Tech News

Hydrogen could revolutionize how the world generates, stores, and uses energy. Much has been written about its potential for the transport sector in particular, as it could help make large commercial vehicles, busses, or even trains and ships climate neutral. Its advantages are evident: Electric vehicles powered by hydrogen fuel cells are silent, emit nothing but water, offer exceptional mileage, and are quick to recharge.

With climate change, uncertainties in food security, and pressure to preserve resources, agriculture is facing difficult tasks. To meet these challenges with cost-effective and intelligent electronic solutions, researchers at Fraunhofer IZM are working with partners to combine smart system integration with sensor technology, thus enabling the leap to Agriculture 4.0.

At the beginning of 2021, the Fraunhofer-Gesellschaft launched 6G SENTINEL, a lighthouse project to develop key technologies for the future 6G mobile communications standard. The focus of their work will be on terahertz technologies and solutions for flexible networks.

To remain competitive in the field of the Internet of Things, even medium-sized industrial and process metrology companies need to increasingly integrate their sensor circuits into ASICs (application-specific integrated circuits). The semiconductor industry is currently meeting this need with lower costs for development cycles and decreasing quantity hurdles.

The successful work of the REFERENCE project under the careful guidance of Francois Brunier of Soitec and Yves Quéré of the CEA-Leti research organization led to the project being picked from a group of 30 contenders for the “Stars of Europe” trophy on 16 December 2020. The Minister herself, Frédérique Vidal, took part in a virtual award ceremony to present the coveted prize.

A new era of mobile communication is about to begin: Transmitting a whole terabit of data, one thousand gigabits, per second. Dr. Ivan Ndip, specialist for antenna and high-frequency systems at the Fraunhofer Institute for Reliability and Microintegration IZM in Berlin speaks about current progress with 6G and its many possible applications.

Autonomous electric vehicles draw power from two sources: a high-voltage battery and, additionally, a conventional 12-volt battery that supplies the vehicle when idling or in high load situations while driving. Safety-critical sys-tems such as brakes and steering can therefore be connected to two sources of power. But what happens when one of these has a fault – a short circuit, for example?

EVATEC AG and Fraunhofer IZM are cooperating in the field of advanced organic IC substrates and fan-out Panel Level Packaging. Focus is on advanced thin film etching technology for panel sizes up to 650x650 mm. New equipment as part of the Research Fab Microelectronics Germany (FMD) has been recently installed in Berlin.

Researchers at Fraunhofer IZM want to bring quantum physics from the textbooks to reality. Using optical glass-integrated waveguides, they are developing a universal platform that enables the setup of solutions for tapproof quantum communication and high-precision quantum sensors in miniaturized form, quickly and according to customer requirements.

ASCENT+ mobilises an unprecedented network of knowledge and investment to open access to key European infrastructures and enable academic and industry researchers to address emerging challenges in Nanoelectronics and to accelerate innovation path-finding.