Healthcare AI Start-Ups Raise $4.3bn

Healthcare AI start-ups have raised $4.3 billion across 576 deals since 2013, topping all other industries in AI deal activity, reports CB Insights. Image recognition is revolutionizing diagnostics. Recently, Google DeepMind’s neural networks matched the accuracy of medical experts in diagnosing 50 sight-threatening eye diseases. Pharma companies are experimenting with deep learning to design new drugs. For ...

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Hopes that 3D sensors will revive smartphone market

Sony, the leader in the  image sensing market ever since it pioneered  CCD development, is hoping that 3D image sensors will  revive the flagging smartphone industry which is estimated to have fallen about 3% this year Sony’s sensor boss, Satoshi Yoshihara (pictured), says the company will ramp up 3D sensor production in later summer 2019 in ...

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China moves on IP protection

In a move which could be seen as a Chinese initiative to defuse the trade war, China’s Supreme Court has said it will now hear IP-related cases. The decision takes effect on January 1st. Up to now, cases concerning IP have been decided at the district court level. The lack of legal protection for IP ...

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Dell returns to public market

Dell went back onto the New York stock exchange on Friday nearly six years after Michael Dell (pictured) took the company public. The complicated deal saw a group led by Michael Dell pay a Dell subsidiary $24.4 billion for control of Dell – a valuation which infuriated activist investor Carl Icahn who says the company ...

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Toshiba positions battery unit for EV growth opportunity

On April 1,  Toshiba’s SCiB li-ion battery business will be transferred from Toshiba Infrastructure Systems & Solutions Corporation (TISS) to will become an independent business unit within Toshiba. The move is part of the Toshiba Next Plan and positions the battery business as a new growth business. Positioning the business as an independent operation will ...

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Spacecraft to fly past Ultima Thule tonight

At half past midnight tonight NASA’s New Horizons spacecraft (pictured) flies past Ultima Thule which, at four billion miles, is the most distant object a man-made object has seen. Because of the distance, it will take ten hours for the first images of Ultima Thule to reach Earth. However NASA is showing footage of events ...

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Face Recognition gets legal nod

Face recognition technology has received a boost from the decision in Rivera v Google in a Chicago District Court. The plaintiffs alleged that Google’s Photo service violated their rights by collecting and storing biometric data from people’s photographs using facial recognition software without their permission. The judge decided that Google’s photo sharing and storage service ...

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Ed’s New Year Resolutions

In these uncertain times, I must look to feathering my post-Ministerial nest, Ed confides to his diary. So my New Year Resolutions are: To bag up more promises of non-exec directorships for when I leave government. To look for closer contacts with foreign start-ups (the Frogs seem very active here) with a view to taking ...

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Dell went back onto the stock exchange on Friday nearly six years after Michael Dell took the company public. The complicated deal saw a group led by Michael Dell pay $24.4 billion for control of Dell – a valuation which infuriated activist investor Carl Icahn who says the comany is worth $42 billion. The company ...

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Kindness

James Clerk Maxwell was a great man in very many ways – not least as a great human being. After an academic got a critical roasting from Maxwell in an article in Nature, he received an anonymous letter through the post which contained a poem taking the micky out of Maxwell. The anonymous sender of ...

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2018 was a dark year for tech, says Vestager

2018 was a bad year for tech, EU Competition Commissioner Margrethe Vestager told Martha Lane-Fox in a BBC interview. Vestager instanced “forced misuse of data, manipulation, supervision, no respect of the citizen, no respect of individual” as examples of abuse and stated “there is an increasing awareness of the fact that we really need to ...

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BeiDou becomes fully operational

Yesterday, China’s BeiDou satellite positioning system BDS became fully operational. “This signifies that BDS has officially entered the global era as the BDS expands from a regional system to a global navigation system,” said BeiDou’s Ran Chenqi at the launch event, “from now on, no matter where you go, BDS will always be with you.”  ...

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Qualcomm business practices up before a judge

Next week the legality of the most notorious business model in the tech industry’s history will come under the scrutiny of a judge. The judge is Lucy Koh who has shown a very independent streak in judgments affecting big companies who have used bully-boy tactics. The case is the US Federal Trade Commission  v Qualcomm. ...

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BT network drops Huawei

The Emergency Services Network (ESN), which is being built by BT to provide priority access to mobile phone services for the emergency services, will be delayed as plans to use Huawei switchgear are being dropped. The ESN was to have been in place next year. The new date for completion of an Huawei-free ESN is ...

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More VC money, longer time to market, fewer IPOs

There’s more VC money floating around the USA than ever before, but fewer IPOs and a longer time between initial funding and going public. These are the conclusions of  the 7th edition of CB Insights’ Tech IPO Pipeline Report.  While tech IPO activity did not see a major spike in 2018, investment to potential candidates ...

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Fable: The Industrialist With A Good Heart

There was once a very great industrialist whose country went to war.  He offered his factories to the government which made arms in them, so doubling their employee headcount. The industrialist told the new recruits that none of them would be laid off when the war ended and the factories returned to peacetime manufacturing. When ...

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Sharp to spin off semi business

Sharp is to spin off its semiconductor business, reports The Japan Times. The spin-off, which is designed to speed up management decision-making, enable outside investment and facilitate external partnerships could happen as early as April. The spin-off will see the semi business split into two wholly-owned subsidiary companies one for chips and sensors and the ...

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Huawei first to use TSMC EUV

HiSilicon, Huawei’s chip subsidiary, will be the first customer to use a TSMC process using EUV, reports China’s Commercial Times. The process labelled N7 Plus, is due for production in Q1 2019. A follow-up process using EUV, N5, is due for production in 2020. Huawei is TSMC’s second largest customer after Apple. TSMC is expected ...

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Trump ponders banning Chinese switchgear

President Trump is considering an executive order upping the stakes in the US-China trade war, reports Reuters. The order would ban all US companies from buying switchgear from Huawei and ZTE. Since Huawei equipment is said to cost a quarter of Ericsson equipment, this would hit US companies, especially smaller ones in rural areas, very ...

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Intel gets Israeli fab incentive

Intel is to get a $185 million grant for expanding its Kiryat Gat fab in Israel. Earlier this year, Intel submitted plans for the expansion which will cost $5 billion and add 250 employees at the site. Intel also undertook  to make local purchases worth $500 million. Earlier this month, Intel said it had begun ...

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Huawei anticipates being No.1 smartphone vendor in 2019

Huawei reckons it could be the world No.1 smartphone vendor in 2019. “In the global smartphone market, Huawei has gone from being dismissed as a statistical ‘Other’ to ranking among the top 3 players in the world,” says the company, “in Q4 next year, it’s possible we become No. 1” The company says it sold ...

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Perfidious Plastic

The staggering mass of waste packaging generated over the last two days shows how imperative it is to develop bio-degradable plastic. The European Parliament has backed a sweeping ban on a range of single-use plastics in an effort to curb maritime pollution. Data from NOAA and Woods Hole Sea Grant to show just how long ...

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Perfidious Plastic

The staggering mass of waste packaging generated over the last two days shows how imperative it is to develop a readily degradable packaging material. At the moment, plastic seems to be the go-to material for packaging, cheap utensils and throw-away products, but it has become a curse. The European Parliament has backed a sweeping ban ...

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What To Look For In 2019

5G will turn out to be the slowest roll-out of a new generation of mobile cellular tech in history as operators balk at the cost. Driverless cars on the public roads will still need drivers IoT, renamed ‘cheapo networking’, will get cheaper Brexit will turn out, like Y2K and GDPR, to be a non-event as ...

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Sinclair invention gene rides again

The inventive Sinclair gene rides again as Sir Clive’s nephew, Grant Sinclair, launches a  build-your-own pocket games machine. Grant’s product is called POCO, standing for Pocket Raspberrry Pi Gaming Kit. It includes a Raspberry Pi motherboard,  a wide-angle camera, loudspeaker, touch screen and control pads. About the size of a smartphone, POCO  allows users to ...

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Get a second source TSMC tells 8-inch customers

TSMC has advised customers for 8-inch wafers to use multiple sources, reports Digitimes, because demand looks like exceeding supply right through 2019. Last week TSMC said it was looking to build a new 8-inch fab in Tainan. The last time it built an 8-inch fab was 15 years ago The demand is coming from customers ...

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Foxconn planning foundry

Foxconn is said to be planning a $9 billion foundry in Zhuhai (pictured). The city of Zhuhai is putting up most of the money. Foxconn, its subsidiary Sharp and the city are expected to form a jv to build and run the fab. Initial products are expected to be 8K TV chip-sets, and imaging and other ...

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Mobile Semiconductor launches FDX memory compiler

Mobile Semiconductor has announced a 22nm FDX ULP (Ultra Low Power) Memory Compiler. The Memory Compiler offers an Ultra-Low Power mode at 0.65V that is useful to a wide range of wearable and battery powered devices. The 22nm FDX ULP joins their expanding 22nm FDX Memory Compiler family that currently covers a wide range of ...

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ROHM claims the smallest contactless current sensor

ROHM claims to have launched the industry’s smallest contactless current sensor, the BM14270MUV-LB. It achieves minimum power loss (no heat generation) in an ultra-compact size, making it ideal for industrial equipment and consumer devices that detect operating conditions via current, including battery-driven drones, solar power systems, and servers in data centers requiring high power. In ...

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NTT to take majority stake in Transatel

NTT Communications is to buy a majority stake in the French virtual mobile network company Transatel. Transatel, established in 2000, has deployed a data MVNO network compliant with Embedded SIM (eSIM) technology to address three key market segments: Consumer Electronics, Automotive and Industrial IoT (IIoT). Its SIM 901 platform claims to deliver secure, global cellular connectivity ...

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Ed Exploits Uncertainty

Somewhat to my surprise, the PM has survived to the Christmas recess and the Westminster swamp smells sweeter today, Ed confides to his diary. The brain-numbing effect of  festivities followed by the sober light of grey January mornings will bring the pols to their senses and they’ll look for a Brexit solution instead of posturing, ...

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The Marketing Touch

Not many engineering projects have had a resident scribe attached to them to record how it all happened, but there was one – the building of a computer by Data General. Tracey Kidder described the process in ‘The Soul of a New Machine.’ At the public launch  of the computer, known as ‘Eagle’ during its ...

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Government launches new cyber initiatives

The UK National Cyber Security Council set up by the Department for Culture Media and Sport has developed new initiatives which include: Appointing independent Ambassadors to help promote the attractiveness and viability of a career in cyber security to a broader and more diverse range of individuals. Launching the refreshed CyberFirst brand in 2019 which ...

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Slowing worldwide GDP growth to hit semi market

Growth in the global economy is expected to slow in 2019 from 2018 dragging down semiconductor market growth in its wake, according to  Bill Jewell’s Semiconductor Intelligence. Ten economic forecasts released in the last two months show the percentage point change in World GDP from 2018 to 2019 ranging from minus 0.1 points to minus ...

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EC OKs $2bn IoT initiative

The EC has found that a joint microelectronics project between Germany, France, Britain and Italy qualifies for state aid. The countries will put up $1.75 billion between them which will, it is hoped, be met with $6 billion from industry. “Innovation in microelectronics can help the whole of Europe leap ahead in innovation,” says Commissioner ...

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Graphcore raises another $200m

Graphcore, the Bristol neural chip start-up founded by Nigel Toon and Simon Knowles (pictured), has raised another $200 million, taking the total it has raised to $300 million. Graphcore has reached a $1.7Bn valuation with new funding from leading venture capital, financial and strategic investors including Atomico, BMW i Ventures, Merian Chrysalis Investment, Microsoft, Sequoia ...

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MagnaChip offers 3rd gen 0.18 micron BCD foundry process

MagnaChip, the Korean  mixed-signal specialist, is offering foundry customers its third generation 0.18 micron Bipolar-CMOS-DMOS (BCD) process technology. The technology is suitable for PMIC, DC-DC converters, battery charger ICs, protection ICs, motor driver ICs, LED driver ICs and audio amplifiers. The third generation 0.18 micron BCD process technology offers improved specific on-resistance (Rsp) of power ...

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MACOM starts new noise amplifier portfolio

MACOM has announced the first entries in its new portfolio of wideband, ultra low phase noise amplifiers. Available in 2.8 x 1.73 x 0.1 mm bare-die and 5x5mm, 32-lead AQFN packaged formats, the new MAAL-011151 is ideally suited for use as a low phase noise amplifier stage for signal generation applications spanning system designs targeting ...

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US continues to dominate server market

The server market grew 5% in 2018 to 12,4 million units, reports TrendForce. Dell EMC, HPE (including H3C), and Inspur will be the top three server suppliers with the shipment market shares of 16.7%, 15.1%, and 7.8% respectively. Enterprise servers account for the majority of the global shipments while the percentage of servers used for ...

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Drone-catchers

 The fact that there are so many anti-drone products on the market suggests that Gatwick could have been a trifle unprepared in its response to this week’s drone infestation. First there are the net guys: From Stocksfield, Tyneside, Open Works Engineering has a drone-catcher called SkyWall100 system which is a portable compressed air launcher that fires ...

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Fable: IBM’s Oddities

  A lot of people have wondered how IBM, with all its technological excelkence, could have let AWS wipe the floor with them in cloud services. However a famous IBM CEO noticed a similar lack of capability in what would have been expected to be an IBM proficiency. “When I’d arrived at IBM, I wasn’t ...

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ST innovation challenge for start-ups

ST launching an “Open Innovation Challenge” for startups (“Challenge”) during the upcoming CES 2019. The effort, based on ST’s product portfolio including the STM32 microcontroller platform, is aimed to promote ST technology and solutions to founders and developers of French Tech startups in France and overseas. In addition, the Challenge offers development and promotional expertise ...

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Small Robot raises £500,000

Small Robot Company, the Shropshire  agritech start-up, has reached  its Crowdcube equity crowdfunding funding target of £500,000 within minutes of its launch. The campaign is continuing to gather momentum, and the company is now working to reach its stretch targets. The company’s successful start to its campaign was was overwhelmingly due to backing from the ...

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BrainChip updates video analysis software

BrainChip, the spiking neural net specialist,  has announced the BrainChip Studio 2018.3 update for its AI-powered video analysis software. The latest update has acnew mode that improves the software’s face classification accuracy by 10-30 percent. To date, BrainChip Studio utilized spiking neural networks to enable facial classification on partial faces. This partial-face mode is useful ...

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MinerEye bags up $2.5m grant from EC

MinerEye, the AI-powered data governance specialist, has been awarded an SME Instrument Grant from the EC worth $2.5 million. The Grant organization selected MinerEye’s Data Tracker to provide EU companies with a solution to ensure secure and compliant cloud adoption which is currently lacking in the market today. According to the Grant organization, “The solution is ...

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Huawei No.1 for IoT

Despite its political woes, Huawei has won top spot in the IHS IoT Platform Vendor rankings. Cisco, Microsoft, and PTC  were No.s 2, 3 and 4. Completing the top ten were:, Alibaba, AWS, GE, IBM and SAP. “Huawei was the leading IoT platform vendor, based on its market-leading number of devices under management, the high ...

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ACEINNA posts dynamic tilt orientation measurement video

ACEINNA has posted a video on the ACEINNA YouTube Video Channel – “How to measure dynamic Tilt and orientation with an IMU” at https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EnPzCbfCS3s Why would you want to know the dynamic tilt angle on a vehicle? Consider a classic example of a plane in the clouds. The pilot cannot see the ground, nor can ...

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Purdue uses 2D material to make memory ICs

Purdue researchers are using the 2D material molybdenum ditelluride to make memory ICs. “We haven’t yet explored system fatigue using this new material, but our hope is that it is both faster and more reliable than other approaches due to the unique switching mechanism we’ve observed,” says Purdue professor  Joerg Appenzeller. A system using molybdenum ...

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Billionaires back energy storage start-up

An energy storage project developed by X – an Alphabet lab – has been spun off into a start-up company calked Malta. Malta has been backed with $26 million in funding led by Breakthrough Energy Ventures whose investors include Bill Gates, Jeff Bezos, Michael Bloomberg and Masa Son. Concord New Energy Group of Hong Kong ...

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Siglent adds to ‘scope portfolio

Siglent Technologies have introduced a new member in its Portfolio of Oscilloscopes. TheSDS2000X-E Oscilloscope offers a 2 GS/s Sample Rate and will be available with bandwidths of 200 MHz and 350 MHz. With all its standard features and functions, it is suitable for analogue circuit design and fit well for the needs of any service ...

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The Affection-Simulator

The Japanese are very good at robotic companions – there were the Tamagotchi, Softbank’s humanoid robot Pepper and Sony’s Aibo robot dog. Now there’s Lovot.   Lovot  is a bit of a tart – it’s an affection-simulator which responds to kindness by warming up and by going to sleep when cuddled. It’s modelled on penguins – ...

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Manna From Heaven

What would the chip industry give for a process which promises six generations of scaling? What wouldn’t it give? One of the many intriguing components of the USA’s Electronics Resurgence Initiative sponsored by DARPA is an old eight inch Cypress fab now being used to mix CNTs and RRAM cells using a 3D stacked CMOS ...

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Arm launches second auto core

Arm is showing its aspirations in the automotive market with the launch of a second core aimed at the sector. It has come up with  a core called Cortex-A65E designed to process the multiple streams of data generated by sensors in cars. The core is expected to be in designs in 2020. The A65E is ...

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Mouser grows 50% in Europe

[author Mouser says  that by the end of 2018 it expects to have achieved a growth of almost 50% in Europe, with a customer increase in excess of 18%. This the result of targeted customer promotions that aim to provide more of what designers need to inspire, innovate and expedite their latest projects, supported by ...

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Cisco buys Luxtera

Cisco is to buy the photonics IC specialist Luxtera for $660 million. “Our customers are looking to address the unrelenting demand for more bandwidth driven by an emerging class of distributed cloud, mobility, and IoT applications,’ says Cisco’s Rob Salvagno (pictured), “simply put, the exponentially growing demands on the network require a new era of ...

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from Electronics Weekly https://www.electronicsweekly.com/news/business/cisco-buys-luxtera-2-2018-12/

November SEMI billings down 4.2% m-o-m and 5.3% y-o-y

North America-based manufacturers of semiconductor equipment posted $1.94 billion in billings worldwide in November 2018 (three-month average basis), according SEMI. The billings figure is 4.2 percent lower than the final October 2018 level of $2.03 billion, and is 5.3 percent lower than the November 2017 billings level of $2.05 billion. “For the first time in over ...

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from Electronics Weekly https://www.electronicsweekly.com/news/business/november-semi-billings-4-2-m-o-m-5-3-y-o-y-2018-12/

Good News

Despite the trade war, IC Insights believes the semiconductor industry will grow. The growth is not big – single digit – but it is considerably more optimistic than SEMI’s forecast for the 2019 fab equipment industry which switched, this week, from a positive 7% to a negative 8%. While acknowledging that China will play a ...

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from Electronics Weekly https://www.electronicsweekly.com/uncategorised/good-news-2018-12/

MACOM launches negative voltage drivers

MACOM has announced two new negative voltage drivers designed for use with a broad range of MACOM’s AlGaAs and HMIC PIN diode switches. The  MADR-011020 and MADR-011022 drivers enable integration that complements the industry-leading performance of MACOM’s advanced PIN diodes, providing designers with layout-efficient and cost-effective solutions while eliminating the design complexities and time to market ...

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from Electronics Weekly https://www.electronicsweekly.com/news/business/macom-launches-negative-voltage-drivers-2018-12/

Top Ten Economies For Competitiveness

Thanks to The World Economic Forum for this one – the ten most competitive economies:    

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from Electronics Weekly https://www.electronicsweekly.com/blogs/mannerisms/ten-best/top-ten-economies-competitiveness-2018-12/

Cisco buys Luxtera

Cisco is to buy the photonics IC specialist Luxtera for $660 million. “Our customers are looking to address the unrelenting demand for more bandwidth driven by an emerging class of distributed cloud, mobility, and IoT applications,’ says Cisco’s Rob Salvagno (pictured), “simply put, the exponentially growing demands on the network require a new era of ...

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from Electronics Weekly https://www.electronicsweekly.com/uncategorised/cisco-buys-luxtera-2018-12/

Shape-shifting antennae adapt in real time to cloak and block frequencies

Radio frequency filters can change which signals they block through a range of frequencies, using an origami-based structure to change their dimensions. Researchers at the Georgia Institute of Technology say that the tunable filters can be used in antenna systems that adapt to ambient conditions in real-time for electromagnetic cloaking systems that could be reconfigured on-the-fly to reflect or ...

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from Electronics Weekly https://www.electronicsweekly.com/market-sectors/military-aerospace-electronics/shape-shifting-antennae-adapt-real-time-cloak-block-frequencies-2018-12/

Conductive ink breakthrough reduces cost of graphene printed electronics

Researchers at the University of Manchester have identified dihydrolevogucosenone, a non toxic material which is less expensive than conventional conductive inks. It is a sustainable material that provides higher concentrations and conductivity compared with graphene ink and is lower in cost as it does not rely on metal nanoparticles for electrical conductivity in printed electronics. Printed conductive inks are being ...

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from Electronics Weekly https://www.electronicsweekly.com/news/research-news/materials-rd/conductive-ink-breakthrough-reduces-cost-graphene-printed-electronics-2018-12/

Microcontroller secures IoT endpoint devices

Analogue capability and security functions in the Renesas Synergy S1JA microcontroller, target sensor signal acquisition and conditioning to simplify industrial instrumentation, multi-sensory systems and single-phase electrical meters, says RS Components. The low power microcontroller is based on a 48MHz Arm Cortex-M23 processor core with 256kb code flash and 32kb SRAM. There is also an integrated 16-bit ADC, 24-bit sigma-delta ...

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from Electronics Weekly https://www.electronicsweekly.com/blogs/distribution-world/distribution-distribution-world/microcontroller-secures-iot-endpoint-devices-2018-12/

IMUs help devices navigate safely

Mouser stocks the ADIS1647x precision industrial inertial measurement units (IMUs) from Analog Devices.  The IMUs can be used in virtual reality (VR) and augmented reality (AR) devices, as well as for navigation in unmanned aerial vehicles (UAVs), autonomous vehicles, smart agricultural equipment as well as industrial and IoT devices. The IMUs deliver six degrees of freedom sensing, ...

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from Electronics Weekly https://www.electronicsweekly.com/news/products/sensors-products/imus-help-devices-navigate-safely-2018-12/

The Quitter

According To SemiWiki, Intel has made the decision to abandon its foundry business. Intel is not commenting, but the story presents an opportunity to trot out the list of Intel’s many ill-fated diversifications. Here it is: ASICs (twice), XScale, LCOS, WiMAX, PLD, STB, CLEC, VOIP, STB, mobile APs, watches and wearables. Even in the days ...

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from Electronics Weekly https://www.electronicsweekly.com/blogs/mannerisms/delusions/545524-2018-12/

GPS III on the launch-pad

The first of a new constellation of updated GPS satellites, which are three time more accurate than previous satellites, is to be launched today. Current GPS accuracy is 10 to 33 feet, depending on conditions, and the new, GPS III satellites, will be accurate to  between three and ten foot. The satellite is scheduled to ...

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from Electronics Weekly https://www.electronicsweekly.com/news/business/gps-iii-launch-pad-2018-12/

Europractice funded as part of H2020

Imec, STFC-UKRI, Fraunhofer IIS, CMP and Tyndall announced today that Europractice was selected and granted European funding as a H2020 project. This new funding secures the Europractice services to European universities, research institutes and industry until the end of 2021. In the new H2020-project named Next Europractice eXtended Technologies and Services (NEXTS), new partners CMP ...

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from Electronics Weekly https://www.electronicsweekly.com/news/business/europractice-funded-part-h2020-2018-12/

First folding phones next year

Next year, the first foldable phone gets launched, according to WitsView, but they will only take 0.1% of the 2019 smartphone market rising to 1.5% of the 2021 market. Samsung, which has the foldable AMOLED panel technology, is expected to be the first to launch. Huawei, LG, Lenovo and Google are said to be planning ...

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from Electronics Weekly https://www.electronicsweekly.com/news/business/first-folding-phones-next-year-2018-12/

Fab investment goes into reverse

Fab equipment spending in 2019 is projected to drop 8%, down from the previously forecast increase of  7%, says SEMI. Total fab investment growth has been revised downward for 2018 to 10% from the 14% predicted in August. Entering 2018, the semiconductor industry was expected to show a rare fourth consecutive year of equipment investment ...

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from Electronics Weekly https://www.electronicsweekly.com/news/business/fab-investment-goes-reverse-2018-12/

Intel makes early moves for more fab

Suffering from a shortage of capacity for CPUs, Intel is now moving early to ensure that it will have futire capacity when it needs it. The company says it has begun talks with the planning authorities in Israel, Ireland and Oregon about extending capacity  at those sites. The inetention is that construction could begin at ...

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from Electronics Weekly https://www.electronicsweekly.com/news/business/intel-makes-early-moves-fab-2018-12/

Conference To Consider The Social And Economic Effects Of Automation

 THE first conference to consider the purely social and economic effects of automation will be held at Harrogate on June 27-30, and will be opened by Viscount Hailsham, Minister of Science. Its title is “Automation – Men and Money.” So, 57 years ago, started a story in Electronics Weekly’s edition of March 8th 1961. The story ...

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from Electronics Weekly https://www.electronicsweekly.com/blogs/mannerisms/memory-lane/541395-2018-12/

MagnaChip launches LDO regulator for SSDs

MagnaChip, the Korean mixed signal specialist, has launched a low noise, low power consumption, fast transient LDO  regulator suitable for BGA  SSDs. The chip is developed especially for the requirements of a BGA SSD power supply and provides a stable 1.2V output voltage in the 1.65V to 3.3V input voltage range. It also is capable ...

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from Electronics Weekly https://www.electronicsweekly.com/uncategorised/magnachip-launches-ldo-regulator-ssds-2018-12/

The Old Dog Cuffs The New Dog

Deutsche Telekom and Softbank are believed to have succumbed to pressure from the USA  not to use Huawei switchgear as the price for CFIUS  clearing the proposed $26 billion merger of their Sprint and T-Mobile US subsidiaries, reports Bloomberg. Although Sprint and T-Mobile don’t use Huawei kit, their parent companies do. The US pressure to ...

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from Electronics Weekly https://www.electronicsweekly.com/blogs/mannerisms/dilemmas/old-dog-cuffs-new-dog-2018-12/

Molex launches 15x6mm WiFi flexible antenna

Molex has launched its  Wi-Fi flexible antenna series –  the 206994-series of side-fed cable-flexible antenna – for space-constrained applications. When center-fed cable antennas do not address the needs of particular applications, side-fed cable antenna designs are required and Molex has developed two side-fed cable antenna versions: the 206994-series monopole and the 204281-series dipole-style side-fed flex antennas. ...

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from Electronics Weekly https://www.electronicsweekly.com/news/business/molex-launches-15x6mm-wifi-flexible-antenna-2018-12/

NAND price to fall 10% in Q1

Contract prices of NAND are expected to drop 10%, says DRAMeXchange. NAND bit output is higher than expected thanks to steady yields on 64-layer 3D NAND production, but demand has been hit by the US-China trade war, the shortage of Intel CPUs and lower than expected iPhone sales. Even the eMMC/UFS sector, which had a ...

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from Electronics Weekly https://www.electronicsweekly.com/news/business/nand-price-fall-10-q1-2018-12/

EUV gets real

Samsung is leading in EUV manufacturing, it was revealed at IEDM. Samsung is currently ramping a 7nm process which uses EUV for seven layers. TSMC appears to be second in EUV usage with the intention of starting to ramp a 7nm process which uses EUV for six layers early in 2019. Intel is not planning ...

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from Electronics Weekly https://www.electronicsweekly.com/news/business/euv-gets-real-2018-12/

Hitachi buys ABB’s power grid business

Hitachi is to take over the power grid business of Swisss engineering group ABB. Initially, Hitachi will pay $6.4 billion for 80% of the business and, after four years, it will buy the remaining 20%. The first part of the deal is set to close in H1 2020. The idea is to make Hitachi better ...

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from Electronics Weekly https://www.electronicsweekly.com/news/business/hitachi-buys-abbs-power-grid-business-2018-12/

Polymeric materials advance in packaging

The polymeric materials market revenue will double over the next five years, says Yole Développement, driven by miniaturisation and higher functionalities in applications like AI, 5G, and AR/VR requiring packaging including high-density FOWLP, 3D stacked TSV, WLCSP and flip-chip.    “The innovative advanced packaging platforms have reached a new level of complexity and now demand higher ...

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from Electronics Weekly https://www.electronicsweekly.com/news/business/polymeric-materials-2018-12/

DRAM is the fastest growing product category

DRAM was the fastest growing chip product in 2018, says IC Insights. The 2018 DRAM market is expected to show an increase of 39%, a solid follow-up to the 77% growth in 2017. It was also the fastest-growing IC segment in 2013 and 2014.   IC Insights forecasts that DRAM will rank nearly last in ...

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from Electronics Weekly https://www.electronicsweekly.com/news/business/dram-fastest-growing-product-category-2018-12/

Ed Makes Hay

How excited the pols get, Ed confides to his diary, and then the pols razz up the reptiles and together they create a huge kerfuffle which turns out to be delusional and their support illusory. What a shower. As an honorary pol – unelected but in the Cabinet and the Lords – I have a ...

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from Electronics Weekly https://www.electronicsweekly.com/blogs/mannerisms/ed-the-serial-ceo/ed-makes-hay-2018-12/

Demystifying EMC 2019

EMC training day – Silverstone Circuit – 28 January 2019 – Free registration

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from Electronics Weekly https://www.electronicsweekly.com/uncategorised/demystifying-emc-2019-2018-12/

Mouser ships fibre optic connectors for mil-aero use

Fibre optic connectors from Amphenol Fiber Systems International (FSI) are now available from Mouser Electronics. They are intended for use in harsh environments and the extreme temperatures and vibration conditions experienced in aerospace and military applications. The ARINC 801-qualified cylindrical fibre optic connectors are designed for avionics and aircraft networks. They are available in standard ...

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from Electronics Weekly https://www.electronicsweekly.com/news/products/mouser-ships-fibre-optic-connectors-mil-aero-use-2018-12/

The Big Guns Approach To Recruitment

The term ‘big guns’ for his approach to recruitment was coined by T.J. Rodgers, founder and CEO of Cypress Semiconductor, in his book ‘No Excuses Management’. ”I learned the importance of the ‘big-guns’ technique from Jerry Sanders at Advanced Micro Devices,” writes Rodgers, “when I was considering joining AMD, the first day I walked in ...

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from Electronics Weekly https://www.electronicsweekly.com/blogs/mannerisms/yarns/big-guns-approach-recruitment-2018-12/

Plessey microLEDs enable AR/VR spectacles

Plessey is to demo the world’s first AR/VR glasses powered by microLEDs at CES Plessey microLED displays deliver 10x resolution, 100x contrast ratio, 
and up to 1,000x greater luminance than OLED technology Visitors to the Plessey booth at CES will be the first to wear AR and VR glasses powered by microLEDs. The next generation of ...

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from Electronics Weekly https://www.electronicsweekly.com/news/business/plessey-microleds-enable-ar-vr-spectacles-2018-12/

Transphorm ships 250,000 GaN power transistors

Californian gallium nitride transistor maker Transphorm has shipped over 250,000 650V GaN fets – manufactured at its Aizu wafer foundry in Japan, it revealed. The firm also said that its wafer-foundry’s 15 million parts annual capacity for 50mΩ devices could “easily” scale to 5x that volume, and that its manufacturing process can be structured to scale ...

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from Electronics Weekly https://www.electronicsweekly.com/news/products/discretes/transphorm-ships-250000-gan-power-transistors-2018-12/

Chip-makers can design-in failure

High-performance chips can be designed to fail early, or can be physically attacked using high workloads, according to Washington State University, whose research team damaged an on-chip comms network by deliberately adding malicious workload. Led by engineers Partha Pande (left) and Janardhan Rao Doppa, the team has been exploring chip vulnerabilities as a way to prevent malicious ...

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from Electronics Weekly https://www.electronicsweekly.com/news/research-news/chip-makers-can-design-failure-2018-12/

Mouser publishes e-book on IIoT

Mouser has brought out a new e-book centered on industrial automation as part of All Things IoT, the latest series in Mouser’s award-winning Empowering Innovation Together program. In the second e-book in the series, Mouser experts examine the technologies, possibilities and challenges related to the Industrial Internet of Things (IIoT). The book includes articles on enabling technologies ...

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from Electronics Weekly https://www.electronicsweekly.com/news/business/mouser-publishes-e-book-iiot-2018-12/

130W iron and 100W tweezers in dual soldering station

RS Components has launched the a soldering station with both soldering iron and tweezers, and a combined power of 200W. GT-6200, as it will be known, costs £599.95. “Its combination of power, flexibility and functionality is simply not available elsewhere at this price level, thereby delivering access to professional soldering capability for a larger range ...

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from Electronics Weekly https://www.electronicsweekly.com/news/products/130w-iron-100w-tweezers-dual-soldering-station-2018-12/

Sacked CEO takes over at Imagination

Ron Black (pictured), who was fired earlier this year from his job as CEO of Rambus, is to succeed Leo Li as CEO of Imagination. ‘Dr. Black’s conduct fell short of the company’s standards’, said  the Rambus board when sacking Black last June, adding ‘this decision was not related to the company’s operations or finances.’ ...

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from Electronics Weekly https://www.electronicsweekly.com/news/business/ceo-change-imagination-2018-12/

AI-controlled vacuum cleaner drone dusts your house

A hovering vacuum cleaner powered by artificial intelligence has been created by Tom Harding of the University of Brighton. Harding calls it VacHumme. It operates via an AI mapping function and is designed to fly around a single room, cleaning every surface it can reach. With every new journey around a room the VacHumme’s memory ...

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from Electronics Weekly https://www.electronicsweekly.com/news/business/ai-controlled-vacuum-drone-dusts-house-2018-12/

ROHM improves power rating on thick-film chip resistors

ROHM is shipping high power wide terminal thick-film chip resistors (10-910mΩ) suitable for current detection in a variety of applications, including inverters, AC, and energy-efficient appliances. A review of the resistive material allowed ROHM to improve rated power to 2W in the compact 2550 size (2.5×5.0mm, t=0.55mm) – 4x higher than conventional short-terminal types – ...

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from Electronics Weekly https://www.electronicsweekly.com/news/business/rohm-improves-power-rating-thick-film-chip-resistors-2018-12/

World’s Oldest Constitution

You’d think the Eqyptians, the Greeks, the Romans, the Mayans or some other ancient civilization would have codified their system of government  several aeons before us – but here is one source which puts England as the Constitutional Pioneer:  

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from Electronics Weekly https://www.electronicsweekly.com/blogs/mannerisms/democracy-and-standards/worlds-oldest-constitution-2018-12/

3D printing an fan nozzle, and ‘blend’ in DesignSpark Mechanical

RS Component’s DesignSpark Mechanical v4 could have come at a better time as I my fledgling knowledge of 3D printing had just extended to realising my cheap 2nd hand printer need a bit more cooling to make the printing filament set quicker – known as ‘part cooling’. The cooling duct on the right does not ...

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from Electronics Weekly https://www.electronicsweekly.com/blogs/engineer-in-wonderland/3d-printing-fan-nozzle-blend-designspark-mechanical-2018-12/

Low ohmic resistors sense current in inverters and appliances

Rohm has announced a line-up of high power wide terminal thick-film chip resistors intended for current detection in applications including inverters and home appliances. Ranging from 10 to 910mΩ in 48 values, the parts are called LTR50. “A thorough review of the resistive material allowed Rohm to improve rated power to 2W in the 2.5 x ...

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from Electronics Weekly https://www.electronicsweekly.com/news/products/passives/low-ohmic-resistors-sense-current-inverters-appliances-2018-12/

The CEO Who Hated Beauracracy

As we struggle to disengage from a monstrous bureaucracy, it’s encouraging to recall what a famous CEO once said in his Annual Report: “We cultivate the hatred of bureaucracy in our Company,” wrote the CEO, “and never for a moment hesitate to use that awful word ‘hate’.” ”Bureaucrats must be ridiculed and removed,” he continued, ...

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from Electronics Weekly https://www.electronicsweekly.com/blogs/mannerisms/fable/ceo-hated-beauraucrats-2018-12/

A new route to self-heating clothing

As a way to turn cloth into heating elements for self-warming clothing, engineers at Rutgers University in the US have used high-intensity light pulses to fuse silver nano-wires onto polyester fibres – something called intense pulsed-light scintering. While delivering sufficient energy to bond the silver wires to the cloth fibres, the underlying polymer is not ...

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from Electronics Weekly https://www.electronicsweekly.com/news/research-news/545363-2018-12/

Folding drone flies through small holes

A drone that can fold-up during flight to get through narrow gaps has been created by the University of Zurich. Servo-driven sideways folding hinges allow it to adopt normal, long-thin and compact configurations and, crucially, its real-time control system adjusts rotor thrust to retain controlled stable flight as morphing shifts the center of gravity. “Our ...

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from Electronics Weekly https://www.electronicsweekly.com/news/research-news/folding-drone-flies-small-holes-2018-12/

Binary Bots from Farnell

Premier Farnell is to distribute the Binary Bots range of educational robots. BinaryBots specialise in developing educational robot starter kits to help teachers make Physical Computing and core STEM principles simple and fun for children aged eight years old and above. With a strong focus on accessibility and affordability, their products include a ‘Cardboard2Code’ beginners range<https://uk.farnell.com/search?st=binarybots%20binary>, ...

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from Electronics Weekly https://www.electronicsweekly.com/news/business/binary-bots-farnell-2018-12/

SST embeds NOR flash in Hynix 110nm foundry process

Silicon Storage Technology (SST) is to work with Hynix System IC on embedding NOR memory in Hynix’s 110nm CMOS process. SST, now a subsidiary of Microchip,  calls its embedded NOR ‘SuperFlash’. SST claims that SuperFlash delivers low-power, high reliability, fast erase, and superior data retention and endurance for a range of applications, such as IoT, smart ...

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from Electronics Weekly https://www.electronicsweekly.com/news/business/sst-embeds-hynix-110nm-process-2018-12/

Intel debuts Foveros

Intel has cone up with a packaging technology called  ‘Foveros’. Foveros ‘paves the way for devices and systems combining high-performance, high-density and low-power silicon process technologies,’ says Intel, ‘Foveros is expected to extend die stacking beyond traditional passive interposers and stacked memory to high-performance logic, such as CPU, graphics and AI processors.’ Intel adds that ...

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from Electronics Weekly https://www.electronicsweekly.com/news/business/intel-debuts-foveros-2018-12/

AVX adds 2.55mm profile IDC

AVX has added a new part to its 9176-800 Series low-profile insulation displacement connectors (IDCs) — the first and currently only industrial IDCs available in a 2.55mm profile — to accommodate an additional wire gauge and further expand application suitability. Now available in one to four positions in each of four wire gauges, the series’ ...

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from Electronics Weekly https://www.electronicsweekly.com/news/business/avx-adds-idc-2-55mm-profile-portfolio-2018-12/

Good Old Theresa

750,000 people may never know it, but their jobs could have been saved by the PM’s victory in her Confidence Vote last night. Ever since the Vote was announced, the £ has strengthened and the FTSE has risen. That’s because the expected success by the PM would keep her in her job for another year and ...

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from Electronics Weekly https://www.electronicsweekly.com/blogs/mannerisms/dilemmas/545324-2018-12/

Jacarem signs franchise for EDAC connectors

Connector distributor and cable assembly manufacturer, Jacarem, has signed a franchise distribution agreement with interconnect specialist, EDAC. The latter provides card edge, rack and panel, RJ45 and telecomms jacks, USB and FireWire, waterproof connectors and PLCC sockets. MH Connectors, which manufactures connectors, hoods and covers, is also part of the EDAC group. The D-sub hoods ...

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from Electronics Weekly https://www.electronicsweekly.com/news/products/connectors/jacarem-signs-franchise-edac-connectors-2018-12/

600V super-junction mosfets optimised for soft switching

STMicroelectronics’ MDmesh M6 600V super-junction transistors are aimed at medium-power resonant and hard-switching converter topologies. There are 37 part numbers covering 13 to 72A, with threshold voltage optimised for soft switching, suiting the transistors LLC resonant converters and boost-PFC converters. Rds(on) to as low as 36mΩ. For hard-switching topologies, the capacitance profile is claimed to enhance ...

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from Electronics Weekly https://www.electronicsweekly.com/news/products/power-supplies/600v-super-junction-mosfets-optimised-soft-switching-2018-12/

Putting the boot into Industry 4.0 education

Students in the School of Mechanical and Materials Engineering at University College Dublin can learn production technologies for Industry 4.0, or the smart factory, with hands-on experience via an automated factory demonstration unit, donated by Maxim Integrated Products. The football factory demo was popular at exhibitions around Europe, where it was used to showcase the ...

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from Electronics Weekly https://www.electronicsweekly.com/news/products/sensors-products/putting-boot-industry-4-0-education-2018-12/

Arthur Pedrick

Thanks to SEPAM for pointing out that 2018 is the 100th anniversary  of  the birth of Arthur Pedrick – possibly the UK’s most prolific, and certainly most eccentric, inventor. Nothing he invented was much use but his knowledge of the patent system allowed him to get 162 British patents. Ginger, Pedrick’s cat, inspired and assisted ...

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from Electronics Weekly https://www.electronicsweekly.com/blogs/mannerisms/genius/545137-2018-12/

Gyrfalcon launches AI accelerator with eMRAM.

Gyrfalcon Technology, the 11-month-old Milpitas specialist in AI accelerator ICs, has announced commercial availability of a 22nm ASIC with embedded MRAM called the LightspeeurÒ 2802M. Gyrfalcon claims the chip is the industry’s first AI Accelerator to use MRAM. The chip has a density of  50 F and and a read speed of 45-60ns. It has 40MB of memory, which can support ...

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from Electronics Weekly https://www.electronicsweekly.com/news/business/gyrfalcon-2018-12/

If a motor driver was ever made for Arduino and battery power

When I saw Toshiba’s latest motor drive, my first thought was ‘what a neat chip for pairing with an Arduino’ as it combines operation across 1.8 to 7V with up to 4A drive – so that is Li-ion batteries, 5V USB and 4xAA cells all covers, but sadly not 7.2V remote-control model batter packs. It ...

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from Electronics Weekly https://www.electronicsweekly.com/blogs/engineer-in-wonderland/motor-driver-ever-made-arduino-battery-power-2018-12/

Picture Gallery: Elektra Awards 2018 Attendees – The after-party (III)

Check out the last of our Elektra Awards 2018 galleries, featuring the the after-dinner party – can you spot yourself or your colleagues?

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from Electronics Weekly https://www.electronicsweekly.com/news/picture-gallery-elektra-awards-2018-attendees-party-iii-2018-12/

Compound semiconductor Catapult gets CTO

A CTO has been appointed for the fledgling Compound Semiconductor Applications (CSA) Catapult growing in Cardiff. It is Martin McHugh, who most recently headed up business and technology development for Microsemi’s (now part of Microchip) advanced packaging business. “He brings with him a wealth of technology experience having worked in technical and commercial roles with responsibilities covering the ...

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from Electronics Weekly https://www.electronicsweekly.com/news/business/compound-semiconductor-catapult-gets-cto-2018-12/

Picture Gallery: Elektra Awards 2018 Attendees – The awards dinner (II)

Check out our gallery of Elektra Awards guests – can you spot yourself or your colleagues among this year’s party people? More to follow shortly.

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from Electronics Weekly https://www.electronicsweekly.com/news/picture-gallery-elektra-awards-2018-attendees-awards-dinner-ii-2018-12/

LED for crop scanning

Osram is aiming at farmers, horticulturists and viticulturists with a broad-band near-infra-red LED for in-field reflection spectroscopy. “One of the most important decisions that farmers and vineyard owners have to make involves getting the timing right for the harvest,” it said. “Simply scanning fruit or cereal crops with the near-infra-red LED installed in a smartphone ...

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from Electronics Weekly https://www.electronicsweekly.com/news/products/led/led-crop-scanning-2018-12/

Toshiba adds to dual H-bridge motor driver ICs

Toshiba has added to its line-up of dual H-bridge driver ICs for DC brushed motors and stepping motors. The TC78H653FTG delivers the low voltage (1.8V) and high current (4.0A) essential for motor-based equipment powered by dry-cell batteries such as mobile devices, electronic products for the home and USB drives. The chip suitable for applications including ...

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from Electronics Weekly https://www.electronicsweekly.com/news/business/toshiba-adds-dual-h-bridge-motor-driver-ics-2018-12/

Power trends according to GaN Systems.

GaN Systems identifies four trends for the power industry in 2019. Electric Vehicles and Autonomous-Driving Vehicles Mobility as a Service (MaaS) will gain more mind share. Change in the social relationship between individuals and vehicles will continue to move from individual ownership to convenient on-demand use. On-demand itself will start to evolve to increasingly include fleets ...

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from Electronics Weekly https://www.electronicsweekly.com/news/business/power-trends-according-gan-systems-2018-12/

2018 SEMI equipment sales hit record $62bn but set to fall 4% in 2019

Sales of new semiconductor manufacturing equipment are projected to increase 9.7 percent to $62.1 billion in 2018, says SEMI, exceeding the historic high of $56.6 billion set last year. The equipment market is expected to contract 4.0 percent in 2019 but grow 20.7 percent to reach $71.9 billion in 2020 – an all-time high.   ...

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from Electronics Weekly https://www.electronicsweekly.com/news/business/semi-equipment-sales-hit-record-62bn-set-fall-4-2019-2018-12/

Imec makes progress on GAA transistors

Imec reports significant progress in process enabling the introduction of gate-all-around (GAA) transistors with vertically stacked nanowires and nanosheets for the N3 technology node. Results include improved Si GAA devices, better understanding of strain engineering in Ge nanowire pFETs, and a comprehensive understanding of reliability and degradation mechanisms of nanowire FETs. GAA MOSFETs are promising ...

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from Electronics Weekly https://www.electronicsweekly.com/news/business/imec-makes-progress-gaa-transistors-2018-12/

Mouser signs MonoDAQ

Mouser has signed the data acquisition products specialist MonoDAQ to a global distribution agreement. The MonoDAQ product line  includes four data acquisition products. The MonoDAQ-U-X data acquisition tool is designed to help engineers with daily measurement tasks, serving as any of several discrete tools, such as a strain gauge amplifier, thermocouple interface, and voltage input, with ...

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from Electronics Weekly https://www.electronicsweekly.com/news/business/mouser-signs-monodaq-2018-12/

Top Ten Cities For Rich People

Thanks to Statista for this one – the ten cities with the most ultra-high net worth (over $30 million) individuals:

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from Electronics Weekly https://www.electronicsweekly.com/blogs/mannerisms/ten-best/top-ten-cities-rich-people-2018-12/

afdec/ecsn predicts 3.4-8.5% growth in 2019

The  UK & Ireland electronic component market will grow between 3.4% and 8.5% in 2019, forecasts afdec, which is part of  the Electronic Components Supply Network (ecsn), with a mid-point of 5.9%. The 2018 market is likely to have grown by 9.2% in 2018,  with distribution taking 41% of the TAM. The afdec/ecsn consensus opinion is that ...

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from Electronics Weekly https://www.electronicsweekly.com/news/business/afdec-ecsn-predicts-3-4-8-5-growth-2019-2018-12/

Tiny solar cells integrated into cloth at Nottingham Trent

Nottingham Trent University has developed a way to embed miniature solar cells into yarn that it said allows them to be knitted and woven into textiles: “The cells are encapsulated in a resin which allows the textile fabric to be washed and worn like any other form of clothing.” “Clothing would look and behave like ...

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from Electronics Weekly https://www.electronicsweekly.com/news/research-news/tiny-solar-cells-integrated-cloth-nottingham-2018-12/

36 Game-Changers

Start-ups, especially in California, tend to state as a sub-priority to making zillions the wish to change the world. Here, according to CB Insights, are 36 who could:

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from Electronics Weekly https://www.electronicsweekly.com/blogs/mannerisms/genius/36-game-changers-2018-12/

Siglent 2Gsample/s scope offers 350MHz bandwidth

Siglent is aiming at analogue circuit design and service departments with 2Gsample/s oscilloscopes. Available with a choice of 200 or 350MHz bandwidth, the SDS2000X-E – where the trailing E stands for economy models, said the firm. 28Mpoint of acquisition memory is available as standard, as is an update rate of up 110,000waveform/s. “Low noise front ...

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from Electronics Weekly https://www.electronicsweekly.com/news/products/test-measurement-products/siglent-2gsample-s-scope-offers-350mhz-bandwidth-2018-12/

Industrial grade cellular comms SIM is 2.5 x 2.7mm for IoT and M2M

Infineon is claiming a first, with an industrial-grade embedded SIM (eSIM) in a 2.5 x 2.7mm wafer-level chip-scale package (WLCSP). It is aimed at machine-to-machine comms and IoT applications, for example vending machines, remote sensors and asset trackers. “Providing robust quality on a miniature footprint that works even under harshest conditions remains a challenge for silicon ...

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from Electronics Weekly https://www.electronicsweekly.com/news/products/digital-integrated-circuits/industrial-grade-cellular-comms-sim-2-5-x-2-7mm-iot-m2m-2018-12/

Mouser signs NDK

Mouser has signed a global distribution deal with NDK,  the manufacturer of crystal timing devices. The NDK product line includes NX1612AA and NX3225SA crystal timing units. The NX1612AA devices are 24 MHz to 80 MHz surface-mount units that consume just 10µA with a load capacitance of 8 pF. The 1.6 mm × 2.1 mm devices are suitable ...

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from Electronics Weekly https://www.electronicsweekly.com/news/business/mouser-signs-ndk-2018-12/

Qualcomm data centre business withers away

Qualcomm’s data centre chip business, which had over 1000 employees earlier this year, is now down to 50 after the latest round of cuts of 269 people in San Diego and Raleigh, North Carolina, reports The Information. “Qualcomm is reducing our investments in the data center business but remains committed to business obligations and upcoming ...

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from Electronics Weekly https://www.electronicsweekly.com/news/business/qualcomm-datacentre-business-withers-away-2018-12/

Imec demo-es 3D stacked finfets was

Imec has demo-ed 3D stacked FinFETs on 300mm wafers using a sequential integration approach with a 45nm fin pitch and 110nm poly pitch technology. The top layer consists of junction-less devices fabricated at a temperature below 525 degrees Celsius in a silicon layer transferred by wafer-to-wafer bonding. The excellent performance of the resulting stack demonstrates ...

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from Electronics Weekly https://www.electronicsweekly.com/news/business/imec-demo-es-3d-stacked-finfets-2018-12/