Intel's New Breed of Chips

The chip maker tries to diversify with system-on-chip designs.This system-on-chip die is an example of Intel’s future plans for consumer electronics and mobile Internet devices. This kind of chip can combine a microprocessor with advanced wireless radio, multimedia, and sensor functionality.Intel has long dominated the market for personal-computer and server chips, but as sales of these components decline, the Santa Clara, CA, company is hoping to get a better toehold in new markets, particularly those for smart phones, netbooks, and other mobile Internet devices. To do this, Intel is exploring system-on-chip (SoC) designs--complex microchips that perform specialized tasks on top of general-purpose computations. 

Future SoC hardware will be less power hungry and capable of doing graphics processing, complex wireless communication, and on-chip temperature sensing, as well as general number crunching and memory management.

Today, Intel gave a preview of several papers that its researchers will present at the International Solid State Circuits Conference in San Francisco next week, including some revealing new SoC designs. Among the SoC designs disclosed are ones featuring wireless radios capable of using several different communications standards and operating at high speeds, integrated graphics processors for mobile devices that are many times more efficient than those used in desktop machines, and built-in sensors that track critical conditions on a chip itself.

Over the past few decades, Intel has fulfilled the prediction of its founder, Gordon Moore: that the number of transistors on a chip will double roughly every two years. With these new designs, the chip maker is turning its attention to adding much complexity to its chips as well. Components on these next-generation chips will be as small as just 32 nanometers.

"This is a new era of scaling in an SoC world," says Mark Bohr, an Intel Senior Fellow. "As you reduce the size of transistors, the price per transistor goes down. It enables unprecedented complexity as we scale down to 32 nanometers."

Last July, Intel announced plans to build several types of SoC components based on an existing processor design, called Intel architecture. The company has more than 15 SoC projects planned, including a chip code-named Canmore that will integrate computing, graphics, and audio-video capabilities for portable devices and is scheduled to debut later this year.

At next week's conference, Intel researchers will also present work on chips that will most likely hit the market in three to five years, says Soumyanath Krishnamurthy, an Intel Fellow. One paper details an SoC featuring a new type of digital wireless radio that operates over a number of standards, including Wi-Fi, WiMax, and cellular-phone frequencies. One of the problems with this type of radio design, Krishnamurthy explains, is producing a clear signal. Without providing specific details, he says that Intel researchers have found a way to leverage the slight variations in silicon processing techniques to improve the radio signals. 

The Army's Remote-Controlled Beetle

The insect's flight path can be wirelessly controlled via a neural implant.

Cyborg beetle: Shown here is a giant flower beetle carrying a microprocessor, radio receiver, and microbattery and implanted with several electrodes. To control the insect’s flight, scientists wirelessly deliver signals to the payload, which sends electrical signals through the electrode to the brain and flight muscles.A giant flower beetle with implanted electrodes and a radio receiver on its back can be wirelessly controlled, according to research presented this week. Scientists at the University of California developed a tiny rig that receives control signals from a nearby computer. Electrical signals delivered via the electrodes command the insect to take off, turn left or right, or hover in midflight. The research, funded by the Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency (DARPA), could one day be used for surveillance purposes or for search-and-rescue missions.

Beetles and other flying insects are masters of flight control, integrating sensory feedback from the visual system and other senses to navigate and maintain stable flight, all the while using little energy. Rather than trying to re-create these systems from scratch, Michel Maharbiz and his colleagues aim to take advantage of the beetle's natural abilities by melding insect and machine. His group has previously created cyborg beetles, including ones that have been implanted with electronic components as pupae. But the current research, presented at the IEEE MEMS in Italy, is the first demonstration of a wireless beetle system.

The beetle's payload consists of an off-the-shelf microprocessor, a radio receiver, and a battery attached to a custom-printed circuit board, along with six electrodes implanted into the animals' optic lobes and flight muscles. Flight commands are wirelessly sent to the beetle via a radio-frequency transmitter that's controlled by a nearby laptop. Oscillating electrical pulses delivered to the beetle's optic lobes trigger takeoff, while a single short pulse ceases flight. Signals sent to the left or right basilar flight muscles make the animal turn right or left, respectively.

Most previous research in controlling insect flight has focused on moths. But beetles have certain advantages. The giant flower beetle's size--it ranges in weight from four to ten grams and is four to eight centimeters long--means that it can carry relatively heavy payloads. To be used for search-and-rescue missions, for example, the insect would need to carry a small camera and heat sensor.

In addition, the beetle's flight can be controlled relatively simply. A single signal sent to the wing muscles triggers the action, and the beetle takes care of the rest. "That allows the normal function to control the flapping of the wings," says Jay Keasling, who was not involved in the beetle research but who collaborates with Maharbiz. Minimal signaling conserves the battery, extending the life of the implant. Moths, on the other hand, require a stream of electrical signals in order to keep flying.

The research has been driven in large part by advances in the microelectronics industry, with miniaturization of microprocessors and batteries.