Volume 1 Issue 1, January 2018

Spiral inductors that are made from intercalated multilayer graphene, and exploit the kinetic inductance of the material, could help deliver miniaturized radio-frequency integrated circuits.

Analogue computing based on memristors could offer a faster and more energy-efficient alternative to conventional digital computing in IoT applications.

A microfabricated silicon device can locally measure the intensity of an electric field without any significant field distortion.

Swallowable electronic capsules can provide gas profiles of the gut and distinguish changes in a person’s diet.

This Perspective argues that the challenges facing the semiconductor industry are unprecedented and undermine incentives for continued collective action in research and development, potentially threatening world-wide economic growth; significantly increased public funding, as well as leadership beyond traditional stakeholders, is required.

This Perspective evaluates the state of the art in memristor-based electronics and explores the future development of such devices in on-chip memory, biologically inspired computing and general-purpose in-memory computing.

This Perspective discusses the potential of thin-film transistor technologies in the development of low-cost, flexible integrated circuits, evaluating the more mature technologies available today in terms of their potential circuit applications and the implications they will have in the design of integrated circuits.

Using field-effect transistors made from carbon nanotube films, five-stage ring oscillators can be fabricated that exhibit an oscillation frequency of up to 5.54 GHz.

On-chip inductors made from intercalated multilayer graphene can offer both small form-factors and high inductance values, without comprising performance, making them potentially suitable for the development of ultra-compact wireless communication systems.

Memristor crossbars with array sizes of up to 128 × 64 cells are capable of analogue vector-matrix multiplication and can be used for signal processing, image compression and convolutional filtering.

Deep subsurface defects in three-dimensional NAND flash memory devices can be identified by exploiting the inherent hyperbolic metamaterial structure of the devices.

The detection of force-induced displacements within compact MEMS (microelectromechanical system) devices can be used to measure electric field strength without significant field distortion.

The external and internal mechanical motion of a person can be directly modulated onto multiplexed radio-frequency signals using near-field coherent sensing, allowing vital signs such as heart rate, blood pressure and respiration rate to be monitored without direct contact to the skin.

In a human pilot trial, ingestible electronic capsules, which can sense oxygen, hydrogen, and carbon dioxide gas in the gut, have been shown to be capable of monitoring changes in a person’s diet.

The Intel 4004 is renowned as the world’s first commercial microprocessor. Project leader and designer of the 4004, Federico Faggin, retraces the steps leading to its invention.