Multi-Core Voltage regulators could lead to better energy usage

Electronic apps today are expected to be ever smaller. Smart phones are expected to have GPS, w-lan, multiple apps running at the same time and be capable of playing music, but if the battery time is at 4 hours the phone has only so much use.

To promote energy efficiency Harvard graduate Wonyoung Kim has developed and demonstrated a new device with the potential to reduce the power usage of modern processing chips. The “multi-core voltage regulator” (MCVR), almost instantly responds to changes in demand of voltage, which has the potential to solve the mismatch between power and demand.

(Credit: Image courtesy of Wonyoung Kim, Harvard School of Engineering and Applied Sciences)

Imagine you’re listening to music your iPod MP3 player, the graphics and images processor doesn’t necessarily need power, and similarly if you’re looking at photos the audio processor or the hd video processor don’t need power. Essentially it is faster than other devices like it. It can decrease the voltage supplied by 1Volt in less than 20 nanoseconds. Additionally it uses an algorithm that recognises which parts of the processor aren’t in use at the moment and cuts power to them.

The fact that the device is on the chip means that even individual cores on one processor chip can be managed individually. The short distances between the MCVR and the processor chip further reduce time between changes in voltage.

The biggest supply currently for this device would be in the mobile phone market, although it could also be used in laptops to reduce the heat output of the processor which is currently the obstacle to slimmer laptops.

The device is also readily implemented in current chip designs, meaning that it doesn’t need radical changes in the way chips look, instead in can be incorporated in the chip design.

First complete millimeter-scale computer developed

Scientists from the University of Michigan have made significant advances towards such a millimeter-scale computer, a field of electronics which is expected to expand massively over the next few years.

The "computer", an eye pressure monitoring system for glaucoma patients is only a few millimeters across. Similar systems could make practically anything "smart". They could be used to track structural deficits in buildings as they develop, they could be used to track pollution or make any object traceable.

The implantable eye pressure monitor. (Credit: Greg Chen)

They are once again in line with Bell's law, which states that about once every decade there are computers that are smaller and at the same time better at what they are doing than before. The law has held up with the 1960s' mainframes through the '80s' personal computers, the '90s' notebooks and the new millennium's smart phones.

I myself expect these "millimeter computers" to be the next great advancement in computing, although they will get competition from quantum computing over the next few years and decades as well.

Especially for medical purposes there are many possible applications for these devices, not just measuring eye pressure, but possibly replacing eyes, allowing blind people to see again, or constantly monitoring bloodstreams of hospital patients, so any dangerous changes can be counteracted at once.