Wireless Radio Device with Ultra-low Power Consumption

Wireless communication has made our lives infinitely more convenient and with that it carries a significant threat to the environment.

The problem?

Today’s battery powered wireless communication systems consume a lot of unnecessary power especially when he radio is not transmitting or receiving any signals. Hence Bluetooth and WLAN radios on mobile phones consume energy continuously even without adding any functionality.

Bluetooth feature in your mobile phone continuously consumes power, even when not being used

However…

As one might expect, it appears that we have come up with a solution. And it comes in the form of a wake-up receiver with ultra-low power consumption that can be put in parallel with the conventional radio and can be switched on only when the data needs to be transmitted or received.

Imec and Holst Centre…

..are the major players behind this innovation and the radio architecture they have developed is based on double sampling (double sampling is when the circuit operates during both phases of the clock resulting in a sample frequency that is twice the clock frequency).

As a result the 2.4GHz/915MHz wake-up receiver consumes only 51µW of power. It also has reduced noise problems and higher sensitivity.

Test board of IMEC and Holst Centre’s wake up receiver. (Credit: IMEC)

The next goal?

This ultra-low power radio of only 51µW opens the door to more advanced wireless autonomous sensor system research and the inventors next hope to develop wireless sensor systems powered by energy harvested from the environment instead of using batteries.

This could then lead to many new battery-less applications such as long-range RFID, smart lighting, and sensor tags…

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