Cutting Steel Gears With Homemade EDM

Electrostatic discharge machining (EDM) may be slower than alternatives like laser cutting, water jets, or a milling machine, but for some applications there’s no alternative: it can cut through an…

Hackaday
Cutting Steel Gears With Homemade EDM

Electrostatic discharge machining (EDM) may be slower than alternatives like laser cutting, water jets, or a milling machine, but for some applications there’s no alternative: it can cut through an…

Hackaday
Diamond Thermal Conductivity: A New Era in Chip Cooling

Stanford's diamond innovation could redefine chip cooling, making electronics more efficient and powerful.

IEEE Spectrum

Newer #dielectric fluids and #powerelectronics now allow #electrostaticmotors to be better at some applications than their electromagnetic peers.

> The main advantage of electrostatic motors is their reduced critical materials use. In particular, electrostatic motors don’t require copper windings or any rare earth magnets which are getting more expensive as demand grows for electrically-powered machines.

Electrostatic Motors Are Making A Comeback
https://hackaday.com/2024/10/29/electrostatic-motors-are-making-a-comeback/

Electrostatic Motors Are Making A Comeback

Electrostatic motors are now common in MEMS applications, but researchers at the University of Wisconsin and spinoff C-Motive Technologies have brought macroscale electrostatic motors back. [via MS…

Hackaday
#NFPA #Standards #Safety
Gratifying meetings of the Committee on Electrical Maintenance, creating the second draft of NFPA 73, Electrical #Inspection of Existing #Dwellings. One change for 2025 adoption: no more grandfathering for receptacles that need #GFCI protection. I hadn't expected us to go this far, but when someone buys a home, this will protect them. Another is more a camel's nose: an Annex reminder re #bonding past #dielectric fittings or plastic tubing interrupting metal #plumbing.

If you recognize the name Ajinomoto, you’re probably surprised to hear it plays a critical role in the chip sector:

the company is better known as the world’s leading supplier of #MSG seasoning powder.

In the 1990s, Ajinomoto discovered that a by-product of MSG made a great insulator, and it has enjoyed a near monopoly in the niche material ever since.

But Ajinomoto doesn’t make any of the other parts that go into chips.
In fact, the insulating materials in chips rely on dispersed supply chains: one layer uses materials from Ajinomoto, another uses material from another company, and so on, with none of the layers optimized to work in tandem.

The resulting system works okay when data is being transmitted over short paths, but over longer distances, like between chips, weak insulators act as a bottleneck, wasting energy and slowing down computing speeds.

That’s recently become a growing concern, especially as the scale of AI training gets more expensive and consumes eye-popping amounts of energy.

#Ajinomoto #dielectric #film #laptops #data #centers #Thintronics #CHIPS #Science #Act

For 30 years, a single Japanese company called #Ajinomoto has made billions producing #dielectric #film.
Competitors have struggled to outdo them, and today Ajinomoto has more than 90% of the market in the product, which is used in everything from #laptops to #data #centers

But now, a startup based in Berkeley, California, is embarking on a herculean effort to dethrone Ajinomoto and bring this small slice of the chipmaking supply chain back to the US.
#Thintronics is promising a product purpose-built for the computing demands of the AI era
—a suite of new materials that the company claims have higher insulating properties and, if adopted, could mean data centers with faster computing speeds and lower energy costs. 

The company is at the forefront of a coming wave of new US-based companies, spurred by the $280 billion #CHIPS and #Science #Act, that is seeking to carve out a portion of the semiconductor sector, which has become dominated by just a handful of international players.

But to succeed, Thintronics and its peers will have to overcome a web of challenges—solving technical problems, disrupting long-standing industry relationships, and persuading global semiconductor titans to accommodate new suppliers. 

https://www.technologyreview.com/2024/04/11/1091143/thintronics-ajinomoto-dielectric-chip-semiconductor-competition/

This US startup makes a crucial chip material and is taking on a Japanese giant

Federal funding is spurring US companies like Thintronics to disrupt semiconductor manufacturing. Success is far from guaranteed.

MIT Technology Review

`Here we report a theoretical and experimental framework for the force behaviour in generic solid/liquid-dielectric #multilayer stacks independent of #actuator design and solely based on their #dielectric properties. We use this model to develop #materials-based solutions, which rely on matching the bulk charge relaxation rates of the constituent dielectrics, for a variety of soft actuator systems: tunable #lenses, artificial #muscles and #haptic #devices.`

https://www.nature.com/articles/s41928-023-01057-0

Electrostatic actuators with constant force at low power loss using matched dielectrics - Nature Electronics

A model that predicts the force behaviour for solid/liquid-dielectric multilayer stacks independent of actuator design, and solely based on the material properties, can be used to develop actuators that provide a steady force output under constant-voltage operation.

Nature

Learning About Capacitors by Rolling Your Own Electrolytics

#parts #aluminum #anode #capacitor #cathode #dielectric #electrolyte #electrolytic #oxide #hackaday

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hackaday.com/2023/10/24/learni…

Learning About Capacitors By Rolling Your Own Electrolytics

Ever wonder what’s inside an electrolytic capacitor? Many of us don’t, having had at least a partial glimpse inside after failure of the cap due to old age or crossed polarity. The rest…

Hackaday
Learning About Capacitors By Rolling Your Own Electrolytics

Ever wonder what’s inside an electrolytic capacitor? Many of us don’t, having had at least a partial glimpse inside after failure of the cap due to old age or crossed polarity. The rest…

Hackaday