The Ministry of Economic Affairs (MOEA) in 2018 began promoting installation of smart machine boxes (SMBs) on machines as the first step to boosting development of smart machinery in Taiwan, and beginning 2020 the SMBs will get upgraded functions and standardized format interfaces, according to government-sponsored Smart Machinery Promotion Office (SMPO).Initial SMBs focus on production management, with primary functions being visualization of machines' operating conditions and utilization, output statistics and automatic notification of machines' operational failure, SMPO said. Along with accumulation of operating data, the role of SMBs will be extended from production management to optimization of production and manufacturing equipment, with advanced functions such as quality monitoring, diagnosis and prediction of operating conditions for equipment, optimal scheduling for production to be added, SMPO noted.As specific functions on demand vary from industry to industry, modules of industry-specific functions will be overlaid on those of common functions for SMBs, SMPO indicated.Initial development of SMBs involved 32 companies, research organizations and universities, and respective SMB software solutions are independent of one another and lack mutual compatibility, according to Intelligent Machinery Technology Center (IMTC) under government-sponsored Industrial Technology Research Institute (ITRI).IMTC said SMB users are prone to relying too much on scenarios set by individual developers, and it will work to standardize format interfaces to enable different developers' SMB software solutions to smoothly operate in common environments.Based on the standardization, a smart machinery cloud computing platform was unveiled in 2019 to facilitate development of cloud-based SMB software solutions and allow users of standardized SMBs to download chosen solutions on subscription or rental basis, SMPO said. Developers of machines can pre-install such solutions on their products and system integration service providers can adopt such solutions to enhance total solutions.The platform will be tested for reliability and information security in first-half 2020 and come into trial operation in the second half, with commercial operation expected to begin in 2021.So far, over 150 manufacturers have installed SMBs on 3,285 machines, SMPO indicated, adding that the target number of SMB-equipped machines for 2022 is 9,000.A smart machine boxPhoto: ITRI

The coronavirus epidemic has just started to show signs of easing in China, but the Chinese government can hardly wait to reboot its semiconductor industry. Its National Integrated Circuit Industry Investment Fund, aka Big Fund - set up to raise China's chip self-sufficiency - is kicking off its second-phase program at the end of March. The memory sector was still quite optimistic about demand this year when the outbreak was mostly confined to China and other parts of Asia earlier this year. But as it has developed into a pandemic, memory distributors are bracing for a disappointing second half of 2020. The pandemic's impacts are widespreading, casting a shadow even over the anticipated launch of Apple's 5G iPhones later this year. But that has not prevented the supply chain from vying for orders from Apple.China Big Fund in 2nd phase to fuel chip industry: China's National Integrated Circuit Industry Investment Fund (Big Fund) is about to kick off its second-phase capital support for the local chip industry, according to industry sources.Memory distributors uncertain about demand: Memory distributors have become more uncertain about demand due to the rapidly spreading coronavirus pandemic, and may adjust downward their quotes if demand turns out to be disappointing in the second half of 2020, according to industry sources.BOE, GIS reportedly jointly developing touch modules for iPhone: BOE Technology reportedly has teamed up with touch panel maker General Interface Solution (GIS) to develop an out-cell touch module looking to grab orders from Apple for one of its 5G iPhone devices slated for launch in the second half of 2020, according to sources from the supply chain makers.

DDTMAP Technology, a Taiwan-based developer of applications of AR, VR and human-machine interaction technologies, will launch WebAR web-based AR platform for simulating spatial placements of furniture to help consumers choose items that can match their home decor, according to company founder and CEO Chen Si-chia.WebAR, set to be launched April 1, features integration of furniture catalogs, reality fitting of chosen items, and online ordering and payments, Chen said.The platform saves users from the hassles of having to visit physical furniture stores and measure dimensions of desired furniture pieces, and the items purchased from physical stores may turn out to be wrong choice after they are delivered, Chen indicated, adding that WebAR is developed to solve such problems.AR-enabled apps have been developed by others, such as IKEA, to serve similar purposes, but the downloading of large volumes of furniture catalogs every time an app opens is usually a long wait for users, Chen said, adding that is why DDTMAP has developed a web-based platform.WebAR can also help interior decoration designers quickly change furniture pieces, saving at least 80% of time usually spent on communication with clients, Chen indicated. WebAR can also help furniture vendors manage and analyze business operations, and help furniture stores reduce costs by minimizing exhibition space and inventory, Chen noted.Specifically for WebAR, DDTMAP has talked with target partners including furniture stores, interior decoration designers and project undertakers, real estate developers, with many of them willing for cooperation, Chen said.Viewing that painting and artwork are important elements of interior decoration, DDTMAP plans to incorporate items of painting and artwork into WebAR, Chen said. DDTMAP has cooperated with National Taiwan University of Arts to provide a platform for the university's teachers and students to sell self-made work at self-set prices, Chen noted. DDTMAP will tap the markets in Japan, South Korea and Southeast Asia, Chen noted, adding WebAR is equipped with a function of translating basic information of the vendors' furniture pieces into English, Japanese, Korean, Vietnamese, Indonesian and Filipino, Chen indicated.DDTMAP Technology founder and CEO Chen Si-chiaPhoto: Vincent Mao, Digitimes, March 2020

A research team in Taiwan has disclosed it has developed flexible (bendable) chargeable batteries based on magnesium fabric.The team leader, Hung Fei-yi, a professor at the Department of Materials Science and Engineering, National Cheng Kung University (NCKU), said the batteries use magnesium alloy/ceramic powder and nonwoven fabric produced by KNH Enterprise.A small patch (1.5cm in diameter) of such a fully-charged battery can support over 36-hour continued lighting by an LED light bulb, Hung said.Some types of chargeable batteries run the risk of explosion when batteries are ovcercharged, but magnesium fabric-based ones featuring no electrolytic solutions are safe and environmentally friendly, Hung noted.The flexible chargeable batteries can be stacked to increase power storage capacity and multi-layer packaged into battery packs for electric vehicles (EV), Hung indicated.Based on global literature concerned, all of available solid-state chargeable batteries are inflexible, therefore magnesium fabric-based chargeable batteries are the world's first flexible solid-state model, Hung indicated.Magnesium fabric-based flexible chargeable batteriesPhoto: NCKU

Global top-5 notebook brands saw their combined shipments nosedive nearly 40% on month and 38% on year in February as the notebook supply chain, which has over 90% of poduction capacity in China, was seriously disrupted in the wake of the coronavirus outbreak, according to Digitimes Research.Among the global top-5 brands, only Dell and Lenovo shipped over one million notebooks in February. Dell, which had its ODM partners keep some workers at plants to work during the Lunar New Year holidays, had an on-month shipment decline only larger than those of Lenovo and Asustek, and was the largest brand worldwide for the second consecutive month in February, Digitimes Research's numbers show.Lenovo's in-house production lines in Hefei achieved a production resumption rate of nearly 60% in February, allowing its shipment to be above par.Hewlett-Packard (HP), without arranging production during the Lunar New Year break and having most of its production lines in China's Chongqing, where rules for production resumption are stricter than other places, experienced an over 50% on-month decline in February shipments.The top-3 ODMs suffered an on-month decline of 42% in their combined shipments in February. Quanta had a larger on-month drop than the other two as its production resumption was much slower than its fellow makers.Although ODMs' capacity is likely to be restored fast in March, tight supply of components resulting from labor shortages at related makers are expected to become an issue for notebook makers.

The coronavirus pandemic is sweeping across the US and Europe, casting a shadow over the consumer electronics market. Now the semiconductor supply chain fears that the end-market demand may not pick up until 2021. In China, where the epidemic seems to be easing, supply chains reportedly are quickly returning normal operations. But makers are still worried that the impacts of the virus in other parts of the world may chill demand. For motherboard and graphics cards makers, shipments in first-half 2020 are expected to drop to record-low levels.Chipmakers turn pessimistic about end-market demand in 2020: Some chipmakers, as well as others engaged in the semiconductor industry, have turned pessimistic about end-market demand this year, judging from a more severe than expected impact from the quickly spreading coronavirus.Supply chains fast returning to normal in China: Electronics supply chain makers with operations in China are accelerating production resumption as the coronavirus epidemic there eases, and upstream components suppliers are fulfilling shipments as fast as possible to avoid any undesirable changes to their orders in hands, according to industry sources.Mobo and graphics card shipments set to hit record low: Global motherboard and graphics card shipments are set to drop to record-low levels in the first half of 2020, thanks to the quickly spreading coronavirus pandemic sweeping over 130 countries, according to sources from motherboard companies.

While smart healthcare is widely available in Taiwan, not every patient is willing to pay for or can afford such software-based services, and therefore a well-defined pricing mechanism is necessary for promoting sound development of smart healthcare solutions, according to Jimmy Huang, who is a digital health consultant and senior emergency physician for MacKay Memorial Hospital's BioMedical Development Center.Digital transformation of the medical industry involves upgrading of medical hardware and software-oriented improvements, such as better interaction between doctors and patients. If the transformation requires drastic modifications of regular operational processes, the medical staff need to be educated on digital mentality and collaborative creativity, Huang said.Currently in Taiwan, smart healthcare hardware and solutions are mostly developed by academic-industry alliances and some of them have been adopted by many hospitals, Huang noted. But these products or solutions may not be able to survive in the market if they cannot be supported by resonable pricing, he said.Smart medical care services developed in advanced countries have proved to be effective in hiking medical quality and reducing medical cost, with value created competitive enough with that created by medical instruments, and therefore have been adopted by life insurance companies, Huang said. In Taiwan, realization of the situation necessitates cooperation among the government, hospitals and life insurance industry to amend regulations and formulate incentives, Huang noted.As compared with payable medical instruments of which medical effects are obvious, software can be used to extend healthcare to homes to add value for medical services, but the problem is that there are no payment schemes for software-based medical services, such as how much AI-based interpretation of medical images shoudl be charged, he said. A lack of pricing mechanism is why smart medical care is not easily operated in Taiwan, Huang noted.Hospitals are generally more accustomed to procurement of medical instruments than to that of medical software, Huang noted. For medical care, medical software is of variety in small volumes like medical instruments and hardware solutions and software ones create respective values, Huang indicated.However, smart medical care enables doctors to understand patients' real-time conditions and medical care-givers to monitor multiple patients under their care simultaneously, Huang said.An integrated information system used in smart medical carePhoto: Jimmy Huang

The coronavirus outbeak that has disrupted the supply chains in China has again highlighted the need for manufacturers to diversify their production bases. But it is easier said than done when it comes to moving production out of China, particularly for a company as big as Foxconn. Digitimes offers a look at Foxconn's deployments in China to shed light on the difficulties it has trying to move production out of the country. And the wake of the coronavirus pandemic, chip vendors may still be optimistic about the 5G smartphone market, but their focus is shifting towards the entry-level to mid-tier segments. In the semiconductor sector, China-based foundry SMIC is stepping efforts transitioning to 7nm processes.Relocating capacity out of China would be mammoth task for Foxconn: The US-China trade war sent many firms rethinking their global capacity deployments. And the ongoing coronavirus outbreak that has disrupted the supply chain in China has given them more impetus to move some - if not all - of their production out the world's factory. But that is easier said than done.SoC solution providers eyeing mid- to entry-level 5G chip segment: SoC solution providers have recently shifted their focus to promoting mid- to entry-level 5G chips as 5G-enabled smartphones with a price tag below CNY3,000 (US$429) are likely to become a major market segment, at least in China, in the next three years, according to industry sources.SMIC gearing up for 7nm process manufacturing: Semiconductor Manufacturing International (SMIC) has moved 14nm FinFET process to volume production with orders from Huawei's chip arm HiSilicon, and is gearing up for its next-generation FinFET process manufacturing, according to sources familiar with the matter.

The TWS device market looks promising, and despite the uncertainty lying ahead of the global economy in the wake of the coronavirus pandemic, Apple reportedly is sticking to its shipment target for AirPods devices for 2020. Neither has the outbreak deterred the datacenter and server sectors from stepping up their deployments, which has in turn fueled momentum for memory prices. NAND flash chip contract prices are expected to go up 15% in second-quate 2020. But for PCB makers, they are set to see a sluggish year with a growth much lower than they had expected. Apple still looks to ship 90 million AirPods in 2020: Apple has not revised downward its shipment forecast for AirPods devices, and is expected to stick its goal of shipping 90 million units in 2020, an increase of 50% from a year earlier, according to sources from the supply chain.NAND flash contract prices to rise 15% in 2Q20: NAND flash contract prices are expected to rise 15% sequentially in the second quarter of 2020, driven mainly by robust demand for servers and enterprise-class applications, according to industry sources.Taiwan PCB production to grow 3% in 2020, says TPCA: The production of Taiwan's PCB industry is estimated to rise 2.82% on year to reach NT$681.1 billion in 2020 if the coronavirus outbreak can ease in the first half of the year, according to Taiwan Printed Circuit Association (TPCA).

Development of smart machinery in Taiwan hinges on locally-developed industrial sensors, according to Alex Ko, chairman for Taiwan Association of Machinery Industry (TAMI).Most of the industrial sensors used in Taiwan are imported, and they are expensive and insufficiently-customized in specification to meet local needs, Ko said. As a result, many local smart machinery makers are unwilling to adopt imported industrial sensors, hindering development of smart machinery in Taiwan, Ko indicated.Since machines general have service lives of 10 years or more, replacement of industrial sensors is much less frequent than that of sensors used in consumer electronics, and accordingly shipments for the former are smaller than those for the latter. In addition, accuracy requirements for industrial sensors are higher than those for consumer electronics. That's why few Taiwan-based firms are developing and producing industrial sensors, Ko said.Taiwan-based IC design houses PixArt Imaging and Sitronix Technology have developed image and optical sensors for industrial use, but few companies have been engaged in industrial sensors for temperature, pressure and vibration detection.Industrial Technology Research Institute (ITRI) and other government-sponsored research organizations lead in R&D of industrial sensors in Taiwan currently. ITRI's Smart Microsystems Technology Center has cooperated with TBI Motion Technology, Homkom Precision Industry, Gloria Material Technology and Chiah Chyun Machinery to develop sensors for monitoring working conditions of ball screws for diagnosing their operating health.With Ministry of Economic Affairs' incentives, Taiwan-based semiconductor companies, including TSMC, UMC, MediaTek, Realtek Semiconductor and Novatek Microelectronics, are willing to develop or produce industrial sensors.Ministry of Science and Technology (MOST) and its National Applied Research Laboratories have promoted a smart machinery service platform, with the platform cooperating with machine tool maker Tongtai Machine & Tool and gas sensing and detecting instrument maker Macro Technology Instruments to arrange testing of locally-developed industrial sensing devices and modules at factories.According to market studies, global production value for industrial sensors will rise from US$3.48 billion in 2018 to US$5.39 billion in 2022.Application of industrial sensorsPhoto: ITRI