13.3 A Triturated Sensing System

Computer miniaturization has driven explosive evolution of our information society today, where compact high-performance computers exist everywhere to provide us easy and immediate access to powerful information technologies and services. To further advance our information society, one technology direction must be still pursuing the limit of this computer miniaturization. In this research, there always exist two technical challenges. The first is 1) limited function and performance scalability; Conventional miniature computers so far are basically designed only for a stand-alone operation, and thus struggling within a trade-off between physical size and function/performance limitations. For examples, 0.05mm-size miniature computer [1] integrates a small 128-bit NV memory block and functions as 1D generation only. A modular die-stack [2] can extend the scalability however its physical size increases to 1 mm according to additional function/performance. The second is 2) unstable energy source; Wireless power delivery or energy harvesting at GHz-band RF is one potential solution with an integrated on-chip antenna [3]. However, a very strict antenna matching condition or a strong EM absorber (e.g. a human body) finally restricts the deliverable energy amount and range. Ultrasonic backscattering is presented for the human body application [4] however a
$\sim 1\text{mm}$
-size piezo device and strict position alignment with a bulky ultrasonic beamforming system is needed. In order to overcome above two challenges, not only circuit- but also system-level technical solutions are needed.