Power/Performance Bits: Jan. 18


3D printed custom wearables Researchers from the University of Arizona created a 3D printed wearable that can operate continuously through wireless power to track body temperature and muscle deformation during exercise. Based on 3D body scans of the wearer, the medical-grade 'biosymbiotic device' can be custom printed to conform to a user's skin without the need for adhesives, which can irr... » read more

Neuromorphic electronics based on copying and pasting the brain


Abstract: "Reverse engineering the brain by mimicking the structure and function of neuronal networks on a silicon integrated circuit was the original goal of neuromorphic engineering, but remains a distant prospect. The focus of neuromorphic engineering has thus been relaxed from rigorous brain mimicry to designs inspired by qualitative features of the brain, including event-driven sign... » read more

Week In Review: Design, Low Power


Valens Semiconductor began trading on the New York Stock Exchange as VLN after a merger with special-purpose acquisition company (SPAC) PTK Acquisition Corp. Valens offers high-speed connectivity chips for the audio-video and automotive markets, including its HDBaseT technology for connectivity between ultra-HD video sources and remote displays and its in-vehicle high-speed links. The transacti... » read more

Where Imperfections Lead To Opportunity


By Evelyn Hu It is natural to hold a bias that assumes that the highest-quality devices are those formed from the most perfect materials (crystalline, well-ordered, stoichiometric). Therefore, it is ironic, and perhaps counterintuitive, that particular kinds of defects, such as vacancies (missing atoms) in semiconductor materials, can form the building blocks of a new quantum information tec... » read more

Revving Up For Edge Computing


The edge is beginning to take shape as a way of limiting the amount of data that needs to be pushed up to the cloud for processing, setting the stage for a massive shift in compute architectures and a race among chipmakers for a stake in a new and highly lucrative market. So far, it's not clear which architectures will win, or how and where data will be partitioned between what needs to be p... » read more

System Bits: Sept. 24


Quantum states Many companies and academic researchers are working on quantum computing technology, including the University of Buffalo. New research on two-dimensional tungsten disulfide (WS2) could open the door to advances in quantum computing, UB reports. In a paper published Sept. 13 in Nature Communications, scientists report that they can manipulate the electronic properties of th... » read more

Power/Performance Bits: Aug. 27


The sound of typing Cybersecurity researchers at the Southern Methodist University found a way to detect what a user is typing based on sensor data collected from a nearby smartphone. The team found that acoustic signals produced by typing on a computer keyboard can successfully be picked up by a smartphone, which can then be processed to determine which keys were struck – even in noisy conf... » read more

System Bits: Aug. 13


Keeping tabs on crops University of Missouri researchers collaborated with the Agricultural Research Service at the U.S. Department of Agriculture on pairing a regular digital camera with a miniature infrared camera for a novel system providing temperature data and detailed images of crops. “Using an infrared camera to monitor crop temperature can be tricky because it is difficult to diff... » read more

Power/Performance Bits: July 3


2D straintronics Researchers at the University of Rochester and Xi’an Jiaotong University dug into how 2D materials behave when stretched to push the boundaries of what they can do. "We're opening up a new direction of study," says Stephen Wu, assistant professor of electrical and computer engineering and physics at Rochester. "There's a huge number of 2D materials with different properti... » read more

Power/Performance Bits: May 28


Archival storage Researchers at Harvard University and Northwestern University propose a method of long-lived archival data storage using low-weight molecules. DNA has been explored as a method of archival storage, but the researchers argue that it is inadequate, as the DNA macromolecule is large and requires skilled, repetitive labor to encode and read. Instead, the researchers turned... » read more

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