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While accelerating towards manufacturing modern semiconductor technologies,
India has achieved another milestone by reducing the Basic Custom Duty (BCD) to 0%
on 85 categories of electronics components and manufacturing equipment by issuing
three official notifications through the Finance Ministry and the Central Board of
Indirect Taxes and Customs (CBIC). This policy removes the previous 5% to 7.5%
import taxes to make it cheaper to manufacture electronics inside the country. It also
simplifies supply chains by lowering landed costs, which boosts local component
sourcing and accelerates the country’s ambition of becoming a global electronics and
manufacturing hub.

The duty exemption primarily covers components, machinery, and equipment that
are not manufactured in sufficient quantities within India but are essential for the
production of smartphones, laptops, consumer electronics, telecom equipment,
industrial electronics, automotive electronics, and semiconductor-related products.
This elimination of costs on import duties in semiconductor manufacturing lowers
production costs, making electronics cheaper to build, and attracting global
investments by lowering their global supply chain expenses.

Industry experts believe that reduction in import duty will practically benefit
manufacturers by directly lowering production costs. Manufacturing electronic
products that rely on advanced electronic components, precision manufacturing
equipment, semiconductor materials, and testing systems that are currently
unavailable or produced only in limited quantities will be able to source these critical
inputs at lower costs.

Combined with ongoing investments under the India Semiconductor Mission, PLI
schemes, and expanding semiconductor manufacturing projects, the cost-cutting of
import duties is expected to strengthen India’s position as a preferred destination for
electronics production and innovation. As the semiconductor market grows, the
zero-duty policy on electronics input is expected to improve export competitiveness
and the development of a resilient semiconductor ecosystem, supporting India’s
emergence as a key player in the global semiconductor industry.

The post India Cuts Duty to 0% on 85 Electronics Categories, Leading Global Manufacturers to Invest in India appeared first on ELE Times.

The Ministry of Electronics and Information Technology (MeitY) with Drone
Federation of India, has introduced NIDAR 2.0 (2026-27) under the SwaYaan initiative to
build indigenous drones and flight controllers powered by India’s homegrown VEGA
processor. This innovation reduces reliance on foreign chips, strengthen the
domestic drone and electronics manufacturing ecosystem. This initiative aims to
accelerate the development of next-generation unmanned aerial system (UAS) by
encouraging startups, researchers, and industry to build drones using domestically
manufactured electronic components.

NIDAR 2.0 stands for National Innovation Challenge for Drone Application and
Research that aligns with government’s vision of Atmanirbhar Bharat, the India
Semiconductor Mission (ISM), and the Designed Linked Incentive (DLI) Scheme. The
goal of this hackathon is to provide a valuable opportunity for students and working
professionals to build flight controller and autopilot hardware powered by India’s
indigenous VEGA microchip.

According to MeitY release, NIDAR 2.0 offers a prize pool of more than 65 lakh that
not only promote innovation but also supports startups, nurtures young talents, and
accelerate the development of domestic drones and semiconductor technologies
through incubation, technical mentorship, and industry collaboration.

Launching the challenge, MeitY Secretary S Krishnan said, “NIDAR 2.0 takes our
students from just flying drones to building the drone’s brain. When the drone’s
brain runs on India’s own VEGA processor, we are not just training engineers. We are
laying the foundation of a self-reliant drone industry.”

The primary focus of this hackathon is to build autonomous swarm drones capable of
locating survivors and delivering medical supplies in disaster-hit areas without an
external communication network, and developing GPS-denied drones for indoor
industrial inspection. By collaborating as a coordinated fleet, swarm drones can
rapidly survey large areas, identify victims using onboard sensors and AI-based image
processing, and optimizing search-and-rescue operations without relying on constant
human intervention.

The post NIDAR 2.0: MeitY Boosts Indigenous Drone Innovation with India’s homegrown chips appeared first on ELE Times.

Cadence (Nasdaq: CDNS) today introduced the AuraStack AI Super
Agent on Cadence Allegro AI Studio, the world’s first agentic AI platform for printed circuit board
(PCB) and advanced packaging design, taking designers from system planning to final product in a
single AI-native environment. The Cadence AuraStack AI Super Agent, accelerated by NVIDIA
Blackwell and NVIDIA CUDA-X, coordinates domain-specific AI agents across planning,
implementation and tightly integrated multiphysics analysis domains to compress the system-design
cycle through manufacturing. With the AuraStack AI Super Agent, Cadence is now the only provider
with agentic AI solutions spanning the full electronic system design flow, from digital and analog
silicon design, advanced packaging, through to PCB design, building on its ChipStack, InnoStack
and ViraStack AI Super Agents.

“The next era of AI infrastructure—spanning data centers, automotive, aerospace and physical
AI—will be defined not only by silicon, but by the systems that connect, power and cool it,” said
Michael Jackson, corporate vice president of R&D for System Design and Analysis at
Cadence. “As hyperscale data centers deploy massive AI clusters and other industries advance
increasingly intelligent, high-performance systems, engineering teams face growing complexity in
PCB and advanced package design. Agentic AI orchestration, combined with trusted EDA and SDA
tools, enables customers to move from manual iteration to intelligent, automated design realization.”

Agentic AI for Packaging and PCB Design

Building on the same architecture as Cadence’s ChipStack AI Super Agent, agentic AI is combined with principled simulation and optimization tools, leveraging a mental model of the design intent, to automate and orchestrate the design exploration, realization and signoff. The AuraStack AI Super Agent brings together automation and optimization for system planning, constraints management, physical structure definition, IP creation and reuse, place and route, design for manufacturability and multiphysics analysis across Cadence’s system design and analysis portfolio. It introduces a unified, AI-driven multiphysics foundation that concurrently models and optimizes electrical, thermal and mechanical behavior—including SI/PI, thermal, mechanical stress, drop, vibration and fatigue analysis—within a closed-loop environment, enabling earlier tradeoff evaluation and product-level optimization across the entire design flow. This continuous multiphysics feedback loop enables real- time design convergence, reducing late-stage surprises and improving overall system reliability.

The AuraStack AI Super Agent’s key benefits include:

• Accelerating time to market by 2X, with 15X productivity and multiphysics-driven
  quality—automating complex tasks, expanding design exploration.
• Unifying separate engineering teams around a shared, multiphysics-aware design
  environment with a single source of truth across domains.
• Advancing early and continuous multiphysics co-optimization to reduce late-stage
  rework and costly design iterations. Unifies Cadence multiphysics signoff solutions, such as
  Celsius Thermal Solver, Clarity 3D Solver for 3D-EM, MSC Nastran and Marc Linear
  and Non-Linear Finite Element Analysis Solvers for mechanical analysis, and Sigrity X
  Platform for signal and power integrity.
• Limiting expensive respins by identifying system issues earlier in development.
• Enabling product-level optimization, including co-optimization with advanced packaging
  approaches.

Industry Leaders Advancing Agentic AI with Cadence
Cadence is collaborating with industry leaders to deploy AuraStack AI Super Agent workflows for real-
world advanced IC packaging and PCB design challenges.

NVIDIA is using Cadence to help automate and optimize increasingly complex system design
workflows for its engineering teams.

“The scale and complexity of modern AI infrastructure demands a new design approach,” said Tim
Costa, vice president and general manager of computational engineering at NVIDIA. “NVIDIA’s
collaboration with Cadence is advancing AI-powered engineering workflows that accelerate design
convergence and innovation across the industry. The Cadence AuraStack AI Super Agent and the
Millennium M2000 Supercomputer deliver up to 20X faster multiphysics performance, giving our
engineers the capability to tackle the most demanding design challenges and bring the next
generation of AI infrastructure to life.”

Cadence is partnering with TSMC to help customers accelerate advanced package implementation
through AI-driven automation, enabling timely design convergence for increasingly complex multi-die
systems.

“As advanced packaging complexity grows, customers need new levels of automation to achieve
timely design convergence,” said Aveek Sarkar, director of the Ecosystem and Alliance
Management Division at TSMC. “Our long-standing partnership with Open Innovation Platform
(OIP) ecosystem partners like Cadence to deliver advanced package design and verification solutions
for TSMC 3DFabric technologies helps customers accelerate the realization of next-generation
multi-die systems for AI and high-performance computing applications. Through our multi-year
collaboration on substrate auto routing, we are already enabling customers to boost productivity by
100X while delivering quality of results similar to manual routing.”

Socionext is leveraging Cadence to accelerate the automation and optimization of increasingly
complex semiconductor package and PCB design workflows.

“AI-driven agents are set to transform IC package and PCB design by automating SI, PI and thermal
workflows and enabling generative design,” said Iwasaki Toshifumi, lead design execution leading
unit, Global Leading Group at Socionext Inc. “This acceleration allows our engineers to focus on
higher-value work like architecture exploration, margin optimization, and multiphysics tradeoffs, while
capabilities such as automated routing and chip-package-board co-design accelerate convergence
and reduce manual effort.”

FORVIA HELLA continues to advance intelligent, sustainable mobility solutions that will define the
future of automotive technology.

“Working closely with Cadence has fundamentally changed the way FORVIA HELLA develops
advanced automotive electronics. Using AI-assisted placement technology, a task involving the
placement of 300 components that previously took up to four days can now be completed in just four
minutes,” said Sven Hoenecke, president & CEO, Electronics NSA at FORVIA HELLA. “This step
change in productivity allows our engineers to evaluate more design alternatives, optimize layouts
earlier in the development process, and accelerate the development of innovative products without
compromising quality. By automating repetitive work, our teams can focus more time on solving
complex engineering challenges and bringing new technologies to market faster.”

Schneider Electric is collaborating with Cadence to apply AI-driven design automation and
engineering expertise to accelerate electronic design workflows and scale institutional knowledge
across engineering teams.

“At Schneider Electric, we see AI as much more than a productivity tool. Our collaboration with
Cadence has demonstrated the potential of AI to accelerate design activities and improve engineer
efficiency,” said Daniel Gheno, senior vice president, Innovation and Technology EM at
Schneider Electric. “The next frontier is to combine design automation with engineering expertise,
enabling companies to capture decades of know-how and make robust design decisions available to
every engineer. We believe this is where AI can truly transform electronic design.”

The post Cadence Introduces AuraStack AI Super Agent, the World’s First Agentic AI Platform for PCB and Advanced Packaging appeared first on ELE Times.

Keysight Technologies, Inc. has been selected by the European Space Agency (ESA)
to lead a three‑year development program focused on creating secure, blockchain‑enabled
anomaly detection for 5G non‑terrestrial networks (NTN). Keysight will serve as the prime
contractor, collaborating with Sateliot to support key technical development and satellite mission
integration.

As more satellite communication constellations are deployed, space‑based networks are
becoming increasingly complex, with growing interactions between satellites, ground systems,
and terrestrial 5G infrastructure. This introduces new challenges related to quality of service,
anomaly management, operational security, and confidence in network behavior once deployed.
Looking ahead to 6G, where non-terrestrial infrastructure will play a central role, ensuring
access to trusted, verifiable data will be critical to enabling autonomous and artificial intelligence
(AI)-driven network operations.

The project, which benefits from the support of ESA’s Space for 5G/6G & Sustainable
Connectivity program line within the Agency’s Advanced Research in Telecommunications
Systems (ARTES), is designed to address these challenges by establishing a secure, verifiable
trust framework for NTN environments. Keysight will leverage its design, test, and measurement
expertise to explore how blockchain, AI, machine learning (ML), and digital calibration
certificates can be applied across the full NTN lifecycle, from satellite manufacturing and
calibration to in‑orbit operation and service delivery.

Albert Pujol, Chief Innovation Officer at Sateliot, stated: “This program represents a
definitive shift toward integrating space-based assets into a secure, unified 5G ecosystem. By
anchoring blockchain within our orbital operations, we are creating a transparent validation layer
that allows massive IoT networks to scale globally while consistently ensuring security and
performance.”

Antonio Franchi, Head of the Space for 5G/6G & Sustainable Connectivity programme at
ESA, said: “The future of Europe’s connectivity depends on networks that are not only
advanced, but trusted, resilient and secure. Supporting this project, which benefits from
Keysight’s leadership and Sateliot’s expertise, underscores ESA’s commitment to helping
pioneer the technologies required to safeguard the integration of non-terrestrial and terrestrial
networks. Together, we’re not only taking a step towards defending Europe’s communications
against spoofing and tampering, but we’re also ensuring that our Member States remain at the
forefront of secure 5G and future 6G communications.”

Eric Taylor, Vice President, Aerospace, Defense and Government Solutions at Keysight,
said: “This initiative represents a major step toward securing hybrid space–terrestrial networks
at a time when global NTN deployments are accelerating. By combining test and measurement
expertise with AI-driven assurance and blockchain technologies, this work will demonstrate how
trust can be embedded across the full NTN lifecycle – from design and validation through in-orbit
operation.”

By integrating these technologies, the program aims to enhance the integrity and reliability of
space‑based IoT, 5G, and future 6G communications, helping to protect networks from
spoofing, tampering, and other cyber threats. Over the course of the program, development will
progress from laboratory research and prototyping to a full in‑orbit demonstration, validating
how blockchain‑anchored trust, autonomous anomaly detection, and secure telemetry can be
applied in operational satellite environments.

The ESA‑funded program is expected to inform future NTN operations, strengthen Europe’s
position in secure satellite connectivity, and accelerate the adoption of trusted space‑based
5G/6G networks worldwide.

The post Keysight and Sateliot Selected by European Space Agency to Develop Blockchain‑Enabled Framework for 5G Non‑Terrestrial Networks appeared first on ELE Times.

BluGlass Ltd of Silverwater, Australia — which develops and manufactures gallium nitride (GaN) visible laser diodes based on its proprietary low-temperature, low-hydrogen remote-plasma chemical vapor deposition (RPCVD) technology — has secured a AUS$1.4m (US$1m) commitment from Uviquity of Raleigh, NC, USA (a venture-backed start-up pioneering wide-bandgap integrated photonics) for Phase II of its joint development agreement (JDA)...

КПІ ім. Ігоря Сікорського — серед лідерів Консолідованого рейтингу закладів вищої освіти України 2026! KPI4U-2 чт, 07/16/2026 - 11:45

WeEn Semiconductors of Shanghai, China — a joint venture company formed by NXP Semiconductors and Beijing JianGuang Asset Management Co Ltd (JAC Capital) in 2015 that develops and manufactures bipolar power semiconductor products — has launched a new family of AC–DC and DC–DC silicon carbide (SiC) power modules to target the growing range of solid-state transformer (SST) applications, as well as electric vehicle (EV) super-chargers and smart-grid/renewable applications...

submitted by /u/BlownUpCapacitor [link] [comments]

Ignore the rock drawer I didn't have a better place for my cool rocks submitted by /u/Sprucehouse [link] [comments]

Infineon’s RIC70115 GaN HEMT gate driver provides the radiation hardness and long-term reliability required for satellite and space applications. Supporting both silicon FETs and GaN HEMTs in low-side and high-side configurations, the device helps ease the transition from silicon to GaN.

Operating over a temperature range of -55°C to +125°C, the RIC70115 is characterized for single-event effects up to a linear energy transfer (LET) of 81.9 MeV·cm²/mg and a total ionizing dose (TID) of up to 100 krad(Si). Its independent Miller clamp prevents parasitic-induced turn-on while maintaining switching speed, reducing switching losses. Truly differential input logic rejects common-mode noise and minimizes the effects of EMI and RFI.

An integrated low-dropout regulator generates a tightly regulated 4.8-V drive voltage from a 5-V or 12-V source, supporting a supply voltage range of 4.75 V to 15 V. The RIC70115 provides a 1.5-A source current and a 2.5-A sink current, with propagation delay matching of up to 2.9 ns.

The RIC70115 is offered in a hermetically sealed 16-pin LCC package or in die form. 

RIC70115 product page 

Infineon Technologies  

The post Rad-hard gate driver enables GaN adoption appeared first on EDN.

Tomocube’s HT-T1D is a desktop holotomography system for high-resolution, non-destructive 3D defect analysis of glass substrates used in semiconductor packaging. It images internal defects and other fine features with a lateral resolution of 161 nm and an axial resolution of 1.298 µm.

Glass core substrates and glass interposers are gaining traction as key enabling materials for AI accelerators, high-bandwidth memory, and other advanced packaging applications. Manufacturers need to identify the root causes of micro-defects and quickly translate inspection data into process improvements.

The HT-T1D system applies visible-light holotomography to visualize the three-dimensional refractive-index distribution inside glass with refractive-index sensitivity down to ~10⁻⁴ Δn. Its non-destructive measurements enable repeated analysis of the same location across successive process stages, allowing users to track when and how defects form, propagate, or enlarge.

When conventional in-line panel inspection tools such as automated optical inspection (AOI) systems flag a potential defect, the HT-T1D uses the corresponding coordinates to reconstruct the interior of the glass substrate in three dimensions. It resolves the defect’s location, morphology, and depth profile that surface inspection alone cannot reveal.

HT-T1D product page 

Tomocube

The post Holotomography system analyzes glass defects appeared first on EDN.

Two TVS diode series from Littelfuse, the TP5.0SMD-FL and TP1KSMB-FL, protect 48-V automotive electronics from voltage transients. Based on the FlatSuppressX TVS architecture, the devices exhibit a flatter clamping characteristic with a significantly lower clamping voltage than conventional TVS components. Their foldback/snapback function tightly controls transient response while avoiding latch-up risk.

The TP5.0SMD-FL series has a peak pulse power rating of up to 5 kW in a DO-214AB (SMC) package. The TP1KSMB-FL series has a peak pulse power rating of up to 1 kW in a DO-214AA (SMB) package. Devices in both series are AEC-Q101 qualified, providing scalable protection options for varying system requirements. Their architecture enhances system efficiency, enabling the use of lower-rated downstream components.

Optimized for protecting I/O interfaces, power buses, and other vulnerable circuits in automotive electronics, particularly 48-V architectures, these TVS diodes provide a fast transient response, typically in less than 1 ps.

The TP5.0SMD-FL and TP1KSMB-FL series are available in tape and reel format in quantities of 3,000. Sample requests are accepted through authorized Littelfuse distributors worldwide. 

Littelfuse

The post TVS diodes clamp automotive transients appeared first on EDN.

MPLAB XC Pro Compilers and the MPLAB Machine Learning Development Suite from Microchip are now available at no cost. Unlimited installations give users free access to advanced optimization capabilities and integrated embedded machine learning workflows, whether working individually or as part of a development team.

Previously available through paid license tiers, the MPLAB XC Pro Compilers reduce code size, lower memory usage, improve execution speed, and generate architecture-optimized code for embedded applications. These capabilities support software development across Microchip’s 8-bit, 16-bit, and 32-bit MCU and MPU portfolio.

The MPLAB Machine Learning Development Suite includes the Model Builder plug-in for MPLAB X IDE and Microsoft Visual Studio Code. It generates optimized AI and IoT sensor recognition code to support embedded machine learning development on resource-constrained devices.

MPLAB XC Compilers and the MPLAB Machine Learning Development Suite are now available as free, unrestricted-use downloads.

Microchip Technology

The post Microchip offers free MPLAB compilers, AI tools appeared first on EDN.

The Rambus DDR5 9600 server RDIMM chipset supports DDR5 RDIMMs operating at up to 9600 MT/s in CPU-based server platforms. The chipset is built around the RCD06 sixth-generation registering clock driver, which increases bandwidth by 20% over the previous generation. As a key control-plane chip, the registering clock driver distributes command/address, chip-select, and clock signals to the DRAM devices on the RDIMM.

In addition to the RCD06, the chipset includes the PMIC5030 power management IC and a serial presence detect (SPD) hub with an integrated temperature sensor. The SPD hub communicates via the I3C bus for system configuration and thermal management. Two dedicated temperature sensors per DIMM provide precision thermal sensing and, in combination with the SPD hub, enable three points of thermal telemetry for the memory module.

By integrating clocking, control, and power management functions, the chipset helps ensure signal and power integrity at high data rates while simplifying the design of DDR5 RDIMMs. This level of integration becomes increasingly important as server architectures scale to support higher processor core counts, larger memory capacities, and the sustained demands of continuously running AI workloads.

Learn more about the DDR5 9600 Server RDIMM chipset here.

Rambus

The post RDIMM chipset boosts server memory bandwidth appeared first on EDN.

Vector Photonics Ltd of the West of Scotland Science Park (which was spun off from the University of Glasgow in 2020, based on research led by professor Richard Hogg) has begun a new program that addresses a critical and growing challenge in advanced photonics manufacturing: the lack of scalable, thermally efficient and resource-effective packaging for photonic crystal surface-emitting lasers (PCSELs)...

NextGO Epi of Berlin, Germany has secured a €2m pre-seed funding round led by Vireo Ventures, with participation from Ultratech Capital Partners, IBB Ventures, and angel investor Boris Habets. Spun off in 2025 from Berlin-based Leibniz-Institut für Kristallzüchtung (IKZ) and supported also by Investitionsbank Berlin, INAM and Siltronic, NextGO Epi produces gallium oxide epitaxial wafers for next-generation power semiconductor devices...

Infineon Technologies AG of Munich, Germany has introduced the RIC70115, a radiation-hardened (rad-hard) gallium nitride (GaN) high-electron-mobility transistor (HEMT) driver designed for satellite and high-reliability space applications where power conversion performance and long-term operational integrity are critical requirements...

submitted by /u/holysbit [link] [comments]

I have a couple of these receivers I got in a pile of old stuff and by defuse they're USB but I wanted to use them with my microcontrollers, so I ripped one apart with a simple pry tool then removed the pressed on RF shield to expose the goodies. Looking at the USB to serial transceiver, I see it's a PL-2303HX and looking at the datasheet, pin 1 is serial TX and pin 5 is serial RX, so I traced them to two open solder bridges. Closing those to solder bridges with questionable soldering using an oversized tip resulted in the two unused pins now making connection I decided to use the existing cabling so I used a small pry tool to lift up the plastic tab holding the green and white USB data wires and pulled them out and inserting them into their new homes After snipping off the USB connector, red to +5v, black to negative, and the two serial lines to my ESP32 pins, I started streaming NMEA datagrams over uart ❤️ NOTE: the default speed for this receiver is 4800bps submitted by /u/DangerousDyke [link] [comments]

When doing analog design, especially at higher frequencies ranging into the microwave region, it’s normal to focus on devices and the performance they enable in the specific topology. But there’s another aspect of microwave design that’s important to keep in mind: the role of advanced materials and the atomic-scale physics that allows conception, construction, and test of the advanced devices need to reach toward the multi-gigahertz part of the spectrum.

This is demonstrated by a recent Cornell University-led development related to voltage-tunable capacitors, or varactors, that combine high performance with low loss—and the road to get there. Traditional varactor technologies, while effective, often hit a performance ceiling due to intrinsic material limitations, particularly when it comes to dielectric losses that degrade signal quality.

A federal research program was initiated in 1999 to find materials for varactors that would offer lower dielectric losses at higher frequencies. The “back story” of success here is yet another example of how progress is often not linear, predictable, or obvious, despite the way it’s often portrayed.

The research team’s success here is due to persistence and following a very different path, as the project has been a long journey. While nearly every scientific team in the program focused on using barium strontium titanate, the Cornell team looked at layered crystalline materials, a type of perovskite structure known as Ruddlesden-Popper thin films, characterized by their exceptionally low energy loss at microwave frequencies.

Unfortunately, these films also had a major drawback: according to the accepted understanding of their crystal symmetry, they shouldn’t have been able to provide the tunability needed for practical devices.

A member of the research team was developing a new technique for measuring the dielectric properties of thin films across a wide range of frequencies. One of his measurements of strontium titanium oxide with composition Sr4Ti3O10, a layered Ruddlesden-Popper thin film, suggested something remarkable: the supposedly untunable material might, in fact, be tunable after all.

But there was a problem: the effect only appeared in an in-plane geometry, in which the electric field moved sideways through the material. Real-world devices such as voltage-tunable capacitors used in microwave circuits generally require an out-of-plane design, in which the electric field moves vertically through the film, enabling smaller, more efficient components.

Researchers spent a decade trying to find a way to preserve their low microwave loss while making them more tunable and more practical. They then asked a more radical question: what if they could change the symmetry of the material itself? If so, it might be possible to change the symmetry in a specific family of Ruddlesden-Popper compounds made from barium, strontium, titanium, and oxygen.

In a true multi-institution effort with collaborators at Cornell, the University of Connecticut, Rice University, the University of Maryland, Boise State University and the National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST), they engineered a new version of the material by inserting carefully spaced rock-salt layers. The strategy effectively rewrote the material’s internal rules, allowing it to exhibit the out-of-plane behavior needed for practical devices while preserving the low-loss characteristics that had made the Ruddlesden-Popper thin films attractive in the first place.

By engineering a film structure that introduces a unique rock-salt atomic layer interleaved with every “n” perovskite unit cell, the researchers created a new class of thin films whose symmetry properties could be precisely controlled (Figure 1).

Figure 1 Researchers used advanced microscopy to confirm the atomic structure of an engineered Ruddlesden-Popper material. The diagrams show how alternating layers in the crystal helped produce the material’s unusual combination of tunability and low energy loss. Source: Cornell University

From possible breakthrough to despair, then to a solution

But this success led to another dead-end, as the new out-of-plane devices posed an entirely different metrology problem. The frequencies most relevant for modern communications systems are among the most difficult to measure accurately because at those high frequencies, the signal from the material can be distorted by the test structure itself—the metal electrodes, wiring, and geometries surrounding the dielectric. So, when the researchers first tested the new Ruddlesden-Popper devices at microwave frequencies, the results were confusing.

Addressing this issue, a NIST-based group began to develop a new metrology approach capable of characterizing the material in an out-of-plane, metal-insulator-metal capacitor geometry at frequencies beyond the reach of conventional techniques. They added a “control structure” using a sheet of metal that had the same topology as the device. Measuring that control structure let the team perform an additional round of calibration, subtracting away distortions caused by the test structure itself, and isolating the dielectric’s true microwave response (Figure 2).

Figure 2 The microwave measurement setup used by the NIST team in Boulder, Colorado. Source: NIST via Cornell University

Their custom-tailored composition exhibits a remarkable relative tunability of 51% under an applied electric field of 250 kV/cm, which is almost double the performance of many conventional tunable dielectrics. At the same time, it maintains an impressively low dielectric loss that translates to a material quality factor of about 200. For the best version, the measured dielectric tuning figure of merit (FOM) showed tenfold improvement for out-of-plane tunable dielectrics at 10 GHz.

Figure 3 Various perspectives on microwave characterization are displayed at ambient temperature. Source: Cornell University

Will this lead to new varactors that you can buy? Obviously, it’s too early to say; there are still many potential obstacles on the path to commercialization, if it even happens.

But I do think the right screenwriter could make an exciting story out of this long quest with its advances, insight, contrary thinking, roadblocks, and eventual success. It would be nice to see a true story of science discovery and innovation captured and brought to a more general audience (can you think of any recent ones other than the 2023 blockbuster movie Oppenheimer?).

The work is detailed in their intense paper with a deceptively simple title “Breaking symmetry yields a low-loss out-of-plane tunable microwave dielectric” published in Nature Electronics; while that paper is behind a paywall, a “student” preprint copy is posted at ResearchGate here. In addition, there’s a fairly technical yet very readable description of the work posted at Bioengineer.org (why there—I can’t say).

Bill Schweber is a degreed senior EE who has written three textbooks, hundreds of technical articles, opinion columns, and product features. Prior to becoming an author and editor, he spent his entire hands-on career on the analog side by working on power supplies, sensors, signal conditioning, and wired and wireless communication links. His work experience includes many years at Analog Devices in applications and marketing.

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