Power/Performance Bits: April 13


Speedy data transfer Researchers from MIT, Intel, and Raytheon developed a new data transfer system that both boosts speeds and reduces energy use by taking elements from both traditional copper cables and fiber optics. "There's an explosion in the amount of information being shared between computer chips -- cloud computing, the internet, big data. And a lot of this happens over conventiona... » read more

Power/Performance Bits: March 8


Non-toxic, printable piezoelectric Researchers at RMIT University and University of New South Wales developed a flexible and printable piezoelectric material that could be used in self-powered electronics including wearables and implantables. "Until now, the best performing nano-thin piezoelectrics have been based on lead, a toxic material that is not suitable for biomedical use," said Dr N... » read more

Power/Performance Bits: Jan. 26


Neural networks on MCUs Researchers at MIT are working to bring neural networks to Internet of Things devices. The team's MCUNet is a system that designs compact neural networks for deep learning on microcontrollers with limited memory and processing power. MCUNet is made up of two components. One is TinyEngine, an inference engine that directs resource management. TinyEngine is optimized t... » read more

Power/Performance Bits: Sept. 29


Implantable transmitter Researchers from Purdue University developed a fully implantable, wirelessly powered 2.4GHz radio-frequency transmitter chip for wireless sensor nodes and biomedical devices. The team says the transmitter chip consumes the lowest amount of energy per digital bit published to date, consuming an active-mode power of 70 μW at 10 Mbps while radiating -33 dBm of power, r... » read more

Power/Performance Bits: July 28


Programmable photonics Researchers from the University of Southampton developed a method for making programmable  integrated switching units on a silicon photonics chip. By using a generic optical circuit that can be fabricated in bulk then later programmed for specific applications, the team hopes to reduce production costs. "Silicon photonics is capable of integrating optical devices and... » read more

Power/Performance Bits: Feb. 25


Thinner, flexible touchscreens Researchers from RMIT University, University of New South Wales, and Monash University developed a thin, flexible electronic material for touchscreens. The material is 100 times thinner than current touchscreen materials. The new screens are still based on indium-tin oxide (ITO), a common touchscreen material. However, a liquid metal printing approach was used... » read more

Power/Performance Bits: Sept. 24


Textiles for energy storage Scientists at RMIT University developed a way to laser print waterproof textiles with graphene supercapacitors for embedded energy storage. The process takes three minutes to create a 10x10cm patch. The electronic textile is based on nylon coated with PDMS on one side for waterproofing. The other side was paint coated with graphene oxide and a binder to form thin... » read more

Power/Performance Bits: July 10


Wearable heart monitoring Researchers at the University of Texas at Austin developed a lightweight, stretchy heart monitoring patch that can be worn externally. Along with being easy to wear, the graphene-based 'e-tattoo' is more accurate than existing electrocardiograph machines, according to the team. The e-tattoo measures cardiac health using both electrocardiograph and seismocardiograph... » read more

Power/Performance Bits: Mar. 11


Reading qubits faster Researchers at Aalto University and VTT Technical Research Centre of Finland propose a faster way to read information from qubits, the building blocks of quantum computers. Currently, they are extremely sensitive to disruption even in cryogenic environments, holding quantum information for less than a millisecond. In the method now used to read information from a qubit... » read more

Power/Performance Bits: Mar. 5


Solar chemical manufacturing Researchers at RMIT University, CSIRO Manufacturing, and University of Melbourne developed a nano-enhanced material that can capture 99% of light and use it to power chemical reactions. One of the world's biggest energy users, the chemical manufacturing industry accounts for about 10% of global energy consumption and 7% of industrial greenhouse gas emissions. In th... » read more

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