Wireless, RF & Smart Dust

Research that includes:

  • Tuneable RF components: capacitors, inductors, transformers
  • RF microrelays
  • High frequency MEMS resonators: devices, structures, and processes

Multi-Objective Mission Planning for Solar Sails and Swarm Networks

Mostafa Sedky
Maya Horii
Thomas Hosmer
Kristofer S.J. Pister
Tarek Zohdi
2025

Solar sails, which use optical pressure from the sun as propulsion, have great potential to be an inexpensive and sustainable way of exploring the universe. Recent advancements in the semiconductor industry have given rise to small and light actuators, sensors, and cameras, which make it possible to design high-performance, low-cost solar sails. For example, the Berkeley Low-cost Interplanetary Solar Sail (BLISS) is a sail design that takes advantage of lightweight electronics to enable a high sail area-to-mass ratio. Being low-cost and propellant-free, this design is well suited for rapid...

A 0.7pArms Electrochemical Readout IC for Continuous Monitoring of Antibody Biologics in Upstream Biomanufacturing

Hung-Yu Hou
Ya-Chen (Justine) Tsai
Wei Foo
Yan-Ting Hsiao
Jun-Chau Chien
2025

Biologics are antibodies produced by genetically engineered cells and are widely used in therapeutic applications. Examples include pembrolizumab (Keytruda) and atezolizumab (Tecentriq), both employed in cancer immunotherapy as checkpoint inhibitors to restore T-cell immune responses against tumor cells [1]–[2]. These biologics are produced by engineered cells in bioreactors, followed by extraction, filtration, purification, and separation, before being packaged into drug vials and shipped to hospitals for patient treatment. The production of monoclonal antibodies by cells is highly...

An RFID-inspired One-step Packaged Multi-mode Bio-analyzer with Vacuum Microfluidics for Point-of-Care Diagnostics

Yan-Ting Hsiao
Ya-Chen (Justine) Tsai
Wei Foo
Hung-Yu Hou
Yun-Chun Su
Yueting Lily Li
Jun-Chau Chien
2025

Current clinical practice for detecting low-concentration molecular biomarkers requires sending samples to centralized labs, leading to high costs and delays (Fig. 20.3.1). Recent developments in molecular diagnostics thus aim to enable point-of-care (POC) detection directly at or near the patient's location [1]–[2]. The most successful POC technology to date is the paper-based lateral-flow assay (LFA) [3]–[4]. Examples include pregnancy tests that sense progesterone and SARS-CoV-2 rapid antigen tests. However, paper-based assays generally provide binary results or limited quantitative...

William Dong

Graduate Student Researcher
Mechanical Engineering
Professor Clark T.-C. Nguyen (Advisor)
Ph.D. 2029 (Anticipated)

William (Shihong) Dong received his B.S. in Mechanical Engineering from University of Wisconsin-Madison in 2023. Now pursuing Ph.D. in Mechanical Engineering advised by Professor Clark T-C. Nguyen.

BPN828: Zero Quiescent Power Microelectromechanical Receiver

William Dong
Kevin H. Zheng
Qiutong Jin
2025

This project aims to explore and demonstrate a mostly mechanical receiver capable of listening signals within low-frequency and very-low-frequency range. The receiver is designed to consume zero power at standby and consume very little power (nW) only when receiving valid bits.

Project currently funded by: Member Fees

BPN987: Single-chip µV Precision ADC for SCµM-V

Yu-Chi Lin
Daniel Lovell
Ali M. Niknejad
Kristofer S.J. Pister
2025

We are developing a millimeter-square low-power wireless ADC capable of detecting and transmitting microvolt-level signals. This ADC offers potential for high-precision measurements in various domains, including biomedical, automotive, and IoT. The immediate objective of this project is to design a concurrent TMS-EEG-MRI system – a temporal and spatial imaging method that may unveil the intricacies of brain circuits. The high-precision ADC enables acquisition of EEG signals down to 10µV, while the wireless communication remains robust to heating and disturbance issues induced by MRI...

BPN976: Fully-Integrated MEMS-Based Wireless Receiver

Kevin H. Zheng
Xintian Liu
Qiutong Jin
2025

Recent MEMS process advancements from our group have enabled a class of low-temperature, thin-film ruthenium RF filters that can be processed directly on top of CMOS wafers. This work seeks to demonstrate the first low-IF receiver with fully-integrated MEMS-based RF channel-select filters, which permits low power applications in high-sensitivity, narrow-band software-defined communications and cognitive radio.

Project suspended: 08/21/2025

BPNX1005: Scalable SiPh-based Optical Interconnects for Qubit Control

Wei-Yu Lin
2025

Current quantum processor units (QPUs) have achieved over 1,000 qubits (e.g., IBM's Condor processor). However, scaling quantum platforms toward 1 million qubits demands breakthroughs in quantum hardware, connectivity, error correction, and system architecture. To address the scalability of quantum interconnects, Cryo-CMOS control and readout circuits have demonstrated efficacy in reducing wiring complexity, latency, and thermal loads. However, the CMOS circuits limit the active heat load to 1–2 mW/qubit, imposing a limit of approximately 1,000 qubits in state-of-the-art dilution...

BPNX1047: Single-Chip CMOS+X Piezoelectric Test Vehicle for Wireless IoT

Daniel Lovell
Benjamin Cook
Borivoje Nikolić
Jessica Boles
2025

This project aims to develop a 130 nm mixed-signal CMOS system-on-chip (SoC) Test Vehicle that can subsequently be combined with thin-film piezoelectric materials to create an integrated, single-chip wireless IoT platform. The SoC, which includes a RISC-V microprocessor, a Bluetooth Low-Energy radio, and sensor interface electronics, is designed for minimal power consumption and wide operating voltage range. In addition to these core functions, the CMOS Test Vehicle will feature specialized interface circuits - including a sustaining amplifier for piezoelectric timing oscillators, a...

BPN803: Single Chip Mote

Daniel Lovell
Titan Yuan
Yu-Chi Lin
Amanda Jung
Kelly Tou
2025

The Single-Chip Micro Mote (SCµM) is an integrated wireless sensor node that pushes the boundaries of system-on-chip integration. A single mote is intended to be fully self-contained and functional when supplied only with a power source, and the on-chip crystal-free radio is designed to comply with BLE and IEEE 802.15.4 wireless personal area network standards. In previous work, SCµM-3C was demonstrated to join an 802.15.4 mesh network running OpenWSN, transmit BLE beacon packets to a cell phone, and perform RF temperature compensation via both initial calibration and calibration-free...