Tech News

For over two decades, Lars Böttcher has helped electronic systems become smaller, more reliable, and better at handling high frequencies through his work on embedding chips in circuit boards. With his team and many industry partners, he has brought the former niche technology into the mainstream and paved its way into exciting new applications in the automotive sector, medical technology, or even consumer electronics.

Giant arsenals of unexploded ordinance are sitting on the ocean floor, lost in battle or dumped as waste. The risky job of detecting these underwater hazards is currently given to submarines specially fitted for the purpose. But even they cannot get to some of the tighter or harder to reach spots, forcing expert divers to go down and take over the often life-threatening work. A German research consortium including Fraunhofer IZM is now using a submarine robot that is as nimble and mobile as a manta ray and equipped with innovative connected sensors on its fins to gather more information about its surroundings. One particularly nifty trick: It can measure water pressure so precisely that metal objects can be detected on the ocean floor, even if they are covered by sediment .

The BMBF is funding the second phase of the iCampµs future project with 20 million euros. The focus of the developments is on Smart Health, Environmental Sensor Technology 4.0 and Industry 4.0.

A flagship of semiconductor research with international reach is emerging in Dresden. Fraunhofer IPMS and Fraunhofer IZM-ASSID are bundling their competences and establishing the Center for Advanced CMOS & Heterointegration Saxony. The center will offer the complete value chain in 300 mm microelectronics, a prerequisite for high-tech research for future technologies.

Using fewer resources, avoiding electronic waste, and saving energy: This is possible if the entire production chain for more sustainable lamps is investigated and levelled up. For the SUMATRA project, researchers at Fraunhofer IZM and their industry partners are working together on exactly this mission. The precise eco lifecycle assessments and resulting design recommendations produced by Fraunhofer IZM and the environmental services provider Interseroh will assist lighting brands like TRILUX or OSRAM in making their production processes better for our environment and selecting more sustainable materials for their products.

Fairphone, the Dutch social enterprise building a market for ethical smartphones, has published a life cycle assessment (LCA) report for the Fairphone 4, detailing the impact their most recent device has on the environment. The study, conducted by the German Fraunhofer Institute for Reliability and Microintegration IZM, confirms Fairphone’s key message that smartphones should be kept in use for as long as possible.

Congratulations to our IZM colleague Marius van Dijk: For the paper "Numerical Simulation of Transient Thermomechanical Ageing Effects" he and his co-authors Saskia Huber, Hans Walter, Olaf Wittler and Martin Schneider-Ramelow were honored with the Outstanding Paper Award at this year's EuroSimE Conference.

The economic consequences of the current chip shortage highlight the importance of microelectronics. In order to prepare for the future, technological sovereignty in microelectronics research and development is required, in addition to new production facilities in Europe. This is precisely the challenge that the High Performance Center "Functional Integration for Micro-/Nanoelectronics" is addressing.

Since the arrival of COVID 19, PCR and other antigen tests have turned from sophisticated tools known only to medical professionals into an everyday experience for all of us. To mark the successful completion of their research on the PoC-BoSens platform, the international project consortium led by Fraunhofer IZM can announce the birth of a new generation of such diagnostic systems: a photonic platform for precise point-of-care diagnostics.

Built to take the heat: While conventional sensors reach breaking point at around 300°C, researchers at Fraunhofer IZM are creating a sensor that works reliably at twice that temperature. The secret of the heat-loving sensors: Silicon carbide, etched with exceptional precision.