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New High-Speed Chips and Microprocessors Rolled Out
Five new Atom microprocessors and a collection of low-power chips with speeds up to 1.86 gigahertz are being debuted by Intel Corporation as part of the company’s effort to have chips designed with Intel Architecture in a range of computing devices. The Atom chip’s speed, as well as the other technologies designed into it, makes it the fastest processor to consume three watts of electricity or less. The small size of the Atom processor (the chip die is less than 25 square millimeters) lets the firm target the embedded market, which includes devices such as portable cash registers, robotics for industrial manufacturing, kiosks, patient monitoring and car "infotainment" systems. Intel says major device makers are already planning to adopt Atom, with more than 20 manufacturers coming out with products using the processor. Read more
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Dubai Government to Make Large Tech Investment
The Dubai Silicon Oasis Authority (DSOA) is planning to invest Dh500 million (approximately US$1.36 million) in information technology in the coming five years. The money, which has already been earmarked by the Dubai Government, will be invested through companies fully and partially owned by the authority. “The government is committed to making Dubai a knowledge-based economy and this explains why it is ready to invest a lot in channels that will help in achieving this vision,” said Shahla Ahmed Abdul Razak, Deputy CEO of DSOA. The new facility will compliment existing regional and global integrated circuit (IC) design companies developing integrated circuits for computers, mobile phones, TV sets, plasma displays and games consoles. Read more
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Scientists Debut Circuits that Stretch to Fit
A new form of stretchable silicon integrated circuits that can wrap around complex shapes such as spheres, body parts and aircraft wings has been developed by scientists at the University of Illinois, USA. They say the circuits can operate during stretching, compressing, folding and other types of extreme mechanical deformations, without a reduction in electrical performance. The circuits are created by mating a sacrificial layer of polymer to a rigid substrate and depositing a very thin plastic coating to support the integrated circuit, atop the sacrificial layer. Researchers then create the circuits using conventional techniques, washing away the sacrificial polymer layer and bonding the plastic coating and integrated circuit to a piece of pre-strained silicone rubber. The combined thickness of the circuit elements and the plastic coating is about 50 times smaller than the diameter of a human hair. Read more
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IC Design & Technology Conference
The 2008 IEEE International Conference on IC Design and Technology (ICICDT) is the global forum for interaction and collaboration of IC design and technology for "accelerating product time-to-market". The conference, which is being held 2-4 June 2008 in Grenoble, France, will focus on the close collaboration of design, device and process research. ICICDT is organized in a single session format to provide the opportunity for attendees to participate in all the issues during the short oral presentation and workshop sessions. This will also allow for direct interactions among attendees and presenters. Learn more
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Researchers Create Lab-on-a-Chip Incubators for Stem Cells
Microfluidic lab-on-a-chip devices that mimic the body’s environment to support cell growth have been developed by researchers at Swinburne University of Technology, Melbourne, Australia. The chips are being designed to culture embryonic stem cells and replicate adult haemopoietic stem cells, which give rise to the specialized cells of the blood and immune systems. The microfluidic chips are slightly larger than a microscope slide and contain tiny bioreactors fed by micro-plumbing that will supply controlled quantities of nutrients and cell growth factors from on-board reservoirs, mimicking the natural environment in which stem cells replicate and differentiate into other cell types in the body’s tissues and organs. The goal is to create designs for microfluidic chips that can be mass-fabricated at low cost. The chips, which are programmable and almost maintenance-free, will permit macroscopic laboratory experiments to be shrunk to very small dimensions. This will allow researchers to conduct complex experiments under highly controlled conditions that would normally require costly, large-scale cell-culture equipment and monitoring devices. Read more
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Nanotechnology Storms U.S. Capitol
Lawmakers in Washington, D.C., USA, recently got a close-up look at cutting-edge nanotechnology, including LED lights that use nanomaterials for greater light and lower energy; nano-enabled memory sticks; nanotechnology material bonding; nano-inks and nanoencryption; electrodes made with nanomaterials; nano-enabled advances for displays; and nanocomposites that can help food packaging hold in flavor and provide a longer shelf life, among other innovations. The technology came to the lawmakers courtesy of the NanoBusiness Alliance's Public Policy Tour, which featured devices from a number of American companies. Organizers say feedback from the tour was gratifying, and that federal nanotechnology research funding will remain strong, with added emphasis on commercialization. Read more
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Nanotube Transistor Concept Leads to Better Computer Storage
Researchers at the Nano-Science Center and the Niels Bohr Institute have come up with a new concept to revolutionize the way information is stored on computers and open the door to storing data much faster and more accurately. Nano-physicists Jonas Hauptmann, Jens Paaske and Poul Erik Lindelof are trying to combine electricity and magnetism to make a nanotube-based transistor, a step towards a new means of data-storage. According to Hauptmann, the three scientists are the first to “obtain direct electrical control of the smallest magnets in nature, one single electron spin.” Direct electrical control over a single electron spin has been acknowledged as a theoretical possibility for several years, but this study represents the first time the concept has been demonstrated in practice. Read more
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Semiconductor Fabrication, Solar Photovoltaic Unit to Open in India
Reliance Industries Ltd (RIL) has approached the Indian Government with plans to set up a semiconductor wafer fabrication plant and solar PV module unit, proposing the largest-ever project under the country’s new semiconductor policy. India has long been trying to woo global chip giants to set up manufacturing units and the new policy is aimed at placing the country in the league of hardware destinations such as Japan, Taiwan, China, Korea and Singapore. RIL plans to locate the facility, which would focus on areas within advanced logic, memories and embedded system on chips, in Navi Mumbai, Hyderabad, Mysore or Haryana. Read more
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Active Matrix Display Using Nanowires Debuts
The first active matrix display using a new class of transparent transistors and circuits has been developed by engineers at Purdue University, West Lafayette, Indiana, USA, who say their work is a step toward realizing applications such as e-paper, flexible color monitors and "heads-up" displays in car windshields. The transistors are made of nanowires as small as 20 nanometers and can be used to create a display containing organic light emitting diodes (OLEDS), which rival the brightness of conventional pixels in consumer electronics. An active-matrix display is able to precisely direct the flow of electricity to produce video because each picture element, or pixel, possesses its own control circuitry. The new method of fabricating nanowire electronics at room temperature is a simple process that might be practical for commercial manufacturing. Read more
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New CMOS Harmonic Oscillator Released
Claiming to have removed the last moving part from electronics circuitry, Mobius Microsystems unveiled its new CMOS Harmonic Oscillator earlier this month. The innovative technology eliminates the need for quartz crystals by integrating an oscillator onto an ordinary complementary metal oxide semiconductor chip. According to Tunc Cenger, Director of Marketing at Mobius, the company’s new technology is “the most accurate CMOS oscillator ever built” and “adds proprietary compensation circuitry that meets the requirements of a wide variety of timing-chip applications.” Read more
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Industry's Smallest FETs for Multiple Wireless Applications Introduced
Avago Technologies has released the industry’s smallest packaged field effect transistors (FETs), leveraging the company’s innovative chip scale packaging technology. This technology enables miniaturization of transistors with high-frequency operation and superior thermal dissipation. Because the devices do not require negative voltage to operate, they result in lower costs and ease of use for RF designers. The size and performance of the transistors allow them to be used for a variety of wireless applications, including commercial radios, UWB, radar, base stations, military communications, RF sensors, WiMAX, satellite communications or any DC-26 GHz application requiring small-sized components. Read more
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