We propose a voltage control scheme for 6T SRAM cells that makes a minimum operation voltage down to 0.3 V under DVS environment. A supply voltage to the memory cells and wordline drivers, bitline voltage, and body bias voltage of load pMOSFETs are controlled according to read and write operations, which secures operation margins even at a low operation voltage. A self-aligned timing control with a dummy wordline and its feedback is also introduced to guarantee stable operation in a wide range of the supply voltage. A measurement result of a 64-kb SRAM in a 90-nm process technology shows that a power reduction of 30% can be achieved at 100 MHz. In a 65-nm 64-Mb SRAM, a 74% power saving is expected at 1/6 of the maximum operating frequency. The performance penalty by the proposed scheme is less than 1%, and area overhead is 5.6%.

In this paper we propose a novel functional amplifier suitable for low-power wireless receivers in a wireless sensor network. This amplifier can change input threshold level as carrier sensing level, since it has a minimum input amplitude to be amplified. A simple rail-to-rail output is suitable for a subsequent digital interface. The target frequency is 433 MHz, and the maximum voltage gain is 11 dB. The standby power is 39.5 nW, and the active power is 352 µW. The chip area is 8224 µm2.

In most research work for sensor network routings, perfect aggregation has been assumed. Such an assumption might limit the application of the wireless sensor networks. We address the impact of aggregation efficiency on energy consumption in the context of GIT routing. Our questions are how the most efficient aggregation point changes according to aggregation efficiency and the extent to which energy consumption can decrease compared to the original GIT routing and opportunistic routing. To answer these questions, we analyze a two-source model, which yields results that lend insight into the impact of aggregation efficiency. Based on analytical results, we propose an improved GIT: "aggregation efficiency-aware GIT," or AGIT. We also consider a suppression scheme for exploratory messages: "hop exploratory." Our simulation results show that the AGIT routing saves the energy consumption of the data transmission compared to the original GIT routing and opportunistic routing.