Duration : 0:1:57

東京大学とパナソニックが開発した超小型MEMS3軸感覚センサーは経済産業省が発表した「今年のロボット」大賞2008において優秀賞を受賞しました。超小型MEMS3軸感覚センサーチップはロボットの指先に付けて、圧力だけでなく、せん断力や滑り方向の力まで測ることが出来ます。超小型MEMS3軸感覚センサーチップを使用することにより、画像認識だけでは困難であった、重なったお皿などを一枚ずつ摘まみ上げるという動作が、横方向の滑りの力を測定することにより可能になりました。

Duration : 0:1:38

The Micro Robo: Micro MC-3, a small NC microfabrication desktop device, is a compilation of 3-axis robots with high rigidity, high precision, and enhancement features.

As a machine that enables microfabrication, the Micro MC-3 is designed with a focus on suppressing vibration and uses M-2052 material, which offers the highest vibration damping effect, in localized areas. It is also equipped with an air bearing type air turbine spindle (80000 rpm) as standard equipment, and as a result, dynamic center runout can be suppressed, making fabrication on a smaller scale possible.

In addition to drilling and milling resin and steel, the Micro MC-3 can be used on brittle materials like glass, ceramics, and rubies.

As its standard specification, the new machine features an open NC function and when this function is applied, it can read data that is useful for production management.

Duration : 0:1:47

NEC Electronics has commercialized a micro computer that comes with a built-in 32 bit flash memory and features a USB 2.0 communication function loaded on a single chip with a maximum data transfer rate of 12 mega bits per second.
The new product is a micro computer with a USB 2.0 communication controller function integrated on a flash micro computer that is equipped with the “V850ES” 32-bit CPU core. Two types of functions are integrated on a single chip including a host controller for the host device and a function controller for peripheral devices, and as a result, a system that enables USB connections without an externally mounted USB chip can be built. The operating frequency of the CPU core was increased to 48 mega hertz, which is roughly 1.5 times faster than that of conventional V850ES core products, and the CPU core also achieves high speed performance of 98MIPS.
The main market for this product includes printers and audio devices that have USB communication functions.
The top end products are the “V850ES and JH-3U”, and the price for samples of these products is 1,000 yen per unit. M production of the new micro computer is slated to start in November of this year and we plan to reach a monthly production level of 1 million units by March 2010.

Embedded Systems Expo

Duration : 0:2:19

At NanoTech 2008, Laser Zentrum Hannover presented a range of micro and submicro structures, created by placing a solid material such as a metal, in a liquid and using short-pulsed lasers to break up the material into nanoparticles.
Interview: “I’m from the laser center in Hannover, which is one of the biggest laser research institutes in the world, and we are focusing on nanotechnology using lasers. We use lasers to ablate materials in a liquid, this sounds strange but its quite easy, so the laser beam transmits the liquid and in the liquid there is a material which we make nanoparticles from. The liquid can be also a monomer. A monomer is a liquid out of which plastics are made. One example is this Nano tail, we call it “Nano On The Beach”. We call it a Nano tail because this contains a tail of nano functions without changing the plastic, so you can use a standard plastic like what mobile phones or toys are made from with a standard procedure and put nanoparticles into this plastic by laser ablation. Then you can mould the plastic, then you have this part, its injection moulded, three dimensional and you can make it with standard technology. To summarize, we have patented a very simple process, in order to bring nano into end products without maing complicated changes to the process chain, we are just changing the raw material by using lasers.”
Embedding nanoparticles into polymer based materials can enhance a range of properties such as hardness, light absorption, biocompatibility, water repulsion, or optical properties.

Duration : 0:2:18

Crystal Optics has expanded the application range of its crystal grinding technology to include precision grinding of various optical transmission materials such as metals and ceramics.

At the 2008 Nanotech exhibition, Crystal Optics exhibited technology that produces clear, vivid, 3-dimensional optical illusions, using this crystal grinding technology.

The illusion works by using two concave mirrors to reflect the image of a physical object which is sitting in the base of each mirror.

Compared with existing concave mirrors used in this illusion, the mirrors produced by Crystal Optics can be fabricated easily, and can vividly show objects in reflection without aberration or image distortion.

Taking advantage of these characteristics, these mirrors can be used for displays of jewelry, precious metals and accessories.

Nanotech 2008

Duration : 0:1:45

Fujitsu Laboratories has made a breakthrough in carbon nanotube research.

The company has combined carbon nanotubes and graphene, both of which are nano-scale carbon structures, to self-form a new nano-scale carbon composite, at the relatively low temperature of 510 degrees Celsius.

Graphene is a honeycomb crystal lattice of carbon atoms.

In experiments using chemical vapor deposition, a technique to synthesize thin films and structures on a substrate by thermally decomposing a feedstock gas in a vacuum chamber, Fujitsu Labs discovered that several to dozens of layers of graphene were formed self-organizingly on the vertically aligned multi-walled carbon nanotubes in such a way that they are connected perpendicularly.

It is known that carbon nanotubes are linear, one-dimensional structures, and therefore they nearly lack thermal or electrical conductivity between tubes in the two-dimensional directions perpendicular to the tube axis.

As attention has been paid to heat, how to increase heat radiation is becoming an important issue. The carbon nanotube composite is expected to be a material with high heat radiation capability. Since graphite flows electrons very smoothly, it can also function as a semiconductor.

As an electronics company, Fujitsu Labs aims to use the new structure to improve today’s LSI performance by applying it to dealing with LSI heat radiation and using it in transistors.

Duration : 0:3:24

The Micro Robo: Micro MC-3, a small NC microfabrication desktop device, is a compilation of 3-axis robots with high rigidity, high precision, and enhancement features.

As a machine that enables microfabrication, the Micro MC-3 is designed with a focus on suppressing vibration and uses M-2052 material, which offers the highest vibration damping effect, in localized areas. It is also equipped with an air bearing type air turbine spindle (80000 rpm) as standard equipment, and as a result, dynamic center runout can be suppressed, making fabrication on a smaller scale possible.

In addition to drilling and milling resin and steel, the Micro MC-3 can be used on brittle materials like gl , ceramics, and rubies.

As its standard specification, the new machine features an open NC function and when this function is applied, it can read data that is useful for production management.

Duration : 0:1:47

A research team at Tokai University has developed a manufacturing technology capable of producing tubes with external diameters ranging between 30 to 200 microns and internal diameters between 20 and 100 microns.

The goal of the university research team was to invent a blood-sampling device using BioMEMS (biological microelectromechanical systems) technology featuring an extremely fine tube, and a design that mimics the blood aspiration mechanism of a female mosquito. This new needle technology makes it possible to collect less than 1 micro liter of blood when checking blood sugar levels thereby improving the comfort of the patient.

The features of this new production technology include its use of precious metals that have high melting points as the tube material, which is then deposited on a linear surface. Subsequently, only the surface material is removed to create a hollow structure. This technology reduces defects, improves rigidity, and can produce complex forms coated with pharmaceutical agents.

By depositing films of functional materials at regular intervals on the extra-fine tubes using this same production technology, it is possible to develop extra-fine tubes which allow fluid to flow within them.

Featuring both fluid supply and removal functions, these extra-fine tubes have a wide range of applications in the medical and pharmaceutical fields including their use as painless injection needles, and fluid delivery pumps.

Duration : 0:2:14