University of Idaho earns $1 million NASA grant to develop chip

$1 million is latest boon for professor’s space electronics work

POST FALLS — University of Idaho researchers will use a NASA grant of nearly $1 million to develop ultra-low-power computer chips for use in space.

Becky Kramer
Staff writer

"We hope to very soon have this technology in space on satellites," said Joe Hass, a UI researcher. "We are to the point where we have some results, some products that people can start to use."

The Goddard Space Flight Center near Washington, D.C., announced the two-year, $986,000 award Wednesday. It’s another coup for UI professor Gary Maki, whose work in space electronics has led to more than $27 million in government contracts over two decades.

The low-voltage chips are designed to cut power usage by factors of 10 to 100, said Hass, who has been working on the technology for six years. In two years, NASA will try out the chips on a test mission. Engineers at Goddard think the chips could lead to smaller, cheaper satellites by reducing the size of solar panels and batteries on board the craft.

"It’s like having a cell phone with a battery that’s good for 80 hours, instead of two hours," said Maki, director of UI’s Center for Advanced Microelectronics and Biomolecular Research in Post Falls.

"We’ll be super busy," he added. "There’s lots of work to do. The engineers are anxious to prove their work is as good as they think it is."

Maki was at Goddard last month, when the first low-power chip was plugged into a circuit board for testing. It was designed to track weather patterns over remote areas of the ocean.

"The engineer was running up and down the hall. He was so excited with how well it was working," Maki said.

Maki was back in Maryland this week, pitching other research ideas to NASA. The research center is also known for its work in electronics that can withstand radiation from the sun, and chips that correct errors in data transmission.

Maki scanned the pages of The Washington Post this week, looking for connections between the center’s work and the space shuttle Columbia. If the shuttle was sending information to a relay satellite, as news reports indicated, it was probably using error-correcting chips developed by his team.

"Then our chip was there," Maki said. "I think we’re the only ones who have that technology."

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