A Low-Power Low-Area SoC based in RISC-V Processor for IoT Applications

Abstract

The IoT applications use embedded processors to execute lightweight tasks for sensing and management of communications, using different energy harvesting strategies. However, many IoT applications need a low-power consumption for the limitation of power supplies. This paper presents a low-power low-area System On a Chip (SoC) for IoT applications with a stable power supply. The SoC consists of a microprocessor, a 1-KB of Static Random Access Memory (SRAM), a debug module, a timer, a General-Purpose In-Outs (GPIO), and a Serial Peripheral Interface (SPI) programmer. The processor uses a RISC-V Instruction Set Architecture (ISA). The implementation is fabricated in 0.18µm CMOS General Purpose (GP) technology, occupies a 750µm x 536µm. The microprocessor represents only 7.6% of the area of all SoC. The measures denote a 2.17µW with a 1V of supply voltage and 32KHz operating clock frequency.