Edge computing, where data is processed at the gathering site instead of in the cloud, can greatly improve efficiency, improve data security and reduce energy consumption. This is especially true for industrial Internet-of-Things (IoT) applications where embedding some processing capability, i.e. “intelligence”, is very beneficial, but impossible with conventional transistor technology due to high temperatures or radiation levels, or both, at the sensing sites.
A team of researchers in the i-EDGE project will build processors from tiny mechanical relays with moving parts to withstand these harsh environmental conditions. Because these switches operate fundamentally differently from transistors, they can withstand much higher temperatures and radiation levels without failing, while an open air gap in the off state means no standby power is consumed.
The i-EDGE project will exploit the unique properties of nanomechanical (NEM) switches to build ‘systems-on-chip’ where sensors, the interface to the sensors, the processor, and electronic memory for data storage are densely integrated on the same chip.
The Principal Investigator of the project, Dr Dinesh Pamunuwa of Bristol’s Department of Electrical and Electronic Engineering, explained: “Not only are NEM switches robust in harsh environmental conditions, in our approach, logic and non-volatile memory, a type of electronic memory that retains information when power is switched off, can be built using the same manufacturing process. This allows for extremely efficient system architectures that avoid bottlenecks in communication, allowing us to build single-chip systems with integrated sending and processing that consume very little energy, up to an order of magnitude less than possible with conventional techniques.”
The consortium expects the i-EDGE project to provide electronic solutions that unlock the full power of the IoT for industrial processing and manufacturing, electric vehicles, asset tracking, and smart environmental monitoring applications, strengthening EU technological leadership on chip design and manufacturing capabilities as envisaged by the EU Chips Act.
The team is made up of experts from the University of Bristol (UK), Microchip Inc. (UK and France), a leading provider of smart, connected and secure embedded control solutions, KTH Royal Institute of Technology (Sweden), Technical University of Vienna (Austria), Gesellschaft für Angewandte Mikro und Optoelektronik mbH AMO (Germany), the Swiss Centre for Electronics and Microtechnology SA CSEM (Switzerland) and SCIPROM Sàrl (Switzerland).