Research Bits: June 13


Converting heat to electricity Researchers at the National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST) and University of Colorado Boulder fabricated a device to boost the conversion of heat into electricity. The technique involves depositing hundreds of thousands of microscopic columns of gallium nitride atop a silicon wafer. Layers of silicon are then removed from the underside of the waf... » read more

Connecting Quantum Devices With Sound


A new technical paper titled "On-chip distribution of quantum information using traveling phonons" was published by researchers at TU Delft, Center for Nanophotonics, AMOLF, and Eindhoven University of Technology. "Physicists from the Gröblacher lab at TU Delft have built a device that can link different quantum devices and qubits to each other. This device, a silicon chip with vibrations t... » read more

Research Bits: Nov. 29


Earth-bound, more accurate GPS A new idea for terrestrial-based global navigation satellite systems (GNSS) that uses very accurate national atomic clocks on the ground may help self-driving cars in urban environments get where they are going. Researchers from Delft University of Technology (TU Delft), Vrije Universiteit Amsterdam, and VSL have prototyped a hybrid optical–wireless mobile netw... » read more

Slower Metal Bogs Down SoC Performance


Metal interconnect delays are rising, offsetting some of the gains from faster transistors at each successive process node. Older architectures were born in a time when compute time was the limiter. But with interconnects increasingly viewed as the limiter on advanced nodes, there’s an opportunity to rethink how we build systems-on-chips (SoCs). ”Interconnect delay is a fundamental tr... » read more

Power/Performance Bits: July 14


5G switches Researchers from the University of Texas at Austin and University of Lille built a new radio frequency switch that could save power in 5G devices when not actively jumping between different networks and spectrum frequencies. “It has become clear that the existing switches consume significant amounts of power, and that power consumed is useless power,” said Deji Akinwande, a ... » read more

System Bits Nov 26


Scaling The Quantum Slopes Like any task, there are easy and hard ways to control atoms and molecules as quantum systems, which are driven by tailored radiation fields. More efficient methods for manipulating quantum systems could help scientists realize the next generation of technology by harnessing atoms and molecules to create small but incredibly powerful devices, such as molecular electr... » read more