Research Bits: July 30


Embedded thermoelectric devices Researchers from the University of Pittsburgh and Carnegie Mellon University propose using locally embedded thermoelectric devices (TEDs) to perform active cooling inside circuits. “Circuits like clock generators and arithmetic and logic units (ALU) create high-frequency heat fluxes with their peak hot spots occurring on the microprocessor,” said Feng Xio... » read more

Chip Industry’s Technical Paper Roundup: Feb. 21


New technical papers recently added to Semiconductor Engineering’s library: [table id=82 /] If you have research papers you are trying to promote, we will review them to see if they are a good fit for our global audience. At a minimum, papers need to be well researched and documented, relevant to the semiconductor ecosystem, and free of marketing bias. There is no cost involved for us ... » read more

Review of Tools & Techniques for DL Edge Inference


A new technical paper titled "Efficient Acceleration of Deep Learning Inference on Resource-Constrained Edge Devices: A Review" was published in "Proceedings of the IEEE" by researchers at University of Missouri and Texas Tech University. Abstract: Successful integration of deep neural networks (DNNs) or deep learning (DL) has resulted in breakthroughs in many areas. However, deploying thes... » read more

System Bits: Aug. 13


Keeping tabs on crops University of Missouri researchers collaborated with the Agricultural Research Service at the U.S. Department of Agriculture on pairing a regular digital camera with a miniature infrared camera for a novel system providing temperature data and detailed images of crops. “Using an infrared camera to monitor crop temperature can be tricky because it is difficult to diff... » read more

System Bits: April 8


Computers trained to design materials Researchers in the University of Missouri’s College of Engineering are applying deep learning technology to educate high-performance computers in the field of materials science, with the goal of having those computers design billions of potential materials. “You can train a computer to do what it would take many years for people to otherwise do,” ... » read more

Power/Performance Bits: June 5


Self-assembled battery Researchers at Cornell University developed a self-assembling battery capable of near-instant charging. Instead of having the batteries' anode and cathode on either side of a nonconducting separator, the team's new approach intertwines the components in a self-assembling, 3D gyroidal structure, with thousands of nanoscale pores filled with the elements necessary for e... » read more

Power/Performance Bits: June 21


A chip with 1,000 processors A microchip containing 1,000 independent programmable processors has been designed by a team at the University of California, Davis. Called the KiloCore chip, it contains 621 million transistors and was fabricated by IBM using its 32nm CMOS technology. Cores operate at an average maximum clock frequency of 1.78 GHz, and they transfer data directly to each other r... » read more

Manufacturing Bits: March 29


Brain-inspired computing Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory (LLNL) has purchased a brain-inspired supercomputing platform for deep learning developed by IBM Research. Based on a neurosynaptic computer chip called IBM TrueNorth, the scalable platform will process the equivalent of 16 million neurons and 4 billion synapses. It will consume the energy equivalent of a tablet computer. ... » read more

New Challenges For Wearables


The earliest recorded mention of a wristwatch dates back to the late 1500s, but it really began gaining adherents in Great Britain’s Boer War campaign as a way of synchronizing military actions beyond the line of sight. Strapping a pocket watch to a horse or a camel simply didn’t work, and pulling it out of a jacket pocket was not only inconvenient, it was dangerous. Advertised as a “c... » read more