Editors' Blog

A Caveman Without MEMS

A while back, MIG director Karen Lightman posted a blog entry about life without MEMS (if you haven’t read it, I’d recommend doing so before proceeding). After a chuckle, my first thought was, “Wow, how the hell did we ever live five years ago without dying of anxiety??” Then it occurred to me to take things back further than five years. What would the life of a caveman (or –woman) be like given the opportunity for tools to improve their existence? While not … Read More → "A Caveman Without MEMS"

A Vote for Java

by Dick Selwood

I don’t know this for sure, but I can imagine that some marketing folks at STMicroelectronics were less than thrilled by the high-profile Java issues ricocheting through the airwaves a couple weeks ago. My colleague Jim Turley engendered some back-and-forth with his analysis of the appropriateness of Java in embedded systems in particular.

It was not but a few days after this had barely disappeared from the headlines that ST announced their STM32Java development kit for developing Java applications on embedded … Read More → "A Vote for Java"

Not-So-New Touch

by Dick Selwood

These days we talk about touch technology as if it’s a new thing. Actually, we’ve been using touch for years (since 1994, to be specific) – on our laptops. (OK, I know, a lot of you/us don’t like the touchpad, but it certainly does predate the touchscreen.)

I talked with Fred Caldwell from one of the oldest names in that field, Synaptics, at the Touch Gesture Motion conference last month. They used to make the touchpads; you may remember their name on a laptop you might have had long ago. They … Read More → "Not-So-New Touch"

Molly to the Rescue

by Kevin Morris

Graphene has excited technologists for years now, with its promise of high mobility, strength, and flexibility. Except for one big problem: no bandgap. So you can’t really turn off your devices.

Out of left field, then, comes something completely different at IEDM: MoS₂. Deposited using CVD over a large area, a single layer configures itself as a layer of molybdenum sandwiched between two layers of sulfur. It’s flexible, it has high mobility – and it has a 1.8-V bandgap.

A team from MIT, the US Army Research Lab, and … Read More → "Molly to the Rescue"

Sensor Fusion Sea Change

by Jim Turley

As I have observed and listened to the things that folks in the sensor fusion business (whether purveyors of sensors or sensor-agnostic) have been saying, there’s something of a change in the air, and it was reinforced at CES. The focus of fusion is shifting.

At the very bottom of the fusion stack are complex mathematical relationships that turn, for example, individual sensor readings into higher-level orientation information. Clearly, there’s been a period where getting that right and getting it all to be computed in real time was an effort. But that time … Read More → "Sensor Fusion Sea Change"

Nanowire Advancements

by Jim Turley

Nanowires are a perennial IEDM topic, and this year was no exception. Three papers in particular were identified as standing out.

One of them relates to efforts to work germanium into the mix for pFETs. Such work is all about mobility, and a team from MIT achieved twice the mobility of biaxially-strained planar Si. This was done using biaxially-strained germanium that was then patterned into wires using e-beam lithography, which relaxed the lateral strain. The result wasn’t uniaxial strain, but asymmetric. HfO_{2</ … Read More → "Nanowire Advancements"}

Smallest Accelerometer

by Kevin Morris

At the same time that Bosch Sensortec announced its orientation sensor, they also announced their BMA355 accelerometer, which is distinguished by its size. Prior to this, the smallest footprint available for an accelerometer was 2×2 mm². This guy is 1.2×1.5 mm².

This was done via a die shrink. The MEMS is placed over the ASIC; the ASIC is more or less bonded straight down to its leads; it’s essentially chip-scale packaging.

In fact, they could have made the ASIC … Read More → "Smallest Accelerometer"

Body Motion Tracking: What’s Old is New

by Amelia Dalton

Health and fitness were one of the major categories of new gadgets at this year’s CES. One of the products being demonstrated was actually announced back in November, but in fact, isn’t really a new product. But there is something new about it.

Xsens started a project back in the 2004-5 timeframe to create a wireless wearable body suit with multiple sensors that could be used to model the motion of the body. They released their first product in 2008; it was used primarily as a tool for graphic animation. I have then also been using < … Read More → "Body Motion Tracking: What’s Old is New"

Other Gesture Technologies

by Bryon Moyer

There’s a lot of focus these days on the power of computer vision, and much of that is being directed at recognizing gestures so that we can interact with our machines without touching them or communicating our intent out loud for everyone else in the room to hear.

We looked at Plessey’s EPIC sensor … Read More → "Other Gesture Technologies"

Detecting Intuitive

by Bryon Moyer

A little over a year ago I went on a bit of a rant about intuitive design. Now… for those of you running for the door, I’m not going to reprise that rant. At least, not directly. But a comment at the recent Touch Gesture Motion conference got me thinking (always a dangerous thing), and from it came a new corollary conclusion.

The speaker noted that today’s phones were so intuitive that his 18-month-old could use them, and, in … Read More → "Detecting Intuitive"