Category Archives: Manufacturing

UPMEM, a fabless semiconductor startup company, announces UPMEM Processing In-Memory (PIM), the next generation hardware solution for data intensive applications in the datacenter, solving server-level efficiency and performance bottlenecks. UPMEM’s programmer friendly acceleration technology is much awaited for by big data players as Moore’s law is fading away.

“The new generation of data intensive applications can no longer be easily handled by traditional CPUs,” said Gilles Hamou, CEO and co-founder of UPMEM. “Initial benchmarks by our partners validate the game-changing added-value of UPMEM PIM technology, as well as the strong fit of its programming model for a large scope of real world data-intensive applications.”

The PIM chip, integrating UPMEM’s proprietary RISC processors (DRAM Processing Units, DPUs) and main memory (DRAM), is the building block of the first efficient, scalable and programmable acceleration solution for big data applications. Associated with its Software Development Kit, the UPMEM PIM solution can accelerate data-intensive applications in the datacenter servers 20 times, with close to zero additional energy premium. This huge leap opens new horizons for Big Data players, in terms of costs and new services.

“Faster and more efficient data analytics require new datacentric application architectures, positioning compute nearer the data,” said Western Digital iMemory Project leader Robin O’Neill. “The UPMEM Processing In-Memory solution is particularly relevant and highly promising for a variety of data analytics use cases, without dramatic changes to server architectures.”

UPMEM’s innovative technology solves the Memory Wall and the dominant energy cost of data movement between the processor and its main memory in application servers. Thousands of UPMEM in-memory co-processors (DRAM Processing Units, aka DPUs) orchestrated by the main processor, localize most of data processing in the memory chips, while proposing familiar programmability. Besides, the UPMEM solution comes without any disruption of existing server hardware, standardized protocols, programming & compiling schemes, removing any barrier for fast & massive adoption. For instance, the UPMEM solution provides a full DNA mapping and variance analysis in minutes instead of hours, making affordable real-time personalized genomics a reality.

The financing round will enable the company to produce and bring to market its disruptive Processing In-Memory (PIM) chip-based solution. In parallel, UPMEM will accelerate its evaluation programs with top tier global big data customers and IT labs, using available programming and simulation tools.

UPMEM obtained this series A financing from actors engaged in semiconductors and with a strong footprint in Europeand the US: C4Ventures, Partech Ventures, Supernova Invest, Western Digital Capital, Crédit Agricole bank, and entrepreneurs from the data center and micro electronics industry led by Etix CEO Charles-Antoine Beyney. Reza Malekzadeh from Partech Ventures and Charles-Antoine Beyney will join the UPMEM board of directors.

“Data intensive use cases are severally constrained by the Memory Wall issue,” explains Olivier Huez, Partner at C4 Ventures. “We’ve looked far and wide and UPMEM’s founders have built the only company on the market which can address this seamlessly and deliver such an impressive uplift in performance.”

“We are no longer in an era were CPUs and other hardware getting continuously faster would mask the slow speed of inefficient software,” said Reza Malekzadeh, General Partner at Partech Ventures. “UPMEM’s solution addresses the performance needs of modern scale-out applications while preserving datacenter and infrastructure hardware investments.”

“The PIM concept is not new in itself,” said Christophe Desrumaux, Investment Director at Supernova Invest. “But UPMEM brings together a world class team, an innovative patented approach without any hardware compatibility disruption, and a full set of design tools that make it widely adoptable by users.”

STMicroelectronics (NYSE: STM) has strengthened its ecosystem through a Partner Program that connects customers with qualified technical specialists capable of strategically supporting their projects.

The new ST Partner Program helps customers’ design teams access extra skills, products, and services to aid engineering development and shorten time-to-market for new products. While searching ST parts, solutions, and resources online, customers can at the same time identify approved Program members with competencies related to the chosen products. These competencies can be in Cloud services, associated Components or Modules, embedded Software, Engineering services, Development tools, or Training services. This info is also centralized in a dedicated partner area on the ST website at www.st.com/partners.

“The ST Partner Program provides fast introductions to trusted partners able to supply expertise to critical design projects. We evaluate program applicants to ensure that all partners are committed to offering consistently high-quality services,” said Alessandro Maloberti, Partner Ecosystem Director, STMicroelectronics. “The Program is designed to encourage product developers to choose even more components, modules, embedded software, and tools from the broad portfolio available at st.com to start their new product designs.”

Potential partners can apply to join the ST Partner Program via web registration. A complete framework covering technical, marketing, legal, and business aspects protects partners and ensures high service quality for customers. New, formalized partner benefits include enhanced marketing support from ST, which may include promotion in the ST Community and ST YouTube channel, the right to use the ST Partner Program logo and communication materials, as well as exposure to ST’s global customer base of engineers and purchasers from leading high-tech brands, manufacturing-service providers, and independent engineers and designers.

Going forward, ST will introduce more ways for its partners to engage, including co-marketing activities, sharing design opportunities, training, and networking events.

SEMI, with its Strategic Association partner MEMS & Sensors Industry Group (MSIG), today announced its shortlist of competitors for the Technology Showcase, which will take place on September 21 at the SEMI European MEMS & Sensors Summit 2017 in Grenoble. Selected by a committee of industry experts, five finalist companies will demonstrate advancements in MEMS and sensors for markets that span Internet of Things (IoT), consumer electronics, robotics and biomedical. The audience will vote for a winner, which will be announced at the Summit’s conclusion.

“We congratulate the finalists of the Technology Showcase, an event where attendees experience some of the newest and most fascinating MEMS and sensors technology in an interactive setting,” said Laith Altimime, president, SEMI Europe. “While this is SEMI’s first Technology Showcase at our European MEMS & Sensors Summit, this excellent group of contenders should make it an audience favorite.”

Technology Showcase finalists include:

Bosch Sensortec GmbH: BML050 — a high-precision MEMS scanner for interactive laser projection applications, which offers a virtual user interface solution for IoT applications such as home appliances, tablets and social robots.

Fraunhofer Institute for Photonic Microsystems: Integrated Capacitive Micromachined Ultrasonic Transducers (CMUTs) — provides miniaturized, highly sensitive, low-power, and customer-specific sensors and sensor nodes for applications in liquid and gases. Applications include human-machine interaction, robotics, biomedical, and smart consumer systems.

Hap2U: Ultrasonic Piezoelectric Actuators for Smart Touchscreen Applications — gives users the sensation of feeling sliders, knobs and buttons while touching their display. Hap2U’s new approach to haptic feedback drastically reduces applied power and power consumption.

Philips Innovation Services: CMUTs for Ultrasound and Non-Ultrasound Devices — complements conventional technology with advantages such as large bandwidth, easy fabrication of large arrays, and monolithic integration of ASIC functionality. Through Philips MEMS Foundry, CMUTs are available for medium- and high-volume manufacturing.

Si-Ware Systems: NeoSpectra MEMS Spectral Sensors —features an FT-IR spectrometer on MEMS die. NeoSpectra MEMS Spectral Sensors enable tiny low-cost spectral sensors that are highly integrated, scalable and reliable, making them ideal for in-field and inline applications in various industries, including consumer electronics.

The Technology Showcase at SEMI European MEMS & Sensors Summit (September 20-22, 2017) will take place from 11:00 am-12:00 pm on September 21 at the MINATEC innovation campus at 3 parvis Louis Néel, Grenoble, France.

Despite its age and maturity, the automotive market has witnessed many unexpected developments over the past two years. And as has always been the case, safety drives the market. Automotive OEMs and suppliers are now investing in technologies to develop autonomous and electric vehicles. Automation will spur the development of imaging and detection sensors like cameras, LiDAR, and radar, while electrification will boost the design of current and thermal sensors for battery management. And because sensors are becoming a must-have, other markets are dynamic and growing too.

Yole Développement (Yole), part of Yole Group of Companies, presents an overview of the different sensors involved in autonomous systems with its new report MEMS & Sensors for Automotive. It also describes the applications, technologies and players associated with the automotive sensors market’s impending changes. This analysis includes detailed roadmaps and market forecasts until 2022.

How will sensor technology shape the tomorrow’s automotive industry? Yole’s analysts propose you today a deep understanding of the reborn automotive sensor market.

In a global automotive market worth than US$2.3 trillion, the little world of automotive sensors has recently been shaken up by the emergence of electric and autonomous cars.

Despite just 3% growth in the volume of cars sold expected through to 2022, Yole expects an average growth rate in sensors sales volumes above 8% over the next five years, and above 14% growth in sales value. This is thanks to the expanding integration of high value sensing modules like RADAR, imaging and LiDAR. The current automotive sensing market groups MEMS and classic active sensors such as pressure, TPMS , chemical, inertial, magnetic, ultrasonic, imaging, RADAR and LiDAR. “This market is worth US$11 billion in 2016 and is expected to reach US$23 billion by 2022,” announced Guillaume Girardin, Technology & Market Analyst at Yole. “This is mainly due to the boom in imaging, RADAR and LiDAR sensors, which will respectively be worth US$7.7 billion, US$6.2 billion and US$1.4 billion by 2022,” he adds.

Among classical sensors like pressure, chemical and magnetic sensors, the impact of electric vehicles will remain small in the short term. However, the advent of electrical vehicles will greatly change the amount and the distribution of pressure and magnetic sensors within the car in the longer term. More electric cars will mean fewer pressure sensors and a surge in magnetic sensors for battery monitoring and various positioning and detection of moving pieces. Finally, the automotive world is experiencing one of the fastest-changing eras in its evolution ever. Sensor suppliers are now engaged in a race where they need to be prepared for the golden age of the automotive world.

Among all sensing technologies located in the car, three main sensors will drastically change the landscape: imaging, RADAR and LiDAR sensors.

Imaging sensors were initially mounted for ADAS purposes in high-end vehicles, with deep learning image analysis techniques promoting early adoption. It is now a well-established fact that vision-based AEB is possible and saves lives. Adoption of forward ADAS cameras will therefore accelerate.
Growth of imaging for automotive is also being fueled by the park assist application, and 360° surround view camera volumes are skyrocketing. While it is becoming mandatory in the US to have a rear view camera, that uptake is dwarfed by 360° surround view cameras, which enable a “bird’s eye view” perspective. This trend is most beneficial to companies like Omnivision at sensor level and Panasonic and Valeo, which have become the main manufacturers of automotive cameras.
RADAR sensors, which are often wrongly seen as competitors of imaging and LiDAR sensors, are increasingly adopted in high-end vehicles. They are also diffusing into mid-price cars for blind spot detection and adaptive cruise control, pushing Level 2/3 features as a common experience.

Lastly, LiDAR remains the “Holy Grail” for most automotive players, allowing 3D sensing of the environment. In this report Yole’ analysts highlight the different potential usages of this technology, which will transform the transportation industry completely.

“We expect tremendous growth of the LiDAR market within the next five years, from being worth US$300 million in 2017 to US$4.4 billion by 2022,” detailed Guillaume Girardin from Yole. LiDAR is expected to be a key technology, but sensing redundancy will still be the backbone of the automotive world where security remains the golden rule.

The MEMS & Sensors for automotive report represents the best of Yole’s automotive sensor industry and imaging sector knowledge. Yole regularly participates in industry conferences and tradeshows worldwide, and maintains close relations with market leaders.

Unlike the slow ferroelastic domain switching expected for ceramics, high-speed sub-microsecond ferroelastic domain switching and simultaneous lattice deformation are directly observed for the Pb(Zr0.4Ti0.6)O3 thin films. This exciting finding paves the way for high-frequency ultrafast electromechanical switches and sensors.

Piezo micro electro mechanical systems (piezoMEMS) are miniaturized devices exhibiting piezoelectricity, i.e., the appearance of an electric charge under applied mechanical stress. These devices have many diverse applications in energy harvesters, micropumps, sensors, inkjet printer heads, switches, and so on. In permanently polarized (ferroelectric) materials, ferroelastic domain switching affects the piezoelectric properties significantly, and this behavior can be exploited for piezoMEMS applications.

Pb(Zr1-xTix)O3 (PZT) thin films have excellent piezoelectric and ferroelectric properties; therefore, they are potential candidates for MEMS applications. Under an applied electric field, both lattice elongation and 90° ferroelastic domain switching are observed in tetragonal PZT thin films. In particular, non-180° ferroelastic domain switching has important implications for the future realization of high-performance piezoMEMS devices.

However, before the recent investigation, the speed of this 90° domain switching was unknown. In addition, the relationship between the speeds of the lattice deformation and ferroelastic domain switching had not been determined. To investigate these speeds, the research team led by Hiroshi Funakubo examined the switching behavior of Pb(Zr0.4Ti0.6)O3 thin films under applied rectangular electric field pulses.

To observe the changes in the lattice and the domain structure, time-resolved in situ synchrotron X-ray diffraction was carried out in synchronization with a high-speed pulse generator. These observations were performed at the BL13XU beamline at the SPring-8 synchrotron radiation facility. The electric field pulses were applied to the PZT thin films through Pt top electrodes, which were fabricated on top of the films.

Investigation of the diffraction peaks in the PZT thin films revealed elongation of the surface normal c-axis lattice parameter of the c-domain with a simultaneous decrease in the surface normal a-axis lattice parameter of the a-domain under the applied electric field. The intensities of the diffraction peaks also changed under the electric field. These observations provided direct evidence of 90° domain switching.

To determine the switching speed, the lattice elongation and domain switching behaviors were plotted as functions of time (Figure 1). These plots revealed that these processes were completed within 40 ns and occurred simultaneously in response to the applied electric field. The switching behavior was also shown to be perfectly repeatable.

The (a-f) capacitance, strain, tilting angle, intensity, difference capacitance, and volume fraction of the c domain were measured as functions of time, respectively. The elastic deformation and ferroelastic domain switching were completed within 40 ns. Credit: Scientific Reports

The (a-f) capacitance, strain, tilting angle, intensity, difference capacitance, and volume fraction of the c domain were measured as functions of time, respectively. The elastic deformation and ferroelastic domain switching were completed within 40 ns. Credit: Scientific Reports

The high-speed switching observed in these experiments was limited by the present electrical equipment, but is faster than that reported in previous studies. Further, this high-speed 90° switching is reversible and can be used to enhance the piezoelectric response in piezoMEMS devices by several tens of nanoseconds. Therefore, this finding is of considerable importance for the ongoing development of ultrafast electromechanical switches and sensors.

SiFive, the first fabless provider of customized, open-source-enabled semiconductors, today announced it will partner with Rambus, (NASDAQ: RMBS) to make Rambus cryptography technology available for the SiFive Freedom platforms. To speed time to market and remove the barriers that traditionally have blocked smaller players from developing custom silicon, leading companies in the semiconductor ecosystem have developed a new DesignShare concept, which offers IP at a reduced cost.

The DesignShare model gives any company, inventor or maker the ability to harness the power of custom silicon, enabling an entirely new range of applications. Companies like SiFive, Rambus and other ecosystem partners provide low- or no-cost IP to emerging companies, lowering the upfront engineering costs required to bring a custom chip design based on the SiFive Freedom platform to realization.

“To fulfill our mission to democratize access to custom silicon and upend the stagnant semiconductor industry, SiFive is committed to recruiting leading-edge companies like Rambus to help us revolutionize SoC design,” said Naveed Sherwani, CEO of SiFive. “The growing ecosystem of DesignShare IP providers ensures that aspiring system designers have a catalog of IP from which to choose when designing their SoC. We’re thrilled that Rambus has joined us in enabling innovation through DesignShare, and we look forward to future success together.”

Rambus will collaborate with SiFive to provide critical security components such as cryptographic cores, hardware root-of-trust, key provisioning and high-value services that are enabled by design.

“Rambus and SiFive share a similar philosophy of easing the path to designing innovative and cost-effective SoCs,” said Martin Scott, senior vice president and general manager of Rambus Security Division. “SiFive and Rambus have agreed to partner with an intent of providing chip-to-cloud-to-crowd security solutions that easily integrate with the SiFive Freedom platform and support the open and growing RISC-V hardware ecosystem. Our security cores embedded in Freedom Platform SOCs will enable secure in-field device connection and attestation for updates and diagnostics.”

SiFive was founded by the inventors of RISC-V – Yunsup Lee, Andrew Waterman and Krste Asanovic – with a mission to democratize access to custom silicon. In its first six months of availability, more than 1,000 HiFive1 software development boards have been purchased and delivered to developers in over 40 countries. Additionally, the company has engaged with multiple customers across its IP and SoC products, started shipping the industry’s first RISC-V SoC in November 2016 and announced the availability of its Coreplex RISC-V based IP earlier this month. SiFive’s innovative “study, evaluate, buy” licensing model dramatically simplifies the IP licensing process, and removes traditional road blocks that have limited access to customized, leading edge silicon.

SiFive is located in Silicon Valley and has venture backing from Sutter Hill Ventures, Spark Capital and Osage University Partners.

MRSI Systems, a manufacturer of fully automated, ultra-precision, high speed die bonding and epoxy dispensing systems, is launching a new High Speed Die Bonder, MRSI-HVM3, to support photonics customers’ high volume manufacturing requirements. The MRSI-HVM3 is in full production and MRSI Systems is shipping to customers worldwide.

Scaling imperatives

Today, high volume manufacturing of photonic, sensor, and semiconductor devices demands a die bonding system that can deliver industry leading speed without sacrificing high precision and superior flexibility. The new MRSI-HVM3, a high speed, flexible, 3 micron die bonder, has been built to address this challenge. This new system leverages a well-defined set of MRSI’s core competencies, built up over 30 years, in the areas of system design, software development, machine vision, motion control, industrial automation, and process solutions.

Customer outcomes

As Dr. Yi Qian, Vice President of Product Management, states, “The new MRSI-HVM3 incorporates the latest hardware and software innovations. Equipped with ultrafast-ramp eutectic stations, it deploys multiple levels of parallel processing utilizing dual gantries, dual heads, dual bonding stages, and “on-the-fly” tool changes. Used across all products, MRSI’s platform software makes it easy for users to change process settings on their own for new parts, new processes, and new products. These features provide our customers with best-in-class throughput for capacity expansion; high accuracy for high-density packaging; and unmatched flexibility for multi-chip multi-process production in one machine. Ultimately the system will generate great ROIs for customers. The MRSI-HVM3 high speed die bonder supports many applications including chip-on-carrier (CoC), chip-on-submount (CoS), and chip-on-baseplate or board (CoB).”

“MRSI Systems has been serving optoelectronic and microelectronic customers for the past 33 years and understands their requirement to scale efficiently in today’s fast paced marketplace. MRSI is pleased to meet these needs with the launch of our new high speed die bonder for high volume manufacturing of photonics packaging,” said Mr. Michael Chalsen, President, MRSI Systems.

Private demonstrations at CIOE

MRSI Systems is exhibiting at CIOE with their Chinese Representative CYCAD Century Science and Technology (Booth #1C66) in Shenzhen, September 6-9, 2017. There will be private demonstrations of the MRSI-HVM3 performing CoC eutectic and epoxy bonding. Please reach out to your MRSI contact to ensure you have an opportunity to see the capabilities of this new product.

MRSI Systems is a manufacturer of fully automated, high-precision, high-speed die bonding and epoxy dispensing systems.

NanoString Technologies, Inc. (Nasdaq:NSTG), a provider of life science tools for translational research and molecular diagnostic products, and Lam Research Corporation (Nasdaq:LRCX), a global supplier of wafer fabrication equipment and services to the semiconductor industry, today announced a strategic collaboration to develop NanoString’s proprietary Hyb & Seq next-generation sequencing platform.

This collaboration brings together NanoString’s proprietary sequencing chemistry and Lam’s expertise in advanced systems engineering to enable nanoscale manufacturing, with the goal of building a clinical sequencer with the simplest workflow in the industry. The objectives of the collaboration are to complete the development of the Hyb & Seq single molecule sequencing chemistry, design and engineer a clinical sequencing instrument, develop clinical assay panels, and secure the necessary regulatory approvals.  In addition, the companies intend to explore methods for coupling the sequencing chemistry with advanced semiconductor fabrication processes to optimize the performance of molecular profiling platforms.

Under the terms of the collaboration, Lam will provide up to $50 million of funding intended to cover the costs of development and regulatory approval over a development period expected to last approximately three years, as well as advanced engineering and technical support. Lam will receive a warrant to purchase one million shares of NanoString common stock at $16.75 per share, as well as a royalty on all products developed under the collaboration. NanoString retains all rights to commercialize the resulting Hyb & Seq products, and the parties will share ownership rights in jointly developed intellectual property.

“We are excited to collaborate with Lam Research, in a partnership that brings together leading innovators in our respective fields,” said Brad Gray, NanoString’s President and Chief Executive Officer. “By combining our Hyb & Seq technology with Lam’s advanced engineering expertise, we intend to fully resource the development of the industry’s simplest clinical sequencer, and enable open-ended innovation at the intersection of semiconductors and genomics.”

“Our vision is to create value from natural technology extensions, including nanoscale applications enablement, chemistry, plasma, fluidics, and advanced systems engineering,” stated Martin Anstice, Lam Research’s President and Chief Executive Officer. “We are excited to collaborate with NanoString to advance the development of their novel Hyb & Seq system and chemistry to meet the challenge of increasing our understanding of human genetics, and we envision a number of strategic benefits by aligning our complementary respective strengths. This is a compelling opportunity for the whole to be significantly greater than the sum of its parts; it is an accelerator of enablement and value for both companies.”

Intel Corporation (NASDAQ:INTC) and Mobileye N.V. (NYSE:MBLY) today announced the completion of Intel’s tender offer for outstanding ordinary shares of Mobileye. The acquisition is expected to accelerate innovation for the automotive industry and positions Intel as a technology provider in the fast-growing market for highly and fully autonomous vehicles.

The combination of Intel and Mobileye will allow Mobileye’scomputer vision expertise (the “eyes”) to complement Intel’s high-performance computing and connectivity expertise (the “brains”) to create automated driving solutions from cloud to car. Intel estimates the vehicle systems, data and services market opportunity to be up to $70 billion by 2030.

“With Mobileye, Intel emerges as a leader in creating the technology foundation that the automotive industry needs for an autonomous future,” said Intel CEO Brian Krzanich. “It’s an exciting engineering challenge and a huge growth opportunity for Intel. Even more exciting is the potential for autonomous cars to transform industries, improve society and save millions of lives.”

Intel’s Automated Driving Group (ADG) will combine its operations with Mobileye, an Intel Company. The combined Mobileye organization will lead Intel’s autonomous driving efforts, and will have the full support of Intel resources and technology to define and deliver cloud-to-car solutions for the automotive market segment. Mobileye will remain headquartered in Israel and led by Prof. Amnon Shashua who will serve as Intel senior vice president and Mobileye CEO and chief technology officer. In addition, Ziv Aviram, Mobileye co-founder, president and CEO, is retiring from the company, effective immediately.

“Leading in autonomous driving technology requires a combination of innovative proprietary software products and versatile open-system hardware platforms that enable customers and partners to customize solutions,” said Prof. Amnon Shashua. “For the first time, the auto industry has a single partner with deep expertise and a cultural legacy in both areas. Mobileye is very excited to begin this new chapter.”

Mobileye will support and build on both companies’ existing technology and customer relationships with automakers, tier-1 suppliers and semiconductor partners to develop advanced driving assist, highly autonomous and fully autonomous driving programs.

Conventional electronic devices make use of semiconductor circuits and they transmit information by electric charges. However, such devices are being pushed to their physical limit and the technology is facing immense challenges to meet the increasing demand for speed and further miniaturisation. Spin wave based devices, which utilise collective excitations of electronic spins in magnetic materials as a carrier of information, have huge potential as memory devices that are more energy efficient, faster, and higher in capacity.

While spin wave based devices are one of the most promising alternatives to current semiconductor technology, spin wave signal propagation is anisotropic in nature – its properties vary in different directions – thus posing challenges for practical industrial applications of such devices.

A research team led by Professor Adekunle Adeyeye from the Department of Electrical and Computer Engineering at the NUS Faculty of Engineering, has recently achieved a significant breakthrough in spin wave information processing technology. His team has successfully developed a novel method for the simultaneous propagation of spin wave signals in multiple directions at the same frequency, without the need for any external magnetic field.

Using a novel structure comprising different layers of magnetic materials to generate spin wave signals, this approach allows for ultra-low power operations, making it suitable for device integration as well as energy-efficient operation at room temperature.

“The ability to propagate spin waves signal in arbitrary directions is a key requirement for actual circuitry implementation. Hence, the implication of our invention is far-reaching and addresses a key challenge for the industrial application of spin wave technology. This will pave the way for non-charge based information processing and realisation of such devices,” said Dr Arabinda Haldar, who is the first author of the study and was formerly a Research Fellow with the Department at NUS. Dr Haldar is currently an Assistant Professor at Indian Institute of Technology Hyderabad.

The research team published the findings of their study in the scientific journal Science Advances on 21 July 2017. This discovery builds on an earlier study by the team that was published in Nature Nanotechnology in 2016, in which a novel device that could transmit and manipulate spin wave signals without the need for any external magnetic field or current was developed. The research team has filed patents for these two inventions.

“Collectively, both discoveries would make possible the on-demand control of spin waves, as well as the local manipulation of information and reprogramming of magnetic circuits, thus enabling the implementation of spin wave based computing and coherent processing of data,” said Prof Adeyeye.

Moving forward, the team is exploring the use of novel magnetic materials to enable coherent long distance spin wave signal transmission, so as to further the applications of spin wave technology.