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An innovative product type is enabling wireless sensor networks (WSNs) to become pervasive: The intelligent sensor hub. This device type integrates one or more sensor die with a 32-bit microcontroller and memory in an architecture optimized to manage, process and fusion a cluster of different sensor types. Integrated analog and digital interfaces allow connections to a wide spectrum of external sensors and systems. Sensor networks can be efficiently managed at system and sub-system levels, allowing very low-power consumption, high flexibility through software, and adaptability by managing new kinds of sensors. An implementation proposal for a WSN demonstrates the key benefits of this concept at the node and system levels. This includes minimizing data transfers and intelligent interaction between the different nodes. Interfaces within a wireless network, like ZigBee™, are also becoming seamless and modular. Moreover, the small size -3 by 3 millimeter -and the low-cost of such new solutions are required for WSNs to become widely adopted in many applications.

The use of library cells, specially designed for their sensitivity to a laser beam, is a potential solution for both 'observability' and 'controllability' problems encountered by the test engineers. The basic principle relies on the photo-induced current generated in the laser beam-silicon interaction. The 'observation' cells, when probed by the beam, are used to read directly a logic level inside the circuit, whereas the 'control' cells are used to force a particular node of the circuit. A test structure including a 16 bits counter with 16 'observation' cells and 1 'control' cell has been fabricated in BiCMOS technology in order to illustrate this new testing method.

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