Picowatt processor useful for implantable medical sensors

摘要

The world's lowest-power integrated circuit consumes 10 times less juice when active and better than 30,000 times less power in sleep mode. Before long, sensors may be implanted in our bodies to do things like measure blood-glucose levels in diabetics or retinal pressure in glaucoma patients. But, to be practical, they will have to both be very small - as tiny as a grain of sand -and use long-lasting batteries of similarly small size, a combination not commercially available today.