#microprocessing

The Manufacturing Outlook: Utilizing diodes as excitation light sources helps minimize the price of ultrashort pulse lasers. The faster the processing speed, the greater the laser power.

Designed for use in an implantable eye-pressure monitor, researchers developed what is believed to be the first complete millimeter-scale computing system. (Credit: Gyouho Kim)

U. MICHIGAN (US) — Nearly invisible millimeter-scale systems—what researchers say are the future of the electronics industry—could enable ubiquitous computing as suggested by Bell’s Law. 

Bell’s Law says a new class of smaller, cheaper computers happens about every decade. With each new class, the volume shrinks by two orders of magnitude and the number of systems per person increases.

The law has held from 1960s’ mainframes through the ’80s’ personal computers, the ’90s’ notebooks, and the new millennium’s smart phones.

“When you get smaller than hand-held devices, you turn to these monitoring devices,” says David Blaauw, professor of electrical engineering and computer science at the University of Michigan.

“The next big challenge is to achieve millimeter-scale systems, which have a host of new applications for monitoring our bodies, our environment and our buildings. Because they’re so small, you could manufacture hundreds of thousands on one wafer. There could be 10s to 100s of them per person and it’s this per capita increase that fuels the semiconductor industry’s growth.”

“This is the first true millimeter-scale complete computing system,” Sylvester says.

“Our work is unique in the sense that we’re thinking about complete systems in which all the components are low-power and fit on the chip. We can collect data, store it and transmit it. The applications for systems of this size are endless.”

More news from University of Michigan: www.ns.umich.edu/

via futurity.org