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US 10,481,672 B1Granted
Low-power MEMS wakeup system
AssigneeNational Technology & Engineering Solutions of Sandia, LLC
InventorsBenjamin Griffin, Robert William Reger, Sean Yen, Bryson Barney, Andrew Ian Young, Travis Ryan Young, Michael Wiwi, Michael David Henry, Brian D. Homeijer
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Abstract
There is provided a near-zero-power wakeup system in which a MEMS sensor for mechanical or acoustic signals is coupled to a very-low-power complementary metal oxide semiconductor (CMOS) application-specific integrated circuit (ASIC). Power consumption can be minimized by operating the ASIC with sub-threshold gate voltages.
Claims13
Apparatus comprising:
- a resonant MEMS device;
- and
- an integrated circuit electrically connected to the resonant MEMS device;
- wherein:
- the resonant MEMS device comprises a mass element suspended solely by flexures from a substrate;
- each of the flexures comprises a piezoelectric layer;
- the flexures are electrically connected to the integrated circuit such that in use, mechanically induced voltages in the flexures are coupled as input to the integrated circuit;
- and
- the integrated circuit comprises a comparator-latch circuit that produces a latched output voltage in response to an input signal that exceeds a threshold.
6 more elements
Dependencies are inferred from the claim text.