There are clear opportunities in key applications for sensing devices that provide lower power consumption and increased detection and processing speed. Such capabilities could be facilitated by using more energy-efficient, faster chips (or sensor interface circuits), as well as by achieving enhancements (such as further miniaturisation) in the sensing element itself.
In terms of energy efficiency and speed, the pace of development has been phenomenal in recent decades, which has led to innovative devices and technology. Despite all these developments, there is a constant need to keep up with device requirements and user needs. Apart from this, improved performance can allow developers to gain an upper hand in the market, especially for portable devices and sensor networks.
In this constant quest for faster and more efficient technology, a team of researchers from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) has developed a new design for a faster and more energy efficient chip. The design, developed in collaboration with Texas Instruments (TI), promises to be up to 10 times faster than current chip design techniques.
The primary goal of the research team was to develop a design that would enable the chip to function at lower voltages than those designed through conventional techniques. The current crop of chips require around 1 V to operate, whereas the MIT team has developed its chip to operate at 0,3 V.
The team demonstrated the working of the new design by implementing it in a TI MSP430 microcontroller. To achieve the ultralow power design the researchers needed to develop a highly efficient on chip DC-DC converter, which would result in a lower voltage requirement and lower number of distinct components on one chip.
The challenges faced by the researchers during the development of their novel design were very similar to standard chip design developments. The major difficulty was to control the variability in the manufacturing process, since the decreasing operational voltage increases the chance of variations and defects in the chip.
The entire design is a complete system-on-chip implementation along with customised memory and logic circuits leading to improved data flow and speed. The need to redesign the memory and logic stems from the fact that these circuits have been designed over the years to operate at high-voltage levels.
The design, which has not yet been commercialised, has the potential to aid in the development of portable and implantable devices. Apart from consumer devices, such as cellphones and multimedia devices, sensors used in communications and medical applications could greatly benefit from lower power consumption and improved device efficiency.
The longer life of batteries might just be a starting point for this technology, since the lower voltage requirements could also lead to the development of devices that could be powered by alternative power sources such as medical implants, which could use available ambient energy.
The development of the new chip design was partly funded by a US Defence Advanced Research Projects Agency (DARPA) grant.
For more information contact Patrick Cairns, Frost & Sullivan, +27 (0)21 680 3274, patrick.cairns@frost.com
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