Researchers at Texas Instruments and Massachusetts Institute of Technology have drawn the curtain back on an energy efficient chip design that they believe will lead to self-charging cellphones and dramatic advances in implantable medical technology.

A team of researchers at MIT and TI worked together to create a microchip that requires significantly less electricity than the industry standard of 1 volt. Their creation, which will be shown to the International Solid State Circuits Conference in San Francisco, Calif. on Monday night, requires only 0.3 volts, a two-thirds reduction in required electricity.

In order for consumer technology to take advantage of the breakthrough, said MIT Professor Anatha Chandrakasan, memory and logic circuits will have to be redesigned due to the new chip’s unique DC-to-DC power conversion, which takes place on the chip instead of through an external component. Products bearing the new chips could be available in five years.

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