Han Wang and H.-S. Philip Wong of the Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Company (TSMC) tell Nature Electronics about the company’s research efforts into two-dimensional materials.

The images captured by vision-based tactile sensors carry information about high-resolution tactile fields, such as the distribution of the contact forces applied to their soft sensing surface. However, extracting the information encoded in the images is challenging and often addressed with learning-based approaches, which generally require a large amount of training data. This article proposes a strategy

The terrain adaptability of the state-of-the-art robot is far behind natural animals, partly because of limited sensing, intelligence, controlling, and actuating ability. One possible solution is to explore the flexible locomotion structure and locomotion mode with good adaptability and fault tolerance. Based on this idea, we presented a type of vibro-bot with arrayed soft legs (VBASL) with excellent

Over the past few decades, optoelectronic devices have played a key role in human life and modern technology. To meet the development trends of the industry, photonics with tunable functions have emerged as building blocks with immense potential in controlling light–matter interactions, sensors, and integrated photonics. Compared with artificially designed materials and physical approaches, stimuli-responsive

The terahertz (THz) quantum cascade laser (QCL), first demonstrated in 2002, is among the most promising radiation sources in the THz region owing to its high output power and broad frequency coverage from ∼1.3 to ∼5.4 ​THz and sub-terahertz, without and with assistance of external strong magnetic field. The operation of THz QCLs, however, has thus far been limited to applications below room temperature

Presents the table of contents for this issue of this publication.

Provides a listing of current staff, committee members and society officers.

Presents the table of contents for this issue of this publication.

This Special Issue of the IEEE Journal of Solid-State Circuits is dedicated to a collection of the best papers selected from the 2021 IEEE International Solid-State Circuits Conference (ISSCC) that took place on February 13-22, 2021, virtually. This issue covers papers from the Analog, Power Management, Data Converters, RF, and Wireless committees.

This article presents an adaptive zoom-capacitance-to-digital converter (CDC)-based CMOS humidity sensor. The humidity sensor is realized by means of two differential capacitors whose dielectrics are sensitive to humidity. The sensing capacitors are interfaced with a zoom CDC, which consists of a successive-approximation-register (SAR) analog-to-digital converter (ADC) and a 3rd-order delta–sigma modulator

Fully integrated power management circuits are promising candidates to provide small form factors and meet high power density demand of modern computing platforms. This article presents a new fully integrated dc–dc converter topology based on electromagnetically coupled class-D LC oscillators that enables up to 2.5 GHz switching frequency, allowing aggressive scaling of the on-chip passives. On-chip

A continuous-Time delta–sigma modulator (CT-DSM) excels at high-bandwidth (BW), high-dynamic-range analog-to-digital conversion. However, CT-DSMs suffer from PVT variation, high sensitivity to timing errors, and are restricted in sampling rate. This work proposes a hybrid-loop (HL) DSM architecture to mitigate the disadvantages of CT-DSM while providing similar performance. This work also introduces

This article presents a quadrature switched/floated capacitor power amplifier (SFCPA) with deep back-off efficiency enhancement. The SFCPA is introduced to decrease the dynamic power consumption at power back-off (PBO), which could improve the system efficiency (SE). The reconfigurable self-coupling canceling transformer (RSCCT) with enhanced tuning range of turn ratio is used to achieve impedance

In this article, a distributed-swing-boosting and harmonic-impedance-expanding multi-core oscillator is proposed to achieve low phase noise and high figure-of-merit (FoM), simultaneously. First, a distributed-coupling multi-core topology is introduced to reduce the chip area with no mode ambiguity. Then, the distributed-swing-boosting and harmonic-impedance-expanding structure is developed to boost

This work presents a 6-GHz low-jitter and high figure-of-merit (FoM) fractional- $N$ phase-locked loop (PLL). It uses a digital-to-time converter (DTC)-based sampling PLL architecture. To achieve ultra-low jitter in fractional- $N$ mode, a phase detector range reduction technique is used to halve the required DTC delay range (DR), resulting in lower thermal noise and better DTC linearity. Moreover

A low-power IEEE 802.15.4z high-rate PHY (HRP) compatible coherent transmitter is described. The proposed transmitter uses a digital polar architecture with fixed amplitude steps in the power amplifier and asynchronous time-discrete pulse shaping. The pulse-shaping unit consists of a finite-impulse response (FIR) filter using current-starved inverter-based delay taps that can be calibrated on-chip

This article presents a 71–86 GHz 16-element array receiver application-specified integrated circuit (ASIC) for Massive multiple-input–multiple-output (MIMO) wireless uplink, featuring a multiple-output analog beamformer (BF) supporting up to 16 spatially multiplexed users at the same time. The ASIC includes 16 direct-conversion mixer-first RX front-ends, local oscillator (LO) generation and distribution

This article presents a 420-GHz phase imaging system designed in a 40-nm CMOS technology. It consists of a transmitter (TX), based on a multiplier chain, and a receiver (RX), based on a two-step IQ down-conversion. Those chips share an external, 17.5 GHz, reference to secure frequency synchronization between them. To increase the overall system signal-to-noise ratio (SNR), the TX is modulated with

In this article, we propose and demonstrate a spectrum-to-space mapping principle for localizing multiple wireless nodes in a simultaneous and single-shot fashion at terahertz (THz) frequencies. Spectrum-to-space mapping is achieved through two dual-port chip integrated waveguide (CIW)-based leaky-wave antennas (LWAs). Interfacing with the two LWAs, we integrate two transmitting and receiving chains

Advertisement: TechRxiv is a free preprint server for unpublished research in electrical engineering, computer science, and related technology. TechRxiv provides researchers the opportunity to share early results of their work ahead of formal peer review and publication. Benefits: Rapidly disseminate your research findings; Gather feedback from fellow researchers; Find potential collaborators in the

Advertisement, IEEE. IEEE Collabratec is a new, integrated online community where IEEE members, researchers, authors, and technology professionals with similar fields of interest can network and collaborate, as well as create and manage content. Featuring a suite of powerful online networking and collaboration tools, IEEE Collabratec allows you to connect according to geographic location, technical

Provides instructions and guidelines to prospective authors who wish to submit manuscripts.

Transistors made from two-dimensional materials have been around for a decade, but do the devices have a realistic future in integrated circuits?

Insect-scale aerial vehicles are useful tools for communication, environmental sensing and surveying confined spaces. However, the lack of lightweight high-power-density batteries has limited the untethered flight durations of these micro aerial vehicles. Wireless power transmission using radiofrequency electromagnetic waves could potentially offer transmissivity through obstacles, wave-targeting/focusing

Field-effect transistors based on two-dimensional (2D) materials have the potential to be used in very large-scale integration (VLSI) technology, but whether they can be used at the front end of line or at the back end of line through monolithic or heterogeneous integration remains to be determined. To achieve this, multiple challenges must be overcome, including reducing the contact resistance, developing

Origami-inspired robots are of particular interest due to their potential for rapid and accessible design and fabrication of elegant designs and complex functionalities through cutting and folding of flexible two-dimensional sheets or even strings, that is, printable manufacturing. Yet, origami robots still require bulky rigid components or electronics for actuation and control to accomplish tasks

Soft robots can provide advantages for medical interventions given their low cost and their ability to change shape and safely apply forces to tissue. This article explores the potential for their use for endoscopically-guided balloon dilation procedures in the airways. A scalable robot design based on balloon catheter technology is proposed, which is composed of five balloons together with a tip-mounted

Thin-film transistors based on amorphous oxide semiconductors could be used to create low-cost backplane technology for large flat-panel displays. However, a trade-off between mobility and stability has limited the ability of such devices to replace current polycrystalline silicon technologies. Here we show that the sensitivity of amorphous oxide semiconductors to externally introduced impurities and

As wireless networks move to millimetre-wave (mm-wave) and terahertz (THz) frequencies for 5G communications and beyond, ensuring security and resilience to eavesdropper attacks has become increasingly important. Traditional encryption methods are challenging to scale for high-bandwidth, ultralow-latency applications. An alternative approach is to use physical-layer techniques that rely on the physics

Two-dimensional (2D) materials could potentially be used to develop advanced monolithic integrated circuits. However, despite impressive demonstrations of single devices and simple circuits—in some cases with performance superior to those of silicon-based circuits—reports on the fabrication of integrated circuits using 2D materials are limited and the creation of large-scale circuits remains in its

In optical communication systems, fibre nonlinearity is the major obstacle in increasing the transmission capacity. Typically, digital signal processing techniques and hardware are used to deal with optical communication signals, but increasing speed and computational complexity create challenges for such approaches. Highly parallel, ultrafast neural networks using photonic devices have the potential

Semiconducting two-dimensional materials might one day be used in scaled semiconductor technology. Andras Kis recounts how the first transistor based on a single layer of molybdenum disulfide was created.

Textile-integrated metamaterials can be used to propagate signals across the body, and between different people, allowing a network of sensors to be connected and powered.

Wearable and implantable sensors can be linked together to create multi-node wireless networks that could be of use in the development of advanced healthcare monitoring technologies. Such body area networks require secure, seamless and versatile communication links that can operate across the complex human body, but they typically suffer from short ranges, low power or the need for direct-connection

To achieve adhesive and conformable wearable electronics, improving stretchable transparent electrode (STE) becomes an indispensable bottleneck needed to be addressed. Here, we adopt a nonuniform Young’s modulus structure with silver nanowire (AgNW) and fabricate a STE layer. This layer possesses transparency of >88% over a wide spectrum range of 400–1000 nm, sheet resistance below 20 Ω sq−1, stretchability

Soft robotic hands provide better safety and adaptability than rigid robotic hands. Furthermore, a multijointed structure that imitates the movement of a human hand represents significant progress in realizing its anthropomorphism. In this study, we present a multijointed pneumatic soft anthropomorphic hand that is capable of expressing letters through sign language and grasping different objects using

Flexible robotics are capable of achieving various functionalities by shape morphing, benefiting from their compliant bodies and reconfigurable structures. In this study, we construct and study a class of origami springs generalized from the known interleaved origami spring, as promising candidates for shape morphing in flexible robotics. These springs are found to exhibit nonlinear stretch-twist coupling

We present a review on the photoionization bands that can be found in the far ultraviolet part of the spectrum using all sapphire cells in absorption experiments with hot alkali vapor. We describe cesium and rubidium dimers which have very pronounced photoionization bands together with bialkali mixtures like KCs and RbCs. We explain the origin of these peculiar bands as special molecular transitions

A thin and rollable high-resolution image sensor can be created by placing solution-processed metal halide perovskite photodiodes over an amorphous indium gallium zinc oxide transistor backplane.

Two major challenges need to be overcome to bridge the efficiency gap between small-area rigid organic solar cells (OSCs) and large-area flexible devices: the first challenge lies in preparing high-quality flexible transparent electrodes with low resistance, high transparency, smooth surface, and superior mechanical properties. Second, the scalable fabrication of thickness-insensitive photoactive layers

Nature has plenty of imitable examples of bistable thin structures that can actuate in response to mechanical and environmental stimuli, such as touch, light, and moisture. Scientists and engineers have used these as models to develop real-world systems with enhanced shape stability, energy efficiency, and power output. The bistable leaf of the Venus Flytrap (VFT) has a uniquely simple structure that

Presents the table of contents for this issue of the publication.

Presents a listing of the editorial board, board of governors, current staff, committee members, and/or society editors for this issue of the publication.

Presents a listing of the editorial board, board of governors, current staff, committee members, and/or society editors for this issue of the publication.

These instructions give guidelines for preparing papers for this publication. Presents information for authors publishing in this journal.

Solution-processed photodetectors could be of use in large-area light-sensing applications because they can be fabricated at low cost on plastic substrates and their absorption spectra can be tuned by chemical design. However, fabricating photodetectors with low dark currents and integrating them into high-resolution backplanes remains challenging. Here we show that solution-processed metal halide

Presents the front cover for this issue of the publication.

Provides a listing of current staff, committee members and society officers.

Presents the table of contents for this issue of this publication.

Algorithms are one of the fundamental building blocks of computing. However, current evidence about how fast algorithms improve is anecdotal, using small numbers of case studies to extrapolate. In this month’s Point of View article, the authors present the first systematic, quantitative evidence that supports the argument that algorithms are one of the most important sources of improvement in computing

Algorithms determine which calculations computers use to solve problems and are one of the central pillars of computer science. As algorithms improve, they enable scientists to tackle larger problems and explore new domains and new scientific techniques [1] , [2] . Bold claims have been made about the pace of algorithmic progress. For example, the President’s Council of Advisors on Science and Technology

Edge intelligence refers to a set of connected systems and devices for data collection, caching, processing, and analysis proximity to where data are captured based on artificial intelligence. Edge intelligence aims at enhancing data processing and protects the privacy and security of the data and users. Although recently emerged, spanning the period from 2011 to now, this field of research has shown

Video summarization technologies aim to create a concise and complete synopsis by selecting the most informative parts of the video content. Several approaches have been developed over the last couple of decades, and the current state of the art is represented by methods that rely on modern deep neural network architectures. This work focuses on the recent advances in the area and provides a comprehensive

Describes the above-named upcoming special issue or section. May include topics to be covered or calls for papers.

Advertisement, IEEE.

Advertisement, IEEE.

Advertisement, IEEE.

Describes the above-named upcoming special issue or section. May include topics to be covered or calls for papers.

Presents the back cover of this issue of the periodical.

Presents the table of contents for this issue of the publication.