A Secure Miniaturized Wireless Sensor Node for a Smart Home Demonstrator Antonio Jonjic∗† , Jasmin Grosinger∗ , Thomas Herndl† , Gerald Holweg† , Gottfried Beer‡ , and Wolfgang B¨osch∗ ∗ Graz University of Technology, Institute of Microwave and Photonic Engineering, Inffeldgasse 12, 8010 Graz Center Graz, Infineon Technologies Austria AG, Babenbergerstraße 10, 8010 Graz, Austria ‡ Infineon Technologies AG, Wernerwerksstraße 2, 93049 Regensburg, Germany † Development Abstract— Recently, the technology of wireless sensor networks (WSNs) experiences a growing use in home automation or advanced industry infrastructure applications. Despite a strong interest of industries in this technology, key issues like miniaturization and security of WSN nodes has not been solved yet. State-of-the-art WSN nodes do not provide credible security nor satisfying configurability and miniaturized implementations. This publication deals with these limitations and presents a WSN node that provides security, configurability, and a miniaturized design. To show the sensor node feasibility, the WSN node is implemented within a smart home demonstrator. Additionally, a miniaturized pre-study WSN node design is presented using the novel embedded wafer level ball grid array (eWLB) packaging technology. Furthermore, an eWLB based WSN node design is proposed that further miniaturize the presented WSN node. I. I NTRODUCTION The technology of wireless sensor networks (WSNs) has reached hype peak, under the more common term the internet of things [1]. WSNs consist of wireless connected embedded systems - WSN nodes - that are equipped with various sensors and actuators. WSN nodes are typically composed of three units a transceiver, a microcontroller, and a sensor/actuator. Recently, a WSN node system architecture has been presented that added a fourth additional unit, a so called secure WSN node [2]. This additional unit is a security controller or rather a secure element (SE) with a near field communication (NFC) interface. This paper demonstrates the functionality of the security enhanced WSN node by implementing it in a smart home demonstrator. The demonstrator clearly shows the advantages of the secure WSN node in terms of security and configurability. So far, state-of-the-art WSNs rely on software based security implementations [3] [4]. These implementations are cumbersome in terms of hardware resources such as memory demands. Compared to software based implementations, hardware based implementations offer a energy efficient security and crypto-key management [2]. To further enhance the miniaturization, the paper also presents a WSN node miniaturization approach using This work was performed as part of the K-project “Secure Contactless Sphere — Smart RFID Technologies for a Connected World” that is funded by the Austrian Research Promotion Agency (FFG) and the ARTEMIS JU Project ”Internet of Energy”, Project No. 269374. the novel embedded wafer level ball grid array (eWLB) packaging technology. So far, miniaturization has been implemented by several research groups based on 3D printed circuit board (PCB) stacking designs [5], or 3D integrated circuit (IC) stacking with through silicon via (TSV) designs [6]. Both approaches enable small form factors but use discrete production methods with wire bonding. However, a discrete assembly of WSN nodes is not suitable for high volume low production cost manufacturing. In comparison to the implementations used so far, this paper presents a miniaturization based on the eWLB packaging technology. The eWLB packaging technology is a wafer level based technology that enables low production and test costs and allows to realize a multi metal layer heterogeneous system integration. II. S MART H OME D EMONSTRATOR We build a smart home demonstrator to simulate a home automation scenario. The demonstrator is shown in Fig. 1 and consists of off-the-shelf real world electrical appliances that are equipped with the invented secure WSN node. In detail, the demonstrator consists of a smart socket that is connected to a table fan, a smart wireless switch, and an near field communication (NFC) smart phone. Smart socket and switch are equipped with the realized WSN nodes (see Fig. 2 and 3). To power up the smart home demonstrator, the demonstrator sockets are connected to a wall socket with a power cable. The wireless switch controls the ON and OFF state of the table fan as shown in Fig. 1. The wireless link between the switch and the sockets operates in the ultra high frequency (UHF) range and is strongly encrypted. The encryption process of data packets and the crypto-key storage is handled by the SE. To establish the secure wireless link, an NFC smart phone is used. The NFC smart phone is used for: • cryptographic key generation and distribution to the WSN nodes, • fast installation of WSNs by taping the NFC smart phone to WSN node equipped appliances, as described in section III, and • configuration of radio frequency (RF) parameters, like frequency band selection (multi band transceiver) for 978-1-4799-8275-2/15/$31.00 ©2015 IEEE interoperability reasons. A smart phone application was programmed, which allows a user to choose the amount of electrical energy he wants to buy. After selecting the amount of energy (kWh), the user taps the smart phone to the smart socket and all necessary data is transmitted over the NFC interface to the smart socket. When the smart socket is turned on, the table fan is switched on. A current sensor that is integrated in the WSN node (see Fig. 3) measures the current flow, and an energy metering program, running on the WSN node, calculates the energy consumed by the table fan. When the energy consumed by the fan reaches the paid value, the power is switched off. table fan (OFF) smart socket power cable with secure WSN nodes. The secure WSN node is a 3 V system with an on board voltage regulator. The WSN node inside the smart switch is powered by a 9 V battery, and the smart socket is powered by a 5 V switched-mode power supply. The visible winded copper wire is an NFC loop antenna and is mounted bellow the cases of socket and switch. secure element (SLE78xx) NFC loop antenna solid state relay current sensor (TLI4970) general-purpose microcontroller (32Bit) transceiver (TDA5340) 868MHz UHF ceramic antenna Fig. 3. Secure WSN node. The back (right/left picture) and the front (right/left picture) of the sensor node are shown. III. S ECURE WSN N ODE NFC smart phone table fan (ON) smart switch Security in WSNs is achieved by encrypting messages sent among WSN nodes. To encrypt messages, a crypto-key must be agreed on in all WSN nodes before starting the wireless communication between them. With common WSN node architectures, this is a non-trivial task [3] [4] due to hardware constrains. Therefore, a secure WSN node architecture was conceived, which improves the crypto-key management and configuration capabilities of the WSN node. Fig. 1. Smart home demonstrator. The upper part of the image shows the smart home demonstrator with the smart socket, smart switch, NFC smart phone, power cable and table fan. The lower part of the image shows the table fan in ON state, after the wireless switch or more exactly the push button has been pressed once. supply battery secure WSN node NFC loop antenna secure WSN node NFC loop antenna voltage carrying conductor Fig. 2. Smart socket (left picture) and smart switch (right picture). The image shows the installation of the PCB based secure WSN node into the smart home demonstrator appliances. Figure 2 shows the installation of the secure WSN nodes into the smart socket and the smart switch that are equipped Fig. 4. Block diagram of the secure WSN node: The upper block diagram depicts for comparison reasons a common WSN node architecture, while the lower block diagram depicts the system architecture of the proposed secure WSN node. By adding the secure element with the NFC interface to the WSN node, security and configuration aspects are added 978-1-4799-8275-2/15/$31.00 ©2015 IEEE to the node. A detailed explanation about the secure element with NFC interface is shown in previous publication [2]. With the secure WSN node it is possible to facilitate cryptographic key distribution, pairing (peer-to-peer network installation) and configuration. Figure 5 shows the crypto-key assignment and pairing process of the smart socket and the smart switch of the smart home demonstrator. Just by taping the NFC smart phone to the secure WSN node equipped appliances, smart socket and smart switch are paired and can securely communicate with each other via the UHF link. Step2 : tap switch Step1 : tap socket Fig. 5. Crypto-key assignment and pairing process: With the NFC enabled secure WSN nodes, crypto-key assignment and pairing of appliances is done just by taping the NFC smart phone to the specific appliances, i.e., the sockets and the switch. pre-study WSN node eWLB wafer 8mm 8mm Fig. 6. Pre-study WSN node using the eWLB packaging technology: This design contains a 868 MHz antenna that is implemented as a planar inverted-F antenna (PIFA) and a current sensor (TLI4970). The copper traces (interconnect wires and metal layers) are embedded in the dielectric layers (see Fig. 7), which have a relative permittivity εr of 3.5 and a loss tangent tan δ of 0.020 (at 1 GHz). The maximum thickness of the mold compound is mainly limited by economic aspects, in our case it is constrained to a size of 1.7 mm. Since the first generation, the eWLB technology has significantly evolved and supports now: • • • IV. M INIATURIZATION The realized WSN node is implemented on a PCB with a size of 19.4 mm x 23 mm. For an easy and simple integration of the WSN node, a further miniaturization of the node is beneficial. Our secure WSN node is a heterogeneous system, with two chips, passive components, an UHF antenna, and an NFC loop antenna (see Fig. 3). This complexity requires a heterogeneous multi layer integration approach. We found that eWLB packaging technology is able to address our advanced requirements for a heterogeneous system-in-package (SiP) WSN node. Figure 6 shows the eWLB wafer containing a pre-study WSN node design. The pre-study eWLB design has a transparent dielectric layer, this enables to see the metal layer of the redistribution layer 1 (RDL 1). The RDL 1 layer contains the UHF antenna and the current trail and digital interface wiring of the current sensor. multi-layer redistribution layers (RDLs), large package sizes of up to 12 mm x 12 mm, and double side metal layers at the top and the bottom of the package for surface mounted device (SMD) pads implementation. The previous mentioned properties make the eWLB packaging technology advantageous for RF applications like a wireless sensor node. Air 1.7 mm 0.008 mm 0.45 mm 0.8 mm Air epoxy die, flip chip copper trace dielectric A. eWLB Packaging The eWLB packaging technology was developed as an enhancement to the existing wafer level packaging (WLP) technology that is constrained in package size and in integration capability [7]. The new technology eWLB allows a much higher ball count as the package size extends beyond the size of the chip, which is known as fan-out area [7]. This fan-out area (see Fig. 7) enables to incorporate radio frequency (RF) components like antennas and high quality factor passive components like inductors and capacitors. The package mold compound is an epoxy material with a relative permittivity εr of 3.4 and a loss tangent tan δ of 0.003 (at 1 GHz). PCB fan-out SMD pads Fig. 7. The upper part of the picture shows the ADS substrate model for the layout design of the eWLB packaging technology based miniaturized WSN node. The substrate model shows the different layers of the design with their thickness. The lower part of the picture shows the schematic cross-section of a eWLB device mounted on a PCB. 978-1-4799-8275-2/15/$31.00 ©2015 IEEE 9.3 mm cap hat monopole antenna loading coil matching network pads antenna feed eWLB Balls ASIG 11.4 mm Z SMD pads TDA5340 Y X PCB GND Fig. 8. The layout design of the miniaturized WSN node with a base loaded atenna. The antenna ”cap hat” requires the most package substrate area enabling a reasonable antenna gain of -5.6 dBi. The picture shows the different eWLB model layers of the WSN node, colored by different materials: RDL, silicon, and PCB metal layer. Additional the chip-dies of the transceiver TDA5340 and the ASIG microcontroller with a temperature sensor and coil-on-chip HF antenna for NFC communication are placed on top of the dielectric substrate. The metal pads for the SMD passive components of the load network are embedded on the surface of the eWLB package bottom. B. Antenna Design The eWLB layout of the miniaturized WSN node was designed using the Agilent Advanced Design System (ADS) program [13], using the microwave simulation Momentum. The layout design in Fig. 8 shows the WSN node components: transceiver chip (TDA5340), application specific integrated grain (ASIG) microcontroller chip, the custom-build 868 MHz miniaturized monopole antenna, and a PCB. The eWLB package additionally comprises metal pads for the mounting of passive components of the class-E amplifier loading network and blocking caps (see Fig. 8), which additional decreases the antenna efficiency. The NFC loop antenna (13.56 MHz) is implemented as an coil-on-chip antenna on the ASIG microcontroller. This implementation is in contrast to the PCB based WSN node where the NFC loop antenna is an external component. The ASIG with its on chip antennas is presented in [9]. An ADS substrate model of the eWLB based miniaturized WSN node was realized (as seen in Fig. 7) to design the 868 MHz miniaturized monopole. A miniaturized monopole antenna (dark orange) was designed (see Fig. 8). Our WSN node transceiver (TDA5340) operates at the 868 MHz UHF frequency band. The antenna dimension is about a factor 10 smaller than the desired physical length to realize an efficient antenna at 868 MHz (86.4 mm for λ/4). The challenge was to reach a reasonable antenna gain, under the condition to implement a 86.4 mm (λ/4) side-length antenna into a 9.3 mm x 11.4 mm package as can be seen in Fig. 8. The very small size of the antenna makes the antenna impedance dominantly capacitive. To electrically lengthen the antenna we use a loading coil (see Fig. 8). The eWLB packaging technology offers a toolbox of passive components with high Q values [8], which we beneficially exploit for a loading coil. Then, the custom-build monopole provides an input impedance of 50 Ω exploiting an additional matching network (see Fig. 8). To additionally increase the antenna gain the approach of a “cap hat” was used [12]. The “cap hat” greatly increases the antenna gain reaching a value of −5.6 dBi for a base loaded antenna [12]. In comparison the antenna gain was −9.28 dBi without a “cap hat”. An antenna gain of −5.6 dBi is a reasonable value considering an antenna area of less than λ/36 x λ/30 (9.3 mm x 11.4 mm). V. C ONCLUSIONS We present a smart home demonstrator which contains security enhanced WSN nodes. This WSN node has security and configuration advantages in comparison to state-of-theart implementations, shown by the demonstrator. For further miniaturization, we present a miniaturized WSN node based on the novel eWLB packaging technology. We show that using a ”cap hat” for our small antenna greatly increases the antenna gain reaching a reasonable gain of −5.6 dBi. The simulated results show that eWLB packaging is a promising technology for WSN node applications. These simulation results will be validated by measurements. The prototype production of the eWLB miniaturized WSN nodes is already in process and will be ready till end of April 2015. R EFERENCES [1] N. Khalil, M.R. Abid, D. Benhaddou, and M. Gerndt, ”Wireless Sensors Networks for Internet of Things,” in Proc. ISSNIP, Singapore, 2014. [2] A. Jonjic, J. Grosinger, R. T. Herndl, R. Matischek, G. Hohlweg, W. Boesch, ”A Secruity and NFC Enhanced Wireless Sensor Network Node,” in Proc. IEEE Sensors, Valencia, 2014. [3] L. Eschenauer, V. D. Gligor, ”A Key-Management Scheme for Distributed Sensor Networks,” in Proc. CCS, New York 2002. [4] A. Selva Reegan, E. Baburaj, ”Key Management Schemes in Wireless Sensor Networks: A Survey,” in Proc. ICCPCT, Nagercoil 2013. [5] M. Niedermayer, S. Guttowski, R. Thomasius, D. Polityko, ”Miniaturization Platform for Wireless Sensor Nodes Based on 3D-Packaging Technologies,” in Proc. IPSN, Nashville 2006. [6] X. Liu, W. Lei, M. Jayakrishnan, L. Jingjing, L. Hongyu, ”A Miniaturized Heterogeneous Wireless Sensor Node in 3DIC,” in Proc. IEEE International, Osaka 2012. [7] J. Yonggang, X. Baraton, S.W. Yoon, L. Yaojian, P.C. Marimuthu, ”Next Generation eWLB (Embedded Wafer Level BGA) Packaging,”. in Proc. EPTC, Singapore 2010. [8] W. Pachler, K. Pressel, J. Grosinger, G. Beer, W. Bosch, ”A Novel 3D Packaging Concept for RF Powered Sensor Grains,” in Proc. ECTC, Orlando 2014. [9] W. Pachler, J. Grosinger, W. Bosch, ”A Miniaturized Dual Band RFID Tag,” in Proc. IEEE RFID-TA, Tampere 2014. [10] G. Marrocco, ”The Art of UHF RFID Antenna Design: ImpedanceMatching and Size-Reduction Techniques,” in Proc. IEEE Antennas and Propagation Magazine., 2008. [11] H.A. Wheeler, ”Fundamental Limitations of Small Antennas,” in Proc. IRE, 1947. [12] Krischke. A, ”Rothammels Antennenbuch,” DARC, Baunatal 13th edition, 2013. [13] http://www.agilent.com. 02/2008. 978-1-4799-8275-2/15/$31.00 ©2015 IEEE
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