A common set of standards for LED lighting firms in Greater China was announced recently and as the China government plans to expand the LED lighting market, this common set of standards can help Taiwan-based firms enter the China market.The common standards will be expanded to emerging markets such as India, Russia, Southeast Asia, and South Africa in the future. Competition over standards is about to begin.Taiwan-based LED firms have been aggressive in obtaining business in China in recent years, and with a common set of standards, the firms have an opportunity to expand market share.The LED lighting market is expected to boom and major markets around the world have been introducing standards and verification systems. Despite the booming market, products have been lacking consistent quality and this has become a barrier for commercialization. Lead by international brands such as Philips and Osram, the LED industry formed the Zhaga Consortium, aiming to standardize the interface of LED lighting. The consortium has been setting standards for the lighting engine interface for LED street lamps, spotlights, and indoor lighting. However, the standards are not mandatory.Some governments have been using standards as a way of nurturing the domestic LED lighting industry. For example, the US has Energy Star, an energy standard for consumer products introduced by the US Department of Energy. To enter the US market, LED components need to pass a testing process that lasts 6,000 hours to obtain Energy Star certification. Some firms obtained information on the verification process before the announcement, hence while other firms try to obtain verification, some firms have already completed self-verification. This has been seen as an entry barrier to the US market.Recently, the US Department of Energy selected five solid state lighting firms to allocate a total subsidy of US$10.10 million over two years. The five firms are Cree, which obtained US$2.3 million, Eaton, which obtained US$2.4 million, OLEDWorks, Philips Lumileds and PPG Industries all obtained subsidies of US$1-2.3 million. Most of these firms are based in the US. The verification and subsidy advantage could allow US-based firms to stay ahead of the game for 3-5 years.

To show the importance of labor rights, Apple became the first IT company to join the Fair Labor Association (FLA) in 2012 and through the association, Apple began inspections of its major supply chain partner, Foxconn Electronics (Hon Hai Precision Industry). Although Foxconn has been enthusiastic about cooperating with the inspections and implementing changes, the firm now faces the problem of lowering weekly work hours to 49 per week, including over time, before July 2013.For Foxconn, cutting work hours to 49 hours per week is not easy, as production has been steady and lowering working hours means the firm needs to hire more workers to fill shifts. This could pose a problem for the firm as the labor market in China has been changing and it has been challenging to find production line workers. In addition, workers actually do not care about working overtime as long as they get paid. But with lower working hours, firms need to find strategies to maintain salary levels for workers.In fact, overtime pay is an important part of the salary structure among Foxconn workers. Commonly overtime in China on weekdays is 100% of standard pay and 200% on weekends. Overtime pay during national holidays such as the Lunar New Year holidays is 300%. Lowering the number of working hours means falling salaries for workers, hence it would be difficult for Foxconn to keep workers from quitting. To maintain cooperation with Apple, Foxconn has to lower working hours. The problem lies on the profit-sharing between Apple and Foxconn. If Apple is not willing to share more profits, Foxconn has to sacrifice its own profits to lower working hours and maintain salaries to keep employees. But to do so is difficult as ODM firms usually have slim profit margins.Although automated processes may be able to take some pressure off Foxconn, it cannot fully replace human resources. In addition, if Foxconn adopts fully automated processes, then the firm cannot create employment opportunities and may not be welcomed by local governments in China.With growing globalization, labor relations have become a complicated issue. Firms cannot use a universal strategy to deal with local workforces.

In the past 2-3 years, Taiwan-based telecom firms have been seeking business opportunities in the growing wireless hotspot and broadband network market in China. However, only a small number of Taiwan-based firms have entered the market and succeed.China's Internet and telecom market has a lot of business opportunities, but gross margins are generally low.Taiwan-based Z-Com reported a gross margin of 26%m but the firm's China-based subsidiary Nanjing Z-Com Wireless reported a gross margin higher than the consolidated gross margin reported by the parent company.China-based wireless device provider TP-Link stated that the firm's average gross margin has been above 30% with profit ratio above 10%. Compared with China-based firms, Taiwan-based telecom equipment firms have relatively low profit ratios.Taiwan-based telecom equipment firms are not the only firms that are facing challenges in the China market as China-based firms have a combined market share above 60%.Z-Com was one of the first Taiwan-based firms to invest into the development of WLAN products for the consumer market. However, the firm decided to exit the consumer WLAN equipment market in 2005. The firm shifted focus to WLAN equipment for niche industries and entered the China market in 2005.The success of Z-Com in China is based on its Nanjing subsidiary. In China, only a few people know Z-Com but most know Nanjing Z-Com Wireless.Z-Com stated that China-based telecom firms can have opinions on the standard of wireless hotspot equipment during procurement, hence Nanjing Z-Com Wireless has been establishing strong relationships with local telecom carriers. In addition to superior technology and business development, the firm has been supported by local governments through tax benefits and this is the reason for the relatively high profits, said Z-Com.Z-Com stated that expanding capacity may be able to help the firm obtain a larger market share, but the firm needs to consider various business models and cooperation with the local ecosystem before expanding capacity.Localization is the key for firms developing the international market, and despite that fact that Taiwan-based firms have been aggressive in achieving localization in the China market, firms have been facing increasing competition. Localization has become a necessity but does not guarantee success.

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.