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With processors, it’s easy to get caught up in gigahertz and petaflops and the top-end specs. But blazing fast speed doesn’t mean all that much for, say, your refrigerator. ARM’s says its Cortex-M0+ chip will connect your dumb appliances to a smart grid, and offer “years” of battery life on some of them.
The Cortex-M0+ chip is capable of 32-bit processing, measures 1mm x 1mm, and is based on Flycatcher architecture. ARM says it’s the world’s most energy-efficient design. It’s even more efficient than the 8- and 16-bit MCUs it’s replacing.
The idea is that if the “Internet of Things”—that near-future sci-fi aspiration where your toaster knows when your dishwasher is using too much power—is ever going to happen, we’ll need super low power chips to make it possible. [ARM via Geek, BBC]
Keep it up ARM, nice work all round.
” where your toaster knows when your dishwasher is using too much power ” and what does it do with this info? Bitch to the oven about it, or burn messages to you in your next slice of toast?
I just love the idea of a toaster that can burn messages onto toast. Imagine an internet connected toaster acting as a printer of sorts. How about your day’s calendar schedule being printed on your toast in the morning?
I guess toaster technology might need to advance somewhat before that could happen though.
I’d rather that they work out how to have my toast cooked evenly to the shade I prefer regardless of the type of bread I’m using first. Then they can worry about toasted tweets
Inspirational quote on toast each morning sounds good to me. Maybe some marmite too.
I’d actually love a toaster that could identify the toastedness of bread by sight. One that could precision toast using some sort of matrix of heating elements would just be awesome.