Author's Latest Posts


Power/Performance Bits: Feb. 16


Energy storage on microchips After more than half a decade of speculation, fabrication, modeling and testing, an international team of researchers from Drexel University in Pennsylvania and Paul Sabatier University in Toulouse, France, confirmed that their process for making carbon films and micro-supercapacitors will allow microchips and their power sources to become one and the same. Si... » read more

The Week In Review: Design/IoT


Imagination's Sir Hossein Yassaie stepped down as Chief Executive, and Andrew Heath, one of the non-executive directors, has been appointed Interim Chief Executive. As part of a major restructuring, the company will also sell Pure, its consumer electronics business. Mentor Graphics' Embedded Linux platform has been updated to Yocto 2.0 and expanded to include new security enhancements and ad... » read more

Blog Review: Feb. 10


You could be flying on a hybrid plane that uses hydrogen fuel cells in the future, and might even be able to hear the loudspeaker announcements while waiting for the flight, in this week's top tech picks from Ansys' Justin Nescott. Plus, smart soccer balls. Thermal is the new power, argues Cadence's Paul McLellan, and when it comes to SoCs treating thermal analysis as an afterthought is no l... » read more

Power/Performance Bits: Feb. 9


Molybdenum disulfide memristors Researchers at Michigan Technological University constructed an ideal memristor based on molybdenum disulfide nanosheets. "Different from an electrical resistor that has a fixed resistance, a memristor possesses a voltage-dependent resistance," said Yun Hang Hu, professor of materials science and engineering at MTU, adding that a material's electric propert... » read more

The Week In Review: Design/IoT


Events DAC is now accepting nominations for the Marie R. Pistilli Women in EDA Achievement Award, which recognizes individuals who have visibly helped to advance the profile of women in the EDA industry. Nominations must be received by March 3rd. Tools Cadence unveiled its new Modus Test Solution, which the company says enables design engineers to achieve an up to 3X reduction in test ... » read more

Blog Review: Feb. 3


In this week's top five tech picks, Ansys' Bill Vandermark highlights a variety of breakthroughs which, working together, help boost self-driving cars. Rambus' Aharon Etengoff reviews the television show Mr. Robot, which he says may have as much potential impact as WarGames did in the 80s. Cadence's Paul McLellan looks at Conway's Law of business organization and the changing structure of... » read more

Power/Performance Bits: Feb. 2


Single electron transistors A group coordinated by the Helmholtz-Zentrum Dresden-Rossendorf (HZDR) is setting out on a four year program to develop single electron transistors fully compatible with CMOS technology and capable of room temperature operation. The single electron transistor (SET) switches electricity by means of a single electron. The SET is based on a quantum dot (consisting... » read more

The Week In Review: Design/IoT


Mergers & Acquisitions Rambus expanded the scope of its Cryptography Research Division with the acquisition of UK-based Smart Card Software. The £64.7M ($91.84 million) deal comprises advanced mobile payment platform developer Bell ID as well as Ecebs, a supplier of smart ticketing systems to the UK transport markets. Tools & IP Mentor Graphics uncorked its Embedded Multicore ... » read more

Blog Review: Jan. 27


There's an ocean of possibilities for transistors and interconnects at the 5nm node, says Cadence's Paul McLellan – but will any of them be feasible in time? How would you design R2-D2? Mentor's Joe Hupcey III lays out what low power techniques he thinks the Star Wars droid might require. It's not all clear skies in the world of FinFETs, as Synopsys' Graham Etchells continues his series... » read more

Power/Performance Bits: Jan. 26


New switchable material Two MIT researchers developed a thin-film material whose phase and electrical properties can be switched between metallic and semiconducting simply by applying a small voltage. The material then stays in its new configuration until switched back by another voltage. The discovery could pave the way for a new kind of nonvolatile memory. The findings involve the thin-... » read more

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