Manufacturing Bits: Aug. 1


Magnetic chips HRL Laboratories—an R&D venture between Boeing and General Motors—has been awarded a contract to develop a new class of magnetic integrated components. HRL has received the award from the Defense Advanced Research Project Agency (DARPA) under the Magnetic, Miniaturized, and Monolithically Integrated Components (M3IC) program. The goal is to develop new magnetic materials... » read more

System Bits: April 4


Nanodevices for extreme environments in space, on earth Researchers at the Stanford Extreme Environment Microsystems Laboratory (XLab) are on a mission to conquer conditions such as those found on Venus: a hot surface pelted with sulfuric acid rains, 480 degrees C, an atmosphere that would fry today’s electronics. By developing heat-, corrosion- and radiation-resistant electronics, the team ... » read more

Power/Performance Bits: March 21


Tiny redox flow batteries for chips Researchers at ETH Zurich and IBM Research Zurich built a tiny redox flow battery capable of both powering and cooling stacks of chips. In a flow battery, an electrochemical reaction is used to produce electricity out of two liquid electrolytes, which are pumped to the battery cell from outside via a closed electrolyte loop. Such batteries are usually u... » read more

Manufacturing Bits: Aug. 30


Redefining the ampere In 2014, an international group called the BIPM agreed to redefine four common units of measurements--the kilogram, the ampere, the kelvin and the mole. These units of measurement make up the so-called International System of Units or SI. In total, there are seven SI base units—meter, kilogram, second, ampere, kelvin, mole, and the candela. Work is already under wa... » read more

System Bits: Aug. 23


Monitor side-channel signals for IoT device security Thanks to a Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency (DARPA) grant, Georgia Tech researchers are working to develop a new technique for wirelessly monitoring IoT devices for malicious software – without affecting the operation of the ubiquitous, and low-power equipment. The team said the technique will rely on receiving and analyzing s... » read more

Power/Performance Bits: Aug. 23


Connecting implanted devices University of Washington researchers developed a new method for communication between devices such as brain implants, contact lenses, credit cards and smaller wearable electronics with other devices such as smartphones and watches. Using only reflections, an interscatter system requires no specialized equipment, relying solely on mobile devices to generate Wi-... » read more

Power/Performance Bits: July 5


More storage with electromagnetic switch Scientists at Hokkaido University designed a device that employs both magnetic and electronic signals, potentially doubling the storage capacity of conventional memory devices. In addition to the binary 0/1 method of storing information, this would add an A/B store for the information as well. To do this would require finding a material that can switc... » read more

System Bits: Feb. 9


Securing RFID chips Researchers at MIT and Texas Instruments have developed a new type of radio frequency identification (RFID) chip that they say is virtually impossible to hack, and which could secure credit cards, key cards, and pallets of goods in warehouses. The researchers reminded that if such chips were widely adopted, it could mean that an identity thief couldn’t steal your credi... » read more

Manufacturing Bits: Jan. 26


Giant vice Deutsches Elektronen-Synchrotron (DESY), a research center within the Helmholtz Association, has installed a giant vise or press in its organization. The vise, dubbed the Large Volume Press (LVP), measures 4.5 meters in height and weighs 35 tons. It can exert a force of up to 500 tons on each of its three axes. [caption id="attachment_25030" align="alignleft" width="160"] Th... » read more

System Bits: Jan. 19


Electromagnetic properties of graphene-boron nitride materials Rice University and Montreal Polytechnic researchers reported that developing novel materials from the atoms up goes faster when some of the trial and error is eliminated. The work aims to simplify development of certain exotic materials for next-generation electronics. Specifically, Rouzbeh Shahsavari, a Rice materials scient... » read more

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