Category Archives: Energetic Computing

Asynchronous Static RAM demo video

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It is now possible to see the video of our demo of the Self-timed SRAM, as it works (Write and Read) under a wide range of power supply conditions:

(1) stable levels of Vdd in the range from 1.2V down to 0.4V; and

(2) with a run-time varying supply from our Capacitor-Bank power supply (second box in the setup).

 

Showcase event of Holistic Project 11 Feb 2013 in London

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We are preparing ourselves for a showcase event in London (Imperial College) next Monday 11th February 2013:

http://www.nmi.org.uk/events/event-details/277

This showcase marks the completion of a large EPSRC project jointly with Southampton, Imperial and Bristol.

 Newcastle will feature with two talks and two demos there.

Talks:

(1) Summary of Project Outputs (Theme B) –  Alex Yakovlev (Theme B Leader, Newcastle University) at 11:30

(2) Technical Seminar 4: Energy Modulated Computing- Prof Alex Yakovlev (Newcastle University) at 14:30

Demos (at 12:00)
(1) Self-Timed SRAM for Energy Harvesting Systems (Delong Shang and Abdullah Baz)

(2) Reference free Voltage Sensing (Reza Ramezani)

 The SRAM is our key demo, which will involve showing a number of technologies developed in our group, particularly:

– a fully self-timed SRAM, which operates under a wide range of supply voltages (Delong Shang and Abdullah Baz)

– a controllable power supply based on switched cap converters, to produce a wide range of Vdds that can be applied to the SRAM (Xuefu Zhang)

towards survival instincts in computing systems

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I have recently talked about developing survival instincts in computing systems. This opens up an interesting paradigm for designing autonomous systems for applications that require them to be on earth, underwater and in space. The conditions for operation of such systems are often harsh, unpredictable and it seems most natural to look for analogies to envisage the ways of their design in the nature, in animals and humans, particularly looking at the nervous systems. Another important pathway to such systems would be to look how energy affects their behaviour and how power levels activate various layers of instinct mechanisms …

These were the ideas that I discussed in my keynote talk at NoCArc’12 in Vancouver  (http://www.unikore.it/nocarc/index.html).

Here are the slides http://www.unikore.it/nocarc/slides/yakovlev.pdfand and video http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lgcugX44EIg&feature=youtu.befrom

 

Energy-proportional sensing

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What is energy-proportional sensing?

Sensing (S) is essentially a process of measurement of a physical quantity and presenting its value in a form that can be used for electronic or human data manipulation. It is a (sequential) composition of transduction (T) and conversion (C), i.e. S = T;C.

Suppose we have a way of transduction of a sensed quantity, i.e. turning it into an electrical parameter, such as voltage or current. One way of transduction could be to turn the sensed parameter into energy. The energy can then be turned into a computation whose final results could represent the energy used in this computation, which in its turn could represent the original parameter. To make such a sensor we need two aspects of proportionality (ideally, in linear relationship). One is that the original parameter is turned into the amount of energy in a proportional way, and the other is that the obtained amount of energy is turned into an information representation also in a proportional way.

Our proposed voltage sensor (see my previous posting about our patent application on voltage sensor) is based exactly on this principle. The input voltage is converted into a electric charge (energy) in a sampled capacitor, and then this charge (energy) is converted into a binary code produced by the electronic circuit which is fed by the energy of the charge.