Product engineering organizations face the incredible challenge of ever shrinking market windows for innovation in 2012. Due to globalization, increasing competition and rapidly changing technology, there are many risks and uncertainties facing the new product development path. These opportunities if missed, can lead to huge costs and overwhelming complexity that can compromise quality and lead to very expensive recalls. Innovating in the face of these pressures requires organizations to rethink how they work.
Learn the most important new technologies and start designing next-generation equipment early if you are working on real technology company. The real technology companies asks are Amazon, Facebook, eBay, and Google good technology companies or good applications-of-technology companies? Applications-of-technology could also be a good position to be. No matter where you are differentiate to dominate. No more lame “me too” products. CES is over; it’s time to start designing. Here are some material to fuel up your innovation.
EE Times’ 20 hot technologies for 2012 article is a list of 20 technologies EE Times editors think can bring big changes, and that EE Times will be tracking during 2012. Hot technologies: Looking ahead to 2012 article: EDN magazine editors reflect on some of the hot trends and technologies in 2011 – and look ahead to 2012.
Top 12 Hot Design Technologies for 2012 article mentions MEMS, Wireless sensor networks, Internet of Things starts with lightbulbs, new flexibility via organic materials for electronics, Near Field Communication (NFC) is becoming available in many mobile phones, Printed electronics, power scavenging methods for low power electronics, Graphene, conversion of solar energy, Ethernet displaces proprietary field buses, 40/100 Gbit/s Ethernet Active-matrix organic light-emitting diode (AMOLED) displays and Smart Grid technologies (power management and architecture system components). We are nearing the point where some microelectronics systems can be made sufficiently low power – requiring microamps rather than milliamps – that scavenging methods can produce enough power to enable them to be autonomous.
Home electronics is expected to become a new status symbol (Kodinelektroniikasta uusi statussymboli) article tells that consumer electronics demand will increase further in 2012 according to market research by Deloitte. Latest digital technology will also become a status symbol in homes. In particular, tablets, and smartphones Deloitte expects record sales.
Mobile phones with advanced features start to replace traditional separate devices for different functions. This is happening for small digital cameras and video cameras. 2012 At the end of 2012 there is the more navigation capable mobile phones than the stand-alone GPS navigators according to Berg Insight. Berg Insight calculates that the sales of separate GPS navigators started to decline already in 2011. Nav equipment manufacturers have responded to the situation by bringing the software to mobile devices.
How apps for your appliances represent the next opportunity article tells that Samsung Electronics not only pushed its smart TVs at CES, but a whole line of smart appliances, including washers and refrigerators. If Samsung Electronics is right, developers may flock to smart appliances as the next opportunity. That included music apps such as Pandora on the refrigerator and an app on the washer that can ping you when a load is done.
IPv6 is becoming more important. One of the driving forces behind the move from IPv4 to IPv6 has been low-cost embedded devices, which are going online at an accelerating pace. Support for this technology will be crucial for the success of many forthcoming connected embedded devices. IPv6 on a microcontroller article gives some tips how to implement IPv6 on small microcontroller.
The science fiction future of medical implants is here article tells that semiconductor solutions contained in hand-held consumer product innovations are now finding their way into medical implantables: wireless data and power transmission as well as analog, microcontrollers and transducer capabilities.
App Servers and Lua Scripting Speed Rich Web Applications for Small Devices article tells that with ever more smart devices connecting to the web, even small embedded devices must be able to serve up rich graphical presentations of the data to satisfy user expectations. This creates a new challenge for designers of small embedded systems as a new task. With time and space at a premium, a scripting approach can be invaluable. LAMP (Linux, Apache, mysql, PHP) setups work well in full-up web server implementations (at least around 65 Mbyte of memory), but for small embedded system we need something that uses less resources. Smartphones have set the bar ridiculously high when it comes to how sophisticated the application interface should be.
We’re on the cusp of an era that offers better-than-ever display technologies for an excitingly immersive viewer experience. Just as we’ve seen the emergence of 3DTV for consumers and higher than HDTV resolutions are to be tested in 2012 London Olympics. Xilinx Making Immersive 3D and 4K2K Displays Possible with 7 Series FPGA System Integration press release tells that Xilinx just introduced new 28nm Kintex™-7 Field Programmable Gate Array (FPGA)-based targeted reference designs and a new development baseboard for accelerating the development of next-generation, 3D and 4K2K display technologies at 2012 International CES. The network infrastructure will need an overhaul in 2012 due to the increasing amounts of high-definition video and other traffic.
ARM processor becomes more and more popular during year 2012. Power and Integration—ARM Making More Inroads into More Designs. It’s about power—low power; almost no power. A huge and burgeoning market is opening for devices that are handheld and mobile. The most obvious among these are smartphones and tablets, but there is also an increasing number of industrial and military devices that fall into this category. ARM’s East unimpressed with Medfield, design wins article tells that Warren East, CEO of processor technology licensor ARM Holdings plc (Cambridge, England), is unimpressed by the announcements made by chip giant Intel about the low-power Medfield system-chip and its design wins. Android will run better on our chips, says Intel. Look out what happens in this competition.
Bill McClean: Don’t broad-brush the semiconductor market article tells that year 2011 started off great, full of optimism and high growth expectations for the semiconductor industry. But that mellowed as the year progressed (total semiconductor market at 2% growth for this year, although smartphone increase very much). Going into 2012, there’s not a lot of optimism. Any thoughts on 2013? A: We’re thinking it’s going to be a little slower than 2012. So, we’re looking to a slower market—not a disaster.
Chip sales flat in 2011, will grow (a wee bit) in 2012 article tells that the prognosticators at Gartner have ranked the chip makers of the world by 2011 revenue and are calling the market for 2012, with a reasonably upbeat forecast for next year’s chip sales, but (paradoxically) a dreadful forecast for companies that make the gear to bake the chips. Disk shortages are expected to slow down PC sales for several quarters. Smartphones, tablets, and flash will represent more than three-quarters of the revenue growth between now and 2015.
There are also some more optimistic predictions for chip sales. Malcolm Penn, founder and chief analyst with semiconductor market analysis firm Future Horizons Ltd, is more bullish than most other market analysts. Bullish Penn sees chip market growth of 8% in 2012 article tells that Malcolm Penn has predicted that the global chip market will rise on an annual basis by 8% to $323.2 billion in 2012. Penn said that after a flat first quarter he expected the chip market to bounce back in the second half of the year. He considers that 8% growth is a “safe bet,” and indicated that annual growth “could easily be 20%.” For 2013 Future Horizons forecasts 20% annual growth.
EDN magazine writes in PC boards: Materials and processing are now a hot technology article that exotic substrates and fabrication methods are now commonplace. A dozen layers, thick copper, fine lines, and buried vias are just the processing side of the modern high-tech PCB. There are many processing options that have made PCBs truly a hot technology. Also the substrates themselves are now high tech. Traditional FR-2 (phenolic resin bonded paper) or FR-4 (glass-reinforced epoxy laminate) are not the only widely supported choices anymore. You could always specify Teflon or polyamide substrates for high-speed circuits. In addition to the old high tech like flex circuits, there are a host of improvements that make a whole new set of high-tech PCB designs that are truly a hot technology.
EDA industry predictions for 2012 mentions that 28-nm design starts will increase by 50% in 2012 and more people will be dabbling with 20 nm. The increased design sizes and complexity will create all kinds of pressure in the verification and test fields.
The rise in fake parts is also contributing to engineers’ fears that their products will be corrupted. Counterfeit electronic components were big issue in 2011, and the problem does not go away this year.
EDA industry predictions for 2012 mentions a trend, and one that has been going on for some time, is a continued migration of functionality from hardware to software. Dr Markus Willems of Synopsys attributed this to “the needs to support multiple standards simultaneously (wireless, multimedia), use the same hardware platform for product derivatives (automotive), quickly adjust to evolving standards (wireless), and react to changing market demands (all applications).” Increased rate of adoption of new technologies such as tablets, ultra-books, and their inherent demand for low-power solutions will help the EDA industry improve their importance. Electronic system-level design tools (ESL) continues to be an important thrust for the EDA industry. Increased adoption of the TLM 2.0 (Transaction-level modeling) standard is a popular theme. Several EDA companies have been busy writing books recently and self-publishing them.
Product Lifecycle Management (PLM) tools are taking product design to the next level (especially in automotive, aerospace, and defense). PLM was launched more than a decade ago with the lofty vision of creating an enterprise-wide, central repository for all product-related data, from the earliest customer requirements feedback through quality and failure data collected in the field by maintenance and support personnel. Product lifecycle management, sometimes “product life cycle management”, represents an all-encompassing vision for managing all data relating to the design, production, support and ultimate disposal of manufactured goods. What 2012 holds for Product Lifecycle Management? article tells about current PLM trends.
The prototype comes of age article tells that a radical change is about to happen in the typical development of an electronic system. The hardware-development flow will no longer be the center around which everything else revolves. The rising size and complexity of systems and the limitations of using a single-purpose model—the hardware-design model—have fueled the growth of new prototyping technologies. Among the changes now taking place in this area is the migration to higher levels of abstraction for hardware design. The ability to derive several implementations from a single high-level description is also desirable. Many hardware blocks now come with sophisticated software stacks, and they also must be integrated into the software flow.
‘KISS’ Among Engineers’ Top 2012 Concerns article tells that Rich Merritt agrees that we’ve forgotten the KISS principle especially in automation sector. “We’ve made everything so complicated, complex, and convoluted that we’ve entered the age of ‘transoptimal engineering,’ ” he says. “That is, things are so advanced and have so many features, they don’t work anymore.” Business development manager Herat Shah sees the pressures for complexity and price converging in an unhealthy manner. “The biggest issue for the automation and control supplier is to design and engineer something that’s the cheapest and the best,” he says. “Practically, this is not possible.” In addition to this there are security concerns: Stuxnet targeted controllers, and made engineers realize that factories aren’t immune to security threats.
How do you manage the Internet of you? article claims that electronics has gotten to the point (in the consumer space) where the only innovations are the mundane, the enhancements, the extensions. A computing device today (whether a tablet, a phone or a PC) can do what telephony, typewriters, pen and ink, film (motion and still), cameras, television, radio (basically all major mediums) did a generation ago. And yet… And yet we still innovate. We still build. We still buy. The devices in one sense feed the worst part of a personality: compulsiveness. They suppress pause and reflection. Think about it.
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Tomi Engdahl says:
Authorized Distribution: Your First Line of Defense Against Counterfeit Parts
http://www2.electronicproducts.com/Authorized_Distribution_Your_First_Line_of_Defense_Against_Counterfeit_Parts-article-edms_CounterfeitParts_Feb2012-html.aspx
Your first line of defense against bogus parts is for you and your company to purchase directly from ECIA and/or CEDA (the China Electronics Distributor Alliance) supplier-authorized distributors, which deliver genuine parts from legitimate manufacturers. In Europe, ECSN, DMASS and FBDI are the supporting organizations.
Tomi Engdahl says:
TI ups its smart grid offerings
http://www.edn.com/article/520659-TI_ups_its_smart_grid_offerings.php?cid=EDNToday_20120123
Texas Instruments claims the industry’s first demonstration of a radio frequency system-on-chip that integrates an IEEE 802.15.4 (2.4 GHz) radio, an ARM Cortex-M3 processor, and enough flash and RAM to run the ZigBee IP stack and SE2.0 profile.
Tomi Engdahl says:
Gartner Says Apple Became the Top Semiconductor Customer in 2011
http://www.gartner.com/it/page.jsp?id=1902414
Top 10 Original Equipment Manufacturers Represented $105.6 Billion of Semiconductor Demand, Accounting for 35 Percent of Total Semiconductor Chip Revenue in 2011
“The major growth drivers in 2011 were smartphones, media tablets and solid-state drives (SSDs),”
Those companies that gained share in the smartphone market, such as Apple, Samsung Electronics and HTC, increased their semiconductor demand
Apple became the biggest customer of semiconductor chip vendors in 2011 (5.7% market share with 17,257 Millions of Dollars)
Tomi Engdahl says:
http://www.theregister.co.uk/2012/02/01/smart_meters_yesno/
Earlier this week the Wi-Fi Alliance teamed up with the ZigBee crowd at DistribuTECH to demonstrate how marvellously their respective technologies can deliver Smart Grid applications, based on the recently published Smart Energy Profile 2.0.
ZigBee Smart Energy Overview
http://www.zigbee.org/Standards/ZigBeeSmartEnergy/Overview.aspx
ZigBee Smart Energy is the world’s leading standard for interoperable products that monitor, control, inform and automate the delivery and use of energy and water.
This standard supports the diverse needs of a global ecosystem of utilities, product manufacturers and government groups as they plan to meet future energy and water needs.
Smart Energy 2
http://www.zigbee.org/Standards/ZigBeeSmartEnergy/Version20Documents.aspx
Smart Energy version 2.0 is currently under development in cooperation with a number of other standards development groups. It will offer IP-based control for advanced metering infrastructure and home area networks. This version will not replace ZigBee Smart Energy version 1, rather it will offer utilities and energy service providers another choice when creating their advanced metering infrastructure and home area networks (HANs).
In addition to all the services and devices found in ZigBee Smart Energy version 1, version 2.0 will feature control of plug-in electric vehicle (PEV) charging, installation, configuration and firmware download for HAN devices, prepay services, user information and messaging, load control, demand response and common information and application profile interfaces for wired and wireless HANs.
Global SMT & Packaging magazine for electronics assembly and advanced packaging professionals. says:
Global SMT & Packaging magazine for electronics assembly and advanced packaging professionals….
[...]Electronics technologies for 2012 « Tomi Engdahl’s ePanorama blog[...]…
Tomi Engdahl says:
ABI Research: HDTVs second most desired device next to smartphones in Asia Pacific
http://www.globalsmtseasia.com/index.php/Latest/abi-research-hdtvs-second-most-desired-device-next-to-smartphones-in-asia-pacific.html
HDTVs were the second most cited device when considering CE purchase intentions in the next six months, according to a recent trio of surveys conducted by ABI Research on the Asia Pacific consumer electronics markets.
Considering the current economic conditions, developing markets will continue to serve as key targets by many CE companies.
“The maturing North American and Western European markets, in conjunction with the worldwide economic situation, are making growth increasingly difficult for many companies.
Tomi Engdahl says:
Slideshow: Top 5 Design Tool Trends to Watch in 2012
http://www.designnews.com/document.asp?doc_id=236615&cid=NL_Newsletters+-+DN+Daily
1. Systems Engineering Takes Center Stage.
In response to the need, vendors in the CAD, ECAD, PLM, and embedded software space, will continue to extend and integrate their offerings.
2. Social Product Development.
most of the PLM crew is augmenting their tools with collaboration and social functionality to get engineers more engaged in a collaborative design process
3. Mobile and the Cloud.
we’ll see a lot more vendors building out their mobile design apps library as they figure out ways in which a mobile experience will enhance existing desktop CAD tools
4. Product Analytics
PLM vendors have begun augmenting their platforms with dashboards and analytics capabilities in these key areas
5. The Convergence of 3D Printing and 3D Content Tools.
Expect to see new kinds of 3D content development tools that don’t require someone to be an expert in CAD to create a model.
Tomi Engdahl says:
HP R&D chief shows road to terabyte backplane
http://www.eetimes.com/electronics-news/4235659/HP-Labs-sketches-path-to-terabyte-backplane?cid=EDNToday_20120202
“By 2020 your end customer will be living in a world where people access 50 zettabytes of data from 30 billion cellphones and 1.3 trillion sensors–and all that data will have to be analyzed by computer architectures you have to design,” he told a packed audience here.
As a step in that direction, Banerjee described a 30 GByte/s optical backplane it created as a tech demo for its ProCruve 9200 switch. The backplane was built from a hollow metal waveguide bundling 12 10 Gbyte/s optical channels, costing as little as $10.
“One of the keys was the use of MEMS to do phase reflectance of the light depending on the number of taps,” Banerjee said.
Tomi Engdahl says:
Rick Merritt DesignCon wrap up; 3D stacking, optical interconnects
http://www.eetimes.com/electronics-news/4235733/Rick-Merritt-DesignCon-wrap-up–3D-stacking–optical-interconnects-?cid=NL_UBM+Electronics
Rick also mentions free space optics, photonic computing and 3D chip stacking as the first steps towards the future.
Tomi Engdahl says:
Panasonic falls to a £1.6bn.loss as demand dries up
Blames floods and the European crisis
http://www.theinquirer.net/inquirer/news/2143922/panasonic-falls-gbp16bnloss-demand-dries
a 14 per cent decline from the same quarter a year previously. That led to Panasonic suffering an operating loss of £1.6bn.
Panasonic is not expecting things to get better soon, with the firm announcing a downward revision of its revenue estimate for its full year 2012
Panasonic, like Sony, is seen as a symbol of wider market trends in Japan, and with both companies posting what can only be described as poor financial results and gloomy forecasts, the future doesn’t look particularly good for the Japanese consumer electronics industry
Tomi Engdahl says:
Windows 8 on ARM: The desktop is still there
http://www.zdnet.com/blog/microsoft/windows-8-on-arm-the-desktop-is-still-there/11845
A new Microsoft blog post strongly implies that both Metro-style and Desktop apps will be supported on Windows 8 on ARM, as Microsoft originally promised.
This is kind of a back-handed way to confirm something, but that seems to be the way things work at Microsoft when it comes to Windows 8.
Metro-style applications are those which make use of the WinRT Windows 8 runtime/framework. (They also happen to adopt the “Metro” look and feel/design conventions, which confusingly are not known as “Metro-style.” I guess they’re just in the Metro style.)
When various Microsoft watchers, customers and partners asked Microsoft officials whether the “no Desktop on Windows 8 on ARM” rumors from last December were true, we received no official response. No confirmation. No denial. We asked again during the Consumer Electronics Show in January 2012. No confirmation, no denial.
So it would seem from this paragraph — given that it references “both desktop and Metro style apps” on SoC PCs — that the Desktop remains on Windows 8 on ARM, after all.
Microsoft officials still aren’t responding to questions as to whether this is the case.
As I noted before, I don’t know anything about the source of this info, but the poster was right about the shared kernels in Windows Phone 8 and Windows 8. So make of it what you will….
Tomi Engdahl says:
Exclusive: First Windows Store games for Windows 8 revealed
http://www.theverge.com/microsoft/2012/2/7/2781821/windows-8-app-store-first-games
Microsoft is readying its Windows Store for a public preview and the “Consumer Preview” version of Windows 8 will provide access to a number of launch games for the company’s latest operating system.
Tomi Engdahl says:
MEMS Is the Word
http://www.designnews.com/author.asp?section_id=1381&doc_id=237972&cid=NL_Newsletters+-+DN+Daily
Microelectromechanical systems (MEMS) have stealthily moved from DARPA research to daily use without most of the engineering world taking notice. The devices, which until recently saw service largely as automotive accelerometers to trigger airbags, have busted out big time in the consumer space.
Tomi Engdahl says:
Renesas, Fujitsu and Panasonic to merge chip operations
http://www.theinquirer.net/inquirer/news/2144845/renesas-fujitsu-panasonic-merge-chip-operations
JAPANESE CHIPMAKERS Renesas, Fujitsu and Panasonic will merge their fab plant operations to become more competitive.
The three firms are expected to have a basic agreement in place by the end of March, with the new firm established by the end of 2012.
Tomi Engdahl says:
Single/multiphase energy-measurement IC eases smart-grid transition for utility meters
http://www.embedded.com/electronics-products/electronic-product-reviews/power-products/4234990/Single-multiphase-energy-measurement-IC-eases-smart-grid-transition-for-utility-meters?cid=EM_EDNMicro
look out, you spinning-disk utility meters out there: your days of ruling the power line are coming to a close. That’s the impression you’ll get, at least, as smart meters based on electronic sensing while providing advanced connectivity continue to replace these venerable glass-encased meters which have served the utility industry for over 100 years.
The latest entry into the metering IC arena is the CS548x/9x family from Cirrus Logic Inc., which supports single- and multi-phase AC line measurement of voltage and current via per-channel ADCs, and then calculates the power usage via an internal digital core.
For transducer I/O—critical to this application—the ICs support shunt resistor, current transformer (CT), and Rogowski-coil pickups, with configurable digital outputs for energy pulses (an old technique but still in use), zero crossing, or energy direction. The chip’s self-calibration time is under two seconds, which Cirrus claims is one-tenth the time of available devices.
Tomi Engdahl says:
TI unveils ZigBee Smart Energy 2.0 SoC
http://m2mworldnews.com/2012/01/25/56001-ti-unveils-zigbee-smart-energy-2-0-soc/
The SE2.0 SoC has an integrated ARM Cortex-M3 processor, memory, and 802.15.4g radio and is tailored for Smart Grid and remote sensor applications.
The CC2538 will support TI’s Z-Stack ZigBee protocol stack, which features full SE1.1 functionality. The SE2.0 profile is architected to interface with multiple TI PHYs, allowing the design of SE2.0 products that can run across ZigBee, Wi-Fi or power line networks including TI’s ZigBee processors (CC253x) and WiLink 6.0 solutions (WL127x).
Tomi Engdahl says:
http://www.iltalehti.fi/digi/2012021015179362_du.shtml
The next revolution: Super Resolution HD-TV
Television technology is developing rapidly. Consumers are just gaining access to the 3D TVs when the next disaster is already on the way.
At best, 4K technology reached a dizzying 4096×2160 pixel resolution. Today, the most accurate HD picture is 1920×1080 pixels accuracy.
However, the content is coming soon, because all the new movies filmed in automatically with a new 4K technology.
Sony has already revealed a 4k projector, which is still for sale during this winter.
The TV market will soon be another new technology, the OLED displays are becoming more common.
Tomi Engdahl says:
Nokia, Motorola and Sony likely to increase handset orders to Taiwan ODMs
http://www.digitimes.com/news/a20120209PD215.html
Nokia, Motorola Mobility and Sony Mobile Communications are expected to increase their outsourcing of handsets to Taiwan-based ODMs in 2012 in an effort to regain their global market share lost to Apple and Samsung Electronics, according to industry sources.
Tomi Engdahl says:
Micron believes DRAM prices have bottomed out
http://www.theinquirer.net/inquirer/news/2145742/micron-believes-dram-prices-bottomed
MEMORY MAKER Micron believes DRAM prices have finally bottomed out after a prolonged recession in memory prices.
Now the firm’s president Mark Adams told analysts, “I don’t think DRAM goes down from here… it’s starting to feel like a stable market.”
Firms in the chip industry look towards consolidation as a way of competing against the big firms.
Tomi Engdahl says:
United Nations aims for cloud interoperability
http://www.cloudpro.co.uk/cloud-essentials/2813/united-nations-aims-cloud-interoperability
The UN’s International Telecommunication Union creates a new group focused on standardising cloud computing
The Working Party on Cloud Computing will begin by examining reports from an ITU focus group. The plan is to build on these initial findings and create formal recommendations for the ITU to offer the technology industry.
“Cloud computing is an industry expected to grow at an annual growth rate of roughly 30 per cent,” read a statement from the ITU.
“However, concerns with the portability – freedom to transfer data between the clouds of different providers – and the interoperability of cloud solutions has led to calls for standardisation to fuel further industry growth.”
Tomi Engdahl says:
TI Announces WiLink 8 Family – WiFi, GNSS, NFC, BT, and FM Combo Chip
http://www.anandtech.com/show/5532/ti-announces-wilink-8-family-wifi-gnss-nfc-bt-and-fm-combo-chip
WiLink 8 adds support for GNSS (Global Navigation Satellite System – GPS + GLONASS) and NFC in addition to WiFi, Bluetooth, and FM receive/transmit like we’ve seen in WiLink 7 in a number of devices.
Integrated GNSS support is also very interesting, as for a while now Qualcomm has been the only player I’ve seen offering smartphone-tailored GNSS receiver with support for GPS and Russia’s GLONASS constellation in newer SoCs and basebands.
Tomi Engdahl says:
User Interface—The next battlefield–Part 1
http://www.eetimes.com/design/communications-design/4236111/User-Interface-The-next-battlefield-Part-1?Ecosystem=communications-design
User Interface (UI) is the next battlefield in consumer electronics and, as products mature, the race to differentiate based on the UI will accelerate. Rather than compare minor differences in features sets, consumers will increasingly make purchases based on ease of use and access of features.
Further, the UI is now defining the personality of a device and becoming an integral part of the branding equation, thereby creating emotional ties between consumers and their devices, and ultimately building loyalty to a particular product.
With the functionality of two devices being relatively equal, UI becomes the crucial differentiating factor. This trend is particularly noticeable in the mobile phone market, and is now spreading to other, more mature electronics devices.
Given the fickle nature of consumers, features that are well designed become ubiquitous, while those that don’t work well typically stall. Users have come to expect devices to work simply, even when performing complex tasks. However, consumers’ low tolerance for sub-par user interface generally leads to decelerating adoption of a particular feature that does not meet their standards, thereby slowing the overall market adoption.
The irony is that for devices to become easier to use, the user interface must become more complex.
The complexity of predictive intelligence requires more processing and memory resources than what is currently offered in embedded systems.
Tomi Engdahl says:
Complexity Surrounds Software-Intensive Product Designs
http://www.designnews.com/author.asp?section_id=1394&doc_id=239029&cid=NL_Newsletters+-+DN+Daily
A new survey conducted by Tech-Clarity for PTC shines a spotlight on what the players are calling the innovation complexity conundrum surrounding software-intensive products as more offerings industry-wide are putting more emphasis on software as a key differentiator.
Of the more than 100 companies interviewed for the survey, 53 percent said they were increasing significantly the software makeup of their products, and 57 percent said software was becoming a more integral element of their product design. Fifty-five percent said product differentiation was driven by software, and very few of the companies (2 percent) saw software lessening in importance over the next five years.
Increased use of software dramatically boosts product capabilities and can reduce costs, he said, but the complexity that goes along with managing more code can rear its ugly head and lead to poor quality, longer product development cycles, and inefficiencies.
Along with managing change, there are other development challenges, such as coordinating globally dispersed design teams, integrating across different engineering disciplines, and closing the loop from requirements to validation.
The findings are meant to play well with PTC’s product story. The company made a big push last year to embrace embedded software development as part of its PLM platform
Tomi Engdahl says:
Counterfeit parts putting military at risk
http://www.edn.com/article/520915-Counterfeit_parts_putting_military_at_risk.php
Counterfeit parts are increasingly finding their way into mission critical military and healthcare equipment, with the number of fake electronic parts soaring dramatically over the past couple of years, according to market research organization IHS iSuppli.
IHS reported a fourfold increase in counterfeit-part incidents worldwide from just 324 in 2009 to 1363 in 2011, after a thorough investigation of OEMs (original equipment manufacturers), contract manufacturers, component suppliers, buyers, and other supply chain participants.
IHS said the increase was just one of the latest developments in “a rapidly escalating global supply chain trend toward increased counterfeiting and piracy of global products,” noting that counterfeit part reports had risen by nearly a factor of 700 over the last decade.
Most of the current counterfeit parts discovered are just cheap substitutes or salvaged waste components that fail to meet strict military and aerospace specifications, said IHS, increasing their risk of potential failure.
Accidental failure aside, there is also a concern that some counterfeit devices like integrated circuits could act as malicious Trojan horses, capable of being disabled remotely to sabotage a mission at a critical junction.
Tomi Engdahl says:
When Innovation Stalls, Is Branding All That’s Left? CES Analysis
http://www2.electronicproducts.com/When_Innovation_Stalls_Is_Branding_All_That_s_Left_CES_Analysis-pmarticle-6635538.aspx
CES loves glitz and spectacle, but Monster’s press conference here eventually devolved into what can best be described as self-parody.
Monster has gone into the computer hardware business, by partnering with and renaming a venerable hardware maker.
The cynical takeaway here is that Monster is out of ideas, and perhaps also that some product categories inevitably hit an innovation wall and are forced to rely on gimmicks.
Monster Digital’s self-install drive kits could be the next example, as brand recognition potentially cuts through an often impenetrable category of seemingly identical offerings. If that pays off, then expect Monster to show up in even more unexpected places, becoming the first electronics company whose primary product is itself.
Tomi Engdahl says:
Wireless Implant Meters Drug Doses
http://www.smartertechnology.com/c/a/Optimized-Systems/Wireless-Implant-Meters-Drug-Doses/
Smart medical implants can now dispense drugs into the bloodstream as a result of wireless signals sent to it from the doctor’s office.
Studies have shown that many medical patients do not take their meds on schedule, especially when they are feeling good and think they no longer need them
The new approach that has just passed clinical trials in Denmark uses a smart microchip implant that stores daily doses of drugs, then automatically dispenses them in response to a wireless signal sent by the attending physician on the Medical Implant Communication Service (MICS, frequencies band between 401- and 406-MHz). As a result, patients can receive regular, precise doses of their medicines in perfect compliance with their doctor’s instructions.
“You can deliver multiple drugs [using] remote control,” said Langer. “You could literally have a pharmacy on a chip.”
The smart implant can be injected under the skin in the doctor’s office in about 30 minutes using a local anesthetic and lasts about four months before needing to be replaced.
Tomi Engdahl says:
Clamping down on counterfeits
http://www.edn.com/article/520977-Clamping_down_on_counterfeits.php?cid=EDNToday_20120222
New law pushes responsibility and costs for detecting and replacing counterfeit electronics down to defense subcontractors and, potentially, commercial suppliers.
New electronics anti-counterfeiting provisions included in the 2012 National Defense Authorization Act (NDAA), signed into law at the end of last year by President Obama, could reverberate across the electronics supply chain, from defense contractors all the way to commercial OEMs and component suppliers.
“Companies are still assessing what this means, but the scope and scale of application is extremely broad,”
When a part fails in a commercial system, manufacturers rely on the warranty model. They simply replace the defective part. “I suspect the counterfeit issue is just as prevalent in the consumer electronics world, it’s just that nobody reports” those parts failures, says King.
The worry is that the new law opens the possibility that such parts failures would require a major investigation by the manufacturer, says Hodgkins.
The law will have a big impact on the gray market, as well. The military relies on the open market to source replacements for obsolete parts — parts that are no longer made by the original manufacturer.
Consequently, the new law requires the government to buy parts either directly from the manufacturer, their authorized distributors, or from “trusted suppliers,” which includes independent distributors and brokers. Details are still being worked out,
Tomi Engdahl says:
Moving implant, body nets advance at ISSCC
http://www.eetimes.com/electronics-news/4236739/Moving-implant–body-nets-advance-at-ISSCC?Ecosystem=communications-design
SAN FRANCISCO – Medical electronics researchers showed advances in self-propelled implants and body area networks at the International Solid-State Circuits Conference.
Stanford researchers described two methods for using magnetic fields to propel a millimeter-sized device through fluid at half a centimeter per second. They aim to open up a wide array of new medical applications for tiny remote-controlled implants.
Researchers believe the techniques could be used for more precise drug delivery, diagnostics and microsurgery.
Alan Wong, head of IC design for Toumaz, described an 130 nm transceiver that implemented both IEEE 802.15.6 and Bluetooth Low Energy (BLE) radios for a wireless body area network (BAN).
The chip consumed less than 10 milliwatts in receive or transmit modes. The device was one of the first to implement the 802.15.6 standard expected to be formally ratified as a standard in the next few weeks.
Wong said consumer devices are expected to adopt BLE or Zigbee while hospitals are more likely to use 802.15.6, in part because it supports data streaming.
The networks could automate tracking of a wide variety of sensors used to monitor patients.
Tomi Engdahl says:
3D processor / memory mashups take center stage
‘I have seen the future, and it is stacked’
http://www.theregister.co.uk/2012/02/24/3d_chips/
A trio of devices that stack layers of compute units and memory in a single chip to boost interconnect bandwidth were presented at this week’s International Solid-State Circuits Conference in San Francisco.
Sharing the stage at the ISSCC’s High Performance Digital session were three technologies; one prototype developed by IBM that places cache memory layers on top of a “processor proxy” layer, and two working chips – one developed at the University of Michigan, and another by the Georgia Institute of Technology working with KAIST and Amkor Technology, both in South Korea.
IBM’s “3D system prototype of an eDRAM cache stacked over processor-like logic using through-silicon vias”: Like the other two chips, the IBM prototype routes data, clock, and power signals through its layers – what IBM calls “strata” – by means of through-silicon vias (TSVs).
Tomi Engdahl says:
SolidWorks Looks Beyond PLM
http://www.designnews.com/author.asp?section_id=1394&doc_id=239240&cid=NL_Newsletters+-+DN+Daily
it was quite clear that the long-term vision involves moving past individually focused CAD tools in favor of an Internet-based 3D paradigm that is all about collaboration across design networks of people with diverse knowledge bases and skill sets.
Neptune Canada takes a different approach to ocean science via its underwater ocean observatory network, which plugs directly into the Internet. Hoeberechts said the network lets people anywhere log on to surf the seafloor and help scientists sort through data. It also allows scientists and researchers to conduct deep water experiments from the comfort of their labs and universities.
What could this example, as interesting as it sounds, possibly have to do with a company that sells traditional CAD and PLM tools? The answer: Nothing, but everything, as Dassault/SolidWorks started hinting at its vision for a next-generation design platform.
“If the biggest innovation of the 20th century was the computer, in the 21st century, it’s all about collaboration or connecting individuals, not just businesses, together,”
Tomi Engdahl says:
Functional verification concepts have to change
http://www.edn.com/blog/Practical_Chip_Design/41670-Functional_verification_concepts_have_to_change.php?cid=Newsletter+-+EDN+Weekly
Herein lies the problem – SystemVerilog has become so big and bloated that it is difficult to learn. Secondarily, I hear even more people complaining that the UVM libraries are so large that it is nigh impossible to become familiar with all of the help they are meant to provide. The flip side of the coin is that there are users of these same instruments who say it allows them to do everything they want and need of a verification environment. Of course we could add the conspiracy theory to the mix that states that verification was made so complex so that it would be difficult to off-shore. However, that implies that “we” are more intelligent than anyone else, and I don’t believe that it true.
Has verification become more complex than design? In some ways, yes. First, the design only has to represent a single instance of a circuit that meets a specification and associated requirements. Second, design abstraction allows ever more complex systems to be constructed while hiding most of the implementation detail. Third, the use of IP enables complex systems to be constructed when you do not necessarily have domain specific expertise. Automation, where it exists, provides a rapid path through the implementation process and only has to be run a small number of times.
Verification is an incomplete task. We accept that we can never fully verify a design
In my opinion, the industry has to take a big step back and review the way in which the verification task is undertaken. Bloated languages and libraries should not be necessary, and progress should be a lot more definable than it is today.
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Tomi Engdahl says:
ARM launches Cortex M0+ for controlling everything
http://www.theinquirer.net/inquirer/news/2159170/arm-launches-cortex-m0-controlling
RM has launched its 32-bit Cortex M0+ processor to power sensors and control systems.
ARM’s Cortex M0+ is a 32-bit processor that can be fabbed using what most people would think of as an archaic 90nm process node. However not only does it make the chip low-cost, the firm claims the chip uses just 9µA/MHz.
ARM announced that Freescale and NXP have already licensed the design. ARM is pitching the Cortex M0+ for control systems found in cars and vast sensor control applications, and managed to use the Internet of Things buzzphrase that researchers have been using for years to drum up funding for projects.
ARM said the Cortex M0+ is supported by the ARM Keil Microcontroller Development Kit, which integrates the firm’s compilation tools with the Keil µVision IDE and debugger.
Tomi Engdahl says:
Cadence moves physical design software to 20 nm
http://www.edn.com/article/521109-Cadence_moves_physical_design_software_to_20_nm.php?cid=EDNToday_20120305
Cadence Design Systems Inc has announced that the latest release of its Encounter software suite for RTL-to-GDSII design supports the 20-nm manufacturing process technology node.
Cadence did not say how much Encounter RTL-to-GDSII for 20-nm cost per seat nor whose 20-nm processes it supports.
The software has already been supplied to some customers. “The Cadence Encounter RTL-to-GDSII flow enabled us to achieve the chip performance and feature objectives of our 1-GHz ARM Cortex-A5 processor-based smartphone platform on time and with greater development efficiency,” said Leo Li, president and CEO of Spreadtrum, in a statement issued by Cadence
Tomi Engdahl says:
Hidden interfaces: a new playground for embedded innovations
New interfaces can detect users’ presence and motion. In response, designers are providing new features to make their systems more responsive to users’ needs.
http://www.edn.com/article/521170-Hidden_interfaces_a_new_playground_for_embedded_innovations.php
At A Glance
Innovations in embedded designs are quietly showing up in hidden interfaces employing the detection of the presence and the motion of a user.
Capacitive-touch sensing is evolving to include better proximity sensing with a range as long as 25 cm.
Infrared proximity sensing provides a strong complement to other sensing technologies, such as capacitive touch, and it supports proximity sensing with a range as long as 50 cm.
Modern gyroscopes are enabling designers to experiment with advanced motion sensing to compensate for users’ movement and to present data in a richer fashion.
Hidden-interface innovations are appropriate in myriad applications, including automotive, computing, consumer, industrial, medical, and white goods.
Tomi Engdahl says:
PLM Syncs Up With Service
http://www.designnews.com/author.asp?section_id=1394&doc_id=239660&itc=dn_analysis_element&&cid=NL_Newsletters+-+DN+Daily
For the better part of the last decade, and despite a bigger-picture vision at its onset, Product Lifecycle Management (PLM) has traditionally been stuck in the engineering-specific part of the development cycle. Its focus has been all about how to leverage PLM technology and process change to improve how engineers collaborate on 3D designs.
While everyone, from automotive giants to medical device manufacturers, has made great strides leveraging PLM tools in the design phase to reduce product costs, streamline the engineering change order process, and accelerate time-to-market, the grander vision of PLM as an end-to-end product development system has remained somewhat elusive, particularly as it relates to tying in the service organization.
Lately, however, the idea of syncing the service organization with engineering to create a closed-loop product development environment is starting to gain some traction. As companies become more adept at leveraging PLM throughout the engineering ranks, they are looking for opportunities to extend its reach, and include other functional areas as part of a broader PLM strategy.
“Once a product is released from engineering and into volume production, most firms lose insight into how the product operates, what its feature set entails, or how customers feel about the experience,” Joe Barkai, vice president of research for IDC Manufacturing Insights, told us. “All of this is critical information for improving current and future products.”
Tomi Engdahl says:
NI co-founders recognized for lifetime achievement
http://www.edn.com/article/521252-NI_co_founders_recognized_for_lifetime_achievement.php?cid=EDNToday_20120320
Kodosky cofounded National Instruments with Truchard and William Nowlin in 1976
The company has grown from a three-man team to a multinational organization with more than 6,000 employees, and has seen 31 years of growth in its 33-year history.
Kodosky invented LabVIEW, a graphical programming language that enables a graphical system design methodology.
Tomi Engdahl says:
Test-driven development for embedded C: Why debug?
http://www.edn.com/article/521175-Test_driven_development_for_embedded_C_Why_debug_.php?cid=Newsletter+-+EDN+Weekly
Test-driven development helps you improve schedule predictability and product quality by eliminating bugs before they make the bug list
Tomi Engdahl says:
Japan’s once-proud semis learn size DOES matter
http://www.theregister.co.uk/2012/03/21/japan_semiconductor_mature/
Japan’s creaking semiconductor industry is struggling to stay relevant on the world stage and may face extinction if it can’t make a name for itself in the cutting-edge sub-28 nanometer manufacturing space, according to analysts.
Market watcher IHS iSuppli is arguing that the damage was done to the country’s once proud semiconductor industry long before the twin disasters of massive earthquake and tsunami destroyed much of the Tohoku coast last March and halted production for weeks.
IHS argues that despite the fact that something like 70 per cent of the world’s silicon wafers are being produced in Japan, the country’s home-grown semiconductor firms are struggling. It said that the share of global semiconductor revenue held by suppliers headquartered in Japan has dropped from a sizeable 27 per cent in 2003 to less than 19 per cent last year.
It goes on to say that Japan is suffering because its manufacturers have largely resisted investing in new state-of-the-art facilities or outsourcing production.
Tomi Engdahl says:
ARM Says New Architecture Could Cut Cost of 32-Bit MCUs
http://www.designnews.com/document.asp?doc_id=240544&cid=NL_Newsletters+-+DN+Daily
A new core architecture developed by ARM could cut the cost of a 32-bit microcontroller (MCU) to as little as 30 cents for applications ranging from touchscreens and motor controllers to stoves and refrigerators.
Known as the Cortex M0+, the new core could potentially enable 32-bit MCUs to be cost competitive with 8- and 16-bit devices in certain situations.
The new architecture builds on ARM’s existing Thumb instruction set, which was used to improve compiled code density when it came out more than a decade ago. In the case of the M0+, the Thumb scheme compacts the 32-bit instruction set, enabling an MCU to employ less on-board Flash and therefore hit a lower price point.
“It’s like a 16-bit architecture from the perspective of external memory storage,” said Geoff Lees, vice president and general manager of Freescale’s industrial and multi-market MCU business. “But as soon as it’s in the core, it’s executing as 32-bit instructions.”
Up to now, the lowest-priced 32-bit devices typically cost about 50 cents. If MCU makers are able to cut that to 30 cents, then the new technology could have a major impact on the makeup of the MCU market, said Massimini of Semico Research.
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Tomi says:
‘Intelligent systems’ poised to outsell PCs, smartphones
IDC: ARM facing shrinking market share
http://www.theregister.co.uk/2012/03/23/idc_intelligent_systems/
Analyst house IDC predicts that the traditional embedded-systems market is reaching an inflection point where a new breed of intelligent devices will take over the market and drive the current fashionable terms de jour: Big Data and “the internet of things”.
DC defines intelligent systems as those that use a high-level operating system, connect to the internet, run native or cloud-based apps, and have the ability to process their own data. The analysts anticipate that by 2016, these smart systems will account for a third of the embedded processor market, but over two-thirds of its value, and their numbers will outpace the growth of either PCs or smartphones.
Consumer goods such as vending machines and kiosks are going to be the key growth drivers, he said, with energy systems such as smart meters and solar-power management systems in the energy sector providing major growth. In the enterprise space, this means that a lot more data is going to be flowing that could be analyzed and used to refine business plans.
The shift will also mean big changes for the British chip wizards at ARM. According to IDC’s figures, ARM had 71 per cent of the processors in embedded systems last year, but by 2016 this share will nearly halve to 38 per cent. By contrast, x86 systems, which currently have 8 per cent of the market, will grow to 41 per cent as manufacturers seeks to put more grunt into their systems.
Tomi Engdahl says:
Borrowing from consumer electronics
http://www.controleng.com/home/single-article/borrowing-from-consumer-electronics/c63a541f1c.html
Industrial users enjoy look-and-feel practices from consumer electronics, but device designers also benefit from processors and components borrowed from smartphones that add increased functionality and energy efficiency.
Interestingly, the impetus for modern mobile phones to perform many functions with less energy consumption has helped make industrial automation components more powerful, less expensive, more energy-efficient, and more reliable.
The goal of increasing energy efficiency while augmenting processor power is driven by the consumer electronics market, especially in regard to mobile devices such as cell phones. However, most industrial automation equipment isn’t portable, at least not yet, so there’s typically no battery life to consider. Wireless process instrumentation is an exception, and devices today can have battery life up to 10 years and more.
While energy efficiency is vital for consumer electronics, this isn’t necessarily the case in the automation world where the power consumed by the control panel is usually insignificant compared to that of the process being controlled.
Demands for increased energy efficiency for mobile phones have prompted chip makers to integrate functions such as memory, Wi-Fi, USB, and memory card interfaces onto a single chip. Performing numerous and heretofore disparate functions within a single chip is one of the biggest benefits to come from new component designs.
In the industrial automation world, this means that functionality that used to require a printed circuit board (PCB) with 60 or more chips can now be provided with a single chip.
We see this trend in PLCs where integrating more components into microprocessors has eliminated the need for additional external automation components.
High-end PLCs that included data logging were introduced to eliminate the need for separate data logging systems in most applications, and now even inexpensive PLCs often have this feature. In addition to data logging, many PLCs offer database connectivity through the aforementioned communication ports, often supporting a wide variety of networking protocols.
Many PLC and industrial PC developers are incorporating dual-core ARM Cortex-A processor technology, originally designed for smartphones, into their designs. The ARM microprocessor has gained popularity because of its features, peripheral functions, low power draw, and flexibility.
“By pairing one or more FPGAs with off-the-shelf parts, such as the ARM chip, developers can create highly customizable products at a much lower cost.”
Many industrial automation users are less comfortable with unfamiliar technologies and applications made available from these advancements. The challenge is to provide users with a familiar look and feel, while offering more powerful features for users who need advanced capabilities. “You need to know how to satisfy the needs of both types of users by respecting the legacy while embracing the new,” says Oglesby. “You want it to give customers something they’re comfortable with, while also providing the maximum price-performance ratio with high reliability.”
To complicate matters more, engineers designing industrial automation products must design for a long product life span, much longer than that for consumer electronics. A smartphone can become virtually obsolete in a couple of years, whereas a PLC or an industrial PC is designed for a 15-year product life. Once an industrial automation customer designs a device into a machine, even minor changes in device specs can be a major inconvenience.
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Tomi Engdahl says:
Nearly 1 Billion Smart Connected Devices Shipped in 2011 with Shipments Expected to Double by 2016, According to IDC
http://www.idc.com/getdoc.jsp?containerId=prUS23398412
The universe of smart connected devices, including PCs, media tablets, and smartphones, saw shipments of more than 916 million units and revenues surpassing $489 billion dollars in 2011, according to the International Data Corporation (IDC).
Looking ahead, unit shipments for smart connected devices should top 1.1 billion worldwide in 2012. By 2016, IDC predicts shipments will reach 1.84 billion units
In terms of platforms, IDC expects a relatively dramatic shift between 2011 and 2016, with the once-dominant Windows on x86 platform, consisting of PCs running the Windows operating system on any x86-compatible CPU, slipping from a leading 35.9% share in 2011 down to 25.1% in 2016. The number of Android-based devices running on ARM CPUs, on the other hand, will grow modestly from 29.4% share in 2011 to a market-leading 31.1% share in 2016. Meanwhile, iOS-based devices will grow from 14.6% share in 2011 to 17.3% in 2016.
“Android’s growth is tied directly to the propagation of lower-priced devices,”
“Smartphone growth will be driven by Asia/Pacific countries, especially China, where mobile operators are subsidizing the purchase of 3G smartphones, thus increasing the total addressable market.”
Tomi Engdahl says:
ARM-Android to outship Windows-Anything by 2016
http://www.theregister.co.uk/2012/03/28/idc_pc_tablet_smartphone_smackdown/
Windows might be on the rise in the world of embedded systems, but if IDC’s prognostications are right, then Windows is about to get its kernel handed to it with the rise of Android on what the market researcher dubs “smart connected devices.”
By IDC’s reckoning, makers of PCs, tablets, and smartphones shipped some 916 million units of machinery in 2012, raking in an astounding $489bn in moolah.
El Reg suspects that more and more of us on planet Earth have all three types of devices. (I know that I do, and in fact, I have a workstation for the office, a netbook for the road, an iPad for amusement and browsing, and a Droid for a phone, a map, and browsing when I am really bored.)
Add all these devices up, and IDC reckons that the pile of shiny new gear shipped out to consumers and businesses will be 1.1 billion units tall in 2012 and will be 1.84 billion units tall by 2016 – twice the current ship rate and nearly three times the rate set in 2010.
Those ARM-Android machines will be the largest class of machines shipping in 2016, at least by number. Tablets and smartphones running Apple’s iOS will more than double from just under 134 million devices in 2011 (14.6 per cent of the machines sold) to 318 million machines (17.3 per cent of the pile) by 2016.
Tomi Engdahl says:
‘Intelligent systems’ poised to outsell PCs, smartphones
http://www.theregister.co.uk/2012/03/23/idc_intelligent_systems/
IDC defines intelligent systems as those that use a high-level operating system, connect to the internet, run native or cloud-based apps, and have the ability to process their own data. The analysts anticipate that by 2016, these smart systems will account for a third of the embedded processor market, but over two-thirds of its value, and their numbers will outpace the growth of either PCs or smartphones.
Tomi Engdahl says:
LG Begins Mass Production of First Flexible E-ink Displays
http://hardware.slashdot.org/story/12/03/29/2113257/lg-begins-mass-production-of-first-flexible-e-ink-displays
LG has just announced it has begun mass production of the world’s first flexible, plastic e-ink display, with finished devices expected to hit Europe next month. LG says these plastic displays are half the weight (14g) and 30% thinner (0.7mm) than the hard, heavy, prone-to-cracking glass-laminate e-ink displays found in e-book readers like the Kindle and Nook.
LG unveils flexible plastic e-paper display, aims for European launch next month
http://www.engadget.com/2012/03/29/lg-flexible-e-paper-display-launch/
The malleable plastic display sports a resolution of 1024 x 768 and can bend at an angle of up to 40 degrees. At just 0.7 millimeters thick, it’s about one-third thinner than similarly-specced glass displays, and weighs in at 14 grams — about half the weight of its glassy competition. LG also claims that the display is super durable, as evidenced by a series of successful drop tests from a height of 1.5 meters
LG Display developed a unique technique to utilize the high TFT process, typically employed in general LCD manufacturing and with temperatures exceeding 350 degrees, in the production of its plastic EPD.
Tomi Engdahl says:
ACE AWARDS ULTIMATE PRODUCTS of 2011
http://www.edn.com/article/521324-ACE_AWARDS_ULTIMATE_PRODUCTS_of_2011.php