Toshiba launches single-chip Qi vi.2 15W receiver
Toshiba has launched a single-chip 15W wireless power receiver IC with the Qi v1.2 specifications defined by the Wireless Power Consortium (WPC). The receiver, TC7766WBG, has been designed for use in mobile devices such as smartphones, tablets and a range of mobile industrial devices. The TC7766WBG enables fast wireless charging, with charging times similar to, ...
Phase change displays could dramatically increase mobile phone battery life and Bodle Technologies has picked up ‘significant’ seed capital to develop them. Bodle’s technology is said to be based on the technology used to make rewritable DVDs using electrical pulses to create vivid displays that require no power and can be viewed clearly, even in ...
Toshiba upgrades RF SOI process
Toshiba has developed a next generation TarfSOI (Toshiba advanced RF SOI) process optimised for RF switch applications. Toshiba claims that RF switch ICs, fabricated using the new TaRF8 process such as the new SP12T process, achieve the lowest insertion loss in the industry of 0.32dB at 2.7GHz. Sample shipments of SP12T RF switch ICs fabricated ...
Imec delivers bracelet to help the elderly
Imec and UEST, a Belgian start-up company, have started the production of Zembro, a smart bracelet designed to enable the elderly to connect with their relatives immediately, anytime and anywhere. The bracelets incorporate a mobile phone with one-touch finger activation. It also uses GPS location tracking and smart algorithms to autonomously detect emergency situations. The ...
Three Si photonics platforms delivered by EU R&D project
CEA-Leti,and its partners have developed three silicon photonics platforms under the four year €10.2 million EU PLAT4M project. Leti’s platform delivers multilevel silicon patterning on 200mm SOI wafers allowing the design of various passive and active devices (such as modulator and photodiode) with thermal tuning capability. Two AlCu levels are available for routing. A PDK ...
The SEMI book-to-bill ratio was 0.98 in October slipping into negative territory from the 1.04 of September. October bookings were $1.33 billion – 14.7% lower than the September 2015 level of $1.55 billion, and 20.3% higher than the October 2014 order level of $1.10 billion. October billings were $1.36 billion – 9.1%? lower than the ...
ON Semiconductor is to buy Fairchild for $2.4 billion in cash. “The combination of ON Semiconductor and Fairchild creates a power semiconductor leader with strong capabilities a rapidly consolidating semiconductor industry. Our plan is to bring together two companies with complementary product lines to offer customers the full spectrum of high, medium and low voltage ...
FTDI Chip adds breakout boards
FTDI Chip has added to the support it can offer to engineers using its X-Chip series by introducing an array of new breakout boards. Through these compact, low-profile items, the bridging of USB 2.0 (full speed) signals to serial or parallel interfaces is facilitated. The UMFT200XD is a USB-to-I2C module with 4 control bus lines, ...
Glasgow and Bilkent Universities produce cheap large area graphene
Researchers at the University of Glasgow and Bilkent University in Turkey have found a way to produce large sheets of graphene, using the same cheap type of copper used to manufacture lithium-ion batteries found in many household devices. The team, Led by Dr Ravinder Dahiya have produced large-area graphene around 100 times cheaper than ever ...
Applied Micro to sample 16nm finfet 64-bit ARM server chip next year
Applied Micro will sample the first 16nm finfet 64-bit ARM-based server chips in H2 2016. Called X-Gene 3, the chip will have 32 cores, described by Applied Micro as “brawny”, which run at up to 3GHz delivering 4x to 6x the performance of X-Gene 2. “We are finally ready to take the lid off something ...
