Research unveils stretchable high-resolution user-interactive synesthesia displays for visual–acoustic encryption https://techxplore.com/news/2023-10-unv ... hesia.html
by JooHyeon Heo, Ulsan National Institute of Science and Technology
The future of human-machine interfaces is on the cusp of a revolution with the unveiling of a groundbreaking technology—a stretchable high-resolution multicolor synesthesia display that generates synchronized sound and light as input/output sources. A research team, led by Professor Moon Kee Choi in the Department of Materials Science and Engineering at UNIST, has succeeded in developing this cutting-edge display using transfer-printing techniques, propelling the field of multifunctional displays into new realms of possibility.
The team's research is published in the journal Advanced Functional Materials
"Superatomic" material beats silicon for fastest semiconductor ever
By Michael Irving
October 31, 2023
Scientists have found that a “superatomic” material is the fastest and most efficient semiconductor ever. Taking advantage of a tortoise-and-hare mechanism, the new material can transport energy much faster than silicon.
Semiconductors are the beating heart of electronic devices, and silicon reigns supreme. These materials form the basis of transistors and integrated circuits, which themselves lay the foundation for smartphones to supercomputers and everything in between.
Now, scientists at Columbia University have found a new semiconductor material that seems to outperform all the rest. Known as Re6Se8Cl2, the material is made up of a mix of rhenium, selenium and chlorine, the atoms of which cluster together and behave like one big atom – a “superatom.” And this is where it gets its speed.
In any material, the atomic structure gives off tiny vibrations that travel as quantum particles called phonons, which can scatter energy-carrying particles like electrons or excitons. This energy is quickly lost as heat, and managing it is a constant hurdle in designing electronic chips and systems.
For more than 50 years, the semiconductor industry has been hard at work developing advanced technologies that have led to the amazing increases in computing power and energy efficiency that have improved our lives. A primary way the industry has achieved these remarkable performance gains has been by finding ways to decrease the size of the semiconductor devices in microchips. However, with semiconductor feature sizes now approaching only a few nanometers—just a few hundred atoms—it has become increasingly challenging to sustain continued device miniaturization.
To address the challenges associated with fabricating even smaller microchip components, the semiconductor industry is currently transitioning to a more powerful fabrication method—extreme ultraviolet (EUV) lithography. EUV lithography employs light that is only 13.5 nanometers in wavelength to form tiny circuit patterns in a photoresist, the light-sensitive material integral to the lithography process.
The photoresist is the template for forming the nanoscale circuit patterns in the silicon semiconductor. As EUV lithography begins paving the way for the future, scientists are faced with the hurdle of identifying the most effective resist materials for this new era of nanofabrication.
In an effort to address this need, a team of scientists at the Center for Functional Nanomaterials (CFN)—a U.S. Department of Energy (DOE) Office of Science User Facility at DOE's Brookhaven National Laboratory—has designed a new light-sensitive, organic–inorganic hybrid material that enables high-performance patternability by EUV lithography. Their results were recently published in Advanced Materials Interfaces.
White House releases plan to grow radio spectrum access, with possible benefits for internet, drones
Source: AP
Updated 11:03 AM EST, November 13, 2023
WASHINGTON (AP) — The White House on Monday announced a strategy to potentially expand the availability of radio spectrum needed for cellphones, satellites, navigation, space travel and other emerging technologies.
The increasingly digitized and mobile economy has put pressure on the available range of frequencies used for wireless communication. The spectrum is also vital for national security and responding to disasters.
“We all understand the spectrum is crowded, demand is growing fast,” said Arati Prabhakar, director of the White House Office of Science and Technology Policy. “This is a way to break through the limitations of today.”
The strategy will help to coordinate and guide how spectrum is allocated by the Federal Communications Commission, an independent government agency.
As information and communication technologies (ICT) process data, they convert electricity into heat. Already today, the global ICT ecosystem's CO2 footprint rivals that of aviation. It turns out, however, that a big part of the energy consumed by computer processors doesn't go into performing calculations. Instead, the bulk of the energy used to process data is spent shuttling bytes between the memory to the processor.
In a paper published in the journal Nature Electronics, researchers from EPFL's School of Engineering in the Laboratory of Nanoscale Electronics and Structures (LANES) present a new processor that tackles this inefficiency by integrating data processing and storage onto a single device, a so-called in-memory processor.
They broke new ground by creating the first in-memory processor based on a two-dimensional semiconductor material to comprise more than 1,000 transistors, a key milestone on the path to industrial production.
Von Neuman's legacy
According to Andras Kis, who led the study, the main culprit behind the inefficiency of today's CPUs is the universally adopted von Neumann architecture. Specifically, the physical separation of the components used to perform calculations and to store data. Because of this separation, processors need to retrieve data from the memory to perform calculations, which involves moving electrical charges, charging and discharging capacitors, and transmitting currents along lines—all of which dissipate energy.
Until around 20 years ago, this architecture made sense, as different types of devices were required for data storage and processing. But the von Neumann architecture is increasingly being challenged by more efficient alternatives.
"Today, there are ongoing efforts to merge storage and processing into a more universal in-memory processors that contain elements which work both as a memory and as a transistor," Kis explains. His lab has been exploring ways to achieve this goal using molybdenum disulfide (MoS2), a semiconductor material.
A team of bioengineers from Lanzhou University, Dalian University of Technology and Qinghai Normal University, all in China, working with a pair of colleagues from Pennsylvania State University in the U.S., have developed a soft, implantable supercapacitor that can power implantable devices. In their paper published in the journal Science Advances, the group describes how their supercapacitor was made and its performance during testing.
Prior research has shown that implantable devices can be developed for use in monitoring or treating a variety of ailments. Unfortunately, the means to power such devices is still lagging. In this new study, the research team developed a new way to power such devices by using a supercapacitor instead of a battery. A supercapacitor, unlike batteries, stores electricity in its electrical form; batteries store chemical energy—this makes supercapacitors not only more flexible, but lighter.
Researchers at the University of Sydney Nano Institute have invented a compact silicon semiconductor chip that integrates electronics with photonic, or light, components. The new technology significantly expands radio-frequency (RF) bandwidth and the ability to accurately control information flowing through the unit.
Expanded bandwidth means more information can flow through the chip and the inclusion of photonics allows for advanced filter controls, creating a versatile new semiconductor device.
Researchers expect the chip will have applications in advanced radar, satellite systems, wireless networks and the roll-out of 6G and 7G telecommunications and also open the door to advanced sovereign manufacturing. It could also assist in the creation of high-tech value-add factories at places like Western Sydney's Aerotropolis precinct.
Professor Ji-woong Yang at the Department of Energy Science and Engineering, Daegu Gyeongbuk Institute of Science and Technology has successfully developed the world's highest-performance eco-friendly quantum dot photosensor that does not require any external power source.
It was confirmed that the eco-friendly quantum dot photonic sensor developed through joint research with Professor Moon-kee Choi's research team at the Department of New Materials Engineering, Ulsan National Institute of Science and Technology (UNIST) and Professor Dae-hyeong Kim's research team at the Department of Chemical and Biomolecular Engineering, Seoul National University (President Hong-lim Ryu) can stably measure light signals without any external power source, due to the photovoltaic effect.
TSMC Says It Expects to Produce 1nm Transistors by 2030
The company also said it expects to have 1 trillion transistors on a single package by then as well.
By Josh Norem December 28, 2023
https://www.extremetech.com/computing/t ... rs-by-2030
TSMC has updated its roadmap of sorts, laying out what its semiconductor goals are for the future, stretching all the way to the year 2030. It's kind of a like a corporate vision board, showcasing its plans for ambitious designs that will allow for up to a trillion transistors to be used in a single package. At the same time, it also highlighted its plans to eventually arrive at a watershed metric in semiconductor manufacturing; the production of 1nm transistors.
The company showed off its plans at the recent IEDM conference, and published a roadmap laying out its plans for the future. At the very end of the road lies some truly tantalizing chips, with TSMC stating it will be possible to put a trillion chips on a package using multiple 3D-stacked chiplets. Coincidentally, Intel has also previously stated it thinks one trillion transistors on a package should be possible by 2030 as well. Its CEO, Pat Gelsinger, said last year it envisions using chiplets and advanced packaging technologies to put a trillion transistors on a package while also using chiplets, or tiles in Intel parlance.
Organic mixed ionic–electronic conductors (OMIECs) are a highly sought-after class of materials for non-conventional applications, such as bioelectronics, neuromorphic computing, and bio-fuel cells, due to their two-in-one electronic and ionic conduction properties.
To ensure a much wider acceptance of these fascinating materials, there is a need to diversify their properties and develop techniques that allow application-specific tailoring of the features of OMIEC-based devices.
A crucial aspect of this process is to develop strategies for evaluating the various properties of these materials. However, despite the increasing popularity of OMIECs, there is a severe lack of research on the molecular orientation-dependent transient behaviors of such conductors.
Now, however, an international team of researchers from Korea and the U.K., led by Professor Myung-Han Yoon from the School of Materials Science and Engineering at Gwangju Institute of Science and Technology, set out to bridge this gap in our understanding of organic mixed ionic–electronic conductors.
In their recent study published in Nature Communications on 28 November 2023, the team explored peculiar transient behaviors of OMIECs governed by variations in molecular orientation with the help of an organic electrochemical transistor (OECT).
