The Importance of Low-Power Computer Chips for the IoT

An experienced attorney and business leader, Graham R. Taylor has served the past 13 years as a principal with the Marquis Advisory Group in San Francisco. One of Graham R. Taylor’s current interests is investing in energy-saving technology such as low power computer chips for the Internet of Things (IoT).

Since the early days of chip design, industry innovators have been struggling to pack as much power as possible into the smallest package. This quest for low energy operation is part and parcel of the longstanding computer science mission of PPA (performance, power, and area).

Any consumer who has let a cell phone battery go dead knows just how problematic charging can be. And consumers universally dislike regularly charging batteries. These facts indicate how challenging it is to power the rapidly evolving network of interconnected digital appliances and devices known as IoT.

Thankfully, electrical engineers have made great strides in the movement toward smaller chips that require less power to operate. In 2020, for example, University of California San Diego scientists developed a chip that requires only 28 microwatts of power. This is 1/5,000 the energy required by standard Wi-Fi radios.