Industry News

September 2021
A Stealthy Predator’s Aeroacoustics for Jets, Choppers, Turbines…

Justin Jaworski, a professor of mechanical engineering at Lehigh University, has been elected by the American Institute of Aeronautics and Astronautics (AIAA) as a member of its 2022 class of Associate Fellows.

A jet airliner roaring to the tarmac has more in common with an offshore wind farm than you may expect. The same can be said of an industrial HVAC system and a futuristic underwater vehicle. To Justin Jaworski, an associate professor of mechanical engineering at Lehigh, it’s all just a lot of
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Date:
09/27/2021
Reduce Email Stress by Setting Response Expectations

Vanessa Bohns, associate professor in the Department of Organizational Behavior and co-author of the new paper forthcoming in the journal Organizational Behavior and Human Decision Processes.

Email is a tremendous source of workplace stress, as the expectation that every message will be read and responded to as soon as it arrives in one’s inbox has become a workplace norm. People can limit the negative impact of email, not necessarily by sending less email, but by sending better emails th
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Date:
09/27/2021
New Ergonomic Photodetector for the Trillion-Sensor Era

Prof. Sung Hun Jin, Incheon National University, South Korea

The world is heading towards a trillion-sensor economy where billions of devices using multiple sensors will be connected under the umbrella of Internet-of-things. An important part of this economy is constituted of light/photo sensors, which are tiny semiconductor-based electronic components that detect light and
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Date:
09/27/2021
Creating Order by Mechanical Deformation in Dense Active Matter

A snapshot of the researchers’ simulation showing orientational ordering under steady shear deformation. Colours code the orientation of the self-propulsion forces, e.g. blue for downward and red for upward; neighbouring particles tend to be oriented in similar directions.

Living or biological systems cannot be easily understood using the standard laws of physics, such as thermodynamics, as scientists would for gases, liquids or solids. Living systems are active, demonstrating fascinating properties such as adapting to their environment or repairing themselves. Exploring the questions po
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Date:
09/27/2021
Infineon Opens Chip Factory for Power Electronics
At 1.6 billion euros, the investment made by the semiconductor group represents one of the largest such projects in the microelectronics sector in Europe. The Villach site is one of the world’s most modern fabs and was opened by Infineon CEO Reinhard Ploss, Infineon Austria CEO Sabine Herlitschka along with EU Com
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Date:
09/23/2021
UnitedSiC launches FET-Jet CalculatorTM v2
This new version (v2) significantly streamlines the SiC FET and Schottky diode selection process and simplifies the analysis of all power related results. First launched in March, this simple, registration-free online tool facilitates the designer’s selection and performance comparison process, in different pow
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Date:
09/23/2021
Battery Resourcers Secures $70 Million in New Funding

Michael O’Kronley, CEO and director of Battery Resourcers

Battery Resourcers announced the closing of its latest mid-round funding totalling $70 million. The company will use this latest funding round to advance and expand the industry's most sustainable, cutting-edge closed loop material production technology that accepts mixed input of scrap batteri
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Date:
09/23/2021
Downscaling Transistors Could Advance Semiconductor Design

Purdue University engineer Tillmann Kubis has created CasFET, or cascade field effect transistor, technology. The key aspect is the superlattice perpendicular to the transistor’s transport direction, which allows for switchable cascade states.

An innovation by Purdue University researchers could help the semiconductor industry design transistors that are smaller, use less power and switch from on to off at smaller applied voltages. As a result, the innovation could lead to better and more powerful central processing unit generations, which can compute mo
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Date:
09/17/2021
Development Begins on Oneida County Solar Arrays

Gil C. Quiniones, NYPA president and CEO

Leading up to Climate Week next week, the Office of General Services (OGS) and the New York Power Authority (NYPA) have selected a developer for several remote solar arrays that will provide Empire State Plaza in Albany with up to half of its electricity needs. The solar arrays, which will be in Oneida County, ar
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Date:
09/17/2021
Hioki talks battery design in Farnell podcast
The podcast series investigates how test and measurement equipment supports innovation and new product development across a wide variety of real-world applications. Each episode in the series will provide valuable insights for buyers, engineers, and other industry professionals wanting to stay up to date with th
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Date:
09/16/2021
onsemi Powers Every Node in Ramaxel Next Generation Servers
Power requirements are increasing in each successive processor generation. With their broad portfolio of high-performance, high-reliability cloud power solutions, onsemi is well positioned to deliver on such requirements.   “As an emerging leader in the fast-growing cloud market, we must have confidenc
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Date:
09/16/2021
Surface-mount package approved for automotive application
The test was passed by a leading Tier 1 supplier. Initially, it will be used in an engine control unit.   BLR provides a means of evaluating the robustness and reliability of semiconductor packages. The rigorous testing procedure is especially relevant in automotive applications, where safety and r
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Date:
09/16/2021
Wärtsilä Supports Decarbonisation of Aussie Mining Operations
The technology group Wärtsilä will supply a 9.2 MW / 8.7MWh energy storage system to Zenith Energy, an Independent Power Producer (IPP) in Australia. Zenith sells the electrical power it produces to some of the world’s largest mining companies with operations in Australia. The installed energy storage system wil
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Date:
09/15/2021
Standard Lithium Initiates Arkansas Carbon Capture Project
Standard Lithium Ltd. announced that it is undertaking a pilot project in southern Arkansas to test a novel carbon capture technology. The pilot project will be undertaken in collaboration with the owner of the technology, Aqualung Carbon Capture AS (“Aqualung”), and will be installed at a natural gas pr
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Date:
09/15/2021
GaN Systems Signs Semiconductor Capacity Agreement with BMW

Jim Witham, CEO & Co-Founder, GaN Systems

GaN Systems announced the signing of a comprehensive Capacity Agreement with BMW Group for GaN Systems’ high-performance, automotive-grade GaN power transistors, which increase the efficiency and power density of critical applications in electric vehicles. GaN power semiconductors are a key ing
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Date:
09/13/2021
Research on Secure Wireless Powered Backscatter Communication

Kai Zeng, Associate Professor, Electrical and Computer Engineering

Kai Zeng, Associate Professor, Electrical and Computer Engineering, is set to receive funding from the National Science Foundation for a project in which he and his collaborators are proposing novel techniques to secure wireless-powered backscatter communication (WPBC) for In
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Date:
09/13/2021
Do Alexa and Siri Make Kids Bossier?

A team led by University of Washington studied whether hanging out with conversational agents, such as Alexa or Siri, could affect the way children communicate with their fellow humans. In the study, a conversational agent (either a simple animated robot or cactus, screenshots shown here) taught 22 children between the ages of 5 and 10 to use the word "bungo" to ask it to speak more quickly.

Chatting with a robot is now part of many families' daily lives, thanks to conversational agents such as Apple's Siri or Amazon's Alexa. Recent research has shown that children are often delighted to find that they can ask Alexa to play their favorite songs or call Grandma.  But does hanging out w
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Date:
09/13/2021
Argonne Scientists Show they can Alter Material Properties

The Argonne National Laboratory

By confining the transport of electrons and ions in a patterned thin film, scientists find a way to potentially enhance material properties for design of next-generation electronics Like ripples in a pond, electrons travel like waves through materials, and when they collide and interact, they can give rise
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Date:
09/13/2021
New Tool for Analyzing Large Superconducting Circuits
The next generation of computing and information processing lies in the intriguing world of quantum mechanics. Quantum computers are expected to be capable of solving large, extremely complex problems that are beyond the capacity of today’s most powerful supercomputers. New research tools are
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Date:
09/13/2021
Engineered E. Coli Could Make Carbs, Renewable Fuel, from CO2
Researchers from Newcastle University, UK have engineered Escherichia coli bacteria to capture carbon dioxide (CO2) using hydrogen gas (H2) to convert it into formic acid. The research, published today in Applied and Environmental  Microbiology raises the possibility of converting
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Date:
09/12/2021
Potential Method to Convert Food Waste into Batteries

Feng Lin and Haibo Huang discovered a potential method to convert food waste into batteries.

What do apple cores, spent grain, and walnut shells have in common? They could one day be used to power a data center. As the world works toward economically and environmentally friendly ways to power these devices, two Virginia Tech researchers investigate how food waste and its associated biomass can be co
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Date:
09/12/2021
Powerbox (PRBX) Sweden relocates and expands R&D in Stockholm

From its inception PRBX has grown to become a leading innovator in power solutions for industrial, medical, transportation and defense application.

Powerbox, one of Europe’s largest power supply companies, and for more than four decades a leading force in optimizing power solutions for demanding applications, announces it has consolidated its Swedish operations to a new facility located at Hägersten, South of Stockholm. Originally established at Gnesta
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Date:
09/11/2021
Powercast Wins Sustainability Award for Reducing Battery Waste

Powercast's RF Wireless Power Technology Wins Global Sustainability Award for Reducing Battery Use, E-Waste

The Business Intelligence Group awarded Powercast with its Sustainability Initiative of the Year in the 2021 Sustainability Awards program. These awards honor those people, teams and organizations who have made sustainability an integral part of their business practice or overall mission.&nb
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Date:
09/08/2021
ROHM, Geely Automobile Group Partner up on SiC Power Devices
Global semiconductor manufacturer ROHM, together with Geely Automobile Group Co., Ltd., a leading Chinese automobile manufacturer, have entered into a strategic partnership to develop advanced technologies in the automotive field. The companies have been collaborating on a variety of automotive applications since 2018, when they first agreed to a technical exchange. This partnership will further promote cooperation and accelerate innovation for automotive applications. Geely is working to extend the cruising range of electric vehicles while reducing battery costs and shortening charge t
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Date:
09/08/2021
The World's Smallest LED Light Engines For Augmented Reality
Building on its long history of delivering cutting edge AR light engines, Avegant announced its latest products -- the AG-30L 30º and AG-50L 50º LED light engines. Avegant's 30º AR light engine uses proprietary illumination technology to dramatically reduce engine volume and weight while preserving eff
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Date:
09/07/2021
Thermal Power will Dominate Power Generation in Russia to 2030
Slow growth of renewable technology in Russia will mean the country will have to continue to significantly depend on thermal sources for power generation, according to GlobalData. The leading data and analytics company notes that thermal power is expected to have the largest share in Russia’s power generation mi
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Date:
09/06/2021
Image Diagnosis Technology w/ a High-Sensitivity Magnetic Sensor
Yokohama National University, a national university corporation (Yokohama-city, Kanagawa pref. President: Izuru Umehara, hereinafter “YNU”) and TDK Corporation (Tokyo, President: Shigenao Ishiguro, hereinafter “TDK”) have developed a prototype image diagnosis technology utilizing a high-sensitivity magnetic se
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Date:
09/06/2021
A Novel Metal Where Electrons Flow with Fluid-Like Dynamics

A small crystal of the new material, a synthesis of Niobium and Germanium (NbGe2), is mounted on a device to examine the behavior of the new electron-phonon liquid. The inset shows the atomic arrangement in the material.

A team of researchers from Boston College has created a new metallic specimen where the motion of electrons flows in the same way water flows in a pipe -- fundamentally changing from particle-like to fluid-like dynamics, the team reports in Nature Communications. Working with colleagues from the Unive
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Date:
09/06/2021
ABB Augments Reality with new Remote Support Technologies
ABB Electrification’s Service business has announced the launch of pioneering solutions to provide interactive remote support using immersive extended reality.  With increasing demand for remote assistance and more interactive customer experiences, the global augmented reality (AR) market is expected
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Date:
09/03/2021
How Methanogenic Microbes Manage Electrons

A 3-MDa complex shows a complex electron-transfer pathway in which a conformational change gates electron flow to and from the center of flavin-based electron bifurcation (FBEB). High-energy electrons from FBEB are directly transferred to the site of CO2 reduction. Hdr = Heterodisufide reductase, Fdh = Format dehydrohenase, Fmd= formylmethanofuran dehydrogenase.

Methanogenic archaea use sophisticated enzyme systems to live in energy-limited anoxic environments. A key mechanism for saving energy is electron bifurcation, a reaction that ‘splits’ the energy of a pair of electrons, making one more strongly reducing at the expense of the other. Researchers from the Max Pl
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Date:
09/03/2021
DOE Announces $25 Million Investment in Polymer Upcycling Research

Dr. Steve Binkley, Acting Director of DOE’s Office of Science

The U.S. Department of Energy (DOE) announced $25 million in funding for 10 research projects to build the scientific foundations for new technology solutions that reuse discarded plastics to make valuable products and reduce plastics waste. “Polymer upcycling holds the promise of boosting reuse of
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Date:
09/03/2021
Using Gold Film to Enhance Quantum Sensing with Qubits in a 2D Material

Tongcang Li and his team at Purdue University have developed ultrathin quantum sensors with 2D materials.

As recently as 2019, spin defects known as qubits were discovered in 2D materials (hexagonal boron nitride), which could amplify the field of ultrathin quantum sensing. These scientists hit a snag in their discovery that has unleashed a scientific race to resolve the issues. The sensitivity of spin qubits in he
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Date:
09/03/2021
Grants Help Students Take a Byte out of Data Science

Rebecca Napolitano leads national multidisciplinary research teams developing curricular framework for data science and workforce development that will be transferrable across engineering disciplines and institutes. Adapted from a modular construction graphic by James Provost, this image represents combining new lessons with existing engineering courses in a modular way and augmenting this with student organizations, industry guidance, and community engagement

All of the data produced or used in 2020 was estimated to be about 59 zettabytes, each of which equals a billion terabytes. If each terabyte represents a mile, 59 zettabytes would allow for almost 10 full round trips from Earth to Pluto.  Understanding and managing data requires strong critical thinking an
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Date:
09/03/2021
Actuator Discovery Outperforms Existing Technology

Mohammad Reza Abidian, associate professor of biomedical engineering at the University of Houston Cullen College of Engineering, has announced a breakthrough with the development of an electrochemical actuator.

University of Houston researchers are reporting a breakthrough in the field of materials science and engineering with the development of an electrochemical actuator that uses specialized organic semiconductor nanotubes (OSNTs). Currently in the early stages of development, the actuator will become a key par
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Date:
09/03/2021
Substantial Energy Reductions to Prevent Blackouts in Northern California
During this record-breaking fire season in California, OhmConnect and its community of energy savers have stepped up to help prevent blackouts in Northern California. During the Bootleg Fire in southern Oregon, parts of the California - Oregon Intertie (Path 66), a vital electric line corr
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Date:
09/02/2021
World's 1st Li-ion Silicon-Dominant Cyclindrical Cell Prototype
StoreDot reveals its ground-breaking silicon-dominant technology applied in extreme fast charging (XFC) cylindrical cells. In a world-first, the company demonstrated the prototype 4680 form factor that is fully charged in just 10 minutes.  StoreDot’s extreme fast charging cylindrical cells utilize a
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Date:
09/02/2021
Volvo Takes Largest Order of Electric Trucks in North America
Performance Team – A Maersk Company, a warehousing and distribution company, has placed an order for 16 Volvo VNR Electric Class 8 trucks—the largest commercial order of the North American zero-tailpipe emission model to date. The VNR Electric model from Volvo Trucks North America is the first zero-tailpipe emissio
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Date:
09/02/2021
Students Win Gold at National Autonomous Boat Competition
Engineering students on Embry-Riddle Aeronautical University’s Maritime RobotX Team brought home a first-place award last week, winning the top prize in the Hardware and Systems Design category for their autonomous vessel system at the Association for Unmanned Vehicles Systems International (A
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Date:
09/02/2021
Improved Water Splitting Method: A Green Energy Innovation
A hydrogen economy is one way in which a carbon neutral world can thrive. At present, the simplest way to produce hydrogen fuel is electrochemical water splitting: running electricity through water in the presence of catalysts (reaction-enhancing substances) to yield hydrogen and oxygen. This reaction, however, is
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Date:
09/01/2021
RWE to Procure Battery Energy Storage from LG Energy Solution
RWE Renewables has signed contracts with LG Energy Solution to provide an integrated battery energy storage system (BESS) for two of RWE's upcoming projects with co-located solar PV facilities in the U.S. "We're delighted to join forces with LG Energy Solution to secure equipment helping us realize two importa
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Date:
09/01/2021
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