Shuttle, the global leader in small form factor computer technology, today announced the latest addition to its global distributor network as Mstar is named as its new distribution partner for Vietnam.Headquartered in Ho Chi Minh City, Vietnam and founded by young and enthusiastic people, Mstar aims at sharing truly professional experience for technology to Vietnamese customers through many well-known brands. Shuttle is the latest strategic partner of a map of their distribution landscape."Shuttle is delighted to announce our collaboration with Mstar. The addition of Mstar in our global distributor network allows us to focus even more on the growth market that Vietnam is. They will enable us to effectively serve the Vietnamese market and meet the higher demand for professional PCs in this area," said Andy Cheng, Sales VP of Application PC Business Unit of Shuttle. "Together, we are joining forces to push Mini-PC solutions that enable compelling business benefits for different types of customers.""Mstar is honored to be the official distributor of Shuttle in Vietnam. With 10 years of experience in providing IT equipment and solutions to enterprises, Mstar believes that this cooperation will open a new line for the Vietnam's tech market in general and PCs segment in particular," said Mr. Pham Duc Long, Co-founder of Mstar. "The 24/7 sales and technical support allows us to meet our customers' needs. In addition, as the official distribution partner of Shuttle in Vietnam, Mstar will certainly have optimal policies for dealers in the future."This formal announcement of partnership has been released on the seminar event hosted by Mstar in Vietnam, which showcased Shuttle's latest PC solutions with end-to-end service support in vertical markets. Meanwhile, the debut of the showcase offered a first look at Shuttle's next generation technologies.By constantly working towards the trend-driven IT innovation, Shuttle has product solutions available to meet the requirements of specific needs.Shuttle partnered with Mstar for the Vietnam marketPhoto: Company

The manufacture of LCD and related display devices is widely expected to experience dramatic expansion in the near future. Global production of flat panel displays is conservatively forecast to treble or more by the end of the decade.According to Chia-Wei Yang, Market Development Manager for ADLINK's Automation Business Center, adoption of biaxial synchronous gantry control can, however, address the problem, resolving the difficulty presented by uneven forces at the ends of the beam and eliminate the exceedingly large resulting error (> 10um), thereby supporting the requisite level of machine precision.A leading supplier of visual inspection machines recognized the need for implementation of new-generation motion control. After researching available solutions, EtherCAT presented itself as the most effective means of securing necessary levels of synchronous control. Benefits included reduced noise interference and raised production output with superior bandwidth while slashing costs in a variety of areas, such as simplifying cabling. Additionally, full upgrade to the new system was expected to be surprisingly brief.The display provider, in migrating from single gantry control to synchronous three-gantry operation, was able to take full advantage of synchronous control commands' latency of less than 1ms, which significantly boosted production efficiency and reduced deployment costs greatly. A comparatively short turnaround switching to the new system further added to the benefits accrued, altogether presenting an effective example of solution success.Time and effort are, of course, required to effect the system upgrade, largely since the control program developed for the original architecture has to be scrapped and a new program created. In this case, fortunately, the provider's existing architecture control was based on ADLINK's MNET motion control cards and APS Function Library, comprising programs that are efficiently reusable. When the decision was made to switch to ADLINK's PCIe-8338 EtherCAT-based Motion Control Card, a complete program overhaul was not required, cutting the upgrade process down to a mere four weeks.EtherCAT is able to boost production efficiency not only via the PCIe-8338's support for synchronous control of three gantries, but also a decentralized control design. In the case of legacy serial communication architectures such as MNET, a communication card has to work with an intermediary control module to control servo motors. Each control module can connect with four motors and control only the synchronous movement of the four motors. If a control module A controls motors 1 through 4 and a module B controls motors 5 through 8, motors 1 and 7 cannot form a gantry, since cross-module control is not supported.EtherCAT eliminates this impediment, since no intermediary control module is required between master and slave. Any two of the eight motors, regardless of position, can form a gantry and synchronous motion of up to three sets (6 axes) is fully enabled.By eliminating the control module and enabling 6-axis synchronous motion, the EtherCAT solution frees users from layout and mechanical limitations when developing control programs. Arbitrary selection and adjustment of targets for synchronous motion are fully supported, enabling advancement from sequential to continuous production and better ensuring uninterrupted flow from one station to the next. The provider in this case was, accordingly, able to achieve a 20% boost in production efficiency and an impressive 15%-30% cost reduction.The EtherCAT control layer is designed with a simplified structure, thereby eliminating module costs. Furthermore, ADLINK's EtherCAT master always supports a wide range of slave devices. Users can freely choose from a variety of motors without being tied to specific brands, dramatically reducing costs while boosting production.ADLINK's EtherCAT master always supports a wide range of slave devices. Users can freely choose from a variety of motors without being tied to specific brands, dramatically reducing costs while boosting production

Gigabyte Technology has shipped its first XMP supported DRAM, the Aorus RGB memory, with DDR4 XMP 3200 16GB (8GB x 2�^memory modules and two RGB infused demo modules. Gigabyte RGB Fusion or RGB Fusion Link software allows users to control over five new lighting effects available only for DDR.Gigabyte introduced its Aorus RGB Memory at Computex 2018. Aorus RGB memory modules feature aluminum heatsinks with anodized hairline surface. A standout feature of Aorus RGB Memory is the addition of two brand exclusive RGB infused demo modules for pure RGB illumination and lighting effects. This feature makes it unnecessary for the user to purchase a completely different set of memory modules with RGB functionality to fill out the DIMM slots of the memory configuration, according to the vendor. Gigabyte Aorus RGB memory supports a multitude of RGB lighting effects with a light diffuser on the heatsink. All new light models and effects provides the user with plenty of customizability and RGB lighting displays to configure. For software, RGB Fusion allows users to customize and sychronize lighting effects while RGB Fusion Link allows users with third-party boards to do so as well.In terms of hardware specifications, Aorus RGB memory enters the market with 16GB (8GB x 2) DDR4 3200MHz specifications. For current high-end PC systems, lower frequency memory setups do not take full advantage of the performance these systems are capable of while higher frequency setups can be quite cost heavy for many users. Aorus RGB memory offers a balance between performance and price to fulfill the potential of these high-end PC systems, Gigabyte said.

Each year at Semicon West, the Best of West awards are presented by Solid State Technology and SEMI. More than 26,000 professionals from the electronics manufacturing supply chain attend Semicon West and the co-located Intersolar. The Best of West award was established to recognize new products moving the industry forward with technological developments in the electronics supply chain.Selected from over 600 exhibitors, SEMI announced today that the following Best of West 2018 Finalists will be displaying their products on the show floor at Moscone Center from July 10-12.Advantest: T5503HS2 Memory Tester - The T5503HS2 memory tester is the industry's most productive test solution for the fastest memory devices available today as well as next-generation, super-high-speed DRAMs. The new system's flexibility extends the capabilities of the T5503 product family in the current "super cycle," in which global demand for memories is skyrocketing. (North Hall Booth #5868)BISTel: Dynamic Fault Detection (DFD) - The DFD system offers full trace data coverage and eliminating the need for timely and costly modeling and set up. DFD is also a bridge to smart factory manufacturing because it integrates seamlessly to legacy FDC systems meaning customers can access the most comprehensive, and accurate fault detection system on the market. (South Hall Booth 1811)Rudolph Technologies: Dragonfly System with Truebump Technology - Rudolph's Dragonfly System with Truebump Technology was designed to provide a complete solution for "total bump process control." Using a unique approach, Truebump Technology combines 2D inspection and measurement information from image-based techniques with 3D data from separate high-precision and high-throughput laser-based techniques to deliver accurate and complete characterization at production-capable throughputs. (North Hall Booth #6170)The Best of West Award winner will be announced during Semicon West on July 11, 2018.

Mellanox Technologies, a supplier of end-to-end interconnect solutions for data center servers and storage systems, has announced that Sime Darby Motors has selected its end-to-end Ethernet solutions to upgrade and future-proof their data center infrastructure. Sime Darby Motors is the automotive arm of Sime Darby Berhad - a leading Malaysia-based conglomerate involved in the retail, distribution and assembly businesses.With expanding sites and services in multiple countries across the Asia Pacific region, Sime Darby Motors realized that their legacy IT infrastructure could not scale to handle the increasingly large volume of data running through their business-critical systems. To meet these needs, Mellanox provided Sime Darby Motors a high performance scalable network solution, combined with Pure Storage's all-flash array storage solution. As a result, Sime Darby's new infrastructure is now future-proofed to meet the bandwidth and storage intensive requirements of their high data workloads, mitigating network bottlenecks and improving overall storage connectivity performance."We are very happy to be working with Mellanox and Pure Storage," said Loo Chuan Wei, senior manager of IT at Sime Darby Motors. "The combined solution has made it possible for our users, wherever they are, to access our business applications faster than ever."The Mellanox end-to-end Ethernet solution comprises Mellanox Spectrum Ethernet switches running Cumulus Linux, which offer a true non-blocking and lossless switching fabric for the performance-intensive and latency-sensitive applications; ConnectX adapters, and LinkX cables and transceivers. Pure Storage's FlashArray products provide all-flash performance to accelerate demanding user applications, efficient data reduction to consolidate and save data center space and non-disruptive expansion capabilities to accommodate the online deployment of flexible storage capacity – either online or outside the base chassis. The combined solution turns Sime Darby Motors' data-center infrastructure into a renewed network and storage platform, offering a fast and simplified storage system that boosts network capacity and speeds while also paving the road for Sime Darby Motors' data center to use artificial intelligence for improving new customer services and experiences."Our experience has given us confidence that this solution meets our current and future compute and storage needs of a well-staffed Auto City - particularly with the integration of innovative AI capabilities to enhance the customer experience," added Loo."We are pleased to support Sime Darby Motors' strategic network infrastructure and data center needs with our ESF (Ethernet Storage Fabric) technology," commented Gilad Shainer, vice president, marketing at Mellanox Technologies. "The Pure Storage solutions with Mellanox SN2100 Ethernet switches provides a highly available fabric in half of the space, enhanced performance and best in class monitoring and provisioning. Furthermore, Mellanox Ethernet solutions enable new generation data centers to maximize their return on investment by delivering software flexibility with Open Ethernet, robustness, and zero packet loss.""Today's data centers face a lot of demands from performance intensive business critical applications such as SAP which process tremendous volumes of data at very high speeds. Pure's all-flash storage solutions provide forward thinking companies like Sime Darby with the foundation to build a future-proofed network and compute infrastructure that optimizes SAP solutions while paving the way to AI and IoT (Internet of Things). We are pleased to have been able to work with Mellanox to support Sime Darby in their digital transformation," said David Wirt, vice president, ASEAN and Greater China, Pure Storage.For more information about Mellanox, visit: www.mellanox.com.

United Microelectronics Corporation (UMC), a leading global semiconductor foundry, today announced that the Fuzhou Intermediate People's Court of the People's Republic of China (PRC) today issued a preliminary injunction against Micron Semiconductor (Xi'an) Co, Ltd and Micron Semiconductor (Shanghai) Co, Ltd enjoining Micron from offering to sell, and selling in the PRC 26 DRAM and NAND-related items, including certain solid-state hard drives (SSD) and memory sticks in China.Jason Wang, co-president of UMC, stated, "UMC is pleased with today's decision. UMC invests heavily in its intellectual property and aggressively pursues any company that infringes UMC's patents."UMC filed patent infringement lawsuits against Micron with the mainland China courts in January, 2018, covering three areas, including specific memory applications related to DDR4, SSD and memory used in graphics cards. With today's ruling, Micron's products now face injunction for violating UMC's patent rights in a court verdict that applies to all of mainland China.UMC has devoted a great deal of resources and manpower to researching and developing semiconductor manufacturing technology. Its achievements can be applied to logic chips or memory chips (DRAM), and the company has been awarded patents by various countries. UMC continuously monitors these patents as market conditions evolve. When violations occur, UMC stands ready pursue patent infringement litigation in order to obtain judgment and remedies to protect the intellectual property rights of the company.UMC can be found on the web at http://www.umc.com.

Fueled by flourishing growth of applications in automotive electronics, high-performance computing, power supply and green energy, Taiwan's No. 1 aluminum electrolytic capacitor manufacturer Lelon Electronics has recently posted its consolidated revenue for May 2018 of NT$720 million (US$24.2 million), up 22.1% on year, the highest single-month revenue in the company's history. Consolidated revenue for the first five months of 2018 came to NT$3.276 billion (US$111.2 million), up 21.6% on year.Prices of aluminum electrolytic capacitors have been adjusted upward in correspondence to rising aluminum foil costs and the new prices will gradually take effect. With applications in high-end markets ramping up and additional polymer capacitor production capacity coming online by year-end 2018, Lelon can expect further revenue growth for the year.Having made great achievements in the automotive electronics market, Lelon has developed aluminum electrolytic capacitors specifically for 48V power conversion systems of mild hybrid electric vehicles and expects to begin shipment in the second half of the year. With growing awareness on road safety and environmental protection, cars will be equipped with more and more electronic control modules in the future, which will give rise to increasing use of aluminum electrolytic capacitors.With respect to polymer capacitors, their high stability, long life and ability to charge and discharge rapidly make them suitable for use in servers, high-performance computing and network communication equipment. Lelon's new production line of polymer capacitors at its Huizhou plant in China is planned to begin operation in fourth-quarter 2018, and helping the company embrace opportunities arising from accelerated 5G and IoT developments.As China has tightened environmental protection law enforcement, many small- and medium-size aluminum foil producers had no choice but to cut down or even shut down production. This resulted in an upstream supply shortage leading to rising aluminum foil costs. The plants of Lelon's subsidiary Liton Technology, a formed aluminum foil producer, in Huizhou and Sichuan both comply with China's environmental protection laws and therefore will fuel the company's growth momentum for the year as aluminum foil remains in tight supply and new production capacity joins in.Going forward, Lelon will continue to gear efforts toward high-end and value-added products with a focus on strengthening R&D and broadening product portfolio of SMD aluminum electrolytic capacitors and polymer capacitors. Lelon has a complete range of aluminum electrolytic capacitors as well as advantages in vertical integrations across industries and flexible manufacturing capability. These give the company a leading edge in a highly competitive marketplace where Lelon will be able to show its robust strength and sustain steady growth.Lelon's products

Socionext, a vendor of SoC technology for video and imaging systems, has developed a prototype implementation of video encoder functionalities of the latest video compression format AV1 onto Amazon Elastic Compute Cloud (Amazon EC2) F1 Instance.Utilizing F1, Socionext said it was able to complete the development and achieved high performance in just one and a half months. Based on this result, Socionext will explore the possibility of new, service-oriented products that allow customers to use functions of semiconductor devices through cloud services, and to provide users with other accelerators built on the cloud to boost the productivity of large-scale, high performance cloud-based applications.Socionext is a solution provider for a wide range of video processing applications, featuring the advanced codec MB86M30 and the hybrid codec module M820 series in which the "M30" is integrated. AV1 is a new, advanced video data compression standard established by the Alliance for Open Media, a consortium that includes Socionext.AV1 is capable of compressing data about 30% more effectively than HEVC, while keeping the same image quality, said the company. The first official specification of AV1 was released in March, and many hardware and software companies are developing the implementation. It is expected that the introduction of this new format will further promote the distribution of high-definition, high-quality video contents such as 4K.Socionext has chosen Amazon EC2 F1 Instance as the environment in which it built a dedicated encoding accelerator onto an FPGA, available over the cloud with the Instance. It is the first prototype of a hardware-based implementation of an AV1 encoder system. Socionext said it runs 10x faster than existing encoders running on a CPU only.

U-Reach's USB 3.1 high speed duplicator and quality inspection machine adopts a unique system that does not require a computer and can overcome the speed limit of USB 2.0. The peak transmission speed can be as high as 16GB per minute (the actual speed will be limited by the specification of the USB and the transmission mode). Actual test on the duplication of 1TB USB- HDD shows that it need only 2.5 hours. The efficiency is eight times higher and it significantly reduces duplication time.Besides the strict H5 Read/Write speed Inspection, U-Reach's USB 3.1 high speed duplicator and quality inspection machine can stop the USB that does not meet the specification. It also supports H2 test and the user can verify the test result on the computer for its accuracy.U-Reach released the new higher speed duplicator

The USB Implementers Forum (USB-IF) is a non-profit industry group and support organization for the advancement and adoption of Universal Serial Bus technology as defined in the USB specifications. There are currently more than 1,000 member companies worldwide. This year, USB-IF and its members showcased new USB capabilities and products within a community on the 4th floor of Nangang Exhibition Center at Computex Taipei 2018. This is the eighth consecutive year USB-IF attended the show to highlight its latest technical developments and progress. In this interview, we got the opportunity to talk to Jeff Ravencraft, USB-IF's president and chief operation officer about the newest USB-IF developments.First of all, the USB 3.2 specification was finalized and announced in September 2017. This latest standard maximizes the potential of existing cables by enabling the development of hosts and devices to support two lanes of SuperSpeed USB or two lanes of SuperSpeed USB 10 Gbps, for a maximum performance of 20 Gbps.Meanwhile, USB Power Delivery (USB PD) adoption continues, expanding the USB ecosystem. USB PD fulfills the charging requirements for PCs, tablets and other mobile devices along with data over a single cable.Ravencraft said optimistically the three key elements of USB - SuperSpeed USB 20 Gbps data transmission rate, USB charging, and single-cable ease of use with USB Type-C(TW) - are making USB the best physical wiring interface for electronics. The silicon IP vendors, chip makers, testing certification laboratories and equipment suppliers are working together to provide the solutions for optimizing business and to further accelerate the adoption of USB technologies.USB-IF new certified logos for less confusionAccording to an IHS report published in December 2017, USB Type-C is forecast to dominate mobile devices, PCs and other consumer electronics, plus the automotive market, with an estimated five billion devices by 2021. Ravencraft highlighted that with USB charging capabilities up to 100W and data transmission up to 20 Gbps, USB is more complex than ever. Given the complexity, power and performance capabilities of these specifications, it is important for manufacturers to devote the necessary resources to build compliant products and submit them for testing by the USB-IF Compliance Program to achieve USB-IF certification.The current logo system includes original USB, SuperSpeed USB, SuperSpeed USB 10Gbps and USB charging certified logos for devices, cables or chargers. Once a product successfully achieves USB-IF certification, the company can a sign logo license agreement and then use the certified logos for identifying the performance and charging capabilities supported.USB Authentication helps protect devicesCertified USB logos display functional features on devices, cables and chargers to indicate that these products are certified by the USB-IF. But there remains yet another potential hazard for example, if consumers use faulty products such as chargers or cables, they are putting their devices at risk. For these reasons, the USB-IF has established USB Authentication, which is an optional security protocol. USB Authentication is a way for hosts, like laptops and desktops, to authenticate devices that are connected to it and thereby protect against faulty chargers, cables and other devices before equipment is damaged.During the USB Authentication process, the host has the ability to verify many parameters of any given product, including whether the device has been certified by the USB-IF. A host will likely implement a policy on how to manage products based upon what it can authenticate for the device. For example, security professionals have long warned of the potential for unknown USB drives to infect a PC with malware. If implemented, this feature would address a persistent weak spot in enterprise security, stemming from the willingness of people to stick any USB drive they find into their machines. Another use case for smartphone owners, at an airport for example, is the ability to set a policy that restricts the phone to charging only from USB-IF certified charging solutions.Continuous momentum to promote USB Type-C across all electronicsThe USB PD controller chip makers announced more semiconductor solutions to support the secured mechanism for connection between PCs, smartphone, peripherals, home robotics and other electronics that charge over USB. The USB PD 3.0 standard has supported power ratings from 7.5W to 100W, and the bus voltage from 5V up to 20V maximum to increase the flexibility of design. A single USB Type-C cable could provide the service for all of them.On the other hand, leveraging the ability of USB Type-C standard, DIGITAL EUROPE recently announced a "Memorandum of Understanding (MoU)" on the future common charging solution for electronics, as it reaffirms the industry's firm commitment to provide unified charging solutions by building on the success of the first MoU from June 2009. This MoU is helping USB Type-C become more and more prominent in the marketplace and will most likely make it the mainstream charging solution in the years to come, gradually replacing existing interfaces in a broad range of electronic devices.USB Type-C boosting automotive applicationsWith more benefits from new USB standards, the transition to USB Type-C is well underway across industries. The automotive market is one key example of this adoption and major chip makers are providing solutions tailored to the needs of the automotive applications. In addition to ADAS, USB is also a key interface for Infotainment SoC. The infotainment SoC needs to support connections to a selection of input and outputs such as the navigation system and user capabilities.The use of the USB Type-C standard in automotive applications is expected to increase, as it's simply the most robust and ubiquitous interface that provides designers and end users with the greatest flexibility for use and expansion. As Level 3 autonomous cars are launched in the second half of 2018 and the coming years, these new self-driving cars are able to take complete control and allow drivers and passengers to carry out other tasks like playing video games or reading a book. The driverless car is a great case study for every industry facing disruption. Many use cases are under estimation and study. But there are needs for exchanging data or fast charging mobile devices in cars. This will help USB Type-C standard to be used in the cars of the future.The Certified USB Charger Logo & Compliance Program from USB-IF supports the evolving device and computing markets as more products adopt USB Type-C and USB Charging.IHS predicts nearly 5 billion devices will utilize USB Type-C by 2021.USB Implementers Forum (USB-IF) President and COO Jeff Ravencraft.