Written by: Denton Vacuum, LLC

Summary: Ion beam deposition plays an integral role in the development of chips.

The microelectronics industry will always be continuously progressing towards more advanced technology through the development of new circuits. When it comes to the fabrication of integrated circuits, the industry is trending towards a higher density chip and a smaller feature size.

An In-Depth Look Into Microelectronics

For instance, ever notice how electronics in this day and age are becoming thinner and lighter? Today’s generation loves handheld products that are lightning fast and are capable of performing tasks that make mundane actions seem futuristic. Now, this trend has definitely piqued the interest of numerous types of ion beam etching technologies for pattern replication. One of these emerging technologies consists of a higher resolution, as well as a greater dimensional control, and a higher yield than your convention wet chemical etching.

Ion beam sputter deposition has played a significant role in the upward trend of new circuitry technologies. This process also plays a large role in developing successful applications of ion beam etching to patterning high density circuitry. It’s a vast industry that’s only growing larger and larger. The trend continues to move towards a smaller and faster type of microchip. It won’t be long before they’re essentially too small for the naked eye to see.

 

The Bottom Line

 

All in all, microelectronics today are continuously paving the way for new products and advanced units of circuitry. Sputtering systems are continuously adapting to this new trend and new models are constantly coming out to achieve this balance.


Alexa is Amazon’s voice assistant that powers its Echo series of home automation devices. One of the main reasons for its current popularity is the number of third party skills. There are as many as 4000 skills available covering everything from controlling light bulbs to reading jokes. For a new owner, there are just too many to go through so here is a list of what might be useful to set up at the start:

Shopping list

Adding items to a shopping list is one of the two most popular uses of the Echo. The default location for items is the built in list. However, you can link the list function to either Todoist or Any.do, two third party list services.

Timers

The number one use for voice assistants so far is as a kitchen timer. With an Alexa based assistant, creating a timer is as simple as saying “Alexa set a timer for xx minutes.” The Echo supports three simultaneous timers.

Music

You can stream music from Amazon Prime music, Spotify or TuneIn Radio. It is unlikely that Apple Music and Google Play music will be available anytime soon.

Lights

The third most popular use for Alexa is to control smart home devices. There is support for hundreds of devices, either directly or through hubs and bridges. For example, The Phillips Hue Bridge has direct support, which enables access to all lights controlled by that bridge.

Regardless of the other skills available, these four are the first things any new Echo owner should activate.


There are two hardware based voice assistants available today: The Amazon Echo and Google Home. They both do the same thing: they listen for a keyword and use any voice input from that point to structure a command. Google Home is a recent entrant, so it lags behind the Echo in both available third party integration and market share. However, now that the Echo has a competitor, we can expect large strides regarding performance and capabilities. Here are some improvements we can expect soon:

Voice recognition

Alexa uses a very specific method of interpreting commands. Google Assistant, which powers Google Home, is better suited for natural language. We can expect big leaps in both recognition and understanding from both as they use machine learning and current use tune the service.

Authorized voices

The biggest shortcoming for both assistants is that they respond to commands from anyone. Also, they respond to queries for calendar and lists for a single person or the primary account holder. In a future update, we can expect it to respond only to the owner and other authorized voices. Also, queries will be specific to the person asking them.

Device control

Recent announcements show that vendors will ship devices and appliances with Alexa and (later) Google Assistant support. The built-in support will finally allow direct device control by voice. Rather than simply switching appliances on/off using connected plugs, we will be able to tell the oven to reduce temperature directly or tell the washing machine to start a spin cycle.


When setting up a new data center, cooling is one of the most important elements after power and network capacity. Here are the most important considerations for cooling:

Thermal load – Determine the amount of cooling required for the server room. This is based on the thermal load of the equipment. There are labels with the thermal load on the back of each server. Alternatively, calculate the total wattage or get an electrical contractor in to determine the heat load and the BTU required. When spot cooling is an option, calculate the load per zone.

Temperature – The ideal temperature for a server room is 70 degrees f. However, large data center operations run by companies like Google maintain much higher temperatures. The tradeoff here is on the lifetime of the equipment and redundancy. Except for large data centers, the method of cooling is not important as long as the temperature is maintained. It can be portable AC units or split types.

Redundancy – There has to be a backup for whatever cooling method in use. The best solution is to have one or more portable AC units available for immediate use. This way any breakdown does have any immediate impact on operations.

Servicing – Any air conditioning solutions should be easily serviceable. This is dependent on the size and the area immediately surrounding the room. This affects the placement and the type of AC unit.