23/05/2017
The pressure on those developing new battery chemistries is increasing as consumers demand the ability to use their electronic devices for longer between charges. And it seems that researchers are responding with a range of potential solutions, not only based on lithium, but also exploring other elements. Beyond that, solid state electrolytes are beginning to show promise.
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11/04/2017
Humankind has always wondered what secrets the universe was hiding in its starry depths and striven to understand how we fit into the bigger picture. This curiosity is still strong, as demonstrated by the number of powerful telescopes that have either been built recently or are under construction.
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28/03/2017
Model-based approaches to electrical and electronic system design – usually based on UML derived languages such as SysML – are frequently not suited to agile, iterative architecture optimisation. But there is another approach; one that uses standardised, hierarchical function models combined on a single abstraction level to describe the technical content of system architecture.
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15/02/2017
While silicon currently remains the material of choice of power devices, there is little headroom available to improve figures of merit such as on resistance and gate charge. However, there appears to be more room for manoeuvre with alternative materials and two such materials which are focusing the attention of device developers are silicon carbide (SiC) and gallium nitride (GaN).
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14/02/2017
The deployment of industrial robots is accelerating, driven by the Industrial Internet of Things, improved connectivity and the introduction of new technologies – ranging from smart grasping systems to more collaborative operation.
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14/12/2016
As the last decade ended, ARM’s CTO Mike Muller warned the era of dark silicon was approaching. The 2008 International Technology Roadmap for Semiconductors, published a year before, showed that scaling was diverging from transistor size. Muller argued that, while Moore’s Law might well deliver billions of transistors, they cannot all be active at the same time without making the chip cook itself to death.
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08/11/2016
In 2015, more than 2million people in the UK were living with some degree of sight loss. It affects people of all ages, but the older we get, the more likely it is that our vision will be impaired. According to statistics from RNIB, one in five people aged 75 and more are living with sight loss and nearly two-thirds of those living with sight loss are women.
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08/11/2016
The modern data centre is becoming more complex as it attempts to handle the proliferation in mobile devices and billions of newly connected devices, all of which are increasing the pressure on data infrastructure. Customer expectations have never been higher and they will expect a seamless level of service, even as the demand for data increases exponentially.
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07/11/2016
An aircraft that takes off from a runway, travels to the edge of Earth’s atmosphere and delivers its payload, or even travels into space, then heads back to earth and lands on the same runway it took off from. It sounds like science fiction, but Reaction Engines Limited (REL) has laid a solid foundation towards making this a reality. Using National Instruments LabVIEW design software and CompactDAQ, they created a test-bed that is both scalable and flexible in its implementation and allows for the test data to be viewed and logged simultaneously at high speed for further analysis.
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11/10/2016
The BBC’s Research & Development department has been at the forefront of innovations in broadcast technology since the 1930s and the Corporation’s role in R&D – which is to provide ‘a centre of excellence’ – is enshrined in its Royal Charter.
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27/09/2016
From bioelectronics to biosciences, the pace of change in life sciences is accelerating as companies look to microfluidics, micro- and nanotechnology to develop innovative medical treatments.
Earlier this year, GlaxoSmithKline (GSK) announced that it was a forming a bioelectronics firm with Verily Life Sciences, a subsidiary of Alphabet. The new company will research, develop and commercialise bioelectronics medicine, a relatively new scientific field in which miniaturised, implantable devices could treat illnesses ranging from bowel disease to arthritis, hypertension and diabetes.
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27/09/2016
The Electronic and Electrical Engineering department at University College London (UCL) has been linked almost inextricably with the development of the communications industry. Professor Polina Bayvel, head of UCL’s Optical Networks Group (ONG), pictured below, explained: “It’s a special department; the first electronic and electrical engineering department in any UK university.”
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27/07/2016
When commissioned in 2010 by Lord Mandelson, then Industry Secretary, to look at the current and future role of technology and innovation centres(TICs) in the UK, Dr Hermann Hauser found what he said was a ‘critical gap between research findings … and their development into commercial propositions’.
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17/12/2015
The continuation of Moore’s Law requires a combination of both physical and functional scaling, where our main challenge in lithography is to continue pushing the physical scaling limits in a controlled and cost-effective way. By serving as the collaboration hub of the industry in this area, imec is playing an important role in helping the industry to address the major technical challenges towards continued physical scaling. This is being done on multiple fronts.
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08/12/2015
Carbon nanotubes have been seen as having a wide range of potential applications for many years, but their use in the ‘real world’ has been a long time coming. The first research into such structures was reported in 1952 by a Russian team, but it wasn’t until the 1990s that the technology began to gain some traction. Even today, their use – particularly in industrial applications – remains the exception
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08/12/2015
November saw the opening of the Quantum Metrology Institute (QMI). Based at the National Physical Laboratory (NPL) in Teddington, it forms a key element in the UK’s efforts to exploit quantum technology commercially through the National Quantum Technologies programme.
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24/11/2015
Life has a distinct advantage over the processes used to make most of today’s products – it works at room temperature, involves very little in the way of toxic chemicals and can create intricate structures with no external help.
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28/10/2015
Depending upon whose prediction you are inclined to believe, the Internet of Things could comprise between 20billion and 50billion devices within the next few years. And those kinds of numbers suggest there is an opportunity to develop innovative products that not only provide point solutions, but also have wider application.
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10/03/2015
It helps to have the word 'quantum' in a technology's name when you want mainstream potential. It's even better when it's accompanied by a colourful demonstration. So the quantum dot had plenty going for it when it became one of the centrepieces at this year's Consumer Electronics Show.
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10/03/2015
At the end of 2009, Lord Mandelson, then Secretary of State for Business, Innovation and Skills, launched a strategy document that was intended to help UK industry get a jump on the rest of the world when it came to plastic electronics.
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09/12/2014
The semiconductor manufacturing sector's mission to conform to the demands of Moore's Law has begun to run into a number of significant barriers posed by physical properties.
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25/11/2014
The benefits available from leading edge process technologies have encouraged companies to embrace the concept of systems on chip (SoC). Performance, power and integration are just some of the benefits available.
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23/09/2014
There are applications where it would be beneficial to have a self-sustaining, fully embedded monitoring system as part of a structure in order to ensure that structure's integrity. Examples include wind turbines, tidal blades, aeroplane wings, ship propellers and hulls. A project set up under the European Framework 7 has been looking at the possibility of developing such monitoring systems.
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22/07/2014
Traditionally, transport – and passenger transport in particular – has been provided in a non integrated way. The Transport Systems Catapult has been set up to change this. "We call the market we focus on intelligent mobility," stated Paul Zanelli, chief technical officer, "which is the efficient and cost effective movement of goods and people."
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13/05/2014
Colonoscopies can be an uncomfortable procedure for patients who may already be worried about what the results may find. The process involves probing the large intestine with a tiny fibre optic camera, known as an endoscope, embedded in a 4ft long, flexible tube.
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