On the Interaction of Clocks and Power in Embedded Sensor Nodes

Sensor networks have matured beyond academic research with industry now considering the advantages of using wireless sensors. With this growth, reliability and real-time demands increase, and thus timing becomes more and more relevant. Further, recent research has shown that current clock systems become a bottle neck as one pushes the duty-cycles of embedded systems beyond 0.01%. This work presents the current clock technologies available on the market, examines the influence of these clock technologies on power consumption in embedded wireless devices, and provides guidelines for embedded platform developers who must choose among the different clock circuits for their own embedded designs.