Power/Performance Bits: Feb. 25


SiGe chip sets speed record Researchers from IHP-Innovations for High Performance Microelectronics in Germany and the Georgia Institute of Technology have demonstrated what they say is the world's fastest silicon-based device to date. A silicon-germanium (SiGe) chip has been operated transistor at 798 gigahertz (GHz) fMAX, exceeding the previous speed record for silicon-germanium chips by abou... » read more

Manufacturing Bits: Feb. 18


Polite cupcake helping robots Cornell and Carnegie Mellon have made a new discovery about robots. If they sound less snippy when they communicate, listeners will respond better. In fact, developers of robots should develop systems that use less confrontational language. In the study, entitled “How a Robot Should Give Advice,” researchers discovered that robots and humans are more lik... » read more

Power/Performance Bits: Feb. 11


Low-power chip for cochlear implants without external hardware Existing versions of cochlear implants require that a disk-shaped transmitter about an inch in diameter be affixed to the skull, with a wire snaking down to a joint microphone and power source that looks like an oversized hearing aid around the patient’s ear...until now. Researchers at MIT’s Microsystems Technology Laboratory a... » read more

System Bits: Feb. 4


Speeding Access To Information Big data today is usually stored on multiple hard disks on a number of machines across an Ethernet network, but this storage architecture considerably increases the time it takes to access the information. Researchers at MIT have developed a storage system for big-data analytics they claim can dramatically reduce the time it takes to access information. The sy... » read more

Power/Performance Bits: Jan. 28


E-whiskers From the world of nanotechnology, researchers with Berkeley Lab and UC Berkeley are on the verge of electronic whiskers -- tactile sensors from composite films of carbon nanotubes and silver nanoparticles similar to the highly sensitive whiskers of cats and rats. These new e-whiskers respond to pressure as slight as a single Pascal, which is about the amount of pressure exerted o... » read more

Power/Performance Bits: Jan. 14


Disorderly conduct With a significant ability to store power per a given weight, lithium batteries have been a major focus of research to enable use in everything from portable electronics to electric cars and now researchers at MIT and Brookhaven National Laboratory have found the use of disordered materials – generally considered unsuitable for batteries – can be used in a new avenue for... » read more

What’s After Silicon?


As discussed in the first article in this series, germanium is one of the leading candidates to succeed silicon as the channel material for advanced transistors, and has been for several years. The fundamental challenges of germanium integration were detailed at length in 2007. Unfortunately, knowing what the issues are does not necessarily lead to a solution. When a MOSFET transistor turns ... » read more

Manufacturing Bits: Dec. 31


Bringing Graphene Down To Earth For years, the semiconductor industry has been looking at graphene as a next-generation technology for a multitude of applications. One potential application, the graphene field-effect transistor (GFET), has been developed by various companies and universities. There are several advantages and disadvantages with GFETs. On one hand, GFETs have a higher mobilit... » read more

System Bits: Dec. 17


Simple, Inexpensive Graphene Treatment Could Unleash New Uses To help realize the promise of graphene in electronics, solar power, and sensors, researchers from MIT and UC Berkeley have created what they said is a simple, inexpensive treatment that they believe may help realize the potential of the material. While pure graphene lacks some key properties needed for electronic devices, modify... » read more

Flawed Research?


Soft errors were first talked about a long time ago and [getkc id="22" kc_name="memories"], which are the most susceptible to this type of error due to their finer geometries and tighter packing, have long included protection from such errors. But the scare has proven to be larger than the real problem. However, as geometries shrink, we are again hearing about the potential problems. Researc... » read more

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