Manufacturers face a plethora of challenges every day, regardless of where they are located and the industries they serve.
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Manufacturers face a plethora of challenges every day, regardless of where they are located and the industries they serve.
QuickLogic is to license its FPGA technology to SoC designers wanting hardware acceleration or reconfigurability. The FPGA core being licensed is ArcticPro eFPGA,. The initial foundry being used is GloFo, and the initial processes available are 65nm and 40nm with 22nm FD-SOI available next year. More foundries will be added next year. “With nearly three ...
Read full article: QuickLogic to license FPGA cores
Future trends, technologies and engineers were the subjects for the keynote of NIDays 2016, National Instrument’s Graphical System Design Conference in London. “What keeps you engaged with engineering and science?”, asked Richard Roberts, Academic Marketing Engineer at NI. His answer was their ability to help create the future, and the keynote certainly offered plenty of ...
Read full article: NIDays 2016: Future trends, technologies and engineers
Wolfspeed (part of Cree) has introduced a 1,000V silicon carbide mosfet. C3M0065100K is a 65mΩ device in a four-lead TO-247-4 package – it has a second source pin for the driver. “This package provides lower switching losses with minimal gate circuit ringing due to the Kelvin gate connection,” said Richardson RFPD, which is stocking the ...
Read full article: SiC mosfet switches 1kV in TO-247 package
Raytheon UK has developed a positioning and navigation system that adds 3D dead-reckoning to global navigation satellite systems (GNSSs, GPS for example), allowing navigation inside buildings. Called ‘Strider’, it comes in two parts – a ‘boot-mounted unit’ (BMU) and a phone app. Inside the BMU are accelerometers, gyros and a pressure sensor (height). This communicates ...
Read full article: Shoe sensor adds dead-reckoning to GPS
Verbatim used LuxLive in London to launch anti-glare AR111 retrofit LED bulbs and demonstrate a new range of linear LED products. Low glare is the big marketing point. “To avoid the uncomfortable glare, the lamps mimic the lighting effect of a traditional halogen lamp by emitting light indirectly via the reflector,” said the firm, which is ...
Read full article: LuxLive: Vebatim’s AR111 and linear source
Marianne Culver is the new president of RS Components. Culver is best known in the component distribution sector for the 10 years she spent at the RS rival, Premier Farnell, where she was director of supply chain/supplier management. Lindsley Ruth, CEO of Electrocomponents, believes Culver’s experience of global distribution is well suited to her new ...
Read full article: RS gets former Farnell exec as president
Tomorrow evening is the date for the industry’s largest technology and business awards: the Elektra European Electronics Industry Awards 2016. These are the individual success stories and technical and business achievements which will be recognised and presented to an international audience at the Gala Dinner which takes place this Tursday, on 1 December 2016 at the Grosvenor House Hotel, Park ...
Read full article: Elektra Awards 2016
National Instruments has outlined plans for supporting time sensitive networking for the deterministic handling of data – such as required for industrial IoT applications – at its NIDays Graphical System Design Conference. It is the attempt to answer some of the challenges for the transmission of large amounts of data deterministically – so called ‘Hard ...
Read full article: NIDays 2016: Industrial IoT routes itself into Time Sensitive Networking
Molex can print silver flexible circuits on polyester (PET) substrates with tacks as narrow as 0.13mm (0.005in) spaced by as little as 0.13mm. And it has a way to attach fine-pitch ICs. “The process creates a viable, cost-effective alternative to traditional flexible circuits: etched copper traces on polyimide,” said the firm. “Polyimide is more expensive than ...
Read full article: Printing makes tracks down to 0.13mm on flexi PET
Intel has set up a new group called the Automated Driving Group (ADG) led by Doug Davis and Kathy Winter. Today’s announcement comes after CEO Brian Krzanich announced a $250 million investment for autonomous driving. Intel is teaming with Delphi and Mobileye for Self-Driving Cars and cars based on the Intel solution are expected to ...
Read full article: Intel sets up autonomous car operation
X-FAB and efabless corporation have launched an open mixed-signal design challenge. The objective of this challenge is to give designers the opportunity to deliver a completed design IP for an ultra-low power voltage reference. The IP will be developed in X-FAB’s 350nm mixed-signal process with designers being granted access to the required models, design files ...
Read full article: X-Fab launches mixed-signal design contest
Touch control has now moved into mid-air gesture control with tactile feedback. Bastien Beauvois describes some of the techniques for designing haptic touch interfaces As technology has advanced so has our way of interacting with it. The first mobile phone keypads aimed to replicate the familiar push-button approach of a traditional telephone handset. Twenty or ...
Read full article: In the air gesture control gets haptic feedback
The Dulmont Magnum “Kookaburra” from 1983 is the only laptop to have even been designed and made in Australia, as well as being the world’s first “clamshell” laptop design.
Dave tears down this obscure retro classic based on the equally rare 80186.
Forum HERE
Allegro Microsystems has crammed a awful lot of electronics into a small package for its latest programmable precision linear magnetic sensing IC – which includes both diagnostics and ESD capacitors. Sensible fields range from ±40 to ±1,800G. Called A1342, the monolithic BiCMOS IC has includes: a Hall sensing element, Hall temperature-compensating circuitry (both sensitivity and ...
Read full article: Precision magnetic field sensor hides many secrets
Three year-old French reverse-engineering and IC security analysis company Texplained of Sophia Antipolis, near Nice, has opened a new laboratory. The lab offers analyses of microchip security and helps companies protect ICs against counterfeiting and piracy. “Microchips are extremely vulnerable to security threats,” says Texplained CEO Olivier Thomas, “we approach, assess and solve microchip security ...
Read full article: Texplained opens Nice lab for IC analysis
TSMC is going to introduce a half-node process at 12nm, reports Digitimes. The 12nm process will have better leakage and be lower cost than 16nm. It is being reported that the half-node process is a competitive response to the 14nm processes of Samsung and GloFo. However GloFo announced. 12nm FD-SOI last month. “In a world ...
Read full article: TSMC introduces 12nm half-node
French research labs Leti and Inac have demonstrated a quantum-dot-based spin qubit using a CMOS process on a 300mm FDSoI wafer. The device, developed with the University of Grenoble Alpes, consists of a two-gate, p-type transistor with an un-doped channel. See University of Sussex quantum gate “Our one-qubit demonstrator brings CMOS technology closer to the emerging ...
Read full article: Leti demonstrates qubit on CMOS wafer
The University of Sussex has proposed a route to a practical quantum computer, and has just demonstrated the core ingredient – a two-qubit quantum gate. ‘Practical’ is an important word here, according to Sussex professor of quantum technologies Winfried Hensinger, as while other quantum computer designs might in theory be scalable, they could require billions ...
Read full article: More on: Sussex quantum computer
Rohm Semiconductor has developed an evaluation kit for motor driver devices which is designed as a ‘shield’ to plug directly into the Arduino open source board. There different versions of the kit for the supplier’s various stepper motor driver ICs– from standard, micro step, low voltage to high voltage. It covers supply voltages from 8V to 42V, enables up to 2.5A ...
Read full article: Rohm plugs stepper motor drive design into Arduino
Steve Rawlins, CEO, Anglia Components tells Electronics Weekly that the market remains buoyant and firms are taking a sensible and responsible approach to uncertainties about Brexit 1. Are you concerned the Brexit vote is having negative effect on the UK manufacturing sector? Steve Rawlins: No not at all. UK manufacturing has been up for the last ...
Read full article: Brexit effect is not really hurting us, says distributor
Researchers at Cambridge University and China’s Jiangnan University have found a way to deposit graphene-based inks onto cotton to produce electrically conductive textile. The researchers created inks of chemically modified graphene flakes that are more adhesive to cotton fibres than unmodified grapx The adhesion of the modified graphene to the cotton fibre is similar to ...
Read full article: Cambridge and Jiangnan researchers use graphene for conductive textiles.
In Q3, 91% of the worldwide profit from smartphone sales was made by Apple, reports Strategy Analytics. Total smartphone operating profit in Q3 was $9.4 billion. Apple had $8.6 billion of that with the second, third and fourth most profitable companies, Huawei, Oppo and Vivo each making a profit of $200 million representing 2% of ...
Read full article: Apple bags up 91% of Q3 smartphone profits
Design firm Plextek says it has completed a proof of concept project with the UK Ministry of Defence (MoD) to create an immersive skills training system for trainee tank drivers and pilots using the virtual reality headset the Oculus Rift. Using a commercially-available laptop and the Oculus Rift headset, the VR system will be used to give potential tank drivers ...
Read full article: Plextek develops low cost VR for military training
JTAG Technologies and Altium have combined to offer the circuit board designer the capability to assess the JTAG/boundary-scan testing resources on their design before committing to layout. Called JTAG Maps it is available as a free extension for the Altium Designer tool. Boundary-scan device models (BSDLs) are used for JTAG/boundary-scan testing as they indicate which ...
Read full article: JTAG Tech and Altium map boundary scan devices
42 Technology has won an Innovate UK grant towards commercial development of a remote monitoring system for the UK’s network of electricity sub-stations, of which there are 400,000 according to 42. The phase one grant will see 42 Technology working with the UK’s Power Networks Demonstration Centre (PNDC) in Glasgow (pictured) to develop the business ...
Read full article: Novel sub-station power monitor gets Innovate UK grant
Infineon has got into the Lidar business by acquiring the Dutch company Innoluce. Infineon’s aim is to reduce the cost of Lidar so far that it can be widely deployed. “We have further strengthened our leading position in automated driving by entering the Lidar market through the acquisition of Innoluce, a fabless semiconductor company headquartered ...
Read full article: Infineon acquisition aims at mass deployment of Lidar
Scientists at the University of Sussex found a way to hold ion-based qubits without lasers. “Quantum computing on a small scale using trapped ions is carried out by aligning individual laser beams onto individual ions with each ion,” said the University. “However, a large-scale quantum computer would need billions of quantum bits, therefore billions of ...
Read full article: Quantum computing without millions of lasers
With more and more IoT devices being connected to the internet, and smart city data projects starting to be implemented, there is an urgent need to develop search solutions which will allow information from IoT sources to be found and extracted. So says the University of Surrey and Wright State University. “Search engines have come ...
Read full article: IoT needs a search engine
The US National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST) has come up with a way to build durable gold wires onto flexible, thin plastic film. “The finding might overcome a basic issue confronting medical engineers: how to create electronics that are flexible enough to be worn comfortably on or even inside the human body without ...
Read full article: Pores stop gold wires cracking in membrane for medical wearables
Thermal PCB company Cambridge Nanotherm has introduced a Six Sigma PCB fabrication route with Elvia PCB Group. “Aimed at the most demanding and heavily regulated industries such as aerospace and automotive, applying the six sigma process ensures 99.99966% of all steps to produce a part are statistically free of defects. In other words, only 3.4 ...
Read full article: Nanotherm PCBs available for automotive and avionics
Vishay’s VCNL4100 is an infra-red proximity sensor that works up to 1m, and includes an ambient light sensor. Inside, it combines an IR (940nm)emitter, photo detectors for proximity and ambient light, a signal-processing IC, and an 8bit/16bit ADC. For ambient light sensing, sensitivity 16bit and up to 0.011375 lux/step, allowing sensing though low-transmittance (dark) lenses as well ...
Read full article: IR proximity detector works up to 1m
Plessey has added to its Stellar family of beam forming modules with +/-7.5° and +/-25° (15° and 50° FWHM) options. They deliver over 3000 lm from a unit 5.6mm thick and 82mm in diameter – including optics, but excluding heatsinking. Key to including optics and LEDs in under 6mm of height is to use small ...
Read full article: LuxLive: Wider and narrower beams from Plessey
The EU R&D project CONNECT will develop carbon nanotube and metal-CNT composites for IC interconnect, the European Nanoelectronics Forum 2016 in Rome was told today. Novel CNT interconnect architectures for the exploration of circuit- and architecture-level performance and energy efficiency will be developed. CMOS compatibility as well as the challenges of transferring new processes into ...
Read full article: NANO16: EU project for CNT interconnect
Europe has the brains and the know-how to be the world leader in digital healthcare, Professor Shahid Ali of Salford University told this week’s European Nanoelectronics Forum 2016 in Rome. Giving patients the ability to monitor their own health and set their own health targets not only resulted in better health outcomes for patients, but ...
Read full article: NANO16: Europe can be world leader in digital healthcare
The European Nanoelectronics Forum 2016 in Rome today raised an issue which applies to the entire workings of the EU government – how do we explain to the general public the usefulness of what we do? “There is concern about what policy makers do without involving the general public,” said Ben Ruck, Chair of ECSEL, ...
Read full article: NANO16: EU Angst At Communicating Achievements
Dave takes a look at the 21,000fps Chonos Kickstarter high speed digital camera prototype.
Tesla500 Youtube Channel
World’s most powerful LED light – 5kW VIDEO
Forum HERE
Chancellor of the Exchequer Phillip Hammond outlined in the Autumn Statement the creation of an National Productivity Investment Fund to invest in the nationals digital infrastructure. But it will also see £100m invested in the development of infrastructure for autonomous vehicles, the much talked about ‘driverless cars’. The Chancellor ear-marked £390m for transport technology, including £80m for charging infrastructure for electric ...
Read full article: Autumn Statement: Chancellor bets on driverless car tech
Government plans for new investment in infrastructure and R&D in the Autumn Statement, will be good for the engineering and technology sectors, says the Royal Academy of Engineering. This follows the Chancellor of the Exchequer’s commitment of £2bn per year by 2020 for research and development funding and £1bn for digital infrastructure. Professor Dame Ann Dowling, President of the Royal Academy ...
Read full article: Autumn Statement: Match tech investment with skills, says RAE
Fifteen months into its course, the WAYTOGO FAST EU R&D project for promoting FD-SOI has achieved some significant targets the European Nanoelectronics Forum in Rome today was told. . Boosters for 14 and 28 FD-SOI have been investigated and developed . SOl wafers: +20% nFET loff/leff tradeoff . STRASS technique: +1.6GPa demonstrated (stress level > ...
Read full article: NANO16: FD-SOI moves towards 22nm
Researchers at Manchester and Nottingham universities have come up with a better new material than graphene for electronics applications – Indium Selenide. InSe crystals can be made only a few atoms thick and are a better semiconductor than graphene. “Ultra-thin InSe seems to offer the golden middle between silicon and graphene,” says Nobel Laureate Sir ...
Read full article: Manchester and Nottingham universities find graphene-beater.
The SEMI book-to-bill went negative in October after 11 months in positive territory. The October b-to-b was 0.91. October bookings were $1.49 billion – 5.1% lower than September’s $1.57 billion, and 12.2% higher than the October 2015 bookings figure of $1.33 billion. October billings were $1.63 billion – 9% higher than September’s $1.49 billion, and ...
Read full article: SEMI book-to-bill goes negative
Codasip, the RISC-V processor IP provider, and UltraSoC, the provider of semiconductor IP for on-chip analytics, are to integrate the Codix-Bk series of RISC-V cores with the UltraSoC environment. As RISC-V based SoCs enter the mainstream, the need for commercial support with production-quality debug, analysis and bring-up tools become critical. This collaboration provides the RISC-V ...
Read full article: Codasip and UltraSoc combine on RISC-V
Graphene could improve loudspeakers, both in audio systems and phones, claims Canadian start-up Ora. To do this, the firm is replacing the cone and dome diaphragms of loudspeakers with a composite consisting of 95% graphene, 5% binder and possibly other materials. The result has been dubbed a ‘nanocomposite’ and branded ‘Grapheneq’. The composite is both ...
Read full article: Graphene: the ultimate loudspeaker cone material?
Students should be encouraged to pursue a STEM career while they are of primary school age, according to 50% of STEM professionals responding to a survey by MathWorks, which was intended to reveal reasons behind the UK skill shortage. When asked to consider their own experiences; 40% said they were inspired to love the subjects by ...
Read full article: Parents must encourage primary school kids to love science and maths
The open-source community behind the MIPS processor is working with the US regulator the Federal Communications Commission (FCC) in the area of software controlled radio technology for IoT. Eric Schultz, community manager with the prpl Foundation will advise on how proposed FCC regulations may affect the open source community and the growth of the internet of ...
Read full article: Open source community seeks “balance” in IoT radio regulations
UK scientists have grown high-quality mono-crystals of organic semiconductors, which are large enough to construct FETs on. Such FETs show good clean characteristic curves, although have comparatively low mobility. A common way to create organic semiconductor crystals is to dissolve the material in a solvent, then deposit the solution onto a surface. Subsequent evaporation of ...
Read full article: Spray-on process yields quality organic semiconductors
Leti has launched an Horizon 2020 project to enable mass commercialization of Si-photonics-based transceivers For data centres and super computing systems. The Leti-coordinated COSMICC project will combine CMOS electronics and Si-photonics with high-throughput, fiber-attachment techniques. These scalable solutions will provide performance improvement an order of magnitude better than current VCSELs transceivers, and the COSMICC-developed technology ...
Read full article: Southampton and St Andrews Universities join Leti Si photonics project
MACOM has bought AppliedMicro for $770 million – representing a 15% premium to its prior-acquisition market cap – but says it will dispose of AppliedMicro’s computer business within 100 days of the deal closing. MACOM thinks that Applied Micro’s connectivity business comprising OTN framers, MACsec Ethernet networking components and PAM4 platform is complementary. MACOM thinks ...
Read full article: MACOM buys AppliedMicro
The company behind the thermal simulation tool 6SigmaET has published a report,Heat is On, looking at some of the priorities of current electronics design.
Read full article: Survey: Electronics design engineers not feeling the heat
With a software programming industry saturated with men it is believed that software companies could be losing out on gifted women coders. Inspiring women from a young age to enter the technology industry could see software development companies receiving a greater number of female applicants. However, according to data released by Coupfy, more than half (56%) of women in ...
Read full article: Software firm aims to empower women in technology
LED streetlight firm Schréder has signed an agreement with Panasonic, to co-develop products and infrastructure for smart cities. Schréder is a multi-national, with a Brussels HQ and a design centre in the UK. According to a company spokesman, the UK design centre was responsible for Shuffle (pictured), an interactive street column, launched in 2015, that ...
Read full article: Panasonic ties with UK streetlamp designers for smart cities
Fujitsu Semiconductor and Panasonic have developed 4 Mbit ReRAM, claimed to be the densest ReRAM. The MB85AS4MT is an SPI-interface ReRAM product that operates with a wide range of power supply voltage, from 1.65V to 3.6V. Its average current in read operations is 0.2mA at a maximum operating frequency of 5MHz. It is targeted at ...
Read full article: Fujitsu’s 4Mbit ReRAM
GMB, the union for professional drivers, is calling for HMRC to exercise legal responsibility for enforcement of the minimum wage laws and collection of taxes at Uber. An Employment Tribunal ruled that Uber’s drivers are employees so HMRC has legal responsibility to enforce minimum wage laws and collect national insurance contributions and PAYE taxes from ...
Read full article: Noose tightens round Uber
7 in 10 firms plan to maintain or increase spending on innovation says a CBI survey. As the UK develops its economic role in the world outside of the EU, the survey of over 800 businesses – supported by Deloitte and Hays – shows that 70% of respondents plan to increase or maintain their innovation ...
Read full article: 70% of companies maintaining or increasing post-Brexit innovation investment, says CBI.
Thermal powered smartwates are nothing more than gimmicks.
Dave runs the numbers on the Matrix Powerwatch from Indieigogo.
Also some exercise testing shows up an unusual and undesired effect when using thermoelectric generators on your wrist.
Thunderf00t’s video HERE
Bluetooth Power Consumption Application Note HERE
The Peltier effect TEG used in the experiment HERE
The Wurth Energy Harvesting Kit HERE
Forum HERE