Super bendy CPUs could pave the way for some extraordinary thinking-outside-the-box designs — Flex-RV is an open source, flexible and affordable processing unit coming to a pen near you | usagoldmines.com

Conventional microprocessors, constructed on silicon, have seen important efficiency enhancements in recent times as a consequence of shrinking transistor sizes – nevertheless, expense stays a barrier for integrating such chips into disposable or versatile merchandise.

This value is usually pushed by three principal elements: the costly silicon fabrication processes, licensing charges for proprietary instruction units like x86, and the prices of chip packaging. Moreover, the inherent brittleness of silicon makes it unsuitable to be used in versatile or wearable gadgets.

Pragmatic Semiconductor has addressed these points with Flex-RV, the world’s first 32-bit microprocessor constructed on a versatile substrate. Flex-RV is notable not just for its versatile type based mostly on the metal-oxide semiconductor indium gallium zinc oxide (IGZO). but additionally for its embedded machine studying capabilities. Developed in collaboration with Qamcom and Harvard College, it marks a significant step in non-silicon microprocessors and might function whereas being bodily bent.

Reworking industries

“That is an thrilling step ahead in versatile semiconductor expertise,” famous Emre Ozer, Senior Director of Processor Improvement at Pragmatic and the lead researcher. “Enabling an open-standard, non-silicon 32-bit microprocessor will democratise entry to computing, unlocking rising purposes whereas opening the door to sub-dollar compute.”

Ozer highlighted how the associated fee and type issue have lengthy restricted the usage of microprocessors in rising purposes like sensible labels, wearables, and healthcare, regardless of the comparatively low computational calls for.

Flex-RV, with its 17.5-square-millimeter core and roughly 12,600 logic gates, makes use of two key applied sciences: the open-source RISC-V instruction set and IGZO TFTs.

RISC-V structure, being open-source, eliminates the prices related to proprietary ISAs, whereas permitting customization for particular utility wants. IGZO TFTs, alternatively, allow microprocessor fabrication on versatile substrates, lowering manufacturing prices and the environmental affect in comparison with conventional silicon fabs. The chips are additionally extra sturdy, as they don’t require the inflexible protecting packaging that silicon chips do.

Pragmatic says Flex-RV has undergone intensive testing and might perform reliably at clock speeds as much as 60 kHz and energy consumption under 6mW, even when bent to a curvature of 5mm. The expertise probably opens new prospects for integrating computing energy into versatile, disposable, and wearable gadgets, reworking industries akin to healthcare and shopper items.

Pragmatic Semiconductor’s newest analysis article has been printed in Nature.

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