tag: wearables

Power/Performance Bits: Dec. 29
By Jesse Allen - 29 Dec, 2015 - Comments: 0

Wearing your batteries In spite of the progress in wearable devices, one challenge remaining is providing less obtrusive and cumbersome power sources. To tackle the problem, researchers at Case Western Reserve University developed flexible wire-shaped microsupercapacitors that can be woven into a jacket, shirt or dress. "The area of clothing is fixed, so to generate the power density need... » read more

Power/Performance Bits: Dec. 23
By Jesse Allen - 23 Dec, 2015 - Comments: 0

GaN building blocks A team of engineers from Cornell University, the University of Notre Dame, and the semiconductor company IQE created gallium nitride (GaN) power diodes capable of serving as the building blocks for future GaN power switches. In spite of having many desirable features as a material, GaN is notorious for its defects and reliability issues. So the team zeroed in on device... » read more

Power/Performance Bits: Dec. 1
By Jesse Allen - 01 Dec, 2015 - Comments: 0

Hiding wires from the sun There's a problem with most solar cells: the electricity-carrying metal wire grid on top prevents sunlight from reaching the semiconductor below. A team from Stanford University tackled this problem, discovering a way to hide the reflective upper contact and funnel light directly to the semiconductor below. For the study, the researchers placed a 16-nanometer-thi... » read more

Think In Blocks
By Brian Fuller - 15 Oct, 2015 - Comments: 0

It always seems to come back to LEGOs, doesn’t it? Earlier this year I wrote about Google Project Ara, the so-called “LEGO” smart phone architecture unveiled in April. Project Ara uses the MIPI Alliance UniPro and M-PHY protocols as the backbone for a modular electronics architecture inside a smart phone “endoskeleton.” Using electro-permanent magnets (they don’t need a perma... » read more

Wearable Devices: A Limitless Future
By Warren Kurisu - 24 Sep, 2015 - Comments: 0

Today, there are many wearable systems across industries including medical and health care, safety, smartwatches, smart goggles and glasses, smart shoes and clothing — even smart pet trackers! So why is there such a proliferation of devices, even though many of these portable/embedded devices have been around for decades? There are a few key technical trends enabling these devices. F... » read more

Developing Effective Design Strategies For Today’s Wearable Devices
By Ed Sperling - 23 Sep, 2015 - Comments: 0

While many new fitness bands, smartwatches, and other wearable devices have entered the market, most have under-whelmed prospects and users. It is quite clear the wearable industry is in its infancy and fraught with growing pains. Software developers, embedded systems architects and engineers must take heed in the early miscalculations of these devices (whether it’s functionality, utility, pr... » read more

Power/Performance Bits: Sept. 15
By Jesse Allen - 15 Sep, 2015 - Comments: 0

Stretchy metal Washington State University researchers stretched metal films used in flexible electronics to twice their size without breaking. The discovery could lead to dramatic improvements and addresses one of the biggest challenges in flexible electronics, an industry still in its infancy with applications such as bendable batteries, robotic skins, wearable monitoring devices and se... » read more

Blog Review: Aug. 26
By Jesse Allen - 26 Aug, 2015 - Comments: 0

Synopsys' Marc Greenberg attended IDF and learned more about the newly announced Intel/Micron 3D XPoint memory technology named Optane including initial ship dates and some implementation details. In concluding his analysis of the 2014 Functional Verification Study, Mentor's Harry Foster reveals an unexpected finding about design size and respins. How do you keep your power grid from bein... » read more

The Next Big Things
By Ed Sperling - 30 Jul, 2015 - Comments: 0

Progress in electronics has always been about combining more functions into devices and making access to information more convenient. This is what drove the PC revolution in the 1980s, when centralized data was made available on desktops, and it's what drove the notebook PC revolution in the 1990s as computers became untethered from the desktop, as long as you could find an Ethernet connecti... » read more

Power/Performance Bits: May 26
By Jesse Allen - 26 May, 2015 - Comments: 0

Woven fabric electrodes An international team including scientists from the University of Exeter pioneered a new technique to embed transparent, flexible graphene electrodes into fibers commonly associated with the textile industry. Exeter Professor Monica Craciun, co-author of the research said: "This is a pivotal point in the future of wearable electronic devices. The potential has been... » read more

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