xgoat - Slashdot User

IBM Heralds 3-D Chip Breakthrough 99

Posted by kdawson on Thursday April 12, 2007 @11:13AM from the more-moore dept.

David Kesmodel from WSJ writes to let us know about an IBM breakthrough: a practical three-dimensional semiconductor chip that can be stacked on top of another electronic device in a vertical configuration. Chip makers have worked for years to develop ways to connect one type of chip to another vertically to reduce size and power use. The IBM technique of "through-silicon vias" offers a thousand-fold reduction in connector length and a hundred-fold increase in connector density. The new chips may appear in cellphones and other communication devices as soon as next year. PhysOrg has more details.

Electrically Conductive Cement 159

Posted by samzenpus on Wednesday April 11, 2007 @08:07PM from the let-your-display-harden dept.

zero_offset writes "The Tokyo Institute of Technology has announced a process for creating an inexpensive, nearly transparent, electrically conductive alumina cement. The conductivity is comparable to metal, and the transparency should be adequate for use in display panels. The process relies upon commonplace and inexpensive metals compared to the rare metals such as iridium currently used in display panels."

Comment PWM and some interesting stuff... (Score 1) 453

by xgoat on Wednesday March 19, 2003 @04:37PM (#5546879) Attached to: Building Your Own Glowing Cyber-Balls?

The best way of controlling an LED's brightness is though using PWM, and that's a fact. The only thing is how to control the PWM, there are two basic possibilities. The first is to bung in a micro(processor|controller) and multiplex the LEDS in a nice fashion connected to that. The second method, would involve building some (quite simple if you think about it) logic circuitry that controls the PWM from a serial input. The serial input could come from something like your serial port, taken through a MAX233 or MAX232 to get the voltage levels down.

I think that the processor method is much better, because all you have to do is put some sort of connector on the main board that allows you to add and change the method of control - e.g. serial, parallel or some sort of wireless (which would infact be serial...) thing.

You could also connect an ethernet device to the bus so that you could control it via ethernet.

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