TI, in fact, unfurled a new line of microcontrollersthisweek(see second picture) called Piccolo, which can controlthepowerconsumed by air conditioners and other devices.
Freescale has also been active in lately in this market,helpingacompany devise a system for increasinggasmileage on scooters.
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The Integrated Circuit Turns50 on Friday
Michael Kanellos
September 10, 2008 at 10:59 AM
Here’s to not taking time off.
Back in the summer of 1958, Jack Kilby, a new employeeatTexasInstruments, hadn’t accrued enough vacation time to takeoffthedays at the end of August when TI shut down. Instead, hestayedatthe job and sketched out an idea he had been contemplating.
It was the integrated circuit. After the vacation,Kilby’sbossreviewed the sketches told him to go ahead. On September12,1958,he tested a prototype for company executives (seepicturebelow.).It worked.
Although Kilby’s prototype did not become theessentialbuildingblock for the chip industry (the integratedcircuitIntelco-founder Robert Noyce showed off a short time laterturnedout tobe design everyone adopted), Kilby was first. And in2000, hegot aNobel Prize for it. (Noyce would have probably sharedtheaward buthe had died years earlier.)
And what does it have to do with clean energy?Semiconductorsandsoftware are the essential building blocks for theenergyefficiencybusiness. The cleanest kilowatt is the one thatdoesn’tget used.Utility CEOs like PG&E’s Pete Darbee saythatefficiency is ahigher priority than solar. Trilliant,Gainspan, Tendril, SynapSense and awholehost of companies areexploiting WiFi, ZigBee and otherPC-centrictechnologies for datacenters and smart meters. VCs inrecentquarters have begun to wakeup to energy efficiency and putmoremoney into the******panies.
Devising chips and software to save energy is also insomewayseasier than trying to build solar or geothermalplants.Thetechnology challenges are somewhat understood and manyofthecompanies that will make products for this marketalreadyhavefactories. Thus, there’s no massive capital outlayrequired.
