Power/Performance Bits: March 31


Tellurium transistors Researchers from Purdue University, Washington University in St Louis, University of Texas at Dallas, and Michigan Technological University propose the rare earth element tellurium as a potential material for ultra-small transistors. Encapsulated in a nanotube made of boron nitride, tellurium helps build a field-effect transistor with a diameter of two nanometers. �... » read more

Week in Review – IoT, Security, Autos


Products/Services Synopsys had a lot of announcements this week! Summer is definitely over. The company released BSIMM10 study, the latest version of the Building Security in Maturity Model, helping organizations plan, execute, mature, and measure their software security initiatives. It also released LucidShape version 2019.09, the latest version of that tool for the design, simulation, and an... » read more

Power/Performance Bits: Dec. 18


Solar storage Engineers at MIT, Georgia Institute of Technology, and the National Renewable Energy Laboratory designed a system to store renewable energy in vast amounts and deliver it back to the grid when power generation is low. The system stores excess electricity from solar or wind installations as heat using tanks of white-hot molten silicon, and then converts the light from the glowi... » read more

Week in Review: IoT, Security, Auto


Cybersecurity Check Point Software Technologies reports that facsimile machines (yes, people still use them!) can be subject to hacking through vulnerabilities in their communication protocols. The HP Officejet Pro All-in-One fax printers and other fax machines can be compromised with a hacker only knowing a fax number, according to the company. Check Point Research says a design flaw in Andro... » read more

Power/Performance Bits: Feb. 20


Wireless TENG Researchers at Clemson University developed a wireless triboelectric nanogenerator, or W-TENG, that can also act as a battery-free remote. The key to triboelectric nanogenerators is using materials that are opposite in their affinity for electrons so they generate a voltage when brought in contact with each other. For the W-TENG, one electrode was constructed of a multipart... » read more

Power/Performance Bits: Nov. 21


Greener greenhouses Researchers at the University of California, Santa Cruz are testing greenhouses capable of generating some of their own energy, without hampering plant growth. Greenhouses use electricity to control temperature and power fans, lights, and other monitoring systems. Electricity-generating solar greenhouses utilize Wavelength-Selective Photovoltaic Systems (WSPVs), a novel ... » read more

Power/Performance Bits: March 1


Low power Wi-Fi Computer scientists and electrical engineers from the University of Washington came up with a way to generate Wi-Fi transmissions using 10,000 times less power than conventional methods and which consumes 1,000 times less power than existing energy-efficient wireless communication platforms such as Bluetooth Low Energy and Zigbee. The system, Passive Wi-Fi, uses backscatte... » read more

Power/Performance Bits: Jan. 12


Incandescent bulbs might not be dead yet Can incandescent bulbs be as efficient – or even more so – than LEDs? More than 95 percent of the energy that goes into incandescents is wasted, most of it as heat, so researchers at MIT and Purdue University struck out to see if that could be changed. A conventional heated metal filament, with all its attendant losses, served as the basis. But... » read more

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