LTPS TFT LCD production capacity will have a CAGR of 19.8% from 2014-2017 compared with a 30.3% CAGR from 2011-2014, with China makers ranking number two globally as of 2017 in terms of overall capacity, according to Digitimes Research. The technology has been a major choice for vendors looking to push high-resolution, large-size handsets in the market, and Japan makers have been leading the way due to their long-standing history in developing the technology. However, as China makers have been unleashing new capacity at 8.5G fabs their rankings in terms of LTPS TFT LCD production capacity will increase to number two, with BOE, China Star Optoelectronics Technology (CSOT) and Tianma Microelectronics as the main suppliers. China makers are also expanding their AMOLED solutions in preparation to meet increasing demand for 5-inch and above size smartphones in the future, added Digitimes Research.

WiGig (Wireless Gigabit Alliance) chips are expected to appear in high-end smartphones in the second half of 2015 with Qualcomm, Broadcom, Panasonic, Intel and Nitero as initial suppliers, according to Digitimes Research.Meanwhile, Samsung Electronics is likely to produce WiGig chips in-house under a technology licensing agreement. Broadcom showcased its WiGig chips at CES 2014, and Nitero announced a comparable model in July 2014. Samsung completed development of its 60GHz Wi-Fi (WiGig) technology in October 2014, while Qualcomm highlighted its WiGig parts at CES 2015.Since the next-generation IEEE 802 11ax standards are not expected to be finalized until 2019, WiGig will serve as a growth driver for the wireless chip industry during the interim, said Digitimes Research.

Intel has announced its latest lineup for its Atom series products at Mobile World Congress (MWC) 2015 and in addition to simplifying the naming system for the processors to avoid confusion, the CPU giant also designed and optimized them specifically for different segments of the market.Intel has separated its Atom lineup into three major families: the Atom x3, x5 and x7, capable of being used in mobile devices priced from US$75 to above US$350.With the Intel-Microsoft cooperation gradually heating up, Digitimes Research expects the new Atom x series processors to have strong potential under Microsoft's ecosystem.The Atom x3 is the lowest-level product line of the three and was previously known as SoFIA. Intel has worked closely with China's Rockchip developing the processors.To effectively reduce costs, the Atom x3's GPU uses the Mali architecture licensed from ARM, and Rockchip is believed to be the one making the design suggestion. Intel will offer three different versions of Atom x3, the 3G, 3G-R and 4G supporting different communication standards with all of them entering mass production in the first half of 2015, using a 28nm process from Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Company (TSMC).With China aggressively pushing 4G communication, Digitimes Research expects the 4G model to be the most competitive solution among the three.The Atom x5 and x7 both adopted an application processor (AP) + baseband design targeting mid-range and high-end mobile devices.The Atom x5 and x7 are both manufactured via Intel's 14nm process, allowing their performance and power consumption to be superior to those of the Atom x3. Meanwhile, the two product lines have adopted Intel's eighth-generation graphics core to bring their graphics output to a mainstream high-end level.However, with mobile devices' pricing declining and processors no long the main factor influencing the end-product pricing, Intel's suggested prices for devices using the Atom x5 and x7 are rather friendly and start at about US$120.For the new Atom products, Intel has optimized them for both Android and Windows platforms. Since demand for the Windows platform from the mobile communication device market has been rising, Microsoft and Intel's partnership is expected to tighten up.With Microsoft becoming more flexible over its licensing terms, development for Wintel applications will receive a boost.Although Microsoft still has a close partnership with Qualcomm in the smartphone industry, Digitimes Research believes it may be undermined by Intel's new Atom solutions, which are expected to gain business momentum in the market.

February 2015 average retail prices for 7W LED light bulbs (equivalent to 40W incandescents) in the China market increased 10.8% on month to CNY37 (US$5.9), while 9W models (equivalent to 60W incandescents) rose 4.3% to CNY43.9, according to Digitimes Research.February average retail prices for 40W- and 60W-equivalent LED light bulbs in Japan stood at JPY1,782 (US$15.0) and JPY3,315 respectively, rising 4.3% and 0.6% on month, Digitimes Research indicated.February average retail prices for 40W- and 60W-equivalent LED light bulbs in other markets were: KRW9,883 (US$8.90, down 27% on month) and KRW14,088 (down 0.7%) in South Korea; US$21.20 (down 2.3%) and US$19.40 (unchanged) in the US; EUR9.60 (US$11, up 5.5%) and EUR14.20 (up 5.2%) in Europe.Philips 40W-equivalent LED light bulbs and Osram 60W-equivalent models for sale in South Korea had the highest average lumen-price ratios of 96.0lm/US$ and 101.4lm/US$ respectively, in February. In terms of luminous efficiency, Toshiba 40W- and 60-equivalent LED light bulbs available in Japan had the highest average levels at 81.1lm/W and 105.1lm/W respectively.

Unlike Samsung Electronics and High Tech Computer (HTC) that unveiled their newest flagship smartphones at Mobile World Congress (MWC) 2015 in Barcelona, Spain, LG Electronics focused its exhibition on four new mid-range and entry-level models: the LG Magna, Spirit, Leon and Joy, and smartwatches: the LG Watch Urbane and Urbane LTE.Over the past couple of years, LG achieved good sales of its flagship smartphones by releasing them at a timeframe different than when its competitors released theirs; therefore, LG adopted the same strategy for the show in Spain and instead of flagship products, it decided to showcase its lower-end products and new smartwatches.To avoid directly competing against other top-tier vendors' flagship products, the only high-end smartphone LG showed was its G Flex 2, which had already made its debut at Consumer Electronics Show (CES) in early 2015.In addition to avoiding competition, LG's flagship smartphones have always adopted Qualcomm's solutions, and its G Flex 2 already uses the chip supplier's highest-end processor, the Snapdragon 810, making it difficult for LG to unveil any other flagship products with even higher performance, Digitimes Research analyzed.LG's showcase of four new smartphones showed that the vendor continues to strengthen its mid-range and entry-level product lineups with them all supporting both 3G and LTE.The LG Magna has the best specifications out of the four, followed by the LG Spirit, Leon and Joy. The LG Joy is only equipped with Android 4.4 KitKat, while the other three are all Android 5.0 Lollipop-ready.The LG Spirit is already available in South Korea, priced at about US$160. With that as the standard, the LG Leon and Joy are expected to feature even better price/performance ratios.

Micro grid is a traditional power grid with downsized power generation, transmission, distribution, and consumption. With modernized scheduling and management, micro grid meets the special needs of local areas and effectively increases renewable energy usage and electricity quality of these areas. The importance of micro grid will continue to increase amid a distributed energy boom.In fact, both traditional and micro grids have their own specific sides of supply and demand. In the past, electricity was transmitted in one direction but as the distributed energy can be integrated with energy storage, the electricity needs to be considered in both directions between supply and demand sides. Because of this, it is necessary to build a whole new structure with smart grids on top of micro grid to effectively adjust electricity between supply and demand. This allows to maximize the installed capacity of the renewable energy without affecting the power quality.Mr. W. L. Chen, general manager of Tatung's Smart Grid BU, Sales Dept., System Business Group, points out the differences in the range of coverage, for the different scales of micro grid. Large-scale micro grid is useful for providing power to cities while medium-scale one is suitable for commercial buildings, communities, and factories. Small-size micro grid can be applied to smart home appliances, home energy management, residential energy storage, electric vehicles, and green households. Micro grid, from large-scale to small-scale one, can be connected to form a comprehensive grid. Each level involves distributed energy and therefore once they are connected to the comprehensive grid, the challenge is to allow the electricity to flow back and forth.What is the challenge? According to Philip Wang, project manager from Tatung's Smart Grid BU, Sales Dept., System Business Section, the distributed energy generated from solar, wind or tidal power is volatile with turbulence during power exportation. In addition, the power grid has flow limits and once the flow fluctuation exceeds a certain limit, it might cause both the generator and the receiver equipment to malfunction. Therefore, smart control can minimize the uncertainties of power grids.Micro grid solutions effectively increase the penetration of renewable energyAccording to the government's smart grid master plan, the goal is to increase the percentage of renewable energy usage to 30% by 2030, which means there is much room to grow from now until 2030. Against this backdrop, Tatung has been eager to develop micro grid in hope to support the government, industries, and society to increase the percentage of renewable energy adoption.I.P. Chen, director at Tatung's Smart Grid BU, Sales Dept., System Business Section, stated that the foundation for Tatung to develop micro grid is its 50 years of experience working with the Taiwan Power Company on electricity infrastructures. Tatung has a comprehensive product line for power generation, transmission, distribution, and usage. W.L. Chen added that Tatung not only has experience in developing power grids, but has also been engaged in other major software development and system integration projects for the Taiwan government on household registration, medical information, automated airport customs clearance systems, the management system for Taiwan's Hsuehshan Tunnel, and the electric railway in Hualien and Taitung. The firm has accumulated years of experience in information-communication technology, which is crucial to developing smart grid and micro grid systems.I. P. Chen noted that Tatung has competitive advantages in micro grid industry, such as its cutting-edge energy and ICT technologies. In addition, the firm fully understands the thought of utilities: They seek stable, safe, and reliable products rather than innovative designs and technologies that are usually seen in the consumer electronics market. Utilities do not allow any lapse that requires a restart of the system. Compared to firms who have yet to work with power companies, Tatung understands what the utilities look for. I.P. Chen indicated that Tatung will not limit itself to Taiwan market as the firm plans to enter the international market. However, I.P. Chen added that the challenge of entering the international market is that in order to win the trust of international utilities, Tatung needs to grow the numbers of customers and installed equipment, and achieve successful commercial runs for the systems.Therefore, Tatung has been cooperating with the government on projects, such as the establishment of micro gridon the Taiping Islands (or said Itu Aba Island) and setting up a smart micro grid demonstration site in low-carbon Pingtung Island. The firm hopes to gain more experience and recognition from these projects to advance into the international market.The benefits of micro grid, according to I.P. Chen, can be actualized by combining energy management and energy storage systems with the grids. This can effectively lower Taiwan's reliance on fossil fuel and solve the problem of intermittent power supply from renewable energy. Whether or not the benefits can materialize relies heavily on the smart management system's ability to provide good load and generation forecastings enabling the making of an efficient schedule for the battery's charging and discharging. This will effectively increase the penetration of renewable energy being connected to the existing power grid.W.L. Chen concluded that Taiwan cannot expand and establish thermal and nuclear power plants endlessly, so the government and industries have been searching for the ways to increase the penetration of renewable energy in the existing power grid. Micro grid, which adopts ICT technology as a tool is undoubtedly the best solution to reaching this goal of energy utilization.Tatung has experience in providing and constructing power systems from generation, transmission, distribution to power consumption. The firm also has rich ICT software development and system integration experiences, which is crucial to developing micro grid solutions. From left to right: W.L. Chen, general manager, I.P. Chen, director, and Philip Wang, project manager of Tatung's Smart Grid BU, Sales Dept.

Global average retail prices for 24- and 27-inch LCD monitors in February 2015 rose on month by 6% to US$265 and 14% to US$465, respectively, according to Digitimes Research.Price increases were mainly due to sales of Ultra HD (4K) units, with Dell at the forefront. The increase in 24-inch models helped close the gap between 23-inch models, which throughout the end of December 2014 surpassed 24-inch in price. Global average retail prices for 23- and 27-inch LCD monitors in December reached US$276 and US$379, respectively, while those for 20- and 24-inch models reached US$132 and US$246.In the US and Japan specifically, average retail pricing of Dell 27-inch monitors increased due to to sales of 5K and 4K units, growing 78.3% on month in the Japan market during February and 39.9% in the US.Additionally, Samsung Electronics released three new types of Plane to Line Switching 24-inch monitors in Germany, which pushed up retail pricing for the size 11.3% on month to US$207, added Digitimes Research.

South Korea's production value for memory products, mainly DRAM and NAND flash chips, has been increasing for three consecutive quarters and reached KRW13.17 trillion (US$11.97 billion) in the fourth quarter of 2014, accounting for 57.1% of the worldwide value, according to Digitimes Research's latest findings.DRAM chips accounted for the majority of Korea's production of memory products, with the ratio rising to 72.3% in the fourth quarter of 2014, buoyed in part by strong demand from the server and other industries.For all of 2014, the production value of Korea's memory products reached KWR45.9 trillion, increasing 23.1% from a year earlier and accounting for 55.7% of the global market. Among memory products, DRAM chips totaled KWR32.6 trillion or 71%.Affected by seasonal factors, Korea's shipments of memory chips is expected to drop significantly in the first quarter of 2015 despite strong demand from the SSD sector.Meanwhile, price hikes for memory products will be limited in 2015 as most major players have not been ramping up their capacity aggressively, Digitimes Research noted.

There were 10.420 million servers (counted based on motherboards) shipped globally in 2014, increasing on year by 7.1%, and due to fast growing demand from Internet data centers, shipments in 2015 will rise 13.5% to 11.825 million units, according to Digitimes Research.Hewlett Packard was the largest vendor accounting for 21.5% of 2014 shipments, followed by Dell with 18.4%, IBM with 6.5%, Huawei Technologies and Inspur with 3.5% and 3.1% respectively, Cisco Systems with 2.7% and Lenovo with 2.3%, Digitimes Research indicated.Taiwan-based ODMs/OEMs shipped 9.259 million server motherboards in 2014, growing on year by 4.5%, and will ship 10.443 million units in 2015 with Quanta Computer, Wistron, Inventec and Foxconn Electronics to be the four largest.

Generally around the world, industrial power consumption accounts for 40-60% of a nation's total energy consumption, and 70% of the industrial power is used by motors. Accordingly, motors consume nearly 50% of a nation's power supply. If motor efficiency can be raised by 1-2%, it will greatly help reduce energy consumption and carbon emissions. Therefore, promotion of high-efficiency motors has become an important task.It is without question that motors are the commonest and most convenient source of driving force and thus are widely adopted in various mechanical rotating devices for industrial, commercial and home applications. Due to the wide adoption, the total energy consumption used by motors takes up half of a nation's power supply, so how to raise motor energy efficiency is of grave importance.Under the circumstances, the U.S. Energy Independence and Security Act of 2007(EISA 2007), in effect since December 2010, requires that manufacturers produce high-efficiency motors compliant with the National Electrical Manufacturers Association's (NEMA) premium efficiency (equivalent to IE3). Furthermore, the regions applying the International Electrotechnical Commission (IEC) standard including Europe and Japan will start to implement the IE3 standard from 2015 in succession. It is obvious that high-efficiency motors have become a prevailing trend worldwide."We have been devoted to the R&D and manufacture of high-efficiency motors for over a decade. Our high-efficiency motors complied with the U.S. EPAct Energy Efficient Level (equivalent to IE2) as early as 1997. Closely following the EISA regulations effective later on, we continue to offer a full lineup of NEMA Premium 1-200Hp motors," indicated Hank Y.H. Wu, General Manager, Motor Design Division, Motor Business Unit, TATUNG Power Business Group.Varying standards across different regions challenge suppliers' technological capabilitiesJudging from past export experience, Wu pointed out each country has different regulations about motors. To provide IE3 premium-efficiency motors compliant with vastly different requirements around the world is a challenge to suppliers' capabilities in terms of finding a balance among production, design and materials.Take the U.S. for example. Although it leads the world in high-efficiency motor implementation schedule, the NEMA standard has no limitation on motor frame sizes. That is, the horsepower rating and number of poles is not strictly related to the frame size, so suppliers have more flexibility in production and can meet the high-efficiency requirements by properly elongating iron cores and adding copper conductors.However, Japan's JIS and Taiwan's CNS standards previously set a direct bond between the horsepower rating and number of poles and the frame size. In other words, a certain rating and number of poles had to correspond to a fixed frame size, meaning the external mounting dimensions were fixed. These standards have been long adopted and followed by users in the regions. As a result, when the new IE2 or IE3 standard replaces older specifications, new motors, despite their higher efficiency, still have to follow old requirements on external dimensions for customer substitution convenience. Furthermore, Japan has a demand to satisfy different voltage and frequency application (200V/220V, 50Hz/60Hz), posing additional difficulty for motors to meet the IE3 standard. As such, more sophisticated technologies, other than just adding copper conductors and elongating iron cores, are needed to overcome these limitations. Therefore, to produce IE3 premium-efficiency motors meeting Japan and Taiwan requirements is a challenge in terms of both costs and technology, indicated Wu.In search of a breakthrough to enhance efficiency through design and material improvementWu explained the internal structure of a motor is actually quite simple, made up of a stator and a rotor formed by stacking silicon steel sheets comprising an iron core. The stator and rotor has multiple slots for copper or aluminum conductors to pass through. Electromagnetic loss resulted from electric current and magnetic flux passing through the conductors and the iron core is the main source of motor energy loss. Therefore, adding copper conductors and elongating the iron core is a basic way to reduce loss and raise efficiency. In addition to adding copper and iron, other methods to reduce mechanical loss and stray loss should also be considered. For example, mechanical loss due to friction resulted from rotation of bearings or fans can be reduced by optimizing bearing selection, fan design and airflow circulation, thereby enhancing heat dissipation and fan efficiency. In terms of electrical engineering, a matching design of the slot shape and slot number and the number of winding turns are areas with room for improvement. However, Wu pointed out the efficiency improvement generated from simply making design improvements in electrical or mechanical engineering or even from selecting higher grade iron core materials can hardly compare to the effects achieved by adding copper and iron. All factors have to be considered to strike a balance that creates optimum effects.The Taiwan government has planned to implement IE3 from July 1, 2016, but Tatung is a step ahead and had already launched IE3 premium-efficiency motors suitable for the Taiwan market in June 2014. Tatung keeps working on striking a balance between design optimization as well as material selection and making improvements and breakthroughs on details including frame fin shapes, casing thickness, fan construction, and slot shape design. Advanced products are scheduled to enter the market by 2016.Wu reiterated although high-efficiency motors have higher prices, which may deter users from making purchases, they actually have a long operation life of 10-20 years. From the perspective of product lifetime, the purchase costs are insignificant as electricity expenses take up a large proportion of operation costs. Accordingly, users may pay slightly higher to purchase a high-efficiency motor, but the savings on electricity expenses during operation will compensate for and be far beyond the purchase costs. Therefore, high-efficiency motors are a smart and valuable investment.Hank Y.H. Wu, General Manager, Motor Design Division, Motor Business Unit, TATUNG Power Business Group