Mr Buckshot
February 9th, 2009, 12:44 AM
http://www.straitstimes.com/STI/STIMEDIA/image/20090209/chip.jpg
Tinier than a coin, that's for sure.
This microchip was just unveiled at San Francisco's International Solid-State Circuit conference yesterday. Apparently, despite being 2mmx2mm, it consumes 30x less power than most other microchips and is 7x more powerful.
So how did they do it? Well, with traditional microchips, to get better performance, more power is required.
The additional power is used to drown out the interference generated by the chip. This interference is known in engineering parlance as 'noise'.
In the case of this microchip, the power is harnessed from the interference itself! Sounds a bit simplistic, and it's definitely more complicated than that, but it works, and it's been tested hundreds of times before being unveiled.
Now what can use this microchip? Obviously we gamers aren't going to demand that our consoles and PCs use them, but cell phones, portable games consoles, portable GPS units, etc can definitely benefit from the 30x less power consumption. Of course, the microchip (or microchips, depending on the device's computing requirement) has to be specially adapted for different devices, you can't just swap it between various gadgets, but that's a small task compared to the thousands of hours spent developing this chip.
I definitely wouldn't mind this technology being used to boost my Nintendo DS battery to at least 20 hours per charge thanks to 30x less power consumption (I doubt this figure can be reached in the real world, but it should come close).
The chip was the product of a joint effort between an American team and a Singaporean university team. This particular fact isn't really surprising, given how many U.S. electronic companies get chips manufactured in Singapore, i.e. the Xbox 360 65nm chips are currently manufactured there.
Source 1 (2007 preview development): http://nanotechnologytoday.blogspot.com/2007/09/sustainable-nanoelectronics-us.html
Source 2 (official unveilment): http://www.straitstimes.com/Breaking%2BNews/Singapore/Story/STIStory_335970.html
Discuss! Anyone excited?
Tinier than a coin, that's for sure.
This microchip was just unveiled at San Francisco's International Solid-State Circuit conference yesterday. Apparently, despite being 2mmx2mm, it consumes 30x less power than most other microchips and is 7x more powerful.
So how did they do it? Well, with traditional microchips, to get better performance, more power is required.
The additional power is used to drown out the interference generated by the chip. This interference is known in engineering parlance as 'noise'.
In the case of this microchip, the power is harnessed from the interference itself! Sounds a bit simplistic, and it's definitely more complicated than that, but it works, and it's been tested hundreds of times before being unveiled.
Now what can use this microchip? Obviously we gamers aren't going to demand that our consoles and PCs use them, but cell phones, portable games consoles, portable GPS units, etc can definitely benefit from the 30x less power consumption. Of course, the microchip (or microchips, depending on the device's computing requirement) has to be specially adapted for different devices, you can't just swap it between various gadgets, but that's a small task compared to the thousands of hours spent developing this chip.
I definitely wouldn't mind this technology being used to boost my Nintendo DS battery to at least 20 hours per charge thanks to 30x less power consumption (I doubt this figure can be reached in the real world, but it should come close).
The chip was the product of a joint effort between an American team and a Singaporean university team. This particular fact isn't really surprising, given how many U.S. electronic companies get chips manufactured in Singapore, i.e. the Xbox 360 65nm chips are currently manufactured there.
Source 1 (2007 preview development): http://nanotechnologytoday.blogspot.com/2007/09/sustainable-nanoelectronics-us.html
Source 2 (official unveilment): http://www.straitstimes.com/Breaking%2BNews/Singapore/Story/STIStory_335970.html
Discuss! Anyone excited?