February 12, 2014
Tohoku University
NEC Corporation

Spintronics technology extends battery life
for wireless sensors by up to 10 times
Tokyo, February 12, 2014 - Tohoku University and NEC Corporation (NEC; TSE:6701) have developed a Micro Control Unit (MCU; *1) for wireless sensors using
spintronics-based logic integrated circuit technology (*2). Early testing has
demonstrated that power consumption of the new MCU has been reduced to as little
as 1/80 of conventional systems (*3). As a result, the battery life of sensors
equipped with this new MCU can be extended by as much as 10 times.

Currently, expectations are growing for technology that analyzes a large volume ofdata (big data) collected from various sensing systems to identify current conditions,such as system errors and equipment failures, and to make use of the data forpredicting future conditions.

The maintenance of social infrastructure, such as bridges and tunnels, requires ahigh-performance wireless sensor capable of stable, prolonged operation in order toconstantly collect and transmit data related to the infrastructure's status. Although it
is essential to improve the performance of the MCU, which is the processing center,increased power consumption becomes a challenge when the performance of awireless sensor is improved.

Tohoku University and NEC have jointly developed a new MCU technology tosignificantly reduce the power consumption of a high-performance MCU. A
high-performance MCU normally consumes a large amount of power, but thistechnology reduces the standby power of the entire MCU by making the logic
circuits and memory in the MCU non-volatile, and achieving both high performance-1-

and power savings at the same time. Applying this MCU to a wireless sensor enables
the advanced processing of data while substantially reducing power consumption.

Key features of this new technology are as follows:

1. Use of spintronics elements achieves high-speed power control while reducing
standby power
The spintronics elements utilized in the power control circuits and multiple
function blocks (*4) within the logic circuit enable high-speed power control
while minimizing standby power. As the power of a necessary function block
can be turned on as quickly as within approximately 120 nanoseconds, thepower can be turned on and off as many times as necessary to reduce
unn ecessary power consumption.

2. Reduces the write power of a non-volatile register
The new CPU provides efficient control by canceling the overwriting process
when writing the same data in order to minimize the power consumed byunn ecessary writing.

A prototype micro control unit equipped with this technology has been constructed
and used in an experiment with a wireless sensor. The experiment successfully
demonstrated a reduction in the power consumption to 1/80 when compared toconventional systems.

These results will contribute to the creation of a wireless sensor that is able toachieve both high performance and low power consumption, while considerably
reducing maintenance frequency, and promoting the utilization of big data using
advanced sensors.

-2-The development of this technology is part of NEC’s focus on "Solutions forSociety" that provide advanced social infrastructure using ICT.

Tohoku University and NEC have developed a variety of integrated circuits applying
spintronics logic integrated circuits technology. Through the development anddemonstration of this technology, Tohoku University and NEC have achieved theirtarget of reducing the power efficiency index of various kinds of LSI to 1/64 or less.

Tohoku University and NEC announced the above results during the International
Solid-State Circuits Conference (ISSCC) 2014, an international academic meetingon semic onductor circuit technologies held from February 9 to 13 in San Francisco,California.
Part of these findings were obtained through the Cabinet Office's Funding Program
for World-Leading Innovative R&D on Science and Technology (Subject Title:"Research and Development into Energy Efficient Spintronics Logic Integrated
Circuits," directed by Professor Hideo Ohno of Tohoku University).

*1

An integrated circuit where a computer system is embedded in a single chip; used forcontrolling electronic devices, etc.

*2

Spintronics-based logic integrated circuit technology uses intrinsic characteristics ofelectrons - negative charge and minute spin magnetics - to reverse the magnet's N/S poles
according to the direction of electric current in order to memorize calculation results. The
technology allows all circuits on the logic integrated circuit to be nonvolatile. Nonvolatilecircuits are effective in achieving less power consumption in ICT equipment and systems.

*3Compared with NEC's volatile micro control unit technology.

*4

Equipped with a timer, multiplier, communication controller and analog-digital converter,etc.

-3-