A new low-power microchip developed at the University of Michigan uses 30,000 times less power in sleep mode and 10 times less in active mode than comparable chips currently on the market. The Phoenix Processor, as it's called, sets a low-power record and is intended for use in cutting-edge sensor-based devices such as medical implants, environment monitors or surveillance equipment. The chip, which measures one square millimeter, consumes just 30 picowatts during sleep mode. A picowatt is one-trillionth of a watt.

To achieve such low power, Phoenix engineers focused on sleep mode, where sensors can spend more than 99 percent of their lives. Sensors wake only briefly to compute at regular intervals, so the system defaults to sleep. A low-power timer acts as an alarm clock on perpetual snooze, waking Phoenix every ten minutes for 1/10th of a second to run a set of 2,000 instructions. The list includes checking the sensor for new data, processing it, compressing it into a sort of short-hand, and storing it before going back to sleep.

Another interesting aspect of the Phoenix is that it is the same size as its thin-film battery. Normally, batteries are much larger than the processors they power, drastically expanding the size and cost of the entire system. The battery in a laptop computer, for example, is about 5,000 times larger than the processor and it provides only a few hours of power. Theoretically, the energy stored in a watch battery would be enough to run the Phoenix for 263 years.

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