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.

U-Reach's NVMe (M.2) SSD duplicators adopt a standalone system, which eliminates any risk of computer virus infection. Even when the duplicator is fully loaded it can still maintain a consistent duplication speed. Unique hot swap capabilities allow the next round of duplication to begin without having to wait or restarting the machine.U-Reach has developed five NVMe (M.2) SSD duplicators. The modularized port design of U-Reach's NVMe (M.2) SSD duplicators allows the user to simply replace the adaptor to make the duplication of M.2(NGFF), mini PCIe, U.2(SF-8639), BGA PCIe SSD, and others possible.U-Reach's NVMe SSD duplication solutions

The fifth generation (5G) mobile network communication and artificial intelligence (AI) technologies continue to grab the public's attention, and will do so into the next year and beyond. Particularly for 5G, the marketing hype is here. 3GPP has officially signed off on the first 5G draft specification in December 2017. This global standard, named Non-Standalone 5G New Radio specification (5G NR NSA), will form the basis of commercial 5G products and is an important step to bring standard-compliant trials to maket. This will enable early commercialization for industry collaborations aiming to accelerate 5G NR for commercial networks by 2019.While it's been in development for some time, 5G networks are starting to become a technical reality in 2018, and will certainly be the words on everyone's lips. In 2018, there are two major events to showcase 5G applications. They are the Pyeongchang Winter Olympics in February and Multi-City Fixed Wireless Access (FWA) rollout in the second half. The primary focus for the completed 3GPP 5G NR NSA specification is enabling enhanced mobile broadband (eMBB) services, as well as establishing the foundation for the 5G NR design to support the future evolution. Indeed, FWA is gaining momentum in the industry for semiconductor chip makers, equipment vendors, mobile device manufacturers and residential applications. With 5G due to provide 10 to 100 times more capacity than 4G LTE, it has the potential to enable cost-efficient FWA solutions on a massive scale.When people talk about 5G, they're actually talking about a collection of wireless communication technologies and use cases. So 5G is a simple, umbrella term for multiple technology advancements still under development. It is largely based on the emergence and promotion of various new wireless applications leveraging 3G, 4G LTE, Wi-Fi 802.11 series, LoRa, NB-IoT and a variety of air interfaces, protocols, and frequency bands. This is why 5G device test is becoming so critical in Electronics OEM/ODMs, especially in the product design and development process, such as design verification testing (DVT) phase. LitePoint hosted a series of technology forums across China and Taiwan in the search for innovative thinking on 5G testing technologies and offers complete test solutions. On April 17th and April 19th respectively in Taipei and Hsinchu, the forum titled "Unlocking 5G potential, the next generation of wireless networks brings new test challenges."LitePoint helps customers to embrace and overcome test challenges"By offering complete test solutions helping early rollout of 5G systems, at LitePoint we are ready to help our Asia customers by providing a smooth and fast transition to 5G mobile communication standards," said LitePoint President Brad Robbins at his opening session welcome speech. As the Asia region continues to contribute strong growth, he strongly delivers the message by attending the outreach events organized and run by LitePoint teams in Taipei.Meanwhile, Richard Hsieh, VP of LitePoint talks about 5G technologies. 5G delivers the next generation of mainstream wireless networks. Smart devices enabled with AI and 5G technologies will dominate the trends in wireless design. The core value of LitePoint is wireless test solutions, and LitePoint systems are designed from the ground up for high-volume production. The product portfolio is used in development, high-volume manufacturing, providing customers with time-to-market, time-to-value and time-to-volume without sacrificing test quality.He added, LitePoint test solutions range from wireless modules, to PCB-level calibration and verification, and extended to satisfy the needs of complete system level design, manufacturing and volume production. Taking Internet of Things (IoT) products as an example, the cost structure of IoT devices is very sensitive. Helping OEM/ODM customers to get the production cost down is one of the essential requirements from LitePoint test solutions.Meanwhile, in the higher-end wireless product sectors such as millimeter wave (mmWave) frequency band systems, when dealing with the product test of Antenna in Package (AiP) chips, the new technical challenge is the Over-The- Air (OTA) testing methodology. Furthermore, the more RF modules added into 5G systems, the test solutions will take a different approach to solve the challenges. The engineering teams of LitePoint help OEM/ODM partners to do integration across supply chains and ecosystem partners to improve yield rates, shorten time-to-market, and deliver the high profit margin.The value of key use cases relying on the complete testing of 5G technologiesYuka Muto, LitePoint Product manager, presents her keynote speech titled "What does 5G mean to you?" In 2018, the 5G network made its worldwide debut at the Winter Olympics in Pyeongchang, South Korea. She highlights use cases of 5G with good user experience as follows, (1) High speed mobile internet connection with maximum speeds up to 100 times faster than 4G LTE. Demonstrated at the Olympics, 3.5 Gbps mobile data streaming is impressive. (2) 5G Virtual reality (or mixed reality) headsets bring amazing immersive experiences. (3) 5G combined withAI enables real-time translation conversations in seven languages for athletes and visitors. (4) 5G is a key to enable autonomous vehicles. (5) UIYAJI, a wind village above PyeongChang, demonstrated 5G applications in smart agricultural use cases for rural services leveraging FWA technology. The system can detect animals using dispersed embedded sensors. The devices such as radar and CCTV are used to detect pests such as wild pigs and take appropriate actions to reduce or prevent crop destruction. These examples showcase how farmers can use an automated system to help to prevent potential disasters or risks.Some of the Pyeongchang demonstrations show that more work is needed to improve. Some examples of that were uneven internet speed and service quality with distance. Additionally, the drawbacks include miniaturization and power consumption of mmWave devices. Some users described the 5G tablets as heavy and felt quite hot when running. The VR headsets can't keep up with higher frame rates and display resolution, which can cause the user to experience dizziness and discomfort.The second part of her speech aimed to introduce the 5G deployment cases and figure out how to test these 5G devices. The first one is enhanced Mobile Broadband (eMBB) usage. For Customer Premise Equipment (CPE), she reminds us that those devices need to provide carrier grade quality of service. The test and quality requirements are high.The second deployment case is mobile wireless devices in eMBB networks. This is talking about 5G handsets and other client side devices. Mobile 5G is primarily planned for deployment in sub-6GHz bands initially, due to the unique challenges of mmWave radio communications. They require sophisticated, high-precision testing solutions to thoroughly validate device-level radio performance and ensure time-to-market for new 5G network rollouts. LitePoint presented information on mmWave OTA Test Chambers to evaluated antenna performance and perform verification for 5G millimeter wave devices.The 3rd and 4th deployment cases are autonomous car and IoT devices. Both cases involved various wireless protocol and sensor technologies. For testing those devices, there are many reference designs to be verified in the system. It will count on versatile test solutions to play a more progressive role to meet the new challenges of testing in 5G era. Now, LitePoint offers its complete Test Solutions for wireless testing that meets the needs of industry tests.LitePoint single box mmWave test solution fits DVT and production needsAlex Hsieh, LitePoint Director of the Asia Application Engineering department, discussed specifics of the mmWave test solutions. The focus of his presentation is testing RF modules that will be integrated in 5G devices. In addition toexisting 3G/4G features, the coming 5G RF modules will include Sub-6GHz and mmWave bands. Taking Sub-6GHz bands as an example, there are at least 4 antennas required for supporting 4X4 MIMO features in mobile phones. For the mmWave bands, there will be at least two extra RF modules needed. The mixture of these antennas will raise the difficulty for the overall test. The engineering challenge is obviously becoming very tough.In the PCB-level test, it will require both traditional conducted tests as well as OTA tests. Hsieh presented a test setup based on 4 PCBs as one standard test scenario. In the low frequency bands, he setup IQxstream-5G with 8 RF ports, with an option to expand to 16 RF ports to scale up the capacity. In the intermediate-frequency (IF) bands, LitePoint provides IQgig-IF to support the frequency range from 5 to 19GHz with switching options for RF port expansion.For mmWave OTA testing, the test setup combines all the control signals of the IF and base band frequency and LO signals to an independent IF module. The OTA tests based on IQgig-5G and IQgig-IF measure both horizontal and vertical polarization signals in a single test configuration. LitePoint demonstrates the mmWave OTA Test Chambers for the requirement to test antenna arrays in the far-field. For small arrays, of the far-field can be as short as 6 to 8 centimeters for measuring antenna performance. This can enable the size of the chamber to be made smaller than the traditional anechoic chambers, which is easily installed in the lab or manufacturing environment.LitePoint also provides an integrated, motorized positioner for rotating the test devices while conducting the OTA test. This will benefit to measure antenna design parameters and verify the design specification. When designing the OTA test chambers, LitePoint considered the different needs for engineering verification and mass production.In the high frequency mmWave bands, the IQgig-5G provides test coverage for the 28 GHz to 39 GHz licensed bands. In the Sub-6GHz bands, the IQxstream-5G provides high-performance support for multi-antenna 5G designs. These test solutions enable full coverage to fit the test requirements of chipset vendors. Addressing these challenges requires appropriate test and measurement solutions for simulation, signal generation and signal analysis, to address all stages of the product lifecycle, from design to validation and all the way through to manufacturing.Following TR38.810 testing methods, TRC presents its own design Flying CATR test chambersFrank Tsai, President of Training Research Co. (TRC), gives his keynote for the dedicated design of Flying Compact Antenna Test Range (CATR) solutions. The design follows the 3GPP TR38.810 test method for mmWave OTA test. The OTA testing covers a large portion of the testing needed for 5G products. Testing of multi-antenna devices will further require a more advanced test method. In his demonstration, the frequency bands range from 24GHz to 120GHz. The 3D measurement is performed based on horizontal and vertical fine pitch movements. Tsai highlights that this solution has passed the TR38.810 test criteria. TRC has leveraged LitePoint's IQgig-5G to measure parameters and perform the tests.TRC's Flying CATR solution provides test coverage including wafer level (Antenna On Chip), chip packaging, antenna module and system engineering verification including EVT/DVT test. The product addresses 5G, IEEE 802.11ad devices and LiDAR or radar used in autonomous vehicle systems. Tsai pointed out that the uncertainty of 5G directional antenna arrays increases the difficulty of test. In the high frequency band, the wavelength to be measured is getting shorter, and the phase shifting is also getting worse. This effect will increase interconnection issues when housing screws are tightened. For accommodating the 3D measurement criteria, TRC uses a robotic arm to assist the measurement to follow TR38.810 test method.The mmWave spectrum has become more important. Several developments have been witnessed in the design and implementation of efficient and miniaturized antennas for mobile phones and CPE equipment. There is an increased demand for efficient RF circuits and antennas to support the rapid advancements in the advanced millimeter wave systems and applications. TRC's Flying CATR solution will help system vendors deal with the tough challenges of new test criteria.5G FWA starting to provide commercial services, IQxstream-5G takes on the challenges of testing.Weihua Tang, Field Application Engineering manager of LitePoint Shanghai, speaks about the development of upcoming 5G Fixed Wireless Access (FWA) services. The FWA services provides internet access to homes using 5G network technology with Gigabit rate data transmission, delivering a rich user experience. Two major benefits of 5G FWA are cost and performance. The mobile operators and technology vendors alike are expecting that 5G FWA could be used as a stepping stone to full 5G network deployments.FWA services will utilize 5G network technology, such as MU-MIMO, beam-forming and mmWave spectrum to provide a considerable performance boost to wireless broadband services. It enables the establishment of a quick and cheap broadband service, even in areas that don't have readily-available access to fixed line home broadband. 5G FWA could reduce the initial cost of establishing last-mile connectivity compared to a physical fiber line approach.5G FWA lower barriers to entry by reducing the CAPEX investments required, and can often prove more convenient to set up and offer as a competing service to fixed home broadband in cities or highly populated areas. More competition, of course, means improved wireless services for the end customers. New 5G devices are expected, including 5G mobile phones and so-called Customer Premise Equipment (CPE), Small Cell or wireless access point routers.Meanwhile, RF measurement methods are very much top of mind with system makers and test solution providers tasked with developing next-generation test solutions tailored for 5G wireless systems. Most 5G devices will also be equipped with Wi-Fi or Bluetooth technologies as well. Test intensity for 5G end-products will likely vary depending on the type of product. For example, the test time to verify one 5G mobile phone could take 360 seconds to test 3/4/5G features, and an additional 30 seconds to test Wi-Fi/BT features. On the other hand, measuring CPE devices could spend most of the time for calibrating and verifying the Wi-Fi .LitePoint's IQxstream-5G test solutions provide an important tool to test 5G phones in Sub-6GHz bands. In his slides, Tang demonstrated the configuration of IQxstream-5G with 8 RF ports to provide 200MHz bandwidth for the test, with an option to expand to 16 RF ports. It is ideally suited for massive volume test requirements of 5G mobile phones.Speed up 802.11ax device test to win the competitionThere are dozens of heated debates within the technology of IEEE 802.11ax vs 5G standards, and the two technologies will continue on their separate tracks at least for another generation. 802.11ax has the challenging goal of improving the average throughput in dense user environments, especially for high-density public environments such as trains, stadiums and airports.Chris Chao, LitePoint Field Application Manager, talks the topics of 802.11ax testing. The key focus of his talking agenda covers the methods of OFDMA and MU-MIMO testing criteria. Like all emerging standards, 802.11ax standard increases design complexity and creates a number of new test challenges for the engineer. Some of those challenges arise when it comes to basic measurements from new test requirements. LitePoint's test solution is aiming to provide effective methods for lowering the testing barriers.As an increasing number of Access Points (APs) is being deployed, the AP router test methods become critical. APs control data transmission between mobile devices with handling the synchronization of signals. One potential impairment in this communication is that an OFDMA Resource Unit (RU) leakage can affect the data transfer efficiency. Chao presented several test scenarios to simulate multiple users, RUs and MIMO data streams when testing APs. These examples also provide simulation tools to enable the Power Boost features in the 802.11ax specification.Another key topic of his speech is LitePoint IQfact+. This is a turnkey software solution for customized testing of leading Wi-Fi chipsets, enabling rapid volume manufacturing with a minimum of engineering effort. Chao highlights Sequence Mode to simplify the test procedures and save time for product mass production.Taiwan system manufacturers have accumulated experience to test 802.11ax devices for more than a year, Chao explained from his first-hand observation in the working in the field. With IQxel-MW test solutions, LitePoint has helped Taiwan vendors resolve technical issues, such as EVM measurements, RU combination settings, Power Control, and the recently-introduced trigger based Timing Control scenarios. This successful collaboration is creating a strong partnership to grow business. LitePoint test solutions will not only ensure engineers have the tools to test their 802.11ax devices, but also help enable the rapid deployment and industry-wide acceptance of these 802.11ax-based devices.Reducing IoT testing barriers increasing the commercial use of NB-IoTTechnology vendors are understandably excited about the impending global rollout of NB-IoT/Cat-M1 wireless infrastructure. Charles Meng, Field Application Engineering manager of LitePoint Shanghai, speaks of the development of NB-IoT and Cat M1 technologies. More than 60% of IoT devices are installed using a LPWAN (Low Power Wide Area Network) wireless technology, which is a technology connecting low bandwidth, battery-powered devices with low bit rates over long ranges. Both NB-IoT and Cat M1 are two different standards have emerged under the 3GPP specification. China's policy directive is on the LTE Cat NB1 (NB-IoT) standard, that uses 180 kHz system bandwidth for both downlink and uplink.On the other hand, the North America and Europe markets mostly are adopting LTE-M, using bandwidth of 1.08MHz for data transmitting and handling. Additionally, wireless technologies such as Sigfoxand LoRa are also getting more attention for industrial IoT products.To meet these IoT device testing challenges and raise efficiency during production and function verification, LitePoint offers the IQxstream-M to test LTE Cat NB1/CatM1 as an optimized solution. The IQxstream-M has been granted both LTE Cat NB1and Cat M1 chipset vendors' testing approval. LitePoint test solutions will continue to maintain the leadership in wireless testing giving customer's unique perspective on the coming 5G and IEEE 802.11ax challenges.Brad Robbins, President of LitePointRichard Hsieh, Global Sales VP of LitePointYuka Muto, LitePoint Product ManagerAlex Hsieh, LitePoint Director of the Asia Application EngineeringFrank Tsai, President of Training Research Co.Weihua Tang, Field Application Engineering ManagerChris Chao, Manager of ApplicationsCharles Meng, Team Lead of Applications

Malaysian based wafer foundry, SilTerra Malaysia Sdn. Bhd., today unveiled a "Piezoelectric Micromachined Ultrasound transducer (PMUT) on CMOS" platform for finger-print sensing and medical imaging applications.This unique process platform offers a truly monolithic solution and integrates the PMUT on the top of the CMOS resulting in a single-chip solution. The PMUT is formed using a CMOS compatible piezoelectric material and surface micro-machining techniques.Designers can choose any of the SilTerra's traditional CMOS/BCD/RF/Ultra low power platforms (180nm or 130nm) and build the PMUT on the top of these platforms.This platform is supported by the relevant CMOS IP and PDK to enable a fully integrated System-On-Chip.The PDK supports a configurable PMUT cell to address different end market applications such as a 20MHz PMUT cell for finger-print sensing or a 5MHz PMUT cell for medical imaging.SilTerra's "PMUT on CMOS" platform is currently available for prototyping."We are very pleased to release this innovative process for prototyping. As this process uses most of the standard CMOS process modules, we are confident to achieve manufacturability and defect density levels similar to the traditional CMOS technologies. By offering a truly monolithic solution, we managed to reduce the parasitics significantly and also offer high fill-factors," quoted Arjun Kumar Kantimahanti, Senior Vice President of MEMS & Sensors BU, SilTerra.To learn more about this platform, please visit: http://www.silterra.com/technologies.html#tab_memsFor additional information on SilTerra or its services, please visit www.silterra.comPMUT Images (Top View)PMUT actual silicon view

At this week's 2018 Symposia on VLSI Technology and Circuits, Imec, the world-leading research and innovation hub in nanoelectronics and digital technology, presented considerable progress in enabling germanium nanowire pFET devices as a practical solution to extend scaling beyond the 5nm node.In a first paper, the research center unveiled an in-depth study of the electrical properties of strained germanium nanowire pFETs. A second paper presents the first demonstration of vertically-stacked gate-all-around highly-strained germanium nanowire pFETs."With a number of scaling boosters, the industry will be able to extend FinFET technology to the 7- or even 5nm node," says An Steegen, EVP at Imec's Semiconductor Technology and Systems division. "Beyond, the gate-all-around (GAA) architecture appears as a practical solution since it reuses most of the FinFET process steps. But one important challenge of using lateral nanowires is the significant decrease of the channel cross-section compared to conventional FinFETs. To improve the drive per footprint, several nanowires have to be stacked, but this comes with a serious penalty of increased parasitic capacitance and resistance. A solution is to replace the silicon nanowires by a high-mobility channel material such as germanium (Ge), providing the necessary current boost per footprint", adds Steegen, "These new studies show that solution is indeed feasible, reaching the cost, area and performance requirements for nodes beyond 5nm."The first study of high-performing strained Ge nanowire pFETs gives insight in the device performance these new devices may offer for high-end analog and high-performance digital solutions. One conclusion is that dedicated optimizations of key process steps make these devices a serious contender for the GAA technology. The second paper reports on Ge GAA FETs with single nanowires, achieving a performance that matches state-of-the-art SiGe and Ge FinFETs. Moreover, for the first time, strained p-type Ge GAA FETs with stacked nanowires were demonstrated on a 14/16nm platform. The GAA nanowire technology appears as a promising high-performance solution for future nodes, provided that the junctions are further optimized."These complimentary studies establish germanium GAA nanowire technology as a valid contender for the sustained scaling that will be required to fulfill the requirements for the data-driven IoT-era requiring huge computational power," concludes Steegen.These results will be presented on June 20 at the VLSI Technology Symposium, in session T8: Advanced FinFET and GAA. This research is performed in cooperation with imec's key program partners including GlobalFoundries, Huawei, Intel, Micron, Qualcomm, Samsung, SK Hynix, Sony Semiconductor Solutions, TOSHIBA Memory, TSMC and Western Digital.Further information on Imec can be found at www.imec-int.com.