4 Ticos have developed the first Costa Rican microchip. Engineers Paola Vega, Alexander Mora, Roberto Pereira and Renato Rímolo that has a width of 10mm and incorporates the results of 3 independent investigations. The announcement was made at the IberianChip Conference being held this week in the hotel Radisson.

The chip has multiple functions, the first component allows it to substitute bar codes on products. These smart tags use little power and retain data in memory even when the battery does run out. This could be used in supermarkets, for example it would eliminate the need for check out as the prices and quantity of items would be broadcast to a reader rather than scanned. They could also be incorporated into bills in order to eliminate falsification.

The second purpose is biomedical. The chip can be used to monitor heart rates or brain waves, for example, using the chip as a miniature laboratory that performs the same functions that today require large, expensive medical equipment.

The third application used in the chip is actually a software program that automatically imitates the natural selection process. The program is based on a genetic algorithm and permits chip designers to test proposed designs to see whether or not they will survive in the “wild” (today’s market).

The chip has three functions because this allowed the three projects to reduce costs. The construction of prototype chip cost 7200 Euros and was made in Germany. The project was made possible through an Intel grant and cooperation agreements between Costa Rican universities (UCR – ITEC) and the Technical University of Hamburg-Harburg.