Incumbent Technologies Research Articles

Characterizing alignments in socio-technical transitions. Lessons from agricultural bio-inputs in Brazil

We analyze the alignment mechanisms involved in socio-technical transitions. The multi-level perspective has made the notion of alignment one of the pillars of its analytical framework, but its definition remains rather vague. Using a case study of the development of biological alternatives to agricultural pesticides in Brazil, we show that alignments are based on pairings between entities of the same nature, positioned in the niche and in the regime. The strength of these pairings relies on the coherence of the new sets formed. Several types of entities need to be matched to enable alignments. In this case study, we identify three types of paired entities: technologies, users and their interests, public and private organizations. Understanding these alignment mechanisms is an invitation to deepen the analysis of the relationships between incumbent and alternative technologies in sociotechnical transitions.

Circuit and System-Level Aspects of Phase Change Memory

Phase Change Memory (PCM) is a new nonvolatile memory technology that promises to disrupt current big data applications and even create entirely new ones. This is because it can serve as both fast storage and large memory, which is out of reach for incumbent memory technologies. This tutorial focuses on recent technological developments and system-level concepts for the realization of PCM-based systems. We also discuss new circuits and architectures that enable novel applications of PCM in big data analytics and hardware for artificial intelligence.

Patent landscape of not-in-kind active cooling technologies between 1998 and 2017

The rise in global cooling demand will have significant impacts on our efforts to limit climate change and foster sustainable development. Minimising these impacts requires further development of active cooling technologies, starting with an examination of existing technologies and their characteristics. This paper provides an overview of active cooling technologies using a patent landscape based on patent application data over the past 20 years. In developing the patent landscape, we searched the Derwent Innovation patent database, which contains more than 90 million patent documents, using technology-specific keywords and patent classification codes. A careful assessment of the resulting patent dataset shows a range of important trends about the evolution of cooling in the last two decades. Specifically, we discuss annual cooling technology patent application trends, countries of application, and patent assignees. The results show that patenting activity in the field of active cooling has increased significantly since 2010, mainly driven by the rapid patenting trend in China. Patents of the incumbent technology have been dominated by established manufacturers from Japan and the United States. Not-in-kind cooling technologies with a high number of patent applications include thermoelectric, magnetocaloric, evaporative, pulse-tube, absorption, and adsorption cooling. The results from examining this global patent help in understanding and shaping the global development of active cooling technology by providing new information on the major supplier countries, the key manufacturers, and maturity levels of alternative cooling technologies.

Reciprocal causation and the effect of environmental determinants upon the technology beliefs and practice of career-change pre-service teachers

ABSTRACT Studies continue to highlight the value career-change teachers bring to teaching. Yet, little research has investigated the incumbent technology skills and beliefs of this cohort, and how these skills impact their future teaching practice. This article presents the results from a mixed-method explanatory case study investigating this phenomenon. Semi-structured interviews were conducted with 19 career-change pre-service teachers enrolled in a graduate-entry initial teacher education (ITE) course. The principles of reciprocal determinism were applied to findings to understand how environmental factors affect technology pedagogy beliefs and practice. Analysis revealed experiences within previous workplaces endowed career-changers with expertise mastering occupation-specific technology. Metacognitive capabilities fostered from omnipresent technological change within prior workplace environments supported technology integration during Professional Experience. Influencing the technology pedagogy beliefs and practice of this cohort were inconsistent mentoring and mastery opportunities during ITE, and IT infrastructure issues during Professional Experience placements that buoyed disenfranchised school cultures.

Heat purchase agreements could lower barriers to heat pump adoption

Efficient electric heat pumps have the potential to significantly reduce greenhouse gas emissions from heating and cooling buildings. However, heat pumps’ initial costs can be prohibitively high and their lifetime costs are only situationally competitive with incumbent technologies. Here we show that a business model based on heat purchase agreements could lower these barriers to heat pump adoption. In this business model, a user hosts a heat pump owned by an aggregator. The aggregator installs the heat pump at low or no initial cost to the user. The user buys the heat pump’s heat or cooling output from the aggregator. The aggregator buys the heat pump’s input electricity in the wholesale energy market and sells the flexibility of their aggregate electrical load in ancillary service markets. This paper presents the first economic analysis of heat purchase agreements as a third-party ownership model for electric heat pumps. We derive conditions under which a heat purchase agreement is mutually beneficial to the user and the aggregator. We also provide a method to fairly price heat and cooling. A case study of a typical United States home shows that a heat purchase agreement could more than double the value of a heat pump investment relative to the incumbent business model. The potential impact of this work is to reduce emissions both directly, by accelerating replacement of fossil-fueled or inefficient heating or cooling equipment, and indirectly, by helping power system operators reliably integrate wind and solar generation.

CNTFET Technology for RF Applications: Review and Future Perspective

RF CNTFETs are one of the most promising devices for surpassing incumbent RF-CMOS technology in the near future. Experimental proof of concept that outperformed Si CMOS at the 130 nm technology has already been achieved with a vast potential for improvements. This review compiles and compares the different CNT integration technologies, the achieved RF results as well as demonstrated RF circuits. Moreover, it suggests approaches to enhance the RF performance of CNTFETs further to allow more profound CNTFET based systems e.g., on flexible substrates, highly dense 3D stacks, heterogeneously combined with incumbent technologies or an all-CNT system on a chip.

Data Portability, Interoperability and Digital Platform Competition: OECD Background Paper

This paper describes the role that data portability and interoperability measures can play in promoting competition both within and among digital platforms. In particular, these measures can address consumer lock-in, promote unbundling, and enable multi-homing. However, they will not be effective in every market, and in some cases may unintentionally hamper competition. The implementation of portability and interoperability measures with regards to digital platforms is still limited in some cases, and at its early stages in others. However, these limited experiences point to some lessons learned. In particular, the objective of portability and interoperability measures matters. When implemented with objectives other than competition (such as data protection), these measures may not have procompetitive impacts unless designed with market dynamics in mind. Further, these measures may have unintended consequences if they create new entry barriers or entrench incumbent technologies. In addition, implementation mechanisms will be determinative of the effectiveness of these measures; for example, competition authority or independent third party oversight may be needed to set interoperability standards and adjudicate disputes. Looking forward, the competition concerns motivating data portability and interoperability may be observed in a growing array of sectors, ranging from automobiles to finance. Promoting competition in the design of these measures, or proposing their implementation in order to encourage competition, may therefore be of increasing importance for the competition policy community.

URLLC for 5G and Beyond: Requirements, Enabling Incumbent Technologies and Network Intelligence

The tactile internet (TI) is believed to be the prospective advancement of the internet of things (IoT), comprising human-to-machine and machine-to-machine communication. TI focuses on enabling real-time interactive techniques with a portfolio of engineering, social, and commercial use cases. For this purpose, the prospective $5^{th}$ generation (5G) technology focuses on achieving ultra-reliable low latency communication (URLLC) services. TI applications require an extraordinary degree of reliability and latency. The $3^{rd}$ generation partnership project (3GPP) defines that URLLC is expected to provide 99.99% reliability of a single transmission of 32 bytes packet with a latency of less than one millisecond. 3GPP proposes to include an adjustable orthogonal frequency division multiplexing (OFDM) technique, called 5G new radio (5G NR), as a new radio access technology (RAT). Whereas, with the emergence of a novel physical layer RAT, the need for the design for prospective next-generation technologies arises, especially with the focus of network intelligence. In such situations, machine learning (ML) techniques are expected to be essential to assist in designing intelligent network resource allocation protocols for 5G NR URLLC requirements. Therefore, in this survey, we present a possibility to use the federated reinforcement learning (FRL) technique, which is one of the ML techniques, for 5G NR URLLC requirements and summarizes the corresponding achievements for URLLC. We provide a comprehensive discussion of MAC layer channel access mechanisms that enable URLLC in 5G NR for TI. Besides, we identify seven very critical future use cases of FRL as potential enablers for URLLC in 5G NR.

Improving the understanding of electric vehicle technology and policy diffusion across countries

The transport sector is particularly difficult to decarbonize. Use of electric vehicles (EV)—a potentially transformative and sustainable transport technology—can reduce greenhouse gas emissions, domestic fossil fuel demand, energy import dependency, and air pollution. Policies play an important role in the diffusion of new technologies, such as EVs, principally in their formative stage as they compete with an incumbent technology. However, great discrepancies exist across countries regarding EV support and uptake.EV diffusion is conceptualized as an outcome of policy diffusion based on national characteristics and international mechanisms. This study aims to explain the variation in EV policy diffusion across countries, by conducting an event history analysis on EV diffusion (EVs > 1% market share) between 2010 and 2017, using a sample of 60 countries. It identifies characteristics and mechanisms relevant to the novel technology's “formative phase”, focusing on the formation of state goals, international diffusion, and local technology adoption and deployment. The empirical contribution lies in identifying and validating socioeconomic and political factors and the international mechanisms influencing a country's position on the diffusion curve. This can help improve scenarios via better reflecting EV diffusion.

Effect of catalyst preparation and storage on chemical looping epoxidation of ethylene

Chemical looping epoxidation (CLE) of ethylene to ethylene oxide (EO) presents an exciting alternative to the incumbent technology of direct epoxidation of ethylene with O2(g). In CLE, the reaction is still catalysed by Ag but oxygen is provided as Olattice from a solid metal oxide, eliminating the need and limitations of using O2(g). Here, the influence of catalyst preparation in CLE is investigated. The Ag catalyst was impregnated on a solid oxide, SrFeO3, which was used as the donor of Olattice in CLE. Temperature programmed reduction in H2 indicated that O-species participating in CLE can be attributed to the removal of the first monolayer of oxygen in SrFeO3. By changing the temperature of calcination in Ag-SrFeO3 preparation, the size of Ag particles was varied, resulting in a simultaneous increase of selectivity for EO (up to 60%) and conversion of C2H4 (up to 10%). Then, an assessment of the effects of impurities (carbonates, hydroxides), which deposit over time on the Ag-SrFeO3 surface, was performed, showing that impurities deteriorate the catalyst performance in CLE. Finally, the doping of the SrFeO3 with Ce to the A-site of the perovskite was carried out, and a substantial improvement of the conversion of C2H4 was achieved, reaching 15%, while maintaining the 60% selectivity for EO.

Durability and Performance Limitations in Currently Available Alkaline Exchange Membrane Electrolysis Materials and the Relationship to Total System Cost

Anion exchange membrane (AEM) electrolyzers have the potential to reduce the cost of hydrogen generated via. electrolysis through reducing the cost of stack materials, improved electrochemical kinetics, and exhibiting a higher tolerance range for water purity (e.g. brackish and saltwater electrolysis). These potential benefits have resulted in a large amount of research funding, and as a result several commercial AEMs are now available. Additionally, several commercial, AEM specific catalysts are also available.With the increasing maturity of AEM electrolysis (still in the very early stages), there is a growing need for benchmark performance and durability using only membrane electrode assembly (MEA) materials that are commercially available. Several materials, both polymers and catalysts, will be discussed for both performance and durability under differential pressure. The incumbent technology, proton exchange electrolyzers, typically operate up to 435 psig differential H2 pressure accomplished through a combination of electrolysis and electrochemical compression. To provide a more direct comparison to the current technology, durability will be measured under differential H2 pressure. Additionally, test will be performed to identify presence of electronic shorting or cross-cell leaks, both cell failures that will result in apparent improved performance due to the lower operating voltage.For industry to adopt AEMs, there must be demonstrated device reliability and projected system cost savings. A techno-economic analysis will be performed to compare AEM and PEM electrolysis in several different scenarios to better understand the state of the technology.

Development of Targets for Heavy Duty Fuel Cell Vehicles with Application-Driven System Modelling

Hydrogen fuel cells are an attractive technology to power zero-emissions heavy-duty vehicles, including road vehicles, such as trucks and buses, as well as marine, rail, and mining applications. Hydrogen fuel cell powertrains can offer several advantages over incumbent technologies, such as diesel engines, including higher efficiency, reduced emissions, higher torque, and no noise pollution. Additionally, they offer fast fueling and adequate fuel storage for applications demanding longer range. In comparison to light duty fuel cell vehicles, which have begun early commercialization, fuel cell systems for heavy duty applications have important differences in their requirements and typical operation. Heavy duty fuel cell systems must offer high durability and efficiency to provide a competitive total cost of ownership considering capital costs, fuel costs, and lifetime. Furthermore, load-hauling applications, such as trucks, rail locomotives, and mining vehicles, must provide higher average and peak power while meeting heat rejection and onboard packaging constraints.Efforts to develop effective fuel cell materials, components, stacks, and systems for heavy duty applications must be guided by new targets and testing protocols. Fuel cell system modeling is essential to determine how application requirements translate to specific demands for the fuel cell system and components.The Department of Energy has set system-level targets for long-haul class 8 fuel cell trucks at 25,000 hour lifetime, 68% peak efficiency, and $80/kWnet fuel cell system cost by 2030 and ultimate targets of 30,000 hour lifetime, 72% peak efficiency, and $60/kWnet fuel cell system cost.[1] This presentation will discuss the system-level targets as well as the development of new targets and testing protocols for heavy duty fuel cell components and materials. This includes specific performance tests for different operational requirements, accelerated stress tests, and targets combining durability, performance, efficiency, and cost. We will also discuss differing needs between heavy duty applications, each of which presents unique requirements for fuel cell systems. It is desirable to address these unique requirements with standardized, cross-platform fuel cell stacks and components to enable high volume, low cost manufacturing, which requires the development of suitable cross-platform targets. [1] U.S. Department of Energy. “Hydrogen Class 8 Long Haul Truck Targets”. DOE Hydrogen and Fuel Cell Technologies Program Record. December 12, 2019: https://www.hydrogen.energy.gov/pdfs/19006_hydrogen_class8_long_haul_truck_targets.pdf

Routes to Novel Dielectric and Semiconductor Devices Using Cyclohexasilane

A newly developed “liquid silicon” precursor will be discussed. Cyclohexasilane (CHS; Si6H12) has been used to make silicon-based films (such as polysilicon, silicon nitride, silicon carbide and others), as well as silicon nanowires and quantum dots. CHS offers a more versatile, lower-cost and safer pathway to a variety of silicon based products being considered for flexible and printable electronics.There is a need for a silicon precursor that is not only cost effective, but one that can be readily chemically functionalized to develop advanced materials. CHS is one such silicon precursor that is a liquid at room temperature allowing for easier storage and handling. Cyclohexasilane has a moderate boiling point, 80 °C at 15 torr. It has long been considered to be the preeminent silicon precursor for a variety of applications including semiconductor devices and can create thin films of β-SiC on a variety of substrates under mild conditions including conventional CVD; but also LPCVD, APCVD, and laser assisted CVD. The growth rate of β-SiC using CHS is an order of magnitude faster compared to other silicon precursors and the crystalline quality should rival materials grown by MBE.Aside from those advantages, CHS allows for facile p-doping of materials into the β-SiC films such as aluminum and due to the methods of deposition and the deposition conditions amenable to a reagent such as CHS, continuous growth with the suppression of unintentional secondary deposits may be readily achieved. Moreover, it may be possible to use CHS to achieve solution growth to deliver high structural quality SiC with significantly decreased capital and operational costs.The use of CHS across a wide range of industries and applications will be discussed as will the advantages of this material over incumbent technologies.

Tunable Syntheses of Advanced Silicon Anodes Using Cyclohexasilane

The ability to develop fast charging lithium-ion batteries with high-energy density is being pursued intensively due to increasing demands of portable electronics and electric vehicles. Replacing the conventional graphite anode with a silicon-based one offers several advantages, namely the roughly 10 times higher gravimetric capacity and the safer lithium alloying potential. However, full scale realization of replacing graphite with silicon has been hampered due to the large volumetric expansion silicon typically suffers which causes mechanical degradation, low electrical conductivity, and multiple-step syntheses from a traditional silicon precursor which leads to higher cost. Here we present a silicon precursor, cyclohexasilane, that can offer solutions to all three of those limitations. Cyclohexasilane (CHS) exists as a liquid at room temperature and is relatively low boiling (~ 200 °C) relatively facile synthesis of nanostructured silicon materials, significantly reducing the volumetric expansion typically observed. Cyclohexasilane can be readily used to manufacture silicon/carbon composite materials and is readily chemically functionalized allowing the development of tailored materials with improved electrical conductivity. CHS may also be tailored to deliver structures with engineered artificial SEIs during the device fabrication step, offering an efficient and direct route to electrode structures. Moreover, cyclohexasilane is relatively inexpensive and its physical properties allow for roll-to-roll manufacturing with significantly reduced capital costs. Relevant comparisons of this technology compared to incumbent technologies will be given.

Optimal design of solar-driven electrolytic hydrogen production systems within electricity markets

Hydrogen has the potential to be a key contributor toward a low-carbon economy. Generating hydrogen by electrolysis using renewable energy is one way to support a decarbonized economy; however, its cost is not typically competitive with the carbon-emitting incumbent technology, steam methane reforming. The ability of electrolysis to integrate with electricity markets presents a unique cost reduction opportunity due to the perceived future availability of low and zero-marginal cost renewable energy sources. Additionally, as renewables, and particularly, photovoltaics are installed on the grid, they have a value deflation effect. This work evaluates solar-electrolysis configurations using a mathematical programming framework to maximize system net present value. The framework has been tested with specific weather conditions and financial mechanisms in California. Our findings indicate that a spectrum of potential cost competitive solutions is available for systems that (i) have market configurations resembling hybrid retail/wholesale, resulting in a hydrogen production cost range of US$6.2 kg−1–US$6.6 kg−1, or full wholesale market participation, reducing production cost to US$2.6 kg−1–US$3.1 kg−1, and (ii) achieve projected future cost reductions.

InAs/InAsSb Type-II Strained-Layer Superlattice Infrared Photodetectors.

The InAs/InAsSb (Gallium-free) type-II strained-layer superlattice (T2SLS) has emerged in the last decade as a viable infrared detector material with a continuously adjustable band gap capable of accommodating detector cutoff wavelengths ranging from 4 to 15 µm and beyond. When coupled with the unipolar barrier infrared detector architecture, the InAs/InAsSb T2SLS mid-wavelength infrared (MWIR) focal plane array (FPA) has demonstrated a significantly higher operating temperature than InSb FPA, a major incumbent technology. In this brief review paper, we describe the emergence of the InAs/InAsSb T2SLS infrared photodetector technology, point out its advantages and disadvantages, and survey its recent development.

(Invited) Improved Copper Electrode Integration for Thin Film Electronics on Glass

Increasing demand for higher resolution and larger displays continues to push research of thin film transistor materials, process, and devices. Especially, as display size become larger and pixel density increase, the signal delay becomes more critical due to high resistance of interconnects due to longer line length and smaller current carrying cross-sections. With high refresh rate and higher definition displays, the decrease of the pulse time for each pixel requires higher conductance of the interconnects to avoid non-uniformity of display performance. Thus, Cu is used as a conductor because it has low resistivity and high reliability. Incumbent Cu interconnect technologies require adhesion layers, such as Ti, Mo, or variant alloys, due to poor adhesion of Cu to glass or SiNx barriers. However, these technologies have limits such as higher resistivity of the interconnect lines due to diffusion of adhesion or barrier metal into Cu. They can also result in under-cut during pattering due to Galvanic effects in etching chemistry. The cost of processing and fabrication is another key consideration for direction of process research. Cu interconnects with the metal adhesion layer requires two step etching process to avoid the under-cut. Thus, single Cu interconnects without the use of a metal adhesion layer is promising not only because of process simplicity, but also low processing cost. A Cu alloy is a promising approach to address the issues. Most of the Cu alloy study results have high resistivity Cu interconnects due to some residue of alloy elements in the Cu lattice or grain boundary. In this study, we demonstrate single layer Cu interconnects using thin CuMn alloy as temporally adhesion layer. After short annealing of a 10 nm CuMn alloy with 500 nm of Cu film, CuMn alloy layer is converted to pure Cu and the Mn is reacted with glass to form MnOx. The formed MnOx serves as adhesion layer, binding the thin film Cu electrode to the glass substrate. After optimization of Mn concentration, alloy thickness, annealing environment, time and temperature, a resistivity lower than 1.8 µOhm·cm of the electrode was achieved. Based on this results, one step Cu etching with low resistivity Cu interconnects is feasible. We also evaluated the effect of glass surface treatment to confirm the sensitivity of this process depending on substrate preparing conditions. This process has been shown to be very stable for different display glasses with treatments. It is also compared with that of Ti/Cu stack as reference.

On the coexistence of positive and negative externalities in the inter-powertrain relationships

The green knowledge-based economy has complicated the dynamical knowledge interactions in the multi-technology sector of transportation that involves a constellation of interrelated powertrain technologies, including the internal combustion engine, hybrid and battery electric vehicles (ICEV, BEV, and HEV). Based on the biological ecology perspective and the technological innovation system (TIS) framework, we explore the dynamical inter-powertrain relationships in terms of knowledge diffusion over 1985–2016. We measure their knowledge diffusion by extracting patents and publications forward citations from the Scopus and Derwent databases, respectively. Quantifying by the Lotka-Volterra (L-V) equations, our results show that powertrains support and inhibit their knowledge diffusion growth by projecting positive and negative externalities, which are carried through the TIS co-dynamics. Our results reveal these externalities are manifested in a mix of biological relationship modes, such as symbiosis, parasitism, commensalism, and amensalism. We, therefore, challenge the assumed pure competition between ICEV and BEV or their predator-prey relationships with HEV by elaborating on the notions of ‘creative destruction’ and ‘creative accumulation’. Our research contributes to the innovation systems literature by accommodating ‘knowledge diffusion co-dynamics’ as an extension to the TIS framework, making it more outward oriented. Moreover, the co-existence of positive and negative externalities builds up a multi cross-path interactions view that extends the conventional single-path view in the path dependency literature. Our research drives insightful knowledge for strategising and policy making in regard with investing in new disruptive technologies, sustaining the incumbent technology, or hybridising them as a transitionary (or stationary) solution towards sustainable mobility transition.

(Invited) A Path Toward Vertical GaN Superjunction Devices

GaN devices offer exciting competition to incumbent technologies to meet the growing demand for high power electronic devices. The wide bandgap of GaN makes it possible to achieve higher breakdown voltages and reduced on-resistances compared to traditional Si in unipolar devices, as predicted by the classical Baliga figure of merit (BFOM). However, unipolar performance limits can be circumvented using the superjunction (SJ), which has been demonstrated experimentally in both Si and SiC. Due to the current difficulties with selective area doping in GaN, experimental reports of vertical GaN SJs are lacking. In response, we propose the use of the lateral polar junction (LPJ), which is unique to III-Nitrides, to create next-generation vertical GaN SJ devices. We develop a model that provides first order design equations for such a device, and validate it using TCAD simulations of a 1.2 kV diode. A proposed manufacturing approach for LPJ-based GaN SJ is provided.

CONTEMPORARY ANALYSIS ON FINANCIAL AND TECHNOLOGICAL ASPECTS OF MOBILE PAYMENT SYSTEMS IN TURKEY

Today's business world moves incredibly fast as the technology’s role on the processes of production, trade, and consumption is getting more dominant. The emerging technologies like mobile payment technology offer businesses an amazing support to operate their cash flow process more efficient and secure than traditional ways. On the consumer side, mobile payment applications make cashless transactions possible. In this study, the mobile payment systems in Turkey will be investigated and several correlation statistics between the mobile payment transaction numbers and the five major factors, financial and technological ones, are presented. Our analysis shown that contactless POS machine numbers, domestic credit cards penetration, 3G/4G adaptation ratio, mobile broadband internet usage rate and even smartphone sales rates are the factors for mobile payment increase in Turkey. Mobile payment solutions provided by global tech players are not available in Turkey, due to the fact that regulations and law related to these services lag behind. Absence of mobile payment technologies from global tech giants can be considered as a disadvantage for the Turkish markets but the joint efforts of established banks, new entrants and incumbent technology vendors supports a thriving ecosystem of mobile payments in our country.