MeF-RAM: A New Non-Volatile Cache Memory Based on Magneto-Electric FET

Magneto-Electric FET ( MEFET ) is a recently developed post-CMOS FET, which offers intriguing characteristics for high-speed and low-power design in both logic and memory applications. In this article, we present MeF-RAM , a non-volatile cache memory design based on 2-Transistor-1-MEFET ( 2T1M ) memory bit-cell with separate read and write paths. We show that with proper co-design across MEFET device, memory cell circuit, and array architecture, MeF-RAM is a promising candidate for fast non-volatile memory ( NVM ). To evaluate its cache performance in the memory system, we, for the first time, build a device-to-architecture cross-layer evaluation framework to quantitatively analyze and benchmark the MeF-RAM design with other memory technologies, including both volatile memory (i.e., SRAM, eDRAM) and other popular non-volatile emerging memory (i.e., ReRAM, STT-MRAM, and SOT-MRAM). The experiment results for the PARSEC benchmark suite indicate that, as an L2 cache memory, MeF-RAM reduces Energy Area Latency ( EAT ) product on average by ~98% and ~70% compared with typical 6T-SRAM and 2T1R SOT-MRAM counterparts, respectively.

Research on Radio Frequency Energy Acquisition Technology Used in Partial Discharge Sensors

To solve the energy supply problem of distributed sensor nodes for power equipment condition monitoring, the radio frequency energy acquisition technology scheme and low power consumption control method suitable for this type of sensor are studied. In the research of radio frequency energy technology, a high-gain radio frequency receiving unit is designed to convert a specific frequency high-frequency spatial electromagnetic wave into a AC small signal, and a radio frequency-voltage doubler rectifier unit is designed to convert the AC small signal into a DC signal and boost it, a supporting energy management unit is designed to control the energy interaction with the back-end sensor and provide a reliable and stable DC voltage to the partial discharge sensor. In terms of low-power control, the hardware adopts frequency-reduction detection and low-power devices, and the software proposes a work mode switching strategy, forming an ultra-low power design and application scheme for partial discharge sensors.

Estimation of Tire Mileage and Wear Using Measurement Data

Tire mileage and wear provide important information for vehicle applications. There are more and more studies discussing intelligent tires, but few focus on the role of tire mileage and wear. The conventional tire pressure monitoring system (TPMS) is one of the intelligent tire applications, but there has been no significant advancement in recent years in this regard. In order to increase the additional functions of intelligent tire applications, we propose a method that estimates the mileage and wear information of tires. The proposed method uses a three-axis sensor and a Hall sensor to implement the function. The proposed method also has a low power design to reduce the power consumption of the Hall sensor. The experimental results show the trend of tire wear status, rendering this method effective. This method also requires more accurate mileage information to support tire wear estimation. This experiment found that the correct rate of the proposed mileage estimation method is 99.4% and provides sufficient and correct mileage information for tire wear methods. If this method is used in autonomous vehicle applications, the autonomous control strategy algorithm has more conditions to plan the control strategy. The strategy system processes more meticulous control that increases the safety of autonomous vehicles.

A Fully Featured Thermal Energy Harvesting Tracker for Wildlife

In this paper, we describe a novel animal-tracking-system, solely powered by thermal energy harvesting. The tracker achieves an outstanding 100W of electrical power harvested over an area of only 2 times 20.5cm2, using the temperature difference between the animal’s fur and the environment, with a total weight of 286g. The steps to enhance the power income are presented and validated in a field-test, using a system that fulfills common tracking-tasks, including GPS with a fix every 1,1h–1,5h, activity and temperature measurements, all data wirelessly transmitted via (LoRaWAN) at a period of 14min. Furthermore, we describe our ultra low power design that achieves an overall sleep power consumption of only 8W and is able to work down to temperature differences of 0.9K applied to the TEG.

Low Power Transposed Form 4-Tap Finite Impulse Response Filter using Power Efficient Multiply Accumulate Unit

Finite impulse response (FIR) filters find wide application in signal processing applications on account of the stability and linear phase response of the filter. These digital filters are used in applications, like biomedical engineering, wireless communication, image processing, speech processing, digital audio and video processing. Low power design of FIR filter is one of the major constraints that researchers are trying hard to achieve. This paper presents the implementation of a novel power efficient design of a 4-tap 16-bit FIR filter using a modified Vedic multiplier (MVM) and a modified Han Carlson adder (MHCA). The units are coded using Verilog hardware description language and simulated using Xilinx Vivado Design Suite 2015.2. The filter is synthesized for the 7-series Artix field programmable gate array with xc7a100tcsg324-1 as the target device. The proposed filter design showed an improvement of a maximum of 57.44% and a minimum of 2.44% in the power consumption compared to the existing models.