Low-power architecture for integrated CMOS bio-sensing

Integrated CMOS bio-sensing aims to design and develop complete lab-on-chip systems. Distributed wireless sensors, at the micrometer scale, can be directly interfaced with the surrounding biological environment. In this scenario, the major challenges to be faced are device size, power consumption, and an effective communication/system overall architecture. We propose therefore a complete and effective sensor/system architecture (data acquisition, encoding, and transmission), along with examples and results from preliminary works. The system leverages on an event-based (quasi-digital) paradigm, where analog information is mapped onto the timings of digital address-events, improving the communication robustness while retaining the full information content.