New microchip uses less energy

ABC Science Online again ...

Canadian engineers say they have designed a microchip that uses analog, rather than digital, processing to save energy ... said to be 100 times more energy efficient than conventional chips ...

The University of Alberta researchers said the chip used analog processing, rather than conventional digital methods, to handle incoming transmissions. They said this needed fewer transistors and so consumed less power.

If successful, the chip could one day find use in mobile or communications devices as an error control decoder, translating voice and data transmissions.