Category Archives: News
Wafer-scale processing of lab-on-chip devices at Imec
Imec has found a material that allows wafer-scale processing of lab-on-chip devices. Called Photo-Patternable Adhesive (PA) made by JSR of Japan, the material has been used by Imec to process microfluidic cell-sorter devices, merging microheaters and sensors with wafer-scale polymer … Continue reading
LED lighting – business opportunity, design challenge
The market size for high brightness (HB) LEDs is expected to reach $20.2bn by 2015 – a CAGR of 30.6% from 2012 (according to Strategies Unlimited). One of the key application areas driving this significant growth factor are the LEDs … Continue reading
Maxim chip secures system IP and microcontroller links
Maxim Integrated Products says it is possible to retrofit IP security technology to microcontroller based designs. It has introduced a secure encryption IC which sits alongside the host controller to authenticate peripherals or embedded designs. It also offers encrypted bidirectional … Continue reading
Better times ahead for semis, says Infineon CFO
Better times are coming for the chip industry, Infineon’s CFO tells German financial newspaper Boersen-Zeitung. “After two years of stagnation, a recovery is on the horizon for the global semiconductor industry,” CFO Dominik Asam (pictured) told the newspaper. For Infineon, … Continue reading
TI has first inductance sensor chip
Texas Instruments is proposing inductive sensor technology as a more accurate alternative to magnetic Hall effect sensors and it has introduced its first inductance-to-digital converter (LDC) that uses coils and springs as inductive sensors. The approach using two forms of … Continue reading
PowerVR mobile graphics chips boosted by 16nm finfets
Imagination Technologies says it is working with foundry TSMC to raise performance of its PowerVR graphics chips. The UK-based processor firm says it has already achieved 25% overall performance improvement for the PowerVR Series6 graphics processor core, and some ”key blocks demonstrating as much as 30% … Continue reading
Farnell element14 sells Freescale’s EMI tolerant MCU platform
Farnell element14 is stocking the latest Freescale Freedom development platform, the FRDM-KE02Z which is designed for rugged EMI performance applications based on the Kinetis E series of MCUs. Featuring the Cortex M0+ Kinetis E Series microcontroller KE02Z64VQH2, it offers design engineers 5V tolerant EMC/ESD performance in … Continue reading
AMS uses 3D chip technology for smartphone sensors
Austrian chip maker ams is applying through-silicon via (TSV) 3D IC fabrication technology to its ambient light sensor devices. TSV technology is being used to interconnect stacked wafers in FPGAs and memory chips and ams believes it can apply the … Continue reading
Altera: 14nm Stratix and 20nm Arria FPGA details
Altera has revealed more of its next-generation Stratix FPGAs, made on Intel’s 14nm finfet (‘tri-gate’) process, and 20nm TSMC-fabricated Arria FPGAs. The families will be called Stratix 10 and Arria 10. For the same power, Stratix 10 will deliver 1.4-1.6x … Continue reading
Lumileds LED arrays up to 6,000 lm
Lumileds has announced chip-on-board LED arrays up to 6,000 lm Emphasising what is claims is the small size of the emissive areas, there are versions with illuminated diameters of 9, 13 or 15 mm. Called Luxeon CoB, nominal colour temperature … Continue reading