The Center for Integrated Circuits and Devices Research (CIDR) Program intends to host applied research projects that will address medium- to long-term exploration of a variety of applied technologies and specializations. This is to complement the country’s strong manufacturing sector with IC design research and development activities to enable the local industry to take advantage of current and future opportunities especially in the areas of internet of things (IoT) and artificial intelligence (AI). The previous µC-IC program with DOST-PCIEERD capacitated MSU-IIT’s Microlab in a system-on-chip (SoC) development. With this program, we hope to provide access to technologies that the local industry cannot afford to acquire/develop by themselves since it is possible outside of their core business. The CIDR will provide the research platform that will enable collaboration activities between participating industries and universities to work on integrated sensor node platforms.

This component project of the CIDR aims to explore a battery-less IoT device through multiple energy harvesting technologies. The environmental, economic, and logistical issue of battery replacement in the deployment of millions of IoT devices can be solved by utilizing super-cap instead of batteries. One possible solution for realizing these battery-less IoT devices is through multiple energy harvesting with design optimization of the circuit power consumption. Moreover, this project aimed to develop a customize and reconfigurable power management integrated circuit (IC) designed chip with different energy harvesting technologies; a combined or stand-alone energy harvesting unit (e.g., light, thermal, and RF sources), depending on the application of the wireless sensor node (WSN) or IoT device. On the other hand, with the presence of the first-ever IC design company in Mindanao, Xinyx Design, this research will also capacitate MSU-IIT’s university partners in Mindanao to increase the pipeline of producing IC designers for the IC design ecosystem of the country.

Relevant Links:

CIDR Wiki Home Page - Center for Integrated Circuits and Devices Research (CIDR) (up-microlab.org) 

Caraga State University collaborates with MSU-IIT & USTP on CIDR Establishment | Caraga State University (carsu.edu.ph) 

DoST affirms support to MSU-IIT projects | The Manila Times