Nanusens has demonstrated a mems digitally-tuneable capacitor for 5G and 6G RF front-ends, that is compatible with CMOS IC processing and can be integrated with circuitry. The Q-factor is above 100 at 1GHz, and the four-bit capacitor has a minimum capacitance of 450fF (30fF/capacitor) with them all off and tunes up to ~1pF – a capacitance ratio of 2.2 which ...
Today, microelectronics is moving at an incredible rate, particularly in the fields of EDA and design methodology, writes Ash Madni. It’s a wonderful time to invest energy in both if we are lucky enough to participate. However, we are human beings not automatons and consequently don’t instantly move in the direction of change when required. It takes us time to ...
NASA, Texas Instruments and others in the space industry have created a qualification standard for using plastic packaged ICs in space: Qualified Manufacturers List Class P – QML Class P. “QML Class P was designed in league with NASA and other industry experts as a plastic packaging standard for space electronic,” TI told Electronics Weekly. The standard is based on ...
STMicroelectronics has introduced a precision digital current, voltage and power monitor with a an I3C bus interface. Called TSC1641, it has two 16bit ΣΔ converters at its inputs, allowing simultaneous measurement of current (LSB=2.5µV) and voltage (LSB=2mV). The measured voltage can be anywhere from 0 to 60V (65V abs max), and the two current terminals sense with either polarity across ...
Cambridge GaN Devices is adding package-top per-device 2D barcodes to its GaN power transistors, which can be read by customers using commercial code readers to reveal function, batch and position-on-wafer. “Although we have a great deal of data to prove the ruggedness and reliability of our hemts, GaN is still a relatively new technology, certainly when compared to traditional silicon ...
Researchers at the Dalian Institute of Chemical Physics have found a way to deposit micro-supercapacitors consistently on surfaces such as silicon as a way to add energy storage directly to ICs. This is not the first time that supercapacitors have been deposited on such substrates, but the team claims to have combined unpresidented cell density, electrochemical performance and cell-to-cell consistency ...
STMicroelectronics has released nine chip-scale passive RF balun ICs that include antenna impedance-matching and harmonic filtering for its STM32WL sub0GHz wireless microcontrollers. Intended to sit in Rx and TX paths between the MCUs and their antennas, the 8bump parts are in 2.13 x 1.83mm packages with a maximum height of 630µm after reflow. Applications are foreseen in LoRaWAN, Sigfox, M-Bus ...
Aiming at laser time-of-flight lidar, Efficient Power Conversion (EPC) has introduced an 80V 15A pulse laser driver IC. EPC21701, as it will be known, can produce pulses down to 2ns at up to 50MHz. Its internal 40A GaN FET is has a monolithically integrated with a gate driver. Internal logic has a 3.3V comp[atible input and needs a 5V supply. ...
Rohm has developed a 30mW artificial intelligence IC with on-device learning capability for edge processing – 30mW here is an example power, dependent on algorithm running. “Until now it has been difficult to develop AI chips that can learn in the field consuming low power,” according to the company. This one is intended to use “artificial intelligence to predict failures ...
Ash Madni, WIMMIC’s Technical Director, asks “How do Integrated Circuit designers cope with increasing demands while maintaining a good work-life balance?” If you feel like me in the above picture, don’t worry, we are not alone. In today’s commercial world of tight deadlines, technology nodes shrinking while silicon costs go up and the need to achieve right first time silicon, ...
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