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

这是一个改进的建议，基于对申请者最后一年的探索奖助金申请(申请号：2014-04791)的“给申请者的信息”和“推荐人报告”。本文的研究重点是多制式软件无线电的VLSI设计，并利用摩尔定律对CMOS工艺进行定标。将继续研究无线传感器的应用，同时在无线电中纳入无线加密和认证(通过设计真正的随机数生成器)。这些应用可以在物联网的概念中找到。*为了处理多制式，软件无线电的思想是将接收器中的输入信号尽快数字化，而发射器中的输出信号尽可能长时间保持数字，以便数字信号处理/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，模拟/数字转换器等混合模拟/数字电路的高效设计仍然是关键的瓶颈。同时，无线传感器等应用侧重于低能量。因此，该方案的主要挑战包括设计作为电压源的电路以及降低功率/能源消耗。将探索克服这些挑战的技术，以及利用不断缩放的CMOS技术提供的更高速度的优势。具体地说，将研究基于时间的电路技术(可以在降低的电源电压下工作并且是节能的)，例如使用基于时间的Sigma-Delta调制器。基于时间的压控振荡器，如环形振荡器、弛豫振荡器，以及时间分辨率提高电路，如相位内插器，将被探索。这将基于申请人在sigma Delta调制器设计和相位噪声/定时抖动模型方面的独特经验。这些基于时间的电路是软件无线电收发机和无线传感器的关键构建模块，例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、小数频率合成器。此外，还将设计使用环形振荡器和松弛振荡器的基于时间的真随机数发生器。这包括松弛振荡器和低转换速率环形振荡器的使用，这两种振荡器都会产生非常大的噪声/随机性，并可以解决无线应用的安全问题，如加密和认证码生成。*总而言之，在软件无线电的VLSI设计中，将在整个提案中使用基于时间的技术。

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.**