NanoWatt Design Inc. has received a $150,000 grant from the National Science Foundation to support its new, patent-pending asynchronous circuit architecture, Sleep Convention Logic.

NanoWatt Design is a portfolio company of VIC Technology Venture Development, a privately held firm based at the Innovation Center in the Arkansas Research and Technology Park. The University of Arkansas Technology Development Foundation manages the park.

The NSF Phase I grant came through the Small Business Innovation Research Program, which allows federal agencies to stimulate technological innovation in the private sector by strengthening small businesses that meet federal research and development needs. The program also is intended to increase the commercial application of federally supported research results.

NanoWatt Design has developed Sleep Convention Logic (SCL), which has the potential to change the way that chips used in devices such as cell phones, laptops, tablets and servers are designed.

Since users may interact intensively with their device for a few hours, set it aside for the rest of the day, and then expect the device to respond immediately when they pick it up. Sleep Convention Logic meets these requirements by automatically sleeping any circuit when not in use, and waking with no delay.

Through the NSF grant, the company will team with a defense-aerospace customer that is developing an advanced parallel processor. The customer will provide circuit information to NanoWatt Design, which will apply its proprietary software SCLCompiler to convert the existing processor design to the new technology. The circuit will then be optimized for low power.

At the conclusion of the project, NanoWatt Design will have side-by-side comparisons showing that the SCL architecture delivers lower power consumption while meeting requirements for speed.

With mobile electronic devices connected to the Internet, users constantly demand increased functionality and long battery life. But increased functionality requires additional power, and power consumption has now replaced operating speed as the most crucial concern for designers.

“Sleep Convention Logic is an exciting innovation in digital circuit design,” said Ronald B. Foster, chief executive officer of NanoWatt Design. “By supplying power only as needed, SCL addresses the growing demand for smarter, more complex digital devices such as GPS, smart phones, and even medical implants. Our technology is a compelling option for an almost unlimited range of digital applications.”