The Week In Review: Manufacturing


Chipmakers The NAND market is in flux. Not long ago, troubled Toshiba put its memory unit on the block. Finally, the company has selected a group to buy its memory business. The consortium includes the Innovation Network Corp. of Japan, the Development Bank of Japan and Bain Capital. Rival SK Hynix is also part of the group. Others attempted to bid on the business, including Western Digita... » read more

System Bits: April 4


Nanodevices for extreme environments in space, on earth Researchers at the Stanford Extreme Environment Microsystems Laboratory (XLab) are on a mission to conquer conditions such as those found on Venus: a hot surface pelted with sulfuric acid rains, 480 degrees C, an atmosphere that would fry today’s electronics. By developing heat-, corrosion- and radiation-resistant electronics, the team ... » read more

Manufacturing Bits: Aug. 30


Redefining the ampere In 2014, an international group called the BIPM agreed to redefine four common units of measurements--the kilogram, the ampere, the kelvin and the mole. These units of measurement make up the so-called International System of Units or SI. In total, there are seven SI base units—meter, kilogram, second, ampere, kelvin, mole, and the candela. Work is already under wa... » read more

Manufacturing Bits: April 5


Food in 3D Using a technology called ptychographic X-ray computed tomography, the University of Copenhagen and the Paul Scherrer Institute have taken images of food in three dimensions and on a nanometer scale. Ptychography, a lensless coherent imaging technique, could potentially save the food industry money. It could reduce food waste due to faulty production methods. Ptychography could ... » read more

System Bits: Aug. 12


Wearable, continuous disease monitoring A new wearable vapor sensor being developed at the University of Michigan could one day offer continuous disease monitoring for patients with diabetes, high blood pressure, anemia or lung disease, according to researchers there. The new sensor, which can detect airborne chemicals either exhaled or released through the skin, would likely be the first w... » read more

System Bits: May 13


Bringing hyperbolic metamaterials closer to reality Purdue Researchers have taken a step toward practical applications for hyperbolic metamaterials, which are ultra-thin crystalline films that could bring optical advances for microscopes, quantum computers and high-performance solar cells. Optical metamaterials harness clouds of electrons called surface plasmons to manipulate and control li... » read more

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