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

Ultrathin organic solar cell is efficient and durable

Scientists from the RIKEN, in collaboration with international partners, have succeeded in creating an ultrathin organic solar cell that is both highly efficient and durable. Using a simple post-annealing process, they created ...

Electronics & Semiconductors

Enabling battery-powered silicon chips to work faster and longer

A team of researchers from NUS have invented a novel class of reconfiguration techniques that adaptively extends both the minimum power consumption and the maximum performance of digital circuits, well beyond common voltage ...

Electronics & Semiconductors

Layered solar cell technology boosts efficiency, affordability

The future's getting brighter for solar power. Researchers from CU Boulder have created a low-cost solar cell with one of the highest power-conversion efficiencies to date, by layering cells and using a unique combination ...

Engineering

Integrating electronics onto physical prototypes

MIT researchers have invented a way to integrate "breadboards"—flat platforms widely used for electronics prototyping—directly onto physical products. The aim is to provide a faster, easier way to test circuit functions ...

Electronics & Semiconductors

A current map for improving circuit design

A practical method for mapping the flow of a current in devices with complex geometries that could be used to optimize circuit design has been developed at KAUST.

Electronics & Semiconductors

Sustainable light sources: LEDs from bacterial production

In the FET Open project ENABLED, TU Graz protein designer Gustav Oberdorfer is working together with researchers from Spain and Italy on environmentally friendly and inexpensive light-emitting diodes.

Electronics & Semiconductors

A new transverse tunneling field-effect transistor

Researchers at the Chinese Academy of Sciences have recently fabricated a transverse tunneling field-effect transistor. This is a semiconductor device that can be used to amplify or switch electrical power or signals, operating ...

Electronics & Semiconductors

Scientists develop safer lead-based perovskite solar cell

Researchers at Northern Illinois University and the U.S. Department of Energy's (DOE) National Renewable Energy Laboratory (NREL) in Golden, Colorado, are reporting today (Feb. 19) in the journal Nature on a potential breakthrough ...

Electronics & Semiconductors

First millimeter-scale wireless transceiver for electronic pills

This week, at ISSCC 2020 (Feb 16-20, San Francisco), imec, a world-leading research and innovation hub in nanoelectronics and digital technologies, presents the first mm-scale wireless transceiver for smart insertable pills. ...

Internet

New chip brings ultra-low power Wi-Fi connectivity to IoT devices

More portable, fully wireless smart home setups. Lower power wearables. Batteryless smart devices. These could all be made possible thanks to a new ultra-low power Wi-Fi radio developed by electrical engineers at the University ...

Engineering

New air-pressure sensor could improve everyday devices

A team of mechanical engineers at Binghamton University, State University of New York investigating a revolutionary kind of micro-switch has found another application for its ongoing research.