Ultra-Low-Power Processors
By Lori Cameron
Society’s increasing use of connected sensing and wearable computing has created robust demand for ultra-low-power (ULP) edge computing devices and associated system-on-chip (SoC) architectures, according to David Brooks of Harvard University and John Sartori of University of Minnesota, in their article "Ultra-Low-Power Processors," which appears in the November/December 2017 issue of IEEE Micro. (Login may be required for full text.)
In fact, the ubiquity of ULP processing has already made such embedded devices the highest-volume processor part in production, with an even greater dominance expected in the near future. The Internet of Everything calls for an embedded processor in every object, necessitating billions or trillions of processors.
At the same time, the explosion of data generated from these devices, in conjunction with the traditional model of using cloud-based services to process the data, will place tremendous demands on limited wireless spectrum and energy-hungry wireless networks. Smart, ULP edge devices are the only viable option that can meet these demands.
About Lori Cameron
Lori Cameron is a Senior Writer for the IEEE Computer Society and currently writes regular features for Computer magazine, Computing Edge, and the Computing Now and Magazine Roundup websites. Contact her at l.cameron@computer.org. Follow her on LinkedIn.
