It’s a big day for hot chips. No, not them. Researchers at MIT have created a tiny chip that is so efficient (it uses 0.3 volts, half as much as Intel’s “Atom”) that it could conceivably be run on body heat or movement alone, eliminating the need for a battery in the case of, say, an encrypting unit for in-body electronics sharing information.
Sounds overly specific at first, but think of how many people have pacemakers or monitoring devices in them running down a battery. At this point it’s still just a proof-of-concept, but the creators see it on the market five years down the line.
Team Develops Energy-Efficient Microchip [MIT, via DailyTech]