Category Archives: Applications

This article originally appeared on EECatalog.com.

By Venetia Espinoza, BrightVolt

Are the power solutions the IoT needs arriving quickly enough?

The massive game-changing potential of the Internet of Things (IoT) connected devices has been limited by a lack of effective power solutions. The solid-state thin film battery market is forecasted to reach $1.3 bil­lion worldwide by 2021 as published by Custom Market Insights. Fueling this growth is the rise of IoT—wear­ables, medical devices and sensors. Traditional battery technologies simply cannot provide the new features and designs that these new applications demand.

However, arriving on the market are thin-film, flexible batteries which are ultra-thin, flexible, rollable, stretch­able and can withstand high temperatures.

Many applications are still emerging, and their require­ments are evolving fast. Because target specs are also very diverse, each with unique requirements for power, thinness, cost, safety, shelf life, reliability, and flex­ibility, a customized power source makes sense.

BrightVolt is one company tackling the demand for small powered solutions.

Figure 1: Traditional battery technologies are giving way to new designs, which can reduce design complexity. (Courtesy BrightVolt)

Low power/long battery life—As IoT infrastructure becomes ubiquitous, many use-cases require designing and building low power and small form factor batteries, both primary and rechargeable. BrightVolt’s Flexion™ batteries have 3.0V, multiple capacity options such as 10, 14, 20, 25mAh and varied tab con­figurations such as extended tab, terminal support, terminal support with ACF. They also have attachment options such as ultrasonic welding, soldering, conductive epoxy and conductive film and a shelf life of 3-5+ years.

Customized—Battery designs are available that are as thin as 0.37mm. For example, BrightVolt Flexion batteries were designed to operate continuously over a wide temperature range (-10 ºC to +60 ºC). They utilize a patented solid polymer electrolyte and contain no volatile liquids or gelling agents. Self-connecting battery terminals using anisotropic conductive film. BrightVolt can custom-build the size, shape, power, capacity, tab configurations and attachment options that are needed for these diverse requirements.

Scalable Manufacturing—BrightVolt has already shipped millions of units. Scalability is our key differentiator. We can take a solution from prototype to full production and anything in between. Our enduring quality, durability, and built-in intelligence is what makes us the best choice for custom product designs.

Safe—It is now possible to find batteries that are non-toxic, non-corrosive and environ­mentally friendly. It’s also important to choose an Inherently safe design that reduces the need for additional battery safety circuitry. Polymer matrix electrolyte provides outstanding thermal stability with no volatile liquids or gels.

Medical Miracles and Thin Batteries

Nanotechnology itself dates back to the 1980s, when U.S. engineer Eric Drexler coined it. Today, nanotechnology and tiny batteries are changing the medical device industry.

Applicable medical uses include the ability to use small form batteries to power the circuitry associated wit skin-based monitoring devices that can detect the glucose levels, for example. Trans­dermal drug delivery and patches could change how injectable drugs are delivered in a more effective time-released manner through a battery-powered patch.

Additionally, the combination of a nanosensor used in conjunction with a smartphone could be used to track auto­immune diseases and cancer. It could also be an effective screening tool for rejection in patients with organ transplants.

Sensors, Smart Packaging and the IoT

It is anticipated that the temperature monitoring market will reach over $3.2 billion by 2020. Smart sensor labels answer the needs for numerous indus­tries, particularly perishable goods. These printed electronics devices and labeling enable the IoT to reduce waste and improve consumer safety.

This technology allows pharmaceutical companies to keep temperature-sensitive products safe and effective, while pre­venting the unnecessary ruin of usable products. Retailers who use temperature-monitoring labels during shipment of produce and other food products as well as cosmetics and off-the-shelf healthcare items will have immediate insight with regards to both shelf life and food safety.

Some of the most ubiquitous wearables are fitness trackers like FitBit and Jaw­bone that hit the market like wildfire in 2013. 1 in 5 Americans today wear this technology to track their activity levels, sleep and more. Wearables will continue to evolve in size, usability, form factors and diverse power needs.

Assisted living and eldercare is another compelling and demanding wearable technology market. Wearable sensors for this market pose massive potential in generating big data for IoT, with a great applicability to biomedicine and ‘ambient assisted living’ (AAL). ‘Ambient intelligence’ in eldercare is being sensi­tive and responsive to the presence of people. Recent advancements in several technological areas have helped the vision of AAL to become a reality. These tech­nologies include of course smart homes, assistive robotics, and, in small form: e-textile, mobile and wearable sensors.

Another significant advancement is detecting common medical issues such as sleep apnea, which used to require an uncomfortable in-clinic sleep study. No more. Today, a patient can wear a device overnight in the privacy of their own home and send the results off to their physician. Other exciting uses include trackers in clothing, interactive toys, games and more.

Embedding Security

Target’s $10 million 2013 class action data breach lawsuit and privacy issue hammered home just how devastating security fraud really is. Since that time, many credit cards are now embedded with an EMV chip but there’s an even better solution emerging. Not only will a small form battery the size of a postage stamp power these new cards, a com­puter chip randomizes the code number about every hour, adding to its security. This renders the card useless to anyone who has written down your card number, expiration date and code. This applica­tion will effectively eliminate ‘card not present’ fraud. Other ultra-thin battery uses in a credit card could allow for a tiny screen on your card itself that displays your balance.

When Apple launched its biometric ID fingerprint reader on its iPhone 5S, many people adjusted quickly to the convenience of the fingerprint password. Building on that same technology, travel documents including drivers’ licenses and passports, as well as vital health information, can be included in one ultra-thin battery-powered, pocket-sized card that fits in your wallet.

Conclusion

By assessing the considerations outlined in this article, a product designer can effectively achieve a small-form factor product able to reliably operate with the right battery. Custom batteries can eliminate design complexities and opti­mize battery use for many applications.

About the Author

Venetia Espinoza is in charge of market­ing at BrightVolt, a worldwide leader in the design, development and scale manufacturing of thin film batteries. She holds more than 25 years of marketing and product experience with premier technology companies. She also served as Vice President and General Manager of Softcard, a joint venture established by industry giants Verizon, AT&T and T-Mobile. She holds an MBA and BS de­gree in Industrial Engineering.

ams AG (SIX: AMS) today took a step forward in its long-term strategy of increasing manufacturing capacity for its high-performance sensors and sensor solution integrated circuits (ICs), holding a groundbreaking event at the site of its new wafer fabrication plant in Utica, New York.

An artist’s rendering of a semiconductor fab at the Marcy site.

The ceremony featured New York Lieutenant Governor Kathy Hochul, Utica Mayor Robert Palmieri, local dignitaries and senior executives from ams and SUNY Polytechnic Institute.

ams sensor solutions are relied upon globally by manufacturers of smartphones, tablets and other communications devices, automakers, audio and medical equipment manufacturers and others. ams sensors are used in hundreds of millions of devices to recognize light, color, gestures, images, motion, position, environmental and medical parameters and more.

With construction work now underway on the new fab, ams remains on track to reach its target for the first batches of wafers made at the plant in the first half of 2018.

Production capacity at the Utica fab will supplement ams’ existing 180nm and 350nm CMOS and SiGe fab at its headquarters near Graz, Austria. Adding this additional volume to its in-house chip manufacturing facilities positions ams to meet the forecasted growth in demand for its high-performance sensor solution ICs.

New York Governor Andrew Cuomo has made public-private partnerships an important part of this  Nano Utica initiative, which exceeds 4,000 projected jobs over the next decade. Designed to replicate the dramatic success of SUNY Poly’s Nanotech Megaplex in Albany, NANO Utica further cements New York’s international recognition as the preeminent hub for 21st century nanotechnology innovation, education, and economic development.

The Governor says the addition of ams and others to Nano Utica is creating an economic revolution around nano-technology in the Mohawk Valley region, and that the economy there is “gathering momentum unlike ever before.”

The new fab, which is being built to ams’s specifications and which ams will operate under a 20-year lease, is expected initially to offer capacity of at least 150,000 200mm-wafer equivalents per year. Planned expansion thereafter will eventually see the plant operating at a capacity of more than 450,000 200mm-wafer equivalents per year.

The new fab is located close to a campus of SUNY Polytechnic Institute in New York’s Tech Valley, the largest region focused on technology manufacturing in the US and home to other nanotechnology and semiconductor companies. The fab will be capable of producing wafers at the 130nm node, and more advanced nodes in the future.

Today’s celebratory event at the new fab site also marked the success of the partnership behind the project to build, equip and operate another high-technology manufacturing facility in the State of New York. This partnership has benefited from a wide-ranging collaboration between public sector bodies such as the New York governor’s office, the City of Utica and the State University of New York, and various private sector institutions including ams, the fab’s sole leaseholder.

Approximately 250 people gathered at the construction site to see Lt. Governor Hochul and ams CEO Alexander Everke break ground for the foundation of what will be, on completion in 2018, one of the world’s largest analog wafer fabs.

“Building this new wafer fab enables ams to achieve its plans for growth and to meet the increasing demand for sensor solutions produced at advanced manufacturing nodes. Our decision to locate the facility in New York was motivated by the availability of a highly skilled workforce, the proximity to prestigious educational and research institutions, and the favorable business environment, backed by public and private partners,” Mr. Everke said. “What we will create together in Utica will be the most productive ‘More than Moore’ fab worldwide,” he added.

Whether it’s the Internet of Things (IoT), wearables, or industrial automation, new devices and applications are portable, battery-operated and require continuous power.  Wireless connectivity is required for connecting to the Internet.  Today’s devices collect and transmit data from sensors, are always or almost always on and require power.  The semiconductor industry has met the challenge to design devices for low power operation.  But eventually batteries still run out of energy and have to be replaced or recharged.  Energy harvesting can extend battery life or possibly replace batteries altogether for continuous operation.  The new Semico Research report “Energy Harvesting: The Next Billion Dollar Market for Semiconductors” projects semiconductor sales for this market will reach $3 billion by 2020.

An energy harvesting solution requires more than just the energy harvester or transducer.  The key components include a power converter, power management IC (PMIC), MCU, and energy storage.  “An ecosystem of semiconductor vendors is emerging for the nascent energy harvesting market,” says Tony Massimini, Semico Research’s Chief of Technology.  “The ecosystems are gravitating around the vendors of key power components.  They are forming partnerships with producers of energy harvesters, battery suppliers, and other components.”

This study examines the market opportunity for energy harvesting outside of large installations and commercial power generation.  A broad range of markets will employ energy harvesting to either replace batteries or extend battery life. These applications cover wireless sensor nodes (WSN) for bridges, infrastructure, building automation and controls, and home automation (including lighting, security and environmental). Energy harvesting will grow in automotive applications, cell phones, wearables and other consumer electronics.

“The vendors of MCUs, sensors, RF, analog and other components will continue to develop lower power devices”, according to Massimini. “While this puts less drain on a battery and will extend its life, it also lessens the load for an energy harvesting solution.  Energy harvesting solutions are also expected to improve during the forecast period.”

The ASPs for the semiconductor components continue to decline, lowering the costs for an energy harvesting solution.  This is driving higher penetration rates.

Key findings of the report include:

  • The number of energy harvesting solutions will grow to 777 million units by 2020 (CAGR ’15 to ’20 = 80.6%).
  • Smartphone market will become the largest by volume by 2020.
  • WSN in commercial and industrial applications, including bridges, will be the second largest market by 2020
  • Semiconductor revenues in Energy Harvesting will reach $3 billion by 2020(CAGR ’15 to ’20 = 71.4%).

In its recent report “Energy Harvesting: The Next Billion Dollar Marketfor Semiconductors” (MP112-16), presents the market for energy harvesting by key end use markets and the semiconductor content.  Readers will see which market segment is growing fastest and which semiconductor components account for sales potential.  The report discusses the latest trends in energy harvesting, the growing ecosystem, and technical innovations.  Included are profiles of silicon vendors involved with energy harvesting and other key vendors in the ecosystem. The report is 70 pages long and includes 11 tables and 24 figures.

Companies cited in the report: Analog Devices, Atmel, Audience, Cherry Switches, Cymbet, Cypress, enOcean, Linear Technology, Maxim Integrated, Microchip Technology, NXP, Powercast, Renesas, Semtech, Silicon Labs, Silicon Reef, STmicroelectronics, Texas Instruments, Imprint Energy, Sakti3, Solid Power, Apple, Laird, MicroGen, Micropelt, Thermo Life, Thermogen Technologies, Sanyo, EnerBee, Energy Harvesters, K3OPS, Nikola Labs and Imec.

This report is part of Semico Research’s IoT and MEMS portfolios, which also include:

The Smart Economy: The Internet of Everything

IoT Security: At What Cost?

Sensors in Wearables and Mobile: The Many Players

The Smart Home: Big Brother or Swarm Intelligence?

IC Insights’ March Update to the 2016 McClean Report refreshed the forecasts for 33 major IC product categories through 2020.  The complete list of all 33 major IC product categories ranked by the updated forecast growth rates for 2016 is shown in Figure 1.  Fourteen product categories—topped by Cellphone Application Processors and Signal Conversion (analog) devices—are expected to exceed the 2% growth rate forecast for the total IC market this year. Another five product categories are expected to grow at the same 2% rate as the total IC market.  The total number of IC categories forecast to register sales growth in 2016 increases to 20 products from only nine in 2015.

Growth of Cellphone Application MPUs (10%) is forecast to remain near the top on the growth list for a fifth consecutive year. Though the rate of growth for cellphone application MPUs has cooled in recent years, IC Insights still forecasts a solid 10% growth year for this market as smartphone shipments remain an attractive end-use application for IC markets.  Signal Conversion (DAC analog, etc.) devices are also expected to show a 10% increase in 2016 thanks to their implementation across a wide variety of consumer, communication, and computing devices, and in other systems to monitor and control the interface between analog and digital signals.   The market for 32-bit MCUs is forecast to increase 8% with “intelligent” cars the catalyst for much of this growth.  Driver information systems and many of the increasing number of semi-autonomous driving features such as self-parking, advanced cruise control, and collision-avoidance rely on 32-bit MCUs. Complex 32-bit MCUs are expected to account for over 25% of the processing power in vehicles in the next few years.

Other notable categories include the previously high-flying Tablet MPU market, which is forecast to sputter to just 2% growth in 2016 as enthusiasm fades for these systems. DRAM is expected to show a steep market decline this year and drop to become the second-largest IC product category (trailing only the standard PC, server MPU market) in 2016.  After registering big gains in 2013 and 2014, the DRAM market fell 3% in 2015 and is forecast to tumble another 8% in 2016 as oversupply and waning desktop and notebook computer demand force suppliers to slash average selling prices to move product.  Worldwide DRAM ASP growth was down 4% in 2015 and is on track to fall 11% in 2016.

2016 forecast of ic market

Figure 1

Converting a single photon from one color, or frequency, to another is an essential tool in quantum communication, which harnesses the subtle correlations between the subatomic properties of photons (particles of light) to securely store and transmit information. Scientists at the National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST) have now developed a miniaturized version of a frequency converter, using technology similar to that used to make computer chips.

False-color scanning electron micrograph of a nanophotonic frequency converter, consisting of a ring-shaped resonator (shaded blue) into which light is injected using a waveguide (shaded red). The input signal, depicted as a purple arrow, is converted to a new frequency (blue arrow) through the application of two pump lasers (light and dark red arrows). Credit: K. Srinivasan et al./NIST

False-color scanning electron micrograph of a nanophotonic frequency converter, consisting of a ring-shaped resonator (shaded blue) into which light is injected using a waveguide (shaded red). The input signal, depicted as a purple arrow, is converted to a new frequency (blue arrow) through the application of two pump lasers (light and dark red arrows). Credit: K. Srinivasan et al./NIST

The tiny device, which promises to help improve the security and increase the distance over which next-generation quantum communication systems operate, can be tailored for a wide variety of uses, enables easy integration with other information-processing elements and can be mass produced.

The new nanoscale optical frequency converter efficiently converts photons from one frequency to the other while consuming only a small amount of power and adding a very low level of noise, namely background light not associated with the incoming signal.

Frequency converters are essential for addressing two problems. The frequencies at which quantum systems optimally generate and store information are typically much higher than the frequencies required to transmit that information over kilometer-scale distances in optical fibers. Converting the photons between these frequencies requires a shift of hundreds of terahertz (one terahertz is a trillion wave cycles per second).

A much smaller, but still critical, frequency mismatch arises when two quantum systems that are intended to be identical have small variations in shape and composition. These variations cause the systems to generate photons that differ slightly in frequency instead of being exact replicas, which the quantum communication network may require.

The new photon frequency converter, an example of nanophotonic engineering, addresses both issues, Qing Li, Marcelo Davanço and Kartik Srinivasan write in Nature Photonics. The key component of the chip-integrated device is a tiny ring-shaped resonator, about 80 micrometers in diameter (slightly less than the width of a human hair) and a few tenths of a micrometer in thickness. The shape and dimensions of the ring, which is made of silicon nitride, are chosen to enhance the inherent properties of the material in converting light from one frequency to another. The ring resonator is driven by two pump lasers, each operating at a separate frequency. In a scheme known as four-wave-mixing Bragg scattering, a photon entering the ring is shifted in frequency by an amount equal to the difference in frequencies of the two pump lasers.

Like cycling around a racetrack, incoming light circulates around the resonator hundreds of times before exiting, greatly enhancing the device’s ability to shift the photon’s frequency at low power and with low background noise. Rather than using a few watts of power, as typical in previous experiments, the system consumes only about a hundredth of that amount. Importantly, the added amount of noise is low enough for future experiments using single-photon sources.

While other technologies have been applied to frequency conversion, “nanophotonics has the benefit of potentially enabling the devices to be much smaller, easier to customize, lower power, and compatible with batch fabrication technology,” said Srinivasan. “Our work is a first demonstration of a nanophotonic technology suitable for this demanding task of quantum frequency conversion.”

This work was performed by researchers at NIST’s Center for Nanoscale Science and Technology.

“Efficient and low-noise single-photon-level frequency conversion interfaces using silicon nanophotonics.” Q. Li, M. Davanço and K. Srinivasan.  Nature Photonics, 18 April 2016. DOI: 10.1038/nphoton.2016.64

The 62nd annual IEEE International Electron Devices Meeting (IEDM), to be held at the San Francisco Union Square Hilton hotel December 3 – 7, 2016, has issued a Call for Papers seeking the world’s best original work in all areas of microelectronics research and development.

The paper submission deadline this year is Wednesday, August 10, 2016. This deadline –– about 1½ months later than has been the norm for the IEDM – reduces the time between paper submissions and publication of the cutting-edge research results for which the conference is known. Also new for 2016 is that authors are asked to submit four-page camera-ready abstracts (instead of three pages), which will be published as-is in the proceedings.

Because of the more abbreviated schedule, only a very limited number of late-news papers will be accepted. Authors are asked to submit late-news abstracts announcing only the most recent and noteworthy developments. The late-news submission deadline is September 12, 2016.

“Because microelectronics technology changes so rapidly, it makes sense to shorten the time between when results are achieved and when they are discussed among the industry’s best and brightest who attend IEDM,” said Dr. Martin Giles, IEDM 2016 Publicity Chair and Intel Fellow and Director of Transistor Technology Variation in Intel’s Technology and Manufacturing Group. “This later submission deadline ensures that the freshest and most up-to-date work can be presented at the conference.”

Overall, the 2016 IEDM is seeking increased participation in the areas of power, wearable/Internet of Things (IoT), ultra-high speed, and quantum computing devices, which will be explored in depth in Special Focus Sessions in each area.

At IEDM each year, the world’s best scientists and engineers in the field of microelectronics from industry, academia and government gather to participate in a technical program of more than 220 presentations, along with special luncheon presentations and a variety of panels, special sessions, Short Courses, IEEE/EDS award presentations and other events spotlighting more leading work in more areas of the field than any other conference.

Papers in the following areas are encouraged:

  • Circuit and Device Interaction
  • Characterization, Reliability and Yield
  • Compound Semiconductor and High-Speed Devices
  • Memory Technology
  • Modeling and Simulation
  • Nano Device Technology
  • Optoelectronics, Displays and Imagers
  • Power Devices
  • Process and Manufacturing Technology
  • Sensors, MEMS and BioMEMS

Further information

For more information, interested persons should visit the IEDM 2016 home page at www.ieee-iedm.org.

MU, a medical-device manufacturer, and STMicroelectronics today announced that MU’s US-304 portable ultrasound imager, powered by ST’s STHV800 pulser, is aiming to increase the quality of point-of-care medical diagnostics in remote rural areas of Africa.

MU’s device has been developed for the “Doctor Car” mobile-clinic project to provide medical care in remote rural areas of Africa. In this project, medical workers use a special vehicle equipped with remote-healthcare systems to diagnose residents in remote rural areas where medical facilities are unavailable. The data obtained by the portable ultrasound device is transferred via mobile networks to healthcare entities in urban areas for detailed diagnosis and proper treatment. MU will start shipping ultrasound imagers to Doctor Cars and clinics in Africa this year.

The MU US-304 is a convex-type ultrasonic imager (3.5MHz) capable of performing abdominal diagnosis up to 15cm under the skin. It can be carried anywhere and simply connected via USB to a laptop or tablet. The MU device integrates ST’s high-voltage, high-speed ultrasonic-pulser IC (integrated circuit) with an 8-channel transducer driver circuit manufactured in ST’s proprietary 200V SOI-BCD semiconductor process. This process enables the integration of high-voltage CMOS technology, precise analog circuitry, and robust power stages on the same chip.

The industry’s most highly integrated ultrasonic pulser, ST’s STHV800 also offers low noise and tiny size to help produce accurate diagnostic images at a much lower cost and power consumption compared with stationary ultrasound equipment.

“The challenge in developing point-of-care ultrasound diagnostic devices is to achieve high portability and low cost without sacrificing performance. ST technology has proven an ideal solution to this problem,” said Yasuhiro Tamura, President, MU. “As we continue to create products for medical care in developing regions, in cooperation with ST, we hope to expand our application scope to new areas including livestock care.”

“MU’s newest portable ultrasound device is on course to improve the quality of medical diagnostics in remote rural areas, where the need is great,” said Hiroshi Noguchi, Director, Analog, MEMS and Sensors Group, STMicroelectronics Japan. “The selection of ST technology confirms our commitment to providing ultrasound-equipment makers with the highest performing ICs in the market and positions ST as the go-to partner for creating innovative applications that make positive contributions to people’s health and quality of life.”

ST offers a cost-effective evaluation board (STEVAL-IME013V1) that integrates the STHV800 pulser IC with an STM32F4 ARM Cortex-M microcontroller. The board’s graphical user interface and preset waveforms make it simple for designers to test the pulser under different conditions.

Nanoelectronics research center imec and Crystal Solar, a pioneer in direct wafer growing technologies for the next generation of solar photovoltaic products, today announced that they have achieved a 22.5 percent cell efficiency (certified by FhG ISE CalLab) with nPERT silicon (Si) solar cells manufactured on 6-inch mono-crystalline epitaxially grown kerfless wafers. Marking an industry first, imec and Crystal Solar have demonstrated the highest efficiency to-date for homojunction solar cells on epitaxially grown silicon wafers, paving the way toward industrialization of this promising technology.

Crystal Solar’s breakthrough manufacturing technology called Direct Gas to Wafer enables direct conversion of feedstock gas to mono crystalline silicon wafers by high throughput epitaxial growth. By skipping the polysilicon, ingoting and the wire-sawing steps altogether, this approach not only results in lowest cost/watt for the wafers but also significantly reduces the capital required to set up a manufacturing plant. Furthermore, this process enables the growth of high quality p-n junctions in-situ which reduces cell making steps while increasing the efficiency.

Imec has adapted its highly efficient nPERT Si solar cell process to align with the properties of Crystal Solar’s kerfless wafers. The 156x156mm2 cells were fabricated on 160 to 180 um thick grown n-type wafers with built-in rear p+ emitter. Imec’s n-PERT process included a selective front surface field realized by laser doping, advanced emitter surface passivation by Al2O3 and Ni/Cu plated contacts. The novel process using all industrially available processing steps resulted in record efficiencies for homojunction large area solar cells of 22.5 percent and a record Voc of 700mV. This high Voc illustrates the high quality of the wafers and the built-in junction.

Jozef Szlufcik, PV Department Director at imec: “We are extremely happy to have achieved such high conversion efficiencies on nPERT solar cells processed from kerfless wafers using imec’s pre-pilot industrial silicon PV manufacturing line. The combination of our advanced cell process and the innovative wafer manufacturing technique of Crystal Solar, is paving the way for manufacturing of highly efficient solar cells at substantially lower cost and will be disruptive for the complete solar manufacturing value chain.”

“We are pleased to see such a high conversion efficiency on our epitaxially grown n-type wafers with built in boron doped junctions,” said T.S. Ravi, CEO of Crystal Solar. “This approach represents a new paradigm in cell manufacturing with its unique ability to bypass significant steps in both wafer and cell manufacturing thereby dramatically reducing the capex and the overall cost per watt.  We expect to achieve >23% efficiencies with IMEC’s PERT technology in the very near future,” Mr. Ravi concluded.

Imec, the nanoelectronics research center, today announced that its annual Imec Technology Forum (ITF) in Brussels will take place May 24-25, 2016 in Brussels, Belgium at SQUARE, Brussels Meeting Centre. ITF Brussels is the flagship of imec’s worldwide series of technology forums that brings experts and visionaries together to discuss the future of technology and tech-innovation to market. This year’s theme is “Daring to Take a Different View—Nanotechnology in the Hot Seat,” which will explore nanotechnology from all angles, question its future course, and identify new applications and paths for its use.

“The heart of imec is innovation and collaboration, and ITF Brussels will demonstrate that. Innovation is the result of hard work, endless questions, challenges to the status quo. Attendees will experience first-hand how constantly pushing these boundaries is essential to come up with groundbreaking solutions and stimulate innovation,” stated Luc Van den hove, president and CEO of imec. “The recent events in Brussels have deeply touched all of us, however the city is open for business and travel. Imec is privileged to bring our partners and international guests together in Brussels to focus on this year’s theme.”

Expecting to draw more than 1,000 attendees, ITF Brussels will offer numerous expert speakers from within the imec organization such as An Steegen, senior vice president process technology, and Wim Van Thillo, director perceptive systems for IoT, automotive and wireless. Industry speakers will also headlineincluding C-level executives from Samsung, Mentor Graphics, ASM International, Infineon Technologies, GlobalFoundries, J&J Pharmaceuticals, Audi, Microsoft, to name just a few.

ITF Brussels will introduce two new additions to the conference line up: interactive panel discussions and imec hot seats. Hot topics in today’s technology discussion will be explored such as “Scaling is dead. Long live scaling.”; “How close are we to precision medicine?’; “It’s a software world but it would be nothing without hardware?”, and “Combining ecological and economical sustainability.” Panelists will comprise both imec and guest partner executives and offer their various perspectives, and attendees will have an interactive role with panel voting and Q&A. Imec hot seats will place imec experts front and center to answer attendee questions, exchange ideas, investigate collaboration opportunities and consider different views. Spanning its vast R&D focus, topics such as energy, IoT, healthcare, services, and CMOS will be analyzed.

ITF Brussels 2016 takes place May 24-25, 2016 at the SQUARE, Brussels Meeting Centre. For the full list of speakers, conference program, registration and more information, please visit: http://www.itf2016.be/Homepage/page.aspx/2098

The Internet of Things (IoT) is a technology concept that is currently transforming and redefining virtually all markets and industries in fundamental ways. In fact, IHS forecasts that the IoT market will grow from an installed base of 15.4 billion devices in 2015 to 30.7 billion devices in 2020 and 75.4 billion in 2025, according to “IoT Platforms: Enabling the Internet of Things” a new white paper available as a free download from IHS Inc. (NYSE: IHS), a global source of critical information and insight.

An important sign of the fundamental significance of the IoT concept is that most major information and communication technology vendors are now strategically developing IoT offerings. Companies that sit at the heart of the telecom, networking, industrial infrastructure, enterprise system, and cloud computing sectors are now offering platforms to facilitate the broader economy’s transformation to pervasive connectivity. Over the past five years, fragmented efforts to connect machines and sensors in industry-specific ways are now coalescing into a comprehensive vision of connectivity permeating the global physical environment.

“IoT platforms serve to remove the complexity when developing, deploying, and managing applications over the application lifecycle,” said Sam Lucero, senior principal analyst, IHS Technology. “Moreover, these underlying platforms provide operators flexibility to choose various strategic approaches to the IoT beyond simple managed connectivity offers. IoT platforms enable new value-added services for developers and implementers, while providing complete, end-to-end IoT solutions directly to the market.”