A closer look

You would think a transistor is either securely on or definitively off, but silicon is delightfully leaky. Instead of driving normal voltage through microchips, Ambiq designed subthreshold analog circuits that operate entirely on this microscopic leakage. It’s the equivalent of running an entire factory on the water dripping from a leaky faucet, which is exactly why modern smartwatches can suddenly last for weeks instead of hours.