Pub Date : 2025-11-10DOI: 10.1109/MSPEC.2025.11237224
John Dean
Hurricane Milton turned into one of the fastest-growing storms on record over the Atlantic Ocean. The hurricane's gain in intensity caught meteorologists off guard, which meant the affected communities were surprised too. The storm ultimately claimed 15 lives and caused US $34 billion in damages as it tore across Florida.
{"title":"Inside the Best Weather-Forecasting AI in the World: Autonomous Weather Balloonssurf the Winds to Collect Needed Data","authors":"John Dean","doi":"10.1109/MSPEC.2025.11237224","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1109/MSPEC.2025.11237224","url":null,"abstract":"Hurricane Milton turned into one of the fastest-growing storms on record over the Atlantic Ocean. The hurricane's gain in intensity caught meteorologists off guard, which meant the affected communities were surprised too. The storm ultimately claimed 15 lives and caused US $34 billion in damages as it tore across Florida.","PeriodicalId":13249,"journal":{"name":"IEEE Spectrum","volume":"62 11","pages":"46-53"},"PeriodicalIF":2.4,"publicationDate":"2025-11-10","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"145479425","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":4,"RegionCategory":"工程技术","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
Pub Date : 2025-11-10DOI: 10.1109/MSPEC.2025.11237236
Jacob Balma;Alejandro W. Rodriguez
Modern high-performance chips are marvels of engineering, containing tens of billions of transistors. The problem is, you can't use them all at once. If you did, you would create hot spots—high temperatures concentrated in tiny areas—with power densities nearing those found at the surface of the sun. This has led to a frustrating paradox known as dark silicon, a term coined by computer architects to describe the growing portion of a chip that must be kept powered down. Up to 80 percent of the transistors on a modern chip must remain “dark” at any given moment to keep the chip from sizzling. We are building supercomputers on a sliver of silicon but only using a fraction of their potential. It's like building a skyscraper and being able to use only the first 10 floors.
{"title":"How to Cool Chips with Lasers: Startup Plans to Convert Heat to Light in Data-Center Processors","authors":"Jacob Balma;Alejandro W. Rodriguez","doi":"10.1109/MSPEC.2025.11237236","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1109/MSPEC.2025.11237236","url":null,"abstract":"Modern high-performance chips are marvels of engineering, containing tens of billions of transistors. The problem is, you can't use them all at once. If you did, you would create hot spots—high temperatures concentrated in tiny areas—with power densities nearing those found at the surface of the sun. This has led to a frustrating paradox known as dark silicon, a term coined by computer architects to describe the growing portion of a chip that must be kept powered down. Up to 80 percent of the transistors on a modern chip must remain “dark” at any given moment to keep the chip from sizzling. We are building supercomputers on a sliver of silicon but only using a fraction of their potential. It's like building a skyscraper and being able to use only the first 10 floors.","PeriodicalId":13249,"journal":{"name":"IEEE Spectrum","volume":"62 11","pages":"40-45"},"PeriodicalIF":2.4,"publicationDate":"2025-11-10","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"145479416","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":4,"RegionCategory":"工程技术","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
Pub Date : 2025-11-10DOI: 10.1109/MSPEC.2025.11237220
Maximilian Kern
Lithium-ion batteries' ability to deliver a lot of power from a small package have made them the go-to for makers and manufacturers alike. It's not unusual now to find, say, microcontroller boards with integrated Li-ion chargers. Lithium-ion is so popular, in fact, that it's easy to forget that other battery technologies exist, even when they're a better fit.
{"title":"A Hassle-Free Battery Charger: Put NiMH Cells Back in the Game","authors":"Maximilian Kern","doi":"10.1109/MSPEC.2025.11237220","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1109/MSPEC.2025.11237220","url":null,"abstract":"Lithium-ion batteries' ability to deliver a lot of power from a small package have made them the go-to for makers and manufacturers alike. It's not unusual now to find, say, microcontroller boards with integrated Li-ion chargers. Lithium-ion is so popular, in fact, that it's easy to forget that other battery technologies exist, even when they're a better fit.","PeriodicalId":13249,"journal":{"name":"IEEE Spectrum","volume":"62 11","pages":"16-18"},"PeriodicalIF":2.4,"publicationDate":"2025-11-10","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"145479420","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":4,"RegionCategory":"工程技术","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
Pub Date : 2025-11-10DOI: 10.1109/MSPEC.2025.11237226
James Myers
For over 50 years now, egged on by the seeming inevitability of Moore's Law, engineers have managed to double the number of transistors they can pack into the same area every two years. But while the industry was chasing logic density, an unwanted side effect became more prominent: heat.
{"title":"Will Heat Cause a Moore's Law Meltdown?: New Chip Tech Means New Problems with Handling Heat","authors":"James Myers","doi":"10.1109/MSPEC.2025.11237226","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1109/MSPEC.2025.11237226","url":null,"abstract":"For over 50 years now, egged on by the seeming inevitability of Moore's Law, engineers have managed to double the number of transistors they can pack into the same area every two years. But while the industry was chasing logic density, an unwanted side effect became more prominent: heat.","PeriodicalId":13249,"journal":{"name":"IEEE Spectrum","volume":"62 11","pages":"22-27"},"PeriodicalIF":2.4,"publicationDate":"2025-11-10","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"145479422","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":4,"RegionCategory":"工程技术","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
Pub Date : 2025-10-09DOI: 10.1109/MSPEC.2025.11197280
Evan Ackerman
Over the next several years, humanoid robots will change the nature of work. Or at least, that's what humanoid robotics companies have been consistently promising, enabling them to raise hundreds of millions of dollars at valuations that run into the billions.
{"title":"Why Humanoid Robots Aren't Scaling: Billions of Dollars of Hype is Running into Market Reality","authors":"Evan Ackerman","doi":"10.1109/MSPEC.2025.11197280","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1109/MSPEC.2025.11197280","url":null,"abstract":"Over the next several years, humanoid robots will change the nature of work. Or at least, that's what humanoid robotics companies have been consistently promising, enabling them to raise hundreds of millions of dollars at valuations that run into the billions.","PeriodicalId":13249,"journal":{"name":"IEEE Spectrum","volume":"62 10","pages":"64-65"},"PeriodicalIF":2.4,"publicationDate":"2025-10-09","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"145315418","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":4,"RegionCategory":"工程技术","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
Pub Date : 2025-10-09DOI: 10.1109/MSPEC.2025.11197276
Glenn Zorpette
A gibbous moon hangs over a lonely mountain trail in the Italian Alps, above the village of Malles Venosta, whose lights dot the valley below. Benjamin Wiesmair stands next to a moth trap as tall as he is, his face, bushy beard, and hair bun lit by its purple glow. He's wearing a headlamp, a dusty and battered smartwatch, cargo shorts, and a blue zip sweater with the sleeves pulled up. Countless moths beat frenetically around the trap's white, diaphanous panels, which are swaying with ghostly ripples in a gentle breeze. Wiesmair squints at his smartphone, which is logged on to a database of European moth species.
{"title":"The Quest to Sequence the Genomes of Everything: An Adventurous Band of Engineers is Scaling Sequencing Technology to Fully Capture Every Organism's DNA","authors":"Glenn Zorpette","doi":"10.1109/MSPEC.2025.11197276","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1109/MSPEC.2025.11197276","url":null,"abstract":"A gibbous moon hangs over a lonely mountain trail in the Italian Alps, above the village of Malles Venosta, whose lights dot the valley below. Benjamin Wiesmair stands next to a moth trap as tall as he is, his face, bushy beard, and hair bun lit by its purple glow. He's wearing a headlamp, a dusty and battered smartwatch, cargo shorts, and a blue zip sweater with the sleeves pulled up. Countless moths beat frenetically around the trap's white, diaphanous panels, which are swaying with ghostly ripples in a gentle breeze. Wiesmair squints at his smartphone, which is logged on to a database of European moth species.","PeriodicalId":13249,"journal":{"name":"IEEE Spectrum","volume":"62 10","pages":"42-49"},"PeriodicalIF":2.4,"publicationDate":"2025-10-09","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"145315423","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":4,"RegionCategory":"工程技术","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
Pub Date : 2025-10-09DOI: 10.1109/MSPEC.2025.11197284
Allison Marsh
In the early 1980s, the RCA VideoDisc entered the burgeoning home video market. If you've never heard of the VideoDisc, don't beat yourself up. The technology quickly lost out in a big way to VHS tape (which itself was eventually swept away by DVDs, which later succumbed to streaming services). But RCA VideoDisc players contained a hidden gem: exquisite sensors capable of measuring capacitance variations at the level of a quintillionth of a farad. These were part of the electronic stylus that sensed the audio and video signal encoded in the groove of each VideoDisc. An enterprising RCA researcher incorporated the sensor into a new kind of microscope, the scanning capacitance microscope. And then a team at the National Institute of Standards and Technology built a series of SCMs using similarly cannibalized VideoDisc sensors. After NIST's successful validation, instrument makers commercialized the microscopes, and chipmakers immediately began using them to characterize their integrated circuits, thus opening the door to the next generation of semiconductors.
{"title":"Past Forward: RCA's VideoDisc Gamble Paid Off in Chips","authors":"Allison Marsh","doi":"10.1109/MSPEC.2025.11197284","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1109/MSPEC.2025.11197284","url":null,"abstract":"In the early 1980s, the RCA VideoDisc entered the burgeoning home video market. If you've never heard of the VideoDisc, don't beat yourself up. The technology quickly lost out in a big way to VHS tape (which itself was eventually swept away by DVDs, which later succumbed to streaming services). But RCA VideoDisc players contained a hidden gem: exquisite sensors capable of measuring capacitance variations at the level of a quintillionth of a farad. These were part of the electronic stylus that sensed the audio and video signal encoded in the groove of each VideoDisc. An enterprising RCA researcher incorporated the sensor into a new kind of microscope, the scanning capacitance microscope. And then a team at the National Institute of Standards and Technology built a series of SCMs using similarly cannibalized VideoDisc sensors. After NIST's successful validation, instrument makers commercialized the microscopes, and chipmakers immediately began using them to characterize their integrated circuits, thus opening the door to the next generation of semiconductors.","PeriodicalId":13249,"journal":{"name":"IEEE Spectrum","volume":"62 10","pages":"76-76"},"PeriodicalIF":2.4,"publicationDate":"2025-10-09","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"https://ieeexplore.ieee.org/stamp/stamp.jsp?tp=&arnumber=11197284","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"145255880","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":4,"RegionCategory":"工程技术","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"OA","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
Pub Date : 2025-10-09DOI: 10.1109/MSPEC.2025.11197285
Edd Gent
Today's leading large language models have a patchy relationship with the truth. Jaime Fernández Fisac, an assistant professor of electrical and computer engineering at Princeton University, has introduced a new taxonomy of what he calls “machine bullshit” that captures the range of ways LLMs skirt around the truth. The term is inspired by an influential 1986 essay, “On Bullshit,” by philosopher Harry G. Frankfurt.
当今领先的大型语言模型与事实之间的关系并不完整。普林斯顿大学（Princeton University）电子与计算机工程助理教授杰米Fernández费萨克（Jaime Fisac）提出了一种新的分类方法，他称之为“机器扯淡”（machine bullshit），它捕捉到了法学硕士们绕开真相的各种方式。这个词的灵感来自哲学家哈里·g·法兰克福（Harry G. Frankfurt） 1986年发表的一篇颇具影响力的文章《论胡扯》（On Bullshit）。
{"title":"5 Questions: Jaime Fernández Fisac: AI has a Loose Relationship with the Truthis","authors":"Edd Gent","doi":"10.1109/MSPEC.2025.11197285","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1109/MSPEC.2025.11197285","url":null,"abstract":"Today's leading large language models have a patchy relationship with the truth. Jaime Fernández Fisac, an assistant professor of electrical and computer engineering at Princeton University, has introduced a new taxonomy of what he calls “machine bullshit” that captures the range of ways LLMs skirt around the truth. The term is inspired by an influential 1986 essay, “On Bullshit,” by philosopher Harry G. Frankfurt.","PeriodicalId":13249,"journal":{"name":"IEEE Spectrum","volume":"62 10","pages":"21-21"},"PeriodicalIF":2.4,"publicationDate":"2025-10-09","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"https://ieeexplore.ieee.org/stamp/stamp.jsp?tp=&arnumber=11197285","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"145315323","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":4,"RegionCategory":"工程技术","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"OA","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
Pub Date : 2025-10-09DOI: 10.1109/MSPEC.2025.11197282
Gwendolyn Rak
In 2017, Demis John noticed a staffing problem among the semiconductor companies in Santa Barbara. The area had about 28 small semiconductor companies at the time, many launched from the nanofabrication facility housed at the University of California, Santa Barbara, where John works. But as these companies expand, “they are all headhunting the same 10 people, basically,” John says.
2017年，Demis John注意到圣巴巴拉半导体公司的人员配备问题。当时，该地区大约有28家小型半导体公司，其中许多都是在约翰工作的加州大学圣巴巴拉分校（University of California, Santa Barbara）的纳米制造工厂成立的。但随着这些公司的扩张，“他们基本上都在招聘同样的10个人，”约翰说。
{"title":"Careers: Narrowing the Talent Gap with Microcredentials: Short Courses Could have a Macro Impact on the Semiconductor Workforce","authors":"Gwendolyn Rak","doi":"10.1109/MSPEC.2025.11197282","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1109/MSPEC.2025.11197282","url":null,"abstract":"In 2017, Demis John noticed a staffing problem among the semiconductor companies in Santa Barbara. The area had about 28 small semiconductor companies at the time, many launched from the nanofabrication facility housed at the University of California, Santa Barbara, where John works. But as these companies expand, “they are all headhunting the same 10 people, basically,” John says.","PeriodicalId":13249,"journal":{"name":"IEEE Spectrum","volume":"62 10","pages":"19-20"},"PeriodicalIF":2.4,"publicationDate":"2025-10-09","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"https://ieeexplore.ieee.org/stamp/stamp.jsp?tp=&arnumber=11197282","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"145315511","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":4,"RegionCategory":"工程技术","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"OA","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
Pub Date : 2025-10-09DOI: 10.1109/MSPEC.2025.11197287
Matthew Hutson
Buzzwords in the field of artificial intelligence can be technical: perceptron, convolution, transformer. These refer to specific computing approaches. A recent term sounds more mundane but has revolutionary implications: timeline. Ask someone in AI for their timeline, and they'll tell you when they expect the arrival of AGI—artificial general intelligence—which is sometimes defined as AI technology that can match the abilities of humans at most tasks. As AI's sophistication has scaled—thanks to faster computers, better algorithms, and more data—timelines have compressed. The leaders of major AI labs, including OpenAI, Anthropic, and Google DeepMind, have recently said they expect AGI within a few years. ¶ A computer system that thinks like us would enable close collaboration. Both the immediate and long-term impacts of AGI, if achieved, are unclear, but expect to see changes in the economy, scientific discovery, and geopolitics. And if AGI leads to superintelligence, it may even affect humanity's placement in the predatory pecking order. So it's imperative that we track the technology's progress in preparation for such disruption. Benchmarking AI's capabilities allows us to shape legal regulations, engineering goals, social norms, and business models—and to understand intelligence more broadly.
{"title":"Can We Build a Better IQ Test for AI?: Progress Toward Artificial General Intelligence has Launched a Raft of New Metrics","authors":"Matthew Hutson","doi":"10.1109/MSPEC.2025.11197287","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1109/MSPEC.2025.11197287","url":null,"abstract":"Buzzwords in the field of artificial intelligence can be technical: perceptron, convolution, transformer. These refer to specific computing approaches. A recent term sounds more mundane but has revolutionary implications: timeline. Ask someone in AI for their timeline, and they'll tell you when they expect the arrival of AGI—artificial general intelligence—which is sometimes defined as AI technology that can match the abilities of humans at most tasks. As AI's sophistication has scaled—thanks to faster computers, better algorithms, and more data—timelines have compressed. The leaders of major AI labs, including OpenAI, Anthropic, and Google DeepMind, have recently said they expect AGI within a few years. ¶ A computer system that thinks like us would enable close collaboration. Both the immediate and long-term impacts of AGI, if achieved, are unclear, but expect to see changes in the economy, scientific discovery, and geopolitics. And if AGI leads to superintelligence, it may even affect humanity's placement in the predatory pecking order. So it's imperative that we track the technology's progress in preparation for such disruption. Benchmarking AI's capabilities allows us to shape legal regulations, engineering goals, social norms, and business models—and to understand intelligence more broadly.","PeriodicalId":13249,"journal":{"name":"IEEE Spectrum","volume":"62 10","pages":"34-39"},"PeriodicalIF":2.4,"publicationDate":"2025-10-09","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"145315326","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":4,"RegionCategory":"工程技术","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
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