EMBE 2011 BandiT competition, win €100 Amazon vouchers - last call!

EMBE registrants, please check your inbox for our email giving details of this competition. If you need any help with the answers, go to http://www.k-space.com/Products/BandiT.html

Good luck!

Old ideas are best

Our Newsletter Editor, Dr John Grange, smiled when he read recent press reports about a new technique for boosting the performance of high powered GaN devices. In collaboration with Surrey University he worked back in 1980-2 on various inert gas/proton isolation techniques. To be successful, the NCSU team need to overcome the issues surrounding post implant processing and the lifetime/stability/reproducibility of the implant isolation under real device operational conditions. He came to the conclusion that there are better solutions, but he wishes them well.

Wanted: Innovative Ideas

The Innovative electronics Manufacturing Research Centre (IeMRC) is seeking proposals from eligible UK academics for IeMRC research projects that align or deliver to the Centre's vision: The vision of the IeMRC is to be the UK's internationally recognised provider of world-class electronics manufacturing research. It will focus on sustaining and growing high value manufacturing in the UK by delivering innovative and exploitable new technologies through its highly skilled people and by providing strategic value to the electronics industry. The total funding available is £1.5M and they expect to fund upwards of five projects. Full details are available via this link.

Latest Barbie Phone?

It is not a joke. Takashi Minato at the Advanced Telecommunications Research Institute International (with input from mobile telephone operator NTT DOCoMo) has come up with a human-shaped mobile phone that has a skin-like outer layer that apparently allows you to feel closer to the person on the other end of the phone. I love technological progress.

An Apple a day

The use of mobile devices to access the internet has quadrupled in the US, and tripled in Western Europe over the past four years. However according to a report by Strategy Analytics mobile web browsing remains predominantly a `snacking' or `time critical' behaviour, whereas the PC/laptop is used for more leisurely or intensive usage scenarios. Thanks to surging iPad sales, Apple Inc. soared to the top of the league in worldwide mobile PC shipments with more than 10.2 million notebook and tablet PCs combined shipped in the fourth quarter of 2010. Gartner Inc. lowered its forecast for 2011 PC sales more than five percent citing a shift of consumers from mobile PCs/laptops. They expect growing consumer enthusiasm for mobile PC alternatives, such as the iPad and other media tablets, to dramatically slow home mobile PC sales, especially in mature markets. As Mr Jobs has often indicated, we do appear to be heading to the era of post PC devices.

Graphene, on or off?

This month has seen Texas Instruments give further insights into their CVD work on the growth of graphene and fabrication of FETs. IBM have produced a graphene transistor running at 100GHz and UCLU one with a cut of frequency of 300GHz. However, as real world applications become more feasible, the IBM group has highlighted the issues associated with the difficulty of turning off a graphene FET. Residual leakage currents will generate heat and the inability to always detect the difference between an open and a closed gate are clearly worrying IBM.

More Fab Equipment

Semiconductor equipment sales are on the increase according to SEMI. Total spending on fab projects is estimated as $47.2 billion this year, above the estimated $38.6 billion spent in 2010 and will finally exceed the peak of $46.4 billion set in 2007. Interestingly, companies are reported as being aware of the dangers of creating an oversupply situation and are putting much of the spending into upgrading existing facilities. Some companies will spend record amounts in 2011. For example, Intel is expected to increase its capital spend from $5.2 billion in 2010 to $9.0 billion in 2011. SEMI also note that in 2010 34 new volume fabs began construction with most of them for LED fabrication.

Daytime TV

At the recent CeBIT trade show Samsung exhibited an ambient light powered LCD screen. The prototype featured a 46-inch screen that supported full HD resolution video, at 1920x1080 pixels. Clearly the fact that Samsung has been able to cut down power consumption by such a margin that it can be powered by ambient light is an impressive feat but would I have to switch on extra lights in order to watch my TV at night?