Very Low Power Electronics
Designing power efficient electronics is much like constructing the lightest and most fuel-efficient car. If the materials are lightweight, the engine can be smaller and the mileage will increase without compromising performance. For us, lightweight materials translates to low power components and resourceful use of power management that is implemented both in hardware and firmware.
Odic employs a variety of strategies when designing very low power electronics. Methods include using processors that draw microamps when awake (sub-microamp when sleeping), powering up specific sections of circuitry only when needed, periodically putting a processor to sleep while giving the impression the circuit is always awake, and adjusting clock frequencies to meet the current need of the design, even if that need is reassessed multiple times a second.
Case study – Digital Security Token
When asked to re-design a battery powered digital security device, Odic proposed a solution based on an extremely low power processor, a power misery algorithm and strategic use of on-chip resources. The security token, running on a digital watch processor, ran for over 6 years on a small cell battery. Since the product was made in the millions of units per year, and the processor cost 60 cents less than its predecessor, our customer saved over $1M per year because of the new design.
