Tech News

PhotonicLEAP, a European Horizon 2020 collaborative research project, has been awarded over €5 million Euros in funding from the European Commission to develop disruptive technologies that will drive down the cost of integrated photonic packaging and test processes.

In the design and manufacture of a wide range of electronic devices, such as smartphones and self-driving vehicles, new and expanded functionalities must constantly be accommodated in the smallest possible space. Advanced packaging - complex assembly and interconnection technology for semiconductor components - has emerged as an essential technology for the integration of photonics, optics and electronics. In the ongoing EU project APPLAUSE, the participants are focusing on the development of new tools, methods and processes for the mass production of electronic and optical components in high volumes using this technology. Fraunhofer IZM is involved in three of the six use cases.

The German Federal Ministry of Education and Research (BMBF) has selected four hubs across Germany to conduct research on the upcoming mobile communications generation 6G. The goal is to jointly develop innovations for the telecommunications technologies of the future.

In the BMBF project OmniConnect, Fraunhofer researchers are working with other partners on networking objects in indoor areas. They are doing this using radar beams and passive tags that are attached to moving objects, but also to people. This technology effectively detects the positions of the tags and therefore of the objects as well. It can also be used in the care sector, to avert dangers to people who are prone to falling.

A new project with 30 participants from eight European countries will pave the way for an emerging new European business and technology ecosystem aimed at tackling various energy related challenges for the future of mobility. The project accelerates Europe's decarbonization goals for 2050.

In the research project "CoMoDo" (Communication Module Inside Door), the technologies and processes needed for modern operating and display systems were researched and developed using washing machines as an example. A special focus is the development of substrate, integration and conforming technologies for inmold electronics, which enable much more compact interaction concepts than before.

Either the battery gives up or else the latest model is simply too tempting: smartphones and other mobile end devices tend to have a short product service life and thus create a substantial environmental burden. As part of the sustainablySMART project, a team of researchers at the Fraunhofer Institute for Reliability and Microintegration (IZM) have modeled the available sustainable alternatives, and how approaches from the recycling economy can be best applied to consumer goods.

No digital revolution without digital sovereignty: Be it smart factories, self-driving cars, or advance mobile communications – even the most innovative technology becomes useless or even dangerous if it can be attacked and manipulated. With its ZEUS Trustworthy Electronics initiative, the German Ministry of Education and Research is funding group projects dedicated to developing secure and trustworthy microelectronics for these systems.

In the recently launched joint project "T-KOS" of the Research Fab Microelectronics Germany (FMD), terahertz technology is now to be developed synergistically for industry in the fields of communication and sensor technology for the first time.

As digitization continues, connected devices are making their way into more and more areas of everyday life. However, these are often vulnerable to cyberattacks; in the past, many end consumers, such as users of online services, were affected in addition to industry and businesses. A German consortium of industry, university and research institutes aims to make these systems more secure in the future thanks to light-based data transmission and computation. Over the next three years, the "Silhouette" project (Silicon Photonics for Trusted Electronic Systems) will develop universally applicable solutions. The German Federal Ministry for Education and Research BMBF is funding the project with around 12 million euros.