Blog Review: Jan. 7


Ansys' Justin Nescott has extracted the top 5 engineering technology articles for 2014. Check out the turbocharged Dyson hand vac and the suspended animation trials. Mentor's J. VanDomelen looks at on-demand additive manufacturing on the International Space Station, otherwise known as 3D modeling and printing. It's a lot faster than waiting for a delivery. Cadence's Brian Fuller sits dow... » read more

Manufacturing Bits: Jan. 6


Vertical SiC chips for electric cars Silicon carbide (SiC) is a promising material for power electronics. The material has a high breakdown voltage, high operating temperatures and a superior thermal conductivity. At the recent 2014 IEEE International Electron Devices Meeting (IEDM) in San Francisco, Toyota, the National Institute of Advanced Industrial Science and Technology (AIST) and the... » read more

System Bits: Jan. 6


Quantum channel of light In experiments using ultracold atoms and laser light, ETH researchers have measured a stepwise change in conductivity as the atoms pass through tiny structures. This is the first time that this quantum effect has been observed for electrically neutral particles. [caption id="attachment_16993" align="alignnone" width="300"] A point contact through which neutral, ultr... » read more

Power/Performance Bits: Jan. 6


3D nanoshaping A team of researchers led by Purdue University report they’ve developed a method for creating large-area patterns of 3D nanoshapes from metal sheets. They believe this represents a potential manufacturing system to inexpensively mass produce innovations such as "plasmonic metamaterials" for advanced technologies, and could enable high-speed electronics, advanced sensors and so... » read more

Blog Review: Dec. 31


Mentor's J. VanDomelen zeroes in on the two most interesting discoveries from the Philae comet landing. So what was that "eerie cyclical clicking" sound? Synopsys' Ray Varghese digs into basic coherent transaction testing for AXI/ACE compliant interconnects. You might want to put on another pot of coffee. Cadence's Brian Fuller offers some deep insights into synthesis, verification and te... » read more

System Bits: Dec. 30


3D printing merges plastics, active electronics Princeton researchers have embedded tiny light-emitting diodes into a standard contact lens, allowing the device to project beams of colored light as part of a project demonstrating 3-D printing techniques. And while the lens is not designed for actual use — it requires an external power supply — the device was created to demonstrate the a... » read more

Manufacturing Bits: Dec. 30


Mechanical switches For years, the industry has been talking about the use of advanced mechanical switches in low-power applications. In theory, mechanical switches have zero off-state leakages, abrupt ON/OFF switching capabilities and small voltage swings. Mechanical switches could overcome the energy efficiency limit of CMOS. In fact, mechanical switches could replace CMOS in some applica... » read more

Power/Performance Bits: Dec. 30


Crafting ultrathin color coatings Harvard University researchers have developed a technique that coats a metallic object with an extremely thin layer of semiconductor, just a few nanometers thick. And while the semiconductor is a steely gray color, the object ends up shining in vibrant hues because the coating exploits interference effects in the thin films. Carefully tuned in the laboratory, ... » read more

Manufacturing Bits: Dec. 23


Higgs boson sensors At the recent 2014 IEEE International Electron Devices Meeting (IEDM) in San Francisco, CERN described the tiny hybrid pixel detectors used at the Large Hadron Collider (LHC). Using CMOS technology, hybrid pixel detectors identify and tag individual sub-atomic particles at fast speeds. CERN, the European Organization for Nuclear Research, is a particle physics laboratory... » read more

System Bits: Dec. 23


Mini particle accelerator Researchers at MIT who succeeded last year in creating a material that could trap light and stop it in its tracks have now developed a more fundamental understanding of the process. The new work — which they said could help explain some basic physical mechanisms — shows that this behavior is connected to a wide range of other seemingly unrelated phenomena. Ligh... » read more

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