With Pico-ITX, small form factor (SFF) designers can gain from a standard solution, with which they can develop the smallest embedded devices fast and without having to make user-specific adaptations. There are, however, alternatives.

The embedded design world has changed markedly over the last decade and the progress shows no sign of slowing. Multicore processing (in the form of both symmetric multiprocessing (SMP) and asymmetric multiprocessing (AMP)) is becoming commonplace, with embedded multicore CPU revenue expected to grow six times to 2011 (Venture Development Corporation).

Microcontrollers are commonly considered by designers to be one of the easiest products to use due to their simple programming language, wide peripheral set and price/performance value. They are heavily used in products from washing machines to motor vehicles.

In the megawatt range, high-power electronics applications need powerful semiconductors. However, even the largest semiconductors available today are still not strong enough for some applications. It is therefore necessary to connect them in parallel. The parallel connection of semiconductor devices in a traditional power electronics circuit is very common.

Three-dimensional, flat panel displays that do not need glasses to view them, a 240 Hz response time screen and a 6-in touch function ebook were some of the latest products shown at the Display Taiwan exhibition in Taipei.

This article by LX Innovations outlines the process of electronics design and points out some of the various common pitfalls that can be encountered and ways they can be avoided.

Invited by the Taiwanese government to see how some of the country’s electronic components are made, I joined an international party of journalists for a series of factory-guided tours round plants making products ranging from miniature cameras to plugs and interconnects. This is the second and final report of that trip.

IMEC has shown that spectroscopic ellipsometry can be used to measure Si substrate loss after ion implantation. With decreasing device dimensions, the need for this kind of metrology has become more and more important.

The MEMS (microelectromechanical systems) business continues to be driven by innovation. Following the demand for MEMS devices for mobile phones, users want to have smaller, higher performance and less costly dies.

Adding voice to an embedded project can enhance the user experience of a product. Commands can be confirmed, statuses can be announced and temperatures can be read aloud.

In an effort to build a nanoscale DNA sequencer, IBM scientists are drilling nano-sized holes in computer-like chips and passing DNA strands through them to read the information contained within their genetic code.

ETH Zurich researchers have created an optical transistor from a single molecule, bringing them one step closer to an optical computer.

IMEC has achieved promising results in the race to scale CMOS to 22 nm and below.

A tiny grid pattern has led materials scientists at the National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST) and the Institute of Solid State Physics in Russia to an unexpected finding - the surprisingly strong and long-range effects of certain electromagnetic nanostructures used in data storage.

A team of researchers, from the University of Surrey in England and two other institutions, has been awarded a grant of around $754,000 to develop ultra-small-scale silicon structures for ‘spintronic’ semiconductors.