System Bits: August 20


RF jammer technology To thwart electronic warfare technology, a research team at the Georgia Tech Research Institute (GTRI) is developing a new generation of advanced radio frequency (RF) jammer technology as part of a project known as Angry Kitten by using commercial electronics, custom hardware development, novel machine-learning software and a unique test bed to evaluate unprecedented level... » read more

Power/Performance Bits: August 20


Rechargeable flow battery for cheaper, large-scale energy storage In a creation that may eventually enable cheaper, large-scale energy storage, MIT researchers have engineered a new rechargeable flow battery that doesn’t rely on expensive membranes to generate and store electricity. According to the researchers, the palm-sized prototype generates three times as much power per square centi... » read more

Manufacturing Bits: Aug. 20


Child’s Play MIT has created lightweight composite building blocks that can be snapped together like Legos to create complex shapes. MIT says those structures can be used to assemble everything from airplanes to dikes. The new material is used to create identical interlocking parts, according to the university. The parts are 10 times stiffer than other ultralight materials, though. And ev... » read more

The Week In Review: Aug. 19


By Mark LaPedus Applied Materials named Gary Dickerson, who has been serving as president of the company, as CEO. Mike Splinter, who held the reins since 2003, was elevated to executive chairman of the board. Dickerson served as the CEO of Varian, which Applied acquired in 2011, as well as the president and COO of KLA-Tencor. Applied Materials also announced its Q3 results. The company rep... » read more

The Week In Review: Aug. 16


By Ed Sperling Manufacturing Equipment giant Applied Materials added three extra letters company president Gary Dickerson’s title—CEO. Mike Splinter, who has served as the company’s CEO since 2003, will become executive chairman of the board of directors. Dickerson was the CEO of Varian, which Applied Materials acquired in 2011. Synopsys introduced a Dolby decoder for its ARC process... » read more

Blog Review: Aug. 14


By Ed Sperling Synopsys’ Eric Huang unveils the fastest USB ever. The seat belt is extra. Mentor’s Nazita Saye sees the light—well, at least a refracted version of it—through the lens of a plastic bottle. This one is a real energy saver for the money, even if you have to forfeit the recycling fee. Check out the link. Cadence’s Brian Fuller takes a sledgehammer to the semicond... » read more

Manufacturing Bits: Aug. 13


Crawling And Climbing Robots The field of autonomous robotics is generating interest, as these systems can explore areas and perform functions that are risky and inaccessible to humans. The University of California at San Diego and EPFL separately have developed new autonomous robots for a range of applications. For example, UC San Diego has developed a robot designed to scoot along utility... » read more

System Bits: August 13


Analyzing ad hoc networks Now that the basic protocols of the Internet are more than 30 years old, network scientists are increasingly turning attention to ad hoc networks in which communications networks set up, on the fly, by wireless devices. Here, unsolved problems still abound. Most theoretical analyses of ad hoc networks have assumed that the communications links within the network ar... » read more

Power/Performance Bits: August 13


Graphene-based device enables next-gen energy storage Monash University researchers have brought next generation energy storage closer with an engineering first: a graphene-based device that is compact, yet lasts as long as a conventional battery. A research team in the Department of Materials Engineering has developed a completely new strategy to engineer graphene-based supercapacitors (SC... » read more

The Week In Review: Aug. 12


By Mark LaPedus Is the sky falling on semi capital spending? “We have seen several 2014 industry demand estimates in the 20%+ range, based on the ramps of FinFET and 3D NAND,” said Weston Twigg, an analyst with Pacific Crest Securities. “We expect Samsung to ramp spending in Q4, but we believe foundry and logic spending will remain soft for several quarters. As a result, we are developin... » read more

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