Pressroom

The Development Center X-ray Technology EZRT at the Fraunhofer Institute for Integrated Circuits IIS has further developed the "ntCT" nano CT system in collaboration with partners. This improved system is now commercially available via the system integrator, ProCon X-Ray. "ntCT" is suitable for the microscopically fine investigation of sample objects with a resolution of up to 150 nanometers. By integrating the latest generation of X-ray tubes, the system now supplies outstanding resolution while also greatly reducing the measuring time.

At the embedded world 2020 the mioty alliance was introduced to a large audience of leading companies from research & industry, such as Texas Instruments, Fraunhofer-Institute for Integrated Circuits IIS, and Diehl Metering. Since then the alliance has registered an ever-growing number of enterprises that have decided to join. The mioty joint patent licensing program has been organized by Sisvel International S.A. to make mioty technology available for innovative LPWAN applications in various areas like Industrial IoT, Smart City or in smart buildings. The new Fraunhofer IIS features for robust, reliable and energy-efficient solutions, like Energy Harvesting, provide an attractive technology pool to boost massive IoT applications.

The Fraunhofer Institute for Integrated Circuits IIS is working together with partners PreciPoint GmbH, HTI Automation GmbH, the Department of Pathology at the University Hospital Regensburg and the Technical University of Munich to create an automated digital pathology system. Fraunhofer IIS intends to find a way of assessing the quality of tissue samples and weeding out any unsuitable ones before the samples are loaded for scanning. This will save valuable time by preventing unnecessary scans and means that pathologists won’t end up with substandard specimens.

The German Federal Ministry of Education and Research (BMBF) invests in the development of new electronic systems and supports joint research projects that advance the Industry 4.0 agenda. KI-PREDICT, a project funded by the BMBF, aims to use artificial intelligence (AI) at various levels of the manufacturing process to enable condition-based, predictive maintenance for factory equipment and to monitor product quality on the fly during production. Seven partners are taking part in this project, one being the Fraunhofer Institute for Integrated Circuits IIS. It is developing a sensor interface application-specific integrated circuit (ASIC). Fine-tuned for sensors that monitor the condition of equipment and help control processes in real time, this ASIC will enable energy-efficient feature extraction and local, on-sensor signal processing.

The Fraunhofer Institute for Integrated Circuits IIS participates in the multinational initiative "Pan-European Privacy-Preserving Proximity Tracing" (PEPP-PT) for a cross-border platform and framework on the basis of which privacy-compliant apps can be developed to help contain the COVID19 pandemic. The Fraunhofer IIS expert team for networking coordinates the methods and algorithm development of Bluetooth-supported distance estimation and implements the different methods.

Fraunhofer Institute for Integrated Circuits IIS, inventor of mp3 and primary developer of xHE-AAC and the MPEG-H Audio standard, announced that NXP® Semiconductors will leverage Fraunhofer’s MPEG audio SDK. This software package covers four generations of audio codecs: legacy MPEG Layer-1/2/3 as well as the next-generation MPEG-H 3D Audio standard and the AAC codec family, including xHE-AAC. NXP will incorporate these codecs into its multimedia system solutions, which raise the bar for audio quality in home entertainment products, such as set-top boxes, soundbars or smart speakers.

Fraunhofer Institute for Integrated Circuits IIS, inventor of mp3 and primary developer of AAC, MPEG-H Audio and other MPEG standard audio codecs, announced today that Amazon has become an important music-centric licensee of its MPEG-H audio decoder software, included in the new Echo Studio. MPEG-H is the novel audio scheme used for new immersive music services including those based on the Sony 360 Reality Audio format. 360 Reality Audio services from Amazon Music HD on the Echo Studio are enabled by the Fraunhofer software.

When merging and overtaking in complex traffic situations, drivers must pay extreme attention. A lapse in concentration can sometimes lead to accidents – something that automated driving assistance systems work to prevent. The Fraunhofer Institute for Integrated Circuits IIS, together with its project partners RISE, Scania, Waysure, Ceit-IK4, Baselabs and Commsignia, has made another successful step towards autonomous driving as part of an EU-funded project PRoPART. On a test track in Sweden, automotive industry experts were able to see how well the automated merging solution performed in an impressive live demonstration with a truck.

Germany’s Federal Ministry of Education and Research (BMBF) has launched its first-ever competition dedicated to the development of an innovative, energy-efficient AI system. The Fraunhofer Institutes IIS and IPMS have entered their joint ADELIA (Analog Deep Learning Inference Accelerator) project into the BMBF’s Sprunginnovationen competition, where their focus is on the design of an analog inference accelerator ASIC. Fraunhofer IIS leads the project.

Fully automated and autonomous vehicles should be able to respond appropriately in every situation. Together with partners in the "KI-FLEX" project, the Fraunhofer Institute for Integrated Circuits IIS is developing a platform that uses artificial intelligence methods to help measure vehicle position and determine vehicle environment in the future.