Energy & Green Tech
Costs of solar panels have plummeted over the last several years, leading to rates of solar installations far greater than most analysts had expected. But with most of the potential areas for cost savings already pushed to ...
Jan 27, 2020
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138
Energy & Green Tech
Photovoltaics used in solar panels are sensitive to environmental factors and often suffer degradation over time. International Electrotechnical Commission standards for accelerated degradation do not include field tests. ...
Jan 03, 2020
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258
Energy & Green Tech
A new study led by NIMS researchers reveals that in solid electrolytes, a silicon anode composed only of commercial silicon nanoparticles prepared by spray deposition exhibits excellent electrode performance, which has previously ...
Dec 24, 2019
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17
Energy & Green Tech
Crystalline silicon solar panels could be just as effective when incorporated into stretchy wearable electronics or flexible robot skin as they are when used as rigid rooftop panels. KAUST researchers have devised a way to ...
Dec 23, 2019
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Wales is better known for its factory closures than high-tech achievements. But in Newport, a former bastion of the coal industry, a handful of semiconductor manufacturers dream of a new Silicon Valley.
Dec 22, 2019
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Engineering
Some experts in the field of electronics engineering have suggested that the use of silicon complementary metal-oxide semiconductors (CMOS) will start declining rapidly by the end of 2020. Despite their predictions, a class ...
Dec 18, 2019 feature
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327
Hi Tech & Innovation
A Silicon Valley startup has completed what appears to be the first commercial freight cross-country trip by an autonomous truck, which finished a 2,800-mile-run from Tulare, California to Quakertown, Pennsylvania for Land ...
Dec 13, 2019
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31
Internet
Facebook on Thursday said it was ready for a data privacy law that will go into effect in its home state of California at the start of next year.
Dec 12, 2019
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Engineering
Researchers in Korea have found an effective and inexpensive strategy to transform solar cells from opaque to transparent. Existing transparent solar cells tend to have a reddish hue and lower efficiency, but by punching ...
Dec 11, 2019
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42
Business
Google's co-founders are relinquishing their executive positions just as state and federal regulators, not to mention the Department of Justice and Congress, are taking a keen interest in possible abuse of its privacy practices ...
Dec 03, 2019
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Engineering
Artificial neurons on silicon chips that behave just like the real thing have been invented by scientists—a first-of-its-kind achievement with enormous scope for medical devices to cure chronic diseases, such as heart failure, ...
Dec 03, 2019
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18598
Hardware
A company called Cerebras offers up some dizzying superlatives that need some time to sift through. The world's biggest chip? And 56x larger than any other chip? At the heart of the fastest AI supercomputer in the world?
Nov 21, 2019 weblog
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Engineering
Silicon photodiodes are semiconductor devices commonly used to detect visible light and measure its intensity, color and position. The fact that these devices are made of silicon has both advantages and disadvantages.
Nov 20, 2019 feature
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Semiconductors
Silicon integrated circuits, which are used in computer processors, are approaching the maximum feasible density of transistors on a single chip—at least, in two-dimensional arrays.
Nov 19, 2019
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1010
Business
Nine privacy, social justice and consumer groups are calling for the U.S. government to block Google's $2.1 billion acquisition of fitness-gadget maker Fitbit, citing antitrust and privacy concerns.
Nov 13, 2019
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Silicon (pronounced /ˈsɪlɨkən/ or /ˈsɪlɨkɒn/, Latin: silicium) is the most common metalloid. It is a chemical element, which has the symbol Si and atomic number 14. The atomic mass is 28.0855. A tetravalent metalloid, silicon is less reactive than its chemical analog carbon. As the eighth most common element in the universe by mass, silicon very rarely occurs as the pure free element in nature, but is more widely distributed in dusts, planetoids and planets as various forms of silicon dioxide (silica) or silicates. On Earth, silicon is the second most abundant element (after oxygen) in the crust, making up 25.7% of the crust by mass.
Silicon has many industrial uses. It is the principal component of most semiconductor devices, most importantly integrated circuits or microchips. Silicon is widely used in semiconductors because it remains a semiconductor at higher temperatures than the semiconductor germanium and because its native oxide is easily grown in a furnace and forms a better semiconductor/dielectric interface than any other material.
In the form of silica and silicates, silicon forms useful glasses, cements, and ceramics. It is also a constituent of silicones, a class-name for various synthetic plastic substances made of silicon, oxygen, carbon and hydrogen, often confused with silicon itself.
Silicon is an essential element in biology, although only tiny traces of it appear to be required by animals. It is much more important to the metabolism of plants, particularly many grasses, and silicic acid (a type of silica) forms the basis of the striking array of protective shells of the microscopic diatoms.
This text uses material from Wikipedia, licensed under CC BY-SA
