Systems-on-Chip
To maintain always on the operation of ASSIST technologies for health or IoT (Internet of Things) applications, it is important to minimize the power consumption of the Systems on Chip (SoCs) as well as the radios. The energy harvesting technologies interface with the power management circuits on the SoC to provide the system with harvested power, which then drives the low power sensing functionality.
ASSIST is using a multi-chip solution for the SoC-based platform with integrated ultra-low power chip-to-chip IO, which includes a new microcontroller (MCU)/bus, non-volatile memory (NVM), lower power SRAM, new ADC, ECG AFE, and RF transmitter. This allows the SoC to interface with the supercapacitor, wearable antenna, energy harvesting sources, and even an off-chip NVM for booting and for storing critical data during power blackouts. It also allows interfacing with external radios, providing flexibility for configuring the communication needs in different applications. ASSIST SoCs have demonstrated an active power consumption of 507 nW.