semiconductors

Can Intel's New Atom Chips Liven Up Netbooks?

Kit Eaton — Wed, 20 May 2009 07:32:47 -0400

We may have proclaimed the netbook a phenomenon that was over and done, but Intel has just revealed its next-gen Pine Trail chips, and it looks like they might inject some new interest into the mini portable computers.

Apple Creating Chip-Tech Brain-Tank, but Why?

Kit Eaton — Thu, 30 Apr 2009 06:02:03 -0400

When a big technology company begins gathering a specialist group of experts together, in some cases poaching them from key posts in other successful outfits, it's a strategic maneuver. In this case, it's the famously secretive Apple, and the experts are all connected to chip design. But why would Apple want to get into the chip-making business?

New Chip Technology Could Help Computers Think on Their Own

Kit Eaton — Fri, 27 Feb 2009 05:54:50 -0500

While there's a lot of work to push nanotechnology as the future of computer chips, good old-fashioned semiconductors still have a lot of life in them yet: and they've recently been given a boost with a radical new type of circuit element that incorporates both semiconductor and nanotechnology.

Why Your Future PC Will Boot-up in an Instant

Kit Eaton — Tue, 10 Feb 2009 09:57:33 -0500

I've always enjoyed watching the little twirling timer and Apple logo and hearing the "bing!" sound as my Mac boots-up (Windows users, you have your equivalent though it's not as pretty.) But now with a new chip breakthrough from Toshiba boot-ups may soon become a thing of the past.

Better, Cheaper LEDs Ringing Death Knell of Fluorescent Bulbs

Kit Eaton — Thu, 29 Jan 2009 07:00:26 -0500

LED lighting has long been viewed as a superior alternative to compact flourescent bulbs. Although flourescents are more electrically efficient than old-fashioned incandescent bulbs, producing them requires a complex procedure that uses a little mercury--a big environmental and health no-no.

Carbon-Nanotube Memory Catches Up With Flash

Kit Eaton — Tue, 27 Jan 2009 07:57:16 -0500

Carbon nanotubes have been proposed as solutions to a host of modern technical problems, from space elevators to pin-point accurate drug delivery. But a more viable role for the 'tubes is as a computer memory storage device. And a Finnish research group has created a nanotube memory array that's 100,000 times faster than any made before.

New Conducting Ink Heralds Printable Semiconductor Revolution

Kit Eaton — Thu, 22 Jan 2009 08:33:38 -0500

Flexible circuitry is a big upcoming trend in electronics, but there remain a few challenges to overcome before it can really take off. Now Polyera, a US company that makes specialist chemicals for flexible electronic devices, may have done that by inventing a new type of ink that could make true print-out flexible semiconductor integrated circuitry possible.

Graphene: Source of The Next Industrial Revolution?

Kit Eaton — Fri, 19 Dec 2008 09:24:40 -0500

"An atomically-thick layer of bonded carbon atoms in a hexagonal array, that can be made by peeling a layer off a graphite block with sticky-tape" doesn't sound like a particularly wondrous material. But that's an approximate description of graphene, which may one day fairly soon change the world.