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Continue reading ‘NSTT – A Promising Tool for Properties Enhancement of Heat-Treated Steels’ »
The U.S. Air Force Research Laboratory has authorized Raytheon Company to demonstrate target recognition technology designed to increase protection for ground forces without compounding risk to an aircraft stalking enemies who threaten those forces.
First in a laboratory and then aloft, the company expects to show how its Air-to-Ground Radar Imaging II program would permit aircraft at a safe distance to detect, track and target hostile forces in motion on the ground.
The laboratory demonstration is expected in autumn 2008, followed by a flight next spring aboard a Raytheon test aircraft.
Continue reading ‘Raytheon Develops Technology To Help Aircraft Protect Ground Forces’ »
The world’s first transceiver integrated on a single chip that operates at 60GHz on the CMOS (complementary metal–oxide–semiconductor) process, the most common semiconductor technology, was announced recently by NICTA, Australia’s Information and Communications Technology (ICT) Research Centre of Excellence.The development will enable the truly wireless office and home of the future. As the integrated transceiver developed by NICTA is extremely small, it can be embedded into devices. The breakthrough will mean the networking of office and home equipment - without wires - will finally become a reality.
Researchers from NICTA’s Gigabit Wireless Project, which is based out of NICTA’s Victoria Research Laboratory, are the first in the world to have developed an integrated transceiver, a complete transmitter and receiver, on a single chip at 60GHz on CMOS.
This technology breakthrough will enable the wireless transfer of audio and video data at up to 5 gigabits per second, ten times the current maximum wireless transfer rate, at one-tenth the cost.
Continue reading ‘60 GHz CMOS Transceiver Integrated On A Single Chip Developed’ »
SWR has selected The Technology Partnership (TTP) to join the ‘Future Radio’ project which will trial innovative new visual interactive radio services in Germany. The ‘Future Radio’ project will start its first trial in Stuttgart this summer. SWR and TTP will present the aims of the ‘Future Radio’ project to broadcasters and operators at CeBIT in Hannover, 4th - 9th March 2008.
Under the ‘Future Radio’ project SWR and TTP will work to define an open service delivery specification that enables new visual, interactive and download services on any digital radio receiver. These services will enable mobile phone users to listen to digital radio and to view, navigate and store visual content, such as images, slides, weather information, music tracks and podcasts which are broadcast in association with radio stations.
TTP’s nanoDABTM accessory, the world’s first Bluetooth headset accessory with built-in DAB digital radio, and mobile phone software will provide the test platform for the trial. nanoDABTM was publicly unveiled at Mobile World Congress in Barcelona a few weeks ago where it received excellent feedback from both broadcasters and mobile operators.
Continue reading ‘Digital Radio Project To Enable Multimedia-DAB On Mobile Phone’ »
Design Results:
Continue reading ‘Focus on Design: The promise of rapid manufacturing’ »
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’ »
Bacteria often get bad press, with those found in water often linked to illness and disease. But researchers at The University of Nottingham are using these tiny organisms alongside the very latest membrane filtration techniques to improve and refine water cleaning technology.
These one-celled organisms eat the contaminants present in water — whether it is being treated prior to industrial use or even for drinking — in a process called bioremediation.
The water is then filtered through porous membranes, which function like a sieve. However, the holes in these sieves are microscopic, and some are so small they can only be seen at the nanoscale. Pore size in these filters can range from ten microns — ten thousandths of a millimetre — to one nanometre — a millionth of a millimetre.
Continue reading ‘Bacteria and nanofilters — the future of clean water technology’ »
An ambitious government plan seeks to make Korea one of the top three countries for nanotechnology by 2020.
The Science and Technology Ministry announced Tuesday (Jan. 15) its “National Nanotechnology Roadmap (2007-2020)” for research and development in the field.
The Korea Nanotechnology Research Society drew up the plan, and will also hold a public hearing on the roadmap Thursday.
Continue reading ‘Korea - Ambitious nanotechnology plan released’ »
Dutch-sponsored researcher Christos Tsekrekos has investigated how a small network for at home or in a company can function optimally. His research analyses the MGDM technique (Mode Group Diversity Multiplexing) of the Eindhoven University of Technology. This technique transmits each TV, telephone and Internet signal via a separate group of light rays through the optical fiber cable.
Such a technology has not yet been marketed. Yet in the ideal situation it could be applied in a glass or polymer fiber, has the potential of being cheap, and transmits all information without disruption.
Existing systems for small networks at home or in a company make use of multimode glass fibers or multimode polymer optical fibers (POF). The latter are relatively thick cables (about 1 mm thick, thus thicker than the glass fiber m thick). Multimode fiber cables can conduct many light rays and?which is 0.125 can operate free of disruption and with a greater bandwidth than a wireless connection. However, due to a slight variation in the speed of the light rays through the multimode fiber, a signal transmitted by all of these rays becomes spread out. Consequently, the signals become broader and therefore fewer signals fit in the fiber, limiting the transmission capacity.
Continue reading ‘Separate Signals Through Optical Fibers For Ultrafast Home Network’ »
Engineers and researchers designing and building new microelectromechanical systems (MEMS) can benefit from a new test method developed at the National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST) to measure a key mechanical property of such systems: elasticity. The new method determines the “Young’s modulus” of thin films not only for MEMS devices but also for semiconductor devices in integrated circuits.
Since 1727, scientists and engineers have used Young’s modulus as a measure of the stiffness of a given material. Defined as the ratio of stress (such as the force per unit area pushing on both ends of a beam) to strain (the amount the beam is deflected), Young’s modulus allows the behavior of a material under load to be calculated. Young’s modulus predicts the length a wire will stretch under tension or the amount of compression that will buckle a thin film. A standard method to determine this important parameter — a necessity to ensure that measurements of Young’s modulus made at different locations are comparable — has eluded those who design, manufacture and test MEMS devices, particularly in the semiconductor industry.
A team at NIST recently led the effort to develop SEMI Standard MS4-1107, “Test Method for Young’s Modulus Measurements of Thin, Reflecting Films Based on the Frequency of Beams in Resonance.” The new standard applies to thin films (such as those found in MEMS materials) that can be imaged using an optical vibrometer or comparable instrument for non-contact measurements of surface motion. In particular, measurements are obtained from resonating beams — comprised of the thin film layer — that oscillate out-of-plane. The frequency at which the maximum amplitude (or velocity) of vibration is achieved is a resonance frequency, which is used to calculate the Young’s modulus of the thin film layer. The group also developed a special Web-based “MEMS calculator” (http:// www.eeel.nist.gov/812/test-structures/MEMSCalculator.htm) that can be used to determine specific thin film properties from data taken with an optical interferometer.
Continue reading ‘NIST Develops Test Method For Key Micromechanical Property’ »
