Posted by tourdemars to Technology at November 2, 2004 09:44 AM

Almost since the day they were invented, microprocessor systems have been driven by a system clock, a regular “tick” that tells every part of the system when to act. The problem with system clocks, however, is that generating and distributing them consumes significant amounts of power, more than some embedded systems can afford. A contact-less smartcard, for example, has to operate from the microwatts of power it can pick up from a local RF field via its induction loop antenna. To get the maximum performance per microwatt out of such systems, Philips Research has invented a clockless “handshake” technology that dramatically reduces power consumption, while also reducing the RF noise that digital systems generate.