TY - JOUR
T1 - A 47.14-μW 200-MHz MOS/MTJ-Hybrid Nonvolatile Microcontroller Unit Embedding STT-MRAM and FPGA for IoT Applications
AU - Natsui, Masanori
AU - Suzuki, Daisuke
AU - Tamakoshi, Akira
AU - Watanabe, Toshinari
AU - Honjo, Hiroaki
AU - Koike, Hiroki
AU - Nasuno, Takashi
AU - Ma, Yitao
AU - Tanigawa, Takaho
AU - Noguchi, Yasuo
AU - Yasuhira, Mitsuo
AU - Sato, Hideo
AU - Ikeda, Shoji
AU - Ohno, Hideo
AU - Endoh, Tetsuo
AU - Hanyu, Takahiro
PY - 2019
Y1 - 2019
N2 - The demand for energy-efficient, high-performance microcontroller units (MCUs) for the use in power-supply-critical Internet-of-Things (IoT) sensor-node applications has witnessed a substantial increase. In response, research concerning the development of several low-power-consuming MCUs has been actively pursued. The performance level of such MCUs, however, has not been sufficient, thereby rendering them non-feasible for the use in IoT sensor-node applications that process a large number of received signals immediately followed by extraction of valuable information from them to limit data transferred to a data center. To realize next-generation IoT systems based on intelligent sensor-node application, ultra-low-power high-performance MCUs need to be developed. This paper presents an ultra-low-power-consuming and high-performance MCU configuration based on the spintronics device technology, using which all modules are non-volatilized, and any wasteful power consumption is eliminated by controlling the power supplied independently to each module. By incorporating a reconfigurable accelerator module, for performing various signal-processing procedures in sensor-node applications, and a memory controller, which can speed up the entire system by relaxing the data-transfer bottleneck of logic and memory, the proposed MCU configuration achieves ultra-low power consumption and high-speed operation. As confirmed by the results obtained via measurements performed on a fabricated chip, the proposed MCU design, on average, consumed 47.14 μW power at an operating frequency of 200 MHz. This corresponds to the world's highest signal-processing performance and energy efficiency of highly functional IoT sensor nodes powered by harvested energy
AB - The demand for energy-efficient, high-performance microcontroller units (MCUs) for the use in power-supply-critical Internet-of-Things (IoT) sensor-node applications has witnessed a substantial increase. In response, research concerning the development of several low-power-consuming MCUs has been actively pursued. The performance level of such MCUs, however, has not been sufficient, thereby rendering them non-feasible for the use in IoT sensor-node applications that process a large number of received signals immediately followed by extraction of valuable information from them to limit data transferred to a data center. To realize next-generation IoT systems based on intelligent sensor-node application, ultra-low-power high-performance MCUs need to be developed. This paper presents an ultra-low-power-consuming and high-performance MCU configuration based on the spintronics device technology, using which all modules are non-volatilized, and any wasteful power consumption is eliminated by controlling the power supplied independently to each module. By incorporating a reconfigurable accelerator module, for performing various signal-processing procedures in sensor-node applications, and a memory controller, which can speed up the entire system by relaxing the data-transfer bottleneck of logic and memory, the proposed MCU configuration achieves ultra-low power consumption and high-speed operation. As confirmed by the results obtained via measurements performed on a fabricated chip, the proposed MCU design, on average, consumed 47.14 μW power at an operating frequency of 200 MHz. This corresponds to the world's highest signal-processing performance and energy efficiency of highly functional IoT sensor nodes powered by harvested energy
KW - Energy harvesting
KW - Internet of Things
KW - field-programmable gate arrays
KW - magnetic tunnel junction
KW - microcontroller unit (MCU)
KW - spin-transfer-torque magnetoresistive random access memory (STT-MRAM)
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U2 - 10.1109/JSSC.2019.2930910
DO - 10.1109/JSSC.2019.2930910
M3 - Article
AN - SCOPUS:85074463537
VL - 54
SP - 2991
EP - 3004
JO - IEEE Journal of Solid-State Circuits
JF - IEEE Journal of Solid-State Circuits
SN - 0018-9200
IS - 11
M1 - 8796413
ER -