Holst Centre/imec and OMRON have unveiled a prototype of what they claim is the worlds’ highest efficiency extremely compact vibrational energy harvesting DC power supply. This prototype is set to be demonstrated at the TECHNO-FRONTIER2014 exhibition in Tokyo this week.

A n-type PERT crystalline silicon (Si) solar cell has achieved a top conversion efficiency of 21.5%, according to an announcment made by research center imec. The solar cell, fabricated on a large area wafer (15.6cm x 15.6 cm), is the first cell of its kind to reach a top conversion efficiency on an industrial large area wafer size.

Imec, Ghent University, and their partners in the European FP7 project SMARTFIBER have demonstrated the world’s first miniaturised fiber-optical sensor system than can be fully embedded in a composite material. This leads the way toward smart composites that enable continued and automatic monitoring of the structural health of the composite material in -for example- tidal blades, wind turbines, airplanes (fuselage, wings) or marine structur...

To coincide with Graphene Week 2014, the Graphene Flagship announce that one of the largest-ever European research initiatives is doubling in size. 66 new partners are being invited to join the consortium following the results of a €9 million competitive call. While most partners are universities and research institutes, the share of companies, mainly SMEs, involved is increasing.

Nanoelectronics research centre imec and XIMEA announced their partnership in integrating imec’s Hyperspectral Imaging (HSI) sensors together with XIMEA’s xiQ USB3.0 camera product line. Exceptional interoperability between camera and sensor’s technology streamlined the success of this integration.

Imec has announced that it is collaborating with Samsung Electronics to accelerate innovation and collaboration among technology companies and researchers working in the burgeoning mobile wearable field. The announcement comes as part of Samsung’s recently announced digital health initiative, which aims to facilitate the development of wearable sensors that can help users gain new insights into their own wellness and enable them to live hea...

At the VLSI circuits symposium 2014 imec will present a low power pipelined SAR (successive-approximation register) ADC in 28nm digital CMOS. Targeted at wireless receivers for next-generation software defined radio, the company claims that the device exhibits record resolution, speed and power performance

Researchers from Holst Centre and imec have demonstrated what they believe to be the first ever X-ray detector produced on a plastic substrate that is capable of medical-grade performance. The device delivers high-resolution, dynamic images at 25fps and 200ppi with high contrast using medical-level X-ray doses.

ROHM Semiconductor and imec have announced that they have entered into a strategic research collaboration partnership focusing on ultra-low power (ULP) radio technology for small battery-operated wireless devices.

In this week’s Nature Communications imec presents the development of fullerene-free organic photovoltaic (OPV) multilayer stacks achieving a record conversion efficiency of 8.4 percent. This breakthrough achievement is an important step to bring organic photovoltaic cells to a higher level in the competitive thin-film photovoltaics marketplace.

Suitable for integration in multi-frequency handheld GNSS devices for high precision location applications up to 1cm, imec and Septentrio have collaborated on the design of a compact antenna-RF integrated element of a multi-frequency GNSS antenna for GPS, GLONASS, BeiDou and GALILEO.

Targeting small cell backhaul and 5G wireless communications, imec and InterDigital announce an agreement to develop 60GHz millimetre wave (mmW) radio and phased array technology. This will ease deployments for small cell mobile backhaul, enabling lower cost solutions for high-speed data delivery.

In collaboration with Vrije Universiteit Brussel, Imec has launched what they claim to be the world’s first 79GHz radar transmitter implemented in plain digital 28nm CMOS. This product launch paves the way towards full radar-on-chip solutions for automotive and smart environment applications.

At this week’s International Solid State Circuits Conference, imec and Holst Centre, together with Olympus, demonstrated a low-power single channel implantable electrocardiography (ECG) acquisition chip with analog feature extraction, which enables precise monitoring of the signal activity in a selected frequency band

At the 2014 SPIE Photonics West conference and exhibition, imec showcased its ultra-compact hyperspectral imaging sensor technology integrated into different commercial camera vendor partners. The vendor partners included ADIMEC and 3D-ONE, both from the Netherlands, and SPIE 2014 PRISM awarded finalist BaySpec from the US.

Paving the way for industrial adoption of thermocompression bonding for 3D IC manufacturing, imec and Besi have announced a partnership to develop a thermocompression bonding solution for narrow-pitch die-to-die, and die-to-wafer bonding.

With a power consumption up to five times lower than state-of-the-art radios and an extremely small memory footprint, this new radio solution leads the way to new Internet of Things applications such as personal health monitoring systems and smart home applications. The integrated ultra-low power Bluetooth Smart radio solution was produced in collaboration between Imec, Holst Centre and Wicentric.

A strategic partnership between Imec, Holst Centre and the East-Limburg Hospital will aim to accelerate the development of wearable sensor technologies for remote healthcare and personal health applications. The partnership brings together Holst Centre and imec’s technology expertise with ZOL’s clinical excellence to focus the development of remote monitoring where it is most relevant to the healthcare domain, and enable rapid valid...

At the 'CMOS Image Sensors for High Performance Applications’ workshop in Toulouse, imec presents a high-performance time-delay-integration image sensor for space applications. Based on imec’s proprietary embedded charge-coupled device in CMOS technology, the image sensor has been fabricated for the French Space Agency, CNES, for space-based earth observation.

An Evaluation Kit for imec's and Holst Centre's proprietary ultra-low power ECG analog front-end chip for ambulatory cardiac monitoring is now available. Enabling device companies to evaluate imec and Holst Centre’s extremely robust ultra-low power technology on their own portable cardiac monitoring solutions, the kit is also fast, easy to set up and customizable.