Just 100 nanometers in diameter, nanowires are often considered one-dimensional. But researchers at Northwestern University have recently reported that individual gallium nitride nanowires show strong piezoelectricity — a type of charge-generation caused by mechanical stress — in three dimensions.
3M, a leading supplier of advanced materials to the semiconductor packaging industry, today announced the opening of the company's application laboratory in Yangmei, Taiwan, for 200mm and 300mm temporary wafer bonding.
3M has opened an application laboratory in Yangmei, Taiwan, for temporary wafer bonding of 200 and 300 mm wafers. The 3M semiconductor innovation center provides its customers in Taiwan and all over Asia with 3M's wafer support system (WSS) techniques and materials for temporary bonding of ultra-thin wafer used in 3D integrated circuit (IC) packaging.
Magma® Design Automation Inc., a provider of chip design software, today announced that recent improvements to the Talus® 1.2 integrated circuit implementation platform have triggered a significant increase in customer adoption.
A manufacturer and provider of thin film devices and coatings, 4Wave has declared at the close of its second quarter 2011 that it has received a number of orders from failure analysis laboratories and semiconductor manufacturers, for ion beam de-layering solutions.
Integrating biological molecules or even complex molecular machines with man-made nanoelectronic devices is one of the ultimate goals of bionanotechnology. Already there is a growing community of researchers interested in this area of bio/nano integration where biological components -- proteins, protein complexes, nucleic acids, etc. -- are interfaced with inorganic nanomaterials to create new devices and systems that combine the desirable properties of each system.
It may soon be possible manufacture the miniscule structures that make up transistors and silicon chips rapidly and inexpensively. EPFL scientists are currently investigating the use of dynamic stencil lithography, a recent but not yet perfected method, for creating nanostructures.
A fully functional, fast switching and printable transistor in cheap plastic is invented by researcher Lars Herlogsson, Linkoping University in Sweden. All six articles in his doctoral thesis were published in the Advanced Materials journal. The thesis "Electrolyte-Gated Organic Thin-Film Transistors" and the reference of all six papers can be downloaded here.
As the market for liquid crystal displays and other electronics continues to drive up the price of indium -- the material used to make the indium tin oxide transparent electrodes in these devices -- scientists have been searching for a less costly and more dynamic alternative, particularly for use in future flexible electronics.
If there were a Hall of Fame for materials, manganites would be among its members. Some manganites, compounds of manganese oxides, are renowned for colossal magnetoresistance -- the ability to suddenly boost resistance to electrical conductivity by orders of magnitude when a magnetic field is applied -- and manganites are also promising candidates for spintronics applications -- devices that can manipulate electrons according to their quantum spin as well their charge.
For future electric vehicles, powerful notebook computers, and other portable devices, we need a new generation of energy storage materials that are better suited to modern needs than current rechargeable batteries. The best materials for this are known as supercapacitors. A team led by Dinglin Jiang at the National Institutes of Natural Sciences in Okazaki (Japan) has now introduced a new material with outstanding supercapacitor properties in the journal Angewandte Chemie.
We want our electrical devices to have bright screens with low energy needs, so they can be used for a long time before recharge is required. Scientists are increasing the intensity of light by making nanometer scale patterns on surfaces. The nanoimprinting method will change devices' optical properties, without making them demand more energy. Except for brighter mobile phone and computer screens, we may soon have the possibility to benefit from this nanotech solution while driving.
The conclusion, backed up by six decades of data, mirrors Moore's law, the observation from Intel founder Gordon Moore that computer processing power doubles about every 18 months. But the power-consumption trend might have even greater relevance than Moore's law as battery-powered devices--phones, tablets, and sensors--proliferate.
Physicists at the University of New South Wales have observed a new kind of interaction that can arise between electrons in a single-atom silicon transistor.
In the future, physicists will be able to follow a new lead in their search for new materials for electronic components, for example. An international team of researchers headed by scientists at the Max Planck Institute for Solid State Research in Stuttgart is the first to accurately observe how the physical properties of a substance -- or to be more precise of the metal oxide lanthanum nickel oxide -- change when it is used in two-dimensional, instead of three-dimensional form.
A European team of researchers has discovered that properties of the so-called topological insulator bismuth selenide could provide the solution to how a ground-breaking new computing technology called 'spintronics' can work at room temperature. This is a solution scientists have been waiting for ever since the technology was predicted more than two decades ago.
Light-emitting diodes (LEDs) of various colors are ubiquitous in daily life. As the color or wavelength of light emitted by the LED is determined by the semiconductor used in its construction, however, it has proved difficult to construct broad-spectrum LEDs with structures simple enough for industrial production. Shangjr Gwo and colleagues from National Tsing-Hua University in Taiwan have now developed a nanorod-based LED that can produce light across the entire visible spectrum using a single semiconductor.
Lithium-ion batteries are everywhere, in smart phones, laptops, an array of other consumer electronics, and the newest electric cars. Good as they are, they could be much better, especially when it comes to lowering the cost and extending the range of electric cars. To do that, batteries need to store a lot more energy.
Silicon is the dominant material for the fabrication of integrated circuits and is also becoming a popular material for making photonics circuits--miniaturized circuits that use light instead of electronic signals for processing information. One of the challenges in the field, however, has been silicon's intrinsic sensitivity to the polarization of light, which can limit the rate of information transmission.
Objects at nano-scale behave differently from those on a larger scale, says Peter Cummings, John R. Hall Professor Chemical Engineering at Vanderbilt University, and Michael Simpson, professor of materials science and engineering at the University of Tennessee, Knoxville. The research paper has been published in a recent issue of the ACS Nano journal.
There has been tremendous interest in cloaking technology using metamaterials, and Andrea Alù's group in the Department of Electrical and Computer Engineering at The University of Texas at Austin, has been very active in the field, putting forward two exciting possibilities to obtain drastic scattering reduction from moderately-sized objects.
Researchers have developed a method for creating single-crystal arrays of graphene, an advance that opens up the possibility of a replacement for silicon in high-performance computers and electronics.
Lithium-ion batteries have become a leading energy source for everything from smartphones and laptops to power tools and electric cars, and researchers around the world are actively seeking ways to nudge their performance toward ever-higher levels. Now, a new analysis by researchers at MIT and the University of California at Los Angeles (UCLA) has revealed why one widely used compound works particularly well as the material for one of these batteries' two electrodes -- an understanding they say could greatly facilitate the process of searching for even better materials.
The A*STAR Institute of Microelectronics and Tezzaron Semiconductor, a leader in 3D-ICs, have today announced a research collaboration agreement to develop and exploit advanced Through Silicon Interposer technology.
A*STAR Institute of Microelectronics (IME) and the University of Washington announce that they will join forces to provide shared Silicon Photonics processes as part of the Optoelectronics Systems Integration in Silicon programme (OpSIS). This will help the research and development (R&D) community significantly reduce the fabrication cost of silicon photonics integrated circuits.
The Institute of Microelectronics (IME), an Institute of the Agency for Science, Technology and Research, today announce it has been awarded the ISO 13485:2003 (Medical Devices Standard) Certification for the design and development of medical devices. This certification augments the ISO 9001 certification which IME achieved in 1996 to better focus on fundamental requirements of the medical devices industry.
SIMTech established Singapore's first Large Area Processing Research Programme as it sets sights on creating a new industry to produce innovative large area printed electronics and functional films that are cost-effective, energy-efficient and environmentally friendly.
A123 Systems has signed a long-term supply deal with ALTe to supply its sophisticated Nanophosphate technology-based complete lithium ion battery packs for integration into ALTe's range-extended hybrid electric powertrain systems.
The award-winning Global Challenges/Chemistry Solutions podcast series of the American Chemical Society's (ACS) explained in its new episode about a nanogenerator that can generate energy from a person's movements which can be used, for example, to charge an iPod
Aculon, a company specializing in nanotechnology-based performance coatings, has declared that the United States Patent and Trademark Office has issued a patent for a technique that involves the use of metallic nanoparticles in electric conductive inks.
ADA Technologies, Inc. received a $100,000 contract from the National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA) to conduct research into the use of advanced nanocomposite electrodes and ionic liquid electrolytes to improve the performance and safety of lithium-ion batteries.
The semiconductor technology company located in Lexington, Massachusetts, Adapteva has revealed the 4th generation Epiphany multicore architecture IP in 28 nm chip design.
Magma Design Automation Inc., a provider of chip design software, today announced that Adapteva used Magma software to tape out the Epiphany-IV 64-core microprocessor array IC targeted to GLOBALFOUNDRIES' 28-nm SLP process.
A technique that uses hydrogen to improve transistor performance on real-world graphene devices has been demonstrated on the wafer-scale by researchers in Penn State's Electro-Optics Center (EOC). In a paper published in the August 1, 2011, online edition of Nano Letters, the researchers demonstrated a 3x improvement in electron mobility of epitaxial graphene grown on the silicon face of a 100 mm silicon carbide wafer, as well as a similar improvement in radio-frequency transistor performance.
Scientists have demonstrated that a superconducting detector called a transition edge sensor is capable of counting the number of as many as 1,000 photons in a single pulse of light with an accuracy limited mainly by the quantum noise of the laser source.
Analog Devices (ADI), a signal conditioning and data conversion company, has released the iMEMS technology-based ADIS16407 iSensor inertial measurement unit (IMU) with 10-Degrees-of-Freedom (DoF).
The Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory has developed the Semiconductor High-NA Actinic Reticle Review Project (SHARP) microscope for photolithography. The SHARP microscope is an advanced extreme-ultraviolet (EUV) photomask-imaging microscope which has been developed in partnership with semiconductor manufacturers.
Advanced Micro-Fabrication Equipment is unveiling its second-generation 300 mm ultra-high frequency advanced decoupled reactive ion etch (AD-RIE) system called the Primo AD-RIE tool, which is ideal for major process challenges at 22 nm and beyond at SEMICON West.
Advion BioSystems, Inc., the developer and manufacturer of the TriVersa NanoMate®, the world's first chip-based nanoelectrospray ion source for mass spectrometry, and AB SCIEX, a global leader in life science analytical technologies, today announced the launch of the LESA™ Clarity for AB SCIEX Mass Spec Systems.
Agilent Technologies Inc. and Accelicon Technologies today announced they have signed a definitive acquisition agreement. Accelicon, a privately held company, provides device-level modeling and validation software for the electronics industry.
AIXTRON SE today announced a new multiple tool order for 55x2-inch CRIUS® II systems from existing customer Forepi. The new systems will be dedicated to the volume production of materials for high brightness blue LEDs.
AIXTRON SE, the world leading supplier of MOCVD equipment for the production of Light Emitting Diodes (LEDs) announces the opening of its wholly owned Chinese subsidiary AIXTRON China Ltd. as the next step towards the company's plans for further expansion in China. The new entity replaces the representative office and operates out of expanded facilities in Shanghai.
AIXTRON SE today announced a new order for the first automated 300mm Black Magic system for Graphene deposition from the National Institute of Advanced Industrial Science and Technology (AIST) in Japan. The unique properties of Graphene make it an extremely promising channel material for next generation microelectronics and high frequency applications.
Akrion Systems, a provider of advanced surface preparation systems and processes for solar device and microelectronics manufacturers, has garnered over $20 million worth of orders from MEMS manufacturers.
A new film-deposition technology advance from Alchimer S.A. promises to cut fill deposition times and provide new options for the electronics packaging industry as it struggles to bring through-silicon vias (TSVs) into cost-effective production.
Aldrich® Materials Science, a technology growth initiative of Sigma-Aldrich, today announced that it has entered into collaboration with Agfa Materials, a division of Agfa-Gevaert N.V., a world renowned imaging and information technology company. Under the terms of the collaboration, the two companies plan to produce and distribute Orgacon™ conductive polymers for use in high technology applications including, organic photovoltaics, touch screens and printed sensors. Information regarding the products produced via the new collaboration can be found at sigma-aldrich.com/conductingpoly.
Taiwanese company, Advanced Lithium Electrochemistry (Aleees) has invented a new twin-layered nano-coating technology through which olivine materials can be coated with carbon compounds that measure 5 nm in thickness. This enables the olivine material to enhance its structure and extend its battery life by 2.7 times.
A superlens would let you see a virus in a drop of blood and open the door to better and cheaper electronics. It might, says Durdu Guney, make ultra-high-resolution microscopes as commonplace as cameras in our cell phones.
Altair Nanotechnologies Inc., today announced its nano lithium-ion titanate battery system would be used to advance research initiatives at LUT Energy of Lappeenranta University of Technology (LUT), the largest energy research and university-level education organization in Finland.
High-performance CMOS image sensor supplier, AltaSens has chosen Berkeley Design Automation's Analog FastSPICE platform, the quickest nanometer circuit verification platform of the world, for performing device noise analysis, block-level characterization and full-circuit post-layout verification of its wide-dynamic-range, high-performance and high-definition (HD) CMOS image sensors.
Altatech Semiconductor S.A. introduced its new AltaSight DarkView® product, the company's first substrate-inspection system to incorporate dark-field detection of defects on unpatterned wafers. This latest addition to the AltaSight family of high-performance, non-contact inspection and analysis products offers a full array of dark-field, reflectivity and topographical inspection technologies to provide 100% defect detection in a single pass through the system.
Imec today announced it entered into a three-year research collaboration with Altera Corporation to develop advanced CMOS scaling technologies. Altera joins a growing number of fabless semiconductor companies that are part of imec's INSITE program, which provides member companies insight into near-term and future IC technology options. The initial collaboration between imec and Altera will focus on the development of 3-D process technologies targeting Altera's product families.
Amazon has expanded its product trade-in program to include electronics, so if you're saddled with obsolete or unwanted gadgets -- including tablets, smartphones, MP3 players, digital cameras, GPS units, and more -- you can unload them for Amazon.com gift certificates.
Micralyne, a MEMS foundry that caters to high-performance telecommunications, biomedical and industrial markets, has partnered with A.M. Fitzgerald & Associates (AMFitzgerald), a company that develops MEMS products, to enable clients to commercialize their products.
Harvard and Berkeley researchers have increased the sensitivity and efficiency of materials significantly by applying a coating to single silicon nanowires. The results recorded in Nano Letters, imply that the coated wires can be used in solar cells and photodetectors.
Scientists are reporting a key advance toward the long-awaited era of "single-molecule electronics," when common electronic circuits in computers, smart phones, audio players, and other devices may shrink to the size of a grain of sand. The breakthrough is a method for creating and attaching the tiny wires that will connect molecular components, reports a new study in the Journal of the American Chemical Society.
A moisture-resistant coating that extends the lifetime and reliability of plastic electronic devices, such as organic solar cells or flexible displays, has garnered the intense interest of developers of next-generation lighting materials. By cranking out large sheets of polymers bearing electronic circuitry using roll-to-roll technology, electronics manufacturers can substantially reduce their capital and processing costs. The possibilities for low-cost flexible panel lighting inspiring, says Senthil Ramadas, co-founder and chief technology officer of Tera-Barrier Films -- a company spun-out of the A*STAR Institute of Materials Research and Engineering (IMRE) in 2009. "Flexible devices can take any form -- thin films of organic lighting could cover entire ceilings or wrap around pillars."
A team of scientists at the National Institute of Standards and Technology in Boulder, USA, has managed to entangle ions using microwave fields for the first time. According to their publication in the journal Nature, the team has implemented a method that could be important for the realization of an integrated quantum computer with trapped ions.
Angstron Materials will participate in TechConnect Summit & Expo 2011 where the company will unveil its new sister division Angstron Supercapacitor Co. (AS). The spin-off company has been formed to produce a new superior supercapacitor electrode material. The material is made from graphene which has ultra-high specific capacitance, high electric and thermal conductivity and the highest energy/power density of known materials.
Apple recently won patents with the US Patent and Trademark office. These patents focus on ideas for using solar technology for laptops, smartphones and tablets. One such patent involves using sunlight to light up a laptop's screen. The patent application explains the idea as an “apparatus and methods for harnessing external light to illuminate a display screen of an electronic device."
Applied DNA Sciences has entered into a partnership with the University at Albany’s College of Nanoscale Science and Engineering (CNSE) to facilitate nanotechnology-based advancements that will help in avoiding the counterfeiting of computer chips.
Applied Materials, Inc., the global leader in providing manufacturing solutions for the semiconductor, flat panel display and solar photovoltaic industries, today signed a research collaboration agreement with the Institute of Microelectronics (IME), a world-renowned research institute under the Agency for Science, Technology and Research, to set up a Center of Excellence in Advanced Packaging in Singapore.
Applied Materials, Inc. today announced a breakthrough technology for reducing power consumption in semiconductor chips with its new Applied Producer® Onyx™ film treatment system.
Extreme ultraviolet (EUV) photomasks are used for transferring circuitry patterns onto wafers with new lithography systems using high-energy, short-wavelength light sources. The EUV light source wavelength is approximately 15 times shorter than that of today's deep ultraviolet lithography, making possible continued feature scaling.
Applied Materials, Inc. today announced the extension of its successful Applied Reflexion® GTTM CMP (chemical-mechanical planarization) system to include the planarization of tungsten films. This CMP process is critical to fabricating the transistor contacts and vias in advanced DRAM, NAND and logic devices. With the Reflexion GT system's proven dual-wafer architecture, customers can achieve unmatched throughput and more than 40% lower cost-per-wafer than competing systems. Importantly, Applied Materials is the only tungsten CMP system manufacturer to provide closed-loop film thickness and uniformity control - a vital capability to achieve high yields of today's advanced transistor structures.
Applied Materials, Inc., the global leader in providing equipment to enable the manufacture of advanced semiconductor devices, has joined the Science Foundation Ireland-funded Strategic Research Cluster FORME (Functional Oxides and Related Materials for Electronics).
Applied Materials, Inc. today launched its Applied Centura® Integrated Gate Stack™ system for creating the critical gate dielectric structures in 22nm logic chips. This system is the only tool available that can process the entire high-k multilayer stack in a single vacuum environment, thus preserving the integrity of its critical film interfaces. This capability is vital to maximizing transistor speed and minimizing power consumption in leading-edge microprocessor and graphics chips.
Applied Materials, Inc. and Varian Semiconductor Equipment Associates, Inc. announced the signing of a definitive merger agreement under which Applied will acquire Varian for $63 per share in cash for a total price of approximately $4.9 billion on a fully-diluted basis. The price represents a 55 percent premium to yesterday's closing price, or a 38 percent premium to Varian's 30 day average closing price. Varian is the leading supplier of ion implantation equipment used by chip makers around the world. Following the close of the transaction, Varian will operate as a business unit of Applied's Silicon Systems Group and continue to be based in Gloucester, Mass. The transaction is expected to be accretive to Applied's earnings on a non-GAAP basis in the first year.
Hardware maker Hannspree is best known--in the United States, at least--for idiosyncratic products such as TV sets shaped like fruit and zoo animals. But it makes some more straightforward stuff, too, including Android tablets. So far, its tablets, which aren't sold in the US, have run Android 2.2--a fact that I instinctively want to squawk about, since that aging smartphone OS was never designed for large-screen devices. But I'm attending the IFA Global Press Conference in Spain, a preview event for September's IFA consumer electronics megaevent in Berlin, and a Hannspree executive explained in an unusually straightforward and illuminating fashion why it's using an old version of Android.
ARM and UMC, a leading global semiconductor foundry, today announced a long-term agreement that provides UMC foundry customers with access to the latest advanced ARM Artisan® Physical IP solutions validated on UMC's 28HPM process technology. This latest 28nm process technology targets a wide range of applications that includes portable devices, such as mobile and wireless, and high performance applications, such as digital home and high-speed networking. Harnessing the strengths of both companies, this collaboration will deliver superior technology and support to mutual customers.
ARM and semiconductor foundry UMC have signed a long term agreement under which UMC will use the ARM Artisan Physical IP solutions for its 28nm process technology.
Arradiance has announced partnerships with two world-class organizations internationally. In Europe, Euris Semiconductor Services of Grenoble, France has agreed to represent and support Arradiance' GEMStar™ line of Benchtop Atomic Layer Deposition systems. HTL Co. Japan Ltd. of Tokyo has agreed to a corresponding role.
The continuous success of the computer industry is made possible by the ongoing miniaturization of computer chips. A way to make computers even faster is to devise chips that are stacked in all three dimensions in space. Today's fabrication technology is not very suitable to make three-dimensional (3D) structures since structures in a chip are made layer-by-layer, which makes the fabrication of 3D structures costly and time-consuming.
Aurrion, Inc., a world leader in silicon photonics, announced that is has been awarded a $13.9 million Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency multi-year R&D contract through the Electronic-Photonic Heterogeneous Integration program.
EV Group, a leading supplier of wafer bonding and lithography equipment for the MEMS, nanotechnology and semiconductor markets, today announced that Asahi Kasei E-Materials Corporation, the core operating company of the Asahi Kasei Group for electronics materials, energy materials, photosensitive materials and epoxy resins, has purchased an IQ Aligner UV nanoimprint lithography system from EVG.
FSI International, a provider of surface conditioning equipment for the production of microelectronics, has proclaimed that a major foundry producer in Asia has agreed to adopt an ORION single wafer cleaning system.
ASM International, a manufacturer of materials and equipment for fabricating semiconductor devices, has shipped more than 500 atomic layer deposition (ALD) reactors that are utilized in semiconductor production till date.
Brion Technologies, a division of ASML, today announced a new product for its popular Tachyon computational lithography platform. Tachyon MB-SRAF (Model-Based Sub-Resolution Assist Features) enables the high-speed, full-chip processing of advanced chip designs with larger process windows, greater productivity, and lower development costs than rule-based alternatives.
ASML Holding NV (ASML) today announced three new extensions for its popular TWINSCAN NXT platform that improve imaging, overlay and productivity. The extensions enable chipmakers to manufacture smaller, faster chips more cost-effectively.
Fraunhofer IZM Institute's microelectronic wafer level packaging and system integration centre, All Silicon System Integration Dresden (ASSID) will use the AltaCVD 300 System from Altatech Semiconductor for its single wafer 3D semiconductors.
Asylum Research, the technology leader in scanning probe/atomic force microscopy (AFM/SPM), announced today that it has installed the first Cypher AFM system in China at the South China Normal University in Guangzhou. Cypher, the world's fastest and highest resolution AFM, was installed in the lab of Professor Xingsen Gao at the SCNU Institute for Advanced Materials by personnel from Asylum Research and Grapes Hangzhou Technology Co. Ltd, Asylum's representative in China. Professor Gao's group will use Cypher to investigate advanced piezoelectric, ferroelectric, and multiferroic materials.
Electrical testing solutions supplier atg Luther & Maelzer (ATG/LM) has received certification to test the printed circuit boards (PCB) that use Voltage Switchable Dielectric (VSD), XStatic material developed by Shocking Technologies.
Electrical fields play a pivotal role in numerous cases in both nature and technical areas: by changing the electrical field, impulses of nerves are transmitted and modern data storage operates by saving electrical charges the so-called Flash Memories. An ultra-precise reading of electrical fields, however, is still a challenge for physical measurement techniques. Researchers from the University of Stuttgart succeeded in measuring electrical fields with the aid of one single defect center in diamond. This research report has now been published by Nature Physics ("Electric-field sensing using single diamond spins").
Some 300 exabytes (3 × 1020 bytes) of information were stored in electronic media--magnetic disks and tapes or optical disks--throughout the world by 2007. Yet, the demand for electronic storage grows daily, driving an ever-increasing need to pack data into smaller volumes in quicker time. By studying how laser pulses alter the atomic structure of data-storage materials, a research team in Japan has uncovered a fundamental mechanism that could aid in the design of even faster information storage in the future .
Akrion Systems and the MiQro Innovation Collaborative Centre (C2MI) recently declared that C2MI will procure three GAMA automated wet process platforms to help develop and produce advanced devices at C2MI's MEMS unit in Bromont Technoparc, Quebec, Canada.
The catalytic conversion of chemical to mechanical energy, which is ubiquitous in biological systems, also is the basis for many of the engine systems that nanotechnology researchers are developing. Catalytic 'engines' will be key components of active micron- and sub-micron scale systems for controlled movement, particle assembly, and separations.
The prototyping service, which combines several designs from different customers onto a single wafer, offers significant cost advantages for foundry customers as the costs for wafers and masks are shared among a number of different shuttle participants.
Avo Photonics, Inc., a specialist in opto-electronic design, packaging, and manufacturing, has been acquired by Halma, p.l.c., a leading safety, health and sensor technology group based in the United Kingdom. Avo will join Halma's global Photonics Division.
Avto Metals has revealed important features of its novel patented Avto Quantum Transistor (AQT) which has the capability of modulating an electrical signal by utilizing the tunneling electron to destructively or constructively interrupt with the electron wave function in a gate material.
Baolab Microsystems has developed a CMOS Lorentz force MEMS sensor of high-purity, which ensures that its 3D Digital NanoCompass meets performance standards for power consumption, sensitivity and package size, but at a considerably low cost. Another unique feature is that the equipment auto-calibrates to deliver high accuracy.
Believe it or not, folks, you're looking at the latest Android tablet/e-reader/thingy from Barnes & Noble. It's the all-new Nook -- six inches of E Ink Pearl on a Wifi-only device. It weighs just 7.5 ounces and is 35 percent lighter and 15 percent thinner than the first-gen Nook.
A breakthrough in components for next-generation batteries could come from special materials that transform their structure to perform better over time.
Despite the rapid proliferation of lithium-ion batteries throughout the communication, computing and transportation industries, thirty years ago the world's greatest scientific minds considered them far from a sure success.
The latest development by engineers of KIT is inspired by nature. To fill the porous electrodes of lithium-ion batteries more rapidly with liquid electrolyte, they use a physico-chemical effect that also provides for transport in trees. The new process increases the throughput of battery production and reduces investment costs. These and other innovations will be presented by KIT at the eCarTec International Electromobility Fair in Munich (hall A5, stand 323) from October 18 to 20.
The University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign today announced it has entered into a licensing agreement with Xerion Advanced Battery Corp. under which Xerion has the exclusive right to bring the University's StructurePore battery-charging technology to the market.
BASF is entering the business of electrolytes for lithium-ion batteries (LIB) and is forming a global electrolytes team in its Intermediates division for this purpose. By adding electrolytes to its existing portfolio for the LIB industry, BASF is able to offer another key component for the battery technology.
Batteries are the key technology for the electromobility of the future. Over the next five years, BASF will be investing a three-digit million euro sum in researching, developing and the production of battery materials. Part of the investment is being channeled into the construction of a production plant for advanced cathode materials in Elyria, Ohio. This new facility with an investment volume of more than $50 million is scheduled to supply the market with cathode materials for the production of high-performance lithium-ion batteries from mid-2012.
BASF today announced that it has invested $50 million to acquire an equity ownership position in privately held Sion Power, the global leader in the development of lithium-sulfur (Li-S) batteries, based in Tucson, Arizona.
Beyond its ability to conduct electrons almost without resistance, the nanomaterial graphene also has amazing mechanical properties, including high strength that could one day make it useful in lightweight, robust structures. But this material is not without flaws -- including a family of flower-like defects that could detract from its electronic and mechanical properties.
Berkeley Design Automation, Inc., provider of the world's fastest nanometer circuit verification, today announced the 2011 Nanometer Circuit Verification Forum, to be held September 22, 2011 at the Santa Clara Network Meeting Center in Silicon Valley's TechMart. This daylong event will feature leading-edge designers, university programs, and emerging EDA companies sharing successful approaches to verifying analog, mixed-signal, and RF circuits employed in 90nm to 28nm silicon.
Berkeley Design Automation Inc., the nanometer circuit verification leader, will host the 2011 Nanometer Circuit Verification Forum on September 22nd, 2011. This forum is a day-long event, free to registered attendees, focusing on successful approaches to verifying analog, mixed-signal, and RF circuits implemented in 90nm to 28nm silicon.
Berkeley Design Automation, Inc., provider of the world's fastest nanometer circuit verification, today announced that it has been selected as a winner of the ISA Technovation Award in the Semiconductor category by the India Semiconductor Association.
Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory (Berkeley Lab) of the U.S Department of Energy (DOE) has developed artificial semiconductor nanocrystal molecules and observed them working against the basic principle of photoluminescence called Kasha's rule, which states that when light is directed on a molecule, it will emit light that is fluorescent or phosphorescent only from its lowest energy excited state.
Researchers at the U.S. Department of Energy's Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory have developed a light-weight sandwich structure using tin and graphene.
Surprisingly, transmitting information-rich photons thousands of miles through fiber-optic cable is far easier than reliably sending them just a few nanometers through a computer circuit. However, it may soon be possible to steer these particles of light accurately through microchips because of research performed at the Joint Quantum Institute of the National Institute of Standards and Technology and the University of Maryland, together with Harvard University ("Robust optical delay lines with topological protection").
As an important step toward reducing oil dependence and greenhouse gas production, electric vehicles are becoming more and more prevalent. However, one major barrier remains: their batteries. Today's lithium-ion technology has yet to meet energy density, cost, life cycle and safety goals.
A new laser procedure could boost optical fiber communications. This technique could become essential for the future expansion of the Internet. It also opens up new frontiers in basic research.
At first glance, supercomputers, car parts, entertainment systems and radar antennas may not have much in common, but they all stand to benefit from important advances in thermal management technology being achieved by an EU-funded project.
The Nobel Prize winning scientists Professor Andre Geim and Professor Kostya Novoselov have taken a huge step forward in studying the wonder material graphene and revealing its exciting electronic properties for future electronic applications.
A research team led by physicists at the University of California, Riverside has identified a property of "bilayer graphene" that the researchers say is analogous to finding the Higgs boson in particle physics.
Researchers have demonstrated, for the first time, a graphene-based transistor array that is compatible with living biological cells and capable of recording the electrical signals they generate. This proof-of-concept platform opens the way for further investigation of a promising new material.
Taking advantage of the unique properties of zinc oxide nanowires, researchers have demonstrated a new type of piezoelectric resistive switching device in which the write-read access of memory cells is controlled by electromechanical modulation. Operating on flexible substrates, arrays of these devices could provide a new way to interface the mechanical actions of the biological world to conventional electronic circuitry.
BlackBox Semiconductor announced the signing of a share exchange with Shrink Nanotechnologies. Under the terms of the agreement 100% equity interests of the Nevada-based BlackBox Semiconductor were sold to the publicly traded Delaware-based company.
BlackBox Semiconductor, Inc., formerly Visitrade, Inc., a semiconductor technology development and application company, announced that it has executed a binding letter of intent to purchase the BlackBox Semiconductor subsidiary of Shrink Nanotechnologies, Inc. in order to commercialize its "electronic glue" semiconductor chemistry.
Along with graphene, atomically thin sheets and ribbons of boron nitride (often called "white graphene") have increasingly attracted fundamental research interest. While researchers make good progress on developing techniques for mass-producing graphene, it is still a challenge to reliably chemically delaminate and/or exfoliate boron nitride and to realize mass production of atomically thin sheets made of this material.
Two professors from the University of California, Riverside's Bourns College of Engineering have received $1.5 million to study a new approach that could allow the electronics industry to drastically reduce power consumption and increase speed in the next generation of computers.
Boston Micromachines (BMC), a company that produces MEMS-based deformable mirror (DM) devices for adaptive optics systems, declared that it has received $1.2M in contracts from the Small Business Innovation Research Program (SBIR) of NASA to conduct research activities related to space-based imaging. The company received the contracts for Phase II after it completed Phase I successfully.
The total energy consumption of the human brain is about 25 watts and it is estimated that it uses about 10 watts for a basic computation. Now compare this to what the most powerful computers can do: One of IBM's most sophisticated supercomputer, Blue Gene/P, can accomplish certain tasks with the brain functionality of a cat, but it's a massive machine with more than 147,000 CPUs, 144 terabytes of memory and a dedicated power supply to provide the required 2-3 megawatts.
There is a lot of buzz in the computer industry about so-called three-dimensional chips, promising higher performance with lower energy consumption, and paving the way for exascale computers. However, these chips are not intrinsically built, true 3D chips; rather, they are stacked layers of up to 100 separate chips.
A team of University of Maryland nanotechnology researchers has solved one of the most vexing challenges hindering the use of carbon nanomaterials for better electrical energy storage and for enhancing the fluorescence sensing capabilities of biosensors. The findings are published in the July 12 issue of Nature Communications ("Confined propagation of covalent chemical reactions on single-walled carbon nanotubes").
A collaboration between researchers at the University of Surrey's Advanced Technology Institute and the Faculty of Mechatronics of Warsaw University of Technology in Poland reports that low electrical loss at frequencies of up to 220 GHz are possible in screen printed carbon nanotube -- polymer composites.
Brewer Science, Inc., the inventor of ZoneBOND™ technology and world-leading expert in materials and processes for thin wafer handling, and SUSS MicroTec, a leading supplier of equipment, are joining forces in commercializing ZoneBOND™ technology for thin wafer handling.
ASML's division, Brion Technologies has introduced the Tachyon Model-Based Sub-Resolution Assist Features (MB-SRAF) for its well-known Tachyon computational lithography system to allow full-chip, high-speed processing of sophisticated chip designs at 2x nm nodes.
Semiconductor Manufacturing International (SMIC) and Brite Semiconductor, Shanghai has declared that they have reached first-pass silicon success with the first 40 nm chip of Brite by deploying 40 nm process technology of SMIC.
Behind the smart phone's continuing transformation into the quintessential multipurpose tool is the rise and diversification of microelectromechanical systems (MEMS), tiny machines that work the speakers, projectors, gyroscopes and other built-in gadgets that are inspiring a profusion of mobile applications.
Bruker today announces new order bookings for multiple Bruker tools from a leading global semiconductor foundry, totaling over $10 million. Bruker is providing a variety of high-performance semiconductor metrology systems, ranging from fully automated InSight™ 3D atomic force microscopes, D8 FABLINE™ and D8 DISCOVER™ X-ray diffraction systems to S2 PICOFOX™ portable bench-top TXRF spectrometers. This combination of industry-leading metrology technology and front- to back-end fab flexibility brings many R&D and QC benefits to nanoelectronics manufacturers, as the industry pursues sub-32 nanometer capabilities.
The beauty of an electron's spin is that it responds very rapidly to small magnetic fields. Such external magnetic fields can be used to reverse the direction of spin. In this way, information can be carried by a flow of electrons. For instance, electrons with a left-hand spin could represent a "1", and those with a right-hand spin, a "0". It takes less time to flip the spin direction than it does to switch a current on or off. Accordingly, spintronics could potentially be very fast and extremely compact.
Cadence Design Systems, Inc., a leader in global electronic design innovation, today announced it has acquired Altos Design Automation, Inc., the technology leader in enabling foundation IP development for the delivery of complex SoCs at advanced nodes. Shrinking process geometries increase process variations and make creation of accurate noise, power and timing models for foundation IP very complex given smaller time-to-market windows. Altos tools enable ultra-fast and accurate characterization of memory, standard cell libraries and other foundation IP, generating required models for SoC implementation. When combined with the Cadence end-to-end Silicon Realization portfolio, the offering gives customers greater visibility into the effects of noise, timing and power at every phase of the design cycle, including foundation IP design creation, extraction, SPICE simulation, and implementation. The acquisition is another important step in delivering on the company's EDA360 vision.
Cadence Design Systems, Inc., a leader in global electronic design innovation, today announced that it has teamed with GlobalFoundries to dramatically reduce the turnaround time for design-for-manufacturing (DFM) signoff at 28 nanometers. The companies' advanced technologies enable customers to find and fix potential lithography hotspot problems that could reduce yield or even threaten viability of complex chip designs headed for manufacturing. Using the proven Cadence "in-design" DFM technology to support the GlobalFoundries DRC+ methodology, Rambus cited a 60 times speedup of DFM signoff.
Cadence Design Systems, Inc., a leader in global electronic design innovation, today announced it has collaborated with TSMC to deliver their customers DFM expertise and technology in a service model. In an effort to reduce risk and enable the fastest path to Silicon Realization, Cadence DFM Services include model-based simulation of litho-process checks and virtual chemical mechanical polishing for TSMC 40-nanometer technology and below. The goal is to enable design teams to effectively get help in detecting litho or CMP hotspots in order to fix them prior to tapeout. Cadence is the first EDA partner certified by TSMC for DFM services.
Cadence Design Systems, Inc., a leader in global electronic design innovation, today announced a breakthrough in electronic design with a new suite of products that promises to cut system integration time by up to half for next-generation designs. Bringing hardware and software development closer together than ever before, the suite features four connected platforms that enable hardware-software co-design from architectural-level development through to prototyping. While some companies focus on a portion of the development cycle, no one company has offered the full suite of hardware-software development platforms until now.
Cadence Design Systems, Inc., a leader in global electronic design innovation, today announced an array of new technologies incorporated into the new TSMC Reference Flow 12.0 and Analog-Mixed-Signal (AMS) Reference Flow v2.0 that ensure 28-nanometer production readiness.
Cadence Design Systems, Inc., a leader in global electronic design innovation, today announced that ST-Ericsson, a world leader in wireless platforms and semiconductors, achieved a 10x productivity gain by using the Cadence® mixed-signal solution. By deploying the latest release of the Cadence Virtuoso® unified custom/analog flow (6.1) for complex custom, analog and mixed-signal design, and the Cadence Encounter® unified digital flow for low-power, mixed-signal implementation, ST-Ericsson successfully taped out a CMOS 40-nanometer integrated mixed-signal IC for the high-volume mobile phone market.
Cadence Design Systems, Inc., a leader in global electronic design innovation, today announced that technology leader Samsung Electronics, Co., Ltd. deployed the Cadence® unified digital flow, from RTL to GDSII, to tape out a test chip at 20 nanometers. The Cadence Encounter®-based flow and methodology were integrated to address the requirements of Samsung's advanced 20-nanometer process technology for the test chip. The flow handled IP integration and validation, as well as the complex design rules at 20 nanometers.
Cadence Design Systems, Inc., a leader in global electronic design innovation, today outlined the technologies and steps required to move the industry to advanced node design, with a particular focus on 20-nanometer and 28-nanometer design, at the Design Automation Conference (DAC), being held June 5-9. Highlighting the need for collaboration among industry leaders -- a requirement for success at the 20-nanometer node -- Cadence® will host a panel today entitled, "Getting a Jumpstart on 20 Nanometers," with executives from ARM, Cadence, Samsung and ST Microelectronics.
Anticipating forthcoming experiments, a NIST Center for Nanoscale Science and Technology (CNST) team has shown that few layer graphene stacks have favorable transport properties that could enable engineering of novel electronic devices ("Semiclassical Boltzmann transport theory for graphene multilayers").
CSTIC is the largest annual industrial semiconductor technology conference in China. It is organized by SEMI and ECS, co-organized by China's High-Tech Expert Committee (CHTEC) and co-sponsored by IEEE, MRS and China Electronics Materials Industry Association.
Cambrios Technologies Corporation and Synaptics Incorporated, a leading developer of human interface solutions for mobile computing, communications, and entertainment devices, today announced that they have entered into a Reference Design Partner Agreement.
Camtek Ltd. announced today that a leading Semiconductor Manufacturer has selected Xact, Camtek's Advanced Transmission Electron Microscope (TEM) sample preparation solution, enabling material analysis and verification. The system was installed during the second quarter of 2011.
Lithium-ion batteries are an important energy storage technology for portable electronics and electric vehicles. The performance of these batteries depends on the density at which they can store energy and how fast they can be charged and discharged. One way to improve these properties is through the use of nanostructured electrodes. Zhuang-Jun Fan and colleagues from Harbin Engineering University and other institutions in China have now developed three-dimensional, carbon-based nanostructures with enhanced capacity for storing lithium ions and high-rate charge/discharge cycling characteristics ("Nanographene-Constructed Carbon Nanofibers Grown on Graphene Sheets by Chemical Vapor Deposition: High-Performance Anode Materials for Lithium Ion Batteries").
Hiroyuki Muto and colleagues at Japan's Toyohashi University of Technology (Toyohashi Tech) have developed an innovative method for producing CNT (carbon nano-tube) resin composite material that only requires 1/100 of the conventional amount of CNT additive to produce electrical conductivity in the composite material.
Pacemakers and other implanted medical devices require electric current to operate. Changing the battery requires an additional operation, which is an added stress on the patient.
Eindhoven University of Technology (TU/e, Netherlands) scientists have designed a nano-material to replace indium tin oxide (ITO) used in displays for TVs, telephones and laptops, besides solar cells. Indium is a rare metal and is expected to disappear within a decade.
A team led by Jongbaeg Kim at Yonsei University in South Korea has developed a micromechanical contact designed on the lines of aligned carbon-nanotube (CNT) arrays.
Ultra- or supercapacitors are emerging as a key enabling storage technology for use in fuel-efficient transport as well as in renewable energy (for instance as power grid buffer). These devices combine the advantages of conventional capacitors -- they can rapidly deliver high current densities on demand -- and batteries -- they can store a large amount of electrical energy.
Researchers at Chalmers have demonstrated that two stacked chips can be vertically interconnected with carbon nanotube vias through the chips. This new method improves possibilities for 3D integration of circuits, one of the most promising approaches for miniaturization and performance promotion of electronics.
Humans are not very efficient. When we walk, we waste close to 20 watts of energy per second. Instead of turning all calories into lift or forward motion, we turn most of them into heat that’s quickly dissipated. So my colleagues and I came up with a way to harvest the wasted energy from human motion and convert it into about 10 watts of electricity.
Cavendish laboratory researchers from the Physics department at the University of Cambridge have provided novel insight into spintronics which is being regarded as a future successor to transistors.
As technology breakthroughs occur with accelerating frequency, so do questions of public policy, standards development, product marketing and training, which no single company-or even a small coalition of companies-can address on its own.
CEA-Leti and Entegris, a provider of critical products and materials used in advanced high-technology manufacturing, have signed a two-year agreement to study cross-molecular contamination to and from semiconductor wafers and containers.
CEA-Leti has announced the inclusion of Synopsys as an industrial partner in the IMAGINE program designed for the development of maskless lithography for the production of integrated circuits.
Physicists from the University of Stuttgart show the first experimental proof of a molecule consisting of two identical atoms that exhibits a permanent electric dipole moment. This observation contradicts the classical opinion described in many physics and chemistry textbooks.
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China announced a cut Tuesday in its rare earths export quota as it tries to shore up sagging prices for the exotic metals used in mobile phones and other high-tech goods.
China will boost the integrated circuit (IC) sector at a "state strategy" level over the next five years through 2015, Yang Xueshan, vice minister of industry and information technology has said.
The 10th annual IC Design House Survey of EE Times-China, eMedia Asia's design engineering journal, has revealed that major IC design companies in Mainland China are using advanced 28 nm technology for chip development, while 9.2% of local fabless manufacturers have adopted = 45 nm process technologies for the mass production of digital ICs.
The commercial realization of carbon nanotube-based electronic devices and their integration into the existing silicon-based processor technologies is still hampered by the inability to scale up the -- currently lab-based -- fabrication processes to manufacture a large number of devices on a single chip. The fundamental issue of carbon nanotube device fabrication still remains the biggest challenge for effective commercialization of nanotube electronics.
The first class to graduate from an innovative nanotechnology education and workforce development program received hands-on cleanroom training Friday at the College of Nanoscale Science and Engineering's Smart System Technology and Commercialization Center of Excellence in Canandaigua, an integral component in preparing students for growing opportunities in New York's rapidly-expanding nanotechnology industry.
The Institute of Microelectronics, a research institute of the Agency for Science, Technology and Research, has announced plans to commercialize key innovations in silicon chips designed to support high speed, high bandwidth optical communications.
Tanner EDA, a company that provides layout, design, and verification of mixed-signal and analog integrated circuits, and Berkeley Design Automation, a company that provides verification of nanometer circuits, are joining hands to provide the Analog FastSPICE (AFS) Platform from Berkeley Design Automation for the HiPer Silicon design suite manufactured by Tanner EDA.
Scientists are investigating the possibility of combining two emerging technologies, plasmonics and nanophotonics to create a new quantum information system, which will be much more powerful than computers.
Academic and industrial research scientists and engineers, as well as students working in micro-electromechanical systems (MEMS), commonly encounter a steep learning curve when developing common MEMS fabrication processes. A fundamental, comprehensive MEMS-focused reference book just published by Springer promises to be an important game-changing asset for the field.
Research and Markets now offers a new report titled 'Wafer Packaging Fab Database' that discusses the global overview of the installed capacities and activities of wafer level packaging in more than 250 mid-end factories.
Researchers from the University of Maryland and the CNST's Shaffique Adam have recently published a detailed review of the electronic transport properties of two-dimensional graphene.
A new market research report titled 'Printed Electronics: Reality vs. Hype' is being offered by Research and Markets. According to the report, the market that has a huge potential for novel market applications though it is still in the nascent stage.
The usage of gallium arsenide (GaAs) device has been increased in network infrastructure and mobile phone applications, which in turn increases the usage of GaAs epitaxial wafers, which are the base materials for these devices.
According to a market research report titled 'Ultracapacitors' from Pike Research, revenues of ultracapacitors in grid and transportation services will increase by over 10 times to $284.1 million between the period 2011-2016.
Nanotechnology researchers at the Georgia Institute of Technology have conducted the first direct comparison of two fundamental techniques that could be used for chemically doping sheets of two-dimensional graphene for the fabrication of devices and interconnects.
Researchers at Hewlett Packard and the University of California, Santa Barbara, have analysed in unprecedented detail the physical and chemical properties of an electronic device that computer engineers hope will transform computing.
As the UK government invests into supporting graphene research, the patent activity of UK universities lags behind that of their global peers according to research by CambridgeIP published in Nature Materials.
A University of Pennsylvania research team at the schools of Engineering and Applied Science and Arts and Sciences has discovered a method that will help control the properties of semiconductor nanowires fabricated from lead selenide.
This technology helps designers develop three-dimensional designs in logic and memory chips. It offers high-dose, energy efficient doping with in-situ cleaning in one vacuum compartment for consistent throughput doping. Its clean, unadulterated doping retains its inherent design.
DNA-based nanomaterials are key precursors for the bottom-up fabrication of a range of high-performance nanoscale devices such as biosensors and nanoelectronics because of their ability to self-assemble into well-defined structures.
A team of University of Maryland nanotechnology researchers has solved one of the most vexing challenges hindering the use of carbon nanomaterials for better electrical energy storage or enhancing the fluorescence sensing capabilities of biosensors. The findings are published in the July 12 issue of Nature Communications.
An international team of researchers from France and Germany has developed a new material which is the first to react magnetically to electrical fields at room temperature. Previously this was only at all possible at extremely low and unpractical temperatures. Electric fields are technically much easier and cheaper to produce than magnetic fields for which you need power guzzling coils. The researchers have now found a way to control magnetism using electric fields at "normal" temperatures, thus fulfilling a dream.
Scientists from the Georgia Institute of Technology have for the first time provided details of their "confinement controlled sublimation" technique for growing high-quality layers of epitaxial graphene on silicon carbide wafers. The technique relies on controlling the vapor pressure of gas-phase silicon in the high-temperature furnace used for fabricating the material.
A team of physicists from the Joint Quantum Institute, the Neils Bohr Institute in Copenhagen, Denmark, and Harvard University has developed a theory describing how to both detect weak electrical signals and cool electrical circuits using light and something very like a nanosized loudspeaker.
A couple of years back, one of our Nanowerk Spotlights addressed the issue of thermal management of computer chips – the fact that heat has become one of the most critical issues in computer and semiconductor design. There are three factors playing the most important role in a microscale heat sink cooling system: the thermal conductivity of the material of the cooling fins; the heat exchange area of the cooling fins; and the convection between cooling fins and ambient.
CopyTele declared that it has signed two license agreements with AU Optronics to manufacture and sell the company's Nano Display and E-Paper technologies. Under the terms of the license agreements, AUO receives an exclusive license for the technology and patents of CopyTele's E-Paper display. AUO also receives the right to sublicense the CopyTele's E-Paper display technology to third party clients.
Cornell University has received a grant from the National Science Foundation and the National Research Initiative to support graphene-based research programmes and to encourage the presence of women in the field of nanoelectronics.
Cosmic Circuits, a provider of differentiated analog and mixed-signal IP cores, has declared the accessibility of its silicon-proven MIPI Alliance M-PHYSM solution in 40 nm.
Coventor, a supplier of automated design solutions for micro-electromechanical systems (MEMS) development, announces that is has opened a new sales and development office in Italy.
Crocus Technology, a leading developer of magnetic memory today announced a joint technology development agreement and a patent license agreement with IBM. The patent license provides mutual access to patents that will enable the companies to collaborate and integrate magnetic technology into semiconductor products.
Crocus Technology, a leading developer of magnetically enhanced semiconductors, and Semiconductor Manufacturing International Corporation, China's largest and most advanced semiconductor foundry, today announced the formal signing of joint technology development and wafer manufacturing agreements.
Crocus Technology, a leading developer of magnetic semiconductors, today announced its Magnetic-Logic-Unit (MLU) architecture, a scalable evolution of Crocus' Thermally Assisted Switching™ (TAS) technology, that permits practical implementation of advanced logic and memory capabilities, a first for the industry. This innovation will expand the market for Crocus' magnetic technology by opening up new applications in high density data storage, secure commerce and communications, high performance network processing and high temperature automotive and industrial uses.
Crocus Technology and Starchip today announced they have formed an alliance to develop next generation System-on-Chip solutions based on Crocus' Magnetic-Logic-Unit technology.
A University of Arkansas physicist and his colleagues have examined the challenges facing scientists building the next generation of materials and innovative electronic devices and identified opportunities for taking the rational material design in new directions.
Semiconductor-based light-emitting devices that produce while light are beginning to replace incandescent light-globes in homes and offices around the world thanks to their high efficiency. Chang-Soo Han and colleagues at the Korea Institute of Machinery and Materials have now shown that curing polymer-embedded quantum dots with ultraviolet light can permanently increase the light-emitting efficiency of these elements as part of white-light devices ("Photoenhancement of a Quantum Dot Nanocomposite via UV Annealing and its Application to White LEDs").
CVD Equipment, a company that designs and manufactures graphene, semiconductors, carbon nanotubes, MEMS, nanowires, and industrial coatings, received orders of nearly $24.6M for the first six months of 2011.
Today's warfighters possess the ability to meet the dynamic demands of the battlefield by relying on their knowledge and training to make the right decisions in demanding complex situations. In contrast, unmanned systems and electronic devices, while able to collect and process information, are limited in their efficiency and flexibility, and current computer systems can only process information according to their programming. What if warfighters could access an entirely new class of electronic systems that can meet the demands of dynamic environments.
DCG Systems, Inc. introduced today the OPTIFIB Viper, the next generation system for circuit edit. The OptiFIB IV has been the leader in circuit edit and is actively used by leading semiconductor companies to edit process technologies down to the 28nm node.
A class of decorative, flower-like defects in the nanomaterial graphene could have potentially important effects on the material's already unique electrical and mechanical properties, according to researchers at the National Institute of Standards and Technology and Georgia Tech. In a new paper ("Grain boundary loops in graphene"), the team for the first time describes a family of seven defects that could occur naturally or be induced to occur in graphene, one of which already has been observed.
DEK, the world's leading mass imaging equipment supplier, together with local agent Maxim SMT, will be showcasing its leading printing technologies at Electronica India 2011. Held from 13 to 16 September 2011 at Pragati Maidan in New Delhi, DEK's end-to-end solutions will include capital equipment, software, process support products as well as stencil manufacturing offerings.
The world's leading mass imaging equipment supplier, DEK International, was conferred a total of five leading industry awards at NEPCON China 2011 for its outstanding product performance and innovative solutions applicable to electronics assembly.
Imec and Holst Centre have demonstrated two new electrochemical sensors. A miniature ethylene sensor could help monitor and control fruit ripening, potentially reducing food wastage. And a multi-ion sweat sensor could allow continuous monitoring of dehydration for athletes, the elderly and the sick. These sensors enable considerable miniaturization in monitoring equipment, opening the door to novel smart packaging and body area network applications.
Spintronics has the potential to provide many advantages over traditional charge-based electronics. Crucial to the practical viability of the technology, however, is the efficient generation and control of 'spin currents' -- flows of electron spins with high polarization purity. One technique that is widely used experimentally to generate a spin current is the application of a voltage across a magnetic tunneling junction (MTJ). This configuration injects electrons from a ferromagnetic electrode into, for instance, a non-magnetic material via a tunneling barrier, which acts as a spin filter.
The Japan Synchrotron Radiation Research Institute, Tokyo Institute of Technology, the National Institute for Materials Science, and Kyoto University confirmed for the first time in the world that it is possible to achieve ultra-high speed switching in a time of 200 nanoseconds with a new piezoelectric thin film which possesses nanodomains.
The four Danish network operators have banded together to create a standard NFC platform, and admitted that it is the threat from Google that has driven them to do so.
The "Deutscher Zukunftspreis 2011" was won by a team comprising existing and former Fraunhofer researchers. Professor Karl Leo, Dr. Jan Blochwitz-Nimoth and Dr. Martin Pfeiffer were honored for their pioneering achievements in the field of organic electronics.
Measurement and analysis instrument manufacturer SII NanoTechnology Inc. (SIINT) a 100% subsidiary of Seiko Instruments Inc. (SII), successfully developed the X-ray Inspection system which enables the detection of the metal particles about 20µm in diameter contained in the fuel cell electrode and the lithium ion rechargeable battery electrode in few minutes and the elemental analysis automatically. The prototype will be released at JAIMA EXPO 2011/ SIS 2011, the biggest trade show of analytical instrument in Japan, at Makuhari Messe on September 7th to 9th.
Scientists recognise how important a role electrical fields play in nature and technical areas. By adjusting these fields, the transmission of nerve impulses becomes possible and the operation of modern data storage is fulfilled by saving electrical charges (so-called Flash Memories). What researchers have not been able to do is get an ultra-precise reading of electrical fields by using physical measurement techniques. Until now, that is. With the help of one single defect centre in diamond, scientists at the University of Stuttgart in Germany successfully measured electrical fields. Presented in the journal Nature Physics, the study was funded in part by the EU ("Electric-field sensing using single diamond spins").
Two completely different quantum systems were successfully joined at Vienna University of Technology (TU Vienna). This should pave the way to feasible quantum-computer microchips.
Hactivist groups such as Anonymous and LulzSec hearken back to earlier days when Web attacks were done for bragging rights, not profits, says the new CTO of incident-response, forensics company Mandiant.
Dolomite, a world leader in microfluidic design and manufacture, has introduced a new range of Small Droplet Chips, glass microfluidic devices which can be used with the Droplet Advanced System to generate highly monodispersed micro-droplets.
Dolomite, a world leader in microfluidic design and manufacture, has launched a new range of Piezoelectric Pumps providing a flexible solution for handling small volumes of fluid within microfluidic systems.
The Dow Chemical Company and the U.S. Department of Energy's (DOE) Argonne National Laboratory announced the signing of a Memorandum of Understanding (MOU) for a multi-year research collaboration to jointly develop the next generation of materials for advanced battery technologies.
Dr Xiao-Qi Zhou and colleagues at the University of Bristol's Centre for Quantum Photonics and the University of Queensland, Australia, have shown that controlled operations -- ones that are implemented on the condition that a "control bit" is in the state 1 -- can be dramatically simplified compared to the standard approach ("Adding control to arbitrary unknown quantum operations"). The researchers believe their technique will find applications across quantum information technologies, including precision measurement, simulation of complex systems, and ultimately a quantum computer -- a powerful type of computer that uses quantum bits (qubits) rather than the conventional bits used in today's computers.
Duke University's electrical engineers have discovered a material that helps them in manipulating light resembling the way that electronics manipulates electron flow.
SolMateS, the highly innovative supplier of PZT thin film solutions, announced that they have received a three million dollar investment from private equity funds Twente Technology Fund and Participatiemaatschappij Oost Nederland (East-Netherlands Holding Company) on April 27th, 2011. SolMateS will use the investment to accelerate product development and international expansion for its unique production system.
A team of scientists at Ecole Polytechnique Federale De Lausanne (EPFL) have been studying if dynamic stencil lithography can be used to form nanostructures that form a transistor or silicon chip.
The integration of electronics into textiles is a burgeoning field of research that may soon enable smart fabrics and wearable electronics. Bringing this technology one step closer to fruition, Jin-Woo Han and Meyya Meyyappan at the Center for Nanotechnology at NASA Ames Research Center in Moffett Field, Calif., have developed a new flexible memory fabric woven together from interlocking strands of copper and copper-oxide wires. At each juncture, or stitch along the fabric, a nanoscale dab of platinum is placed between the fibers. This "sandwich structure" at each crossing forms a resistive memory circuit. Resistive memory has received much attention due to the simplicity of its design.
The integration of biological components with electronics, and more specifically, the interfacing of complex biological systems is one of the current challenges on the path towards bioelectronics (or bionics for short).
Ecliptek has unveiled six current mode logic (CML) MEMS clock oscillator series called EMML oscillator series that can fulfill the demands of design engineers for compact oscillators using minimum input voltage.
EDAX Inc., a leader in micro X-ray fluorescence, has introduced its X-ray coating analysis software for the Orbis micro-XRF elemental analyzer system. Using the coating analysis software, the Orbis provides simultaneous multi-layer film thickness and composition analyses for metal, oxide, nitride and carbide coatings as well as coatings that contain elements within the observable range of the Orbis system from Sodium to Berkelium. Typical applications include analysis of electrical contact coatings for electronics, magnetic media and semiconductors; anti-corrosion and wear coatings for fasteners, aerospace and automotive components; and RoHS analysis of solder coatings.
Eden Energy Ltd ("Eden") has made its first commercial sale of its carbon nanotubes (CNT) and carbon nanofibres (CNF) to an industrial battery manufacturer.
Artificial sponge-like materials, combining the elastic and mechanical properties of a sponge with chemical functionality, have a wide range of applications, from use as scaffolds for the growth of biological tissue to mechanical actuators and catalysis. Electrically conductive sponges, or elastomeric conductors, expand the range of possible applications even further, but to date have involved complex preparation methods such as chemical vapor deposition of carbon nanotubes or the costly production of carbon nanotube gels.
Veeco Instruments Inc. today announced that Elec-Tech International has placed a multi-unit order for Veeco's recently released TurboDisc® MaxBright™ MOCVD System for production of high-brightness light-emitting diodes (HB LEDs) at their facility in Wuhu, China.
Glues adhere to solid materials via a multitude of fundamental physical or chemical interactions. Either chemical reaction times or solvent evaporation rates determine the point in time, when this interaction sets in and fixes the object to be glued.
A team led by the Physics Professor Michael S. Fuhrer of the UMD Center for Nanophysics and Advanced Materials at University of Maryland have devised a method to monitor magnetic properties of graphene that could lead to magnetic storage and magnetic random access memory applications.
FutureCarbon is going on show in a double pack from March 29 through 31 at European Coatings in Nuremberg and JEC Composites in Paris. Exhibits will include special electrically conducting adhesives plus high-flexibility heated coatings for leather and textiles. Also presented will be CarboShield, the innovation in screening against electromagnetic radiation, CarboGran, an extremely simply dispersed CNT granulate, and CarboCond, a 100% ATEX compliant coating, based on epoxy resin, to discharge electrostatic. Journalists and visitors can learn at first hand about the latest developments and products from FutureCarbon.
Smart glass can change color or even go from opaque to transparent with just the flick of a switch. Indium tin oxide is used as an electrical contact in many of these 'electrochromic' devices because it is both transparent to visible light and a good conductor of electricity. But indium and tin are both becoming increasingly expensive as the global supply diminishes. Kazuhiro Yanagi from the Tokyo Metropolitan University, working with colleagues from across Japan, has now shown that carbon could be the perfect replacement ("Electrochromic Carbon Electrodes: Controllable Visible Color Changes in Metallic Single-Wall Carbon Nanotubes").
To tackle future electrodeposition challenges, imec is doing research to understand all the physics involved, and to develop processing routes. As part of that effort, it has set up a collaboration with the lab of Prof. J. Deconinck at the VUB (Vrije Universiteit Brussels). The focus of the collaboration is to develop a simulation platform that can be used as a tool for exploring new electrodeposition strategies. By combining the expertise fields of experiments and simulations and their mutual validation, the project aims at yielding a simulation tool which captures the essential processes occurring at wafer level, and thus handle 'real case' situations. The project's results will be fed into the development work for both the 3D and advanced interconnect programs.
Alchimer, a developer and marketer of innovative chemical formulations and processes for deposition of nanometric films that are utilized in various MEMS and microelectronic applications, has partnered with Kromax International, one of the largest material suppliers in Asia and a manufacturer of flat-panel equipment and semiconductor.
A team of researchers at the University of Gothenburg, Sweden, has discovered that electromechanical principles are applicable at the nanoscale also. So the distinct properties of carbon nanotubes could be combined with physics and be applied in future quantum computers.
Transistors are commonly used in electronics as switches to turn an electrical current on or off. For applications that require a very large ratio between the on and off current, however, it is necessary to use mechanical 'reed' switches, in which magnetic fields physically move metallic wires (or reeds) towards and away from electrical contact points. As devices become more compact, these mechanical switches need to be miniaturized into small packages, without sacrificing performance.
What limits the behaviour of a carbon nanotube? This is a question that many scientists are trying to answer. Physicists at University of Gothenburg, Sweden, have now shown that electromechanical principles are valid also at the nanometre scale. In this way, the unique properties of carbon nanotubes can be combined with classical physics -- and this may prove useful in the quantum computers of the future.
An international team of researchers succeeded at the Max Planck Institute of Quantum Optics to control and monitor strongly accelerated electrons from nano-spheres with extremely short and intense laser pulses ("Controlled near-field enhanced electron acceleration from dielectric nanospheres with intense few-cycle laser fields").
Northwestern University researchers--the same ones that brought us self-erasing documents a couple of years ago--are envisioning a day when computers and other gadgets can rewire themselves automatically to better suit the user's needs at a given moment. As a step in that direction, they have today published a paper in Nature Nanotechnology describing tiny circuits they've created from nano-scale materials that can be resistors, diodes, transistors, or other components depending on what the computer needs them to be at a given time.
In order to find a method for more cost-effective data storage, a group of researchers from the DFG-Center for Functional Nanostructures at the Karlsruhe Institute of Technology in Germany and the National Tsing Hua University in Taiwan have created a DNA-based "write-once-read-many-times" memory device.
Exotic materials called topological insulators, discovered just a few years ago, have yielded some of their secrets to a team of MIT researchers. For the first time, the team showed that light can be used to obtain information about the spin of electrons flowing over the material's surface, and has even found a way to control these electron movements by varying the polarization of a light source.
Electronics.Ca Publications has released a new report titled "Graphene: Technologies, Applications, and Markets". According to a new market research report, the market value for graphene-based products worldwide will be estimated at a value of $67 million in 2015 and is expected to rise to $675.1 million in 2020. The compound annual growth rate (CAGR) of graphene-based products is estimated to be at 58.7%.
Using a newly developed type of spectroscopy, Berlin researchers have shown that electrons in a semiconductor are best described as a cloud with a size of a few nanometer. The cloud size is determined by the interaction of the electron with vibrations in the crystal lattice.
For years now, transistors have been getting smaller and smaller. Research conducted by Jan-Laurens van der Steen of the MESA+ Institute for Nanotechnology at University of Twente, The Netherlands, has shown that electrons in silicon which is less than ten nanometres thick take on unusual characteristics.
The multibillion dollar computer industry hinges on the ability to efficiently pass an electric current through a material. However, in any electronic device such as a computer transistor, the influence of the materials atom's inevitably masks the interactions between the electrons. Using a custom-designed system, a research team from the RIKEN Advanced Science Institute, Wako, in collaboration with colleagues from the University of Konstanz, Germany, has completed the first study of the transport of single floating electrons free of external influences ("Point-Contact Transport Properties of Strongly Correlated Electrons on Liquid Helium").
Electrovaya Inc. today announced that it has signed a contract to provide a lithium ion Battery Energy Storage System ("BESS") of approximately 1.2MWh for demonstration purposes in support of renewable energy generation in Ontario.
Universal Display and lighting is launching a single-layer packaging technology for application in plastic substrate systems and thin-film products such as rigid and flexible OLED displays and lighting panels at the Society of Vacuum Coaters Technology Conference being held at the Hyatt Regency Chicago between April 16 and 21.
On 5 April, the annual IDTechEx Printed Electronics Europe event in Dusseldorf, Germany will open to a range of end users discussing their needs and experiences with printed electronics - providing that vital "reality check" for those involved in the industry or for those wishing to explore their opportunities in this sector.
Applied Materials has recently added to the applications of its Applied Endura Avenir RF PVD platform to incorporate deposition of nickel-platinum (NiPt) alloys, to increase transistor contacts scaling to the 22nm technology node.
Ener1, Inc., a leader in lithium-ion energy storage solutions, today announced a supply and distribution agreement with Lightning Motorcycles, the maker of the world's fastest production electric motorcycle. As part of the agreement, Ener1 will supply Lightning Motorcycles with its automotive-grade, lithium-ion battery cells -- designed for plug-in hybrid electric vehicles -- for use in its Lightning SuperBike. Ener1 will also supply cells for Lightning's commuter motorcycle and scooter, which will be developed over the next few years.
A professor at the University of California, Riverside's Bourns College of Engineering will receive an international award for his pioneering work in nanotechnology that could have far-reaching impacts on electronic devices.
Researchers in the University of Toronto's Department of Materials Science & Engineering have developed the world's most efficient organic light-emitting diodes (OLEDs) on plastic. This result enables a flexible form factor, not to mention a less costly, alternative to traditional OLED manufacturing, which currently relies on rigid glass.
It's what the experts call "hostile-environment technology." These are the machines, devices and various mechanisms made to perform tasks in places that are dangerous or impossible for humans to tread. Like in outer space, on other planets or inside nuclear reactor facilities.
If you doubt the power of the human brain, ponder this for a moment: It takes today's state-of-the-art supercomputer eight-and-a-half minutes to simulate just five seconds of normal human brain activity. Meanwhile, that supercomputer will consume 140,000 times as much electricity as the brain -- 1.4 million watts to ten to be exact -- to do the work. For sheer processing power and efficiency, nothing quite compares to the human brain.
Waste heat is a byproduct of nearly all electrical devices and industrial processes, from driving a car to flying an aircraft or operating a power plant. Engineering researchers at Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute have developed new nanomaterials that could lead to techniques for better capturing and putting this waste heat to work. The key ingredients for making marble-sized pellets of the new material are aluminum and a common, everyday microwave oven.
Engineers may soon be singing, "I'm going to wash that gray right out of my nanowires," thanks to a colorful discovery by a team of researchers from Harvard University and Zena Technologies. In contrast to the somber gray hue of silicon wafers, Kenneth B. Crozier and colleagues demonstrated that individual, vertical silicon nanowires can shine in all colors of the spectrum.
Two University of Pennsylvania engineers have proposed the possibility of two-dimensional metamaterials. These one-atom-thick metamaterials could be achieved by controlling the conductivity of sheets of graphene, which is a single layer of carbon atoms.
Stretching for thousands of miles beneath oceans, optical fibers now connect every continent except for Antarctica. With less data loss and higher bandwidth, optical-fiber technology allows information to zip around the world, bringing pictures, video, and other data from every corner of the globe to your computer in a split second. But although optical fibers are increasingly replacing copper wires, carrying information via photons instead of electrons, today's computer technology still relies on electronic chips.
A team at Stanford's School of Engineering has demonstrated an ultrafast nanoscale light emitting diode (LED) that is orders of magnitude lower in power consumption than today's laser-based systems and able to transmit data at 10 billion bits per second.
University of Arizona engineers have patented a process that could lead to the next big leap in microelectronics, completely changing the way microchips are made.
Solid-state memory is seeing an increase in demand due to the emergence of portable devices such as tablet computers and smart phones. Spin-transfer torque magnetoresistive random-access memory (STT-MRAM) is a new type of solid-state memory that uses electrical currents to read and write data that are stored on magnetic moment of electrons.
Theoretical and experimental studies over the past few years have demonstrated that carbon nanotubes could exhibit novel and outstanding electromagnetic effects. Researchers have used this to fabricate various types of CNT nanocomposite materials for electromagnetic interference shielding, outperforming conventional shielding.
Entegris and CEA-Leti have signed a two-year contract to observe cross-molecular contamination that occurs between semiconductor containers and wafers.
Entegris disclosed their plans of opening an advanced technology manufacturing facility that would be involved in producing 450 mm semiconductor wafer handling products and Extreme Ultraviolet Light reticle pods.
EpiGaN is pleased to announce that it has closed its first capital round of € 4 million, which will allow it to start volume production of GaN-on-Si epitaxial material for the nextgeneration efficient power electronics.
LRM, Robert Bosch Venture Capital and Capricorn Cleantech Fund have together invested an amount of €4 million in EpiGaN, a spin-off company of imec, to commence bulk manufacture of GaN on-silicon wafers.
Epson and E Ink have announced that the two companies are teaming up to develop a brand new 9.7-inch electronic paper device. The 300-dpi display will support 2,400 x 1,650 pixels, promising to deliver "razor-sharp text and images."
Equity Markets released a research report about Nanometrics and KLA-Tencor. In case client utilization remains at the same level, it is anticipated that revenue from semiconductors will go up in the forthcoming quarters, leading to release of new products and increasing the market for handsets and computers.
The move toward smarter, lighter and more powerful electronics, computers and smartphones depends on whether transistor circuits, the building blocks of such devices, can process large amounts of information. As these circuits get faster and smaller, the number of errors they generate -- arising from heat dissipation, noise and structural disorder -- in the physical information they process increases, which can impede development.
ESI, a company that offers laser-based manufacturing techniques, launched the AccuScribe 2600, which is a superior technology LED wafer scribing system.
eSilicon Corporation, the largest independent semiconductor value chain producer (VCP), and MIPS Technologies, a leading provider of industry-standard processor architectures and cores, announced the tapeout of a high-performance, three-way microprocessor cluster on GLOBALFOUNDRIES' leading-edge, low-power 28nm-SLP process technology.
Reporting in Nature Materials this week, researchers from the London Centre for Nanotechnology and the Physics Department of Sapienza University of Rome have discovered a technique to 'draw' superconducting shapes using an X-ray beam. This ability to create and control tiny superconducting structures has implications for a completely new generation of electronic devices.
Electrotechnical University (ETU) and TEKLAB, specialising in providing multipurpose laboratories and electric workstations for educational and industrial purposes, will jointly commercialise a new educational lab that will focus on conducting research programmes and training through a standard set of laboratory exercises.
The European TRAMS (terascale reliable adaptive memory systems) consortium funded under FP7 investigates the impact of statistical NanoCMOS variability on terascale embedded static random-access memories (SRAMs) based on sub-16 nm technology generation using conventional and novel complementary metal-oxide semiconductor (CMOS) devices.
Imec and its project partners announce the launch of IMOLA (Intelligent light Management for OLED on foil Applications), a project under the EU's 7th framework program for ICT (FP7). The project's goal is to make large-area OLED-based lighting modules with built-in intelligent light management. These systems will be used in future energy-efficient wall, ceiling and car dome lighting, where the light intensity can be adjusted intelligently, e.g. according to the time of the day or weather conditions.
The ENIAC Joint Undertaking launched today its new Call for proposals, boosted by the strong participation of the funding authorities who committed in 2011 grants up to 175 M€, an increase of 100% over the previous year. The grants translate in R&D projects with total eligible costs of about 400 M€. The ENIAC Joint Undertaking confirms herewith its role as the leading European public-private partnership in nanoelectronics chartered to increase and leverage the public and private investments by bringing together the ENIAC member States, the European Union and the R&D actors associated in AENEAS.
The Heterogeneous Technology Alliance (HTA), a team of leading European technology institutes, is developing new methods for packaging and testing microelectromechanical systems (MEMS) devices to meet performance requirements of space missions.
A coordination action on graphene (GRAPHENE-CA) will be funded by the European Commission to develop plans for a 10-year, 1,000 million euro FET flagship. This is an ambitious, large-scale visionary research initiative, aiming at a breakthrough for technological innovation and economic exploitation based on graphene and related two-dimensional materials.
CEA-Leti announced today that a team of European researchers and companies has achieved a major milestone towards fabricating silicon photonics circuits in CMOS foundries.
A team of researchers have manufactured an electronic nano-device based on a natural mechanism. Synthetic adhesives were coated on magnetic molecules so that the molecules fitted themselves on a nanotube without any interference.
European researchers have introduced a graphene-based device to identify minute magnetic fields with an excellent sensitivity as low as the stray field of some magnetic molecules.
The 2011 International Extreme Ultraviolet Lithography (EUVL) and Lithography Extensions (LE) Symposia, which was jointly organised by EIDC, IMEC and Sematech has brought out the technological advancements, challenges and infrastructure issues in the EUVL industry.
EV Group today announced that it has signed a joint-development and licensing agreement with Eulitha AG, a pioneer and leader in the production of high-quality nanostructures using advanced lithography techniques.
EV Group, a leading supplier of wafer bonding and lithography equipment for the MEMS, nanotechnology and semiconductor markets, today announced it has introduced a new equipment platform, dubbed the XT Frame, that extends process throughput and tool functionality for virtually all of its current volume-manufacturing product offerings.
EV Group (EVG) declared that it is partnering with the Industrial Technology Research Institute (ITRI) to deliver advanced manufacturing techniques for futuristic MEMS devices.
EV Group (EVG), a leading supplier of wafer bonding and lithography equipment for the MEMS, nanotechnology and semiconductor markets, today announced that it is launching a new flagship model in its field-proven GEMINI FB fusion wafer bonding family that increases system throughput to up to 20 wafers per hour. The upgrade includes enhanced automation capabilities to enable customers to achieve higher levels of manufacturing efficiency for such applications as backside illuminated (BSI) CMOS image sensors, 3D integration of CMOS image sensors, and monolithic 3D integration of memory devices.
EV Group (EVG), a leading supplier of wafer bonding and lithography equipment for the MEMS, nanotechnology and semiconductor markets, today announced that it has received the 2010 European Nanoimprint Technology Product Innovation Award from independent market research firm, Frost &Sullivan. The prestigious award recognizes EVG's accomplishments in addressing industrial needs with nanoimprinting solutions.
EV Group , a leading supplier of wafer bonding and lithography equipment for the MEMS, nanotechnology and semiconductor markets, today announced that it is collaborating with the Industrial Technology Research Institute (ITRI)-Taiwan's largest and one of the world's leading high-tech R&D institutions-in the development of advanced manufacturing processes for next-generation MEMS devices. As part of the collaboration, ITRI has purchased an EVG510 semi-automated wafer bonding system and an EVG6200 automated mask alignment system with top-bottom alignment and bond alignment options. EVG will also work closely with ITRI to develop, optimize and customize ITRI's wafer-level bonding processes for its partners and customers.
EV Group (EVG), a leading supplier of wafer bonding and lithography equipment for the MEMS, nanotechnology and semiconductor markets, today unveiled the semiconductor industry's first bonding system for 450-mm-diameter wafers manufactured from silicon-on-insulator (SOI) substrates.
Experiments conducted by a group of scientists from the Materials Sciences Division at the Lawrence Berkeley Lab and the University of California have shown that graphene on boron nitride (BN) retains the intrinsic properties of graphene more than on any other substrate.
Nanotechnology plays today an important role in many areas, for example in the miniaturization of electronic components or in the production of new materials. Nanomaterials, among others, are present in dirt-repellent and "self-healing" coatings or clothing. On 29th - 30th September, during Stuttgart Nanodays 2011 in Ludwigsburg, users from the industry will meet the latest scientific findings in nanotechnology research.
Graphite intercalation compounds (GICs) are formed by the insertion of arrays of guest species between the layered sheets of the graphite host. This can greatly modify the electronic properties of the graphite and can lead to interesting phenomena, for example, superconductivity.
Magma® Design Automation, a provider of chip design software, today announced Exar Corporation has adopted the Tekton™ static timing analysis and QCP™ extraction software to accelerate sign-off and engineering change order flows for 40-nanometer systems on a chip.
The prospect of electronics at the nanoscale may be even more promising with the first observation of metallic conductance in ferroelectric nanodomains by researchers at Oak Ridge National Laboratory.
Like atomic-level bricklayers, researchers from the U.S. Department of Energy's (DOE) Brookhaven National Laboratory are using a precise atom-by-atom layering technique to fabricate an ultrathin transistor-like field effect device to study the conditions that turn insulating materials into high-temperature superconductors. The technical break-through, which is described in the April 28, 2011, issue of Nature ("Superconductor--insulator transition in La2 - xSrxCuO4 at the pair quantum resistance"), is already leading to advances in understanding high-temperature superconductivity, and could also accelerate the development of resistance-free electronic devices.
The extremely high-speed devices have a fully self-aligned architecture by self-alignment of the emitter, base and collector region, and implement an optimized collector doping profile. Compared to III-V HBT devices, SiGe:C HBTs combine high-density and low-cost integration, making them suitable for consumer applications. Such high-speed devices can open up new application areas, working at very high frequencies with lower power dissipation, or applications which require a reduced impact of process, voltage and temperature variations at lower frequencies for better circuit reliability.
A field effect transistor is a type of transistor that relies on an electric field to control the shape and hence the conductivity of a 'channel' in a semiconductor material. In 2005 it was shown in a series of experiments that a silicon nanowire can be used as the source-drain channel in FETs.
Magnetism is a fundamental property of materials because it derives from the motion of electrons in an atom and the subsequent alignment of several of these motions in a material. In that context, altering a material's magnetism has crucial implications.
Synopsys has declared that their FUSB2500 UTMI+ Low-Pin Interface (ULPI) USB On-The-Go (OTG) transceiver chip using Synopsys' DesignWare USB 2.0 nanoPHY IP has accomplished initial-pass silicon success.
Taiwan-based Fabless ASIC and silicon IP provider Faraday Technology has chosen Aprisa physical design solution from US-based ATopTech specializing in providing physical design solutions.
The next-generation battery, like next-generation TV, may be 3-D, scientists reported at the 241st National Meeting and Exposition of the American Chemical Society (ACS). They described a new lithium-ion (Li-ion) battery, already available in a prototype version, with a three-dimensional interior architecture that could be perfect for the electric cars now appearing in auto dealer showrooms.
Organic semiconductors hold immense promise for use in thin film and flexible displays -- picture an iPad you can roll up -- but they haven't yet reached the speeds needed to drive high definition displays. Inorganic materials such as silicon are fast and durable, but don't bend, so the search for a fast, durable organic semiconductor continues.
FEI, a leading instrumentation company providing imaging and analysis systems for research and industry, today announced that it has acquired ASPEX Corporation of Delmont, PA. ASPEX provides rugged scanning electron microscopes and related services for environmentally demanding military, industrial and factory floor applications.
Engineers at the University of California, Berkeley, have shown that it is possible to reduce the minimum voltage necessary to store charge in a capacitor, an achievement that could reduce the power draw and heat generation of today's electronics.
Memristors -- the fourth fundamental two-terminal circuit element following the resistor, the capacitor, and the inductor -- have attracted intensive attention owing to their potential applications for instance in nanoelectronic memories, computer logic, or neuromorphic computer architectures. R. Stanley Williams and his group at Hewlett Packard were the first to demonstrate a solid-state memristive device based on a titanium dioxide thin film, which was inserted between two platinum electrodes.
A new chemical technique for depositing a non-crystalline form of silicon into the long, ultra-thin pores of optical fibers has been developed by an international team of scientists in the United States and the United Kingdom. The technique, which is the first of its kind to use high-pressure chemistry for making well-developed films and wires of this particular kind of silicon semiconductor, will help scientists to make more-efficient and more-flexible optical fibers.
Moving from bulky cathode-ray televisions to slimline liquid-crystal and plasma displays not only frees up space in our homes and offices, but also has the added advantage of reducing energy consumption. The development of the first full-color display based on quantum dots could mean that a new generation of even more efficient products could be just round the corner.
IBM researchers have built the first integrated circuit based on graphene, a breakthrough the company says could herald a future based on graphene wafers instead of silicon. The circuit, a 10 gigahertz frequency mixer, could give wireless devices greater range. At higher frequencies, the technology could someday allow law enforcement and medical personnel to see inside objects or people without the harmful effects of X-rays, according to IBM.
The first MEMS Technology Showcase, where firms can display their innovative MEMS-enabled products, will be moderated by Movea’s Executive Vice President, Bryan Hoadley.
Molybdenite, a new and very promising material, can surpass the physical limits of silicon. EPFL scientists have proven this by making the first molybdenite microchip, with smaller and more energy efficient transistors.
After six years of intensive effort, scientists are reporting development of the first commercially viable nanogenerator, a flexible chip that can use body movements -- a finger pinch now en route to a pulse beat in the future -- to generate electricity. Speaking here today at the 241st National Meeting &Exposition of the American Chemical Society, they described boosting the device's power output by thousands times and its voltage by 150 times to finally move it out of the lab and toward everyday life.
A research group at the NIMS International Center for Materials Nanoarchitectonics proved that the electrical resistance of a metal single atomic layer on a silicon surface becomes zero by superconductivity.
The Nook Color has turned out to be a major hit for Barnes &Noble as many critics would go so far as to dub the e-book reader as the best Android tablet currently available. It seems that part of that success could be attributed to how popular the device has been with women.
New research from Wake Forest University has advanced the field of plastic-based flexible electronics by developing, for the first time, an extremely large molecule that is stable, possesses excellent electrical properties, and inexpensive to produce.
Researchers at the National Institute of Standards and Technology and the North Dakota State University have together shown the linkage between the durability and flexibility of carbon nanotube coatings and films and their electronic properties.
Fluidigm has declared the purchase of Access Array systems by Broad Institute of MIT and Harvard to make its sample preparation process automated for target-specific resequencing. Access Array systems provide the opportunity for next-generation sequencing enabling the preparation of numerous sample libraries simultaneously.
Fraunhofer Center Nanoelectronic Technologies (CNT) and Tokyo Electron Limited (TEL) announce to intensify its cooperation. The institute acquired an automatic TEL wafer prober in order to meet the requirements of latest measuring tasks related to capacity, quality and positioning accuracy within a large temperature range. Moreover future wafer test and characterization requirements will be developed and verified by means of an additional system. This collaboration is based on a separate evaluation agreement, which was concluded by Fraunhofer CNT and TEL.
Critical Manufacturing, an enterprise which creates leading edge software solutions for the high-tech manufacturing industries of solar, electronics and semiconductors, announced today that Fraunhofer Center Nanoelectronic Technologies, selected and implemented cmNavigo Productivity Suite, comprising of a Manufacturing Execution System and Equipment Integration.
Fraunhofer Center Nanoelectronic Technologies today announced the signing of a Joint Development Agreement with ASM International N.V.. The agreement provides a framework within which a variety of new projects will be executed over the course of the coming five years.
Probably the leading team that is driving forward the work on nanogenerators for converting mechanical energy into electricity is Zhong Lin Wang's group at Georgia Tech. So far, we have covered their exciting work in at least half a dozen Nanowerk Spotlights about nanopiezotronics and nanogenerators.
Keithley Instruments, Inc., a world leader in advanced electrical test instruments and systems, has published an informative e-handbook titled "Ensuring the Accuracy of Nanoscale Electrical Measurements."
Frost &Sullivan, a growth partnership company, has conducted an analysis named Strategic Assessment of the Asia Pacific Ultracapacitor Market and revealed that in 2009, the market gained revenues of about US$44.9 million, and in 2020, it is expected to attain US$810.9 million. This study is a part of the Power Supplies and Batteries Growth Partnership Services program.
They're the building block of graphite -- ultra-thin sheets of carbon, just one atom thick, whose discovery was lauded in 2010 with a Nobel Prize in Physics.
FUJIFILM Dimatix, a company that manufactures industrial inkjet printheads, systems and components, released the DMP-5005, which utilizes the Dimatix Materials Cartridge 16-jet printhead for initial production with convenient scale-up to D-Class printheads capable of bulk production for more complicated applications.
SEMATECH, a global consortium of chipmakers, announced today that FUJIFILM Electronic Materials, a leading global supplier of photoresists, developers, cleaners and removers, polyimides and thin film chemicals and equipment for the semiconductor industry, has joined SEMATECH's Resist Materials and Development Center (RMDC) at the College of Nanoscale Science and Engineering (CNSE) of the University at Albany.
Fujitsu Semiconductor has standardized design-for-manufacturing (DFM) technologies from Cadence Design Systems for its 28 nm ASIC and system-on-chip (SoC) mixed-signal designs.
SuVolta, Inc. and Fujitsu Semiconductor Limited today announced that Fujitsu Semiconductor has licensed SuVolta's innovative PowerShrink™ low-power CMOS technology. Working together, the companies have verified the technology and begun joint development activities for the commercialization of the technology. Fujitsu Semiconductor will make the technology available at 65nm process technology.
Since early January 2012, Angelika Kühnle, Professor of Physical Chemistry at Johannes Gutenberg University Mainz, and André Gourdon, Director of the Materials Science Institute CEMES-CNRS in Toulouse, France, have been jointly studying the synthesis of organic molecules on non-conducting surfaces.
Miguel A. Cazalilla, a scientist at the CFM and the Donostia International Physics Center, together with other four colleagues from various institutions in Europe and the United States, was recently invited to write a review article that has been just published in the prestigious journal Reviews of Modern Physics of the American Physical Society.
Today sees the announcement of full details of how an additional £50 million will be spent to keep the UK at the forefront of research into 'wonder material' graphene. Also below are details of further investment strands for graphene engineering and research technology.
The Georgia Institute of Technology, in partnership with Northrop Grumman Corporation, has been selected to develop a new type of Microelectromechanical Systems (MEMS) gyroscope technology for the Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency (DARPA)'s Microscale Rate Integrating Gyroscope program.
An EU-funded team of researchers from the Max Planck Institute of Quantum Optics in Germany have made important steps in the journey towards large-scale quantum computing and the simulation of condensed-matter systems, following new discoveries about the manipulation of atoms. Their findings are presented in a study published in the journal Nature ("Single-spin addressing in an atomic Mott insulator").
GGI International is the technology leaders in membrane switch & graphic overlay solutions! ISO 9001:2000 certified, exclusive Canadian licensee of Duraswitch Technologies; PushGate, thiNcoder RT and MagnaMouse.
Prof. Markus Pollnau and co-workers at the MESA+ Institute for Nanotechnology at the University of Twente (The Netherlands) have developed a rare-earth-ion-doped optical amplifier with performance comparable to semiconductor amplifiers.
Researchers in the Department of Materials Science and Engineering and the Materials Research Institute at Penn State are part of a multidisciplinary team of researchers from universities and national laboratories across the U.S. who have fabricated piezoelectric thin films with record-setting properties.
Gigaphoton declared that the company is planning to ship its innovative technology for debris mitigation using magnetic fields in 2012 for laser-produced plasma (LPP) type light sources.
Spin caloritronics describes a new area of research: What happens if you heat a magnet? Usually if a material is heated, the temperature difference leads to electrical voltage, which is known as thermoelectric voltage or Seebeck effect. Electric components including magnetic elements -- those are made of two thin magnetic layers, which are separated by a thin oxide layer with only a few atoms -- are for example used for hard drives as read head. The use of those magnetic tube elements as a non-volatile memory cell in processors, which allows information to be preserved without electricity supply, is currently part of research.
Carbon nanotubes have recently emerged as one of the most important classes of nanomaterials having enormous potential to spark off the next industrial revolution. CNTs' unique and extraordinary properties such as extremely high electrical and thermal conductivities, very small diameters (less than 100 nm), large aspect ratios (length/diameter ratios, greater than 1000), outstanding mechanical properties, a tip-surface area near the theoretical limit (the smaller the tip-surface area, the more concentrated the electric field, and the greater the field enhancement factor)1 and an excellent price-performance ratio, make it an ideal candidate for electronic devices, chemical/electrochemical and biosensors, transistors, electron field emitters, lithium-ion batteries, white light sources, hydrogen storage cells, cathode ray tubes (CRTs), electrostatic discharge (ESD) and electrical-shielding applications.
Select responsible products that draw upon an unlimited energy source -- the sun. You'd be surprised at the variety of products available: lights, watches, radios and more.
GlobalFoundries and Amkor Technology, Inc. today announced that they have entered into a strategic partnership to develop integrated assembly and test solutions for advanced silicon nodes. The companies plan to collaborate to co-develop and commercialize integrated fab-bump-probe-assembly-test solutions aimed at multiple customers and end-market applications and expand their lead-free bump licensing relationship.
GLOBALFOUNDRIES and ARM revealed the latest advances in their longstanding collaboration to deliver optimized system-on-chip (SoC) solutions for ARM® Cortex™-A series processor designs using ARM Artisan® advanced physical IP and GLOBALFOUNDRIES' leading-edge process technologies.
GlobalFoundries and Samsung Electronics, Co., Ltd. broadened their collaboration, announcing plans to synchronize global semiconductor fabrication facilities to produce chips based on a new high-performance and low-leakage 28nm High-K Metal Gate (HKMG) technology. The technology has been specifically developed for mobile device applications, offering 60 percent of active power reduction at the same frequency or 55 percent of performance boost at the same leakage over 45nm low power (LP) SoC designs.
GlobalFoundries today announced a significant milestone on the path to market readiness of its leading-edge 20 nanometer manufacturing process. By successfully taping out a test chip using flows from leading EDA vendors Cadence Design Systems, Magma Design Automation, Mentor Graphics Corporation, and Synopsys Inc., GlobalFoundries has demonstrated that it is ready for customers to begin evaluating their 20nm designs.
GLOBALFOUNDRIES has showed that it is ready to evaluate its customers' 20 nm designs by effectively taping out a test chip utilizing flows from major EDA vendors Synopsys, Mentor Graphics, Magma Design Automation and Cadence Design Systems.
GlobalFoundries will display a full range of design infrastructure to customers for its 28nm High-k Metal Gate (HKMG) technology at the 48th Design Automation Conference (DAC), which is to be held at San Diego in California next week.
GlobalFoundries , one of the world's leading semiconductor foundries, has signed a strategic long-term partnership on sub-22nm CMOS scaling and GaN-on-Si technology with the nanoelectronics R&D center imec.
Just over one year after revealing plans for a major global capacity expansion, GlobalFoundries today announced its newly constructed cleanrooms in New York and Dresden are ready for the installation of 300mm semiconductor wafer fabrication equipment. Achieving "Ready for Equipment" (RFE) status marks the transition from the construction phase to the operations phase--a significant milestone on the path to volume manufacturing in these new facilities.
Infinisim, a provider of innovative verification solutions for advanced technology nodes, announced today that GlobalFoundries , a leading provider of advanced semiconductor manufacturing and technology, has selected Infinisim's flagship verification product, RASER™, to use for validation of On-Chip-Variation (OCV) models derived from its 28nm Technology Qualification Vehicles (TQV).
At next week's 48th Design Automation Conference (DAC) in San Diego, Calif., GlobalFoundries will demonstrate how its innovative approach to ecosystem collaboration has helped deliver the industry's most comprehensive design platform for advanced technologies. The company will feature a full complement of design infrastructure for its 28nm High-k Metal Gate (HKMG) technology, including silicon-validated flows, process design kits (PDKs), design-for-manufacturing (DFM), and intellectual property (IP) from leading companies. GlobalFoundries also will showcase approaches to overcoming new design challenges as the industry moves to 20nm and beyond.
Infinisim has announced the selection of its major verification product RASER by GlobalFoundries to validate their on-chip-variation (OCV) models developed from its 28-nm technology qualification vehicles (TQV).
Micromechanical systems and electric switches are based on smallest sliding contacts. They only work without loss of energy or material, if the surfaces are very smooth and without any defects. So far, little has been understood about the underlying atomic-scale principles. In cooperation with researchers at the universities of Münster and Gießen as well as the Fraunhofer Institute for Mechanics of Materials IWM in Freiburg, scientists at the INM -- Leibniz Institute for New Materials were able to show that on atomic scale gold surfaces smoothen out by themselves at room temperature. In their publication in Physical Review Letters, they reveal that this effect disappears at low temperatures.
Physicists have created a pyramidal dot that's just shy of 100 nanometers high, about 200 atoms on a side. By applying voltage to this miniature structure, the scientists have created a device that can emit light, which could then be used in future components of quantum computers. But the road to this new kind of computing is still long, particularly because determining the optical properties of these quantum dots is a complicated and computationally intensive endeavor.
In the 19th century novel, Flatland, by Edward A. Abbott, residents of that fictional country exist in only two dimensions. Women are born as line segments, while men come in a range of geometric shapes reflecting their rank, from lowly isosceles triangles, to middle-class squares, to six-sided hexagons, reserved for nobility.
Surface energy is ubiquitous in nature and it plays an important role in many scientific areas such as for instance surface physics, biophysics, surface chemistry, or catalysis. Prior to the area of nanotechnology it has been impractical to consider utilizing surface energy as an energy source because there are few molecules or atoms involved in the surface interaction and the density of surface energy is low. Now, however, due to the lower power consumption requirements of nanoscale devices and the higher specific surface area for nanomaterials it appears attractive to use surface energy at the nanoscale.
Graphene, which is composed of a one-atom-thick layer of carbon atoms in a honeycomb-like lattice (like atomic-scale chicken wire), is the world's thinnest material -- and one of the hardest and strongest. Indeed, the past few years have seen an explosion of research into the properties and potential applications of graphene, which has been touted as a superior alternative to silicon.
Oh graphene! The cheap, easy-to-manufacture one-atom-thick sheet of carbon can add yet another weird, fantastical, and possibly life-changing ability to its list of characteristics: it has an incredibly sensitive thermoelectric response to light. In layman's terms: graphene, when struck by light of almost any wavelength, can produce an electric current.
In a paper published this week in Science ("Field-Effect Tunneling Transistor Based on Vertical Graphene Heterostructures"), a Manchester team lead by Nobel laureates Professor Andre Geim and Professor Konstantin Novoselov has literally opened a third dimension in graphene research. Their research shows a transistor that may prove the missing link for graphene to become the next silicon.
Imagine a cellphone battery that stayed charged for more than a week and recharged in just 15 minutes. That dream battery could be closer to reality thanks to Northwestern University research.
Hold onto your hats: Graphene, the one true savior, has now found a use in the one technological arena that needs it most: batteries. Namely, engineers at Northwestern University have found that a specially-crafted graphene electrode can allow a lithium-ion battery to store 10 times as much power and charge 10 times faster -- and last longer, too.
There are already several technologies that potentially allow mass production of graphene sheets -- by chemical vapor deposition growth; by epitaxial growth of graphene on top of a metal surface (see: "LCDs might be graphene's first realistic commercial application"); and various wet chemical processes of processing graphene in solution by exfoliating graphite (see for instance: "New routes to gram-scale graphene").
A team of researchers has proposed a way to turn the material graphene into a semiconductor, enabling it to control the flow of electrons with a laser "on-off switch".
Carbon nanotubes (CNTs) have not yet met commercial expectations from a decade ago, and now hot on its heels is graphene. Graphene is considered a hot candidate for applications such as computers, displays, photovoltaics, and flexible electronics. According to IDTechEx, the biggest opportunity for both materials is in printed and potentially printed electronics.
Researchers from the Rice University and Hong Kong Polytechnic University have collaborated with each other to demonstrate that arrays of graphene nanoribbons can be stacked up to create a wall, which can be made to stand on a substrate.
Graphene exhibits a suite of unusual electronic properties, among which is its very high electron mobility. This has attracted the attention of researchers and technologists alike for realizing fast and efficient electronic devices. One problem with large sheets of graphene, however, is that in this form graphene does not behave as a semiconductor, meaning that is difficult to control its electronic properties with external fields -- an essential functionality for device applications.
The National Science Foundation (NSF) and the Nanoelectronics Research Initiative have awarded a $1.85 million grant to the University of California-Riverside (UC, Riverside) to develop a new method of computing that has the capability to process huge volumes of data at high speeds and include salient features such as image recognition, data compression and internet browsing.
The novel material graphene makes faster electronics possible. Scientists at the Faculty of Electrical Engineering and Information Technology at the Vienna University of Technology (TU Vienna) developed light-detectors made of graphene and analyzed their astonishing properties.
A University of Arizona and Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute research team has boosted the toughness of ceramic composites with graphene reinforcements to facilitate ceramic fracture resistance.
Walt de Heer, a professor in the School of Physics at the Georgia Institute of Technology says his team has developed thin, conductive nanoribbons featuring quantum ballistic properties.
Considerable research has been devoted to the use of graphene in electronic devices, but researchers are also paying attention to the possibility of creating functional materials from liquid suspensions of chemically derived and chemically modified graphene. A suspension of chemically oxidized graphene, for example, can be easily obtained by oxidizing graphite and dispersing it in a solvent, and such suspensions can be used to produce durable graphene paper or porous graphene oxide films suitable for application in supercapacitors and batteries.
Since it was first isolated and characterized less than a decade ago, graphene has taken the world of materials science by storm. It is already known that graphene has remarkable electrical properties and can transfer heat better than any other material. Now, Tian-Ling Ren and colleagues from Tsinghua University in China have shown that graphene can also produce sound ("Graphene-on-Paper Sound Source Devices").
Due to rapidly increasing power densities in electronics, managing the resulting heat has become one of the most critical issues in computer and semiconductor design. As a matter of fact, heat dissipation has become a fundamental problem of electronic transport at the nanoscale.
Researchers at Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute (RPI) and Rice University conducted a study, which established that silicon, copper and gold become wet even when they are covered with a single graphene layer. The study, which was published in Nature Materials, is important for scientists who are exploring to advance surface coatings for various applications.
The exceptional thermal, electrical and mechanical properties of graphene make this single atomic layer of carbon a promising material for a range of applications, including energy storage. The high specific area of graphene and its unique electron transport properties make it particularly suitable for use in supercapacitors, especially if the graphene can be stacked into multiple separate layers. Unfortunately, when stacked in this way, graphene tends to form a graphite-like solid mass through strong inter-sheet attractions, which severely compromises the useful properties of the single graphene sheets.
AIXTRON recently received an order from the National Institute of Advanced Industrial Science and Technology (AIST) in Japan for an automated 300mm Black Magic system to be used for Graphene deposition. The graphene properties make it suitable for microelectronics and high frequency applications.
New spin on graphene University of Manchester scientists have found a way to make wonder material graphene magnetic, opening up a new range of opportunities for the world's thinnest material in the area of spintronics.
Thin film transistors (TFTs) made of carbon-based materials such as graphene are expected to transform many technological applications. In the detection of biomolecules and biological signals in cells, for example, their high flexibility facilitates measurements of three-dimensional structures, while their high transparency enhances optical observations. Current methods for the fabrication of graphene-based TFTs, however, are expensive and inefficient.
Advances in semiconductor device during last few decades enable us to improve the electronic device performance by minimizing the device dimension. However, further development of these systems encounters scientific and technological limits and forces us to explore better alternatives. Low-dimensional carbon allotropes such as carbon nanotube and graphene exhibit superior electronic, optoelectronic, and mechanical properties compared to the conventional semiconductors.
According to Antoine Fleurence, a scientist at the Japan Advanced Industrial of Science and Technology in Ishikawa, the semiconductor sector has the necessary infrastructure to use silicon to develop the chips that operate electronics.
Graphene's remarkable conductivity, strength and elasticity has made it a promising choice for stretchable electronics -- a technology that aims to produce circuits on flexible plastic substrates for applications like bendable solar cells or robotic-like artificial skin. However, integrating the polymers needed for such applications with typical chemically derived graphene results in composites with poor conductivity due to severe structural defects in the graphene layers and large inter-sheet contact resistance.
An electron trapped in a space of just a few nanometers across behaves very differently to one that is free. Structures that confine electrons in all three dimensions can produce some useful optical and electronic effects. Known as quantum dots, such structures are being widely investigated for use in new types of optical and electronics technologies, but because they are so small it is difficult to fabricate quantum dots reproducibly in terms of shape and size. Researchers from the National University of Singapore (NUS) and A*STAR have now developed a technique that enables graphene quantum dots of a known size to be created repeatedly and quickly ("Transforming C60 molecules into graphene quantum dots").
The Air Force Office of Scientific Research, along with other funding agencies, helped a Rice University research team make graphene suitable for a variety of organic chemistry applications—especially the promise of advanced chemical sensors, nanoscale electronic circuits and metamaterials.
Graphene exhibits exceptional electronic, mechanical, thermal and even optical properties, and for this reason scientists and developers are actively trying to find new and better ways of using this single layer of carbon atoms in devices. These same properties also make graphene useful as a tool for investigating the properties of other material systems using techniques such as surface-enhanced Raman spectroscopy. Jin Zhang and colleagues from Peking and Lanzhou universities in China have now demonstrated that graphene offers the possibility of tuning the intensity of the Raman signal.
Graphene is one of the wonders of the science world, with the potential to create foldaway mobile phones, wallpaper-thin lighting panels and the next generation of aircraft. The new finding at the University of Manchester gives graphene's potential a most surprising dimension – graphene can also be used for distilling alcohol.
The European programme for research into graphene, for which the Universities of Cambridge, Manchester and Lancaster are leading the technology roadmap, today unveiled an exhibition and new videos communicating the potential for the material that could revolutionise the electronics industries.
Using a combination of sophisticated computer modeling and advanced materials analysis techniques at synchrotron laboratories, a research team led by the University at Buffalo (UB) and including the National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST), the Molecular Foundry at Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory and SEMATECH has demonstrated how some relatively simple processing flaws can seriously degrade the otherwise near-magical electronic properties of graphene.
Researchers at the National University of Singapore have invented a graphene-based polarizer that can broaden the bandwidth of prevailing optical fibre-based telecommunication systems.
Graphene does not affect the wetting behaviour of several substrates. The ability to tune the electronic properties of surfaces without disrupting their wetting response should lead to superior conducting and superhydrophobic surface coatings.
ITRI (Industrial Technology Research Institute), Taiwan's largest and one of the world's leading high-tech research and development institutions, introduces i2R e-Paper™, the first electronic paper technology to provide a re-writable, re-usable and environmentally friendly recyclable print medium -- an "electronic paper" -- to reduce traditional paper consumption. ITRI will receive a "2011 R&D 100 Award" from R&D Magazine next week for this breakthrough technology.
At end of November, IDTechEx held the world's largest printed electronics and photovoltaics conference and tradeshow in Silicon Valley at the Santa Clara Convention Center. This show brought together more than 1300 attendees from 28 countries.
A new National Science Foundation-sponsored industry &university cooperative research center program (I/UCRC) will "provide a one-stop shop for the design, fabrication and testing of a wide range of metamaterials." Dr. David Crouse, associate professor of electrical engineering in the Grove School of Engineering at The City College of New York, serves as director of the new Center for Metamaterials.
Carbon nanocoils (CNCs) are composed of helical shaped carbon nanofibers and show promise as fillers, electromagnetic wave absorbers, and tactile sensors.
Using a technique known as thermochemical nanolithography (TCNL), researchers have developed a new way to fabricate nanometer-scale ferroelectric structures directly on flexible plastic substrates that would be unable to withstand the processing temperatures normally required to create such nanostructures.
Magnets made of just a few metallic atoms could make it possible to build radically smaller storage devices and have also recently been proposed as components for spintronics devices. There's just one obstacle on the way. Nano-sized magnets have only been seen to work at temperatures a few hairs above absolute zero.
A novel University of Colorado Boulder technique to shrink the size of circuitry used in nanotechnology devices like computer chips and solar cells by zapping a substrate with two separate colors of light beams has been optioned to Heidelberg Instruments headquartered in Heidelberg, Germany.
University of Colorado and Heidelberg Instruments have signed an option agreement for developing a CU nanotechnology that reduces the size of circuitry in nano-based devices, allowing fabrication of miniature computer chips and other nano-scale devices.
Helic Inc., the technology leader in synthesis and verification solutions for RF and high-speed IC design, today announced the TSMC RF Reference Design Kit 3.0 (RF RDK) incorporates its EDA products for EM modeling and RF substrate noise coupling analysis.
Ciranova, a company that provides design automation solutions of analog IC, declared that its Ciranova Helix, automation software for custom IC layout, has been chosen for use in TSMC Analog Mixed-Signal Reference Flow 2.0, which forms an integral part of the 28nm design infrastructure from TSMC.
The latest in a series of recent materials innovation successes, Henkel Electronics today announced the development and commercial availability of its Ablestik C100 series conductive die attach films. With relatively few, if any, conductive die attach films on the market until now, the launch of this material advance effectively establishes the benchmark for conductive die attach film solutions.
Toyohashi Tech researchers develop an innovative infrared photodetector exploiting 'plasmon resonance' at the surface of gold nanorods, which enhances the density of photoelectrons excited over the Schottky barrier. This technology shows potential as the basis for the development of high efficiency infra-red photodetectors for optical communications systems.
Organic Light Emitting Diodes (OLED) are being developed for the next generation of displays and light sources. The 308 FPD™ microscope spectrophotometer , from CRAIC Technologies, is designed to measure and compare the spectral output, intensity and color consistency of each of the microscopic pixels commonly found in OLED devices.
Scientists from UCLA, led by Xiangfeng Duan have developed the fastest graphene transistor to date. Its performance is comparable to the speediest transistors including gallium arsenide and indium phosphide.
Graphene, the one-atom-thick carbon lattice that is the subject of last year's Nobel Prize in Physics, has found application in surface plasmon resonance (SPR) biosensing.
eSilicon Corporation, the largest independent semiconductor value chain producer, announced today that HiSilicon Technologies Co., Ltd. has licensed eSilicon's silicon-proven 40nm ternary content-addressable memory macros for its next generation of high-performance network-application ASICs. HiSilicon.
Canada's National Institute for Nanotechnology (NINT) along with Hitachi High Technologies inaugurated the Hitachi Electron Microscopy Products Centre (HEMiC) on July 12, 2011.
Holst Centre and imec launch a new research program on next-generation flexible OLED (organic light emitting diode) displays. It builds on their proven technology track record and solid base of existing research partners in related fields such as Organic and Oxide Transistors and Flexible OLED Lighting. The primary objective of the new program is to develop an economically scalable route to high-volume manufacturing of flexible active-matrix OLED displays.
Together with international colleagues, scientists from the Helmholtz-Zentrum Dresden-Rossendorf (HZDR) have added another important component towards understanding the material graphene; a material that is currently receiving a lot of attention: They have determined the lifetime of electrons in graphene in lower energy ranges.
Imagine plugging a USB port into a sheet of paper, and turning it into a tablet computer. It might be a stretch, but ideas like this have researchers at North Carolina State University examining the use of conductive nanocoatings on simple textiles -- like woven cotton or even a sheet of paper.
Looking for an alternative to the iPad-or-Android-OS conundrum, you will have one in the HP TouchPad running webOS starting July 1. Well, at least the Wi-Fi only version.
HRL Laboratories, LLC, announced today it will continue groundbreaking work developing electronics that simulate the cognitive capabilities of biological intelligence in the Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency's (DARPA) Systems of Neuromorphic Adaptive Plastic Scalable Electronics, or SyNAPSE program. Since October 2008, HRL has been leading an industry/academic team of experts in a fundamentally new approach to computing that bridges biology and electronics to develop machines that can interact with and autonomously learn from changes in their environments.
Well, well, what have we here? More pics of the HTC Pyramid, eh? And indeed it's looking like a sexy beast, with a 4.3-inch qHD touchscreen, 1.2GHz dual-core processor, an 8MP rear camera and VGA front-facing camera, 768MB of usable on-board memory, Android 2.3.2 and the latest version of HTC Sense (that'd be Version 3.0, the same one we saw unveiled at Mobile World Congress).
If the vision of Tom Krupenkin and J. Ashley Taylor comes to fruition, one day soon your cellphone -- or just about any other portable electronic device -- could be powered by simply taking a walk.
An international research team has discovered a new method to produce belts of graphene called nanoribbons. By using hydrogen, they have managed to unzip single-walled carbon nanotubes. The method also opens the road for producing nanoribbons of graphane, a modified and promising version of graphene.
A team comprising global researchers has found a technique to create graphene belts known as nanoribbons. Single-walled carbon nanotubes were un-zipped with the use of hydrogen. This also helped develop graphane nanoribbons, a modified version of the already existing graphene.
Governor Andrew M. Cuomo today announced that New York State has entered into agreements providing for investments valued at a total of $4.4 billion over the next five years from five leading international companies to create the next generation of computer chip technology.
Today at IEEE International Electron Devices Meeting, IBM scientists unveiled several exploratory research breakthroughs that could lead to major advancements in delivering dramatically smaller, faster and more powerful computer chips.
IBM researchers have developed an integrated circuit from wafer-size graphene, which operates as a broadband frequency mixer up to 10 GHz frequencies. This integrated circuit comprises a graphene transistor and an inductor pair integrated on a silicon carbide (SiC) wafer.
IBM Research has emerged as the winner in the ITRI sponsored Global Nano Innovation Contest with its Graphene Nanoelectronics: Wafer Scale Single Atomic Layer Carbon RF Devices and Circuits. ITRI announced the list of winners on October 5 after fierce competition. With high conductivity graphene has become a hot emerging material which can be applied to the ultrahigh speed and low power digital and analog devices and optoelectronics. IBM has innovatively applied graphene to the RF amplifier and hopes to extensively apply to high frequency telecommunication electronic products such as cell phone and medical instruments.
IC Knowledge, a research firm, has conducted a detailed cost analysis that revealed that fully depleted silicon-on-insulator (FD-SOI) wafers provide economic solutions to the semiconductor industry, for manufacturing semiconductor devices based on advanced 22 nm technology node or more.
European analogue design company ICsense has chose the Analogue Fast Spice (AFS) platform from Berkeley Design Automation, specialising in nanometre circuit verification, for block level characterisation, verification of the full circuit and noise analysis of its mixed signal, high performance and high voltage designs.
IDTechEx has presented the Product Development Award in Printed Electronics to MeadWestvaco, a pioneer in packaging, and Vorbeck Materials, a provider of products based on graphene, for MeadWestvaco’s novel anti-theft packaging solution called Natralock with Siren Technology.
The annual printed electronics award winners were announced at the IDTechEx Awards Dinner in Santa Clara, California. The awards recognize outstanding progress in the development and commercialization of printed electronics, an industry that produces a huge amount of technical innovation which will be used in many products.
Understanding and visualizing the energy states of electrons in a crystal provides important insights into many modern electronic materials, such as superconductors, or other materials that physicists can use to develop novel electronic applications.
A research team led by University at Buffalo chemists has used synchrotron light sources to observe the electron clouds on the surface of graphene, producing a series of images that reveal how folds and ripples in the remarkable material can harm its conductivity. The research, scheduled to appear June 28 in Nature Communications, was conducted by UB, the National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST), the Molecular Foundry at Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory (Berkeley Lab), and SEMATECH, a global consortium of semiconductor manufacturers.
Imec has signed a new agreement with ASML for a period of 5 years (2011-2015). The agreement enables imec and the world's leading semiconductor players which are part of imec's advanced IC technology scaling program, to stay at the forefront of next generation technologies. The availability of the most advanced infrastructure is crucial to stay ahead in an equipment intensive business such as the semiconductor industry. Imec and ASML's continued collaboration guarantees the global semiconductor ecosystem to work on the most advanced technologies and tools in a stable and proven environment.
Imec, a world-leading nanoelectronics research institute based in Belgium, and Cadence Design Systems, Inc., a leader in global electronic design innovation, today announced new technology that delivers an automated test solution for design teams deploying 3D stacked ICs (3D-ICs). The technology addresses the test challenges involved as electronics companies increasingly turn to 3D-ICs as a way to increase circuit density and achieve better performance at lower power dissipation for mobile and other applications where space is at a premium.
Imec and Genalyte announce that they have successfully developed and produced a set of disposable silicon photonics biosensor chips to be used in Genalyte diagnostic and molecular detection equipment. The chips combine imec's standard silicon photonic waveguide devices with bio-compatible modifications jointly developed by imec and Genalyte.
Imec and its 3D integration partners have proven the potential of 3D integration of a commercial DRAM chip on top of a logic IC for next-generation low-power mobile applications. Imec's applied 3D EDA (electronic design automation) tools including thermal models have proven to be valuable means to design next-generation 3D stacked ICs.
Imec realized an integrated poly-SiGe-based piezoresistive pressure sensor directly fabricated above 0.13 µm copper (Cu) -backend CMOS technology. This represents not only the first integrated poly-SiGe pressure sensor directly fabricated above its readout circuit, but also the first time that a poly-SiGe MEMS device is processed on top of Cu-backend CMOS.
Imec announces that it has successfully fabricated implant-free quantum-well (IF-QW) pFETs with an embedded silicon-germanium (SiGe) source/drain. These devices show an excellent short channel control and a record logic performance. A benchmark against various competing technologies showed competitive results. Finally, the device performance was also demonstrated at low operating voltages. These results prove that this device architecture is a viable option for the 16nm technology node and beyond.
Imec today announced the establishment of imec India in Bangalore, Karnataka, making a first step towards the Indian market with the signing of an R&D partnership agreement with Wipro Technologies, the Global Information Technology, Consulting and Outsourcing business of Wipro Limited. Imec is a leading independent applied research organization that carries out research activities in semiconductor, nanotechnology and nanoelectronics, delivering industry relevant technology solutions.
IMEC, a prominent independent applied research organization has established IMEC in the city of Bangalore in India to enter the Indian market. IMEC India has entered into a partnership with Wipro Technologies which is the Outsourcing and Consulting Wing of Wipro. IMEC conducts research in the field of nanotechnology, semiconductors and nanoelectronics providing industry relevant technology applications.
Imec and its partners in the GaN industrial affiliation program (IIAP) have produced device-quality wafers with GaN/AlGaN layers on 200mm silicon wafers. With these wafers, functional GaN MISHEMTs were processed using standard CMOS tools. The used processes are compatible with the strict contamination rules in a standard CMOS processing line (e.g. no use of gold). These first GaN devices on 200mm wafers are an important milestone on the path to cost-effective production of power devices in high-productivity 200mm fabs.
Imec announces that it has successfully qualified a chipset consisting of custom high-quality EUV sensor dies. These are now being integrated in ASML's NXE:3100 EUV lithography tools in the field, improving the tools' overlay and critical dimension (CD) tool performance. With this milestone achievement, imec confirms that its CMORE business line is ready to provide its partners with custom specialty chip solutions.
At today's 2011 IEEE International Electron Devices Meeting, imec presents the world's smallest, fully-functional HfO2-based Resistive RAM cell, with an area of less than 10x10nm2. The new cell shows potential to meet the major requirements for future device-level nonvolatile memory.
Belgian company imec has entered into a five year agreement to collaborate with ASML and develop the latest lithography technologies to cater to the global semiconductor industry. Starting from November 2011, both companies will contribute towards the collaboration by installing their latest lithography tools.
There has been enormous progress in recent years toward the development of photonic chips -- devices that use light beams instead of electrons to carry out their computational tasks. Now, researchers at MIT have filled in a crucial piece of the puzzle that could enable the creation of photonic chips on the standard silicon material that forms the basis for most of today's electronics.
Bulk FinFETs are key devices for advanced technology node applications such as analog circuits and SRAMs because of a very good short channel effect control and transistor compactness. Up to now, fin height control and recess of shallow trench isolation (STI) oxide were still critical challenges in the integration of FinFETs. Imec's new fabrication sequence is successfully integrated in a tri-gate FinFET flow to make 20nm wide fins in pitches ranging from 200nm down to 90nm. The process has been demonstrated in a 65nm technology node FET/FinFET co-fabrication flow. The process flow for co-integration uses two oxide field recess steps to finally achieve the target topographies for FinFETs and planar FETs (50nm for FinFETs and flat for planar FETs).
Physicists at the University of Luxembourg have developed a new method to improve the electrical conductivity of polymeric composites. Polymeric composites consist of two or more materials and are used for example to shield off electrostatics in airplanes. By introducing additives into polymeric composites, favourable properties can be achieved. For instance, they develop favourable electrical properties when reinforced with carbon nanotubes. Such composites are used to make flat-panel displays and solar cells more efficient.
MIT researchers have found a way to improve the energy density of a type of battery known as lithium-air (or lithium-oxygen) batteries, producing a device that could potentially pack several times more energy per pound than the lithium-ion batteries that now dominate the market for rechargeable devices in everything from cellphones to cars.
University of Miami professor at the College of Engineering, Jizhou Song, has helped design an light-emitting diode (LED) light that uses an array of LEDs 100 times smaller than conventional LEDs. The new device has flexibility, maintains lower temperature and has an increased life-span over existing LEDs. The findings are published online by the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences ("Unusual Strategies for Using InGaN Grown on Silicon (111) for Solid State Lighting").
It's a basic technique learned early, maybe even before kindergarten: Pulling things apart - from toy cars to complicated electronic materials - can reveal a lot about how they work. "That's one way physicists study the things that they love; they do it by destroying them," said Séamus Davis, a physicist at the U.S. Department of Energy's (DOE) Brookhaven National Laboratory and the J.G. White Distinguished Professor of Physical Sciences at Cornell University.
IMS Nanofabrication AG announced today that Dai Nippon Printing Co., Ltd., Intel Corporation, Photronics Inc. and IMS are commencing a joint electron multi-beam mask writer tool collaboration to advance development of IMS' electron multi-beam projection technology. The engagement of DNP, a leading merchant photomask supplier to the electronics industry, augments the recent equity funding round announced by IMS that included participation from Intel and Photronics.
IMS Nanofabrication AG, an innovator in nanometer scale mask and direct write lithography imaging technology for semiconductor manufacturing applications, today announced that it has signed an equity funding round with participation from Intel Capital, Photronics Inc. and private investor groups.
By nestling quantum dots in an insulating egg-crate structure, researchers at the Harvard School of Engineering and Applied Sciences have demonstrated a robust new architecture for quantum-dot light-emitting devices.
Industrial Nanotech, a manufacturer of nanoscience energy-saving products, has declared that PT. Kraft, Indonesia has placed a repeat order for its patented Nansulate Translucent GP, an energy-saving protective coating.
A provider of nanoscience-based energy-saving solutions, Industrial Nanotech has declared that Kolorgen, its distributor in Turkey, has finalized a project with Unipro for insulating steam process equipment, valves, and steam lines with its patented energy-saving coating, Nansulate.
SEMATECH announced today that Intel, GlobalFoundries , Samsung Electronics Co., Ltd., and TSMC have joined SEMATECH's EMI Partnership to develop critical metrology tools for reviewing defects in advanced masks needed for extreme ultraviolet lithography (EUVL). In collaboration with SEMATECH, these leading semiconductor companies are pursuing an ambitious metrology program to enable defect-free EUVL masks for high-volume manufacturing.
The industrial and consumer use of microfluidic solutions in components and instruments is hampered by the lack of standardized interconnects. Just as mobile electronics was enabled by standardized interconnects like USB and Bluetooth, general adoption of microfluidics will only be possible with an agreement on standardized interconnects between chips and systems. Clearly, microfluidics is even more diverse than electronics, so one size fits all and different applications will need different classes of interconnect.
The chemical synthesis of graphene is considered as an efficient means of mass producing graphene-based compounds. Typically, the chemical process of producing graphene consists of first chemical exfoliation of graphite to produce graphene oxide (GO) flakes, followed by the reduction of the GO, which yields graphene flakes.
The chemical synthesis of graphene is considered as an efficient means of mass producing graphene-based compounds. Typically, the chemical process of producing graphene consists of first chemical exfoliation of graphite to produce graphene oxide (GO) flakes, followed by the reduction of the GO, which yields graphene flakes. Now in spite of the proliferation of chemical approaches for the synthesis there are still two fundamental issues to resolve.
A team of Penn State University scientists has invented a new system that uses magnetism to purify hybrid nanoparticles -- structures that are composed of two or more kinds of materials in an extremely small particle that is visible only with an electron microscope. Team leaders Mary Beth Williams, an associate professor of chemistry, and Raymond Schaak, a professor of chemistry, explained that the never-before-tried method will not only help scientists to remove impurities from such particles, it also will help researchers to distinguish between hybrid nanoparticles that appear to be identical when viewed under an electron microscope, but that have different magnetism -- a great challenge in recent nanoparticle research. The system holds the promise of helping to improve drug-delivery systems, drug-targeting technologies, medical-imaging technologies, and electronic information-storage devices.
A team of researchers from Columbia Engineering, the Italian National Research Council, Princeton University, University of Missouri, and University of Nijmegen (Netherlands) has developed an artificial semiconductor structure that has superimposed a pattern created by advanced fabrication methods that are precise at the nanometer scale. The pattern is similar to the honeycomb lattice that occurs in graphene. The device, called "artificial graphene" (AG), simulates quantum behavior of strongly interacting electrons. The research team sees the AG-device as a first step towards the realization of an innovative class of solid-state quantum simulators to explore fundamental quantum physics.
STMicroelectronics, a global semiconductor leader serving customers across the spectrum of electronics applications and the leading supplier of MEMS for consumer and portable applications, is the world's first manufacturer to have implemented Through-Silicon Via technology (TSV) in high-volume MEMS production. TSV replaces traditional wiring with short vertical interconnects in ST's multi-chip MEMS devices, such as smart sensors and multi-axis inertial modules, enabling a higher level of functional integration and performance in a smaller form factor.
New methods for creating 3D nanostructures deposited on an array of regularly spaced indentations on the surface of silicon films opens the door for innovative nanosensors
The Institute of Electron Technology engineers have designed silicon-based micromechanical valves utilizing process technologies of semiconductor materials. These silicon microvalves belong to the MEMS category.
Intel has advanced its chip manufacturing technology with three-dimensional transistors that could make PCs, smartphones and tablets faster and more power-efficient.
As reported at the 2011 International Extreme Ultraviolet Lithography (EUVL) and Lithography Extensions (LE) Symposia, Oct. 17-21 in Miami, FL, SEMATECH engineers and the industry at large continue to evolve the infrastructure that will enable lithography for cost-effective manufacturing. This year's EUVL symposium was co-organized by SEMATECH in cooperation with EIDEC and IMEC; the Lithography Extensions Symposium was held in cooperation with IMEC.
A series of videos taken under the microscope, documenting a new kind of pixel that could one day turn your tablet computer into a 3D display. University of Cambridge photonic engineer Tim Wilkinson is combining liquid crystals with nanotechnology in an effort to create realistic 3D displays you wouldn't need clunky glasses to appreciate.
Alexander Balandin, an electrical engineering professor at the UC Riverside Bourns College of Engineering and a research team from the University of Texas at Austin and China-based Xiamen University have demonstrated that the thermal characteristics of graphene that has been isotopically engineered is far better than that of natural graphene.
IXYS and General Motors Components Holdings (GMCH) have signed an agreement to manufacture power semiconductor wafers. In an endeavor to develop and own technologies, IXYS created its in-house facility. It now possesses and operates wafer fabrication units for its important proprietary models in the USA, Germany and the UK.
Replace the insides of a lithium ion battery with a jelly-like goo and you get inexpensive, safe, powerful, lightweight batteries that can power everything from cell phones to electric cars.
A new 200kV Transmission Electron Microscope from JEOL delivers high throughput nano-analysis for process and quality control of mass produced semiconductor and materials samples. The multi-function JEOL JEM-2800 features high resolution imaging in TEM, STEM, and SE modes; ultrasensitive elemental mapping with a large angle Energy Dispersive Spectrometer (EDS); Electron Energy Loss Spectroscopy (EELS) for chemical analysis; critical dimension analysis; tomography; and in situ observation of samples. The all-new TEM functions without use of the traditional fluorescent screen on the electron column.
Nalco and the U.S. Department of Energy's (DOE) Argonne National Laboratory have inked a licensing contract for Argonne's resin wafer electrodeionization (RW-EDI) technology.
GlobalFoundries is collaborating with the nanoelectronics research and development center, imec on its core sub-22nm core CMOS program, to create processes to be used in mass production of logic and memory ICs.
Researchers from the Denmark-based Neils Bohr Institute, the Joint Quantum Institute and Harvard University, have formulated a theory that explains the method of sensing weak electrical signals as well as cool electrical circuits with the help of light, which is similar to a nanosized loudspeaker.
Lattice Semiconductor has announced that its low power 65-nm process-based Lattice MachXO2 PLD family with embedded flash technology has been selected as a finalist in the 'Digital Semiconductor Product of the Year' category by an independent panel of judges of Elektra 2011, a competition of the European Electronics Industry Awards.
A team of researchers at the University of Tokyo, the University of Tsukuba, RIKEN and Fujitsu has declared that the research findings of the silicon nanowires’ electron states obtained utilizing ‘K computer’ has won the ACM Gordon Bell Prize under the Peak-Performance category at the International Conference for High Performance Computing, Networking, Storage and Analysis, SC11 conducted in Seattle, Washington.
Findings on modified form of graphene could have impacts in managing heat dissipation in everything from electronics to photovoltaic solar cells to radars
Scientists are reporting a key advance toward the long-awaited era of "single-molecule electronics," when common electronic circuits in computers, smart phones, audio players, and other devices may shrink to the size of a grain of sand.
SEMATECH, a global consortium of chipmakers, and KLA-Tencor Corporation™, the world's leading supplier of process control and yield management solutions for the semiconductor and related industries, today announced KLA-Tencor has joined SEMATECH's Lithography Defect Reduction program at the College of Nanoscale Science and Engineering (CNSE) of the University at Albany.
KLA-Tencor Corporation™ announced the SpectraShape™ 8660 and 8810 dimensional metrology systems, featuring AcuShape™2 modeling software developed jointly with Tokyo Electron Limited (TEL). The new SpectraShape tools are able to fully characterize the three dimensional shapes of complex features on integrated circuits--and monitor these shapes at production speeds. The exceptional performance of these new tools is critical when engineers are faced with complicated structures such as high-k metal gates, where sub-nanometer profile variations can have significant impact on transistor performance, or dual-damascene contacts, where a small modulation in the bottom diameter can seriously impact device yield or reliability.
KLA-Tencor has introduced the eDR 7000, an electron-beam (e-beam) wafer defect review system, for allowing chip production at the 20nm device nodes or less.
One of the most striking properties of graphene is arguably its two-dimensionality. The remarkable electronic behavior realized by this two-dimensionality has prompted researchers to try and form similar two-dimensional sheets from other materials. Wenping Hu and colleagues from the Beijing National Laboratory for Molecular Sciences in China have now succeeded in growing two-dimensional crystals of an organic semiconductor on large scales and on various types of substrate with a view to developing advanced organic electronic devices ("Millimeter-Sized Molecular Monolayer Two-Dimensional Crystals").
LOPE-C, the premier conference and exhibition of the worldwide organic and printed electronics community, is steering towards a new record in 2011. More than 95 companies are expected to exhibit on the greatly expanded floorspace of 1,300 square meters at the Messe Frankfurt Forum, Germany.
For ion implantation, that is 'hammering' ions into the surface layer of the material, conventional ion accelerators are commonly used. Laser ion sources are much simpler, cheaper and more universal. However, they emit wide energy ions usually accompanied by some admixtures. In the Institute of Plasma Physics and Laser Microfusion in Warsaw a unique laser ion source has been built which is equipped with a special system for accelerating ions to a chosen energy and for eliminating admixtures.
University of Tübingen researchers are collaborating with other scientists to develop the next generation of computers. Tiny gold wires of the order of a thousandth of a mm were made to interact with cold atoms.
Many applications in the electronics industry require some form of micro- or nanopatterning technique in fabricating the devices, structures and surfaces required. And although they may not be visible to the naked eye, the micro- and nanometer-sized trenches, ridges, curves and grooves of these patterns and surfaces have a very visible impact on the functionality of the device.
University of Michigan physicists used the electric fields generated by intersecting laser beams to trap and manipulate thousands of microscopic plastic spheres, thereby creating 3-D arrays of optically induced crystals.
Cambridge NanoTech, a provider of Atomic Layer Deposition (ALD) systems for the production of solid state lighting, flat panel displays and semiconductors, has declared that Laserwort has inked a distribution deal to sell and service Cambridge NanoTech's complete ALD equipment line.
Graphene is one-atom thick and comprises carbon atoms placed in hexagonal rings and has astounding characteristics, which has remarkably impacted the scientific community.
Lot of intelligent and energy efficient technology news out of Philadelphia last week, the location for the annual LIGHTFAIR International show. Since this continues to be one of the least intrusive ways that many companies -- consumers -- are reducing their energy consumption, here are a few quick highlights of new technologies that got some attention during the conference.
A team at UCLA has modified a microscope by taking out the lens in order to develop a nano-scale system that can create three-dimensional tomographic images of nano-particles. The research paper has recently appeared in the online journal, "Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences".
Emerging technologies enabled and supported by breakthroughs in microelectronics have opened exciting new markets and research fields for innovative companies and leading researchers.
OLEDs are full of promise for a range of practical applications. OLED technology is based on the phenomenon that certain organic materials emit light when fed by an electric current and it is already used in small electronic device displays in mobile phones, MP3 players, digital cameras, and also some TV screens.
Lightwave Logic, Inc., a technology company focused on the development of a Next Generation Non Linear Optical Polymer Materials Platform for applications in high speed fiber-optic data communications and optical computing, announced today that it has entered into a formal agreement with City University of New York (CUNY) to develop advanced non-linear all-optical devices utilizing Lightwave's advanced Perkinamine NR™ materials platform.
The Laboratory of Polymer Chemistry at the Université Libre de Bruxelles, unlike the name of the laboratory might suggest, is focused on research into "small molecules", namely, liquid crystalline semiconductors for organic electronics application.
Liquid-crystal displays are often the most energy-hungry components in mobile devices, so researchers are interested in finding new ways to control them that require less power. Now, using computer simulations, scientists at the University of Tokyo in Japan in collaboration with colleagues at the University of Milan in Italy have uncovered a memory effect in liquid crystals that could, according to group leader Hajime Tanaka, point to new ways of preparing low-power electronic paper and other optoelectronic devices ("Memory and topological frustration in nematic liquid crystals confined in porous materials").
A crack team of engineers at the University of Illinois has developed an electronic circuit that autonomously self-heals when its metal wires are broken. This self-healing system restores conductivity within “mere microseconds,” which is apparently fast enough that operation can continue without interruption.
Researchers at MIT have found a way to grow submicroscopic wires in water with great precision, using a method that makes it possible to produce entire electronic devices through a liquid-based process.
Cost of ownership has become a critical challenge facing future research in nanofabrication. As potential applications have broadened beyond the high-volume manufacture of integrated circuits, demand has increased for a robust tool capable of lithography at high pattern density and fidelity but also at low cost and thus suitable for scientific research, rapid prototyping, and low-volume manufacturing. Unfortunately, current manufacturing technologies employed in the chip industry are anything but 'low cost'.
Printed electronics is one of the most important new enabling technologies. It will have a major impact on most business activities from publishing and security printing to healthcare, automotive, military and consumer packaged goods sectors (see "Printed electronics widens its scope"). With recent advances, power and energy storage can be integrated into the printing process ("Nanotechnology-enabled printed power"), making their potential applications even more ubiquitous.
Researchers at Purdue University and the National Institute of Standards and Technology have created a device small enough to fit on a computer chip that converts continuous laser light into numerous ultrashort pulses, a technology that might have applications in more advanced sensors, communications systems and laboratory instruments.
Magma® Design Automation Inc., a provider of chip design software, today announced Excalibur-Litho™, a complete fab analysis framework that supports the development and monitoring of advanced lithography solutions. Excalibur-Litho is the first system to efficiently integrate design and real-time data from the semiconductor manufacturing floor, including defectivity, metrology and tool history, enabling an unmatched level of data analysis, monitoring and process control. Excalibur-Litho optimizes yield ramps with built-in solutions for litho qualification through the proprietary coupling of design-based binning, electrical cross mapping, and fab-wide data correlation.
Magma® Design Automation, today announced that the new pattern matching capability in the Quartz™ DRC physical verification product has been qualified to support DRC+, GLOBALFOUNDRIES' silicon-validated, yield-critical pattern-based design for manufacturing (DFM) verification flow for all advanced process technologies, including 40 nanometer, 28 nm and below.
Researchers from the National Institute of Standards and Technology and University of Colorado Boulder have developed a low-power microchip that uses a combination of microfluidics and magnetic switches to trap and transport magnetic beads. The novel transport chip may have applications in biotechnology and medical diagnostics.
In their search for smaller, faster information-storage devices, physicists have been exploring ways to encode magnetic data using electric fields. One advantage of this voltage-induced magnet control is that less power is needed to encode information than in a traditional system.
Future computers may rely on magnetic microprocessors that consume the least amount of energy allowed by the laws of physics, according to an analysis by University of California, Berkeley, electrical engineers.
The heat which occurs in tiny computer processors might soon be no longer useless or even a problem. On the contrary: It could be used to switch these processors more easily or to store data more efficiently! These are two of the several potential applications made possible by a discovery made at the Physikalisch-Technische Bundesanstalt (PTB). This so-called "thermoelectric voltage" may well be very interesting -- mainly for the use of nano-junctions, i.e. small components based on magnetic tunnel structures. The results obtained by the researchers have been published in the current issue of the renowned specialised journal Physical Review Letters.
Liquid crystal displays (LCDs) are now used ubiquitously in devices such as computer monitors, televisions screens and mobile phones. As the performance and properties of such displays are determined to a large extent by how well the LC molecules line up in display cells and their orientation, scientists are constantly striving to develop simple methods to induce these molecules to align uniformly in the desired direction. The addition of nanoparticles has been used to align LCs vertically, but little consideration has been given to other alignments or the effect of nanoparticle shape on alignment direction.
Giant magnetoresistance, which allows electrical resistance to be varied by relatively small magnetic fields, has had a huge impact on everyday technology, with widespread use in information storage and magnetic field sensing. Xiaozhong Zhang and colleagues from Tsinghua University in China have now demonstrated that it is possible to enhance inhomogeneous magnetoresistance (IMR) in silicon devices to levels comparable to that of conventional rare-earth-based technologies.
The Gutenberg Research College (GFK) of Johannes Gutenberg University Mainz awarded a fellowship to the British-American scientist Professor Stuart Parkin. "There is no doubt that Stuart Parkin is a leading scientist in his field," is how Professor Claudia Felser, Director of the Graduate School of Excellence "Materials Science in Mainz" (MAINZ) commented on the award. Parkin is an IBM Fellow, IBM's highest technical honor, and Manager of the Magnetoelectronics Group at IBM Research - Almaden. He is also a consulting professor at Stanford.
New insights into why and how nanowires take the form they do will have profound implications for the development of future electronic components. PhD student Peter Krogstrup from the Nano-Science Center at the University of Copenhagen is behind the sensational new theoretical model ("Impact of the Liquid Phase Shape on the Structure of III-V Nanowires"), which is developed in collaboration with researchers from CINAM-CNRS in Marseille.
SEMATECH announced today that Advanced Semiconductor Engineering (ASE) Incorporated, Altera Corporation, Analog Devices Inc. (ADI), LSI Corporation, ON Semiconductor Corporation, and Qualcomm Incorporated have joined SEMATECH's 3D Enablement program based at the College of Nanoscale Science and Engineering (CNSE) of the University at Albany. These leading semiconductor companies will join CNSE, GlobalFoundries , Hewlett Packard, Hynix, IBM, Intel, Samsung, and UMC to extend the program's position as a broad, cohesive initiative and to enable industry-wide ecosystem readiness for cost effective TSV-based 3D stacked IC solutions.
Sometimes when people talk about solar energy, they tacitly assume that we're stuck with some version of the silicon solar cell and its technical and cost limitations. Not so.
An electric field can displace the cloud of electrons surrounding each atom of a solid. In an effect known as polarization, the cloud centers move away slightly from the positively charged nuclei, which radically changes the optical properties of the solid.
Most liquid-crystalline displays contain rod-like molecules that quickly switch from one orientation to another when subjected to electric fields. This movement creates a shutter effect that turns light on and off at high rates.
Electrical engineers at Duke University have developed a material that allows them to manipulate light in much the same way that electronics manipulate flowing electrons. The researchers say the results of their latest proof-of-concept experiments could lead to the replacement of electrical components with those based on optical technologies. Light-based devices would enable faster and more efficient transmission of information, much in the same way that replacing wires with optical fibers revolutionized the telecommunications industry.
Knowing how to control the combined magnetic properties of interacting electrons will provide the basis to develop an important tool for advancing spintronics: a technology that aims to harness these properties for computation and communication.
University of Florida researchers may help resolve the public debate over America's future light source of choice: Edison's incandescent bulb or the more energy efficient compact fluorescent lamp.
Market Analyst Reportlinker.com recently added a report to its catalogue titled, 'Advanced Solid-state Memory Systems And Products: Emerging Non-volatile Memory Technologies, Industry Trends And Market Analysis 'and it is also available on its website.
MarketResearch.com has declared that it has added the MarketsandMarkets report titled, 'Global Printed Electronics Market: Materials, Manufacturing Technologies, Applications &Trends', to its Components market report portfolio.
MarketResearch.com has added a new electronics market report tilted Semiconductor Industry Market Analysis &Future Trends Worldwide (2010 - 2013) to its catalogue.
Rice University materials scientists have made a fundamental discovery that could make it easier for engineers to build electronic circuits out of the much-touted nanomaterial graphene.
When a skier rushes down a ski slope or a skater glides across an ice rink, a very thin melted layer of liquid water forms on the surface of the ice crystals, which allows for a smooth glide instead of a rough skid. In a recent experiment, scientists have discovered that the interface between the surface and bulk electronic structures of certain crystalline materials can act in much the same way.
The International SEMATECH Manufacturing Initiative (ISMI), the global consortium of the world's major semiconductor manufacturers, today announced that MATHESON, a global manufacturer and supplier of electronics and specialty materials and equipment, has joined ISMI's Environment, Safety and Health (ESH) Technology Center.
Maxim declared the acquisition of SensorDynamics, a company that offers proprietary microelectromechanical (MEMS) and sensor solutions. This acquisition enables Maxim to expand its operations in high-end consumer and automotive markets.
Maxwell Technologies, a manufacturer of energy storage products based on ultra-capacitors, declared that it will be provided with state and federal funds amounting more than $500,000 for collaborating with three US-based companies for energy storage R&D programs.
MicroGen Systems, Inc. of Ithaca, NY, and Infinite Power Solutions, Inc. of Littleton, CO, recently demonstrated a complete Wireless Sensor Network (WSN) solution powered by their combined products. At the recent Sensors Expo and Tradeshow 2011 held in Rosemont, IL, MicroGen's MicroElectroMechanical Systems (MEMS) based Piezoelectric Vibrational Energy Harvester (PZEH) micro-power generator product called the BOLT™060 combined with the THINERGY® IPS-EVAL-EH-01 Energy Harvesting Evaluation Kit from IPS to power-up a complete wireless sensor board.
The companies are currently engaged in a research program to demonstrate the feasibility of an innovation called multi-resolution writing for shot count reduction of up to 30% compared to the conventional writing technique, dramatically reducing mask writing time.
Mentor Graphics Corporation and NuFlare Technology, Inc. today announced the extension of their successful collaboration on integrated hardware and software solutions for advanced IC mask generation. The companies' new joint marketing and support agreement will help ensure seamless interfaces, high mask fidelity, fast mask writing times, and very high levels of technical support.
Mentor Graphics Corporation today announced the successful tapeout of a 20 nm test chip in collaboration with STMicroelectronics, marking a significant milestone in the development of a complete Mentor® design-to-silicon solution for next-generation process technology. The test chip was implemented using the Olympus-SoC™ place and route system, and verified using the Calibre® nmDRC platform, which is the verification and double patterning solution used by R&D teams at STMicroelectronics. Together, the Olympus-SoC, Calibre and Tessent® silicon test and yield analysis products provide a comprehensive flow for 20 nm IC development.
Mentor Graphics has declared the completion of its 28-nm signoff-ready digital design flow for the technology of GlobalFoundries . The sign-off-ready design flow is created to meet the distinctive challenges of designing and producing integrated circuits at leading-edge nodes.
Mentor Graphics has entered into a partnership deal with JEOL to provide integrated software and hardware solutions for sophisticated integrated circuit (IC) mask writing.
The Creative Research Group of Femtosecond Photophysics &Integrated Optics at Peking University has discovered a nanoscale embedded all-optical diode featuring power efficient high transmission contrast.
Electronics could possibly operate with a beat of a few tens of attoseconds in the future. Researchers at the Max Planck Institute of Quantum Optics in Garching near Munich have controlled electrons which gushed from a metal tip a few nanometres across with an accuracy of 80 attoseconds. An attosecond is only a billionth part of a billionth of a second -- in this time, light can only travel a distance roughly equivalent to the diameter of an atom.
Mitsubishi Heavy Industries, Ltd. (MHI) has developed a fully automated 8-inch wafer bonding machine that is capable of producing 3-dimensionally integrated LSI (large-scale integration) circuits at room temperature. The machine represents the world's first commercialization of a system enabling 3-D integration of circuits on 8-inch wafers at room temperature. Efficient bonding of metallic material has been achieved through the adoption of a method of radiating a high-energy-level atom beam. MHI believes that the new machine and its technology will significantly contribute to efforts to further enhance the capacity and performance of LSIs, which are currently faced with limitations in miniaturization.
Micralyne, Inc., a leading pure-play MEMS foundry serving high-performance biomedical, telecommunications and industrial markets, and A.M. Fitzgerald &Associates (AMFitzgerald), a MEMS product development firm, today announced a strategic partnership which will put customers on the fast-track path to commercialization. Combining AMFitzgerald's expert MEMS design and rapid prototyping services with Micralyne's extensive experience in manufacturing high-value MEMS devices, the partnership offers a one-stop solution for companies that want to move early-stage designs beyond proof-of-concept to volume production.
Micralyne, Inc., a leading pure-play MEMS foundry serving high-performance biomedical, telecommunications and industrial markets, continues to expand the traditional role of foundry beyond manufacturing house. Today the company announced a partnership with Nanoshift, LLC, a product development firm specializing in emerging technologies, which places design, process development, fabrication and packaging under its purview. The more integrated approach to the design and production of micro-electromechanical systems (MEMS) reduces the barrier to entry for companies that want to commercialize MEMS devices for volume production.
US based BiTMICRO Networks and its subsidiary in Philippines BiTMICRO Networks International have together launched a training centre for the design and development of microchips called the Bruce Institute of Technology (BIT).
MicroTech has designed a wet process station for performing etching on patterned sapphire substrate (PSS) wafers utilized to improve light extraction efficiency of high-brightness LEDs.
Atomic-level defects in graphene could be a path forward to smaller and faster electronic devices, according to a study led by researchers at the Department of Energy's Oak Ridge National Laboratory.
MEMS Industry Group (MIG), a trade association that encourages and promotes micro-electromechanical systems (MEMS) across international markets, has recently conducted an industry meeting and moderated the panel discussion on the benefits and problems faced by designers in integrating MEMS into DSP and microprocessors.
Graphene can enable the best quantum resistance standard. This is one of many advances emerging from the active research into graphene at Chalmers University of Technology. Chalmers will now receive the lion's share of a new Swedish research grant of SEK 40 million for the supermaterial graphene.
As the world has become less analog and more digital -- as tape decks and TV antennas have given way to MP3 players and streaming video -- electrical engineers' habits of thought have changed, too. In the analog world, they used to think mostly in terms of quantities such as voltage, which are continuous, meaning they can take on an infinite range of values. Now, they tend to think more in terms of 0s and 1s, the binary oppositions of digital logic.
Dubbed a diode for light, and crafted using standard silicon chip fabrication techniques, this is a key discovery that will pave the path to photonic (as opposed to electronic) pathways on computer chips and circuit boards.
MIT Researchers have developed a liquid-based method to accurately form submicroscopic wires in water, which enables fabrication of complete electronic devices via a liquid-based procedure.
Photolithography is a common method for producing computer chips. But the visible light wavelength reduces the transistor's size produced using this method.
Messe München International, Organic and Printed Electronics Association, and IDTechEx have decided to work together to organize a new Europe's biggest trade fair and conference about organic and printed electronics, namely LOPE-C and Printed Electronics Europe in 2012, at Frankfurt. Messe München is to be its host and organizer.
Veeco Instruments recently declared that United LED Shan Dong (ULED), a China-based collaboration between United Microelectronics (UMC) and Epistar has placed an order with Veeco for supply of its TurboDisc K465i Metal Organic Chemical Vapor Deposition (MOCVD) Systems.
Berkeley Design Automation Inc., provider of the Analog FastSPICE™ unified circuit verification platform today announced that Mohagi, a developer of energy-efficient analog and mixed-signal IP, has selected the company's Analog FastSPICE Nano SPICE simulator (AFS Nano) for analog and mixed-signal IP verification. Priced at only $1,900 for a 1-year time-based license, AFS Nano is up to 10x faster than traditional SPICE, is foundry certified down to 28nm, and supports up to 5,000 element circuits.
Nanofabrication techniques such as electron beam lithography and block copolymer self-assembly can be effective, but in many cases these approaches are either too costly or do not yield materials with the desired combination of nanostructure and physical properties.
Like little stacks of pancakes, aromatic molecules like to line up, forming neat columns known as p-stacks. Individual p-stacks, however, are difficult to handle, and pinning down basic properties, particularly whether they act as electrical conductors or insulators, has generated decades of debate. Three research groups in Japan have now teamed up to unravel the electron transfer properties of -stacks, showing that such columns can conduct electrons surprisingly well ("Electron Transport through Single Molecules Comprising Aromatic Stacks Enclosed in Self-Assembled Cages").
Molecular Imprints, Inc., the market and technology leader for nanopatterning systems and solutions, announced it has been awarded a contract by a leading IC manufacturer to build the industry's first 450mm capable lithography system.
As part of the quest to form perfectly smooth single-molecule layers of materials for advanced energy, electronic, and medical devices, researchers at the U.S. Department of Energy's Brookhaven National Laboratory have discovered that the molecules in thin films remain frozen at a temperature where the bulk material is molten. Thin molecular films have a range of applications extending from organic solar cells to biosensors, and understanding the fundamental aspects of these films could lead to improved devices.
Apart from graphene, other two-dimensional structures are also known to have unique properties which researchers are eager to exploit for novel nanotechnology applications in nanoelectronics and sensor or energy storage technology.
Researchers at the U.S. Department of Energy's Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory and the University of California, Berkeley have discovered a method to monitor quantum routes showing how light diffuses in graphene. Monitored diffusion helps scientists analyze grapheme.
Synopsys, a company that offers software solutions and IP to design, verify and manufacture semiconductor devices, declared that Moortec Semiconductor, a provider of semiconductor integrated circuits and mixed-signal IP, has readily taped out its analog IP on 28HP and 40LP processes from TSMC. For the above purpose, Synopsys used its custom design solution and the interoperable process design kits (iPDKs) from TSMC.
It seems graphene, the single layer of carbon atoms that can supercharge computer chips, optical circuits, lithium-ion batteries, and solar power generation, might have a competitor: a rare earth element called erbium.
Building electronic devices that work without needing to actually transport electrons is a goal of spintronics researchers, since this could lead to: reduced power consumption, lower levels of signal noise, faster operation, and denser information storage. However, the generation of pure spin currents remains a challenge. Now, YoshiChika Otani and colleagues at the RIKEN Advanced Science Institute, Wako, and five other research institutes in Japan and China, have produced a large spin current in an important spintronic device called a lateral spin valve.
Working with a renowned European automobile manufacturer has resulted in a high quality, functional and distinguished product design. The new product, featuring advanced battery technology, is expected to have broad appeal to both the OEM and aftermarket automotive and marine industry.
mPhase Technologies, Inc. said today that it has received patent no. 8,021,773 from the United States Patent Office for a battery system for efficiently operating a battery under various circumstances, such as relating to extreme temperature ranges and varying load (i.e. current) ranges.
mPhase Technologies has declared that it has received a major U.S patent for multi-chemistry battery architecture, an innovative battery layout that could incorporate several battery chemistries within a single battery pack.
mPhase Technologies, Inc. reported today that it has been granted a United States patent for the unique concept of a smart battery design that could contain different battery chemistries within the same battery configuration or battery pack. The concepts behind the patent could be used to create a new type of reserve battery that would work in a wide range of applications, such as electronic devices and sensors used in very high and low temperature environments, where the temperature conditions may change over time, or in other environments where optimal battery performance is not easily achieved based on a single non optimized battery chemistry.
Researches from the University of Illinois have discovered that the nano-scale structures facilitate smart size-sorting and optical tweezing of particles by regulating the properties of laser light illuminating arrays of metal nanoantennas.
In the world of engineering, "noise" -- random fluctuations from environmental sources such as heat -- is generally a bad thing. In electronic circuits, it is unavoidable, and as circuits get smaller and smaller, noise has a greater and more detrimental effect on a circuit's performance.
mPhase Technologies has been in discussions with a military applications vendor to modify its battery and reserve battery technology to enable an energy source activated by G-force to deliver power in the latest weapons systems.
Physicists from Taiwan have designed and fabricated nano-sized light-emitting diodes (LEDs) that emit light spanning the entire visible spectrum. Although the tiny full-color LEDs aren't intended for commercial lighting applications, they should be useful in high-resolution microscopy and subwavelength photolithography.
Graphene has two distinct types of edges produced when it is cut -- armchair type or zigzag type -- which correspond to the two crystal axis of graphene. These edge types have distinct electronic, magnetic, and chemical properties, and being able to pattern graphene along particular crystallographic directions to leave edges consisting of a single chirality is crucial for the fabrication of graphene nanoribbon and nanoelectronics devices.
A team of researchers at the University of Pittsburgh has developed a single-electron transistor called SketchSET, or sketch-based single-electron transistor to help build enhanced computer memories, electronic materials, and the quantum computer parts.
Nanoco Group plc, a world leader in the development and manufacture of cadmium-free quantum dots, announces that it has signed a joint development agreement with one of the world's largest lighting companies which is already a major producer of light emitting diode (LED) lights.
Pixelligent, a manufacturer of nanocrystal additives for military, industrial and electronics markets, has proclaimed that it has completed the funding round for $5.1 million.
Researchers at the Hebrew University of Jerusalem have achieved a breakthrough in the field of nanoscience by successfully altering nanocrystal properties with impurity atoms -- a process called doping -- thereby opening the way for the manufacture of improved semiconductor nanocrystals.
Nano-crystals added to solid electrolyte material can make fuel cells function more efficiently, says a research team at the University of Technology, Delft.
Researchers with the U.S. Department of Energy's Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory have discovered a universal technique for stripping nanocrystals of tether-like molecules that until now have posed as obstacles for their integration into devices.
Combining materials systems that exhibit interesting physical properties can lead to structures with new functionalities and superior performance characteristics. A good demonstration of this concept is the recent work of Sang-Woo Kim and colleagues from Sungkyunkwan University in Korea, who showed that a composite of high-quality zinc oxide (ZnO) nanostructures on graphene can act as a 'nanogenerator' ("Controlled Growth of Semiconducting Nanowire, Nanowall, and Hybrid Nanostructures on Graphene for Piezoelectric Nanogenerators").
It started innocently enough with isolated instances of smoke coming out of computers. Then networks crashed. Now, programs are malfunctioning on a large scale, shutting down the Vatican's huge computer infrastructure which it depends on to manage its billions upon billions of investment dollars, real estate portfolios, and art collections.
Imec, a research institute that has continually been at the forefront of advances in semiconductor technology and has always served as proving ground for advancements in microelectronics with close collaboration with the global industry, is being honored by IEEE with the 2011 IEEE Corporate Innovation Recognition. IEEE is the world's largest technical professional association.
With a record number of 17 papers at the IEEE International Electron Device Meeting in Washington, imec confirms its leading global position as R&D center solving key challenges of the International Technology Roadmap for Semiconductors and as technology and process provider for heterogeneous system integration.
Germanium was the basic material of first-generation transistors in the late 1940s and early 1950s before it was replaced by silicon (the first silicon transistor was produced by Texas Instruments in 1954). Using germanium instead of silicon as transistor material would enable faster chips containing smaller transistors because higher switching speeds than in silicon could be achieved using germanium (and some other semiconductors).
Researchers at Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute have developed a new method to harvest energy from flowing water. This discovery aims to hasten the creation of self-powered microsensors for more accurate and cost-efficient oil exploration.
Searching the Web for "zinc oxide nanostructures" produces thousands of hits -- most of them associated with the name of one scientist: Zhong Lin Wang, a Regent's professor at the Georgia Institute of Technology. Wang, a physicist who joined Georgia Tech in 1995, has almost single handedly launched a new field of research that takes advantage of the unique properties of zinc oxide nanostructures.
A research team recently unveiled a nanogenerator at the 241st National Meeting &Exposition of the American Chemical Society. It is a supple chip that utilizes body movements such as a finger pinch to produce electricity.
KIT will unveil a hybrid Porsche racing car at the 2011 Hannover Messe being held from April 4 to 8, 2011. It will also introduce latest advancements in materials, battery research and processes that will be applicable in printable electronics.
Quantum dots are tiny semiconductor crystals that emit bright and tunable fluorescence. They are typically made of cadmium sulfide (CdS) or cadmium selenide (CdSe), and have a wide range of applications, including bioimaging and solar cells. Recently, chemists have sought to add new capabilities to quantum dots by fusing them with metal atoms, creating 'heterostructured' nanocrystals. However, bonding metal cations to a semiconductor often requires strong reducing agents--electron-donating chemical reagents that can play havoc with the quantum dot's nanostructure.
The camera in your phone collects light on silicon and translate that information into digital bits. One of the reasons those cameras and phones continue to improve is that researchers are developing new materials that absorb more light, use less power, and are less expensive to produce.
Nanometrics Incorporated, a leading supplier of solutions for advanced process control, today announced the acquisition of Nanda Technologies, GmbH of Munich, Germany. Nanda has developed a high-throughput, high-sensitivity defect inspection technology for semiconductor manufacturing.
Nanometrics Incorporated, a leading supplier of advanced process control systems and solutions, today announced a significant milestone marking the adoption of its optical critical dimension technology. More than 1,000 "recipes," algorithms to analyze and model critical structures, are now in production at semiconductor and data storage manufacturers around the world.
Nanometrics Incorporated, a leading supplier of advanced metrology systems, today introduced the Atlas® II optical critical dimension (OCD) system, a next-generation tool for high-performance process control metrology. Incorporating innovations in optical components, precision wafer positioning, and new software analysis, the Atlas II enables measurements of the smallest semiconductor design features in development, including complex device structures at 1x nm technology nodes.
Nanometrics Incorporated, a leading provider of advanced metrology systems, today announced the opening of its Singapore Advanced Metrology Center, an applications development center for customers using Nanometrics metrology systems. The center provides dedicated support throughout Asia for customers requiring advanced modeling of complex structures and recipe development. Nanometrics investment and commitment to additional applications resources reflects the rapid growth and adoption of optical critical dimension (OCD) technology in semiconductor manufacturing due to smaller, more complex structures and new materials.
Nanometrics, a supplier of advanced, automated process control metrology systems for fabricating high-brightness LEDs, solar photovoltaics, semiconductors and data storage devices, has released a novel optical critical dimension (OCD) analysis solution having advanced recipe building, calculating and modeling capabilities.
While consumers may simply crave longer-lasting batteries for electronic gadgets, the holy grail for many material scientists is batteries that can pump power into the grid for hours.
El Segundo, California-based Vendum Batteries, a company that develops battery technology, has declared its intention to advertise in the resource guide in nanotechnology and nanomaterials, NanoPerspective.
The Institute for the Commercialization of Public Research announced today that it has finalized a funding agreement with NanoPhotonica, an early-stage Orlando-based company that develops nanomaterials for next generation video displays, solar cells, and a range of other photoelectric devices.
In an interesting feat of nanoscale engineering, researchers at Lund University in Sweden and the University of New South Wales have made the first nanowire transistor featuring a concentric metal 'wrap-gate' that sits horizontally on a silicon substrate.
The field of microfluidics involves manipulating tiny volumes of fluid for applications as diverse as inkjet printing and genetic engineering. It has also been shown recently that movement of fluid in microfluidic devices can be harnessed and converted into electricity. Chih-Chang Chang and Ruey-Jen Yang at the National Cheng Kung University in Taiwan have now conducted calculations that suggest this electrokinetic energy conversion could be more efficient than previously thought thanks to the strange properties of fluid flow at the nanometer scale.
When Gutenberg developed the principles of modern book printing, books became available to the masses. Hoping to bring technology capable of mass production to the nanometer scale, Udo Bach and this team of scientists at Monash University (Australia) and the Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory (USA) have developed a nanoprinting process modeled on Gutenberg's printing method. Their goal is the simple, inexpensive production of nanotechnological components for solar cells, biosensors, and other electronic systems.
Researchers at the Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory of the U.S. Department of Energy (DOE) have developed nanoscale waveguides for advanced on-chip optical communication systems.
A team led by Enge Wang and Wenlong Wang researching at the Beijing National Laboratory for Condensed Matter Physics and Peking University has developed a scalable technique to develop graphene nanoribbons.
Biological nanopores are proteins of only a few nanometers in diameter that form tiny water-filled canals. They have proven to be promising tools in the field of nanobiotechnology. In a joint project at the University of Freiburg, a research group led by Prof. Dr. Jan C. Behrends, Institute of Physiology, and scientists working under Prof. Dr. Jürgen Rühe, Department of Microsystems Technology (IMTEK), have succeeded in arranging nanopores on a tiny microchip and using it to determine the mass of chain-like molecules, so-called polymers, with a high degree of precision.
A team led by Paul Braun, professor of materials science and engineering at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign has developed battery electrodes that are based on nanostructured metal foams in order to create a lithium-ion battery that takes two minutes to be 90% charged.
Nanosys, Inc., an advanced materials architect, today announced that its next generation LCD technology, the Quantum Dot Enhancement Film (QDEF™), is available to display manufacturers. Device designers can now increase color gamut by as much as three times without making the trade offs in cost, size and brightness they've had to make in the past. This means richer, more viscerally vibrant reds and a deeper palette of greens -- the color the human eye sees more intensely than any other color.
State-of-the-art Dutch focused ion beam (FIB) milling equipment launched at the Faculty of Physics, University of Warsaw (FUW) has made it possible to produce first micropillars, microscopic semiconductor structures that can be used as efficient light sources.
Stanford researchers have developed a battery that takes advantage of the difference in salinity between freshwater and seawater to produce electricity.
IBM Research scientists have announced that they have achieved a milestone in creating a building block for the future of wireless devices. In a paper published in the journal Science, IBM researchers announced the first integrated circuit fabricated from wafer-size graphene, and demonstrated a broadband frequency mixer operating at frequencies up to 10 gigahertz (10 billion cycles/second).
More than half of today's energy consumption is squandered in useless waste heat, such as the heat from refrigerators and all sorts of gadgets and the heat from factories and power plants. The energy losses are even greater in cars. Automobile motors only manage to utilise 30 per cent of the energy they generate. The rest of it is lost. Part of the heat loss ends up as warm brakes and a hot exhaust pipe.
A significant challenge for researchers in the field of rechargeable batteries is to construct batteries which can be charged and discharged quickly with only minimal energy capacity loss. In Nature Nanotechnology, researchers at University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign in the U.S. have recently published an approach that significantly reduces the energy capacity loss, when very fast charge and discharge rates are offered. Only two minutes are needed to charge a lithium-ion battery to 90 percent. This approach involves cathodes created from a 3-D nanostructure.
Batteries are an integral part of modern life -- just go ahead and count the batteries that you use yourself in your watches, computers, cell phones, cameras, alarm clocks, flashlights, toys, remote controls, power tools, cars, boats and so on. You'll come up with a staggering number. And chances are that your batteries are disposable, so you throw them out with your garbage when they are empty. Add to that the batteries used by industry, hospitals, public transport, the military etc and you get several billion batteries that are bought every year, a roughly $50 billion market.
A simple tap from your finger may be enough to charge your portable device thanks to a discovery made at RMIT University and Australian National University.
A discovery shows that the flexibility and durability of carbon nanotube films and coatings are intimately linked to their electronic properties. The research could one day impact flexible electronic devices such as solar cells and wearable sensors. The research also provided a promising young high school student the chance to work in the lab with world-class scientists, jumpstarting her potential scientific career.
Researchers at Eindhoven University of Technology (TU/e, Netherlands) have developed a replacement for indium tin oxide (ITO), an important material used in displays for all kinds of everyday products such as TVs, telephones and laptops, as well as in solar cells. Unfortunately indium is a rare metal, and the available supplies are expected to be virtually exhausted within as little as ten years. The replacement material is a transparent, conducting film produced in water, and based on electrically conducting carbon nanotubes and plastic nanoparticles. It is made of commonly available materials, and on top of that is also environment-friendly.
The narrowest conducting wires in silicon ever made — just four atoms wide and one atom tall — have been shown to have the same electrical current carrying capability of copper.
A University of Pittsburgh-led team has created a single-electron transistor that provides a building block for new, more powerful computer memories, advanced electronic materials, and the basic components of quantum computers.
According to Oliver Kutsch, chief executive officer of Ceresana Research, the paints and varnish industrial segment is poised to increase to €27.7 billion over the next seven years.
The Ohio Third Frontier Commission awarded Nanotek Instruments Inc. $1 million to accelerate commercialization of its nano graphene platelets-based electrode materials for next generation supercapacitors. Nanotek's NGP electrode technology offers the energy density of a modern battery yet can be recharged in less than two minutes. Nanotek will team with its manufacturing arm Angstron Materials Inc. on the project which promises to provide a breakthrough step in energy storage.
Many physical and chemical processes necessary for biology and chemistry occur at the interface of water and solid surfaces. Researchers have now shown that semiconducting carbon nanotubes--light emitting cylinders of pure carbon--have the potential to detect and track single molecules in water.
As electronic devices become smaller and more sophisticated, the search for compact nonvolatile memory becomes increasingly important. However, conventional silicon technologies, such as complementary metal-oxide-semiconductor and floating gate flash memory, are fast reaching their scaling limit. Further miniaturization could seriously affect their performance and stability.
Electronic devices often develop 'hot spots' that can become detrimental to performance. Much research has focused on developing methods to cool the system, or, even better, convert the excess heat to electricity by exploiting the thermoelectric effect -- where a thermal gradient induces the movement of charge carriers.
Researchers at Rice University are using carbon nanotubes as the critical component of a robust terahertz polarizer that could accelerate the development of new security and communication devices, sensors and non-invasive medical imaging systems as well as fundamental studies of low-dimensional condensed matter systems.
Australian researchers have engineered one of the world's smallest ever nanowires for the next generation of telecommunication technology, bringing them one step closer to the holy grail of optics -- the creation of a 'photonic chip' which would lead to a faster, more sustainable internet.
When it comes to 3D transistors, you’ve probably heard of FinFET — the 3D, “Tri-gate” transistors that are taking Intel (and eventually other silicon foundries) to 22nm and beyond — but now a research team from Harvard and Purdue have forsaken silicon entirely and created a 3D transistor out of nanowires. These new transistors will get us to the 10nm mark, beyond silicon’s theoretical 14nm limit.
Growing up is not easy, especially for tiny nanowires: With no support or guidance, nanowires become unruly, making it difficult to harness their full potential as effective semiconductors. Prof. Ernesto Joselevich of the Weizmann Institute's Chemistry Faculty has found a way to grow semiconductor nanowires out, not up, on a surface, providing, for the first time, the much-needed guidance to produce relatively long, orderly, aligned structures. Since semiconductors with controlled structures are at the core of the most advanced technologies, this new research will hopefully enable the production of semiconductor nanostructures with enhanced electronic and optical properties, suitable for a wide range of applications including LEDs, lasers, information storage media, transistors, computers, photovoltaics and more.
Researchers from the FOM Institute AMOLF, together with colleagues from Philips Research, Eindhoven University of Technology and Delft University of Technology, have made special nanostructures that could be used as light-emitting diodes (LEDs). These nanostructures can be used to control the direction of the emission. Controlling the direction of the light is vitally important for increasing the efficiency of LEDs. It is also a step towards a new generation of LEDs that are based on semiconducting nanowires. The results of this research will soon be published in the prestigious journal ACS Nano.
Further progress in the miniaturization of electronic circuitry using conventional approaches will soon reach its limits. Delicate, inorganic semiconducting nanowires offer a possible means of extending these limits, and are of great interest for applications in the areas of optoelectronics and photovoltaics. However, the physical properties of these tiny structures are poorly understood.
Optical data carriers such as DVDs, Blu-rays and CD-RWs store data in layers of so-called "phase change materials". In the future, these materials will enable the development of fast, non-volatile and energy-saving main memories. A prerequisite for this is a low thermal conductivity. Phase change materials display a surprisingly low thermal conductivity even in the crystalline state.
A manufacturer of ultracapacitor products, Nesscap Energy has received approval from China Quality Certification Centre (CQC) to apply its ultracapacitor module for automotive applications across China.
Completing the story they started by creating synthetic magnetic fields (see "Researchers create 'synthetic magnetic fields' for neutral atoms "), scientists from the Joint Quantum Institute (JQI), a collaboration of the National Institute of Standards and Technology and the University of Maryland, have now made atoms act as if they were charged particles accelerated by electric fields.
Neutron analysis of the atomic dynamics behind thermal conductivity is helping scientists at the Department of Energy's Oak Ridge National Laboratory gain a deeper understanding of how thermoelectric materials work. The analysis could spur the development of a broader range of products with the capability to transform heat to electricity. Researchers performed experiments at both of ORNL's neutron facilities -- the Spallation Neutron Source and the High Flux Isotope Reactor -- to learn why the material lead telluride, which has a similar molecular structure to common table salt, has very low thermal conductivity, or heat loss -- a property that makes lead telluride a compelling thermoelectric material.
Researchers from Purdue and Harvard universities have created a new type of transistor made from a material that could replace silicon and have a 3-D structure instead of conventional flat computer chips.
Unlike silicon, graphene lacks an electronic band gap -- the gap being an energy range that cannot be occupied by electrons -- and therefore has no switching capability; which is essential for electronics applications. Opening an energy gap in graphene's electron energy spectrum is therefore a critical prerequisite for instance for creating graphene transistors.
A new microspectrometer architecture that uses compact disc-shaped resonators could address the challenges of integrated lab-on-chip sensing systems that now require a large off-chip spectrometer to achieve high resolution.
Computational capability is an enabler for nearly every military system. But computational capability is increasingly limited by power requirements and the constraints on the ability to dissipate heat. One particular military computational need is found in intelligence, surveillance and reconnaissance systems where sensors collect more information than can be processed in real time. To continue to increase processing speed, new methods for controlling power constraints are required.
A team of researchers from the University of Arizona and Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute have increased the toughness of ceramic composites by using graphene reinforcements that enable new fracture resistance mechanisms in the ceramic. The research, lead by Assistant Professor Erica L. Corral from the Materials Science and Engineering Department at the University of Arizona in Tucson, and Professor Nikhil Koratkar from the Department of Mechanical, Aerospace and Nuclear Engineering at Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute in Troy, New York, was recently published in ACS Nano, the monthly journal of the American Chemical Society.
For the first time, researchers from CNRS France and ETH Zurich have succeeded in producing high-performance high-electron-mobility transistors (HEMTs) made of gallium nitride (GaN) on a silicon(110) wafer. This makes these transistors compatible with current complementary metal oxide semi-conductor (CMOS) chips based on silicon of the same crystal orientation ("RF Performance of AlGaN/GaN High-Electron-Mobility Transistors Grown on Silicon (110)").
Extremely thin, more stable than steel and widely applicable: the material graphene is full of interesting properties. As such, it is currently the shining star among the electric conductors. Photodetectors made with graphene can process and conduct both light signals and electric signals extremely fast.
JEOL offers a new point-and-shoot navigation system that makes finding precise locations on a sample both fast and easy for SEM and EPMA users. The Stage Navigation System combines Stage Navigation Software with an externally-mounted 3 Megapixel CMOS color digital Stage Navigation Camera that functions as a low magnification optical microscope. The external camera eliminates the need for a dedicated port on the electron column. The user simply records an image of the sample, sends the image to the SEM, places the sample on the sample stage, then clicks on the recorded image to specify the area of interest. The software automatically positions the stage with pixel-precision to the exact area of the sample to be examined.
With its promise of superfast computers and ultrapowerful optical microscopes among the many possibilities, plasmonics has become one of the hottest fields in high-technology. However, to date plasmonic properties have been limited to nanostructures that feature interfaces between noble metals and dielectrics. Now, researchers with the U.S. Department of Energy (DOE)'s Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory (Berkeley Lab) have shown that plasmonic properties can also be achieved in the semiconductor nanocrystals known as quantum dots. This discovery should make the field of plasmonics even hotter.
Using leftover high-speed electrons from SLAC's Linac Coherent Light Source, researchers have successfully generated intense pulses of light in a largely untapped part of the electromagnetic spectrum -- the so-called terahertz gap.
Who wants to decant liquids in the kitchen without spilling knows to value a funnel. Funnels are not only useful tools in the kitchen. Light can also be efficiently concentrated with funnels. In this case, the funnels have to be about 10.000-times smaller. An international team of scientists from the Korea Advanced Institute of Science and Technology (KAIST) in Daejeon (South Korea), the Max Planck Institute of Quantum Optics (MPQ) in Garching (Germany), and the Georgia State University (GSU) in Atlanta (USA) has now managed to concentrate the energy of infrared light pulses with a nano funnel and use the concentrated energy to generate extreme ultraviolet light flashes.
The manufacture of nanoscale devices - the transistors in computer chips, the optics in communications chips, the mechanical systems in biosensors and in microfluidic and micromirror chips - still depends overwhelmingly on a technique known as photolithography. But ultimately, the size of the devices that photolithography can produce is limited by the very wavelength of light. As nanodevices get smaller, they'll demand new fabrication methods.
Physicists from Umeå University and Finland have found an efficient way to synthesize graphene nanoribbons directly inside of single-walled carbon nanotubes. The result was recently published in the scientific journal Nano Letters.
A new type of active metamaterial that incorporates semiconductor devices into conventional metamaterial structures is demonstrating an ability to have power gain while retaining its negative refraction property, a first in the world of metamaterials research.
The University of Manchester scientists who created graphene in 2004 have reported in detail about the electronic properties of the material in the Nature Physics journal.
A team of researchers at MIT has found a way to manipulate both the thermal conductivity and the electrical conductivity of materials simply by changing the external conditions, such as the surrounding temperature. And the technique they found can change electrical conductivity by factors of well over 100, and heat conductivity by more than threefold.
University of Houston researchers have developed a method for creating single-crystal arrays of the material graphene, an advance that opens the possibility of a replacement for silicon in high-performance computers and electronics. The work by UH researchers and their collaborators is featured on the cover of the June issue of Nature Materials ("Control and characterization of individual grains and grain boundaries in graphene grown by chemical vapour deposition").
Making waves as the material that will revolutionize electronics, graphene -- composed of a single layer of Carbon atoms -- has nonetheless been challenging to produce in a way that will be practical for innovative electronics applications. Researchers at UC Santa Barbara have discovered a method to synthesize high quality graphene in a controlled manner that may pave the way for next-generation electronics application.
Semiconductor thin films with special electronic, magnetic or optical functions are widely demanded for technical applications in increasingly smaller and efficient devices - they are indispensable in high-efficiency solar cells, bright light-emitting diodes and magneto-electronic devices. Especially interesting are nanostructured materials where several crucial functions such as electrical conductivity and optical properties can be precisely controlled.
Among the applications that have been envisioned are electronic pads that could be folded away like paper, coatings that could monitor surfaces for cracks and other structural failures, medical bandages that could treat infections and food packaging that could detect spoilage.
A single polymer that can be used in both new age plastic electronics as well as plastic solar cells could spell greater cost-savings and open up new design options for electronic and solar cell companies. A*STAR's IMRE has developed a new polymer that not only produces a high charge mobility of 0.2 cm2/V.s, which is the same value achieved by commercially available semiconducting materials but also has a high solar power conversion efficiency of 6.3%. This makes IMRE's polymer one of the few that has both these properties. In addition to this, polymers of the same class as IMRE's, which are those that use thiophene and benzothiadiazole as the building blocks, could only achieve 2.2% power conversion.
A new ultra-wideband antenna printed on paper or plastic can harvest ambient energy, enabling wireless sensors to tap into electromagnetic currents in the air around them. The device captures energy from a wide spectrum of frequencies, converts it to direct current, and stores it in capacitors or batteries.
The advancements of our electronic age rests on our ability to control how electric charge moves, from point A to point B, through circuitry. Doing so requires particular precision, for applications ranging from computers, image sensors and solar cells, and that task falls to semiconductors.
KLA-Tencor Corporation™ announced a critical enabling tool for chip manufacturing at the 20nm device nodes and below: the eDR™-7000 electron-beam (e-beam) wafer defect review system. Featuring technology breakthroughs that produce industry-leading sensitivity and throughput, the eDR-7000 addresses defect imaging and classification challenges at today's leading edge--where yield-killing defects can be as small as 10nm, or located at the bottom of a deep trench or hole.
Stress can cause a material to change shape, and the degree of deformation is known as strain. Far from being a nuisance, strain is actually a critical parameter in the growth and morphological evolution of nanostructures, and its control is essential for producing the desired optical and electronic properties in both one- and two-dimensional materials.
Staring at distant, faint objects to study the origins of the universe requires several layers of engineering skill and design trickery. The people at NASA are no strangers to this, having invented all sorts of new materials to improve telescopes and other observational tools. A new design may be one of their best examples yet: A blacker-than-black nanomaterial that absorbs pretty much all of the light that hits it.
With the aim of continuing to promote industrial innovation based on state-of-the-art technologies, CSEM has opened a new innovation center in Muttenz, with the support of the Canton of Basel-Landschaft. The polytronics development center is involved in the mass production of organic electronics.
Researchers at the University of Pittsburgh have invented a new type of electronic switch that performs electronic logic functions within a single molecule. The incorporation of such single-molecule elements could enable smaller, faster, and more energy-efficient electronics.
Imec has developed a new method for the preferential deposition of silicon-germanium (SiGe) through chemical vapor deposition (CVD). They have further engineered this method into an innovative technique for trench narrowing and via filling through deposition only, i.e. without the need of litho/etch and subsequent chemical mechanical polishing (CMP). This technique offers a path to decreasing the number of process operations and thus reducing IC manufacturing costs.
The steady improvement in speed and power of modern electronics may soon hit the brakes unless new ways are found to pack more structures into microscopic spaces. Unfortunately, engineers are already approaching the limit of what light--the choice tool for "tweezing" tiny features--can achieve. But there may be a way of reaching beyond this so-called "diffraction limit" by precisely steering, in real time, a curve-shaped beam of weird "virtual particles" known as surface plasmons.
3M and IBM announced that the two companies plan to jointly develop the first adhesives that can be used to package semiconductors into densely stacked silicon "towers." The companies are aiming to create a new class of materials, which will make it possible to build, for the first time, commercial microprocessors composed of layers of up to 100 separate chips.
Imec engineers have, for the first time, demonstrated the fabrication of extremely small sealed cavities (less than one picoliter in volume), fabricated directly on 200mm silicon wafers. The crucial process step is the production of freestanding thin membranes of nanoporous anodic alumina (PAA). Used for wafer-level packaging of MEMS, the thin-film vacuum technology results in strong and air-tight packages. The process is simple, low-temperature, non-organic, and RF-compatible. The packages have a negligible impact on RF transmission, and tests show good results for package hermeticity.
The expression "beauty's only skin-deep" has often been applied to the chemistry of materials because so much action takes place at the surface. However, for many of the materials in today's high technologies, such as semiconductors and superconductors, once a device is fabricated it is the electronic structures below the surface, in the bulk of the material or in buried layers, that determine its effectiveness.
Sony Corporation announces today the launch of the next generation FeliCa IC chip with enhanced security adopting the Advanced Encryption Standard (AES) encryption. The new IC chip will support AES as well as the existing DES encryption system for mutual authentication and data communication. The sample chip will be available for shipment from this winter, and mass production will start in the spring of 2012.
Manned surveillance missions are critical to obtaining useful intelligence. But sending a soldier into sensitive areas can often be too dangerous. Scientists are developing robots that could do the job. Last spring, the Advanced Technologies Laboratory at Lockheed Martin unveiled a prototype that uses sensors to model its environment, detect potential threats, calculate lines of sight, and locate good hiding places.
Nikon Corporation announced that the NSR-S621D ArF immersion scanner began shipping to IC manufacturers in January to deliver ultra-high productivity and superior overlay accuracy for the most demanding immersion double patterning layers. The S621D is the latest evolution of the Streamlign Platform, which is already employed globally for NSR-S620D immersion scanners, and was also recently integrated in the leading-edge NSR-S320F dry ArF scanner.
A new method has been developed by a research team at the National Institute of Standards and Technology to influence the behavior of metal-based nanoparticles using mild electric current to enable scientists to study the hazardous effects of nanoparticles on cell cultures.
A wealth of information on recent advances in semiconductor research is now available for free, thanks to an agreement between the National Institute of Standards and Technology and the American Institute of Physics (AIP). The development should be welcome news to semiconductor chip manufacturers, universities and others in the computer industry who will find it less expensive to explore changes in critical measurements for semiconductor technology.
Director of New Jersey Micro-Electronic Testing (NJMET) Laboratory, Joseph Federico has led the Mission Imposter testing program that is used to validate the authenticity of electronic components.
New Jersey Institute of Technology research professors, Zafer Iqbal and Reginald C. Farrow have received a US patent 7,964,143 for their innovative method of producing arrays of nano-sized electrical probes.
It is not just in laptop computers, mobile telephones and LED screens that scarce metals are to be found but also in solar cells, batteries for mobile technologies and many other similar applications. The rising demand for these metals increases the risk of a bottleneck in supplies
Morph is a joint nanotechnology concept developed by Nokia Research Center and the University of Cambridge. Morph is a concept that demonstrates how future mobile devices might be stretchable and flexible, allowing the user to transform their mobile device into radically different shapes. It demonstrates the ultimate functionality that nanotechnology might be capable of delivering: flexible materials, transparent electronics and self-cleaning surfaces.
Teams from the National Institute of Standards and Technology and the University of Maryland (UM) have developed a nontrivial atom circuit, a loop shaped like a donut fabricated from ultracold gas nano-particles floating in a current similar to a circle of electrons in a superconducting wire.
Northern Graphite Corporation has announced that graphene has been successfully made on a test basis using large flake graphite from the Company's Bissett Creek project in Northern Ontario. Northern's standard 95%C, large flake graphite was evaluated as a source material for making graphene by an eminent professor in the field at the Chinese Academy of Sciences who is doing research making graphene sheets larger than 30cm2 in size using the graphene oxide methodology. The tests indicated that graphene made from Northern's jumbo flake is superior to Chinese powder and large flake graphite in terms of size, higher electrical conductivity, lower resistance and greater transparency.
Northern Graphite Corporation has announced that it has agreed to supply its +48 mesh and +32 mesh extra large flake graphite to Grafen Chemical Industries for graphene research and has also agreed to enter into a cooperation agreement to develop intellectual property rights.
Provider of stand alone metrology solutions, Nova Measuring Instruments has obtained multiple orders from customers for its Nova i500 integrated metrology system. The company received the orders after completing a qualification procedure during which the metrology solution showed nearly 30% better performance over previous models in precision and throughput.
Nova Measuring Instruments has introduced an optical critical dimension (Optical CD) metrology system called Nova T600, which controls the processes of sophisticated vertical architectures for less than or equal to 22 nm nodes.
Nova Measuring Instruments Ltd., provider of leading edge stand-alone metrology and the market leader of integrated metrology solutions to the semiconductor process control market, today announced that a leading logic manufacturer recently selected Nova for its most advanced standalone metrology tool and software modeling platform.
Photonic crystals -- also known as photonic band gap material -- are similar to semiconductors, only that the electrons are replaced by photons (i.e. light). By creating periodic structures out of materials with contrast in their dielectric constants, it becomes possible to guide the flow of light through the photonic crystals in a way similar to how electrons are directed through doped regions of semiconductors. The photonic band gap gives rise to distinct optical phenomena and enables one to control light with amazing facility and produce effects that are impossible with conventional optics.
Novellus Systems recently declared that its Germany-based subsidiary, Peter Wolters, has launched a novel gap computing technology that can be used for double-side polishing (DSP) of prime silicon wafers.
Lithium-ion batteries have been widely used in many electronic devices that are important to our daily life. However, after a steady improvement of some 10-15% during the last two decades, the energy density of lithium-ion batteries is now approaching its theoretical limit set by the energies of cathode and anode materials used in these batteries. Therefore, in recent years, the pursuit of the next generation of energy storage systems has been intense globally.
The exceptional electronic, mechanical and thermal properties of graphene, together with its high optical transparency, make it an ideal material for many applications. Unfortunately, the cost of producing sheets of high-quality graphene in the large quantities needed for commercial applications remains prohibitive.
Researchers at Umeå University and Aalto University have discovered an efficient method to fabricate graphene nanoribbons directly within single-walled carbon nanotubes.
Directed self-assembly of block copolymers is a candidate lithography for use in future nanoelectronics and patterned media copolymer with resolutions down to the sub-10nm domain.
Georgia Institute of Technology researchers have described their 'confinement controlled sublimation' method for fabricating superior quality large-area layers of epitaxial graphene on silicon carbide wafers in the Early Edition of Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences journal.
Novaled, a technology and materials provider specializing in high-efficiency, long-lifetime organic light-emitting diodes (OLEDs), today announced it has developed the world's most power-efficient fluorescent white OLED structures -- achieving 36 lumen per Watt (36lm/W). Using its proprietary organic materials and a new flat light outcoupling method of extraction, Novaled increased OLED device light emission by more than 80-percent, with good color rendering, and also improved the angular dependence of the light emitted.
Novellus Systems announced today that the company has developed new ceramic hard mask (CHM) materials for use in sub-22nm patterning applications. Deposited using Novellus' industry-leading VECTOR™ plasma-enhanced chemical vapor deposition (PECVD) platform, the new materials allow for the controlled incorporation of dopants into the company's family of silicon carbide and silicon nitride films.
Novellus Systems today announced the VECTOR CFD™ family of films for the company's VECTOR Express, VECTOR Extreme and VECTOR Excel plasma-enhanced chemical vapor deposition (PECVD) systems. The Conformal Film Deposition (CFD) suite of dielectric films consists of oxide, doped oxide and nitride films that are deposited at temperatures ranging from 50 degrees to 450 degrees Celsius.
A Materials Science and Technology team at the Naval Research Laboratory has recently displayed electrical injection, sensing and precession in silicon spin accumulation at temperatures up to 225°C.
The National Science Foundation (NSF) and Semiconductor Research have joined forces to finance $20 million for 12 nanoelectronics research grants, each grant period being four years.
Through forward-thinking technology NSG Precision Cells is proud to offer the finest custom designed flow cells on the market. With over 50 years of expertise and satisfied customers, NSG Precision Cells is not only the most competitive in price but the best in quality.
The National University of Singapore (NUS) and the Agency for Science, Technology and Research jointly launched two new research programmes today to nurture and train skilled professionals to power Green Electronics, a new growth area in the electronics sector. These programmes will lead to a PhD degree for successful candidates who may be supported through scholarships provided by A*STAR and NUS.
Qcept Technologies has declared that two semiconductor producers in Asia have procured and installed its ChemetriQ 5000 non-visual defect (NVD) inspection systems.
NVIDIA today announced plans with Gaussian, Inc., and The Portland Group (PGI) to develop a future GPU-accelerated release of Gaussian, the world's leading software application for quantum chemistry.
Designed for the toughest engineering environments, NXP Semiconductors N.V. today unveiled its new XR family of "eXtremely Rugged" LDMOS RF power transistors. The XR family is designed tough-as-nails to withstand the harsh fault conditions often found in applications such as industrial lasers, metal etching and concrete drilling. Based on NXP's industry-leading LDMOS technology, the XR family extends LDMOS into the few remaining domains that are serviced by VDMOS and bipolar transistors today. NXP will showcase its first XR RF power transistor, the BLF578XR, this week at the IEEE MTT-S International Microwave Symposium 2011 (IMS2011) in Baltimore, Maryland.
Ocean Optics, the industry leader in miniature photonics, has named Nathan J. Withers the winner of the SPIE 2012 Young Investigator Award sponsored by the company.
To grow its exclusive PixelTec™ patterned optical coating technology, Ocean Thin Films has expanded its Golden, Colorado facility. The pioneer in lithographic patterning of optical coatings, with more than 2 million precision patterned optics delivered, Ocean Thin Films continues to advance its patented process by adding a new clean room and specialty equipment.
Today, Flanders' ambitious brain research that may lead to better diagnosis and treatment of brain disease, new prosthesis technologies for patients with a disability, a new generation of more intelligent robots, etc. switches into higher gear. In the presence of Ingrid Lieten, Flemish Minister of Innovation, Public Procurement, the Media and Combatting Poverty, imec, VIB and K.U.Leuven officially inaugurated the Neuro-Electronics Research Flanders labs on the Imec campus in Leuven. The Human Brain Project was also launched on this occasion, one of the projects on the shortlist of the prestigious European Flagship Programme. Through NERF and the participation of Flanders' research institutes in the Human Brain Project, Flanders shows that it is putting progressive brain research high on its research agenda.
Researchers at National Nanotechnology Center in Thailand, NANOTEC, investigated the effect of conjugated length of two series of novel emitting material on organic light emitting diodes (OLED) using density functional theory (DFT) and time dependence density functional theory (TDDFT) using computer-aided design approach.
The Micro Device Division (MDD) of Omron Electronic Components will develop an array of MEMS products such as Thermal IR Sensing Array and Absolute Pressure Sensor in the coming year. The company manufactures advanced electronic components such as optical devices, switches, relays, MEMS flow sensors, connectors, and pressure sensors.
An international research group led by scientists from the University of Bristol, UK, and the Universities of Osaka and Hokkaido, Japan, has demonstrated a fundamental building block for quantum computing that could soon be employed in a range of quantum technologies ("Realization of a Knill-Laflamme-Milburn controlled-NOT photonic quantum circuit combining effective optical nonlinearities").
UCLA researchers have redefined the concept of a microscope by removing the lens to create a system that is small enough to fit in the palm of a hand but powerful enough to create three-dimensional tomographic images of miniscule samples.
New optogenetic research on mice from Karl Deisseroth's lab at Stanford has identified two important pathways related to anxiety control in the brain. The lab has pioneered a technique that genetically modifies specific cells to become more active when light is introduced. This way the researchers are able to pinpoint which cells are involved with a specific brain activity.
Graphene sheets eluded detection for many years until the relatively recent discovery of a decidedly low-tech approach for isolating them. By fixing flakes of graphite between two pieces of adhesive tape and then pulling the layers apart, researchers were able to split the graphite into thinner and thinner layers, eventually giving an isolated sheet of atomically thick graphene. Now, a team led by Xiaodong Chen and Christian Kloc from Nanyang Technological University in Singapore has found that this sticky exfoliation technique can help advance the burgeoning field of organic electronics.
Although most electronics are made in billion-dollar fabrication facilities, it may also soon be possible to print electronic devices using a continuous printing press--at much lower cost. This is one of the motivations for research into the use of organic semiconductors, like polymers, for electronics. Thin-film transistors and photovoltaic cells based on polymers have been studied for over a decade, and different polymers have been optimized for each kind of device.
A group of researchers funded by the Deutsche Forschungsgemeinschaft (DFG, German Research Foundation) is among the three research teams nominated for the Deutscher Zukunftspreis in 2011. Dresden-based researchers Professor Karl Leo, Dr. Jan Blochwitz-Nimoth and Dr. Martin Pfeiffer are among those hoping to win this year's Federal President's Award for Technology and Innovation along with €250,000 in prize money.
Dr. Oana Jurchescu, who serves as assistant professor of physics at Wake Forest University, and her team have developed an exceptionally huge molecule with high stability and superior electrical properties at lower cost, which paves the way for the advancement of plastic-based flexible electronics field.
OSRAM Opto Semiconductors has introduced IR OSLON SFH 4715S, a compact infrared LED with nanostack chip technology. The IR LED provides optical power of over a Watt.
A major expansion and improvement programme at Oxford Instruments Plasma Technology is delivering key benefits to customers. Investment in a number of key areas of the business has resulted in faster and more streamlined manufacturing, superior research facilities and more comprehensive customer support.
Lord Lieutenant of Somerset, Lady Elizabeth Gass visited North Somerset based company Oxford Instruments Plasma Technology this week to present its Queen's Award for Enterprise.
Poor material quality had, in the past, masked any interesting physics that may have been displayed by these materials, but recent improvements in oxide growth techniques have opened the door to a wide range of novel physical phenomena involving long-range correlations between electrons.
SavWatt USA, a provider of innovative LED lighting solutions, has declared that it has inked an exclusive global licensing deal for LED lights using the liquid repellent nano-coating technology of P2i.
P2i is an established pioneer in liquid repellent nano-coating technology. Aridion, the company’s nano-coating technology, protects over 8 million electronic devices from damage caused by water and corrosion.
There has been a lot of excitement over a recent paper by Japanese researchers who have discovered billions -- hundreds of billions -- of tonnes of rare earths under the Pacific Ocean. Those rare earths, you will recall, are essential to so much of modern technology, from those sweet little earbuds of your iPod and the magnets in a hard drive, through to planet-saving windmills and the crystals that make an MRI machine work.
Pall Corporation, a global leader in filtration, separation and purification, will showcase its expanding line of cost -effective filtration and purification technologies for semiconductor manufacturers at SEMICON West. These products, designed for chemical, gas, photolithography and chemical mechanical polishing (CMP) applications, are the latest additions to the company's extensive portfolio for improving the economics of integrated circuit and display manufacturing. Pall has been at the forefront of the semiconductor industry's drive towards finer line widths by continuously providing new and innovative filtration products, systems and services to help our customers achieve ever cleaner and purer fluids.
AIXTRON SE announced today a new order for a Close Coupled Showerhead® (CCS) MOCVD system from PARC, a Xerox company, in Palo Alto, CA, USA. The system will include the full set of advanced features such as the in-situ multichannel pyrometer ARGUS, high temperature growth, and gap adjustment for optimum (Al)GaN conditions in a wide pressure range.
University of Illinois materials scientists have developed a new reactive silver ink for printing high-performance electronics on ubiquitous, low-cost materials such as flexible plastic, paper or fabric substrates.
As manufacturers pack more and more circuitry into the tiny microchips on which electronic technologies depend, ultraviolet light's narrow wavelengths are essential for creating the densely patterned chips of the future.
Director of the Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory of the U.S. D.O.E and Berkeley’s Larry and Diane Bock Professor of Nanotechnology from the University of California, Paul Alivisatos has been honored with the Wolf Foundation Prize in the field of Chemistry for the year 2012.
The efforts undertaken in developing renewable energy sources to reduce our dependence on fossil fuels include major research and investment in advanced electricity storage technologies. Among the various existing technologies, lithium (Li) batteries are considered as the most competitive power source because of their high energy density, superior power capability, design flexibility and longer lifespan.
The ever-increasing demand for enhanced performance in electronic devices such as solar cells, sensors and batteries is matched by a need to find ways to make smaller electrical components. Several techniques have been proposed for creating tiny, nanoscale structures on silicon, but these types of 'nanopatterning' tend to involve low-throughput, high-cost approaches not suited to large-scale production. Sivashankar Krishnamoorthy and co-workers at the A*STAR Institute of Materials Research and Engineering have now found a simple and robust method for nanopatterning the entire surface of a silicon wafer.
Researchers at Penn's school of engineering and applied science, professor Nader Engheta and student, Ashkan Vakil demonstrate how to achieve transformation optics using graphene, which is a lattice of carbon and measures only one atom thick.
Pentagonal ring-shaped molecules attach firmly to a copper surface caused by significant charge transfer but have minimal difficulty in side-ways diffusion and show a small level of interaction between adjacent molecules.
New research paves way for the nanoscale self-assembly of organic building blocks, a promising new route towards the next generation of ultra-small electronic devices.
A painstaking study by Rice University has brought a wealth of new information about single-walled carbon nanotubes through analysis of their fluorescence.
Phaedon Avouris, who serves as Manager at the Nanometer Scale Science and Technology division of the T.J. Watson Research Center of IBM, will deliver a presentation titled ‘Graphene-based Electronics and Optoelectronics’ at the AVS 58th International Symposium & Exhibition in Nashville, Tennessee.
The 17-watt LED bulb is equal to a 75-watt incandescent but uses 80 percent less electricity and lasts 24 times longer than the average incandescent, according to Philips.
The irradiation of a metal surface with light or electrons can result in the formation of coherent electronic oscillations called surface plasmons, an effect ideal for applications such as optical communications on optoelectronic chips. Unfortunately, however, surface plasmons quickly lose their energy during transit, limiting their on-chip propagation distance.
Companiesandmarkets.com has released a new report titled "Thin Layer Deposition Equipment: A Global Strategic Business Report". The report explains the challenges, trends, growth drivers, market barriers, M&A activities and other influencing factors. It covers geographical markets including the US, the UK, Europe, Germany, France, Japan, the Middle-East and the Asia-Pacific.
In recent years, UC Santa Barbara scientists showed that they could reproduce a basic superconductor using Einstein's general theory of relativity. Now, using the same theory, they have demonstrated that the Josephson junction could be reproduced. The results are explained in a recent issue of the journal Physical Review Letters.
Transistors and information storage devices are getting smaller and smaller. But, to go as small as the nanoscale, scientists must understand how just a few atoms of metals behave when deposited on a surface.
A discovery by physicists at UC Santa Barbara may earn silicon carbide -- a semiconductor commonly used by the electronics industry -- a role at the center of a new generation of information technologies designed to exploit quantum physics for tasks such as ultrafast computing and nanoscale sensing.
When semiconductor nanorods are exposed to light, they blink in a seemingly random pattern. By clustering nanorods together, physicists at the University of Pennsylvania have shown that their combined "on" time is increased dramatically providing new insight into this mysterious blinking behavior.
The University of California, Riverside has received a $1.85 million grant to develop a new way of computing that is beyond the scope of conventional silicon electronics.
Physik Instrumente (PI), a company that manufactures high-accuracy motion-control devices and nanopositioning stages for semiconductor, bio-medical, nanotechnology and imaging applications, introduces a nanopositioning catalog.
Motion control specialist PI (Physik Instrumente) and piezo ceramics specialist PI Ceramic are planning to invest approximately $13 million for the third extension of their piezo ceramics factory and R&D center in Thuringia over the next three years. At the ground breaking ceremony Dr. Karl Spanner, CEO of Physik Instrumente, mentioned that even after adding 50 employees in 2010 at PI Ceramic, the company was getting close to its output capacity.
Murata Manufacturing Co. is using high-transparency organic piezoelectric film for its two new devices, a remote control that works by bending and twisting, and a touch-pressure pad that connects to PCs. Murata will ship samples of both devices next year.
Researchers at North Carolina State University have found one of the first roadblocks to utilizing graphene by proving that its conductivity decreases significantly when more than one layer is present.
Berkeley Design Automation, Inc., the nanometer circuit verification leader, today announced that IO Semiconductor Inc., a fabless semiconductor company developing high-performance front-end chips for multi-band, multi-mode cellular applications, has selected the company's AFS Platform for RF verification and characterization.
The ability to inscribe ever-smaller patterns in thin polymer films is key to the development of light-emitting diode-based displays and plastic electronics. Methods to achieve such patterning can be broadly divided into top-down methods like inkjet printing, which aims to increase the resolution at which large-scale patterning techniques can be performed, and bottom-up methods, which build up small patterns using intermolecular interactions.
Since graphene was first isolated as single atomic layers in 2004, researchers have increasingly focused on reducing its size in the lateral dimension. Sheets of graphene are useful in many situations for their lack of an energy barrier, or bandgap, to prevent electrons from moving freely. For electronic devices such as transistors, however, a bandgap and the corresponding semiconducting behavior are essential, and narrow ribbons of graphene are known to display this property.
Yury Gogotsi of Drexel University with his co-workers felt the necessity of studying a potential supercapacitor material at the atomic level to analyze certain experimental results. A research team under the supervision of Oak Ridge National Laboratory's (ORNL) computational physicist Vincent Meunier and computational chemists Jingsong Huang and Bobby Sumpter enabled the analysis at the atomic level.
Wataru Mizubayashi, Shinji Migita, Hiroyuki Ota, and Meishoku Masahara of the Si Nano-Devices Group, the Nanoelectronics Research Institute of the National Institute of Advanced Industrial Science and Technology (AIST), have developed a new metal source--drain junction technology that can be applied to the transistors of 16-nm generation and beyond.
Could Pittsburgh be the nation's next "Strontium Valley"? The University of Pittsburgh is the lead institution on a $1.8 million grant from the National Science Foundation and the Nanoelectronics Research Initiative (NRI) of the Semiconductor Research Corporation (SRC) to bring a new kind of computer out of the lab and into the real world. The goal of the group, led by Jeremy Levy, a professor of physics and astronomy in Pitt's School of Arts and Sciences, is no less than transforming the way computing is done.
PowerFilm, a company that designs and produces flexible electronics and thin flexible solar panels, provided a live demo of its roll to roll technology during this week for government employees.
Osram Opto Semiconductors has developed an infrared light-emitting diode (IRED) for use in very thin optical touchscreens. Called the SFH 4053, the small new lamps are housed in a frame surrounding a display. The lamps create a veritable web of light that overlays the display. If a user touches the screen, the motion interferes with the light grid at that particular location, enabling the system to recognize that it is being touched. The new system takes up only 0.45 millimeters of the frame's height and can be easily incorporated into a tablet PC. Despite its small size, the diode is powerful enough to light up a laptop display, for example.
PragmatIC Printing, a manufacturer of imprinted logic circuits, and Holst Centre, an open-innovation starter by imec, Belgium and TNO, Netherlands, have declared their partnership for the utilization, research, and development of flexible electronics.
The debate over the mechanism that causes superconductivity in a class of materials called the pnictides has been settled by a research team from Japan and China ("Orbital-Independent Superconducting Gaps in Iron-Pnictides"). Superconductivity was discovered in the pnictides only recently, and they belong to the class of so-called 'high-temperature superconductors'. Despite their name, the temperature at which they function as superconductors is still well below room temperature. Realizing superconductivity at room temperature remains a key challenge in physics; it would revolutionize electronics since electrical devices could operate without losing energy.
While flexible OLED displays have begun appearing in some cell phones, the technology is still too expensive to be widely used in consumer electronics. In one of the latest attempts to enable low-cost mass-production of OLED displays, researchers have fabricated the first complete thin-film transistor circuits printed with a carbon nanotube (CNT) solution for use with display electronics. They found that these circuits are not only easy to fabricate, but they also work as excellent current switches when connected to OLEDs.
IDTechEx, the organiser of the World's largest global series of Printed Electronics events will hold its European show in Berlin, Germany on April 3-4. The focus, as at all IDTechEx events, is to address the needs and experiences of adopters of the technology.
Semiconductor nanowires are one of the most promising building blocks for future nanoelectronic devices such as transistors, sensors and solar cells. Nanowire-based tunnel field-effect transistors (TFETs), for example, are widely seen as potential successors of standard MOSFETs, due to the absence of a 60mV/dec sub-threshold swing limitation and reduced short-channel effects.
Xilinx has shipped the first of its 7 series FPGA Kintex-7 K325T Field Programmable Gate Array (FPGA), a programmable logic tool created with 28 nm technology.
Researchers are testing different ways of improving rechargeable batteries for electric vehicles and nanotechnology plays an important role in the development. The aim is to offer batteries that have fast charge and discharge rates as well as high stored energy per mass. This can make electric vehicles a competitive alternative to petrol-powered vehicles.
Long-range electron transfer in proteins is an important biological process, driving functions such as cellular respiration. If the charge transport properties of these biological materials can be fully understood and controlled, opportunities open up for cheap, flexible, biocompatible electronics.
A company developing revolutionary solutions for in situ electron microscope, Protochips, has declared the expansion of its distribution network both internationally and domestically for its product lines that include Poseidon and Aduro.
Human devices, from light bulbs to iPods, send information using electrons. Human bodies and all other living things, on the other hand, send signals and perform work using ions or protons.
Researchers at the National Institute of Standards and Technology have demonstrated a prototype device capable of absolute measurements of optical power delivered through an optical fiber.
A new study ("Comparing nanoparticle risk perceptions to other known EHS risks") finds that the general public thinks getting a suntan poses a greater public health risk than nanotechnology or other nanoparticle applications. The study, from North Carolina State University, compared survey respondents' perceived risk of nanoparticles with 23 other public-health risks.
A Purdue University research team has succeeded in developing ultra-pure material capable of capturing novel states of matter and finding applications in superior-speed quantum computing.
In a recent publication in Physical Review Letters ("Spin-to-Charge Conversion of Mesoscopic Spin Currents"), physicists at the University of Arizona propose a way to translate the elusive magnetic spin of electrons into easily measurable electric signals. The finding is a key step in the development of computing based on spintronics, which doesn't rely on electron charge to digitize information. Unlike conventional computing devices, which require electric charges to flow along a circuit, spintronics harnesses the magnetic properties of electrons rather than their electric charge to process and store information.
Magma Design Automation, a company manufacturing chip designs, declared that TSMC has added the QCP extractor to its EDA qualification report for 28-nm ICs.
Qualtre, a company that supplies motion sensors, declared that they have successfully showcased the first-ever tri-axial solid-state silicon bulk-acoustic wave (BAW) gyroscope, to raise funds of the order of $10M in capital.
Such a computer, operating on the highly complex principles of quantum mechanics, would be capable of performing specific calculations with capabilities far beyond even the most advanced modern supercomputers. It could be used for breaking computer security codes as well as for incredibly detailed, data-heavy simulations of quantum systems.
Conductors of electrical current, including copper, heat up and limit the ability to increase circuit densities. Unusual materials that exhibit the so-called 'quantum spin Hall effect', in which current can flow without dissipating heat, could provide an alternative to conventional metals. However, internal imperfections, such as magnetic impurities, were assumed to disrupt current flow.
This new quantum dot production process using a new microreactor and software controlled continuous flow process has been successfully developed and operated for delivery of mass produced quantum dots by Quantum Materials Corporation and the Access2Flow Consortium of The Netherlands. It replaces batch synthesis and has potential for high improvement in both yield and conversion. Tetrapod Quantum Dots are used in a variety of emerging applications including solid state lighting, QLED displays, nanobio applications and are proven to have superior performance characteristics surpassing spherical nanoparticles. This process will also be used for QMC's subsidiary, Solterra Renewable Technologies' solar cells and solar panels..
UT Dallas researchers are making strides in understanding the workings of quantum dots – nanosized particles that have immense potential in several industry applications.
Research without supercomputers is unimaginable nowadays. However, they increasingly represent an energy problem. Every single computer operation, especially deleting data, converts electrical energy into heat. For this reason, the latest research results by a team of physicists from Switzerland, England and Singapore deserve careful attention: under certain conditions, cold is generated instead of heat when deleting data.
A Brookhaven National Laboratory team led by Ivan Bozovic at the U.S. Department of Energy (DOE) has used an atom-by-atom layering method to develop an ultrathin field effect device like a transistor that will help analyze conditions that convert insulating materials into superconductors at high temperatures.
The atomic structures of nanoscale contacts are not available in most experiments on quantum transport. Scanning tunneling microscopy (STM) operates at a tip-sample distance of a few angstroms and relies on probing a conductive surface in the evanescent tail of electronic states. By decreasing the tip-sample distance the sensitivity to chemical interactions can be enhanced. This has already been demonstrated in non-contact atomic force microscopy (AFM), where the oscillating tip comes for short periods of time within the range of chemical interactions.
Controlling power consumption in mobile devices and large scale data centers is a pressing concern for the computer chip industry. Researchers from Penn State and epitaxial wafer maker IQE have created a high performance transistor that could help solve one of the vexing problems of today's MOSFET technology – reducing the power demand whether the transistors are idle or switching.
Personal radios, wireless telephones, batteries, gadgets, adapters, wires and plugs sit alongside computer equipment and stereo components on their shelves. Convenient online ordering also available.
A breakthrough in the study of chemical reactions during etching and coating of materials was achieved by a research group headed by Kiel physicist, Professor Olaf Magnussen. The team from the Christian-Albrechts-Universität zu Kiel (CAU), Germany, in collaboration with staff from the European Synchrotron Radiation Facility (ESRF) in Grenoble, France, have uncovered for the first time just what happens in manufacturing processes, used for the formation of metal contacts thinner than a human hair in modern consumer electronics, such as flat-screen television.
Researchers at the U.S. Department of Energy's Brookhaven National Laboratory have observed a new way that magnetic and electric properties -- which have a long history of ignoring and counteracting each other -- can coexist in a special class of metals. These materials, known as multiferroics, could serve as the basis for the next generation of faster and energy-efficient logic, memory, and sensing technology.
Rasco, an auxiliary company of Cohu that specializes in MEMS testing and test handling devices, declared the launch of two next-generation MEMS products, the Acoustic Test Unit (ATU) and the Pressure Test Unit (PTU).
To the human eye, carbon nanotubes usually appear as a black powder. They can hardly be forced to emit light, as they are excellent electrical conductors and capture the energy from other luminescent chemical species placed nearby. The researchers from the Institute of Physical Chemistry of the Polish Academy of Sciences in Warsaw contributed recently to the development of a relatively simple method allowing the nanotubes exposed to UV to emit red light.
University of Leicester researchers are spearheading the development of a novel type of sustainable zinc-based rechargeable battery for electric vehicles (EV) and hybrid EVs.
We're nearly a week removed from the Samsung Galaxy Tab NYC reader meet-up (and the NYC Galaxy Tab launch event is happening right now), so it's as good a time as any to check out a few of Sammy's pics from last week's event.
ReneSola, a company that manufactures solar products for the global market, declared that it has started shipping its Virtus modules and wafers in June.
Battery technology hasn't kept pace with advancements in portable electronics, but the race is on to fix this. One revolutionary concept being pursued by a team of researchers in New Zealand involves creating "wearable energy harvesters" capable of converting movement from humans or found in nature into battery power.
Research and Markets has declared the inclusion of Elsevier Science and Technology's latest report titled, "Supercritical Fluids and Organometallic Compounds-From Recovery of Trace Metals to Synthesis of Nanostructured Materials" in their reports archive.
Reportlinker has added a new market research report on Permanent Wafer Bonding to its catalogue. The Yole 2011 report on Technologies and Market Trends for Permanent Bonding would be a major enabler for Advanced Semiconductor Manufacturing.
Online research website Reportlinker has released a report on the global carbon nanotubes (CNT) market for the period of 2011-2016. The study also covers SWNCTs and MWNCTs, market trends and future outlooks, the latest technologies and applications of the market. Carbon nanotubes are ideal for a wide range of applications due to their high thermal, physical and electrical properties.
Research and Markets has added "Integrated Nanophotonic Devices. Micro and Nano Technologies" to their offering. The study of the behavior of light with structures at the nanometer scale is called Nanophotonics.
Research and Markets has added a detailed and professional research report, 2011 Deep Research Report on the Global and Chinese LED Wafer and Chip Industry, to its catalogue.
Research and Markets has added a report, Global and China Wafer Foundry Industry Report, 2010-2011, to its offering. The wafer foundry industries started progressing in 2010 and its output value has increased by 34%.
Research and Markets now offers a new research report of Elsevier Science and Technology covering the materials, production and applications of ceramic thick film micro electromechanical systems.
A consortium of hardware security experts from four major universities around the country has received a $1.2 million federal grant to conduct wide-ranging research aimed at enhancing the integrity of integrated circuits, the computer chips that are used in virtually all electronic devices today, from cell phones and medical instruments to laptop computers and flat-screen TVs.
A University at Buffalo-led research team has developed a mathematical framework that could one day form the basis of technologies that turn road vibrations, airport runway noise and other "junk" energy into useful power. The concept all begins with a granular system comprising a chain of equal-sized particles -- spheres, for instance -- that touch one another.
Australian materials company, Quickstep Holdings is collaborating in a European program to study the use of nanotechnology in enhancing the properties of composites deployed in the transportation sector. The project is being undertaken by the company's German subsidiary, Quickstep.
The discovery of a fundamental, previously unknown property of microbial nanowires in the bacterium Geobacter sulfurreducens that allows electron transport across long distances could revolutionize nanotechnology and bioelectronics, says a team of physicists and microbiologists at the University of Massachusetts Amherst.
Scientists from the Catalan Institute of Nanotechnology, ICREA, together with Universitat Autonoma de Barcelona, Pietro Gambardella, Kevin Garello, and Mihai Miron have collaborated with Gilles Gaudin and his colleagues at SPINTEC in Grenoble, France, have identified a new technique to write magnetic information on miniature magnetic bits, one after the other, rapidly with minimum consumption of energy.
Two doctoral students, Kabeer Jasuja and Nihar Mohanty of chemical engineering department, Kansas State University, have received international acknowledgment for their research work with graphene.
A researcher from the Tokyo Metropolitan University, Kazuhiro Yanagi with his colleagues from Japan has demonstrated that carbon nanotubes are electrochromic.
Chlorine is an abundant and readily available halogen gas commonly associated with the sanitation of swimming pools and drinking water. Could a one-atom thick sheet of this element revolutionize the next generation of flat-panel displays and lighting technology? In the case of Organic Light-Emitting Diode (OLED) devices, it most certainly can.
Semiconductor Research Corporation (SRC), the world's leading university-research consortium for semiconductors and related technologies, and researchers from the UCLA Henry Samueli School of Engineering and Applied Science have developed a new method of design-dependent process monitoring for semiconductor wafer manufacturing. The advance promises to provide semiconductor chip manufacturing cost and productivity savings up to 15 percent, potentially increase profit per chip by as much as 12 percent and ultimately lead to less expensive and higher performing electronics devices.
Researchers here have created the first electronic circuit to merge traditional inorganic semiconductors with organic "spintronics" -- devices that utilize the spin of electrons to read, write and manipulate data.
By pairing an award-winning remote-detection version of NMR/MRI technology with a unique version of chromatography specifically designed for microfluidic chips, researchers with the U.S. Department of Energy (DOE)'s Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory (Berkeley Lab) have opened the door to a portable system for highly sensitive multi-dimensional chemical analysis that would be impractical if not impossible with conventional technologies.
Researchers are making progress in creating digital transistors using a material called graphene, potentially sidestepping an obstacle thought to dramatically limit the material's use in computers and consumer electronics.
The Scientists at the National Physical Laboratory (NPL) along with Linkoping University, Sweden, have successfully identified regions of different thicknesses in graphene with the help of Electrostatic Force Microscopy (EFM).
Researchers at the A*STAR Institute of High Performance Computing, Nanyang Technological University, and the A*STAR Bioprocessing Technology Institute are aiming to trap bubbles inside a microfluidic chip to enable release of concentrated energy pulses that can reach pressures as high as 100 mPa and temperatures upto 5000K.
New engineering research at the University of Pennsylvania demonstrates that polaritons have increased coupling strength when confined to nanoscale semiconductors. This represents a promising advance in the field of photonics: smaller and faster circuits that use light rather than electricity.
Researchers at Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute developed a new method for creating a layer of gold nanoparticles that measures only billionths of a meter thick. These self-assembling gold coatings with features measuring less than 10 nanometers could hold important implications for nanoelectronics manufacturing.
The creation of a new quasiparticle called the "hybrid plasmon polariton" may throw open the doors to integrated photonic circuits and optical computing for the 21st century. Researchers with the U.S. Department of Energy (DOE)'s Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory (Berkeley Lab) have demonstrated the first true nanoscale waveguides for next generation on-chip optical communication systems.
An international team of plasmonics researchers has developed a novel type of nanoantenna that could one day lead to advances in security applications for the detection of drugs and explosives.
Smarter, more functional clothing incorporating electronics may be possible in the near future, according to a study co-authored by Cornell fiber scientist Juan Hinestroza.
Since the invention of liquid crystal displays in the mid-1960s, display electronics have undergone rapid transformation. Recently developed organic light-emitting diodes have shown several advantages over LCDs, including their light weight, flexibility, wide viewing angles, improved brightness, high power efficiency and quick response.
In microfluidic devices, small separated droplets flow in a stream of carrier liquid. Occasionally, selected droplets have to be merged to carry out a chemical reaction. This can be greatly facilitated with the use of electric field, through a process of electrocoalescence that has been used industrially in large scale applications. Researchers from the Institute of Physical Chemistry of the Polish Academy of Sciences have found the laws governing the process and how to maximise the efficiency of merging.
CNST researchers have developed an innovative sensor that integrates a highly sensitive nanophotonic interferometer with a nanomechanical cantilever probe on a single silicon chip.
The researchers at the University of Pennsylvania have worked to decrease the emission lifetime of semiconductors for developing ultra-fast photonic devices by designing unique nanowires.
Researchers from Empa and their Dutch co-workers have together developed a light-weight nano drive car, which is noiseless, emission-free and comprises a single molecule. It moves around on four wheels, which are powered by electricity, and can travel along a straight line on a copper surface.
Scientists at the National University of Singapore have developed a polarizer, made from graphene to increase the bandwidth of existing fiber-optic communication systems. The research team worked under the supervision of Kian Ping Loh, a Professor at the National University of Singapore.
Research teams at Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute (RPI) have collaborated with the University of Wollongong, Australia to develop a nanomaterial to collect wasted heat from industrial processes and electrical devices and convert it into electricity.
Northwestern University researchers have created a novel nanomaterial that can reconfigure itself based on changing computational requirements. The electronic material, which can guide electrical currents, paves the way to the development of a reconfigurable computer that can rearrange its internal wiring to fulfill various computational requirements.
KIT researchers have developed a new concept for rechargeable batteries. Based on a fluoride shuttle -- the transfer of fluoride anions between the electrodes -- it promises to enhance the storage capacity reached by lithium-ion batteries by several factors. Operational safety is also increased, as it can be done without lithium. The fluoride-ion battery is presented for the first time in the Journal of Materials Chemistry by Dr. Maximilian Fichtner and Dr. Munnangi Anji Reddy ("Batteries based on fluoride shuttle").
A research team at Stanford University has designed a novel electrode made of copper crystalline nanoparticles, paving the way to develop a durable, highly efficient, high-power rechargeable battery that is capable of storing huge amount of surplus power produced during sunny and windy days.
James Tour, a lab chemist at the Rice University, has published two research papers that describe novel production technologies of superior-quality bilayer graphene in a large scale onto various insulating substrates directly.
A team of scientists, has engineered one of the world's smallest electronic circuits. It is formed by two wires separated by only about 150 atoms or 15 nanometers.
Northern Illinois University researchers have developed an easy technique for manufacturing high volumes of graphene, a well-known carbon nanostructure.
Researchers at the Institute of Physical Chemistry of the Polish Academy of Sciences have formulated an efficient approach to create chemical-coated carbon nanotubes that can emit red light when subjected to ultraviolet light. Carbon nanotubes have large surface area so as to support the attachment of several molecules, including the ones that can emit light.
The importance of graphite was realized in the late nineteenth century. However, a synthetic method developed by Hummer laid the foundation for the development of intercalated layered graphite. The term 'graphene' which originated from graphite gained immense importance after the Nobel Prize in Physics was awarded to two scientists in 2010 for their work with the novel material.
Just in time for the 100th anniversary to commemorate the discovery of superconductivity by the Dutch physicist Heike Kamerlingh Onnes on April 8, 1911, scientists from the Helmholtz-Zentrum Dresden-Rossendorf and the TU Dresden published their research results in the journal Physical Review B ("Structure-induced coexistence of ferromagnetic and superconducting states of single-phase Bi3Ni seen via magnetization and resistance measurements").
After the Nobel Prize in Physics was awarded to two scientists in 2010 who had studied the material graphene, this substance has received a lot of attention. Together with colleagues from Korea, Dr. Frederik Wolff-Fabris from the Helmholtz-Zentrum Dresden-Rossendorf has now developed and analyzed a material which possesses physical properties similar to graphene.
Researchers from the London Centre for Nanotechnology have discovered electronic stripes, called 'charge density waves', on the surface of the graphene sheets that make up a graphitic superconductor.
Researchers from North Carolina State University have developed a new method for creating elastic conductors made of carbon nanotubes, which will contribute to large-scale production of the material for use in a new generation of elastic electronic devices.
Professor Jie Tang, Group Leader of the 1D Nanomaterials Research Group of the Materials Processing Unit, National Institute for Materials Science, and Mr. Qian Cheng, a doctoral student and NIMS Junior Researcher in the same Group, have succeeded in dramatically increasing the energy density of supercapacitors, which are used to store electrical energy. This was realized by developing a new electrode in which graphene nanosheets are stacked in a layered structure with carbon nanotubes sandwiched between the graphene layers. This research achievement is published in the latest issue of Physical Chemistry Chemical Physics.
Researchers from the NIST Center for Nanoscale Science and Technology have led the development of a new technique for efficiently out-coupling photons from epitaxially-grown quantum dots directly into a standard single-mode optical fiber.
Graphene, a one-atom–thick layer of carbon lattice with a honeycomb structure, is seen as an attractive semiconductor material for use in future electronics and optoelectronics because of its speed, transparency, flexibility and strength. Recent studies have demonstrated its potential in solar cells, touch panels, ultra-fast lasers and optical modulators.
Researchers at the University of Houston have formulated a technique to develop single-crystal arrays of graphene that opens avenues for the replacement of silicon used in high-performance electronics and computers. The research details are a cover page feature in the Nature Materials journal published in June.
Because of its physical limitations, silicon use in tiny integrated logic circuits will have to one day soon be replaced by something that can work in a smaller state. That is, if we want to see miniaturization of computer components to continue. For several years, graphene has been seen as the most likely heir to the throne because it's only one atom thick, which seems to be the physical limit for non-quamtum based computers.
Organic light-emitting diodes (OLEDs) are efficient, inexpensive and flexible lighting elements that are found in a range of personal electronics devices. However, the emission of light in an OLED occurs in the middle of a stack of organic semiconducting layers that are capped by metal electrodes, making it hard to observe the emission process directly. Satria Bisri and colleagues from Tohoku University and other institutions in Japan and have now gained insight into the process of light emission in organic semiconductors by constructing a device specifically for that purpose.
Scientists of the Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute have devised a novel technique to produce energy using flowing water. This technique aspires to enhance the development of self-powered microsensors that are used for economic and precise oil exploration.
The strength, flexibility, transparency and high electrical conductivity of single-layer graphene make it a potentially unique and valuable material for the next generation of electronic devices. Made of carbon atoms arranged in a honeycomb pattern -- think of a chicken-wire fence -- it is 97 percent transparent and 1,000 times stronger than steel.
Indiana-based University of Notre Dame scientists have discovered graphene's ability to effectively modulate the terahertz band, a part of the electromagnetic spectrum.
Semiconductor Research Corporation (SRC), the world's leading university-research consortium for semiconductors and related technologies, and researchers from SEMATECH and The University of Texas at Dallas are the first to demonstrate that specific potentially hazardous organic contaminants present in a type of single-walled carbon nanotubes (SWNTs) can be easily removed.
Researchers with the U.S. Department of Energy (DOE)'s Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory (Berkeley Lab) have shed light on the role of temperature in controlling a fabrication technique for drawing chemical patterns as small as 20 nanometers. This technique could provide an inexpensive, fast route to growing and patterning a wide variety of materials on surfaces to build electrical circuits and chemical sensors, or study how pharmaceuticals bind to proteins and viruses.
Novel light-source technology just got a big boost in Europe thanks to the OLED100.eu project which tackled the challenge to develop the techniques needed to form the basis for efficient OLED applications for the European general lighting industry. Backed with EUR 12.5 million under the 'Information and communication technologies' Theme of the EU's Seventh Framework Programme, the OLED100.eu project partners have successfully increased the energy efficiency and lifetime of organic LEDs for large-area lighting applications.
If graphene is to live up to its promise as a revolutionary component of future electronics, the interactions between graphene and the surrounding materials in a device must be understood and controlled. Researchers at the NIST Center for Nanoscale Science and Technology have successfully measured and modeled how electrons in graphene respond to impurities in an underlying substrate, explaining key differences in the response of graphene that is one versus two layers thick.
Chemists at the University at Buffalo made use of synchrotron light to monitor the electron clouds on graphene's surface. They revealed with the help of a series of images how ripples and folds in graphene can hamper its conductivity.
Researchers at the National Institute of Standards and Technology and the Georgia Institute of Technology have published a paper in the Physical Review B journal describing the probable occurrence of a family of seven defect structures in graphene sheets. They have also produced images of the low-energy defects that appear in the family.
Cables made of carbon nanotubes are inching toward electrical conductivities seen in metal wires, and that may light up interest among a range of industries, according to Rice University researchers.
Graphene is the electronic miracle material of the 21st century. Until now, only sheets that were very small or of a somewhat inferior quality could be produced that were too small or not well suited for high-tech applications. Now, however, Professor Michael Horn-von Hoegen at the Center for Nanointegration (CeNIDE) at the University Duisburg-Essen (UDE) has developed a process capable of producing a high-quality product with a single step. The results of his research have been published in the journal Applied Physics Letters ("Growth temperature dependent graphene alignment on Ir(111) ").
Like the human body, a digital device often suffers a few bruises and scratches within a lifetime. As in medicine, these injuries can be easily detected and repaired (or healed). At other times, however, a digital device may sustain hard-to-pinpoint nanoscale scratches, which can cause the device as a whole to malfunction.
Recently, new achievements were made in the integrated optics by the Creative Research Group of Femtosecond Photophysics &Integrated Optics at Peking University. The group realized a novel nanoscale integrated all-optical diode having ultralow power and ultrahigh transmission contrast after the realization of the all-optical switch device with ultralow power and high-speed photonic crystal.
Kostya Novoselov and Andre Geim, the University of Manchester Nobel Prize awardees, who discovered graphene in 2004, have reported in detail about bilayer graphene's electronic properties in the Science journal.
Students in Peter Burke's team at the University of California, Irvine along with graduate student, Nima Rouhi, have been observing transistors, which feature channels made using carbon nanotube ink.
A team of scientists headed by Richard Robinson, Assistant Professor of Materials Science and Engineering, Cornell University, have studied the evolution schematics of transformation from cobalt nanoparticles to cobalt phosphide nanocrystals.
Researchers have been closely studying the properties of monolayer graphene that can be produced from high-volume graphite. It is possible to manufacture graphene sheets of few layers thick with the same extraction methods.
A team of electrical engineers from the University of California, Berkeley, analyzed that in future, computers may depend on magnetic microprocessors, which use the minimal amount of energy permitted by the laws of physics.
Researchers have now designed a system that can produce unique micro-electromechanical systems using the correct etching method. Researchers at the Systems IMS in Duisburg, Germany and Fraunhofer Institute for Microelectronic Circuits are offering a solution for commercial production of micro-systems. A new facility to produce micro-system technology (MST) will be inaugurated on June 22.
Researchers in the Computational Materials Group at the University of California, Santa Barbara have uncovered the fundamental limits on optical transparency in the class of materials known as transparent conducting oxides. Their discovery will support development of energy efficiency improvements for devices that depend on optoelectronic technology, such as light- emitting diodes and solar cells.
Copper's days are numbered, and a new study at Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute could hasten the downfall of the ubiquitous metal in smart phones, tablet computers, and nearly all electronics. This is good news for technophiles who are seeking smaller, faster devices.
Resonetics has developed a laser micromachining system, RapidX250, for corporate and University researches for fabrication of medical, MEMs, and microfluidics devices in a quick prototype manner with tolerances nearing 1 µm.
Scientists from Argonne's Center for Nanoscale Materials's Nanofabrication Group, working with users from the University of Wisconsin-Stevenson Point, discovered a fast, simple, scalable technique for solution-based, electrochemical synthesis of patterned metallic and semiconducting nanowires from a reusable, nonsacrificial, ultrananocrystalline diamond (UNCD) template.
RFaxis, a fabless semiconductor company focused on innovative, next-generation RF solutions for the wireless connectivity and cellular mobility markets, today unveiled its new 28nm CMOS silicon multi-band/multi-mode RF Front-end Integrated Circuit (RFeIC™)) at the IWPC Conference on Next Generation Mobile Device Platform Architectures, hosted by the Intel Mobile Communications group. This new deep submicron node product, branded the Nano-RFeIC™), is process geometry agnostic, and can therefore be implemented and manufactured in 32nm, 40/45nm, 55/65nm and other commercially viable submicron CMOS nodes.
Rice University has developed graphene-based electrodes making flexible, transparent electronics possible in reality. The laboratory led by James Tour, Rice University chemist, has formed thin films that enhance LED lighting, solar panels, and touch-screen displays.
Rice University research team led by Pulickel Ajayan has developed a lithium ion battery in a single nanowire, which could be used as a rechargeable power source for future-generation nanoelectronics.
According to Rice University researchers, armchair nanotubes get their exclusive bright colors due to excitons or hydrogen-like objects. Their findings can be seen in their online edition of the Journal of the American Chemical Society.
A research team from the Rice University and the University of Colorado have submitted their findings in the behaviour of graphene slices when immersed in a solution. According to their findings, the graphene molecules when immersed in a liquid align themselves to form a nematic liquid crystal, having free-floating but aligned particles.
RoseStreet Labs, (RSL), announced today the world's first demonstration of a long wavelength LED device utilizing low cost silicon wafer substrates. Green and longer wavelength LEDs have been sought after by both science and industry for an extensive period of time because they would fill a high-value gap in the rapidly growing global LED market for lighting and illumination where energy efficiency, low cost and miniaturization are critical product characteristics.
Rudolph Technologies, Inc., a leading provider of process characterization equipment and software for semiconductor, solar and LED industries, announced today the release of Genesis® Enterprise version 7.0. Genesis is an offline yield analysis and data mining software with parametric yield management tools designed to maximize factory efficiency and identify causes of yield loss.
Rudolph Technologies has announced the shipment of the 1000th NSX Inspection System, its wafer-level packaging inspection system from its production facility located in Bloomington, Minnesota.
Rudolph Technologies, Inc., a leading provider of process characterization equipment and software for wafer fabs and advanced packaging facilities, announced today the availability of the new Wafer Scanner™ 3880 System, designed to be the fastest, most accurate and comprehensive inspection and measurement solution available for the rapidly developing technologies used in advanced packaging applications.
RUSNANO and I2BF Global Ventures today announce an investment agreement with Nesscap Energy Inc., a global leader in research, development and manufacturing of ultracapacitor products.
RUSNANO and VNIINM (a subsidiary of TVEL which, in turn, is a member company of State Atomic Energy Corporation ROSATOM) have signed an investment agreement that provides for commercial production of high-strengh nanostructured wires with high electrical conductivity ("super wires"). The project has a total budget of 1.02 billion rubles of which RUSNANO will co-invest 450 million rubles. VNIINM will finance the equivalent of 570 million rubles; a portion of its share will be in equipment and intellectual property.
RUSNANO has made its first co-investment in a project to expand production of ESTO-Vacuum automated vacuum units. The project has a total budget of one billion rubles. RUSNANO will co-invest 198.5 million rubles in the project. ESTO-Vacuum expects to reach design capacity of 60 units per year in 2016.
Crocus Technology, a leading developer of MRAM technology, today announced that they have closed an agreement to create an MRAM manufacturing company, with a combined investment totaling $300 million. Under the terms of the agreement, Crocus and RUSNANO will form Crocus Nano Electronics (CNE), to build an advanced MRAM facility in Russia, capable of manufacturing medium to high density MRAM products based on Crocus' Thermally Assisted Switching™ (TAS) MRAM technology at 90nm and 65nm lithographies.
RUSNANO co-invests in the development of electronic components for microelectromechanical systems (MEMS) for use in sensors, computing and telecommunications equipment. American company SiTime Corporation, an industry leader in development of MEMS-based high-performance oscillators and silicon timing solutions, is its partner in the endeavor. The project has a total budget of $22 million of which RUSNANO finances up to $15 million. The allocated resources will be directed toward expanding SiTime's research base, broadening the geography of its sales, and establishing a development center in Russia.
RUSNANO opens a new production site for its portfolio company RMT specializing in manufacture of thermoelectric cooling devices. These components are widely used for cooling lasers, photodetectors and integrated circuits. The smaller-scale cooling elements effectively dissipate heat generated by power-hungry devices used in modern telecommunications, high-performance computing and optoelectronics industries. The total budget of the project is around 800 million roubles of which RUSNANO finances 150 million roubles. Their co-investor is the closed-end high-risk (venture) investment fund "S-Group Ventures", established with capital raised from the Russian Venture Company.
RUSNANO and company Terwingo have signed an investment agreement for construction of Russia's first factory to manufacture a distinctive steel wire for cutting silicon and sapphire. The wire is a key consumable in the production of solar battery elements and microelectronic units.
Deterioration and damage to cellular telecommunications cables cost organizations and customers millions in lost revenue and services in the always-on digital economy. A new sensor device, smaller than a quarter, might alleviate some of the impact.
Researchers from North Carolina State University have investigated the viability of a technique called "spincasting" for creating thin films of nanoparticles on an underlying substrate -- an important step in the creation of materials with a variety of uses, from optics to electronics.
But according to Nongjian Tao, a researcher at the Biodesign Institute® at Arizona State University, unique properties inherent in single molecules may also allow clever designers to produce novel devices whose behavior falls outside the performance observed in conventional electronics.
Avantor Performance Materials have signed a joint development agreement (JDA) with SACHEM to deliver customized, next-generation selective etch chemical solutions to be suitable for semiconductor manufacturing.
Samsung Electronics Co., Ltd., a global leader in advanced semiconductor solutions and Cadence Design Systems, Inc., a leader in global electronic design innovation, announced today the initial production of Ambarella's 32-nanometer HD digital camera system-on-chip (SoC).
Evident Technologies, Inc. and Samsung Electronics Co., Ltd have entered into a comprehensive patent licensing and purchasing agreement for Evident's quantum dot LED technology. This agreement grants Samsung worldwide access to Evident's patent portfolio for all products related to quantum dot LEDs from manufacture of the quantum dot nanomaterials to final LED production.
At the eighth annual Samsung Mobile Solutions Forum conducted at Westin Taipei, Samsung Electronics has proclaimed that it has developed a first-of-a-kind monolithic 4 Gb low power double-data-rate 3 (LPDDR3) memory utilizing 30 nm-class process technology to support three-dimensional graphics, ultra resolution displays and quicker processers in the advanced future-generation mobile devices.
Samsung has taken notice of the fact that business professionals are driving a lot of Apple iPad sales and it is taking steps to make its Android tablets very friendly to the enterprise.
AIXTRON SE today announced a large multiple order for the industry standard LED production platform AIX G5 HT MOCVD Planetary Reactor® from Samsung LED.
Samsung Electronics, Co., Ltd., a global leader in advanced semiconductor solutions, today announced that its foundry business, Samsung Foundry, has qualified 28nm low-power (LP) process with High-k Metal Gate (HKMG) technology and is ready for risk production.
While we're waiting for flexible, flat, multi-cavity plasma array light bulbs to hit the market, Samsung has started selling advanced LED bulbs in the US that could last years.
Cadence Design Systems, a company that delivers electronic design solutions, declared that Samsung Electronics has introduced the Cadence unified digital flow for producing a test chip at 20 nm.
Dr. Andrei Pavlov, President and Founder of ScanNano Tek announced further progress in its R&D Program, demonstrating the validity of its Deep Vacuum Gap Technology for the production of new MEMS devices. This follows ScanNano Tek's October 2, 2011 announcement about encouraging progress in a new R&D Program in which STMicroelectronics, for its CMOS technology expertise, is engaged.
Dr. Andrei Pavlov, President and Founder of ScanNano Tek announced encouraging progress in a new R&D Program in which STMicroelectronics, for its CMOS technology expertise, is engaged.
Researchers in the Materials Science and Technology division of the Naval Research Laboratory have recently demonstrated electrical injection, detection and precession of spin accumulation in silicon, the cornerstone material of modern device technology, at temperatures up to 225 degrees Celsius.
Ever since graphene was discovered in 2010 many research programs have been conducted to prove that it could be used in various electronic applications and in composite materials.
In a just-published work in the magazine Science ("Wafer-Scale Graphene Integrated Circuit"), IBM researchers announced the first integrated circuit fabricated from wafer-size graphene, and demonstrated a broadband frequency mixer operating at frequencies up to 10 gigahertz (10 billion cycles/second). This result opens up possibilities of achieving practical graphene technology with more high-performance, radio-frequency communication devices and is also a major milestone for the Carbon Electronics for RF Applications (CERA) program, funded by DARPA.
A team of scientists working at Argonne National Laboratory's (ANL) Center for Nanoscale Materials has successfully carved ultrananocrystalline diamond (UNCD) thin films into nanowires, boosting the material's functionality and providing potential improvements to the fabrication of biosensors.
Applied physicists and materials scientists from Harvard's School of Engineering and Applied Sciences (SEAS) have discovered a new device capable of identifying an unknown fluid. This palm fitting device utilizes the optical and chemical properties of high-precision nanostructured materials to differentiate fluids through their surface tension without using a power source.
Scientists at the University of California at Berkeley and the U.S. Department of Energy's Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory (Berkeley Lab) have revealed the details of photovoltaic process in ferroelectric materials using bismuth ferrite or BFO ultra thin films.
Scientists at Northern Illinois University say they have discovered a simple method for producing high yields of graphene, a highly touted carbon nanostructure that some believe could replace silicon as the technological fabric of the future.
Researchers of K.U.Leuven, while examining the nanomaterials' optical properties, have discovered that surface plasmons leave behind imprints on the nanostructures' surface. This discovery has led to the development of a high resolution microscope that is suited for imaging the nanostructures' electric fields.
Scientists at Cambridge University have shown an amazing degree of control over the most fundamental aspect of an electronic circuit, how electrons move from one place to another.
Researchers from Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory, University of California (UC), Berkeley, and Rice University have produced boron nitride nanoribbons using a method in which boron nitride nanotubes are embedded with potassium atoms until the tubes dissect longitudinally. These nanoribbons are expected to exhibit excellent magnetic and electronic properties that hold high prospects for future devices.
Scientists at the Oak Ridge National Laboratory of the Department of Energy found that the key element that determines the dimensions of graphene is hydrogen and not carbon.
Japanese scientists report on a unique 'ubiquitous element strategy' for synthesizing industrially important electronic, thermionic, and structural materials using naturally abundant elements. This strategy aims to overcome the 'rare-element crisis' that was triggered by increasing demand for such elements as lithium, used in batteries, and dysprosium for Ne-Fe-B permanent magnets.
Carbon nanotubes offer big promise in a small package. For instance, these tiny cylinders of carbon molecules theoretically can carry 1,000 times more electric current than a metal conductor of the same size. It's easy to imagine carbon nanotubes replacing copper wiring in future nanoscale electronics.
Fitting the screens of electronic devices, such as televisions and smartphones, with a new display technology called 'organic light-emitting diodes' (OLEDs) will reduce their energy consumption, but such screens currently require rare and expensive metal components.
The world economy is becoming ever more reliant on high tech electronics such as computers featuring fingernail-sized microprocessors crammed with billions of transistors. For progress to continue, for Moore's Law -- according to which the number of computer components crammed onto microchips doubles every two years, even as the size and cost of components halves -- to continue, new materials and new phenomena need to be discovered.
At yesterday's second annual Global Technology Conference in Santa Clara, Calif., GLOBALFOUNDRIES' executive team updated more than 2,000 customers, partners and industry watchers on the company's global business strategy and progress in delivering on its vision to reshape the foundry landscape.
Scientists from National Physical Laboratory (NPL), in collaboration with Linköping University, Sweden, have shown that regions of graphene of different thickness can be easily identified in ambient conditions using Electrostatic Force Microscopy (EFM).
Magnetic storage media such as hard drives have revolutionized the handling of information: We are used to dealing with huge quantities of magnetically stored data while relying on highly sensitive electronic components. And hope to further increase data capacities through ever smaller components. Together with experts from Grenoble and Strasbourg, researchers of KIT's Institute of Nanotechnology (INT) have developed a nano-component based on a mechanism observed in nature.
A relatively fast, easy and inexpensive technique for inducing nanorods -- rod-shaped semiconductor nanocrystals -- to self-assemble into one-, two- and even three-dimensional macroscopic structures has been developed by a team of researchers with the U.S. Department of Energy's Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory.
Ink-jet printing of metal nanoparticles for conductive metal patterns has attracted great interest as an alternative to expensive fabrication techniques like vapor deposition. The bulk of the research in this area focuses on printing metal nanoparticle suspensions (metallic ink) for metallization. For example, silver and gold nanoparticle suspensions have been inkjet printed to build active microelectromechanical systems (MEMS), flexible conductors and radio frequency identification (RFID) tags. Nobel metals like silver and gold are preferred nanoparticles for ink-jet formulations because they are good electrical conductors and they do not cause oxidation problems.
SEMATECH, a global consortium of chipmakers, announced today that Applied Seals North America, Inc., a leading provider of elastomeric sealing for the semiconductor, pharmaceutical, biotechnology and solar industries, has joined SEMATECH's Mask Blank Defect Reduction program at the College of Nanoscale Science and Engineering (CNSE) of the University at Albany.
SEMATECH and Screen will collaborate on techniques for monolayer doping and activation methods that are compatible with ultra-shallow junctions for planar and non-planar device technologies in silicon and non-silicon high mobility materials.
In an effort that will accelerate the development of next-generation transistors, SEMATECH announced today that Soitec, a world leader in manufacturing revolutionary semiconductor substrates for the electronics and energy industries, has joined SEMATECH's Front End Processes (FEP) and Advanced Metrology Programs.
SEMATECH declared that GlobalFoundries , Intel, TSMC, and Samsung Electronics have joined the company's EMI partnership to build vital metrology devices for detecting defects in advanced masks suitable for extreme ultraviolet lithography (EUVL). These semiconductor firms hope to manufacture defect-free EUVL in bulk volumes.
The Semiconductor Industry Association (SIA), representing U.S. leadership in semiconductor manufacturing and design, today announced that Dr. Jeff Welser testified at a hearing on the future of nanotechnology research and the National Nanotechnology Initiative (NNI) on behalf of the SIA, the Semiconductor Research Corporation (SRC) and the Nanoelectronics Research Initiative (NRI) today in the House Committee on Science, Space and Technology's Subcommittee on Research and Science Education.
Shanghai, China-based Crossing Automation has recently unveiled a range of adaptive standard mechanical interface (SMIF) loadport (LPT) systems at the tradeshow SEMICON in China.
Semiconductor Research Corporation (SRC), the world's leading university-research consortium for semiconductors and related technologies, and researchers from the UCLA Henry Samueli School of Engineering and Applied Science have developed a new method of design-dependent process monitoring for semiconductor wafer manufacturing. The advance promises to provide semiconductor chip manufacturing cost and productivity savings up to 15 percent, potentially increase profit per chip by as much as 12 percent and ultimately lead to less expensive and higher performing electronics devices.
Researchers from North Carolina State University and Purdue University have shown that the semiconductor material gallium nitride (GaN) is non-toxic and is compatible with human cells -- opening the door to the material's use in a variety of biomedical implant technologies.
A team of researchers at the U.S. Department of Energy's Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory has discovered that semiconductor nanocrystals called quantum dots can display plasmonic properties.
A team led by a professor at the University of California, Riverside Bourns College of Engineering has made a discovery in semiconductor nanowire laser technology that could potentially do everything from kill viruses to increase storage capacity of DVDs.
A group of researchers under the supervision of a professor at the University of California, Riverside Bourns College of Engineering has found that semiconductor nanowire laser technology can be used in a wide variety of applications ranging from destroying viruses to boosting DVD storage capacity.
Semiconductor Research Corporation (SRC), the world's leading university-research consortium for semiconductors and related technologies, joined today with the National Science Foundation (NSF) to fund $20 million for 12 four-year grants on nanoelectronics research.
Semiconductor Research Corporation (SRC), the world's leading university-research consortium for semiconductors and related technologies, today announced it is leading an effort to address key roadblocks for wide-scale adoption of the emerging 3D integration of integrated circuits (IC) and systems. These new initiatives will develop solutions that address critical reliability and design tool issues and leverage a partnership formed by researchers from universities and the semiconductor industry at large.
Silicon Valley-based Group4 Labs, which utilizes artificial diamonds to develop energy-efficient semiconductor wafers, is launching a production unit at UAlbany's College of Nanoscale Science and Engineering (CNSE). This was revealed in an announcement by Governor Andrew M. Cuomo.
Senodia Technologies and X-FAB Silicon Foundries Group declared that they have completed development and have commenced bulk manufacturing of microelectromechanical system (MEMS) gyroscopes for consumer applications.
Sensonor Technologies develop the STIM210 to enable system designers to deliver minute, improved and cost-effective solutions. STIM210 is a 3 axis gyro module that has a high reliability, low power consumption, and a low weight. The product will be released at Germany's Sensors and Test and at US's Sensors Expo on June 6th.
Current production methods for carbon nanotubes (CNTs) result in units with different diameter, length, chirality and electronic properties, all packed together in bundles, and often blended with some amount of amorphous carbon. Often, these mixtures are of little practical use since many advanced applications, especially for nanoelectronics, are sensitively dependent on the structures. Consequently, the separation of metallic (m) and semiconducting (s) CNTs is essential for future applications and studies.
Single-walled carbon nanotubes (CNTs) have considerable potential for use in electronic devices such as field-effect transistors and solar cells. Research in this area of nanotechnology is hampered, however, by the difficulty in isolating the desired type of CNT from the two types -- either semiconducting or metallic -- that are generally formed during synthesis. As the performance of such devices is dependent on the purity of CNT type in different parts of the device structure, techniques for isolating these CNT types without breaking them or disrupting their alignment are of great interest.
Today's wireless-sensor networks can do everything from supervising factory machinery to tracking environmental pollution to measuring the movement of buildings and bridges. Working together, distributed sensors can monitor activity along an oil pipeline or throughout a forest, keeping track of multiple variables at a time.
Scientists have found a way to distort the atomic arrangement and change the magnetic properties of an important class of electronic materials with ultra-short pulses of terahertz (mid-infrared) laser light without heating the material up. While the achievement is currently of purely scientific interest, the researchers say this new approach control could ultimately lead to extremely fast, low-energy, non-volatile computer memory chips or data-switching devices.
Shrink Nanotechnologies recently signed a multi-phase joint venture agreement with a Japanese company that deals with industrial and consumer electronics and optic solutions that has a facility for its biological equipment in Salzburg, Austria.
Sidense Corp., a leading developer of Logic Non-Volatile Memory (LNVM) one-time programmable (OTP) memory IP cores, and ON Semiconductor, a premier supplier of high performance silicon solutions for energy efficient electronics, have announced that Sidense has ported its 180 nanometer OTP memory SLP product line to ONC18, ON Semiconductor's 180 nm digital and mixed-signal technology platform.
Sidense, a provider of Logic Non-Volatile Memory (LNVM) one-time programmable (OTP) memory IP cores, and ON Semiconductor, a supplier of high performance silicon systems for low power electronics, have declared that the180nm OTP memory products from Sidense will be available for use in ONC18, ON Semiconductor's 180nm digital and mixed-signal platform.
Analysis instruments manufacture SII NanoTechnology Inc. (SIINT) a 100% subsidiary of Seiko Instruments Inc. (SII), releases the SMI4050 Focused Ion Beam system on August 30 which is improved Processing Speed, Processing Accuracy and Image Resolution for Processing.
Silex Microsystems, the world's largest pure-play MEMS foundry, announced it has licensed its Silex Sil-Via platform, a through-silicon via (TSV) packaging technology, to Nanoshift for use in early development of complex MEMS products. The license agreement demonstrates the growing adoption of the Silex Sil-Via technology through industry partnerships, core to Silex's strategy to enable its customers to quickly and cost effectively bringing MEMS devices from initial concept to volume production.
It's reminiscent of Cartman's runaway Trapper Keeper notebook in that long-ago episode of South Park, but researchers at the University of Wisconsin-Madison may be scratching the surface of a new kind of brain/machine interface by creating computer chips that are wired together with living nerve cells.
Berkeley Design Automation, Inc., the nanometer circuit verification leader, today announced that Silicon Creations, LLC, a leading provider of integrated circuit design services and nanometer silicon IP, has selected the company's Analog FastSPICE Platform for full-circuit verification, block-level characterization, and device noise analysis of their high-performance custom analog and mixed-signal designs.Silicon Creations Selects Berkeley Design Automation Analog FastSPICE Platform
Semiconductor nanowires could form the basis of future nano-scale electronic components such as transistors, actuators or even power sources. In developing such technologies, it is important to assess how the nanowires might perform under stress in real devices.
Governor Andrew M. Cuomo announced today that the Silicon Valley firm Group4 Labs Inc., which uses synthetic diamonds to create energy-efficient semiconductor wafers, is opening a manufacturing facility at UAlbany's College of Nanoscale Science and Engineering (CSNE).
SiliconBlue Technologies, a manufacturer of custom mobile device (CMD) solutions, has declared that samples of the novel iCE40 Los Angeles mobileFPGA including low-power series (LP) for smartphones and the high-speed (HX--Series) for tablets are available and fully functional.
Siltronic, a manufacturer of hyper-pure silicon wafers, and imec, a nano-electronics research institute based in Belgium, have signed an agreement to develop silicon wafers integrated with a layer of gallium nitride.
Low-cost, lightweight, flexible electronics are now used in a wide range of applications, from radiofrequency identification tags found in items such as public transit smart cards, to the latest flexible displays. As the plastic substrates used for flexible electronics are not compatible with the high temperatures needed for forming metal circuits, researchers have turned to polymers and even carbon-based materials as the conduction medium. Nothing yet, however, compares to the high conductivity provided by metal.
Mobile phones, flat screens or illumination systems -- organic light-emitting diodes will be applied to an increasing extent in the future and open up new design and function options. Scientists of the KIT Institute of Nanotechnology (INT) have now developed a simulation method for the low-cost optimization of OLEDs within shorter time. By means of SiMoNa, material properties can be improved specifically and appropriate dye molecules can be designed and patented. The NanoMatch startup will be established this month.
The Institute of Microelectronics (IME), an institute of the Agency for Science, Technology and Research have announced today their cooperation with TowerJazz, the global specialty foundry leader, on breakthrough projects in micro-electro-mechanical systems (MEMS), packaging and application-specific integrated circuits (ASICs).
Imec researchers, in collaboration with Tokyo Electron, have successfully integrated and characterized CNTs (Carbon Nanotubes) into 150nm contact holes with a TiN underlayer and a Cu single damascene top contact module. The process steps are CMOS-compatible and the platform is designed for fast and automatic electrical testing and for benchmarking different CNT recipes and process conditions. The stability of the process is shown by the high yield and the agreement obtained between the resistances of single contacts, measured from Kelvin vias and parallel vias. Because this module allows to rapidly benchmark CNTs grown from different recipes and processed under different conditions, it is a significant step towards optimizing CNT interconnects.
A University of Ulster laboratory has found a simple, low cost and environmentally friendly way to turn common graphite flakes into bulk amounts of either high quality graphene nanosheets or quantum dots. Such structures could lead to new nanoelectronics and energy conversion technologies.
Single molecule electronics is a division of nanotechnology utilizing single molecules as electronic components and its study has the ultimate goal of reducing the size of common electrical circuits. Since 1974, when Mark Ratner and Arieh Aviram from IBM first described how a single molecule was capable of working as a diode in passing current in one direction, research has moved forward in trying to develop a way to use single molecule electronics.
Single-molecule magnets (SMM) are fascinating nanoscale structures with unique functional properties showing promise for high-density electronic data storage devices, solid state quantum computers, spintronic devices such as spin valves, and other advanced technological applications (see for instance our recent Nanowerk Spotlight: "Single-molecule nanomagnets enable novel graphene spintronics devices"). Despite a flurry of research in this area -- since an individual magnetic molecule represents the ultimate size limit to storing and processing information -- the main challenge related to harnessing properties of SMM remained unsolved.
Using single molecules as electronic components like diodes, switches or transistors is the ultimate goal for future electronic nanotechnology devices (see for instance our Nanowerk Spotlight "Using quantum mechanics to turn molecules into transistors"). In order to explore the electronic properties of a single molecule, researchers have to make electrical contact between electrodes and molecules -- and this has proven to be a big challenge.
The field of single-molecule magnets is very promising, since an individual magnetic molecule represent the ultimate size limit to store and processing information. Magnetic molecules are considered very promising for spintronics -- electronics exploiting also the spin of the electron -- since they can store a bit of information in an extremely small volume. However, in order to make magnetic molecules work, one has to find a way to measure their magnetization, a task that has not been attempted so far.
SiTime, a company that manufactures analog semiconductors, has launched high-stable, MEMS voltage controlled, temperature compensated oscillator (VCTCXO) devices.
SiTime announced the launch of SiT820X series of Programmable MEMS-based Oscillators that can be used in networking, telecom and wireless applications. The two oscillators are the SiT8208 and SiT8209, they operate from 1 to 80MHz and 80 to 220MHz respectively.
CRAIC Technologies has developed a new solution for the semiconductor industry: the 20/20 XL™ Film Thickness Measurement Tool. The 20/20 XL™ is a microspectrophotometer is designed to non-destructively analyze microscopic areas of very large samples.
smart has always been a pioneer in matters of urban mobility and with the smart fortwo electric drive the company is showing the direction of development in cities around the world. Together with BASF, the largest automotive supplier in the chemical industry, smart is demonstrating its leading role in the use of forward-looking technologies above and beyond the drive system. The joint concept vehicle smart forvision presented at the 2011 International Motor Show in Frankfurt combines a futuristic design with technologies relating to energy efficiency, lightweight design and temperature management.
mPhase Technologies is in discussions with a contractor of military and commercial products for a joint venture to customize its Smart Nanobattery for retail and defense applications.
SmartKem Limited, the developer of novel, printable organic semiconductor materials and ink formulations for flexible electronics announced that its advanced semiconductor materials have achieved performance "better than amorphous-silicon" in recent testing, achieving an impressive TFT mobility rating, higher than other traditional organic equivalents.
Gennum Snowbush IP group has introduced the next-generation multi-standard (MS) PHY IP Platform on TSMC 28nm to help semiconductor manufacturers to significantly lower design and production costs and to improve product time-to-market.
Pure hydrogen (H2) is an important chemical widely used in the chemical industry, many semiconductor fabrication processes, as well as in Polymer Electrolyte Membrane (PEM) fuel cells. Almost all of the hydrogen gas generated today comes from the steam reforming of natural gas at oil refineries. However, this process also produces trace amounts of carbon monoxide (CO) byproduct, which limits the application of H2 and can 'poison' or destroy the delicate catalysts used in the manufacture of semiconductor and state-of-the-art fuel cells.
Kouji Suemori, Functional Display Device Team, the Flexible Electronics Research Center of the National Institute of Advanced Industrial Science and Technology (AIST), has developed a technology for printing thermoelectric conversion devices onto flexible substrates such as plastic films and papers.
Rice University researchers have created a solid-state, nanotube-based supercapacitor that promises to combine the best qualities of high-energy batteries and fast-charging capacitors in a device suitable for extreme environments.
Apparently Cinco de Mayo isn't just a day for celebration and drinking, phone manufacturers like to join in on the fun, too. Sony Ericsson announced a new addition to its Xperia line of phones, the Xperia Acro, the Japanese cousin to the SE Xperia Arc.
We've been hearing whispers of a September launch for the Sony S1 tablet ever since Thomas first broke the story back at Engadget, and it appears that things are more or less on schedule: we've just seen documents indicating that Sony Centre stores in the UK will be taking S1 pre-orders starting September 1st. That's just a little later than the late-August pre-order date we'd previously heard, but nothing too major -- and Sony will still be among the first to ship a themed and skinned Honeycomb tablet, which we suppose is something of an accomplishment.
Starting in the end of April 2011, Sony will begin volume shipments of energy storage modules that use rechargeable lithium-ion batteries made with olivine-type lithium-ion iron phosphate as the cathode material (hereafter referred to as 'olivine-type lithium-ion iron phosphate cell'). These energy storage modules have a lifespan of over 10 years, excellent safety performance, rapid recharging capabilities and high scalability. Sample shipments of the new module began in June last year and Sony decided to begin volume shipments after rigorous testing and experimentation with various applications.
Sony unveiled a 13.3 inch flexible color e-paper device and two glass free 3D displays. The announcement was made at the 49th SID International Symposium, Seminar &Exhibition which is the world's largest academic conference on display technologies. The conference is being held this week in Los Angeles, CA (USA).
Carbon nanotubes could make many electronic devices cheaper and more efficient. But when nanotubes are manufactured, tubes that work for solar cells are mixed with tubes that work for batteries. The final product is a nanotube powder that is not ideal for any single commercial application.
Like copper wires in our everyday life, nanowires are envisioned to act as interconnecting elements in future electronic circuits on the nanoscale. Moreover, when made from semiconductors these nanowires not only transport electric current along their axis but also can very efficiently emit light.
SouthWest NanoTechnologies, Inc., the world leader in high quality carbon nanotubes, will demonstrate new carbon nanotube applications for Printed Electronics and Touch Screens at IDTechEX Printed Electronics & Photovoltaics USA at the Santa Clara, California Convention Center.
A quantum computer based on quantum particles instead of classical bits, can in principle outperform any classical computer. However, it still remains an open question, how fast and how efficient quantum computers really may be able to work. A critical limitation will be given by the velocity with which a quantum signal can spread within a processing unit.
In the developing field of spintronics, physicists are designing devices to transmit data using the inherent axial rotation, or spin, of electrons rather than their charge as is used in electronics. Weak coupling of electron spin to electrical currents, however, makes gaining this level of control difficult. Yoshinori Tokura from the RIKEN Advanced Science Institute, Wako, working with colleagues from across Japan, has now shown that the semiconducting material BiTeI could provide the control needed because of its unusual atomic arrangement.
Springer has published a MEMS Materials and Processes Handbook, an extensive resource for engineers and academicians dealing with micro-electromechanical systems (MEMS).
Researchers at the University of Utah have developed spintronic transistors to align magnetic spins of electrons in silicon chips at room temperatures. The development is suitable for computers, phones and spintronic solutions.
The processor, integrated graphics, and other embedded components that make up some of the most popular low-power, ultra-light PCs require so little power that their power supplies and batteries are millimeters thick. Imagine if even those power supplies and batteries could be removed, and those computers powered by motion, or by tapping ambient energy from the environment around them. Thanks to spintronics and straintronics, two technologies just beginning to emerge from the chalkboard and into reality, we could be on our way there.
Graphene is a promising material for a wide range of applications due to its remarkable mechanical and electronic properties. An application of particular interest is spin-based electronics, or spintronics, in which the spin orientation of an electron is used to perform circuit functions in addition to its charge. Bongsoo Kim and colleagues from KAIST, Hanyang University and Samsung in Korea now report the integration of ferromagnetic nanowire arrays on graphene substrates, opening up a route for the construction of graphene-based spintronic devices using nanowires as spin-injecting contacts ("Epitaxially Integrating Ferromagnetic Fe1.3Ge Nanowire Arrays on Few-Layer Graphene").
The use of an electron's spin polarization in addition to its charge is expected to lead to faster, more efficient and more functional devices to replace the current generation of electronics. To realize these 'spintronic' devices, however, a current of electrons with uniformly polarized spin, either up or down, needs to be injected from a ferromagnet into a non-magnetic semiconductor where they can be manipulated. This has so far proved elusive due to the loss of spin information as electrons travel across the interface between these two classes of materials.
SPP Process Technology Systems (SPTS), a leading manufacturer of plasma etch, deposition, and thermal processing equipment for the micro-device and semiconductor industry today announced, that it had won a multi-system order for its Sigma PVD, Omega Etch and Delta CVD wafer processing systems from a leading outsourced semiconductor assembly and test (OSAT) provider in the Asia-Pacific region. The systems will be used to create through silicon via (TSV) structures for 3D-IC packaging and marks a new penetration for SPTS.
SPP Process Technology Systems (SPTS), a leading manufacturer of plasma etch and deposition, and thermal processing equipment for the semiconductor and related industries, and Griffith University in Australia today announced a joint development agreement (JDA) targeting the commercialization of Silicon Carbide (SiC) on Silicon (Si) technology. SiC on Si substrates have a wide variety of applications for the rapidly growing light-emitting diode (LED), micro-electro-mechanical systems (MEMS) and Power markets.
There is a physical and electrical disconnect between the world of electronics and the world of biology. Electronics tend to be rigid, operate using electrons, and are inherently two-dimensional. The brain, as a basis for comparison, is soft, operates using ions, and is three-dimensional. Researchers have therefore been looking to find different routes to create biocompatible devices that work well in wet environments like biological systems.
STMicroelectronics has introduced a new family of sophisticated predictive and filtering software for integrating the outputs from several MEMS sensors.
Nanoimprinting is a potential method for submicron scale patterning for various applications, for example, electric, photonic and optical devices. The patterns are created by mechanical deformation of imprint resist using a patterned imprinting mold called also a stamp. The bottle-neck for imprint lithography is availability of the stamps with nanometer-scale features, which are typically fabricated by electron beam lithography. Therefore, patterning of a large stamp is time consuming and expensive. Nanoimprint lithography can offer a low cost and a high through-put method to replicate these imprinting molds.
STATS ChipPAC recently declared that it is extending its 300mm Through Silicon Via (TSV) portfolio with the addition of mid-end production capabilities.
STATS ChipPAC, a company that provides semiconductor packaging solutions announced a wide range of packaging options based on its fan-out wafer level technology platform.
ClassOne Equipment has marketed its 150th mask aligner product to the Smart System Technology and Commercialization Center (STC) which is a division of the College of Nanoscale Science and Engineering (CNSE) at Albany.
Empire State Development (ESD) has declared that College of Nanoscale Science and Engineering's (CNSE) Smart System Technology and Commercialization Center (STC) will obtain funding worth $5 million via the SUNY Research Foundation.
A provider of innovative semiconductor systems and MEMS for portable and consumer applications, STMicroelectronics has announced the launch of iNEMO campus design contest for the year 2011. This is an open competition for designing novel applications using ST's iNEMO multi-sensor technology.
STMicroelectronics, a global semiconductor leader serving customers across the spectrum of electronics applications and the leading supplier of MEMS (Micro-Electro-Mechanical Systems) devices for consumer and portable applications, and McGill University, Montreal, Canada, one of the world's most prestigious academic institutions, today announced that they have collaborated to create an undergraduate course that teaches the integration of multiple state-of-the-art sensors into embedded computer systems. Some 35 students have already completed the course, which started in January 2011.
STMicroelectronics, a global semiconductor leader serving customers across the spectrum of electronics applications and the leading supplier of MEMS (Micro-Electro-Mechanical Systems) for consumer and portable applications(1), today launched the 2011 iNEMO Campus Design Contest, an open competition for the design of innovative applications built around ST's award-winning(2) iNEMO smart multi-sensor technology. Co-sponsored by Taiwan's Association of Nanotechnology and Micro System, ST's iNEMO Design Contest aims at supporting and promoting innovative design ideas in the MEMS space among students and young engineers in Taiwan.
High-power radio-frequency devices such as medical scanners and plasma generators will offer improved uptime for owners, as well as increased performance and lower costs, by using the latest generation of high-frequency power transistors introduced today by STMicroelectronics (NYSE: STM), a global leader serving customers across the spectrum of electronics applications and a world leader in power semiconductors.
A supplier of MEMS devices for portable and consumer applications, STMicroelectronics will be demonstrating its newest advancements in MEMS for portable and consumer, healthcare, and automotive applications from August 24 to 26 at MICROTech World 2011 in Korea.
By combining two frontier technologies, spintronics and straintronics, a team of researchers from Virginia Commonwealth University has devised perhaps the world's most miserly integrated circuit.
Electronics that can be bent and stretched might sound like science fiction. But Uppsala researcher Zhigang Wu, working with collaborators, has devised a wireless sensor that can stand to be stretched. For example, the sensor can measure intensive body movements and wirelessly send information directly to a computer. The findings are now being presented in the journal Advanced Functional Materials ("A Microfluidic, Reversibly Stretchable, Large-Area Wireless Strain Sensor").
Electronic devices with muscles-like stretchability have long been pursued, but not achieved due to the requirement that all materials in the devices -- electrodes, semiconductor, and dielectric -- are stretchable. In their pursuit of fully flexible and stretchable electronic devices, researchers have already reported stretchable solar cells and transistors as well as stretchable active-matrix displays. The nanomaterials used for these purposes range from coiled nanowires to graphene ("Foaming for stretchable electronics").
Users from the University of Wisconsin-Madison and the Center for Nanophase Materials Science, working with the X-Ray Microscopy Group, have discovered structural effects accompanying the nanoscale lithography of ferroelectric polarization domains. The results shed new light on the physics of structural changes induced during this model nanoscale lithographic process ("Structural Consequences of Ferroelectric Nanolithography").
Nanotechnology researchers at the Georgia Institute of Technology have conducted the first direct comparison of two fundamental techniques that could be used for chemically doping sheets of two-dimensional graphene for the fabrication of devices and interconnects.
A research team led by David Awschalom at the University of California, Santa Barbara has revealed that crystal defects present in silicon carbide, a commonly utilized semiconductor material used for electronics applications, can be manipulated at the quantum mechanical level, paving the way to use quantum physics for nanoscale sensing and ultrafast computing applications.
Duke University researchers have studied individual phase slips in aluminum nanowires and have demonstrated the characteristics and temperature at which they take place.
Researchers from the University of California at Berkeley and Rice University have discovered that when stress is applied, graphene does not rip apart randomly like paper but follows the least resistance path resulting in new edges that provide remarkable properties to the wonder material.
University of Arkansas researchers have discovered that nanoscale superconductors and associated materials retain their original properties even when developed under strain as atomically thin layers, which is essential to obtain synthetically created superconductive materials at room temperature.
Rice University scientist Jun Lou and his team have discovered that gold wires have reduced ductility at the nanoscale. This finding has been reported in the Advanced Functional Materials journal.
KLA-Tencor has unveiled its SpectraShape 8660 and 8810 dimensional metrology systems, that feature the AcuShape2 modeling software designed jointly with Tokyo Electron Limited (TEL).
The contract for the supply of a high performance supercomputer centre that will perform complex plasma physics calculations has been signed between the Commissariat à l'Energie Atomique et aux Energies Alternatives (CEA) and Bull. The supercomputer is an important milestone of Europe's contribution to the Broader Approach (BA), an Agreement signed between Europe and Japan to complement the ITER project through various R&D activities which are developed in the field of nuclear fusion. The European participation to the BA is coordinated by Fusion for Energy (F4E), the EU organisation managing Europe's contribution to ITER. This specific activity is provided by France as a part of its voluntary contribution to the BA.
A University of Arkansas physicist and his colleagues have found that ultra-thin films of superconductors and related materials don't lose their fundamental properties when built under strain when built as atomically thin layers, an important step towards achieving artificially designed room temperature superconductivity. This ability will allow researchers to create new types of materials and properties and enable exotic electronic phases in ultra-thin films.
An Italian-British team of scientists has succeeded in drawing superconducting shapes using an X-ray beam. Presented in the journal Nature Materials ("Evolution and control of oxygen order in a cuprate superconductor"), the study shows how being able to create and control tiny superconducting structures could lead to innovative electronic devices.
Seven years after graphene was first isolated as single sheets by mechanical exfoliation, the method remains the preferred approach to obtaining high-quality crystals with high electron mobility.
The surprising discovery of a new way to tune and enhance thermal conductivity -- a basic property generally considered to be fixed for a given material -- gives engineers a new tool for managing thermal effects in smart phones and computers, lasers and a number of other powered devices.
SUSS MicroTec, a leading supplier of equipment and process solutions for the semiconductor and related markets, and TMAT, a provider of process technology and adhesives for temporary bonding, have received a purchase order for SUSS MicroTec's latest generation of high volume manufacturing temporary bond clusters from a world-leading IDM.
Today SUSS MicroTec, a global supplier of equipment and process solutions for the semiconductor industry and related markets, launched its new MaskTrack Pro InSync - the first holistic in-fab EUVL mask management offering. MTP InSync is a stand-alone or clustered handling system which seamlessly synchronizes mask cleaning, handling, inspection and storage in a single controlled environment. MTP InSync operates in a zero particle regime maintaining perfect mask integrity when entering the vacuum environment of the EUVL Scanner.
SUSS MicroTec, a leading supplier of equipment and process solutions for the semiconductor and related markets, launched the XBS300 Temporary Bonder, SUSS MicroTec's latest generation of high volume manufacturing temporary bond systems. This Bond Cluster is configured to temporarily bond 200mm and 300mm wafers for 3D integration applications as well as other processes that require thin wafer handling.
SuVolta, Inc. today introduced its PowerShrink™ low-power platform. The SuVolta PowerShrink platform reduces the power consumption of CMOS ICs by 2x or more while maintaining performance and improving yields. SuVolta and Fujitsu Semiconductor Limited also jointly announced today that Fujitsu has licensed SuVolta's innovative PowerShrink™ low-power technology.
SVTC Technologies, the premier innovation partner for accelerating nanotechnology development and commercialization, announced today it is partnering with SUSS MicroTec, a leading equipment supplier for MEMS and advanced 3D IC integration.
SouthWest NanoTechnologies Inc. (SWeNT), a leading manufacturer of single-wall and specialty multi-wall carbon nanotubes, has been awarded a two-year, $500,000 grant from the Oklahoma Center for the Advancement of Science and Technology (OCAST). This grant will fund SWeNT's development of semiconducting inks, based on its single-wall carbon nanotube (SWCNT) technology, suitable for printing thin film transistors (TFTs).
SouthWest NanoTechnologies (SWeNT) has received a two-year grant with a funding amount of $500,000 from Oklahoma Center for the Advancement of Science and Technology (OCAST).
Cornell researchers have demonstrated that the passage of a light beam through an optical fiber can be controlled by just a few photons of another light beam.
Researchers at the University of Lille in France have demonstrated a microelectromechanical system (MEMS) that can be turned on using ordinary white light. As a proof of concept, the researchers have built a miniature switch that can be controlled using light from almost any distance, be it from a flashlight or the sun.
Synopsys, a company that provides IP and software to design and manufacture semiconductors, declared that its design enablement partnership with Samsung Electronics has resulted in the successful release of the 20 nm test chip implemented using the High-k metal gate (HKMG) process technology from Samsung.
Synopsys, Inc., a world leader in software and IP for semiconductor design, verification and manufacturing, announced that Moortec Semiconductor Ltd., a mixed-signal IP and semiconductor integrated circuit (IC) provider, has taped out its high-performance analog IP on TSMC's 40LP and 28HP processes using Synopsys' custom design solution and TSMC's interoperable process design kits (iPDKs).
CEA-Leti today announced that Synopsys, Inc., a world leader in software and IP used in the design, verification and manufacture of electronic components and systems, has joined the IMAGINE program designed to develop maskless lithography for IC manufacturing. Synopsys is the 10th industrial partner to join IMAGINE.
Synopsys, a company that supplies intellectual property and software for semiconductor design, production, and validation, declared that it has joined hands with GlobalFoundries to design, support, test, and distribute interoperable process design kits (iPDKs) for advanced and mainstream technological process of GlobalFoundries .
Synopsys, Inc. verification and manufacture of electronic components and systems, announced that GLOBALFOUNDRIES has certified Synopsys' IC Validator physical verification product for 28-nanometer, 40-nm and 65-nm physical signoff, with immediate availability of design rule checks and layout-versus-schematic runsets to GLOBALFOUNDRIES customers.
Researchers from UCLA and Japan have designed a synthetic synapse for use in computing equipment that mimics the function of synapses in the human brain. The silver sulfide, nanoscale synapse, or "atomic switch," demonstrates both short- and long-term memory to a degree not seen before in solid-state devices.
A monumental breakthrough achieved by a world-spanning group of engineering professors has led to the creation of photonic computer chips that can propagate light without slowing it down and without changing phase. In the words of one of the researchers, Serdar Kocaman, "the light disperses through the material as if the entire space is missing."
Veeco Instruments has declared that Taiwan-based Formosa Epitaxy (FOREPI) and its Chinese affliate, Jiangsu Canyang, have placed a bulk order for Veeco's MaxBright Multi-Reactor MOCVD System that produces high-brightness light-emitting diodes (HB LEDs).
AIXTRON SE today announced that EpiLEDs Technologies Inc., a leading LED manufacturer in Taiwan, placed an order for one CRIUS® II-L MOCVD system in a 69x2-inch wafer configuration.
Heidelberg Instruments, a designer, developer and producer of laser lithography systems, has announced that it has secured an order to supply its VPG 800 maskless lithography system to Kinsus Interconnect Technology, a manufacturer based in Taiwan.
Tanaka Kikinzoku Kogyo K.K. announced that it had succeeded in the joint development of ruthenium material able to form a film up to six times the normal depth for capacitor electrodes used in semiconductor memory DRAM with Professor Seiji Ogo of the Graduate School of Engineering Department of Applied Chemistry at Kyushu University.
The 4th IEEE International NanoElectronics Conference (INEC 2011) being held in Taoyuan, between June 21 and 24, will study the main nanomaterials applications in electronics, photonics and biology. Papers on research by academic institutes will analyze the feasibility of using nanomaterials and their implementation in nano devices.
A Nanotechnology Discovery Academy conducted in Indiana University-Purdue University Indianapolis (IUPUI) campus, between July 11 to 15, 2011, has offered a good opportunity for 13 high school teachers from Indianapolis and its surrounding regions to explore how enhancement of Science, Technology, Engineering, and Mathematics (STEM) education can be addressed by employing advanced nanotechnology researches and approaches.
Graphene, a one-atom-thick layer of graphitic carbon, has the potential to make consumer electronic devices faster and smaller. But its unique properties, and the shrinking scale of electronics, also make graphene difficult to fabricate and to produce on a large scale.
Teijin Fibers Limited announced today that it is supplying its high-strength polyester nanofiber Nanofront for use in running socks made by New Balance. The socks are being marketed by New Balance Japan and sold in its directly owned shops in Tokyo and Osaka, as well as other sports retail stores nationwide from this month.
Renesas Electronics and Telefunken Semiconductors recently declared that Telefunken Semiconductors has procured Renesas's semiconductor wafer development unit located in Roseville, California.
A new "templated growth" technique for fabricating nanoribbons of epitaxial graphene has produced structures just 15 to 40 nanometers wide that conduct current with almost no resistance. These structures could address the challenge of connecting graphene devices made with conventional architectures -- and set the stage for a new generation of devices that take advantage of the quantum properties of electrons.
A manufacturer of focused ion-beam workstations and scanning electron microscopes, TESCAN has developed a novel tool for nanotechnology, the LYRA GM FIB-SEM workstation.
Texas Instruments has introduced a single-chip passive infrared (IR) MEMS temperature sensor, the TMP006. The sensor allows non-contact measurement of device case temperature using IR systems in mobile consumer electronics applications such as notebooks, tablets and smartphones.
Semiconductor nanowires are essential materials in the development of cheaper and more efficient solar cells, as well as batteries with higher storage capacity. Moreover, they are important building blocks in nanoelectronics. However, manufacturing semiconductor nanowires on an industrial scale is very expensive. The main reason for this is the high temperatures at which they are produced (600-900 °Celsius), as well as the use of expensive catalysts, such as gold.
Graphene, a single layer of carbon atoms arranged in a honeycomb lattice, initially attracted attention due to its remarkable electronic properties. It has since been realized that this material also exhibits exceptional mechanical properties. For a start, graphene is one of the hardest materials known.
The organizers of Graphene 2012 are pleased to announce the upcoming International Conference on Graphene to be held in Brussels (Belgium), from April 10-13 at the Brussels44Center.
By adding the right amount of heat, researchers have developed a method that improves the electrical capacity and recharging lifetime of sodium ion rechargeable batteries, which could be a cheaper alternative for large-scale uses such as storing energy on the electrical grid.
Scientists have now developed a new method that makes it possible to study how the electrons in negative ions interact in, which is important in, for example, superconductors and in radiocarbon dating.
Exactly 100 years ago today, physicist Kamerlingh Onnes cooled mercury to 4.2 degrees Kelvin, or -450 Fahrenheit, and discovered that it conducted an electric current perfectly--no electricity was lost as heat or friction. This phenomenon is called superconductivity. An electric current in a loop of a superconductor could, theoretically, last forever; in experiments they have been observed to last for years.
The National Research Council, Canada is developing an innovative technology for smart glass with possible applications in sectors such as building, aircraft, automotive and displays. The micro-blinds are actuated by electrostatic forces; they allow the dynamic control of light transmission at remarkable speed and could lead to major energy savings in buildings. The idea is based on a cost-efficient manufacturing scheme.
Researchers at the Max-Born-Institute, Berlin, Germany, observed the extremely fast onset of electrical resistance in a semiconductor by following electron motions in real-time.
A general rule in data processing is that disturbances cause the distortion or deletion of information during data storage or transfer. Methods for conventional computers were developed that automatically identify and correct errors: Data are processed several times and if errors occur, the most likely correct option is chosen. As quantum systems are even more sensitive to environmental disturbances than classical systems, a quantum computer requires a highly efficient algorithm for error correction.
A research center of the CSIC participates in a study that refutes the hypothesis that their movement is based on jumps from one region to another. The porphyrins may be used in quantum computing since they keep the wave nature of electrons
Researchers at the Joint Quantum Institute and the California Institute of Technology have shown that it may be possible to take a conventional semiconductor and endow it with topological properties without subjecting the material to extreme environmental conditions or fundamentally changing its solid state structure.
For a long time miniaturization has been the magic word in electronics. Dr. Willi Auwaerter and Professor Johannes Barth, together with their team of physicists at the Technische Universitaet Muenchen (TUM), have now presented a novel molecular switch in the journal Nature Nanotechnology.
Two magnetic atoms, one attached to the tip of a scanning tunnelling microscope and one adsorbed on a metal surface, each constituting a Kondo system, have been proposed as one of the simplest conceivable systems potentially exhibiting quantum critical behaviour.
Atomic force microscopy is a highly sensitive form of microscopy that makes it possible to map a surface with near-atomic resolution. Shaw Wei Kok and colleagues from A*STAR's Singapore Institute of Manufacturing Technology have now developed an AFM measurement method that can improve the sensitivity of the technique even further.
Graphene, discovered in 2004 at The University of Manchester by Professor Andre Geim and Professor Kostya Novoselov, is one of the world's most versatile materials, and is already being used in such varied applications as touch screens, transistors and aircraft wings.
Scientists from IBM and the German Center for Free-Electron Laser Science have built the world's smallest magnetic data storage unit. It uses just twelve atoms per bit, the basic unit of information, and squeezes a whole byte into as few as 96 atoms. A modern hard drive, for comparison, still needs more than half a billion atoms per byte.
The extra-conductive CNF has a length of 20 micrometers, or 10 times that of conventional CNF, and a diameter measuring a maximum 100 to 300 nanometers and a minimum 50 to 100 nanometers. It also has a high linearity structure offering 30-40% greater electrical conductivity compared to conventional CNF.
Thermoelectric materials convert a temperature gradient into a voltage. Most thermoelectrics, however, are too inefficient for widespread practical application.
The atom-by-atom growth of a crystalline film on a crystalline substrate, a process known as epitaxy, is employed in a wide range of applications to produce high-performance electronic interfaces and functionalities. Achieving the highest-quality interfaces generally involves matching the atomic lattice structures of the film and substrate. However, depending on the pairing of materials, achieving such lattice matching can be difficult, and the mechanisms governing growth in lattice-mismatched systems can be complex.
A team of researchers has integrated tiny detectors capable of counting individual photons on computer chips. These detectors, called "single-photon avalanche diodes (SPAD)," act like mini Geiger counters, producing a "tick" each time a photon is detected.
A team of university researchers, aided by scientists at the National Institute of Standards and Technology, have succeeded in integrating a new, highly efficient piezoelectric material into a silicon microelectromechanical system.
A terahertz transmitter developed at the TU Darmstadt has generated the highest frequency ever attained by a microelectronic device. The innovative device is also minuscule and operates at room temperature, which could lead to it paving the way for new applications in, e.g., nondestructive testing or medical diagnostics.
Thin gold wires often used in high-end electronic applications are wonderfully flexible as well as conductive. But those qualities don't necessarily apply to the same wires at the nanoscale.
While insulating against electrical currents in their interior, the surface of materials called topological insulators permits the flow of electron spins relatively unhindered. The almost lossless flow of spin information makes topological insulators a promising new class of materials for electronic applications: the electron spins could be harnessed to transmit information in the same way that electrical charges are used in conventional electronics.
The study of how charge flows through two-dimensional surfaces has been one of the fastest growing areas of research in physics over the past decade. More recently, however, scientists have begun to focus on charge flow through the two-dimensional surfaces of three-dimensional objects called topological insulators. The surfaces of topological insulators exhibit unique electrical and magnetic properties that are not found in the bulk of the object.
Berkeley Design Automation, Inc., provider of the world's fastest nanometer circuit verification, today announced that Toumaz, the leading provider of ultra-low energy wireless telemetry technologies, has selected the company's AFS Platform for RF block characterization and full-circuit transceiver verification.
In the 1980s and '90s, competition in the computer industry was all about "clock speed" -- how many megahertz, and ultimately gigahertz, a chip could boast. But clock speeds stalled out almost 10 years ago: Chips that run faster also run hotter, and with existing technology, there seems to be no way to increase clock speed without causing chips to overheat.
Jazz Semiconductor, a fully owned U.S. subsidiary of Tower Semiconductor Ltd., today announced a cost-sharing collaboration with DARPA to advance its roadmap for high frequency SiGe heterojunction bipolar transistor devices.
The Institute of Microelectronics (IME) has joined hands with TowerJazz, which is a specialty foundry leader on projects in packaging, micro-electro-mechanical systems (MEMS) and application-specific integrated circuits (ASICs).
Translucent has declared the availability of vGaN product line of silicon-based wafer templates commercially. This company is a supplier of rare-earth-oxide (REO) based silicon substrates for applications of epitaxial semiconductors.
Translucent has designed a proprietary GaN-on-Si wafer template that features embedded DBR mirrors and can be used for manufacturing cost-effective LEDs. The design and method utilized to fabricate these wafers will be discussed at the International Conference on Nitride Semiconductors.
Using silicon lithography, liquid silicone, and electrodes that are fashioned into patterns that are invisible to the naked eye, researchers at Stanford University have finally created the seminal sci-fi component that we've all been waiting for: transparent batteries.
AIXTRON SE today announced a new order for an AIX 2800G4 HT system in a 6x6-inch wafer configuration from US start-up company Transphorm Inc. It will be used to ramp up Transphorm´s production capabilities of GaN devices for highly efficient and compact power conversion solutions by rapidly transferring the company´s GaN on Si material growth technology to large scale production.
Researchers from IMRE, a research institute of Singapore's Agency for Science, Technology and Research, and the University of Michigan, US have proven that the efficiency of fluorescent blue OLED devices can reach 9.4%, trumping the current theoretical limit for OLED external quantum efficiency by nearly two-fold.
SEMATECH, the international consortium of semiconductor manufacturers, and TSMC, a leading global semiconductor foundry, today announced TSMC's decision to join SEMATECH as a core member. The cooperation will focus on advanced technology development to address some of the industry's most pressing challenges.
Magma Design Automation Inc., a provider of chip design solutions, today announced TSMC has included the QCP™ extractor in TSMC's quarterly EDA qualification report for 28-nanometer integrated circuits. This qualification gives designers additional confidence in using QCP to address the increasing complexity of ICs implemented in TSMC's 28-nm processes.
MunEDA has declared that the company's WiCkeD circuit analysis software was incorporated by TSMC for its TSMC AMS (analog/mixed-signal) Reference Flow 2.0, an important component of TSMC 28-nm design process.
Synopsys, pioneer in IP and software for semiconductor development, production and verification, has declared that through its collaboration with TSMC, the 28-nm Analog/Mixed-Signal (AMS) Reference Flow 2.0 of TSMC will validate the custom design solutions of Synopsis.
Electrons behave like football teams: the match becomes interesting when the teamwork is as good as that conjured up by the players of FC Barcelona. Electrons which interact strongly with each other give rise to superconductivity, the lossless transport of current, for example.
Brain-computer interfaces, neural probes, brain implants -- they all require intensive in vivo studies on how to best combine inorganic electronics with organic neurons.
The answers to producing sustainable energy are brewing in university labs around the country, and Northwestern University is ready with startup ventures to take new technologies to market.
Physicists at the National Institute of Standards and Technology have for the first time linked the quantum properties of two separated ions by manipulating them with microwaves instead of the usual laser beams, suggesting it may be possible to replace an exotic room-sized quantum computing "laser park" with miniaturized, commercial microwave technology similar to that used in smart phones.
Knowles has declared that it has achieved the production of its 2 Billionth SiSonic MEMS microphone and shipped it. The microphones can be seen in all the Tier 1 mobile phones and also in other consumer electronic devices such as headsets, digital still cameras and notebooks.
Researchers on two continents are reporting two big breakthroughs in quantum computing today -- a quantum system built on the familiar von Neumann processor-memory architecture, and a working digital quantum simulator built on a quantum-computer platform. Although these developments are still constrained to the lab, they're yet another sign that a quantum leap in computing may be just around the corner.
Researchers at the National Institute of Standards and Technology have shown that the electronic properties of two layers of graphene vary on the nanometer scale. The surprising new results reveal that not only does the difference in the strength of the electric charges between the two layers vary across the layers, but they also actually reverse in sign to create randomly distributed puddles of alternating positive and negative charges.
The ENIAC Joint Undertaking announced that the overall winning project "Nanoelectronics for an Energy Efficient Electrical Car (E3Car)" received its 2011 Innovation Award, demonstrating 35% energy savings, lower costs, improved reliability and shorter time to market by introducing innovations at component and sub-system level, some of which are being adopted in real-life applications as early as in 2012.
Knowles Electronics declared that the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit has confirmed that the U.S. International Trade Commission (ITC) decided that MEMS Technology Berhard's (MemsTech) sale and importation of specific MEMS microphone products violates U.S. Patents 6,781,231 and 7,242,089 belonging to Knowles.
APIC Corporation, a Los Angeles, CA-based pioneer of photonics technology integrated with electronics, and the College of Nanoscale Science and Engineering (CNSE) of the University at Albany today announced that they have formed a $10 million partnership for joint development and commercialization of innovative "green" technology to enable faster computer chips that use significantly less power.
The College of Nanoscale Science and Engineering of the University at Albany and Long Island-based Applied DNA Sciences, Inc. today announced a partnership to enable nanotechnology-driven innovations that would play a critical role in preventing the counterfeiting of computer chips -- a collaboration in the groundbreaking area of "nanosecurity" that initially targets the $20 billion defense industry chip market and has the potential to impact nanoelectronics and aerospace markets well in excess of $300 billion.
UBM TechInsights declared it has discovered the Samsung 20-nm class fabrication process technology in a commercial application. A 27-nm process technology node was discovered after a die with a K9GBG08U0A marking was examined.
Lam Research Corporation, a major supplier of semiconductor wafer fabrication equipment and services, today announced UC Berkeley's appointment of Professor David Graves as the first chair holder of the Lam Research Distinguished Chair in Semiconductor Processing.
The Dow Chemical Company has awarded UC Santa Barbara up to $15 million to establish a collaborative research initiative that will help shape the future of technology in areas that will benefit society. The Dow Materials Institute at UCSB will educate future scientists and engineers and advance the discovery of revolutionary new materials with applications that range from novel drug delivery systems to next-generation microelectronics.
Professor Kaustav Banerjee, a professor of electrical and computer engineering and Director of the Nanoelectronics Research Lab at the University of California, Santa Barbara, has been named winner of the 2011 international research award by the Electrostatic Discharge Association.
University of California at San Diego (UCSD) physicists have discovered a new technique for controlling the direction and speed of light with the help of memory metamaterials whose characteristics can be subjected to constant changes.
Imec and Holst Centre report an ultralow-power readout ASIC for capacitive MEMS/NEMS-based sensors. The system can read both accelerometers and strain sensors in a half-bridge configuration. The gain is controlled by integrating pulses from the excitation voltage allowing accurate control of the signal-to-noise ratio.
A high-temperature superconductor can now be switched on and off within a trillionth of a second -- 100 years after the discovery of superconductivity and 25 years after the first high-temperature superconductor was.
Joint Quantum Institute (JQI) researchers led by Christopher Monroe, with theoreticians from University of Michigan, University of Auckland, and Georgetown University have observed a quantum ferromagnet using a nine ion crystal, in an atom-by-atom approach to quantum simulations of magnetism.
Researchers often work with a narrow range of compounds when making organic electronics, such as solar panels, light emitting diodes and transistors. Professor Tim Bender and Ph.D. Candidate Graham Morse of University of Toronto's Department of Chemical Engineering and Applied Chemistry have uncovered compounds that exhibit unique and novel electro-chemical properties.
Tiny radar transceivers that are extremely fast, highly precise, and run on very low power are making the Norwegian company Novelda stand out on the global market.
Veeco Instruments Inc. announced today that United LED Shan Dong Corp., (ULED) a China-based joint venture between United Microelectronics Corp (UMC) and Epistar, has placed a multi-tool order for Veeco's TurboDisc® K465i™ Metal Organic Chemical Vapor Deposition Systems. The systems will be installed at ULED's facility in Jining City, China for its high brightness light emitting diode (HB LED) manufacturing ramp.
University of Arizona researchers discovered a new active metamaterial that integrates semiconductors into conventional metamaterial structures yet retains negative refraction and has increased power gain.
Scientists of the University of Cambridge have published a novel research, demonstrating a novel flexible collective osmotic shock method for creating nanoporous materials, in the journal "Nature Materials".
University of Illinois researchers have produced a nanoparticle-based silver ink that finds application in a rollerball pen, which is a ball-point pen with a larger roller, made mostly by plastic, to trace electrical connections for flexible LED displays and other devices.
University of Warsaw's Faculty of Physics has installed focused ion beam (FIB) milling equipment that can produce micropillars, which are microscopic semiconductor structures from numerous cautiously selected layers having a nanoscale thickness. The micron-sized columns or micropillars will be utilized to develop effective yellow light lasers.
The Department of Physics at the University of Warwick will receive funding of £1.7 million for "Creating Silicon Based Platforms for New Technologies" for a duration of 5 years.
We buy and sell electronic test and measurement equipment, coaxial and waveguide components, laboratory standards and calibration equipment, oscilloscopes, power supplies and manuals.
USHIO INC. today announced that the company has started marketing the world's first 200-mm wafer full-field projection lithography tool "UX4-3Di FFPL 200" for high-volume manufacturing of advanced LSI devices incorporating 3D integration technologies, such as through-silicon vias (TSV) and silicon interposers and bumps.
The silicon chip took over forty years to approach a $300 billion business today. A new form of electronics -- printed electronics -- will hit that figure in half the time because, unlike the silicon chip, it subsumes electrics such as lighting, batteries, solar cells and heaters, not just electronics. It is usually achieved by printing and its most vital characteristic is physical flexibility. Printed electronics is one of the most important new enabling technologies. It will have a major impact on most business activities from publishing and security printing to healthcare, automotive, military and consumer packaged goods sectors.
Writing in the journal Nature Communications ("Strong plasmonic enhancement of photovoltage in graphene"), a collaboration between the Universities of Manchester and Cambridge, which includes Nobel Prize winning scientists Professor Andre Geim and Professor Kostya Novoselov, has discovered a crucial recipe for improving characteristics of graphene devices for use as photodetectors in future high-speed optical communications.
Applied Materials has declared its Vantage Vulcan rapid thermal processing system, which is used to heat silicon wafers from the rear for enhanced control and production efficiency.
Veeco Instruments Inc. today announced that it has been awarded $4 million in R&D Matching Funds by the U.S. Department of Energy to support high-efficiency solid state lighting projects. Veeco, which is one of the world's leading providers of equipment to make light emitting diodes (LEDs), is receiving funding for a project targeted at lowering the manufacturing costs and improving the brightness and efficiency of LEDs by utilizing novel materials, substrates, and deposition technologies. Kyma Technologies, a leading provider of crystalline nitride semiconductor materials based in Raleigh, North Carolina, will be supplying material and services to Veeco as part of this development project.
Vendum Batteries, a US-based battery technology development company, is pleased to announce that it has joined the Nano Knowledge Transfer Network (NanoKTN), a Government agency leading and supporting the commercialization of Nano technologies in the UK.
Harvard University and Zena Technologies researchers led by Kenneth B. Crozier have discovered that single vertical silicon nanowires can shine in all the rainbow colors.
The University of Virginia, in partnership with the College of William &Mary and Old Dominion University, has launched the Virginia Nanoelectronics Center, or ViNC, to advance research aimed at developing next-generation electronics.
Vishay Intertechnology, a manufacturer of passive electronic components and discrete semiconductors, unveils a new thin film resistor with precision low temperature coefficient of resistance (TCR).
The Auto Gapping System from CyberOptics Semiconductors is a new edition of its legacy gapping technology that needed 10 hours to determine how far the chamber's gas showerhead was from the wafer pedestal for consistent film deposition, especially with new dielectric films.
Ener1, Inc., a leader in lithium-ion energy storage solutions, and Wanxiang Electric Vehicle Co., Ltd., a division of the Chinese conglomerate Wanxiang Group Corporation, today announced that they have received approval from the Chinese government for their joint venture to co-manufacture lithium-ion energy storage systems for the China market.
While studying the weird behavior of high-temperature superconductors, scientists may have found a new phase of matter, separate from solid, liquid, gas and plasma. Electrons in a pre-superconducting state apparently form a strange, distinct order, lining up in a way that has never been seen before.
The University of Warwick Department of Physics has been awarded a prestigious five-year grant to the sum of £1.7 million for "Creating Silicon Based Platforms for New Technologies". The initiative will open up new technologies ranging from energy harvesting to "cooltronics", enable zero-power electronics and could be key to combating global climate change.
A single drop of water can be fatal to electrical circuits. To prevent water damage, current electronic devices are well sealed and packaged with polymer passivation. Researchers in Korea have now gone one step further and made water resistance a feature of the device itself by incorporating nonwetting, superhydrophobic components into the electronic device. They demonstrated this novel idea with a source/drain structure in a thin-film transistor.
The National Science Foundation has granted a Faculty Early Career Development (CAREER) grant worth $475,000 over a period of five years to Wayne State University's Mark Ming-Cheng Cheng to develop a long-term, ultra-performance implantable electrode system using graphene.
The potential applications for nanophotonics and nanoelectronics are truly startling, suggesting the brink of a revolution in human–machine interfaces that could turn science fiction into a reality. From interactive paper to clothing that generates energy and light-weight material with X-ray capabilities, weaving electronics into the building blocks of everyday materials will undoubtedly impact how we live in the future.
Field emission devices, which produce a steady stream of electrons, have a host of consumer, industrial, and research applications. Recent designs based on nanotubes and other nanomaterials embedded in plastics show initial promise, but have a number of drawbacks that hinder their wide-scale application.
The thinnest wire in the world, made from pure gold, is being examined by physicists from the universities of Würzburg and Kassel. Its exceptional electrical conductivity is causing quite a stir: the electrons do not move freely through the wire, but like cars in stop-and-go traffic.
Graphene, a one-atom thick sheet of carbon atoms arranged in hexagonal rings, is the latest "wonder material" that has taken scientific communities and industrial sectors by storm.
Battery operated Electronic devices are today a vast part of the overall electronic market place. Yet, there is one major bothering issue within almost every single device, instrument or gadget - "battery life time".
Researchers belonging to the Aalto University in Finland and the University of Washington have created a prototype contact lens that can provide hands-free information updates to the wearer.
By applying a coating to individual silicon nanowires, researchers at Harvard and Berkeley have significantly improved the materials' efficiency and sensitivity.
Liotech, a joint venture between RUSNANO and Chinese holding company Thunder Sky, has launched the world's largest high-capacity lithium-ion battery factory near Novosibirsk. Investments in the project exceed 13.5 billion rubles. The plant, which covers more than 40,000 square meters, was built in record time-nine months from start to finish.
NVIDIA and the CGSociety, a division of Ballistic Media, have announced 'NVArt 6: Moving Innovation', a new worldwide digital art contest for artists to explore the future of electronic device design, with over $34,000 in prizes.
Vistec Lithography, B.V. is pleased to announce today that Wuhan National Laboratory for Optoelectronics at the Huazhong University of Science and Technology in Wuhan, P.R. of China signed off its electron-beam lithography system Vistec EBPG5000pES.
X-FAB, which is an analogue and mixed signal semiconductor application foundry group has approved the Cadence Physical Verification System for all its process technologies.
Michigan State University spinoff XG Sciences has entered into a series of agreements with POSCO, a Korean corporation and one of the world's largest steel producers, to create a strategic partnership for the advancement of graphene manufacturing and product development based on XG Sciences' proprietary technologies.
Xilinx, Inc. announced the beginning of the 7 series FPGA rollout with shipment of the first Kintex™-7 K325T Field Programmable Gate Array, marking the industry's fastest product rollout of next generation programmable logic devices built with 28nm technology.
Continuing to extend the reach of microcomputed tomography (CT) with breakthrough 3D X-ray imaging solutions, Xradia announces the VersaXRM-500, a new system advancing industry and science with a versatile combination of world-leading resolution and contrast, sample flexibility and the large working distance required to address emerging research challenges.
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Researchers have used zinc oxide microwires to significantly improve the efficiency at which gallium nitride light-emitting diodes (LED) convert electricity to ultraviolet light. The devices are believed to be the first LEDs whose performance has been enhanced by the creation of an electrical charge in a piezoelectric material using the piezo-phototronic effect.
This timely review focuses on the synthesis of zinc stannate (zinc tin oxide: ZTO) nanostructures by the hydrothermal method, as well as the physical properties and applications of different zinc stannate nanostructures in solar cells, gas sensors, and photocatalysts.
