The Internet of Everything is coming. The Internet is expanding into enterprise assets and consumer items such as cars and televisions. Very many electronics devices needs to be designed for this in mind. The Internet of Things (IoT) will evolve into the Web of Things, increasing the coordination between things in the real world and their counterparts on the Web. Gartner suggests that the “the smart machine era will be the most disruptive in the history of IT.” Intelligent systems and assistive devices will advance smart healthcare.
Software-defined anything (SDx) is coming more into use. It means that many proprietary systems are being replaced with commonly available standard computer hardware and software running in them.
PC market: ABANDON HOPE all ye who enter here. Vendor consolidation ‘inevitable’. Even Intel had to finally admit this that the Wintel grip which has served it and Microsoft so well over the past decades is waning, with Android and iOS coming to the fore through smartphones and tabs. The market conversion to tablets means that consumers and businesses are sweating existing PC assets longer. Tablets to Make Up Half of 2014 PC Market.
The Rise, Fall, and Rise of Electronics Kits article mentions that many older engineers first became interested in electronics through hobbies in their youth—assembling kits, participating in amateur radio, or engaging in other experiments. The 1970s and 1980s were great times for electronics hobbyists. But whenever it seems that there’s nothing left for the hobbyist, a new motif arises. The Raspberry Pi has become a best seller, as has a similar experimental board, the Arduino microcontroller. A great number of sensors, actuators, cameras, and the like have quickly become available for both. Innovative applications abound in such domains as home automation and robotics. So it seems that now there is much greater capacity for creativity in hobby electronics then there ever was.
E-Waste: Lack of Info Plagues Efforts to Reduce E-Waste article tells that creation of trade codes is necessary to track used electronics products according to a recent study concerning the waste from growing quantities of used electronics devices—including TVs, mobile phones and computers. High levels of electronic waste are being sent to Africa and Asia under false pretenses.” StEP estimates worldwide e-waste to increase by 33 percent from 50 million tons in 2012 to 65 million tons by 2017. China and the U.S. lead the world as top producers of e-waste. America produces about 65 pounds of e-waste per person every year. There will be aims to reduce the waste, for example project like standardizing mobile phone chargers and laptop power supplies.
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Tomi Engdahl says:
Tiny LED focuses on high-volume wearables market
http://www.electronics-eetimes.com/en/tiny-led-focuses-on-high-volume-wearables-market.html?cmp_id=7&news_id=222920567&vID=44
UK-based Plessey Semiconductors is targeting wearable electronics market by launching the company’s smallest packaged MaGIC LED which is manufactured with GaN-on-Si die technology.
The PLW138003 is a white LED in a 1005 SMT package designed specifically for the demand for ever smaller LED components producing highly collimated light.
The 1005-size of the PLW138003 (1.0 mm x 0.5 mm) is a standard electronic component size, handled by the common surface-mount machines used in high volume consumer electronics.
delivers up to 0.7 lm of white light with a 130 degree viewing angle from a 5 mA drive current
Tomi Engdahl says:
China to Blow $10B a Year on Chips
http://www.eetimes.com/document.asp?doc_id=1321616&
The semiconductor business in China is abuzz over the huge chunk of money China’s central and local governments are about to plunk down on the domestic chip industry.
The combined investments over the next 10 years range from $20 billion to $200 billion, according to the word on the Chinese street. The story has countless versions, each with a different sum of money, leading skeptics to wonder if all the talk is just a matter of Chinese bravado, if not an urban legend.
Tomi Engdahl says:
Rare earth scarcity triggers design for recyclability
http://www.electronics-eetimes.com/en/rare-earth-scarcity-triggers-design-for-recyclability.html?cmp_id=7&news_id=222920543
“Although less than 1% of rare-earth elements are recycled currently, 20% of global demand could be met in this way”, estimates Binnemans who sees the new recycling process as a mean for the western world to regain some independence of China. Next on the research roadmap is to work on real-world samples from end-of-life industrial magnetics.
Tomi Engdahl says:
Advanced Liquid Metal Battery system heads for commercialization
http://www.electronics-eetimes.com/en/advanced-liquid-metal-battery-system-heads-for-commercialization.html?cmp_id=7&news_id=222920564
Ambri, with technical support from Nuvation Engineering, is preparing to demonstrate a large-scale prototype Liquid Metal Battery grid-scale energy storage system that aims to enable the more widespread use of renewable generation like wind and solar.
Ambri claims that the company’s development cells have achieved a DC-to-DC efficiency of 80 percent at a five-hour charge/discharge rate and an AC-to-AC efficiency of 70 percent to 75 percent.
Ambris innovative battery chemistry consists of earth-abundant materials and is designed to provide a low cost solution to the challenge of intermittent power availability in regions with wind and solar resources.
A pilot project in Hawaii will have two cores installed this year in partnership with First Wind and HECO.
Tomi Engdahl says:
Capacitive sense buttons similar in cost to mechanical switches
http://www.electronics-eetimes.com/en/capacitive-sense-buttons-similar-in-cost-to-mechanical-switches.html?cmp_id=7&news_id=222920578
Cypress Semiconductor recently announced additional devices in its CapSense Controller series; low-cost devices that require no coding, allowing you to implement elegant, reliable user interfaces, with good noise immunity, proximity sensing and water tolerance
CapSense CY8CMBR3x controllers controllers, Cypress says, enable sleek and robust capacitive buttons, sliders and proximity sensors. They are part of Cypress’s Mechanical Button Replacement (MBR) family, which uses Cypress’s SmartSense Auto-tuning algorithm to completely eliminate the requirement for manual system tuning.
The controllers can implement up to 16 capacitive buttons or up to eight capacitive buttons while driving eight LEDs. Designers can add to the devices to add up to two proximity sensors with a 30-cm sensing distance for wake-on-approach applications.
Tomi Engdahl says:
Boffins power wearable tech with body static
Fondle your phone for free electricity, thanks to the power of polydimethylsiloxane!
http://www.theregister.co.uk/2014/03/27/boffins_power_devices_with_body_static/
A group of Chinese researchers reckon they’re close to a practical method of harvesting the static electricity you generate when tapping and swiping the screen of your smartphone as backup power for the phone itself.
In this paper at Applied Physics Letters, they outline their approach, in which rather than grounding their STEG (single-friction-surface triboelectric generator), the body is used as an electrode,
Using a surface of micro-patterned polydimethylsiloxane, the researchers claim they were able to achieve an output voltage of 200V with a current density of 4.7 micro-Amps per square centimetre.
Tomi Engdahl says:
News about Ultra Broadband Capacitors For Dc Blocking Over 16 Khz To 40 Ghz
http://www.edn-europe.com/en/ultra-broadband-capacitors-for-dc-blocking-over-16-khz-to-40-ghz.html?cmp_id=7&news_id=10003728&vID=1596&from_mail=1#.UzUqc4VM0il
AVX has a new series of ultra broadband capacitors designed to address DC blocking from approx. 16 kHz to 40 GHz. GX0S Series capacitors are packaged in a 0301 case. Featuring X5R characteristics, use them for data communications, transmit and receive optical subassemblies, transimpedance amplifiers, and test equipment.
Tomi Engdahl says:
NVLink takes on PCI Express
http://www.electronics-eetimes.com/en/nvlink-takes-on-pci-express.html?cmp_id=7&news_id=222920599
Nvidia’s new NVLInk interconnect is directly challenging PCI Express 3.0 and 4.0 in the data center.
PCI Express has been the de facto interconnect for CPUs for a decade, but Nvidia has worked with IBM to use NVLink to provide higher bandwidth links between POWER processors and Nvidias Pascal graphics processor in 2016. This will allow systems to scale to exascale (1000 PFLOPS) performance for high performance computing, data analytics and machine learning, says the company.
Todays GPUs are connected to x86-based CPUs through the PCI Express (PCIe) interface, which limits the GPUs ability to access the CPU memory system and is four- to five-times slower than typical CPU memory systems.
PCIe 4.0 proposes a 16Gtransfers/s bit rate, double today’s PCIe 3.0 specification, while preserving compatibility with software and mechanical interfaces and power envelope
The final PCIe 4.0 specifications, including form factor specification updates, are expected to be available in late 2015 says the PCI special interest group.
Tomi Engdahl says:
1-W and 0.6-W white LEDs target lighting demands
http://www.ledlighting-eetimes.com/en/1-w-and-0.6-w-white-leds-target-lighting-demands.html?cmp_id=7&news_id=222909164
Toshiba Electronics Europe (TEE) has launched two series of white LEDs, the 3.5 x 3.5 mm lens package 1 W type TL1L2 series, and the 3.0 x 3.0 mm flat package 0.6 W type TL3GB series.
Both series have been developed as light sources for general lighting applications (including light bulbs, base lights, down lights and ceiling lights), street lights and floodlights.
Tomi Engdahl says:
High-bay LED lighting reaches large-scale adoption tipping point
http://www.ledlighting-eetimes.com/en/high-bay-led-lighting-reaches-large-scale-adoption-tipping-point.html?cmp_id=7&news_id=222909174
Worldwide sales of luminaires and lamps for high-bay lighting applications will grow from 8.3 billion annually in 2014 to 54.7 million by 2021 forecasts market intelligence analyst Navigant Research.
“Within the next three years, falling prices and rising efficacy for LED technology will begin to generate savings that offer payback periods of less than two years,” explained Jesse Foote, senior research analyst with Navigant Research. “That will create a tipping point for the large-scale adoption of LED lighting within high-bay applications.”
Tomi Engdahl says:
Chip-on-glass LCD drivers support high-resolution, vertical alignment displays
http://www.edn-europe.com/en/chip-on-glass-lcd-drivers-support-high-resolution-vertical-alignment-displays.html?cmp_id=7&news_id=10003738&vID=1597&from_mail=1#.UzkLHIVM0ik
NXP’s PCA8539 and PCA2117 are optimised to drive vertical-alignment (VA) displays for industrial and automotive applications under harsh environmental conditions from -40°C up to 105°C
Tomi Engdahl says:
I2C added to RFID device enables wired & wireless data exchange
http://www.edn-europe.com/en/i2c-added-to-rfid-device-enables-wired-wireless-data-exchange.html?cmp_id=7&news_id=10003741&vID=1597&from_mail=1#.UzkLB4VM0ik
Murata’s LXMS2HACNF-165 RFID device now features a wired I2C interface. Conforming to the RFID standards ISO/IEC 18000-6C, EPC global C1G2 and operating in the 900 MHz frequency band, this device joins the surface mount MAGICSTRAP RFID family.
Potential applications for this new RFID device include management of memory settings of consumer appliances prior to shipping.
Tomi Engdahl says:
650V IGBTs reach “near-perfect” turn-off efficiency
http://www.edn-europe.com/en/650v-igbts-reach-near-perfect-turn-off-efficiency.html?cmp_id=7&news_id=10003740&vID=1597&from_mail=1#.UzkKkoVM0ik
ST’s HB series of Insulated-Gate Bipolar Transistors (IGBTs) claim up to 40% lower turn-off energy losses than competing high-frequency devices, while reducing conduction losses by up to 30%; they offer extended rating for extra design margin
Tomi Engdahl says:
High Speed Optocouplers in Industrial Communication Networks
http://rtcmagazine.com/articles/view/103483
Today’s industrial networks require accurate data rates for communication in real time and resistance to electrical noise. A new dual-channel, bi-directional 25 Mbit/s optocoupler meets the requirements of today’s industrial networks while providing a high level of isolation in a small form factor.
Tomi Engdahl says:
Open Source Firmware – Coreboot for x86 Architecture Boards
http://rtcmagazine.com/articles/view/103517
The traditional commercial BIOS, while very useful for PCs, does not ideally serve the needs of embedded applications both in terms of functionality and pricing/licensing. The open source community has developed an alternative aimed at the needs of embedded developers.
Tomi Engdahl says:
Integration Blurs the Line between MCUs and SoCs
http://rtcmagazine.com/articles/view/103516
Time and money are major considerations when approaching a design. With today’s high scales of integration, the available devices offer a wide array of alternatives, all of which involve different combinations of time, money and other resources. Selecting the right mix can be vital to success.
Tomi Engdahl says:
Downloadable, free e-book on hardware/software co-design and virtual prototyping
http://www.edn-europe.com/en/downloadable-free-e-book-on-hardware/software-co-design-and-virtual-prototyping.html?cmp_id=7&news_id=10003726&vID=1596&from_mail=1#.Uzk8XIVM0im
“Better Software. Faster!” shares best practices from more than 10 contributing companies on the topic of advanced software development with virtual prototypes.
Tomi Engdahl says:
Embedded World – First impressions
http://embeddedexperience.blogspot.fi/2014/02/embedded-world-first-impressions.html
ARM, Linux and Qt seems to be the winning combo. In the past, x86 architecture dominated the embedded market. Now clearly all new design are based on ARM architecture. x86 products only exists because they we’re designed in the past and are still in production, not yet dumped altogether.
The same case in with operating systems. Embedded Windows seems to disappeared from the map altogether. All the demos I familiarized myself where either based on Linux or QNX, or in some occasions some other RTOSs as well. But not a single Windows case, except perhaps at Microsoft department, but I didn’t even bothered to visit there.
But not a single Windows case, except perhaps at Microsoft department, but I didn’t even bothered to visit there.
Tomi Engdahl says:
2013: a Tough Year for MedTech?
http://www.eetimes.com/document.asp?doc_id=1321675&
Although several big medtech firms fared well last year, few would argue against the opinion that 2013 was not a great year to be in the business of medical technology. But how bad was it, really?
Tomi Engdahl says:
ARM Partners Ship 50 Billion Chips Since 1991 – Where Did They Go?
by Anand Lal Shimpi on March 31, 2014 9:00 AM EST
http://www.anandtech.com/show/7909/arm-partners-ship-50-billion-chips-since-1991-where-did-they-go
A few weeks ago ARM celebrated its partners shipping over 10 billion ARM based chips in 2013. As ARM makes a royalty on every IP license shipped, it was a banner year for the company. The bigger story was that the 10 billion in 2013 brought the cumulative total for ARM based processors to over 50 billion.
Tomi Engdahl says:
Apple looking to buy Japanese chipmaker
http://asia.nikkei.com/Business/Deals/Apple-looking-to-buy-Japanese-chipmaker
Apple is in talks with Japan’s Renesas Electronics to take over a unit that designs chips for smartphone displays
Tomi Engdahl says:
MEMS, Magnetics Set to Lead Sensor Market Rebound in 2014
http://www.eetimes.com/document.asp?doc_id=1321715&
The market for optoelectronics, sensors, actuators, and discrete devices will grow by 8% in 2014, a rebound from two weak years, according to IC Insights.
The strongest growth products in 2014 are set to be accelerometers, gyrometers, actuators, and magnetometers
The strongest growth drivers in O-S-D during the next five years are expected to be: high-brightness LEDs for solid-state lighting; laser transmitters for faster optical networks; MEMS-based accelerometers, gyroscopes, and pressure sensors for highly adaptive embedded control and location-aware cellphones and other portable systems; CMOS imaging devices for machine vision, medical systems, and new human-recognition interfaces; and power transistors for hybrid and electric vehicles, energy-saving electronics, and more efficient battery management solutions.
Tomi Engdahl says:
Low-cost Solar Panels are Easy to Make and Reconfigure
http://hackaday.com/2014/04/01/low-cost-solar-panels-are-easy-to-make-and-reconfigure/
What’s the size of a deck of playing cards and can pump out enough power to charge your cellphone? These awesome little home-made magnetic solar panels!
[Christian Pedersen] has just published a guide on how to make these handy little solar panels, and they only cost about $1.25 each! They are capable of providing between 0 – 0.5V at 400-1000mA depending on the light available and load being driven.
Tomi Engdahl says:
Editing Circuits With Focused Ion Beams
http://hackaday.com/2014/04/01/editing-circuits-with-focused-ion-beams/
To that end, he’s editing CPLDs in circuit, drilling down to metal layers of a CPLD and probing the signals inside. It’s the ground work for reverse engineering just about every piece of silicon ever made, and a great look into what major research labs and three-letter agencies can actually do.
The chip [Andrew] chose was a Xilinx XC2C32A, a cheap but still modern CPLD
This isn’t the sort of thing anyone could ever do in their home lab. It’s much more than just having an electron microscope on hand
Tomi Engdahl says:
Dispensing Solder Paste With A 3D Printer
http://hackaday.com/2014/04/02/dispensing-solder-paste-with-a-3d-printer/
There’s a strange middle ground in PCB production when it comes to making a few boards. Dispensing solder paste onto one board is easy enough with a syringe or toothpick, but when pasting up even a handful of boards, this method gets tiresome. Solder paste stencils speed up the process when you’re doing dozens or hundreds of boards, but making a stencil for just a few boards is a waste. The solution for this strange middle ground is, of course, to retrofit a 3D printer to dispense solder paste.
Tomi Engdahl says:
Four-quadrant DC/DC regulator smoothly transitions from positive to negative output
http://www.edn-europe.com/en/four-quadrant-dc/dc-regulator-smoothly-transitions-from-positive-to-negative-output.html?cmp_id=7&news_id=10003720&vID=1323#.Uz0KdVdM0ik
There are many traditional methods to provide a bipolar voltage/current to a load. H-bridge designs are frequently used
Another traditional method is to build two power rails, a positive one and a negative one.
A new DC/DC switching architecture is described here that has the ability to generate true four-quadrant operation, meaning the output voltage can be positive or negative and the current flow can be in either direction as well. Additionally, this new architecture can generate an output voltage that transitions from one polarity to another, through the ground potential, smoothly and without any non-linearity from mode transitions.
Tomi Engdahl says:
Measure small impedances with Rogowski current probes
http://www.edn-europe.com/en/measure-small-impedances-with-rogowski-current-probes.html?cmp_id=7&news_id=10003719&vID=1328#.Uz0KTldM0ik
You’re probably familiar with clamp on current probes, but chances are you don’t know much about the Rogowski current probe.
The low frequency noise from the Rogowski current probe is a result of the high gain integrating amplifier needed by the probe.
Nearly all oscilloscopes include bandwidth-limiting filters, but as we have previously shown, most of the noise is at frequencies below 1 kHz. Therefore, bandwidth limiting won’t significantly reduce noise.
A series capacitor can be used to set the high-pass corner frequency if the oscilloscope input termination is set to 50Ω.
Tomi Engdahl says:
Induction Motors: Don’t write them off just yet!
http://www.edn-europe.com/en/induction-motors-don-t-write-them-off-just-yet.html?cmp_id=7&news_id=10003712&vID=1323#.Uz0KN1dM0ik
I’ve been doing some light reading recently on the European Council for an Energy Efficient Economy website, specifically their recommendations for electric motors and controls from their recent “Ecodesign Seminars.” There is some excellent information included about the efficiency and lifetime costs of various motors, including the workhorse of industry – the induction motor.
Tomi Engdahl says:
Best practices for designing high-throughput, real-time SoC systems
http://www.edn-europe.com/en/best-practices-for-designing-high-throughput-real-time-soc-systems.html?cmp_id=7&news_id=10003717&vID=1326#.Uz0KLldM0ik
Modern SoC software often consists of multiple applications ranging from hard real-time, such as automotive motor control, to high-throughput, such as HD video streaming. Hybrid system design is becoming challenging as the modern SoC is evolving rapidly into a high-throughput system with an increasing number of processor cores and high-bandwidth interconnects.
Tomi Engdahl says:
The blurring line between oscilloscopes and On-Die instrumentation
http://www.edn-europe.com/en/the-blurring-line-between-oscilloscopes-and-on-die-instrumentation.html?cmp_id=7&news_id=10003716&vID=1328#.Uz0KJ1dM0ik
Limitations from the fundamental physics of interconnect losses can’t be eliminated. The only practical way around this limitation in the interconnects is to implement significant signal processing on-die
Tomi Engdahl says:
Designing IoT—Part II—the Thing
http://www.edn-europe.com/en/designing-iot-part-ii-the-thing.html?cmp_id=7&news_id=10003715&vID=1327#.Uz0KHFdM0ik
Tomi Engdahl says:
Single-Celled Organism Converted Into Electronic Oscillator For Bio-Computing
http://science.slashdot.org/story/14/04/03/197216/single-celled-organism-converted-into-electronic-oscillator-for-bio-computing
Tomi Engdahl says:
U.S. gets new, hyper-accurate atomic clock
http://www.cnn.com/2014/04/03/tech/innovation/new-atomic-clock/index.html
A new atomic clock, so accurate it will lose or gain only one second every 300 million years, was unveiled Thursday by the National Institute of Standards and Technology, a branch of the U.S. Department of Commerce.
The NIST-F2 had been in development for about a decade and is three times more accurate than the F1, which has been in use since 1999.
Tomi Engdahl says:
Samsung Claims Progress on the Next Wonder Material
http://blogs.wsj.com/digits/2014/04/04/samsung-claims-progress-on-the-next-wonder-material/
A group of researchers supported by Samsung Electronics said Friday that they’ve developed a technique for synthesizing graphene– an ultra-thin material of unusual strength and flexibility — that brings commercialization a step closer.
Graphene is an attractive material because of its potential use as a bendable, ultrathin screen for wearable devices, offering flexibility and strength in a lightweight package.
Graphene is the thinnest material known, but is also extremely good at conducting electricity and heat.
Mass production of graphene, however, has been hampered by high costs and certain limitations
Tomi Engdahl says:
Chips Face Tough Times, Says Sanghi
http://www.eetimes.com/document.asp?doc_id=1321761&
The semiconductor industry’s business model “is really broken” with more belt tightening and consolidation ahead, said Steve Sanghi, the chief executive of Microchip, speaking in a candid interview from the EE Live! show floor.
“We are evolving to a slower-growth industry, and even though Microchip is still growing we will eventually converge to the mean,” said Sanghi who has led the microcontroller vendor through generally increasing revenues since 1990.
The go-go days of double-digit revenue growth are over as the chip business settles into a middle age measured by mid-single-digit annual growth, Sanghi believes
The industry has to change its practices — you have to make money today, because no one will let you make it tomorrow.”
Mergers are marking the chip industry’s maturity as companies get bigger to survive harsher times ahead, Sanghi said.
“MCUs don’t consolidate that well if their code base is different, because there’s no synergy — you have to provide separate tool chains, reference design, app notes, and so on” for each architecture.
“We are doing record revenue in 8 bit, and 8-bit MCUs will be here 10 years from now. People have been talking about demise of 8-bit for 20 years, and I don’t believe it — not everything has a display or is connected, and there are new 8-bit apps every day.”
When it comes to the Internet of Things, Sanghi is both a believer and a skeptic. “The concept of IoT is real, but not everything needs to be connected — we have 100 different market segments, it’s a wide beachfront.”
Tomi Engdahl says:
Single-Chip Transmitter for 868MHz/915MHz Bands
http://www.eeweb.com/company-news/maxim/single-chip-transmitter-for-868mhz915mhz-bands/
The MAX2900–MAX2904 complete single-chip 200mW transmitters are designed for use in the 868MHz/915MHz frequency bands. The MAX2900/MAX2901/MAX2902 are compliant with the FCC CFR47 part 15.247 902MHz to 928MHz ISM-band specifications. MAX2903/MAX2904 are compliant with the ETSI EN330-220 specification for the European 868MHz ISM band.
Tomi Engdahl says:
Typical Meter Installations
http://www.eeweb.com/company-blog/murata_power_solutions/typical-meter-installations/
Tomi Engdahl says:
Drone deliveries: Beyond the publicity stunt
The US military has newer, more accurate unmanned delivery technology.
http://arstechnica.com/information-technology/2014/04/drone-deliveries-beyond-the-publicity-stunt/
The Autonomous Aerial Cargo/Utility System (AACUS) may sound like Jeff Bezos’ futuristic plan for Amazon. In fact, it has been developed by the US Office of Naval Research for battlefield resupply missions, and it is already here.
Amazon’s proposed ‘Prime Air’ delivery service using small quadrotor drones received a lot of publicity before Christmas. It’s hardly unique: a slew of companies have unveiled plans to use drones to deliver flowers, pizza, beer, medical supplies, and all manner of other things. Most of these are publicity stunts
Tomi Engdahl says:
Intel chip revenue declined in 2013 as worldwide total grew by five percent
Due to a focus on dwindling PC market
http://www.theinquirer.net/inquirer/news/2338048/intel-chip-revenue-declined-in-2013-as-worldwide-total-grew-by-five-percent
GLOBAL SEMICONDUCTOR REVENUE grew five percent last year, with Micron Technology leading the top 10 chip vendors, analyst house Gartner reported.
At $315bn in 2013, worldwide semiconductor revenue was up five per cent from 2012
Micron Technology accounting for $1.19bn last year, up by 72 percent from the previous year.
Gartner said that Micron’s impressive growth was attributable to its acquisition of Elpida Memory
In at second place was Samsung with 9.7 percent market share and growth of seven percent between 2012 and 2013
Tomi Engdahl says:
Nanodot-based smartphone battery that recharges in 30 seconds
http://www.gizmag.com/nanodot-smartphone-battery-30-second-recharge/31467/
Today at Microsoft’s Think Next symposium in Tel Aviv, Israeli startup StoreDot has demonstrated the prototype of a nanodot-based smartphone battery it claims can fully charge in just under 30 seconds.
The company produces so-called nanodots, chemically synthesized bio-organic peptide molecules that, thanks to their small size, improve electrode capacitance and electrolyte performance. The end result is batteries that can be fully charged in seconds rather than hours.
“On one side it acts like a supercapacitor (with very fast charging), and on the other is like a lithium electrode (with slow discharge). The electrolyte is modified with our nanodots in order to make the multifunction electrode more effective.”
Tomi Engdahl says:
Market for apps processors is exploding: ARM gives way
http://www.electronics-eetimes.com/en/market-for-apps-processors-is-exploding-arm-gives-way.html?cmp_id=7&news_id=222920720&vID=209
According to Strategy Analytics’ latest forecast, the global smartphone applications processor market will exhibit a 10.8 percent CAGR in revenues from 2013 to 2018 to reach $30.0 billion in 2018.
Tomi Engdahl says:
element14 has launched the Inductive Sensing Challenge, a global design competition set to encourage participating engineers to design and develop innovative products based on Texas Instruments’ LDC1000 inductance-to-digital converter.
Source: http://www.electronics-eetimes.com/en/element14-launches-inductive-sensing-challenge.html?cmp_id=7&news_id=222920726&vID=209
Tomi Engdahl says:
Newswatch: European LED makers need to act smartly
http://www.electronics-eetimes.com/en/newswatch-european-led-makers-need-to-act-smartly.html?cmp_id=7&news_id=222920699&vID=44
Market analysts agree that the traditional lighting market will start to decline from around 2017. By which time LED lighting technologies will account for more than half of the overall lighting market.
European lighting manufacturers are facing up to almost a ‘Perfect Storm’ in which the looming price war for LED bulbs is set to bite into profits just at the time when a period of low growth is expected as the long-life bulbs become more common.
“In the residential area, costs are still seen as relatively high,” explained Osram Chief Technology Officer Peter Laier. “You’re also getting a product that lasts at least 10 times longer.”
Tomi Engdahl says:
Samsung Claims Breakthrough In Graphene Chip Design
http://hardware.slashdot.org/story/14/04/08/1433251/samsung-claims-breakthrough-in-graphene-chip-design
“Graphene, a carbon-based crystalline lattice that is extremely strong, lightweight, and an excellent conductor of electricity and heat”
Tomi Engdahl says:
Samsung promises a game changer in chip design
This new material could yield everything from better solar cells to faster Wi-Fi
http://www.itworld.com/science/413480/samsung-promises-game-changer-chip-design
amsung Advanced Institute of Technology (SAIT) last week announced it had discovered a new way to use graphene in the production of semiconductors, giving chip makers a stronger and more durable alternative to silicon.
Samsung developed the new process in partnership with Seoul-based Sungkyungkwan University’s School of Advanced Materials Science and Engineering.
The research team figured out a new way of creating large area, single crystal wafer of graphene on a specially developed layer of germanium. Germanium is another important element in the race to smaller micron semiconductors. Germanium is also viewed as an alternative to silicon, having better conductivity properties and able to produce smaller chips, but it’s also a tricky element to work with because it doesn’t occur naturally.
Tomi Engdahl says:
Electronic kit low on juice? SPIT ON IT
Boffins use graphene and bacteria to build saliva-powered fuel cells
http://www.theregister.co.uk/2014/04/08/its_saliva_boffins_build_spitpowered_microcells/
An international group of researchers has developed a method for building microbial fuel cells (MFCs) small and efficient enough to be powered by human saliva.
The team from Penn State University in the US and Saudi Arabia’s King Abdullah University of Science and Technology said that the device, which relies on the decay of bacteria to produce electrons for an anode, could provide enough energy to power simple biomedical testing devices.
Researchers have been looking to MFCs as efficient tech for powering electronics at low power levels.
“By producing nearly 1mW in power, this saliva-powered, micro-sized MFC already generates enough power to be directly used as an energy harvester in microelectronic applications.”
Tomi Engdahl says:
How thin, flexible electronics will revolutionize everything from user interfaces to packaging
http://gigaom.com/2014/04/07/how-thin-flexible-electronics-will-revolutionize-everything-from-user-interfaces-to-packaging/
Thin is in, as always, but recent breakthroughs in printed and flexible electronics herald a whole new age of gadgets, imaging devices and user interfaces.
In short, thin has always been in, but the technology is now getting so thin and flexible that the future looks bright for new form factors, user interfaces and applications. You can see tangible progress from year to year, and it’s all rather exciting.
Tomi Engdahl says:
Brit IBM prof gets life-changing ‘Tech Nobel’ for work in spintronics
Joins Linus £$%^ Torvalds, Tim Berner-Lee as gong recipient
By Chris Mellor, 9 Apr 2014
http://www.theregister.co.uk/2014/04/09/brit_ibm_researcher_wins_millennium_tech_prize/
A Brit boffin at IBM’s Almaden Research Centre has won a Finnish prize for spintronics research which led to a thousandfold increase in disk capacity.
The €1m (£824,400) Millennium Technology prize has been awarded by the Technology Academy of Finland to Stuart Parkin, an IBM Fellow at Almaden where he manages the Magnetoelectronics group, and also a consulting professor at Stanford University.
Tomi Engdahl says:
Multifunctional wearable devices for diagnosis and therapy of movement disorders
http://www.nature.com/nnano/journal/vaop/ncurrent/full/nnano.2014.38.html
Here, we describe materials, mechanics and designs for multifunctional, wearable-on-the-skin systems that address these challenges via monolithic integration of nanomembranes fabricated with a top-down approach, nanoparticles assembled by bottom-up methods, and stretchable electronics on a tissue-like polymeric substrate. Representative examples of such systems include physiological sensors, non-volatile memory and drug-release actuators.
Tomi Engdahl says:
Amino-Acid Semiconductors Promise Fast Phone Charging
http://www.eetimes.com/document.asp?doc_id=1321858&
An Israeli startup spun out of Tel Aviv University on the strength of technology originally developed to fight Alzheimer’s Disease claims to be able to fully charge a cellphone in 30 seconds using semiconductors made from short-chain amino acids.
StoreDot demonstrated its prototype, which is the size of a laptop charger, at Microsoft’s Think Next technology conference in Tel Aviv April 4