One of the oldest companies in the electronics industry, Coto Technology has been designing and developing small signal switching solutions for over 90 years. These days, the 93-year old company is a major player in the automatic testing equipment (ATE) industry where it provides reed relays for testing devices. While reed technology predates the digital age, Coto has also made moves in one of latest growth areas in the semiconductor industry, MEMS technology. Earlier this year, Coto made a splash when it announced the availability of what it claims is the smallest MEMS-based reed switch available on the market today.During the Globalpress Electronics Summit 2013 in Santa Cruz, Digitimes had the opportunity to sit down with Stephen Day, VP of technology, and Bill Gotschewski, VP of sales and marketing at Coto Technology to find out more about Coto Technology and their ability to develop a MEMS reed switch with a footprint of less than 2.5 mm2.Q: Before we discuss your MEMS switch, can we touch on reed switches. Reed technology (switches and relays) has a bit of elegance to it because of its combination of simplicity and historic staying power. Can you tell us a bit about that history?A: The reed switch was invented in 1936 by a researcher at Bell Labs named WB Elwood. Elwood basically took a piece of glass tubing and put two soft nickel/iron magnetic blades inside and fused them to the tube. He then had nitrogen blown into to the tube to provide a clean, inert atmosphere and the whole thing was hermetically sealed. Precious metals, usually ruthenium or rhodium, are now used on the contacts to make them last longer. They used to use gold but gold is too sticky.The way reed switches work is there is a tiny gap between the two blades and if you bring the switch close to a magnetic source, such as a magnet or coil (to make a relay), the two blades are induced to north and south poles and attract, coming together to complete a circuit.Despite their simplicity, for their size reed switches can switch at high power. The movement of the blades is also so far inside their limit of elasticity that they can close literally billions of times. So reed switches have enormous lifetimes. Moreover, reed relays are enormously reliable because they are sealed hermetically, compared with electromechanical relays that are affected by the outside atmosphere. And they are not prone to damage from electrostatic discharge, unlike some solid state switches.We've made switches tested to five billion mechanical cycles without failure. Now, if you start to flow current through the switch, the amount of watt power will affect the lifespan to some extent. For a 5V 10mA load, the life cycle is about a billion cycles but that would drop to 100 million cycles for a 5V 100mA load.Q: Historically reed relays were used in telecom, but not so much anymore. What are the main applications for reed switches?A: We should first explain the difference between a reed switch and reed relay. A reed switch is a standalone device that can be operated by a magnet, a current-carrying coil, or a combination of both. A reed relay combines a reed switch and a coil into one component.Reed switches are used in enormous numbers as sensors in areas such as alarm systems and medical devices, among other applications. One of our principle applications has been to wrap a coil around the switch and make it a relay for use in automatic test equipment (ATE) solutions or anywhere you need to switch a large current with a small current. They are like a power amplifier in a way.These days in the ATE industry, each tester has 10,000-20,000 relays inside and the system may go down if just one relay fails. So the number one objective is reliability. You have to be switching at 500 million to one billion cycles, which requires enormously high reliability on each individual piece - or an overall reliability rate of 99.999%. We have really focused on super-high reliability, and over the past 30 years we have dominated in the ATE space. This is the area where we have hung our hat, testing anything from Apple iPhones to the next Intel processor in a range from high precision to high frequency.Q: The ATE industry is still using glass solutions?A: The glass solution has lasted from 1940 until now but the technology is hitting a wall. Over the years, the industry has wanted to get more throughput by including more channels and higher densities in the testers. For example, if Foxconn wants to test more Apple iPhones in a 15-minute period it will look for smaller and smaller solutions.Unfortunately, we think there are fundamental physical limitations being reached where you can't make a reed switch any smaller. The way reed switches are made, a lot of heat is needed to fuse the glass. If you make the switch too short, the heat travels by thermal induction down the blade of the switch and it destroys the precious metal coating.In 1940 reed switches were 50mm long, now they are down to about 5mm and that is about the practical limit. If you include the length of the wire, realistically the device ends up being about 7mm long.So if there were 100% reed switches in a system 15 years ago, it is more like 30% today. MOSFETs have kicked in as a replacement, as have electromechanical solutions. But if you ask an engineer what would be the preferred solution, the answer would absolutely be a reed.Q: Is this what has led you to developing a MEMS solution?A: Based on our industry perspective, we understood that there would be continued strong demand for a magnetically operated reed switch that is much smaller than existing types, that can handle similar electrical switching power, and that can be attached to a circuit board by surface mounting. But it still needed to retain the benefits of reed technology. MEMS was an ideal fit.So about six years ago we met with a company called HT Micro, a MEMS and microfabrication specialist located in Albuquerque, New Mexico. Management at HT Micro basically all worked at Sandia National Laboratories previously, doing military impact switches and nuclear device detonation switches. Thank god for all of us that was not a big growth market, so they were interested in joining forces with us to develop more mainstream products. That is how we got started. We have since set up a joint venture called RedRock to develop the technology.HT Micro has its own fab, which is very important for being able to control production. These are not manufacturing processes that are amenable to conventional semiconductor foundries.Q: Can you talk about the MEMS reed switch you recently announced?A: What we have done is develop a new type of reed switch based on high aspect microfabrication. The switch maintains the desirable properties of conventional reed switches - high current carrying capability, hermetically sealed contacts, high resistance to electrostatic discharge (ESD) and zero power operation, in a package about one-tenth the size of the smallest available reed switches.Instead of using blades, our MEMS reed switch has a metal cantilever that bridges two isolated metal blocks that act as magnetic field amplifiers. There is a small gap between the cantilever and one of the blocks and when magnetic flux from an external magnet builds up in the gap, it pulls the cantilever into electrical contact with the block. Much like traditional reed switches, the contacts are coated with Ruthenium.Q: You say your switch is the smallest MEMS reed switch in the market. How have you been able to achieve that?A: We use what is called high aspect ratio microfabrication (HARM) instead of planar MEMS. From our experience most switch users are much more concerned about footprint of the switch (PCB real estate) than they are about height. In traditional planar MEMS, the blade is electroplated on top of a base substrate, and then a layer under most of the blade is etched away, freeing up the blade so it can bend. But making thin, wide blades the planar MEMS way by using conventional electroplating is difficult and if you try to maximize the cross sectional area of the blades by plating them wider, it increases the footprint.Using HARM, the blades are grown by electroplating, but they are grown edge-on, and vertically relative to the switch substrate. That way, we can make them as high as we want without increasing the footprint of the switch.Another thing about HARM, is that it produces switch structures that generate closure force that is much greater than that shown by previous MEMS-based magnetic switches. This enables hot switching up to several hundred milliwatts. The high retract forces in the switch when it opens also prevents the switch from sticking shut during hot switching or after long closure periods.This is important because while some customers are looking for a switch to perform hundreds of millions of cycles, others need the switch to sit for almost two years and then be used once. This is very important, for example, in applications used in the medical industry.Q: Your products are not priced to target the mass market, such as for smartphones. What are some other possible applications? Is the target market the ATE industry?A: The MEMS reed switch can be used anywhere you need higher power in a small space because the switch dissipates the power very efficiently. In areas such as robotics and sensor applications, the MEMS reed switches are ideal as actuators. Other spaces where the device would be ideal is where low power or no power activation is required. For example battery sensitive applications like hearing aids. A lot of 70 year old guys don't want to always be replacing the battery in their hearing aids.In the ATE industry, our focus will be on a MEMS reed relay, which is being developed in parallel to our MEMS reed switch. This product will come in the future.Stephen Day, VP of technology, Coto Technology

Cavendish Kinetics recently announced the availability of production samples of its tunable RF capacitors to key strategic partners. Shipped as a chip scale package (CSP), the Cavendish digital variable capacitor (DVC) technology is used to tune antennas, power amplifiers and filters to improve RF connection quality and signal strength. Moreover, Cavendish leverages MEMS technology to manufacture the high-performance, tunable RF components.During the Globalpress Electronics Summit 2013 in Santa Cruz earlier this spring, Digitimes had the opportunity to chat with Dennis Yost, president and CEO of Cavendish and Larry Morrell, executive vice president, marketing and business development, at Cavendish about the issues the company was addressing in the market, the technology Cavendish was looking to bring to market and the value proposition its MEMS solution provided.Q: What is the issue in the market that you are trying to address?A: The mobile handset market has continued to move forward, progressively going from 3G to 3.5G and now to 4G. And as the technology progresses to higher platforms, one challenge for system designers is to look at ways to improve connectivity, especially for transmitting data very quickly, because we all want to access more data, watch more video and do more things on the Internet. The thing is, the modulation schemes to do that require a higher signal-to-noise (SNR) ratio than just a plain voice call. So as data becomes more important, the quality of the radios becomes more important.Unfortunately, the radio part of the phone is becoming less and less efficient compared with what the modulation scheme should be able to give. If you look at 4G, you should be able to transmit 80Mbs but users actually see only 10% of that on a good day. Moreover, users at the cell edge (between cells) see even worse performance than that.Our focus is looking at improving that antenna from 5-10% or maybe 13% efficiency transmission of energy to being 30-40% or maybe even 50% efficient in transmitting energy.The result of this improvement is that you can save power on the transmit side and improve sensitivity on the receive side, so users will have a better experience. Battery life can also be extended because users don't have to transmit as often at full power and the power amps will not heat up as much.Q: Can you explain in more detail some of the issues facing front end module design and antenna design with the transition to LTE?A: In the 3G and 3.5G markets, you traditionally have been able to get a pretty decent world phone that covers frequencies from 800MHz to about 2.2-3GHz. That is a pretty good phone for 3G and for that, the antennas used were just good enough.With 4G, frequencies are being added to both ends of the spectrum, so basically you are expanding the frequency range you have to cover to 700MHz to 2.7GHz. Now add to that the white space that is available - which is the digital dividend that comes from moving terrestrial TV from analog to digital. The US and Europe are talking about adding the 600MHz bands, which is going to make things even more difficult. In terms of bands that have already been approved by 3GPP, they now span from 698MHz to 3.5GHz. And while there is no 3.5GHz deployed, there are companies out there seeing if they can make that work. So there is much more spectrum that the antennas need to cover.Moreover, antenna makers are not consulted when new phones are designed, and there really is no interest in doing them any favors when it comes to improving RF design. In fact, the very exact opposite is being done. Consumers don't want an antenna sticking out of their phone and nobody wants a small screen so antennas are becoming smaller and required to deal with more noise. OEMs also sometimes simply stick a connector right in the middle of the antenna or add speakers or buttons that interfere with the workings of the antenna. Antenna makers are then given impossible specs to meet and are expected to deliver in a short time anyway.The antenna makers are the tail end of the dog and they would be more than happy to change the way they approach the problem.Q: Aside from the difficulties of having optimal RF design in mobile handsets, it seems you are arguing that there is a problem with tuning RF signals in general. Why does this occur and how does your technology address this issue compared with what is currently used in the market?A: If you want to tune an RF signal. One way to do it, and people have been doing it this way in different forms for a number of years, is to have a multi-throw switch that is attached to different values of load - imagine a one-pole 32-throw switch with each of those 32 switch elements attached to a different RF load, be it an inductor or capacitor or something of different value. So you have the power loss of the switch and the loss of whatever the passive component is. But you get very good tuning out of that and very good tuning capability.Unfortunately, the switch consumes some of the RF signal by virtue of the fact it has resistance in it. So the power loss of the switch frequently sucks up all of the efficiency gains you can achieve elsewhere, because the switch itself has 1 ohm or 1.5 ohms of resistance. That may sound like a good low value for a switch but if you lose an ohm in the switch, you lose 3dB overall, meaning about half your signal is going out the front door. So, 1 ohm resistance in your switch is basically a killer. And that is what handset makers have to live with.Our solution is to take the switch and throw it away. Our device allows for the RF signal to connect directly across a shunt capacitor, which is one of the ways you can do a load. And if you have a capacitor where you can change its value, as opposed to needing a switch, the losses of the switch can disappear. Lose the switch, lose the loss.Q: How does it work?A: We use MEMS technology for RF. We make a movable component in our technology. Image a parallel plate capacitor and as the plates move closer together they have high capacitance and as they move apart they have low capacitance. It is kind of a bi-stable capacitor.MEMS is ideal because you eliminate all the non-value added parasitics, meaning if you were to have a switch in a series - and just be switching capacitors in and out - the resistance loss in that switch is a parasitic that you have to live with. With our component you don't have that. It is just a capacitor that changes a capacitance state. So there is no parasitic, which in this case is called equivalent series resistance (ESR).Q: You compared your platform to only one example of a switching solution, but there are other companies addressing this market. How do you compare with them?A: Anyone who is doing switches can address this market, and there are a number of different ways it can be done. One solution is to use discrete switches like gallium arsenide (GaAs) and put in discrete components. You can also integrate these solutions using solid state switches. You can build up a relatively good solid state switch with SOI technology and some companies are doing that quite successfully to address the switch market as a stand-alone market.However, you have the same issue in all of these cases. If you have a switch in there, even with a very efficient capacitor, you still have the loss related to the switch. There are a number of companies in the switch market trying to do the same kind of application. Unfortunately they always have a switch - because architecturally they can't get rid of it. The reason is that their capacitors are all fixed plate capacitors. They don't vary like a MEMS capacitor can, which is intrinsically a variable capacitor.Q: You didn't mention any MEMS competitor in your comparison. Are you the only company addressing this issue with a MEMS solution?A: Companies have been trying to implement this solution in MEMS for quite a while because MEMS gives the best performance. This idea is nothing new. Research has been going on for probably around 30 years now. The problem and challenge people have had with MEMS is whether can you make it reliable, can you make it in volume and can you make it at a cost and size that makes it a viable solution for a cell phone maker?Fortunately, we can meet all those requirements. Other companies may talk about using MEMS in RF solutions, but with them you are talking about US$5 and US$10 parts. There is not enough BOM in cell phones to do a US5$ switch.Q: So what is the pricing of your MEMS solution?A: Let's just say that if you look at current designs in the market for LTE, one solution is to run multiple antennas connected with switches. If you eliminate those antennas and you eliminate the switches you can save a dollar or more with our solution.Q: Application processor companies such as Qualcomm have also announced solutions that improve the performance of the RF front end. How do their solutions differ from your approach?A: Companies that have access to what we call the interior of the radio, or the other side of the antenna - where you are talking about the switches and PAs and so forth - use something called an impedance matcher. The impedance matcher is designed to convert the 50 ohms that the RF uses inside the phone to the free space that the antenna sees. So you have this conversion zone, and that conversion is done by an impedance matcher, which can be re-tuned as you change frequencies so the antenna works as well as it was originally designed for at multiple frequencies.Now, while that is all possible to do, you unfortunately haven't changed the efficiency of the antenna by doing that. You simply made it work the way it was designed to work - across multiple frequencies. This can deliver a performance improvement of 10-20% or even 30% for some extreme cases.However, since it is in the signal path, the losses from the switch remain, so you still have to recover those losses, which would be in the 1-1.5dB range. Therefore, the gains have to be above that to show a net gain, which is turning out to be extremely difficult to demonstrate.This type of solution can be done with a variety of different architectures but they require multiple components and end up being much more complex circuits to control, because you need several variable elements which have to be traded off against each other. There are literally hundreds of thousands of combinations that have to be evaluated. It is very complex design task with marginal results.Our belief is that if you have a lossless component on the antenna, then let's make the antenna do the job of becoming more efficient itself. It actually improves all your cases. You can add an impedance match onto that if you want, but then you're still kind of working on the wrong end of the problem.Q: What is the current status of your MEMS switch?A: We just announced the availability of production samples. Before that we were making sure it was a highly efficient design and that it has a high Q factor (a higher Q indicates a lower rate of energy loss). Our measurements with antenna makers show that our Q in actual usage conditions over the normal usable range of the device is in excess of 200. This compares with a Q of 40-50 for devices that use switches, and that represents a good number for them. Those losses are just being tossed out the front door. That is why we are able to improve the antenna efficiency by a factor of two or more.Q: How has the response been so far from potential customers?A: The response to the technology has been overwhelmingly positive. The way we demonstrated our technology was by buying commercially available phones and working with antenna companies to retrofit the devices. We didn't pick any particular method but let them choose their own style of implementation. We provided them with some early parts and they reported an improvement of 1-2dB, and in some cases 3dB over existing antennas that were already in production. This was done without the benefit of going back and re-tuning the industrial design. It was a very quick and dirty retrofit.These results were also well received by the handset makers who are now waiting for us to come back when we are in full volume production. That is the process we are in right now. We expect that later this year we will be announcing design wins and big vendors adopting the technology.Q: It is not always easy for startups to receive funding, despite any amount of "Wow!" their technology may have. As a semiconductor startup are you finding it difficult or easy to find funding?A: Finding investments for semiconductor startups over the past few years has really been a challenge. There is less and less money available for the traditional startup, meaning those with a business model of designing a better CMOS chip than everyone else and going to a foundry to build it. The investment community has been looking for startups that own a unique technology platform for offering differentiated products. Fortunately for us, this has been what we are able to do.We have been focused on the RF component market since late 2008. For the first couple of years we were a technology development company. Now that we have the technology, we are focusing on going to market. From a business stance, this has made us very attractive to investors because it has taken us more than four years to get where we are now, with the main reason being that the technology barriers are so high, so it is not easy to copy. Our investors are extremely pleased with this direction and also that we targeted a mobile handset market that is big and still growing. Billions of these devices are going out the door so the market is pretty large for us.Cavendish Kinetics: Dennis Yost (left), president and CEO; and Larry Morrell, executive vice president

Cavendish Kinetics has announced availability of production samples of its tunable RF capacitors to key strategic partners. Shipped as a chip scale package (CSP), the Cavendish Digital Variable Capacitor (DVC) technology is used to tune antennas, power amplifiers and filters to improve RF connection quality and signal strength. RF tuning is widely viewed as a leading technology solution for today's challenging LTE, LTE-A and 4G wireless standards. The Cavendish technology meets today's stringent technical requirements while also fitting slim form factors; it is highly reliable, simple to implement and cost effective.Cavendish high-performance, breakthrough DVC products for manufacturers of smartphones and other wireless devices will help resolve the industry's toughest connectivity challenges. Use of internal antennas and demand for larger displays, as well as proliferating features and frequency bands, have contributed to a widening gap between actual and theoretical data rates for wireless devices. Radio performance is reduced significantly in many cases, creating challenges for device designers and network operators and frustration for consumers. As usage of bandwidth-intensive video and interactive gaming continues to increase, the performance gap is becoming not just a technical issue, but an economic one for wireless operators."Cavendish is reversing this trend by improving mobile RF front-end performance and improving RF connectivity between consumer devices and cell towers," said Dennis Yost, president and CEO of Cavendish Kinetics. "Customers using our production devices have seen performance improved by 2-3dB in low bands used for LTE/ 4G devices. This level of performance improvement results in much higher data rates for 4G users, more efficient network operations for wireless operators and lower bill-of-material costs for device makers."Development of the Cavendish technology and tuning components has yielded more than 100 patents covering the process technology, the MEMS design and integration with CMOS. More than 40 patents already have been granted.

Eight years ago, the Metro Ethernet Forum (MEF) defined the first carrier class networks and services for Ethernet, as well as specifying attributes such as quality of service, service management, reliability and scalability. Thus Carrier Ethernet was born. This marked the first time Ethernet services were standardized and it fueled a transformation in the telecom industry, with Carrier Ethernet replacing SONET/TDM as the service of choice for carriers, triggering the adoption in 100 countries, and building a market of US$40 billion in revenues, according to the MEF.However, while first-generation Carrier Ethernet enabled standardized Ethernet services delivered over a single provider's networks, Carrier Ethernet 2.0 (CE2.0), which was introduced in 2012, has the ability to deliver multiple classes of services (multi COS) over interconnected managed networks worldwide. During the Globalpress Electronics Summit 2013 and again at Computex Taipei 2013, Digitimes had the opportunity to talk with Uday Mudoi, product marketing director at Vitesse, about Carrier Ethernet and the boom in the Ethernet access market.Q: Can you tell us what have been some of the main market drivers in the transition from SONET/TDM to Carrier Ethernet?A: Some of the main reasons players in the market looked to Ethernet was because it was more cost effective and it made increasing bandwidth easier for the carriers. I remember one carrier telling me that back in the day, when a T1 subscriber (on SONET/TDM) complained about pricing the carrier would need to engage with that situation because there was not much else they could do. After the transition to Ethernet, if a customer complained they could easily just increase the bandwidth a little and the customer would stop complaining about pricing. The point of this example is that Ethernet is not only cheaper for the carriers; it is easier for them to scale.In terms of market growth, in 2007 Ethernet service revenues were a US$7 billion business for carriers and demand is expected to grow to US$48 billion by 2015. It is the highest growth areas for the carriers in terms of revenues.Moreover, what carriers have found out is that customers are willing to pay more for a differentiated service. For example, if a carrier has a service level agreement with a financial firm, the odds are likely that the customer would be willing to pay more for certain guarantees, such as if they knew their data will be secure. So many of the issues related to enabling revenue growth were addressed with MEF CE2.0.Q: MEF CE2.0 addresses interoperability between carriers and support for multiple classes of services, but these areas are not something new for carriers. What is the significance of MEF CE2.0?A: It is the standardization that is important. Companies are increasingly becoming more international and need global services to support people accessing the network worldwide. Unfortunately, no one carrier covers the globe completely, so interoperability and a common understanding between the various providers - who are partnered up to provide global services - are required.Let's look again at the financial firm example - that company's revenues will probably be based on how fast it can access and exchange data. So if it pays for a service that guarantees a certain access and certain latency, there needs to be an underlying understanding between the service provider (and its partners) and the customer for what each is putting in and getting out of it. Standardized services can create tiers for services as well.This means standardized services across carriers and customers are extremely important for allowing everyone involved to have the same understanding of what the subscribers are supposed to get from providers. This interoperability is required if you want to deliver global services.In addition, there are Opex issues that are addressed by CE2.0, such as service activation and how performance measurements can be done remotely in the field.Q: Another basic assumption is that carriers want complete management down to the customer premises. This is done through Ethernet access devices (EADs) or demarcation devices. According to Infonetics, the EAD market is expected to grow 81% between 2012 and 2016. Can you talk a little about the role of these devices in Carrier Ethernet and how Vitesse is helping enable this market?A: When a carrier delivers a service to a firm, it will place a box next to the customer premise equipment, and this box, or Ethernet access device, is used by the carrier to guarantee a certain performance and to manage the service remotely. This is the demarcation point between the firm's network and the carrier network.In terms of features, these boxes need to be cost sensitive and scalable. Maybe today you are servicing 10 users but in the future maybe it will be 100 or maybe you have 1Gb of bandwidth today and you want 10Gb tomorrow. Carriers don't want to have to change the hardware every time a service changes.Most importantly, these boxes need to support MEF CE2.0 so the carrier can deliver Carrier Ethernet services according to the customer's expectations.Vitesse comes into the picture because we saw that there was no silicon solution available that understands and supports MEF CE2.0. So we designed specific Ethernet switching solutions with a built-in layer in silicon that allows the box to be configured, managed and scaled compliant with CE2.0 standards. In terms of products, we have what is called Vitesse Service Aware Architecture (ViSAA) technology for our portfolio of Carrier Ethernet Switch Engines. ViSAA is integrated into the Ethernet switching layer silicon to provide a scalable, hardware-based solution for enabling MEF CE 2.0 Carrier Ethernet services in the EAD. And because CE2.0 is in the hardware, the solution is low cost and low power.Q: So you are enabling MEF 2.0 in hardware. How was it done previously?A: Previously, this was done in software because there was no silicon solution available. Most EADs were built around FPGAs.The biggest difference is performance. Software performance doesn't scale. If you want to add more users in software, the device may lack the processing power to handle it. In addition, there was no standard on the hardware side and the development cycle was longer.With our devices, we can guarantee our OEM customers that they can go to market in six months and get a MEF CE 2.0 certification as well.Q: What is driving the EAD market?A: One thing is cloud computing. It is very obvious that within the cloud, computing is increasing and that is driving bandwidth. But it is important to remember there are two parts to the cloud. One part is the computing itself while the other part is the access. What is interesting from our perspective is access to the cloud. How does the cloud connect to the WAN or connect to the cloud somewhere else?With cloud computing, if the network goes down the entire company could go down. So security, reliability and network performance are mission critical and some enterprises are holding off using the cloud for some services until they know it is secure. With our ViSAA technology, EADs can provision, manage, and allocate resources to tailored services while guaranteeing reliability and remote management capabilities. And with our Intellisec technology, we can deliver network-level security at a low cost, while maintaining performance.Another area driving growth in EADs is LTE. If network capacity increases 10x because LTE is enabled, that 10x of bandwidth needs to be managed in the access market as well.Q: You are currently providing a reference design for EADs. What kind of opportunities are there for Taiwan ODMs? Many of them are involved in networking and perform well when provided with a reference design.A: Vitesse provides the chip, design and software. But it is not as simple as putting it together and just manufacturing the box. The box sits in different environments. Carriers need reliable products, a long-lasting lifecycle and outdoor protection. In addition, the system is a lot more complex and requires a much longer lifetime compared to consumer and enterprise solutions. So there are design, certification and validation requirements before a carrier accepts a box.Currently in Taiwan we work with an IPC firm called Rubytech, a publicly listed company. The company's solutions are based on a Vitesse design and then customized including design manufacturing and add on services. The company has been working with Vitesse for a number of years and provides ODM manufacturing for various telecom equipment suppliers.However, although the telecom equipment market is dominated by just a few firms, there are opportunities for more manufacturers in the future. Carriers will look to the Alcatels and Lucents when it comes to core equipment but the access market is much more fragmented. In the access market, there are six companies that I know of from Israel alone involved in this market, and in emerging markets like Russia or India, the local carriers may want to support local players when it comes to providing access devices. This is where our reference design can help Taiwan ODMs in the long run. But they need to be committed to the market.Uday Mudoi, product marketing director at Vitesse

In retaliation for Europe setting a punitive tariff (11.8%) on China-made solar panels, China announced on June 5 plans to start an anti-dumping and anti-subsidy investigation against Europe-made wine imports. According to Reuters, this is aimed at hurting the wine industries in countries such as France and Italy, which both backed the decision to levy the punitive tariffs on China-made solar products. Germany, which openly opposed the tariff, will be relatively spared from the possible negative effects of the investigation.According to the same report, China is now the biggest importer of wines from Bordeaux, France, and consumption shot up 110% in 2011 alone. The report added that EU wine exports to China (excluding Hong Kong) reached 257.3 million liters in 2012, equivalent to approximately US$1 billion. In addition, more than 139.5 million liters (above 50%), were from France.France's trade ministry noted that Beijing should not start a trade war in an unrelated area, according to the report.A report from The New York Times stated that China's retaliation using wine imports from Europe is quite smart. In addition, this move may hurt the EU's trade commissioner, Karen De Gucht, because "he owns a 50% stake in a wine-producing estate in the Tuscany region of Italy."De Gucht's spokesperson said the EU trade chief owned shares in the property before taking the job, and the property does not export products to China.The report disclosed that the EU exported around US$980.7 million worth of wine to China in 2012 but China's solar exports to Europe reached US$27 billion in 2011.Nut the anti-dumping and anti-subsidy investigation on Europe-made wine may hurt consumers in China, not just drinkers, but investors too. The report noted that in recent years, China-based firms bought more than three dozen chateaus in Bordeaux due to the rapidly expanding wine market in China.Currently, the EU has 31 open trade investigations, and 18 of them involve China, according to Reuters.

Singapore-based Gajah International Pte Ltd (Gajah) has won several Computex 2013 Design and Innovation Awards for a host of products, including its innovative InkCase, an e-paper based smartphone case that doubles as a second screen.According to Gajah CEO Yong Guan Jer, the company is a total solution provider that engages in the design and development of OEM/ODM consumer electronics products, as well as a comprehensive source for e-content management and delivery systems.Q: Please tell us more about your exhibits at Computex Taipei 2013, particularly the InkCase, which we understand is more than just a phone case. What's the concept behind such a product?A: The concept started from a friend who often prints his baby's photos on his iPhone case. As you know, babies grow quite fast, which is why he prints a new phone case almost every two weeks. Our internal Innovative R&D Team was developing a Bluetooth EPD unit that was initially meant for conference room signage, such as nameplates, and commercial signage. And we thought it might be a good idea to apply our research results to a phone case to display images of your loved ones. After that, we started brainstorming and came up with more ideas for the second-screen InkCase. We asked ourselves what the problems would be when a consumer had only a single screen on a smartphone, which is now a multi-function device. We found that users get quite frustrated when they are watching Youtube on their phone and an SMS or Whatsapp message suddenly comes in. They have to pause and switch to the SMS app or Whatsapp to read the message and then go back to reload their Youtube video, which again takes some time. We also found there are a lot of useful functions that a second screen can provide, while still using less power and therefore increasing the battery life for power-hungry smartphones.Q: There are many OEMs/ODMs in the consumer electronics market. Where does Gajah's competitiveness lie? What services do you provide to your customers, besides hardware design?A: Cost effectiveness, an innovative, world-class design team, and in-depth understanding of the industry. Especially for e-book readers, we have most of the codecs, DRM systems, content delivery systems - a complete solution from hardware and software to Web engines, Android and iOS applications - all catering for our partners' needs. We are not just an ordinary OED/ODM company; we provide complete solutions, or I should say, a complete ecosystem, to our partners. A lot of our customers say Gajah always provides innovative and design-oriented products and complete solutions with affordable and acceptable pricing.We have a team of engineers focusing on application development for Android OS and iOS. We develop unique applications and Web server engines in line with our product ranges to help our partners differentiate themselves and stand out in the market.Q: Gajah has been developing e-book readers, tablets and other accessories. While tablets are all the rage at the moment, the outlook for some of these other product areas is not so promising. Can you tell us your view on the prospects of products such as e-book readers in the face of competition from smartphones? Is Gajah also working on smartphones?A: We have six different business units: Mobile Media Products (MMP), which focuses on tablets and other mobile media products; Communication and Audio Devices (CAD), which mainly focuses on portable audio and conference devices; Home Connected Devices (HCD), which develops devices that connect the home to the Internet, such as TV boxes; Mobile Lifestyle Products (MLP), which develops lifestyle accessories for mobile phones; Specialized Mobile Media Products (SMMP), which focuses on e-book readers and educational projects; and Interactive Digital Media (IDM), which focuses on application development, servers and Web engines. We design a lot of unique tablets that have won several design awards. We understand that there are many trendy electronics devices in the market and we need unique things in order to differentiate our products from the competition and stand out in the market. We are focusing on lifestyle designs and most of our products are stylish companions for consumers. For example, our Gold Award-winning TV Box is not a conventional brick-sized box that one would want to hide in a drawer; it is a stylish item that blends into your living room.The e-book reader market has been growing slowly yet steadily. It remains quite popular due to the characteristic of the EPD panel, which provides comfortable reading and makes a more suitable reading device than tablets or smartphones.We no longer do MP3 players, because MP3, as well as GPS, has become just a function or application that is incorporated into smartphones. But we are not developing mobile phones as we don't have some of the cutting edge technologies in the smartphone sector with which we could compete against Samsung or Apple.Q: Who are your customers? Where are they? China seems to be an important market for Gajah, which has offices in Hong Kong and China. What are your plans for expanding your presence in the China market? Where else are you looking to expand?A: Our customers mainly come from the US and Europe. They are importers, local brand owners and retail chain stores. China is quite important for us, as the market is booming and demand for innovative products there is growing stronger and stronger. More consumers are looking for better products and the China market is more open to innovative IT products. It seems that many products are now launched in China first before entering other markets. We hope our partners in China can assist us in penetrating the China market, while our OEM/ODM businesses are focusing on expanding our reach to more partners in the US and Europe, as well as Latin America.Q: Where is manufacturing done? Does Gajah run its own manufacturing facilities or outsource to others?A: Our production is done in China. We design and handle the whole manufacturing process, workflow, testing and component supply chain, and then outsource the assembly process to contract manufacturers. We run through all the quality testing protocols and quality verification processes, which include reliability tests, component stress tests and others. In product development, the core competency is research and development, as well as quality testing and verification. That is why we focus a lot on this development process and outsource the assembly process to our contract manufacturer.Q: Many Taiwan-based manufacturers have been talking about moving manufacturing to Southeast Asia from China, where labor costs are rising fast. As a Singapore-based company, can you give us some insights into the pros and cons of manufacturing in Southeast Asia? How is the IT manufacturing environment in Southeast Asia?A: Supply chain issues are still the key challenge in SEA. The IT business is a fast turnaround business and most of the key suppliers are setting up their operations in Hong Kong, Shenzhen and Dongguan in China. We used to have our operational team in Singapore and tried to run the manufacturing process in SEA, but the supply chain was the main headache, as lead time would be much longer. IT manufacturing in SEA is quite popular for some more stable sectors and high-precision products, such as hard drives, servers, medical equipment and other industrial products. Fast-turnaround consumer electronics need to have a seamless supply chain to cater for the fast changes. By running manufacturing in SEA, you could enjoy much higher-quality output, as the area has a good track record in high-precision engineering. Before China opened its doors, SEA used to be a manufacturing base for the US and Europe. However, unless the supply chain can accommodate more rapid changes, I think it will be remain quite a headache to produce high-mix, high-volume products in SEA.Gajah International CEO Yong Guan Jer

One of the most interesting new features on Intel's Thunderbolt 2 technology is the addition of DisplayPort 1.2 support in order to enable video streaming to a single Ultra HD monitor or dual QHD monitors. While Thunderbolt is targeted at the PC industry, there are a number of IC design firms looking at the potential of a stripped down version of DisplayPort called mobility DisplayPort (MyDP) for doing similar work - streaming video from a smartphone to HD displays.A key advantage of DisplayPort is that it can be used for driving the video signal for internal screens as well as external screens and can efficiently drive high-resolution displays such as for the 2048x1536 pixel iPad. That helps CPU makers like Intel reduce the number of I/Os needed because they can multiplex the internal and external screens on the same I/O, leaving it to the manufacturer to decide how they want to implement it.During Computex, IC design house Analogix has been showing off its version of MyDP called SlimPort. Andre Bouwer, vice president of marketing for Analogix, explained that an increasing number of key players in the mobile application processor (APU) market are realizing the advantages of DisplayPort for HD video and are extending their support.Intel supports DisplayPort across the board, while Apple, Samsung and Nvidia are providing support on the ARM side of the market. A key addition this year will be Qualcomm, which is introducing support in some of its APUs this year.While many of these semiconductor firms are looking to have DisplayPort drive their internal high-resolution displays, the technology can be leveraged to drive external displays as well. If DisplayPort is supported, then the simpler version of SlimPort can be implemented by the system maker as well.The Google Nexus 4 was the first smartphone to support SlimPort, and the technology is also used in phones and tablets including the LG Optimus G Pro smartphone, Fujitsu Arrows Tab and Asus PadFone Infinity. The Asus and Futjitsu solutions use a docking solution, while Analogix is marketing connector accessories to deliver video from the micro USB port on the smartphones to a choice of HDMI, DVI and DisplayPort ports on the displays.Comparing DisplayPort with HDMI, Bouwer noted that HDMI has fees associated with it while DisplayPort is royalty free. This was one of the original big attractions for PC OEMs and it was PC players that pushed development of the technology, especially for notebooks. Bouwer pointed out that the legacy of this development is that design and architecture decisions were made based on a battery-powered mobile device to reduce power consumption, improve EMI through fixed data frequency and spread spectrum, and reduce noise to strengthen the RF signal.Bouwer noted that if one looks at the total number of transmitter of DisplayPort vs HDMI, there are more DisplayPort transmitters shipped in the market.However, SlimPort and MyDP are not the only games in town. HDMI remains popular and MHL has found a niche on mobile handsets. Some others think Wi-Fi will be the solution that will win out for transmitting video from a handset to a TV.Still Bouwer believes that Analogix is only beginning to tap the potential of SlimPort. Next year the company will provide support for USB devices as well as video output through SlimPort. Bouwer envisions a future where smartphones can literally be pocket PCs, with users plugging them into peripherals at work, home and on the road.

Just before Computex 2013, Digitimes spoke with Jeff Baer, marketing director for Embedded Wireless, Wireless Connectivity Combo at Broadcom to find out more about Broadcom's push into the embedded space with Wi-Fi and Bluetooth.Q: Lately there has been buzz about Broadcom levering its wireless technology in the embedded space, can you tell us about the progress Broadcom has made in this area?A: To start off, the Broadcom embedded business is kind of on the opposite end of the portfolio spectrum from our consumer business when it comes to technology and business model. In the consumer world, the focus of the business is on huge OEMs and huge ODMs, which work with a few well-defined applications. The embedded space that we are targeting, whether it is called Internet of Things (IoT) or machine to machine (M2M) communication, is more of a horizontal type of business, where all types of electronic devices will eventually be connected wirelessly.Q: How is Broadcom enabling customers?A: I represent a product family called WICED (Wireless Internet Connectivity for Embedded Devices). WICED (pronounced wicked) is a development system that vastly reduces the effort required to add wireless connectivity (mainly Wi-Fi and Bluetooth) to embedded devices. We launched the first WICED product about a year ago focusing on Wi-Fi and since then we have made more announcements, adding more legs on the WICED stool, so to speak. For example, we recently announced the availability of our Smart Development Kit with Bluetooth Smart system-on-a-chip (SoC), allowing for more development for battery-operated devices.We've continued building up the portfolio by adding the Broadcom 4390, which we've been talking about here at Computex. The 4390 is an SoC designed for 8 and 16 bit microcontroller systems. The 4390 basically delivers Wi-Fi connectivity to low-power and battery-powered devices. Initial applications that the BCM4390 will support include sports and fitness, health and wellness and security and automation. However, innovations based on the WICED platform can also help OEMs connect even the simplest appliances, including slow cookers, lights and more, with a single-chip. We've currently sampling the 4390 and we expect products based on the chip to hit the market by the end of the year.This is a crucial building block in the goal for end-to-end connectivity. Our vision is for everything to be wirelessly connected. We've seen this trend developing over some time and there is widespread belief that this going to happen. With the WICED architecture we are really enabling this with a couple of core pieces of technology that are derived from our industry leading Bluetooth and Wi-Fi products.Now, developers have a platform and the tools to implement Internet connectivity in a variety of devices, especially those without existing support for networking, like digital cameras, proximity tags and smart meters, etc.Q: What is driving this market?A: Historically, the wireless embedded market was more complex than it needed to be. It required some professional gateway or some expensive box to enable communication with a device. However, if you use Wi-Fi, you don't need some special hookup to connect. But ultimately the catalyst for this market and what is moving it forward is the growth of the smartphones and the tablet industry. All of these devices feature Wi-Fi. So now you have a device that is Wi-Fi enabled and that people are comfortable using. And pretty much everyone on the planet is carrying one of these devices around with them.Q: What do you mean by that?A: The console will be the smartphone. IoT allows the Internet to be gathered at all different sets of nodes and then kind of consolidated and moved to a common place either for analysis or action. For example, maybe you will have some sort of sensor in your shoe that tells you when have walked 10,000 steps or maybe you have some kind of heart monitor. The data gathered by these sensors can be transferred wirelessly to your smartphone and consolidated there. It can then be monitored or, more importantly, uploaded to the cloud - to some website where you can analyze it, and based on that analysis, take some action based on the events or simply keep track of the data on a day to day basis.Some of the usage models for these devices are kind of simple. A great example is some kind of medical equipment or pill dispenser. You can have that device enabled with wireless and basically you can monitor a person who is on medication but is living alone and report back on a daily basis with the data -when the medication has been taken or even if the patient is still alive with his or her vital signs being maintained in a predefined range. This saves the cost of having a nurse or medical practitioner from having to go out into the field and make a house call to check up on the patient, which is both expensive and not very scalable.Q: It is interesting that Broadcom is using Bluetooth and Wi-Fi for wireless communication in embedded devices. A lot of companies are using ZigBee?A: There are a multitude of different wireless protocols that are in a sense similar, but different. They all have strengths and weaknesses. ZigBee was one of the first wireless protocols in the embedded space. It went out there and got established a number of years ago and really targeted machine to machine or sensor type of applications at a time when there wasn't really any other technology that was being tailored for those types of applications. However, although it was out there first it really doesn't mean that it was the best technology over the long haul. In a couple of areas ZigBee has not stood the test of time. One major area is interoperability. The solutions that are out there are not particularly interoperable from solution to solution or from vendor to vendor.This is an area where both the Bluetooth SIG and the Wi-Fi alliance have done a really outstanding job of setting interoperability standards and enforcing those through really strict compatibility logo testing. So, if you have a Bluetooth device, you know it is going to be interoperable with all other Bluetooth devices. If you have a Wi-Fi device logo, you know the device is going to work with all your other Wi-Fi devices.The other issue with ZigBee is from a practical point of view. You can connect things but once they are connected, who do they talk to? The challenge is how do you get the data from the devices into a format that can be analyzed. For ZigBee you need some kind of specialized gateway or box and that box has to fit somewhere in your house or warehouse or factory. The fact is, this makes the entire system more complicated than it needs to be - people don't like to procure and support extra boxes.On the other hand, if these embedded devices are enabled with Wi-Fi and Bluetooth, they can communicate directly with a smartphone. This goes back to what I was saying before, that the catalyst that has led to the explosion in this area is the smartphones and tablets that already have Wi-Fi and Bluetooth. So if you have Bluetooth and Wi-Fi enabled devices, you can be confident that you can access them through your tablet or smartphone, or even your TV or PC. In this kind of usage model, you are much more likely to access and use that data, meaning it will add value to your life.Broadcom marketing director Jeff BaerPhoto: Company

Jason LS Chen is a vice president in the Sales and Marketing Group at Intel and is responsible for all sales and marketing activities for Intel in Taiwan. As country manager, he supports original equipment manufacturers (OEMs) and original device manufacturers (ODMs) in Taiwan. He also manages domestic market sales and marketing operations in Taiwan, including Computex. As Taiwan site manager, he is responsible for coordinating operations in Intel's Taiwan office.Digitimes spoke with Chen just before Computex Taipei 2013 to get a glimpse into the trends that are shaping Intel in Taiwan, especially in the mobile market.Q: So you pretty much run all of Intel's interests here in Taiwan?A: Not all. There is a small exception. Two OEM customers, Acer and Asustek Computer, have dedicated teams managing them. APAC manages those customers, as the complexity of these customers is quite high.Q: Since you deal quite a bit with customers, you must get a lot of feedback. How does that feedback translate into making sure future products address customer concerns?A: This process is actually managed through different sections of the company. People in the US are responsible for product definitions and features. They talk to Taiwan regularly, and once or twice a year they come to Taiwan and talk directly to customers. Of course customers will also talk directly with me about products. I provide that feedback to the product groups through regular executive communication. There is engagement on all levels.Q: Over the past few years there has been a shift in the mobile space from traditional PC products to ultra-mobile products like smartphones and tablets, in particular over the past two years. Can you comment on the trends and how this is affecting Intel?A: This is definitely the trend we are seeing here in Taiwan. In the tablet space, initially it was Apple driving the market; however, recently we have been seeing steep growth in non-Apple tablets. For example, Asustek is playing an aggressive role promoting its tablets in the market and we are also working with some customers in the tablet space.What we are seeing in this market is that user experience is becoming more important than product features. End users are paying increasingly more attention to what kind of experience they can get from their devices.The effect on Intel is that the traditional messages you see in the PC space concerning speed and leading-edge hardware specs are not enough for this market. We also need to delve more into how end-products are being viewed and used by users.Q: There is also a big difference in how mobile devices are sold compared with traditional PCs. Can you comment on the different distribution methods and how you are adapting to best target the various channels?A: In the past, there was a distribution channel for PCs and there was a distribution channel for mobile handsets. They were very different channels and there was little overlap. For example, the handset area was hugely involved with telecoms and subsidized products, while the PC industry was a retail distribution play. Starting with feature phones, smartphones and now with tablets, the products started to converge and channel players tried to cross over from each channel, but for the most part, there hasn't been a lot of crossover success.The key right now is tablets, because it is the only type of product that still exists in a gray area. So both channels are laying claim to it.For Intel, we want to be involved in all types of products – handsets, tablets and PCs – so while we are continuing to work with the PC distribution channel, we need to be more involved in the telecom channel.Q: What steps are you taking to be more involved and successful in the telecom channel?A: There is no magic formula for that. The way we can succeed there is by getting as many design wins as possible. To do that, we have to continue improving our silicon and that has been an ongoing process. We will be one step closer with products that are coming out later this year based on our Silvermont platform.The other area we are paying closer attention to is operating systems for ultra-mobile devices, namely Android. In the phone space you have to really figure out how to run Android optimally on your devices. For that we are working very closely with Google, making sure that Intel silicon has the right support in the Android space and embracing the mobile device ecosystem a lot more than we did before.Q: There are a lot of rumors in the market now that Intel will be making some big breakthroughs in the tablet market. Can you comment on any of those rumors?A: Of course we can't talk about any specifics in that area because of customer confidentiality but we are working very hard in this area. Personally, I think the right expectation is that the market will see a lot more Intel-based tablets in the future.Q: Concerning operating systems and software in general, can you comment on how Intel is addressing the increased focus on user experience in the mobile device market?A: This is a very complicated topic and perhaps your readers should check in with Intel during Computex, because we will have a lot to say about this. But for now, I can briefly say that for Intel, user experience is not just software. It is really the combination of hardware and software.Take NFC (near field communications) for example, to have a successful solution you need hardware features enabled with software capabilities, and then an app that takes advantage of those features in a seamless way. It is only when all those things operate in unison with each other that the technology becomes meaningful to the user, and a lot of the technology needs to be invisible to the user. You really need to pay attention to usage models.One of the reasons Apple has been so successful with its mobile devices is the touch experience it delivers to end users, and that success involves a lot of hardware tuning. However, Apple is coming from a background where it was enabling smaller displays, and that goes for most players working with touch.However, we work with a broad swatch of solution providers targeting various markets, so it can't be one strategy to fit all. Just one or two years ago, there weren't that many 11-inch touch displays in the market. Moreover, the usage models, what types of features are most important, are different when comparing phone displays with tablets, and even more so when larger-sized displays, say for a 21-inch all-in-one (AIO) PC, are taken into consideration.To address the various usage models and market segments, Intel introduced our touch-capacitive program last year at Computex. We are working with a few touch panel leaders like TPK Holding and Wintek, with the purpose of enabling the touch industry in areas we feel are being ignored.If you look at the AIO PC market for example, there are solutions available using today's technology, such as one glass solution (OGS), but that would be a very expensive solution for a 21-inch panel. So, we are approaching areas such as this to see if other technologies, such as film-based touch and optical touch, can enable the market in terms of cost and user experience.Q: Will Intel move into complete systems to address these challenges?A: I am not aware of any complete devices that Intel will be doing.However, Intel does recognize that we need to improve on platform technology. For example, we have a lot of experience in horizontal businesses, like the industrial PC industry. But we are more of a relative newcomer to phone markets, where the involvement is much more vertical.To be more successful in this vertical space, we need to have a better understanding of the entire ecosystem. It is not only about focusing on supporting products through our silicon, we need to focus on the full system in order to enable partners throughout the supply chain.Q: What about support on the operating system side? How different is it for Intel to work with Android compared with Microsoft Windows?A: With Windows, Microsoft makes it easy to add hardware support. To support new devices, the vendors usually simply provide a driver. Microsoft provides the interface for incorporating the driver and the process of getting the device supported is relatively straightforward. With Android you have to integrate support for new devices at the operating system level. If you want to incorporate new sensors or memory for the touch-panels, it all has to be fitted into the operating system. And you have to do it by yourself. We are now doing a lot of in-house development to support our own Android capabilities. We provide customers with the full Android stack, so part of the enablement is us being very involved in the Android BSP (board support package).As I mentioned previously, we also have to figure out how to best support a broad set of customers who are targeting different product segments and thus have different requirements. Not everyone will be involved in the same ecosystem.Q: There are a lot of expectations that the upcoming Bay Trail SoC will help Intel better succeed with design wins for mobile handsets. Can you comment on the upcoming Atom (Silvermont) platform?A: Silvermont is a very important development for Intel. The architecture will be based on a 22nm manufacturing process, which means we will be manufacturing Atom (Silvermont) at the same process as our Core architecture. This is the first time Intel has placed our low-power process at the same cadence as the most advanced Intel processor technology.Our latest Core (Haswell) will be on the market soon and that will target productivity platforms where the main focus is performance, but for the ultra-mobile space, where very thin designs or very small form factors are key, Atom will be the choice.Q: Atom has always been priced to be very affordable. Will the significantly improved power consumption (and related battery life issues) and performance boost of migrating Silvermont to 22nm make Intel rethink pricing on the Atom platform?A: Pricing will not see a big change.Q: This should represent some interesting opportunities in the mobile space. Atom was the foundation of low-priced netbooks. With the advances in power and performance, do you foresee a revival of the netbook market?A: Netbooks didn't really go away. Our Classmate PC is still shipping in good quantities in the global education market. Convergence devices in the tablet and netbook market will also be adopted in the education market. We expect both types of products to run in parallel in this area.Q: In terms of convergence devices, tablets have mostly been used for consuming content, but some users want more PC-type features in their tablets. With Bay Trail targeted at handsets, but being able to support full PC performance, do you see even more opportunities for convergence devices; for example, a US$200 Android PC?A: US$200 price points are very realistic for these devices.In terms of convergence PC devices, there could be interest in tablets that support full USB I/O so that a keyboard can be attached. We have plans to support these types of device in the market very aggressively, no matter the OS. Obviously, if users are looking for a keyboard, they are looking for productivity and that means better performance than most current tablets offer. These new types of convergence devices could be based on Android but this is really new so we don't know for sure what will happen.Jason LS Chen is a vice president in the Sales and Marketing Group at Intel and is responsible for all sales and marketing activities for Intel in Taiwan.Photo: Company

Once chiefly known as an OEM for PC card readers and memory modules, Carry Technology has expanded its product portfolio to include Wi-Fi products and other peripherals for mobile devices such as smartphones and tablets. While continuing to maintain close relationships with its OEM clients, Carry Tech has also moved to expand its own-brand products, particularly in emerging markets.In an interview with Digitimes, Carry Tech president Taron Chang talked about the company's efforts to expand its own-brand business, which is now generating higher gross margins than its OEM business. Chang also shared his views about the prospects of the memory industry, as well as challenges and opportunities faced by the company.Q: At the end of 2011, Carry Tech launched its Apotop brand for storage solutions and peripherals targeted mainly at mobile devices. What progress has there been since the brand made its debut?A: At Computex 2012 we officially announced the Apotop brand. Products under the brand include not only the company's traditional areas of focus, such as card readers, DRAM modules, flash drives and SSD devices, but also innovative new products.Backed by our experienced R&D team, we introduced wireless storage devices designed specifically for popular iOS devices. In 2012, Carry Tech launched a travel Wi-Fi router enabling iPad users to set up their own Wi-Fi hotspots for use in places like hotels that only offered hard-wired access, and its second generation that includes a USB port and SD card slot for expanded memory - an all-in-one peripheral device to bring more convenience to popular tablet devices.This year, Carry Tech has enhanced its wireless storage devices by developing products targeted at not only iOS devices, but also devices running the Android OS platform. Designed for smartphones and tablets, our 2013 series can operate as a card reader, reading and sharing data much faster than the previous generation; as a connector, transferring files to devices from an SD card or USB drive; as a power bank, i.e. a portable battery charger; and as a wireless access point.With our expanded wireless storage products for popular mobile devices, the Apotop brand has gained wider recognition over the past year. You can find Carry Tech's Apotop products in all Apple outlets in Taiwan and around 200 others in Asia. We have also partnered with several airline companies to do inflight promotions for Apotop products.Though the value of sales generated from Carry Tech's own-brand products remains a lot smaller than its traditional OEM business, the former segment is generating higher gross margins than the latter. We expect the Apotop-brand products, particularly the wireless storage device series, to be the key growth driver for the company in 2013.Q: Carry Tech is a 21-year-old company that used to focus on the OEM business in the PC card reader and memory solution segments, with clients mostly from Europe, Japan and the US. What proportion of sales comes from your traditional business now?A: Currently, about 70% of Carry Tech's total revenues come from the OEM business. While exploring new growth opportunities, we continue to ensure a consistent supply to our contract customers. Carry Tech has steady income generated by its OEM business and production plants, where six SMT lines are installed.Q: Companies face certain issues when producing their own products both as an OEM supplier and also under their own brand. Does Carry Tech have similar issues?A: Our OEM and own-brand businesses are clearly distinguished. For the OEM business, we secure contracts from the world's major memory module vendors, which sell their solutions mostly in developed countries.Carry Tech's own-brand products are marketed chiefly through retail channels in emerging markets, such as Southeast Asia and the Middle East. But for Apotop-branded wireless storage devices, the product line represents our own innovation and does not overlap with our clients' products.Q: Which memory companies do you source chips from? Has Carry Tech been able to secure a steady supply from its chip partners in 2013?A: Carry Tech has maintained steady relationships with its existing suppliers, which provide timely delivery and quality products as promised. We need to ensure the reliability of our partners so that we meet our client's high standards.Carry Tech also takes appropriate measures to minimize the impact of supply-side constraints caused by uncontrollable events, such as power outages or severe weather conditions. In addition, we employ different procurement strategies for different markets so that the company is flexible in its operations to satisfy different market segments.Q: According to a new IHS iSuppli report, the adoption of SSDs in PCs will expand through 2017. What is Carry Tech's involvement in the field?A: Three years ago we expressed optimism about the PC SSD market, which, however, has thus far been a disappointment. But still, the market outlook is promising.SSDs will not be able to overtake hard disk drives as the major storage medium for PCs and notebooks in the short term, because prices for the former are still too high compared to those for the latter.Q: Some observers have noted that Thunderbolt is struggling to compete against USB 3.0 due to its high cost. What's your view on that?A: Thunderbolt and USB 3.0 interfaces both have their own strengths, therefore they target different tiers of the market.The transmission speed of Thunderbolt is twice as fast as USB 3.0, with the former technology allowing an entire HD movie to be transferred in 30 seconds. Therefore, developers specializing in Thunderbolt-compatible hardware demand high performance for multimedia and gaming, targeting the specific market tier that usually attracts gamers and PC graphics enthusiasts.USB 3.0 is considered a fast, user-friendly option. Hardware developers that favor USB 3.0 over Thunderbolt are generally more focused on user-friendly design in terms of price and functionality required.Carry Tech is proud to have been chosen by Intel as one of very few Thunderbolt partners in Taiwan to develop a variety of Thunderbolt-based storage products and media devices. We also have a lineup of USB 3.0 products for the mass market.Q: What is your outlook for the 2013 memory market?A: DRAM companies should find themselves in a more stable market. We see suppliers continue to scale down their output for the commodity memory sector, as demand shrinks due to weak PC sales. The market has now returned to a more balanced state, enabling price stability.I don't think that DRAM prices will see significant falls in 2013, unless some uncontrollable events happen.Carry Tech president Taron ChangPhoto: Jessie Shen, June 2013