Tyco Electronics has announced that it has entered into a royalty-based technology licensing agreement with Astec Power that will allow Astec Power and its affiliates to use patented Tyco Power Systems technology in its current designs for its isolated converter eighth-brick and sixteenth-brick families of power modules.

Detecting residual vapours of chemicals, explosives and biological agents without delving into people’s luggage is the future of airport security with the help of research at Queensland University of Technology (QUT).

A three-year project to develop a reconfigurable photonic ‘firewall on a chip’ has been announced following EU funding of 2 million Euros.

Engineers at the School of Electronics and Computer Science have developed a method to make bipolar transistors that work twice as fast as current devices.

Computer scientists from Bath and Boston have developed electronic artwork that changes to match the mood of the person who is looking at it.

The Itanium Solutions Alliance (ISA) and Intel have added six Indian software companies – i-flex Solutions Ltd, Lifetree Convergence Ltd, Mithi Software Technologies Pvt Ltd, Nucleus Software Exports Ltd, Ramco Systems and Subex Azure Ltd – as members of the alliance in India.

The Centre for Integrated Photonics (CIP) in England has announced a novel hybrid assembly technique that offers a simple yet reliable method of integrating optical devices.

ICOS Vision Systems, supplier of inspection solutions for the semiconductor industry, and IMEC, research centre in nanoelectronics and nanotechnology, have agreed to work together under a two-year joint exploration and development program (JEDP), in the inspection and metrology for 3D packaging.

IMEC, an independent nanoelectronics and nanotechnology research institute, has extended its 193 nm immersion lithography research program and double-patterning techniques to meet the stringent scaling roadmaps, especially of Flash. The program now runs hyper-NA immersion, double-patterning immersion and EUV in parallel.

The global chip industry - now in its fifth consecutive year of expansion - appears to have shaken off the cycle of boom and bust that characterised its earlier stages, Scott Jewler, chief strategy officer for STATS ChipPAC, told the Semicon Singapore 2006 conference.

Until recently, UL certificates that were primarily accepted in the US, Canada and in other parts of the world were mainly available for systems. Now, with the implementation of UL certification for computer-on-modules (COMs), Kontron now provides OEMs with more security in selecting appropriate COMs and simplifies the procedure for its own UL certification.

Bluewater Systems of Christchurch has received the EDN Innovation Award for Best Application of Programmable Logic at the 2006 Technology Futures Conference in Melbourne.

Polycom has chosen Singapore as its new Asia-Pacific headquarters in 2007.

Researchers at the University of Toronto have created a semiconductor device that claims to outperform conventional chips – and they made it by painting a liquid onto a piece of glass.

AEEMA’s chief executive, Angus Robinson, has announced that Australia’s peak high technology industry association for infrastructure suppliers is responding to demands from the suppliers of digital television and radio product for a more coordinated approach in addressing the planning and implementation issues related to digital television and radio in Australia.