4 ms·

least useful possible link for the material abstract/purchasing link: https://pubs.rsc.org/en/content/articlelanding/2022/EE/D2EE00233G https://pubs.rsc.org/en

least useful possible link for the material abstract/purchasing link: https://pubs.rsc.org/en/content/articlelanding/2022/EE/D2EE00233G https://pubs.rsc.org/en/content/articlelanding/2022/EE/D2EE0... university press release: https://www.cam.ac.uk/research/news/scientists-create-reliable-biological-photovoltaic-cell-using-algae https://www.cam.ac.uk/research/news/scientists-create-reliab... not clear what the clock rate of the M0 was, or the actual power consumption. clocked low enough, you could run one of those off of happy thoughts.

vigilant007 4y ago
I hear ya, and I agree. But it does have potential for better use cases with research and investment. I wouldn't expect anything like this to power a high end laptop anytime soon (at least not at the rate Intel is becoming power efficient). Still, will review in more detail this weekend
MrYellowP 4y ago
I'm not sure if you joke. You say we could run processors just by the energy radiated from the brain? ... brainwaves?
- rcxdude 4y ago
  It's a joke, but these processors are extremely low power. A coin cell can power them for years (depending on what it's doing)
- sigstoat 4y ago
  it was a joke, but you could probably do thermal energy harvesting of the heat lost from somebody's head and power one. they'd just have to wear a silly hat all the time.
jarel 4y ago
From the paper: "Throughout the test, the Arm Cortex-M0+ processor drew an average current from the compact Al-BPV of 1.4 ± 0.4 µA with a voltage of 0.72 ± 0.14 V".
- rcxdude 4y ago
  So a grand total of 31J of energy over the course of a year, or about 1% of the energy in a typical coin cell.
  - IshKebab 4y ago
    Yeah but think how much algae there is in the sea! With only a few million dollars of investment we might be able to power a whole house, or at least a large shed.
plater 4y ago
Yes, you are right, knowing the clock rate and duty cycle would be interesting to know. And knowing what the MCU is actually doing. Powering an MCU from a lemon or potato is nothing new and has been done with more than 30 year old MCU's, implementing clock's etc. More challenging is probably to power a complete system, i.e. everything around the MCU, like driving Ethernet or WiFi or BT as well as some analog sensors and the like. Embedded MCU's do not require much and if you can spread out the computing needs over time, no big deal. Look at Casio watches and the like which you can run for 10 years and they provide quite some features. It's okay as long as it is features that stay within the MCU/Display realm. Now, the watches which provide BT, GPS, different sensors etc kind of suck in this regard.

vigilant007 4y ago

I hear ya, and I agree. But it does have potential for better use cases with research and investment. I wouldn't expect anything like this to power a high end laptop anytime soon (at least not at the rate Intel is becoming power efficient). Still, will review in more detail this weekend

MrYellowP 4y ago

I'm not sure if you joke. You say we could run processors just by the energy radiated from the brain? ... brainwaves?

rcxdude 4y ago
It's a joke, but these processors are extremely low power. A coin cell can power them for years (depending on what it's doing)
sigstoat 4y ago
it was a joke, but you could probably do thermal energy harvesting of the heat lost from somebody's head and power one. they'd just have to wear a silly hat all the time.

jarel 4y ago

From the paper: "Throughout the test, the Arm Cortex-M0+ processor drew an average current from the compact Al-BPV of 1.4 ± 0.4 µA with a voltage of 0.72 ± 0.14 V".

rcxdude 4y ago
So a grand total of 31J of energy over the course of a year, or about 1% of the energy in a typical coin cell.
- IshKebab 4y ago
  Yeah but think how much algae there is in the sea! With only a few million dollars of investment we might be able to power a whole house, or at least a large shed.

plater 4y ago

Yes, you are right, knowing the clock rate and duty cycle would be interesting to know. And knowing what the MCU is actually doing. Powering an MCU from a lemon or potato is nothing new and has been done with more than 30 year old MCU's, implementing clock's etc. More challenging is probably to power a complete system, i.e. everything around the MCU, like driving Ethernet or WiFi or BT as well as some analog sensors and the like. Embedded MCU's do not require much and if you can spread out the computing needs over time, no big deal. Look at Casio watches and the like which you can run for 10 years and they provide quite some features. It's okay as long as it is features that stay within the MCU/Display realm. Now, the watches which provide BT, GPS, different sensors etc kind of suck in this regard.