SOC DESIGN OF REMOTE TERMINALS FOR WIRELESS TELEMETRY SYSTEM

WonjaeLee, Sangyun Hwang, Minho Kwon, Seongioo Lee, Jaeseok Kim

Department of Electrical & Electronic Engineering, Yonsei University, Seoul, 120-749, Korea
ABSTRACT - In ibis paper, we present a SoC design of remote terminals for wireless telemetry system based on DSCDMA technology. Wireless telemetry systems are data collecting system that gather the information data, such as temperature, pressure, humidity and etc, from lots of remote measurement points wing wireless communication to the central unit It cau be used io ISM hand having the severe interference because of the D S C D M A technology and more than 1,000 remote terminals within 300m can be serviced at the same time. We designed the remote terminals as a SoC that is consisted of modem, digital IF, and analog circuit using a 0.25um single-poly Eve-metal CMOS process. The SoC implementation ls essential for low cost and low power to satisfy the requirements of the wireless telemetry systems that need large amounts of remote terminals. I d a Terms-Wireless Telemetry System, SoC, DSCDMA, ISM band, Time division transmission method
1 INTRODUCTION .

Wireless network technologies have attracted much attention in past few years because of their advantages over conventional wired network technologies. Most of the conventional telemetry systems which have been already introduced use wired network It is not easy for these systems to be installed at certain places, because telemeters are not always fixed. In addition to that, it is hard to maintain the network cable. Replacing the installation of expensive wired communication system with wireless system can e l i n a t e the need for communication wires that runs between hundreds of points in a system. To satisfy these demands, some telemetry systems using wireless communications are introduced; some monitoring systems use a simple F D W (Frequency Division Multiple Access) technology, and they are serviced in the band assigned only for them. However, telemetry systems have to be serviced in ISM (Industrial, Scientific, and Medical) band, because it is difficult to assign the new band for telemetry systems. Therefore, these systems are not appropriate for general telemetry systems that suffer from the interference caused by other systems like WLAN or Bluetooth which are already serviced in ISM band. There are other telemetry systems using the wireless network that have been already installed for mobile communicationsystem. It has some advantagesthat it does not require to install the new network for wireless telemetry systems, and it can use commercial modem which has been commonly used in mobile communication system. However, that system requires payment for using the network regularly.
This research was suppond by University I Research Cater h j e n T

It also has to use a conventional modem that has complex hardware structure, high price, and complex call process for connecting the network. Wireless communication systems like WLAN, Bluetooth and Zigbee can be a solution for wireless telemetry systems. However, there are some problems apply these systems to wireless telemetry systems. Bluetooth and W A N have high complexity and power consumption. Z i g k can be a good solution, and Zighee has very similartarget specifications. It is also targeting low data rate and low power consumption. In spite of that, it is not the best solution for wireless telemetry system, because its semice range is too small for telemetry system. In addition to that, telemetry system requires one central unit that can control whole remote tmninal's operation and data collection. Zigbee has to suppofi various applications, so it has several protocols like ad-hoc, star topology and mesh topology. These additional protocols that do not required to wireless telemetry systems make the system more complex. In this paper, we present a SoC design of remote terminals for wireless telemetry system based on DSCDh4.4 (Direct Sequence Code Division Multiple Accffs) technology proposed. The CDMA technology is very efficient technology for this system, because it can help telemetry systems be serviced in ISM band having a severe interference from other systems. It can also increase the system capacity by canceling interference, improve the S N R by collecting multi-path signal energies and has an advantage that communications will not he disclosed due to spreading the data with the PN codes [I-21. This paper is organized as follow. In Section II, the overview of the wireless telemetry system, specifications, and protocols are descrihed, and hardware architecture to implement the proposed system and a SoC implantation are presented in section III. The conclusions are reached. in section N.

I. WIRELESS TELEMETRY SYSTEM I

Wireless telemetry systems are data collecting system using wireless communication technologies. They collect the data transmitted through a wireless channel from hundreds of remote terminals scattered in the service area. It can be used for medical systems, factory automation systems, air conditioning systems, security systems, etc. Figure 1 shows the proposed wireless telemetry system. As shown in this figure, the proposed wireless telemetry system consists of a single central unit and lots of remote terminals: the central unit collects the data transmitted by'remote terminals and sends control data to remote terminals, while

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TABLE I SPECIFCATIONSOF W WIRELESS TELEMETRYSYSTEM

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remote terminals transmit the data measured by sensors to the central unit Remote terminals can get the data from many types of sensors; humidity, pressure, temperature, etc. Tbe received data are stored at the data-base server by the central d t . The measured data at the data base server can be monitored by:observers at their remote monitors through the network such as LAN or Intemet. Table I shows the specificationsof the proposed wireless telemetry system.
A. DSCDMA technology

B Network Topology . Tbe proposed system can only support star topology, since there is no communication between the terminals. It is intrinsic difference between wireless telemetry system and the other wireless personal network system like 802.1 1 WLAN and Zigbee. These systems have to support network organized as a star, mesh, cluster or some types of extended connection topology depending on the application. Each device in the network can be a master or slave and its network formation, configuration and maintenance are automatically performed through interdevice communication. A star network is simple to control and synchronize, but others are difficult to control. A network topology can affect the power consumption, so additional techniques for low power consumption are required for these system. However, wireless telemetry system use simple star topology, it can be more simply designed and does not require complex MAC (Medium Access Control).
C. Tmdvision Transmission method In order to increase the system capacity, the time-division transmission method is employed. Figure 2 shows the timedivision transmission algorithm. At fmt, the central unit calls a specific remote terminal (Uo), then the remote terminal and called transmits the measured data to the central unit. If the central unit detects that the received fi-ame contains mors,the central unit calls the w e remote terminal again, and then the remote terminal retransmits the b e after increasing the transmitting power. The central unit can attempt this process several times for the same remote terminal. Remote terminals transmit the measured data at the time interval ps), because the central unit controls all of remote terminals for Ts.If the time interval is increased, the number of remote terminals controlled by the central unit is also increased, but the data rate is reduced. If we reduce the time interval, the data rate is increased, and the central unit can control the smaller remote terminals.

Within the country, it is bard to assign the band only for wireless telemetry systems, so the proposed system has to use the ISM band. Many standards and specifications including Bluetooth, the IEEE 802.1 l b WLAN and Zigbee have chosen the 2.4GH.z ISM band for operation, due to its unique combination of near worldwide availability, suitable bandwidth, and technical feasibility for low-wst designs. However, it is nature that the intirference between these various incompatible devicesissevere. Microwave Ovens and amateur radio service also exist in this hand. Therefore, a wideband system based on DS-CDMA technology is employed to eliminate efficiently the interference from other systems. It is less likely to be compted by the interference due to its inherent processing gain. It is also capable of obtaining symbol synchronization in a single symbol period by correlation g to a transmitted spreading code.

I I HARDWARE ARCMTECTURE I.
Figure 3 shows a block diagram of SoC for the remote terminal of wireless telemetry system. As shown in the figure, & ADCDAC, it consists of a baseband modem, digital IF T, PLL and bias circuit. This SoC operate with external sensor and RF module.

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correlation energies. The received signals are demodulated, and then demodulated frames are c m i e at combiner. CRC obnd verification is performed after combing. It requires 16 numbers of 8-by-8 multipliers and eight numbers of 16-bit adders. By sharing these functional blocks, hardware complexity is reduced by around 20%. Employing the frame combining technique also minimizes the hardware complexity. As a result, the gate count of modem is about 27K.

B DigitalIFTr/Rr .
A digital IF converts baseband signal to IF band signal or IF band signal to baseband signal. Digital IF circuits are synthesized about 70K gates. At the transmission part of the digital IF, CIC (Cascaded Integrator-Comb) interpolation architectures are adopted to minimize the area It converts UQ channel data from modem consisted of 2 bits with lMHz data rate to 8 bits data with 12OMHz data rate. Figure 5 shows block diagram of digital IF Tx.

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At the modulator, the modem gets the data f o various rm types of sensor. These data are encoded and spread by modem and 4 bits UQ channel data are sent to IF transmitter with lMHz data rate, then IF transminer converts this baseband data to 8 bits 120MHz with 30MHz IF. Digital signals are changed to analog signal at the DAC that has 8 bits input. At the demodulation part, received signal from RF module is converted to five digital outputs that each has 24 MHz data rate in Delta-sigma Modulator. The digital IF receiver converts them to IO M H z baseband signals. Main clock is IOMHz and other clocks like 12OMHz are generated by PLL.
A. DSCDMA Baseband Modem

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Figure 4 shows the block diagram of modem The modem is based on DS-CDMA technologies and designed to minimize the hardware complexity for low power consumption.

Fig. 5. Block dlagpm of a Dlgltd IF Tx

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CIC decimation architectures and W pulse shape filter are used at the receiver of digital IF. Instead of FIR pulse shape filter that conventionally used in digital IF module, we use W pulse shape filter that bas l n a phase characteristic at the ier pass band to minimize the hardware cost. Using them, we can design digital IF with low complexity and no performance degradation. It converts 5 digital input data with 24MHz data rate f o Delta-sigma ADC to UQ channel data consists of 4 rm bits with lOMHz data rate. A block diagram of digital IF Rx is shown in figure 6.

A searcher uses single-dwell search algorithm, because the length of PN-code is short and the system does not require fast synchronization [3]. After code acquisition, code tracking is executed for one second using Tau-Dither Loop algorithm A code tracking is performed with accuracy of 118 PN phase. A searcher selects two code phases which have significant

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C. Analog circuits There are four kinds of analog circuits in SoC: ADC, DAC, PLL, and Bias circuit. We designed ADC as TI SC BPDSM crime Interleaved Switched Capacitor Band Pass Delta Sigma Modulator) [4]. Generally, BPDSM is superior to Nyquist ADC, because it requires less area and power consumption. However,four times higher sampling frequency I is needed to operate. A designed T SC BPDSM can operate at less sampling frequency compared with conventional BPDSM and provide better performance. DAC module converts 8 bits digital signal to analog signals, and PLL makes 120MHz clock with loMHz input clock.

D. AnalogBIST For efficient test of analog part in designed SoC, analog BIST is adopted [5]. Figure 7 shows block diagram of analog s BIST. As shown in figure, there i a path from and to external micro-controller through digital IF Tx, DAC, ADC and digital IF Rx. By measuring BER between the difference of input and output sing this path, BIST is possible for analog and digital circuit.

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We conclude that the proposed system implemented as SoC chip is very useful for telemetry systems having a large amount of telemeters and regularly transmitting the low-rate data in ISM band.
REPERENCES
[I] RS. Gilhousm, I.M. Jacobs, R. Padovani, AI. Vitnbi, L.A Weaver, a d C.E.wheatley, On the capacity of a ssllular CDMA system+ EEE T a s OnVchiular Tsehaology, V~l.4O,No.2,pp.303-312,1991.5. rn. 121 Seongjm I.ee and Iaewok Kim, Effm of multiplc k r h o l d values for PN code acquisition in DS-CDMA Systuru. IEE E l m n i c r Lmm,
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: Digital IERX

! I
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Delta-sigma modulator

w-l I
I

U:
i

U . L.
o g BIST

[3] IlmgyLee, M O Kwon, and Gunhce H q Time-lnmlcaved Switehcd-Capacitor Band-Pass Delta-Sigma Modulator,tbe 10 Korea
confenncc on semicnnduetors. 141 Andreas Polydoros, Charles L. W e k , A Unified approach lo serial search spread-spahum codc acquisition - Part I and Pm U, IEEE T&on on Umrmunieations, Vol. COM-32, No. 5, May 1984. H m [5] Kwisung Y w , Minho Kwon, GsumhwanBahng, Sangylm H g k c , JlmgyLcc, Dacrik Sco, Iacscok Kim, Slmgho Kang and Gunhce Hm, Built-in Self-Test Implcmmmtion for an Analog-loDigital Convcrur, Journal of the Korean Physical Sosisty, Vol.41, No. 6, Deccmba 2002, pp. 963-966

W. Block diagram of W 7.

Figure 8 shows the layout of the designed SOC. We separate analog parts and digital parts to minimize the interference between the circuits. The sue of designed modem is 4.1 4.1 mm* and there are 144 VO pins for digital and analog. The designed SoC w s fabricated using TSMC a 0.25nm single-poly five-metal CMOS process with MIM capacitor. Table II shows the summary of the designed SoC
W . CONCLUSION

In this paper, we present SoC design of remote terminals for wireless telemetry system which consists of CDMA modem, digital IF, and analog circuits using a 0.25um singlepoly five-metal CMOS process. It is designed to minimize ~ power consumption and cost. The proposed system c a be ~ adapted to many types of applicationslike monitoring systems for patients, security systems, and factory automation systems.

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