Monday 22 October 2012

Iceotope Mentioned as Top 50 Hottest Early Stage Startups in the World


Last week's Dublin Web Summit was attended by 4,000 people. Attendees watched two days of speeches and exhibits by leaders in the technology industry. In addition, 250 startup companies set up in the conference halls, eager to share information, seek investors, and attract potential customers. 

Over 1,000 companies from 36 countries applied for the Electric Ireland Spark of Genius Award. Iceotope was selected as one of the top 50 award finalists, selected based on the combination of innovation with productivity to generate excitement and influence in a competitive environment.

Tuesday 9 October 2012

A sustainable cooling solution for servers


A unique cooling system using 3M™ Novec™ Engineered Fluids has been launched to provide a low cost, low energy solution to prevent servers from over-heating.

Designed, engineered and manufactured by Sheffield-based Iceotope Research and Development Ltd in conjunction with 3M and the University of Leeds, the integrated server platform reduces the energy used to cool IT equipment by 97 per cent as it doesn’t need chillers and air conditioning units.
Data centres currently account for around 5 per cent of the UK’s energy consumption and it costs just as much to cool servers using air conditioning systems as it does to run them.

“Researchers predict that the world’s data centres will consume 19 per cent more energy in the next 12 months than they have in the past year,” said Peter Hopton, founder and chief technical officer of Iceotope. “In order to try to combat this increase in power consumption, we need to start looking at technology that will help not only reduce the environmental footprint, but also help reduce the costs associated with power and cooling in data centres and other high-performing computing environments.

“Through our research with the University of Leeds and 3M, we’re excited about the impact our solution will have on data centre design and location.”

With Iceotope’s innovative liquid system, servers are encapsulated in a sealed unit with 3M™ Novec™ fluids acting as an inert coolant. This eliminates the need for air conditioning and harvests the heat from 20 kilowatts of IT equipment using just 80 watts of power. The harvested heat can then be reused or passively cooled.

As the system is silent and fully sealed with the electronics protected from the environment, the need to locate servers in a ‘clean building’ away from people is reduced. This creates the added benefit of providing more flexibility for the location of servers and has the potential to reduce the costs associated with purpose-built clean data rooms.

Said Keith Deakin, principal design engineer for Iceotope Research and Development: “The system has been designed to provide a sustainable end-to-end liquid cooling system for whole data centres. The motherboard is encapsulated in a sealed module containing a Novec fluid and this is used to harvest the heat from every component on the board. The heat is then transferred into a separate sealed water channel within the cabinet.

“Gravity, combined with a simple pump, moves the water around the circuits in the cabinet and the heat is then transferred through heat exchangers connected back to the building’s water supply.
“Our ethos is to keep the servers at their optimum working temperature by using as little energy as possible.”

The 3M™ Novec™ Engineered Fluid was chosen by Iceotope as it is a high-performing inert chemical coolant with environmental benefits.

Said Keith: “As well as being very good at convecting heat away from the heat-generating components on the motherboard, Novec fluid’s environmental impact is as low as we can find for such a coolant. It is thermally stable, non-ozone depleting and has a very low global warming potential.”

3M sales manager, Adrian Hyner, and technical sales specialist for 3M’s Electronics Markets Materials division, Mark Nursall, have worked closely with Iceotope on the development of the solution since the company was set up as an offshoot of a computer firm three years ago.

Said Mark: “Novec fluids have excellent heat-transfer properties compared to other dielectric fluids and is recyclable, offering an excellent balance between performance, safety and the environment.“Using a non-flammable coolant rather than a potentially flammable solution improves safety as well as making a dramatic overall reduction in electricity costs.

“The system also incorporates the latest award-winning high performance 3M™ Twin Axial Cables to transmit high speed data signals from the module to the back panel. In addition, 3M™ Scotchcast™ resin has been used to seal the entry point to the module. The introduction of these additional 3M technologies further enhanced the cost and performance benefits of the Iceotope platform solution.”

The Iceotope system been tested at a Swiss bank and is also being tested in operation at leading research universities in the UK and will be available for delivery towards the end of the year.

http://solutions.3m.co.uk/wps/portal/3M/en_GB/4Sight/home/-/topstories/5/?WT.svl=f1top5

Tuesday 2 October 2012

Elektra Awards Finalists


A panel of independent judges has made its decisions as part of the Elektra European Electronics Industry Awards 2012, and the shortlisted finalists in each of the award categories are published below.

The winners will be announced at an
Elektra Awards Dinner and Christmas Party which takes place on Wednesday 12th December at the Park Plaza, Westminster Bridge in London.

The established annual highpoint of the electronics industry, the
Elektra Awards gives the industry the opportunity to recognise the achievements of individuals and companies across Europe. They are designed to promote best practice in key areas including, innovation, sales growth and employee motivation.

Awards shortlists

Design Team of the Year
(Sponsored by CadSoft Computer)

ByteSnap Design - Design of vehicle charging posts for London 2012
eosemi - Design of an all-CMOS replacement for crystal oscillators
TT electronics – Design a medical implant for treating high blood pressure

 
Distributor of the Year
(Sponsored by IC Resources)

Anglia Components
Caltest Instruments
Farnell element14
Mouser Electronics
RS Components
TTI


Green Electronics Award
(Sponsored by National Instruments)

ebm-papst Mulfingen - CO2 emissions reduction at European facilities
Ericsson Power Modules – Reduction in life-cycle impact of products in operation
Farnell element14 - Packaging recycling project including free customer collection
TT electronics - Sensor product uses 42% less in plastic packaging


Manufacturer Export Award
(Sponsored by Agilent Technologies)

Marl International
United EMS
Zytronic


New Company of the Year
(Sponsored by International Rectifier)

Gnodal
Iceotope
Triggertrap


Educational Support Award
(Sponsored by Pinnacle Marketing Communications)

Aeroflex - £2.5m investment in wireless labs at Lancaster University and University College London
Analog Devices - University programme provides “hands-on learning”
Harwin - University programme providing technical, sponsorship and free products
Parallel Systems - Provides free Cadence OrCAD software to UK students
Rohde & Schwarz - €7.5m in financial assistance given to European universities
Silica - A competition prize of £3,000 for three UK university students


Design Tools and development software Award
ByteSnap Design - SnapUI lightweight development framework
Cadence Design Systems – Encounter analysis system for 3D ICs
CadSoft Computer - CAD tool with ASCII XML data structure
Mentor Graphics - RealTimeCalibre tool provides sign-off DFM feedback
Synopsys - Out-of-the-box support for ARM big.LITTLE processing designs
Xilinx – Vivado FPGA design tool supports C++ to HDL


Embedded System Product of the Year
Altera - 28nm system-on-chip FPGA
Freescale Semiconductor - Kinetis L series ARM Cortex-M0+ microcontroller
Intersil - Pico-qHD low cost pico projector system
Maxim Integrated Products - Smart meter platform with integrated security
RFEL - Fast Fourier transform FPGA core
Silicon Laboratories - Precision32 crystal-less USB controller


Passive & Electromechanical Product of Year
(Sponsored by Arrow)

AVX - 75V single-anode tantalum polymer capacitor
Harting - Han-Fast Lock high current PCB connector
Murata - Low ESR, electrical double layer capacitor
Melexis – Triaxis Hall effect magnetic sensor
Omron Electronic Components – G8P relay with large contact gap for high voltages
Syfer Technology - Multilayer chip capacitors with protective coating


Power System Product of the Year
(Sponsored by Harting Technology Group)

Amantys - Power Drive gate driver module
Cree - High efficiency 50A silicon carbide devices
Linear Technology - µModule isolated DC-DC converter with transformer
N2Power – Small 260W AC-DC power supply
Powervation - PV3101 single phase digital DC/DC controller
SemiSouth Laboratories - 650V silicon carbide JFET


Renewable Energy Design Award
(Sponsored by MSC Gleichmann UK)

Analog Devices - ADP1046 power controller
Diverse Energy - fuel cell technology
Heliatek – Organic photovoltaic material
Zeta Specialist Lighting - Solar powered paddle for lighting road signs


Semiconductor Product of the Year - Analogue
(Sponsored by Mouser Electronics)

ams - AS3935 Franklin lightning sensor IC
Linear Technology – LTC4366 overvoltage protection controller for 9-500V
Integrated Device Technology – IDT 90E46 single phase power metering SoC International Rectifier - PowIRstage integrated buck gate driver, mosfets and Schottky diode
Maxim Integrated Products – MAX44007 digital ambient light sensor
Microsemi - Low power body area network IC


Semiconductor Product of the Year - Digital
(Sponsored by Rohde & Schwarz)

Altera - Combining FPGA with optical transceiver modules in a single package
Freescale - Vybrid microcontroller combines ARM Cortex-A5 and Cortex-M4 cores
Lattice Semiconductor - iCE40 low power mobileFPGAs
LSI - SandForce SSD flash storage processor
Texas Instruments – Wolverine MSP430 microcontroller
Xilinx - Virtex-7 FPGAs with stacked silicon interconnect technology


Solid-State Lighting Application Award
(Sponsored by Anglia)

Arrow Electronics - LEDagon reference design combines LEDs with thermal management and control
Cree - XSP series high efficiency LED street light
LED Engin - ViviLux family of high-efficiency LED emitters
OMC - Spectralux Light Engines for all-in-one LED lighting design
Oxley Developments - LED aircraft landing light suitable to replace halogen technology
Plessey Semiconductors – Magic series high brightness LEDs on a gallium nitride-on-silicon substr
ate



Test Product of the Year
Agilent Technologies - Infiniium 90000Q 63GHz oscilloscope
JTAG Technologies - AutoBuzz automated boundary-scan software
LeCroy - LabMaster 10Zi 65GHz oscilloscope
Newton’s 4th - PPA1500 power analyser
National Instruments - PXIe-5644R RF vector signal transceiver, software-designed instrument
Rohde & Schwarz - ZNB network analyser
Yokogawa - Software package for the testing standby power


Other special awards
Rising Star New Engineer of the Year(Sponsored by Farnell element14)
University Department of the Year
(Sponsored by RS Components)

New Product - Product Innovation Award (Sponsored by Avnet Electronics Marketing EMEA)
Company of the Year
Lifetime Achievement Award

http://www.electronicsweekly.com/Articles/03/10/2012/54687/elektra-awards-finalists.htm