This week at the virtual conference IEEE RFIC, imec presented a millimetre-wave motion detection radar at 60GHz, integrated in standard 28nm CMOS. Achieving 2-cm range resolution, the ultra-sensitive radar is optimized for vital sign monitoring and gesture recognition. The compact radar chip only consumes 62 mW, making the sensor integrable into small, battery-powered devices

Imec and GLOBALFOUNDRIES (GF) have announced a hardware demonstration of a new artificial intelligence chip. Based on imec’s Analog in Memory Computing (AiMC) architecture utilizing GF’s 22FDX solution, the new chip is optimized to perform deep neural network calculations on in-memory computing hardware in the analog domain.

Deltaray, a spin-off of Antwerp University and imec, has introduced its ‘Accelerated 3D XRAY’ technology to enable zero-defect product manufacturing. Deltaray’s solution allows manufacturers to inspect products for possible defects up to 100 times faster and with a much finer granularity (up to 50 microns).

At the 2020 Symposia on VLSI Technology and Circuits, imec presented a deterministic write scheme for voltage-controlled magnetic anisotropy (VCMA) magnetic random access memories (MRAMs), obviating the need for pre-reading the device before writing.

At the 2020 Symposia on VLSI Technology and Circuits, imec, presented a tungsten BPR (buried power rail) integration scheme in a FinFET CMOS test vehicle, which does not adversely impact the CMOS device characteristics

Online shopping from the comfort of your own home has been on the rise for years, and this trend has been further amplified by the coronavirus pandemic. But when ordering clothes, trying to guess which size you need can be a real problem. Enter Shavatar, a UAntwerp and imec spin-off that is set to make this guesswork a thing of the past, thanks to innovative technology. All you have to do is create your own avatar for 3D body shape visualisation.

Lopos, a spin-off of imec and the Ghent University presents the Lopos SafeDistance wearable that supports companies in remaining active or safely restarting in-person activities during the COVID-19 pandemic.

Imec has presented a chip that processes radar signals using a spiking recurrent neural network. The spiking neural network-based mimics the way groups of biological neurons operate to recognize temporal patterns, imec’s chip consumes 100 times less power than traditional implementations while featuring a tenfold reduction in latency – enabling almost instantaneous decision-making.

Park Systems and imec have signed the 2nd Joint Development Project (JDP) within four years to increase the development efforts for future generation in-line AFM metrology solutions. 

Imec, Medtronic and their project partners have announced the launch of the H2020 project InSiDe. The objective of InSiDe is to provide access for the medical community to a mobile diagnostic device based on silicon photonics to identify and characterise different stages of cardiovascular disease (CVD). The device offers fast, flexible and patient-friendly monitoring of CVD, keeping...

Imec and CST Global have announced the successful integration of InP distributed feedback (DFB) lasers from CST Global’s InP100 platform into imec’s integrated silicon photonics platform (iSiPP). Interfaces for hybrid integration of InP DFB lasers and reflective semiconductor optical amplifiers (RSOA) will become available as part of imec’s silicon photonics prototyping services in the first half of 2021, following further optim...

At ISSCC 2020 (Feb 16th to 20th, San Francisco), imec presented the first mm-scale wireless transceiver for smart insertable pills. It is a first breakthrough in imec’s aspiration to realise autonomous ingestible sensors that can measure health parameters such as gut health and transmit in real time the data outside the body.

It has been announced by imec that the IEEE Std 1838TM-2019, recently approved by the IEEE Standards Association, will be included in IEEE Xplore Digital Library from February 2020 onward. The new standard allows die makers to design dies which, if compliant to this standard, constitute, once stacked in a 3D-IC by a stack integrator, a consistent stack-level test access architecture. 

EVONETIX, the synthetic biology company developing a desktop platform for scalable, high-fidelity and rapid gene synthesis, has announced it has partnered with research and innovation hub, imec, active in the fields of nanoelectronics and digital technologies, to increase production of Evonetix’s proprietary microelectromechanical systems (MEMS)-based silicon chips, enabling the platform to be manufactured at a commercial scale.

Imec, Ghent University, Brigade de Sapeurs-Pompiers de Paris, Connect Group and Sioen, have presented a prototype of new protective firefighters’ clothing with integrated temperature sensors and electronics to warn firefighters of too high ambient temperatures. The new protective sensing suit, that was developed within the framework of the Flemish I-CART project, was successfully tested at high temperatures. It should significantly reduce t...

Imec has presented a functional GaAs-based heterojunction bipolar transistor (HBT) devices on 300mm Si, and CMOS-compatible GaN-based devices on 200mm Si for mm-wave applications. The results demonstrate the potential of both III-V-on-Si and GaN-on-Si as CMOS-compatible technologies for enabling RF front-end modules for beyond 5G applications. They were presented at last year’s IEDM conference.

At this year’s IEEE International Electron Devices Meeting, imec, reported an in-depth study of scaled transistors with MoS2 and demonstrated best device performance to date for such materials. MoS2 is a 2D material, meaning that it can be grown in stable form with nearly atomic thickness and atomic precision. Imec synthesised the material down to monolayer (0.6nm thickness) and fabricated devices with scaled contact and channel length...

Imec presents a new thin-film monolithic image sensor that captures light in the near-infrared (NIR) and short-wavelength infrared (SWIR). Based on a monolithic approach, the process promises an order of magnitude gain in fabrication throughput and cost compared to processing today’s conventional IR imagers, while at the same time enabling multi-megapixel resolution.

At the European Photovoltaic Solar Energy Conference (EU PVSEC) in Marseille (France), Imec and EnergyVille, together with PVcase, presented their partnership to develop a commercial software solution that allows to easily design and accurately predict the energy yield of brand new photovoltaic (PV) power plants. 

imec has presented TEMPO: a cross-border collaboration between 19 research and industrial partners, funded by ECSEL Joint Undertaking which supports public-private partnerships in the EU. The three-year program aims at developing process technology and hardware platforms leveraging emerging memory technologies for neuromorphic computing for future applications in mobile devices that need complex machine-learning algorithms.