The Tanner EDA division of Mentor Graphics is offering a two-part white paper on MEMS design challenges. In contrast to the Manhattan-style layout shapes of conventional IC design, MEMS designs make use of a variety of geometries—including curves and all-angle polygons. Part 1 focuses on layout editing, and part 2 focuses on verification. (Registration required.)
Dirk Ahlborn touts the Hyperloop in the Boston Globe. “When completed, the Hyperloop will be safer, more reliable, and faster than any other current mode of transportation,” he writes. “What’s more, it promises to be energy self-sufficient, profitable, and affordable. The construction costs should be much lower than any existing and proposed railway projects.”
David Axe at Reuters comments on the future of the A-10, out of favor with Air Force leaders. “Why the Warthog fell out of favor, and how the plane endures despite the Air Force’s eagerness to retire it, reveals deep schisms within the U.S. military as it continues its war against Islamic extremists while also retooling to deter high-tech Russian forces,” he writes. “The A-10 is one plane that’s clearly helping Syrian fighters retake their homes from Islamic State. Yet it’s also a uniquely evocative symbol of strife inside the Pentagon.”
Proponents of nuclear power are making their cases. In the New York Times, Peter Thiel writes, “The single most important action we can take is thawing a nuclear energy policy that keeps our technology frozen in time. If we are serious about replacing fossil fuels, we are going to need nuclear power, so the choice is stark: We can keep on merely talking about a carbon-free world, or we can go ahead and create one.” And in the Boston Globe, Joshua S. Goldstein and Steven Pinker write, “Nuclear power is the world’s most abundant and scalable carbon-free energy source. In today’s world, every nuclear plant that is not built is a fossil-fuel plant that does get built, which in most of the world means coal.”
Joseph F. Coughlin, director of the AgeLab at MIT, takes a look at how technology will affect retirement. “The next-generation retiree will have an unprecedented array of technologies and tech-enabled services to invent a new future for working part time, remaining social, having fun, living at home, staying healthy and arranging care,” he writes in the Wall Street Journal.
Automotive Testing Expo 2016 Europe has issued a call for speakers. The event will be held May 31 through June 2 in Stuttgart.
ElectronicsWeekly.com reports on the Elektra European Electronics Industry Awards 2015, presented last week in London. Among the winners: Smiths Connectors for adding electrical contacts to disposable medical devices; Pico Technology for its PicoScope noise and vibration diagnostics capability for automotive applications; Imagination Technologies for its MIPSfpga educational program; Rohde & Schwarz for the FSWP phase noise analyzer and VCO tester; and Renesas Electronics for its Synergy IoT platform. London School of Hygiene & Tropical Medicine, the University of Strathclyde, and the NHS Glasgow Centre for Ophthalmic Research won the university research award for the Peek (portable eye examination kit) Acuity test. And mixed-signal semiconductor maker ams took the “Company of the Year” award.
