It's probably a good idea to stop and take a moment every now and then to marvel at the incredible amount of computing power in your pocket. Today's phones have processors that make the computers of the internet-boom era seem like little more than garage-door openers. Forget about the massive room-sized early computers that couldn't run a game of Pong, much less Panda Pop. Nope, your pocket is packed with power.
It may surprise you then to learn that a processor that was released by IBM and Motorola back in 1997 is the chip that serves as the brain of NASA's cutting-edge Perseverance Mars rover. The craft's developers were more interested in reliability than sheer power, and their solution was a G3 processor, or CPU, used in Apple's Power G3 Macintosh starting in 1998.
The G3 compared to today’s chips
Credit: Apple
Apple veterans remember the G3 fondly. It was a futuristic, tower-style computer of translucent white and blue. Its side conveniently flipped open to facilitate expansion. It smoked older Macs with a processor operating speed that topped out at a screaming 266 megahertz (MHz).
Or so we thought at the time. Today's processors leave the G3 in the dust. The processor in an Apple iPhone 12 runs at 3 GigaHertz (GHz), while a Samsung Galaxy S21 runs at 2.9 GHz in the U.S. model.
Not only that, but today's processors are multicore chips, meaning that they're like multiple processors running side by side within the chip. So, see ya later G3, as far as consumer use goes.
Still, the G3 was very reliable, and it was the first of a breed of chips to perform "dynamic branch prediction," an architecture still used today. It involves the CPU predicting upcoming tasks so as to line up its processing resources as efficiently as possible.
Perseverance's brain
Old G3 (left), and the new G3 for Perseverance (right)
Credit: /Henriok/Wikimedia Commons
The chip in Perseverance, the PowerPC 750, isn't even the fastest G3 chip — the single-core chip runs at 200 MHz, which is still 10 times the speed of the chips powering the Spirit and Opportunity rovers, according to NASA.
Perseverance's chip is also not an off-the-shelf PowerPC 750. It's a purpose-built, radiation-hardened version of the chip called the RAD750. Fabricated by BAE Systems, the processor can operate in temperatures between -55 and 125° Celsius (-67 to 257 degrees Fahrenheit), perfect for Mars' frigid atmosphere. Also, because that atmosphere is so thin that its surface is continually bombarded with radiation, the RAD750 can withstand 200,000 to 1,000,000 Rads of radiation.
It's also not the RAD750's first trip to Mars: There was one onboard the Insight craft that landed there in November 2018.
NASA's upcoming Orion craft will also use the RAD750. In 2014, when Orion was announced, NASA's Matt Lemke explained to The Space Review that "it's not about the speed as much as the ruggedness and the reliability. I need to make sure it will always work." Especially attractive was the RAD750's tolerance of radiation: "The one thing we really like about this computer is that it doesn't get destroyed by radiation. It can be upset, but it won't fail. We've done a lot of testing on the different parts in the computer. When it sees radiation, it might have to reset but it will come back up and work again."
The designers of Perseverance were also somewhat parsimonious with onboard memory — every millimeter/gram is precious on a spacecraft. Though storage isn't bad, at 2 GB of Flash memory, there's just 256 megabytes of working RAM and 256 kilobytes of EEPROM (electrically-erasable programmable read-only memory).
Back here on Earth, we're surrounded by RAD750 devices whizzing overhead in about 100 satellites. So far, not one of them has failed. No wonder the chip's been sent on such a critical mission the Red Planet.
Scientists at University College London (UCL) and the IIT (Istituto Italiano di Tecnologia) have created a temporary tattoo that contains the same light-emitting technology used in TVs and smartphone screens.
The technology uses organic light-emitting diodes (OLEDs) and is applied in the same way as simple water-transfer tattoos. The OLEDs are fabricated onto a temporary tattoo paper and then transferred to a new surface by being pressed onto it and dabbed with water.
According to the research, these OLED devices being developed are 2.3 micrometers thick in total (less than one 400th of a millimeter) and about one-third of the length of a single red blood cell. The device consists of an electroluminescent polymer (a polymer that emits light when an electric field is applied) that is placed in between electrodes. An insulating layer is then placed in between the electrodes and the commercial tattoo paper.
This process has already been successfully applied to various materials.
Once the research team had perfected the technology, they applied the tattoo-able OLEDs (which emit green light) onto various surfaces including a pane of glass, a plastic bottle, an orange, and paper packaging. The first OLEDs were used in a flatscreen television more than 20 years ago, and now, through this proof-of-concept study, "smart tattoos" may be a thing of the (very near) future.
Why “smart tattoos” could be beneficial
OLEDs are used to create digital displays in devices (such as television screens computer monitors, smartphones, etc).
Credit: Hanna on Adobe Stock
While this is perhaps the most obvious way you could use light-emitting tattoo technology, the world of tattoo art and design could see a huge surge in new exciting trends based on light-emitting tattoo technology.
It's not just about looks—this approach provides a quick and easy method of transferring OLEDs onto practically any surface.
OLEDs are used to create digital displays in devices (such as television screens computer monitors, smartphones, etc). While some may get OLED and LED confused, they are quite different, with OLED displays emitting visible light and therefore being able to be used without a backlight. The breakthrough process of being able to transfer OLEDs onto virtually any surface can be useful in many different applications and settings.
Light-emitting tattoos could be used to indicate (and potentially even treat) various health conditions in the future.
The eventual implementation or use of OLED tattoos could be combined with other tattoo electronics to, for instance, emit light when an athlete is dehydrated, or when a person is being exposed to too much sun and is prone to sunburn.
"In healthcare, they could emit light when there is a change in a patient's condition - or, if the tattoo was turned the other way into the skin, they could potentially be combined with light-sensitive therapies to target cancer cells, for instance." - Professor Franco Cacialli (UCL)
OLED tattoo devices
Credit: Barsotti - Italian Institute of Technology
Similarly, this technology could be used on the packaging of various items to give us more information about them.
For example, OLEDs could be tattooed onto the packaging of a fruit to signal when the product is passed its expiration date or will soon become inedible.
In reality, creating light-emitting tattoo technology doesn't have to be expensive.
Professor Franco Cacialli explains to Eurekalert: "The tattooable OLEDs that we have demonstrated for the first time can be made at scale and very cheaply. They can be combined with other forms of tattoo electronics for a very wide range of possible uses. These could be for fashion - for instance, providing glowing tattoos and light-emitting fingernails. In sports, they could be combined with a sweat sensor to signal dehydration."
"Our proof-of-concept study is the first step. Future challenges will include encapsulating the OLEDs as much as possible to stop them from degrading quickly through contact with air, as well as integrating the device with a battery or supercapacitor."
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