During a February 14 Mobile World Congress (MWC) press event, ST-Ericsson CEO Gilles Delfassy indicated that Internet devices will increase to 50 billion units. This means that in addition to existing Internet devices, there will be more devices capable of Internet connectivity, realizing machine-to-machine (M2M). Besides ST-Ericsson, many telecommunication equipment providers and communication hardware makers also showcased their M2M solutions at MWC. Though M2M is still nowhere near vast commercialization, with support from hardware players, the technology has strong potential.Due to their longer development history, near field communication (NFC) and mobile payment will be the most promising M2M applications in the near term. Nokia, in the second half of 2010 announced that all its smartphones will have built-in NFC functionality. Since then, Samsung Electronics and other vendors have unveiled NFC models at MWC 2011, which is great news for the development in payment and security applications. The rise in NFC has also attracted more software developers and cash flow platform companies to the mobile payment segment.

Samsung Mobile Display (SMD) is a joint venture between Samsung Electronics and Samsung SDI. It was the main reason why Samsung's LCD business was able to remain profitable in the fourth quarter of 2010.AMOLED technology is superior to TFT LCD in picture quality and flexibility to design thinner and lighter products, which will be critical in future developments of 3D applications and flexible displays. AMOLED is widely considered to be the most promising technology in the post-TFT LCD era. South Korea-based companies will invest heavily in AMOLED production lines in 2011-2014. The two main manufacturers will combine for US$17 billion in related investments, and Taiwanese makers should dedicate more resources on this area.In addition to the first phase of its 5.5G capacity going on line in 2011, Samsung is expected to complete phase 2 and 3 of expansion in 2012 and 2013, bringing new capacity to about 8.3 times larger than that of its 4.5G lines. It is clear that Samsung's AMOLED plan has extended from handset applications to tablet PC, and likely provide new opportunities and challenge for Taiwan's panel industry.

Taipei, Taiwan, February 9, 2011 - China will soon formally kick off its 12th Five Year Plan (2011-2015), and while in the past China placed heavy emphasis on becoming a rich and strong nation, the emphasis has now shifted to how the government can help its people become rich as well, according to a new DIGITIMES Special Report titled "Overview of China's 12th Five Year Plan." Five year plans are essentially China's economic development roadmap and are intended to set goals and chart a course for the long-term development of the nation's economy. However, the government will downplay the role of GDP growth targets in the 12th Five Year Plan, and sets its sights mainly on adjustments to the country's economic structure, including changes in the structure of supply, demand and production, in order to increase the pace of income growth for residents and usher China into a more comfortably well off society, with per capita GDP set to exceed US$5,000. To achieve this goal, China has identified seven key strategic industries that together will be allocated a budget of CNY10 trillion (US$1.52 trillion) over the next five years for investment. The DIGITIMES Special Report explains how China aims to have local enterprises leverage the enormous domestic market to increase their global strength and competitiveness in these key emerging industries – namely Energy Savings and Environmental Protection, Next-generation IT, Biotechnology, High-end Assembly and Manufacturing (e.g. aerospace), New Energy Sources, New Materials, and Alternative Energy powered Automobiles. The report also highlights how China is no longer satisfied with its past role of being a technological follower. It is banking on its huge domestic market to allow it to have a say in the making of standards and business models for a number of these emerging sectors during the early stages of development. In the future, China will also look to leapfrog global technology development and look to gain control of standards and technologies in the areas of IT and communications, as well as new energy applications. Source: China State Council, compiled by Digitimes Research, January 2011 More information about the report About DIGITIMES Research DIGITIMES Research is the research arm of DIGITIMES Inc., Taiwan's leading high-tech media outlet. Operating as an independent business unit, DIGITIMES Research focuses on monitoring key high-tech industries, while also guiding clients toward suitable new business as well. Market intelligence and analysis is provided to more than 1000 corporate customers worldwide. Research and consulting services cover a full range of industries, including information and communications technology (ICT), flat panel display (FPD), renewable energy and semiconductor design and manufacturing. Contacts: Michael McManus (Michael.mcmanus@digitimes.com)Sylvia Wu (Sylvia.wu@digitmes.com)

Wireless HDTV semiconductor solutions provider Amimon has announced an enormous increase in demand for its WHDI (wireless home digital interface) technology. Consumer electronics manufacturers Asustek, BOE, Changhong, Galaxy, Haier, Hisense, Malata, Panda Group, TCL, Winstar and 35.com, as well as multiple accessory manufacturers (among others) have rolled out new WHDI products using Amimon's WHDI chipsets, such as wireless HDTVs with embedded WHDI, PC-to-TV adapters, tablets with WHDI embedded and WHDI-based sleeves for mobile phones.With this announcement, Amimon revealed that four out of five of the largest Chinese TV companies are now developing products with its WHDI technology. Several of these products are already on the market with numerous more to begin shipping in the first part of 2011.As WHDI applications expand, a large number of the leading device manufacturers are already offering WHDI based modules and products, including leading companies such as Askey, Cameo, Foxconn, Gemtek, Gospel, LG Innotek, LiteOn, QMI and Zinwell. With this ecosystem of multiple ODM's and OEM's, WHDI is ready for mass adoption during 2011, Amimon believes.WHDI enables consumers to wirelessly connect all of the devices in the home to their HDTV's to access all of their video and interactive content, including Internet content. Consumers can now purchase games, HD videos and other content for their PC, tablet or mobile phone and instantly bring it to the TV. With WHDI-compliant devices, consumers just need to look for the WHDI logo to ensure that all of their devices will be able to work together.WHDI reliably delivers full HD image quality and 3D content. Also, WHDI's low latency enables consumers to wirelessly connect and play PC and portable-device games on HDTVs. WHDI's low power consumption and small footprint make it ideal for portable, battery-powered devices."The extensive development of new WHDI source devices and HDTVS shows the growing momentum of the WHDI ecosystem – where all products can interconnect," said Leslie Chard, president of WHDI LLC. "The variety of products demonstrates WHDI's robust capabilities and key differentiator: WHDI is the only technology that delivers wireless HDTV connectivity in all use-cases."WHDI is the dominant wireless video standard in the market, Amimon claimed. An industry report from West Technology Research Solutions (WTRS) stated that WHDI technology will grow from nearly 70% of the 2010 market share for wireless video products to over 75% of the 2015 market. This extensive commitment from these manufacturers reinforces this market forecast for Amimon's WHDI technology.Amimon's wireless technology is the basis of the WHDI standard, which delivers the highest image quality for in-room and multi-room HD wireless connections including uncompressed 1080p/60Hz HD video. WHDI utilizes a 40MHz channel in the 5GHz unlicensed band, and includes support for all 3D formats required by the HDMI 1.4a specification and range of over 100 feet (30 meters) through obstacles and walls. WHDI also supports HDCP revision 2.0, providing superior security and digital content protection, and full compatibility with HDMI.

Instead of building a fourth 12-inch (300mm) fab, Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Company (TSMC) might prefer to have its first 18-inch (450mm) production fab to be called "Fab 16" equipped for 20nm and below processes, according to Nobunaga Chai, analyst for semiconductor sat Digitimes Research. However, it all depends on whether fab tool suppliers are willing to devote their resources to supporting a limited number of players who can afford the costly investment necessary to build the next-generation facilities, said Chai.The market has to be big enough to encourage them to produce equipment for 18-inch facilities, and ultimately begin shipping in volume, Chai continued. If Intel and Samsung Electronics make their 18-inch fab plans more practical, TSMC might have a chance to receive full support from its tool providers.Around mid-2008, before the credit crunch, TSMC along with Intel and Samsung announced they had reached an agreement on the need for industry-wide collaboration to target a transition to larger, 450mm-sized wafers starting in 2012. Some believe that the target to begin the transition may have revised to a later year.At an annual supply chain management forum held earlier in December, TSMC's presentation materials mentioned that construction on a new 12-inch fab called Fab 16 is scheduled to kick off in 2014. But the foundry has not yet announced plans for Fab 16.A recent EETimes report quoted an executive at Intel as saying that the chip giant is building a new fab that will be 450mm compatible but could also support 300mm tools. To be known as D1X, the fab is slated for R&D startup in 2013.TSMC now runs two 12-inch fabs, Fab 12 and Fab 14, where the foundry continues to expand advanced process capacity. Fab 15, which is under construction at the Central Taiwan Science Park (CTSP), will commence volume production in the first quarter of 2012.

With T-Mobile's launch of Femtocell services targeting enterprises in Britain, Femtocell is now not only a service for the consumer and household market. Along with the expansion of its market, Femtocell is also seeing changes in its supply chain.A year after joining the Femto Forum, Broadcom, through the acquisition of chipmaker Percello, has entered the Femto AP (access point) chip market to compete with Qualcomm, Texas Instruments (TI) and others. The presence of these major chipmakers in the market means that although the present market size is only about one million units, significant growth can be expected in the near future.More telecom carriers are also entering the Femtocell market. In the third quarter of 2010, Japan's KDDI, Greece's Vodafone, Britain's T-Mobile and Spain's Movistar kicked off their Femtocell services. T-Mobile's move into the enterprise segment shows that telecoms now see Femtocell not only as a tool for improving signal reception for ordinary users, but also as an opportunity similar to that of RIM's Blackberry for increasing market shares through segmentation. The cumulative number of newcomers who had expressed interest in constructing Femtocell networks increased to 22 in the third quarter of 2010, six more than the previous quarter. The growing number of Femtocell players means a market with great potential and the likeliness of a fast rise in the number of users. In addition, the Femto Forum saw its membership grow to 56 telecoms in the third quarter of 2010, covering 1.55 billion users, or 33% of the global mobile phone user base, up from the previous 1.44 billion. Of the 15 seats on the Femto Forum's board of directors, four are occupied by telecom carriers - AT&T, Comcast, Softbank and Vodafone. These figures attest to telecoms' increasing interest in Femtocell. The monthly rates of recently launched Femtocell services are slightly lower than those in the past, and the prices of Femto APs have also been decreasing due to lower hardware and chip prices. But the number of simultaneous users allowed on a single Femto AP remains at four - the same as that when the service was first launched in 2007 - although the latest chips already support eight or even 16 users. In the past, the number was restricted by hardware support, but now it is because telecoms have yet to find a proper service model.Apart from the service rates and prices, there are some other issues that will play crucial roles in the development of Femtocell. The market needs to see whether telecoms will continue to expand their Femtocell services and extend the penetration of Femtocell APs. The big three telecoms in the US have been running Fetomcell services since 2007 and the number of Femtocell APs in the US reached more than 350,000 as of October 2010, surpassing the total number of large-scale base stations (both macro and micro, totaling 256,000) in the country. The number of Femto APs is expected to top 500,000 in the first quarter of 2011. The vast number of Femtocell APs means that the service and penetration is growing fast. But telecoms will have to address the issue of interference between base stations and Femtocell APs as the number of the latter continues to expand.

The excitement sparked by Apple iPhone's touch screen has created much hype about projected capacitive touch technology. However, in terms of market share or applications, projected capacitive touch is not as popular as resistive touch. Therefore, despite projected capacitive touch's advantages, such as multiple-touch, gesture recognition, response time, sensitivity, durability and optical properties, it is necessary to rationally analyze what possible effects these features may have on the overall touch performance. Issues that need to be addressed are as follows:1. How to judge touch performance? Is there any criterion?2. What is the difference when projected capacitive touch is applied to panels of different sizes? The difference between small-size panels, (3.5" and 4.3"), medium-size (7", 8" and 10.1"), and large-sizes (12.1", 13.3", 15" and bigger).3. In order to minimize noise, how do we carry out system integration and integrate individual modules (PCB & wiring materials) with touch panels as a whole?4. Environmental factors. How to work around them?5. OthersFor system integrators, the above mentioned are closely linked to the viability, implementability and complexity of a touch technology, and of course these form a cost issue.This article will address certain challenges and problems that system integrators would be confronted with when designing/implementing projected capacitive touch. Overlooking them or leaving them unsolved may result in serious problems giving rise to poor touch performance or even malfunction.Articles regarding projected capacitive touch technology can be found in many magazines, newspapers, websites and documents from various touch panel makers/vendors. For consistency, this article will deal only with the working principle of projected capacitive touch. For more details about it, please refer to the various possible sources mentioned above or visit AMT's website at http://www.amtouch.com.tw/.Let's look at the illustrations below, which can be found on AMT's website | Projected Capacitive Touch Screen | Basic.Figure 1Figure 2Figure 1 shows the interleaving electrode patterns and the signal acquisition of an average projected capacitive touch panel. In short, the electrode layers respectively marked in red and blue and oriented orthogonally to each other will charge or discharge their own axes. And theoretically, the values of the capacitances are much close to each other when the touch panel is not touched. However, the yellow-marked parts in Figure 1 show that when the touch panel is touched by a finger or contacted with a conductive object, the capacitances will change, and the touched position can be located by measuring the capacitance change.There are several ways to trigger and measure the capacitance change of a projected capacitive touch panel such as by interleaving measurement based on the property of triggered signals. With capacitance measurement and consideration of panel structure, functions such as single-touch and multiple-touch can be realized, and Ghost Point can be eliminated. (Please see related published articles for details.)The inclusion of a projected capacitive touch screen into a system requires the following sub-systems:1. A projected capacitive touch panel2. Touch controller or control board, which is connected to the system and controls the touch panel.3. Firmware: A control software that is embedded inside the control board.4. Driver: The program that is installed on the system to interact with the firmware.System integrators should at least be aware of the following:1. Mechanical design, which underlies the firm installation of the touch panel, control board, and wiring.2. Touch kits placement inside the system, which should minimize the interferences from other internal devices.As the capacitance change that a human finger can trigger is merely a few pF (pico Farad), not only the measurement accuracy is important but also the treatment to those unfiltered signals plays a decisive role for the performance of a projected capacitive touch. Such treatment should include signal processing, noise immunity against interferences and the algorithm of control firmware. And as the differences between single-touch detection and multiple-touch detection have something to do with the algorithm of firmware, the system integrators have the following issues to consider:1. Basic touch performanceRegarding signal transmission, although the report rate decides the touch performance, the "quality" of signal transmission cannot be underestimated. For example, the touch performance would not be good enough even if the report rate is high.The touch performance concerns the percentage of the normal signals that are correctly read and analyzed through measuring the self-noise and a variety of noises spurred by the environment surroundings. Basic touch performance is the basis for calculating the "effective signals."To improve basic touch performance, what system integrators can do are:- Observe the signals when the panel is not touched, so as to analyze how a noise is interpreted as a signal.- Observe the signals triggered by the touches on specific touch positions for the same time length, so as to analyze how noise is triggered.- Take a straight line drawing test and curve line drawing test with the same speed rate, so as to analyze how noise is triggered and also the linearity.- Observe multiple-touch performance, touch-zone differences and inspect certain properties.In conclusion, before a touch panel can be integrated with the other parts of a system, the basic touch performance must be enhanced to certain standard.2. Size versus touch performanceBetween capacitance reading and algorithm, it is not proportional but forming a complex geometrical progression based on panel sizes, report rates and some other factors. Knowing this is very important because it will help system integrators with selecting and combining touch IC and adjusting firmware performance, and further defining the overall touch control performance. For bigger panel sizes, since the materials selection and wiring layout are more demanding, the system integration of bigger panel sizes is generally more difficult than that of smaller sizes. It is thus better to gradually include each subsystems into the system one by one and step by step while also seeking the assistance from testing instruments more often. As mentioned in the "basic touch performance" section, it would not be hard to find the solution if system integrators act cautiously.3. NoiseSystem integrators must be prepared for "debugging." A noise that does not make much impact on an ordinary digital circuit often causes a projected capacitive touch screen to false action when contacted by a human finger. Noise has always been the formidable enemy of projected capacitive touch.System integrators should first understand that the objects noise can possibly interfere cover the touch panel, touch controller, wiring material and so on. And for a projected capacitive touch system, there are quite many noise sources in the system to impact the touch panel. To overcome it, system integrators can first focus on the power supply, the wiring/circuiting and also on the surrounding low-frequency electromagnetic waves because resolving them will substantially smoothen the system integration. And of course the debugging varies from case to case. But remember not to damage the signals when eliminating noise since they are almost in the same scale and needs extra care.4. Definition of operation environmentIt is a very interesting question to ask if a projected capacitive touch screen can function well when having water on the surface. The answer is possibly yes, yet on conditions. As it has been resolved for a projected capacitive touch screen to work with water drops on the surface, system integrators need to know the operation environment for his product to make correct selection of touch technology. Generally speaking, the performance a projected capacitive touch product is subject to panel sizes, sensitivity, panel thickness, humidity, power supply and low-frequency electromagnetic waves.And of course the countermeasures differ from case to case.As it is beyond the reach of this article to fully reflect the actual situation of every matter concerned, system integrators would need to pay more attention and caution when seeking for appropriate solutions. This article aims to address the matters needing attention for projected capacitive touch system integrators. From this article, it is not hard to find that it in fact requires an overall product view to develop a projected capacitive touch system. And the key to fulfill this requirement is a professional touch panel manufacturer that specializes in touch total solution. Apex Material Technology Corporation has put in a lot of efforts in projected capacitive touch technology and is very experienced in providing touch total solution. At this moment when various projected capacitive touch applications emerge on market, AMT hopes this article can offer a few references that might be meaningful to system integrators. (AMT website: http://www.amtouch.com.tw/ )

Tokyo, Japan, November 11, 2010 – Tokyo Electron Limited (TEL) and Seiko Epson Corporation (Epson) announced the conclusion of a joint development agreement for organic light-emitting diode (OLED) display manufacturing technology.Processes for forming a uniform film of organic material on substrates are essential in the manufacture of OLED displays, and the technique currently in general use is vacuum thermal evaporation (VTE), which uses masks in a vacuum to form the film on the substrate. However, manufacturers must improve productivity and develop efficient manufacturing technologies, such as those incorporating next-generation inkjet methods for film formation, before volume production of OLED displays can become a reality.Epson established organic material uniform film forming technology using the inkjet method and possesses many technologies central to the manufacture of OLED displays. Epson has also accumulated expertise in industrial inkjet technologies including the development and sale of large-size application devices for LCD TV color filter coating applicators.TEL develops and sells products including etch/ash systems and coater/developers for state-of-the-art ultra-large substrates in its flat panel display (FPD) production equipment business. TEL also has service bases around the world to enable provision of a range of high-quality services.This joint development project will make use of the strengths of each company to integrate OLED display manufacturing technologies using Epson's inkjet method with TEL's production equipment technology. The two companies will undertake the joint development with the aim of creating next-generation OLED display manufacturing technologies as a total solution package.

Broadcom Corporation has introduced a customized, highly integrated and cost-efficient DOCSIS Ethernet over Coax (EoC) for Ethernet Passive Optical Network (EPON) solution in support of China's Next Generation Broadcast (NGB) initiative that will help to drive the convergence of telecommunications, Internet and cable television networks in China.With a portfolio of high performance DOCSIS 2.0 and 3.0 cable modem, coax media converter (CMC), EPON and set-top box (STB) technologies, Broadcom is playing a key role in enabling the convergence of voice, video and data services in China and will be demonstrating these industry-leading solutions at this week's International Coverage and Transmission (ICTC) Conference in Beijing, booth #203.China's State Council has designated accelerated triple network convergence as an important policy in 2010, and local scholars estimate that triple network convergence will induce investment and consumption of 700 billion yuan (about $103 billion), Broadcom cited Digitimes Research as indicating.To help advance China's network convergence, DOCSIS provides a standardized technology for triple play services over cable networks with interoperability and powerful quality of service (QoS) methods that ensure a high-quality TV, broadband and telephone experience.Before the introduction of Broadcom's DOCSIS EOC for EPON solution, DOCSIS was considered too expensive to deploy in China's multi-dwelling units (MDUs).However, leveraging already deployed and successful EPON technology in China, Broadcom has developed a highly integrated DOCSIS EoC for EPON solution that will allow Chinese cable operators to take advantage of the benefits of DOCSIS while providing an economical architecture for implementing triple play services to MDUs throughout the country.The Broadcom DOCSIS EoC for EPON solution is a family of products that includes CMC, DOCSIS 2.0 and 3.0 cable modem and STB system-on-a-chip (SoC) solutions. The solution's CMC transitions DOCSIS customer premises equipment (CPE) from the MDU coaxial network to the EPON fiber network. It features Broadcom's TurboQAM technology that supports downstream speeds up to 400 Mbps, which is a 25% improvement, and upstream speeds up to 160 Mbps, which is a 33% improvement over downstream and upstream speeds in support of the DOCSIS 3.0 standard.The solution also provides advanced ingress and impulse noise mitigation technologies for S-CDMA (synchronous code division multiple access) transmission mode. Broadcom's S-CDMA Ingress Noise Cancellation or SINC technology allows operators to maximize use of the reverse path bandwidth for DOCSIS EoC applications for delivering fast, reliable and interactive services.By leveraging EPON standards and customizing DOCSIS as a cable access solution, Broadcom's complete EoC for EPON chipset and software solutions specifically meets the low cost infrastructure requirements for deploying triple play services to MDUs in China.

Taipei, Taiwan, October 21, 2010 - LED production value is projected to reach US$8.25 billion in 2010, up 55.6% from a year ago on the rapid growth of the LED TV segment. LED TV shipments in 2010 are estimated to increase 10-fold on year from 2009 to 37.20 million units, according to a recent DIGITIMES Research Special Report titled "LED: TV and lighting overview."From 2011 to 2013, global LED production value will rise by at least 25% every year and surpass US$20 billion.By application, portable devices have been the mainstream in the high brightness LED market, accounting for 36% of the market in 2009. However, in 2010, due to a significant rise in LED TV demand, large-size LED backlight units (BLUs) will account for a 28% share, surpassing portable devices for the first time."Between 2011-2013, large-size LED BLUs will continue to represent the largest segment of the market, topping 41% in 2013," said Digitimes Research analyst Jessie Lin, who is author of the LED report. "In addition to the rise of LED TV applications, LED lighting will begin to replace conventional lighting technology in the market. LED lighting will grab more than 10% of the market starting in 2012 and quickly move up to 16% in 2013."However, while LED lighting's luminous efficiency is currently comparable to that of fluorescent lamps, LED lamps remain unpopular mainly because of their high costs. Obviously, high costs make it difficult to adopt LED lighting unless governments offer subsidies or consumers realize that total costs for LED lighting may not be higher if its power savings, longer service life, lower carbon emissions and other advantages are taken into consideration.The DIGITIMES Research Special Report provides an extensive overview of the high-brightness LED market, including a breakdown of the LED TV supply chain in Taiwan, Korea, Japan and China, an overview of government LED lighting policies by region, and a timeline for the transition to LEDs in the global lighting market.Source: Digitimes Research, October 2010For more information about the reportAbout DIGITIMES ResearchDIGITIMES Research is the research arm of DIGITIMES Inc., Taiwan's leading high-tech media outlet. Operating as an independent business unit, DIGITIMES Research focuses on monitoring key high-tech industries, while also guiding clients toward suitable new business as well. Market intelligence and analysis is provided to more than 1,000 corporate customers worldwide. Research and consulting services cover a full range of industries, including information and communications technology (ICT), flat panel display (FPD), renewable energy and semiconductor design and manufacturing.ContactsMichael McManus (Michael.mcmanus@digitimes.com) Sylvia Wu (Sylvia.wu@digitmes.com)