article_snippet.sent: They are the culmination of work initiated by Blaauw and Sylvester on very low-power processing for millimeter-scale systems.
article_snippet.sent: A key breakthrough in the size/power matchup came with the Phoenix processor in 2008.
article_snippet.sent: the Phoenix processor is miniscule at 915 x 915µm2, and boasts ultra-low operating voltage and a unique standby mode that results in an average power consumption of only 500pW.
article_snippet.sent: Blaauw and Sylvester explained why Phoenix's extreme energy efficiency is so important: 'As you shrink down in size, the percentage of the system tends to be dominated by the battery. '
article_snippet.sent: It's actually not hard to make chips small, but it is hard to make chips low power. '
article_snippet.sent: We could have very small chips, but We'd still end up with really large batteries.'
article_snippet.sent: We found that a lot of people were very interested in these devices, and that's why We went with the modular or stacked approach.'