Time-Domain ADC and Security Co-Design for SiP-Based Wireless SAW Sensor Readers

Area of Science:

• Electrical Engineering
• Sensor Technology
• Cybersecurity

Background:

• Passive surface acoustic wave (SAW) sensors face implementation challenges due to complex signal processing and discrete hardware design.
• System-in-Package (SiP) technology offers miniaturization but its application in SAW sensor interrogators is underexplored.

Purpose of the Study:

• To present a novel architecture for simplified SAW sensor readout systems.
• To integrate time-domain Analog-to-Digital Converter (ADC) design with SiP miniaturization.
• To enhance physical-layer security for distributed sensor networks.

Main Methods:

• Developed a time-domain ADC with a novel delay chain calibration methodology.
• Integrated Physical Unclonable Function (PUF) principles for Time-to-Digital Converter (TDC) characterization.
• Utilized SiP technology for system miniaturization and integration.

Main Results:

• Achieved unprecedented simplification of SAW sensor readout systems.
• The integrated security mechanism provides unique system IDs with variable-length bit entropy for device authentication.
• Security mechanism demonstrated 97.56% reliability, 49.43% uniqueness, and 53.28% uniformity.

Conclusions:

• The proposed SiP architecture effectively addresses security vulnerabilities in distributed sensor networks.
• The design is particularly suitable for space-constrained IoT applications requiring robust physical-layer security.
• This work advances wireless sensor interfaces by co-optimizing time-domain signal processing and advanced packaging.