The Internet of Everything is coming. The Internet is expanding into enterprise assets and consumer items such as cars and televisions. Very many electronics devices needs to be designed for this in mind. The Internet of Things (IoT) will evolve into the Web of Things, increasing the coordination between things in the real world and their counterparts on the Web. Gartner suggests that the “the smart machine era will be the most disruptive in the history of IT.” Intelligent systems and assistive devices will advance smart healthcare.
Software-defined anything (SDx) is coming more into use. It means that many proprietary systems are being replaced with commonly available standard computer hardware and software running in them.
PC market: ABANDON HOPE all ye who enter here. Vendor consolidation ‘inevitable’. Even Intel had to finally admit this that the Wintel grip which has served it and Microsoft so well over the past decades is waning, with Android and iOS coming to the fore through smartphones and tabs. The market conversion to tablets means that consumers and businesses are sweating existing PC assets longer. Tablets to Make Up Half of 2014 PC Market.
The Rise, Fall, and Rise of Electronics Kits article mentions that many older engineers first became interested in electronics through hobbies in their youth—assembling kits, participating in amateur radio, or engaging in other experiments. The 1970s and 1980s were great times for electronics hobbyists. But whenever it seems that there’s nothing left for the hobbyist, a new motif arises. The Raspberry Pi has become a best seller, as has a similar experimental board, the Arduino microcontroller. A great number of sensors, actuators, cameras, and the like have quickly become available for both. Innovative applications abound in such domains as home automation and robotics. So it seems that now there is much greater capacity for creativity in hobby electronics then there ever was.
E-Waste: Lack of Info Plagues Efforts to Reduce E-Waste article tells that creation of trade codes is necessary to track used electronics products according to a recent study concerning the waste from growing quantities of used electronics devices—including TVs, mobile phones and computers. High levels of electronic waste are being sent to Africa and Asia under false pretenses.” StEP estimates worldwide e-waste to increase by 33 percent from 50 million tons in 2012 to 65 million tons by 2017. China and the U.S. lead the world as top producers of e-waste. America produces about 65 pounds of e-waste per person every year. There will be aims to reduce the waste, for example project like standardizing mobile phone chargers and laptop power supplies.
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Tomi Engdahl says:
Memory Product Round Up: September 2014
http://www.eetimes.com/author.asp?section_id=36&doc_id=1324032&
Tomi Engdahl says:
Top 10 Candidates for Next-Gen Storage
http://www.eetimes.com/document.asp?doc_id=1324027&
Tomi Engdahl says:
Securing Trustworthy & Resilient Chips
NSF and SRC team to make chips counterfeit- and hack-free
http://www.eetimes.com/document.asp?doc_id=1324043&
Nine universities, from a field of more than 50 applicants, have been chosen to receive $4 million over three years to develop Secure, Trustworthy, Assured, and Resilient Semiconductors and Systems. The STARSS program is supported by the National Science Foundation (NSF) and the Semiconductor Research Corporation (SRC) as well as SRC member companies Intel, Freescale, and Mentor Graphics.
The STARSS program is part of a $75 million cyber security effort by the NSF, but is unique in that it is aimed at making the chips themselves — especially processors — immune from being exploited by hackers who take advantage of hidden Trojan horses and backdoors that are intentionally or unintentionally inserted into chips by intellectual property (IP) often from foreign sources. The effort will also make it easier to spot counterfeit chips, chips having been tampered with somewhere along the supply chain, and used chips being passed off as new.
“NFS and SRC are initially funding nine projects [listed below] with $4 million in a multi-phase project that will likely spend $10 million over several years,”
Tomi Engdahl says:
ARM Pumps Up MCU for IoT
Cortex M7 doubles past performance
http://www.eetimes.com/document.asp?doc_id=1324044&
ARM announced a next generation 32-bit processor core for embedded applications in industrial, infrastructure, and home automation markets. The Cortex-M7, geared for a 28nm process, is ARM’s most powerful microcontroller core to date with twice the compute and digital signal processing performance of previous Cortex-M parts.
“People want to have graphic interfaces, more sound, voice control,” Thomas Ensergueix, senior product marketing manager in ARM’s CPU Group, told EE Times. “The M7 will bring all kinds of objects to the user experience of smartphones and tablets.”
The M7 delivers 5 CoreMark/MHz and 2.14 DMIPs/MHz. It can hit data rates 400 MHz above ARM’s current Cortex M cores.
With a real time OS, the M7 supports low latencies, with as few as 12 cycles from an interrupt request to a response — a rate ten times better than that of a traditional OS.
The new core — operating at 3 Watts with flexible low-power modes — also is more powerful than ARM’s Cortex-R. The M7 can be implemented in a 5 mm x 5 mm footprint.
Tomi Engdahl says:
Supercapacitors have the power to save you from data loss
Learn all about them
http://www.theregister.co.uk/2014/09/24/storage_supercapacitors/
As solid state drives (SSDs) become a critical part of today’s storage, it is becomes increasingly important to learn about the supercapacitors that help prevent data loss.
The presence – and type – of supercapacitors in SSDs should be as important a consideration as choosing between MLC, eMLC and SLC-based drives.
Supercapacitors in SSDs ensure that any writes sent to the DRAM cache on the drive are successfully written in the event of a power loss.
All modern hard drives, be they of the traditional spinning magnetic variety or the modern solid state persuasion, have a DRAM buffer to improve performance. (The DRAM buffer is generally called a disk cache, though this is an incorrect usage in all but a few configurations.)
The DRAM on most of today’s drives is a paltry 64MB, but we usually read and write far more data than 64MB at a time.
Solving this problem is the point of the DRAM buffer on a traditional magnetic drive: commands are executed out of the buffer in the order that most reduces latency.
When the power is cut DRAM loses all the data stored in it. Files are rendered corrupt and sysadmins are called into the pointy-haired boss’s office with the door shut.
Load the UPS software onto your servers and configure them to shut down when the UPS detects a power outage.
The second option is the battery backup in a RAID card.
The RAID card can be equipped with a battery backup unit so that if the power fails and the computer goes off the writes are held in DRAM until the computer is back on. The RAID card will then flush the writes to the disks.
In an SSD there is no head that moves across a spinning platter to read and write information. Electrical impulses are sent to chips consisting of multiple layers of integrated circuits which respond in various ways, resulting in either a “read”, “write” or “erase” operation.
Also unlike magnetic drives, SSDs read and write in pages but must erase in blocks, and every write must be preceded by an erase. The size of both pages and blocks varies according to manufacturer and product.
Let’s say that your page size is 4KiB and your block size is 512KiB. To read a single bit the SSD would need to read an entire 4KiB page. It simply wouldn’t be capable of operating at smaller increments. But to write a single bit, an entire 512KiB block would have to be erased and all 128 4KiB pages rewritten.
The best of the best flash drives, SLC ones, have a typical endurance of 100,000 writes. This means you can erase a block and then write something to its pages about 100,000 times before you can never write to that block again.
MLC is an order of magnitude less capable, with the consumer-grade stuff typically being capable of 10,000 writes. eMLC (short for enterprise MLC) might get 30,000 writes at the outside, though 20,000 is more common.
In one sense, the use of DRAM buffers on SSDs is not all that different from their use on magnetic disks.
Of course, DRAM buffers on SSDs suffer the same problem as those on magnetic disks: cut the power and the data in the buffer is gone. And pending writes are not written, so it’s back to the pointy-haired boss’s office for you.
You can forget the RAID card trick of disabling the DRAM buffer and relying on the battery-backed RAID card’s DRAM. Try this and you will annihilate your SSD’s write lifetime in short order.
Supercapacitors are like batteries, but more awesome.
Supercapacitors can’t store nearly as much energy as a battery
That is perfectly okay for SSDs, however, as they don’t need to be on for very long to dump the contents of their DRAM cache into flash. Typically, they need to remain up for less than a second.
Supercapacitor-equipped SSDs are available from almost every SSD manufacturer out there, so there is absolutely no excuse not to be using them. If you have non-supercapacitor SSDs in service today, give some very serious thought to replacing them.
Tomi Engdahl says:
Intel Invests $6 Billion In Israel To Create Advanced Chip Manufacturing Facility
http://www.forbes.com/sites/greatspeculations/2014/09/23/intel-invests-6-billion-in-israel-to-create-advanced-chip-manufacturing-facility/
Earlier this week, leading PC chipmaker Intel got approval from Israel’s Finance and Economy Ministries to invest $6 billion in the remodeling and continued growth of its chip manufacturing plant in Kiryat Gat. This will be the single largest investment made by a foreign company in Israel to date, and post the upgrade the Intel plant will be among the most advanced chip manufacturing facilities in the world.
While Intel has yet to make an official announcement, the Israeli finance ministry believes the investment by the company will be used to manufacture its new advanced 10-nanometer (nm) chips.
Intel introduced its first 14nm Broadwell CPUs – Cortex M – at IFA Berlin, earlier this month.
Broadwell will be succeeded next year by the 14nm Skylake architecture, which in turn will give way to Cannonlake (based on 10nm).
It plans to offer the 10nm CPU by as early as 2016.
Tomi Engdahl says:
Power devices help maintain long battery life
http://edn.com/electronics-products/other/4434613/Power-devices-help-maintain-long-battery-life
Texas Instruments has introduced one of the industry’s smallest, lowest-power linear battery chargers, as well as two tiny integrated DC/DC power modules that consume only 360 nA of quiescent current to help extend battery run-time in wearable electronics, remote sensors, and MCU-based applications.
The bq25100 single-cell Li-ion charger comes in a 0.9×1.6-mm WCSP and achieves a design half the size of existing charger solutions. The device accommodates input voltages of up to 30 V and allows accurate control of fast-charge currents as low as 10 mA or as high as 250 mA. It also provides precise charge termination down to 1 mA to support tiny Li-ion coin batteries.
The bq25100 is shipping in volume production and costs $0.75 each in lots of 1000 units.
Tomi Engdahl says:
Design capacitive touch sensors in five easy steps–Part 1
http://edn.com/design/automotive/4435108/Design-Capacitive-Touch-Sensors-in-Five-Easy-Steps–Part-I
Tomi Engdahl says:
Ultra-low input bias current amplifier: Do we really need another one?
http://edn.com/electronics-products/electronic-product-reviews/other/4435082/Ultra-low-input-bias-current-amplifier–Do-we-really-need-another-one-
Tomi Engdahl says:
Digital transmission of analog signals through a long distance I2C bus
http://edn.com/design/analog/4434510/Digital-transmission-of-analog-signals-through-a-long-distance-I2C-bus
The Inter-Integrated Circuit Bus (I2C) is a synchronous serial data communication bus in which the master initiates the communication and the slaves are controlled by addressing. In the I2C bus, nodes are easily incorporated because there are only two signals to be connected (SDA for data and SCL for clock), which are open-drain lines. Therefore, it is expected that the capacitance in these lines is the main cause of limiting the transmission rate and distance between nodes
The PCA9605 is a monolithic CMOS integrated circuit for bus buffering in applications including I2C-bus. The buffer extends the bus load limit by buffering both the SCL and SDA lines, allowing the maximum permissible bus capacitance on both sides of the buffer.
Tomi Engdahl says:
New “Reflowable” Alternative to Traditional Thermal Protection
http://www.eeweb.com/company-blog/te_circuit_protection/new-reflowable-alternative-to-traditional-thermal-protection
This white paper discusses the features of a thermal protection device. Thermal events in components can endanger the component and the user. Which is why, a thermal protection device is designed to minimize or eliminate the dangers of thermal events.
Most industrial and consumer equipment now incorporates thermal protection devices to improve reliability and safety and to prevent damage resulting from overheating. The heat generated by resistive and inductive loads, power capacitors, and current drivers to MOSFETs, switches and relays presents significant challenges to engineers charged with designing in reliable, safe thermal management.
Thermal fuses typically contain a component that is temperature sensitive, such as a low-temperature alloy or a plastic/wax pellet, and which holds a spring contact mechanism. The device is normally closed and open when activated at a given maximum, or trip, temperature. These devices are also non-resettable and must be replaced after they trip.
TE Circuit Protection has developed a surface mount thermal protection device that is pick/place compatible and can be designed in and reflowed on a PCB, utilizing standard surface mount lead (Pb)-free reflow manufacturing processes over a broad range of device activation temperatures.
Max DC open voltage 32V and interrupt current 100-200A.
Tomi Engdahl says:
PolyZen devices on Portable Electronics
http://www.eeweb.com/company-blog/te_circuit_protection/polyzen-devices-on-portable-electronics
This application note stresses the most common system failure, the charger-induced system failure. With the use of unauthorized charging systems, device attached to it is very prone to such system failure, and may cause further damage. In order to prevent such inconvenience, TE circuit protection designed PolyZen device for circuit protection.
Transient protection is especially critical when designing peripherals that may be powered off computer buses and automotive power buses. Automotive power buses are notoriously dirty. Although they are nominally 12V, they can range in normal operation from 8V to 16V. Still, battery currents can exceed 100 Amps and be stopped instantly via a relay or fuse, generating large inductive spikes on the bus and PolyZen devices are designed to help lock out inappropriate increasing voltage by five times or more.
Tomi Engdahl says:
Pick and Place Machines at Maker Faire
http://hackaday.com/2014/09/24/pick-and-place-machines-at-maker-faire/
A few years ago, every booth at a Maker Faire had a 3D printer. It didn’t matter if 3D printing was only tangental to the business, or even if the printer worked. 3D printers have finally jumped the shark
Pick and place machines. We couldn’t find many at the faire, and only Carbide Labs’ Pick and Paste machine was working on picking up small resistors and LEDs the entire faire. Carbide’s Pick and Paste machine is exactly what you would expect in a pick and place machine: it picks up components out of tapes and wells, orients them correctly, and plops them down on a board.
The killer feature for the Pick and Paste is its modular design.
Also at the faire was Tempo Automation. They’re in a pseudo-stealth mode right now
The only other pick and place machine at the faire was the Firepick Delta, one of the more popular projects on hackaday.io and one of fifty finalists for the Hackaday Prize.
Tomi Engdahl says:
If you can’t beat ‘em: Intel seeking stake in Chinese chipmaker Spreadtrum – report
Hopes to leapfrog Qualcomm in China mobile market
http://www.theregister.co.uk/2014/09/26/intel_spreadtrum_investment/
Ever eager to gain ground in the mobile chip market from such rivals as Broadcom and Qualcomm, Intel is reportedly considering a substantial investment in Chinese smartphone chipmaker Spreadtrum.
Reuters reports that Chipzilla is close to announcing a deal with the firm, citing anonymous sources. No specific figures have been leaked so far.
Tomi Engdahl says:
Intel Takes $1.5B, 20% Stake in China’s Tsinghua, To Market Intel Chips with Spreadtrum
http://blogs.barrons.com/techtraderdaily/2014/09/26/intel-takes-1-5b-20-stake-in-chinas-tsinghua-to-market-intel-chips-with-spreadtrum/
Confirming speculation yesterday morning by Chinese media and social networking outfit Tencent, chip giant Intel (INTC) said early Friday morning it will invest $1.5 billion for a 20% stake in a holding company established by the Chinese state-backed Tsinghua Holdings, owners of wireless chip maker Spreadtrum, and that it will work with the company to “expand the product offerings and adoption for Intel-based mobile devices in China and worldwide by jointly developing Intel Architecture and communications-based solutions for mobile phones.”
Intel will work with Spreadtrum to develop and sell so-called system-on-a-chip processors based on Intel’s instruction set architecture, for mobile phones, to be made available in the second half of next year.
Tomi Engdahl says:
AP Exclusive: Drones left out of air traffic plans
http://hosted.ap.org/dynamic/stories/U/US_NEXTGEN_DRONES?SITE=AP&SECTION=HOME&TEMPLATE=DEFAULT
WASHINGTON (AP) — Designers of the ambitious U.S. air traffic control system of the future neglected to take drones into account, raising questions about whether it can handle the escalating demand for the unmanned aircraft and predicted congestion in the sky.
“We didn’t understand the magnitude to which (drones) would be an oncoming tidal wave, something that must be dealt with, and quickly,” said Ed Bolton, the Federal Aviation Administration’s assistant administrator for NextGen, as the program is called.
Tomi Engdahl says:
ARM gives Internet of Things a piece of its mind – the Cortex-M7
32-bit core packs some DSP for VIP IoT CPU LOL
http://www.theregister.co.uk/2014/09/24/arm_cortex_m7/
ARM has had a look at the fridges, speakers and robots that use its Cortex-M series processor cores and decided they need a few maths lessons.
The Brit CPU designer has today revealed its new 32-bit Cortex-M7, which will sit at the top of its its microcontroller-grade family of cores in terms of performance. The previous cock-of-the-roost was the Cortex-M4.
The M7, we’re told, has twice the DSP power of the M4 by executing twice as many instructions simultaneously, and it also helps that the M7 can operate at a higher clock frequency than the M4.
DSP (digital signal processing) is particularly useful for efficiently juggling incoming streams of audio and video data, and performing fast motor control – better than a generic CPU core can manage.
More intelligent SoCs means less data flying back to base – since the microcontrollers can make more of their own decisions – which will result in simpler networks (and less information to intercept) but it’ll make the code on the cores more complex – and that means more bugs, potentially.
According to ARM’s benchmarking, the M7 achieves five CoreMark per MHz, or a 2,000 CoreMark score at 400MHz in a 40nm process at low power, if you run the code in tightly coupled memory. The M4 can hit 3.4 CoreMark per MHz,
Atmel, Freescale and ST Microelectronics have already snapped up licenses to pump out chips with M7 cores in the 90nm to 40nm process range; each core taking up a 0.1mm square of silicon, before the manufacturer whacks peripherals, control logic, power management, and so on, into a chip package.
These will join the 2.9 billion Cortex-M cores embedded in devices in 2013, ARM is keen to tell us, and 1.7 billion already out the door in the first six months of 2014. As well as comms and embedded tech, 14 per cent of the 2013 figure apparently ended up in payment cards, a world away from drones and the Internet of Things.
Tomi Engdahl says:
Samsung has more employees than Google, Apple, and Microsoft combined
And other fun facts about Samsung Electronics’ massive headcount.
http://arstechnica.com/gadgets/2014/09/samsung-has-more-employees-than-google-apple-and-microsoft-combined/
Samsung loves “big.” Its phones are big, its advertising budget is big, and as you’ll see below, its employee headcount is really big, too. Samsung has more employees than Apple, Google, and Microsoft combined
At 275,000 employees, Samsung (just Samsung Electronics) is the size of five Googles! This explains Samsung’s machine-gun-style device output; the company has released around 46 smartphones and 27 tablets just in 2014.
Samsung Electronics and Sony Electronics are pretty comparable in terms of product range.
What is Samsung doing with all those people? Well, for starters, the company has a shocking number of software engineers: 40,506 as of 2013. That’s almost an entire Google’s-worth of people making software. Actually, consider that Google’s employee breakdown only lists 18,593 people in “research and development” (read: making software), and it seems Samsung has twice as many software engineers as Google. This army of software engineers is a fairly recent development for Samsung. The software headcount has grown 45 percent since 2011.
Everyone can name notable pieces of Google software, but Samsung’s “2x Google” software engineer headcount hasn’t created the same level of impact. There is, of course, Touchwiz and Samsung’s range of redundant Android ecosystem apps. The company has to port Android and Touchwiz to every new handset it makes, and when you release 70-ish devices every year and have to support everything for around two years, that’s a very big project.
Besides the usual Samsung Electronics product roster of phones, tablets, wearables, semiconductors, display panels, TVs, laptops, printers, cameras, home theaters, and home appliances, Samsung Group makes gigantic container ships, arctic ice breakers, self-propelled howitzers, credit cards, oil-refining plants, power plants, wind turbines, water treatment facilities, steel mills, life insurance, theme parks, ultrasound machines, X-ray scanners, Aperture Science-style robotic machine-gun sentries, and the world’s tallest skyscrapers (like the Burj Khalifa).
Samsung’s setup of companies within companies can lead to crazy situations like one part of Samsung Group buying another part of Samsung Group for billions of dollars.
Tomi Engdahl says:
Fairchild Reinvents Itself
Aims to keep up with key industry drivers
http://www.eetimes.com/document.asp?doc_id=1324102&
We already know that Fairchild Semiconductor International Inc. in San Jose, Calif., recently purchased the world’s most exalted MEMS motion tracking company, Xsens Technologies B.V. in Enschede, Netherlands — famous for its motion tracking suits used in the 20th Century Fox movie X-Men: First Class among many others. Also it is widely known that Fairchild is shutting down its five-inch fabs worldwide. However, few know the overall strategy and culture transformation Fairchild plans for its slimmed down lean-and-mean future.
Fairchild now aims to leverage its current expertise in devices, but modernize them into smart modules that, Fairchild hopes, will be irresistible to original equipment manufacturers (OEMs) building devices in three areas: for energy efficiency, mobility, and the cloud.
Those three areas — energy efficiency, mobility, and the cloud — all have in common the need to get greener, burn less power, and be smarter about how they manage the plethora of subsystems that make them work — all areas in which Fairchild has extensive experience.
Fairchild is aiming to only offer products in the future that they believe differentiate themselves from the crowded marketplace of energy efficiency, mobility and the cloud. “We are not going into any markets where we don’t have the ability to differentiate. We want to supply complete subsystems that enable cleaner, more energy efficient and smarter machines and gadgets,” Ullal said.
Tomi Engdahl says:
4 Reasons for Intel’s $1.5 Billion Bet in China
Chip firm to piggyback on China’s IC dream
http://www.eetimes.com/document.asp?doc_id=1324100&
Tomi Engdahl says:
MEMS Pioneer Raises $25M, Including Debt
http://www.eetimes.com/document.asp?doc_id=1324080&
SiTime Corp. of Sunnyvale, Calif., a pioneer of MEMS resonator devices as replacements for quartz timing devices, has announced it has closed a $25 million round of financing that includes a $15 million debt facility provided by Capital IP Investments Partners LLC (CapIP).
Other unnamed investors provided $10 million of equity investment.
Tomi Engdahl says:
Infineon’s Secret Weapon: Dresden Fab, 48V Car Battery
http://www.eetimes.com/document.asp?doc_id=1324075&
Talk to any automotive chip companies these days. Be it Infineon Technologies, Freescale, STMicroelectronics or NXP Semiconductors. They all share one common goal: Go get Renesas and grab major design-wins from leading Japanese carmakers, such as Toyota Motors.
Once impossible, closely working with Japan’s leading automakers is fast becoming a reality to some of non-Japanese automotive chip companies, because Renesas — the world’s No. 1 automotive chip vendor — has begun losing its grip in recent years.
Infineon, whose focus is on powertrain, safety and body in cars, has a broad automotive product portfolio. It ranges from power to MCUs and sensors. All in all, though, the German chip company is banking on its expertise in MCUs and power semiconductors to expand the company’s presence in the global automotive
48V systems proposed to meet CO2 emission goal
Clearly, “semiconductors are indispensable” for future cars to reach CO2 emission target, Hanebeck explained. Features such as dual clutch, tire pressure and start stop all demand the increased semiconductor content inside a car, which will in turn help internal combustion engine cars to reduce CO2 emissions to a certain degree.
Hanebeck explained that when using all the innovative technologies, small cars (with gasoline engine) could realize 90g/km CO2 emission by 2020 — meeting Europe’s 95g/km CO2 goal.
The bad news, though, is that neither medium nor luxury gasoline engine cars could meet the European CO2 emission target by 2020, he noted.
The question then becomes whether meeting the EU regulations means a majority of EU cars must go electric by 2020.
Hanebeck said that 48V battery systems could help bridge the gap between gasoline engine cars and plug-in hybrids.
Although the 48V system market “remains small today,” it will prove to be an effective solution for volume cars, he added.
Tomi Engdahl says:
Ignore Marketing at Your Own Peril
http://www.eetimes.com/author.asp?section_id=36&doc_id=1324088&
With less investment money available in the semiconductor industry these days, startups have abandoned some of the tried and true elements of marketing used to create widespread awareness and build visibility. Instead, they’re focused on engineering and sales. Marketing the company is viewed as a luxury and takes a back seat. The strategy is to delay any marketing while building revenue from initial customers.
It wasn’t always this way. When semiconductor startups were trendy and well-funded, marketing had a cache of programs to position the company. Many of the savvier startups took a one-two approach to launching themselves and their products.
First came the company rollout that seeded the market with the company’s positioning. The corporate news release included high-level positioning and salient facts, such as investors, board members, and key staff members.
Anywhere from two to six months later the company’s first product was rolled out. Between these two points, trade and online publications often published commentaries and technical articles contributed by the company to set the stage for the product launch. The wave of announcements continued, and the industry was conditioned to see customer-adoption news releases and, perhaps, news on the health of the company through year-end releases reporting growth.
Obviously, the world has changed, with many companies being bootstrapped, lacking the resources for this proven marketing strategy. Scarce funds are now reserved for product development and sales. Customer support, news releases, articles, whitepapers, and case studies are still valued.
The main motivation for rollout campaigns is no longer the articles they might generate in online publications, but the fresh information they bring to a company’s website and the boost they provide search engine optimization (SEO) results. Blogging and social media are now essential components of a balanced marketing strategy.
I contend, however, that the two-phase strategy still makes sense. In fact, there’s no reason not to implement it in a well-conceived, cost-effective marketing program employing a variety of elements including SEO, blogging, and social media.
Marketing is an important element of growth and the most significant means of building brand identity. Don’t neglect it.
Tomi Engdahl says:
Cortex-M7 Launches: Embedded, IoT and Wearables
by Stephen Barrett on September 23, 2014 7:01 PM EST
http://www.anandtech.com/show/8542/cortexm7-launches-embedded-iot-and-wearables
Tomi Engdahl says:
Internet of Stuff: Chip rivals try to stop Cortex-M7 from flexing ARM’s muscle
Processors, microcontrollers start to collide
http://www.theregister.co.uk/2014/09/29/processors_and_mcus_start_to_collide_in_iot_as_arms_m7_shows/
The Internet of Things (IoT) is growing an estimated five times more quickly than the overall embedded processing market, so it’s no wonder chip suppliers are flocking to fit out connected cars, home gateways, wearables and streetlights as quickly as they can.
However, the sector is so new that there is considerable uncertainty about the precise capabilities which will be required, and new bars are set in critical areas like performance:power consumption ratios all the time.
For chip providers, the IoT presents a huge variety of target devices, but also presents the challenge of balancing the massive volume potential of low end “things” and sensors, with the higher prices and margins of full processors.
The launch of Quark saw Intel firmly staying at the high end of the IoT, with an architecture which drove down power consumption to ARM-like levels, but retained the level of processing power needed for products like gateways. The giant will probably not venture into the low end of the embedded space, where 8-bit and 16-bit microcontrollers (MCUs) still rule, rather than 32-bit platforms like Cortex-M7, but that does not mean the low end is not growing.
In quite large percentages of those projected billions of IoT devices, the very basic circuits – ultra-low power and with simple wireless connectivity – will always suffice, because many IoT devices will not need a full TCP/IP stack or IPv6, which are the big drivers behind 32-bit, and it is still easier to drive power levels right down with an 8-bit architecture.
Companies continue to develop 8-bit MCUs around the venerable 8051 core,
They can’t all consume 1W because we don’t have enough energy, so they need to consume microWatts and they need to be inexpensive.
Generally, though, there is a trend for more performance at the edge, so the challenge is to bring 8-bit power efficiency levels to bigger architectures. To the delight of chipmakers, the IoT is re-placing one chip with several in many instances – for instance, an Cortex-M0+ sensor hub coupled with a Cortex-M4 or –M7 doing the apps processing. And standalone MCUs will increasingly be superseded by SoCs integrating more memory and peripherals.
And the need to IP-enable devices, and to increase their intelligence, means that much of the innovation is going into the overlap territory between souped-up 32-bit microcontrollers like ARM’s, and low power microprocessors and SoCs with full operating systems.
ARM, as an IP supplier, does not need to make a firm choice. It needs only to ensure it covers every possible option customers might choose when planning their silicon.
Tomi Engdahl says:
Fuse allows safe charging of smart phones and tablets
http://edn.com/electronics-products/other/4435176/Fuse-allows-safe-charging-of-smart-phones-and-tablets?_mc=NL_EDN_EDT_EDN_productsandtools_20140929&cid=NL_EDN_EDT_EDN_productsandtools_20140929&elq=1372d21da20449e29769a8c1841b878e&elqCampaignId=19362
The 777 series axial-lead fuse from Littelfuse withstands up to 24 hits of 7.5-kV ring-wave surge to protect higher-wattage wall-mount chargers for battery-powered electronic equipment from catastrophic failures and from causing safety hazards.
Its filter material provides a finely tuned balance between the surge tolerance necessary to prevent nuisance fuse tripping with the fuse’s ability to open safely when a short-circuit occurs.
The epoxy-coated fuse opens safely on a direct short condition without producing soot, sparks, and sounds. Device specifications include a current rating of 1.25 A, a voltage rating of 250 V, and an interrupt rating of 50 A at 250 VAC.
Tomi Engdahl says:
Tiny snap domes withstand 10 million cycles
http://edn.com/electronics-products/other/4435197/Tiny-snap-domes-withstand-10-million-cycles
SQ-Series tactile dome switches from Snaptron are square in shape and have four ball-shaped feet, a design that enables them to be durable and reliable, while maintaining good tactile feel. The devices are rated for 10 million cycles, which is twice that of Snaptron’s typical standard domes and as much as 10 times that of other manufacturers’ tactile dome switches.
Tomi Engdahl says:
MAX10 broadens the FPGA field
http://edn.com/electronics-products/electronic-product-reviews/other/4435186/MAX10-broadens-the-FPGA-field
Altera’s MAX series used to be branded as CPLDs, even though – except for the original MAX3000 series – they have always used an FPGA fabric internally. With the advent of larger and more capable devices in the MAX10 family, the series is now being marketed as FPGAs. And as you’ll see, FPGAs with some unique differentiators.
The MAX series is considered to be flash-based, though the exact definition of this has changed. Earlier versions were true flash-based devices, whereas the most recent parts (MAX10 included) have on-chip flash configuration memory that is quickly copied to the SRAM configuration cells in the FPGA array on power-up. This happens in under 10ms on the MAX10, so it is essentially instant-on like a pure flash device.
A unique attribute of MAX10 is the inclusion of two flash configurators on-chip. Altera’s main goal here is to support failsafe remote configuration updates, but presumably, enterprising users could find other uses, like instantly changing the behaviour of the chip.
Another feature making this series unique is the inclusion of up to two 12-bit 1MSa/s ADCs (including mux, S/H, and a temperature sensor).
Device sizes will range from a utilitarian 2kLE to a substantial 50kLE, with 8kLE being the first size available – today. Performance is similar to the Cyclone IV series, meaning a NiosII 32-bit processor can run at 100MHz. Production quantities of the smallest device are expected to start at about $1.50, and chip-scale packaging will get you down to 32mm.
Tomi Engdahl says:
Package Converter Compliments Chip Obsolescence
http://techonline.com/electrical-engineers/education-training/tech-papers/4413077/Package-Converter-Compliments-Chip-Obsolescence?_mc=NL_TOL_EDT_TOL_featuredtechpapers_20141001&cid=NL_TOL_EDT_TOL_featuredtechpapers_20141001
The Semiconductor industry enabling today’s electronics market place is widely disseminated between multiple customer factions such as consumer electronics, telecommunications, automotive, medical devices, military, aerospace, industrial controls, embedded computing and other industries. A component’s life cycle for each industry varies drastically from 6 months to 10 years.
capital equipment, and new materials for next generation devices every two years.
Tomi Engdahl says:
All About Batteries, Part 11: Lithium Sulfur (LiS)
http://www.eetimes.com/author.asp?section_id=36&doc_id=1324114&
Tomi Engdahl says:
Electronic Brain by 2023
E.U.’s Human Brain Project ramps up
http://www.eetimes.com/document.asp?doc_id=1324121&
Like a Manhattan Project, resources are coming together for the big push to simulate the human brain. Personnel on European Union (EU)’s Human Brain Project reported their progress toward the primary directive — an artificial brain by 2023 — at the annual HBP Summit at the University of Heidelberg in Germany, yesterday, September 29.
The 10-year-long Human Brain Project, funded to the tune of $1 billion euro (US$1.3 billion) by the European Commission Future and Emerging Technologies as one of its “Flagship Programs,” aims to simulate the entire human brain on supercomputers first, then build a special hardware emulator that will reproduce its functions so accurately that diseases and their cures can be tried out on it. Ultimately, the long-term goal is to build artificial brains that are inexpensive enough to outperform traditional von Neuman supercomputers at a fraction of the cost.
Tomi Engdahl says:
Robots Confront Safety Standards
http://www.eetimes.com/document.asp?doc_id=1324141&
An army of more user-friendly robots is headed for the factory floor, but they may have to climb over cumbersome safety regulations, according to two pioneers in the field speaking at a workshop
“There’s a big market for automating small companies,” said Esben Ostergaard, chief technologist at Universal Robots, a Danish company now selling as many as 150 robots a month.
Safety regulations that demand multi-page risk assessments and complex danger mitigation schemes threaten progress, he said. He compared today’s safety standards to an 1861 law in England that required all cars to have a person walk in front of them carrying a red flag.
“We can’t have systems that are so safe they are useless,” he said, noting existing and pending ISO standards. “Our take on safety is it’s a moving target.”
“Using our safety strategy we will never get to [robots capable of moving] a meter a second with 40kg, so there are limitations on what can be done,” said Rodney Brooks, founder and chief technologist of Rethink Robotics.
Nevertheless, the new crop of robots will overtake traditional systems despite today’s stringent safety standards, Brooks said. “Companies using regulation to resist change will be swept away… Resisting change to protect an existing business is a losing strategy.”
Tomi Engdahl says:
Low-cost 8-bit PICs gain analog blocks for capacitive touch
http://www.edn.com/electronics-products/other/4435373/Low-cost-8-bit-PICs-gain-analog-blocks-for-capacitive-touch?elq=bd3b5c6a138849df8f020f0a0974cc87&elqCampaignId=19399
Microchip’s 8-bit MCU family has been augmented with with the PIC16LF1554 and PIC16LF1559 (PIC16LF1554/9) devices. The PIC16LF1554/9 includes two independent 10-bit 100 ksamples per second ADCs with hardware capacitive voltage divider (CVD) support for capacitive-touch sensing. This ADC configuration enables more efficient sensor acquisition and assists with advanced touch-sensing techniques for extremely noisy environments, low-power applications, matrix keypads and water-resistant designs.
The 14- and 20-pin PIC16LF1554/9 MCUs combine up to 17 ADC channels with automated hardware CVD modules to implement capacitive sensing and other front-end sampling applications with minimal software overhead. In particular, the hardware CVD reduces the code for implementing capacitive touch-sensing by more than 40%.
Tomi Engdahl says:
News & Analysis
FDA’s Device Approvals Come Under Fire, Again
http://www.eetimes.com/document.asp?doc_id=1324157&
A recent study concludes that most medical devices cleared via the FDA’s 510(k) and PMA processes lack sufficient evidence to show they are safe and effective. The report, which was published in JAMA Internal Medicine, concluded that 42 of the 50 medical devices studied did not have sufficient data backing their use.
In 2011, the Institute of Medicine (IOM) reached a similar conclusion regarding the FDA’s 510(k) process, which is used to clear the vast majority of non-Class I medical devices in the United States. The IOM argued that the 510(k) process was so problematic that it should be scrapped entirely and replaced with a new regulatory framework.
The US regulatory approval process has come under fire from all sides in recent years. The process is too slow and inefficient, according to industry sources. Many medical devices designed and developed in the United States are commercialized in Europe and elsewhere several years before they hit the market here. Meanwhile, patient advocates claim that the FDA’s process clearing/approving devices is dangerous. In 2012, Consumer Reports released a report alleging that most medical implants are not sufficiently tested.
“A lot of these are high-risk devices that get on the market with no studies at all,”
Tomi Engdahl says:
Wearables & IoT Boom Creates Supply Chain Challenges
http://www.eetimes.com/author.asp?section_id=36&doc_id=1324123&
Entrepreneurial designers are creating new ideas for wearable and connected devices daily. Consumers are racing to support their Kickstarter campaigns. Unfortunately, many brilliant ideas are killed when it comes time to move from prototype to full-scale manufacturing.
“The barriers to entry are low in the wearables market, because the parts exist,”
At the same time, the crowdfunding community is pushing back on designers to make sure they’ve considered manufacturing and procurement issues. “One of the major challenges that crowdfunding sites have run into is that a product idea will go on the site, get funded, and then run into problems with manufacturing,”
Tomi Engdahl says:
Samsung Shows 14nm Chip
http://www.eetimes.com/document.asp?doc_id=1324165&
Samsung showed a working 14nm FinFET device at the ARM Tech Con here. However the Korean giant would not provide details of the chip, any of its customers for the process, or the status of the process.
Samsung has multiple customers now using the early version of its 14nm FinFET process, however none has agreed to be named yet. The process is fully qualified and in production, but Samsung declined to comment on its yields or volumes.
The news comes one day after rival TSMC’s annual event here, in which partners gave multiple papers on working with TSMC’s 16nm FinFET process. “We are locked in a huge race” to 16/14nm FinFET production, said Kelvin Low, a foundry marketing manager for Samsung.
TSMC claimed at its event its 16nm FinFET process can drive a 64-bit ARM Cortex A57 core to 2.6 GHz, according to an Intel representative at ARM Tech Con. Samsung declined to provide any specifics on parts made in its 14nm FinFET process.
Tomi Engdahl says:
ARM Partners Explore M7 Horizon
http://www.eetimes.com/document.asp?doc_id=1324164&
ARM partners gathered here to discuss new use cases for the recently announced Cortex-M7, which promises performance of 5 CoreMark/MHz and 2.14 DMIPs/MHz. Freescale is one of several early ARM partners deploying the M7 in its SoCs; others include Atmel.
“The types of products that roll out around these processor cores are going to be significantly different, and it’s going to be pretty clear when you would use an M4 versus an M7 product,” Freescale global product marketing manager Steve Tateosian said during a panel discussion at Arm TechCon, held here.
“With that performance, it allows the users of the devices to focus on value-added applications rather than fine-tuning their code. You’re able to spend more time in a rich design environment designing features into your application rather than worrying about performance,” said Ian Johnson, senior product manager at ARM.
The Cortex-M7 also jumped out to these partners for its memory interface and cost efficient memory expansion with high DSP performance that is optimal for audio applications.
“Entry-level audio applications that were traditionally done on DSP could then be done on microcontroller,” Paul Beckmann, founder and CEO of DSP Concepts, said of the M4. “With M7, ARM is getting very close to achieving the performance of the DSP.”
Tomi Engdahl says:
Intel Leads Non-iPad Tablet Processor Market
http://www.eetimes.com/document.asp?doc_id=1324161&
Intel, which has been striving to get processor design wins in mobile devices, has made progress in the tablet computer market, rising to No. 2 among suppliers behind Apple in the second quarter, according to the market analysis company Strategy Analytics.
The global market for tablet computer applications processors grew by 23% from a year earlier to reach $945 million, the firm said. For comparison, the smartphone application processor market grew 22% to reach $5.2 billion.
Apple maintained its leading position and market share at 26%, followed by Intel with 19% and Qualcomm with 17%. Behind them came MediaTek and Samsung. This gives Intel the leading position in non-iPad tablet computers. Strategy Analytics said that this position is a difficult one to maintain, and that six companies have held it at various times.
“The non-Apple tablet AP market leadership position continues to change hands and during Q2 2014 it was Intel’s turn,”
Tomi Engdahl says:
The semiconductor market is growing in size this year to a new record.
Gartner has revised its market forecast upward and now predicts 7.2 percent growth.
A few months ago, Gartner predicted that the market will grow this year by 6.7 per cent. Manufacturers, however, are prepared to already record-breaking holiday season, so the district sales have picked up significantly.
Most of this year will increase the DRAM sales (26.3 per cent). A total of DRAM chips will be sold to 44.1 billion dollars, or 35 billion euros. On the other hand memory market is declining quarter in 2016, a research institute to predict.
Source: http://etn.fi/index.php?option=com_content&view=article&id=1861:puolijohteissa-mennaan-uuteen-ennatykseen&catid=13&Itemid=101
Tomi Engdahl says:
Apple eating a quarter of the DRAM capacity
Apple’s new products will suck next year, 25 per cent of the mobile type of SDRAM memory capacity. This is the forecast DRAM market next Dram Exchange.
The new iPhone 6 and iPhone 6 Plus models are DramExchangen as just a prelude. Apple fans are waiting for the water in the future Air iPad 2 and MacBook Pro -läppärin the new version. Both make use of low-voltage LPDDR3 memory for the first time.
At the moment Apple is using 16.5 percent of mobile devices tailored LP-memory capacity. The new iPhone models used in the American Micron’s one gigabyte LPDDR3 circuit. Micron’s DRAM production 70-80 percent goes to Apple’s devices.
Source: http://etn.fi/index.php?option=com_content&view=article&id=1846:applen-syo-neljanneksen-dram-kapasiteetista&catid=13&Itemid=101
Tomi Engdahl says:
Mobile memory speeds up 2016
JEDEC recently adopted new mobile devices, the SDRAM standard. JESD209-4 defines a technique for DDR4 bus is brought smartphones. IHS Research Institute believes that DDR4 will be smartphones number one memory in 2016. Large memory manufacturers have already introduced the first LPDDR4-memory.
The current smart phones the fastest memory is DDR3-type. IHS that this was never intended for mobile devices even bring, but the smartphone memory bus speed increased the need for unexpectedly quickly a few years ago.
Source: http://etn.fi/index.php?option=com_content&view=article&id=1857:kannykan-muisti-nopeutuu-2016&catid=13&Itemid=101
Tomi Engdahl says:
Samsung expects sales boost from Apple chip deal
http://www.zdnet.com/samsung-expects-sales-boost-from-apple-chip-deal-7000034269/
Summary: Samsung’s chip boss said supplying its 14-nanometre FinFet chips to Apple will boost its financials greatly, reports ZDNet Korea’s Cho Mu-hyun.
Kim Ki-nam, president of the Korean electronic giant’s semiconductor business and head of System LSI business, told reporters at Samsung’s headquarters in Seoul that once the company begins to supply Apple with chips using its latest technology, profits “will improve positively”.
Samsung is expected to start producing application processors (APs) for clients such as Apple, Qualcomm, and AMD, using its 14-nanometre process around the end of the year.
Kim declined to comment on when Samsung will start mass producing said chips for clients.
The Suwon, Korea-based tech giant is one of the two contract makers, the other being Taiwan’s TSMC, for Apple’s A8 processor that goes into the iPhone 6 and iPhone 6 Plus. The A8 is currently being made using 20-nanometre processes.
Out of the total volume of A8 chips, Samsung is producing around 30 percent, while TSMC is making 70 percent, sources familiar with the matter said.
Tomi Engdahl says:
ARM Calls for ‘Invisible’ Technology
http://www.eetimes.com/document.asp?doc_id=1324181&
Successful technology will be invisible, ARM CEO Simon Segars said in his keynote address at ARM TechCon here. While the physical size of silicon is ever shrinking, connectivity, performance, and efficiency need to be even less visible to consumers.
“We’re going to see more and more connected devices with more and more powerful embedded processers within them, with really sophisticated software,” he said. “We should take it upon ourselves to make sure that we continue to do a great job of hiding away the complexity, hiding these components and what they do… so we continue to get a great adoption rate.”
Manufacturers must create abstractions, such as software-defined networks, to allow quicker development of hardware and services. Increased abstraction will reduce complexity and deliver more efficient systems, which will aid in the development of compelling consumer applications.
Segars said the approach will be increasingly important as the Internet of Things expands. He cited ARM’s mbed platform as one of the ways the company is involved in integrated development.
Tomi Engdahl says:
ARMv8 Goes Embedded with Applied Micro’s HeliX SoCs
by Ganesh T S on October 3, 2014 10:00 AM EST
http://www.anandtech.com/show/8588/armv8-goes-embedded-with-applied-micros-helix-socs
We covered the news of the first shipment of 64-bit ARMv8 processors in the HP Moonshot product line earlier this week. At ARM TechCon 2014, Applied Micro (APM) had a very interesting update to their 64-bit ARM v8 product line. They launched two SoC families, HeliX 1 and HeliX 2. Both of them are based on the X-Gene ARMv8 cores developed for servers, but appropriately scaled down to fit in the 8 W – 42 W TDP scenarios for the embedded market. The HeliX 1 is fabricated in a 40 nm process, while the HeliX 2 uses a 28 nm process. The latter uses the second generation X-Gene ARMv8 core
Applied Micro has traditionally been a PowerPC house.
APM is hoping to get HeliX into the embedded market, with focus on communication and networking, imaging, storage and industrial computing verticals. They believe ARMv8 is the architecture of the future and had a number of companies (including Cisco, Netgear, Konica Minolta, Wind River and Canonical) voicing support for their strategy.
The two SoC product lines launched by APM yesterday were the APM887208-H1 (based on HeliX 1) and the APM887104-H2 (based on HeliX 2).
Tomi Engdahl says:
Massachusetts Institute of Technology researchers may have solved the biggest challenge for solar electricity. They have developed a technology which could capture the entire spectrum of sunlight to generate electricity.
STPV (solar thermophtovoltaics) is a new type of solar cell structure. In the normal light and the solar panel must be placed between the membrane which first convert the sunlight into heat. This causes the material to glow and emit light which can be converted into electric current.
MIT developed the material sucks just the right wavelengths from ultraviolet to visible light and near infrared.
MIT researchers, the new material sits nicely on existing semiconductor manufacturing methods, and it can be prepared by standard discs, up to 300-millimeter.
Source: http://etn.fi/index.php?option=com_content&view=article&id=1873:mit-lapimurto-aurinkosahkossa&catid=13&Itemid=101
Tomi Engdahl says:
Chinese Instrument Maker Opens North American Office
http://www.eetimes.com/document.asp?doc_id=1324185&
Siglent Technologies, a maker of bench and handheld oscilloscopes, waveform generators, power supplies, and multimeters, has opened its first North American office. Located in Solon, Ohio
Solon, a suburb of Cleveland, has a long history of being home to test-equipment companies. Keithley Instruments is based there as is Andeen-Hagerling, a maker of high-end capacitance meters. Solon was also home to Rigol’s US operations until the company moved to Beaverton, Oregon, home of Tektronix. Solon was once the home of IOtech.
http://www.siglent.com/ENs/
Tomi Engdahl says:
Cheap Solar Absorbs Entire Spectrum
http://www.eetimes.com/document.asp?doc_id=1324194&
The biggest problem with photovoltaic (PV) panels may have been solved by researchers at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT). Today, the most efficient solar panels use expensive multi-junctions, each of which capture a different part of the solar spectrum, but not all of it.
MIT’s solution is to put an intervening material between the sun and a normal infrared PV panel. This designer material absorbs the entire solar spectrum, reflects light outside the solar spectrum, and glows infrared (heat) with the total power absorbed from the sun. MIT calls it solar thermophtovoltaics (STPVs).
The team’s material should technically be called a planar photonic crystal, since it is not actually a 2D monolayer, but is studded with rings the width of which determine the spectrum of light they absorb. The researchers, however, insist on calling it a 2D material because planar dimensions, not it thickness, determines its advantageous properties.
Regardless of definitions, the planar periodic photonic crystal can be tuned across the entire spectrum of solar energy, and naturally reflects any wavelengths outside that spectrum.
Tomi Engdahl says:
Get 20 Takes on ARM Tech Con
http://www.eetimes.com/document.asp?doc_id=1324199&
Tomi Engdahl says:
Get 20 Takes on ARM Tech Con
http://www.eetimes.com/document.asp?doc_id=1324199&
“Remember it began here today,” said Tom Bradicich, vice president of server engineering at Hewlett-Packard, pointing to the first 64-bit ARM server cartridge the company announced it is shipping.
Jim Ang, of Sandia National Labs (below), made a brief appearance on stage. A Sandia group that tests all alternative server architectures shared some results of its work since March on the HP Proliant m400, which uses the Applied Micro X-Gene SoC. Ang said so far, “Our initial testing has shown good performance scaling.”
Applied Micro set up side-by-side live demos of its current 40nm and next-generation 28nm X-Gene SoC against Intel Ivy Bridge and Haswell Xeon processors. It claims all its chips beat all of Intel’s in the number of requests per second, latency, and throughput.
the next generation of ARM SoCs are clearly up and running on 28nm processes sporting more cores.
Carol Basset, a Moonshot product manager at HP (above), showed her baby on the exhibit floor — the X-Gene cartridge that packs 64 Gbytes RAM and two 10 Gbit/s Ethernet ports. The chassis holds up to 48 of the cards along with two switch boards using Mellanox Ethernet switches.
Separately, Applied showed a small cluster-in-a-box running OpenStack open source cloud software.
At least two other 64-bit ARM server players are on their way. On the show floor, AMD showed a server using its Seattle SoC (above) running Java, Hadoop, and OpenStack on versions of Red Hat and Suse Linux.
Meanwhile, Cavium is gearing up its 28nm ARM server SoC, delivering even more custom cores than Applied’s X-Gene. But the ThunderX chip has not even taped out yet
Clearly both the silicon and software for ARM servers are making progress. But real market impact still seems to be at least a year away.
Dell showed a prototype server using up to two Applied X-Gene SoCs. The system packs up to 48 TBytes hard disk storage and runs Hadoop.
Samsung grabbed headlines at the event showing a working mobile applications processor — or at least a part of one — made with its 14nm FinFET process decoding high def video on OLED and LCD screens.
Sources at the show said TSMC and Samsung are in a neck-and-neck race to see who will be first to deliver such a process.
Globalfoundries aims to “copy exact” the Samsung 14nm process in its Saratoga, NY fab. Separately, ARM announced a tool to help designers more easily build power grids on FinFETs.
STMicroelectronics won a best-of-show award for its F7 chip, one of several new SoCs using ARM’s new Cortex-M7 core
ARM showed 37 development boards already using its free Mbed OS
Details of ARM’s Mbed code are a work in progress. For example, it uses a proprietary implementation of Transport Layer Security from a partner to be named soon. It will implement at least the general concepts of the kind of hardware-backed security used in its TrustZone
Tomi Engdahl says:
ARMv8 Goes Embedded with Applied Micro’s HeliX SoCs
by Ganesh T S on October 3, 2014 10:00 AM EST
http://www.anandtech.com/show/8588/armv8-goes-embedded-with-applied-micros-helix-socs
At ARM TechCon 2014, Applied Micro (APM) had a very interesting update to their 64-bit ARM v8 product line. They launched two SoC families, HeliX 1 and HeliX 2. Both of them are based on the X-Gene ARMv8 cores developed for servers, but appropriately scaled down to fit in the 8 W – 42 W TDP scenarios for the embedded market. The HeliX 1 is fabricated in a 40 nm process, while the HeliX 2 uses a 28 nm process. The latter uses the second generation X-Gene ARMv8 core.