Toward Computers That Fit on a Pen Tip: New Technologies Usher in the Millimeter-Scale Computing Era

A prototype implantable eye pressure monitor for glaucoma patients is believed to contain the first complete millimeter-scale computing system.And a compact radio that needs no tuning to find the right frequency could be a key enabler to organizing millimeter-scale systems into wireless sensor networks. These networks could one day track pollution, monitor structural integrity, perform surveillance, or make virtually any object smart and trackable.

Both developments at the University of Michigan are significant milestones in the march toward millimeter-scale computing, believed to be the next electronics frontier.

Researchers are presenting papers on each at the International Solid-State Circuits Conference (ISSCC) in San Francisco. The work is being led by three faculty members in the U-M Department of Electrical Engineering and Computer Science: professors Dennis Sylvester and David Blaauw, and assistant professor David Wentzloff.

Bell's Law and the promise of pervasive computing

Nearly invisible millimeter-scale systems could enable ubiquitous computing, and the researchers say that's the future of the industry. They point to Bell's Law, a corollary to Moore's Law. (Moore's says that the number of transistors on an integrated circuit doubles every two years, roughly doubling processing power.)

Bell's Law says there's a new class of smaller, cheaper computers about every decade. With each new class, the volume shrinks by two orders of magnitude and the number of systems per person increases. The law has held from 1960s' mainframes through the '80s' personal computers, the '90s' notebooks and the new millennium's smart phones.

"When you get smaller than hand-held devices, you turn to these monitoring devices," Blaauw said. "The next big challenge is to achieve millimeter-scale systems, which have a host of new applications for monitoring our bodies, our environment and our buildings. Because they're so small, you could manufacture hundreds of thousands on one wafer. There could be 10s to 100s of them per person and it's this per capita increase that fuels the semiconductor industry's growth."

The first complete millimeter-scale system

Blaauw and Sylvester's new system is targeted toward medical applications. The work they present at ISSCC focuses on a pressure monitor designed to be implanted in the eye to conveniently and continuously track the progress of glaucoma, a potentially blinding disease. (The device is expected to be commercially available several years from now.)

Social Gaming landscape in India warming up

The social gaming landscape in the country is witnessing a growth momentum driven by young and growing aspirational demographic that has increasing access to mobile and internet offering exciting platforms for expanding friend circles and indulge in informal interaction.

The growth of social networks sites, the time spent by users on them, the high entertainment value proposition and opportunity to engage in fun and casual interaction with friends, was fuelling the social gaming market, opine social gaming experts.

“Worldwide over 500 million play social games. In India more than 10 million (over 50 per cent) of the Facebook users play Social games”, says Deepak Abbot, Vice President-Product, Zapak.com, one of the leading social gaming players.

“Today conversations have found a new medium of interaction - Social Gaming. Social games now act as mini social networks. They have now become the conversation starters among two people active on the network.” said Rahul Razdan. President - Products & Operations, Ibibo web.

According to Rahul, on a social network site, only 10 per cent are really active posting their pictures or providing updates on social life, the rest only consumed the data.

But a social gaming format works differently. Here, a user could simply play a game, make a comment and respond to their friends’s moves and take active part without really bothering about whether they had something awesome to say or post pictures, as would be required in a social network site.

It creates reasons for interaction with every action of a player demanding a counter reaction. “It is an inclusive traction”, he said.

Gaming in India though dominated by men, has a sizeable women gaming population as well. Games that favoured aesthetic expressions, building, growing a farm witnessed traction among women, while games relating to mafia, violence and hard core action saw men gravitate toward them.

“The statistics were skewed towards women (55 per cent) when it came to word games”, he said. Surprisingly a game like Teen Pati (a game of cards) on Ibibo actually saw 30 per cent of women playing the game on Diwali night, said Rahul.

“The age profile of social gamers is usually 18-34”, said Deepak. “The Indian social gamer is a bit younger than the average international gamer”, he said.

“Women constitute 30 per cent of the Facebook and Internet users in India, the same per cent can also be assumed in the social gaming space. As the games are more related to building, collaborating and managing these games appeal to women too. There is hardly any skill required to play Social games therefore gender is not an issue”, said Deepak.