System Bits: Aug. 30


Probing photon-electron interactions According to Rice University researchers, where light and matter intersect, the world illuminates; where they interact so strongly that they become one, they illuminate a world of new physics. Here, the team is closing in on a way to create a new condensed matter state in which all the electrons in a material act as one by manipulating them with light and a... » read more

Power/Performance Bits: Aug. 23


Connecting implanted devices University of Washington researchers developed a new method for communication between devices such as brain implants, contact lenses, credit cards and smaller wearable electronics with other devices such as smartphones and watches. Using only reflections, an interscatter system requires no specialized equipment, relying solely on mobile devices to generate Wi-... » read more

Power/Performance Bits: April 12


Digital storage in DNA Computer scientists and electrical engineers from University of Washington and Microsoft detailed one of the first complete systems to encode, store and retrieve digital data using DNA molecules, which can store information millions of times more compactly than current archival technologies. Progress in DNA storage has been rapid: in 1999, the state-of-the-art in DN... » read more

System Bits: March 22


How nanocrystal structures self assemble Researchers at MIT and the Cornell High Energy Synchrotron Source (CHESS) have discovered some of the secrets to a long-hidden magic trick behind the self-assembly of nanocrystal structures, the understanding of which could be used to create more vivid display screens and optical sensory devices. The transformation of simple colloidal particles — b... » 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

System Bits: Sept. 15


Cache-coherence innovation for thousand-core chips MIT researchers are getting ready to unveil what they say is the first fundamentally new approach to cache coherence in more than three decades. They reminded that in a modern, multicore chip, every processor core has its own small memory cache, where it stores frequently used data. The chip also has a larger, shared cache, which all the cores... » read more

Think IoT Designs Are Challenging? Try Embedded Systems In The Brain


There’s low power and then there’s low power. There are amazing applications and then there are amazing applications. Today the bleeding edge of low power design is not so much in IoT (although excellent work is being done in that space) but in medical, where the stakes are high and possible outcomes life-altering. Chet Moritz, associate professor with the University of Washington’s... » read more

Power/Performance Bits: May 5


Single material batteries Engineers at the University of Maryland created a battery made entirely out of a single material that, by incorporating the properties of both the electrodes and electrolyte, can both move electricity and store it. The reason the new battery is revolutionary is because it solves the problem of what happens at the interface between the electrolyte and the electrod... » read more

Power/Performance Bits: Sept. 9


Harvesting power from air A centuries-old clock built for a king is the inspiration for a group of University of Washington computer scientists and electrical engineers who hope to harvest power from the air. The clock, powered by changes in temperature and atmospheric pressure, was invented in the early 17th century by a Dutch builder. Three centuries later, Swiss engineer Jean Leon Reutter b... » read more

System Bits: Sept. 2


Thinnest semiconductor A team of researchers from the University of Washington, the University of Hong Kong and the University of Warwick have demonstrated that two single-layer semiconductor materials can be connected in an atomically seamless fashion known as a heterojunction, which they expect could be the basis for next-generation flexible and transparent computing, better light-emitting d... » read more

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