Wake-up timer promises picoWatt performance for IoT devices

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Researchers have developed a low-cost ‘battery-less’ wake-up timer in the form of an on-chip circuit that is claimed to significantly reduce power consumption of silicon chips for IoT sensor nodes.

The novel wake-up timer from researchers in the Green IC research group at the National University of Singapore (NUS) is said to demonstrate power consumption down to true picoWatt range for the first time.

“We have developed a novel wake-up timer that operates in the picoWatt range, and cuts power consumption of rarely-active IoT sensor nodes by 1,000 times,” said team leader Associate Professor Massimo Alioto from the Department of Electrical and Computer Engineering at the NUS Faculty of Engineering. “As an element of uniqueness, our wake-up timer does not need any additional circuitry, as opposed to conventional technologies, which require peripheral circuits consuming at least 1,000 times more power.

“This is a major step towards accelerating the development of IoT infrastructure and paves the way for the aggressive miniaturisation of IoT devices for long-lasting operations,” he added.

The research was conducted in collaboration with Associate Professor Paolo Crovetti from the Politecnico di Torino in Italy.

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