Search

A 6 Gb/s 9.8 pJ/b rotatable non-contact connector applicable to industrial robot arms is developed. The proposed non-contact connector enables a high-speed and highly reliable wireless data connection between three-dimensional (3-D) cameras and an edge computer in an autonomously controlled robot. A rotatable transmission line coupler (RTLC) is proposed to accommodate the rotational operation of the robot arm. Since the proposed doughnut-shaped RTLC has a constant overlapped area at any rotation angle, the RTLC has a constant coupling gain at all rotation angles. To remove inter-symbol interference (ISI) occurring at a specific rotation angle, a pulse-equalizing receiver is also developed. An interface bridge IC is proposed to transfer a wide range of interface signals from a slow-control signal such as the control area network (CAN) to a high-speed video interface signal. A signal protocol conversion technique applying on-off keying (OOK) modulation is also developed in order to transfer slow legacy interfaces used in the robot arms that include a dc component. Experiments with a test chip fabricated in a 40 nm CMOS process confirmed that bit error rate (BER) was lower than 10 $^{-12}$ at any rotation angle in a communication distance of 3 mm. The proposed system improves energy efficiency by a factor of 3.7, area efficiency by a factor of 1.8. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

A non-contact interface for modular smartphones that can provide a data connection at a maximum MIPI rate of 6 Gb/s has been developed. A two-fold transmission line coupler, which is a small-size coupler that has a wide bandwidth, is proposed for modular smartphones, where the layout area is strictly limited. The coupler size is 6 mm2 for a 5 mm communication distance, which is 1/24 smaller than the conventional coupler. Since many wireless communication components, such as LTE, WiFi, and GPS transceivers, are assembled in a small module, the interference between the non-contact interface and the wireless transceivers should be suppressed. To improve noise immunity and reduce unwanted radiation from the coupler, an electromagnetic-compatibility robust pulse transceiver is proposed. A synchronous receiver using an edge counting clock recovery circuit improves noise immunity, and a bi-phase pulse transmitter reduces noise radiation in the GPS band. There is no EMS by LTE or WiFi signals on the data connection at BER < 10^-12 when the coupler is separated by a distance of 2 mm and no EMI on GPS signals at a separation of 10 mm. Compared with the state-of-the-art result, the highest energy efficiency (6 pJ/b) and space efficiency (1.2 \textmm^2/1 \textmm distance) is achieved. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

A small-size inductive-coupling dc voltage transceiver for highly-parallel wafer-level testing is experimentally demonstrated in 90-nm CMOS technology, which can reduce the total cost of a low-price IC by 18%. In order to carry out dc tests, the proposed transceiver outputs dc voltage to the die-under-test (DUT) without any area-consuming digital circuits. In addition, digital calibration with digital feedback channel which calibrates the output dc voltage enables the removal of calibration circuits on the DUT. All of the circuits for dc tests are implemented into the area of an inductor (100 \mu\ m \times \,100 \mu\ m). The proposed dc voltage transmission is successfully demonstrated with 6-bit resolution. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

A CMOS ultra-wideband impulse radio (UWB-IR) transceiver was developed in 0.18-µm CMOS technology. It can be used for 1-Mb/s data communications as well as for precise range finding within an error of ±2.5 cm. The power consumptions of the transmitter and receiver for data communication are 0.7 and 4.0 mW, respectively. When an LNA operates intermittently through bias switching, the power consumption of the transceiver is only 1 mW. The range for data communication is 1 m with BER of 10-3. For ranging applications, the transmitter can reduce the power to 0.7 µW for 1k pulses per second, and the receiver consumes little power. The transceiver design, all-digital transmitter, and intermittent circuit operation at the receiver reduce the power consumption dramatically, which makes the transceiver well suited for applications like sensor networks. The electronic field intensity is lower than 35 µV/m, and thus the UWB system can be operated even under the current Japan radio regulations. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]