Every year, tech giants develop faster, more powerful devices with longer-lasting batteries to satisfy the increasing demand for lightning-quick mobile technology.
Following the trail , scientists at Brigham Young University have just created the world’s most power-efficient high-speed A to D converter (ADC) microchip. Analog to Digital Converters (ADC) translate analog electrical signals for processing purposes.
Unlike current ADCs, which consume many milli-Watts, this new microchip consumes only 21 milli-Watts of power at 10GHz for ultra-wideband wireless communications.
Increasingly higher bandwidths within communications system devices are the important challenge that scientists often face. Scientists, during this study, solved this problem by that specialize in a key a part of the ADC circuit called the DAC, which may be a central piece that stands for the same to same reverse of ADC: digital-analog converter .
They made the converter faster and more efficient by reducing the loading from the DAC by scaling both the capacitor parallel plate area and spacing. They also grouped unit capacitors differently from conventional way, grouping together unit capacitors that are a part of an equivalent bit within the DAC instead of having them be interleaved throughout. Doing so lowered the bottom-plate parasitic capacitance by 3 times , significantly lowering power consumption while increasing speed.
Finally, employing a bootstrap switch increases the speed but doesn’t require additional hardware because it involves splitting existing devices and making route changes in circuit.
BYU professor Wood Chiang said, “We’ve proven the technology of the chip here at BYU, and there’s no doubt about the efficacy of this particular technique. This work pushes the envelope of what’s possible and can end in many conveniences for consumers. Your Wi-Fi will still recover due to this technology, you’ll have faster upload and download speeds, and you’ll watch 4K or maybe 8K with little to no lag while maintaining battery life.”
“Other likely applications for the ADC include autonomous vehicles (which use plenty of wireless bandwidth), smart wearables like glasses or smart contact lenses, and even things like implantable devices.”
The research were published on Journal of Solid-State Circuits
