ExoMars Options

[Guest_Sunspot_*]

http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/sci/tech/4180840.stm

Europe has fixed on a concept for its next mission to land on the Red Planet.

It aims to send a single robot rover to the Martian surface along with another, stationary, science package.

[elakdawalla]

Question -- would faster microprocessors also require more power?

--Emily

[RNeuhaus]

Question -- would faster microprocessors also require more power?

--Emily

Definitely, yes. That is one of the engineering concerns.

However, there is a new variety of microprocessors which are energy efficient, inclusive much energy economy than RAD750 and are much more powerfull such as the Intel Centrino of last genertion which as capable as the last model of Pentium IV.

Rodolfo

[mchan]

Well, I wouldn't say definitely. In general, power = C*v^2*f where C is a constant depending on the number of gates and the process (how small the gates are), v is the supply voltage, and f is the switching frequency. You can bump up the frequency and keep the same power by improving process and reducing supply voltage.

Terrestrial bound commercial microprocessors have kept pushing process improvements (lower switching and quiescent power per gate), and supply voltage reductions. Analagous improvements in rad-hard microprocessors are more difficult and have been slower-paced since reducing gate geometries and switching threshold voltages typically makes them more susceptible to particle induced single event upsets. And there is less economic demand for rapid improvements in rad-hard proceessors than in commercial processors. Rad-hard processors are thus more likely than commercial processors to require more power for higher switching frequencies.

[RNeuhaus]

Well, I wouldn't say definitely. In general, power = C*v^2*f where C is a constant depending on the number of gates and the process (how small the gates are), v is the supply voltage, and f is the switching frequency. You can bump up the frequency and keep the same power by improving process and reducing supply voltage.

Thanks for your comments which are good.

About the power consumption of microprocessors depends what you mentioned (more gates or transitors and frequency, leads greater temperature due to greater power consumption in Watts). There is a limit of temperature that the semiconductor material becomes unstable its electrical conducting properties (leakages currents). That is the Moore's law.

The other factor that influences the consumption of watts is related to the type of material (Bipolar versus CMOS). Historically, there is a growing power consumption when the frecquency and number of circuits grows until a change of material technology, drops the power consumption. As an example: Bi-polar material was requering lots of much power energy versus CMOS. Now there is a new variety of CMOS which needs less power than the original CMOS for the same frequency and density of circuit.

So I was saying the previous post as the general principle. However, a new semiconductor material technology helps to consume less power for the same computing capacity.

Rodolfo

[mchan]

Sounds like a different Moore than the one I am familiar with. Something may be getting lost in translation here. What you refer to as material, e.g. bipolar vs. cmos, I would refer to as design. Or in your other use of material, I would use process technology. Detailed discussion of semiconductor physics and fabrication are getting somewhat OT here. Suffice to say that there will be continued improvements in computational power per watt in processors, whether commercial or rad-hard. Care should just be taken in comparing performance / power of commercial vs. rad-hard. Somewhat different beasties.