Week In Review: Auto, Security, Pervasive Computing


Automotive, mobility An engine-sensor malfunction in three popular Japanese-versions of the Subaru models has forced the company to suspend production temporarily in Japan, according to Reuters. The sensor in the CB18 engine, found in Japan’s Forester, Outback, and Levor cars, stops the engine from starting and flashes a warning light. In North America, Subaru is adding a wide-angle mono cam... » read more

Week In Review: Auto, Security, Pervasive Computing


NASA plans to launch the James Webb Space Telescope (JWST) this Saturday, Dec 25, on an European Space Agency (ESA) rocket. Mission-critical radiation-hardened components from IR HiRel, an Infineon company, will go up with the JWST. IR HiRel space-grade DC-DC converters, rad hard MOSFETs and other power control products are in the spacecraft bus subsystems, such as electrical power, altitude co... » read more

Week In Review: Auto, Security, Pervasive Computing


Automotive Synopsys and 3D virtual-environment company Dassault Systèmes are collaborating on an automotive lighting system development platform. Synopsys’ optical design tools — LucidShape, LightTools, and CODE V — will be integrated with Dassault Systèmes' 3DEXPERIENCE Platform, which is used by automotive teams from different disciplines to work together on designs and simulations. ... » read more

Week In Review: Auto, Security, Pervasive Computing


Automotive SGS-TÜV Saar certified that Cadence’s Tensilica Xtensa processors with FlexLock meets the ISO 26262:2018 standard to ASIL-D level. The new FlexLock feature is key to the certification because it supports lockstep, a fault-tolerant method that runs the same operation on two cores at the same time and then compares the output. Any difference in the output can be examined for issues... » read more

Week In Review: Manufacturing, Test


Government policy The U.S. government hopes to build more fabs and expand its R&D efforts in the United States. To help enable those efforts, U.S. Senate Majority Leader Charles Schumer has introduced the new bipartisan U.S. Innovation and Competition Act. This combines Schumer’s Endless Frontier Act and other bipartisan competitiveness bills. It includes $52 billion in emergency supplem... » read more

Manufacturing Bits: May 4


Measuring Moon dust The National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST) and others have developed a new way to study and measure moon dust. Using an X-ray nano computed tomography (XCT) technique, researchers measured the 3D shapes of lunar particles as small as 400nm in length. The goal is to find out how these shapes impact the optical scattering characteristics of lunar dust on the... » read more

Greetings From Mars


Hello Mars. Congratulations to the amazing engineers and scientists at NASA and Jet Propulsion Labs (JPL) for a successful touchdown on the Mars Jezero Crater. In July 2020, NASA launched the Perseverance rover mission, which sought to find signs of habitable conditions, search for biosignatures, and collect samples for future Mars-sample-return missions and human expeditions. Seven months l... » read more

IC Materials For Extreme Conditions


The number of materials being researched for chips used in extreme environments, such as landing on the planet Venus, is growing. While GaN has captured much of the attention for power conversion circuits, it's just one of several applications for semiconductors in extreme environments. The high voltage, high temperature, and caustic atmospheres found in many industrial and aerospace environ... » read more

Manufacturing Bits: Feb. 23


Space crystals Northrop Grumman recently launch its Cygnus spacecraft into space, sending thousands of pounds of critical supplies and experiments to the International Space Station (ISS). The launch, which took place from NASA’s Wallops Flight Facility in Virginia, will deliver a diversity of experiments to the ISS National Laboratory. In one experiment, Redwire’s sixth in-space man... » read more

Week In Review: Auto, Security, Pervasive Computing


Aerospace The NASA's Mars Perseverance Rover, which landed safely on Mars this week, has some new autonomous systems. The landing craft flew autonomously to find a good landing spot. When on the ground, the rover can drive in an autonomous traverse mode. Also autonomous is the small helicopter, the Ingenuity Mars Helicopter, being tested on Mars. The helicopter can fly up to 90 seconds autonom... » read more

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