New Atlas

Health & Wellbeing Audio available

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

Dario Borghino February 28, 2019

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.

A high-performance, biocompatible, flexible transistor developed at Columbia University could serve as the building block for ...

Electronics Audio available

Smallest 3D transistors ever made measure a minuscule 2.5 nanometers

Michael Irving December 9, 2018

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.

Engineers at MIT and the University of Colorado have developed a new fabrication technique to make ...

Computers

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

Michael Irving June 4, 2017

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.

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

Electronics

Frozen phone? Cosmic rays could be to blame

Michael Irving February 19, 2017

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.

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

Environment

Can technology deliver sustainability?

Michael Irving January 19, 2017

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.

Due to improved efficiency over the years, transistors now require much less silicon to make, and ...

Electronics

Flexible transistors could stretch the limits of wearable electronics

Eric Mack January 6, 2017

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

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

Electronics

Carbon nanotube transistors outperform their silicon cousins for the first time

Colin Jeffrey September 6, 2016

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.

Researchers at the University of Wisconsin-Madison claim to have created the first graphene-based transistor that exceeds ...

Medical

Low-cost graphene-based biosensor chip detects DNA mutations in real time

Colin Jeffrey June 15, 2016

A new graphene-based sensor has been developed that can quickly and easily detect DNA mutations associated with a range of cancers and other life-threatening illnesses. It is envisaged that the sensor will eventually be implantable, and communicate data wirelessly to mobile devices in real-time.

A new graphene-based DNA mutation sensor can quickly and easily indicate the presence of a range ...

Electronics

Ultra-low power graphene-based transistor could enable 100 GHz clock speeds

Michael Irving May 24, 2016

Scientists have designed a graphene-based transistor that works with ultra-low power consumption and which could ultimately be used to increase the clock speed of processors up to a staggering 100 GHz.

Scientists at MIPT have developed a new type of power-efficient transistor using bilayered graphene

Telecommunications

New record for wireless data transmission set at 6 Gbps

Eric Mack May 24, 2016

A project in Germany has set a new world record for wireless data transmission, sending 6 Gigabits per second, or the equivalent of the entire contents of a conventional DVD in under 10 seconds.

The project team sees the technology as a viable alternative to optical fiber for broadband