A G1F touchscreen is composed of a glass-type touch sensor and a thin-firm-type touch sensor with one controlling the touch panel's X axis and the other the Y axis. G1F-based touch panels have been adopted by Samsung Electronics and Microsoft in their high-end tablets and mid-range smartphones, while LG Electronics is also said to have considered equipping its high-end smartphones with G1F touch panels.However, the G1F touch technology's worse-than-expected cost-effectiveness has now led these vendors to other touch technologies. Microsoft's new-generation tablet is set to adopt an OGS touch panel, while Samsung is replacing G1F with an improved thin-film-type touch technology. LG has shifted its focus to the development of the OGS technology. The above factors are threatening the G1F's position in the touch panel industry.G1F was able to gain popularity previously because it was considered to be able to overcome the problems facing rival technologies at the time: the glass-glass (GG) touch technology had weight and thickness issues; GFF technology was seriously impacted by ITO film shortages; and the emerging OGS technology had weak ruggedness and poor production yield rates.Because of the advantages, Microsoft chose the G1F for its Surface tablet and orders were given to Taiwan-based Youngfast Optoelectronics. Youngfast later established its own glass-type touch sensor production lines and became the sole supplier of the second-generation Surface's touch panels.However, Microsoft's acquisition of Nokia's handset business has significantly changed the software giant's supply chain for its new-generation tablet and has switched to the OGS technology from G1F.Microsoft made the switch because the OGS touch technology has achieved significant improvements in yield rate and better ruggedness at the panel edges. And the technology only requires processing on a glass and does not need to laminate sensors with optical clear adhesive (OCA), which gives the technology a significant advantage over G1F in terms of cost effectiveness.G1F is also losing its advantages in the supply chain of Korea-based vendors as ITO firm makers such as Nitto Denko have been aggressively expanding their capacities. China-based O-film has successfully entered Samsung tablet's supply chain with its metal mesh technology and Samsung has started to adopt single-layer multi-point thin-film touch technology for its entry-level smartphones. With the OGS technology growing mature, LG has started placing orders for OGS panels made by Taiwan-based TPK to complement the insufficiency in OGS touch panel capacities and yield rates of its affiliate LG Innotek.After G1F touch technology gradually losing its competiveness, Youngfast, one of major G1F touch panel suppliers, has started strengthening its mass production for traditional GFF touch panels and also tried to use its new glass-type touch panel capacities to mass produce OGS touch panels.Youngfast has also cooperated with Japan-based Fujifilm to start metal mesh touch panel production. Korea-based makers, which are also facing the same situation, are expected to adopt a similar strategy as Youngfast's. The G1F technology is likely to disappear from the market soon, Digitimes Research estimates.

In the first quarter of 2014, Samsung Electronics and Apple together continued to account for almost half of the global smartphone market with LG Electronics staying in third position, according to Digitimes Research.China-based Xiaomi Technology posted the highest shipment growth rate and took the fourth title in the first quarter, driven by its efforts to roll out smartphones with high price/performance ratios. Coolpad captured the fifth vendor ranking due to its earlier deployment in the 4G sector.Due to the marginalization of the BlackBerry platform, BlackBerry has seen its shipments continue to decline with BlackBerry 7-based models still accounting for the bulk of overall shipments, despite the roll-outs of BlackBerry 10 family products. While the vendor has launched a number of entry-level and mid-range smartphones for some designated markets, it is still difficult for BlackBerry to make a turnaround due to the low price/performance ratios of its devices, Digitimes Research commented.Sony has continued to score, particularly in emerging markets, by highlighting its high-end models and the price advantages of its mid-range models. Digitimes Research believes Sony's smartphone shipments will grow significantly in the second quarter driven by its high-performance mid-range and flagship models.Motorola Mobility may see its popularity gain a boost thanks to the release of its entry-level model, the Moto E, priced at US$129, which is comparable to the Xperia E1 and Nokia X in terms of price but is more competitive in terms of the price/performance ratio.

According to a recent IDC research note, the transition toward mobile and cloud-based computing is unstoppable, with tablet volumes expected to pass total PC volume in the fourth quarter of 2014 and on an annual basis in 2016. Even smaller tablets are facing stiff market competition from large-size smartphones (phablets).While some semiconductor firms are using Moore's law to design increasingly more powerful, 64-bit, multiple-core processors to power mobile devices, others IC design houses are focusing on how to better tap the functionality and potential of mobile devices by connecting them to an increasing array of peripheral devices - such as TVs, keyboards, mice, and storage devices. One such company is Analogix and at Computex 2014, Digitimes stopped by to speak with Matt Ready, sales VP at Analogix, and discuss the importance of connectivity with mobile devices.Q: Analogix has a brand called SlimPort. Can you give us a primer on the difference between SlimPort and DisplayPort?A: DisplayPort is an industry standard display interface developed by VESA that is used to connect computing devices to a display. It was developed to replace interfaces such as VGA and DVI, with the key being DisplayPort is royalty-free and the interface can also be used to carry audio and high-speed data (USB).On the mobile side, VESA developed a lighter version called MyDP (Mobility DisplayPort) that provides connectivity between mobile devices and external displays and HDTVs. SlimPort is the Analogix brand that complies with MyDP. So basically, SlimPort-based devices can connect to any DisplayPort device and there are adapters to connect to any HDMI or VGA device as well. And there are more than 800 million DisplayPort devices in the market, so it's quite a big market.Q: Where and why is SlimPort being implemented?A: SlimPort was first implemented in the Google Nexus 4 back in 2012 and has continued to be used in a number of high-end tablets and smartphones from Fujitsu, Asustek, LG, and ZTE, as well as finding its way into Chromebooks from brands like Hewlett-Packard (HP), among others. The key is that the technology enables more features and can reduce costs. For example, users want to have the ability to take mobile audio and video and get it up on a big screen. Previously, the ability to get the video off of a tablet/smartphone was typically done by running it through a micro-HDMI port. Using SlimPort allowed the OEMs to drop the micro-HDMI port and simply run everything through the five-pin micro-USB port that is needed for charging. SlimPort simply takes control of the connector when a SlimPort dongle is plugged in, and while the devices are connected, SlimPort enables the display to also charge the mobile device. In 2013, support for Full HD was added but we really expect the technology to take off this year with SlimPort Pro.Q: Why's that?A: While SlimPort was great for connecting mobile devices to a display, the issue was that it was unidirectional. When you plug a SlimPort accessory into the micro-USB connector, it takes over the bus and allows the audio and video to come off of the mobile device, but you no longer have the USB functionality, which is the data functionality. This year, Analogix introduced SlimPort Pro, which is bidirectional. So now you can have audio and video, while also supporting data simultaneously. All are moving across the PHY in the micro-USB connector, and that data connection is moving both ways. This means a mobile device can be plugged into a hub where multiple USB ports can connect to a mouse, keyboard and monitor. And the content that is viewed can be controlled externally through the mouse and keyboard. So basically, a mobile device like a smartphone can become a PC in your pocket.A number of other improvements are included with SlimPort Pro as well. Bandwidth increased from 5.5Gb/sec to 6.75Gb/sec so you are seeing support for Ultra HD (4K) video. We are also working with partners like Qualcomm for improving the charging performance in the PHY. SlimPort delivered up to 9W of charging but with Qualcomm Quick Charge 2.0 users can receive up to 18W, enabling a much quicker recharge for the mobile device.Q: So how does SlimPort Pro work? Are the chips the same in all devices? Are they in the market?A: There is a transmitter chip (SlimPort Pro Tx) in the mobile device and a receiver chip (SlimPort Pro Rx) that will go into accessory devices like hubs, dongles and docking stations. We saw first silicon in the first quarter of this year and you are now seeing demos at Computex 2014. We should be the first out there with mass production with that push coming in the second half of the year. The first products for both tablets and smartphones should be coming to market late this year.Q: How has the reception been at Computex?A: If you look at Analogix, we have a number of revenue streams, including licensing DisplayPort IP. We also have a family of converter chips used in ultrabooks, motherboards and on dongles and we have PC related products such as timing controllers. But this year at Computex the main interest in the market has been for SlimPort Pro.First of all, application processors all have Ultra HD capable engines so customers are looking to moving to the Ultra HD support we have in SlimPort Pro. But with a bidirectional PHY, we are also enabling simultaneous audio, video and data connectivity. This is really capturing the imagination of players in the market, from mobile device vendors, to in-car entertainment suppliers, to IoT (Internet of Things) players.The reason is that people are seeing SlimPort Pro as having the potential to unlock the power of mobile devices such as smartphones. If you look at the development of the smartphone market through today, the increased functionality of the devices has killed off the digital camera market and it has killed off the GPS device and MP3 device markets. All of that functionality has become standard across all smartphones. Now if you embed a SlimPort Pro Tx into a high-end smartphone, you can exploit the increased performance that is being supplied by the wave of new quad-core and 8-core processors hitting the market. You now have a PC in a pocket.The ability to simply put your mobile device into a cradle and have all types of functionality, such as enabling keyboard, mouse, and external storage support, as well as audio and display support allows for a number of potential solutions that can seriously challenge the consumer notebook market over time. With SlimPort Pro we believe that mobile devices will get there sooner rather than later.Matt Ready, sales VP at AnalogixPhoto: Company

The traditional glass-glass (GG) touchscreen technology was once thought to be heading towards elimination from the IT industry as Apple, a major supporter of the technology, turned to other touchscreen technology for its new mobile devices. Compared to film-type touch panels, GG-based touch panels are heavier, thicker and have lower production yield rates.But Apple continues to sell the iPhone 4/4s equipped with GG-based touch panels in emerging markets and its GG touch panel-based iPad 4 is to replace the iPad 2 as its main device for the entry-level 9.7-inch tablet segment. Players such as Amazon and China-based smartphone and tablet vendors are also using GG-based touch panels for their entry-level products. With these products still around, Digitimes Research expects the GG touch technology to stay in the market for at least another year, until the OGS technology is able to improve the panel's ruggedness and production yield rates.The comparison between the ITO film-type and glass-type touchscreen technologies has always been a hot topic within the touchscreen industry. The glass-type touch panel is optically better, while the ITO film-type sees lower production costs, making it suitable for mass production and easier to expand production capacity. With the smartphone and tablet industries gradually expanding, the ITO firm-type touch panel has gradually become the mainstream of the entry-level/mid-range smartphone and mid-range tablet markets.As for high-end products, most vendors have turned to adopt OGS or embedded (in-cell or on-cell) touch panels, which are able to avoid the weight and thickness issues facing GG-based touch panels. Such a trend is threatening to eliminate the GG touchscreen technology from the IT industry.However, the glass-type touch panelcamp still has its supporters in brand name vendors. Amazon has adopted the GG touchscreen technology for its entry-level products. China-based smartphone vendors Lenovo and Huawei have also adopted glass-type single-layer multi-point sensors to pair with the GG and GFF technologies for their entry-level/mid-range smartphones.In March 2014, Apple announced it will stop producing the iPad 2, to be replaced by its 9.7-inch 2048-by-1536 GG-touch-panel-based iPad 4 for the 9.7-inch entry-level tablet segment. The company also continues to supply the iPhone 4/4s to fulfill emerging market demand. The production volume of the iPhone 4s is expected to reach 4-6 million units each quarter in the second half of 2014, helping the GG touchscreen technology to stay in the market.Digitimes Research estimates that Taiwan-based TPK and General Interface Solution (GIS) shipped over seven million touch panels for iPhone 4/4s in the first quarter of 2014, far higher than the original expectation.But it can still be foreseen that except for lowest-end white-box tablets, which will continue to adopt the GG touchscreen technology, other entry-level/mid-range smartphones' adoption rate of GG technology will gradually drop and be replaced by the OGS, which is expected to see increasing yield rates and decreasing production costs. Currently, two third of China's entry-level/mid-range smartphones have adopted GG solutions from China-based glass-type touch panel makers and the rate may drop to only one third by 2015.

At SID 2014, panel makers showed noticeable shifts to higher resolution technology for large-size products including Ultra HD OLED TV panels, compared to Full HD OLED panels that were on display the previous year, according to Digitimes Research.Ultra HD is now becoming the resolution most TV vendors are pushing for in their new units and panel makers are following by producing both Ultra HD LCD TV panels and Ultra HD OLED TV panels.Based on the exhibition, LG Display appears to be focusing more on OLEDs for use in TV products compared to Samsung Display, which is focusing mostly on OLED applications for small- to medium-size panels.China TV panel makers are also sporting similar large-size OLED and Ultra HD TV panel technology at the exhibition, with representatives of BOE stating that, due to the company's recent advancements in high-end panel technology, BOE is likely to see its market share in China rise significantly starting in 2016, added Digitimes Research.

May average retail pricing for 7W LED light bulbs (equivalent to 40W incandescent) in the China market rose 4.2% on month to CNY37.4 (US$5.90), while 9W models (equivalent to 60W incandescent) increased 2.7% to CNY45.80, according to Digitimes Research.Average retail prices for 40W- and 60W-equivalent LED light bulbs in Japan in May stood at JPY1,662 (US$16) and JPY2,423, respectively, with the former dropping 0.4% and the latter 9.6% on month, Digitimes Research indicated.May average retail prices for 40W- and 60W-equivalent LED light bulbs in other markets were: KRW12,344 (US$11.10, down 13.2% on month) and KRW16,470 (up 0.7%) in South Korea; US$19.30 (up 0.5%) and US$22 (up 1.9%) in the US; and EUR13.4 (US$18.80, down 1.5%) and EUR14.3 (down 2.1%) in Europe.LG Electronics' 40W-equivalent LED light bulbs and Osram 60W-equivalent models available in the South Korea market had the highest average lumen-price ratios of 71.0lm/US$ and 98.8lm/US$, respectively in May. In terms of luminous efficiency, Toshiba 40W- and 60W-equivalent models for sale in the Japan market had the highest average levels of 74.6lm/W and 97.4lm/W, respectively.

Gigabyte Technology continues to develop products and innovations for the graphics card market and is focusing on enhancing its graphics cards to help them become professional products.Gigabyte remains optimistic about the graphics card industry and is gradually moving into the enterprise sector. Digitimes recently interviewed Eddie Lin, associate vice president of Gigabyte's Graphics Card Business Unit about the efforts Gigabyte has put into the graphics card market as well as the company's strategy for the future.Q: What products or technologies is Gigabyte focusing on for the VGA sector at Computex 2014?A: Graphics cards are definitely the main focus of the VGA department and we are also showcasing our new improved air and liquid cooling modules to show our technological leadership in the market.For the liquid cooling product line, we are showcasing our new WaterForce cooling module, designed for the top-end segment.As for air cooling, we have improved the WindForce cooling module with an even higher heat dissipation rate.We will also display our latest keyboards and mice at our booth including those under the Aorus brand.Q: How is the graphics card market currently? How is Gigabyte performing in the market?A: Graphics cards have already advanced to become more like boutique and professional products. At the very beginning, consumers purchased graphics cards to output images from their computers, but graphics cards now are used mainly for game play.As demand for high-resolution games continues to rise, graphics card performance also needs to dramatically improve to handle the surging demand. Graphics cards need to handle about four times the workload to advance from Full HD to Ultra HD resolutions.Therefore, in the short term, the graphics card industry will remain how it is now and consumers will continue to purchase graphics cards to play games.Gigabyte's role in the industry is to grow even more professional over our technology and to develop innovations that satisfy consumer demand. Gigabyte's graphics cards have grown more professional and elegant and are turning more toward higher-end markets.We have also improved our box art to enhance the professional impression of our graphics card products and have treated brand nurturing as a priority for future growth.Q: Can you give us more detail on the company's WaterForce cooling system? Compared to other liquid cooling systems available on the market, what are the advantages that the system has?A: We have seen our competitors release high-end graphics cards equipped with liquid cooling modules, but Gigabyte does not believe that is how liquid cooling should be adopted.When gamers equip 2-3 high-end graphics cards into their desktops to run SLI, the lack of internal space can greatly affect the heat dissipation of their machines. Gigabyte's WaterForce cooling system is developed to resolve such an issue and is only used in multi-graphics card scenarios.Our WaterForce system does not require chassis modifications, unlike most liquid cooling systems available in the market, which need a specially designed chassis. Users only need an empty 5.25-inch drive bay in their chassis to install the WaterForce.The WaterForce also features a control panel, with which users can manually change cooling fan and water pump speeds for each graphics card. Users can also click a button to equalize all the graphics cards' temperatures.WaterForce will be selling with three Nvidia high-end graphics cards, making its end price surpass US$3,000. Through the bundling, users will be able to install the system into their desktops right away, and will not need to be concern about their warranty.As for whether we will use the system for AMD graphics cards, it will depend on how AMD graphics cards performance, as we only like to adopt the system with the highest performing graphics cards on the market.Q: What kind of solution is the WindForce cooling system? What can consumers expect from the system?A: Liquid cooling has always been considered to have better performance than air cooling in terms of heat dissipation; however, our latest WindForce 600W cooling module is already able to achieve a performance almost the same as a liquid cooling module.The cooling module is able to dissipate heat generated from 600W of power consumption and has already been adopted onto our Nvidia Titan Black-based graphics cards.With the cooling module's 600W heat dissipation rate, the graphics cards are able to operate at a constant low temperature even during heavy loads to allow stable output.The module features many of Gigabyte's technologies such as our differing height fin design for the heat sink, Triangle Cool as well as a special fan designed to increase air flow. We have already acquired the patent for our Triangle Cool technology and are in the middle of acquiring others.Q: How about PC peripheral products? What new features has Gigabyte integrated in them?A: Gigabyte has been in the PC peripheral business for 6-7 years and we have designed many innovations for related products.For Aorus, we are showcasing the new Aorus Thunder K7 keyboard and M7 mouse. The keyboard features a detachable number pad, which can be attached on either the left or right side of the keyboard.The M7 is equipped with several thumb buttons, which are specially designed so users will not miss-click other buttons.We will also showcase latest Gigabyte branded accessories at the show.Eddie Lin, Associate VP of Gigabyte VGA businessPhoto: Joe Tsai, Digitimes, June 2014

Global top-five brand vendors together and top-three ODMs combined both enjoyed over 25% on-month rebounds in May shipments with Hewlett-Packard (HP) and Acer both seeing over 60% growth. The two brand vendors' strong performance also boosted shipments for their ODM partners Quanta Computer and Compal Electronics by around 30% on month. The shipments do not include detachable notebooks.Notebook shipments' strong growth in May was mainly because most excess inventories from the previous month had been digested, while demand from enterprise and consumer markets started rising after Microsoft stopped providing support for Windows XP.HP and Acer, which made large adjustments in their April inventories, enjoyed giant growths in May. In addition, some of Acer's ex-retail channel partners also started re-placing orders with Acer, helping the company's shipments in May to reach a new high since April 2013, and returning the company back as the fourth-largest notebook vendor.Lenovo and Dell also achieved growth in the month, but both less than 20%. Asustek Computer, after enjoying several months of growth, maintained its May shipments at April's level (not including the T100). The top-five notebook brand vendors together had an on-month growth of 32% in May.Compared to the same month in 2013, the top-five notebook brand vendors achieved 13% shipment growth, the third time they achieved growth in 2014, and also the third time the percentage surpassed 10% since 2013.Since the growth was contributed by factors such as the digestion of excess inventories, the launch of new products, and a demand boost by Microsoft's stoppage of Windows XP support, Digitimes Research believes the evidence is not strong enough to say that the notebook industry has returned back to growth.Wistron had a less than 10% on-month growth in May. Although the ODM saw increased orders from Dell, the boost was offset by decreased orders from Acer.Inventec, which had unsatisfactory shipment performance in April, saw an on-month growth of 25% in May thanks to HP's orders. Pegatron Technology was the only ODM among the top-five to see a drop in shipments in May with a volume of less than 800,000 units because Asustek shifted some of Pegatron's orders to Quanta.Following Asustek's T100 detachable 2-in-1 release in the fourth quarter of 2013, which achieved 500,000 units of shipments in one quarter and received good feedback from consumers, Acer launched its Switch 10 in May to join the competition.Digitimes Research estimates that Wintel 2-in-1s, which turned to target the entry-level consumer market, will have a chance to ship one million units in the second quarter. However, vendors are expected to face issues over balancing prices and specifications as they turn to focus on models with larger size displays in the second half. The problems may also affect the estimated shipments of five million Wintel 2-in-1s in 2014.As tablets are significantly impacting notebook demand, notebook brand vendors have been releasing new notebook products, hoping to regain their momentum. However, products such as ultrabooks, touchscreen notebooks and Wintel-based detachable notebooks have all failed to drive consumer demand in the short term.2-in-1 devices have experienced three phases of market positioning and product design changes. In the first phase, vendors simply changed the industrial design of Android-based tablets to feature an detachable keyboard to try out consumer response.In the second phase, Microsoft and Intel joined the competition and focused on pushing 2-in-1 devices' performance and enterprise value, but did not acquire consumer recognition.In the third phase, Microsoft and Intel turned their target back to the consumer market and are not pushing high-end specifications and expensive prices as in the second phase.The next 2-3 quarters will be a critical period for Wintel detachable 2-in-1s as 10-inch 2-in-1 devices will face fierce competition from tablets, while related vendors, which are turning to larger-size models to expand business opportunities, need to focus on balancing large-size detachable 2-in-1 product prices and specifications.If large-size detachable 2-in-1s are not strong enough in specifications to take over demand for conventional notebooks, the devices are expected to struggle due to having no specific market position, which will limit shipment performance in 2014.The balancing and market position issues will continue to exist in 2015. In addition to Asustek and Acer, whether other brand vendors will be willing to aggressively invest in detachable 2-in-1 products, will become a key factor that affects the market's future growth since the product line is only able to contribute limited profits. Even if shipments are able to break five million units in 2014, volumes will still have trouble surpassing 10 million in 2015.

Until recently, Vitesse Semiconductor saw its core market as being the carrier Ethernet market, particularly what it calls the IP edge, which is anything from base stations to picocells to backhaul microwave/milliwave small cells, as well as routers and switches in the aggregation network. However, the company has noticed that there is demand for its chips and reference designs in the industrial segment, as that market is migrating from proprietary protocols toward Ethernet, and Vitesse has been able to provide timing and low power solutions that fit market needs.Digitimes spoke with Vitesse CTO Martin Nuss just before Computex to discuss the industrial space, which he describes as the part of the IoT (Internet of Things) market where revenue can be found today.Q: How has your work in the telecom business brought you into the industrial market?A: We noticed that there was demand for our chips and devices in the industrial segment because we provide standardized Ethernet solutions. What I mean is that there are a ton of protocols on the industrial side of the market. There is the EtherCAT (Ethernet for Control Automation Technology) fieldbus system. There is Profinet for industrial automation. There are a number of proprietary or semi-proprietary busses out there. The interesting thing is that many of them are still using Ethernet at the physical layer, but then they say Ethernet doesn't do x or y, such as providing ring protection or delivering a solution that is more deterministic - and Ethernet doesn't have that. So they put some proprietary features in there to make it more deterministic in the delivery of packets.But on the carrier side of the telecom industry, we've already worked out a lot of these technologies and implemented them into our Ethernet solutions. We have ring protection and we know how to do timing, which is a key aspect of deterministic Ethernet. We have resolved the reliable delivery of packets in the carrier space over the last year or two, so now customers on the industrial side are realizing they no longer have to only deal with proprietary solutions. They can take advantage of the ecosystem and chip designs that were developed on the telecom side. So, you are seeing increased scale and more new players developing more standardized solutions rather than essentially having 10 little companies delivering solutions at 10x the price.Q: What are some of the key applications in the industrial space that you are targeting?A: Some key areas are transportation, energy and factory automation. For example, if you look at a typical factory automation application these days, pretty much everything is wired by Ethernet, but as I said previously, sometimes there is proprietary stuff placed on top. They used to have proprietary protocols on top to get resiliency. If one thing fails, some other things come up but that is all being done by standard Ethernet today.Q: You also spoke about determinism in Ethernet being a key requirement in the industrial space. Can you speak more about that?A: What I am describing is a system that is predictable and consistent; one that is in sync. And the key is timing. Take a look at high-speed manufacturing lines, such as a high-speed printing press. There are hundreds of motors that need to be synchronized very tightly. This goes for any high speed manufacturing line in general. You have to synchronize events within nanosecond or sub-nanosecond accuracy. If one of them is out of sync, the whole system becomes a disaster.The key to having deterministic Ethernet is the Precision Time Protocol (PTP) or IEEE 1588 timing. For 1588 timing, you send out time stamped packets and there is a grand master clock that puts a time stamp into a 1588 packet (which is an Ethernet packet) and it gets transported through the network. At the slave, the time is determined through a two way handshake protocol between the master and the slave.Previously, problems in a typical packet network were introduced at the hub. You ended up getting packet delay variations or maybe asymmetry. The 1588 protocol, however, relies on symmetry between upstream and downstream and much of this has been worked out in the telecom world, where two new clock classes – the bounded clock and the transparent clock – were implemented in 1588 aware routers and switches to keep errors to a minimum. The first application that actually did that in Ethernet was wireless mobile backhaul. Timing over networks is very time sensitive and while there are no specifications in the ITU for this, base stations have to be synchronized to within a half hundred nanosecond accuracy for LTE, TD-LTE, LTE TDD and LTE Advanced. In the smart energy area, the IEEE has defined a power profile that is fairly similar and which leads to no more than 50ns timing errors. And now we are seeing timing becoming more important in factory automation.It is kind of ironic that 1588 is increasingly being worked into Ethernet. Vitesse comes out of the telecom side which first developed under synchronized SONET/SDH networks where everything was on the same clock but then the whole market moved to Ethernet where everything is packet based and queued. Now the Ethernet world is going back to where they want to have every network element accurately timed down to a nanosecond. The rest of the deterministic equation, where you need to know what time it is so you can determine whether you have to send a packet out within x amount of microseconds, whatever the requirement is, and get it all lined up, is done through timing.Q: Vitesse also speaks about power efficiency; this seems strange when speaking about factory automation. What is your message there?A: Well, lower power means lower costs. But what we are also talking about is being in sync with customer needs and providing the right solution. For example, our main competitors in this segment are companies like Broadcom and Marvell. With their product offerings, solutions scale up evenly, so you can go with a solution that has lower bandwidth, a lower port count and a lower feature portfolio. If you need more features such as service delivery, 1588 timing, security, quality of service (QoS), you need to buy into an architecture that is much higher in capacity and much higher in power consumption. Our strategy is to focus on lower- to medium-range capacity; for example below 100Gbit, but supplied with the full feature set, typically beyond what the competitors offer in terms of feature sets. That is why we end up being much more power efficient without making any compromises on feature sets.And this works for us because in the industrial space you don't need to be applying an 80-100Gbit solution to a 10Gbit problem. For example, industrial applications like printing presses, robotics and high-speed manufacturing feature solutions typically have 3-5 ports of Gb Ethernet. So you are talking about a requirement of less than 10Gbit Ethernet capacity. The industry is a little overpowered from the capacity/feature perspective. Customers don't want to pay for a 48 port switch at 15 watts when they can get a 6-8 port from Vitesse at much lower cost and much lower power with a better feature set and at a tenth of the power.Q: You mentioned how Vitesse is helping firms in the industrial space scale. Can you speak a bit about how that is affecting Taiwan ODMs?A: If you look at the enterprise turnkey model, a lot of low-end enterprise switches from the big vendors are being manufactured by Taiwan ODMs, with those solutions basically being Broadcom and Vitesse reference designs running slightly modified software to fit into the Hewlett-Parker (HP) or some other vendor's ecosystem. This business model makes sense on the industrial side as well, where ODMs partner with Vitesse on the design. They then get their hardware certified to run in rugged conditions while having the ability to slightly modify the API layer to tailor the solution to the end customer.Vitesse CTO Martin NussPhoto: Company

Although not best known for its notebooks, Gigabyte Technology has been operating in the notebook business for quite a while and entered the gaming notebook business two years ago.As one of the top-tier motherboard players, Gigabyte is known for its technological leadership in areas such as cooling and overclocking. These advantages have given the company competitiveness in the gaming notebook industry and helped the company earn recognition from consumers.For 2014, Gigabyte created Aorus, an independent gaming brand and will sell its top-tier products designed specifically for gamers under the brand. The company will continue to release Gigabyte branded notebooks and tablets, but they will be mainly focused on general purpose usage.For Computex 2014, Gigabyte is hosting a booth at Taipei World Trade Center (TWTC) Exhibition Hall 1 to showcase its new products. To learn about Gigabyte's latest gaming notebook strategy and the reasons behind the creation of Aorus, Digitimes recently sat down with Vincent Liu, director of Gigabyte's sales division to talk about the gaming notebook industry.Q: What are Gigabyte's plans for Computex 2014?A: Gigabyte is showcasing its latest gaming notebook products including several top-end models under the company's newly created Aorus brand as well as regular high-end models such as the P34- and P35-series, which are branded under Gigabyte.Gigabyte has three notebooks under Aorus: the X7, X3 and X3 Plus. These devices are our latest innovations and designed specifically for gamers. We have equipped them with top-end hardware and compared to our competitors, they also feature competitive price/performance ratios.Q: What are Gigabyte's strategies for the notebook industry? Will the company be developing anything new for the traditional notebook industry?A: For our notebook business, we currently have two brands: the newly created Aorus and Gigabyte. The gaming notebook market is now the main focus of our notebook division (G-Style) and we have grown professionally over the past two years in regards to the manufacture of gaming notebooks.Compared to the gaming notebook models we released two years ago, our new gaming products are thinner and lighter with new in-house developed cooling designs.Traditional notebook shipments have been dropping for several quarters and Gigabyte, as a latecomer, is at a disadvantage competing against other first-tier players in the market because the competition has already turned to economies of scale instead of innovation. For Gigabyte, which started with strong R&D capabilities, the gaming notebook market, which requires high technological involvement, is a more suitable direction to expand into.Gigabyte-branded notebooks are currently being promoted mainly for general purposes include gaming, enterprise-usage as well as traditional applications. For traditional mainstream models, we are offering them mainly to satisfy client demand and will not push them aggressively.Gigabyte's high-end notebooks are all manufactured at our plaints in Taiwan, while design and development of all our notebooks is conducted at our Taiwan headquarters. Through the strategy, we hope to maintain quality and stability, and fulfill our social responsibility to Taiwan.Q: What does Gigabyte think about the gaming notebook industry and its future?A: We are optimistic about the gaming notebook industry's future and are seeing the industry advance and evolve rapidly.Gigabyte is a latecomer to the gaming notebook industry and is facing fierce competition, but our business strategy of delivering the best out of the hardware we use has earned recognition from many consumers and gamers.Gigabyte's goal is to give users the best performance in each price segment, and we have developed many technologies and done product differentiation to accomplish this target.Compared to our competitors, the scale of Gigabyte's gaming notebook business is actually rather small, but after two years of operation, our technologies have started to be recognized by consumers. For now, we are not looking to experience an immediate and large shipment growth, but are instead focusing on earning consumers' trust.Building products that consumers can trust has always been the motto of Gigabyte, and is the business direction we will continue to follow. Despite the fierce competition, we will continue to offer reliable products to consumers.Q: Why is Gigabyte releasing a new brand name for its gaming notebooks? What benefits does Gigabyte expect to see from the new brand?A: Aorus is an independent brand and we will not market the brand as part of Gigabyte; therefore, you will not see Gigabyte's logo on Aorus-branded products. We created Aorus for professional gamers and in addition to notebooks, we also brand our best keyboards, mice and earphones under the brand.Aorus-branded notebook industrial designs also look different to models branded under Gigabyte. Aorus-brand notebook designs look powerful and futuristic, which we are confident will attract gamers. In fact, we have received good feedback from our channel retail partners as well as consumers about our product designs.We have equipped the best hardware in the Aorus X7 notebook such as Intel's fourth-generation Core i7 processor and dual-Nvidia graphics cards with SLI support. To keep its thin and light characteristics, we have designed a cooling module, which features five heat pipes, four air vents, three controllable fan settings and two fans to efficiently dissipate heat generated by the two GPUs.We are releasing our new Aorus X3 during Computex 2014 also featuring top-end hardware.We expect these gaming notebooks to help us advance further in the market as well as keep us ahead of our competitors.Q: Does the company have any new plans for tablets? What does Gigabyte think about the tablet industry?A: Gigabyte has a business unit that handles ARM/Android-based tablets and may showcase some products at the show.As for Wintel-based tablets, Gigabyte has no plans to release related devices. As I said previously, competition over economies of scale is not really something that Gigabyte is good at, and the Wintel tablet industry is currently in such a situation.Therefore, the market will not become a focus for Gigabyte. We will keep all our attention on developing the gaming notebook business.However, we are still shipping existing Wintel-based tablets launched a few years ago, to some enterprise customers and the procurement market as we still see good demand from these segments.Q: What are Gigabyte's long-term plans?A: Gigabyte's notebook business operations will be driven by our brand strategy. Aorus, as an independent brand, will continue to represent our top-end product line, and in addition to notebooks, Gigabyte will continue to add more products under the brand as long as those devices meet the qualifications of Aorus: top-end products designed specifically for enthusiast gamers.As for the Gigabyte brand, we wish to maintain its trusted image and will continue to strengthen related products with quality and stability, but still maintain a high price-performance ratio.Vincent Liu, Gigabyte director of sales divisionPhoto: Joseph Tsai, Digitimes, June 2014