Electronics & Semiconductors news

Business

UK govt buys semiconductor facility key to defense

The UK government announced on Friday that it had acquired a key semiconductor factory after fears its imminent closure would hamper a crucial supply chain to Britain's armed forces.

Electronics & Semiconductors

Shape-morphing brain sensor adheres to curved surfaces for ultrasound neurostimulation

Transcranial focused ultrasound, a non-invasive technique to stimulate specific areas of the brain using high-frequency sound waves, could be a promising treatment strategy for many neurological disorders. Most notably, it ...

Engineering

Unique straining affects phase transformations in silicon, a material vital for electronics

When Valery Levitas left Europe in 1999, he packed up a rotational diamond anvil cell and brought it to the United States. He and the researchers in his group are still using a much-advanced version of that pressing, twisting ...

Electronics & Semiconductors

Waste heat to green energy: New approach boosts thermoelectric generator efficiency

Thermoelectric generators that can convert waste heat to clean energy could soon be as efficient as other renewable energy sources, like solar, according to a team led by Penn State scientists.

Business

Chipmaker Qualcomm to explore takeover of Intel

Qualcomm Inc. has approached Intel Corp. to discuss a potential acquisition of the struggling chipmaker, people with knowledge of the matter said, raising the prospect of one of the biggest-ever M&A deals.

Engineering

Semi-metals offer new possibilities for electronic devices

Dr. Yuxuan Cosmi Lin, assistant professor in the Department of Materials Science and Engineering at Texas A&M University, and a team of researchers are studying the potential applications and unique physical properties of ...

Electronics & Semiconductors

Wirelessly charging electric cars as they drive

Stanford engineers have taken a big step toward making it practical for electric cars to recharge as they speed along futuristic highways built to "refuel" vehicles wirelessly.

Electronics & Semiconductors

Supercapacitor promises storage, high power and fast charging

A new supercapacitor based on manganese oxide could combine the storage capacity of batteries with the high power and fast charging of other supercapacitors, according to researchers at Penn State and two universities in ...

Engineering

A big comeback for a little switch

Carnegie Mellon University collaborators are developing reliable, mechanical switches the size of a DNA molecule.

Electronics & Semiconductors

A 3-D memristor-based circuit for brain-inspired computing

Researchers at the University of Massachusetts and the Air Force Research Laboratory Information Directorate have recently created a 3-D computing circuit that could be used to map and implement complex machine learning algorithms, ...

Electronics & Semiconductors

A new flexible piezoelectric composite for 3-D printing

Researchers at Peking University, Southern University of Science and Technology and the University of Jinan in China have recently designed a ceramic-polymer composite that can be used to print complex 3-D grid architectures. ...

Electronics & Semiconductors

Environment-friendly compound shows promise for solar cell use

A widespread transition to solar energy will depend heavily on reliable, safe, and affordable technology like batteries for energy storage and solar cells for energy conversion. At Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute, researchers ...

Electronics & Semiconductors

Sensors woven into a shirt can monitor vital signs

MIT researchers have developed a way to incorporate electronic sensors into stretchy fabrics, allowing them to create shirts or other garments that could be used to monitor vital signs such as temperature, respiration, and ...

Engineering

Lung-heart super sensor on a chip tinier than a ladybug

During a stroll, a woman's breathing becomes a slight bit shallower, and a monitor in her clothing alerts her to get a telemedicine check-up. A new study details how a sensor chip smaller than a ladybug records multiple lung ...

Electronics & Semiconductors

Critical "Starbleed" vulnerability in FPGA chips identified

Field programmable gate arrays, FPGAs for short, are flexibly programmable computer chips that are considered very secure components in many applications. In a joint research project, scientists from the Horst Görtz Institute ...