ARM CTO predicts chips the size of blood cells

27.10.2011
In less than a decade, that smartphone you're holding could have 32 times the memory, 20 times the bandwidth and a microprocessor core no bigger than a red blood cell, the CTO of chip design company ARM said on Thursday.

ARM has already helped develop a prototype, implantable device for monitoring eye-pressure in glaucoma patients that measures just 1 cubic millimeter, CTO Mike Muller said at ARM's TechCon conference in Silicon Valley Thursday. The device includes a microprocessor sandwiched between sensors at the top and a battery at the bottom.

Strip away those extra components, rearrange the transistors into a cube and apply the type of advanced manufacturing process expected in 2020, and you'd end up with a device that occupies about the same volume as a blood cell, Muller said.

ARM designs the processor cores used in most of today's smartphones and tablets, and smaller cores are generally more energy efficient, he said. That helps to extend battery life.

That's a good thing, because battery technology is advancing much more slowly, and Muller expects only twice the improvement in battery performance by the end of the decade.

That could be a gating factor for all the other improvements, so the electrical systems inside portable devices will have to be redesigned so that people don't have to recharge them multiple times a day.