Leading semiconductor test equipment supplier Advantest Corporation will showcase three of its advanced test systems, have technologists in its booth to address leading-edge testing topics, and sponsor two major events at Semicon Taiwan 2018 on September 5-7 at the Taipei Nangang Exhibition Center."In our inaugural exhibit at Semicon Taiwan, we will present our latest test solutions for the Taiwanese market, including the debut of our new MPT3000 system for testing advanced solid-state drives," said Judy Davies, Advantest's vice president of global marketing communications. "Advantest has all of the products and technologies needed to help chip makers, foundries and OSATs (outsourced semiconductor assembly and test suppliers) meet their customers' needs."Product ExhibitsIn booth #K2682 in the Testing Pavilion, Advantest will display its MPT3000 platform for system-level testing of SATA, SAS, and PCIe solid-state drives (SSDs); its small-footprint M4171 handler, designed to boost the efficiency of product development labs while offering the capability of remote operation from anywhere around the globe; and its EVA100 measurement system for high-volume testing of digital, analog and mixed-signal ICs.In addition, the booth will feature kiosks staffed by company experts to answer questions covering all high-growth technology areas including power-supply solutions for charging, automotive and industrial applications; optimizing test-floor intelligence; and scalable testing for the Internet of Things (IoT), 5G communications, next-generation memories, display drivers and integrated power devices.Event SponsorshipsThis year, Advantest is a gold sponsor of the annual Smart Automotive Summit in the Grande Luxe Banquet Hall on September 4, the day before exhibits open. The day-long conference will feature technical and business presentations addressing automotive components and systems shaping the future of mobile connectivity and smart vehicles.Advantest also is a silver sponsor of the show's leadership gala dinner on September 5 at the Grand Hyatt Taipei.Social MediaKeep up to date on the very latest information from the leader in test equipment on Twitter @Advantest_ATE. More information about Advantest is available at www.advantest.com.

Sudden power failure or unstable electricity supply, even just for one minute, can result in damage to expensive production machinery. As such, uninterruptible power supplies (UPS) have become standard industrial equipment. In response to the need, Arbor, a leader in industrial PC (IPC) and industrial IoT (IIoT) solutions, has recently introduced SCP CUBE - a UPS system that uses supercapacitors and does a lot more than ensuring reliable power supply.Integrated with LoRa communication technology and sensors, SCP CUBE serves not only as a UPS but also as an IIoT sensor node. It can further wok with central gateways and cloud servers to form a total IIoT solution.Supercapacitors provide compelling safety featuresCompared to bulky battery-powered UPS that can supply electricity for hours, Arbor's supercapacitor-based UPS - SCP CUBE - provides backup power for three to five minutes. Its main purpose is to allow the system to have enough time for a standard shutdown so as to guard against damage to hardware and software of built-in equipment.UPS using supercapacitors have multiple advantages, including higher conversion efficiency and shorter charging time. Furthermore, conventional batteries are prone to failure in high or low temperature environments while supercapacitors can maintain normal operation under a wide temperature range (-20 degrees C to 70 degrees C), outperforming lead-acid batteries and lithium-ion batteries. Moreover, supercapacitors can last for unlimited charge-discharge cycles in theory and are essentially maintenance-free. These are all supercapacitors' advantages that conventional batteries cannot match."It should be noted that we cannot overlook the risk of battery explosion especially in operating environments where there may be oil and gas. Supercapacitors pose no safety risk so they don't need to get certified for air transport," said Lin Yang-cheng, associate manager, industry automation division, Arbor. As a matter of fact, an international chemical company based in Italy has chosen to use Arbor SCP CUBE mainly for its explosion-proof and safety features.Supercapacitors are environmentally friendly and safe and operate in a wide temperature range. Exploiting their inherent advantages, Arbor has designed SCP CUBE, which not only guarantees uninterruptible power supply but also enables customizable editing, data monitoring and data analysis. For example, customers can configure a shutdown timer based on the number of software programs running on their IPC.Total solution for IIoT deploymentArbor SCP CUBE further combines the company's internally-developed LoRa communication module, enabling it to collect data from sensor nodes deployed on production machinery, such as CPU load, temperature, current, voltage and power input, and send the data to the central gateway. This way, one central gateway can monitor data sent from hundreds of sensor nodes and respond to abnormality by initiating a system reset or other actions.Lin remarked, "For manufacturers looking to migrate to smart factories, SCP CUBE's innovative design truly enables the connection of everything. Manufacturers will be able to implement all-round IIoT monitoring and control with an extremely cost-effective approach." Furthermore, the gateway can forward the collected data to cloud servers via Wi-Fi/3G/4G network connection for more advanced data management and analysis. Arbor also provides internally-developed apps allowing users to stay on top of machinery conditions at all times and receive alert messages in the case of any abnormality on their smartphones through the cloud so that they can make timely responses. "Arbor is building up cloud servers and planning to offer customers machinery monitoring and data analysis services on a month-to-month subscription basis." In addition, as a modular standalone device, SCP CUBE is compatible with all types and brands of production machinery, enabling quick and easy IIoT deployment.According to industry sources, there are only two suppliers of supercapacitor-based UPS in the world - Arbor and a foreign firm. But, Arbor is the world's first and only supplier to introduce an all-in-one device combining a supercapacitor board, charging board, UPS, LoRa, sensors and user interface (UI). ‎SCP CUBE with NB-IoT technology will be next on Arbor's product roadmap.NB-IoT modules coming up to flexibly accommodate customer needsIn addition to long-range transmission, LoRa also achieves low-power, low-cost and bi-directional communication. Arbor thinks LoRa is a particularly suitable LPWAN technology for IIoT deployment so it began its LoRa product R&D two years ago. By providing communication modules, Arbor aims to eliminate network communication problems for manufacturers looking to incorporate IIoT platforms. Another IoT network communication technology that Arbor is actively working on is NB-IoT, which can also be integrated with SCP CUBE through a modular design to more flexibly accommodate customers' specific IIoT needs.SCP CUBE serves as a fundamental element in Arbor's IIoT roadmap. By introducing SCP CUBE, combining supercapacitor-based UPS, LoRa, sensors and edge computing and working in connection with central gateway and cloud server, Arbor helps customers deploy IIoT platforms at a faster pace and lower cost and thereby contributes to the advances of smart manufacturing and Industry 4.0.SCP Cube: The industry's first 2-in-1 supercapacitor power and environmental monitoring solution

Indium Corporation will feature its flip-chip flux WS-446HF and ball attach flux WS-823 at Semicon Taiwan 2018 from September 5-7.Indium Corporation's WS-446HF is a water-soluble, halogen-free flip-chip dipping flux with an activator system powerful enough to promote wetting on the most demanding surfaces; from solder-on-pad (SoP) to standard and embedded trace substrates (ETS) and flip-chip on leadframe applications. WS-446HF provides uniform dipping performance over extended periods of time. It also exhibits tackiness that is suitable for holding large die in place during assembly.WS-823 is a water-soluble, halogen-free ball-attach flux designed for use in pin transfer and printing applications for ball attachment to substrates (BGA manufacturing). WS-823 has an activator system powerful enough to promote wetting on the most demanding substrate metallizations, such as copper OSP. WS-823 is cleanable with just DI water only.From water-soluble and ultra-low/near-zero residue no-clean flip-chip fluxes to system-in-package (SiP) water-soluble and no-clean solder pastes, Indium Corporation has an industry-proven portfolio of products that meet the current and evolving challenges encountered in fine-pitch SiP and Heterogeneous Integration applications.For more information on Indium Corporation's materials for SiP, visit www.indium.com/SiP or visit Indium Corporation's booth J2240.Indium to feature WS-446HF flip-chip and WS-823 ball-attach fluxes at Semicon Taiwan

EZCast is attending IFA 2018 at Berlin ExpoCenter City during August 31 to September 5. Central to its exhibit, at Hall 25, 301a, is the latest portable mini projector designed specifically for screen mirroring smartphones, EZCast Beam J2. It is the first mini projector designed to support both plug and play as well as wireless screen mirroring for iPhones and Android phones.The mini projector comes with three packs of 3000mAh batteries to charge the smartphones, and can last through a 2-hour movie on a single charge. EZCast Beam J2 uses Texas Instruments' latest DLP technology to create the brightest mini projector in its class at 150 Lumens. EZCast Beam has never been showcased in Europe, and the company has designed a special Experience Zone for visitors to try out the projector in person.The Experience Zone offers IFA 2018 attendees hands-on training and exposure to products and engagement opportunities.

Indium Corporation will feature its Indium3.2HF solder paste at Semicon Taiwan 2018 from September 5-7.Indium Corporation's Indium3.2HF is a water-soluble, halogen-free, Pb-free solder paste. Indium3.2HF formulated with Indium Corporation's Type 6SG powder is ideal for fine feature printing applications.Indium3.2HF offers consistent, repeatable printing performance combined with a long stencil life. In addition, Indium3.2HF delivers:- Good response-to-pause- A wide reflow profile window- Outstanding slump resistance- Excellent wetting capability- Superior fine-pitch soldering abilityFrom water-soluble solder pastes to ultra-low residue, no-clean fluxes, Indium Corporation has an industry-proven portfolio of products that meet the current and evolving challenges encountered in fine-pitch SiP applications.For more information on Indium Corporation's materials for SiP or Indium3.2HF solder paste, visit www.indium.com/SiP or visit Indium Corporation's booth J2240.For more information about Indium Corporation, visit www.indium.com.Indium3.2HF solder paste

Digi-Key Electronics, a global electronic components distributor, continues to strengthen their offering of industrial automation (IA) components, enhancing design and project capabilities in countless IA applications. The company has added over 14,000 IA part numbers to their portfolio in categories such as sensors, cables, safety devices, control monitors, relays, timers, switches, lighting, and controllers, among others.Aside from the product lines from Digi-Key's traditional suppliers such as Omron, TE, Panasonic, Molex, and others, the company has added 15 new lines, including products from Altech, SICK, IDEC, Carlo Gavazzi, and Belden."Digi-Key aims to be the industry leader and single source for IA products and solutions for customers all over the world," said Eric Wendt, director, Strategic Program Development, Industrial Automation at Digi-Key. "Industrial automation is a vast industry that complements our current offering and plays a critical part in building automation, factories, Industry 4.0, and more. We want to partner with designers and purchasers in these application areas to help enable the innovation and functionality of their systems, processes, and machinery."Digi-Key also recently updated their industrial automation landing page, offering more graphical links and adds the ability to find related parts. The page is also more mobile-friendly, catering to users who need parts in the moment or on the go.For more information, please visit the Industrial Automation page on the Digi-Key website.

With its strong base in hardware platforms, Advantech has recently actively promoted the co-creation model to work with Solution Ready Package (SRP) software partners and system integrators to build a complete industrial IoT (IIoT) supply chain and accelerate the realization of related applications.For Advantech, Japan is a strategic market for IoT business, presenting considerable opportunities in both industrial and IoT markets as a result of the country's strong demand and advanced industries. As a result, Advantech announced in March this year that the company will invest around NT$300 million (US$9.8 million) in Nippon RAD, a Japanese system integrator, in order to acquire a 19% stake of the company. Through closer cooperation, the two companies plan on jointly expanding the Japanese IIoT market.Expanding the Market with a Unique Domain-Focused System Integrator ModelAccording to Tsuyomu Tsuchiyama, director of Strategic Planning at Nippon RAD, the company was founded in 1971 and has been listed for 19 years. As a long-established IT system integrator, Nippon RAD has accumulated rich experience in IT hardware/software integration and enterprise software development.Nippon RAD is an independent system integrator, which is in contrast to many Japanese system integrators that are affiliated with large groups such as NTT, Toyota, and Software Bank. The company has 300 employees, 80 of whom are engineers. Although it is a medium-sized system integrator, it is well positioned to meet the needs of customers with its sufficient resources and work flexibility. With the emergence of the Japan's IoT market, Nippon RAD recently established a new department to develop IoT platforms and expand into new markets, particularly the smart manufacturing sector.Nippon RAD has been working with Advantech only since the middle of last year, but within this short period, the two companies have cooperated closely and have won several important IoT projects. This has been attributed to their shared vision and complementary technologies. Because of the significant synergy and positive market response, a joint venture was therefore established to make their relationship even closer."Advantech already has a strong business foundation in Japan, providing excellent hardware platforms for many manufacturing customers," Tsuchiyama said. "However, to truly help customers migrate to smart manufacturing, Advantech needs to fill the gap of software, system consulting, and integration, and this is what we specialize in. So, the cooperation between us is the best fit to explore the market together."He stressed that although the manufacturing market in Japan is mature and advanced, many traditional manufacturers still have a very conservative mindset. It is imperative that manufacturers implement new technologies and new ideas to enhance their operational efficiency and competitiveness. IoT is crucial for them to embrace for the new digitalization era.At present, Japan has no professional IoT system integrator. Nippon RAD hopes to become the country's leading domain-focused IoT integrator through its cooperation with Advantech, in a bid to drive changes in Japan's manufacturing industry. In addition, the company will gradually port its existing business intelligence and artificial intelligence analysis software to Advantech's platform. Nippon RAD has expressed great confidence in the long-term prospects of its cooperation with Advantech and the business opportunities that can be leveraged as a result of this partnership.Adhere to Strategy, Create the Highest ValueKC Liu, chairman of Advantech, pointed out that, in the future IIoT market, the ratio of production value of industrial computers, SRPs, and domain-focused system integrators will be 20:30:50. Domain-focused system integrators present the highest value and play a key role in the overall industrial chain. By acquiring a stake of Nippon RAD, Advantech will fully support them to become the iconic smart factory system integrator in Japan.Through this move, Advantech will cooperate with Nippon RAD in jointly marketing WISE-PaaS and SRP technologies in Japan. Meanwhile, Nippon RAD will become the country's WISE-PaaS Competence Center and will adopt Advantech's IIoT, WISE-PaaS, and SRP products to fulfill projects and meet market demand in Japan, especially in smart factory and Industry 4.0 application markets.Advantech plans to establish more than 50 regional domain-focused system integrator partners within the next five years. For Japan, Nippon RAD will be its sole system integrator partner but will replicate this joint venture model to other countries.Liu emphasized that Advantech's hardware platforms are now widely used. However, combining domain-focused software, services, and system integration is the only way to create value and enhance competitiveness to capitalize on the opportunities that IoT presents. In the future, those who only provide contract manufacturing services for industrial computers will fall to the bottom of the value chain, and the biggest winners will be those who have the ability to provide hardware, solutions, system integration, and cloud services to support customers around the world with a replicable platform. Although it's a challenging mission, to create the highest value, Advantech will adhere to this strategy and implement it thoroughly.Liu expects that with the implementation of the co-creation model, Advantech will be able to generate approximately 500 million USD in additional revenues in the five years, which is about one-third of current annual revenues. The IIoT market is expected to peak in the next five to ten years, gradually maturing in 15 years.

The rapid development of AI has brought a new revolution to IoT. Applying deep learning or AI algorithms to IoT system architecture to make IoT device smart has become the latest technology trend. In response to the development of AIoT, Allan Yang, Advantech's chief technology officer, stated that the company has reinterpreted the Solution Ready Package (SRP) application framework."Based on the WISE-PaaS industrial IoT Cloud Platform," Yang stated, "we have launched a diverse range of industrial IoT applications and solutions that integrate software and hardware and can be quickly replicated."Advantech SRP Evolves from Function-Oriented toward Data-DrivenThe SRPs mentioned by Yang are an indication of the industrial IoT solutions that have been developed for vertical industries. These SRPs meet 70%-80% of application needs, with the remaining gap filled by system integrators for final installation, adjustment, and customization. Currently, Advantech is targeting Industry 4.0 applications including machine-to-intelligence (M2I), intelligent retail, intelligent healthcare, , all of which fall under the development of smart cities.Advantech proposed the SRP concept as a new operating model in 2013. At that time, the traditional client­-server architecture was still maintained despite industrial applications and cloud services being a point of emphasis. With the SRP concept, the server was simply moved to the cloud and solutions with specific functions were designed to meet specific customer needs. This function-oriented architecture created a deep connection between IoT data and system functions but rendered system development difficult. This was because for every new application scenario, Advantech had to redesign and develop suitable solutions, making it difficult to realize mass replication and rapid implementation.With the current shifts in industrial trends and the coming of the data-driven era, Advantech's SRP model presents a brand new concept and framework. To meet demand for data collection and market analysis capability, the architecture of the second generation of SRPs has evolved from a function-oriented approach to a data-driven one. All IoT data are centralized on the cloud platform, providing a basis to develop applications such as AI analysis and data visualization.Yang explained that the main purpose of the existing SRP is to provide users with data and to collect related solutions. The overall framework comprises sensing devices and gateways at the edge, a cloud platform, and AI analysis with data visualization functionality. Completing this framework is the company's extensive industry expertise. Now at the foundation of Advantech's second generation of SRPs is the WISE-PaaS platform, and this has proven to be key to the flexible and rapid deployment of SRPs.WISE-PaaS-Based Solutions Enable Cross-Platform Utilization of Manufacturer DataWISE-PaaS is a cloud service software platform jointly proposed by Advantech and the Taiwan Institute for Information Industry (III). It provides multiple database services, IoT hubs, computing resource management services, multitenancy management services, flexible expansion, AI model training and framework deployment services, dashboard visualization, and multi-level data security/management services. The biggest difference between Advantech SRP and general PaaS platforms is that data migration and industrial environments are considered.Data is arguably the most valuable asset in modern times, and it is inevitably subject to government regulations or the policy requirements of individual enterprises. For example, data typically cannot be taken from a work site, which limits options for data storage. However, the cross-cloud setting feature of the WISE-PaaS platform frees IoT applications from this limitation by allowing them to be launched on any private or public cloud. As such, relevant applications can be launched via the WISE-PaaS platform regardless of whether Microsoft Azure, Amazon Web Services (AWS), Alibaba Cloud, or some other cloud platform is used.Another common occurrence - particularly at industrial sites - is the deployment of devices of different brands and types, each of which may support a proprietary communication protocol. The implication of this is that various communication standards must be consolidated before data can be collected. Because of Advantech's decades of experience in developing industrial applications that support for a variety of industrial protocols, the connectivity between WISE-PaaS platform and edge devices is outstanding in meeting the needs of a wide range of industrial applications.According to Yang, it is difficult to carry out cross-industry applications with a function-based approach to development. However, by adopting the WISE-PaaS platform, the underlying data acquisition architecture can be flexibly adjusted and built to meet specific application needs to achieve the goal of mass replication and rapid import and to drive the development of future IoT applications.Creating IoT Growth Opportunities with Partners through the Co-Creation ModelIn the past two years, Advantech has actively invited many cloud service solution providers from different industries to migrate their solutions to the WISE-PaaS platform or to redevelop their specialized industrial applications on the platform. At the recent WISE-PaaS Worldwide Partner Engagement Meeting, Advantech published nine sets of co-created SRP solutions. At the IoT Co-Creation Summit, which will be held on November 1 and 2 in Suzhou, China, Advantech will announce 30 co-created IoT solutions (AIoT.SRPs), with 50 partners showcasing the most cutting-edge applications in key domains.Yang emphasized that during the first phase of IoT development, Advantech focused on hardware and conducted product-oriented mergers and acquisitions. In the second phase, the WISE-PaaS platform and SRP industrial application solutions will be the central focus, the objective of which is to accelerate the implementation of IoT applications. As for the third phase, the strategy will be to collaborate with new software partners and domain-focused system integrators to implement industrial cloud services through the co-creation model. Ultimately, this will establish an industrial IoT supply chain in Taiwan, and this is expected to become a major driver of economic growth, similar to the country's electronics industry.

Taiwan-based semiconductor foundry house United Microelectronics Corporation (UMC) and Avalanche Technology, a developer of the next generation STT-MRAM (spin transfer torque magnetic RAM), have announced that they have entered a partnership for joint development and production of MRAM to replace embedded flash.They said UMC will also make this technology available to other companies through licensing with Avalanche.Under the terms of the agreement, UMC will provide embedded non-volatile MRAM blocks based on UMC's 28nm CMOS manufacturing process. This will enable customers to integrate low latency, very high performance and low power embedded MRAM memory blocks into MCUs and SoCs, targeting the Internet of Things (IoT), wearable, consumer, industrial and automotive electronics markets.The two companies are also considering expanding the cooperation beyond 28nm, as Avalanche's CMOS compatibility and scalability to advanced process nodes enables integration of unified memory (non-volatile as well as SRAM) blocks into next generation highly integrated MCUs and SoCs, the companies said. This allows system designers to maintain the same architecture and software ecosystem without a redesign."We're excited to team with a world leader in semiconductor manufacturing such as UMC to bring this outstanding technology to market," said Petro Estakhri, CEO and co-founder of Avalanche."UMC is continuously introducing enhanced process offerings to bring added competitive benefits to our customers," said G C Hung, vice president of Advanced Technology Development at UMC. "With embedded NVM becoming more prevalent in today's IC designs, we have developed a strong portfolio of robust eNVM process solutions for high growth sectors such as emerging consumer and automotive applications. We are happy to cooperate with Avalanche Technology for 28nm MRAM, and we look forward to ramping this process to production for UMC customers."

Leading semiconductor test equipment supplier Advantest Corporation will display its new testing capabilities for PCIe Gen4 solid-state drives (SSDs) using its MPT3000 testers and present two technical papers at the Flash Memory Summit on August 7-9 at the Santa Clara Convention Center in California. Advantest is a gold sponsor of this year's summit.Exhibition BoothIn booth #606, Advantest will exhibit the industry's first single-system test solution for developing and manufacturing PCIe Gen4 SSDs on its MPT3000 platform. This fully integrated system helps users to accelerate the market introduction of next-generation SSDs by leveraging the proven tester architecture and software from Advantest's PCIe Gen 3 test solution while also eliminating the need to wait for third-party Gen4 applications to become widely available. The result is the industry's fastest and lowest risk path to market.Paper PresentationsAdvantest technical experts will present two technical papers during the summit.In session 201-1 on "Testing/Performance Analysis" beginning at 8:30 a.m. on Wednesday, August 8, Linden Hsu will give a presentation on "Diagnosing SSD Failures During Testing," which will examine methods for identifying the causes of device failures by collecting, sorting and analyzing information from both the DUT and the test equipment.Then in session 301A-1 on "Testing Issues" beginning at 8:30 a.m. on Thursday, August 9, Sneha Nadig will address "Testing Dual-Port NVMe SSDs," which will cover devices whose multiple signal paths and ability to connect to two hosts simultaneously are highly valued in the enterprise storage market.