TechBlog

The Nintendo Wii’s use of a MEMS-enabled motion controller and the Apple iPhone’s use of accelerometers to change the display from horizontal to vertical are examples of how MEMS are creating new ways for people to interact with electronic devices. They illustrate the continued expansion of MEMS technology from its beginnings in the automotive and industrial markets to applications that include energy harvesting, wireless communications, “smart homes,” and biomedical.

Big numbersAccording to the analyst group Yole Développement, the market was worth $5.8 billion in 2006 and will grow to $10.7 billion by 2011. The leading MEMS application, inkjet heads, is followed closely by sensors for airbag deployment and tire inflation monitoring. Texas Instruments (TI) makes Digital Light Processing (DLP) MEMS for computer displays as well as for digital projection. Wicht Technologie Consulting says that TI was the top MEMS manufacturer in 2006, with $905 million in revenues. TI has reportedly shipped more than 10 million DLP sub-systems since 1996.

While MEMS technology is about more than high-volume production, others have been similarly successful with mass production. ST Microelectronics’ 3-axis accelerometer is the enabling force within Nintendo’s Wii, and Analog Devices says it has shipped more than 250 million MEMS accelerometers for automotive, consumer, and industrial applications.

Continue reading ‘MEMS is moving. Here’s where.’ »

In a significant breakthrough, researchers at Northwestern University’s Center for Quantum Devices (CQD) have demonstrated visible-blind avalanche photodiodes (APDs) capable of detecting single photons in the ultraviolet region (360-200 nm).

Previously, photomultiplier tubes (PMTs) were the only available technology in the short wavelength UV portion of the spectrum capable of single photon detection sensitivity. However, these fragile vacuum tube devices are expensive and bulky, hindering true systems miniaturization.

The Northwestern team, led by Manijeh Razeghi, Walter P. Murphy Professor of Electrical Engineering and Computer Science at Northwestern’s McCormick School of Engineering, became the world’s first to demonstrate back-illuminated single photon detection from a III-nitride photodetector. These back-illuminated devices, based on GaN compound semiconductors, benefit from the larger ionization coefficient for holes in this material. The back-illumination geometry will facilitate future integration of these devices with read-out circuitry to realize unique single-photon UV cameras. Towards that end, the team has already demonstrated excellent uniformity of the breakdown characteristics and gain across the wafer.

Continue reading ‘Tiny Avalanche Photodiode Detects Single UV Photons’ »

 Intel´s Tukwila chip Image

Intel´s Tukwila chip contains more than 2 billion transistors - twice the number from two years ago.

Continue reading ‘Intel Microchip Packs Two Billion Transistors’ »

New technologies on the battlefield can alter the course of history and precipitate the rise or fall of nations. The advent of microelectromechanical systems (MEMS) coincides with what some regard as a revolution in military affairs (RMA), an onset of technological innovation that changes the nature of warfare. These tiny devices could be the revolution’s enabling technology.

In the mid-1990s, Admiral William Owens articulated the initial RMA concept as a system of systems that yields total situational awareness. An overarching systems architecture integrates an array of capabilities such as command and control, surveillance, reconnaissance, intelligence, and targeting. Under this integrated system, advantages of individual platforms and capabilities are fused into a powerful joint warfighting entity. As Andrew Marshall has predicted “The change will be profound … the new methods of warfare will be far more powerful than the old.” (1)

Continue reading ‘Nanotechnology in a new era of strategic competition’ »

Electronic engineers are no strangers to odd-sounding and difficult-to-pronounce methods and mater ial s . However, the words piezoelectric ceramics still trip up even the most experienced designers. And why not? These materials are relatively new to the world of electronics.

Many engineers are still learning about the piezoelectric effect or have little exposure to ceramic material advances. But when they’re combined, ceramics and piezoelectric elements can lead to incredible improvements in component design and function. So where did it all begin?

Discovered in 1880, the piezoelectric effect causes crystal materials (like quartz) to generate an electric charge when the crystal material is compressed, twisted, or pulled (Fig. 1). The reverse also is true, as the crystal material compresses or expands when an electric voltage is applied.

Continue reading ‘Piezoelectric Ceramics: Science Meets Pottery’ »

In the world of high tech, on the top everyone’s wish list are the words smaller, cheaper, and lighter. That bell rings loud and clear from the end-user down to the design and engineering teams assigned to create next generation products.

What if inexpensive, lightweight plastic were capable of conducting electricity? Thomas Aisenbrey, Inventor and General Manager for Bellingham-based Integral Technologies, may have discovered an epochal building block that has the potential to revolutionize the design world.

Moldable Conductive Plastics, or Electriplast, is a polymer blend that can be used to conduct electricity or as an antenna. In other words, this plastic advance could end up being a stand-alone replacement for metals in virtually every electronics device.

“ElectriPlast is a proprietary recipe capable of creating a vast family of highly conductive polymers,” explains CEO William Robinson. “These can be molded into virtually any shape or dimension that any other plastic, rubber, or other polymer can be molded into.”

Continue reading ‘Redefined Plastic Breaks the Manufacturing Mold’ »

Design Results:

• Additive fabrication method builds engine reed valve from CAD data without toolmaking, molding and machining of developmental prototypes.

• New sinterable, powdered materials have sufficient structural properties to enable rapid manufacturing of finished valve components.

• Two-piece part design expedites testing, simplifies tuning of reed valve for racing performance.

Continue reading ‘Focus on Design: The promise of rapid manufacturing’ »

Tyco Electronics announced it has received a $2 million contract award from Raytheon Missile Systems to produce products for Raytheon’s precision-guided, long-range Excalibur artillery projectile. Tyco Electronics will produce M/A-COM telemetry transmitter modules, Global Positioning System (GPS) antennas and telemetry antennas to support Excalibur and contribute to the projectile’s accuracy in both urban and complex terrain and reduce collateral damage. The antennas and transmitter modules are high performance, miniaturized products that are integrated into the projectile body and can withstand all of the severe operational environments. Raytheon’s Excalibur is currently the only precision long-range weapon immediately responsive to the Brigade Combat Team. “We are pleased that our M/A-COM telemetry and GPS products have been selected by Raytheon for this important next-generation projectile,” said Tom Lavaellee, business development manager, Tyco Electronics. “We are confident that the M/A-COM components will contribute to the accuracy of the Excalibur, thus lowering collateral damage and helping to keep troops and civilians safe.” Larry Burke, product line manager, Tyco Electronics, also commented, “Our highly miniaturized telemetry solution integrates transmit, data encoding and power conditioning functions onto a single circuit card enabling the product to meet the size and cost goals of the program.”

The Excalibur precision-guided projectile provides accurate, first round fire-for-effect capability to current and future 155mm howitzers. It’s better than 10-meter accuracy is achieved with a highly maneuverable precision-guided airframe, which is achievable throughout its range with extremely low round-to-round dispersion. Excalibur is currently the only solution to limit collateral damage and optimize effects with the fewest number of rounds using precision-guided technology.

In 1981, Star Wars Episode V: The Empire Strikes Back featured a scene in which autonomous robotic surgeons attached a mechanical hand to Luke Skywalker after his climactic battle with Darth Vader. Real-life autonomous robotic surgeons are still just fiction, but a new breed of medical machines is taking advantage of robotic concepts to aide surgeons with complex medical procedures. Combining sophisticated and reliable electronic control systems and high-level design software with advanced mechanical elements has improved procedural safety and patient comfort level.
The improved medical machines are the result of applying a system-level approach to designing electromechanical systems. This system-level approach, called mechatronics, merges mechanical, electrical, control system, and embedded software design. It represents an industry-wide effort to improve the design process by integrating the best-available development practices and technologies to streamline the design, prototype, and deployment stages. By using system-level design software, domain experts, scientists, and doctors, who have expertise in medical procedures but necessarily programming, can develop medical machines themselves. With this approach, they can reliably develop, test, and validate complex robotic control systems. This opens up a new class of safety-critical applications that were previously out of reach of computer technology. The University of Nebraska Medical Center, OptiMedica, and Lebanese University have all developed surgical devices that have benefited from a mechatronics approach to development.

University of Nebraska Medical Center – da Vinci Surgical System

Continue reading ‘Robotic Surgery Moves from Science Fiction to Reality’ »

A simple surface treatment technique demonstrated by a collaboration between researchers at the National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST), Penn State and the University of Kentucky potentially offers a low-cost way to mass produce large arrays of organic electronic transistors on polymer sheets for a wide range of applications including flexible displays, “intelligent paper” and flexible sheets of biosensor arrays for field diagnostics. In a paper posted this week, the team describes how a chemical pretreatment of electrical contacts can induce self-assembly of molecular crystals to both improve the performance of organic semiconductor devices and provide electrical isolation between devices.

Organic electronic devices are inching towards the market. Compounds with tongue-twisting names like “5,11-bis(triethylsilylethynyl) anthradithiophene” can be designed with many of the electrical properties of more conventional semiconductors. But unlike traditional semiconductors that require high-temperature processing steps, organic semiconductor devices can be manufactured at room temperature. They could be built on flexible polymers instead of rigid silicon wafers. Magazine-size displays that could be rolled up or folded to pocket size and plastic sheets that incorporate large arrays of detectors for medical monitoring or diagnostics in the field are just a couple of the tantalizing possibilities.

One unsolved problem is how to manufacture them efficiently and at low cost. Large areas can be coated rapidly with a thin film of the organic compound in solution, which dries to a semiconductor layer. But for big arrays like displays, that layer must be patterned into electrically isolated devices. Doing that requires one or more additional steps that are costly, time-consuming and/or difficult to do accurately.

Continue reading ‘Directed Self-Ordering Of Organic Molecules For Electronic Devices’ »