Zero power? Is that possible with a wireless chip? According to the new HP Memory Spot chip, seeing is believing. The Memory Spot chip is a memory device that has a built-in antenna and 10 Mbps wireless transfer rate, comparable to Wi-Fi. So, how is it zero power, you say? According to the article,
The Memory Spot chip is completely self-contained, with no need for a battery or external electronics. HP said it receives power through "inductive coupling" from a special read-write device, which can then extract content from the memory on the chip.
Inductive coupling is the transfer of energy from one circuit component to another through a shared electromagnetic field. A change in current flow through one device induces current flow in the other device
HP said the chip is about half the size of a grain of rice (2 mm by 4 mm square). Working prototypes have storage capacities ranging from 256K to 4 megabytes, or enough to store a short video clip, several images or dozens of pages of text. HP said larger capacities are also possible for future versions.
HP sees a lot of potential in this and has filed lots of patents. It is now looking for partners to make this become a real product. It does give RFID a run for its money, but HP does say that there may be certain applications where Memory Spot would be desirable than RFID and vice versa.
It's nice to see that HP is getting back to its engineering roots and getting back into the innovation game, where HP first started as a company.
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