Semiconductors & ICs

Windows of the Future: Ultrathin Solar Cells Could Turn Any Glass into a Power Generator

Led by Associate Professor Annalisa Bruno, the NTU researchers created perovskite solar cells that are about 10,000 times thinner than a strand of human hair and around 50 times thinner than conventional perovskite solar cells.

This New GaN Chip Provides W-Band Wireless Links for Military Radars

Northrop Grumman has built a new Gallium Nitride (GaN) chip that sets a new standard of performance for military and commercial use. The chip fully leverages the W-band...

Grain-of-Salt-Sized Neural Implant

Researchers at Cornell University, working with collaborators, have created an extremely small neural implant that can sit on a grain of salt. Despite its size, the device can wirelessly transmit brain activity data from a living animal for more than a year. Read on to learn more.

A Thinner, Better Conductor

In a paper published in Science, Stanford researchers show that niobium phosphide can conduct electricity better than copper in films that are only a few atoms thick. Moreover, these films can be created and deposited at sufficiently low temperatures to be compatible with modern computer chip fabrication. Read on to learn more.

Monitoring Hydrogen Fuel Quality in Real Time

The Korea Research Institute of Standards and Science has developed equipment that monitors the quality of hydrogen fuel supplied to vehicles through hydrogen refueling stations in real-time. This equipment is expected to prevent hydrogen vehicle accidents caused by impurities in the hydrogen fuel and improve the quality of hydrogen production. Read on to learn more.

World’s First 2D, Non-Silicon Computer Developed

In a world first, researchers have used 2D materials, which are only an atom thick and retain their properties at that scale, unlike silicon, to develop a computer capable of simple operations. The development represents a major leap toward the realization of thinner, faster and more energy-efficient electronics. Read on to learn more.

Radiation-Tolerant Microcontrollers for Expanding LEO Satellite Network

On this episode of the Aerospace & Defense Technology podcast, we speak with the CEO of Vorago Technologies, Bernd Lienhard, about how radiation-tolerant and radiation-hardened semiconductor technologies are enabling the next generation of satellite constellations, autonomous defense systems, and resilient space infrastructure. Listen now!

Brain-Inspired Memristors Could Slash AI Energy Use by 70 Percent

Researchers developed a form of hafnium oxide that acts as a highly stable, low‑energy ‘memristor’ — a component designed to mimic the efficient way neurons are connected in the brain.

Cooling the Cloud: A New Way to Manage GPU Power

In an effort to meet the rising energy demands of data centers, engineers at the University of California San Diego have developed a new chip design that could improve how graphics processing units (GPUs) convert and manage power.

LiDAR Goes Digital

Early LiDAR sensors, built on legacy mechanical architectures, proved the possibility of 3D perception but struggled to meet the demands of production. As the industry matures, the focus has shifted from simply detecting objects to doing so reliably, at scale, and at a price point suitable for commercial deployment. Read on to learn more.

MEMS in Transition

Wide-scale applications for Micro-Electromechanical Systems (MEMS) became practical in the 1980s when they started being fabricated with the same silicon wafer processes as semiconductor chips. Once they could be mass produced, they found a major market in automobile safety systems as inertial sensors for airbag deployment. Then came the introduction of smart phones in the late 2000s. Read on to learn where they're heading.

New on the Market

See what's new on the market, including The Imaging Source's Aptiris, USB 3.1 autofocus cameras designed for dynamic machine vision applications; Würth Elektronik's Proteus-IV and Ophelia-IV components, two new high-performance RF modules based on the latest Nordic nRF54L15-SoC semiconductor; Novotechnik U.S.'s Vert-X 13E Series of touchless rotary sensors; and much more.

Advanced MES Capabilities for Semiconductor Front-End Manufacturing

Replacing an outdated solution with a next-generation MES can radically improve user experience and eliminate obsolete IT languages, operating systems, and hardware platforms. It can expand functionality in a single system and keep pace with change, supporting the entire processing lifecycle. Read on to learn more.

Wireless Transceiver Rivals Fiber-Optic Speed

A new transceiver invented by electrical engineers at the University of California, Irvine boosts radio frequencies into 140-gigahertz territory, unlocking data speeds that rival those of physical fiber-optic cables and laying the groundwork for a transition to 6G and FutureG data transmission protocols. Read on to learn more about it.

A Fully Autonomous Robotic System Measures Key Properties of New Materials

Scientists are striving to discover new semiconductor materials that could boost the efficiency of solar cells and other electronics. But the pace of innovation is bottlenecked by the speed at which researchers can manually measure important material properties. A fully autonomous robotic system developed by MIT researchers could speed things up. Read on to learn more.

Light-Responsive Perovskites Exhibit Reversible Shape-Shifting Behavior

Researchers at the University of California, Davis recently found that perovskites may enable a new class of light-responsive semiconductor devices. Read on to learn more.

New Solar Research Achieves 130% Efficiency Yield Using Singlet Fission

To become a mainstream energy source, solar panels need to become more efficient, and a recent breakthrough by researchers from Kyushu University and Johannes Gutenberg University Mainz may accelerate this progress. Read on to learn more.

New Electronic “Skin” Could Enable Lightweight Night-Vision Glasses

MIT engineers have developed a technique to grow and peel ultrathin “skins” of electronic material. The method could pave the way for new classes of electronic devices, such as ultrathin wearable sensors, flexible transistors and computing elements, and highly sensitive and compact imaging devices. Read on to learn more.

First Electronic-Photonic Quantum Chip Created in a Commercial Foundry

In a milestone for scalable quantum technologies, scientists from Boston University, UC Berkeley, and Northwestern University have reported the world’s first electronic–photonic–quantum system on a chip, according to a study published in Nature Electronics. Read on to learn more about it.

Using ‘Doughnut’ Beams to See Incredibly Small Objects

In a new study, researchers at CU Boulder have used doughnut-shaped beams of light to take detailed images of objects too tiny to view with traditional microscopes. The new technique could help scientists improve the inner workings of a range of “nanoelectronics,” including the miniature semiconductors in computer chips. Read on to learn more.

A Smart Sensor Performs AI Tricks While Capturing Spectral Images

By folding AI algorithms into a camera’s sensor itself, researchers at the Department of Energy’s Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory have now eliminated a data-processing bottleneck that has long plagued the performance of spectral imaging technology. The result is an intelligent sensor capable of identifying chemicals and characterizing materials quickly and efficiently. Read on to learn more.

Electron Microscopy Shows ‘Mouse Bite’ Defects in Semiconductors

Cornell researchers have used high-resolution 3D imaging to detect, for the first time, the atomic-scale defects in computer chips that can sabotage their performance. Read on to learn more.

The Holy Grail of Networking: Bringing Fiber-Optic Speed Directly to the Chip

Caltech scientists have developed a way to guide light on silicon wafers with low signal loss approaching that of optical fiber at visible wavelengths. Read on to learn more about it.

Stable Optical Wireless Power Transmission for the IoT

The world’s first automatic and adaptive, dual-mode light-emitting diode (LED)-based optical wireless power transmission system, that operates seamlessly under both dark and bright...

Products of Tomorrow

See the products of tomorrow, including a bio-mimetic, light-powered soft lens that mimics the human eye’s ability to refocus and adjust to varying light conditions; a new material for insulating windows that could improve the energy efficiency of buildings worldwide; and more.