Sales of semiconductors in Europe in September 2015 were $2.871billion, an increase of 2.2% from the previous month, but 10.6% lower than in September 2014. According to the European semiconductor Industry Association (ESIA), third quarter sales in Europe were $8.612bn, an increase of 1.6% over Q2.On a worldwide basis, semiconductor sales in Se...

Ultrahaptics has announced a Series A funding round of £10.1million led by Woodford Investment Management alongside existing shareholder IP Group.The start-up, specialising in mid-air haptics aims to revolutionise how we interact with computers, automobiles and consumer goods.Steve Cliffe, CEO of Ultrahaptics, said: “The company is...

Engineers at the University of Wisconsin-Madison have created what they believe to be the fastest, most responsive flexible silicon phototransistor yet. The device – which boasts good sensitivity and response time – could improve the performance of products ranging from digital cameras and smoke detectors to surveillance systems and sat...

Argon Streams, from Argon Design, has been named Electronic Product of the Year at this year’s British Engineering Excellence Awards (BEEAs).As higher display resolutions become more popular, data needs to be compressed so that it can be transmitted at lower bit rates or stored in smaller memory areas.Looking to meet these requirement...

Oxford Space Systems (OSS) has won the Grand Prix at this year’s British Engineering Excellence Awards. Just two years old, the company has already raised more than £1million in investment and will see one of its products launched into space in 2016.Every satellite requires some form of deployable structure and designers need to imp...

Integrated Device Technology (IDT) has introduced a hardware and software solution that is claimed to simplify IEEE 1588 synchronisation of network communications equipment. The 82P339xx-1 products are composed of IEEE 1588-compliant software and IDT Synchronisation Management Unit (SMU) chips that deliver a complete telecom network synchronisation...

Belgian nanotechnology research centre imec, along with Ghent University, has created arrays of indium phosphide lasers integrated monolithically on 300mm silicon substrates in a CMOS pilot line. The achievement is said to provide a path toward high volume manufacturing of cost effective photonic integrated circuits with monolithically integrated l...

Researchers from the National University of Singapore (NUS) have developed a hybrid magnetic sensor that they claim is more sensitive than most commercially available sensors. This could encourage the development of smaller and cheaper sensors for fields such as consumer electronics, information and communication technology and automotive.When...

Researchers at Cambridge University have developed a working laboratory demonstrator of what they call the ‘ultimate battery’. The lithium-oxygen battery is said to have high energy density, to be more than 90% efficient and which has, so far, been recharged more than 2000 times.The energy density of the battery is said to be compar...

Ambiq Micro has announced that its Apollo microcontroller (MCU) has been selected by Misfit as the ‘brain’ in the Misfit Shine 2 Fitness and Sleep Monitor.The next-generation Misfit Shine 2 is claimed to provide new features, functions and capabilities without sacrificing its six month battery life.Shine 2 tracks activity and sleep...