Manufacturing

TSMC is to build a $12 billion 5nm 20k wpm fab in Arizona. The US government has been pressuring the company to build a fab in the USA after worries about US reliance on Asian fabs for advanced chips. “This project is of critical, strategic importance to a vibrant and competitive U.S. semiconductor ecosystem that enables leading U.S. companies to ...

Aldershot-based Fath Components, normally a maker of enclosure parts and other metal and plastic parts, has added Type FFP2 aerosol filtration face masks to its product repertoire. The company is gearing up to manufacture face masks at its main plant in Germany, planning to produce and dispatch 50,000 masks a day. “From Monday 27th April it has been law in Germany for ...

The German government has kicked-off a project intended 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. Called ‘KI-Predict’ it has come out of the German Federal Ministry of Education and Research (BMBF) and has seven partners including the Fraunhofer ...

Kitronik and a Nottingham maker group are providing PPE Face Shields to pharmacy staff.

Trackwise Designs has acquired Stevenage Circuits, the designer and manufacturer of short flex and rigid printed circuit boards “for up to £2.5m”, according to Trackwise.”The deal enables Trackwise to increase production of its ‘improved harness technology [IHT], as well as expand its customer base and boost technical, sales, and operational expertise.” Remaining proceeds of a £5.9 million fundraising will be ...

The Czech Republic has certified a 3D printed anti-covid-19 mask, as a half-mask with FFP3 safety level to EN 140:1999 when using exchangeable external filters. Designed at the Czech Technical University in Prague, by its Institute of Informatics, Robotics and Cybernetics (CIIRC CTU), the part is called ‘CIIRC RP95-3D’ and has to be printed on a ‘multijet fusion’ (MJF) printer. Manufacturing ...

The national High Value Manufacturing Catapult is leading a consortium of UK industrial and engineering businesses, including Siemens, Smiths, Thales and Ultra Electronics to design medical ventilators for the UK. Arrow Electronics, Microsoft and Dell are providing support. Scroll down for another UK ventilator project  Called the VentilatorChallengeUK Consortium, it is lead by Dick Elsy (right), CEO of the Catapult, who last week deferred his ...

Following one of its Taiwan employees testing positive for covid-19 on 18 March, TSMC has put a remote working policy in place for non-production line workers, Taipei Times reports. 30 other employees have been asked to enter quarantine while the infected member of staff has been taken to hospital for treatment. Additional measures include the halting of all non-essential overseas ...

Würth Elektronik is supplying the PCBs needed for the rapid manufacture of intensive care and mobile ventilators from its three production sites in Germany. In order to ensure the supply of medical ventilators for coronavirus patients in Germany, the German government has placed several orders with different manufacturers at short notice.     At the plants in Niedernhall, Rot am See and ...

Panasonic has adopted Renesas’ R9A06G037 PLC IC for its railway platform lighting control system. Panasonic and East Japan Railway Company jointly developed the system using G3-PLC, a narrowband standard (10-450kHz) for outdoor use.  PLC makes it possible to transmit control signals over power lines, allowing operators to adjust the brightness and colour of lighting fixtures on platforms without requiring dedicated ...