Japan funds ¥3B hunt for solar powered CPU

The Japanese Ministry of Economy, Trade and Industry has granted between ¥3 billion and ¥4 billion ($32.4 million to $43.2 million) to a project that aims to develop electronics that require little-to-no energy from the electric grid.

The initial funding is expected to allow the consortium, consisting of seven Japanese companies, to develop a high-performance central processing unit (CPU) that requires 70-percent less energy than existing chips. That would reduce energy requirements of an electronic device enough that it could be completely powered by solar panels.

The technology could be used in computers, televisions, digital cameras, and other electronic appliances.

The funding is expected to increase as the project moves past the initial stage. The members of the consortium are Toshiba, Fujitsu, Canon, Panasonic, Hitachi, NEC and Renesas Technology.

The companies agreed to pool their resources to develop the new CPUs by the end of fiscal 2012, according to Nikkei Business News. The CPUs are expected to use energy-saving software developed by Hironori Kasahara, a computer science professor at Waseda University.