Slashdot Mirror
Intel Experimental Processor Runs On Solar Power
An anonymous reader writes "For the IDF keynote, Intel showed an experimental processor that is solar powered (incandescent light shining on a solar panel). The whole computer itself still runs on regular power; only the processor itself is solar. From the article: 'The concept processor, code-named Claremont, can run light workloads on solar power by dropping energy consumption to under 10 milliwatts, said Justin Rattner, chief technology officer at Intel, during a keynote address at the Intel Developer Forum in San Francisco. That is low enough to keep a chip running on a solar cell the size of a stamp.'"
I think that's French, for "Koh-e-Noor".
"Flyin' in just a sweet place,
Never been known to fail..."
...a Beowulf cluster of those (on your roof).
10mW cpu / 60W incandescent bulb = 0.16% efficient. Go green technology!
Nevermind. I'm not gonna bother asking
Urgh - a quick google unearths nothing more than copy-pastes of this article
Anyone got something more interesting on the actual tech?
Lets block out the sun before it's too late! Rise of the machines!
(incandescent) so... we've finally found a reason not to use CFLs? ;)
That makes sense. Now what if you want to run dark workloads?
ce:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZxGZIiyyxrM
As does in-case lighting... wait a minute...
Why would a processor "care" where it gets its electricity? Anyone who owns a computer and has rooftop solar panels or buys electricity from a provider using solar generation presumably has probably run a processor on solar power. Heck, so has anyone who's used a two dollar solar powered pocket calculator. A CPU and its electrical power source are just not coupled concepts.
from casio...its called a calculator
The "solar" bit is pretty much a gimmick; but I suspect that the underlying technology will be something that Intel finds very handy indeed, for chips of a variety of power levels.
Apparently, Intel has been working on bringing down the Vcore as sharply as their process capabilities allow. Lower core voltage, substantially lower power consumption, all else being equal(as people overvolting their CPUs tend to find out quickly...) It remains to be seen if Intel will be able to do this cheaply enough to actually push their power use down across the board, or if this will end up being a cherry-picked-and-blessed-for-10x-the-price ultramobile and very high density compute thing only; but being able to shove Vcore down is a nice piece of process research.
The chip is an experimental Pentium CPU and ran on a PC with the Linux operating system.
Anons need not reply. Questions end with a question mark.
Now botnets can really run 24/7 when people never sleep or shut down their machines to save electricity!
Seven puppies were harmed during the making of this post.
those grapes can be a little sour when they're unripe.
I suggested IBM could make chips that get power from a solar cell integrated with them, and that communicate with each other via either light or radio (so, no need for a backplane or wire harnesses, and potentially the light could even be directable to build ad-hoc networks across an open central space if the chips were on the inside of a sphere). No one took it very seriously. In college, around 1984, I suggested a desktop computer that was the desktop and was a monolithic several centimeter thick optical computer (the reaction was mostly just bemusement). A couple years earlier I'd suggested in a physics term paper how optical computer links between chips would probably be needed to do AI (the professor could not understand what that had to do with physics).
Guess it's just hard being ahead of your time. :-) The wages of reading too much sci-fi I guess -- where I first read about optical computing and communications ideas. Of course Hal 9000 had an optical computing core, and IBM helped with some ideas there, so maybe ideas can come full circle?
Glad to see people are finally making them, even if not IBM. Although maybe not so glad, as they could soon become "smart dust" and there goes the rest of our privacy (see Vernor Vinge who uses the smart dust theme in at least two stories).
A 21st century issue: the irony of technologies of abundance in the hands of those still thinking in terms of scarcity.
Glad to see Intel finally catching up.
"To those who are overly cautious, everything is impossible. "
WOW. A stamp sized solar array accompanying a processor provides an indefinite power source?? If so, combine that with pico-electic power from a watch and you might be able to get a wristwatch sized processor to have suffecient power to do simple things like communicate with wi-fi and render simple apps. I think this potential is going to be a sea-change; I can hardly wait.
RCA, 1966 patent
SCADA uses aside (and even these would be dubious, how would you power the rest?), why solar? Why not make use of the fact that you have a CPU that sips 10mW and just feed it conventional power? I don't know about you guys, but the idea of leaving a computer item in direct sunlight (why shine a 60W bulb to transfer 10mW energy?) kind of seems like it goes against logic.
Apparently any time you can stick "green" or "solar" into a summary, it's auto-frontpage....
While the whole solar-powered thing is kind of a gimmick, the fact that they have an (x86-compatible?), 'real' CPU (not microcontrollers) operating on 10mW is pretty impressive. This is a level where powering from ambient motion and a user's body heat is also feasible.
Caveat Emptor is not a business model.
Would the last person to leave, please DON'T turn off the lights.
The CPU was running on solar power, and hung when it got a bit dark.
The rest of the lashup was connected to a conventional PSU. You know, things like the graphics card, the logic glue on the motherboard and so on consume LOTS of power. A CPU that has a low power consumption is pretty. Call me back when an entire general purpose computer can run off solar power.
Wait - what about the Raspberry Pi? 1 watt power consumption, runs Linux. Connect one of those solar recharging units. What more do you need?
*grin*
Booh! Picture shows processor connected to solar panel with 2 wires. (+ and - I presume) Why not go all the way? Solar panels ARE made of silicon. Interweave the transistors into the panel itsels, generating power where needed. And get rid of the 2 ugly wires! Imagine having your CoreI whatever on the roof! (Or more realistically, the processor on the outside of your netbook.)
10 ?"Hello World" life was simple then
There is a Solar Car contest, let them do a Solar CPU contest. If an ARM CPU is allowed to take part then you better get a Samsung NC215S solar netbook.
Ow yeah the matrix. Now we just have to destroy the sky....ow wait.
Running processors from solar panels has been around ever since, well, the solar powered calculator. With modern semiconductor processes and lower voltage, having a processor capable of decoding x86 from a postage stamp sized solar panel isn't too much of a stretch.
The near-threshold-voltage thing is the awesome part... according to this link, the thing can *run* at 10mV!
http://www.anandtech.com/show/4820/rattner-shows-off-near-threshold-voltage-intel-architecture-cpu
Why is everyone doing this "IT RUNS ON SOLAR!!!! crap?
The Pentium III runs on solar! Give me $600.00 and I'll go to harbor freight and buy 3 of their solar panels kits and run an entire computer from 1999 on solar! Look it's the first solar Desktop computer!
This is nothing special. I have a VIA C5 processor in a motherboard that draws less than 15 watts when going full boat from 5 years ago that will run on solar. That makes VIA far better at this because they are 5 years ahead of intel!
everything in my house will run on solar!
Do not look at laser with remaining good eye.
The solar aspect is just a visual demonstration to get across how low-power the chip is.
They might have powered it with a potato if they could get it low-power enough.
now we can finally shelf our solar pocket calculators from the 1970ies!
30 years ago they ran calculators the size of postcards with solar panels.