TSMC Details Improvements For 5nm Process
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TSMC Details Improvements For 5nm Process

TSMC 5nm Process Offers Decent ImprovementsIn just a few short years, silicon may no longer be optimal for chip production. As the process nodes continue to shrink, it is becoming harder and harder to eek out gains. However, there is still some room for new process nodes be viable. Next year, 7nm will hit the mainstream on a variety of chips. After 7nm, the next major node is 5nm. Ahead of production in 2020, TSMC is revealing more details about the process.In order to hit 5nm mass production, TSMC is turning to EUV or Extreme Ultraviolet. EUV is long touted as the next step to making smaller nodes possible. Due to difficulties in the use of EUV, TSMC is starting it off with second-generation 7nm first. This will bring some nice density improvements in the area of 17%. As a result of greater EUV usage with 5nm, the improvements are even greater.TSMC Will Offer Special Voltage Mode With 5nmDue to EUV enabling a smaller node, 5nm offers a massive 45% improvement in density. This is on par with previous die shrinks that were much bigger in scale. Unfortunately, the rest of the news is not as good.  The new process 5nm is only 20% more power efficient and 15% improved performance compared to 7nm. Even with the massive investment, the gains are somewhat minimal. Interestingly, a new Extremely Low Threshold Voltage option will allow chips an extra 25% frequency boost but there are few details.As previously reported, TSMC is spinning up a new fab to handle 5nm. The new fab 18 will be working out all the kinks in EUV mass production. For now, EUV is still not ready for mass production but it is getting close. Later this year, 7nm should start production, with 7nm+ in 2019 and 5nm 2020. Even with all the troubles with EUV, the industry has never been closer to reaching their goal. However, the future for the next decade and where silicon will go remains unclear. TSMC has plans for 3nm but we’ll have to see if they pan out.
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Release time：2018-05-16 00:00 reading：1146 Continue reading>>
Qualcomm, Chips Surge As U.S. Seen Pushing for Chinese Concessions
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Qualcomm, Chips Surge As U.S. Seen Pushing for Chinese Concessions

Trade is back in the news, with President Donald Trump tweeting over the weekend that he’s working to get China's ZTE "back into business" following U.S. sanctions.The immediate impact is a big boost to U.S. semiconductor shares, but it could benefit other players in tech, depending on how things play out.Chip shares are upbeat because numerous companies that were suppliers to ZTE, or potential suppliers, now see the prospect of having restrictions lifted on selling to the telecom equipment and smartphone maker.Those shares include chip giant Qualcomm (QCOM), and NXP Semiconductors (NXPI), which it is in the process of buying; along with chip makers Integrated Device (IDTI), Pixelworks(PXLW), and Synaptics (SYNA); fiber-optic component vendors such as Neophotonics(NPTN) and Acacia Communications (ACIA), and perhaps even tech giants such as Intel (INTC) and Microsoft (MSFT).Last month the U.S. Department of Commerce said it would block sales to ZTE by U.S. companies of components, after ZTE was deemed to have violated conditions placed on it with respect to prior violations of sanctions on Iran.Over the weekend, reports MarketWatch's Dan Strumpf, Trump tweeted that the Commerce Department is reviewing ZTE’s request for a stay of the order, adding that Commerce has been "instructed to 'get it done.’"Benefits could go beyond just semiconductor companies, some believe.The goal of this latest move, according to Jefferies & Co.’s analyst Edison Lee, is "to obtain tangible concessions by China."The Trump administration, he believes, doesn’t really want to risk a "total cut-off in tech trade between the two countries, which could cost U.S. tech firms an estimated US$100-150bn of annual revenue."What could those concessions be?They could include things like protecting intellectual property such as Microsoft’s (MSFT)Windows operating system, and also changing the exploitive joint venture terms that China imposes on U.S. companies partnering in the region."Media reports suggested that Microsoft increasingly gave up the hope of generating licensing revenue on Windows in China, but hopes to generate revenue from Windows Office licensing by giving out Windows 10 for free,” notes Lee."We believe this will be one potential area of concessions by China, which means much stricter software IPR enforcement, and elimination of local JV requirement in certain services.""Furthermore, we believe the across-the-board tax concessions (zero to 15%) for tech firms in China could be at risk. "Two immediate beneficiaries are Qualcomm and NXP: Their merger has been ongoing for over a year, with Chinese regulators having been the final holdup. Qualcomm was forced to refile its application for approval to China’s MOFCOM last month.Trumps tweets over the weekend appear to have prompted Chinese authorities to re-open their review of Qualcomm deal. The result: Qualcomm shares are up $1.53, or 2.8%, at $56.76, while NXP is up $9.30, or almost 10%, at $108.31.Amit Daryanani of RBC Capital reiterates an Outperform rating on Qualcomm, writing that the stock is “an interesting name for value investors, as either NXPI deal gets done or Qualcomm does a sizable buyback."He’s referring to Qualcomm’s CEO Steve Mollenkopf’s stating in January that if the NXP deal falls apart, Qualcomm will buy back as much as one third of its shares.Stacy Rasgon of Bernstein, who has a Market Perform on both stocks, writes that there could be "a near-term trade opportunity” as deal hopes improve, but he actually thinks Qualcomm would be better off just doing the giant buyback and not doing the NXP deal.Other beneficiaries include Acacia and Neophotonics, according to Rosenblatt’s Jun Zhang. He sees a bounce back in orders for Acacia, and some benefit to both Neophotonics and Oclaro (OCLR):If the ban on ZTE is lifted in June, it would require ZTE to aggressively buy components from suppliers and China telecom operators in order to regain market share. Acacia is likely to be benefit in the near-term […] ZTE also largely orders EML lasers from NeoPhotonics’ (NPTN: Buy) for its 5G front haul PAM4 solution […] We believe ZTE could account for approximately 5% of NeoPhotonics’ business in 2H18 […] We believe Oclaro still has some arbitrage opportunity if ZTE’s business resumes, and would expect that if this scenario plays out that Lumentum’s acquisition of Oclaro would likely occur.And then there’s a gaggle of other names that could benefit, according to Dougherty & Co.’s Charles Anderson, including IDT, PIxelworks and Synaptics:[IDT] management disclosed last quarter that ZTE in FY18 represented $20MM of annual revenue to IDTI and that they have pulled it out of their go-forward forecast entirely. We note that adding back ZTE revenue would allow IDTI to update its margin model to 30%+ operating margins […] We believe PXLW was set to ship its Iris chipset to ZTE for incorporation into two smartphones this year, one in June and one in September. By not being able to ship to ZTE, we believe PXLW lost out on ~$1M/Q of revenue [...] Management messaged last week that it was negatively impacted by the ZTE ban, but did not give an amount. We note ZTE was one of the customers SYNA was targeting for its in-display fingerprint sensor.
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Release time：2018-05-15 00:00 reading：1230 Continue reading>>
The eMMC/UFS Market to See Steeper Price Decline in 2Q18, Prices May Stabilize in 2H18 As the Peak Season Arrives
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The eMMC/UFS Market to See Steeper Price Decline in 2Q18, Prices May Stabilize in 2H18 As the Peak Season Arrives

The more working days in 2Q18 have brought higher demand for smartphones and notebooks, etc., but the increasing demand cannot offset the high supply resulting from improvements in 3D NAND Flash production capacity and yield rate, says DRAMeXchange, a division of TrendForce. Consequently, the suppliers, who face higher inventory levels, have to further adjust the eMMC/UFS prices downward.DRAMeXchange points out that suppliers tend to decrease the prices of high-capacity UFS (128/256GB) in order to increase the average memory content of mid-to-high-range smartphones. The suppliers aim to encourage the memory content upgrade in models which currently carry 64/128GB eMMC/UFS. Overall speaking, the contract prices of eMMC may fall by 0-5% in 2Q18, while the price drop of UFS may become steeper, reaching 5-15%.In 3Q18, the NAND Flash supply may see higher bit growth than 2Q18, but DRAMeXchange expects the supply to become tight as the arrival of peak season and Apple’s stocking up for new iPhones will jointly bring higher demand. Therefore the price decline may shrink to within 5%. As for the price trend of eMMC/UFS in 4Q18, DRAMeXchange believes that the prices will remain stable, but the sales situation of new iPhones will still shape the price fluctuations.In terms of products, DRAMeXchange notes that mid-to-high–range AP products provided by major chip makers like Qualcomm and MediaTek all support UFS. Current suppliers include Samsung, SK Hynix, Toshiba, and Micron, etc. The penetration rate of UFS is considerable for smartphones of high-range or above, but remains weak for mid-to-high-range phones and mid-range ones.Current mid-range smartphones mainly adopt eMCP, so how fast uMCP could replace eMCP will play a key role in increasing the penetration rate of UFS. However, as the demand remains unclear, AP vendors tend to be conservative, showing insufficient support. In addition, phone users can hardly percept the specs upgrade in daily use, which makes smartphone OEMs less willing to switch to uMCP. This has further delayed the suppliers’ product development of uMCP.However, as major manufacturers are actively deploying 5G technology, which may require smartphones of better performance, more AP products will support uMCP in the second half of this year, and some of them will be applied to mid-range models. As the result, the penetration rate of UFS in smartphones will show significant growth in the next one to two years.
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Release time：2018-05-10 00:00 reading：1036 Continue reading>>
Arm Transfers Microprocessor Technology to Chinese JV
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Arm Transfers Microprocessor Technology to Chinese JV

With China looking to bolster its own semiconductor industry and reduce dependence on foreign technology, microprocessor IP firm Arm Holdings confirmed last week that its separate local joint venture entity, Arm mini China, started operations to license its technology locally in China.This move effectively completes a process of technology transfer to its Chinese operation enabling local chip developers to license its technology directly in China.The U.K.-headquartered parent Arm had already announced intentions to establish the joint venture in China in February 2017, following the launch of the HOPU-Arm innovation fund. Backed by investments from a leading Chinese sovereign wealth fund and Chinese investment institutions and companies, it stated at the time its aim to invest in emerging technology companies and startups in China to accelerate development of applications in IoT, autonomous vehicles, cloud computing, big data, and artificial intelligence (AI).Now, according to reports last week in the Nikkei Asian Review and the Chinese online site The Paper, Arm mini China has officially been registered in Shenzhen, China, with 51% being Chinese-owned (with investors including Bank of China and Baidu) and the remaining 49% owned by Arm. The reports also state that Arm mini China plans to IPO with a listing in China, which could be rapidly approved by the Chinese regulator.EE Times asked for an interview with a senior executive at Arm to elaborate on the development, but the company’s spokesperson was only able to respond with a formal statement saying that it doesn’t respond to press speculation but confirming the JV. The statement said that Arm chip shipments by Chinese customers have grown by more than 110 fold over the past 10 years. To make Arm technology available to more companies within China, the company needed a Chinese partner to develop Arm-compliant technology that could be locall licensed in the Chinese market, the statement said."Chinese organizations prefer to acquire technologies that have been fully developed by Chinese companies with this JV’s establishment, which will enable Arm-based semiconductor intellectual property to be tailored for the Chinese domestic ecosystem and makes a broader portfolio of technology accessible to Chinese partners for China market needs," the statement read.  Some in the electronics industry commented privately last week that the move wasn’t necessary, as the company could have continued as it has been doing so for many years in China. With its microprocessor intellectual property already being licensed to both Chinese and global chip manufacturers, the purpose of the separate entity is mainly addressing new Chinese chip developers and OEMs, as well as local innovation using its IP. It is thought that the parent company would also maintain exclusive rights to new IP developed in China for international markets.
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Release time：2018-05-09 00:00 reading：1133 Continue reading>>
In-Memory Processing Making AI-Fueled Comeback
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In-Memory Processing Making AI-Fueled Comeback

In-memory computing could propel new AI accelerators to be 10,000 faster than today's GPUsStartups, corporate giants, and academics are taking a fresh look at a decade-old processor architecture that may be just the thing ideal for machine learning. They believe that in-memory computing could power a new class of AI accelerators that could be 10,000 times faster than today’s GPUs.The processors promise to extend chip performance at a time when CMOS scaling has slowed and deep-learning algorithms demanding dense multiply-accumulate arrays are gaining traction. The chips, still more than a year from commercial use, also could be vehicles for an emerging class of non-volatile memories.Startup Mythic (Austin, Texas) aims to compute neural-network jobs inside a flash memory array, working in the analog domain to slash power consumption. It aims to have production silicon in late 2019, making it potentially one of the first to market of the new class of chips.“Most of us in the academic community believe that emerging memories will become an enabling technology for processor-in-memory,” said Suman Datta, who chairs the department of electrical engineering at Notre Dame. “Adoption of the new non-volatile memories will mean creating new usage models, and in-memory processing is a key one.”Datta notes that several academics attempted to build such processors in the 1990s. Designs such as the EXECUBE, IRAM, and FlexRAM “fizzled away, but now, with the emergence of novel devices such as phase-change memories, resistive RAM, and STT MRAM and strong interest in hardware accelerators for machine learning, there is a revitalization of the field … but most of the demonstrations are at a device or device-array level, not a complete accelerator, to the best of my knowledge.”One of the contenders is IBM’s so-called Resistive Processing Unit, first disclosed in 2016. It is a 4,096 x 4,096 crossbar of analog elements.“The challenge is to figure out what the right analog memory elements are — we are evaluating phase-change, resistive RAM, and ferroelectrics,” said Vijay Narayanan, a materials scientist recently named an IBM Research fellow, largely for his work in high-k metal gates.Stanford announced its own effort in this field in 2015. Academics in China and Korea are also pursuing the concept.To succeed, researchers need to find materials for the memory elements that are compatible with CMOS fabs. In addition, “the real challenge” is that they need to show a symmetrical conductance or resistance when voltage is applied, said Narayanan.Vijay Narayanan, a materials scientist at IBM Research, said that most in-memory processors for AI are still in a research phase and perhaps three to five years from the market. (Image: IBM)Thoughts on the future of transistorsSo far, IBM has made some discrete devices and arrays but not a whole test chip with a full 4K x 4K array using what are currently seen as the ideal materials. IBM’s Geoff Burr demonstrated DNN training using phase-change materials in a 500 x 661 array that showed “reasonable accuracies and speedups,” said Narayanan.“We are progressing steadily, we know what we need to improve in existing materials, and we are evaluating new materials.”IBM wants to use analog elements so it can define multiple conductance states, opening a door to lower-power operation compared to a digital device. It sees a large array as an opportunity to run many AI operations in parallel.Narayanan is optimistic that IBM can leverage its years of experience with high-k metal gates to find materials to modulate resistance in the AI accelerator. He spent a dozen years bringing IBM’s expertise in the area from research to commercial products, working with partners such as Globalfoundries and Samsung.Looking forward, IBM is working on gate-all-around transistors that it calls nanosheets for use beyond the 7-nm node. He sees no fundamental hurdles with the designs, just implementation issues.Beyond nanosheets, researchers are exploring negative capacitance FETs that deliver a large change in current for a small change in voltage. The idea got increased attention in the last five years, when researchers found that that doped hafnium oxide is ferroelectric and could be a CMOS-compatible vehicle for the technique.“There’s still a lot of naysayers and people on both sides,” said Narayanan.“Research in my group shows negative capacitance is a transient effect,” said Datta of Notre Dame. “So you get a temporal boost in channel charge when the polarization switches but don’t get anything once the transients settle.”That said, Berkeley researchers “believe that this is a ‘new state’ of matter. So the story continues. It is fair to say that most companies are evaluating this internally.”
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Release time：2018-05-02 00:00 reading：1074 Continue reading>>
Emerging memory devices used to develop electronic circuits for cybersecurity applications
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Emerging memory devices used to develop electronic circuits for cybersecurity applications

A team from UC Santa Barbara (UCSB) are looking to address the issue of single, targeted attacks where cyber criminals control and manipulate several nodes in a network.An illustration of a memristor as a cybersecurity device that appeared on the cover of Nature Electronics. Credit: BRIAN LONG/UCSBProfessor Dmitri Strukov of UCSB and his team intend to place an extra layer of security on Internet-and Bluetooth-enabled devices, with a technology that aims to prevent cloning – the practice by which nodes in a network are replicated and then used to launch attacks from within the network.Prof. Strukov describes it as a chip that deploys ionic memristor technology – an analog memory hardware solution to a digital problem."You can think of it as a black box," says Prof. Strukov. "Hardware-intrinsic security primitives enabled by analogue state and nonlinear conductance variations in integrated memristors.”Due to its nature, Prof. Strukov claims the chip is physically ‘unclonable’ and can render a device invulnerable to hijacking, counterfeiting or replication by cyber criminals.Key to this technology is the memristor, or memory resistor – an electrical resistance switch that can ‘remember’ its state of resistance based on its history of applied voltage and current. Not only can memristors can change their outputs in response to their histories, but each memristor, due to the physical structure of its material, also is unique in its response to applied voltage and current. Therefore, as Prof. Strukov explains, a circuit made of memristors results in a “black box”, with outputs extremely difficult to predict based on the inputs."The idea is that it's hard to predict, and because it's hard to predict, it's hard to reproduce," Strukov contends. The multitude of possible inputs can result in at least as many outputs – the more memristors, the more possibilities. Running each would take more time than an attacker may reasonably have to clone one device, let alone a network of them.The researchers explain that their memristive black box can circumvent machine learning-enabled hacking, where artificial intelligence technology is trained to ‘learn’ and model inputs and outputs, then predict the next sequence based on its model."For instance, if you have 2 million outputs and the attacker sees 10,000 or 20,000 of these outputs, he can, based on that, train a model that can copy the system afterwards," explains Hussein Nili, the paper's lead author. According to the team, the black box makes the relationship between inputs and outputs look random enough to the outside world even as the circuits' internal mechanisms are repeatable enough to be reliable. "It has to look random, but it should also be deterministic," Nili adds.Prof. Strukov and his team are now investigating whether there will be any drifts in the characteristics over time. They also are developing ‘strong’ security paths that require larger memristive circuits and additional techniques – suitable for sensitive military equipment or highly classified information. Along with creating ‘weak’ paths geared towards consumer electronics and everyday gadgets – situations in which it would likely not be worth an attacker's time to spend hours or days hacking into a device.
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Release time：2018-04-28 00:00 reading：1113 Continue reading>>
Qualcomm Brings AI, Vision Processing to IoT
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Qualcomm Brings AI, Vision Processing to IoT

　　After surpassing $1 billion in IoT revenue in FY2017, Qualcomm is announcing new product families purpose-built for IoT applications. The company began by announcing a new family of IoT chipsets, the QCS603 and QCS605, along with software and reference designs, all dubbed the Qualcomm Vision Intelligence Platform. The platform brings the image and artificial intelligence (AI) processing capabilities found on its Snapdragon chipsets for premium smartphones to a wide range of consumer and industrial applications.　　With the transition from connected devices to intelligent devices, there is a push to bring AI processing from the cloud to the devices we use, commonly referred to as the “edge” or “edge devices” referring to the edge of the network. Bringing AI to the edge reduces cloud and connectivity bandwidth requirements while increasing security and system performance. Vision plus AI processing have become critical elements in autonomous cars and many other applications that require local processing. The new Qualcomm Vision Intelligence Platform seeks to bring similar functionality to applications that are constrained by size, thermal limits, and/or battery life.　　The new QCS chipsets and other elements of the platform will leverage the latest technology from Qualcomm. The chipsets will leverage the same kind of AI processing solution in the latest Snapdragon 845 smartphone processors called the Artificial Intelligence Engine (AIE). The AIE takes advantage of the heterogeneous chip architecture that that combines the Kryo 300 CPU cores, Hexagon 685 Vector Processor, and Adreno 615 GPU into a single system-on-chip. In addition, the Vision Intelligence Platform includes an integrated Spectra 270 ISP that supports dual-16 MP image sensors. The platform also includes other image technologies to improve the overall image performance, including staggered HDR, advanced electronic image stabilization, dewarp, de-noise, chromatic aberration correction, and motion compensated temporal filters.　　The platform also supports audio functions, including noise and echo cancellation, that can be used for user interface, natural language processing, and speech recognition. This includes support for Qualcomm’s 3D Audio Suite, Aqstic Audio Technologies, and aptX Audio technologies.　　The QCS605 includes two gold Kryo CPU cores based on the Arm Cortex-A75 and six silver Kryo CPU cores based on the Arm Cortex-A55. The QCS603 includes two gold Kryo CPU cores and two silver Kryo CPU cores. The chipsets also feature an integrated display processor capable of up to WQHD resolution touch display with hardware accelerated composition, 3D overlays, and support for the major graphics APIs including OpenGL, OpenCL, and Vulkan. For connectivity, the chipsets feature integrated 802.11ac Wi-Fi, Bluetooth 5.1, and GPS. The chipsets are also being produced on leading-edge 10nm process node.　　If this all sounds familiar to the industry leading mobile chipset, the Snapdragon 845, it is. Qualcomm claims that the QCS chipset performance is not be the same as its flagship Snapdragon offering, but it is close and optimize for the requirements and cost-effectiveness needed in IoT. The 6xx nomenclature has no relation to the performance levels of the Snapdragon family. The company intends the QCS chipset family to be a separate product line with its own features, performance levels, and nomenclature.　　The chipset, however, is only half of the solution. Qualcomm will also be providing the usual evaluation boards and reference designs, in conjunction with software. The software includes a Neural Processing Engine Software Development Kit (SDK) and libraries and tools optimized for the leading AI frameworks, including TensorFlow, Caffe 2, and Open Neural Network Exchange. The platform also supports Android Neural Networks API, Qualcomm’s Hexagon Neural Network library, and several third-party AI image recognition and detection solutions from SenseTime, Pilot.ai, and MM Solutions.　　The QCS605 powerhouse is capable of handling dual image streams - a 5.7k stream at 30 fps or 4k stream at 60 fps and a secondary 1080p stream at 60 fps that can be used for data analytics. In terms of AI inference processing, the QCS605 is capable of 2.1 tera-operations per second (TOPS). The QCS603 supports a 4k and 1080p stream at 30 fps. The ISP is also optimized for low light environments.　　Qualcomm is targeting the platform for a wide range of applications, including sports, VR, security, and 360-degree cameras; industrial and consumer robots; and smart displays. However, the list of IoT applications that are likely to leverage vision and AI is almost endless. For industrial applications, Qualcomm will also support extended lifecycles. The QCS605 and QCS603 are sampling now. In addition, a QCS605-based VR 360 camera reference design is available from Altek.　　The new QCS Vision Intelligence Platform demonstrates how mobile technology continues to drive innovation in other segments and why leadership in mobile technology is critical for any company hoping to compete in the Intelligence of “Things” era.
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Release time：2018-04-16 00:00 reading：1279 Continue reading>>
More price pressure on Lithium-ion batteries as cobalt prices soar
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More price pressure on Lithium-ion batteries as cobalt prices soar

　　Cobalt prices are continuing to rise in 2018, having increased by more than 20% in the first quarter, according to EnergyTrend.　　EnergyTrend points to short-term capital speculation and high supplier concentration as the main cause for the rise of raw material costs, and says this ‘concentrated industry structure’ may proceed to push prices in the long-term.　　The data reveals that the soaring costs of raw material will be reflected in prices of lithium batteries and new energy vehicles quarter by quarter. With such heavy reliance resting on cobalt, the battery industry will continue its search to find an alternative material.　　According to Duff Lu, senior research manager of EnergyTrend, the price of cobalt has been a focus of market. The use of cobalt provides battery makers with the easiest way to increase energy density before the new generation materials become matured.　　The price of cobalt metal has hits new highs, Lu adds, from $32/kg in early 2017 to $75/kg at the year end – an annual growth of 114%. In Q1 2018, the price went up by another 26% quarterly, reaching $95/kg. Lu continues that the rising price will bring more challenges to the development of the new energy vehicle industry.　　"The change in cobalt metal prices is mainly influenced by short-term speculation in the market", explains Lu. The prices are mainly decided by the supply side rather than based on supply and demand. Many second-tier makers of battery cells and battery anode material have also been hit hard by the fluctuation of raw material prices. Their cost in raw material purchase turned out to be higher than that of the first-tier manufacturers. Battery system makers and branded makers also rely on first-tier manufacturers for cost considerations, resulting in less diversified supply and less healthy competition in the market.　　However, EnergyTrend says in the battery cells of IT products, the proportion of cobalt is less than 5%, meaning the prices of cobalt will have limited impact on consumer electronics.　　To reduce cost pressure, battery makers are expected to lower the percentage of cobalt in current lithium nickel manganese cobalt oxide (NMC) batteries, EnergyTrend reveals.　　Lu says that battery system makers and branded makers will accelerate the development of new generation material and alternatives to reduce the restriction brought by raw materials. Along with developing products with high ratio of nickel, Lu continues, battery makers will also accelerate the mass production of lithium-ion batteries that use silicon oxide as cathode materials.　　These two approaches focus on increasing energy density, while another solution based on blended polymer can effectively reduce costs, the report explains. In the blended polymer solution, NMC and lithium cobalt oxide (LCO) are blended in the anode materials of lithium-ion batteries. Although the energy density is lowered by approximately 20%, this, the data reveals, will still be the direction of development for companies, due to the low costs.　　Major battery cell suppliers like Samsung SDI, LG Chem, and Lishen have proposed blended polymer solutions in which the portion of NMC is higher than 20%. However, swelling of the cell remains a problem for the application of NMC materials in polymer batteries. Therefore, the industry has not yet accumulated complete research and development experience, EnergyTrend says.　　There will be a chance to see a small amount of blended polymer batteries in the market in the second half of 2018, it adds. But, if the cobalt price declines rapidly in the future, it will need further observation to find out whether the development of blended polymer solutions is valuable for the market.
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Release time：2018-04-16 00:00 reading：1348 Continue reading>>
Wireless Test Faces New Challenges
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Wireless Test Faces New Challenges

　　Your mobile phone is far more complex than it was even five years ago, and it’s about to become even more complex with new wireless technologies. That has set off a scramble among test equipment vendors to come up with solutions, methodologies and equipment that is affordable, effective and reliable enough to make sure all of this technology works as planned—and that it continues to work throughout its expected lifetime.　　Testing wireless components and systems is gearing up for the fifth generation of cellular technology, commonly known as 5G. It will take some time for 5G to replace 4G LTE — many parts of the world are just now implementing 4G LTE service — and the rollout promises to present numerous challenges to telecommunications carriers, handset manufacturers, semiconductor suppliers, and those engineers charged with testing the chips, the phones, and the networks supporting 5G.　　The 3GPP Release 15 last December defined the 5G New Radio technology that will underpin the new standard, which still needs more international development. There’s also the International Telecommunication Union’s IMT-2020 definition for high-frequency bands.　　Making matters more complicated, other forms of new wireless communications are also on the way as 5G gets hammered out. That includes IEEE 802.11ax, the latest Wi-Fi flavor, which will utilize multiple-input and multiple-output (MIMO) and multi-user multiple-input and multiple-out (MU-MIMO) technology, akin to the Massive MIMO tech of 5G.　　Jason White, director of wireless test for National Instruments, sees multiple factors affecting the field now and in the future.　　“If you look at the challenges that people are facing right now, today, in terms of stuff that we’re deploying in handsets and IoT devices that we’re purchasing today, the biggest challenges that the industry is facing in this space has to do with volume and cost,” White says. “Those things are tied up in the fact that all those devices are far more complex today than they were 10 years ago. If you look at the smartphone you have sitting in front of you, that thing has multiple radios, testing multiple technologies. The cost of that test, in theory, should be higher than it was 10 years ago because I’m actually testing probably 10 times more things than I was back then. I’ve got more antennas, more radios. Besides cellular, I’m now testing Wi-Fi, GPS, NFC, wireless charging — all these things represent air interfaces on the product. The trends that you’re seeing in that space from a test equipment perspective affect the semiconductor value chain that goes into those devices, and they also affect the end devices’ manufacturing test. You’re seeing more and more pieces of test equipment that can test multiple standards.”　　So the same kind of convergence that has happened in devices such as smartphones is happening in the test world, as well. “You’re starting to see trends where the cost of test equipment has gone down,” said White. “Or in some cases, the cost of test equipment may not have gone down, but the pressures around being able to utilize that test equipment more and also having much less faster test times than you had in the past—those are all part of the buying decisions that consumers are making, both in semiconductor and on into end device production test.”　　Alongside of that convergence, and to some degree because of it, the parts inside those devices are becoming more difficult to test, as well. “Ten years ago, you might just test the power amplifier for cellular,” he says. “Now, nobody buys a single PA by itself. They’re buying consolidated front-end modules, where there are multiple power amplifiers, switches, and filters, all built into a single part. The level of the complexity has gone up with that consolidation and with that technology. Everybody’s talking about 5G, and the reality is that there are pieces of 5G that are here today. We’ve deployed test solutions for 5G below 6 gigahertz. That technology is pretty well understood because it’s not that different from what was LTE, and what was 3G before it. Things are a little faster, the measurement performance has to be a little bit better, but ultimately, it’s a lot of new software.”　　5G also will add some interesting twists because its rollout is closely associated with assisted and autonomous driving.　　“Lots of testing as we ‘follow the chips’ will be necessary to verify that designs and manufacturing operations produce solutions that are defect-free and safe according to regulatory standards,” said Anil Bhalla, senior manager at Astronics. “Automotive will require the use of much more proven technology than consumer devices, such as smartphones. This testing will happen both at the component and system-level.”　　Staggered introduction　　The rollout of 5G will come in two phases. One utilizes the sub-6 GHz band, which offers some improvement over 4G LTE. The other utilizes spectrum above 24 GHz, ultimately heading to millimeter-wave technology. As the frequency goes up, so does the speed and the ability to carry more data more quickly. But as the frequency rises, the distance that signals can travel goes down and the amount of interference and potential interference becomes more critical.　　That adds some interesting new twists to test. “Above 6 GHz, there’s a lot of discussion about millimeter wave and what happens with millimeter-wave adoption and 5G. Here you’ve got a whole lot of different perspectives coming together. The first major perspective is the market perspective. And that is, when exactly will millimeter waves be a significant part of the wireless test infrastructure? There are pretty well-defined use cases for they refer to as fixed-wireless access, where I’m using millimeter waves to make high-speed connections from my base station to backhaul or possibly from a base station to a small-cell-type device in-house so I can deliver high-bandwidth connections to the house. And in those fixed-use cases, the business models and even some of the devices are pretty well-understood. But then when you talk about the mobility use case of actually putting that technology into a cell phone and dealing all of the issues that come with millimeter waves – they don’t pass through walls, they don’t even pass through your hand – and so, there are all these challenges when I start trying to put that in a phone.”　　One such challenge involves over-the-air testing, which will be required with 5G handsets because the standard cables and probes won’t suffice for the tasks.　　New silicon has emerged lately for 802.11ax and for sub-6 GHz 5G, according to White. “One of the things that’s interesting with both of those standards, because of tighter sub-tier spacings and the need for better performance of these chipsets, it’s actually driven a lot of requirements back on the test equipment.”　　Jeorge Hurtarte, a product manager at the LitePoint unit of Teradyne, points to four main challenges in wireless testing now:Higher frequencies;10X increase in bandwidth;Over-the-air testing for millimeter waves;The need for faster, nimbler test equipment.　　“Very few experts know about millimeter waves,” Hurtarte says, noting the complexity of the technology, which involves “much, much shorter” distances that they can travel. For those and other reasons, test equipment needs to be simpler.　　Making things even more confusing, the frequency bands designated by the Federal Communications Commission in the United States are not the same as those being utilized in China and the European Union.　　“This is an economical challenge,” he says. And because of the Massive MIMO technology, which can involve 64 to 256 antennas, contact testing doesn’t work. It has to be over-the-air.　　With the progress being made in 5G standards, and the accompanying research and development in the private sector, most experts expect to see the first true 5G products emerge early next year, possibly in tablet computers introduced at the Mobile World Congress.　　Putting 5G in perspective　　5G isn’t the only high-frequency standard out there. WiFi is evolving alongside the cellular 5G standard, basically providing the same kind of relationship for the next generation of technology that exists today with 4G LTE and WiFi. Two new Wi-Fi standards, 802.11ay and 802.11az, will operate in the 60 GHz bands with transfer speeds of up to 20 Gbps.　　Hurtarte predicts that 5G technology will become available for vehicle-to-infrastructure, vehicle-to-vehicle, and V2x communications in 2020. That will likely be the sub-6GHz piece of 5G, however. The higher-frequency portion of 5G will require a massive buildout of infrastructure because the signals are subject to interference from trees, people, and even weather. That requires multi-streaming of signals as well as beamforming technologies, and far more antennas and repeaters than exist today.　　But that could happen more quickly as autonomous driving enters into the picture due to a massive increase in the amount of data that needs to be moved around.　　“The rising adoption of vehicle-to-vehicle (V2V) and vehicle-to-infrastructure (V2X) means a continued increase in the number of vehicular radar systems,” said Steven Liu, vice president of marketing atUMC Foundry. “Technologies needed for these systems include the car’s anti-collision radars and global positioning systems, as well as sensors that will be needed to interact with stoplights and vehicle dispatchers. These will work in conjunction with existing systems such as passenger comfort and infotainment control and engine monitoring subsystems that regulate temperature, tire pressure, and gas. Trucks for long distance transportation will require systems for load leveling, load shifting, curve and wind shear, all working together to ensure that cargo is not damaged during transport and that the truck container is stable throughout its journey. All of these 5G communication applications will be essential for the system’s ability to perform its respective operations.”　　This has a big impact on test, and it points the way to a variety of approaches, including over-the-air testing because these systems will need to meet certain levels of reliability in the field as well as during manufacturing. “You can’t connect 50, 60, 100 cables to antennas,” said Tony Opferman, the wireless business development manager for Rohde & Schwarz. “Testing has become much more complex. People are asking for solutions that are more automated, and for more horsepower in test equipment. The power consumption on these boxes is crazy.”　　Customers are looking into 802.11, Bluetooth, LoRa, and Sigfox, in addition to cellular, according to Opferman.　　Keith Cobler, the senior marketing manager for the wireless unit at Rohde & Schwarz, sees customers seeking greater flexibility in wireless test. “Our customers are always asking for faster, wider, cheaper-type solutions across the whole design chain,” he says. “They’re testing a lot of different types of technologies. On the fly, they may have to switch from testing a LoRa device to now testing a Sigfox or a Narrowband-IoT device. Being able to have that flexibility and having that performance, being able to reach a figure, is really key. There’s a lot of buzz in the market about 5G. A lot of people imagine 5G as kind of a rip-and-replace technology, which is not the case. 5G is partly evolution—the 3GPP evolution, which really began in 2008, and has moved really forward with LTE in a steady progression.”　　Beamforming and carrier aggregation were part of past cellular technologies, and millimeter waves are a key aspect of the new wireless communications, according to Cobler. “5G will leverage a lot of that.”　　Millimeter-wave technology will help boost bandwidth capabilities by 10 to 20 times. Still, millimeter-wave cables are very expensive. Today the price runs into the thousands of dollars, although that will likely drop over time.　　“It’s very expensive to test this stuff,” says Opferman. “The cost of test is going to dramatically increase. And you need pretty deep RF experience. You have to have a deeper knowledge of RF.”　　The greater expense of 5G test equipment could mean that companies will outsource 5G testing to test labs, he notes.　　It’s not just the equipment, either. It’s also the amount of testing that needs to be done with that equipment.　　“Safety-critical applications will require additional testing as we better understand the defect mechanisms,” said Astronics’ Bhalla. “The industry is assuming this will work based on early trials.  More trials on a broader scale will support the gradual roll-out of this new technology.  The economics of autonomous driving is motivating the entire semiconductor ecosystem to evolve during this transition.”　　Conclusion　　Wireless testing is going through many technology changes, especially in response to 5G wireless communications, 802.11ax Wi-Fi, and other communications protocols. As a result, the cost of test equipment won’t be going down anytime soon.　　On top of that, customers for wireless test equipment want more flexibility to handle the higher frequencies, faster data transmission, and over-the-air testing that new technologies will require.　　As communications technology gets more complex, so does test. And if future roadmaps for protocols and communications within and outside of cars and other mobile devices are any indication, that complexity is going to skyrocket over the next decade.
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Release time：2018-04-10 00:00 reading：1290 Continue reading>>
Smart Home Device Tracker Forecasts Solid Growth for Connected Devices in Key Smart Home Categories
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Smart Home Device Tracker Forecasts Solid Growth for Connected Devices in Key Smart Home Categories

　　International Data Corporation (IDC) today published results from its newest Tracker research program covering the fast-growing market of Smart Home Devices. In this initial publication, the Worldwide Quarterly Smart Home Device Tracker focuses on market sizing and forecasting of IP-connected devices used in the home, inclusive of smart speakers, digital media adapters, lighting, thermostats, and more. The historical data is accompanied by a five-year forecast that offers insight into upcoming trends and the ever-evolving market.　　In 2017, 433.1 million smart home devices were shipped worldwide, growing 27.6% from the previous year. Looking ahead, IDC anticipates a compound annual growth rate (CAGR) of 18.5% as the market balloons to 939.7 million devices shipped in 2022. Within the smart home market, the smart speaker category, which includes devices like the Amazon Echo and Google Home, will remain the fastest growing category throughout the forecast. Meanwhile, shipments for most other categories, with the exception of video entertainment products, will experience a double-digit CAGR during the same period.　　"The smart home market is still in its infancy but we're already seeing some significant changes in consumers' and vendors' approach," said Jitesh Ubrani senior research analyst for IDC Mobile Device Trackers. "There's less of a focus on having a central hub and apps as the center of the interface as hardware makers race to create interoperability with smart assistants like Alexa, Siri, or Google Assistant. On the other hand, consumers, while still somewhat hesitant to anthropomorphize smart assistants, are beginning to expect a more natural user interface to the myriad of smart home devices."　　"While it's still early days for the smart home market – and the wider consumer IoT ecosystem in general – we expect to see considerable growth over the next few years, especially as consumers become more aware of and increasingly interact with smart assistant platforms like Amazon's Alexa and Google Assistant," said Adam Wright senior research analyst for IDC's Consumer IoTProgram. "Whether in the form of a smart speaker or embedded in a thermostat, fridge, TV, or any other device, smart assistants are quickly becoming the cornerstone of consumer IoT by enhancing the accessibility, use, and functionality of connected devices, which will noticeably boost adoption rates in the near future."　　Category Highlights　　Video Entertainment devices, inclusive of smart TVs, digital media adapters, and other IP-connected video devices, are forecast to deliver a CAGR of 8.3% for unit shipments over the 2017–2022 forecast period. These devices are also expected to capture around three quarters of the dollar value of the entire smart home market as the average sale price (ASP) for TVs will be among the highest. Leaders in the TV category during 2017 were Samsung and LG while category leaders for digital media adapters during the same period were, in order, Amazon, Google, and Roku.　　Home Monitoring/Security is comprised of devices like connected door locks, cameras, moisture sensors, door bells, and more. IDC expects this will remain the second largest category in terms of unit shipments through 2022 as products become easier to deploy in the home and will not require consumers to have a "DIY attitude" to integrate these products with their smart assistants and other devices.　　Smart Speakers with built-in smart assistants have captured the spotlight recently as major new brands like Apple have entered the market. In addition, Amazon and Google have been quick to respond by offering additional models and price points through their first-party speakers and by partnering with numerous other brands to bring Alexa- or Google Assistant-enabled speakers. What remains to be seen is how long the partners can survive since the sale of hardware stands to be the smallest part of the overall revenue associated with this category.　　Connected Lighting products, like those from Philips, GE, IKEA, and others, have to some extent been the gateway for consumers to the larger smart home market. With prices quickly dropping and bundling with smart speakers as an entry level smart home solution, the lighting category has a lot of future potential. IDC anticipates this category to be worth more than $3.5 billion dollars by the end of 2022.　　Thermostats, like the ones offered by Nest or Ecobee, are expected to have a worldwide CAGR of 20.8% for unit shipments by 2022. Despite the high growth, IDC expects it to be among the smallest categories as most homes will have a single thermostat and a large part of the world (e.g. Asia/Pacific and Middle East) does not use standalone thermostats, relying instead on those built into air conditioners or heating units.　　Other smart home products like connected appliances, sprinkler systems, and other smaller devices are expected to see shipments grow at a CAGR of 18.2% from 2017–2022. Many of the analog counterparts, like traditional appliances, have long replacement cycles and are expected to have limited overall appeal within the future smart home.
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Release time：2018-04-02 00:00 reading：1208 Continue reading>>

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