Display products highlighted by China-based flat panel makers at the recently concluded China Information Technology Expo (CITE) show that most of China's panel suppliers are actively developing 18:9 all-screen and profile-cut panels in response to demand from the handset sector, the largest application market for small- to medium-size panels, Digitimes Research has found.In terms of technology, China's flat panel makers are currently still focusing on the development of flexible AMOLED panels, Digitimes Research says.The rapid shift of specifications from 16:9 to 18:9 aspect ratio and the adoption of profile-cut panels for high-end smartphones have actually extended to WVGA panels for entry-level models. Additionally, LTPS and IGZO TFT LCD panel makers have also begun to utilize their respective technologies to produce HD panels in addition to the previous focus of higher-end Full HD or above panels.While eagerly developing AMOLED panels for handset applications, China's panel makers are also seeking to expand the applications of such panels to other segments such as under-display fingerprint and facial recognition applications.Although AMOLED panels are currently being used for the production of smartwatches and other wearable devices, China's panel suppliers are also keen on the development of TFT LCD panels for wearable applications, with efforts including the roll-out of semi-reflective semi-transparent panels with improved color contrast for smartwatches, as well as other fast response panels for VR glasses.

The global LiDAR systems' market for automotive applications is showing an impressive growth between 2017 and 2023: from US$726 million to US$5 billion, it should reach a 43% CAGR during this period, according to Yole Developpement.The growth should continue until 2032 with a US$28 billion market value, for the automotive market segment alone, said Yole.Today, LiDARs and new applications are developing simultaneously. Thus the LiDAR market is directly linked to the development of ADAS solutions and robotic vehicles. Both domains show high growth rates and tremendous enthusiasm.Yole said diverse industries such as aerospace, archaeology, construction, and wind farms and more will be also part of the LiDAR market landscape."In the past two years, more than US$800 million has been invested in LiDAR companies," said Alexis Debray, a technology and market analyst at Yole, as cited by a company press release. "Therefore, there is clearly a strong excitement around these technologies."Some companies, despite being created only a few years ago, have received millions in investments, according to Yole. For example, Blackmore, founded in 2016, recently received US$18 million from BMW and Toyota. And Quanergy, launched in 2012, received US$180 million in 2017.Such investments testify to LiDAR technologies' immaturity. Startups, industrial players, top-tier firms, and automotive OEMs are all investing in different approaches with no guarantee of success, but this is the price they must pay for a chance to be part of the automotive grade market for LiDAR technologies, seen by many as the "Holy Grail," said Yole.

Global server shipments (based on motherboards shipped) amounted to 3.4 million units in the first quarter of 2018, slightly down on quarter, but the shipments are expected to rise 9% sequentially in the second quarter, Digitimes Research estimates.Taiwan's server makers continued to maintain stable shares of global shipments in the first quarter of the year, but their shipments to leading datacenter operators including Amazon and Microsoft declined slightly from a quarter earlier. Second-quarter shipments to these major clients are expected to pick up on quarter, Digitimes Research indicates in its latest quarterly server report.Among them, Inventec still led in shipment volume. The company and Quanta Computer both received more orders from Amazon and Facebook in the first-quarter 2018 than a quarter earlier.Meanwhile, Wiwynn is expected to post the highest quarterly shipment growth in the second quarter of the year, as it has added Amazon as a new major customer, in addition to existing ones such as Microsoft and Facebook. The continuous tight supply of capacitors will be a major variable that could affect the shipment performance of Taiwan server makers, Digitimes Research indicates.

Shipments of smartphone-use application processors in China are expected to increase 17% sequentially to 173.8 million units in the second quarter of 2018, Digitimes Research estimates.Smartphone vendors began to step up their pace of orders in March. Disappointing smartphone sales in the fourth quarter of 2017 led to inventory adjustments at vendors, which dragged down AP shipments in China in the first quarter of 2018, Digitimes Research figures show. Smartphone AP shipments in China came to 148.5 million units in the first quarter, down 29% sequentially but up 17% from the same period in 2017. Shipments for the second quarter are forecast to represent a 2.2% decrease compared to the same period in 2017.MediaTek's smartphone AP shipments in China are expected to surge 33.7% sequentially in the second quarter, as sales of its Helio P series have begun to gain momentum. MediaTek's new 12nm Helio P series utilizing an AI processing unit (APU) has attracted orders from Oppo and Xiaomi.Qualcomm has seen its smartphone AP sales growth in China due to maturity of the market. Besides, Qualcomm intends to maintain its gross margin which will put it in an unfavorable position amid fierce competition from its Taiwan- and China-based rivals due to less flexibility in its pricing strategy, Digitimes Research believes.

Taiwan's shipments of small- to medium-size LCD panels are expected to grow 8.6% sequentially in the second quarter of 2018, driven by increased panel demand from China-based smartphone vendors for production of entry-level and mid-tier smartphones, as well as orders from India for high-end feature phones, according to Digitimes Research.Shipments of small- to medium-size panels by Taiwan suppliers totaled 297 million units in the first quarter of 2018, down 5% sequentially. The first-quarter performance was better than expected due mainly to increased shipments of 18:9 all screen smartphone panels by Chunghwa Picture Tubes (CPT), Digitimes Research figures show.During the first quarter, panel shipments for industrial-control and commercial applications were less affected by seasonal factors; shipments of mainstream sizes, and those for tablet and digital camera applications suffered serious setbacks. On a yearly basis, only shipments for handset applications posted growth in the first quarter. Additionally, shipments of automotive-use panels outpaced those for digital cameras to become the second largest application segment for panel makers.In the second quarter, shipments of small- to medium-size panel shipments for portable navigation device (PND) and automotive applications are expected to enjoy the highest growth in unit shipments, while those shipped to the tablet and digital camera segments will continue to decline.For individual suppliers, HannStar Display suffered the highest decline in shipments in the first quarter as the entry-level market was affected most by seasonal factors. But CPT managed to buck the seasonal trend to post sequential growth and outperformed Innolux to become the second largest supplier of small- to medium-size panels in the quarter.

In the 5G era, choosing the communication standards is not a core issue, but players need to decide which application market segments should be given priority. None of the 5G technology deployments will come cheap, and competition in commercial 5G operations will be capital-intensive under the "X as a Service" business model.A number of benchmark telecom operators have expressed eagerness to enter the 5G commercial market as early as possible, as the growing homogeneity on the improvement of network coverage, transmission bandwidth and mobile service experience in the prevailing 4G networks has driven the 4G service market into a phase with fierce competition.It will cost China-based telecom operators a combined capital expenditure of CNY300-500 billion (US$47.18-78.63 billion) for network coverage of 5G base stations in metropolitan areas operating under 4.5GHz/4.9GHz/26GHz/28GHz 5G networks, excluding other costs for peripheral transmission, 5G core and wireless access networks, Digitimes Research estimates. China's actual capital spending for 5G networks will be much higher as the aforementioned estimate is just coverage in the metropolitan areas.Digitimes Research also believes that with the exception of large-scale telecom operators in a number of countries/areas, most operators will be conservative about investing in 5G networks because of a number of reasons: the existing 4G networks have yet to be fully depreciated; the cost of 5G networks is too high; and they have yet to identify feasible business models for 5G emerging applications.

Pure Storage has worked with Nvidia and Arista Networks to jointly create AI Ready Infrastructure (AIRI) that is able to assist its clients with demand for AI applications.The company's FlashBlade series servers will be the initial product line to feature the infrastructure.Digitimes recently talked to Robert Lee, Pure Storage's VP and chief architect, about the new product line and the AI business opportunity.Q: Why has the FlashBlade series been chosen for AIRI?A: When the company began preparing and designing the FlashBlade series in 2013, the plan was to create a high performance server product line, targeting HPC clients with data processing demand. After its release, we have discovered that many of our clients have used the products for processing AI applications.Since AI requires good algorithm and a large amount of analyzable data in order to create values, storing, categorizing and computing the enormous data collected are some of the major challenges of the servers and the FlashBlade series' high-end specifications are able to satisfy demand for all different types of data storage, computing need and simplified categorization processes.For example, we previously worked with an autonomous driving vehicle developerusing our FlashBlade server to collect video data from the vehicles' camcorders. For each test, the camcorders could produce up to 5TB of data, which would usually take a long time to conduct back-end processes. But with our system, the developer was able to save a lot of time over video conversion, image capturing and image categorization.When the system captures images from videos, it still requires a person to manually tell it what the images are and the process usually takes a very long time. But with a suitable storage system, the process can be shortened dramatically.Q: Why has the FlashBlade series adopted a blade server form factor instead of the traditional rack server one?A: From the users' perspective, the rack server form factor design usually creates many limitations and the blade server design is able to provide better and simpler usages. The blade server design also has many advantages including better expandability and plug-and-play.The system also has well-designed software, allowing the system to directly communicate with the flash drives in order to conduct more parallel computing at once.When we began designing the FlashBlade series servers 4-5 years ago, we already started trying out NVMe-based SSDs as part of the hardware configurations. By then, NVMe was not yet a mature technology and though our competitors were able to adopt NVMe SSDs into their products, their servers were still incapable of achieving results similar to those of the FlashBlade series due to the limitations in software.Our software is able to resolve the bottleneck of NVMe's data transmission, allowing a smooth flow of data passage.Q: What functions can the FlashBlade series provide over the data categorization?A: We are currently working with our partners to help our clients concerning functionality. With the large amounts of raw data collected, our clients are not able to begin conducting analysis until after it has been labeled, indexed and classified.We have seen enormous amounts of data from clients and are working with our partners to develop technologies to categorize them, but the technologies so far have not yet reached a level that can be revealed.Although the technologies for categorizing and analyzing raw data are still not ready, storing raw data are still necessary as the data stored long time ago may still need to be reviewed after related technologies are available.We have been looking to develop technologies to help merge and store raw data in a format that takes less storage space, so our clients will be able to use the cold data for their future needs.Q: What does Pure Storage think of edge computing?A: Edge computing is a big business opportunity for us as the related devices are the one collecting data via IoT sensors and processing analysis tasks. Since storage will also be one of the edge computing devices' main functions, our solutions are able to assist our clients with needs for edge computing applications over deployment and management.Pure Storage VP and chief architect Robert LeePhoto: Aaron Lee, Digitimes, April 2018

Seen as an extension to the ongoing bilateral trade spats, the US Department of Commerce has imposed a ban on ZTE for sanctions violations, prohibiting American firms from selling components to the China telecom equipment maker for seven years. The move has not only dealt a heavy blow to ZTE, but may also threaten the development of industry value chains.It remains uncertain whether ZTE may eventually be given some kind of repreive by the US, but the development has sounded a grave warnign for everyone in the IT industry. Taiwan makers must not feel upbeat about possible order shifts resulting from the ZTE ban, and must instead speed up their R&D and improve their technological prowess to avert possible risks associated with the escalating US-China trade tensions.If the ban stays as it is for the next seven years, ZTE's future looks grim, facing a possibility that the company might not last that long.ZTE operationsIn 2017, ZTE posted revenues of CNY108.8 billion (US$17.27 billion), surging 7.5% on year. Revenues from the domestic market accounted for CNY61.9 billion, up 5.8% on year, and those from overseas markets showed a higher annual growth of 9.8% to reach CNY46.9 billion.Among the firm's three business sectors, equipment supply to telecom operators commanded the largest revenue portion at CNY63.8 billion, followed by CNY35.2 billion from sales of consumer products mainly including smartphones, home routers and wireless routers, and CNY9.83 billion from B2B sales of communication products and technologies.At the moment, ZTE is China's second largest telecom equipment supplier, next to Huawei. With 5G communication networks to start official run in 2020, ZTE has invested heavily in R&D projects associated with 5G frequency spectrums, core networks, base stations and chipset solutions, and has also completed 5G network equipment tests for more than 20 telecom operators in China and other countries.In the consumer business sector, ZTE has sustained steady growth in smartphone sales in the US and China, with its total smartphone shipments estimated at 46 million units for 2017. The growing demand for 4K HRD TVsets has also helped ZTE register good shipment numbers for its fixed-network broadband products.In the B2B sales sector, ZTE has zeroed in on transportation, energy, finance, enterprises and education segments for priority promotion of its communication products and technologies, which mainly include virtualized datacenters, distributed databases and big data analysis.Impacts facing ZTEAs ZTE has maintained close partnerships with many US firms in the fields of telecom equipment, fixed networks, smartphone chips and radio frequency devices, the company will be unable to deliver shipments due to the ensuing lack of key components.Some industry observers estimate that ZTE's chip inventory can last only for one month, and therefore ZTE will suffer irreversible operating losses if it fails to get a reprieve by mid-May.ZTE will definitely be hit hard, but it won't be alone. The globalization of industry value chains means many other firms in both the US and China will also feel the impact of escalating trade tensions between the two countries.China has achieved major advancements and strong competitiveness in such industrial sectors as display panels, passive components, LED, computer chassis, and PV power. The only major exception is semiconductor, a sector where China still lags the US by a few generations. China now still relies on foreign makers for the supply of over 90% domestic chip demand, and can hardly see a clear future for its semiconductor industry despite aggressive deployments in wafer foundry, IC design and memory production.US partners to suffer major lossesAlthough ZTE will bear the brunt of the impact from the ruling by the US Department of Commerce, relevant US partners will suffer as a result. For instance, smartphone chipmaker Qualcomm will incur operating loss of some US$500 million based on a unit price of US$25 for chips needed for 46 million smartphones delivered by ZTE in 2017.Once the trade row spreads to other China smartphone vendors such as Huawei, Xiaomi and Oppo, US partners in the smartphone supply chains will face unimaginable business losses, given their combined total shipments of over 350 million units estimated for 2018, observers indicated.On another front, China now boasts the largest number of 4G users in the world and also shows the biggest demand for telecom equipment, given that China Mobile alone has operated up to 1.47 million 4G base stations. Accordingly, once US suppliers are prohibited from selling equipment and components to China, such major players as Broadcom and Skyworks may also face substantial losses.

China International Medical Equipment Fair 2018 taking place in Shanghai, eastern China, during April 11-14 reflected the takeoff of smart medical care in China in 2018, according to Digitimes Research.First-tier public hospitals and private ones have adopted smart pharmaceutical administration and AI (artificial intelligence)-assisted procedures in medical care, and smart ward and smart medical logistics solutions will be applied to hospitals next, Digitimes Research indicated. As the China government boosts integration of medical care resources in the same regions and management in chronic diseases, local hospitals and clinics increasingly use cloud computing in medical care operation as well as set up physiological measurement units and adopt portable biometric devices.

India is the world's third biggest solar power market and its solar industry has been growing at a tremendous pace. It has already achieved the target of 20GW it had set for 2022, and it has now set to achieve 100GW in the next four years. India is also home to the world's largest solar park: the 2000MW Pavagada Solar Park in Karnataka covers a total area of 13,000 acres.Cumulative capacity of installed solar power generation in India, 2011-2016 (MW)Source: TechSci ResearchInternational Solar Alliance (ISA)To further accelerate the solar growth story, India's brainchild, the International Solar Alliance (ISA) was launched on November 30, 2015 under the UN Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC). ISA became a legal entity in December 2017, and Feb 9, 2018 it became a registered entity under UN Charter. ISA is a treaty-based alliance, currently having 121 member countries with the sole aim to promote rapid and massive deployment of solar energy.At the ISA's Founding Conference held in New Delhi in March 2018, prime minister Modi announced one of the world's largest investment plans in solar energy: a US$1.4 billion line of credit to cover 27 projects in 15 countries and boost the much-required financial power to the solar sector. The prime minister also announced the launch of Solar Technology Mission to lead R&D efforts in the solar sector. The summit was co-chaired by French president Emmanuel Macron along with 61 representatives from the 121 member countries.According to ISA director general, Upendra Tripathy, the ISA will generate a global solar market of a trillion dollars and generate political support for the solar roadmaps of member countries in areas of demand aggregation, innovation, standards, quality control, R& D and capacity building.The objectives of ISA are: To undertake joint efforts required to reduce the cost of finance, cost of technology; spur investments across the supply chain, including manufacturing, project development and storage; mobilize more than US$1,000 billion of investments needed by 2030 for massive deployment of solar energy; and pave the way for future technologies adaptation.ISA enjoys a unique positioning as it partners with sun-rich developing countries and acts as an enabler and facilitator with the sole aim to make green energy available to all.Capacity Addition: The Indian NarrativeIndia's solar power initiatives at the global stage reflect recent trends within the country. Some of the local initiatives by the Modi administration include:- Installation of 100GW of solar capacity by 2022- Prioritizing the expansion of solar over other renewables technologies- Launch of a reverse auction system for solar capacity to attract investors into the market - strengthening the project pipeline- Increasing the availability of funding to the renewables sector- Allocation of concentrated zones of development for ultra-mega solar power projects (UMSPP) to de-risk project development by - driving down the implementation time and cost of projects- Increasing power demand and prices for fossil fuels- The National Solar Mission (NSM) projected to gradually lower installation cost of systemImprovements in manufacturing technology have led to the reduction in cost of solar panels which has resulted in reduction in cost of solar power generation. The reduction in the cost of solar power coupled with strategic policy of the government has resulted in increase in solar power into the energy mix of the country.Trends of Indian solar power tariff, 2011-2017Source: India governmentTo boost the solar power generation in the country, the government of India has announced various policies and regulations including: accelerated depreciation; capital subsidy; Renewable Energy Certificate (RECs); Net Metering Incentives; and Assured Power Purchase agreement. The schemes formulated by the government intends to reduce the capital expenditure in building a solar power plant, and subsidize the power generation to make it economically viable for the stakeholders involved in the solar power business.The cumulative effect of solar power initiatives projects an addition of India's solar capacity to the tune of 56GW over the next five years.Opportunities for Taiwan's Solar IndustryIndia's current and future prospects in solar power initiatives intersect propitiously with India's lead role in the ISA: they open up tremendous opportunities for Indian solar players at a global stage while also boosting the overall business sentiment.India imports 90% of its solar modules out of which 85% comes from China, which leverages against domestic manufacturers. The government of India has indicated intent to impose duties in the interest of domestic manufacturers. Geopolitically, the ISA is a concerted attempt by India to checkmate China's leadership role in the developing world where China, by virtue of its economic prowess, has made huge inroads over the past two decades.A global leader in the solar industry, Taiwan has a well-established ecosystem in place. Its capacity to innovate and produce wafers to cells, and modules to complete PV systems presents a strategic opportunity for Taiwan's industries to collaborate. Given that Taiwan's local market is already saturated, any way forward must focus on the export market. To facilitate this orientation, the India-driven ISA member countries expand the market exponentially. In sum, India's large greenfield market and India-led ISA provides an excellent platform for Taiwan's solar industry to capture not only India but also the global solar market.Showcasing its commitment as a global leader in solar power, India will be hosting the Solar India 2018 Expo at Pragati Maidan, New Delhi from 23-25 May, 2018.(The author of this article, Jonathan Lalremruata, will coordinate Taiwan-based industries at the Expo in New Delhi. He may be contacted at: jonathan.lalremruata@gmail.com)