The China International Touchscreen Exhibition (C-Touch) was recently held in Shenzhen, China, featuring a number of local and international touch and IC makers. Throughout the exhibition there were several noticeable trends namely a revival of G/G solutions, development of large-size touch screens and further emphasis on niche products.According to Digitimes Research, touch makers have begun to shift more emphasis to niche markets including the automotive and wearables segments as China's smartphone industry is starting to cool down. China makers specifically are pushing G/G solutions for vehicle applications and are further developing round-shaped modules for wearables.Makers have also increased investments into fingerprint sensor modules in addition to camera module applications in hopes of providing complete solutions to handset vendors.Additionally, makers are emphasizing more on production of 20-inch as well as 50- to 70-inch touch solutions, using primarily nanosilver or metal mesh technologies. However, many makers noted they have increased yields for fully laminated G/G and GFF solutions as well as for ITO film.In terms of IC vendors, China makers are showing more signs of merging in order to create more complete solutions that include IC, driver LCD and touch screen solutions together, with many makers using high-end In-Cell touch panels as part of their arrangement, said Digitimes Research.

Recent news surrounding Amazon's entry into the IoT (Internet of Things) market should come as no surprise to those in the industry. Earlier this year, Amazon took steps towards entering the connected home with its Echo and Dash products focussing on providing more varied ways of interacting with their existing services. With Amazon's reputation and clear dominance in public cloud computing, the announcement of their AWS IoT platform has sparked interest among companies looking to take advantage of the current trend in all things "connected". Daniel Collins, Chief Data Officer of ThroughTek, a leading IoT total solution provider for cloud connection platform, shares his view on the market as key players implement IoT business models.Convergence of IaaS and PaaSIn 2006, AWS introduced itself as a cloud platform offering low-cost, low-maintenance and highly scalable compute resources. Today, we have industry behemoths such as Google, Microsoft and IBM offering combinations of infrastructure (IaaS) and platform (PaaS) services. AWS has combined both for some time and the number of services they offer has steadily increased over time making it difficult to identify where IaaS ends and PaaS begins. AWS IoT represents Amazon's best approximation of an end to end solution, reducing a complex ecosystem with connectivity, security and data processing components to an effective point and click deployment.Throwing Weight Behind ProtocolsDespite being of dubious interest to those outside of the industry, Amazon's choice of protocol support in their IoT service helps cement the positions of MQTT and HTTP as cornerstones of the connected device world. Their choice is hardly surprising as both are well established and serve complementary roles in IoT applications which typically deal with a mix of resource rich and constrained hardware. This initial offering is undoubtedly a safe choice for Amazon and is one that also lends inevitable weight to the move towards even greater widespread adoption of both of these existing protocols.IoT, Commerce and the Captive AudienceThe real value of IoT comes from the combination of data from different sources to offer insights and intelligent recommendations that can improve people's lives and businesses. Amazon enters the IoT market as the only key player with such a dominant position in the e-commerce sector and their own strategic position with respect to IoT's business opportunities is of particular interest.Their presence in the home is already tangible and the potential for them to capitalise on this through expanding subscription based products like Amazon Prime to include the wider smart home ecosystem is substantial. At the very least, Amazon has a head start on its competitors and is positioned as one of the few companies to turn smart devices into a hub for both generating profit and creating a more immersive shopping experience.The convenience of the AWS IoT service naturally comes at a price, however, for companies whose innovation lies outside of IoT architecture, this certainly represents a viable option for prototyping their solutions. As ever, it will be up to enterprises to evaluate whether the pricing model will be competitive enough to scale and meet their individual business needs.AWS make no claims on offering a truly end-to-end service and despite their latest product being closer than many others, complex areas such as hardware integration, data analysis and communication are left as open opportunities for customers to wrangle with. In addition, video data is of unquestionable importance especially when, for many, the smart home begins and ends with video surveillance as a service. These are challenging areas in their own right and their omission should be seen as confirmation that, from a business' perspective, there is still much to be gained from specialisation and doing one thing very well.Amazon's entry into the IoT space will inevitably cause their competitors to stand up and take notice. AWS IoT offers little in terms of the genuinely innovative, however, Amazon's existing position deeply rooted within many companies technical stacks combined with their strong track record and modular service design means that perhaps they don't have to.Daniel Collins, Chief Data Officer, ThroughTek Co., Ltd.About the authorDaniel Collins is Chief Data Officer at ThroughTek Co., Ltd. focusing on developing the data collection and analytical framework of the Kalay platform. Daniel obtained his D. Phil in Physics from the University of Oxford in 2010 and after two years working as a postdoc, he joined the British Government as its first Data Scientist. This position required him to both advise Government Ministers and help establish a cross-government data standard that aims to define aspects such as schema-design, security assurance and analytical best practices. Daniel has first-hand experience in big data processing, data mining and machine learning.

Taiwan TV makers' shipments are expected to reach 35.14 million in 2016, up 2.6% on year, to hold a 16.4% global share of the overall 215 million TVs estimated to ship in the year, according to Digitimes Research.The 2.6% increase will come following a 5.6% decrease in 2015, prompted by order declines from Japan-based vendors as a result of weakening demand coupled with a decrease in orders from the Mexico government for 23.6-inch units.Most vendors outside of North America and Japan are switching back to in-house production, while the TV market in Taiwan is limited, which is putting pressure on Taiwan makers. However, makers such as Vizio are benefiting from smart TV orders from China-based vendors including Xiaomi and LeTV, which is helping to drive demand.In 2016, TPV is expected to see the strongest growth and remain in the top shipment spot followed by Foxconn Electronics due to orders from Mexico in addition to Sony as the vendor aims to increase its presence in the India market, said Digitimes Research.

Apple's iPad Pro and Microsoft's Surface 2-in-1 devices are expected to boost demand for large-size tablets, partly offsetting the shipment declines in small-size segments. This will result in global tablet shipments dropping only 4.8% on year to reach 196 million units in 2016.After suffering from over 10% on-year declines for two consecutive years, iPad shipments are expected to grow slightly to reach 46.6 million units in 2016 thanks to the growth of the iPad Pro and the upcoming third-generation iPad Air, according to Digitimes Research's latest report on the tablet market in 2016.China-based white-box players will gradually be forced out the tablet market as their profits continue declining. A lack of differentiation among white-box devices and increasing competition from brand vendors who have also adopted solutions similar to those of white-box players from China's supply chain to save costs will undermine white-box players' combined shipments, which are expected to drop 9.5% on year to reach 68.4 million units in 2016.Apple will remain the largest tablet brand vendor worldwide in 2016, followed by Samsung Electronics in second place and Lenovo in third. Samsung's shipments will drop below 30 million units and see an on-year drop higher than the market average in 2016 due its conservative business strategy.Lenovo's tablet shipments will also drop dramatically in the year as the vendor is shifting its focus to the large-size smartphone. Microsoft's tablet shipments will reach 5.6 million units in 2016 to occupy the fourth place, thanks to expansion in its Surface 2-in-1 product line. Amazon will come in fifth.Asustek Computer, which will end the year 2015 in fourth place, will drop to sixth in 2016. But if its tablet orders from Google are taken in account, Asustek will still be able to remain at number four in 2016.In terms of display sizes, over 10-inch models are expected to grow over 20% on year to reach more than 30 million units in 2016 because of the popularity of the iPad Pro and Surface 2-in-1. The size segment's share of the overall tablet shipments will surpass 20%.With Apple turning its focus back to 9.7-inch iPad models, the 9-inch segment's shipments will only see a slight drop from 2015, while the shipments ito the 7-inch segment will see a much larger drop due to brand vendors looking to create differentiation and profits.As for ODMs, the iPad series tablets are all manufactured by Taiwan makers. There will be slight on-year growth for Windows 2-in-1 devices, which will mostly be made by Taiwan makers. Taiwan ODMs' combined shipments in 2016 are expected to remain at a level similar to that of 2015.Foxconn Electronics (Hon Hai Precision Industry), the largest tablet ODM, will see a small growth in 2016 because of iPad Pro. Compal Electronics, the second largest, will see shipments decline because Amazon has shifted some orders to China makers. Pegatron Technology will remain stably in number three because of Surface 2-in-1 products.

At the China Data Summit 2015 held in Beijing on November 5, Robin Zhou, the VP of Sage Microelectronics (Hereinafter referred to as Sage-Micro) demonstrated the worlds highest density of 2.5" SSD - The BlackDisk 10TB SATA 2.5" SSD.After Sage-Micro announced its SATA 2.5" 5TB SSD last winter, the industry trend has been toward ever larger capacity. Other companies follow this trend to build high capacity SATA SSD, but these products are not standard offerings and thicker than standard 9.5mm drives because there are 2~3 layers of PCB to stack flash in SSD. In addition some vendors use TLC NAND to build their high density SSD but as we know TLC NAND has a much shorter life span when compaired to MLC NAND. Sage-Micro uses a 1 layer PCB and which allows for a 9.5mm standard thickness for Sage Micro massive density SSD. Sage Micro is the industry leader in ultra-stable, massive density SSD.In less than a year, Sage-Micro launched double size SSD - BlackDisk 10TB SATA 2.5" SSD. Sage-Micro continues to use MLC NAND to provide maximum capacity while maintaining drive thickness of 9.5mm.In addition to upgrading hardware design, Sage-Micro also develop more effictient firmware algorithms - eRAIDTM. Generally the best/burst performance is only in early stages of use with other SSD brands, but Sage-Micro's eRAIDTM technology will remain stable and sustain performance leves even and the SSD capacity limits are reached.In next product generation, Sage-Micro is planning to provide higher-speed and density storage application such as SAS, PCIe and other corresponding solutions.Sage-Micro, a Chinese corporation, was founded the Silicon Valley based team of Dr. Jeromy Luo and Professor Chris Tsu Early in 2002 they founded their first Silivon Vally company Baleen Systems Inc. With more that a decade of flash controller experience Baleen Systems is well known for some of the industries most unique and creative IC architectures.Dr. Luo is a pioneer of SSD controller design in China. He is also the head of the Microelectronics Research Center of Hangzhou Dianzi University. Dr. Luo is tireless is his roles and is always on the lookout for freash talent to promote Sage Micro in China SSD storage industry.The Chinese government has been focused on IC design initiatives over the past two years but have found it difficult to assemble the necessary talent to meet the task.Sage Micro's team has abundant experience in IC design in China and is well postioned to be part of the Chinese government's ongoing strategy. In just four years Sage-Micro is now poised to appear on the New 3rd market (OTC) and secure important capital investment objective of China's scientific and technological innovation.Since the flash controller market has been dominated by Taiwan and the US ,It seems Sage-Micro will soon be able to change market status with their technology and with the support from Chinese capital markets.Sage-Micro BlackDisk 10TB SSD, designed to keep the 9.5mm thickness

With consumer demand for all-in-one PCs remaining weak, and Apple's new high-end iMacs and the price cut for previous-generation models failing to drive sales, Digitimes Research expects all-in-one PC shipments to decline 3.9% on year in 2015 and reach around 13 million units.Since the market is unlikely to see any effective expansion, shipments in 2016 are expected to stay flat from 2015 or drop slightly by 0.5% on year.However, all-in-one PCs will see a much smaller on-year shipment drop than that of desktops in 2015 and therefore all-in-one PCs will account for 10.5% of worldwide desktop shipments in 2015, a new historical record, according to Digitimes Research's latest report about all-in-one PCs.Among brand vendors, Lenovo was the largest in 2014 in terms of shipments, surpassing Apple by only a small volume, and is expected to remain at the top in 2015 and 2016. The top-2 vendors' combined market share will rise from 59.1% in 2014 to 60% in 2015.Hewlett-Packard (HP), Dell and Acer will remain the top-3 to top-5 brand vendors in 2015. HP will have a shipment gap with Dell of around 1.4 million units. The top-5 all-in-one PC brand vendors' combined market share will be 88.8% in 2015 and 89.1% in 2016, giving only limited space for non-top-5 players to survive.As for all-in-one PC ODMs, top-5 makers Quanta Computer, TPV-Inventa, Wistron, Pegatron Technology and Compal Electronics will together supply 90.1% of global all-in-one PC shipments in 2015. Among the top-5 players, only TPV-Inventa and Compal will see shipment growth from 2014 in 2015 mainly thanks to orders from Lenovo. TPV-Inventa is expected to continue achieving growth in 2016.

Korea panel makers have plans to mass produce 55-inch and above size transparent OLED displays from 2016 into 2017, according to Digitimes Research.Samsung Display aims to produce 55-inch transparent OLED displays in 2016 while LG Display will follow in 2017 with 60-inch transparent, flexible Ultra HD (4K) units.The Korea makers believe OLED will be able to achieve higher transparency despite higher costs compared with LCD but those are expected to come down over the next few years.There are two main types of transparent displays - see through and projected type - that makers are developing in addition to active and passive luminosity types for both OLED and LCDs, said Digitimes Research.

Following the steps of Softbank, NTT DoCoMo and KDDI have also launched household robots as part of their efforts to boost revenues. The move is expected to ramp up the popularity of robots in Japan, according to Digitimes Research.The popularity of household robots has begun to rise after Softbank launched its Pepper robot in June 2015 due largely to its competitive price, reasonable subscription rates and expandable functionality, said Digitimes Research.While Softbank has been cooperating with Foxconn Electronics to roll out the Pepper, DoCoMo is teaming up with Japan-based toy maker Takaratomy to launch its OHaNAS household robot. The sheep-shaped OHaHAS recognizes simple words and gives appropriate responses in accordance with the contents of the conversation.KDDI has not yet launched dialogue robots directly, but has committed equity investment in robot-maker Jibo, which has rolled out a household robot also named Jibo.The Jibo features a LCD display andi s enabling to notify incoming message, send out message, take pictures, tell stories, and conduct dialogue and video conference, priced at JPY100,000 (US$816), Digitimes Research noted.

IEEE is setting next generation wireless transmission standards at 60GHz, IEEE 802.11ay, which is expected to be completed in 2017. The new standards are likely to focus on new applications for mobile offloading, wireless backhaul, and others, according to Digitimes Research.The IEEE 802.ay is expected to ramp up transmission rate from the current 7Gbps to 20Gbps or even to 30-40Gbps and to extend transmission distance from the current 10 meters to as far as 300-500meters.The new standards are also likely to include mechanisms for MU-MIMO and channel bonding technologies, Digitimes Research noted.The setting of the IEEE 802.11ay standards will help regulate the current use of 60GHz technology by individual telecom equipment providers, promote the sale of household Wi-Fi routers and acceleratethe development of new types of video entertainment products based on augmented reality (AR) and virtual reality (VR) technologies, Digitimes Research commented.

Smart devices such as smartphones and wearables have changed the way we communicate and are transforming the cultural and social lives of just about everyone on the planet.As smartphones and other electronic devices become smaller, slimmer and faster with almost unlimited features, international technical pioneers, talented product designers and global brands require new technologies and processes from manufacturing service providers and equipment suppliers to enable more complex functionality in smaller form factors. The brands that succeed will be from companies that leverage new manufacturing equipment to increase manufacturing capacities so they can produce smaller, low-cost electronics-based solutions in high volume in anticipation of future demands.Mr. Asher Levy, CEO of Orbotech, recently disclosed the company's new strategy and vision for this type of manufacturing equipment, and Orbotech's move towards the development of advanced semiconductor packaging applications.The "Language of Electronics" - the vision for future electronics manufacturing solutionsFor background, Orbotech Ltd develops advanced manufacturing systems for the PCB (printed circuit board) assembly line, including automated optical inspection (AOI) systems, direct imaging systems, computer aided manufacturing (CAM) systems, as well as etch, deposition and thermal solutions. The company also offers advanced manufacturing solutions for the flat panel display and semiconductor industries.According to Mr. Levy, reading, writing and connecting through conversation are the major cornerstones of every language, including the "language" of electronics manufacturing."Electronics manufacturing 'literacy' covers automated optical inspection equipment, which is all about reading - you need to be able to study, inspect and verify the 'script' of key electronic elements such as printed circuit boards and flat panel displays," said Mr. Levy. "It also covers direct imaging, automated rework, metallization on multiple substrates and printed electronics, which are all indicative of electronics writing, as well as the production of advanced multi-stack packages, which requires proper connecting so that electronic components can engage in conversation."Orbotech believes the phrase "The Language of Electronics" is a good descriptor of its strategy and vision. In 2014, Orbotech acquired SPTS, a leading supplier of etch and deposition process equipment for the global semiconductor and microelectronic device manufacturing industries. The acquisition allowed Orbotech to accelerate its expansion into advanced packaging and MEMS with multiple manufacturing solutions for these growing segments. Orbotech now provides a broad offering of mission-critical solutions that serve product designers, global brands and electronics manufacturers.Technology development partnerships with Taiwan partners strengthen flexible display manufacturing offeringsOrbotech and ITRI (Industrial Technology Research Institute), a leading non-profit Taiwan industrial technology development organization, have also entered into an agreement to collaborate towards overcoming the production challenges of the fast growing AMOLED flexible displays that will be used in foldable tablets, PCs, smartphones, and wearables. By applying high-yield manufacturing processes, Orbotech and ITRI will collaborate to help Taiwan electronics manufacturing service providers produce smart display devices in high volumes.For more than 34 years, Orbotech has enabled manufacturers to produce lifestyle-changing devices such as notebooks, PCs, smartphones and tablets. Orbotech will continue to work with leading R&D teams and technical partners, anticipating strategic projects for future collaboration. Orbotech also plans to expand its product portfolio in keeping with its position as an industry leader, process innovator and enabler for its partners in the micro-electronics ecosystem.Mr. Asher Levy, CEO of Orbotech