Transistor

The saltwater in the new circuit concept is fanned out through a custom nozzle, then an ultra-fast laser zaps it to change its conductive state

Electronics

Water-based circuit concept switches much faster than semiconductors

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.

IBM and Samsung have developed a new chip architecture that could allow smartphones to run for a week or more without recharging

Technology

IBM and Samsung's low-energy chips could see phone batteries last a week

IBM and Samsung have unveiled a new semiconductor chip design they say can enable the continuation of Moore's Law and allow for smartphones that run for weeks on a charge, among some other interesting possibilities.

IBM has unveiled the world's first 2-nm chips

Computers

IBM's new 2-nm chips have transistors smaller than a strand of DNA

Highlighting the march of technology, IBM has unveiled new semiconductor chips with the smallest transistors ever made. The new 2- nanometer tech allows the company to cram a staggering 50 billion transistors onto a chip the size of a fingernail.

Engineers test the world's first printable, fully recycle transistor as part of a lactate biosensor

Electronics

World-first printable transistor is fully recyclable with water and sound

Eyeing solutions to our e-waste problem, engineers have developed the world's first fully recyclable printed electronics, demonstrated in a transistor that can be reduced to its original building blocks with the help of baths and sound waves.

Electronics

Ultra-high voltage transistors aim to boost EV range and efficiency

A University at Buffalo team has proposed a new form of power MOSFET transistor that can handle incredibly high voltages with minimal thickness, heralding an efficiency increase in the power electronics of electric vehicles.

A high-performance, biocompatible, flexible transistor developed at Columbia University could serve as the building block for a new generation of medical sensors, implants, and brain-machine interfaces

Health & Wellbeing

Flexible, high-performance transistors pave the way for mini medical sensors and implants

Scientists at Columbia University have developed flexible, functional, waterproof transistors. These could find use in building miniaturized medical sensors, brain-machine interfaces, or long-term implants.

Engineers at MIT and the University of Colorado have developed a new fabrication technique to make transistors measuring as tiny as 2.5 nm wide

Electronics

Smallest 3D transistors ever made measure a minuscule 2.5 nanometers

Engineers from MIT and the University of Colorado have developed a new microfabrication technique and used it to produce the smallest 3D transistors ever made, measuring about a third the size of the current leading commercial products.

Wafers of the new 5 nm chips are tested in pods in a New York facility

Computers

IBM's new 5nm architecture crams 30 billion transistors onto fingernail-sized chip

IBM has unveiled its plans to create 5 nm chips. The company is ditching the standard FinFET architecture in favor of a new structure built with a stack of four nanosheets, allowing some 30 billion transistors to be packed onto a chip the size of a fingernail.

Cosmic rays, thought to be ejected from supernovae, are an increasing issue for failures in consumer electronic devices

Electronics

Frozen phone? Cosmic rays could be to blame

Next time your smartphone freezes, the culprit might actually be the cosmic rays that are constantly raining down on us from outer space. A new study has examined how modern consumer electronics are becoming more vulnerable to cosmic interference, and suggests ways to build better chips.

Due to improved efficiency over the years, transistors now require much less silicon to make, and yet our global silicon consumption continues to increase

Environment

Can technology deliver sustainability?

A new study from MIT has examined modern technology through the lens of a 150-year-old economic theory of efficiency and resource consumption – and in almost all cases, the benefits of reducing required resources is cancelled out by the increase in consumer demand for them.

New stretchy transistors could lead to wearables that deform to fit and move with the body

Electronics

Flexible transistors could stretch the limits of wearable electronics

Engineers at Stanford have developed a new component to help stretch the potential of wearable electronics.

Researchers at the University of Wisconsin-Madison claim to have created the first graphene-based transistor that exceeds the capabilities of the best silicon-based devices available today

Electronics

Carbon nanotube transistors outperform their silicon cousins for the first time

They're not the first transistors created using carbon nanotubes (CNTs), but researchers at the University of Wisconsin-Madison (UW-Madison) claim their new carbon nanotube transistors are the first to outperform the best silicon transistors available today.