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Abstract: The capability to interact more ubiquitously with the surrounding physical world is a thriving force behind the widely ongoing research towards Wireless Sensor Networks (WSN). These sensor nodes however need to be very power efficient and very low-cost in order to be realistic on a large scale and to be economically viable. This work presents an ultra-low power, fully integrated UMC 130nm CMOS node which operates autonomously. Energy is scavenged from RF waves while communication is performed with UWB. [Copyright &y& Elsevier]

An automatic calibration circuit for temperature- and process-independent oscillators and timing circuits is presented. The circuit monitors the dynamic gate-source voltage of a MOS transistor of which the temperature is changing. By adapting the bias current through this transistor towards the zero-temperature-coefficient point of the VGS, the gate-source voltage can be used in temperature-independent timing circuits. Because of the dynamic nature of this regulation circuit, the technique is insensitive to mismatch and process variations. The presented technique is applied to a low-noise oscillator to make it less temperature sensitive with a factor of 8. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]