Circuit

Researchers at MIT have unexpectedly stumbled upon a way to 3D print active electronics – meaning transistors and components for controlling electrical signals – without the use of semiconductors or even special fabrication technology.

Looking to tackle a significant part of our huge e-waste problem, Jiva has developed a PCB substrate that breaks down in water for easier recovery of materials. The startup is now partnering with manufacturers to demo and evaluate the Soluboards.

Water is usually something you’d want to keep away from electronic circuits, but engineers in Germany have now developed a new concept for water-based switches that are much faster than current semiconductor materials.

Limiting the expansion, and ultimate ubiquity, of the Internet of Things has been the cost, power and size of the enabling electronics – all things that have been addressed by a new fabrication method for tiny, thin-film electronic circuits​.

Researchers have developed a self-healing material that could help machines repair themselves – even after “extreme mechanical damage.” Not only does the material make physical repairs, but in doing so it can restore severed electrical connections.

​Learning about electronics from a book might seem like a step backward in a world of instructional videos and snap together kits. But Paris-based startup Papier Machine doesn't think that at all, launching the first in a series of paper books containing circuit-building projects on Kickstarter.​

German startup Next Dynamics has unveiled the NexD1, a multi-color, multi-material 3D printer for the home that can use a conductive resin to create custom electronic circuit boards.

A nano-spacecraft made from a silicon chip could make the journey to Alpha Centauri in just 20 years. The problem is, such a "space-chip" wouldn’t survive the intense radiation and temperature of space, so a NASA and KAIST team is developing a method for helping the chip heal itself on the fly.

The latest startup to join the electronics edutainment crowd is Mad Tatu with a circuit building system that rises up from the table top for 3D projects that look like a crazy plumber has turned his hand to teaching.

The scientists behind the latest flexible electronics that can be worn on the skin like a tattoo claim to have developed the world's fastest stretchable circuit, providing what they see as a platform for the forthcoming era of blazing-fast 5G communications. ​

The more circuits and connectors flex, the higher the likelihood they'll break. While we've seen self-healing chips, gels and microcapsules before, a new material out of Pennsylvania State University brings auto-repair to dielectrics – the materials that insulate electric currents.​

Using a phenomenon dubbed "Teslaphoresis," researchers have made carbon nanotubes self-assemble to form a circuit linking two LEDs and then used the energy from that same field to power them