1 Millimeter Sized Computer!!

There was a time when a computer weighed over 30 tons and took up over 680 square feet of space…those days have long gone and now computers are so small that they fit INSIDE OF OUR EYES! Scientists over at the University of Michigan have created a tiny wireless pressure sensor that was developed with glaucoma patients in mind.

The one cubic millimeter device includes an ultra-low-power microprocessor, a thin-film battery, a solar cell, memory, a pressure sensor, and a wireless radio with an antenna. This makes this the first complete computer on the millimeter scale. AS you may have guessed the solar panel is used to charge the device. The processor uses an "extreme" sleep mode to keep it napping at 15-minute intervals and sucking up 5.3 nanowatts while awake, and its battery charges fully off 10 hours of indoor light or one and a half hours of sun rays.

As I mentioned before, the researchers’ intentions was to use this device as a method to monitor the pressure levels in Glaucoma patients. Glaucoma is a condition which leads to damage to the optic nerve, the nerve that carries information from the eye to the brain. This damage to the optic nerve is usually caused by increased pressure in the eye. The minicomputer sits inside the eye and could theoretically send pressure measurements to a special receiver or maybe even your cell phone!

To tell you the truth I’m not really that excited about this whole pressure sensor thing but what I am excited about is the concept. The fact complete computers can be made so small opens a world of possibilities. In the future we may have mini cameras built into our eyes that record everything we do or we may have a minicomputer implanted into our brains that allow us to control various other electronics. This prospect seems farfetched but I’m hoping with technology like this keeps getting worked on, mind control will soon be a part of everyday life.