There is a trend in technology to design increasingly comfortable and accessible devices. Modern smartphones, multipurpose tools, resemble the absurd with antennae of the 90s in a little way. More power, better design, smaller size. IBM went one step further and presented this March the smallest computer in the world (measuring 2x2x4mm) ; but a new contender has come to snatch the title from him.
The University of Michigan has developed a device one-tenth smaller than its rival IBM , just 0.3mm long and smaller than a grain of rice. This new device has generated a debate between institutions and the technological community about what are the minimum requirements that must exist for a device to be considered a ‘computer’ .
The thing about recent IBM creations is that when their power drops, they lose all their data and programming, unlike previous miniature models like the Michigan Micro Mote.
David Blaauw , who led the development of the new system, says that “it is a matter of opinion if they have the minimum functionality requirements” to be considered computers or not.
Development and properties
In addition to RAM and photovoltaic cells, the device has processors and wireless transmitters and receivers . Unable to have a conventional radio antenna, data is received and transmitted through visible light provided by a base station that provides power for programming and receives the generated data. The light from the base station and the device’s transmit LED induce currents in the circuits and power the device, in transparent packaging, at low power.
Some of the problems Blaauw’s team faced were inventing new ways to design the circuit so that it was low-power but light tolerant and achieved desired levels of precision. The change of diodes, which can act as solar cells, by switched capacitors was one of the solutions used during development.
What could it be used for?
The device was designed as a high-precision temperature sensor that converts temperature in defined time intervals with electrical pulses. These would be measured on a chip against a constant base station interval and converted back to temperatures. The University of Michigan design is capable of measuring temperatures in regions as tiny as a group of cells with an error of 0.1 degrees Celsius . The aim was for the device to have direct applications in oncology .
According to the proposal of Professor Gary Luker , a biomedical engineer and collaborator in the project, this computer could be used to confirm whether tumor cells have higher temperatures than normal tissues, as pointed out by some studies. If confirmed, the temperature difference could be used to assess the success or failure of the treatment. In addition, a millimeter computer could have applications in the diagnosis of glaucoma through eye pressure, cancer studies, monitoring of oil fields and biochemical processes or audiovisual surveillance systems .
Already oblivious to what they can contribute to other fields, the scientific community will have to decide whether these new devices meet the minimum requirements to be considered ‘computers’ or the smallest computer title will return to a previous model.
Reference: David Blaauw, Dennis Sylvester & Jamie Phillips. ‘A 0.04mm3 16nW Wireless and Batteryless Sensor System with Integrated Cortex-M0 + Processor and Optical Communication for Cellular Temperature Measurement’. 2018 Symposia on VLSI Technology and Circuits.
