Taiwan based digital TV modulator maker VATek announced it is working with leading manufacturers testing its new flagship modulator product. In response to the growing demands of DVB-t2 head-ends, the company is about to introduce VATek 3rd Gen modulator chips to the market before the end of the year. These soon-to-be released DVB-T2 modulator chips will be industry's first announced non-FPGA DVB-T2 solution that can help manufactures to build the most competitive digital TV modulators.VATek has been a driving force behind the movement of TV modulation technology, and it is now raising the bar by addressing the unique challenges to integrate DVB-T2 function into its newest product line. DVB-T2 is the latest commercial operated digital TV standard as an extension of existing DVB-T, allows a better use of the spectral resources. The technology has been widely used in many countries especially in Europe and Southeast Asia. The implementation of DVB-T2 relied on complex signal processing that keeps DVB-T2 head-end products' price very unfriendly. VATek has successfully built the very first non-FPGA DVB-T2 modulator - A3 & B3 modulator chips, which are going to be the most cost-effective solution in the market. Besides that, some additional features have been upgraded to the new chips. Including new stream engine in A3, capable to edit, filter or add PSI in real-time. The B3 ENMODER equipped with new H.264 @ 60fps encoder that make video looks better on TVs. After the reveal of DVB-T2 engineering sample earlier at Broadcast Asia, Singapore, VATek is starting to work with leading manufacturers to conduct the final test to the new chips, plans to bring the chips to market before the end of this year.VATek is deeply engaged with several manufactures to develop digital TV modulator based on the VATek's ENMODER turnkey platform, which already been introduced to the manufactures in 2017. The technical detail of the solution is fully open-source, helps manufactures to develop competitive head-end products and integrated with hospitality system to deploy advanced digital TV services to through coax cable network. The ENMODER based products are already been installed in the hotels, schools in many countries.VATek is also planning to bring its advance broadcast technology to different application fields. The company is working on the project to design an Android broadcasting platform that connects VATek USB modulator to SoCs and easily transforms any Android devices into a smart broadcaster or digital signage system. This can be the game changer to the media delivery industry.VATek powered the revolution of digital TV. it pioneered first generation digital TV standards, and now, we are leading the way to DVB-T2 and bring the industry to a new era. VATek products are revolutionizing the way engineers design headend product, allowing broadcasting system became simple and smart in ways never before imagined. For more information, visit VATek's website.VATek DVB-T2 modulator

United Microelectronics Corporation (UMC), a leading global semiconductor foundry, today announced that its 300mm Fab 12X in Xiamen China, has gained LEED (Leadership in Energy and Environmental Design) Gold recognition from the U.S. Green Building Council. The state-of-the-art fab achieved the highest combined score among all 300mm foundry fabs in China, including a perfect score for Water Efficiency. This milestone further demonstrates UMC's commitment to green building and environmentally sustainable operations.M.L. Liao, vice president in charge of manufacturing resources integration and the environmental committee at UMC said, "UMC has initiated and implemented green measures not only to enhance energy-conservation for existing fabs, but also to ensure that new fabs meet and exceed the latest green building standards. Fab 12X's LEED Gold certification is a significant milestone in our efforts to promote sustainable manufacturing. Going forward, UMC will continue to fulfill its responsibility as a corporate citizen and base its development on green building concepts to promote the formation of a low-carbon, sustainable society."UMC's Fab 12X is southern China's first 300mm foundry facility. The fab is in mass production for 40nm and 28nm technologies, with a maximum design capacity of 50,000 wafers per month. The Xiamen based fab is a short distance from Taiwan, allowing seamless support from UMC's Taiwan headquarters. Fab 12X offers diversified 300mm manufacturing in addition to UMC's two other 300mm fabs in Taiwan and Singapore, and complements Hejian fab in Suzhou, China, which provides 8" foundry services.UMC can be found on the web at http://www.umc.com.

Benefiting from steadily growing demand in automotive electronics, telecommunication and network equipment, green energy and power supply markets, leading aluminum electrolytic capacitor manufacturer Lelon Electronics has posted record-breaking revenues two months in a row. September consolidated revenues reached NT$696 million, up 33.1% on year and 7.2% from the previous month. Cumulative revenues for the first nine months of 2017 totaled NT$5.22 billion, up 16.4% from the corresponding period of last year.Lelon enjoyed a significant increase in sales of polymer capacitors and snap-in aluminum electrolytic capacitors in the first nine months of the year thanks to steady growth of telecommunication and network equipment, green energy and power supply markets. Shipments of polymer capacitors soared more than 50% from the level of the previous year and sales of snap-in aluminum electrolytic capacitors also hiked nearly 40%.With respect to its strategy for polymer capacitors, the acquisition of polymer capacitor manufacturing equipment from Matsuki Polymer and the completion of its capacity expansion projects will make Lelon a non-Japan-based leading provider of SMD polymer capacitors. Recently launched Apple iPhones come with the support for quick charging, which is officially confirmed to also work with third-party chargers. Apple's continuing advancement in charging technologies is giving a boost to the quick charging market. Quick chargers impose more stringent requirements than conventional chargers in terms of their operating conditions and therefore need to use polymer capacitors to ensure higher product reliability and safety. The booming quick charging market will help make polymer capacitors a major growth driver of Lelon's revenues.Lelon has been stepping up efforts toward high-end electronics and power supply markets in recent years. Among them, original automotive electronics will be a focus of its strategy. Having made its way into the supply chain for tier-1 American and European automotive electronics providers, Lelon will strive to penetrate into the Japan market in the future. Advancing IoT technologies are pushing the demand for smart telematics systems. The number of electronic control units (ECU) will grow with developments in ADAS, autonomous driving, IoV and electric cars. The number of automotive displays which present safety information collected by ADAS is expected to top 50 million units with a total value reaching US$11.6 billion by 2017 and US$21 billion by 2022, a growth rate of nearly 10%, according to IHS. In particular, center information displays and instrument panels will account for the largest share of market value. With the demand for automotive displays steadily on the rise, the aluminum electrolytic capacitor market can expect to grow as well.The market of telecommunication and network equipment also fuels Lelon's growth momentum. Lelon has been performing outstandingly in China thanks to long-term partnerships and R&D collaborations between the company and local ICT solution providers. China is actively building up its 5G infrastructure and has announced the completion of phased 5G development and testing objectives with commercial operation planned for 2020. The market of telecommunication and network equipment will keep expanding with China's 5G investments ramping up.Lelon has amassed excellent manufacturing and development capabilities. Its R&D team has engaged in long-term collaboration with Industrial Technology Research Institute in Taiwan to jointly research on critical technologies. It is also actively participating in research projects of customers and material suppliers to develop products catering to market needs. Japanese technical consultants are employed to help refine Lelon's technology and quality systems. Its flexible production model enables the production line to be adjusted quickly to accommodate order changes so it can agilely meet customer's delivery schedule and provide a stable supply.Lelon's subsidiary aluminum foil producer Liton Technology is expected to generate higher second-half 2017 revenues compared to the first half thanks to strong market demand and added production capacity. Lidon Electronics Technology, a joint venture by Liton and China's largest formed foil producer HEC Technology, will also ramp up production of low voltage etched aluminum foil with plans to add capacity by 200,000 to 300,000 square meters of etched aluminum foil after volume production kicks off early next year.Lelon is shifting development focus toward high-end products, targeting high-growth sectors including original automotive electronics, advanced telecommunication equipment and cloud data centers. The company will endeavor to develop new products to meet market demands and can enjoy significant growth this year with these markets continuing to expand.

Artificial Intelligence (AI) and Internet of things (IoT) are seeing an explosion of growth and applications. It is changing our life every day. The flood of data that is generated and collected every second and the computations required to allow smarter algorithms to manage that data more cost-effectively driving AI development and cloud solutions at a rapid pace. With such advances come new technology challenges and enable the disruptive innovations across data centers and edge computing nodes. The ear of Big Data is coming.As companies of all sizes begin their digital transformation journey, the amount of data we're now generating is astonishing. Accessing electronics files, videos, digitized records and other digital format data from smart devices around the globe, it is reaching Petabyte based IP traffic in the data centers. Furthermore, the immense unstructured data makes the exponential growth of computer server systems. Data analytics infrastructures need to become faster, smarter and more robust than ever before.Socionext Inc., one of major Japanese IC design houses with unique strength to designing imaging, networking, computing system-on-chip (SoC) products and solutions, maintain a high level of visibility in semiconductor industry. Facing these strong needs of new servers to address such a key role of Big Data and analytics solutions, Socionext set a very different approach to develop new creative ideas of server system.In a recent interview, Shuichi Yamane, SynQuacer Sever project leader of Socionext, talked about the evolutions of server systems in the Big Data era. Yamane has long time involvement and well-recognized expertise in ARM based SoC projects. Through his years of participation in the Silicon Valley and witness first-hand server industry development, he has unparalleled experience with various types of SoC chips design experience and market trends.Facing the impact of Petabyte based data volume growth, the enterprise is migrating to the cloud services and gaining the benefits of cost reduction, high efficiency and massive control upgradation. According to IDC report, there will be one-third of data stored in the cloud servers by 2020. This trend will drive the Big Data revolution to build the next generation of server systems and services to satisfy immense needs ahead of competition.However, the penetration rate of ARM cored servers are still low in the market, Yamane added. Most of the ARM cored CPU chip makers use Cortex-A57 or Cortex-A72 to build the server CPU chips. But Socionext enters server SoC market with a very different product idea. Large number of little cores on a single chip will have almost the same performance of big core CPU by leveraging parallelization strategies. Socionext builds its new SynQuacer SC2A11 server SoC featuring 24 ARM Cortex-A53 cores, which are the 64-bit, v8-based, small die-sized low power cores.Data centers aiming the solutions to fit Petabyte data analytics needsThe first thinking behind the idea to use little cores to replace big cores is energy efficiency goals. The higher the performance, the higher the power consumption and heat generated of a high clock rate and big core CPU. From one typical performance calculation, Yamane highlights, six SC2A11 chips are equivalent to the performance of Xeon E-type middle-end server CPU. Each SC2A11 SoC consumes 5 Watts of power. And six SC2A11 SoCs will spend 30 Watts power. Comparing with 100 Watts power consumption of Xeon E-type server CPU, the Socionext server SoC solutions will have two thirds of total power saving.The second, to achieve more computing performance of multiple CPU server systems, Socionext builds up hyper scale parallel computing servers by inventing the new technology called Direct Data Transaction or DDT. This is a core concept of SynQuacer server systems. DDT is a proprietary data transaction protocol for handling Petabyte data throughput between multiple CPU chips in the server system. In the general server systems, the technology of 40Gbps Ethernet technology will have an effective data bandwidth around 4-Gbps because the protocol overhead of TCP/IP handshaking, Yamane explained. Socionext provides a real 10-Gbps bandwidth by leveraging DDT strength. This is a massive breakthrough of data handling capability in server systems.Energy saving and high speed data throughput with proprietary DDT will provide a very massive strength when Socionext decided to enter the server systems market sector. At this moment, Socionext has verified the operation of sixty-four SC2A11 chips working in parallel. With this innovative scalability, the SynQuacer SC2A11 achieves the optimum balance between performance and power consumption, in a wide range of applications from the gateway, the edge, to the cloud.Aiming AI server and indexing server for processing big data demandsSocionext is aiming two major high demand applications. The first is the indexing server. Search engine relies on indexes of most of the files to improve content searching performance. As the data growing in a very fast path, the index server needs the solution to handle Big Data. And Socionext hyper scale parallel computing servers are very suitable for this application.The second target is AI applications. AI counts on various neural network frameworks to develop smart algorithms. Through the Deep Neural Network (DNN), the system will be trained to learn to solve the problems while massive data processing. Today, the data centers use neural network frameworks such as TensorFlow to deal with metadata for hyperparameter optimization. Leveraging the Multi-node hyper scale parallel computing structure, the SynQuacer server systems save tens of time to perform the AI training. It massively reduces total cost of ownership (TCO) and increases performance of overall systems.In the data center, engineering teams use TensorFlow and Spark together to train and apply deep learning models. Through Spark and a cluster of servers to improve deep learning pipelines with TensorFlow, there are more use cases to find the best set of hyperparameters for neural network training and leading to a great reduction in training time and lower error rate. This called Hyperparameter tuning, which means the process to pick the right parameters leads to high performance.When applying a trained neural network models at scale to the edge nodes, considering lots of battery powered devices equipped in the client sides, it is essential to consider a very low power consumption design to meet the requirements. In the recent demonstration cases, the third party developers present facial recognition solutions by implemented a unique design to use three or four SC2A11 chips for edge server or micro server and integrated with Socionext Hybrid Codec technology and dedicated chipset. This design approach not only cuts down the training time but also improves accuracy and gives a better performance to leverage the efforts of data centers. The configurable SynQuacer server systems to use different number of SC2A11 chips give a very good flexibility for fitting many demanding applications of AI development.SynQuacer server systems will be launched in the first quarter of 2018Yamane talks about advanced development of SynQuacer SoC planning. Socionext is thinking to integrate more little GPU cores through the same idea of hyper scale parallel processing technology. This will provide new solutions to fit strong needs for future edge servers having a combination of CPU and GPU together along with sufficient memory makes it a perfect testbed for deep learning. Socionext is pushing the optimum balance design for taking consideration of power consumption and computing performance.One of the most prominent trends that have recently emerged in order to deal with Big Data is the growing importance of AI on Hadoop. The developer is looking for servers with High Performance Computing technologies fitting the requirements of AI infrastructure capable of quickly incorporating large amounts of data from a wide range of sources. For this reason, Socionext is planning to introduce DDT2 technology for preparation of dealing with the data volume of Zetabyte in the future.Socionext is creating a new path for new AI server systems by introducing brand new server architecture with hyper scale parallel processing and high data bandwidth. Building this new server system, Socionext brings together the solution expertise of the Taiwan ecosystem partners to ensure the product quality to deliver the excellent performance. Meanwhile, Fujitsu, one of the key investors of Socionext, provides technical and market consultant to help to find the better market segment in Japan.Socionext will begin mass production of SC2A11 SoC in October 2017. And the SynQuacer server systems will be released to market in the first quarter of 2018. For achieve this goal, Socionext has sent engineering teams to Taiwan and has close cooperation with Taiwan ecosystem partners to explore the potential business opportunities of AI server business. Big data and advanced analytics have swiftly moved to a set of capabilities that need to be deeply embedded across data handling and computing performance. Socionext takes a brave step to embrace this emerging market sector.For more product information, please visit Socionext official web site at http://www.tw.socionext.com/. Linkage to Facebook page, please check https://www.facebook.com/socionext.twMr. Shuichi Yamane, SynQuacer Server project leader of Socionext, talks about the development of SynQuacer Server systems showcasing Petabyte scale data processing strength.

The highly competitive intelligent voice service market has seen tech giants keenly rolling out solutions and devices, such as Amazon Alexa, Google Assistant, and Apple's Siri. UnlimiterHear, which specializes in hearing aid algorithm, is also catching up with the trend by launching a series of intelligent voice service solutions with which a simple press on a button on a Bluetooth headset can activate various intelligent voice services on the cloud, turning a set of traditional headphones into an intelligent voice assistant.In 2016, about 20% of mobile device searches were done with voice input at a 95% accuracy. Market research firm IHS Markit predicts that by the end of 2017, more than 4 billion consumer devices will support voice assistant functionality. Dr. Yang Kuo-Ping, chairman for UnlimiterHear, believes that in the IoT era, the exchange of conversational voices is indispensable for large-scale cooperation between people and devices.This year, UnlimiterHear has been focusing on the research and development on listening and hearing device solutions, and one of the solutions allows users to directly press a button on a Bluetooth device to activate voice assistant services offered by major brand vendors. Currently it supports services offered by Amazon, Google and Apple and in the future will also support Baidu, iFLYTEK and others with third-party developers expected to build thousands of life and interaction skills. Dr. Yang further notes that each voice assistant solution has its own focus on specific areas: Google's strengths is in search engine; Microsoft's is good at scheduling; and Amazon's can link to shopping and other life applications, which is believed to be the most promising services compared to others.Amazon recently unveiled a range of smart home devices, with Alexa responsible for voice activation. Such a voice assistant fad is expected to benefit Taiwan's supply chain. UnlimiterHear owns more than 100 audio patents including several patents for smart voice-enabled Bluetooth headphones. The company is actively working with international semiconductor chip vendors and in fact eight of them are incorporating UnlimiterHear's technology into their new products. Bluetooth headphones have been around for nearly 20 years, mainly for listening to music and answering the phone. With the rise of the intelligent voice services, now Bluetooth headphones can interact with apps and cloud platforms, and will soon become major functions for next-generation smart Bluetooth headphones.UnlimiterHear CEO Tony Huang notes that Taiwan's manufactures has been focusing mainly on hardware, namely smart speakers, while UnlimiterHear last year decided to focus on actively developing and importing intelligent voice assistant applications into smart Bluetooth headphones, smart Bluetooth speakers and other portable Bluetooth devices. For example, UnlimiterHear's internally-developed EarCommand "tap to talk" intelligent voice assistant is featured in smart speakers and smart headphones. The two kinds of device technically have several differences. Smart speakers use Wi-Fi and far-field voice recognition; they don't need app support; and they work on a closed platform. Smart headphones are Bluetooth-connected and can be activated by tapping; they need app support and require tuning for different mobile phone hardware or firmware; they work on near-field voice recognition and an open platform.UnlimiterHear's "tap to talk" intelligent voice assistant solution requires just a press on the button to activate the voice assistant service, without the need to articulate a wake word. Dr. Yang points out that the wake-word mode consumes more power because it must constantly monitor the external environment, and is prone to making identification errors. The tap-to-talk mode doesn't have the problems typical of the wake-word mode. The current market trend also prefers tap-to-talk to the other. This is because users can quickly select and switch the mainstream voice assistants, and can call voice assistants even when the screen is off. Also, users do not need to remove the phone from the pocket or bag and still can call voice assistants, making it more convenient.UnlimiterHear has also developed a proprietary acoustic algorithm simulation system for Bluetooth headsets to support different situations of audio input, simulation of thousands of different sound environment conditions, and the establishment of sound models that speed up the voice response time. The company's internal tests compared iOS Alexa app and its own algorithm, and the results showed that UnlimiterHear's algorithm is 25% faster in response time.In the future, UnlimiterHear will focus on putting hearing algorithm and MFA (Millisecond Frequency Adjustment) into EarCommand. For example, calls to Alexa Smart Voice Assistant on the cloud will shift the high frequency sound, so that people with hearing impairments can hear more clearly. In addition, the artificial intelligence acoustics simulation system will be enhanced to improve the performance of devices associated with Alexa, allowing people to hear low tunes and whispers.Comparison of the smart speaker and smart headphone technology

ThroughTek, a leading IoT (Internet-of-Things) platform and cloud solutions provider, announced that it was granted the International Organization for Standardization (ISO) 27001 certification by the British Standards Association (BSI) after nearly a year of independent, external assessments. The ISO 27001 certification includes the Kalay Platform's cloud services and information management systems.Patrick Kuo, CEO at ThroughTek, along with the company's newly established security management team accepted the ISO 27001: Information Security Management certification earlier this month. The certification ensures that ThroughTek's cloud service platform and information management systems are in line with international standards to deliver secured cloud services for businesses and provide a higher-level of assurance for consumers using IoT services and products.ThroughTek's accreditation of ISO 27001 entails two main categories, including development of the Kalay Platform, system operation and management of network and servers."We strive to achieve excellence in providing video streaming data. As the number of data being collected from IoT devices and surveillance cameras continues to increase, the security of video data and account information becomes more important than ever. The most common question we hear from our customers is about security, so providing security solutions has always been part of our continuous effort," said Patrick Kuo, CEO of ThroughTek.To ensure that data is well protected on the Kalay Platform, Patrick Kuo has requested the R&D team for software and firmware to strengthen the security mechanism and implement tighter security controls and management verified by ISO international standards.The verification process of ISO 27001 requires examination of internal and external risks and potential threats and identifies security vulnerabilities to ensure that ThroughTek and the Kalay Platform can prevent security incidents and provide tight security measures. In the future, ThroughTek will continue to commit to improving security management and data protection to meet international standards.Please visit ThroughTek for more information.

Most of today's vertical application markets have been trending toward smartization, artificial intelligence (AI) and unmanned operation, pushing the development of many devices and applications to move in a new direction. The most prominent example is digital signage transitioning from a simple display for content playback in the past to a medium for self-service at present. Digital signage can now deliver customized content based on time of day or target audience to enable innovative interactive viewer experience and serve as a platform aggregating Big Data.This has resulted in the necessity to make appropriate adjustments to digital signage in terms of features, user interface or data collection techniques in order to meet different market demands or business models. However, it is difficult for systems developed based on traditional software project architecture to support flexible changes. This is where software IC comes into play. Modular architecture built on top of software IC will be able to satisfy requirements by wide-ranging smart applications with optimal adaptability. Celebrating its 10th anniversary this year, Joyplux is one of the world's few and Taiwan's only company capable of developing software IC.Joyplux gears software IC development toward applications centered on smart homeSteven Lin, chairman and general manager, Joyplux, stated that founded in August 2007, Joyplux started its business by providing hardware products including public displays as well as control systems and later began to engage in software R&D for the purpose of adding multi-touch features to its products. Having successfully completed a variety of system development tasks to full satisfaction, the Joyplux R&D team has demonstrated strong capabilities. This prompted the company to step up efforts in expanding its software operation and establish a software business unit in 2009 targeting applications centered on the smart home theme.Diverse software applications fall under the scope of smart home, such as those used in digital signage and access control systems. Most of their developments are project-based with predetermined features and interface design, allowing minimum customizability and flexibility. Even attempting to make the smallest change afterwards could result in an overhaul to the entire system structure. Nevertheless, to most software developers, the project-based approach is an easier way to operate their business as it has low barrier, short development cycle and quick return on investment. Joyplux, however, is determined to take a different path – software IC."We think a perfect smart home application can be implemented through the concept of do-it-yourself – adding functions and changing interface as you wish at any time," indicated Lin. Software IC can bring such concept to reality. Working like a CPU, software IC comprises a native architecture and standard features to provide a core foundation supporting the development of multiple reusable modules which are then included in Joyplux's software IC lineup. System integrators can choose suitable modules from the lineup to meet their use scenarios and then combine the modules into a software package for front-end applications. When needs for changes arise in the future, it won't be necessary to re-develop the software from scratch and only simple modifications will be enough to accommodate evolving requirements. This perfectly addresses R&D agility needs in the smart IoT era.Joyplux aspires to become a solid professional software IC provider in five yearsLin admitted the development of software IC standards and architectures holds a high technological barrier. Being a pioneer clearing the path by itself, Joyplux has come a long way building its software IC business from the ground up. There have been multiple changes to the entire architecture and the development platform. Having endured through a long period of slow return on investment, Joyplux's efforts are generating results. It has created an interactive multimedia software IC-XPLAYER and a communication software IC-XCOMMER. With built-in features including touch control, interaction, multimedia, Big Data and integrated electromechanical control, IC-XPLAYER can be used in any display application such as digital signage, vending machines, food ordering kiosks and queue management systems at hospitals and banks. IC-XCOMMER supports remote communication, ensuring uninterrupted bi-directional communication between the cloud and the end device. As such, front-end self-service systems can instantly receive Big Data analytics results from the back-end platform to thereby provide tailored services to consumers and also send front-end customer information to the back-end platform for analysis as basis for business decision making.For the purpose of demonstrating market-proven usability and quality of the two software IC products, Joyplux has built a series of software applications including a multi-touch digital signage editing platform JoyAD and a multi-touch e-book editing platform JoyeBook. These are increasingly being used in a wide range of sectors such as healthcare, retail channels, finance and hospitality with markets expanding overseas from Taiwan to China and Japan.In celebration of the company's 10th anniversary, Lin looks forward to the next decade with two five-year plans. In the first five years, Joyplux will stay committed to promoting the Joy series software applications, aiming to create more revenues and higher profits while also developing additional software IC with a focus on smart applications such as IoT.Going into the second five-year period, Lin expects Joyplux to become a full-fledged professional software IC provider. Instead of just relying on its own Joy series, Joyplux will win support from numerous software developers who will build modules and software applications on the basis of XPLAYER, XCOMMER as well as other future Joyplux software IC.Steven Lin, chairman and general manager of Joyplux

One of the biggest concerns with using a smartphone is that the battery life doesn't last long enough. Users are spending more time watching videos, streaming music and playing games on their smartphones than ever before, resulting in faster battery consumption. To help ease consumer battery anxiety (the feeling one gets when your phone is about to die), more charging opportunities with a seamless cordless experience is desired.Lucky for consumers, Apple embraced Qi wireless charging with its release of the iPhone 8 and iPhone X. The adoption of Qi wireless power in these new iPhones represents a major milestone for the broad usage of wireless charging technology, bringing an enhanced experience to iPhone users. We expect that the release of the iPhone 8 and iPhone X will drive further infrastructure build out for Qi charging stations in more places – homes, cars, offices, restaurants, airports and hotels – offering a seamless charging experience and much less charging anxiety.As the supplier of the most comprehensive portfolio of Qi-certified wireless power transmitter and receiver solutions in the industry, NXP Semiconductors is excited about the expanding number of users of wireless power technology. Smartphone owners will have more opportunities for charging, and now at faster rates.Aligned to the latest trends in smartphone user experience, NXP is the first to offer the WCT-15W1COILTXFF, a new fixed-frequency single-coil design, optimized for the latest smartphone charging stations.Based on the Qi standard, transmitters everywhere are able to power all types of smart devices and mobile phones, regardless of brand. Soon, the daily life of the average smart phone user will be greatly enhanced by an infrastructure of transmitters that will enable charging everywhere."With Apple's announcement to include Qi wireless charging in the iPhone 8, iPhone 8 Plus and iPhone X, we expect to see rapid acceleration in consumer adoption and an increase in market innovation," said Paul Golden, Vice President of Market Development, Wireless Power Consortium. "NXP's continued investment to deliver Qi-certified solutions, like their new fixed-frequency 15 W design, brings additional capability to and further supports the rapid market adoption of this technology."NXP develops system-level wireless power solutions built on Qi-certified transmitters and receivers. These solutions contain NXP application software, libraries, controllers, NFC readers and power devices. NXP offers convenience, freedom and safety through completely cordless experiences, with no compromise in performance and reliability in a wide range of applications from consumer devices to portable computing and in-vehicle charging. Explore all of NXP's wireless power solutions at www.nxp.com/wirelesspower.NXP welcomes new Apple iPhones with Qi wireless charging

Amid increasing terrorist attacks, European and American governments attach great importance to public safety, putting in resources to step up efforts. Technology has always played an essential role in the protection against threats to public safety. Intelligent criminals often make use of high-tech innovations in their plots.With technologies rapidly advancing and criminals becoming growingly intelligent, people rely on public safety organizations including frontline military forces, law enforcement, fire and rescue services to ensure freedom and comfort in life. Electronics manufacturers in Taiwan known for providing high-tech products naturally become best partners helping these government agencies enhance public safety, fire and disaster relief systems to thereby implement ironclad protection for their citizens.Rugged notebook computers are the most important smart mobile solution equipped in vehicles used to carry out frontline military, police and fire fighting duties. Communicating through 4G networks and Wireless Metropolitan Area Networks (WiMax), they serve as a mobile command center and are indispensable to frontline law enforcement. Rugged notebook computers lead powerful high-tech developments. The following real case that happened at a fire department on the US East Coast shows how a meticulously engineered rugged computer stood the test of extreme conditions in a high-profile use scenario.The computer that survived a fire gave a testament to ultimate qualityOn a spring afternoon, the fire chief got off his four-door pickup truck and plugged the electronics and devices of different sizes in the vehicle to the built-in battery charger as usual. An hour later, one crew member saw smoke start to come out and the vehicle was engulfed in flames within seconds. Although the vehicle was diesel fueled and therefore would not explode, thick black smoke bellowed from the engine compartment and the fire scorched and melted the dashboard and all equipment nearby, including the police radio, GPS and the Getac rugged computer mounted on a dock close to the dashboard about 10-12 inches away from the radio.The fire was quickly put out with fire extinguishers and the situation was immediately under control. Then, the pickup truck was sent to the fire department for investigation on the cause of the fire. The interior was covered in ash and soot. All the in-vehicle electronics had no way of surviving the fire and would be scrapped for sure.When the fire department communication officer in charge of electronics and communication equipment along with the investigation officer checked on the damage to the devices, the communication officer got the electronics technician to remove all the devices from the vehicle. Unable to see clearly whether the Getac rugged notebook's battery LED light was lit because of the heavy soot, the communication officer didn't think it would have had any chance of surviving the fire. However, much to his surprise, after he opened the Getac notebook and pressed the space bar, it was booted up from sleep mode into normal operation. After a few tests, the officer confirmed it was working fine as before without glitches.After repeatedly running a number of tests, the communication officer and the electronics technician were so amazed that the officer wrote to Getac, the designer and maker of the rugged notebook to express appreciation and to applaud Getac for the craftsmanship presented in the engineering and manufacturing of the product. At the end of his letter, he wrote, "We were all in amazement. If this is not battle tested, I am not sure what is."Upholding premium quality, Getac delivers IP65 industrial standard spec and all-round system protection designThe real case is not the first testament to Getac strength. Getac offers well-thought-out designs and protective measures to frontline fire crews, police officers and armed forces working under extreme conditions. Taking the V110 fully rugged convertible notebook for example, it is designed with a metal casing to protect all its components. The notebook has passed testings of US Military Standard 810G (MIL-STD 810G), verifying its capability to maintain continuous operation for at least 96 hours in a 60 degree Celsius environment. In the case of a sudden rise in ambient temperature, such as a fire, an internal protection circuit will be activated to put the system into sleep mode to minimize risks resulting from inability to dissipate heat. Accordingly, in the above-mentioned case, even though the fire burned at higher than 60 degrees, the data in the computer could still remain intact.Furthermore, V110 comes with IP65 protection against water and dust. It enables the highest industrial grade dust-proof protection and resists water jets of high pressure. As such, V110 is able to block ingress of ash and soot as well as foam and water in a fire and thereby prevents damage to its components. The real case showed that the notebook, especially the data in the storage system, was effectively protected from fire.Rugged computers are designed with a good understanding of customers' use scenariosGetac has received numerous use case reports and thank-you letters from customers in recent years, including those from elite teams on the front line such as the United Nations Peacekeeping Force, police departments and fire departments. Feeling deeply honored and pleased with these achievements, Getac is working to reexamine and understand the design requirements imposed by customers' extreme use conditions while stepping up engineering efforts to improve and raise product quality. The encouragements will also power Getac to continuingly perfect its products and services to help frontline officers safely complete challenging missions.The achievements directly translate to financial gains for Getac. Its 2016 EPS was up 68% on year, net profit after tax soared over 60% from the year before and its stock price recently set a 10-year high. For the first half of 2017, consolidated revenue totaled NT$10.226 billion, net profit after tax arrived at NT$ 820 million and EPS amounted to NT$1.45, up 25% on year.With the second half being a traditional high season for conventional rugged computers, customer demand and order visibility can both trend up. As Getac offers more value-added services across a broad range of product lines and can therefore enjoy higher average selling prices, it can expect to experience higher revenue growth for the second half of the year, likely up 10%-15% compared to the first half, adding the contribution from steady growth in sales of automotive parts as well.Getac launched the Veretos smart mobile video system for law enforcement last year and was awarded a contract with the State of Tennessee for use of Veretos in nearly 1,000 patrol vehicles of large police departments. Getac has renamed Veretos as "Getac Video Solution"in the second quarter of this year for the purpose of accelerating brand building and reaching out to a considerable number of potential customers. Sales of Getac Video Solution will likely contribute 3% of the company's rugged computer revenue this year. Getac is cautiously optimistic about the new growth opportunities.Battle-tested Getac rugged notebook computerGetac solutions combining hardware and software deliver comprehensive values to customers.

Amid an aging population worldwide, leading domestic and international vendors are scrambling for a share of the healthcare market, making hearable devices the next development highlight following wearable devices. Advancing chip technologies will enable smart earphones or hearing aids to customize voice and music quality for users based on each individual's specific hearing capacity. This will help seniors overcome embarrassing hearing loss problems and significantly improve their quality of life.Taiwan-based companies such as BenQ Corporation and international leaders like Amazon are actively putting efforts into the healthcare service sector. There are wide-ranging smart applications being developed to address age-related hearing loss. For example, Anhui Province in China has built the China Speech Valley industrial park. As a matter of fact, worldwide supply of hearing devices currently only meets 10% of the demand, causing a large supply shortage in the hearing aid market. With the technology catching up with the trend, smart earphones mainly targeting young people are now eyeing opportunities from the elderly people and increasingly overlap with hearing aids.Dr. Kuo-Ping Yang, chairman, UnlimiterHear, pointed out the US Senate passed the OTC Hearing Aid Act in August 2017, which requires the FDA to develop regulations for over-the-counter (OTC) hearing aids for individuals with mild to moderate hearing loss. An OTC hearing aid will cost about one-tenth the price of a traditional hearing aid. It is expected the new act will significantly lower the barrier for vendors to enter the OTC hearing aid market and trigger growth for hearable devices.Dr. Yang received his Ed.D. degree in special education and computer technology at Johns Hopkins University and worked in the field of technology education in the US. After returning to Taiwan, Dr. Yang founded the company specializing in the R&D of assistive technology, AI speech and hearing modules, with over 100 patents related to hearing and acoustics.Sounds in the frequency range from 20Hz to 20,000Hz are generally audible to the human ear, said Dr. Yang. The actual audible range may be determined by age and how you use your ears. Younger people can hear high pitched sounds while due to degenerating inner ear hair cells, older people may have a smaller audible range and difficulty discerning high-frequency consonants. For example, they may confuse the sound "s" with "d" and mistake "sao-di" for "dao-di." Those who speak to older people have to raise their voice but they can still be misheard and end up in a quarrel.According to WHO statistics, there were 360 million persons in the world with disabling hearing loss and the number has risen to 500 million over recent years. Seniors aged 65 or older make up half of the global population experiencing hearing loss and their quality of life is seriously deteriorating. Some data even indicate that three out of ten senior citizens have trouble engaging in normal conversations due to degenerative hearing loss.Conventional hearing aids only increase the sound volume but do not change the frequency. However, high-frequency hearing loss accounts for 70% of the cases. This is why if you can't hear the TV clearly and you turn up the volume, you can only solve 30% of the problem. UnlimiterHear has developed an algorithm that can detect subtle high pitched consonants inaudible to the user within 1.5ms, then shift the high frequency signal to a low frequency and adjust it so that the user gets a less distorted sound. It also reduces noise so only the speech sound is amplified for the user to hear. The cutting-edge algorithm is built into chipsets which can be integrated with a range of hearable devices. An app is also available to keep track of the user's hearing characteristics and smartly adjust the received sound frequencies.IEEE established smartphone hearing test standards in 2015 to facilitate hearing assessment. Dr. Yang indicated hearing screening tests are fundamental to hearing care. As a member of the US committee setting national hearing standards, UnlimiterHear provides hearing screening, hearing protection, personalized music and remote voice control solutions so even in underdeveloped areas with limited healthcare resources, people with mild to moderate hearing loss can use the app for self-testing. These solutions offer quick and convenient assistance to the elderly people.UnlimiterHear develops AI hearing aid modules for the elderly market