Tuesday Cadence Design Systems and ARM announced the “tape out” of the industry’s first 20-nm design based on the ARM Cortex-A15 MPCore processor. This means the artwork for the chip’s final design — its photomask used for manufacturing — was sent to Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Company (TSMC) and used to create the first test chip. Now customers like Nvidia can create their own Cortex-A15 processor-based SoCs using the “gone gold” design.

Targeting TSMC’s 20-nm process, the design was jointly developed by engineers from ARM, Cadence and TSMC using a Cadence RTL-to-signoff flow. Cadence said that Tuesday’s milestone announcement is the result of an 18 month collaboration between ARM and Cadence on optimized design flows for the Cortex-A15 processor.

“The Cortex-A15 is our most advanced ARM processor to date,” said Mike Inglis, Executive Vice President and General Manager, Processor Division, ARM. “The test chip is an important milestone in ARM’s preparations to enable partners using Cadence design flows and targeting TSMC’s advanced process nodes. The joint development and 20-nm process node requirements necessitated a deep collaboration between the three companies. We look forward to evolving our relationship with Cadence to develop and deploy Cortex-A15 and several other ARM processors.”

The collaboration is part of a multi-year technology agreement signed by ARM and Cadence that will provide ARM engineering teams with ongoing access to Cadence products. Both teams will work together to unsure that ARM processors and Cadence’s design flows are optimized to work together.

“This important collaboration milestone enables customers to design Cortex-A15 processor-based designs at the most advanced process nodes,” said Chi-Ping Hsu, Senior Vice President, Research and Development, Silicon Realization Group at Cadence. “We intend to expand this collaborative model in working with ARM on the Cortex-A15 and other processor development.”

SOURCE via Marketwire

The idea of a portable, impressively useful touchscreen interface has very quickly gone from the world of science fiction to depictions of dubious accuracy on mainstream shows like NCIS or CSI. The consumer, alas, has had to make due with smaller touchscreen interfaces on our phones and tablets and giant, spy-catching rigs aren’t coming to us anytime soon, but if scientists at the Carnegie Mellon Human Computer Interaction Institute have anything to say about it, we might soon get the next best thing. In a joint project with Microsoft, they’ve created a unique technology that allows a functional multi-touch screen to be displayed on almost any surface, including the body.

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Qualcomm has released first details about its next-generation mobile processors, which are expected to compete with Nvidia’s Kal-El processor.

The Snapdragon S4 processor will arrive as a 28 nm chip that will integrate two Krait CPUs in its first version (MSM8960). Krait will leverage the ARMv7 instruction set, will be compatible with ARM’s Cortex-A9 chip, but deliver more performance per CPU cycle, Qualcomm said. Thanks to a new pipeline architecture, Krait will exceed Scorpion’s performance by more than 60 percent, the manufacturer promises. An interesting note is that Qualcomm expects the S4 series to “hold peak performance” longer than other processors under a constant workload due to the “efficient use of power” and less power lost to leakage.

Additionally, Qualcomm claims that the S4 series will reduce its power consumption 25 to 40 percent as a result of an asynchronous multi-processor system that can run the two cores at two different voltages. In standby, one core can be entirely “collapsed” and causing that unit to consume zero power.

S4 will also include an upgraded Adreno graphics unit, which has its origins in AMD’s Imageon series of graphics processors. The new 225 GPU promises 50 percent more graphics performance when compared to the current 200 – and twice the memory bandwidth of its predecessor. Adreno 225 will support OpenGL ES 1.1, ES 2.0 and DX9.3.

SOURCE via Qualcomm (pdf)

A team of researchers at the University of Notre Dame are working on a software that could identify criminals.

The technology is based on the thought that criminals are likely to visit their crime scene several times before or after a crime is committed. The U.S. military in the Middle East also indicated that IED bomb makers return to the locations of explosions to improve their designs.

Facial recognition that is not compared against an existing database can be used in a new technology to determine if certain people return to certain locations suspiciously often. It is up to law enforcement to determine what would be considered too often. Kevin Bowyer and Patrick Flynn of Notre Dame’s Computer Science and Engineering Department have been working on image-based biometrics since 2001. Together with Jeremiah Barr, a doctoral student in computer science and engineering, the team developed a “Questionable Observer Detector (QuOD)”, which records “face tracks” of individuals in videos and uses that data to identify people if they are appearing more than just one time.

Bowyer, Flynn and Barr admit that there are still “challenges” and there is work to do to overcome lighting issues as well as scenarios in which videos of faces are taken from different angles. However, they said they will be able to solve the problems and their software may provide law enforcement a new tool for identifying potential criminals.

SOURCE via University of Notre Dame

Designed to generate energy as well as reduce heat, 3M’s latest solar film will be a great addition to any residential or business building. The film features a transparent design that allows it to be installed right over existing windows. Expected to go on sale some time during 2012, 3M’s new film will generate approximately 20 percent of the electricity that is generated from traditional solar panels at half the cost.

In addition to costing less than conventional solar panels, 3M’s film will be easier to install and capable of operating under less favorable sunlight conditions. Since the film is designed to be installed over existing windows, no additional space or bulky equipment is required. Senior manager of 3M’s marketing division Yasuhiro Aoyagi explained, “An average person could go to the store, buy some of this, and then bring it home and install it themselves.”

Created from organic photovoltaic material that is printed onto the film, the new film is also capable of blocking or absorbing 80 percent of visible light and over 90 percent of infrared light. This means users will be able to apply tinting applications of the film without losing its solar panel properties. In several demonstrations run by 3M, thermometers attached to both sides of a window with the film installed revealed a difference in temperature of up to 10 degrees Celsius.

Although the company initially plans to target corporate and governmental buildings, 3M is hoping to increase production and reduce costs for general and residential use as well.

SOURCE via Computer World

A research team at the University of Illinois claims to have developed an ionic liquid to act as a catalyst when greenhouse gas emissions are converted to fuel. Using the liquid, the scientists were able to dramatically reduce the energy needed to change carbon dioxide into carbon monoxide, which is the first step in turning emissions into fuels such as formic acid or methanol.

The idea isn’t new and is generally knows as artificial photosynthesis, where a solar cell or wind turbine powers an electrochemical cell to convert carbon monoxide. So far, however, scientists needed more energy for the conversion from carbon dioxide into carbon monoxide than can be gained from the final product. According to the research team led by chemical and biological engineering professor and chair Paul Kenis, the ionic liquids stabilize the intermediates in the reaction, which lowers the need for electricity for the conversion. Kenis and his team did not reveal how much the need dropped, but said that they are now looking into ways to make the conversion more efficient and accelerate it so that their ionic liquid can be used in commercial applications.

“More work is needed, but this research brings us a significant step closer to reducing our dependence on fossil fuels while simultaneously reducing CO2 emissions that are linked to unwanted climate change,” Kenis said.

SOURCE via University of Illinois

Samsung’s quest for transparency won’t end with laptops, apparently. Today, the Samsung Advanced Institute of Technology announced that its engineers have successfully created “single crystalline Gallium Nitride on amorphous glass substrates” — an achievement that would allow the manufacturer to produce jumbo-sized LEDs from normal glass, including window panes.

Samsung says this scaled-up approach will allow them to lower production costs relative to most LED manufacturers, which rely on sapphire, rather than glass substrates. And, whereas most Gallium Nitride (GaN) LEDs on the market measure just two inches in size, Sammy’s technique could result in displays about 400 times larger.

“In ten years, window panes will double as lighting and display screens, giving personality to buildings,” a Samsung spokesperson told the Korea Herald. Unfortunately, however, it will likely be another ten years before the technology is ready to hit the market.

Until then, we’ll just have to do our late night window coding the old fashioned way.

SOURCE via The Korea Herald

Raging forest fires can be devastating to the environment, destroying entire ecosystems in a matter of hours. Despite the hard work of firefighters around the clock, sometimes there just isn’t enough water. Current methods of firefighting require massive amounts of water that usually aren’t easy to find in arid areas where wildfires are common. Hoping to resolve this issue, Boeing intends to utilize its intelligent airplane technology to assist in firefighting.

Although you might not consider using gigantic water balloons to be the most sophisticated of ideas, Boeing’s new firefighting system is much more advanced than those puny water balloons you buy in the store. The Precision Container Aerial Delivery System (PCADS) features a much larger, more durable and environmentally friendly design.

Boeing’s system features several water balloons that can hold up to 250 gallons of water or specialized fire-retardant. The idea is to equip regular C-130 cargo planes with several water balloons that can be dropped at a much higher altitude than traditional firefighting airplanes. This results in a much more accurate method of delivery that can cover an even broader area than conventional air-drop methods.

For more information on PCADS be sure to head on over to Boeing’s page here.

Scientists at Tel Avive University claim to have implanted a “robotic cerebellum” into the skull of a rat with brain damage. The cerebellum, which is responsible for coordinating movement, effectively restored the animal’s ability to move.

The implanted chip was designed to mimic natural neuronal activity. “It’s a proof of the concept that we can record information from the brain, analyze it in a way similar to the biological network, and then return it to the brain,” said Matti Mintz, who recently presented his research at the Strategies for Engineered Negligible Senescence meeting in Cambridge, UK.

Mintz explained that the artificial brain was tested by teaching the brain-damaged rat to blink whenever they sounded a particular tone. According to the scientists, the rat could only blink when the robotic cerebellum was active.

In the future, the researchers hope that the “robo-cerebellum” could lead to electronic implants that replace damaged tissues in the human brain.

SOURCE via Tel Aviv University

Scientists at Cornell University have created a new metamaterial that is considered to be “darker than black”. Black typically absorbs about 85 percent of incoming light, but this new material is claimed to absorb a stunning 99 percent.

The researchers said that they used arrays of silver nanowires grown in alumina membranes to come up with a hyperbolic metamaterial. To decrease light reflection, they ground the surface to create corrugations and defects. According to the scientists, the very low reflectivity of the metamaterial is caused by its hyperbolic properties that deliver an “infinite density” of photonic states. The defects and corrugations scatter light “primarily inside the material” and trap photons inside the hyperbolic medium.

The researchers hope that their discovery will lead to the development of a new type of radiation absorbing materials, as well as much more effective solar cells.

SOURCE via Cornell University