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Austin-based Silicon Labs has sold its infrastructure and automotive business for $2.75 billion to California-based semiconductor maker Skyworks Solutions. Plans for the all-cash deal was initially announced in April.

Silicon Labs primarily designs semiconductors and other silicon devices. CEO Tyson Tuttle said the deal will allow the company to focus on its growing Internet of Things business. Internet of Things, or IoT as it is known in industry shorthand, refers to a range of non-computing devices —from kitchen devices to security systems — that connect to the Internet.

Silcon Labs’ IoT business already serves tens of thousands of customers and works in thousands of applications, but the deal narrows Silicon Labs focus exclusively to that technology.

Risky business.

With chip shortages ongoing, some companies are having to change their plans, but could these gambles really pay off?

TSMC 2nm production is likely to begin sometime in 2023, after the company got the green light for its most advanced chipmaking process yet.

The news comes just one day after Intel said it believed it could catch, and overtake, TSMC’s chipmaking capabilities within four years…

A large part of the secret to creating ever more powerful chips is shrinking the die process: getting more transistors into the same size of chip. The A14 chip used in the iPhone 12, designed by Apple and fabricated by TSMC, contains 11.8 billion transistors.

Up for discussion in the Guardian tech newsletter: Scandalous revelations in An Ugly Truth … the relentless march of the silicon transistor … and the dangers of link smut.

A company that makes an implantable brain-computer interface (BCI) has been given the go-ahead by the Food and Drug Administration to run a clinical trial with human patients. Synchron plans to start an early feasibility study of its Stentrode implant later this year at Mount Sinai Hospital, New York with six subjects. The company said it will assess the device’s “safety and efficacy in patients with severe paralysis.” https://www.engadget.com/fda-brain-computer-interface-clinic…ml?src=rss

A company that makes an implantable has been given the go-ahead by the Food and Drug Administration to run a clinical trial with human patients. Synchron plans to start an early feasibility study of its Stentrode implant later this year at Mount Sinai Hospital, New York with six subjects. The company said it will assess the device’s “safety and efficacy in patients with severe paralysis.”

Synchron received the FDA’s green light ahead of competitors like Elon Musk’s. Before such companies can sell BCIs commercially in the US, they need to prove that the devices work and are safe. The FDA will provide guidance for trials of BCI devices for patients with paralysis or amputation during a webinar on Thursday.

Continue reading “FDA clears Synchron’s brain-computer interface device for human trials” »

Synchron has beat rival Neuralink to human trials of its “implantable brain computer interface.”

The chip will be studied in six patients later this year as a possible aid for paralyzed people.

Elon Musk previously used Neuralink’s chip in a monkey, which then played video games with its mind.

Continue reading “This 20-person biotech firm just beat Elon Musk’s Neuralink in getting the OK to test brain chip implants in humans with paralysis” »

A team of researchers at ARM Inc., has developed a 32-bit microprocessor on a flexible base which the company claims could pave the way to fully flexible smart integrated systems. In their paper published in the journal Nature, the group describes how they used metal−oxide thin-film transistors along with a type of plastic to create their chip and outline ways they believe it could be used.

Microprocessors power a wide range of products, but what they all have in common is their stiffness. Almost all of them are made using silicon wafers, which means that they have to be hard and flat. This inability to bend, the researchers with this new effort contend, is what is preventing the development of products such as smart clothes, smart labels on foods, packaging and even paper products. To meet that need, the team has created what they describe as the PlasticARM—a RISC-based 32-bit microprocessor set on a flexible base. In addition to its flexibility, the new technique allows for printing a microprocessor onto many types of materials, all at low cost.

To create their bendy microprocessor, the researchers teamed with a group at PragmatIC Semiconductor to create a bendable version of the Cortex M0+ microprocessor, which was chosen for its simplicity and small size. To make their chip, (which includes ROM, RAM and interconnections) the team used amorphous silicon fabricated (in the form of metal-oxide thin-film transistors) onto flexible polymers.

Thrilled to see Paradromics’ $20M fund raise lead by the talented Dr. Amy Kruse! Paradromics is building a brain computer interface supported by DARPA’s Biologi… See More.

The investment demonstrates confidence in Paradromics as a well-positioned player in the $200 billion BCI therapy market. Last year, Paradromics successfully completed testing of its platform, demonstrating the largest ever electrical recording of cortical activity that exceeded more than 30000 electrode channels in sheep cortex. This recording allowed researchers to observe the brain activity of sheep in response to sound stimuli with high fidelity.

“We are combining the best of neural science and medical device engineering to create a robust and reliable platform for new clinical therapies,” said Paradromics CEO Matt Angle. “This funding round is a validation of both our technology and strategic vision in leading this important developing market.”

Continue reading “Paradromics Raises $20MM in Seed Funding Led by Prime Movers Lab to Advance Brain Computer Interfaces” »

After controlling for factors such as age, sex, handedness, first language, education level, and other variables, the researchers found that those who had contracted COVID-19 tended to underperform on the intelligence test compared to those who had not contracted the virus. The greatest deficits were observed on tasks requiring reasoning, planning and problem solving, which is in line “with reports of long-COVID, where ‘brain fog,’ trouble concentrating and difficulty finding the correct words are common,” the researchers said.

People who have recovered from COVID-19 tend to score significantly lower on an intelligence test compared to those who have not contracted the virus, according to new research published in The Lancet journal EClinicalMedicine. The findings suggest that the SARS-CoV-2 virus that causes COVID-19 can produce substantial reductions in cognitive ability, especially among those with more severe illness.

“By coincidence, the pandemic escalated in the United Kingdom in the middle of when I was collecting cognitive and mental health data at very large scale as part of the BBC2 Horizon collaboration the Great British Intelligence Test,” said lead researcher Adam Hampshire (@HampshireHub), an associate professor in the Computational, Cognitive and Clinical Neuroimaging Laboratory at Imperial College London.

Continue reading “Large study finds COVID-19 is linked to a substantial deficit in intelligence” »