Pressroom

Erlangen: Organized by the German Federal Ministry of Education and Research (BMBF), the “Energy-efficient AI systems” pilot innovation contest posed the challenge: “Which team can produce a chip that detects atrial fibrillation in ECG data with at least 90 percent accuracy while consuming the least energy possible?” On March 11, 2021, Federal Minister of Education and Research Anja Karliczek presented prizes to the winners, which included the Fraunhofer Institute for Integrated Circuits IIS in collaboration with Friedrich-Alexander-Universität Erlangen-Nürnberg.

With “Music, Makers & Machines” Google Arts & Culture introduces an interactive online format to capture the progress and relevance of electronic music. The platform is the outcome of a collaboration of more than 50 key players, among them also Fraunhofer IIS. With “mp3 and more”, Fraunhofer IIS introduces the history of mp3 and the working principles of audio coding.

Satellite-enabled 5G services have the potential to provide worldwide connectivity. For the first time now, selected extensions of 5G New Radio (NR) to support non-terrestrial networks (NTN) have been successfully demonstrated over a geostationary (GEO) satellite. The Munich Center for Space Communications of the Bundeswehr University Munich carried out the bidirectional over-the-air tests based on the Fraunhofer Institute for Integrated Circuits IIS’s extended 5G New Radio protocol stack for satellite.

The Fraunhofer Institute for Integrated Circuits IIS and the Belgian technology provider for compression solutions intoPIX S.A. today announce a worldwide patent licensing program for JPEG XS based software and hardware solutions. A JPEG XS license pool is currently being set up and expected to be fully rolled out by June 2021. The licensing program addresses the IPR conditions for use of JPEG XS in both cloud-based services and professional and consumer devices.

At the beginning of 2021, the Fraunhofer-Gesellschaft launched 6G SENTINEL, a lighthouse project to develop key technologies for the future 6G mobile communications standard. Under the project leadership of the Fraunhofer Institute for Integrated Circuits IIS, five participating Fraunhofer Institutes are pooling their expertise in order to collectively attain a position at the technological vanguard of 6G research. The focus of their work will be on terahertz technologies and solutions for flexible networks.

Dr.-Ing. Bernhard Grill, who has been Institute Director at Fraunhofer IIS in Erlangen with responsibility for audio and media technologies since 2016, has been appointed honorary professor at the School of Business, Economics and Society at Friedrich-Alexander-Universität Erlangen-Nürnberg (FAU), effective as of January 21, 2021. University President Prof. Joachim Hornegger presented Grill with the official certificate.

On January 1, 2021, Dr. Denise Müller-Friedrich and Dr. Jens-Uwe Garbas took on joint responsibility for the Smart Sensing and Electronics research division at the Fraunhofer Institute for Integrated Circuits IIS. They succeed Josef Sauerer, who had been in charge since 2016.

Fraunhofer IIS, primary developer of the xHE-AAC audio codec, today announced that Netflix is now using the xHE-AAC audio codec. Netflix has licensed Fraunhofer’s high-quality xHE-AAC software and is using it to encode its entire catalog of TV series, documentaries and feature films across a variety of genres and languages.

Fraunhofer IIS, an institute of Fraunhofer-Gesellschaft in Germany, has announced a new web-based test service that developers and manufacturers can use to validate their implementations of the xHE-AAC® audio codec for compliance with MPEG standards. The service, which is available exclusively at https://test.xhe-aac.com, is free to use upon registration with Fraunhofer IIS and will test both encoders and decoders.

Dr. Bernhard Grill, since 2016 Institute Director at Fraunhofer IIS in Erlangen with responsibility for audio and media technologies, celebrates his 60th birthday on January 5, 2020. He is one of the co-developers of the mp3 format.