Patrick Mercier

Research

My main research interests involve the design of systems for uniquely specified biomedical applications. Typically, such systems have severe size (and as a result, energy) constraints that require aggressive algorithmic, system-level, and circuit-level co-optimizations. In many cases, simply changing the use-case at the system level bestows unique opportunities for significant reductions in overall system energy consumption.

In terms of specific circuit design, I have traditionally focused my research on ultra-efficient wireless systems, for example the design of an all-digital UWB transmitter, or a fast-synchronizing UWB baseband modem that minimizes the energy per useful received bit. Both of these results were featured in a biological miniaturized flying vehicle project. I have also worked on wireless power transfer (both inductive and mid-to-far field), high-Q resonator-based transceivers, eTextiles communications and power delivery for body-area networks, energy harvesting, and power electronics.

Journal Publications:

P.P. Mercier and A.P. Chandrakasan, "A Supply-Rail-Coupled eTextiles Transceiver for Body-Area Networks," IEEE Journal of Solid-State Circuits (JSSC), vol. 46, no. 6, pp 1284-1295, Jun. 2011
[ paper LINK ]

P.P. Mercier and A.P. Chandrakasan, "A Low-Voltage Energy-Sampling IR-UWB Digital Baseband Employing Quadratic Correction," IEEE Journal of Solid-State Circuits (JSSC), vol. 45, no. 6, pp 1209-1219, Jun. 2010.
[ paper PDF ]

D.C. Daly, P.P. Mercier, M. Bhardwaj, A.L. Stone, Z.N. Aldworth, T.L. Daniel, J. Voldman, J.G. Hildebrand, A.P. Chandrakasan, "A Pulsed UWB Receiver SoC for Insect Motion Control," IEEE Journal of Solid-State Circuits (JSSC), vol. 45, no. 1, pp 153-166, Jan. 2010.
[ paper PDF ]

P.P. Mercier, D.C. Daly, A.P. Chandrakasan, "An Energy-Efficient All-Digital UWB Transmitter Employing Dual Capacitively-Coupled Pulse-Shaping Drivers," IEEE Journal of Solid-State Circuits (JSSC), vol. 44, no. 6, pp. 1679 - 1688, Jun. 2009.
[ paper PDF ]

A.P. Chandrakasan, F.S. Lee, D.D. Wentzloff V. Sze, G.P. Ginsburg, P.P. Mercier, D.C. Daly, and R. Blazquez, "Low-Power Impulse UWB Architectures and Circuits," Proceedings of the IEEE, vol. 97, pp. 332-352, Feb. 2009.
[ paper PDF ]

P. Mercier, S.M. Kilambi, and B. Nowrouzian, "Optimization of FRM FIR digital filters over CSD and CDBNS multiplier coefficient spaces employing a novel genetic algorithm," Journal of Computers, vol. 2, pp. 20-31, Sep. 2007.

Conference Publications:

P.P. Mercier, A.P. Chandrakasan, "A 110uW 10Mb/s eTextiles Transceiver for Body Area Networks with Remote Batter Power," IEEE International Solid-State Circuits Conference (ISSCC), pp. 496-497, Feb. 2010.
[ paper PDF | slides PDF ]

P.P. Mercier, M. Bhardwaj, D.C. Daly, A.P. Chandrakasan, "A 0.55V 16Mb/s 1.6mW Non-Coherent IR-UWB Digital Baseband with +-1ns Synchronization Accuracy," IEEE International Solid-State Circuits Conference (ISSCC), pp. 252-253, Feb. 2009.
[ paper PDF | slides PDF ]

D.C. Daly, P.P. Mercier, M. Bhardwaj, A.L. Stone, J. Voldman, R.B. Levine, J.G. Hildebrand, A. P. Chandrakasan, "A Pulsed UWB Receiver SoC for Insect Motion Control," IEEE International Solid-State Circuits Conference (ISSCC), pp. 200-201, Feb. 2009.
[ paper PDF ]

P.P. Mercier, D.C. Daly, and A.P. Chandrakasan, "A 19pJ/pulse UWB transmitter with dual capacitively-coupled digital power amplifiers," in Proc. IEEE Radio Frequency Integrated Circuits Symp. (RFIC), Jun. 2008.
[ paper PDF | slides PDF ]

P.P. Mercier, D.C. Daly, M. Bhardwaj, D.D. Wentzloff, F.S. Lee, and A.P. Chandrakasan, "Ultra-low-power UWB for sensor network applications," in Proc. IEEE International Symp. on Circuits and Systems (ISCAS), May 2008.
[ paper PDF | slides PDF ]

D.C. Daly, M. Bhardwaj, F.S. Lee, P.P. Mercier, D.D. Wenztloff, J. Voldman, and A.P. Chandrakasan, "Energy Efficient Pulsed-UWB Transceiver for Insect Flight Control," Government Microcircuit Applications & Critical Technology Conferece (GOMACTech), pp. 401-404, Mar. 2008.

D.D. Wentzloff, F.S. Lee, D.C. Daly, M. Bhardwaj, P.P. Mercier, and A.P. Chandrakasan, "Energy efficient pulsed-UWB CMOS circuits and systems," in Proc. IEEE International Conference on Ultra-wideband (ICUWB), Sep. 2007.
[ paper PDF | slides PDF ]

K. Boyle, P. Mercier, N. Sadeghi, V. Gaudet, C. Schlegel, C. Winstead, M. Kashyap, "Design and implementation of an all-analog fast-fourier transform processor," Midwest Symposium Circuits and Systems (MWSCAS), pp.1532-1535, Aug. 2007.

P. Mercier, S. Singh, K. Iniewski, B. Moore, and P. O'Shea, "Yield and cost modeling for 3D chip stack technologies," in Proc. IEEE Custom Integrated Circuits Conf. (CICC), Sep. 2006.

P. Mercier and B. Nowrouzian, "Design of FRM digital filters over the CSD multiplier coefficient space employing genetic algorithms," in Proc. IEEE International Conf. on Acoustics, Speech and Signal Processing (ICASSP), May 2006.

P. Mercier and B. Nowrouzian, "A genetic algorithm for the design and optimization of FRM digital filters over a canonical double-base multiplier coefficient space," in Proc. IEEE International Symp. on Circuits and Systems (ISCAS), May 2006.

K. Iniewski, C. Siu, S. Kilambi, S. Khan, B. Crowley, P. Mercier, and C. Schlegel, "Ultra-low power circuit and system design trade-offs for smart sensor network applications," in Proc. IEEE International Conf. on Information and Communications Tech., Dec. 2005.