Brian Otis
Berkeley Wireless Research Center

B.S.E.E. 1999 (University of Washington, Seattle)

The goal of this research is to design a fully-functional RF transceiver for the PicoRadio project at power levels substantially below the state-of-the-art.

There are three key requirements of the RF transceiver: very low power consumption (<1 mW), high levels of integration (no off-chip crystals or inductors), and low cost (standard CMOS, low die area for RF and baseband).

To meet these requirements, a break from the traditional low-power, narrowband radio design paradigm is necessary. Some key enablers are recent developments in microelectromechanical (MEMS) technology. Next, a full transceiver was designed, implemented, and tested using these techniques. 

To reduce power levels further, a super-regenerative architecture was designed, implemented, and tested. See Figure below for a fully integrated, fully functional 400 µW receiver.

Additional research involves the development of 16 MHz reference silicon clocks (CMOS/MEMS) for sensor node applications.

See PicoRadioRF Pages