The Kynix Blog

Toshiba Memory has announced development of the world’s first BiCS FLASH three-dimensional (3D) flash memory utilising Through Silicon Via (TSV) technology with 3-bit-per-cell (triple-level cell, TLC) technology. Shipments of prototypes for development purposes started in June, and product samples are scheduled for release in the second half of 2017. The prototype of this ground-breaking device will be showcased at the 2017 Flash Memory Summit in Santa Clara, California, United States, from August 7-10.Devices fabricated with TSV technology have vertical electrodes and vias that pass through silicon dies to provide connections, an architecture that realises high speed data input and output while reducing power consumption. Real-world performance has been proven previously, with the introduction of Toshiba’s 2D NAND Flash memory. Combining a 48-layer 3D flash process and TSV technology has allowed Toshiba Memory Corporation to successfully increase product programming bandwidth while achieving low power consumption. The power efficiency of a single package is approximately twice that of the same generation BiCS FLASH memory fabricated with wire-bonding technology. TSV BiCS FLASH also enables a 1-terabyte (TB) device with a 16-die stacked architecture in a single package. Toshiba Memory will commercialise BiCS FLASH with TSV technology to provide an ideal solution in respect for storage applications requiring low latency, high bandwidth and high IOPS/W, including high-end enterprise SSDs. Ref.KY32-CG7937AAKY32-CG7797AAT

Researchers at Tokyo Institute of Technology have devised a low-cost approach to developing all-solid-state batteries, improving prospects for scaling up the technology for widespread use in electric vehicles, communications and other industrial applications. Ever since batteries were invented over 200 years ago, there has been a drive to improve quality and performance at reduced costs.Compared to common lithium-ion batteries that contain lithium ion conducting liquids, all-solid-state batteries of the future promise a suite of advantages: improved safety and reliability, higher energy storage and longer life cycles. The discovery of ‘superionic’ conductors — solid crystals that enable fast movement of ions — is spurring the development of such dream batteries, but promising designs have so far relied on the use of rare metals such as germanium, making them too expensive for large-scale applications. Ryoji Kanno and colleagues at Tokyo Institute of Technology (Tokyo Tech) have now discovered a new material with a low-cost, scalable approach that involves substituting germanium for two more readily available elements: tin and silicon. The new material achieved an ionic conductivity that exceeds that of liquid electrolytes. Reporting their findings in Chemistry of Materials, the team states: "This germanium-free lithium conductor could be a promising candidate as an electrolyte in all-solid-state batteries." Due to its high chemical stability and ease of fabrication, Kanno says that the new material widens the possibilities of fine-tuning solid electrolytes to meet diverse industry and consumer needs. In 2011, Kanno and his team, working in collaboration with Toyota Motor Corporation and Japan's High Energy Accelerator Research Organisation (KEK), published a landmark paper in Nature Materials that introduced a solid electrolyte with the structure Li10GeP2S12 (LGPS). This material became an important forerunner in the race to develop viable all-solid-state batteries. It exhibited an ionic conductivity of 1.2x10-2S cm-1 at room temperature, a level comparable with — and even exceeding some — liquid electrolytes used in existing batteries. The team went on to design other solid electrolytes based on the same LGPS crystal structure, with promising results. In their latest study, the researchers kept the same framework structure of LGPS, and finely adjusted the ratio and positioning of the tin, silicon and other constituent atoms. The resulting material LSSPS (composition: Li10.35[Sn0.27Si1.08]P1.65S12 (Li3.45[Sn0.09Si0.36]P0.55S4)) achieved an ionic conductivity of 1.1x10-2S cm-1 at room temperature, almost reaching that of the original LGPS structure. Although further work will be required to optimise performance for different usage purposes, the new material raises hopes for low-cost production without sacrificing performance. Kanno envisions that in addition to meeting current battery needs across all sectors, all-solid-state batteries will expand the possibilities of responding to new user needs arising from the IoT and the shift towards smart systems, as well as powering robots, drones and space and aircraft technologies among others in future.  Ref.KY605-NH12VPKY605-NH15VP

In recent years Artificial intelligence (AI) has become a technology that global companies are desperately trying to take advantage of, as it is one of the most emerging and competitive technologies. However, a lot of AI technologies focus on the software, with operating speeds low which makes them a poor fit for mobile devices. For this reason big companies are focusing on developing AI with low power and high speeds, hoping to make AI fit for mobile use.   Professor Hoi-Jun Yoo of the Department of Electrical Engineering, along with his research team and collaboration with start-up company, UX Factory Co, has developed a semiconductor chip, CNNP (CNN Processor), which runs AI algorithms with ultra-low power, and K-Eye, a face recognition system using CNNP. Consisting of two different formats, the K-Eye series is available as a wearable type and a dongle type. The wearable type device can be used with a smartphone via Bluetooth, and it can operate for more than 24 hours with its internal battery. By conveniently hanging the K-Eye around their necks users can check information about people by using their smartphone or smart watch, which connects K-Eye and allows users to access a database via their smart devices. A smartphone with K-EyeQ, the dongle type device, can recognise and share information about users at any time.  It works by recognising an authorised user looking at the screen, which then automatically turns the smartphone on, without a fingerprint, passcode or iris authentication. The smartphone cannot be tricked by the user’s photograph, as it can distinguish whether an input face is coming from a saved photograph versus a real person. Other distinct features are carried out by the K-Eye series. Detecting a face at first and then recognising it is one, and it is possible to maintain ‘Always-on’ status with low power consumption of less than 1mW. The research team devised two key technologies to complete this: an image sensor with ‘Always-on’ face detection and the CNNP face recognition chip.  The ‘Always-on’ image sensor, the first key technology, is able to determine if there is a face in its camera range. Then, it can capture frames and set the device to operate only when a face exists, reducing the standby power significantly. Additionally the face detection sensor combines analogue and digital processing to reduce power consumption. Using this approach, the analogue processor, combined with the CMOS Image Sensor array, distinguishes the background area from the area likely to include a face, and the digital processor then detects the face only in the selected area. Therefore, it becomes effective in terms of frame capture, face detection processing, and memory usage.    Following this the second key technology, CNNP, is able to achieve incredibly low power consumption, by optimising a convolutional neural network (CNN) in the areas of circuitry, architecture, and algorithms. Specially designed to enable data to be read in a vertical direction as well as in a horizontal direction, the on-chip memory integrated in CNNP also has immense computational power with 1024 multipliers and accumulators operating in parallel and is capable of directly transferring the temporal results to each other without accessing to the external memory or on-chip communication network. Additionally, convolution calculations with a two-dimensional filter in the CNN algorithm are approximated into two sequential calculations of one-dimensional filters to achieve higher speeds and lower power consumption.  CNNP achieved 97% high accuracy but consumed only 1/5000 power of the GPU thanks to these new technologies. Face recognition can be performed with only 0.62mW of power consumption, and the chip can show higher performance than the GPU by using more power.  Developed by Kyeongryeol Bong, a PhD student under Professor Yoo, these chips were presented at the International Solid-State Circuit Conference (ISSCC) held in San Francisco earlier this year. CNNP, which has the lowest reported power consumption in the world, has achieved a huge amount of attention, which has led to the development of the present K-Eye series for face recognition.  Professor Yoo commented: “AI - processors will lead the era of the Fourth Industrial Revolution. With the development of this AI chip, we expect Korea to take the lead in global AI technology.”  Ref.MT9V022 OV05633

In this internet-connected age, all of our devices are constantly communicating with each other. Chances are you've got a phone, a laptop, a television, a car radio, maybe a smart home device or some other WiFi-capable appliance, along with a smartwatch or Bluetooth speaker. All of these devices are talking with each other and the wider world constantly. This is all done through radio signals. All of your devices communicate by sending and receiving radio signals at specific frequencies. But why don't cellphone calls collide against Wi-Fi signals? Mostly, it's because there are agreed-upon standards for what devices get to broadcast at what frequency. The radio spectrum is heavily partitioned so different kinds of traffic stay in their own lanes and all the data gets where it needs to go. A similar situation is playing out underwater. Under the sea, there are submarines, research vessels, robots, buoys, and tracking tags on animals, and they've all got to communicate. But radio signals don't work underwater, so the established radio communication standards are useless. Instead, underwater signals are sent via acoustic waves, but until recently there was no standard for which frequencies to use. That's all been changed now, thanks to a new standard being pioneered by NATO. Called JANUS—after the Roman god of gateways—the new system partitions the range of possible underwater communication frequencies and lets everything communicate with everything else. The JANUS protocol establishes a single frequency—11.5 kilohertz—that is reserved for initial communication between two systems, as well as frequencies for announcing a system's presence to everyone nearby. Once two crafts or robots make contact with each other, they can switch to a different frequency for extended communication. JANUS is opening the door to a better way to communicate underwater. Because of this new standard, all kinds of new collaborations are now possible. Entire fleets of robots can communicate with each other at a distance, communications buoys can send signals from the air into the water, and everyone can finally talk to one another. Considering the ocean floor is less explored than outer space, it's about time we figured out a way to communicate from there. Ref.CC3000MODRESP8266

Ion Transistors for the transport of both positive and negative ions, as well as biomolecules had been previously developed by a group of Organic Electronics research team at Linköping University. Now Tybrandt has now succeed in developing circuits using these Transistors similar to traditional silicon electronics. In essence of this technology we can build computer chips that can directly interface with our body cells.The major advantage of chemical circuit is that the charge carrier consists of chemical substances with various functions and this gives us new opportunities to regulate and control signal paths of Human Body Cells.In a conventional transistor there are three terminals Gate, Source and Drain. When signal is applied to Gate terminal, electrons flow from Source to Drain. Electrons are the charge carrier in conventional transistor, but in the new Ion Transistor the ionic neurotransmitter acetylcholine is the charge carrier. NAND gates and Inverters can be created using these Ion transistors, which means that it can be used to implement any logic function.Magnus Berggren, Professor of Organic Electronics and leader of the research group says that, it can be used to send signals to muscle synapses when our muscle signalling system may not works for some reasons and our chips works with common signalling substances such as acetylcholine.The research in Ion Transistors which can control and transport ions and charged biomolecules was begun before 3 years by Berggren (professor in Organic Electronics at the Department of Science and Technology at Linköping University) and Tybrandt (a doctoral student). Researchers at Karolinska Institute then used this Transistors to control the delivery of the signalling substance acetylcholine to individual cells. It hopes that it can restore the lost movement of paralysed peoples.Mr. Tybrandt in conjunction with Robert Forchheimer (Professor of Information Coding at LiU) has taken the next steps by developing chemical chips which contains logic gates, that allows the construction of all logic functions.Ref:KY56-C4706KY56-KSC5024RTUKY56-MJL21193G

(This is a high precision control of printed electronics.)Printed electronic transistor circuits and displays, in which the colour of individual pixels can be changed, are two of many applications of ground-breaking research at the Laboratory of Organic Electronics, Linköping University. New groundbreaking results on these topics have been published in the scientific journal Science Advances. The researchers in organic electronics have a favourite material to work with: the conducting polymer PEDOT:PSS, which conducts both electrons and ions. Displays and transistors manufactured from this polymer have many advantages, which include that they are simple and cheap to manufacture, and the material itself is non-hazardous. It has, however, been difficult to create devices that switch rapidly at a specific voltage, known as the "threshold voltage." This gives that it has, so far, been difficult to control the current state of the transistors or the color state of the displays in a precise manner. "The lack of any threshold in the redox-switching characteristics of PEDOT:PSS hampers bistability and rectification, characteristics that would allow for passive matrix addressing in display or memory functionality" says Simone Fabiano, senior lecturer at the Laboratory of Organic Electronics, LOE, who is the principal author of the article in Science Advances, together with Negar Sani from the research institute RISE Acreo. More than five years ago a wild idea arose at the Laboratory of Organic Electronics: could you solve this problem by combining electrochemistry with ferroelectricity? Ferroelectric materials consist of dipoles. One end of a dipole has a positive charge and the other a negative charge, and these "ferroelectric" dipoles rotate when they are exposed to an electric field beyond a specific threshold. Head of the laboratory Professor Magnus Berggren couldn't let this idea rest, and when he was awarded a research grant from the Knut and Alice Wallenberg Foundation in December 2012 to use freely, this was one of the high-risk projects he chose to invest in. "We called the research then breakneck research, and here is a result. Our demonstration proves that truly leading research typically take a long time and require considerable patience. Simone Fabiano has done tremendous work here, and refused to give up when others have doubted," says Magnus Berggren. After many years of tenacious experiments, Simone Fabiano and his colleagues at the Laboratory of Organic Electronics have managed to apply a thin layer of a ferroelectric material onto one electrode in organic electrochemical devices and circuits. "The thickness of the layer determines the voltage at which the circuit switches or the display changes colour. Transistors are no longer required in the displays: we can control them pixel-by-pixel simply through a thin ferroelectric layer on the electrode," says Simone Fabiano. The LOE research group shows in the article that "ferroelectrochemistry," the combination of ferroelectricity and electrochemistry, can be used in displays in the field of printed electronics and in organic transistors. The scientists envisage, however, many other areas of application. "Ferroelectrochemical components can easily be integrated into memory matrices and into bioelectronic applications, just to give a couple of examples," says Simone Fabiano. The technology is now protected by patents. "The field of ferroelectrochemistry doesn't actually exist, but we have achieved success using this combination," Magnus Berggren concludes. Ref.KY56-2SA1987KY56-KSC5024RTUKY56-FJI5603D