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Scientists have created the world’s smallest computer system to help treat glaucoma patients.
At just one square millimetre in size, the tiny device is a pressure monitor that is implanted in a per-son’s eye. It may be small but it packs a hefty punch, containing an ultra low-power microprocessor, a pressure sensor, memory, a thin film battery, a solar cell and a wireless radio with an antenna that can transmit data to an external reader device.
Developed by researchers at the University of Michigan, the unna-med unit – which is expected to be commercially available in several years – is already being touted as the future of the computing industry. Its creators – Professors Dennis Sylvester, David Blaauw and David Wentzloff – claim that as the device’s radio needs no tuning to find the right frequency it could link to a wireless network of computers.
A network of such units could one day track pollution, monitor structural integrity, perform surveillance, or make virtually any object smart and trackable, according to the scientists. Prof Sylvester said: “When you get smaller than hand-held devices, you turn to these monitoring devices.
“The next big challenge is to achieve millimetre-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 tens to hundreds of them per person and it’s this per capita increase that fuels the semi-conductor industry’s growth.” – Daily Mail.