Researchers at the University of Valencia (UV) are developing an ultra-low threshold semiconductor laser that operates at room temperature and is claimed to be up to 1000 times more energy-efficient than laser devices currently in use. Such a device would have the potential to increase computing speeds by several orders of magnitude.The device...

Researchers at the Polytechnic University of Valencia have demonstrated a generic optical chip that can be programmed on demand and expect to be designing devices that include up to six functions by the end of 2016.The team, led by Professor José Capmany at the UPV’s Institute of Telecommunications and Multimedia Applications, is i...

In its annual Trend Watch, National Instruments is highlighting five areas which engineers should bear in mind for the coming year – prototyping; big analogue data; networking for the industrial Internet of Things; smart device testing; and the consumerisation of software.The industrial IoT (IIoT) is the modern incarnation of M2M communic...

Cypress Semiconductor has introduced the latest series from its PSoC 4 programmable system-on-chip architecture. The PSoC 4 L-Series is said to be the industry’s most integrated single-chip solution with a 32-bit ARM-Cortex-M0 core, featuring up to 256KBytes flash memory, 98 general purpose I/Os, 33 programmable analogue and digital blocks, a...

A three year €4.8million European project due to set off in February 2016 will use AppliedMicro’s X-Gene technology to develop a universal system architecture and software ecosystem for servers.As part of the UniServer project, AppliedMicro will develop custom platforms based on X-Gene that address the complexities associated with Bi...

With NXP’s acquisition of Freescale now complete – a deal which valued the latter at $11.8billion – the new, enlarged company disclosed at an event in Paris how it would be looking to address high growth opportunities in the ‘smarter world’, with target areas including the smart home, industry, healthcare and wearables...

Mouser has announced a global agreement with Red Pitaya, manufacturers of the Red Pitaya system, centred on an open-source software development platform for test and measurement applications.The Red Pitaya product line is designed to help designers learn programming and create designs ranging from simple DIY projects, such as automated lighting...

Renesas has unveiled its RX230 Group of 32-bit microcontrollers (MCUs), which is claimed to offer a combination of high performance with digital signal processing (DSP) and floating point unit (FPU) with low power consumption.Featuring a 1.8 to 5.5V supply, the RX230 Group is suited for applications that require high processing performance in e...

An MIT research team has described a first technique for stacking layers of block copolymer wires in such a way that the wires in one layer orient themselves perpendicularly to those in the layer below. According to the team, this ability to produce ‘mesh structures’ could make self assembly a more practical way to manufacture memories...

Scientists from UCLA’s California NanoSystems Institute have created a graphene sheet with minuscule holes that provides an effective way to place molecules in specific patterns.Led by Professor Paul Weiss, the researchers placed the sheet on a gold substrate, allowing molecules to attach to the gold exactly where the scientists wanted th...