Manufacturing Bits: Dec. 10


Space Telescopes The James Webb Space Telescope, the follow-on mission to the Hubble Space Telescope, is a large, infrared-optimized space telescope. Slated for a launch date of 2018, Webb will find the first galaxies that were formed in the early Universe. Webb is a collaboration between NASA, the European Space Agency (ESA) and the Canadian Space Agency (CSA). Webb’s measurements will ... » read more

System Bits: Dec. 10


Lasers From Nano Wires A few weeks ago, Semiconductor Engineering published a special report about silicon photonics and concentrated on the integration of the laser onto the silicon surface. Growing III-V materials on silicon is problematic because of the lattice mismatch, but researchers at the Technische Universität München (TUM) may have found a way around that problem. Thread-like semic... » read more

Power/Performance Bits: Dec. 10


Optical Metamaterial with a Refractive Index of Zero Most of the time we hear about the need for coherent light sources, such as those produced by lasers, but there may be equal promise looking in the other direction. Quantum processors promise to be many times faster and more powerful than today’s supercomputers, but to get to that point they will need fast and efficient multi-directiona... » read more

The Week In Review: Manufacturing & Design


A new study reveals that a majority of Americans are making some costly miscalculations regarding the performance of their existing PCs. The survey reveals that Americans lack financial savvy when faced with slow computers. Germany’s Merck KGaA, a pharmaceutical, chemical and life science company, announced an agreement with AZ Electronic Materials, under which Merck KGaA would acquire AZ.... » read more

The Week In Review: System-Level Design


Synopsys is closing in on the $2 billion mark, which would set a new record in EDA. The company posted strong financial results for its fiscal Q4 and fiscal 2013. For its fiscal year, revenue was $1.962 billion, up 11.7% from $1.756 billion in fiscal 2012. Net income for the year was $247.8 million, up from $182.4 million. For the most recent quarter, revenue was $504.9 million, up from $454.2 ... » read more

Blog Review: Dec. 4


Mentor’s Harry Foster closes his epic study on functional verification with an interesting insight about the real value of industry studies—new questions. It’s hard to argue with that. Cadence’s Brian Fuller takes a shot at the people taking shots at Amazon’s drone delivery service (the term du jour is robots). It does sound cool, as long as they don’t deliver the kind of payloa... » read more

Power-Performance Bits: Dec 3


In this week’s edition of Power/Performance Bits we look at two very different types of antennas, in one case a combined antenna and solar panel and in the second nanoantennas that can create holograms. Combining Antennas with Solar Panels When it comes to satellites weight is everything, and historically telecommunication antennas and solar cells have never really worked well together, a... » read more

Manufacturing Bits: Dec. 3


Animal robots invade London The London Science Museum will premiere U-CAT, an underwater robot turtle designed to penetrate shipwrecks. In the exhibit, the museum will also showcase several robots that resemble an eel, bat, cheetah cub, tumbleweed, tuna, salamander and other creatures. Meanwhile, built by the Centre for Biorobotics at Tallinn University of Technology, U-CAT’s locomotio... » read more

System Bits: Dec. 3


Tagging is a way of organizing information and today’s System Bits looks at two aspects of tagging. The first is an algorithm associated with social media and the second about how the brain geotags information. New Algorithm Finds You, Even in Untagged Photos You cannot hide on the Internet anymore. Anything posted online can be found, although in the past photos that were untagged may ha... » read more

The Week In Review: Manufacturing & Design


Gesture sensing is a hot topic. Apple recently confirmed the acquisition of PrimeSense for a reported $360 million. PrimeSense is an Israel-based company known for its structured light technology. “Gesture sensing of 3D depth without a controller is the standard for game consoles such as Microsoft Kinect for Xbox and new PS Camera for PlayStation 4. Clearly, a future Apple TV is the logical p... » read more

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