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taylorvich writes:

https://phys.org/news/2024-12-purple-diamond-maser-day-amplify.html

UNSW engineers have developed and built a special maser system that boosts microwave signals—such as those from deep space—but does not need to be super-cooled.

They say that diamonds are a girl's best friend—but that might also soon be true for astronomers and astrophysicists following the new research. The team of quantum experts have developed a device known as a maser which uses a specially created purple diamond to amplify weak microwave signals, such as those which can come from deep space.

Most importantly, their maser works at room temperature, whereas previous such devices needed to be super-cooled, at great expense, down to about minus 269°C.

The amplified signals, originally emitted by pulsars, galaxies, or very distant spacecraft, could ultimately be crucial for expanding our understanding of the universe and fundamental physics.

The UNSW research team, led by Associate Professor Jarryd Pla, have published their findings in the journal Physical Review X, describing how a so-called spin system within the diamond can boost weak signals at room temperature.

"The microwaves enter the device and then the spins inside the diamond create copies of them, which in effect amplifies the microwave signals. Ideally, the microwave signals then come out much larger and with very little noise on top," A/Prof. Pla says.

"Currently, electronic amplifiers are being used to detect signals from very distant spacecraft like Voyager 1 which is now more than 15 billion miles away from earth, but still sending out data.

"Those amplifiers are cryogenically cooled to reduce what is known as thermal noise, which is random electrical noise generated by the motion of electrons in the amplifier's components. Otherwise, that noise would just overwhelm the signals being received.

"Our room temperature solid-state maser amplifier avoids all the complication and cost of having to cool everything down to extremely low temperatures and is also much more compact."

In the paper, the researchers show their maser system can boost signals by a factor of up to 1,000.

More information: Tom Day et al, Room-Temperature Solid-State Maser Amplifier, Physical Review X (2024). DOI: 10.1103/PhysRevX.14.041066

Original Submission

taylorvich writes:

https://phys.org/news/2024-12-south-florida-beachfront-faster.html

A team of mechanical, architectural and environmental engineers, geoscientists, and geoinformation specialists affiliated with several institutions in the U.S. and Germany has found that many of the tall, heavy buildings along the coast of South Florida are sinking into the ground much faster than was expected.

In their study published in the journal Earth and Space Science, the group compared satellite images over several years to learn more about ongoing subsidence along multiple beachfronts.

Prior research has shown that many factors can lead to subsidence, in which the altitude of a given parcel of land declines. Natural causes include water movement, earthquakes and gravity. Manmade causes include the heaviness of the built environment, including large buildings, and activities including fracking and landscaping.

In this new study, the researchers noted that the many tall buildings along many parts of the coast in South Florida appeared to be extremely heavy. They wondered if adding so much weight might be causing the ground beneath them to sink.

To find out, the researchers obtained precise satellite imagery for several of the most popular beaches in South Florida and compared 35 buildings standing on them over time. Modern satellite imagery is so precise it can detect changes in altitude of just a few centimeters. The researchers found that every one of the buildings they measured was sinking, ranging from 2 to 8 cm over the years 2016 to 2023, and that most of them were sinking faster than expected.

More information: Farzaneh Aziz Zanjani et al, InSAR Observations of Construction‐Induced Coastal Subsidence on Miami's Barrier Islands, Florida, Earth and Space Science (2024). DOI: 10.1029/2024EA003852

Original Submission

Arthur T Knackerbracket has processed the following story:

We’ve noted for decades that U.S. telecom security and privacy standards aren’t great. T-Mobile has been hacked so many times in the last five years it’s easy to lose count. AT&T not long ago had a breach impacting the data of 73 million users it initially tried to pretend hadn’t happened.

Telecoms have lobbied relentlessly to dismantle much in the way of corporate oversight, so when hacks or breaches or bad choices manifest, executives and companies alike routinely see little in the way of real, meaningful accountability. Which, of course, ensures nothing much changes.

This all came to a head recently with the Salt Typhoon hack, which involved 8 major U.S. telecom operators suffering a major intrusion by Chinese hackers. The hack, oddly getting far less attention than the TikTok moral panic did, was leveraged to help spy on U.S. political officials. It was so severe and extensive that the involved, unnamed telecoms have yet to fully remove the intruders from their networks:

This is par for the course for a country that’s literally too corrupt to pass even a baseline privacy law for the internet era, or hold telecom giants meaningfully accountable for much of anything. At best, telecoms have grown fat and comfortable with a paradigm that involves a tiny fine and wrist slap for their incompetence, assuming they get challenged over it at all.

Enter Senator Ron Wyden, who is proposing a new law that would require the FCC to take broader ownership of telecom cybersecurity.

His Secure American Communications Act would more clearly establish FCC authority to monitor telecoms for privacy and cybersecurity violations, require they conduct routine testing of their networks and systems, and contract outside independent auditors to make sure they’re doing a competent job. They’d also have to submit formal annual reviews to the FCC.

“It was inevitable that foreign hackers would burrow deep into the American communications system the moment the FCC decided to let phone companies write their own cybersecurity rules,” Wyden said. “Telecom companies and federal regulators were asleep on the job and as a result, Americans’ calls, messages, and phone records have been accessed by foreign spies intent on undermining our national security. Congress needs to step up and pass mandatory security rules to finally secure our telecom system against an infestation of hackers and spies.”

Of course the last thing AT&T, Verizon, Comcast, T-Mobile and Charter want is additional (or any) government oversight, so even if perfectly designed to minimize headaches and problems, the bill likely has zero real chance of passing a corrupt Congress.

Freeman writes:

https://arstechnica.com/gadgets/2024/12/buying-a-tv-in-2025-expect-lower-prices-more-ads-and-an-os-war/

If you're looking to buy a TV in 2025, you may be disappointed by the types of advancements TV brands will be prioritizing in the new year. While there's an audience of enthusiasts interested in developments in tech like OLED, QDEL, and [Micro LED], plus other features like transparency and improved audio, that doesn't appear to be what the industry is focused on.

Today's TV selection has a serious dependency on advertisements and user tracking.

[...] One of the most impactful changes to the TV market next year will be Walmart owning Vizio. For Walmart, the deal, which closed on December 3 for approximately $2.3 billion, is about owning the data collection capabilities of Vizio's SmartCast OS.

[...] In 2025, buying a Vizio TV won't just mean buying a TV from a company that's essentially an ad business. It will mean fueling Walmart's ad business. With Walmart also owning Onn and Amazon owning Fire TVs, that means there's one less TV brand that isn't a cog in a retail giant's ever-expanding ad machine.

[...] Further, Walmart has expressed a goal of becoming one of the 10 biggest ad companies, with the ad business notably having higher margins than groceries. It could use Vizio, via more plentiful and/or intrusive ads, to fuel those goals.

And Walmart's TV market share is set to grow in the new year. Paul Gray, research director of consumer electronics and devices at Omdia, told Ars Technica he expects that "the new combined sales (Vizio plus Walmart's white label) will be bigger than the current market leader Samsung."

[...] 'Walmart has told you by buying Vizio that these large retailers need a connected television advertising platform to tie purchases to," Martin told Bloomberg. "That means Target and other large retailers have that reason to buy Roku to tie Roku's connected television ad units to their sales in their retail stores. And by the way, Roku has much higher margins than any retailer.'"

[...] TV brands have become so dependent on ads that some are selling TVs at a loss to push ads. How did we get to the point where TV brands view their hardware as a way to track and sell to viewers? Part of the reason TV OSes are pushing the limits on ads is that many viewers seem willing to accept them, especially in the name of saving money.

[...]Still, analysts agree that even among more expensive TV brands, there has been a shift toward building out ad businesses and OSes over improving hardware features like audio.

"This is a low-margin business, and even in the premium segment, the revenues from ads and data are significant. Also, the sort of consumer who buys a premium TV is likely to be especially interesting to advertisers," Gray said.

[...] In 2025, TVs will continue focusing innovation around software, which has immediate returns via ad sales compared to new hardware, which can take years to develop and catch on with shoppers. For some, this is creating a strong demand for dumb TVs, but unfortunately, there are no immediate signs of that becoming a trend.

As Horner put it, "This is an advertising/e-commerce-driven market, not a consumer-driven market. TV content is just the bait in the trap."

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Original Submission

owl writes:

https://hackaday.com/2024/12/18/why-did-early-cd-rom-drives-rely-on-awkward-plastic-caddies/

These days, very few of us use optical media on the regular. If we do, it's generally with a slot-loading console or car stereo, or an old-school tray-loader in a desktop or laptop. This has been the dominant way of using consumer optical media for some time.

Step back to the early CD-ROM era, though, and things were a little kookier. Back in the late 1980s and early 1990s, drives hit the market that required the use of a bulky plastic caddy to load discs. The question is—why did we apparently need caddies then, and why don't we use them any longer?

The Compact Disc, as developed by Phillips and Sony, was first released in 1982. It quickly became a popular format for music, offering far higher fidelity than existing analog formats like vinyl and cassettes. The CD-ROM followed in 1985, offering hundreds of megabytes of storage in an era when most hard drives barely broke 30 MB. The discs used lasers to read patterns of pits and lands from a reflective aluminum surface, encased in tough polycarbonate plastic. Crucially, the discs featured robust error correction techniques so that small scratches, dust, or blemishes wouldn't stop a disc from working.

Notably, the first audio CD player—the Sony CDP-101—was a simple tray-loading machine. Phillips' first effort, the CD100, was a top-loader. Neither used a caddy. Nor did the first CD-ROM drives—the Phillips CM100 was not dissimilar from the CD100, and tray loaders were readily available too, like the Amdek Laserdrive-1.

Original Submission

Arthur T Knackerbracket has processed the following story:

Social media platforms and other online services operating in the UK are facing new regulations. Ofcom, the UK's communication services regulator, has released over 40 safety measures that applicable organizations must carry out by mid-March 2025. The new guidance follows last year's passage of the Online Safety Act, which implements new protections for children and adults online. Ofcom's role includes providing compliance codes and guidance for relevant companies.

Ofcom introduced new measures tackling areas such as fraud, moderation and child sexual abuse material (CSAM). Online services must take steps like nominating a senior person who is accountable for complying to its duties for illegal content, complaints and reporting. Moderating teams must be "appropriately" trained and have enough resources to quickly remove illegal content. Plus, relevant companies, such as social media platforms, should improve their algorithms to limit the spread of illegal content.

The regulator's required anti-CSAM safety practices include hiding children's profiles and locations, not allowing random accounts to message children and using hash-matching and URL detection to quickly find and shut down CSAM.

The Online Safety Act includes "organizations big and small, from large and well-resourced companies to very small 'micro-businesses.' They also apply to individuals who run an online service," Ofcom states. It gets a bit vague, though, with Ofcom adding the business must have a "significant number" of UK users or have the UK as a target market. The Act covers "user-to-user services," such as social media, online gaming and dating sites. It also impacts "search services" and online businesses that show pornographic content.

Ofcom has the power to fine non-compliant sites £18 million ($22.7 million) or 10 percent of their qualifying global revenue, if a higher number. In "very serious cases" Ofcom can seek a court order to block a site's UK presence. Ofcom plans to release further guidance across the first half of 2025.

Original Submission

fliptop writes:

Just two decades ago, China had little capacity to make cars, and owning one was considered novel. Today, China produces and exports more cars than any other country in the world:

President-elect Donald J. Trump has promised to impose new tariffs on China. Many countries, including the United States, already levy extra tariffs on China's electric vehicles. But with all of the advantages China wields in automaking, this pushback is unlikely to undercut China's dominance.

China's home market for car sales is the world's largest — almost as big as the American and European markets combined.

As China's domestic market grew, so did its production capacity, propelled by massive government investment and world-beating advances in automation. Yet in recent years, the pace of sales has fallen behind as consumer spending slows in China's economic downturn. The result is that China today has the capacity to make nearly twice as many cars as its consumers need.

[...] But China's trading partners say that China's exports of both electric and gasoline-powered cars imperil millions of jobs and threaten major companies. Earlier this year, the United States and the European Union put significant new tariffs on electric cars from China. Governments are concerned because the auto industry plays a big role in national security, producing tanks, armored personnel carriers, freight trucks and other vehicles.

Also at ZeroHedge.

Related:

• VW Turns on Germany as China Targets Europe's EV Blunders
• US Senator Calls For China EV Ban

Original Submission

An Anonymous Coward writes:

Years ago, a lady in New York randomly received the automobile license plate number NCC-1701, an identifier well known to Star Trek fans.

Around 2020, she began losing eyesight, stopped driving, sold her car and surrendered her license plates.

Later people began buying novelty license plates with this ID, placing them on their cars, and, when these people got OCR issued tickets for traffic violations, the bills got sent to this poor woman. Hundreds of them.

The issue seems to have been resolved, but it does raise the question of how much trust we can put in automated identification systems and automated traffic fines.

The YAHOO story about this can be found here.

Original Submission

fliptop writes:

An Idaho mine will be the only US source of the key mineral antimony after 18 years of permitting:

The Chinese government in recent weeks expanded its ban on exports of a handful of minerals found in critical military and energy technologies in America. The move puts a spotlight on America's domestic mineral supplies, many of which are locked in years-long federal permitting and regulatory reviews.

One such case is a project located at an abandoned gold mine in the heart of Idaho. That mine contains some of the nation's largest known deposits of the rare mineral antimony, which is among those affected by China's export restrictions. But after a staggering 14 years, the federal government has yet to give the Idaho project a green light to begin production.

Perpetua Resources, the developer of the Stibnite gold mine in Valley County, Idaho, first initiated study, engineering, and community engagement on the project in 2010. Since then, it has faced mountains of permit filings and lengthy environmental reviews conducted by at least five separate federal agencies.

Experts and legislators say the federal regulatory and permitting behemoth with which developers like Perpetua must contend is both costly and detrimental to American national security. And they have pointed to the project as an example of why they say Congress must take up permitting reform legislation as soon as possible.

"China has weaponized the world's mineral supply chains," Rich Nolan, the president and CEO of the National Mining Association, told the Washington Free Beacon. "Again and again, Beijing has reached for the minerals lever to exert geopolitical leverage."

[...] Antimony, like the other minerals targeted by China, has significant defense and energy applications—it is a key component of munitions, night-vision goggles, and military uniforms and is required for both utility-scale and electric vehicle batteries.

The United States, though, imports 100 percent of its antimony supplies, 63 percent of which comes from China. China supplies the international market with about half of its antimony.

According to Perpetua, the Stibnite mine—which contains roughly 67,000 metric tons of antimony—could account for 35 percent of the nation's antimony demand in its first six years of production and fulfill long-term defense needs.

Original Submission

JoeMerchant writes:

https://defence-blog.com/russia-follows-ukraine-in-creating-drone-forces/

Russia plans to create a new branch of its military dedicated to unmanned systems, the "Unmanned Systems Forces," by the third quarter of 2025.

The announcement was made by Russian Defense Minister Andrey Belousov, signaling an intensified focus on drone warfare amid rapidly evolving military technologies.

"In accordance with the directive of the Supreme Commander-in-Chief, it is proposed to form a new branch of the military—the Unmanned Systems Forces. With your approval, we will complete its establishment by the third quarter of next year," Belousov said during a defense briefing.

-------

Meanwhile: https://breakingdefense.com/2024/09/russia-should-know-better-than-to-put-an-anti-satellite-nuke-in-space-norad-chief-says/

Belousov highlighted the extensive use of unmanned aerial vehicles (UAVs) by Russian forces, stating that over 3,500 drones are deployed daily and that this number "continues to grow." According to the Russian Defense Ministry, their air defense systems have intercepted more than 27,000 drones in 2024 alone, underscoring the growing role of UAVs in modern conflict.

Russia's move to formalize its drone operations into a separate branch comes in the wake of Ukraine's pioneering efforts in this domain. In the summer of 2023, Ukraine became the first country to establish an independent military branch dedicated to drone systems, the Unmanned Systems Forces. This initiative has been pivotal in Ukraine's defense strategy, reflecting the technological advancements and challenges posed by its ongoing war with Russian forces.

Ukraine's early adoption of an unmanned systems branch demonstrated the strategic advantages of a specialized force, particularly in countering traditional military tactics and enhancing reconnaissance, targeting, and precision strikes. The effectiveness of such forces has likely influenced Russia's decision to create its own equivalent.

For Russia, this move not only reflects its acknowledgment of the success of unmanned systems in Ukraine but also its aim to maintain technological parity in an increasingly competitive field.

Original Submission

taylorvich writes:

https://phys.org/news/2024-12-gravitational-memory-effect-core-collapse.html

Einstein's theory of gravity, general relativity, has passed all tests with predictions that are spot-on. One prediction that remains is "gravitational wave memory"—the prediction that a passing gravitational wave will permanently change the distance between cosmic objects.

Supernovae—collapsing stars that explode outward—are thought to be generators of gravitational waves, though none have yet been definitively detected by the gravitational wave interferometers on Earth. Nor has the gravitational wave memory effect been seen, from mergers or supernovae, due to the limited sensitivity of interferometers below wave frequencies of 10 hertz.

But now a new study presents an approach to detecting the effect using currently existing gravitational wave observatories. The paper is published in Physical Review Letters.

To-date, all the gravitational waves that have been detected originated from black hole-black hole mergers, neutron star-neutron star mergers, or mergers of one of each. But collapsing supernovae of mass greater than about 10 solar masses are expected to emit gravitational waves as well, though of lower wave amplitude and with a different signature in a gravitational wave interferometer.

In such supernovae, called "core-collapsing supernovae" (CCSN), the core of a massive star undergoes sudden collapse when the energy generated from its fusion energy can no longer counteract the star's own gravity.

This results in an outgoing shock wave from the implosion. Some of the outward energy will be in the form of gravitational waves due to the star's changing quadrupole moment—with total energy of about 10⁴⁰ joules—unless the star's matter is spewed isotropically. (Unlike electromagnetic waves, gravitational waves have no dipole moment due to conservation of momentum.)

Emitted as well are visible light and neutrinos, opening up the possibility of a multi-messenger detection when they arrive at Earth.

Original Submission

Arthur T Knackerbracket has processed the following story:

The European Space Agency (ESA) has just signed a €10.6 ($11.1) billion contract to build the IRIS constellation. It’s the EU’s most ambitious space program in a decade and is designed to compete with Elon Musk’s Starlink network. The contract will last 12 years, and the first launch is expected in 2029.

IRIS, which stands for Resilience, Interconnectivity and Security by Satellite, will consist of almost 300 satellites launched by European rockets. It’s built on top of two other EU satellite constellations, Copernicus and Galileo, the largest Earth-observation program and most accurate GPS system, respectively. Though most of the satellites’ work capacity will be used to provide commercial broadband services, a significant part is dedicated to security and crisis management. Most of the satellites are planned for a low earth orbit, but some will be in a medium earth orbit.

Of the €10.6 billion, €6 billion comes from the EU, while the ESA is forking over €550 million. The remaining €4 billion will come from the private sector.

The ESA is partnering with the European Commission through SpaceRISE, an industrial consortium led by European satellite operators SES, Eutelsat and Hispasat. Other members include Deutsche Telekom, Airbus and Thales, according to the Financial Times.

Since IRIS is many years away, Starlink will likely dominate the current satellite internet market. Recently, SpaceX completed the first direct-to-cell satellite constellation, which will allow phones to be connected even in remote areas.

Original Submission

taylorvich writes:

https://gizmodo.com/the-famous-bering-land-bridge-was-more-like-a-swamp-geologists-say-2000539043

During the last Ice Age, modern-day Siberia and Alaska were connected by a landmass that allowed animals—and ancient humans—to migrate across what is now the Bering Sea. While scientists have long assumed that the now-submerged topography resembled the Ice Age landscape of these two regions, recent research paints a more complex picture.

Geologists suggest that between 36,000 and 11,000 years ago, the Bering Land Bridge may have been less an arid steppe grassland and more a boggy ecosystem crisscrossed by rivers. This complicates scientists' understanding of the iconic landmass and how its landscape would have facilitated or impeded the spread of different species. The scientists presented their work at the American Geophysical Union (AGU) Annual Meeting last week.

"We've been looking on land to try to reconstruct what is underwater," Jenna Hill of the U.S. Geological Survey, who took part in the research, said in an AGU statement. "But that doesn't really tell you what was on land that is now submerged between Alaska and Siberia."

It's worth noting that the name "Bering Land Bridge" is often misleading. The landscape was not a literal bridge that necessarily compelled ancient humans and animals to cross it—it was a sprawling region in its own right that allowed for species to spread between Siberia and North America when sea levels were about 400 feet (122 meters) lower than today. It was a viable habitat in its own right.

In 2023, Hill and her colleagues conducted sonar readings and extracted sediment cores from regions of the Bering Sea floor where previous research had indicated the likely presence of prehistoric lakes.

"We were looking for several large lakes," said Sarah Fowell, a paleogeologist at the University of Alaska Fairbanks, who was also involved in the research. "What we actually found was evidence of lots of small lakes and river channels."

In addition to highlighting the rapid change from freshwater to marine sediment, the cores revealed prehistoric lake sediments, fossils, pollen, and DNA left behind in sediments. Specifically, the pollen indicated the presence of woody trees, while the fossils hinted at widespread freshwater across the Bering Land Bridge.

Original Submission

upstart writes:

Engineering the Impossible: Scientists Solve 200-Year-Old Polymer Puzzle:

A groundbreaking new polymer design developed by scientists at the University of Virginia School of Engineering and Applied Science has overturned the longstanding belief that stiffer polymeric materials must be less stretchable.

"We are addressing a fundamental challenge that has been thought to be impossible to solve since the invention of vulcanized rubber in 1839," said Liheng Cai, an assistant professor of materials science and engineering, and chemical engineering.

That's when Charles Goodyear accidentally discovered that heating natural rubber with sulfur created chemical crosslinks between the strand-like rubber molecules. This cross-linking process creates a polymer network, transforming the sticky rubber, which melts and flows in the heat, into a durable, elastic material.

Since then, it's been believed that if you want to make a polymer network material stiff, you have to sacrifice some stretchability.

[...] "This limitation has held back the development of materials that need to be both stretchable and stiff, forcing engineers to choose one property at the expense of the other," said Huang, who first-authored the paper with postdoctoral researchers Shifeng Nian and Cai. "Imagine, for example, a heart implant that bends and flexes with each heartbeat but still lasts for years."

Crosslinked polymers are everywhere in products we use, from automobile tires to home appliances — and they are increasingly used in biomaterials and health care devices.

Some applications the team envisions for their material include prosthetics and medical implants, improved wearable electronics, and "muscles" for soft robotic systems that need to flex, bend and stretch repeatedly.

Stiffness and extensibility — how far a material can stretch or expand without breaking — are linked because they originate from the same building block: the polymer strands connected by crosslinks. Traditionally, the way to stiffen a polymer network is to add more crosslinks.

This stiffens the material but doesn't solve the stiffness-stretchability trade-off. Polymer networks with more crosslinks are stiffer, but they don't have the same freedom to deform, and they break easily when stretched.

"Our team realized that by designing foldable bottlebrush polymers that could store extra length within their own structure, we could 'decouple' stiffness and extensibility — in other words, build in stretchability without sacrificing stiffness," Cai said. "Our approach is different because it focuses on the molecular design of the network strands rather than crosslinks."

Instead of linear polymer strands, Cai's structure resembles a bottlebrush — many flexible side chains radiating out from a central backbone.

Arthur T Knackerbracket has processed the following story:

The Intel 4004, the first commercial microprocessor, was released in 1971. With 2,300 transistors packed into 12mm2 [sic], it heralded a revolution in computing. A little over 50 years later, Apple’s M2 Ultra contains 134 billion transistors.

The scale of progress is difficult to comprehend, but the evolution of semiconductors, driven for decades by Moore’s Law, has paved a path from the emergence of personal computing and the internet to today’s AI revolution.

But this pace of innovation is not guaranteed, and the next frontier of technological advances—from the future of AI to new computing paradigms—will only happen if we think differently.

The modern microchip stretches both the limits of physics and credulity. Such is the atomic precision, that a few atoms can decide the function of an entire chip. This marvel of engineering is the result of over 50 years of exponential scaling creating faster, smaller transistors.

But we are reaching the physical limits of how small we can go, costs are increasing exponentially with complexity, and efficient power consumption is becoming increasingly difficult. In parallel, AI is demanding ever-more computing power. Data from Epoch AI indicates the amount of computing needed to develop AI is quickly outstripping Moore’s Law, doubling every six months in the “deep learning era” since 2010.

These interlinked trends present challenges not just for the industry, but society as a whole. Without new semiconductor innovation, today’s AI models and research will be starved of computational resources and struggle to scale and evolve. Key sectors like AI, autonomous vehicles, and advanced robotics will hit bottlenecks, and energy use from high-performance computing and AI will continue to soar.

At this inflection point, a complex, global ecosystem—from foundries and designers to highly specialized equipment manufacturers and materials solutions providers like Merck—is working together more closely than ever before to find the answers. All have a role to play, and the role of materials extends far, far beyond the silicon that makes up the wafer.

Instead, materials intelligence is present in almost every stage of the chip production process—whether in chemical reactions to carve circuits at molecular scale (etching) or adding incredibly thin layers to a wafer (deposition) with atomic precision: a human hair is 25,000 times thicker than layers in leading edge nodes.