Electronics industry hopefully starts to glow after not so good year 2012. It’s safe to say that 2012 has been a wild ride for all of us. The global semiconductor industry has demonstrated impressive resilience in year 2012, despite operating in a challenging global macroeconomic environment. Many have already ratcheted back their expectations for 2013. Beyond 2012, the industry is expected to grow steadily and moderately across all regions, according to the WSTS forecast. So we should see moderate growth in 2013 and 2014. I hope this happens.
The non-volatile memory market is growing rapidly. Underlying technologies for non-volatile memories article tells that non-volatile memory applications can be divided into standalone and embedded system solutions. Standalone applications tend to be driven primarily by costs is dominated by NAND FLASH technology. The embedded market relies mainly on NOR Flash for critical applications and NAND for less critical data storage. Planar CT NAND and 3D NAND could fast become commercially viable this year or in few years. MRAM, PCRAM, and RRAM will need more time and new material innovation to become major technologies.
Multicore CPU architectures are a little like hybrid vehicles: Once seen as anomalies, both are now encountered on a regular basis and are widely accepted as possible solutions to challenging problems. Multi-core architectures will find their application but likely won’t force the extinction of single-core MCUs anytime soon. Within the embedded community, a few applications now seem to be almost exclusively multicore, but in many others multicore remains rare. There are concerns over the complexity and uncertainty about the benefits.
FPGAs as the vanishing foundation article tells that we are entering a new environment in which the FPGA has faded into the wallpaper – not because it is obsolete, but because it is both necessary and ubiquitous. After displacing most functions of ASICs, DSPs, and a few varieties of microcontrollers, it’s fair to ask if there is any realm of electronic products where use of the FPGA is not automatically assumed. Chances are, in the next few years, the very term “FPGA” might be replaced by “that ARM-based system on a chip” from Xilinx, Altera, Lattice, or other vendor.
Are products owned when bought? The trend in recent decades has been an increase in the dependence of the buyer on the seller.
More than 5 billion wireless connectivity chips will ship in 2013, according to market research firm ABI Research. This category includes standalone chips for Bluetooth, Wi-Fi, satellite positioning, near-field communications and ZigBee as well as so called “combo” chips that combine multiple standards. Broadcom seen retaining lead in connectivity chips. Bluetooth Smart, WiGig and NFC are all are seeing increased adoption in fitness, automotive and retail applications. Combo chips are also a growing opportunity based on the popularity of smart phones, tablet computers and smart televisions.
Signal integrity issues are on the rise as both design complexity and speed increase all the time. The analog world is moving faster than ever. Learning curves are sharper, design cycles are shorter, and systems more complex. Add to all this the multidisciplinary, analog/digital nature of today’s designs, and your job just gets more complicated.
High-speed I/O: On the road to disintegration? article tells that increases in data rates driven by a need for higher bandwidth (10Gbps, 40Gbps, 100Gbps networking) means the demands on system-level and chip-to-chip interconnects are increasingly challenging design and manufacturing capabilities. For current and future high-performance, high-speed serial interfaces featuring equalization could well be the norm and high levels of SoC integration may no longer be the best solution.
For a long time, the Consumer Electronics Show, which began in 1967, was the Super Bowl of new technology, but now consumer electronics show as a concept is changing and maybe fading out in some way. The social web has replaced the trade show as a platform for showcasing and distributing products and concepts and ideas.
NFC, or near-field communications, has been around for 10 years, battling its own version of the chicken-and-egg question: Which comes first, the enabled devices or the applications? Near-field communications to go far in 2013 article expects that this is the year for NFC. NFC is going to go down many different paths, not just mobile wallet.
3-D printing was hot last year and is still hot. We will be seeing much more on this technology in 2013.
Inexpensive tablets and e-readers will find their users. Sub-$100 tablets and e-readers will offer more alternatives to pricey iPads and Kindles. Also sub-$200 higher performance tablet group is selling well.
User interfaces will evolve. Capacitive sensing—Integrating multiple interfaces and Human-machine interfaces enter the third dimension. Ubiquitous sensors meet the most natural interface–speech.
Electronic systems in the automotive industry is accelerating at a furious pace. The automotive industry in the United States is steadily recovering and nowadays electronics run pretty much everything in a vehicle. Automotive electronics systems trends impact test and measurement companies Of course, with new technologies come new challenges: faster transport buses, more wireless applications, higher switching power and sheer amount and density of electronics in modern vehicles.
Next Round: GaN versus Si article tells that the wide-band gap (WBG) power devices have shown up as Gallium Nitride (GaN) and Silicon Carbide (SiC). These devices provide low RDSON with higher breakdown voltage.
Energy harvesting was talked quite much in 2012 and I expect that it will find more and more applications this year. Four main ambient energy sources are present in our environment: mechanical energy (vibrations, deformations), thermal energy (temperature gradients or variations), radiant energy (sun, infrared, RF) and chemical energy (chemistry, biochemistry). Peel-and-stick solar cells are coming.
Wireless charging of mobile devices is get getting some popularity. Wireless charging for Qi technology is becoming the industry standard as Nokia, HTC and some other companies use that. There is a competing AW4P wireless charging standard pushed by Samsung ja Qualcomm.
In recent years, ‘Low-carbon Green Growth’ has emerged as a very important issue in selling new products. LED lighting industry analysis and market forecast article tells that ‘Low-carbon Green Growth’ is a global trend. LED lighting is becoming the most important axis of ‘Low-carbon Green Growth’ industry. The expectations for industry productivity and job creation are very large.
A record number of dangerous electrical equipment has been pulled from market by Finnish Safety and Chemicals Agency’s control. Poor equipment design have been found in a lot, especially in LED light bulbs. Almost 260 items were taken from the market and very many of them were LED lights. With high enthusiasm we went to the new technology and then forgotten the basic electrical engineering. CE marking is not in itself guarantee that the product is safe.
The “higher density,” “higher dynamic” trend also is challenging traditional power distribution technologies within systems. Some new concepts are being explored today. AC vs DC power in data center discussion is going strong. Redundant power supplies are asked for in many demanding applications.
According to IHS, global advanced meter shipments are expected to remain stable from 2012 through 2014. Smart electricity meters seen doubling by 2016 (to about 35 percent penetration). In the long term, IHS said it anticipates that the global smart meter market will depend on developing economies such as China, Brazil and India. What’s next after smart power meter? How about some power backup for the home?
Energy is going digital article claims that graphical system design changes how we manipulate, move, and store energy. What defines the transition from analog to digital and how can we tell when energy has made the jump? First, the digital control of energy, in the form of electricity, requires smart sensors. Second, digital energy systems must be networked and field reconfigurable to send data that makes continuous improvements and bug fixes possible. Third, the system must be modeled and simulated with high accuracy and speed. When an analog technology goes digital, it becomes an information technology — a software problem. The digital energy revolution is enabled by powerful software tools.
Cloud is talked a lot in both as design tool and service where connected devices connect to. The cloud means many things to many people, but irrespective of how you define it, there are opportunities for engineers to innovate. EDA companies put their hope on Accelerating embedded design with cloud-enabled development platforms. They say that The Future of Design is Cloudy. M2M companies are competing in developing solutions for easily connecting embedded devices to cloud.
Trend articles worth to check out:
13 Things That Went Obsolete In 2012
Five Technologies to Watch in 2013
Hot technologies: Looking ahead to 2013
Hot technologies: Looking ahead to 2013
Technology predictions for 2013
Prediction for 2013 – Technology
Slideshow: Top Technologies of 2013
10 hot consumer trends for 2013
Popular designer articles from last year that could give hints what to expect:
Top 10 Communications Design Articles of 2012
Top 10 smart energy articles of 2012
Slideshow: The Top 10 Industrial Control Articles of 2012
Looking at Developer’s Activities – a 2012 Retrospective
626 Comments
Tomi Engdahl says:
Drop Simulation in Electronics: Design Robust Products While Shortening the Time to Market
https://event.on24.com/eventRegistration/EventLobbyServlet?target=registration.jsp&eventid=662934&sessionid=1&key=C672FFA32303AA7A7A4E44343FD54550&partnerref=PartnerZone&sourcepage=register
Drop Simulation is the most common and important means to evaluate electronics product drop performance. However in many cases, it takes too long to conduct drop simulation, making it difficult to fit into today’s ever-shrinking design cycles.
Tomi Engdahl says:
New flexible batteries could be made by users at home
http://www.gizmag.com/flexible-battery-micro-particles/29672/
Scientists at the New Jersey Institute of Technology have joined the ranks of those from the Korea Advanced Institute of Science and Technology, Stanford University and LG, by creating prototype flexible batteries. Designed for use in electronic devices with flexible displays, they could conceivably be manufactured in any size or shape, or even made at home.
Each battery is made up of a flexible plastic substrate, impregnated with electro-active ingredients consisting of carbon nanotubes and “micro-particles.” Lead scientist Somenath Mitra tells us that those particles can be zinc and manganese dioxide in the case of alkaline batteries, or lithium salts for lithium batteries. “The goal is to take existing systems and convert them to a flexible platform” he says.
Tomi Engdahl says:
Qualcomm closes fiscal 2013 on a mixed note with Q4 earnings report
http://www.zdnet.com/qualcomm-closes-fiscal-2013-on-a-mixed-note-with-q4-earnings-report-7000022898/
Summary: The chip maker squashed revenue estimates, but a missed earnings target coupled with a weak outlook ends the fiscal year on a sour note
Qualcomm counted up approximately $60.2 billion in total device sales during the quarter, up 29 percent y-o-y, shipping an estimated 260 to 264 million 3G/4G units priced at an average of $227 to $233 each.
Over the 12-month period, Qualcomm estimated that it shipped between approximately 1,017 and 1,033 million 3G/4G units with an average price-per-unit range of $223 to $229. That rang up to approximately $231.2 billion in total reported device sales, up 23 percent annually.
Tomi Engdahl says:
FinFET implementation differences – planar to 3D
http://community.arm.com/groups/soc-implementation/blog/2013/11/02/finfet-implementation-differences-planar-to-3d
As process nodes shrink and we move from planar transistors to finFETs, the number of DRC rules has increased exponentially. This brings a large number of challenges and constraints from the layout of standard cells to full chip place and route. One area of increased complexity that affects place and route is the periphery of the logic block.
Tomi Engdahl says:
Obsolete! Careers that are being automated into oblivion
http://www.itworld.com/slideshow/122056/obsolete-careers-are-being-automated-oblivion-377805
You might think you’re familiar with the steady march of automation. But the list of jobs that are being disrupted by technological change may surprise you.
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Tomi Engdahl says:
FinFET Impacts For Reducing Physical IP Power Consumption
http://semiengineering.com/finfet-impacts-reducing-physical-ip-power-consumption/
Things to watch out for and other considerations when moving to the next process nodes.
FinFET devices were developed to address the need for improved gate control to suppress leakage current (IOFF); DIBL (drain-induced barrier lowering); and process‐induced variability below 32-nanometer. FinFET technology is now in volume production.
To fully realize the advantages of FinFET devices, physical IP must follow the same trajectory that has benefited digital design. That includes: 1) device scaling; 2) lower power consumption; and, 3) higher speeds. To achieve this, analog/mixed-signal development techniques and design styles for foundation (standard cell libraries and embedded memories) and complex (USB, DDR, PCI Express) physical IP have to be re-created and implemented with very close foundry cooperation.
Tomi Engdahl says:
Paving The Way To 16/14nm
http://semiengineering.com/paving-1614nm/
Concerns about electrostatic discharge and electromigration at advanced nodes are prompting some unusual steps; challenges emerge in mixing the big picture with divide-and-conquer approaches.
The move to the next stop on the Moore’s Law road map isn’t getting any less expensive or easier, but it is becoming more predictable. Tools and programs are being expanded to address physical effects such as electrostatic discharge (ESD), electromigration and thermal effects from increased current density.
Any or all of these three checklist items can affect the reliability of a chip. And while they were scarcely even a consideration at 40nm, they are becoming first-order concerns with 16/14nm finFETs using a 20nm back-end-of-line process. That doesn’t slow down the progression of feature shrinks, but unlike past nodes where one or two tools or different process techniques could solve the problem, the most advanced node now requires collaborative efforts spanning an entire ecosystem.
Thinking bigger
The challenge is to somehow bridge the gap between the divide-and-conquer approach for developing pieces of chips with issues that span the full SoC and even the full-device.
“You can do place and route on part of the chip, but with power signoff you have to do the whole chip together,” said Anirudh Devgan, corporate vice president and chief technology advisor for silicon signoff and verification for Cadence’s Digital and Signoff group. “There are a lot more power domains and an increasingly complex power grid, and you no longer can overdesign for power because you can’t afford the margin.”
“We’ve got a lot of additional complications with finFETs,” said Rob Aitken, an ARM fellow. “Local current density is important because it can produce electromigration, and then you have rules for ESD. As people have become more interested in multicore, that has led to development of cores by power envelope. So one app may use 500 milliwatts, this one 700 milliwatts and this one 1,300 milliwatts. You need to understand the power allocation for multiple cores and cache, which may be different on the low power setting than on the higher one. The IP vendor has to target standard applications and configurations and processors and the average current is still key.”
Tomi Engdahl says:
The Problem With EDA Standards
http://semiengineering.com/problem-eda-standards/
Sitting back and letting others hash out standards may not be in companies’ best interest. Check out what happened with UPF and CPF.
Tomi Engdahl says:
Huge Challenges With Billions Of Things
http://semiengineering.com/huge-challenges-billions/
Advancements in technology are about to open new doors to communications. That’s both good and bad.
Communication is poised in the next couple of years to cross a line between humans and things—things talking directly to other things as well as to people—setting in motion a series of technological, social and legal issues that will take years or decades to resolve.
On one hand, this is made possible by leaps in processing performance and power management in mobile devices. In his keynote speech at ARM TechCon 2013 last week, ARM CEO Simon Segars noted that we are entering the era of mobility where it’s not just about access to the Internet—it’s about access to the mobile Internet.
“There is a growing network where the phone becomes the interacting devices to a network of other things,” Segars said. “But with that the consumption of data is going up. Global data grew 50% this year to 900 petabytes, and Cisco predicts by 2017 mobile data will increase by a factor of 10 to 8 zetabytes. The network today can’t absorb that much data.”
Data overload is just one problem that has to be contended with for the Internet of Things. Across every industry, including semiconductors, the IoT is almost universally recognized as a huge opportunity. It also poses a long list of challenges that crosses all boundaries.
“The IoT is currently an extremely fragmented market, so there is not a “one-size-fits-all” answer,” said James Wu, director of strategic marketing at Synopsys. “We have seen designs implemented in 90nm/55nm embedded flash processes or 40nm/28nm logic processes. It all depends upon which particular sub-segment suppliers are focused on. For example, an MCU for a parking meter or vending machine can be implemented in 90nm or above technologies. These meters are using the 2G Wireless devices to connect to the Internet, which will be designed in 40nm with less than $10 BOM (for the wireless modules). On the other hand, the future intelligent cars with driving assistance or collision avoidance could be designed in 28nm process technology or beyond.”
Tomi Engdahl says:
Meet the World’s Smallest Semiconductor Company
http://www.designnews.com/author.asp?section_id=1386&doc_id=269365&cid=nl.dn14
JVD Inc. in San Jose, Calif., I was welcomed into the “world’s smallest semiconductor company.”
That’s how it bills itself, at least. JVD specializes in custom analog ICs, and consists of just four full-time employees — hence, the “smallest” moniker.
The company is willing to tackle projects with very low volumes, down to about 15,000. At the other end of the spectrum, it has produced parts that have shipped in the millions.
JVD claims to have a stable of about 30 contract analog IC designers, and it outsources all the designs to those contractors. Customers seem to be happy with the quality, because there’s a lot of return business.
The philosophy behind all JVD designs is that it doesn’t believe in using standard cells, since doing so forces the designer to work with a fixed set of specs. Those specs may be close to what’s needed, but not exactly. The company has relationships with many of the common fab houses, so producing the ICs isn’t a problem.
Tomi Engdahl says:
Low-Power Crisis = Danger & Opportunity
http://semiengineering.com/low-power-crisis-danger-opportunity/
If you’re a student of these things, you’ve no doubt heard that in Japanese, the word “crisis” is divided equally into “danger” and opportunity.”
The biggest opportunity for electronics designers is also their biggest challenge: power management. Ask anyone today and they’ll tell you that minding and managing power consumption and leakage is a big concern.
Tomi Engdahl says:
Atoms, ARMs, ARCs, Andes…And All The Rest
http://semiengineering.com/atoms-arms-arcs-andesand-rest/
The race for the Internet of Things is just getting started. Who ultimately wins is anyone’s guess, but there are some new contenders.
While Intel is now attempting a push into the embedded area, it remains to be seen if even mighty Intel has enough clout to unseat the incumbent. Intel not only needs new cores, which it has, but it also needs to transform itself into an IP company, a move that may be more difficult than core development itself.
This battle is in the domain of what is called apps processors. These processors run the end-user applications and they may get all of the attention, but there are many other processors in your phone, PC or other electronic device. The graphics processor takes up more room, consumes more power and some claim that it actually adds more differentiation to the end product than the apps processor. But we rarely hear about who makes that processor.
The embedded processor market is a lot more crowded. While ARM participates in this market with its low-end cores, there is also ARC from Synopsys, Tensilica from Cadence, as well as many others. And now there is a new company that wants to join the fray, one that comes from across the other pond. Founded in 2005 in the Hsinchu Science Park, Taiwan, Andes has been quietly serving the Asian semiconductor industry with a range of cores that it touts as being smaller and lower power than ARM’s.
The new market
The Internet of Things adds another dimension to the unique demands placed on processors, and the unit numbers are much higher than for the mobile markets. Each person owns just a few PCs and smart phones, but there are likely to be hundreds or thousands of devices that each person interacts with when we consider the Internet of Things (IoT). These things, many of them intelligent sensors, will be in your clothes, in your car, your home and your appliances. For many of these devices, cost and power are the ultimate design considerations. Cost is critical because they have to be priced at just a few dollars per device, and power is important because they may have to operate on power they scavenge from their environment or have a requirement to operate for several years on a single battery. There are a myriad of other issues that may influence the selection decision, such as configurability, code density, company size, stability and reputation, and the production libraries supported.
Tomi Engdahl says:
III-V FinFET Fabed on Silicon
http://www.eetimes.com/document.asp?doc_id=1320027&
he world’s first 3D compound-semiconductor FinFET to integrate III-V and silicon materials on the same 300-millimeter wafer has been claimed by Imec — the Leuven, Belgium-based microelectronics research center. Imec’s process, if adopted by its partners, aims to continue CMOS scaling at seven nanometers and below, as well as enable hybrid CMOS-RF and CMOS-optoelectronics.
As silicon devices scale down to atomic-scale limits, they are running out of ways to increase performance and lower power consumption. By integrating higher performance materials with silicon, such as III-V transistor channels that provide higher carrier velocity and higher drive current, these hybrid semiconductors aim to enable continued scaling beyond the capabilities of silicon alone.
Tomi Engdahl says:
SK Hynix, Mediatek Rise in 2013 Rankings
http://www.eetimes.com/document.asp?doc_id=1320015&
SK Hynix and Mediatek are expected to be among the big chip winners in 2013, according to a forecast by IC Insights. Preliminary figures show the two companies leading the field in revenue growth at 44 and 34 percent to push into the top five and 20, respectively.
Mediatek is expected to rank 16, up from 22 in last year’s list, with smartphone application processor shipments nearly doubling to 200 million up from 108 million last year. The company “is experiencing extremely strong demand for its devices in the booming low-end smartphone business in China and other Asia-Pacific locations.”
The Taiwan chip vendor still distantly trails mobile market leader Qualcomm, which reported Wednesday annual sales of a whopping 716 million chips, up 21 percent from its previous year. It logged revenues of $24.87 billion, up 30 percent over the prior fiscal year, with net income up 22 percent to 7.91 billion.
Broadcom is expected to edge into the top 10 for the first time on modest 4 percent sales growth.
Fujitsu is expected to drop five places to fall out of the top 20 ranking this year after selling its analog and microcontroller business to Spansion in April.
Tomi Engdahl says:
Screens Everywhere Make a GUI Dilemma
http://www.embedded.com/electronics-blogs/break-points/4423950/Screens-everywhere
Digikey lists an astonishing 4,764 different Cortex M-series MCUs. Over 600 have an LCD controller on board. Today we certainly live in the time of screens everywhere. There will be a lot more in the future.
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Tomi says:
Harvard scientists develop a transistor that learns
http://www.gizmag.com/harvard-synaptic-transistor-artificail-intelligence/29668/
In a development that may enable a wholly new approach to artificial intelligence, researchers at Harvard University’s School of Engineering and Applied Sciences (SEAS) have invented a type of transistor that can learn in ways similar to a neural synapse. Called a synaptic transistor, the new device self-optimizes its properties for the functions it has carried out in the past.
One of the more remarkable features of the human brain is it gets better at whatever it does.
Most of this plasticity results from changes in the 100 trillion or so synapses, or interconnections, between brain cells.
“Cells that fire together, wire together”,
The synaptic transistor developed at Harvard mimics this behavior. So how does a synaptic transistor work? As shown above, the synaptic transistor has a structure quite similar to that of a field effect transistor, where a bit of ionic liquid takes the place of the gate insulating layer between the gate electrode and the conducting channel, and that channel is composed of samarium nickelate (SmNiO3, or SNO) rather than the field effect transistor’s doped silicon.
A synaptic transistor has an immediate response, and also a much slower response related to learning. The immediate response is basically the same as that of a field effect transistor
The learning response is that the conductivity of the SNO layer varies in response to the STDP history of the synaptic transistor
While the physical structure of Harvard’s synaptic transistor has the potential to learn from history, in itself it contains no way to bias the transistor so as to properly control the SNO’s memory effect. This function is carried out by an external supervisory circuit that converts the time delay between input and output into a voltage applied to the ionic liquid that either drives ions into the SNO or removes them. In response, the synaptic transistors become self-optimizing within a circuit being subjected to learning experiences.
“The transistor we’ve demonstrated is really an analog to the synapse in our brains,”
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Tomi Engdahl says:
GlobalFoundries to make Apple chips in New York fab
http://blog.timesunion.com/business/globalfoundries-to-make-apple-chips-with-samsung/57805/
GlobalFoundries is preparing to make chips for Apple’s iPhone and iPad at its Fab 8 complex in Malta, according to a source close to the company.
Samsung Electronics, which currently makes the logic microprocessors used in Apple’s popular iPhone and iPad devices at its Austin, Texas fab, will help with the start-up of the Apple program, ensuring that Apple will have a second U.S. source for chips for the popular smart phones and tablets. Logic chips are the workhorse chips that are essentially the brains of a smart phone.
GlobalFoundries has not confirmed or denied that Samsung will be utilizing the TDC in a customer role or in partnership with GlobalFoundries. Both companies, as well as IBM, make up what’s known as the Common Platform, an alliance the three companies have formed to share research and development and manufacturing capacity.
It’s unclear if GlobalFoundries will be making the chips with Samsung as the customer on behalf of Apple, or if Apple will be the direct customer, with Samsung helping set up the operation to mirror what it does in Austin. Either way, Apple will be the ultimate customer. And there is no indication that Samsung’s Apple production will cease in Austin.
Tomi Engdahl says:
System Bits: Nov. 12
Using 3D printers to print lithium-ion micro batteries
http://semiengineering.com/system-bits-nov-11/
When thinking about 3D printers, most people probably think about creating small plastic parts or prototypes. 3D printing now can be used to print lithium-ion microbatteries the size of a grain of sand.
The printed microbatteries could supply electricity to tiny devices in fields from medicine to communications, including many that have lingered on lab benches for lack of a battery small enough to fit the device, yet providing enough stored energy to power it.
To make the microbatteries, a team based at Harvard University and the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign printed precisely interlaced stacks of tiny battery electrodes, each less than the diameter of a human hair.
Manufacturers traditionally have deposited thin films of solid materials to build the electrodes.
The scientists realized they could pack more energy if they could create stacks of tightly interlaced, ultrathin electrodes that were built out of plane. For this they turned to 3-D printing.
They have designed a broad range of functional inks that have useful chemical and electrical properties. And they have used those inks with their custom-built 3-D printers to create precise structures with the electronic, optical, mechanical or biologically relevant properties they want.
Inks developed for extrusion-based 3-D printing must fulfill two difficult requirements. They must exit fine nozzles like toothpaste from a tube, and they must immediately harden into their final form.
In this case, the inks also had to function as electrochemically active materials to create working anodes and cathodes
The electrochemical performance is comparable to commercial batteries in terms of charge and discharge rate, cycle life and energy densities.
Tomi Engdahl says:
UFS Set to Eclipse e-MMC
http://www.eetimes.com/document.asp?doc_id=1320056&
Universal flash storage (UFS) is poised to replace e-MMC as devices with embedded memory continue to demand more capacity and higher performance. But both memory technologies will continue to co-exist for some time.
Scott Beekman, director of managed NAND memory products for Toshiba America Electronic Components, says that although e-MMC is still the memory device of choice for mobile applications because of its low power consumption and cost, UFS is in a better position to meet the higher performance demands that are expected in the coming years from mobile devices.
e-MMC has seen wide adoption for use in smartphones, tablets, games, servers, printers, and automotive systems, notes Beekman, but it is limited performance-wise since it only supports half duplexing. (It permits either reading or writing between the host processor and an e-MMC device, but not both at the same time.)
The ability of UFS to support full duplexing, where reading and writing occur between host processor and UFS device at the same
JEDEC, developer of global open standards for the microelectronics industry, recently published version 2.0 of the UFS specification, which was designed to accommodate mobile applications and computing systems that need high performance and low power consumption. Link bandwidth has been increased from 300 MB/s in UFS v1.1 to up to 600 MB/s per lane, and multilane support has been introduced, allowing up to 1.2 GB/s per each data transfer direction.
Tomi Engdahl says:
Electronics scrap stolen from recycling points in Finland
Electrical and electronic waste are discovering the value of obscure men, as are being dumped in the standard recycling points in the night as in the day time. Up to half of this so-called WEEE waste is transported formal recycling system.
Electrical and electronic waste collection and disposal is subject to producer responsibility, or equipment, importers and retailers must provide it.
Elker Sakari Hietala says that the electronic equipment has been found to be a valuable material.
“In practice, this is reflected in that the fixed return points traffic has been a bi-directional connection. Scrap Container locks, as well as the protections have been broken, and electrical and electronic waste is exported, “Hietala said.
Burglaries carried out at night, but the scrap waste is produced during the day.
Any trivial amounts is not the case, as in electrical and electronic equipment sold each year approximately 100 000 tonnes of waste management and the official returns of only about 50 thousand tons. This amount includes appliances such as smaller devices.
Also Toppila estimates that the official collection scheme is transported generated each year in electrical and electronic waste as much as half. These so-called “side stream” was identified as the main cause of waste “a positive economic value.”
Source: http://www.mbnet.fi/artikkeli/ajankohtaiset/ajassa/elektroniikkaromua_varastetaan_kierratyspisteista
Tomi Engdahl says:
Printing Printed Circuit Boards
http://hackaday.com/2013/11/12/printing-printed-circuit-boards/
We really respect the old timers out there and their amazing ways of crafting PCBs; they used black tape on clear acetate sheets to create single layers of PCBs with a photoetching process. Now creating a PCB is a simple matter of opening up a CAD package, but like the old timers we’re still dealing with nasty chemicals or long shipping times from China.
The EX¹, a new robot on Kickstarter – hopes to change that. They’ve created a PCB fabrication process that’s as simple as printing something with an inkjet printer. Just put in a piece of substrate – anything from Kapton to acrylic to fabric – and in a few minutes you have a single-sided PCB in your hands.
Tomi Engdahl says:
Disney Develops Energy-Harvesting Finger-Touch Tech
http://www.designnews.com/author.asp?section_id=1386&doc_id=269518&cid=nl.dn14&dfpPParams=ind_184,industry_consumer,aid_269518&dfpLayout=blog
Researchers at Disney have developed a technology that can generate enough energy from the movement of a fingertip to light a string of LEDs or to control lights or other electrical components on e-paper or printed materials.
The Paper Generator — developed primarily by Disney Research scientists in Pittsburgh — relies on the placement of a sheet of polytetrafluoroethylene (PTFE), more commonly known as Teflon, between two thin reactive layers of material like metalized polyester that act as electrodes.
Researchers Mustafa Emre Karagozler, Ivan Poupyrev, Gary Fedder, and Yuri Suzuki describe the new technology in this paper. It seems like an energy-harvesting version of touch technologies used in mobile devices.
The user rubs, taps, or slides a finger over the materials to generate electricity.
Tomi Engdahl says:
Engineers Design Battery-Free Wireless Device
http://www.designnews.com/author.asp?section_id=1386&doc_id=269520&cid=nl.dn14
Since the onset of television, radio, and WiFi, we have been inundated with a vast array of RF signals, which allow us to listen to music, watch television, and stay connected to one another with our mobile devices.
Recently, Nickolay Lamm and colleague Dr. M. Browning Vogel were able to visualize the various signal patterns that make up WiFi transmissions and illustrate those using rather striking colors. Suffice it to say they are everywhere, covering just about every square foot of space in populated cities, and thanks to some ingenious engineers, can be utilized to provide another service besides communications and artwork. Those engineers, from the University of Washington, have developed a way to harness those signals to power communications devices without the need for batteries or other power sources.
Known as Ambient Backscatter, the device (or any device equipped with the technology) is equipped with an antenna that picks up broadcast signals from TV or cellular sources and converts them into hundreds of microwatts of electrical power.
Other devices outfitted with the technology can then receive the coded messages and respond accordingly, which is necessary if the Internet of Things (IoT) is to become mainstream.
Tomi Engdahl says:
Added Value Electronics Turn Normal Batteries Into Smart Battery Packs
http://www.designnews.com/document.asp?doc_id=268394&cid=nl.dn14&dfpPParams=ind_184,aid_268394&dfpLayout=article
Batteries have come a long way since their invention, from Volta’s voltic pile of zinc and copper plates to today’s high-tech lithium-ion batteries. The energy density (both volumetric and gravimetric) of battery cells has steadily increased over the years with new battery chemistry.
However, these increases and the use of volatile materials have made cells less stable and have required added electronic safeties. Modern battery cells have electronic safety circuits added to ensure that design parameters are never exceeded. Lithium rechargeable batteries require electronics safety circuits as a minimum.
Cell balancing helps keep multiple series cells’ primary safety circuits from activating incorrectly in addition to keeping them in line to improve run-time and cycle life. In addition, batteries used in medical and IT applications are required to have secondary safety circuits present in case the primary circuits fail.
With embedded battery chargers, unregulated power can be used to charge the internal battery from a number of sources: inexpensive wall bricks, car cigarette adaptors, USB ports, and wireless charging pads.
In the past, wireless battery charging relied on each company’s proprietary design. The Inductive Power Standard (QI) lets companies like Epec embed wireless charging electronics into batteries to work with off-the-shelf wireless charging pads that already exist.
Today’s battery packs can offer embedded electronics, which improves the safety, reliability, cycle-life, and functionality of the battery while giving the end-product system engineer more options to make the end product more reliable and user friendly. With embedded battery chargers, batteries last longer by being charged to their ideal specifications and only within proper temperature limits.
Tomi Engdahl says:
Industrial Internet Group Debuts Soon
Ka-Ching! GE rings up $290M in IoT Sales
http://www.eetimes.com/document.asp?doc_id=1320100&
A US consortium to drive standards for the so-called Industrial Internet hopes to debut in early January, according to one of the executives driving the group.
Bill Ruh heads an Internet of Things effort for GE that has rung up $290 million in sales so far this year. By plugging web analytics into the big turbines, jet engines, and other products it sells, “we see a trillion dollars a year in efficiency opportunities in the industrial spaces we serve,” he told us.
GE coined “Industrial Internet” to refer to Internet of Things scenarios in its industrial markets, and it has published a much-cited whitepaper on the subject.
The group wants to draft an Industrial Internet framework and identify several open-source projects within it. The effort is sort of an extension of similar work led by the NIST on the smart grid. Membership contracts for the consortium are still being finalized.
“We are very early on,” said Ruh. “When we announce probably in early January, [we will talk about] how we standardize [and] what we take into open source [to] make all the components work together to achieve the vision.”
GE, already doing brisk business in the area, is ramping up for more and working with Intel on its new x86-based Quark SoC.
In a little less than two years, Ruh has helped create a group of more than 700 mainly software engineers in the San Francisco Bay Area
The GE team currently has a broad mix of developers with experience in Hadoop, NoSQL, Python, Ruby, and open-source code working on in-house and third-party applications and analytics platforms.
The big hardware challenge is in adding intelligence to industrial systems in ways that meet their requirements for reliability and real-time operations.
The GE exec said he likes Quark becomes it embeds much of the networking and I/O needed for industrial apps. In addition, it leverages technologies and software from the established PC sector. “Running commodity-style software on embedded systems is the future for working at faster speeds and enabling a renaissance of new capabilities.” One customer is using Android for satellites.
GE hopes to bring to industrial markets the kinds of capabilities wireless carriers have created to manage connections between millions of cellphones and their networks. That requires adoption of cloud services — GE’s products already tap into Amazon Web Services — and lots of open-source code. “The days of an embedded world based on proprietary software are dead.”
Tomi Engdahl says:
Teardown: TechInsights Analyzes Smartphone Display Tech
http://www.eetimes.com/document.asp?doc_id=1320085&
Buyer behavior indicates that the visual impression and function of smartphones has been shown to heavily influence consumer purchase decisions. To remain successful in the competitive smartphone market, mobile phone companies invest heavily in display design and technology.
The continued integration of increased functionality into smartphones has put pressure on designers to find ways to use the available space more efficiently. As some of the largest electrical components in a phone or tablet, the display and touchscreen are now targets in the effort to reduce the overall device thickness while increasing the overall quality of the display.
Not surprisingly, we discovered that these phones contain three of the most popular display technologies found in the market today.
Thin film transistor liquid crystal displays (TFT LCDs)
In-plane switching LCD (IPS LCD) Retina displays (and LCD with higher pixel density)
Active matrix organic light emitting diode (AMOLED) displays
The TechInsights teardown team compared power dissipation, display thickness, and pixel density versus cost to identify relationships between form factor and the costs different systems manufacturers incurred. We found that display pricing was far from elastic, and that a larger size or higher pixel density did not necessarily align with increased procurement costs.
LCD displays are considered a higher-power option than AMOLED displays, because LCDs use more power and thus have a negative correlation to battery life. Many users continue to base satisfaction on a combination of both display quality and the time between charging.
Poorer battery life for LCDs is often due the 8-12 LCD-backlight LEDs that are continuously on at various stages of brightness, compared with the million (or so) LEDs in AMOLED displays that are only on (also at various stages of brightness) when they are in use.
The selection of AMOLED by Samsung was also likely driven by a focus on durability and improved video and photo rendering.
TechInsights Teardown team found in our sample of high-end phones that there was almost a reverse correlation between panel thickness and module thickness.
TechInsights speculates that pixel density has reached a point where it is no longer a competitive differentiation from the perception of the end user. Therefore, the consideration is more about the durability and capabilities of the display to provide a better experience by maintaining durability and improving battery life through lower power consumption. In the case of Samsung, the focus on developing a AMOLED with lower pixel density is based on its focus on providing longer screen life and extend usage through better power management.
Though not yet in use in any of the above phones, we recently uncovered a new display technology entering the market — indium gallium zinc oxide (IGZO) — used in Sharp’s Aquos Zeta phone.
Tomi Engdahl says:
Is this the future bedroom?
The future of the bedroom sheets may be cleansed by itself and the lights will change according to the seasons. These ideas are being developed right now.
The U.S. National sleep organization the National Sleep Foundation (NSF) has released the first international master bedroom, the survey results. The survey asked about the sleep habits of people in the United States, Canada, Mexico, UK. Germany and Japan.
Based on the responses were listed five things that people would like to see in the future development of technology-bedroom. These are now aimed at the development of research centers.
The study responded most strongly bedroom and hang clothes to fight against bacteria and purify themselves. Secondly, the bed material was hoped, would adapt to body temperature.
The third most survey, it was hoped beds, which would result in important physiological functions of human sleep. The bed is hoped deterrent such as the flu or the fact that sleeping in bed is about to get a heart attack.
In addition, it was hoped the seasons changing lights. For example, during the winter season upon waking in the morning to catch a bright light bulbs in order to start the morning is so unresponsive and darkness.
Source: http://www.iltalehti.fi/asuminen/2013110717696641_an.shtml
Tomi says:
Self-healing chemistry enables the stable operation of silicon microparticle anodes for high-energy lithium-ion batteries
http://www.nature.com/nchem/journal/vaop/ncurrent/full/nchem.1802.html
The ability to repair damage spontaneously, which is termed self-healing, is an important survival feature in nature because it increases the lifetime of most living creatures. This feature is highly desirable for rechargeable batteries because the lifetime of high-capacity electrodes, such as silicon anodes, is shortened by mechanical fractures generated during the cycling process.
we apply self-healing chemistry to silicon microparticle (SiMP) anodes to overcome their short cycle-life
Tomi Engdahl says:
Quest Continues for High Power, Lots of Energy Storage, in Single Package
http://www.designnews.com/document.asp?doc_id=268357&cid=nl.dn14
In this age of new-energy everything, it’s nearly impossible to pick up a newspaper or watch a news segment without coming across more than one entry on the latest and greatest breakthrough in energy storage.
Energy storage garners a lot of attention, and for good reason. It is fundamental to the evolution of green infrastructure, as well as a key to enabling advanced technologies such as smartphones and tablets.
Tomi Engdahl says:
When Does a Custom Assembly Make Sense?
http://www.designnews.com/document.asp?doc_id=268356&cid=nl.dn14
When starting or redesigning a new product it has been typical to start by using as many standard parts as possible. This is usually a very good idea as standard, readily available mechanics allow quick proof of concept and a means to getting to the market quickly. The downside to this approach could possibly be per-unit cost being high, high component cost, and high vendor count. This can be due to possible mismatches in technology or sizing that standard product inadvertently pushes your design into.
Let’s look at a typical situation. Marketing believes you will be selling 500 units per year and that it will take 12 months to ramp to that level. In the past, based on this information, it was intuitive to start with a commercially available assembly and then move to a lower cost custom version of what you’ve proofed your concept and started to market with. There still may be validity to this approach, but in today’s market there may be a quicker way to market while managing time and other risks available to you.
Tomi Engdahl says:
Decades ago, computing was saved by CMOS. Today, no hero is in sight
HPC headman sees the future – and it ain’t pretty
http://www.theregister.co.uk/2013/11/19/decades_ago_computing_was_saved_by_cmos_today_no_hero_is_in_sight/
SC13 The general chair of the SC13 supercomputing conference thinks the semiconducting industry has reached a tipping point more radical – and uncertain – than it has gone through in decades.
“We’ve reached the end of a technological era where we had a very stable technology,” Bill Gropp, Thomas M Siebel Chair in Computer Science at the University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign, told a group of reporters at the conference in Denver, Colorado, on Monday.
“We’re about to get back to where we were about 25 years ago, when the technology suddenly changed on us,” he said.
“There was this niche technology that wasn’t very good called CMOS,” he said. “But it was mature enough to build components. It was kind of slow – sort of okay.”
Equally fortunately, there was a giant company willing to take a risk on this sort-of-okay technology. “IBM made a big gamble and decided to switch from ECL,” Gropp said. “They adopted CMOS, built a machine that was slower than previous generation machines, but had a technology that was starting its ramp up.”
And, to borrow a cliché, the rest is history.
CMOS scaling is petering out, even if such long-awaited life-extenders as extreme ultraviolet lithography (EUV) ever see the economically feasible light of day. Sooner or later you simply run out of atoms, as Intel Fellow Mark Bohr one told The Register.
But things are different today than during those ancient times when ECL hit the wall, Gropp says. “The problem is that right now we don’t have a CMOS. We don’t have a technology that is ready to be adopted as a replacement for CMOS.”
“We have a number of candidates. It’s not that we don’t have anything,” Gropp said, citing such possibile CMOS replacements as RSFQ [rapid single flux quantum] superconducting logic and carbon nanotubes. But those and other candidates are, to put it kindly, not ready for prime time.
Tomi Engdahl says:
Liquid Metal Printer Lays Electronic Circuits on Paper, Plastic and Even Cotton
http://www.technologyreview.com/view/521871/liquid-metal-printer-lays-electronic-circuits-on-paper-plastic-and-even-cotton/
A simple way to print circuits on a wide range of flexible substrates using an inkjet printer has eluded materials scientists. Until now.
One of the dreams of makers the world over is to be able to print electronic circuits on more or less any surface using a desktop printer. The great promise is the possibility of having RFID circuits printed on plastic or paper packaging, LED arrays on wallpaper and even transparent circuits on glass. Or simply to rapidly prototype circuits when designing new products.
There are no shortage of conducting inks that aim to do this but they all have drawbacks of various kinds. For example, many inks have low or difficult-to-control conductivity or need to be heated to temperatures of up to 400 degrees C after they have been printed thereby limiting the materials on which they can be printed. The result is that the ability to print circuits routinely on flexible materials such as paper or plastic has remained largely a dream.
Until now. Today, Jing Liu and pals at the Technical Institute of Physics and Chemistry in Beijing say they’ve worked out how to print electronic circuits on a wide range of materials using an inkjet printer filled with liquid metal. And they’ve demonstrated the technique on paper, plastic, glass, rubber, cotton cloth and even an ordinary leaf.
The new technique is straightforward. The magic sauce is a liquid metal: an alloy of gallium and indium which is liquid at room temperature. They simply pump it through an inkjet printer to create a fine spray of liquid metal droplets that settle onto the substrate.
The droplets rapidly oxidise as the travel through the air and this oxide forms a surface layer on each drop that prevents further oxidisation. That’s handy because the liquid metal itself does not easily adhere to the substrates.
That looks to be a useful development. The ability to print circuits in magazines or on t-shirts will surely attract much interest. And being able to test circuit designs by printing them out using a desktop printer will be invaluable to many makers.
Tomi Engdahl says:
Avoiding the Power Grid
A cheaper fuel cell could provide affordable power for microgrids.
http://www.technologyreview.com/demo/520451/avoiding-the-power-grid/
A one-meter-square gray box studded with green lights sits in a hallway near the laboratory of materials scientist Eric Wachsman, director of the Energy Research Center at the University of Maryland. It is a mockup of a fuel-cell device that runs on natural gas, producing electricity at the same cost as a large gas plant.
The box is designed to house stacks of solid-oxide fuel cells that differ from their conventional counterparts in a dramatic way: they’re projected to produce electricity for $1 per watt, down from $8 in today’s commercial versions, thanks to improvements that Wachsman has made in the ceramic materials at their heart.
The technology could eventually become a practical and affordable way to ease strain on the increasingly stressed electricity grid; anywhere there’s cheap natural gas, we could also have constant and cheap electricity
That would make it possible to do away with the diesel generators that are now widely used for backup power and as a key component of microgrids in places like Malaysia and cellular base stations in rural areas around the world. Solid-oxide fuel cells—which can run on diesel fuel or gasoline, not just natural gas—use much less fuel per watt than diesel generators of similar size.
A key advance in the Maryland fuel cell is that it is based on cerium oxide and bismuth oxide
The cell can operate at 650 °C, down from 900 °C in existing products, reducing thermal stresses and insulation needs.
The gray box mocks up a 25-kilowatt version of the technology, which is now under development by a startup called Redox Power Systems. Redox is building a factory in Melbourne, Florida, and hopes to launch the product in 2014
But the stand-alone generators, if successful, would be impressive enough. They’d mean “we’re on par with conventional power generation,” Wachsman says. “It’s not just backup power—it’s energy security.”
Tomi Engdahl says:
Connect Your System to the Outside World
http://www.designnews.com/document.asp?doc_id=269781&cid=nl.dn14
Connectivity is everything these days. If you can’t talk to the outside, it’s hard to make a compelling case for a product. Devices need to be connected either to the Internet, to an intranet, or some other outside medium. Component makers have gotten much better simplifying this process. One example is the latest 32-bit MCU family announced by Microchip. The company’s 24-member PIC32MZ Embedded Connectivity (EC) family offers a performance level of 330 DMIPS and 3.28 CoreMarks/MHz.
Note that the inclusion of a 10/100 Ethernet MAC, a Hi-Speed USB MAC/PHY, and dual CAN ports help support those communications applications.
Tomi Engdahl says:
Get to Know UL 1604
http://www.designnews.com/author.asp?section_id=1365&doc_id=269735&cid=nl.dn14
Engineers who specify electrical products for industrial equipment tend to have a good working knowledge of UL ratings. However, one rating that gives many engineers trouble is UL 1604, which certifies electrical components for use in hazardous environments.
What Is UL 1604?
This rating applies to most types of electrical equipment, circuits, and components operating in conditions that the National Electrical Code (NEC) defines as hazardous due to the presence of flammable gases, combustible dust, or ignitable fibers. The NEC categorizes these conditions as Class I for gases, Class II for dust, and Class III for fibers or flyings. While referred to in North America as UL 1604, this standard has been supplanted by a global standard known as ANSI/ISA-12.12.01. The requirements are similar.
UL 1604 also addresses whether a flammable material is present as part of normal operating conditions or is present only during abnormal operations.
Tomi Engdahl says:
Magnetic slurry could deliver heatsink-as-a-service
Nanofluid could be attracted to the heat it exists to dissipate
http://www.theregister.co.uk/2013/11/21/magnets_and_nanofluids_can_make_a_heatsink/
Serious water-cooled gamer-rig types will probably get busy experimenting with iron filings, water and magnets, to see if they can maker-reproduce research that uses magnets to create what amounts to a switch-on, switch-off heatsink.
In a paper co-authored by researchers from MIT and Australia’s University of Newcastle, the researchers find that a slurry of magnetite nanoparticles in water can drastically improve the heat transfer, and can be controlled with magnets.
The researchers claim a four-fold improvement in heat transfer with the magnets activated, but the concentration of particles has only a small effect on the water pressure (a pressure drop of 7.5 per cent was recorded when a magnetic field of 430 milli-Tesla was applied, with a gradient between 8.6 and 32.5 mT/mm).
Tomi Engdahl says:
World’s Smallest FM Radio Transmitter Built With Graphene, ‘First Step’ For Advancing Wireless Signal Processing [PHOTO]
http://www.ibtimes.com/worlds-smallest-fm-radio-transmitter-built-graphene-first-step-advancing-wireless-signal-processing
The world’s smallest FM radio transmitter was created using the strongest and thinnest material known to man.
A team of engineers from Columbia Engineering created the nano-mechanical system using graphene, a form of carbon that has properties similar to silicon commonly used to make software chips. The study, published in Nature Nanotechnology, describes how the tiny transmitter may have broader applications in wireless electronic devices like cell phones and tablets.
“This work is significant in that it demonstrates an application of graphene that cannot be achieved using conventional materials,” Mechanical Engineering Professor James Hone said in a statement. “And it’s an important first step in advancing wireless signal processing and designing ultrathin, efficient cell phones. Our devices are much smaller than any other sources of radio signals, and can be put on the same chip that’s used for data processing.”
The team used graphene’s mechanical “stretchability” to create a voltage-controlled oscillator (VCO) – an electronic component that can generate an FM signal. The VCO was used to send and receive audio signals of 100 megahertz, which falls in the middle of the FM bandwidth
“This device is by far the smallest system that can create such FM signals,” Hone said.
While the graphene FM transmitter is a feat of modern engineering, the nano-sized device cannot be used to replace conventional radios. Rather, it may be used in cell phones.
The FM transmitter’s small size allows for easy integration with all kinds of electronics,
“There is a long way to go toward actual applications in this area,”
Tomi Engdahl says:
Inkjet Printing Could Be the Key to Next-Generation OLED Displays
http://www.technologyreview.com/news/521656/inkjet-printing-could-be-the-key-to-next-generation-oled-displays/
Kateeva says its new manufacturing equipment can produce affordable OLED displays, rigid and flexible.
Color-rich, energy-efficient, and flexible organic light-emitting diode (OLED) displays could soon be churned out more economically on giant inkjet printers.
OLED displays are widely expected to eventually supplant LCDs, the most common display today in TVs and computers. OLED displays use less power, have more vibrant colors, and can be made on plastic, making them attractive for flexible and even wearable electronics. The futuristic displays are already appearing in some expensive smartphones, digital cameras, and televisions. But manufacturing challenges have hindered attempts at mass production.
Now manufacturing equipment maker Kateeva says it has the key to overcoming those challenges. Kateeva’s setup—available as of today to display makers—features a movable platform that precisely positions glass panels or plastic sheets large enough for six 55-inch displays beneath custom print heads. Each print head contains hundreds of nozzles tuned to deposit picoliter-scale droplets in exact locations to build up the pixels of a display. The company says the tool can be incorporated fairly easily into existing display production lines.
Tomi Engdahl says:
Omron: Never Underestimate Blood Pressure
Smart healthcare about data, not devices
http://www.eetimes.com/document.asp?doc_id=1320177&
Omron, a leading electronic component supplier based in Kyoto, is best known among consumers for its home healthcare products.
However, Omron’s flagship blood pressure monitor for home-use sports a decidedly low-tech look compared to a host of emerging digital medical electronics such as a wireless patch for ECG monitoring (developed by IMEC), implantable sensors for blood pressure readings (designed by Fiso Technologies), and contact lenses to treat glaucoma (developed by STMicroelectronics).
But don’t be fooled, insisted Toshikazu Shiga, Omron’s Mr. Healthcare, during his keynote speech on “next-generation smart healthcare” on Thursday, Nov. 21, at the Embedded Technology 2013 conference.
In order to win the next-generation smart healthcare battle, Shiga cautioned, it matters not so much what your technology can sense. More important is the exact data your technology needs to “sense, track, accumulate, analyze, and send” to doctors who are treating patients’ chronic, lifestyle illnesses.
Tomi Engdahl says:
Ink-Jet Printing for OLED Displays Debuts
Ink-jet printing is less costly
http://www.eetimes.com/document.asp?doc_id=1320174&
Organic light emitting diode (OLED) displays have richer colors, are thinner and lighter, and can be fabricated for curved, bendable, wearable, or even roll-up displays. While OLEDs come at a high price, a California startup claims to have a less expensive solution to manufacturing.
Menlo Park, Calif.-based Kateeva Inc. unveiled Yeildjet, technology to manufacture OLED displays using ink-jet printing, at Printed Electronics 2013, Nov. 20-21 in San Jose, Calif.
“Our Yieldjet is the first printing platform built from the ground up for mass production of OLEDs,” Conor Madigan, co-founder and president of Kateeva, told EE Times. “We’ve addressed all the key issues in moving ink-jet printing of OLEDs from R&D to production.”
Tomi Engdahl says:
Intel Chairman: “We Seemed to Have Lost Our Way”
http://allthingsd.com/20131121/intel-chairman-we-seemed-to-have-lost-our-way/
Long a beneficiary of the falling cost of computing power, chipmaker Intel acknowledged Thursday that it was beaten at its own game.
Moore’s law, the industry term coined by Intel co-founder Gordon Moore, suggests that computing will always get cheaper and smaller, but it was Intel’s rivals that benefitted from the most recent shifts to tablets and mobile devices.
“We’re paying a price for that right now,” Andy Bryant, a longtime Intel executive who now serves as the chipmaker’s chairman, explained Thursday.
“The PC market is beginning to see signs of stabilization,” Krzanich said. It’s still forecast to decline, but that decline is slowing, he said. “What we need to watch is the emerging market.”
PC prices have also been dropping to never before seen lows, including capable computers below $300. In the data center, the company is forecasting continued growth of 15 percent through 2016.
On mobile, Intel has struggled, but Krzanich pointed to a few design wins, the most notable of which is a single Samsung Galaxy tablet model.
“For us, 2013 was a year of establishing a footprint,” Krzanich said.
In the coming year, the goal is to more than quadruple Intel’s tablet business, pushing it to more than 40 million units.
“We’ve got to have that footprint,” Krzanich explained. “We’ve got to have that scale.”
The company wants to bring PC technology to Android, including enterprise support and 64-bit processing. Intel, Krzanich said, will be in tablets throughout the market, including models below $100.
Intel, he said, also allows computer and tablet makers to create a single design that can be loaded with multiple operating systems, whether Windows, Chrome OS or Android.
Tomi Engdahl says:
‘World’s first’ mass produced OLED inkjet printer to drive down costs of OLED TVs
Yieldjet aims to produce screens in high volume at low cost
http://www.theinquirer.net/inquirer/news/2308522/-world-s-first-mass-produced-oled-inkjet-printer-to-drive-down-costs-of-oled-tvs
AN INKJET PRINTER capable of printing large, flexible OLED screens in mass production has been unveiled by a firm called Kateeva.
The Yieldjet printer has been “engineered from the ground up” to produce OLED screens in high volume, Kateeva said. The name Yieldjet comes from the printer’s focus on driving yield improvements to push production costs lower.
Tomi Engdahl says:
How much should an ethical phone cost? An extra penny? Or $4bn
Ending slavery in Africa needn’t cost this much
http://www.theregister.co.uk/2013/11/25/what_would_it_cost_to_sort_out_congo/
A penny apiece then: and with the global production of phones around the billion a year mark, this will cost us all $10m. And indeed that’s the sort of number the Enough Project has used as the total cost of making sure that there’s no blood in your mobile. Blood in your mobile being the tagline they used to get this campaign going.
Now I’ve been dismissive of whether their plan will actually work or not but $10m does seem a reasonable price for the world to pay to sort out that slave labour problem. However, it’s not going to cost $10 million, not at all.
But here’s what the SEC itself says about the costs:
“The SEC estimates that 6,000 U.S. issuers will be directly affected by the new requirement to trace the conflict minerals (gold, tantalum, tin, and tungsten) in their supply chains. The SEC has estimated initial compliance costs of $3 billion to $4 billion as end users of the four conflict minerals attempt to find out whether their raw materials originated at mines run by warlords in the Democratic Republic of the Congo (DRC) or its nine adjoining neighbors (Angola, Burundi, Central African Republic, the Republic of the Congo, Rwanda, South Sudan, Tanzania, Uganda, and Zambia).”
That sure is a long way from that initial $10m estimate, isn’t it?
As I’ve been saying these long years now there’s always been a simple way to sort this out: indeed, the metals industry has pretty much done it already.
So maybe 50 companies around the world that need to be a little more careful about what they buy from whom and we’re done, we’ve fixed our perceived problem.
Tomi Engdahl says:
Smart Glasses Help the Blind See
http://www.designnews.com/author.asp?section_id=1386&doc_id=269873&cid=nl.dn14
The advancement of technology has helped improve the quality of life for many people around the world.
About 15% of the people all around the world are now living with some sort of disability, compared to 10% 40 years ago. This has given rise to an increase in technologies to help people with everyday tasks such as cleaning dishes and doing other household chores. Additionally, technologies such as wheelchairs driven by brain waves and robots that can cook are being developed.
Indeed, Willow Garage’s PR2 robot has been programmed to perform tasks around the kitchen. It can even make sandwiches. The next big technology, which is being developed to help disabled people, is glasses to help blind people see. Created by Dr. Stephen Hicks of the University of Oxford, the glasses will use simple visual images along with descriptions of nearby signs to help the blind navigate.
Tomi Engdahl says:
Will 2D tin be the next super material for chip interconnects?
http://www.kurzweilai.net/will-2d-tin-be-the-next-super-material-for-chip-interconnects
New single-layer material could go beyond graphene, conducting electricity with 100 percent efficiency at room temperature
Move over, graphene. “Stanene” — a single layer of tin atoms — could be the world’s first material to conduct electricity with 100 percent efficiency at the temperatures that computer chips operate, according to a team of theoretical physicists led by researchers from the U.S. Department of Energy’s (DOE) SLAC National Accelerator Laboratory and Stanford University.
Stanene — the Latin name for tin (stannum) combined with the suffix used in graphene — could “increase the speed and lower the power needs of future generations of computer chips, if our prediction is confirmed by experiments that are underway in several laboratories around the world,”
Zhang said the first application for this stanene-fluorine combination could be for interconnects — wiring that connects the many sections of a microprocessor
Tomi Engdahl says:
Manufacturing Is Officially Coming Home
http://www.designnews.com/author.asp?section_id=1386&doc_id=269864&itc=dn_analysis_element&
For the past three years, there has been mounting anecdotal evidence that North America is once again becoming a preferred location for manufacturing. The evidence has been spotty, but nonetheless compelling — Apple’s building in Texas, Motorola’s making smartphones in Fort Worth, Lenovo opening a plant in North Carolina, Texas Instruments in Maine, GE in Kentucky. It goes on and on.
The growing list of North American plant openings has spurred the Association Connecting Electronics Industries (IPC) to conduct a study of onshoring — the opposite of offshoring.
“I think it is a trend. A lot of manufacturers are reviewing their strategy to see if the decisions they made in where they manufacture their products make sense,” Sharon Starr, director of market research at IPC, told Design News.
The survey confirms that companies are continuing to locate new operations in North America, and they are returning some existing operations to the region.
Starr points to a number of reasons companies are taking a closer look at North America as the right location for manufacturing. “The costs of offshore labor are going up in double digits,” Starr told us. “Manufacturers are also factoring in costs they didn’t anticipate, such as the need to send executives over to train, to hire, and to solve problems. That became quite a lot more than they anticipated.”
The low labor rate in Asia is turning out to be something of a mirage. “The labor rates between North America and Asia are narrowing in a couple ways. The wage rates in China are climbing at a fast pace, and they’re not rising here,” said Starr. “Also, productivity turned out to be an issue.”
Tomi Engdahl says:
MIT students develop wearable cooling device that could make air conditioning obsolete
http://www.digitaltrends.com/cool-tech/mit-students-develop-personal-cooling-device-make-air-conditioning-obsolete/
Developed by four engineering students at MIT, Wristify is a prototype wearable device that leverages the physical phenomenon known as the Peltier effect to reduce your body temperature.
Wristify is basically a series of these junctions (called a Peltier cooler) powered by a small battery and attached to a wrist strap. When placed against the skin, the device makes you feel cooler by reducing the temperature of your wrist a few fractions of a degree per second for a couple seconds at a time. Over the course of a few minutes, this process will cause you to perceive a whole-body cooling of a couple degrees celsius. The team developing the device is still tinkering with it to figure out the optimal cooling cycle, but at this point in time they say the most effective method is to cool your wrist by 0.4 degrees Celsius (0.7F) per second for five seconds, and then turn off for 10 seconds.
Of course, it’s still just a prototype, but the idea recently won the $10,000 top prize in MIT’s annual Making And Designing Materials Engineering Competition