The ICARUS Mote: Employing Off-Chip RTC to Attain 22 nA Sleep Current in Duty-Cycled IoT Devices

Abstract

In this work we demonstrate the ICARUS mote, the first wireless sensor node that features the extremely-low sleep current of 22 nA. To achieve this, we employ an off-chip on-board Real-Time-Clock (RTC) circuit with an ultra-low power consumption profile. The RTC is configured to control the power supply of the under consideration mote, by enabling or disabling its power in a power-gating fashion, while it is the only module that remains powered during sleep, hence the overall mote's consumption is substantially diminished. The proposed principle can be adopted by any IoT mote, in order to extend the life expectancy of battery-powered applications, by pushing sleep currents an order of magnitude lower. © 2020 Owner/Author.