Research by a team of scientists from England and Germany has developed techniques that it says will lead to the first memory chip that can capture light. This will allow large quantities of data to be stored directly on an integrated optical chip, rather than being processed and stored electronically, as happens today.Light is suited to ultra-...

A £2million funding competition is being launched by Innovate UK and the Centre for Digital Enterprise on behalf of MI5, MI6 and the Government Communications Headquarters, to identify innovative technologies or approaches to meet the security challenges created by the IoT.The IoT is a ‘sensor-rich’ environment where these sen...

Synopsys, Inc. has announced a portfolio of IP optimised to address the security, wireless connectivity, energy efficient and sensor processing requirements for a range of IoT applications such as wearables, smart appliances, metering and wireless sensor networks.The DesignWare IP portfolio for the IoT includes power and area efficient logic li...

The Architects of Modern Power (AMP Group) consortium has announced the ‘picoAMP’, a standard designed for the lower range of the spectrum for board-level conversion needs. The ‘picoAMP’ provides customers with a non-isolated standards platform ranging from 6 to 18A and defines a footprint of 12.2 x 12.2mm in a LGA format....

Plessey says it has developed a patented technology for chip scale optics (CSO) based on its GaN on silicon MaGIC LEDs. According to the company, CSO permits the design of light emission angles as low as 10° directly from the LED, reduces cost and brings more design freedom for secondary optics.Plessey says it has developed a patented techn...

Last week, the BBC took a look at the impact intelligent machinery, or robots, is having and could have on the way in which people work and reported on what jobs were most likely to be affected.Intelligent machinery has been employed across a huge swathe of industry, but what is new is the growing variety of industries and occupations that are...

Analogue and sensor specialist ams is looking to become a €1billion company by 2019, according to CEO Kirk Laney,who will be succeeed by Alexander Everke in March 2016.The company has seen a significant increase in revenue this year, with Q2 profit up by 59% to €170m, compared to Q2 2014, while H1 profit is up by 68% to €323m. Re...

Following a successful Kickstarter campaign, Belgian company LabNation has launched SmartScope, an open source USB test equipment package said to be the first such system designed to run on multiple operating systems and platforms.Chief technology officer Riemer Grootjans said SmartScope is targeted at a new range of users. “Development h...

Internet of Things applications, such as connected cars, wearable electronics and building automation, are boosting demand for microcontrollers. According to the latest Microcontroller Market Tracker report from market analyst IHS, sales of MCUs into IoT applications is expected to grow from $1.7billion in 2014 to $2.8bn in 2019. By contrast, the o...

Researchers at the University of Twente have demonstrated working electronic circuits produced using methods which they say resemble Darwinian evolution.The team has moved away from conventionally designed circuits, using instead an approach that resembles those found in nature. By using such a ‘designless’ approach, the team says c...