Advanced Materials

The rise of co-packaged optics is transforming modern data centers and high-performance networks by addressing critical challenges such as bandwidth density, energy efficiency, and scalability. CPO enhances interconnect bandwidth and energy efficiency by integrating optics and electronics within a single package, significantly shortening electrical link lengths.

Helium is a finite resource that plays a critical role across several industries including medical imaging, thermal management systems for batteries, aerospace engineering, chemicals and pharmaceuticals, semiconductor manufacturing, fiber optics, particle physics, scientific balloons, and many more.

Thursday 12 September 2024 - How Is Critical Material Recovery Unlocking a Multi-Billion Dollar Market? Introduction to critical materials and key application markets; Critical material sources and why secondary material streams are rapidly emerging; Critical material recovery technology trends and their application in secondary sources; Valuable lessons to learn from established critical platinum group metal and semiconductor recovery; IDTechEx's outlook and conclusions on emerging critical material recovery markets and key growth opportunities.

End-of-life equipment from automotives, electric vehicles, e-waste and decarbonized energy technologies are rapidly emerging secondary raw material sources for valuable critical materials. A new report from IDTechEx forecasts that US$110B of critical materials will be recovered annually from secondary sources by 2045, with a combined weight of over 3.3 million tonnes.

IDTechEx projects that the combined market for optical and radio-frequency metamaterials will reach US$15 billion by 2034. This article will delve into the key applications driving the expansion of the Radio-Frequency (RF) metamaterial market.

Thursday 15 August 2024 - Co-Packaged Optics (CPO) Unveiled: Network Evolution, Packaging Innovation, and Market Trends. With data centers experiencing unprecedented demand for higher data throughput and improved power efficiency driven by the rise of AI, machine learning, and the proliferation of cloud-based services, there is an urgent need for innovative solutions to enhance network infrastructure. CPO is rapidly gaining traction as it promises to address the limitations posed by traditional pluggable optical modules.

With the ever-increasing need for heat dissipation, high-performance thermal interface materials with higher thermal conductivity and other properties are becoming essential. Driven by this trend, a number of high-performance TIMs are emerging. This article primarily introduces the advantages and drawbacks of advanced carbon-based TIMs. However, it is worth noting that many other TIMs offer superior performance.

Quantum technology exists in unsuspecting places, including cameras, computers, and smartphones. While quantum technology research has existed in various forms for over a hundred years, the 21st century saw an increased effort toward commercialization, and the market segments of quantum sensing, quantum computing, and quantum communications emerged.

The Paris 2024 Olympic Games are underway, and elite athletes from all over the world are competing in various games using a range of different skills. With constant debate over gold, silver, and bronze medals, a comparison can be made with the conductive inks market. Silver flake-based inks are set to win gold in a number of different application areas, beating out competition from a host of conductive ink types.

Over the past decade, the capacity of data center Ethernet switches has surged from 0.64 Tbps to 25.6 Tbps, driven by the adoption of 64x400 Gbps or 32x800 Gbps pluggable optical transceiver modules. However, these high-speed modules, within their current form factors, pose significant challenges. Issues include the required densities of electrical and optical connectors, as well as escalating power consumption.