New Flexible RISC-V Semiconductor Has Great Potential (ieee.org)
- Reference: 0175156335
- News link: https://news.slashdot.org/story/24/09/29/1931249/new-flexible-risc-v-semiconductor-has-great-potential
- Source link: https://spectrum.ieee.org/avnet-amd-space
U.K.-based [2]Pragmatic Semiconductor produced an "ultralow-power" [3]32-bit microprocessor , according to the article, and "The microchip's open-source RISC-V architecture suggests it might cost less than a dollar..." This shows potential for inexpensive applications like wearable healthcare electronics and smart package labels, according to the chip's inventors:
> For example, "we can develop an ECG patch that has flexible electrodes attached to the chest and a flexible microprocessor connected to flexible electrodes to classify [4]arrhythmia conditions by processing the ECG data from a patient," says Emre Ozer, senior director of processor development at Pragmatic, a flexible chip manufacturer in Cambridge, England. Detecting normal heart rhythms versus an arrhythmia "is a machine learning task that can run in software in the flexible microprocessor," he says...
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> Pragmatic sought to create a flexible microchip that cost significantly less to make than a silicon processor. The new device, named Flex-RV, is a 32-bit microprocessor based on the metal-oxide semiconductor [5]indium gallium zinc oxide (IGZO). Attempts to create flexible devices from silicon require special packaging for the brittle microchips to protect them from the mechanical stresses of bending and stretching. In contrast, pliable thin-film transistors made from IGZO can be made directly at low temperatures onto flexible plastics, leading to lower costs...
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> "Our end goal is to democratize computing by developing a license-free microprocessor," Ozer says... Other processors have been built using flexible semiconductors, such as Pragmatic's 32-bit [6]PlasticARM and an ultracheap microcontroller designed by engineers in Illinois. Unlike these earlier devices, Flex-RV is programmable and can run compiled programs written in high-level languages such as C. In addition, the open-source nature of RISC-V also let the researchers equip Flex-RV with a programmable machine learning hardware accelerator, enabling artificial intelligence applications.
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> Each Flex-RV microprocessor has a 17.5 square millimeter core and roughly 12,600 [7]logic gates . The research team found Flex-RV could run as fast as 60 kilohertz while consuming less than 6 milliwatts of power... The Pragmatic team found that Flex-RV could still execute programs correctly when bent to a curve with a radius of 3 millimeters. Performance varied between a 4.3 percent slowdown to a 2.3 percent speedup depending on the way it was bent.
[1] https://spectrum.ieee.org/flexible-risc-v
[2] https://www.pragmaticsemi.com/
[3] https://www.nature.com/articles/s41586-024-07976-y
[4] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Arrhythmia
[5] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Indium_gallium_zinc_oxide
[6] https://www.nature.com/articles/s41586-021-03625-w
[7] https://spectrum.ieee.org/optical-computing-picosecond-gates
Re: First demo of Doom on a pacemaker in 3..2..1.. (Score:2)
Dibs on the Beat Forcing Gun.
Cool, but silicon is still king (Score:4, Informative)
A Cortex M0 running at 60kHz will take 0.3 to 3 microwatts of power and takes 0.03mm^2 at 90nm lithography. On a patch that size, the bending radius will not be large.
But this is still super cool!
Re: (Score:2)
It is a nice demo. It does how viability of a new approach and that is always cool. It is not a product to be used now, many people do not get that on these types of announcements.
For actual application, the micropower Cortex M0 will be preferable, better power, better known, easier to program, established toolchain.
Eh? (Score:2)
"Our end goal is to democratize computing by developing a license-free microprocessor," seems like an interesting claim to have above the fold when the project involved grabbing someone else's RISC-V implementation, tacking on a custom "ML" acceleration unit because of course it has to have AI(discussed in the paper only at a fairly high level), and noting merely that the implementation of the design on a specific vendor's flexible substrate fab process was performed "using commercial Electronic Design Auto
Indium availability (Score:2)
How can it be cheap? [1]Indium is as scarce as silver [wikimedia.org].
[1] https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/0/09/Elemental_abundances.svg
Sew it into clothing (Score:2)
Control your integrated clothing lights during your next rave!
Re: (Score:2)
That can be done with non-flexible chips .. even the smallest CPU will do (millimeter size). The biggest issue has always been power supply needing a fat battery (unless you have a tiny display, which is lame). Second biggest issue is non-flexible WS2812b LEDs or expensive flexible OLED.
Re: Sew it into clothing (Score:3)
Stop fat shaming batteries.