Research Bits: Nov. 25


3D-printed ESD protection Researchers from Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory developed a printable elastomeric silicone foam for electronics packaging that provides both mechanical and electrostatic discharge (ESD) protection. The team used a 3D printing technique called direct ink writing (DIW), an extrusion process in which a paste with controlled rheological properties such as elast... » read more

Research Bits: Jan. 9


Making stretchy semiconductors Researchers from Pennsylvania State University, University of Houston, Purdue University, and Texas Heart Institute developed a new method to make soft, stretchable transistors easier and cheaper to manufacture. The lateral phase separation induced micromesh (LPSM) process involves mixing a semiconductor and an elastomer and spin coating the liquid mixture pre... » read more

Security Research: Technical Paper Round-Up


A number of hardware security-related technical papers were presented at recent conferences, including the August 2022 USENIX Security Symposium and IEEE’s International Symposium on Hardware Oriented Security and Trust (HOST). Topics include side-channel attacks and defenses (including on-chip mesh interconnect attacks), heterogeneous attacks on cache hierarchies, rowhammer attacks and mitig... » read more

Defending Against Message Injection Attacks in Vehicles


This technical paper titled "SAID: State-aware Defense Against Injection Attacks on In-vehicle Network" was presented by researchers at the Hong Kong Polytechnic University, Zhejiang University, and Texas A&M University at the USENIX Security Symposium in Boston in August 2022. Abstract: "Modern vehicles are equipped with many ECUs (Electronic Control Unit) that are connected to the IVN (... » read more

Power/Performance Bits: June 4


Flexible high-temp dielectric Researchers at Rice University, Georgia Institute of Technology, and Cornell University developed a new high-temperature dielectric nanocomposite for flexible electronics, energy storage, and electric devices that combines one-dimensional polymer nanofibers and two-dimensional boron nitride nanosheets. The polymer nanofibers act as a structural reinforcement, w... » read more

Interest Grows In Ferroelectric Devices


Ferroelectric FETs and memories are beginning to show promise as researchers begin developing and testing next-generation transistors. One measure of the efficiency of a transistor is the subthreshold swing, which is the change in gate voltage needed to increase the drain current by one order of magnitude. Measured in units of millivolts per decade, in conventional MOSFETs it is limited to k... » read more