“Tracking Solar Collectors: Simulating the Performance of Different Types of Solar Collection Systems” discusses basic design issues for solar concentrating systems, and provides an overview of solar collection system examples analyzed with the LightTools Solar Tracking Utility. These examples include non-tracking, one-axis tracking, and two-axis tracking systems. Practical issues with length are also considered for one-axis tracking systems.

For high reliability applications such as satellite, automotive, medical and telecom products, electrically conductive adhesives are often used as an alternative to traditional solders. Their benefits are many but, for these applications, conductive adhesives deliver low temperature processing, fine-pitch capability and improved thermal cycling resistance. These advantages are arguably compelling, but electrically conductive adhesives have had limited success on common electronic metals such as copper and Sn and, therefore, have been used most often on noble metallizations like gold and silver palladium on ceramic substrates. While conductive adhesives may also provide benefits to the thin film solar cell market and the silicon solar cell segment, their limitations on copper and Sn have slowed their adoption.

While lead-free processes now seem like yesterday’s news and the electronics industry
at large has generally accepted and commonly uses the SnAgCu (SAC) alloy, there are
still market sectors that have struggled with prevailing SAC formulations.

Small Times' annual survey identifies which institutions are the "best of the best" in micro- and nanotechnology, gauging capabilities and strengths in research and commercialization, as well as rankings as chosen by their peers. For 2009, the top university in "Research" was a close race; for "Commercialization" it was a landslide. And as we compiled the data and talked with schools, it became clear that an important trend is shifting the dynamic nature of university R&D.

There are several applications either currently in production or in late stage R&D, for UV-based Nanoimprint Lithography (UV-NIL) and Hot Embossing (HE) that require a full-field imprint technology in order to make these processes either feasible or cost-effective. These applications cover a wide range of features sizes from the millimeter range down to sub-100 nm. Because of the total thickness variation (TTV) associated with the imprinted substrates, full-field imprinting requires fabrication of a "soft" or "working" stamp from a "hard" stamp usually made from materials such as nickel, quartz or silicon. Several materials and processes have previously been identified that allow for full-field imprinting, however, these materials all have drawbacks associated with them that hinder their movement into High Volume Manufacturing (HVM) environments. EV Group Inc (EVG) has, in cooperation with our NILCOM(TM) partners, identified a novel set of polymeric materials and stamp fabrication processes that allow for full-field imprinting solutions suitable for these HVM environments. These materials have proven effective for imprinting at both millimeter feature sizes all the way down to 50 nm - full field. These materials, and the processes associated with their fabrication into working/soft stamps, should allow for a superior cost-of-ownership benefit and facilitate the movement of imprint lithography into industrial applications.