Infineon Technologies has completed its acquisition of International Rectifier, following the approval of all interested parties. "The acquisition is an important step for Infineon to foster our position as a global market leader in power semiconductors," said CEO Dr Reinhard Ploss. "We are sure that IR and its employees wil...

From hoverboards to a flexible solar 'cloth' to harvest the sun's rays, a growing number of technology projects are turning to – and getting – financial backing via crowdfunding, a financial technique that works by pulling together small amounts of investment from a large number of individual investors usually via an online...

IBM received a record 7534 patents in 2014; the 22nd consecutive year it has topped the annual list of US patent recipients. During this time, it has amassed more than 81,500 US patents. "IBM's continued investment in research and development is key to driving the transformation of our company, as we look to capture the emerging o...

Research published in Engineering UK 2015; The State of Engineering claims the UK economy could benefit to the tune of £27billion a year if demand for new engineering jobs is filled. To do this, the organisation continues, the number of engineering apprentices and graduates entering the industry will need to double. Paul Jackson, Eng...

An array of light detectors developed by MIT researchers, in partnership with scientists from IBM and NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory, is said to be sensitive enough to register the arrival of individual photons and to have application in quantum computing. The sensors have been designed to be located on a silicon optical chip, but th...

Keysight Technologies has introduced a digital-storage and mixed signal oscilloscope with an intuitive graphical triggering capability. The InfiniiVision 3000T X-Series promises to deliver capacitive touch screens and zone triggering to the mainstream oscilloscope market for the first time to help engineers overcome the historical difficulties of u...

Researchers at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign have developed a process for geometrically transforming 2D micro/nanostructures into extended 3D layouts. "Conventional 3D printing technologies are fantastic," said Professor John Rogers, "but none offers the ability to build microstructures that embed high perfo...

Australian scientists developing a prototype quantum hard drive say they have improved storage time by a factor of more than 100. Manjin Zhong, from the Research School of Physics and Engineering (RSPE) at The Australian National University (ANU), said: "Quantum states are very fragile and normally collapse in milliseconds. Our storage times h...

In a move which broadens its MCU portfolio, Atmel has launched four MCU series based on the ARM Cortex-M7 core. Said by Atmel to be the highest performing Cortex-M7 based MCUs, the parts offer memory and connectivity options that suit them to automotive, IoT and industrial connectivity applications. The SAM E70 and SAM S70 are aimed at con...

Millimetre wave technology developer SiBEAM has announced SiBEAM Snap, a wireless connector technology designed to replace physical connectors in devices such as smartphones, tablets and similar consumer products. By replacing physical connectors, says the company, product developers will be able to create 'completely wireless' dev...