Low-power Temperature Sensor

The need for a low-power CMOS temperature sensor is increasing drastically. For any system, temperature monitoring is a must to ensure the operation safety. With the emergence of IoT, temperature sensors will be embedded all around us. This research continuously pushes the limit of accuracy, resolution, temperature range, and power consumption by inventing different sensing mechanisms and innovative circuit techniques. Recently, we have developed linear relationships between the current ratio and temperature by utilizing the intrinsic device mismatch. We are actively exploring utilizing device variability as a metric for temperature sensing. Our latest results show great promise as we can eliminate many sources of errors.

True Random Number Generator

The need for secure communication is also increasing with the increase of devices around us. True random number generators (TRNG) are essential circuits for secured communication and cryptography devices. We aim to develop a small-area and low-power TRNG that is robust to PVT variation. Achieving both small areas and low power is a challenge. We are pushing the limit with innovative ideas. Our goal is to create tiny TRNGs that can be embedded anywhere in a system on chip (SoC). These tiny TRNGs can then also be used as random sequence generators for stochastic computing.

On-chip Low DropOut Regulator

Power and supply management is a critical component that directly affects the energy efficiency and reliability of the system. Supply management is becoming more complex and power-hungry as we try to integrate more functional blocks into the same chip. In this research, we aim to develop digital LDOs that can quickly adapt to load activity without needing external signals and clocks. We are now focusing on using analog circuits to assist digital operation. The key is to ensure that the analog component is minimal and does not compromise the merits of digitization of power MOSFETs. We are adopting techniques with the self-adapting capability to tackle PVT variation.

On-chip DC/DC Converter

Power and supply management is a critical component that directly affects the energy efficiency and reliability of the system. Supply management is becoming more complex and power-hungry as we try to integrate more functional blocks into the same chip. In our group, we aim to develop fully on-chip switched capacitor DC/DC converter with ultra low-noise. Using time-interleaving technique and advanced control algorithm, we aim to make the DC/DC converter both adaptive to load current and suppress output voltage fluctuation.

AI Computing

Reducing the power consumption of AI computing has become a dire need. In our group, we are exporing on different compute-in-memory architectures that fuses analog and digital techniques seamlessly.