Establishment of virtual factories - an integrated digital modeling of whole factories, production lines or single machines - will significantly benefit manufacturing by optimizing equipment utilization, shortening time taken to ready production lines, and removing bottlenecks, according to Davis Si, industry sales director for Industrial Equipment under France-based Dassault Systemes Greater China.The integrated digital modeling can be of three levels: modeling of a whole factory including management of conveying materials, components and products on the first level; a specific production line, that is, the corresponding manufacturing process such as stamping, welding, paint spraying or assembly at a car factory, on the second level; and single equipment items used to manufacture a specific product, such as machines or robots, on the third level, Si said.A complete virtual factory consisting of all three levels can help manufacturers develop purpose-specific solutions, such as improving product quality, production efficiency, and equipment utilization.As customized production is in increasing demand, mixed use of same production lines to make different products is the most feasible approach in terms of return on investment in installing production lines. However, such mixed use involves complicated problems in maintaining production capacity at certain levels, scheduling production, allocating workers and managing feeding and cutting of materials. Establishment of virtual production lines can help solve these problems, Si said.For highly automated factories equipped with a large number of robots, integrated digital modeling of operation of individual robots or robotic arms as well as collaboration between robots and workers, robots and machines and robots and automated supporting equipment is particularly important. This is because such operation and collaboration are so complicated that adjustment of robots to readiness on the spot is not feasible in time and cost, he said.

Global enterprises are advised to use real-time monitoring, data collection, combined with back-end analysis applications in order to access early alerts, notifications and any updates to avoid unexpected equipment anomaly or breakdown, according to Bruce Lu, senior consultant, Greater China Pre-sales Support Department, SAS Institute Taiwan.The use of numerical data - such as temperature, pressure, flow, voltage and electric current incurred during the production process - as the basis for maintenance as well as prevention of sudden malfunction of costly equipment is not enough to help enterprises reduce the risk of having unexpected failure of their equipment, Lu said.Enterprises must return to the fundamentals to pragmatically look at the data generated by related equipment, to see what data has been ignored previously and how to use the date to prevent in advance their machines from malfunctioning, Lu said.It is not difficult to find out that in addition to the numerical data, the machines will also generate log files based on words and numbers, and that these log files have not been used appropriately on the application of fault detection classification (FDC) systems, which uses mainly numerical data, Lu indicated.Log files are a type of text data which contain some subtle signs that have not been detected before, Lu stated.An enterprise normally uses server products, including AP servers, database servers, and front-end integrated servers plus third-party watchdog apps to collect data and conduct real-time monitoring during production process, and therefore a sudden accident from this link will interrupt the monitoring process on hundreds of its production machines, which could then to lead to suspension of all the operations of a factory.But through the examination of log files, it usually can show traits of minor signs such as abnormal connection between AP servers and database servers, which eventually lead to the malfunction of production equipment.Using SAS's stream analysis technology, which combines the use of natural language processing, to conduct continuous real-time, low-latency analysis on log files, allows an enterprise to stay aware in advance for days or hours before a possible major malfunction, Lu said.SAS' event stream processing platform supports multiple algorithms and machine learning technologies, utilizing AI edge computing to complete its stream analysis, which not only assists the manufacturing industry for equipment failure warning, but can also be used for defective classification and product quality monitoring and analysis, Lu said.Bruce Lu, senior consultant, Greater China Pre-sales Support Department, SAS Institute TaiwanPhoto: Elisha Hung, Digitimes, October 2018

In Armenia, Aleksandr Yesayan, co-founder and business development director of telecom operator Ucom, is an iconic entrepreneur, as he founded the company in 1998 at the age of only 16. The company is now a business with 1,800 employees and annual revenues of US$80 million, and Yesayan is a role model for young Armenians establishing startups.Yesayan told Digitimes in a recent interview that more than 10 million Armenians live abroad, and they need to be in touch with their families in the country. But back in 1998, he added, it was a heavy financial burden for low-income Armenians to place a phone call to the US at a rate of US$3 per minute.After reaching the US in 1998, he and his elder brother Hayk learned that the telecommunication cost could be sharply reduced through Internet calls. This inspired them to offer Internet call services at fixed places in Armenia, allowing people with memberships to make overseas calls at US$1 per minute. Then, Yesayan set up many Internet cafes to allow more people to enjoy low-cost Internet call services.Soon after Armenia liberalized its telecom market in 2006, Ucom acquired the debt-ridden Orange Armenia, transforming its traditional analog wired telecom service firm into a digital one. Now, Ucom has become Armenia's No.1 fixed-network and No.2 mobile communication services provider.Armenia's smartphone market scale is estimated at 400,000 units per year, with Samsung commanding a share of up to 45% despite strong competition from China's vendors, such as Huawei. The domestic smartphone market in Armenia alone can hardly be enough incentives for investors to set up smartphone production lines there, but Armenia is a crucial gateway to the East Europe and Middle East markets, particularly Iran, which is touted by Yesayan as an "untouched market." Armenia has recently signed a free trade agreement with Iran, and over 40% of Iran's external web traffic volumes are contributed by Ucom.Education counts mostYesayan believes that future opportunities for people living in landlocked Armenia, which is 96% covered by mountains, will surely hinge on education and that only through education can quality Armenia engineers be employed worldwide. In fulfilling its corporate social responsibility, Ucom has set up digital learning centers in remote rural areas, offering basic courses on 3D design and robotics for children when aged 10, and the company is expected to establish over 600 digital education footholds in Armenia by 2019.Having visited Taiwan for many times, Yesayan expressed the hope that his company can have more opportunities for cooperating with Taiwan businesses in 3D design and telecom services.He said Ucom has established a complete Internet protocol television (IPTV) service system exclusively for the millions of Armenia around the world. He also stressed that now 40% of VMware's R&D engineers come from Armenia, Synopsys has over 800 Armenian engineers, and Mentor Graphic also has a major R&D base in the country.Hosting 2019 WCIT ArmeniaIn his capacity as one of the directors of the World Information Technology and Services Alliance (WITAS), Yesayan will represent Armenia to host the 2019 World Congress on Information Technology (WCIT) on October 6-9 in the Armenia capital city Yerevan.Yesayan disclosed that the 2019 WCIT Armenia will bear the theme of "Other Nature, Other People, Other Time" to convey his country's hope of playing a distinct role in the global science and tech service field, and the event will highlight Armenia's prowess in the fields of decentralization, 3D printing, smart architecture, and IC design.Apart from WITSA member states, Armenia will also invite countries maintaining close ties with Armenia, including Russia and Israel, to participate in the the event. Former US president Barack Obama and global business leaders including Dell founder Michael Dell and Siemens' president will also be among VIPs at the 2019 WCIT Armenia, Yesayan disclosed.He stressed that Armenia is a small country with a global vision and is eager to learn from Taiwan's tech industry experiences while also seeking to enhance mutual cooperation.(Editor's note: This is part of a series of reports about Armenia's IT industry development.)Ucom co-founder Aleksandr YesayanPhoto: Digitimes staff, October 2018

Deeply aware of Taiwan's robust tech prowess, Armenia hopes that industries in both countries can build closer partnerships and that more young tech talent can complement each other through bilateral industrial exchanges, according to Hakob Arshakyan, Armenia's minister of transport, communications and IT.Arshakyan expressed the hopes in a recent interview conducted by Digitimes after he opened the three-day DigiTec Expo 2018 on October 5 at Yerevan Expo Center.The 33-year-old Arshakysan said Armenia's prime minister is only 42 years old and its deputy prime minister Tigran Avinyan was born in 1989 - all young leaders who grew up surrounded by digital technologies and are eager to gain industry experiences. He stressed that Armenia is eager to build a new-generation science park modeled after the Hsinchu Science Park (HSP) in northern Taiwan.He continued that Armenia boasts special expertise in the military engineering sector - which was showcased in many related exhibits at DigiTec Expo 2018, including solar energy-controlled autocannons, large-size drones and the nation's first autonomous vehicle.Arshakysan also disclosed that Armenia will launch some foundations capitalized at over US$100 million each to support investment projects by tech startups, so as to more effectively encourage the development of startups.Accompanying Arshakysan at the interview, Yvonne Chiu, chairperson of the World Information Technology and Services Alliance (WITSA), said that though a young country, Armenia has developed its own characteristics in many tech fields.Chiu revealed that the 2019 World Congress on Information Technology (WCIT) will be held in October in the Armenia capital city of Yerevan, and that Taiwan will organize a large delegation to render the largest support to the event.Chiu led WITSA member representatives from Malaysia, Belarus, Egypt, Greece and Taiwan to attend the DigiTech Expo 2018.(Editor's note: This is part of a series of reports about Armenia's IT industry development.)

Yvonne Chiu, currently chairwoman of the Information Service Industry Association of Taiwan, has been re-elected as chairwoman for the World Information Technology Service Alliance (WITSA), a consortium of ICT organizations around the world.The confirmation vote was conducted at WISTA's board of directors meeting in Yerevan City, Armenia, on October 4, 2018.The focus of ICT industry development is transitioning from PCs and handsets to software innovation, and therefore cooperation across countries and industries is of key in the IoT (Internet of Things) era, Chiu said.WITSA currently has 83 member countries, 30 of them being in Asia Pacific, 20 in the Americas, 11 in the EU, 11 in non-EU Europe areas, and 11 in Africa. WITSA will make efforts to recruit additional members in emerging markets, especially South Asia, Southeast Asia, Africa and East Europe.World Congress on Information Technology (WCIT), an annual global ICT meeting organized by WITSA, was held in Taiwan in 2000 and again in 2017, and in India in February 2018. It will take place in Yerevan in 2019 with "Power Decentralization" as a theme, and in Penang, Malaysia in 2020 with "Gateway to Southeast Asia" as its main topic.The global meeting will take place in Bangladesh in 2021 and probably in South Africa in 2022.By hosting WCIT in 2000 and 2017, Taiwan's successful development of ICT industries has become a reference for other WITSA members in making ICT policies, Chiu said.WITSA chairwoman Yvonne Chiu (front, third from right)Photo: WITSA

Dell has teamed up with Wistron to recycle gold from e-wastes and use the recycled gold in its products, marking an upgrade of its closed-loop project launched in 2012 to recycle plastics materials from end-of-life electronics into new Dell products.Since the beginning of 2018, Dell has used gold recycled from waste motherboards in its Latitude 5285 2-in-1 business-use notebook debuted at the Consumer Electronics Show in January 2018 and to be shipped to customers in the second quarter of fiscal 2019.The closed-loop gold recycling process comes in two stages. In the first stage, recycled electronic wastes are delivered to Wistron Green Tech's Texas plant in the US to undergo initial dismantling. The plant adopts a metal surface chemistry process to extract precious metals including gold, silver and copper from printed circuit boards, according to SH Huang, president of Wistron Advanced Materials. The Texas plant can process 13,000 tons of electronics wastes a year sourced from the US and Europe.In the second stage, Huang continued, the waste chassis plastics are sent to Wistron Advanced Materials' plant in Kunshan, China for further refining, where the plastics wastes are recycled into environmental plastics to be adopted by Dell's downstream ODM partners.Over the past few years, Dell has had 152 product items adopt recycled plastics materials mostly for chassis, and has set the goal of using 100 million pounds of recycled-content plastic and other sustainable materials in its products by 2020.As part of its new circular economy plan for the next 10 years, Dell will expand its closed-loop recycling to include more waste materials, so as to allow circular economy to further ferment in more products, according to Vivian Tai, head of Dell Environmental Affairs and Product Sustainability for Asia-Pacific and Japan Region.Dell, Wistron team up to recycle gold from waste PCBs.Photo: Chloe Liao, Digitimes, October 2018

The production value of the global foundry industry is expected to grow by a CAGR of 6.2% to reach US$81.94 billion in 2023, the final year of a five-year forecast period, driven by chip demand for mobile devices, automotive, IoT and high-performance computing applications in the AI and upcoming 5G era, according to Digitimes Research.Industry leader TSMC began to make chips using 7nm FinFET process technology in the first half of 2018, and started generating revenues from the node process in the thrid quarter. TSMC will see sales generated from 7nm FinFET process technology account for over 10% of company revenues in all of 2018, Digitimes Research estimated.TSMC is expected to enter volume production of chips using its second-generation 7nm FinFET technology utilizing EUV in the first quarter of 2019, Digitimes Research said. Rival Samsung Electronics will also have its 7nm node with EUV get ready for volume production in the first quarter of 2019, Digitimes Research indicated.In addition, TSMC and other major pure-play foundries will continue expanding fab capacities through 2023, when the top-4 vendors will see their combined capacities reach 67,078,000 8-inch equivalent wafers annually representing a CAGR of 6.8% in the five-year forecast period, Digitimes Research said.

While advanced hospitals are adopting smart systems to let patients save payment time, blockchain technology can be applied to further boost quality and security of the systems, according to SW Lai, chief software engineer at Innova Solutions, a US-based IT service company specializing in highly complex enterprise infrastructures.Lai said his firm's enterprise-level medical payment solutions, now commanding an 85% share of the US market, highlight payment performance and security, storage of mass medical data of patients, cash flow stability and account accuracy, and in particular, security and accuracy are the two core concerns.Lai disclosed that Innova is gradually incorporating blockchain into the enterprise-level medical payment sector, leveraging the blockchain traits of decentralization, temper resistance, openness, independence, safety and anonymity to safeguard the cash flow of medical payments and facilitate safe and stable transmission of personal data of patients. The company has set up Innova Solutions Taiwan as its first overseas software R&D center, which now has a total of 110 employees with 99% of them being software engineers, including over 30% multinational engineers.Besides incorporating blockchain technology to boost the data security for users of medical payment solutions, Innova is also applying AI to handle data mining and analysis jobs.Furthermore, Innova has also developed voice communication software products, and is cooperating with Amazon's Alexa smart voice assistant to bridge the incorporation of its software programs into IoT systems. The company will also develop software for application to wearable devices needed in future preventive medicine, according to Lai.SW Lai, chief software engineer at Innova SolutionsPhoto: Shihmin Fu, Digitimes, October 2018

Taipei has been workign towards becoming a smart city based on three core concepts: government as a platform, city as a living laboratory, and innovation is the DNA of development, according to mayor Ko Wen-je.Innovative applications are essential to promoting smart cities, and city governments, due to less understanding than industry players, should function as a platform to provide opportunities and experiment sites for firms to develop and commercialize smart city solutions, Ko said during a recent interview by Digitimes.Taipei boasts a complete ICT (information and communication technology) infrastructure, well-developed commercial and ICT supply chains, excellent human resources - conditions that are ideal for developing smart city solutions, Ko said. Taipei, as the capital of the country, aims to play a leading role in promoting smart cities and a hub connecting international resources.Failures allowable, professional knowledge respectedKo noted that many innovations have failed to achieve their final goals, and therefore smart city developments must be supported by an environment where failures are allowed and professional knowledge is respected, which is necessary to encourage government employees to place their priority on "working smart" rather than "working hard."China, Singapore, Japan and South Korea are keen to create innovative environments, Ko said government restrictions should be kept at minimal levels.In terms of professional knowledge, the city will make efforts to educate its officials on science and technology, letting them take classes on the latest development of sciences and technologies such as AI (artificial intelligence), blockchain, big data and others in a bid to realize digital administration.To help the private sector commercialize in-house-developed solutions, the city provides hardware and software resources, including consulting, counseling and incubation services, financial support and international linkage, for startup teams and businesses, Ko said.Taipei as living labThe development of smart cities cannot rely only on efforts by the public sector alone but instead shound depend on an ecosystem combining the efforts of the public and private sectors, including those by academic and research organizations, as well as industrial sectors, Ko said. Taipei aims to play a pilot role providing public resources, such as space for experiments, as a form of collaboration with the private sector to make the city a large living lab where innovators can undertake POC (proof of concept).There are over 120 ongoing POC projects in Taipei and the number is increasing, he said. For example, there are two smart restrooms in a park featuring automatic detection of toilet paper and soap consumption, ammonia density, and IoT-based real-time notification of management personnel for replenishing the materials and cleaning. The city's Feitsui Reservoir with water area of 1,452 hectares is another POC project: its administration has set up a smart management system using LoRa IoT technology. Other POC projects include smart security surveillance such as tracking of persons and vehicles as well as virtual electronic fences to enable security management.Smart public housingThere are 127 public housing development projects with a total of 19,923 rental units in the city, with some having been completed and some others undr construction or at the planning stage. The city government aims to experiment smart city solutions in these projects, including installation of smart power, water and natural gas meters and providing smart energy-saving systems as well as smart community security and parking services. The city government is willing to increase the cost of the public housinng projects by 3-5% in order to promote smart city solutions, Ko said.Mobility as a serviceIn terms of transportation services, the city government is promoting "mobility as a service" and smart transportation by integrating different transportation systems and services, and encouraging use of mobile e-payment in a bid to reach seamless and door-to-door mobility. For shared transport, there are over 13,000 U-bike rental bicycles available for sharing at 400 roadside stations, 1,000 U-motor rental electric scooters, and 200 power charging piles at 80 public parking lots. In addition, the city government plans to offer U-car rental electric cars for shared use.Smart medical care, e-payment and educationThe city government will cooperate with enterprises to develop smart medical care solutions for use in clinics, home care and hospital administration, with seven municipal hospitals with more than 3,500 wards in total as experiment sites.Taipei in 2017 launched pay.taipei, a platform for citizens to make online inquiries about utility fees, parking and medical services provided by municipal hospitals, and make e-payment via cooperation.Taipei will invest NT$1.2 billion (US$39.3 million) to promote smart education, mainly digitized teaching and administration, at its elementary and junior high schools in 2018 and 2019.Taipei mayor Ko Wen-jePhoto: Shihmin Fu, Digitimes, October 2018

Worldwide server shipments will grow at a CAGR of 14% in the forecast period 2018 to 2023 as demand from social media, e-commerce and digital enterprises applications continues growing plus the emerging technologies including artificial intelligence (AI), Internet of Things (IoT) and 5G network.Of the shipments, cloud computing service providers' demand for servers is expected to see a CAGR of over 20% during the period, higher than the average.As for Intel's next-generation Whitley server platform, it is unlikely to be available until 2020 due to the delay in Intel's new manufacturing technology.In the past few years, software-defined datacenter (SDDC) has been treated as the key for enterprises to perform the transformation of digitalization. Among the available platform architectures, hyper-converged infrastructure (HCI) that is able to enable a large volume of virtualization services to replace traditional physical equipment, is the latest development trend for servers because of its low hardware costs and strong usage efficiency.As AI-related applications have become popular, demand for cloud-computing and local-end AI development has been growing rapidly, helping to stimulate the birth of AI-specific servers from vendors. Most of the AI-specific servers are equipped with calculation accelerators and are paired with big data processing software to help manage data and train AI systems.To reduce clients' process of development and improve their time-to-market, most server vendors are offering server solutions with pre-installed AI systems to their customers.As more enterprises are adopting microservices such as Amazon Web Services (AWS) and Microsoft Azure's container and serverless applications, to speed up their product development, Digitimes Research expects the transition to boost the development of next-generation dynamic IT architecture, especially features including low I/O access latency and high computing performance, making NVMe and SoC with specific functions key development directions for server vendors.Currently, most of the available servers in the market can support network transmission speed up to 10Gbps, but vendors and network players have been gradually upgrading to 25Gbps as it is the baseline technology for next-generation 100-400Gbps transmissions.Digitimes Research estimates that shipments for servers supporting 25Gbps transmission technology will surpass those with 10Gbps in 2020. Since AI-specific servers require a higher bandwidth than regular servers, demand for 100Gbps servers is also expected to pick up steadily.