Researchers at the University of Wollongong have successfully fabricated single-atom-layer silicine. The material could be used to develop faster computer chips, more practical and efficient solar cells, improved medical technologies and vehicle and aircraft parts. [ + ]

Engineers from the University of Nebraska-Lincoln (UNL) and Stanford University have created thin-film organic transistors that could operate more than five times faster than previous examples of this experimental technology. [ + ]

Singapore-based researchers have developed a new magnetoresistive random access memory technology that is expected to boost information storage in electronic systems. The technology is expected to drastically increase storage space and enhance memory, which will ensure that fresh data stays intact, even in the case of a power failure. [ + ]

Each PCB design is unique and requires the skills of the designer to adapt the design to fall within PCB manufacturing capabilities. One of the key aspects of PCB development is determining appropriate trace sizes for current requirements. This article provides guidelines that designers should follow to determine the trace width. [ + ]

Where has all the silence gone? Is it just me or has the world become an increasingly noisy place and electronics are to blame for some of it? We are daily bombarded with noise. [ + ]

SEMI, the global industry association serving the nano- and microelectronics manufacturing supply chains, this week released the SEMI Year-end Forecast at the annual SEMICON Japan exposition. The forecast predicts that worldwide sales of new semiconductor manufacturing equipment will contract 13.3% to $32 billion in 2013. [ + ]

Total worldwide production value of electronic systems is projected to increase 4% in 2013 to $1.41 trillion and climb to about $1.74 trillion in 2017, which represents a compound annual growth rate (CAGR) of 5% from $1.36 billion in 2012, according to IC Insights' 2014 edition of 'IC Market Drivers - A Study of Emerging and Major End-Use Applications Fueling Demand for Integrated Circuits'. [ + ]

As renewable energy takes centre stage, efficiently harvesting this energy becomes increasingly critical. Modular DC/DC converters with dual asymmetric outputs provide the positive and negative voltages as well as the galvanic isolation necessary for IGBT applications. [ + ]

Smart home networking technology can connect a variety of devices via the internet. It can provide a wide range of remote services such as appliance control, lighting control, curtain control, telephone remote control, indoor and outdoor remote control, anti-theft alarm, environmental monitoring, HVAC control, IR forwarding and programmable timing control, just to mention a few. [ + ]

UK start-up Novalia has developed a low-cost, patented manufacturing technology using standard print processes - such as screen print, flexography, and offset lithography - combined with capacitive touch technology that would allow Bluetooth low energy wireless control to be added to everyday low-cost materials, such as paper, card, and plastic, for potentially just a few dollars in high volume. [ + ]

Tokyo Tech has developed a compound that shows highly unusual conducting properties that could be used in future electronic components. Ordinary insulating solids, such as diamond, have energy bands that are fully occupied by electrons. [ + ]

Two professors from The University of Auckland have bagged a top science prize for their wireless or inductive power transfer technology (IPT). [ + ]

Stanford and SLAC researchers have developed a self-healing battery electrode that could be used in electric cars, mobile phones and other devices. [ + ]

US start-up Hothead Technologies has specified Nordic Semiconductor's nRF8001 Connectivity chip to provide Bluetooth low energy wireless comms in the world's first fitness monitor to track body temperature in addition to conventional movement (time, speed and distance) and heart rate. [ + ]

OLEDs have become the device of the moment with the recent announcement and launch by Samsung of its huge 55″ curved television receiver, designed to wow the viewer with its incredible sharpness, colour range and contrast. While nobody seems to have questioned quite why we need a curved television, the technology behind it is taking us one further step towards equipment that is low in power demand and producing a realism that is breathtaking. [ + ]