Power/Performance Bits: Nov. 1


New approach to switches According to the National Resource Defense Council, Americans waste up to $19 billion annually in electricity costs due to always-on digital devices in the home that suck power even when they are turned off. With that in mind, a team from University of Utah devised a new kind of switch for electronic circuits that uses solid electrolytes such as copper sulfide to ... » read more

Power/Performance Bits: Sept. 20


Energy-harvesting fabric Researchers at the Georgia Institute of Technology and Chongqing University in China developed a fabric that can simultaneously harvest energy from both sunshine and motion. The fabric, just .32mm thick, was constructed using a commercial textile machine to weave together solar cells constructed from lightweight polymer fibers with fiber-based triboelectric nanoge... » read more

Integration IP Helps IP Integration


You might not know much about the MIPI Alliance if you aren't designing mobile phones, but you will soon. Other application areas are taking interest in what this group has accomplished. The alliance was founded in 2003 to create standards for hardware and software interfaces in mobile devices. Successful examples include a camera serial interface (CSI) and a display serial interface (DSI), ... » read more

Power/Performance Bits: Aug. 30


Scalable data center chip Princeton University researchers designed a new scalable chip specifically for data centers and massive computing systems. The team believes the chip, called Piton, can substantially increase processing speed while slashing energy needs. The chip architecture is scalable; designs can be built that go from a dozen cores to several thousand. Also, the architecture ... » 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: Aug. 16


Dissolving batteries Researchers at Iowa State University developed a self-destructing lithium-ion battery capable of delivering 2.5 volts and dissolving or dissipating in 30 minutes when dropped in water. The battery can power a desktop calculator for about 15 minutes. Making such devices possible is the goal of a relatively new field of study called "transient electronics." These transi... » read more

The Role Of Energy-Efficient Circuits In Wearable Healthcare Applications


As beneficial as they are, health monitors for conditions like high blood pressure, arrhythmia, and epilepsy can be uncomfortable and inconvenient due to all of their protruding wires. This opens up an opportunity for designers of wearable healthcare applications. “Wearable electronics are needed for proactive healthcare,” said Dr. Jerald Yoo, an associate professor in the Department of ... » read more

IoT Designs Evolving


IoT hardware is beginning to take shape across a variety of vertical markets, and devices are looking far different from the initial concepts. They're smarter, more targeted, and in most cases custom-built for specific applications. The concept of connected things is hardly a new one. Students at Carnegie Mellon University added sensors into a vending machine in the early 1980s to remotely m... » read more

System Bits: May 31


In automaton we trust? It is widely believed that there are two kinds of robots: friendly and helpful; or sinister and deadly. But do humans place too much trust in robots? According to the work of Harvard University senior Serena Booth, a computer science concentrator at the John A. Paulson School of Engineering and Applied Sciences, the answer is as complex and multifaceted as robots themsel... » read more

Power/Performance Bits: April 26


An on-chip light source Researchers at the Karlsruhe Institute of Technology (KIT) demonstrated that carbon nanotubes are suited for use as an on-chip light source. By integrating tiny carbon nanotubes into a nanostructured waveguide, the team developed a compact miniaturized switching element that converts electric signals into clearly defined optical signals. "The nanostructures act lik... » read more

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