The growing complexity of smart sensor systems has increased demands on its control electronics to improve the overall efficiency of the system. General-purpose controllers, though robust and cost-effective, are not optimized to meet the range of requirements for smart sensor systems. A thorough understanding of the architectural challenges of sensor-based systems such as wireless environmental monitoring sensors and biomedical sensors will greatly benefit the design of their control electronics. An application specific programmable processor for sensor-based systems has been designed. The prominent features of the processor are a 16-bit RISC core, supported by a flexible instruction set, 512-byte on-chip sensor data memory and a power management unit that implements a low power sleep mode. A special port has been designed, to interface with the network modified version of the IEEE 1451.2 standard serial bus for smart transducer interface of sensors and actuators. A top-down design flow methodology has been adopted using synthesis and automatic layout tools that explore designs for low power optimizations. Results that verify the operation of the processor in a simulated sensor environment are presented.
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