Design

New Manufacturing Technique for Flexible Electronics

Ultrathin, flexible computer circuits have been an engineering goal for years, but technical hurdles have prevented the degree of miniaturization necessary to achieve high performance....

A Scalable Method for the Large-Area Integration of 2D Materials

Two-dimensional (2D) materials have a huge potential for providing devices with much smaller size and extended functionalities with respect to what can be achieved with...

Luminescent Windows Generate Energy From Inside and Out

Rice University engineers have suggested a colorful solution to next-generation energy collection: Luminescent solar concentrators (LSCs) in your windows. The team designed and...

New Wearable Device Turns the Body Into a Battery

Researchers at CU Boulder have developed a new, low-cost, wearable device that transforms the human body into a biological battery. The device is stretchy enough that you can wear it like...

New Transistor Design Disguises Key Computer Chip Hardware to Protect Against Hackers

A hacker can reproduce a circuit on a chip by discovering what key transistors are doing in a circuit — but not if the transistor “type” is...

New Technique Extends Next-Generation Lithium Metal Batteries

Electric vehicles (EVs) hold great promise for our energy-efficient, sustainable future but among their limitations is the lack of a long-lasting, high energy density battery...

Clean, Limitless Power from Graphene

A team of University of Arkansas physicists has successfully developed a circuit capable of capturing graphene’s thermal motion and converting it into an electrical current.

Woodworking, Simplified: New Software Aids in Design

An interactive software being developed at the University of Tokyo allows architects and furniture makers with little experience in woodworking to to design and build structurally sound wood joints.

Researchers Have Developed the World’s Smallest Ultrasound Detector

Researchers at Helmholtz Zentrum München and the Technical University of Munich (TUM) have developed the world’s smallest ultrasound detector. Based on...

Researchers Devise Efficient, Scalable Process for Fabricating MXene Films That Block Electromagnetic Interference

The proliferation and miniaturization of electronics in devices, wearables, medical implants, and other applications has...

2D Materials for Extra Thin Computer Chips

For a long time, something important has been regularly neglected in electronics. If you want to make electronic components smaller and smaller, you also need the right insulator materials. This...

Improved Battery Life for Wearable Electronic Devices

Researchers at the University of Warwick have found that asymmetric stresses within electrodes used in certain wearable electronic devices provides an important clue as to how to...

Biomorphic Batteries Could Provide 72 Times More Energy for Robots

Like biological fat reserves store energy in animals, a new rechargeable zinc battery integrates into the structure of a robot to provide much more energy, a team led by...

Even NASA Needs Effective Parts Sourcing

You can design the best product in the world but what if the parts, assemblies, and sub-components for your idea aren’t there?

Atomic Chains in Nanotubes Push the Electronics Frontier

Wearable tech and electronic cloth may be the way of the future, but to get there the wiring needs to be strong, flexible, and efficient.

New Power Supply Control Method Significantly Increases the Service Life of End Devices

From the charging unit for a smartphone to the power supply of a laptop or washing machine to LED lights or the charging station for an electric car...

A New Electrolyte for Lithium-Metal Batteries

Improvements to a class of battery electrolyte first introduced in 2017 — liquefied gas electrolytes — could pave the way to a high-impact and long-sought advance for rechargeable...

Product of the Month: August 2019 Tech Briefs

nTopology, New York, NY, offers the nTop Platform, a unifying technique for design, simulation, and manufacturing data to be intelligently embedded directly into a part. The approach...

Safety Analysis: The Key to a Single-Pass ISO26262 Random Fault Workflow

Advanced driver-assistance systems and autonomous drive technologies increase the complexity of automotive integrated circuits (ICs), making it harder to ensure that...

Generative Design Enhances Autonomous Vehicle Development

The technological ramp to fully autonomous vehicles presents significant challenges for companies developing autonomous vehicle programs. Advanced sensor technology, high-speed and...

Desktop 3D Scanner

NextEngine, Santa Monica, CA, offers the Desktop 3D Scanner, a full-color multi-laser scanner that scans complex shapes for CAD and 3D design applications on the desktop. About the size of a cereal box, the scanner...