Let’s focus on recent academic research achievements this week – but first, a quick look at some industry news. According to the Semiconductor Industry Association, worldwide sales of semiconductors were $33.4 billion in July 2019, 1.7 percent more than the June 2019 total of $32.8 billion, but 15.5 percent less than the July 2018 total of $39.5 billion. Globalfoundries has filed multiple lawsuits in the U.S. and Germany alleging that certain technologies used by TSMC infringe sixteen GF patents, and seeking orders that prevent semiconductors produced with those technologies from being imported into the U.S. and Germany. Rambus has completed the acquisition of Northwest Logic and announced the upcoming acquisition of security IP from Verimatrix, formerly Inside Secure. GigaDevice Semiconductor has launched its RISC-V based GD32V series of 32-bit general-purpose MCU products, fully compatible with existing GD32 ARM-based MCUs. Ansys is boosting its autonomous vehicles simulation solution with the integration of Hologram, a system developed by Edge Case Research.

Graphene-based world’s smallest accelerometer

A research team involving KTH Royal Institute of Technology (Stockholm, Sweden) and partners from Aachen, Germany, has developed the smallest accelerometer yet reported, using graphene ribbons with suspended masses. As detailed in this paper, the new NEMS (nano-electromechanical system) is based on a piezoresistive principle. It is dramatically smaller than any MEMS accelerometers available today, but retains the required sensitivity and is compatible with large-scale semiconductor manufacturing technologies.

The graphene-based accelerometer. Image credit: KTH Royal Institute of Technology