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

这是一个改进的建议，基于“给申请人的消息”和“裁判报告”，以申请人的最后一年发现补助金申请（申请号2014 - 04791）。本论文主要研究多标准软件无线电的超大规模集成电路设计，并利用摩尔定律在CMOS工艺中的比例缩放特性。将追求无线传感器的应用，同时将无线加密和无线电认证（通过真随机数发生器的设计）结合起来。这些应用都可以在物联网的概念中找到。 为了处理多标准，软件无线电的想法是尽可能快地在接收器中对输入信号进行数字化，同时尽可能长时间地在发射器中对输出信号保持数字化，使得数字信号处理/软件技术可以用于执行大部分数据处理并允许灵活性。 为此，混合模拟/数字电路的有效设计，如模拟/数字转换器，仍然是关键瓶颈。而无线传感器等应用则侧重于低能耗。因此，该方案中的主要挑战包括设计电路作为电压供应和功率/能量消耗降低。克服这些挑战的技术，以及利用CMOS技术中的恒定缩放提供的更快的速度将被探索。具体地，将研究基于时间的电路技术（可以在降低的电源电压下操作并且是能量有效的），诸如基于时间的Σ-Δ调制器的使用。将探讨基于时间的压控振荡器，如环形振荡器、张弛振荡器和时间分辨率改进电路，如相位延迟器。这将基于申请人在Σ-Δ调制器设计和相位噪声/定时抖动模型方面的独特经验。这些时基电路是软件无线电收发器和无线传感器中的关键构件，例如时间数字转换器、时基A/D转换器、低通/带通Σ-Δ调制器、分数N频率合成器。此外，基于时间的真随机数发生器采用环形和松弛振荡器将被设计。这包括使用张弛振荡器和低转换速率环形振荡器，两者都产生非常大量的噪声/随机性，并且可以解决无线应用的安全问题，例如加密和认证代码生成。 总之，在软件无线电的VLSI设计中，基于时间的技术将贯穿整个建议。

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.