Scientists have created what they claim is the world’s smallest computer system that is just one square millimetre in size and can fit into one’s eyeball.
Developed by a team at the University of Michigan, the unnamed tiny device is a pressure monitor that can be implanted in a person’s eye to treat glaucoma.
It may be just one square millimetre in size but it packs a hefty punch, containing an ultra low-power microprocessor, a pressure sensor, memory and a thin film battery, the Daily Mail reported.
It also has a solar cell and a wireless radio with an antenna that can transmit data to an external reader device.
The device is already being touted as the future of the computing industry, although it needs several more years to be commercially available.
Its creators claim that as the device’s radio needs no tuning to find the right frequency it could link to a wireless network of computers.
A network of such units could one day track pollution, monitor structural integrity, perform surveillance, or make virtually any object smart and trackable, the scientists said.
Professor Sylvester said: “When you get smaller than hand-held devices, you turn to these monitoring devices.” —PTI