Researchers at UC San Diego have developed a temperature sensor that runs on tiny amounts of power -- just 113 picowatts, around 10 billion times less power than a watt. The sensor was described in a study recently published in Scientific Reports. "We're building systems that have such low power requirements that they could potentially run for years on just a tiny battery," Hui Wang, an author of the study, said in a statement.
The team created the device by reducing power in two areas. The first was the current source. To do that, they made use of a phenomenon that many researchers in their field are actually trying to get rid of. Transistors often have a gate with which they can stop the flow of electrons in a circuit, but transistors keep getting tinier and tinier. The smaller they get, the thinner the gate material becomes and electrons start to leak through it -- a problem called "gate leakage." Here, the leaked electrons are what's powering the sensor. "Many researchers are trying to get rid of leakage current, but we are exploiting it to build an ultra-low power current source," said Hui.
The researchers also reduced power in the way the sensor converts temperature to a digital readout. The result is a temperature sensor that uses 628 times less power than the current state-of-the-art sensors.
Source: Engadget
Journal Reference: Hui Wang & Patrick P. Mercier, Near-Zero-Power Temperature Sensing via Tunneling Currents Through Complementary Metal-Oxide-Semiconductor Transistors, Scientific Reports 7, Article number: 4427 (2017), doi:10.1038/s41598-017-04705-6
(Score: -1, Troll) by Anonymous Coward on Monday July 03 2017, @06:25AM
Millennial research rockstars discover shocking thing!
Heat makes shiny stuff bigger!!
Old people are stupid, don't know thing about stuff!!!
(Score: 1, Troll) by bob_super on Monday July 03 2017, @06:57AM (2 children)
It was getting annoying having to keep spare batteries to properly monitor and manage the wife's frigid ... feet.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Monday July 03 2017, @07:17AM (1 child)
Vibrator powered by body heat.
(Score: 2) by c0lo on Monday July 03 2017, @12:22PM
Isn't shivering reaction more naturally caused by c-c-c-o-ld?
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aoFiw2jMy-0 https://soylentnews.org/~MichaelDavidCrawford
(Score: 1, Informative) by Anonymous Coward on Monday July 03 2017, @07:19AM
Most applications would switch of the sensor between readings, but this sensor is slow (4 s per reading). The energy per measurement is 4x lower than previously achieved.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Monday July 03 2017, @07:38AM (3 children)
The phrase "around 10 billion times less power than a watt" is just really stupid. What you mean to say is "around one 10-billionth of a watt".
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Monday July 03 2017, @09:40AM (1 child)
It isn't if you aren't native.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Monday July 03 2017, @05:09PM
Saying something is "x times less than" makes no sense.
(Score: 2) by kaszz on Monday July 03 2017, @08:06PM
They should have stated that it uses on average 1.13e-10 watts.
But this x times less than a watt.. well e-10 units then! ;)
(Score: 2) by WizardFusion on Monday July 03 2017, @10:27AM (3 children)
If I remember correctly, GLasOS could run on a potato giving out about 1.1v.
Is this where we are headed.?
(Score: 2) by c0lo on Monday July 03 2017, @02:23PM (2 children)
GLasOS? Linky, please?
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aoFiw2jMy-0 https://soylentnews.org/~MichaelDavidCrawford
(Score: 2) by WizardFusion on Monday July 03 2017, @02:36PM (1 child)
How hard is opening a new tab and typing it into the search bar.?
Anyway, for the lazy : https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/GLaDOS [wikipedia.org]
(Score: 2) by c0lo on Monday July 03 2017, @02:49PM
I'm glad you don't need a glass to see the difference between GLasOS and GlaDOS.
Thanks for the linky, GlasOS led me to this as the closest [youtube.com]
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aoFiw2jMy-0 https://soylentnews.org/~MichaelDavidCrawford
(Score: 2) by KritonK on Tuesday July 04 2017, @08:33AM
I thought that temperature sensors [wikipedia.org] use no power at all.