SEMI, the global industry association serving the nano- and microelectronics manufacturing supply chains, this week released the SEMI Year-end Forecast at the annual SEMICON Japan exposition. The forecast predicts that worldwide sales of new semiconductor manufacturing equipment will contract 13.3% to $32 billion in 2013. [ + ]

Total worldwide production value of electronic systems is projected to increase 4% in 2013 to $1.41 trillion and climb to about $1.74 trillion in 2017, which represents a compound annual growth rate (CAGR) of 5% from $1.36 billion in 2012, according to IC Insights' 2014 edition of 'IC Market Drivers - A Study of Emerging and Major End-Use Applications Fueling Demand for Integrated Circuits'. [ + ]

As renewable energy takes centre stage, efficiently harvesting this energy becomes increasingly critical. Modular DC/DC converters with dual asymmetric outputs provide the positive and negative voltages as well as the galvanic isolation necessary for IGBT applications. [ + ]

Smart home networking technology can connect a variety of devices via the internet. It can provide a wide range of remote services such as appliance control, lighting control, curtain control, telephone remote control, indoor and outdoor remote control, anti-theft alarm, environmental monitoring, HVAC control, IR forwarding and programmable timing control, just to mention a few. [ + ]

UK start-up Novalia has developed a low-cost, patented manufacturing technology using standard print processes - such as screen print, flexography, and offset lithography - combined with capacitive touch technology that would allow Bluetooth low energy wireless control to be added to everyday low-cost materials, such as paper, card, and plastic, for potentially just a few dollars in high volume. [ + ]

Tokyo Tech has developed a compound that shows highly unusual conducting properties that could be used in future electronic components. Ordinary insulating solids, such as diamond, have energy bands that are fully occupied by electrons. [ + ]

Stanford and SLAC researchers have developed a self-healing battery electrode that could be used in electric cars, mobile phones and other devices. [ + ]

Two professors from The University of Auckland have bagged a top science prize for their wireless or inductive power transfer technology (IPT). [ + ]

US start-up Hothead Technologies has specified Nordic Semiconductor's nRF8001 Connectivity chip to provide Bluetooth low energy wireless comms in the world's first fitness monitor to track body temperature in addition to conventional movement (time, speed and distance) and heart rate. [ + ]

OLEDs have become the device of the moment with the recent announcement and launch by Samsung of its huge 55″ curved television receiver, designed to wow the viewer with its incredible sharpness, colour range and contrast. While nobody seems to have questioned quite why we need a curved television, the technology behind it is taking us one further step towards equipment that is low in power demand and producing a realism that is breathtaking. [ + ]

Australian technology design company Lockie Safety Systems usually designs PCB layouts in-house but when the company started a new project that required radically different architecture, it decided to engage external experts. [ + ]

Trying to weave technology into our everyday lives is something that has been happening for hundreds of years, with the 16th-century abacus ring often touted as the first 'wearable computer'. Now, wearable technology is changing and becoming more mainstream. This article explores opportunities and challenges presented by wearable technology. [ + ]

Electrical engineer and quantum physicist Andrea Morello has won the 2013 Malcolm McIntosh Prize for Physical Scientist of the Year for his intellectual leadership in developing the silicon components to make quantum computing possible. [ + ]

The brilliant and worst thing about the Internet of Things is that it is so broad. Does it include passive RFID, wireless sensors, machine to machine (M2M), big data, cloud computing and storage? Others believe the Internet of Things is not enough and the true term is the Internet of Everything because people are part of the network. This all begins to distract from what is important - providing a useful service. [ + ]

A global vendor of automotive AMS ICs contracted ASTC consulting on algorithm design and feasibility for a next-generation automotive parking assistance sensor ASIC program, a derivative of the predecessor ultrasonic sensor transmit/receive (Tx/Rx) signal conditioner system chip. [ + ]