Electrical, Electronics & Instrumentation

19 Oct 22

Sondrel looks to long-term pursuit of custom silicon

Electrical, Electronics & Instrumentation

October is not an auspicious month for stock markets. Thirty-five years ago, Black Monday put the brakes on what had been up to then a display of irrational exuberance for which the markets are notorious for good reason. And October was already famous for sudden drops to the point that…

18 Oct 22

Book review: ‘The Sounds of Life’ by Karen Bakker

Electrical, Electronics & Instrumentation

Humans are rather poor listeners, compared with our fellow Earth-dwellers. The world is alive with sound that we cannot hear, from the ultrasonic echolocation of bats to the infrasonic ‘drumming heartbeat’ of the Earth’s crust beneath the crashing of ocean waves. In ‘The Sounds of Life: How Digital Technology is…

14 Oct 22

When the chips are down: how to ride out the supply storms

Electrical, Electronics & Instrumentation

It hit the car manufacturers first and hard but then spread to other parts of industry during the worldwide pandemic. The shortages became so sharp that manufacturers were taking them out of other products for their own. I’m talking, of course, about semiconductors and the supply chain problems of the…

14 Oct 22

5.3bn mobiles to be junked this year as experts call for higher recycling targets

Electrical, Electronics & Instrumentation

The WEEE Forum, which organises today’s International E-Waste Day, has conducted a survey of 8,775 European households across Portugal, Netherlands, Italy, Romania, Slovenia, and the UK. It found that the average household contains 74 e-products such as phones, tablets, laptops, electric tools, hair dryers, toasters and other appliances (excluding lamps).…

12 Oct 22

Teardown: Samsung foldable smartphones

Electrical, Electronics & Instrumentation

The foldable phone has been trying to make a comeback for nearly four years. There are new clamshell designs that recall the classic Motorola Razr but now fold out to offer the size of touchscreen seen as standard today. And there are book designs that open out to offer a…

11 Oct 22

View from Washington: TSMC joins tech stock fall as markets mull Biden’s China tech crunch

Electrical, Electronics & Instrumentation

The share price of the world’s largest chipmaker, TSMC, dropped 6 per cent in early Taiwanese trading today (October 11) following last week’s release of the Biden administration’s latest and much broader restrictions on semiconductor exports to China, as markets reflected mounting concern over their potential impact on Sino-US technology…

11 Oct 22

Reversal of fortune in the electronics supply chain

Electrical, Electronics & Instrumentation

The supply-chain crunch of the past year quickly became so bad that some firms even bought other companies’ appliances to strip them for the specialised semiconductor components they contained. It was a situation the industry had not experienced in a quarter of a century. The years of sluggish economic growth since…

07 Oct 22

Disposable electronic components could be printed on paper

Electrical, Electronics & Instrumentation

A team at the State University of New York has devised a way of minimising e-waste, by developing disposable electronic components that can be printed on a sheet of paper. They designed a paper-based amplifier-type circuit that incorporates resistors, capacitors and a transistor, which would be both easy to carry…

07 Oct 22

Digital Resurrection Brings Star Trek Back to the Future

Electrical, Electronics & Instrumentation

The bridge of the original U.S.S. Enterprise could soon be a place you can visit—complete with some of the original cast. Visual effects that include virtual “performances” by deceased actors, or that drastically de-age those still alive, are becoming commonplace. Rogue One: A Star Wars Story famously used such effects…

05 Oct 22

USB-C to become common charging cable in the EU from 2024

Electrical, Electronics & Instrumentation

By the end of 2024, all mobile phones, tablets, cameras and other small or medium-sized electronic devices sold in the EU will need to be equipped with the UBS-C charging port, the bloc has agreed. These rules are expected to be extended to laptops in 2026. The EU said the…