Electronics trends for 2015 |

Here are my collection of trends and predictions for electronics industry for 2015:

The computer market, once the IC growth driver per se, apparently is approaching saturation status. Communications industry is still growing (6.8%.). Automotive V2X, LED lighting and smart domestic objects are set to drive semiconductor market growth through the year 2020, according to market analysis firm Gartner.

Car electronics will be hot in 2015. New cars will have more security features, smart infotainment and connectivity in them. It is an are where smart phone companies are pushing to. Automotive Industry Drives Chip Demand article says that until 2018, the IC demand from automotive customers is expected to exhibit the strongest average annual growth — 10.8% on average. This is significantly higher than the communications industry, at second place with 6.8%. Demand drivers include safety features that increasingly are becoming mandatory, such as backup cameras or eCall. But driver-assistance systems are also becoming ubiquitous. Future drivers will include connectivity, such as vehicle-to-vehicle communications, as well as sensors and controllers necessary for various degrees of autonomous driving.

Power electronics is a $90 billion-per-year market. The market for discrete power electronics is predicted to grow to $23 billion by 2024 from $13 billion today. Silicon rules power electronics industry, but new materials are pushing to headlines quickly. In the power electronics community, compound semiconductors such as gallium nitride (GaN) are drawing more attention as they try to displace silicon based power devices, which have been doing the heavy lifting for the past 30 years or so. While silicon-based devices are predicted to remain predominant with an 87% share of the market, it is expected that SiC- and GaN-based components to grow at annual rates of 30% and 32%, respectively. There’s no denying the cost advantages that silicon possesses.

Chip manufacturing industry is in transition as former integrated device manufacturers (IDMs) to go fab-lite or fabless. Foundry sales is growing faster than chip market. Foundry-made ICs are growing, marked jump to 37 percent in 2014. Almost all chip startups join the market as fabless companies. It is expected that foundry-made ICs will represent 46 percent of the industry’s total integrated circuit revenues. Global foundry IC revenues will grow by 13 percent to $47.9 billion in 2014. Foundry IC sales are set to grow a further 12 percent to reach $53.7 billion in 2015, according to the two organizations.

Chip designs that enable everything from a 6 Gbit/s smartphone interface to the world’s smallest SRAM cell will be described at the International Solid State Circuits Conference (ISSCC) in February 2015. Intel will describe a Xeon processor packing 5.56 billion transistors, and AMD will disclose an integrated processor sporting a new x86 core, according to a just-released preview of the event. The annual ISSCC covers the waterfront of chip designs that enable faster speeds, longer battery life, more performance, more memory, and interesting new capabilities. There will be many presentations on first designs made in 16 and 14 nm FinFET processes at IBM, Samsung, and TSMC.

There is push to go to even smaller processes, and it seems that next generation of lithography equipment are started to being used. Earlier expectation was for chipmakers to use traditional immersion lithography for production of 10 nm chip, but it seems that extreme ultraviolet (EUV) scanners that allows allow scaling to 10 nm or even smaller is being used. TSMC to Use EUV for 7nm, Says ASML. Intel and TSMC have been injecting money in ASML to push process technology.

2015 promises to see initial FPGA product releases and (no doubt) a deluge of marketing claims and counter-claims. One thing is certain: 2015 will not be boring. There will be FPGA products that use processes beyond 20nm, for example Altera and Xilinx have committed to use the TSMC 16nm FinFET technology. There is publicized (and rumored) race to get to production at 14nm has seen time frames for initial samples move into 2015. However, with both FPGA companies reporting gross margins of close to 70 percent, it would be possible for either company to take an initial hit on margin to gain key socket wins.

It seems that the hardware becomes hot again as Wearables make hardware the new software. Apple invest its time when it released the Apple Watch last quarter, going up against the likes of Google’s Android Wear and others in the burgeoning wearables area of design. Once Apple’s bitten into a market, it’s somewhat a given that there’s good growth ahead and that the market is, indeed, stable enough. As we turn to 2015 and beyond wearables becomes an explosive hardware design opportunity — one that is closely tied to both consumer and healthcare markets. It could pick up steam in the way software did during the smartphone app explosion.

There will be more start-up activity within hardware sector. For recent years, the software has been on the main focus on the start-ups, and the hardware sector activity has been lower. Hardware sector has seem some start-up activity with many easy to use open hardware platforms became available (make development of complex devices easier and reachable for smaller companies). The group financing (Kickstarter, Indiegogo, etc.) have made it possible to test of new hardware ideas are market-worthy and get finance to get them to production.

EEs embrace hackathons aand accelerators. Design 2.0 is bubbling up in the engineering community, injecting new energy into the profession. In many ways, it’s the new Moore’s Law. Easy to use open hardware development platforms have made it possible to design working hardware device prototypes within hackathons.

Silicon Startups Get Incubator article tells that there will be new IC start-up activity as semiconductor veterans announced plans for an incubator dedicated to helping chip startups design their first prototypes. Keysight, Synopsys, and TSMC have signed exclusive deals to provide tools and services to the incubator. Silicon Catalyst aims to select its first batch of about 10 chip startups before April.

MEMS mics are taking over. Almost every mobile device has ditched its old-fashioned electret microphone invented way back in 1962 at Bell Labs. Expect new piezoelectric MEMS microphones, which promise unheard of signal-to-noise ratios (SNR) of up to 80 dB (versus 65 dB in the best current capacitive microphones) in 2015. MEMS microphones are growing like gangbusters.Also engineers have found a whole bunch of applications that can use MEMS microphone as a substitute for more specialized sensors starting in 2015.

There will be advancements in eco-design. There will be activity within Europe’s Ecodesign directive. The EC’s Ecodesign Working Plan for 2015-2017 is currently in its final study stages – the plan is expected to be completed by January 2015. The chargers will be designed for lower zero load power consumption in 2015, as on February 2016, after the 5-watt chargers are no longer at no load connected consume more than 0.1 watts of power. Socket for power supplies values are defined in the new Energy Star standard VI.

LED light market growing in 2015. Strategies Unlimited estimates that in 2014 the LED lamps were sold $ 7 billion, or about 5.7 billion euros. In 2019 the LED lamps will already sold just over 12 billion euros. LED technology will replace other lighting technologies quickly. For those who do not go to the LED Strategies Unlimited permission difficult times – all other lamp technologies, the market will shrink 14 percent per year. The current lighting market growth is based on LED proliferation of all the different application areas.

IoT market is growing fast in 2015. Gartner is predicting a 30 percent compound annual growth rate for the IoT chip market for the period 2013 to 2020. The move to create billions of smart, autonomously communicating objects known as the Internet of Things (IoT) is driving the need for low-power sensors, processors and communications chips. Gartner expects chips for IoT market to grow 36% in 2015 (IoT IC marker value in 2014 was from $3.9 billion to $9 billion depending how you calculate it). The sales generated by the connectivity and sensor subsystems to enabled this IoT will amount $48.3 billion in 2014 and grow 19 percent in 2015 to $57.7 billion. IC Insights forecasts that web-connected things will account for 85 percent of 29.5 billion Internet connections worldwide by 2020.

With the increased use of IoT, the security is becoming more and more important to embedded systems and chip designers. Embedded systems face ongoing threats of penetration by persistent individuals and organizations armed with increasingly sophisticated tools. There is push for IC makers to add on-chip security features to serve as fundamental enablers for secure systems, but it is just one part of the IoT security puzzle. The trend toward enterprise-level security lifecycle management emerges as the most promising solution for hardened security in embedded systems underlying the explosive growth of interconnected applications. The trend continues in 2015 for inclusion of even more comprehensive hardware support for security: More and more MCUs and specialized processors now include on-chip hardware accelerators for crypto operations.

Electronics is getting smaller and smaller. Component manufacturers are continually developing new and smaller packages for components that are mere fractions of a millimeter and have board to component clearances of less than a mil. Components are placed extremely close together. No-lead solder is a relatively recent legislated fact of life that necessitated new solder, new fluxes, higher temperatures, and new solder processing equipment. Tin whisker problems also increased dramatically. You should Improve device reliability via PCB cleanliness, especially if you are designing something that should last more then few years.

Photonics will get to the circuit board levels. Progress in computer technology (and the continuation of Moore’s Law) is becoming increasingly dependent on faster data transfer between and within microchips. We keep hearing that copper has reached its speed limit, and that optics will replace copper for high-speed signals. Photonics now can run through cables, ICs, backplanes, and circuit boards. Silicon chips can now have some optical components in them using silicon photonics technologies. For more than 10 years, “silicon photonics” has attracted significant research efforts due to the potential benefits of optoelectronics integration. Using silicon as an optical medium and complementary metal-oxide semiconductor fabrication processing technology, silicon photonics allows tighter monolithic integration of many optical functions within a single device.

Enter electro-optical printed circuits, which combine copper and optical paths on the same board. Electro-optical PCBs use copper for distributing power and low-speed data, and optical paths for high-speed signals. Optical backplane connectors have been developed, as well as a technique to align the small waveguides to transceivers on the board. The next challenge is to develop waveguides on to boards where the tight bends don’t degrade performance to unacceptable levels.

3D printing will continue to be hot. Additive manufacturing, can build complex prototypes, parts, tools, and models in various materials for a variety of uses, and is quickly expanding beyond making one-off products to the space industry. The major space agencies have all taken notice of additive manufacturing as a key enabling technology, and so should you.

3D printing will bring structural electronics. With 3D printing hot in the news, and conformable, flexible, or even printed electronics fitting any shape, it is only a matter of time before electronic circuits can be laid-out as part of the 3D-printing process, the electronic framework becoming an integral supporting part of any object’s mechanical structure. For example “structural batteries” have already been implemented in electric cars, in racing-car aerofoils, and in the Tesla pure electric car.

Superconductors are heating up again. Superconductivity will be talked again in 2015 as there were some advancements in the end of 2014. A group of international scientists working with the National Accelerator Laboratory in Menlo Park, Calif., have discovered lasers that can create conditions for superconductivity at temperatures as high at 140°F. The Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) has discovered a law governing thin-film superconductors, eliminating much of the trial and error for companies that manufacture superconducting photodetector. With MIT’s new mathematical law, new superconducting chips can be designed with the correct parameters determined ahead of time.

Frost and Sullivan forecast that “PXI to disrupt automated test” between 2015 and 2018. They predict PXI to achieve $1.75B in annual sales by 2020, up from $563M in 2013. That’s an aggregate growth rate of over 17%. Not bad for an industry that has an overall secular growth rate of 3 percent.

For more trends and predictions you should also read Hot technologies: Looking ahead to 2015 and IEEE: Top 10 technology trends for 2015 articles.

1,206 Comments

July 10, 2015 at 8:14 am
Tomi Engdahl says:

A Researcher Made an Organic Computer Using Four Wired-Together Rat Brains
http://motherboard.vice.com/read/a-researcher-made-an-organic-computer-using-four-wired-together-rat-brains

The internet of brains is coming, the internet of brains is here. The brains of four rats have been interconnected to create a “Brainet” capable of completing computational tasks better than any one of the rats would have been able to on its own.

It’s the latest successful experiment out of a Duke University laboratory that has been consistently publishing research that seems to have more of a place in science fiction than in reality.

It’s not just the rats, however. Nicolelis published a second paper, also in Scientific Reports, describing a Brainet that allows three monkeys connected at the brain to control a virtual arm on screen across three axes.

“We started asking the question in 2011: What happens when you have multiple subjects trying to achieve a goal no single brain can achieve individually,” Nicolelis told me. “We quickly realized we’d need to synchronize the brains to complete complex tasks.”

It turns out that getting the animals to sync their brains wasn’t actually all that difficult.

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July 10, 2015 at 9:13 am
Tomi Engdahl says:

Desktop or even home-made reflow ovens are becoming much more common in the tech world for both DIYers and small start-ups. The overall concept of reflow soldering is simple: put a pre-assembled board with some solder paste into an oven and bake it until the solder properly melts. As is true with many things in life, the actual application is a bit more complicated. When a board is reflowed, it typically is put through four different stages or zones of the reflow process. The difference between stages or zones is dependent on the reflow process. The smaller, do-it-yourself or prototyping-sized ovens do not move the boards, but rather change the internal temperature of the oven as needed. For larger, commercial-sized reflow ovens, the boards are moved through zones of different temperatures via a conveyor belt. These four different stages, and their settings, are crucial in achieving consistent results in the soldering process. – See more at: http://aa-pcbassembly.com/industry_trends/reflow-soldering/?utm_source=Promotion&utm_medium=eNewsletter&utm_content=Reflow&utm_campaign=Aspen%20Labs#sthash.fqpSd5x7.dpuf

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July 10, 2015 at 9:15 am
Tomi Engdahl says:

Supercap charger operates bidirectionally
http://www.edn.com/electronics-products/other/4439871/Supercap-charger-operates-bidirectionally?_mc=NL_EDN_EDT_EDN_today_20150709&cid=NL_EDN_EDT_EDN_today_20150709&elq=0ce4d81cfb2f4d839c1c7f0cdbace084&elqCampaignId=23842&elqaid=26924&elqat=1&elqTrackId=bc4116e67bb945718a50bcab9b152351

A 2-A buck-boost DC/DC regulator and capacitor charger, the LTC3110 from Linear Technology switches autonomously between charge and backup modes. Active charge balancing eliminates the constant drain of dissipative external ballast resistors, ensuring charging even with mismatched capacitors and less frequent recharge cycles.

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July 10, 2015 at 9:18 am
Tomi Engdahl says:

Designing a low-cost, reusable power-distribution architecture
http://www.edn.com/electronics-blogs/out-of-this-world-design/4439875/Designing-a-low-cost–reusable-power-distribution-architecture?_mc=NL_EDN_EDT_EDN_weekly_20150709&cid=NL_EDN_EDT_EDN_weekly_20150709&elq=0387bc473ecc4fd9886d085dea87d0b6&elqCampaignId=23847&elqaid=26929&elqat=1&elqTrackId=a552930c613b4cf1a16a296e8aafc4dc

The latest, spacecraft sub-systems are baselining advanced semiconductors requiring multiple low-voltage, high-current rails requirements, e.g. FPGAs with core voltages of < 1V@30A. Furthermore, individual loads have unique sequencing, transient, line and load-regulation requirements, which can complicate the design of the power-distribution network.

Current spacecraft busses provide 28 and 100V unregulated power rails, which can be used to generate isolated, regulated supplies efficiently for the latest space-grade semiconductors. To develop a low-cost, scalable, power-distribution architecture to meet the needs of future spacecraft sub-systems, a reusable design is sought which will efficiently generate multiple smaller rails from either an input of 28 or 100V while limiting the total number of power-conversion stages.

Space-grade DC-DC convertors are available that have identical packages, PCB footprints and pin-outs, which allow the first stage of power conversion to be swapped to meet specific mission needs without having to re-engineer the hardware design. This is a key requirement necessary to deliver a low-cost, reusable, scalable, reliable, and efficient power-distribution architecture!

Developing a low-cost, reusable, power-distribution architecture requires looking at the complete design and not just the price of individual components.

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July 10, 2015 at 10:22 am
Tomi Engdahl says:

New IBM SyNAPSE Chip Could Open Era of Vast Neural Networks
https://www-03.ibm.com/press/us/en/pressrelease/44529.wss

New chip with brain-inspired non-von Neumann computer architecture has one million neurons and 256 million synapses

Built on Samsung’s 28nm process technology, the 5.4 billion transistors chip has an on-chip network of 4096 neurosynaptic cores but only consumes 70mW during real-time operation
Complete cognitive hardware and software ecosystem opens new computing frontier for mobile, cloud, supercomputing and distributed sensor applications

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July 10, 2015 at 10:34 am
Tomi Engdahl says:

MediaTek to Eat up Qualcomm’s LTE Share in China
http://www.eetimes.com/document.asp?doc_id=1327105&

MediaTek, the world’s third-largest chip designer, is likely to continue market-share gains in the Long Term Evolution (LTE) market at the expense of top-ranked Qualcomm by wielding its strength in China’s growing smartphone market, according to industry analysts.

MediaTek’s LTE market share is likely to double to 40-45% in the second half of this year from 20% in the fourth quarter of last year, according to a July 7 report by Randy Abrams, an analyst with Credit Suisse in Taipei. Abrams forecast that MediaTek’s LTE shipments will fall in a range of 160 million to 165 million units this year, exceeding MediaTek’s own expectations for 150 million unit shipments in 2015.

The company’s LTE application processors “gained good traction in China” during the first quarter this year,

Taiwan-based MediaTek has enjoyed an advantage over other rivals in China, where it established strong business ties with local manufacturers more than a decade ago.

Room to Grow
The smartphone business still has upside, as sales are likely to swell from 1.5 billion units in 2015 to 1.7 billion by 2017, according to Strategy Analytics. While China, India and the U.S. are driving smartphone growth worldwide, India will overtake the U.S. by 2017 to become the world’s second-largest smartphone market, Strategy Analytics analyst Neil Mawston said in a July 1 report.

China, which also makes most of the smartphones sold in the rest of the world, is a strategic focus for chipmakers such as LTE market leader Qualcomm, followed by MediaTek, Spreadtrum, Samsung, Marvell and Intel.

Shanghai-based Spreadtrum grabbed the No. 3 rank in the first-quarter 2015 LTE market with a 7% revenue share, according to Strategy Analytics.

“We expect Spreadtrum to gain share in LTE basebands too with its LTE apps processors,”

Lagging Expectations?
MediaTek on April 30 reiterated its earlier outlook for 2015 shipments of 450 million smartphones, of which 150 million will be LTE products.

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July 10, 2015 at 10:36 am
Tomi Engdahl says:

ISSI Acquired: An Analyst’s Thoughts
http://www.eetimes.com/document.asp?doc_id=1327096&

TORONTO — It was a lot like the last hour of an eBay auction: two bidders try to outdo each other at the last minute to win a coveted item.

In this case, the prize was Integrated Silicon Solution, Inc. (ISSI) and the suitors were Cypress Semiconductor and Uphill Investment Co., a consortium of Chinese investors, which ultimately won with the highest bid.

In the short term, it looks as like business as usual for ISSI, which now has new owners that are not another memory vendor or even a technology firm.

ISSI had considered an offer from Cypress, but also raised anti-trust concerns and the costs to clear a potential deal with regulatory authorities in the U.S. and Germany in particular given that the combined entity would control a great deal of the SRAM market.

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July 14, 2015 at 9:01 pm
Tomi Engdahl says:

Eva Dou / Wall Street Journal:
State-Owned Chinese Chip Maker Tsinghua Unigroup Makes $23 Billion Bid for Micron
http://www.wsj.com/article_email/state-owned-chinese-chip-maker-tsinghua-unigroup-makes-23-billion-bid-for-micron-1436833492-lMyQjAxMTE1NzEzNDQxNjQwWj

If it goes through, deal would be biggest Chinese takeover of a U.S. company

A Chinese state-owned company has prepared a $23 billion bid to buy U.S. memory chip maker Micron Technology Inc., people familiar with the matter said, in what could be the largest foreign takeover by a Chinese firm.

Tsinghua Unigroup Ltd., China’s largest chip design company, is willing to pay $21 a share for Micron, a 19.3% premium over its Monday closing price, one of the people said. Shares of Nasdaq-listed Micron have fallen by nearly half in the past year. They closed at $17.61 on Monday.

A letter outlining Tsinghua’s bid has been presented to Micron, one of the people said.

Any deal would likely face close scrutiny by U.S. officials in Washington.

If a Micron deal goes through, it would dwarf all previous Chinese takeovers of U.S. firms. The previous record was Chinese meat processor Shuanghui International Holdings Ltd.’s $7.1 billion takeover of Smithfield Foods Inc. in 2013, according to data provider Dealogic.

The bid reflects a widening push by the Chinese government to build more domestic sources of semiconductors, which are crucial to consumer products like smartphones as well as equipment used for defense purposes. China is particularly weak in memory chips, having developed none of the key technology needed for the data-storing components.

“They have decided that they really have to buy somebody because they can’t deliver the intellectual property themselves,”

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July 15, 2015 at 9:45 pm
Tomi Engdahl says:

Rachel King / ZDNet:
Intel beats Q2 estimates with revenue of $13.2B; CEO credits growth in Internet of Things, memory, and data center departments — Intel CEO credits solid Q2 results to Internet of Things, data center growth — Also coming soon: Skylake, the code name for Intel’s sixth-generation Core processor aimed

Intel CEO credits solid Q2 results to Internet of Things, data center growth
http://www.zdnet.com/article/intel-q2-2015-revenue-earnings-hardware-datacenters/

UPDATED: During the shareholders call on Wednesday, Krzanich provided a little more color on Intel’s chip roadmap with an explainer rooted in Moore’s Law.

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July 21, 2015 at 7:19 am
Tomi Engdahl says:

Wall Street Journal:
Qualcomm to Conduct Strategic Review, May Consider Breakup — Chip maker may also look at returning more cash to shareholders after activist investor presses for change — Qualcomm Inc. is expected to conduct a sweeping strategic review that will look at the possibility of a breakup

Qualcomm to Conduct Strategic Review, May Consider Breakup
Chip maker may also look at returning more cash to shareholders after activist investor presses for change
http://www.wsj.com/article_email/qualcomm-to-conduct-strategic-review-may-consider-breakup-1437433878-lMyQjAxMTI1NjIwMDgyODA4Wj

Qualcomm Inc. is expected to conduct a sweeping strategic review that will look at the possibility of a breakup, among other options, after an activist investor pushed for change at the chip maker.

Qualcomm, the world’s largest maker of chips used in mobile phones, may announce it is considering that and other options—including returning more cash to shareholders—when it reports fiscal third-quarter results Wednesday, according to people familiar with the matter. The company’s plans are in flux and there is no guarantee it will make any such announcement then, the people cautioned.

As part of its review, Qualcomm, which has a market capitalization of $104 billion, may also reshuffle its board and give Jana a say in adding independent directors, the people said.

Any breakup of the company would likely separate Qualcomm’s chip-production business from its patent-licensing operation. The company, which has a market capitalization of $104 billion, gets about two-thirds of its roughly $26 billion in annual revenue from the chip business. But about two-thirds of its roughly $8 billion in yearly profit comes from royalties from the sale of smartphones that use technology it pioneered.

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July 23, 2015 at 5:35 am
Tomi Engdahl says:

Financial Times:
Qualcomm to cut 15% of its workforce for $1.4B in savings, consider a business split, appoint 3 new directors approved by activist shareholder Jana Partners

Qualcomm eyes break-up and up to 4,500 job losses
http://www.ft.com/cms/s/0%2Fe3539fc2-30ae-11e5-8873-775ba7c2ea3d.html#axzz3ggprL5bx

Qualcomm, the $105bn chipmaker under pressure from an activist investor, said it would slash its workforce, shift activity to low-cost countries and consider a break-up, amid a slowdown in chip demand.

Qualcomm has been under pressure since Jana took a $2bn stake in the company in April, demanding cost cuts and the possible separation of the patent licensing arm that accounts for two-thirds of earnings.

Qualcomm CDMA Technologies, the part of the company that produces and sells chips, has suffered from being largely shut out of the most profitable part of the mobile market. Besides losing a key Samsung contract, it has almost no foothold in the iPhone

insisted the company was “not sacrificing the future for the present” and would still spend more than $4bn annually on research and development, including in 5G mobile and in-car technology.

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July 23, 2015 at 6:06 am
Tomi Engdahl says:

PC-recession hits for the entire semiconductor sector

PC is both a significant factor in the entire semiconductor industry that the recession is now strikes the entire semiconductor industry. After another smartphone growth seems to slow down, do not get semiconductors this year, not next year very rapid growth. Covering an area of two years nearly at a standstill.

According to Gartner, the semiconductor sales will grow 2.2 percent this year and next year will be only 1.3 per cent. The following three years an area can enjoy the normal growth of 4-5 per cent, Research predicts.

Source: http://etn.fi/index.php?option=com_content&view=article&id=3086:pc-lama-iskee-jo-koko-puolijohdealaan&catid=13&Itemid=101

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July 23, 2015 at 6:14 am
Tomi Engdahl says:

Android dominates the smartphone market sovereign and is by far the largest platform also tablets. Now the power of Android even stronger foothold in other embedded applications. Subject is apparent from the customer survey Taiwanese VIA Technologies’ Embedded Group.

VIA’s survey found that a fifth of the developers of embedded devices already using Android. 43 percent sees the start of its use in the near future and 30 per cent during the next few months.

That leaves only 7 percent of the developers, who do not currently consider the start of Android-based projects.

Android to be used in industrial automation applications (28 percent of those surveyed), infotainment entertainment devices (20 percent) and the digital display boards (12 per cent). This shows the popularity of Android’s visual applications, which is based on the chassis for easy user interface.

Android’s advantages in embedded applications, was seen as a touch screen (26 per cent), fast getting products on the market (25 per cent) and customization (19 per cent).

A number of deficiencies were seen on Android. I / O support is incomplete (23 per cent), companies have too little Android experts (21 per cent) and the development tools we need more (19 per cent). Lack of security saw the problem, only 17 percent of those surveyed.

Source: http://etn.fi/index.php?option=com_content&view=article&id=3076:android-valtaa-sulautettuja&catid=13&Itemid=101

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July 23, 2015 at 6:26 am
Tomi Engdahl says:

Another victim of mobile phone circuits

4G modems to design smart phones has proven difficult for many. The number of manufacturers has shrunk, while the company after the second throw in the towel. Now 4G modems will cut development Marvell. The matter will tell Forward Concepts research institute.

The Israeli Marvell plans to stop in Austin R & D unit. This is done despite the fact that the company’s PXA1908 circuit design has been profits and it is already being delivered volumes.

Alan problem is that development requires hundreds of designers and is extremely difficult. You need to get caught up volume products, which, however, are, as a rule, are powered by Qualcomm or MediaTek chips.

Source: http://etn.fi/index.php?option=com_content&view=article&id=3098:taas-yksi-uhri-kannykkapiireissa&catid=13&Itemid=101

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August 4, 2015 at 6:19 am
Tomi Engdahl says:

Samsung Electronics to create fund for cancer-stricken workers, safety
http://www.reuters.com/article/2015/08/03/us-samsung-elec-cancer-idUSKCN0Q814I20150803

Tech giant Samsung Electronics Co Ltd said on Monday it will create a 100 billion won ($85.8 million) fund to compensate cancer-stricken workers and their families, and for efforts to prevention such diseases at its chip and display factories.

Samsung said in a statement the fund will make payments to workers or families of those who became sick while working at its plants, including contractors. The fund would also pay for research, development of experts and other methods to improve worker safety.

South Korean activist group Sharps, which represents many of the cancer-stricken workers, said on Monday it was aware of around 200 workers who had fallen ill after working at a Samsung plant.

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August 10, 2015 at 10:11 am
Tomi Engdahl says:

Technique uses laser pulse to print silicon on paper
http://www.edn.com/electronics-blogs/tech-edge/4440075/Technique-uses-laser-pulse-to-print-silicon-on-paper?_mc=NL_EDN_EDT_EDN_funfriday_20150807&cid=NL_EDN_EDT_EDN_funfriday_20150807&elq=64aaba9c898648d5b026689445e051c6&elqCampaignId=24274&elqaid=27415&elqat=1&elqTrackId=b70c7265a9614d13b9604d5903f723d7

Researchers at the Netherlands’ Delft University of Technology, in collaboration with scientists at the Japan Advanced Institute of Science and Technology, have developed a method that uses a laser and liquid silicon ink to produce silicon directly on a substrate. Their work was published in the American Institute of Physics’ Applied Physics Letters.

In his IEEE Spectrum article on the development, author Charles Q. Choi points out that “the ability to print silicon onto substrates has existed for some time, but producing solid silicon from liquid polysilane ink required exposing the silicon to temperatures upwards of 350 degrees Celsius—far too hot for many of the flexible surfaces onto which one might want to print.”

The research team bypassed the annealing step altogether and transformed the liquid silicon directly into polysilicon.

Laser-printed polysilicon transistors on paper
http://spectrum.ieee.org/tech-talk/semiconductors/materials/laserprinted-polysilicon-transistors-on-paper

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August 10, 2015 at 10:40 am
Tomi Engdahl says:

Are you bored with your board?
http://www.edn.com/electronics-blogs/out-of-this-world-design/4440046/Are-you-bored-with-your-board-?_mc=NL_EDN_EDT_EDN_today_20150805&cid=NL_EDN_EDT_EDN_today_20150805&elq=a133666873c2456e893cd22b6cc94288&elqCampaignId=24230&elqaid=27371&elqat=1&elqTrackId=e35da007074c45cbbfc960a30d86aabf

The performance required to deliver the next generation of satellite services for operators is stretching the capability of traditional materials used to fabricate space-grade PCBs. Ka-band, RF carriers, broadband ADCs/DACs, noisy switching regulators, low-voltage high-current FPGAs containing multi-gigabit, high-speed serial links, as well as I/O toggling around 1 GHz, all now reside on the same PCB separated by only a few centimetres. The choice of dielectric now has to optimise for RF, analog, and digital requirements.

Manufacturers of spacecraft avionics are considering new PCB materials with lower relative dielectric constants (Er or Dk) and dissipation factors (Df) to achieve the performances that will enable future missions for satellite operators. For some designs, careful floor-planning and component placement will allow OEMs to deliver the target requirements using existing, lower-cost materials and less expensive fabrication.

At lower frequencies and data rates, signal loss is caused mainly by impedance mismatches and less so by dielectric absorption and conductor losses. At higher frequencies, material loss becomes equally important and controlled substrate construction must be considered during the design process.

At higher frequencies (and faster edges), losses occur due to changes in characteristic impedance (Z0), absorption of some of the signal energy by the dielectric material, and resistive channel losses due to skin effect and copper-surface roughness. Reflections are caused by impedance discontinuities, variations in Z0 resulting from differences in laminate thickness, changes in the dielectric constant of the substrate, and fabrication tolerances in the width of the etched traces.

The dielectric constant (Er/Dk) of nearly all PCB substrates decreases with frequency, which manifests itself in two ways: the speed of signals increases and the characteristic impedance of a transmission line becomes smaller. The former generates phase distortion in bandwidth-rich digital signals, while changes in Z0 cause faster edges to reflect more than slower ones. Edges contain harmonics which can have significant amplitudes up to a frequency of 0.35/T, where T is the smaller of rise or fall time in ns.

Within the dielectric, the fibreglass weave pattern and the ratio of reinforcement to resin cause local variations in Er/Dk. The glass and epoxy each have different relative permittivities, thereby presenting a non-homogenous medium for signal propagation.

The tighter the weave netting, the more uniform the dielectric constant. Loose weaves result in more variation within the laminate

Reply
August 10, 2015 at 10:41 am
Tomi Engdahl says:

Power Amplifiers: Playing It Safe
http://www.edn.com/design/analog/4440080/Power-Amplifiers–Playing-It-Safe?_mc=NL_EDN_EDT_EDN_analog_20150806&cid=NL_EDN_EDT_EDN_analog_20150806&elq=617e5f570e234280b800e086578c3d25&elqCampaignId=24251&elqaid=27393&elqat=1&elqTrackId=06b4be055f294ff8bb11bdba55bab773

When Murphy Hits

When your power amplifier mimics a steam engine, you know that something is wrong – terribly wrong. Using power amplifiers for high voltage or high current applications has its challenges, in particular when the output of the amplifier is used for equipment that is handled by others or that is used in harsh environments. The impact for mishandling can go way beyond just a straight damage to the power amplifier. It can shut down a production line, damage other portions of the equipment, or can even pose the threat of harming an individual.

It’s common that you might burn an amplifier or two when you design and test a new circuit.

When we see returns of our power amplifiers from the field, it is very likely that the failure analysis reveals an operation of the power amplifier outside its safe operating area (SOA).

Aim for the Early Bird Special

While you often can’t control the handling of your equipment, various options are available to protect your system. The best time to start thinking about system protection is right when you write your system specification. It’s a good idea at that time to analyze potential fault and mishandling scenarios and their impact on the overall system. Once that list is complete, you can then plan for measures in your design to limit the impact of the faults you identified as critical. Pushing out the fault analysis to a later time will be costly

Reply
August 10, 2015 at 11:02 am
Tomi Engdahl says:

5G base station architecture: The potential semiconductor solutions
http://www.edn.com/design/analog/4439931/5G-base-station-architecture–The-potential-semiconductor-solutions?_mc=NL_EDN_EDT_EDN_weekly_20150723&cid=NL_EDN_EDT_EDN_weekly_20150723&elq=4ee4d66839ba4ff2b0700e8de3c6af91&elqCampaignId=24073&elqaid=27191&elqat=1&elqTrackId=0eedc3b35f74448b9f82742dca7ed8ae

For many, 5G is too far away to think about right now; to others 5G is too complex or too aggressive in its goals. Be sure, my friends, that 5G will be upon us like a pouncing tiger, sooner than you think.

I have spoken to many of the key semiconductor companies that I felt had the best potential to create 5G solutions based upon their present architectures and future evolution and advancements in their technology, processes and architectures. I present the following as a discussion as well as an informative view of what may be to come on the road to 5G development. Of course, these companies want to keep their roadmaps close to the vest, but there are some good insights in what they expressed to me below.

Efficient Power Conversion

I discussed 5G with Alex Lidow, CEO and co-founder of Efficient Power Conversion, who said:

As the consumer demands more data wirelessly, the industry needs to move for a 4G to a 5G transmission technology. Unfortunately, as we go to higher data transmission rates there is an exponential and unacceptable decrease in the efficiency of the transmitter. This decrease can be fixed using a technology called envelope tracking, which has already been adopted in newer 4G/LTE base stations as well as cellular phones. Envelope tracking in base stations requires the high speed, high power, and high voltages that are only available using GaN technology. Today this is one of the largest markets for GaN transistors, and will hold that position for the next several years.

I fully expect that eGaN technology will be one of the most important solutions to power efficiency in base station infrastructure for 5G; the peak-to-average ratios will be worse in 5G. Envelope tracking is obvious right now as one way eGaN power transistors will do this, but over the next 3 to 5 years more applications will emerge as eGaN technology progresses.

The power transistor revolution needed to enable 5G networks comes from gallium nitride.

Where we are now and why?

Data Centers: Constantly looking to fit more power in the same rack with the same cooling –> higher density, higher efficiency

Data Centers and Base Stations: Total Cost of ownership –> reduced electricity costs –> higher efficiency at all loads

Base Stations: Cramming more capacity/more channels in a fixed power infrastructure –> higher efficiency, higher density, and envelope tracking

5G goals:

1,000 X in mobile data volume per geographical area reaching a target ≥ 10 Tb/s/km2
1,000 X in number of connected devices reaching a density ≥ 1M terminals/km2
100 X in user data rate reaching a peak terminal data rate ≥ 10Gb/s
1/10 X in energy consumption compared to 2010
1/5 X in end-to-end latency4 reaching 5 ms for e.g. tactile Internet and radio link latency reaching a target ≤ 1 ms for e.g. Vehicle to Vehicle communication
1/5 X in network management OPEX
1/1,000 X in service deployment time reaching a complete deployment in ≤ 90 minutes

It is hard (I would say impossible) to imagine that these goals can be met without an absolute revolutionary change to power management.

Reply
August 10, 2015 at 11:14 am
Tomi Engdahl says:

DDR simulation strategy catches bugs early
http://www.edn.com/design/integrated-circuit-design/4439943/DDR-simulation-strategy-catches-bugs-early?_mc=NL_EDN_EDT_EDN_today_20150720&cid=NL_EDN_EDT_EDN_today_20150720&elq=2824add400c0490ead7de8f318c0c2b8&elqCampaignId=24014&elqaid=27113&elqat=1&elqTrackId=412f3ec08ae844d8a331acae3a9cbf21

DDR verification is one of the most critical and complex tasks in any SoC as it involves a controller sitting inside the DUT and an external DDR memory sitting outside the DUT on board. A DDR system consists of a controller, I/O, package, socket, power supply, clock, and an external memory all working together. In digital verification, not all of these components come into the picture, but primarily the controller, PHY, I/O, and memory. Verification becomes even more complicated as the effects of all the components is impossible to imitate in digital simulations, but Gate Level Simulation (GLS) gives us a good infrastructure to report the design issues that can plague the controller-PHY-I/O path mainly from a timing perspective.

A lot of issues related to timing are encountered while verifying DDR in GLS which leads to a lot of iterations between the verification and STA (Static Timing Analysis) teams.

Reply
August 10, 2015 at 11:27 am
Tomi Engdahl says:

Artix-7 FPGA drives PC/104 I/O board
http://www.edn.com/electronics-products/other/4439897/Artix-7-FPGA-drives-PC-104-I-O-board?_mc=NL_EDN_EDT_EDN_today_20150714&cid=NL_EDN_EDT_EDN_today_20150714&elq=cc618ac7fadc4995b4e3db1c782c625f&elqCampaignId=23908&elqaid=27006&elqat=1&elqTrackId=b831d5aed5424cc092f66bb5bd0e5674

Controlled by a commercial, industrial, or automotive-grade Xilinx Artix-7 FPGA, the EMC2-7A I/O board from Sundance integrates a PCI Express x4 Gen2 interface and reprogrammable logic on a PC/104 form factor called OneBank. This stackable module has 68x free differential I/O pins that are routed to a VITA57.1 FMC-LPC high-speed connector.

he PCIe/104 OneBank FPGA I/O board packs 1 Gbyte of DDR3 local storage, 32 Mbytes of flash memory, and a 1-Mbps Ethernet interface, while its multigigabit serial transceivers are coupled to a PCI switch for infinite scalability. Optimized for low cost and power, the Artix-7 FPGA is supported by the Xilinx Vivado 2015 design tools.

The EMC2-7A introduces two new concepts to PC/104: a cableless break-out design and upgradeable system-on-modules (SoMs).

Prices for the EMC2-7A with an Artix-7-100 FPGA start at under $650 in lots of 100+ units.

Reply
August 10, 2015 at 12:04 pm
Tomi Engdahl says:

The real costs of failed design collaboration
http://www.edn.com/electronics-blogs/all-aboard-/4439959/The-real-costs-of-failed-design-collaboration?_mc=NL_EDN_EDT_EDN_today_20150721&cid=NL_EDN_EDT_EDN_today_20150721&elq=8daa935782ae48ebb74907144a0f2f5e&elqCampaignId=24027&elqaid=27134&elqat=1&elqTrackId=38f48820889a460eaa68bca20c40372c

Antiquated design processes are failing designers. All over the world, engineers are struggling every day with the simple process of communication between electrical and mechanical design teams. What plagues them is not the lack of power in the tools, but the inability to adapt to what is an entirely different product design workflow than what was required a decade ago.

The product experience has changed dramatically, but the tools that designers rely on to craft these experiences are struggling to catch up. And if something doesn’t change soon, tools might cripple the progress that’s been enjoyed in the industrial era of engineering entirely.

The product designs of the future

Engineers are tasked with designing ever denser, smaller, and smarter products. To design something that small and powerful requires a design process that is tightly aligned across all engineering domains. There are a number of product design trends underway – below are just a few that are directly impacting how engineers work together:

The emergence of sophisticated electronics in vehicles

The growing dependency on connected products

The introduction of wearables as a viable technology

This isn’t your father’s engineering world anymore

Despite the reality of the changing product experience, the same tired design practices that focus not on collaboration, but on treating everyone involved in the design process as an isolated specialist, are employed day in and day out. In many ways, companies are still clinging to the ideals of the industrial era of engineering, when what is needed is quite the opposite. We’re still relying on the same technology that was introduced decades ago, including:

Interchange file formats
Linear design processes
Unmanaged communication methods

The true costs of failed design collaboration

Everyone involved in the electronics design industry is familiar with these approaches, and we’re all guilty of relying on them every single day. Every week, countless hours are spent patching the holes in design workflows, fixing mistakes, working overtime and maybe even weekends because of them.

we are becoming all too familiar with the real costs of our failed design collaboration processes, including:

● Missed time to market and budgets, with design revisions slipping through the cracks and prototype costs skyrocketing from failed communication processes.

● Wasted time and productivity, with designers having to manage multiple revisions that could have been solved the first time with a properly implemented collaboration system.

● Product experiences that are compromised during the design phase based on budget and time constraints vs. being iterated to perfection.

We don’t need another interchange file format

I’ll say it again: We don’t need another interchange file format.
What is needed are intelligent design tools that allow for communication between one another. Intelligent tools that don’t require engineers to shove data into a box and pass it along. With these tools, there are no boxes – there is no data translation.

Bi-directional data synchronization

These tools need to share data seamlessly, without requiring any kind of interchange file formats. What does this mean in a practical scenario? Being able to commit changes between design environments, and have those changes instantly transmitted to our fellow engineers.

Commenting and revision systems between design environments

Not only does data need to be shared, we need to be able to add the human element of communication into the mix outside of the unmanaged channels that we rely on. Within our design platforms, we need a connected and universal communication environment that allows us to clearly articulate the design revisions that have been made and share those details with others involved in the design process.

What does this look like in a practical application?

Will we develop these solutions in time?

We need to start developing these solutions now. It won’t happen overnight, and it’s going to be a slow transition. But the reality is that technology is just going to become more complex. Products are going to keep getting smaller, thinner, and faster than we could have ever imagined.

Reply
August 10, 2015 at 12:14 pm
Tomi Engdahl says:

Probe adapters simplify interfacing Teledyne LeCroy oscilloscopes
http://www.edn.com/electronics-products/other/4439935/Probe-adapters-simplify-interfacing-Teledyne-LeCroy-oscilloscopes-?_mc=NL_EDN_EDT_EDN_productsandtools_20150720&cid=NL_EDN_EDT_EDN_productsandtools_20150720&elq=ecfb0beb9d5747db9aa166358df53b1a&elqCampaignId=24018&elqaid=27117&elqat=1&elqTrackId=5f25d935153d4961a7ce8e857baacfcc

Teledyne LeCroy has introduced two products that provide simple and easy interface of third-party probes and current measurement devices to Teledyne LeCroy oscilloscopes.

The TPA10 TekProbe Probe Adapter – adapts a wide variety of Tektronix voltage and current probes. The CA10 Current Sensor Adapter – adapts a wide variety of third-party current measurement devices.

The TPA10 TekProbe Probe Adapter permits connection of select Tektronix TekProbe interface level II probes to any ProBus-equipped Teledyne LeCroy oscilloscope. The TPA10 automatically detects which Tektronix probe is attached and supplies all necessary power and offset control to the probe, and communicates the probe signal to the Teledyne LeCroy oscilloscope.

The CA10 Current Sensor Adapter provides the ability for a third-party current measurement device to operate like a Teledyne LeCroy probe. The CA10 is programmable and customizable to work with third-party current measurement devices that output voltage or current signals proportional to measured current. A simple interface provides a user with the ability to program the CA10 to contain the specifications of the current measurement device so as to automatically correct for the gain or attenuation and display results in Ampere units. The CA10 also provides the ability to easily install physical hardware components such as shunt resistors and bandwidth filter components based on the requirements of the device being used. Once the CA10 is programmed and configured, the current transducer/transformer will be recognized when attached to any compatible Teledyne LeCroy oscilloscope or Motor Drive Analyzer which saves time and possible errors involved in manually entering scaling factors and units each time the device is connected.

Reply
August 10, 2015 at 12:15 pm
Tomi Engdahl says:

Interface IC calibrates sensor outputs
http://www.edn.com/electronics-products/other/4439963/Interface-IC-calibrates-sensor-outputs?_mc=NL_EDN_EDT_EDN_productsandtools_20150720&cid=NL_EDN_EDT_EDN_productsandtools_20150720&elq=ecfb0beb9d5747db9aa166358df53b1a&elqCampaignId=24018&elqaid=27117&elqat=1&elqTrackId=7d4da36a4a3f42288fdaa00c2a433aa6

A sensor-interface analog front-end IC, the XR10910 from Exar, integrates a 16:1 differential multiplexer, offset-correction DAC, programmable-gain instrumentation amplifier, and a voltage reference in a 6×6-mm QFN package. The device provides 14-bit signal-path linearity and connects multiple bridge sensors to a microcontroller or FPGA with an embedded ADC.

The XR10910’s DAC performs offset calibration for any offset voltage generated by bridge sensors, improving overall system sensitivity and accuracy.

Prices for the XR10910 start at $8.10 in lots of 1000 units.

http://www.exar.com/high-performance-analog/sensor-products/sensor-interface/xr10910/

Reply
August 10, 2015 at 12:48 pm
Tomi Engdahl says:

Tantalum capacitor benefits and recent advances: Product how-to
http://www.edn.com/design/components-and-packaging/4439902/Tantalum-capacitor-benefits-and-recent-advances–Product-how-to?_mc=NL_EDN_EDT_EDN_today_20150715&cid=NL_EDN_EDT_EDN_today_20150715&elq=5b7289a9d0764c72ac2f8a4a888bf55d&elqCampaignId=23931&elqaid=27034&elqat=1&elqTrackId=e49418730a9744feb7ca075cfd7635a9

Tantalum capacitors offer designers of densely packed, high-performance electronic circuits a reliable high-capacitance solution with stable performance. A historical favorite among design engineers, tantalum capacitors are found in a wide range of applications such as bulk energy storage, filtering, and decoupling. Advancements in tantalum capacitor technology include the maturation of the polymer cathode system, which brings lower effective series resistance (ESR), significant improvements in packaging density, and reductions in effective series inductance (ESL). Herein, we will examine the impacts these developments have had on performance.

Tantalum capacitors have been in use for almost 60 years. Noted for their long-term reliability and capacitance density, tantalum capacitors have been central in the design of military and commercial avionics, implantable medical electronics, notebook computers, smartphones, and industrial automation and control systems.

At the core of their popularity has been their volumetric efficiency, which yields high capacitance per unit volume

With an extremely large surface area, high dielectric constant, and a relatively thin dielectric, tantalum capacitors offer the best capacitance density available in the 1µF to 2,200µF range at working voltages up to 50V.

Combining advanced tantalum powders and high-efficiency packaging has kept tantalum capacitors one step ahead of advancements in alternate technologies.

Conventional tantalum capacitors utilize manganese dioxide (MnO2) as the cathode system. This semiconductor material provides a self-healing mechanism that leads to long-term reliability and is relatively inexpensive.

Manufactures offer solid tantalum capacitors in a wide variety of different series optimized for specific characteristics and targeting different applications and market segments. These varied product series include optimizations such as lower ESR, reduced size, high reliability (e.g., military, automotive, and medical), reduced DC current leakage, lower ESL, and higher temperature. This paper focuses on two of these areas of attention: lower ESR and reduced size.

Lower ESR – Optimized for lowest ESR, these devices offer higher efficiency in pulsed or AC applications and better filtering in high-noise environments.
Reduced size – Combining the use of high-CV tantalum powder and highly efficient packaging, these devices offer high capacitance in compact sizes. These are used in space-constrained applications such as smartphones, tablets, and other hand-held consumer electronics.

Conclusion

Advancements in tantalum capacitors have resulted in lower ESR, lower ESL, and reduced size. The maturation of the processes and materials used in the conductive polymer cathode system has resulted in stable, repeatable performance. This has spurred significant design-in activity beyond the confines of tantalum’s traditional uses. And improvements in packaging technology have led to higher capacitance density and reductions in ESL.

Reply
August 10, 2015 at 12:50 pm
Tomi Engdahl says:

Designing a low-cost, reusable power-distribution architecture
http://www.edn.com/electronics-blogs/out-of-this-world-design/4439875/Designing-a-low-cost–reusable-power-distribution-architecture?_mc=NL_EDN_EDT_EDN_today_20150713&cid=NL_EDN_EDT_EDN_today_20150713&elq=3e38ed8cba3e4486af4287c6d9c90888&elqCampaignId=23888&elqaid=26981&elqat=1&elqTrackId=f1bb2a33011a44a59a26cab157a81978

The latest, spacecraft sub-systems are baselining advanced semiconductors requiring multiple low-voltage, high-current rails requirements, e.g. FPGAs with core voltages of < 1V@30A. Furthermore, individual loads have unique sequencing, transient, line and load-regulation requirements, which can complicate the design of the power-distribution network.

Current spacecraft busses provide 28 and 100V unregulated power rails, which can be used to generate isolated, regulated supplies efficiently for the latest space-grade semiconductors. To develop a low-cost, scalable, power-distribution architecture to meet the needs of future spacecraft sub-systems, a reusable design is sought which will efficiently generate multiple smaller rails from either an input of 28 or 100V while limiting the total number of power-conversion stages.

Space-grade DC-DC convertors are available that have identical packages, PCB footprints and pin-outs, which allow the first stage of power conversion to be swapped to meet specific mission needs without having to re-engineer the hardware design. This is a key requirement necessary to deliver a low-cost, reusable, scalable, reliable, and efficient power-distribution architecture!

Developing a low-cost, reusable, power-distribution architecture requires looking at the complete design and not just the price of individual components.

Reply
August 10, 2015 at 1:00 pm
Tomi Engdahl says:

Boundary-scan viewer offers trace imaging
http://www.edn.com/electronics-products/other/4440048/Boundary-scan-viewer-offers-trace-imaging?_mc=NL_EDN_EDT_EDN_today_20150803&cid=NL_EDN_EDT_EDN_today_20150803&elq=de1823e2c41145fc8ccf748212cf423d&elqCampaignId=24195&elqaid=27326&elqat=1&elqTrackId=423b806e4eba47a69b9c3d62d722da82

Version 8.2 of the ScanExpress boundary-scan tool suite from Corelis adds trace imaging using ODB++ netlist data to the ScanExpress Viewer circuit-board diagnostic display system. Trace highlighting enables quick visual identification and diagnosis of faults reported by boundary-scan tests.

Reply
August 11, 2015 at 7:31 am
Tomi Engdahl says:

LabVIEW 2015 makes productivity enhancements
http://www.edn.com/electronics-products/other/4440083/LabVIEW-2015-makes-productivity-enhancements?_mc=NL_EDN_EDT_EDN_productsandtools_20150810&cid=NL_EDN_EDT_EDN_productsandtools_20150810&elq=cc0d68e994894f0bae1203b7db673772&elqCampaignId=24292&elqaid=27439&elqat=1&elqTrackId=8d7817aa88934f18b0e1bc185bbda751

As it does at every year at NI Week, National Instruments announced a new version of its flagship product, LabVIEW. This year, the company is touting “Write code faster, write faster code” for LabVIEW’s enhancements.

LabVIEW 2015 gives graphical code developers the ability to create custom menus that appear in a right-click. That lets users customize menus to make each person’s most used features to the forefront.

LabVIEW 2015 contains many new VIs (virtual instruments), including a change to a VI for writing data to a spreadsheet.

Reply
August 11, 2015 at 10:40 am
Tomi Engdahl says:

Cyborgs Closer To Reality: Scientists Develop Electronic Skin Sensors For Controlling Mobile Devices
http://hothardware.com/news/cyborgs-closer-to-reality-scientists-develop-electronic-skin-sensors-for-controlling-mobile-devices

“iSkin supports single or multiple touch areas of custom shape and arrangement, as well as more complex widgets, such as sliders and click wheels,” write the researchers. “Recognizing the social importance of skin, we show visual design patterns to customize functional touch sensors and allow for a visually aesthetic appearance. Taken together, these contributions enable new types of on-body devices.”

What makes iSkin interesting is that it can be used for “fast and direct control of mobile devices using touch input even when the hands are busy.” The researchers see iSkin being used to control smartphone and smartwatch functions like a stopwatch during sports activities, adjusting music playback and volume, and answering phone calls. The team has even developed a prototype rollup 30-key QWERTY keyboard than can wrap around your forearm and attach to a smartwatch (input methods for smartwatches are rather limited, so this is a rather novel approach).

The sensors are constructed using several layers of silicon. Non-conductive parts of the iSkin are built using transparent polydimethylsiloxane (PDMS), while conductors are made with carbon dope PDMS. These materials allow iSkin to be very flexible and stretchable

Reply
August 11, 2015 at 10:54 am
Tomi Engdahl says:

News & Analysis
AMD Slips From Ranking of Top 20 Chip Vendors
http://www.eetimes.com/document.asp?doc_id=1327372&

Advanced Micro Devices Inc. (AMD), which has seen its sales decline over the past several years and has reported six consecutive quarterly losses, slipped out of the top 20 semiconductor vendors as ranked by sales in the first half of 2015, according to market research firm IHS.

AMD’s slip in the rankings was largely due to a particularly rough second quarter, when the company’s sales declined by 35% compared with the second quarter of 2014, IC Insights (Scottsdale, Ariz.) noted. The second quarter also marked the first time AMD’s sales slipped below $1 billion since 2003, IC Insights added.

AMD has been ranked among the top 20 chip suppliers in every calendar year since sometime prior to 2000, according to annual rankings issued by iSuppli Corp.(now part of IHS Inc.)

Reply
August 11, 2015 at 10:56 am
Tomi Engdahl says:

Solar Cell, Battery Combo May Simplify Power Generation
Storing its own energy streamlines process
http://www.eetimes.com/document.asp?doc_id=1327366&

Ohio State University (Columbus) claims to have produced the first aqueous flow battery with solar capability, which they call an “aqueous solar flow battery.”

Solar cells today usually drive an inverter that turns their DC output into AC, which is then used locally with any excess being dumped onto the grid. Ohio State, on the other hand, thinks a better way is to integrate a DC battery with the each solar cell, thus generating and storing the energy in one easy step. Their most recent iteration of this project integrates an aqueous lithium-iodine flow battery with die-sensitized solar cells, thus creating a solar cell plus battery in a unit that both generates and stores solar energy.

“Our aqueous lithium-iodine solar flow battery is based on a rechargeable battery system that integrates a photo-electrode into the device for solar energy conversion,” Mingzhe Yu, a doctoral candidate working in the lab of professor Yiying Wu, told EE Times.

The team’s goal was to produce a 3.3-volt DC energy source to drive electronics directly, using a combination of the output from the solar cell and the battery, compared with the battery by itself.

“The most important innovation here is that we have demonstrated the aqueous flow inside our solar battery,” Yu told us. “Because of the use of aqueous electrolyte, this system is totally compatible with current redox flow battery technology, very easy to integrate with existing technology, environmentally friendly and easy to maintain.

Reply
August 11, 2015 at 1:16 pm
Tomi Engdahl says:

AMD patent filing hints at FPGA plans in the pipeline
Plots response to Intel’s Altera acquisition
http://www.theregister.co.uk/2015/08/11/amd_patent_filing_hints_at_fpga_plans_in_the_pipeline/

With Intel in the process of buying venerable FPGA-maker (field programmable gate arrays) Altera and adding FPGA-like customisability to some Xeon silicon, the industry has been anticipating a response from AMD. And perhaps the first fruit of that response are now emerging.

A report from Italy’s Bits and Chips says the company wants to stack its x86 Opteron chips with FPGAs, with its HBM2 (high bandwidth memory) technology providing the high-speed communications.

The Italian report is based on this patent application filed by AMD, titled Die-stacked memory device with reconfigurable logic.

In the patent filing, AMD says it wants to give designers the reconfigurability of FPGAs, but without the on-board real estate penalty of having to design in an extra chip.

Reply
August 11, 2015 at 1:18 pm
Tomi Engdahl says:

Qualcomm Launches Snapdragon 616, 412, and 212
by Joshua Ho on August 10, 2015 6:00 PM EST
http://www.anandtech.com/show/9511/qualcomm-launches-snapdragon-616-412-and-212

Today, Qualcomm launched a set of new SoCs, namely the Snapdragon 616, 412, and 212. These are updates to the Snapdragon 615, 410, and 210 respectively.

If you were to guess that these are relatively minor updates, you’d be right.

Overall it’s a bit unfortunate that none of these SoCs have made the move from a traditional polySiON gate oxide to a high-k metal gate process yet. However I suspect that in these lower tiers even the cost of HKMG would dramatically affect competitiveness and price.

Reply
August 11, 2015 at 1:20 pm
Tomi Engdahl says:

Samsung starts mass producing 256Gb V-NAND to rival Intel and SanDisk
Based on 48 layers of 3-bit multi-level cell arrays for use in SSDs
http://www.theinquirer.net/inquirer/news/2421547/samsung-starts-mass-producing-256gb-v-nand-to-rival-intel-and-sandisk

SAMSUNG HAS STARTED mass producing what it claims is “the industry’s first” 256Gb 3D Vertical NAND, or V-NAND, in a race with the likes of Intel, Micron, Toshiba and SanDisk to become the industry’s flash memory champion.

Based on 48 layers of three-bit multi-level cell (MLC) arrays for use in solid state drives (SSDs), Samsung’s 256Gb 3D V-NAND flash doubles the density of conventional 128Gb NAND flash chips.

The new V-NAND chip consists of cells that use the same 3D Charge Trap Flash structure in which the cell arrays are stacked vertically to form a 48-story mass that is connected electrically through some 1.8 billion channel holes, punching through the arrays thanks to a special etching technology.

Samsung said that each chip contains over 85.3 billion cells, which can store three bits of data each, resulting in 256 billion bits of data in total, “in other words, 256Gb on a chip no larger than the tip of a finger”.

A 48-layer three-bit MLC 256Gb V-NAND flash chip delivers more than a 30 percent reduction in power compared with a 32-layer, three-bit MLC, 128Gb V-NAND chip when storing the same amount of data.

The Korean chip maker plans to produce third-generation V-NAND throughout the remainder of 2015 in a bid to accelerate the adoption of terabyte-level SSDs. Samsung also plans to increase its high-density SSD sales for the enterprise and data centre storage markets with PCIe NVMe and SAS interfaces.

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August 11, 2015 at 2:55 pm
Tomi Engdahl says:

PCB Layout: Design in-house, or outsource?
http://www.edn.com/design/pc-board/4440084/PCB-Layout–Design-in-house–or-outsource-?_mc=NL_EDN_EDT_EDN_today_20150811&cid=NL_EDN_EDT_EDN_today_20150811&elq=96872580c5324ac1988d77b0fdef34ae&elqCampaignId=24300&elqaid=27452&elqat=1&elqTrackId=add5aa8685d448b595af05dd549288c4

Here’s a scorecard from Ohio PCB design house White Knight that helps answer the question posed in the title: Design in-house, or outsource?

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August 13, 2015 at 8:14 am
Tomi Engdahl says:

Harmonic analyzer provides power waveform measurements
http://www.edn.com/electronics-products/other/4440114/Graphical-harmonic-analyser-for-in-depth-power-waveform-inspection?_mc=NL_EDN_EDT_EDN_today_20150812&cid=NL_EDN_EDT_EDN_today_20150812&elq=bd0421c99a4740ad9d3df86b77be181a&elqCampaignId=24327&elqaid=27479&elqat=1&elqTrackId=5b393ed456394621bdea13a0cb8bf3e3

The PA900 integrates a high accuracy, wideband waveform digitizer with computational capability, a large hi-resolution display and a touch-screen user interface yielding, say its makers, confidence in the integrity of power measurement results. The unit’s intuitive touch-screen operation, with built-in data history, scope mode and waveform zoom allows users to explore many aspects of power measurement in greater detail than traditional power analyzers.

The PA900 delivers waveform visualization and measurement results necessary to validate the performance of power critical designs such as LED lighting, solar power inverters, electric vehicles and aviation power distribution.

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August 13, 2015 at 8:14 am
Tomi Engdahl says:

Design & simulate in the clouds
http://www.edn.com/electronics-blogs/benchtalk/4440093/Design—simulate-in-the-clouds?_mc=NL_EDN_EDT_EDN_today_20150812&cid=NL_EDN_EDT_EDN_today_20150812&elq=bd0421c99a4740ad9d3df86b77be181a&elqCampaignId=24327&elqaid=27479&elqat=1&elqTrackId=0f1949a52de649b8b8cf9e04d9f0c91a

It was a few years ago that I first heard of a free site where you could draw and simulate designs. “What’s the point?” I thought. But, the idea is taking off. Was I wrong?

I questioned the usefulness of this cloud concept because there had already long existed good, free circuit simulators. A quick download, and off you go, drawing and simulating. Why deal with the extra vagaries of service-provider availability, and of course, Internet access?

Well, as with any other cloud-based service, there are advantages, such as being able to work anywhere, on any supported device, and not having to deal with the software directly. And while the services out there now seem mostly suited to exploration, hobby, and simple prototype use, they will keep getting better. Some are arguably already professional grade.

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August 13, 2015 at 8:17 am
Tomi Engdahl says:

Hardware innovation isn’t dead
http://www.edn.com/electronics-blogs/now-hear-this/4440121/Hardware-innovation-isn-t-dead?_mc=NL_EDN_EDT_EDN_today_20150812&cid=NL_EDN_EDT_EDN_today_20150812&elq=bd0421c99a4740ad9d3df86b77be181a&elqCampaignId=24327&elqaid=27479&elqat=1&elqTrackId=1f3f489556b54da5834c3122fc92b577

The death of electronics hardware has been a topic of discussion for years—as pundits predicted that new products would be evolutionary rather than evolution. Inventive entrepreneurs, however, are betting on new electronics hardware as the next big thing, and consumers continue to get excited about helping to fund the next promising hardware offering on Kickstarter.

In recent memory, revenue associated with global consumer electronics manufacturing has been in a slump, as it tried to find new directions beyond the traditional television market that provided the industry’s mainstay. The global market represents a $283 billion market, with an annual growth rate of 6.6%, according to IBISWorld’s Global Consumer Electronics Manufacturing market research report. “Over the five years to 2020, revenue is expected to increase thanks to higher demand in emerging economies resulting from higher disposable incomes and relatively lower penetration of many consumer electronic products,” the report said.

Designers are trying to help this boon along, with new ideas emerging from all over the world. On Kickstarter, hardware captured a lion’s share of the attention from users. Of nearly 2,700 technology projects that were successfully funded in the past year and a half (from January 2014 to August 2015), the biggest share of the pie fell into the general electronics category.

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August 13, 2015 at 8:18 am
Tomi Engdahl says:

Perfect Parts is starting an online component revolution
http://www.edn.com/electronics-blogs/now-hear-this/4439752/Perfect-Parts-is-starting-an-online-component-revolution
Perfect Parts, an independent electronics distributor founded in 2013, has launched an online catalog of electronic components calling it the world’s largest online catalog and collection of electronic parts information available today. The database contains more than 425 million unique electronic parts across over 400 electronic product categories, the company said.

“Today, OEMs, contract manufacturers, and electronic design manufacturers have to go to many different sources to get both quality products and the technical information they need for both demand planning and production scheduling” Lulu Jaff, vice president of product sales at Perfect Parts told EBN in an exclusive interview. “We want to offer these customers better services by giving them the power to locate more accurate solutions faster in order to help them adhere to rigorous demand planning and scheduling.”

The catalog, which is powered by CAPS Universe from IHS, spans electromechanical, interconnects, passives, semiconductors, and other electronic components from over 4,000 global manufacturers.

Perfect Parts, meanwhile, will offer component manufacturers extended marketing capabilities, distribution support, customer technical support, demand, advanced scheduling, analytic information on the interest that has been generated by their products, and other services.

http://www.perfectelectronicparts.com/index.php

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August 14, 2015 at 7:34 am
Tomi Engdahl says:

Printing Flexible Lithium-Ion Batteries
Materials: A solid, printable electrolyte enables lithium-ion batteries to take many shapes
http://cen.acs.org/articles/93/web/2015/08/Printing-Flexible-Lithium-Ion-Batteries.html

Engineers dreaming up new pacemakers, watches, or whatever wearable gadgets come after Google Glass have to tailor their designs around existing battery shapes—typically cylinders, pouches, or rectangles. But a team of researchers hopes their fully printable, flexible lithium-ion batteries will one day free designers from these constraints (Nano Lett. 2015, DOI: 10.1021/acs.nanolett.5b01394).

Battery shapes are now limited because of the need to contain liquid electrolytes, which carry ions and charges between the two electrodes when the battery is being used or recharged. Solid-state batteries that use solid electrolytes could be printed to fit a particular device shape and would give designers more room to play. So far, though, there aren’t any solid-state lithium-ion batteries on the market, says Corie Cobb of PARC, a research company owned by Xerox, in Palo Alto, Calif., who is not involved in the new work. Lithium-ion is currently the best rechargeable battery chemistry—it lasts a long time, has a high energy density, and delivers that energy in powerful bursts.

To print working batteries, Lee’s group first creates printable inks by mixing previously developed battery-electrode material blends into the UV-curable polymer. They press ink for the anode through a stencil with a squeegee, cure it with UV light, then do the same with the electrolyte on top of the anode. They follow that with the cathode ink to create the full battery cell. Using this technique, the researchers printed a battery on the bridge of a pair of paper glasses and also put a heart-shaped battery on the curved surface of a glass mug. Lee says this stencil printing can be done on a massive scale.

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August 17, 2015 at 7:42 am
Tomi Engdahl says:

Your gadget batteries endanger planes, says Boeing
Brit pilots agree: Get gizmos’ batts out of holds
http://www.theregister.co.uk/2015/07/19/your_gadget_batteries_endanger_planes_boeing/

Boeing has decided that lithium-ion batteries, the engine-room of the tech gadget boom, are too dangerous to haul around in bulk on cargo planes.

The company has warned operators of its aircraft not to carry bulk shipments of batteries until logistics companies design better transport packaging and shipping procedures.

America’s Federal Aviation Authority agrees, and over the weekend reiterated a warning first given in March that bulk battery shipments posed a potential risk to airliners.

If a battery develops a short circuit, the FAA explained, the build-up of hydrogen and other gases as surrounding batteries are also heated can defeat a plane’s halon fire suppression system.

In May, the FAA gave this presentation to an airline fire protection meeting in Germany, explaining tests both on individual batteries and a bulk shipment.

It concluded that the total failure energy of Li-ion batteries is almost twice as much electrochemical energy as they can deliver.

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August 17, 2015 at 1:00 pm
Tomi Engdahl says:

Rambus Expands With Its Own Chip Brand
Move is part of company’s effort to leave behind business model linked to patent litigation
http://www.wsj.com/article_email/rambus-expands-with-its-own-chip-brand-1439784003-lMyQjAxMTI1MDE1NzkxMjczWj

Rambus Inc., known for patent battles against chip makers, is becoming one itself.

The Sunnyvale, Calif., company on Monday is announcing plans to sell chips under its own brand for the first time in its 25-year history. Rambus said the products, designed to boost the performance of server systems, are the latest step in a multiyear strategy to leave behind a business model linked to litigation.

“We have to be flexible,” said Ronald Black, who has been pushing for changes since he was named Rambus’s chief executive in 2012.

Rambus reported less than $300 million in revenue in 2014. But its legal tactics, and business model, have received outsize attention.

Rambus, founded in 1990, developed technologies to make memory chips work faster. Instead of selling chips itself, the company adopted the then-novel idea of building a business around licensing technology for chips sold by others.

Rambus won’t actually manufacture its new chips. Like most semiconductor companies founded since the 1980s, it will hire manufacturing specialists to make them.

It won’t lack for competition. Companies such as Integrated Device Technology Inc. and Inphi Corp. already sell data buffers.

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August 18, 2015 at 8:14 am
Tomi Engdahl says:

Static Electricity Aims To Power Wearable Devices
http://www.edn.com/electronics-blogs/powersource/4440090/Static-Electricity-Aims-To-Power-Wearable-Devices?_mc=NL_EDN_EDT_EDN_today_20150817&cid=NL_EDN_EDT_EDN_today_20150817&&elq=1c672a6124d541d6956842d768f04170&elqCampaignId=24401&elqaid=27567&elqat=1&elqTrackId=aa58e9d43cce45458686a106afd37c76

Most people encounter the buildup and discharge of static electricity as an unwelcome shock when touching a metal doorknob after walking across a carpeted floor or sliding across a car seat. Those of us in the semiconductor industry, though, are very familiar with the havoc that can be caused by a stray ESD pulse. ESD causes more than one-third of integrated circuit field failures, showing up as leakage, short circuits, burnout, contact damage, gate oxide rupture, and resistor-metal interface damage. As feature sizes shrink, the problem is only getting worse.

Measures to protect against ESD in electronic equipment include on-chip ESD structures at I/O and Vdd pins, and external devices such as zener diodes and metal oxide varistors (MOVs).

The cause of electrostatic buildup is the triboelectric effect: material becomes electrically charged after it contacts a different material through friction.

It’s believed that after two different materials come into contact, a chemical bond is formed between some parts of the two surfaces, called adhesion, and charges move from one material to the other to equalize their electrochemical potential.

A triboelectric nanogenerator (TENG) is a device used to convert mechanical energy into electricity using nanotechnology

Wearables and triboelectric nanogenerators

Wearable electronic devices such as fitness bands, medical monitoring systems, and watches have given rise to a number of techniques for supplementing their limited battery life. Energy harvesting is one such approach, converting ambient energy into electric energy utilizing such devices as onboard solar cells and piezoelectric generators. TENGs are another

Researchers at the Georgia Institute of Technology are developing TENGs with a goal of powering small electronics for wearable devices. Using four different modes of operation, they’ve harvested energy from a range of sources such as body motion, fabrics, vibrations from human walking, hand pressing, a shoe insole, vibration of a string or tree branch, machine vibration, elastic energy in a sponge structure, and sound waves in air and water.

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August 18, 2015 at 8:15 am
Tomi Engdahl says:

Could Black Phosphorus be the Next Silicon?
http://www.techbriefs.com/component/content/article/1297-ntb/22748

As scientists continue to hunt for a material that will make it possible to pack more transistors on a chip, new research from McGill University and Université de Montréal adds to evidence that black phosphorus could emerge as a strong candidate. In a recent study, researchers reported that when electrons move in a phosphorus transistor, they do so only in two dimensions. This finding suggests that black phosphorus could help engineers surmount one of the big challenges for future electronics – designing energy-efficient transistors.

“Transistors work more efficiently when they are thin, with electrons moving in only two dimensions,” says Thomas Szkopek, an associate professor in McGill’s Department of Electrical and Computer Engineering. “Nothing gets thinner than a single layer of atoms.”

In 2004, physicists at the University of Manchester in the U.K. first isolated and explored the remarkable properties of graphene – a one-atom – thick layer of carbon. Since then scientists have rushed to investigate a range of other two-dimensional materials. One of those is black phosphorus, a form of phosphorus that is similar to graphite and can be separated easily into single atomic layers, known as phosphorene. Phosphorene has sparked growing interest because it overcomes many of the challenges of using graphene in electronics. Unlike graphene, which acts like a metal, black phosphorus is a natural semiconductor, meaning it can be readily switched on and off.

“To lower the operating voltage of transistors, and thereby reduce the heat they generate, we have to get closer and closer to designing the transistor at the atomic level,” Szkopek says.

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August 19, 2015 at 7:01 am
Tomi Engdahl says:

IBM ‘TrueNorth’ Neuro-Synaptic Chip Promises Huge Changes — Eventually
http://tech.slashdot.org/story/15/08/18/2257243/ibm-truenorth-neuro-synaptic-chip-promises-huge-changes—-eventually?utm_source=feedburner&utm_medium=feed&utm_campaign=Feed%3A+Slashdot%2Fslashdot%2Fto+%28%28Title%29Slashdot+%28rdf%29%29

Each of IBM’s “TrueNorth” chips contains 5.4 billion transistors and runs on 70 milliwatts. The chips are designed to behave like neurons—the basic building blocks of biological brains. Dharmenda Modha, the head of IBM’s cognitive computing group, says a system of 24 connected chips simulates 48 million neurons, roughly the same number rodents have.

IBM’s ‘Rodent Brain’ Chip Could Make Our Phones Hyper-Smart
http://www.wired.com/2015/08/ibms-rodent-brain-chip-make-phones-hyper-smart/

I can see the computer chips and the circuit boards and the multi-colored lights on the inside. It looks like a prop from a ’70s sci-fi movie, but Modha describes it differently. “You’re looking at a small rodent,” he says.

He means the brain of a small rodent—or, at least, the digital equivalent. The chips on the inside are designed to behave like neurons—the basic building blocks of biological brains. Modha says the system in front of us spans 48 million of these artificial nerve cells, roughly the number of neurons packed into the head of a rodent.

Modha oversees the cognitive computing group at IBM, the company that created these “neuromorphic” chips. For the first time, he and his team are sharing their unusual creations with the outside world, running a three-week “boot camp” for academics and government researchers at an IBM R&D lab on the far side of Silicon Valley. Plugging their laptops into the digital rodent brain at the front of the room, this eclectic group of computer scientists is exploring the particulars of IBM’s architecture and beginning to build software for the chip dubbed TrueNorth.

Some researchers who got their hands on the chip at an engineering workshop in Colorado the previous month have already fashioned software that can identify images, recognize spoken words, and understand natural language. Basically, they’re using the chip to run “deep learning” algorithms, the same algorithms that drive the internet’s latest AI services, including the face recognition on Facebook and the instant language translation on Microsoft’s Skype. But the promise is that IBM’s chip can run these algorithms in smaller spaces with considerably less electrical power, letting us shoehorn more AI onto phones and other tiny devices, including hearing aids and, well, wristwatches.

“What does a neuro-synaptic architecture give us? It lets us do things like image classification at a very, very low power consumption,”

The TrueNorth is part of a widespread movement to refine the hardware that drives deep learning and other AI services. Companies like Google and Facebook and Microsoft are now running their algorithms on machines backed with GPUs (chips originally built to render computer graphics), and they’re moving towards FPGAs (chips you can program for particular tasks). For Peter Diehl, a PhD student in the cortical computation group at ETH Zurich and University Zurich, TrueNorth outperforms GPUs and FPGAs in certain situations because it consumes so little power.

The main difference, says Jason Mars, a professor of a computer science at the University of Michigan, is that the TrueNorth dovetails so well with deep-learning algorithms. These algorithms mimic neural networks in much the same way IBM’s chips do, recreating the neurons and synapses in the brain.

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August 19, 2015 at 8:18 am
Tomi Engdahl says:

Inside GlobalFoundries’ Fab 8
Giant fab rides emerging NY tech corridor
http://www.eetimes.com/document.asp?doc_id=1327435&

NEW YORK – GlobalFoundries’ Fab 8, one of the largest semiconductor fabs in the United States, sits on 233 acres of the Luther Forest tech campus in Malta, N.Y. A tour of the plant and an affiliated research center in nearby Albany provided a look inside an operation that now carries the DNA of chip giants such as AMD, IBM and Samsung.

The Malta facility stands at the bleeding edge of the company’s nine fabs worldwide. It now produces 14nm chips while working on 10nm processes and beyond and leads the company’s manufacturing initiatives.

An expanding Internet of Things may not need the performance of such processes and could stretch out the lifespan of existing nodes such as 28nm. Officials here aren’t worried about demand stalling despite the fact new nodes are getting more complex and costly.

“I think it stagnates if you can’t keep Moore’s Law going which is not just about shrink, but better performance and lower cost per circuit,”

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August 19, 2015 at 8:21 am
Tomi Engdahl says:

Metamaterials Single-Out One Voice
Smartphone’s track you even in a crowd
http://www.eetimes.com/document.asp?doc_id=1327423&

Researchers at Duke University (Durham, North Carolina) have invented a metamaterial-based voice-locator system that can pick out an individual’s voice even from a crowded, noisy room.

The researchers’ novel technique to solve the classic coctail party problem uses a metamaterial rotunda structure with different depth holes sunk into its pie-shaped unit cells. Sound waves going over them make a sound using the same principle as blowing over the top of a pop bottle, enabling the embedded electronics to distinguish the direction from which a voice is coming.

The voice-zoom option on video cameras and smartphones today can beam-steer to a particular voice, using multiple microphones and sophisticated algorithms to pick out one voice from many. However, the metamaterial rotunda’s unit cells employ a single microphone for acoustic direction location plus sophisticated algorithms to do a superior job, according to Duke.

“Metamaterials are used here to modulate sound waves directly without converting them to electronic signals first,” doctoral candidate, Abel Xie, working with professor Steven Cummer. “Each metamaterial unit cell changes the sound’s amplitude and phase at a specific frequency. The properties of these unit cells are randomized so each sector (or slot) possess a unique modulation for sound wave passing through it. Thus sound waves from different directions will be encoded differently by metamaterials which we can separate with our algorithms.”

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August 20, 2015 at 7:26 am
Tomi Engdahl says:

Market Research, Horse Racing and Selling Insurance
http://www.eetimes.com/author.asp?section_id=36&doc_id=1327460&

Is predicting the weather more precise an art than market forecasting?

Every so often we are reminded that while market analysis may produce hard numbers, it is usually an exercise in hand-waving arguments and really not very precise at all.

The numbers that come out of market analysis may be hard but the assumptions that underlie them and even the definitions of what constitutes a market category are often uncertain and spongy. This is especially true for market forecasts. Anyone that claims to know what any market will be doing in three or four years’ time and is prepared to go to four or five significant digits to express that knowledge strikes me as likely to be either a fool or a charlatan.

In most areas of human endeavour predicting what will be happening next year is tough and should come with enormous error bars, but three or four years out becomes a rather futile exercise.

I rarely if ever see market research forecasts with error bars; presumably because a value plus of minus 50% doesn’t sell well. Occasionally I see forecasters try to address the issue with “optimistic, pessimistic and middle-way” forecasts. Good for them and their credibility.

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August 20, 2015 at 7:28 am
Tomi Engdahl says:

UMC Joins Elite Club
http://www.eetimes.com/author.asp?section_id=36&doc_id=1327433&

UMC joins the elite club who have mastered the gate-last metal gate (HKMG) transistor.

With the arrival of a UMC fabbed MDM9625 sporting high-k metal gates, another foundry joins the elite club who have mastered the gate-last metal gate (HKMG) transistor, the likes of which includes Intel, Samsung and TSMC.

Intel ventured into gate-last HKMG transistors in 2007 with their 45nm node processors, followed by TSMC in 2012 and Samsung in 2014. We at TechInsights note that both Samsung and GlobalFoundries began their metal gate transistors with a gate-first process at their 32/28nm nodes and then later switched to the gate last process for their 20nm process nodes.

The two variants of the HKMG transistors are gate-first and gate-last, with the gate-last having an additional two versions: high-k first or high-k last. Intel’s 45nm HKMG process featured a high-k first gate-last fabrication sequence, while their 32nm process was a high-k last gate-last process.

The acronyms gate-first, gate-last, high-k first and high-k last can get confusing, and so with the help of some TEM images of various Intel HKMG transistors, we shall elaborate.

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August 20, 2015 at 7:29 am
Tomi Engdahl says:

MediaTek Faces Eroded Smartphone Growth
http://www.eetimes.com/document.asp?doc_id=1327452&

TAIPEI — MediaTek’s rapid growth in 4G smartphones is likely to be undermined by handset makers in China who are designing their own chips, according to an analyst who covers the tech industry in Asia.

Emerging markets such as India, Brazil and Indonesia that are expected to lead smartphone growth in coming years are mainly buying phones based on 3G and even 2G technology. While MediaTek, the world’s third-largest chip designer, enjoys a market share of about 50% in 3G smartphones, Chinese rivals such as Spreadtrum Communications and Huawei are eroding that position on strong price competition, according to Mark Li, a senior analyst with Bernstein in Hong Kong.

“As the competitive intensity from Spreadtrum is unlikely to ease soon, we see further pressure in MediaTek’s 3G market share,” Li said in an August 12 report. “Spreadtrum has collected its toll on 3G and maybe on 4G later.”

In addition to Spreadtrum, which sells chips on the merchant market, Xiaomi, China’s largest smartphone maker, is hoping to design its own chips instead of buying them from MediaTek.

“The maturation of smartphones is favoring Chinese players, especially when the government happily funds their profitless expansion,” Li said. “Qualcomm is the first one to fall, and MediaTek unfortunately can’t escape the trend either.”

MediaTek, Spreadtrum and Chinese handset makers are aiming to capture momentum in emerging markets such as India that will lead global smartphone growth.

India, the biggest emerging market outside China, rose nearly 30% year on year in the first half of 2015, the Bernstein report said.

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Electronics trends for 2015

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