by introducing our developed SAR ADC technology to the market for both technology advancement and associated commercial advantages.