New American batteries, a new XMOS developer kit and more news from around the world.
America Strikes Back
In the last issue of Birch, there was a passing mention of the addition of single-walled carbon nanotubes to batteries to increase battery life and charge faster. The topic is relevant, because the capacity of batteries increases every year in any consumer electronics. And even now, manufacturers are faced with a problematic paradox, when the battery capacity grows, and the power consumption of the device as a whole falls. The battery is required to have a large capacity, to charge quickly and at the same time to send rather weak currents to the electrical circuit for a long time. In classic Li-Pol and Li-Ion batteries, such irregular charge-discharge cycles lead to a rapid loss of capacity and battery failure. To solve this problem, carbon nanotubes have been used in the batteries of the UJET electric scooter. But it turns out there is a way to get good results in a cheaper way. It was proposed by scientists from Rice University (USA). The carbon they use in lithium batteries is sourced from regular asphalt. Professor James Tour shares his impressions from the experiments: “The capacity of these batteries is enormous, and it takes a few minutes to fully charge.” It should be added that the development of batteries of a new type is at the level of prototyping, i.e., all the samples presented have already passed hundreds of charge-discharge cycles and have proven the declared characteristics.
The cost of success on the example of TSMC
Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Co (TSMC) is set to spend $ 20 billion to build a new 3nm manufacturing facility. TSMC is the leading chip manufacturer for Apple. Most recently, all the media wrote about the end of the “era of Moore's Law”, when large manufacturers rested on the impossibility of doubling the number of transistors on an integrated circuit, and the massive transition from 10 to 5 nm became an insurmountable barrier. But it seems Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing has the right technology to go straight to 3nm. In any case, the amounts spent are mesmerizing, chipmaking already costs humanity more than the space industry or the cost of food production. Even more manufacturers are losing from competition, for example, Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing spends about 10 billion a year to keep up with Samsung and Intel, and is projected to spend one billion more next year. Frightening dynamics for the end customer, because we will have to reimburse all these costs. Morris Chang, one of the founders of TSMC, spoke about this in a recent interview.
British XMOS has released a new set for developers
On request Amazon, XMOS released a VocalFusion 4-Mic Dev Kit for Alexa Voice Service (AVS) development. Alexa is a direct competitor to voice services from Google, Apple and Yandex. But its main sphere of application is not planned in smartphones or computers, it is going to attack the still ephemeral “Internet of things”, i.e. settle in our teapots, refrigerators, etc. What is so special about the set? This is the first module in the world with a side of 10 cm, in which four microphones and the accompanying element base for sound input / output and processing are located in one electrical circuit. The module is proposed to be inserted into a variety of things, electronics, and indeed anywhere. If soon a new vacuum cleaner starts talking to us in Alex's voice, offering us to buy a new tablet, then Amazon has succeeded.
Long-suffering Toshiba
If you have read previous issues of Birches, then remember the difficult situation in which the company found itself Toshiba. And the main news is that at this point in time, the company continues to hang over the financial abyss. On one side of the abyss, it is held by a group of investors including Bain Capital and Apple, and on the other side of the abyss by Western Digital. Toshiba's Sandisk division was bought by Western Digital last year for $ 16 billion. As consumers, we are much more interested in the issue of pricing for memory for electronics, because if Toshiba eventually falls, then against the background of weakened competition and constant growth in demand for E.MMC memory, prices for the latter may skyrocket.
A luminous LiFi router to help the usual
An ordinary WiFi router transmits information over the air, but this approach has limitations due to the laws of physics. It is quite possible to slightly expand the possibilities of such communication by using energy-saving LEDs. Previously, it was believed that high-frequency pulsation of light can harm human health and is an unreliable conductor of information. This was reported by Dr. Wasiu Popoola of the University of Edinburgh, who led the study. In the course of the study, all previous myths were refuted, and light as a means of communication was restored in its rights. During the study, two types of information transmission by light were tested. In the first case, the LEDs transmitted the code by their own switching on and off (similar to the Morse code), in the second case, a change in the light intensity was made imperceptible to the eye.
It is easy to imagine such LiFi transmitters in large shopping malls, when street illumination transmits discounted information to a smartphone's photo module. Or when an illuminated road safety barrier warns the driver of a long-haul traffic jam. But, despite Dr. Wasiu's optimism, it is difficult to imagine an eternally glowing box in the hallway that does not cause irritation. What do you think?