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A 30-Picowatt Processor For Sensors
Roland Piquepaille writes "University of Michigan (U-M) researchers have developed an ultra low power microchip which 'uses 30,000 times less power in sleep mode and 10 times less in active mode than comparable chips now on the market.' It only consumes 30 picowatts in sleep mode, which means that a simple watch battery could power the chip for more than 200 years. Of course, this is not a processor for your next computer. It is designed for sensor-based devices such as medical implants, environment monitors or surveillance equipment. However, the design is very clever." Roland's blog has some more information, including a die picture of the chip, known as the Phoenix.
...might want a Beowu ---- oh, forgive me. I know where the door is...
Caveat Utilitor
The lithium CR1216 batteries on my shelf started corroding after 4 years. Several of the AG3/CX41 alkaline batteries began leaking after 5 years. Still untouched, in their wrappers.
will be around to change that battery when it goes bad? Now we need a way to keep a users manual around for 200 years.
Can some one explain to me how this chip is connected to the world?
There is a spark in every single flame bait point.
There is some better info farther into the article, but the first thing they say about the chip is rediculous:
"So how did these scientists build this very efficient chip? The answer is extremely simple: they've reduced the battery size. 'Phoenix is the same size as its thin-film battery, marking a major achievement. In most cases, batteries are much larger than the processors they power, drastically expanding the size and cost of the entire system, said David Blaauw, a professor in the Department of Electrical Engineering and Computer Science. For instance, the battery in a laptop computer is about 5,000 times larger than the processor and it provides only a few hours of power.'"
So... they made it more efficient by giving it a smaller battery? That is so obviously backwards... They can give it a smaller battery because it's more efficient, but not the other way around... Or did i miss something? The article certainly doesn't help explain anything more if that is really come clever something-something going on...
-Taylor
Worldwide Military budgets: $2100 billion. Worldwide Space Exploration budgets: $38 billion. Really, world? Really?
sounds like it just does automaticly what a micro programed for use with sensors does. Usualy you have a counter in the chip that is driven from a clock pulse derived from the main system clock that generates an interupt (waking the proccesor up) every time it overflows. As each overflow is the same time interval apart this can be used to run a subroutine that checks whether it's time to run the sensing program yet. If it is the sending program is run and the proccesor goes back to sleep only waking on each interupt. Doing this proccesors can be made that consume nano watts of power. Automating this reduces the versitility of the microcontroller, although if it has resulted in good power savings then cool.
Does it run Linux?
What's with all these idiots who think "theoretically" is a synonym for "not really"? This gem in particular:
"Theoretically, the energy stored in a watch battery would be enough to run the Phoenix for 263 years."
Note that it's carefully worded to say "the energy stored in.." not to that a watch battery actually _could_ do this. Because it couldn't. The battery's internal resistance and chemical processes would cause it to drain itself long before you'd ever consume a meaningful portion of that energy.
Only in very specialized applications where you have extremely weak, but continuous sources of power, could you realize any benefit to a picowatt vs a nanowatt of consumption. For batteries or supercaps, the power source will self-discharge at a much higher rate anyway.
Ezekiel 23:20
These 30pW sleep mode CPUs will allow things to go to the next level of minaturisation, but will need reduced cost and will need to prove that they are reliable.
There is a huge issue with power consumption vs stability. Basically, each bit in a CPU holds a certain charge. When you flip the bit and discharge/charge the bit then you're dumping energy which is what results in much of a CPU's power consumption. Storing smaller charge per bit reduces power consumption. But reducing the charge also reduces stability and makes those bits more prone to EMF, leakage etc. Before I'd trust these gizzmos I'd want to see how well they operate at temperature extremes, near microwave ovens, cell phones etc.
Making them work in a lab is one thing, in the real world is quite another.
Engineering is the art of compromise.
Wait, I don't get it. What does this have to do with Roland? Are you saying he's the eater, the guy, or the pile of shit?
So, what's so special about this IC? Sure, it sits idle most of the time (except that they need to have a RTC to wake up every 10 minutes). That's what any digital CMOS IC would do if the clock would be cut off.
A turned-off switch in series with the system would drop the consumption to even lower levels while in sleep mode.
Somebody is desperately trying to justify grant money spent on pizza and beer...
I have one item at 10 units of electricity. I have another item using 10 times less electricity. So it uses (10 units * 10 = 100) 100 less units of electricity, for a total of -90 units.
Does that make any kind of sense to any of you?
Wouldn't you want to say 1/10th and 1/30,000th? Or even be cool and say "one order of magnitude" or even "5 orders of magnitude and a third applied to the result".
(please disregard the less/fewer issue here, one thing at a time)
Wow, I can power a chip for 200 years in sleep mode! Wait. I can power my computer for even longer if I just turn it off.
Combination - fun iPhone puzzling
The guy (who admits to not knowing his stuff so perhaps we can forgive him) really hasnt got a clue
The processor is designed specifically for sensors that wake up, do a few calculations and go back to sleep, these type of devices are genrally battery powered and off grid and generally make a decision whether to power up some other device eg to transmit the data. The device would probably be useless for anything involving serious processing, even the processor in an optical mouse would probably wipe the floor with it!
Barring that there are billions (yes billions not millions) of sensor devices out there currently using PIC/AMR/8051 derivatives that may benefit from this technology.
Interestingly we are getting to a level of power where even the most inneficient generator (or a low power radio signal) and a rather small capacitor could power it forever
www.boznz.com Simple solutions to complex problems.
I'd mod you funny and insightfull, if the slashdot system supported it :o)
Open Source Drum Kit, LPLC deve board - mjhdesigns.com
Dear AC troll,
Nobody cares what you say (it's not that important anyway). Leave Roland be, he made mistakes, he probably learned from them. If he didn't, it's not like he is forcing his bullshit on you. Just read the summary, if you see Roland close the tab or whatever and move on. Is it that hard?
ics
Doesn't "10 times less" equal "1 tenth". If your being funny, good for you, but if you want to be serious then you are really funny.
Disclaimer: English is not my first language so if my assumption is wrong then so be it but I can't see where is the misunderstanding.
ics
I've heard that with only 1.21 picowatts you can travel forward in time by around a picosecond.
...can it run linux...
Anyone who reads these posts would think that the goatse man was a neural net or something, since his posts are often different and never make any sense.
Surely it's a bit of a stretch to call it a "30-picowatt Processor"?
One tenth is 90% less than one, not ten times less. OP is right, the object of the sentence is the reference. Just like 15 is 50% more than 10, but 10 is 33% less than 15.
"We are not here to make you money with clickthroughs..."
Your rant about Roland served Slashdot some ads. Here's a thought: Don't post any comments in Roland's threads, then suddenly Slashdot will have an incentive to toss the tosser.
"I like to lick butts!" by MobileTatsu-NJG (#32700246) (Score:5, Informative)
...is on second.
Is he still hunting jumpers? How did he get off that high cliff?
This is about 30,000 times less interesting while I am in sleep mode and 10 times less interesting when I'm awake.
I am open source, and Linux baby!
300pW is 7.17017208E-11 calories per second, or 6.19502868 millionths of a calorie per day. Over 160,000 of these sensors could be powered on a single calorie a day. Adults eat about 2500-3000 calories a day or more.
If these devices can be powered by a nanoscale heat engine, they could live indefinitely, as long as their host human is alive to measure.
--
make install -not war
A very long time. I have replaced lithium primary batteries in train equipment that have lasted more than 10 years and still retain most if not all of their power. The batteries are a backup so don;t get used a lot, but the ones used in pacemakers usually last ten or more years. The plain truth here is batteries last as long as the application that they are needed for. Which is why retailers don't sell Lithium chromate batteries to the general masses. Who would ever buy an Duracell when they could own a SAFT Lithium Chromate that lasts 10 time longer?
or better still, when you see RolandP take a weeks break from /.
./ will soon only consist of the editors and Roland...)
(at the current RolandP posting frequency that would mean
What really gets me is that I get suckered in all the time to just take the stories one by one without checking who posted them and after reading the summary I sort of get this sinking feeling, check back and sure enough... It's like being rickrolled only worse.
MP3 Search Engine
> a simple watch battery could power the chip for more than 200 years
Rubbish! Even if you draw ZERO power from a watch battery, it will be totally flat in less than a tenth of this time. They have a 15-20 year shelf life and obviously that will only get worse if you put it in a device that draws power from it. You would need at least 10 batteries to power the device for 200 years.
pJ is not a pW. If this chip you're referring to ran at 10 Hz, it would consume 83 pW.
It's a lot like my 0 watt lightbulb. It uses 100 watts when turned on, and zero when turned off.
Well, yes, this _is_ the popular usage, even if the math (as demonstrated elsewhere in this thread) is all wet.
The 85% market in the US no longer groks division, and prefers the simplicity of multiplicative expressions like "ten times less" to the more correct "10%", "one-tenth", or "90% less". "-10dB" is, of course, a technical engineering expression understood only by Chinese knurds with coke-bottle-bottom eyeglasses. The "communications" majors (who flunked out of business school when thwarted by the mysteries of the single dimension calculus of loan amortization and compound interest) are more than relieved to reduce the math in their copy to the lowest possible level.
Clarity is a meaningless preoccupation of the elderly for a generation which has no need to bother with the trivial distinctions between "to" and "too", or "they're" and "their". or "breath" and "breathe". Their parents sweated to understand the algebra of fractions, and were baffled by retail markup and markdown.
Exceeding the recommended torque is not recommended.
In the long run for this application it may as well run at 10 Hz. It wakes up and runs a few thousand cycles every ten minutes or so, and spends the rest of its time halted.
...when you're writing a game...tweak the difficulty of "Easy" to something [your mother] can cope with. -- onion2k