Touch user interfaces have made significant advances in the consumer electronics market particularly for mobile phones and notebook computers, opening the door for adoption in other applications including white goods, computer peripherals, medical equipment, and instrumentation. Synaptics made its debut in the home appliance market earlier this year with the launch of the Samsung Hauzen ZERO air conditioner.
The standout products on day three of the SID 2010 conference is Universal Display's new PHOLED display architecture with a unique four-color, sub-pixel design, which promises to drive commercial development of all-phosphorescent active-matrix OLEDs and Sony's tiny rollable OLED display that can wrap around a pencil.
Smaller distributors were the only ones to post sales gains in 2009. Interestingly, two of the five distributors that posted growth last year -- Interstate Connecting Components and Sherburn Electronics -- derive 100 percent of their sales from interconnect products. Both of them also target the military/aerospace industry. Here are the top 10 sales leaders by ICs, passives/electromechanical devices, interconnects and computer products as well as sales growth.
IBM builds tiny circuit board with DNA scaffolding
IBM researchers are using DNA scaffolding to build tiny circuit boards.
The semiconductor industry is looking at new classes of transistors that use carbon nanotubes or silicon nanowires for developing sub-22-mm lithographic technology. IBM says its approach of using DNA molecules as scaffolding — where millions of carbon nanotubes could be deposited and self-assembled into precise patterns by sticking to the DNA molecules — may provide a way to reach sub-22 nm lithography.
IBM Researchers and collaborator Paul W.K. Rothemund, of the California Institute of Technology, report that their advancement combines lithographic patterning with self-assembly, which is a method to arrange DNA origami structures on surfaces compatible with today’s semiconductor manufacturing equipment.
As a result, the DNA nanostructures can serve as scaffolds, or miniature circuit boards, for the precise assembly of components such as carbon nanotubes, nanowires and nanoparticles at dimensions significantly smaller than possible with conventional semiconductor fabrication techniques, said the researchers.
They say this opens up the possibility of creating functional devices that can be integrated into larger structures.
“The cost involved in shrinking features to improve performance is a limiting factor in keeping pace with Moore’s Law and a concern across the semiconductor industry,” said Spike Narayan, manager, Science & Technology, IBM Research - Almaden, in a statement. “The combination of this directed self-assembly with today’s fabrication technology eventually could lead to substantial savings in the most expensive and challenging part of the chip-making process.”
The paper, “Placement and orientation of DNA nanostructures on lithographically patterned surfaces,” by scientists at IBM Research and the California Institute of Technology, will be published in the September issue of Nature Nanotechnology.
NXP offers a low-power IC aimed at MPPT applications using PV cells or fuel cells. 
C&K Components offers a series of low-cost, miniature slide switches. The OS Series of RoHS-compliant switches feature a new high-temperature option for lead-free soldering.
I recently came across your blog and have been reading along. I thought I would leave my first comment. I don’t know what to say except that I have enjoyed reading. Nice blog. I will keep visiting this blog very often.
Susan
http://carusbcharger.com