Buildings consume a large amount of energy in Japan, and energy management technologies have become inereasingly important for managing energy-consuming equipment in buildings to achieve a balance between energy reduction and thermal comfort. In recent years, in addition to the use of renewable energy such as solar energy, demand response are also been required for buildings to achieve a balance between supply and demand. In this paper, research trends in energy management technology for recent buildings and practical examples of online energy management for buildings are introduced.

The optical sound measurement method, which uses light to measure sound in a non-contact manner, is being studied as an alternative to sound measurement techniques using microphones. This method has been widely used as a sound-field imaging technique to visualize the propagation and generation of sound. In this paper, I describe the trends in optical sound measurement technology, focusing on topics related to sensitivity and noise.

Semiconductor design, manufacturing, and system deployment are being challenged on many fronts owing to technology scaling, process variability, device aging effects, ever increasing performance expectations, and the continued reduction in time with respect to volume. Data centers and applications have stringent reliability, availability, and serviceability (RAS) requirements straining under the massive scale of compute today. Silent data corruption (SDC) has become a problem for all semiconductor suppliers in large-scale compute. Automotive OEMs (original equipment manufacturers) are accelerating adoption of advanced process nodes to address the compute required for fully autonomous transportation while still meeting the stringent functional safety (FuSa) requirements. In this paper, we describe the challenges, potential causes, and mitigation techniques to address modern RAS requirements including SDC. Silicon Lifecycle Management (SLM) will be explained which involves the insertion of in-chip monitors, Electronic Design Automation (EDA) tools, and data analytics solutions on the cloud, edge and embedded in the SoC. SLM monitors, collects, and stores device data throughout a system's life and it provides insights through purpose-built analytics for production data through the mission mode of operation.

In this paper, we explore the potential that open innovation offers in semiconductor design. Specifically, we introduce OpenRAM, an tool for the automated synthesis of memory blocks using a general-purpose architecture. We also highlight both the benefits and challenges of open-source approaches by presenting a study on memory synthesis and memory circuit performance verification within the 0.6μm CMOS manufacturing process. Additionally, we examine the potential of for research advancement, drawing on examples from multifunctional memory development projects that have utilized this tool.