https://techxplore.com/rss-feed/hardware-news/ en-us The latest news on consumer electronic hardware, electronic gadgets, hardware and electronics. A new hardware-software co-design increases AI energy efficiency and reduces latency, enabling real-time processing of continuous data streams like video or sensor feeds. The neuromorphic approach unlocks the ability to run powerful, real-time AI directly on local edge devices like phones, hearing aids or autonomous vehicle cameras, according to a University of Michigan Engineering study published in Nature Communications. https://techxplore.com/news/2026-04-hardware-software-efficiently-ai-edge.html Software Sat, 11 Apr 2026 11:00:04 EDT news694871654 In an effort to meet the rising energy demands of data centers, engineers at the University of California San Diego have developed a new chip design that could improve how graphics processing units (GPUs) convert and manage power. The technology demonstrates a more efficient way to perform a critical task in electronics: converting high voltages into lower levels required by computing hardware. In lab tests, a prototype chip performed the type of voltage conversion used in modern data centers with high efficiency. https://techxplore.com/news/2026-04-prototype-chip-boost-efficiency-power.html Hardware Wed, 08 Apr 2026 16:00:02 EDT news694882441 To improve data center efficiency, multiple storage devices are often pooled together over a network so many applications can share them. But even with pooling, significant device capacity remains underutilized due to performance variability across the devices. MIT researchers have now developed a system that boosts the performance of storage devices by handling three major sources of variability simultaneously. Their approach delivers significant speed improvements over traditional methods that tackle only one source of variability at a time. https://techxplore.com/news/2026-04-software-pooled-ssd-centers.html Software Tue, 07 Apr 2026 12:12:57 EDT news694782611 A cross-institutional research team has developed Co-Located Authentication and Processing (CLAP), a privacy-preserving system that overcomes the trade-off between security and performance in edge computing devices. The study, titled "Privacy-preserving data analysis using a memristor chip with co-located authentication and processing," is published in Science Advances. The team was led by Professor Ngai Wong and Dr. Zhengwu Liu from the Department of Electrical and Computer Engineering in the Faculty of Engineering at The University of Hong Kong (HKU), in collaboration with Tsinghua University and the Southern University of Science and Technology. https://techxplore.com/news/2026-04-memristor-chip-combines-memory-edge.html Hardware Mon, 06 Apr 2026 12:20:04 EDT news694695661 In a recent study published in Nature Communications, researchers created a memristor that uses a built-in oxygen gradient to produce slow, stable conductance changes, enabling a reinforcement learning (RL) algorithm to learn faster and more stably than conventional approaches. https://techxplore.com/news/2026-04-memristor-built-oxygen-gradient-stability.html Hardware Fri, 03 Apr 2026 09:02:29 EDT news694425647 A new type of computer chip that uses the physics of materials to process information could make some artificial intelligence (AI) systems far more energy efficient, researchers have found. Loughborough University physicists have developed a device that can process data that changes over time directly in hardware, rather than relying on software running on conventional computers. https://techxplore.com/news/2026-04-brain-chip-ai-tasks-energy.html Hardware Thu, 02 Apr 2026 09:00:05 EDT news694338615 The electronics inside your phone, your car, and every satellite currently orbiting Earth share one critical weakness: heat. Push them past about 200 degrees Celsius and they start to fail. For decades, that thermal ceiling has been one of the hardest walls in engineering. Now a team at the University of Southern California may have just found a way around it. https://techxplore.com/news/2026-03-memory-chip-survives-temperatures-hotter.html Hardware Tue, 31 Mar 2026 17:20:06 EDT news694195201 Think about how easily you recognize a friend in a dimly lit room. Your eyes capture light, while your brain filters out background noise, retrieves stored visual information, and processes the image to make a match. It all happens in a fraction of a second and uses remarkably little energy. Unfortunately, artificial vision systems in smartphones, cameras, and autonomous machines operate more like an assembly line. In our recent paper published in Nature Electronics, we describe how we addressed this challenge by enabling sensing, memory, and processing within the same device, pointing to a possible route toward more efficient machine vision. https://techxplore.com/news/2026-03-diode-memory-smart-cameras.html Hardware Mon, 30 Mar 2026 18:00:03 EDT news694089972 The human brain constantly makes decisions. It requires minimal power to move bodies in a desired direction or avoid an object. A Purdue University engineer uses the brain's efficiency as inspiration to help autonomous vehicles, such as drones and robots, make crucial, time-sensitive decisions while operating in the field. https://techxplore.com/news/2026-03-brain-ai-hardware-autonomous-devices.html Hardware Fri, 27 Mar 2026 10:20:05 EDT news693822781 An international research team has reported an artificial nociceptor system that captures the temperature-dependent threshold modulation of biological nociceptors. Published in Advanced Functional Materials under the title "Temperature-Modulated Threshold Response in a Volatile Memristor: Toward a Biomimetic Polymodal Nociceptive System," the study was led by Professor Hee-Dong Kim of Sejong University and conducted jointly by researchers in Sejong University and at the University of Tokyo, Japan. https://techxplore.com/news/2026-03-artificial-pain-closer-memristor-links.html Hardware Thu, 26 Mar 2026 17:00:08 EDT news693763021 Researchers have developed a holographic data storage approach that stores and retrieves information in three dimensions by combining three properties of light—amplitude, phase and polarization. By allowing more data to be stored in the same space, the new approach could help advance efforts to meet the growing global demand for data storage. https://techxplore.com/news/2026-03-holographic-storage-approach-space-encoding.html Hardware Thu, 26 Mar 2026 10:00:02 EDT news693656041 As AI processing demands reach the limits of current CMOS technology, neuromorphic computing—hardware and software that mimic the human brain's structure—can help process information faster and more efficiently. A new memristor made from 2D layers of bismuth selenide (Bi2Se3) combines long-term data retention and analog tuning to enhance AI energy efficiency and processing speed. https://techxplore.com/news/2026-03-memristor-fully-analog-hardware-based.html Hardware Wed, 25 Mar 2026 15:40:03 EDT news693671642 Thanks to the 5th generation (5G) technology, we now enjoy unprecedented levels of connectivity. Nevertheless, wireless data traffic is facing an increasing demand for an even higher capacity and faster data transfer—a demand that, according to Edholm's law, could exceed the terabit per second before 2035. https://techxplore.com/news/2026-03-graphene-energy-efficient-6g-hardware.html Hardware Wed, 25 Mar 2026 13:20:03 EDT news693661801 AI-generated images and videos pose a threat to democratic processes and undermine trust within society. Researchers at ETH Zurich have now developed chip technology that enables verification of the authenticity of sensor data including images or videos. Their study is published in the journal Nature Electronics. https://techxplore.com/news/2026-03-sensor-chips-deepfakes-adding-cryptographic.html Hardware Tue, 24 Mar 2026 10:30:10 EDT news693565096 Every second, scientific experiments produce a flood of data—so much that transmitting and analyzing it can slow down even the most advanced research. To help scientists better manage this data deluge, researchers at the U.S. Department of Energy's (DOE) Argonne National Laboratory have developed a new computer chip that rapidly compresses and processes the huge amounts of data generated by advanced X-ray detectors, like those at the Advanced Photon Source (APS), a DOE Office of Science user facility at Argonne. By compressing data right at the source, like shrinking a movie or song to make it easier to send, this technology makes experiments faster, more efficient, and more insightful than ever. https://techxplore.com/news/2026-03-detector-chip-compresses-ray-real.html Hardware Tue, 24 Mar 2026 09:55:24 EDT news693564688 Researchers have developed a new kind of nanoelectronic device that could dramatically cut the energy consumed by artificial intelligence hardware by mimicking the human brain. The researchers, led by the University of Cambridge, developed a form of hafnium oxide that acts as a highly stable, low-energy "memristor"—a component designed to mimic the efficient way neurons are connected in the brain. The results are reported in the journal Science Advances. https://techxplore.com/news/2026-03-brain-nanoelectronic-device-ai-hardware.html Hardware Fri, 20 Mar 2026 14:00:01 EDT news693136502 A team of Korean researchers has developed the world's first technology that can freely connect and disconnect core computing resources such as memory and accelerators with "light" in next-generation artificial intelligence (AI) datacenters. Electronics and Telecommunications Research Institute (ETRI) announced the development of a new optical switch based datacenter resource interconnection technology (Optical Disaggregation, OD). https://techxplore.com/news/2026-03-resources-ai-datacenters.html Hardware Fri, 20 Mar 2026 12:50:02 EDT news693229741 A research team led by Lee Hyun Jun and Noh Hee Yeon from the Division of Nanotechnology at DGIST has succeeded in implementing the world's first two-terminal-based artificial intelligence (AI) semiconductor that precisely controls hydrogen with electrical signals to enable self-learning and memory. The team's work appears in Advanced Science. https://techxplore.com/news/2026-03-ai-semiconductor-hydrogen-ions-memory.html Hardware Mon, 16 Mar 2026 15:40:04 EDT news692891401 Edge computing is an emerging IT architecture that enables the processing of data locally by smartphones, autonomous vehicles, local servers, and other IoT devices instead of sending it to be processed at a centralized large data center. This approach could allow artificial intelligence (AI) models and other computational systems to perform tasks rapidly, while consuming less power. https://techxplore.com/news/2026-03-communication-aware-neural-networks-advance.html Hardware Mon, 16 Mar 2026 10:00:02 EDT news692873648 A team led by engineers at the University of California San Diego has developed a new brain-inspired hardware platform that could help computer hardware keep pace with the explosive growth of artificial intelligence. By combining memory and computation on the same chip—and allowing its components to interact collectively like neurons in the brain—the brain-inspired platform improved the speed, accuracy, and energy efficiency of pattern recognition in two simulated tasks: recognizing spoken digits and detecting epileptic seizures early from brain-wave recordings. https://techxplore.com/news/2026-03-brain-device-faster-energy-efficient.html Hardware Wed, 11 Mar 2026 10:40:01 EDT news692443082 Australian researchers have built an ultra-compact artificial intelligence (AI) chip that is able to make calculations using the power of light, at the speed of light. The nano photonic chip prototype, which harnesses the power of light particles (photons) is built completely in-house at the Sydney Nano Hub at the University of Sydney. The researchers say the prototype could play an important role in developing more energy-efficient AI hardware as global demand for artificial intelligence continues to grow, potentially lowering the overall energy footprint of future computing systems. https://techxplore.com/news/2026-03-ultra-compact-photonic-ai-chip.html Hardware Mon, 09 Mar 2026 12:40:01 EDT news692277799 Most materials we use in everyday life expand slightly when heated and return to their original size when cooled. In addition to such thermal properties, materials can also have electrical properties or magnetic properties, and traditionally we have used these characteristics separately. However, some materials allow multiple properties to coexist within a single substance. https://techxplore.com/news/2026-03-generation-memory-material-property.html Hardware Tue, 03 Mar 2026 13:20:08 EST news691765225 Around the world, scientists are exploring an unexpected solution to the growing data crisis: storing digital information in synthetic DNA. The idea is simple but powerful—DNA is one of the most compact, durable information systems on Earth. But one issue has held the field back. Once data is written into DNA, it can't be changed. https://techxplore.com/news/2026-03-rewritable-dna-hard-storage-crisis.html Hardware Mon, 02 Mar 2026 15:40:01 EST news691685521 A research team led by Professor Taesung Kim from the School of Mechanical Engineering at Sungkyunkwan University has developed a technology that precisely controls the internal structure of semiconductors using heat, much like stamping out "bungeoppang" (fish-shaped pastry) in a mold. The team report that this approach improves the performance of next-generation artificial intelligence (AI) hardware. With this technology, complex AI computations can be processed more quickly using significantly less electricity than before. The findings are published in the journal ACS Nano. https://techxplore.com/news/2026-02-generation-ai-semiconductors-thermal-constraining.html Hardware Mon, 23 Feb 2026 15:40:01 EST news691083125 A miniaturized radar chip, developed by researchers at Science Tokyo, advances Integrated Sensing and Communication for Beyond 5G and 6G systems. Measuring just 0.24 mm2 and consuming only 9.8 mW, the compact, low-power device generates high-speed, highly linear chirps by embedding linearization directly into the hardware, overcoming traditional speed-versus-accuracy limits and enabling precise sensing for edge and Internet-of-Things devices. https://techxplore.com/news/2026-02-miniaturized-radar-chip-generation-wireless.html Hardware Mon, 16 Feb 2026 15:20:03 EST news690477089 Over the past few decades, electronics engineers have been trying to develop new neuromorphic hardware, systems that mirror the organization of neurons in the human brain. These systems could run artificial intelligence (AI) models, particularly artificial neural networks (ANNs) more reliably and efficiently than existing devices. https://techxplore.com/news/2026-02-atom-thin-ferroelectric-transistor-polarization.html Hardware Sat, 14 Feb 2026 13:00:02 EST news690201491 Robots and self-driving cars could soon benefit from a new kind of brain-inspired hardware that can allegedly detect movement and react faster than a human. A new study published in the journal Nature Communications details how an international team built their neuromorphic temporal-attention hardware system to speed up automated driving decisions. https://techxplore.com/news/2026-02-bio-chip-robots-cars-react.html Hardware Wed, 11 Feb 2026 14:20:02 EST news690041652 A new study has demonstrated how networks of spiking nanolasers could emulate a key principle of brain function: to imagine things that we cannot directly perceive by sampling from internal models of the world. The study, led by scientists from the University of Bern in collaboration with Thales Research & Technology located in the Paris-Saclay campus area, has now been published in Nature Communications. https://techxplore.com/news/2026-02-ultrafast-nanolasers-mimic-brain-unseen.html Hardware Tue, 10 Feb 2026 09:20:01 EST news689936720 Bees navigate their surroundings with astonishing precision. Their brains are now inspiring the design of tiny, low-power chips that could one day guide miniature robots and sensors. https://techxplore.com/news/2026-01-bee-brains-generation-chips.html Hardware Fri, 30 Jan 2026 12:28:23 EST news688998482 The use of artificial intelligence (AI) systems, such as the models underpinning the functioning of ChatGPT and various other online platforms, has grown exponentially over the past few years. Current hardware and electronic devices, however, might not be best suited for running these systems, which are computationally intensive and can drain huge amounts of energy. https://techxplore.com/news/2026-01-brain-hardware-spike-coding-ai.html Hardware Fri, 30 Jan 2026 08:30:01 EST news688918678