Comic Book Guy Posted July 20, 2009 Share Posted July 20, 2009 Imagine a chip that waits in Off mode for an input, that instantly turns on the power for processing when an input is detected, and then turns itself off again. An integrated circuit (IC) technology that might make possible this type of "normally-off" equipment will enter practical use in 2009: zero-standby-dissipation chips, achieved by making the entire chip, including logic, nonvolatile. As environment-friendly equipment becomes ever more important, this may be the trump card in slashing power consumption.The industry is switching into high gear in pursuit of zero-standby-dissipation IC technology (Fig 1). Rohm Co Ltd of Japan, at the forefront of developments, prototyped a microprocessor in 2008 and is now designing custom chips for a number of equipment manufacturers. With its volume production line in Kyoto completed in May/June 2009, Rohm will begin shipping custom ICs in the second half of the year. "Equipment using the new chips may appear before the end 2009," according to a source at the company. NEC Corp of Japan, hot on Rohm's heels, has developed a technology that runs chips even faster, and completed verification of a test chip in 2008. The firm plans to prototype a system-on-chip (SoC) within a few years in preparation for commercialization (see Part 2 of this report for details). The zero-standby-dissipation ICs discussed here are chips made with nonvolatile logic and merged memory. A large number of chips using nonvolatile merged memory exist, such as microcontrollers with Flash memory, but the new designs use nonvolatile logic as well. The flip-flops (registers) that temporarily store computational results are made nonvolatile, so that logic circuits can continue normal operation even after the power is shut off and restored. Analog circuits, power supply circuits and the like also on the chip do not need data retention, meaning that the power to the entire chip can be cut in standby: a zero-standby-dissipation IC. Rohm, NEC and others believe this technology will deliver significant savings in power consumption without sacrificing equipment convenience. According to Tadahiko Sugibayashi, who is with the Devices Platform Research Laboratories at NEC, "We'll be able to cut dissipation for digital consumer electronics in the standby mode to just a few percent of what it is now." In terms of annual electricity cost, he adds, "That could add up to hundreds of millions of yen in savings in Japan alone." And of course the equipment would be able to return from standby to normal operating mode instantaneously. In the future, says a source at Rohm, "Normally-off equipment will become possible, turning itself on only when power is needed." In 2008 Rohm demonstrated its microprocessor prototype in normally-off operation, slashing dissipation by 70% from conventional designs. Rohm explains: "This technology has enormous potential in applications such as games, where the system is usually sitting and waiting for player input." Full article + images Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Raa Posted July 20, 2009 Share Posted July 20, 2009 FINALLY! It's about bloody time, too bad it's only 10 years too late. :( Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Andrew Lyle Global Moderator Posted July 20, 2009 Global Moderator Share Posted July 20, 2009 That would be pretty sweet! I wonder how practical that would be in Cell Phones.. They can receive incoming calls, how could a chip be powered off? Who knows, i'm sure they'll think of something Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
LOC Veteran Posted July 20, 2009 Veteran Share Posted July 20, 2009 I swear when I saw the thread title I instantly thought of Zero Point Modules from Stargate lol Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
SirEvan Posted July 21, 2009 Share Posted July 21, 2009 That would be pretty sweet! I wonder how practical that would be in Cell Phones.. They can receive incoming calls, how could a chip be powered off? Who knows, i'm sure they'll think of something phones don't receive calls when they're powered off. Not every chip in a phone would be zero standby, only stuff non essential...like maybe video decoder or something. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
+M2Ys4U Subscriber¹ Posted July 21, 2009 Subscriber¹ Share Posted July 21, 2009 Ok, so they haven't invented a way to reduce ICs to zero power, they're just doing what everyone else does and turns stuff off when not in use. Not really news, tbh. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
hdood Posted July 21, 2009 Share Posted July 21, 2009 Ok, so they haven't invented a way to reduce ICs to zero power, they're just doing what everyone else does and turns stuff off when not in use.Not really news, tbh. No... They turn off the entire chip while retaining all its state, and it only wakes up once it receives input (which is electricity, and that is how it can be awoken even though it's powered down). It's not about entire devices like cell phones, it's about individual chips. It's not uncommon to turn off unused parts of a chip, or a chip that provides some auxiliary function when not in use, but these then don't retain their state, they lose everything they have in memory and are simply restarted. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Recommended Posts