category: Special Reports

category: IoT, Security & Automotive

Darker Silicon
By Katherine Derbyshire - 29 Jan, 2015 - Comments: 0

For the last several decades, integrated circuit manufacturers have focused their efforts on [getkc id="74" comment="Moore's Law"], increasing transistor density at constant cost. For much of that time, Dennard’s Law also held: As the dimensions of a device go down, so does power consumption. Smaller transistors ran faster, used less power, and cost less. As most readers already know, howe... » read more

New Challenges For Wearables
By Ed Sperling - 26 Jan, 2015 - Comments: 1

The earliest recorded mention of a wristwatch dates back to the late 1500s, but it really began gaining adherents in Great Britain’s Boer War campaign as a way of synchronizing military actions beyond the line of sight. Strapping a pocket watch to a horse or a camel simply didn’t work, and pulling it out of a jacket pocket was not only inconvenient, it was dangerous. Advertised as a “c... » read more

Searching For The Next Power Transistor
By Mark LaPedus - 22 Jan, 2015 - Comments: 0

For decades, the industry has relied on various power semiconductors to control and convert electrical power in an efficient manner. Power semis are ubiquitous, as they are found in adapters, appliances, cars, elevators, switching power supplies, power grids and other systems. But today’s silicon-based power semiconductor transistor technologies, such as IGBTs, MOSFETs and thyristors, are ... » read more

New Challenges For Wearables
By Ed Sperling - 15 Jan, 2015 - Comments: 0

It was Dick Tracy’s wristwatch communicator that triggered the public’s appetite for wearable electronics. Introduced in a 1946 syndicated comic strip, the idea was so compelling that it inspired the release of hundreds of wrist-based devices ranging from walkie-talkies to calculators to GPS trackers, heartbeat and movement monitors. Yet despite the public’s fascination with this kind of ... » read more

A Robot In Every Home
By Ernest Worthman - 08 Jan, 2015 - Comments: 0

Bill Gates, in a 2006 Scientific American article, described his vision of the future as, "A robot in every home." It's difficult to project that far ahead with technology, though. Since then, wireless has come a long way. So have microelectronics—nearly 24 orders of magnitude if you use Moore's Law. So the robot conceived in 2006 is now more like a gaggle of Internet dust particles that r... » read more

Manufacturing Constraint Fears Grow
By Ed Sperling - 18 Dec, 2014 - Comments: 0

The semiconductor industry could become a victim of its own success. With so many semiconductors being consumed inside of cars, home electronics and industry, capacity shortages are beginning to surface in some areas. Foundries set rates depending upon a complex mix of process technology, equipment depreciation, customer demand and the need to push customers from one node the next depending ... » read more

DNA Sequencing Device Market Heats Up
By Mark LaPedus - 11 Dec, 2014 - Comments: 0

Slightly more than a decade ago an international consortium reached a major milestone by sequencing the human genome. Using laboratory systems called DNA sequencers, the Human Genome Project (HGP) determined the order of nearly 3 billion base pairs that make up the human genome. This, in turn, was supposed to pave the way to prevent, treat and cure diseases. Then, in early 2014, Illumina hit... » read more

Smarter Cars, But How Smart?
By Ernest Worthman - 09 Dec, 2014 - Comments: 0

With the emergence of the Internet of Things, smart cars are beginning to garner more attention — the kind that comes with real R&D dollars, market development plans and cost analyses for future commercialization. Smart cars are different than connected cars, which are simply smartphones on wheels. Until now, the focus on intelligence in automobiles has largely been on driver assist and in... » read more

Energy Harvesting Makes Progress
By Ed Sperling - 04 Dec, 2014 - Comments: 0

The dream of a self-powered device has been around for a long time—thousands of years, in fact. The first windmills and waterwheels date back to ancient Greece and the beginning of recorded history. Self-winding timepieces date back to the late 1700s. The Foucault pendulum has been in motion in Paris, minus some brief hiatuses, since 1851. And it's been 144 years since two French physicists d... » read more

An Inside Look At The GlobalFoundries-IBM Deal
By Ed Sperling - 20 Nov, 2014 - Comments: 3

GlobalFoundries' proposed acquisition of IBM Microelectronics is the kind of deal that will have business schools talking for many years to come—a gargantuan combination of expertise and technology, built on the back of high-profile business successes and failures, long-running legal struggles and global politics—with far-reaching implications for all parts of the semiconductor supply chain... » read more

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