Semiconductors, Data Centers & AI

From the Exhibition Hall at the IDTechEx Show! in Santa Clara last week came a wide variety of new product announcements and press releases. Here we summarize some of the announcements.

Cornerstone presentations at North America's largest event on emerging technologies cover how new technologies are addressing world's biggest needs

To overcome the diverse charging landscape described in Part One, Continental acknowledges that it is a clever idea to equip the EV with all the charging interfaces discussed

Tesla is a leader in the design and commercialisation of pure electric cars. It lacks profit but has an orderbook that its competition can only dream about. Since last year Tesla has also been selling batteries based on Panasonic cells that can power homes and businesses copying several other companies that were there before

The Internet of Things adds new sensing and communications to improve the functionality of all manner of things in the world, leading towards broader connectivity, and huge amounts of data generated and exchanged.

Researchers at Chalmers University of Technology in Sweden have developed a new type of high-power integrated motor drive and battery charger for electric vehicles. Compared to today's electric vehicle chargers, the new system could shorten the charging time from eight to two hours, and to reduce the cost by around $2,000, according to the developers.

This paper first presented at EVS29 Montreal Canada provides an overview of the Fiscal Years 2015-2016 Hybrid and Electric Systems research and development activities - with emphasis on its advanced electric drive research -funded by the Vehicles Technologies Office of the U.S. Department of Energy.

A research team has developed a new approach to finding fields of helium underground, and with the first use of the technique they have discovered a massive reserve in East Africa according to a new report from Oxford University in the UK.

Helium has important applications in MRI machines, welding, manufacturing semiconductors, deep-sea diving and blimps. If it was readily available and affordable, its use in EVs such as underwater vehicles and aircraft would increase greatly.

The new IDTechEx report, Future Powertrains 2016-2031 concerns the twenty year future of powertrains for land vehicles, including reference to water and airborne vehicles as appropriate. The primary emphasis is on the most important applications by market value - cars and buses - and the most important powertrain types by value potential but most of this analysis is directly applicable to most other vehicles.