A hardware and software platform for characterization and prototyping of a low-power energy-harvesting SoC

Abstract

Energy consumption is an important performance indicator for wireless devices. Developing ICs that address this issue for IoT applications is a complex task, which relies not only on design, but also on testing and characterization as a large part of the process. This thesis develops a framework for testing, characterizing and prototyping of an ultra-low power IC developed at Aalto. The framework consists of both hardware and software components. The hardware involves a large four-layer PCB, various components that support the IC’s functions and a smaller PCB which interfaces with a one-bit display, both implemented with Altium Designer, together with a UWBfilter and an impedance matching network. The software part consists of a flexible IC programming and configuration interface written in Python, two LabVIEW VIs for wireless data transmission and reception and a set of measurement automation libraries written in Python. The framework is successfully tested with the one-bit display driver and is used by the researchers for evaluating their IC blocks.