System Bits: Jan. 16


Nitrogen-atom-sized sensors A new quantum sensor developed by Fraunhofer researchers will be able to measure the tiny magnetic fields of the next generation of hard discs, leveraging the new opportunities that quantum technology promises. [caption id="attachment_430671" align="aligncenter" width="300"] The special ellipsoid form of the plasma reactor developed at Fraunhofer IAF allows for l... » read more

Power/Performance Bits: Jan. 9


Eel-inspired power Researchers at the University of Michigan, the University of Fribourg, and the University of California-San Diego developed soft power cells with the potential to power implanted medical devices. Made of hydrogel and salt, the soft cells form the first potentially biocompatible artificial electric organ that generates more than 100 volts at a low current, the team says, enou... » read more

DARPA CHIPS Program Pushes For Chiplets


While the semiconductor industry plugs away at More Than Moore innovation, the U.S. government is guiding its own SoC development. A new program kicked off last year called ‘Common Heterogeneous Integration and IP Reuse Strategies’ or CHIPS to take its own approach the incredibly high cost of SoC design and manufacturing. DARPA said it recognizes that the explosive growth in mobile and t... » read more

System Bits: Sept. 5


Reducing power consumption of datacenter caches As is commonly understood, most websites store data in databases, and since database queries are relatively slow, most sites also maintain so-called cache servers, which list the results of common queries for faster access, researchers from MIT’s Computer Science and Artificial Intelligence Laboratory (CSAIL) reminded. They noted that a data ce... » read more

Power/Performance Bits: Aug. 15


Solar sunglasses Researchers at the Karlsruhe Institute of Technology (KIT) developed sunglasses with colored, semitransparent organic solar cells applied onto the lenses capable of supplying a microprocessor and two displays with electric power. The solar cell lenses, perfectly fitted to a commercial frame, have a thickness of approx. 1.6 millimeters and weigh about six grams, just like th... » read more

System Bits: June 27


Entangling photons for bug-proof communication With the increasing processing power of computers, conventional encryption of data is becoming increasingly insecure, reminded Fraunhofer researchers that are proposing one solution is coding with entangled photons. The team is developing a quantum coding source that allows the transport of entangled photons from satellites, expected to be an impo... » read more

Manufacturing Bits: June 20


Solar cell metrology Using atomic force microscopy (AFM), the National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST) has developed a pair of novel techniques to measure the chemical compositions and defects in solar cells. The new techniques will give researchers insights into a thin-film solar cell material called cadmium telluride. The technology will also suggest ways to boost the efficie... » read more

System Bits: May 30


Diamonds for quantum computing Quantum computers are experimental devices that offer large speedups on some computational problems, and one promising approach to building them involves harnessing nanometer-scale atomic defects in diamond materials. At the same time, practical, diamond-based quantum computing devices will require the ability to position those defects at precise locations in com... » read more

Manufacturing Bits: April 4


Open-source tomography software The University of Michigan, Cornell University and Kitware have developed an open-source software platform that enables three-dimensional imaging of nanomaterials. The open-source platform, dubbed Tomviz 1.0, enables researchers to image and process nanomaterials using electron tomography. Researchers can download the software. Using tomography, the software... » read more

System Bits: March 21


Sensors vulnerable to sonic cyber attacks According to University of Michigan researchers, sound waves could be used to hack into critical sensors in a wide range of technologies including smartphones, automobiles, medical devices and IoT devices. New research calls into question the longstanding computer science tenet that software can automatically trust hardware sensors, which feed auton... » read more

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