• Intelligent and Connected Systems

A fast-rising demand for always-on intelligent and connected energy-autonomous integrated systems is stemming from the manifest convergence of the Internet of Things (IoT) and Artificial Intelligence (AI), involving verticals such as Industry 4.0, distributed sensing for smart buildings/cities, mobility/connectivity, wearables and many others.
As required by such applications, our research is enabling capabilities in a new breed of embedded systems that continuously monitor sensor signals, detect the occurrence of events, make sense of them through on-chip data analytics, and wirelessly provide the cloud with fine-grain big data for large-scale event comprehension. Our research hence focuses on always-on systems and AI accelerators with a very wide power-performance dynamic range, from ultra-low standby/active power to high peak performance. Recently, our research has expanded to all sub-systems found in intelligent & connected systems, including in-memory computing, ultra-low energy networks on chip for AI, and machine learning techniques embedded in sensor interfaces.

• Internet of Things

The research of the Internet of Things (IoT) group is focused on the design of integrated circuits (“silicon chips”) with ultra-low power consumption. This aims to enable the next generations of IoT devices with ultra-long battery lifetime and extreme miniaturization, for ubiquitous sensing and processing. Holding several worldwide records, our groups constantly demonstrate advances in the power consumption of digital, analog, radio frequency and power management circuits, as well as integrated systems for a wide range of sensing applications (e.g., environmental monitoring, motion sensing, vision, speech).

• Biomedical

The research of the Biomedical group is focused on the design of integrated circuits and systems for health care for several purposes. For example, flexible and band-aid sensors with on-chip machine learning are investigated and demonstrated to enable “patient-specific” disease detection/suppression. Our research enables ultrasound mobile imaging at the micro-scale through pMUT-based integrated systems. Ingestible miniaturized electronic systems are also investigated for little-intrusive and accurate endoscopy. Our research also involves advanced implantable interfaces for peripheral nerve prostheses, vital sign monitoring and low-energy wireless transceivers.

• Wearables

The research of the wearables group is centred on the design of electronic systems that are naturally wearable, body-compatible and aesthetic. System integration on wearable platforms based on clothing, textile and polymer gel are investigated to replace conventional circuit boards. The wearables group also focuses on Body Area Networks (BAN) with Body Coupled Communications (BCC) to solve the fundamental limitation of radio frequency communication on the human body, turning the human body itself into a communication medium for improved energy efficiency.

• Hardware Security

The research of the hardware security group is centred on advancing the state of the art of cybersecurity through innovation at the hardware and silicon chip level. The group regularly demonstrates novel techniques that enable cybersecurity everywhere and continuously, thanks to circuits and architectures that are very low power, inexpensive (i.e., small silicon area), and designed in a fully automated manner. As a few examples, our research on ultra-low energy cryptographic engines and trustworthy Physically Unclonable Functions (“silicon fingerprint”) has led to several demonstrations of security primitives with lowest energy and best statistical quality for chip authentication.