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:
Stop Trying to Judge CES
http://www.wired.com/gadgetlab/2014/01/the-end-of-ces/
“This is just a phone. That is just a TV. They both have screens and buttons. Yawn. You’re excited about it? How embarrassing for you. Brands, lol.” If you’ve been on the internet lately, you’ve probably come across that sentiment a lot. Especially in reference to CES.
We’re in a moment of backlash against technology. Look around: There is heavy skepticism everywhere. Some of this is due to the NSA’s shenanigans, and some is due to the excesses of the technology industry itself. But much more of it is simple burnout. Casual boredom, borne of amazement fatigue.
No wonder; it’s been a long time since we saw a really incredible, all-new consumer device like the iPhone. (I hate typing that as much as you hate reading it.) Sure, phones and tablets and televisions get better every year, but in doing so inexorably, they’ve lost the ability to wow. This is especially true of phones. We’ve pretty much nailed the form factor. The cameras are fantastic. Processors are fast. They’re all so good that we sent four reporters to CES with four phones on four different platforms and asked them to cover the show using nothing else. And it worked, mostly.
Tomi Engdahl says:
CES 2014: What we saw, what we loved, and what we’ll remember
Wearables, cars, Linux, Android, games, and the people behind the craziness.
http://arstechnica.com/gadgets/2014/01/ces-2014-what-we-saw-what-we-loved-and-what-well-remember/
It seems like companies in the auto industry turned CES into their own tech show this year, putting a whole new spin on “mobile device apps” with their developer programs and their embrace of Web standards and open source.
It’s not unreasonable to feel cynical about CES. As a predictor of future trends, it has a notoriously poor track record. The biggest companies have scaled back their presence or pulled out entirely, opting to create their own media events where they don’t have to compete with other show-induced noise. Even the ideas that may have legs—the seemingly inevitable rise of the 4K TV and the encroaching mess of wearable tech—probably won’t be adopted widely in the forms seen at the show.
CES has always been the land of televisions, laptops, and smart home vaporware; it’s not a place where any company’s mobile division really goes crazy with new stuff. Samsung showed off its line of “Pro” tablets, but they aren’t terribly different from existing hardware like the Note 10.1. The smartphone-focused Mobile World Congress is next month, and that’s where most of this year’s early smartphone news will be made until Samsung starts with the Galaxy S5 hype train in Q2. The most important announcement was probably Google’s Open Automotive Alliance, a project that will bring Android-powered car computers to market at some point in the distant future. It was only an announcement, though. No one had anything to show off.
The car industry has finally woken up to the smartphone revolution, and this year it seems like all the manufacturers have decided they want to somehow merge the smartphone with the car infotainment system. Can a bunch of software newbies really make a good car computer? Can they make a “smart” car without it being extremely distracting to the driver? Does anyone actually want to use their in-dash computer when they have a newer, faster, more capable cell phone in their pocket?
Wearables were a common topic, as so many of 2013′s wearables failed to actually deliver on the experiences they had promised. The “Internet of things” still doesn’t have very many things.
Tomi Engdahl says:
CES 2014: behind the scenes
http://www.theverge.com/2014/1/12/5301522/ces-2014-behind-the-scenes
Tomi Engdahl says:
DO YOU REALLY THINK MCDONALDS WILL BE PAYING BURGER FLIPPERS $15 PER HOUR?
http://www.theburningplatform.com/2014/01/12/do-you-really-think-mcdonalds-will-be-paying-burger-flippers-15-per-hour/
Meet the Robot That Makes 360 Gourmet Burgers Per Hour
The San Francisco-based robotics company debuted its burger-preparing machine last year. It can whip up hundreds of burgers an hour, take custom orders, and it uses top-shelf ingredients for its inputs. Now Momentum is proposing a chain of ‘smart restaurants’ that eschew human cooks altogether.
“Fast food doesn’t have to have a negative connotation anymore. With our technology, a restaurant can offer gourmet quality burgers at fast food prices. Our alpha machine replaces all of the hamburger line cooks in a restaurant. It does everything employees can do except better.”
Tomi Engdahl says:
[Bunnie]‘s Open Source Laptop Is Ready For Production
http://hackaday.com/2014/01/12/bunnies-open-source-laptop-is-ready-for-production/
Just over a year ago, [Bunnie Huang] announced he was working on a very ambitious personal project: a completely open source laptop. Now, with help from his hardware hacker compatriot [xobs], this laptop named Novena is nearly complete.
Furthermore, this laptop is designed for both security and hardware hacking. Two Ethernet ports (one 1Gbit and the second 100Mbit), a USB OTG port, and a Spartan 6 FPGA put this laptop in a class all by itself. The main board includes 8x analog inputs, 8x digital I/O ports, 8 PWM pins, and a Raspberry Pi-compatible header for some real hardware hackery.
As for the specs of the laptop, they’re respectable for a high-end tablet. The CPU is a Freescale iMX6, a quad-core ARM Cortex-A9 running at 1.2 GHz.
Despite the high price and relatively low performance (compared to i7 laptop) of [Bunnie]‘s laptop, there has been a lot of interest in spinning a few thousand boards and sending them off to be pick and placed.
Tomi Engdahl says:
Solid-state devices were sold last year for $ 317.9 billion, which was slightly less than 232 billion euros. IHS Research Institute, the reading is 4.9 per cent higher than the year 2012.
IHS suggest the growth of the market is primarily based on the development of a good dram and flash memories. DRAM chip sales grew last year by 35 and flash circuits by 27.7 per cent.
Source: Elektroniikkalehti
http://www.elektroniikkalehti.fi/index.php?option=com_content&view=article&id=806:ihs-muistit-kasvun-moottorina&catid=13&Itemid=101
Tomi Engdahl says:
Intel put $ 5 billion chip plant in ice, will focus on “the future of technology”
Intel has announced a pungent new Fab 42 chip plant in the plans on ice. The state of Arizona, in Chandler’s production premises are to be used for an undetermined “future technology” development.
The company said in February 2011 that it will invest in the facility up to $ 5 billion. Late last year, completed the plant had to focus on the 14-nanometer line width of manufactured chips.
Notice may be associated with PC market in poor condition. Equipment deliveries in 2013 fell by 10 per cent over the previous year. Sales have been in a downturn for seven quarters in a row.
Source: Tietoviikko
http://www.tietoviikko.fi/kaikki_uutiset/intel+pisti+5+miljardin+dollarin+sirutehtaansa+jaihin+keskittyy+quottulevaisuuden+tekniikkaanquot/a959648
Tomi Engdahl says:
Throw Your Jams In The Air: Morphing Robotic Hands Have Arrived
http://www.popsci.com/blog-network/zero-moment/throw-your-jams-air-morphing-robotic-hands-have-arrived?dom=PSC&loc=recent&lnk=1&con=IMG
Tomi Engdahl says:
Micron: Hot DRAM. We don’t need no steenkin’ PCM
How 3D saved us from the Incredible Shrinking NAND
http://www.theregister.co.uk/2014/01/14/phase_change_micron_drops_phase_change_memory_products/
Micron has reportedly withdrawn Phase Change Memory (PCM) products from its portfolio.
Electronics360 says Micron has removed “128-Mbit 90nm serial and parallel NOR pin-out PCM devices from the products listed on its website”.
Sure enough we couldn’t find them there. Micron once supplied 45nm 1-Gbit PCM chips to Nokia for use in its mobile phones, and was the first to put PCM into mass production. This was Micron’s first generation PCM part. It announced a second gen 512Mbit part in December 2012.
PCM, a type of non-volatile memory, relies on a characteristic of chalcogenide materials: their ability to change from a crystalline to an amorphous structure through the application of electrical current. The two resulting states have different resistance levels and these can be used to signal a binary digit value.
A Micron blog about PCM from this time last year says that, after 10 years of PCM research and development, “we can now produce PCM in high volumes, with industry-standard yield, high performance, and high reliability.”
But it seems that just 12 months after the blog was written, 3D NAND has saved it from a 180˚ turn towards PCM. Although Micron now says it is working on a “follow-on process”, no PCM products appear to be currently available for purchase.
Tomi Engdahl says:
Intel shelves cutting-edge Arizona chip factory
http://www.reuters.com/article/2014/01/14/us-intel-arizona-idUSBREA0D1F920140114
Intel Corp (INTC.O), hit by slumping personal computer sales, has put off opening a major chip factory that President Barack Obama once held up as an example of U.S. manufacturing potential.
The “Fab 42″ facility built in Chandler, Arizona, originally slated as a $5 billion project that in late 2013 would start producing Intel’s most advanced chips, will remain closed for the foreseeable future while other factories at the same site are upgraded, said Intel spokesman Chuck Mulloy.
Intel is the world’s top chipmaker but it was caught off guard by smartphones and tablets, a computing revolution that has cut into demand for PCs, the company’s core business.
Global PC shipments fell 10 percent in 2013
Tomi Engdahl says:
Toshiba and Qualcomm Set to Introduce UFS 2.0 Solutions in 2014
by Jarred Walton on January 14, 2014 8:30 PM EST
http://www.anandtech.com/show/7696/toshiba-and-qualcomm-set-to-introduce-ufs-20-solutions-in-2014
Since they first started showing up on the market, most smartphones and tablets have used eMMC flash storage. While in some ways similar to the NAND flash used in SSDs – and some devices have even gone so far as to call eMMC storage “SSD storage” – the reality is that eMMC has always been much slower than what we’re used to seeing in SSDs. UFS – Universal Flash Storage – is looking to become the successor to eMMC, and we’re very much looking forward to the host of improvements it brings.
Initially designed as an open standard for flash memory cards, MMC (MultiMediaCard) has been around since 1997. eMMC basically takes that standard and embeds the controller and flash memory into a small BGA package for use in devices like smartphones and tablets
Instead of a parallel interface, UFS uses a serial interface.
Toshiba is taking the standard to mass production with UFS 2.0 controllers and flash, targeting 2Q’14 for the release.
two lanes providing an aggregate 5.8Gbps (~725MB/s) of bandwidth
UFS is a JEDEC defined standard, and as we move into 2014 we should start seeing devices adopt the standard in place of eMMC.
Tomi Engdahl says:
In many applications there is a need for a very small enclosure. When the flash-based FPGA circuits do not need a separate external configuration slash memory (SPI interface), saving designers significant space on the circuit board.
SmartFusion2 and Igloo2 chips are 14×14 and 22×22 millimeters VF256 millimeter VQ144.
SmartFusion2 includes programmable chip part and ARM Cortex-M3 processor.
Source: Elektroniikkalehti
http://www.elektroniikkalehti.fi/index.php?option=com_content&view=article&id=841:fpga-jarjestelmapiirit-pienempaan-tilaan&catid=13&Itemid=101
Tomi Engdahl says:
Why Flash storage will be fast and furious in 2014
We look in the rear view mirror before racing down the road ahead
http://www.theregister.co.uk/2014/01/15/flash_in_2013/
Flash had a fantastic year in 2013 with an enormous number of developments.
It was a year of generally positive flash transitions, with cell geometry shrinking, all-flash arrays springing up, flash companies being bought, flash companies crashing back to earth after inflated IPOs or just crashing, and happiness spraying out like sunshine from three hybrid flash/disk array suppliers.
We didn’t see triple layer cell (TLC) NAND push into enterprise applications in 2013, TLC flash being slow and having a ridiculously short write endurance level.
flash foundries prefer to make single and multi-layer cell (SLC and MLC) on their foundry production lines because these command higher volumes and deliver a better return on manufacturing investment.
There was the beginning of a transition towards 1X (19nm-10nm) flash cell geometries from the 2X (29nm – 20nm) technology
One thing that didn’t happen was the emergence of any non-volatile technology to take over from flash. It’s generally agreed that flash technology may be unable to develop usable enterprise flash storage with acceptable endurance down at 15nm and below. Phase Change Memory and varieties of Resistive RAM, such as HP’s Memristor, are still future tech, with 3D NAND taking up the capacity slack
Micron expects to commence 3D NAND production sample shipments before mid-2014,
Tomi Engdahl says:
Intel confirms it will axe 5,400 workers in 2014
Last year saw hiring – this year will see the reverse
http://www.theregister.co.uk/2014/01/17/intel_to_slash_5400_employees_in_2014/
ntel plans to cut its workforce by approximately 5,400 employees this year, a company spokesman told The Reg.
After the workforce reduction was revealed by Reuters, Intel senior manager of corporate and financial PR Chris Kraeuter confirmed to us that there will be a reduction of “about 5 per cent” of the company’s 107,600 employees during this year.
Tomi Engdahl says:
Building an Open Source Nest
http://tech.slashdot.org/story/14/01/17/162237/building-an-open-source-nest
“‘All in, we spent about $70 on components to put this together (including $39 for the Spark Core); the wood and acrylic were free. We started working at 10am and finished at 3am, with 3.5 engineers involved (one went to bed early), and the only work we did in advance was order the electronic components.”
” But we are saying that you can build a $3.2 billion company, and it’s easier now than it’s ever been before.’”
A place for all things related to ye olde Spark Thermostat Hackathon
https://github.com/spark/thermostat
Tomi Engdahl says:
The IoT Impacts Manufacturing, Too
http://www.designnews.com/author.asp?section_id=1365&doc_id=271065&
There’s been a lot of discussion recently around the changing face of manufacturing, the forces causing that shift, and how those forces are leading to a world that’s smart and connected — what some refer to as the Internet of Things (IoT). As defined by McKinsey & Company, the “IoT is embedding sensors and actuators in machines and other physical objects to bring them into the connected world.”
There are many ways that end-users and manufacturers alike can benefit from such a world. For example, the IoT lets businesses manage assets, optimize performance of those assets, and even create new business models from those same assets. But perhaps what’s most remarkable about this pervasive network of “things” is how much potential economic impact it carries.
A recent McKinsey Global Institute report, “Disruptive technologies: Advances that will transform life, business, and the global economy,” estimates that by 2025, the economic impact of the IoT could be as much as $5 trillion to $7 trillion. A similar Gartner report is a bit more conservative, but still estimates a whopping $1.9 trillion worldwide economic value impact from the IoT by 2020.
So where does that economic value come from? Certainly there are the cool IoT consumer use cases that everyone is familiar with.
Industry experts agree that one industry sector poised to see great IoT impact is manufacturing. The first point of economic impact is in how products are manufactured. The “Industrial Internet” rapidly increases the complexity of creating ever smarter, connected products. By closing the loop between early-stage engineering design activities, production processes on the plant floor, and the service organization, manufacturers can reduce errors, increase flexibility in how they manage late-stage engineering changes, reduce work-in-process, and, ultimately, accelerate new product introductions with products they’ll hope can be financially successful.
When you take it one step further though, that’s when things really start to get interesting. When you manufacture that smart, connected product, it can then give you back real-time data to help maintain and service it at optimal levels. Being able to maintain a product after the point of sale gives manufacturers a “digital umbilical cord,” which allows for remote visibility, where they can interact with products whenever and wherever.
Imagine if your washing machine itself were the diagnostician, as opposed to having to schedule a service man to come to your house to determine the problem — and then hoping that he has the right part in his truck
Today, all signs point to the value of the IoT. It’s here, it’s not going anywhere, and it has the potential for a multitrillion-dollar worldwide economic impact by giving manufacturers an opportunity to engage customers beyond the purchase, using service-based contracts to create a partnership built around product performance.
Tomi Engdahl says:
Designing for exponential trends of 2014
http://blog.learningbyshipping.com/2013/12/17/designing-for-exponential-trends-of-2014/
Low-cost/high-function devices. The seemingly endless march of the exponential Moore’s law will continue but include more than compute. Devices will put transistors to work for sensors, rich graphics, and discrete processors. These devices will continue to drop precipitously in price to what seem today like ridiculous levels
Cloud productivity. Cloud (SaaS) productivity tools will routinely see exponential growth in active users.
Cloud first becomes cloud-only. Enterprise software in 2013 was a dialog about on-premises or cloud. In 2014, the call for on-premises will rapidly shift to a footnote in the evolution of cloud.
WWAN communication tools. WWAN/4G messaging will come to dominate in usage by direct or integrated tools (WhatsApp, WeChat, iMessage, and more) relative to email and SMS. Email will increasingly be viewed as “fax” and SMS will be used for “official” communications and “form letters” as person to person begins to use much richer and more expressive (fun) tools.
Cross-platform challenge. This is the year that cross-platform development for the major modern platforms will become increasingly challenging and products will need to be developed with this in mind.
Small screen/big screen divergence. With increasing use of cloud productivity, more products will arrive that are designed exclusively for larger screen devices.
Urban living is digital living.
Sharing becomes normal. With the resources available for sharing exceeding those available in traditional ways, 2014 will be the year in which sharing becomes normal and preferred for assets that are infrequently used and/or expensive.
Phablets are normal.
Storage quotas go away. While for most any uses today this is true in practice, 2014 will be a year in which any individual will see alternatives for unlimited cloud storage. Email, files, photos, applications, mobile backup and more will be embedded in the price of devices or services with additional capabilities beyond gigabytes. Design: Design for disk space usage in the cloud as you do on a mobile client, which is to say worry much more about battery life and user experience than saving a megabyte.
Tomi Engdahl says:
PLCs Drive Down Costs for School Buses
http://www.designnews.com/author.asp?section_id=1365&doc_id=271054&cid=nl.dn14
PLC programming could prevent charging, especially if the heaters were plugged in on warm days or when the fleet is idled. By automating engine block heating, Lewis-Palmer’s transportation costs could be cut significantly. Specifically, a PLC-based system could enable heating to run as needed, not year-round.
Potential suppliers proposed full-fledged industrial SCADA systems, requiring a substantial hardware investment, including HMIs and PCs. One potential solution, the Wago-I/O-System, was compatible with the district’s existing computers, which minimized hardware costs. Given the bus lot’s size, a Bluetooth transceiver I/O module with a one-kilometer line-of-sight range could provide an infrastructure savings.
Deft PLC programming and simplicity cut engine block heating costs by nearly 73 percent, from an annual average of $20,000 to just $5,500 for the 2012-2013 school year. Similarly, the system’s ROI has fallen to just three years.
Existing junction boxes were transformed into full-fledged control panels within NEMA 3 enclosures. Each contains a Wago PLC, a Bluetooth transceiver module, a 16-channel digital output module, a terminal block, a power supply, and a 20 A relay.
Tomi Engdahl says:
What STEM shortage? Electrical engineering lost 35,000 jobs last year
Will the Internet of Things create jobs in the U.S. or offshore?
http://www.computerworld.com/s/article/9245494/What_STEM_shortage_Electrical_engineering_lost_35_000_jobs_last_year
Despite an expanding use of electronics in products, the number of people working as electrical engineers in U.S. declined by 10.4% last year.
The decline amounted to a loss of 35,000 jobs and increased the unemployment rate for electrical engineers from 3.4% in 2012 to 4.8% last year, an unusually high rate of job losses for this occupation.
There are 300,000 people working as electrical engineers, according to U.S. Labor Department data analyzed by the IEEE-USA. In 2002, there were 385,000 electrical engineers in the U.S.
The trend in electrical engineering employment is occurring despite the emergence of the so-called Internet of Things, which promises to put networked electronics into every imaginable consumer and industrial product.
“Electrical and electronics engineers are at the heart of high technology innovation,” Hira said. “Just like America’s manufacturing has been hollowed out by offshoring and globalization, it appears that electrical and electronics engineering is heading that way.”
Tomi Engdahl says:
Introducing our smart contact lens project
http://googleblog.blogspot.fi/2014/01/introducing-our-smart-contact-lens.html
We’re now testing a smart contact lens that’s built to measure glucose levels in tears using a tiny wireless chip and miniaturized glucose sensor that are embedded between two layers of soft contact lens material
Tomi Engdahl says:
Control Engineering predictions for 2014
http://www.controleng.com/single-article/control-engineering-predictions-for-2014/90eda41ff04d9914d744c8b2253dfdbe.html
This year, not necessarily in this order, more subscribers will use automation, control, and instrumentation products, software, and networks to:
1. Secure control systems and connected networks using industry based best practices, ceasing to ignore threats as if cyber security threats do not pertain to them.
2. Integrate the latest safety best practices into automation designs and culture
3. Optimize energy use
4. Seek more places to apply closed loop control
5. Measure more processes by applying more sensors and vision systems, connecting to smarter and faster logic devices wirelessly and with industrial Ethernet where it makes sense
6. Use more mobile machine interfaces with secure web-based software
7. Integrate disparate systems
8. Design for reuse. A little more time up front, separating functions in logical ways
9. Streamline processes and apply automation, including robotics, to increase throughput, boost quality, and lower overall costs.
10. Read, view, learn from the global resources
Tomi Engdahl says:
EDA Consortium’s figures for the third quarter of last year:
Electronics components, design tools are doing well in almost all parts of the world, only the Japanese market is in trouble.
According to a consortium of EDA tools were sold from July to September a fair 1.7 billion dollars, or nearly 1.3 billion Euros. This results mainly from IC circuit physical design and engineering services sales.
In practice, the design of tools, sales increased in all market areas. America, growth was 7.7 per cent, 14.4 per cent in Asia and Europe by 6.7 per cent.
Japanese electronics recession shrank the tool to the value of sales to $ 224 million, or more than 8 per cent lower than a year earlier.
CAE tools is the biggest engineering tool group (643 million dollars)
Source: Elektroniikkalehti
http://www.elektroniikkalehti.fi/index.php?option=com_content&view=article&id=849:piirisuunnitelu-vetaa-edelleen&catid=13&Itemid=101
Tomi Engdahl says:
Scientists glue sensors to 5,000 bees in a bid to better understand them
http://www.geek.com/science/scientists-glue-sensors-to-5000-bees-in-a-bid-to-better-understand-them-1582223/
Scientists are worried about bees. More specifically, they are worried about Colony Collapse Disorder, rapidly declining bee populations
There’s still a lot to learn about bees, though, which is difficult when you consider their size, the fact they fly everywhere very quickly
An RFID sensor measuring 2.5mm2 has been attached with glue to the back of around 5,000 honey bees in Hobart, Tasmania.
With the sensors attached, checkpoints can be setup around the area where the bees travel and pollinate in order to create a three-dimensional map of their movements.
If the tracking system works as well as predicted, the sensors are set to be further shrunk to just 1mm2 and attached to very small insects. Mosquitoes and fruit flies are both on the list for future study.
Tomi Engdahl says:
Revolutionary Scuba Mask Creates Breathable Oxygen Underwater On Its Own
http://themindunleashed.org/2014/01/revolutionary-scuba-mask-creates-breathable-oxygen-underwater.html
“Triton uses a new technology of artificial gill model.
- It extracts oxygen under water through a filter in the form of fine threads with holes smaller than water molecules.
- This is a technology developed by a Korean scientist that allows us to freely breathe under water for a long time.
- Using a very small but powerful micro compressor, it compresses oxygen and stores the extracted oxygen in storage tank.
- The micro compressor operates through micro battery.”
Tomi Engdahl says:
FTDI Embedded Video Engine (EVE) available in distribution
http://www.edn-europe.com/en/ftdi-embedded-video-engine-eve-available-in-distribution.html?cmp_id=7&news_id=10003099&vID=44#.UteuBLRsUik
For engineers who need to quickly implement a sophisticated user interface with minimum investment of time and effort, Mouser Electronics is now stocking FDTI’s FT800 Embedded Video Engine (EVE) integrated circuit.
The FTDI FT800 Embedded Video Engine (EVE) is a high quality graphics chip with 3-in-1 functionality for graphical user interface (GUI) development. The FT800 combines display, audio, and touch operations into a single chip,
Tomi Engdahl says:
USB-TO-SPI Bridge chip joins ’smart interface’ range
http://www.edn-europe.com/en/usb-to-spi-bridge-chip-joins-smart-interface-range.html?cmp_id=7&news_id=10003004&vID=44#.Utet_rRsUik
Silicon Labs has introduced a high-performance bridge controller that offers a turnkey solution for bridging a universal serial bus (USB) host and a serial peripheral interface (SPI) bus with driver support for Windows, OS X and Linux operating systems.
The CP2130 USB-to-SPI bridge controller provides high data throughput, configurability and a high level of mixed-signal integration in a 4 x 4 mm package. The CP2130 bridge controller is suitable for new designs or upgrading legacy designs to include USB for a wide range of embedded applications including USB dongles, tablets, handheld controllers and testers, blood glucose monitors, docking stations, point-of-sale products, data logging modules and card readers.
Tomi Engdahl says:
More about understanding the distortion mechanism of high-K MLCCs
http://www.edn-europe.com/en/more-about-understanding-the-distortion-mechanism-of-high-k-mlccs.html?cmp_id=7&news_id=10003088&vID=1320#.UtetlrRsUik
In a previous article [Ref 1] I demonstrated the additional distortion produced when using High-K ceramic capacitors in a system’s signal path. The underlying mechanism causing this distortion is the voltage coefficient of capacitance (VCC) of the capacitor
Tomi Engdahl says:
Why Flash storage will be fast and furious in 2014
We look in the rear view mirror before racing down the road ahead
http://www.theregister.co.uk/2014/01/15/flash_in_2013/
Flash had a fantastic year in 2013 with an enormous number of developments.
It was a year of generally positive flash transitions, with cell geometry shrinking, all-flash arrays springing up, flash companies being bought, flash companies crashing back to earth after inflated IPOs or just crashing, and happiness spraying out like sunshine from three hybrid flash/disk array suppliers.
We didn’t see triple layer cell (TLC) NAND push into enterprise applications in 2013, TLC flash being slow and having a ridiculously short write endurance level.
flash foundries prefer to make single and multi-layer cell (SLC and MLC) on their foundry production lines because these command higher volumes and deliver a better return on manufacturing investment.
There was the beginning of a transition towards 1X (19nm-10nm) flash cell geometries from the 2X (29nm – 20nm) technology
One thing that didn’t happen was the emergence of any non-volatile technology to take over from flash. It’s generally agreed that flash technology may be unable to develop usable enterprise flash storage with acceptable endurance down at 15nm and below. Phase Change Memory and varieties of Resistive RAM, such as HP’s Memristor, are still future tech, with 3D NAND taking up the capacity slack
Micron expects to commence 3D NAND production sample shipments before mid-2014
Tomi Engdahl says:
In many applications there is a need for a very small enclosure. When the flash-based FPGA circuits do not need a separate external configuration slash memory (SPI interface), saving designers significant space on the circuit board.
SmartFusion2 and Igloo2 chips are 14×14 and 22×22 millimeters VF256 millimeter VQ144.
SmartFusion2 includes programmable chip part and ARM Cortex-M3 processor.
Source: Elektroniikkalehti
http://www.elektroniikkalehti.fi/index.php?option=com_content&view=article&id=841:fpga-jarjestelmapiirit-pienempaan-tilaan&catid=13&Itemid=101
Tomi Engdahl says:
Toshiba and Qualcomm Set to Introduce UFS 2.0 Solutions in 2014
by Jarred Walton on January 14, 2014 8:30 PM EST
http://www.anandtech.com/show/7696/toshiba-and-qualcomm-set-to-introduce-ufs-20-solutions-in-2014
Since they first started showing up on the market, most smartphones and tablets have used eMMC flash storage. While in some ways similar to the NAND flash used in SSDs – and some devices have even gone so far as to call eMMC storage “SSD storage” – the reality is that eMMC has always been much slower than what we’re used to seeing in SSDs. UFS – Universal Flash Storage – is looking to become the successor to eMMC, and we’re very much looking forward to the host of improvements it brings.
Initially designed as an open standard for flash memory cards, MMC (MultiMediaCard) has been around since 1997. eMMC basically takes that standard and embeds the controller and flash memory into a small BGA package for use in devices like smartphones and tablets
Instead of a parallel interface, UFS uses a serial interface.
Toshiba is taking the standard to mass production with UFS 2.0 controllers and flash, targeting 2Q’14 for the release.
two lanes providing an aggregate 5.8Gbps (~725MB/s) of bandwidth
UFS is a JEDEC defined standard, and as we move into 2014 we should start seeing devices adopt the standard in place of eMMC.
Tomi Engdahl says:
ntel shelves cutting-edge Arizona chip factory
http://www.reuters.com/article/2014/01/14/us-intel-arizona-idUSBREA0D1F920140114
Intel Corp (INTC.O), hit by slumping personal computer sales, has put off opening a major chip factory that President Barack Obama once held up as an example of U.S. manufacturing potential.
The “Fab 42″ facility built in Chandler, Arizona, originally slated as a $5 billion project that in late 2013 would start producing Intel’s most advanced chips, will remain closed for the foreseeable future while other factories at the same site are upgraded, said Intel spokesman Chuck Mulloy.
Intel is the world’s top chipmaker but it was caught off guard by smartphones and tablets, a computing revolution that has cut into demand for PCs, the company’s core business.
Global PC shipments fell 10 percent in 2013
Tomi Engdahl says:
Micron: Hot DRAM. We don’t need no steenkin’ PCM
How 3D saved us from the Incredible Shrinking NAND
http://www.theregister.co.uk/2014/01/14/phase_change_micron_drops_phase_change_memory_products/
Micron has reportedly withdrawn Phase Change Memory (PCM) products from its portfolio.
Electronics360 says Micron has removed “128-Mbit 90nm serial and parallel NOR pin-out PCM devices from the products listed on its website”.
Sure enough we couldn’t find them there. Micron once supplied 45nm 1-Gbit PCM chips to Nokia for use in its mobile phones, and was the first to put PCM into mass production. This was Micron’s first generation PCM part. It announced a second gen 512Mbit part in December 2012.
PCM, a type of non-volatile memory, relies on a characteristic of chalcogenide materials: their ability to change from a crystalline to an amorphous structure through the application of electrical current. The two resulting states have different resistance levels and these can be used to signal a binary digit value.
A Micron blog about PCM from this time last year says that, after 10 years of PCM research and development, “we can now produce PCM in high volumes, with industry-standard yield, high performance, and high reliability.”
But it seems that just 12 months after the blog was written, 3D NAND has saved it from a 180˚ turn towards PCM. Although Micron now says it is working on a “follow-on process”, no PCM products appear to be currently available for purchase.
Tomi Engdahl says:
Throw Your Jams In The Air: Morphing Robotic Hands Have Arrived
http://www.popsci.com/blog-network/zero-moment/throw-your-jams-air-morphing-robotic-hands-have-arrived?dom=PSC&loc=recent&lnk=1&con=IMG
Tomi Engdahl says:
Robot tourism coming soon to Korea: Masan Robot Land project finally breaks ground
http://robohub.org/robot-tourism-coming-soon-to-korea-masan-robot-land-project-finally-breaks-ground/
It is expected that Phase One of the construction, which will include development of public facilities such as robot research development center, convention center, robot exhibition hall, and private facilities such as themed parks and youth hostels, will be completed in September, 2016. Phase Two, which includes development of hotels and condominiums, is expected to be complete by the end of 2018. The Masan park was originally scheduled to open in January of 2014.
Korea’s robot industry is showing rapid expansion with a 35% annual growth rate, and its global market size is expected to reach 500 billion US dollars by 2020 – the year by which the Korean government had set out to have a robot in every household. The Masan Robot Land Project is expected to create construction job opportunities while it is being built, but more importantly, it is hoped that it will create a large-scale consumer demand for intelligent robotics when it opens.
In addition to the 700 billion won investment for Robot Land, there will be a record-setting 3 trillion won invested into the whole Masan region in effort to revive the local economy.
Tomi Engdahl says:
An Evolution in Industrial Robots
http://www.designnews.com/document.asp?doc_id=270779
Decades after robots made their mark in the automotive industry by providing a solution for spot welding, there is a new surge in Detroit for robotics in material handling and machine tending. But while these applications enable technological solutions for larger payloads and increased flexibility, reducing lifetime system costs has become an equal focus that is shaping the design of industrial robots.
One example of how these trends are playing out is ABB’s next generation of large industrial robots, the new IRB 6700 family.
Tomi Engdahl says:
Pre-Integrated Sensors Cut Costs & Design Risk
http://www.designnews.com/document.asp?doc_id=270998&cid=nl.dn14
Designing the sensor elements of monitoring or control systems which require accurate, reliable, real-world inputs can be one of the most challenging parts of the product development cycle. It’s no wonder then, why many designers now opt to purchase either off-the-shelf or custom pre-integrated sensor modules.
Offloading most of the design, test, and manufacture of sensing elements to a third-party vendor can help make the most of an engineering team’s limited resources while shortening a product’s time-to-market. Nevertheless, there are still many critical decisions a designer must make which have a major impact on their products’ performance, reliability, and cost.
Tomi Engdahl says:
The Inaccuracy of Measuring Accuracy
http://www.designnews.com/author.asp?section_id=1365&doc_id=270991&cid=nl.dn14
When it comes to measuring pressure sensors, the word “accuracy” becomes quite arbitrary. Accuracy isn’t defined by any one set standard, and it becomes more of a qualitative measure than a quantitative one. Several factors contribute to the overall measurement of accuracy. However, these can be inconsistent across manufacturers, so it’s important to understand these factors and how they suit your needs before you make the decision about the ideal pressure sensor.
Tomi Engdahl says:
The IoT Impacts Manufacturing, Too
http://www.designnews.com/author.asp?section_id=1365&doc_id=271065&cid=nl.dn14
“IoT is embedding sensors and actuators in machines and other physical objects to bring them into the connected world.”
There are many ways that end-users and manufacturers alike can benefit from such a world. For example, the IoT lets businesses manage assets, optimize performance of those assets, and even create new business models from those same assets. But perhaps what’s most remarkable about this pervasive network of “things” is how much potential economic impact it carries.
Tomi Engdahl says:
Gadget Freaks Rejoice: CES Highlights Impressive Inventions
http://www.designnews.com/author.asp?section_id=1362&doc_id=271002&cid=nl.dn14
Tomi Engdahl says:
Is 2014 the year YOUR job will be taken by a robot? ‘Jobocalpyse’ set to strike as droids are trained to flip burgers, pour drinks – and even look after our children
http://www.dailymail.co.uk/sciencetech/article-2542113/Will-robot-jobocalypse-make-YOU-obsolete-2014-year-droid-takes-job-say-experts.html
Scientists predict a ‘jobocalypse’ as robots take over manual jobs
A huge 70% of occupations could become automated over next 30 years
Drivers, teachers, babysitters and nurses could be replaced by robots
Could mean the end of the eight-hour, five-day working week
Experts are predicting a ‘jobocalypse’ as robots take over manual jobs, while scientists at Cambridge warn that machines should have their intelligence limited to stop them outsmarting us.
A new version of the movie RoboCop (out February 12) shows us a future where technology revolutionises law enforcement, but that is just the tip of the iceberg for robotics.
‘I believe we are the inflection point where robotics are going to change everything you know and do,’ says Ben Way, author of Jobocalypse, a book about about the rise of the robots, told MailOnline.
He says everyone from bartenders to drivers are at risk.
‘They will have the impact to take away 70% of all traditional jobs in the next 30 years,’ he said.
‘Robots could deliver a lot of instability – but if we get it right, it could lead to a new renaissance for humanity.
‘We will change the way we work. The eight-hour, five-day work week will disappear.’
Is it time to plan a career change?
Tomi Engdahl says:
AV TEST Test Reports for:
Home User
Corporate User
Mobile Devices
http://www.av-test.org/en/home/
Tomi Engdahl says:
Festo Uses Natural Waves to Convey Delicate Items
http://www.designnews.com/author.asp?section_id=1386&doc_id=271090&cid=nl.dn14
Through the energy of intelligently directed wave formations, Festo has demonstrated a new concept in conveying and automatically sorting delicate items such as fruits and vegetables. The company says the technology behind its “WaveHandling” conveyor is “fast and easy to set up, self-organizing, and requires less programing than in systems in use today.”
The WaveHandling conveyor consists of hundreds of relatively small and modular bellows actuators that by rising and falling deform the flexible surface of the conveyor, creating a wave motion that transports the objects in a targeted manner.
According to Festo, the WaveHandling system was inspired by waves in nature.
Tomi Engdahl says:
Slideshow: Engineering the Silver Screen
http://www.designnews.com/author.asp?section_id=1395&doc_id=269645&cid=nl.dn14
Tomi Engdahl says:
Golden Mousetraps Awards: Strong Field for Electronics, Few Winners
http://www.designnews.com/author.asp?section_id=1395&doc_id=271144&cid=nl.dn14
Winners usually have a razor thin edge over a half-dozen other strong candidates. And that was the case for this year’s finalists in Design News’ Golden Mousetrap Awards. Lots of strong entries, but just a single winner per category.
Tomi Engdahl says:
Samsung was the world’s number one semiconductor company in 2013 and is expecting “solid” demand for the coming year
Source: http://www.theregister.co.uk/2014/01/24/samsung_leaks_profits_q4_2013/
Tomi Engdahl says:
Can Micro Mills Recharge Your Cellphone?
http://www.designnews.com/author.asp?section_id=1386&doc_id=271194&cid=nl.dn14
Anyone who uses a mobile device knows that they are inherently power hogs. Companies have taken notice of this issue and have released a host of contraptions that are capable of recharging those devices, such as small portable battery chargers (Hyper Juice Mini, myCharge Peak, etc.), hand-crank chargers, portable solar panels (Brunton, Goal Zero, etc.), and even a portable thermoelectric generator (Powerpot). What hasn’t been widely capitalized on yet is the harnessing of wind power for recharging mobile devices.
Sure, there are a few, such as HYmini’s micro-wind power generator; however, those are typically the same size of the devices you are looking to recharge. In an effort to bring recharging power using wind energy on a micro-scale level, UT Arlington researchers have designed and developed incredibly small micro-windmills that are capable of recharging smart devices.
To get a perspective on how small these turbines are, they measure 1.8 mm at their widest point and a single grain of rice can hold roughly 10 of them on its tiny shell.
The researcher’s micro-windmill combines MEMS, the Japanese art of origami, and traditional semiconductor device layouts to achieve power generation.
Much like fabricating CPUs, the micro-windmills can be created in array using the batch process with hundreds or even thousands produced on a single wafer, which makes them relatively inexpensive to make.
Tomi Engdahl says:
Apple now spends more on chips than top three PC makers combined
And together, Apple and Samsung are nearly a quarter of the market
http://www.theregister.co.uk/2014/01/25/apple_buys_more_chips_than_hp_lenovo_dell/
In case you were wondering whether the PC industry is still in a slump, the numbers are in on semiconductor purchasing in 2013 – and once again, the biggest spenders weren’t PC vendors.
According to the latest figures from market research firm IHS iSuppli, Apple and Samsung again topped the list of the biggest semiconductor consumers, as they have done for the last three years running. And they did so by a wide margin.
Together, Apple and Samsung bought $52.5bn worth of semiconductors in 2013, a sum that represented 22 per cent of the “served available market” – a metric that excludes purchases companies make from their own internal divisions.
To put that into perspective, the rest of the top ten spenders combined bought $54.8bn worth of chips.
In other words, when you add up what the three largest PC vendors spent on semiconductors in the year, it comes to $27bn – 11 per cent less than what Apple alone spent, and just over half the total spending of Apple and Samsung combined.
Samsung is estimated to have accounted for $33.5bn worth of semiconductor industry revenue in 2013
Tomi Engdahl says:
Powering Phones, PCs Using Sugar
http://slashdot.org/topic/datacenter/powering-phones-pcs-using-sugar/
Sugar-powered enzymatic fuel cell design produces power an order of magnitude greater than the lithium-ion equivalent.
A team of researchers at Virginia Tech University have developed a battery with energy density an order of magnitude higher than lithium-ion batteries, while being almost endlessly rechargeable and biodegradable as well – because it’s made of sugar.
The battery is an enzymatic biofuel fuel cell – a type of fuel cell that uses a catalyst to strip molecules from molecules of a fuel material. Instead of using platinum or nickel for catalysts, however, biofuel cells use the catalysts made from enzymes similar to those used to break down and digest food in the body.
Sugar-based fuel cells aren’t new, but existing designs use only a small number of enzymes that don’t oxidize the sugar completely, meaning the resulting battery can hold only small amounts of energy that it releases slowly.
A new design that uses 13 enzymes
The sugar battery is rechargeable, but also refillable.
Tomi Engdahl says:
PLEASED project working on “plant-borgs” to act as environmental biosensors
http://www.gizmag.com/pleased-project-plantborgs-biosensors/30531/
Many claim that talking to plants helps them grow faster. But what if the plants could talk back? That’s what the EU-funded PLants Employed As SEnsing Devices (PLEASED) project is hoping to achieve by creating plant cyborgs, or “plant-borgs.” While this technology won’t allow green thumbs to carry on a conversation with their plants, it will provide feedback on their environment by enabling the plants to act as biosensors.
Like most living organisms, plants produce electrical signals in response to external stimuli. By classifying which electrical signals are produced in response to which stimulus, the PLEASED team says will be possible to use plants as biosensors to measure a variety of chemical and physical parameters, such as pollution, temperature, humidity, sunlight, acid rain, and the presence of chemicals in organic agriculture.
If the electrical signals can be deciphered, the team plans to develop small electronic devices, the size of paperclips or smaller, that will be embedded in the plant to collect signals generated in its natural environment. By collecting the signals of a network of plants in the same area, Vitaletti says it will be possible to produce a clear analysis of the environment. He cites pollution monitoring and certification devices for organic farming as just two of the practical applications envisaged for the technology.
Tomi Engdahl says:
Teeny, tiny state machine could BREATHE NEW LIFE into Moore’s Law
‘Densest system ever’
http://www.theregister.co.uk/2014/01/28/teeny_tiny_state_machine_could_breathe_new_life_into_moores_law/
A team from Harvard University and the non-profit military contractor The MITRE Corporation are claiming a miniaturisation breakthrough with what they say is the smallest finite state machine ever built.
Their “nanoFSM” is, the group claims, “the densest nanoelectronic system ever built”. It comprises hundreds of transistors built of non-volatile nanowires that retain their state without power.
This, the researchers say, is the first time such a technology has produced a system that can be described as a complex and programmable nanocomputer.
As the research abstract notes, the nanoFSM includes both computing and memory elements, “which are organised from individually addressable and functionally identical nanodevices, to perform clocked, multistage logic.”