According to WHO statistics, air pollution causes an alarming mortality rate of two million premature deaths a year around the world. Gaseous pollutants and particulate pollutants are the main sources of air pollution. Gaseous pollutants generally include volatile chemical contaminants or malodorous substances that could lead to cancer. Particulate pollutants are atmospheric particulate matter (PM) and those that are 2.5 microns in diameter and less are especially harmful as they can penetrate into alveoli and through vascular walls into people's blood circulatory system, jeopardizing the respiratory, cardiovascular, and nervous systems.An observation of Google Trends shows the number of searches for air purifiers in Taiwan has grown a whopping 270% in the period from 2015 to 2017, an indication that people in Taiwan are placing increasing importance on air quality. In light of this, CHD Tech, founded in 2005, is leveraging its extensive experiences in building semiconductor clean rooms accumulated over the years to craft air quality management solutions in the hope of effectively eliminating invisible health hazards including chemical contaminants (e.g. formaldehyde) and PM.Optimal air filtering performance is achieved along with meticulous spatial designNicholas Su, executive assistant to general manager, CHD Tech, indicated clean room project budgets generally start from tens of millions of NT dollars and could run up to NT$100 million. Business owners usually retain 10% of the amount as final payment after CHD Tech's project passes closing inspections including stringent acceptance checks on leakage, cleanness, and other criteria. The technological know-hows in building clean rooms are similar to those for making non-industrial air purifiers so CHD Tech uses the same foundry-grade supplies to craft total air quality solutions that rise above conventional home appliances. Not just selling air purifiers or ventilation systems, CHD Tech also carefully designs the details such as equipment installation and return air path and uses professional instruments to conduct on-site checks and provide customers complete air quality inspection reports.CHD Tech's air solutions mainly comprise AP-550 air purifier and AW-450 fresh air system, respectively handling critical internal and external circulation, said Su.AP-550 is designed with a HEPA filter that spreads out to 16.9 meters in length, equivalent to the height of a six-story building, and an 8.8 square meter area, five times that of a common air purifier on the market. More importantly, AP-550 achieves airtight seal and continuous filtration with its aluminum frame, double-sided airtight design, and mesh screen, compared to conventional products that generally use paper frames without airtight design and therefore deliver less-than-optimal filtration effects due to leakage.In addition to the HEPA filter, AP-550 comes with two extra filters??an activated carbon filter and a pre-filter. In particular, the activated carbon filter weighing 1.7 kg absorbs odorous substances with granular activated carbon and formaldehyde with aluminum oxide and zeolite, significantly removing harmful chemicals. On the other hand, most products available on the market only have a small amount of activated carbon powder on non-woven fabric and therefore can hardly generate comparable filtering effects due to the minimum number of absorption pores. It should also be noted that AP-550 is designed with laminar air flow, different from the turbulent air flow of conventional models, so with its air outlet positioned at the height of 123cm, it can ensure clean air in the layer where people breathe. Furthermore, by separating the air paths of the upper air outlet and the lower air intake, AP-550 enables optimal interior circulation so users can enjoy a clean and healthy surrounding whether standing, sitting or lying down.AW-450, drawn from the concept of a clean room make-up air unit (MAU), purifies outdoor air using industry-leading air washer technology to first filter out water-soluble chemical contaminants and then eliminating non-water-soluble pollutants such as PM with a HEPA filter and sends clean air to the indoor environment. One may be curious about whether a ventilation system functions the same as a heat exchanger in theory. A heat exchanger maintains a stable temperature through heat transfer without filtering out bacteria or PM and thus is quite different from a ventilation system, explained Su.Ventilation systems with laminar air flow and air washer achieve powerful filtration of pollutantsPutting the combination of AW-450 and AP-550 to use will deliver the double benefits of cleansed outdoor air and repurified indoor air, eliminating over 90% of PM and over 80% of chemical contaminants in the air.Su further pointed out CHD Tech also provides accessory units such as the SAR900 fan filter unit available with different duct configurations to help with indoor air purification or outdoor air cleansing. CHD Tech is also introducing the AP-204 PM air purifier suitable for a 23 square meter indoor space (calculated based on the rate of 4 air changes per hour), priced at a little more than NT$10,000, to meet the air purification needs of small areas. Despite its compact size compared to AP-550, AP-204 also comes with a HEPA filter enabling over 90% PM removal and a far superior CP ratio compared to other air purifiers on the market.CHD Tech is accumulating use cases of its air solutions. One example is the use of CHD Tech's AP-550 air purifier in the laboratory of the Department of Engineering Science and Ocean Engineering, National Taiwan University. Experiments in the lab generate a significant amount of ceramic dust over time which contains harmful substances potentially causing cancer, such as lead. This prompted the institution to search for industry or clean room class air purifiers in the hope of effectively reducing PM10/2.5/1.0 particles. Upon careful evaluations, CHD Tech's AP-550 was selected.According to measurements obtained using an Aerocet 831 aerosol mass monitor, the concentrations of PM2.5 and PM10 in the lab were respectively 126?gg/m3 and 147?gg/m3 before the use of AP-550, at least two times higher than the legal limit (35?gg/m3). After putting AP-550 to use, Aerocet 831 readings taken at the air outlet showed zero PM2.5 and PM10 concentration, an amazing 100% removal rate.A second success story happened at the Taoyuan Shulin Elementary School. Neighboring petrochemical factories in the Guanyin Industrial Park on three sides, the school has long been situated in an environment full of industrial air pollution. Caring for the health of the students and teachers, CHD Tech decided to donate several units of AW-450 and AP-550 to the school to help cope with the different requirements of outdoor ventilation and indoor circulation. On-site measurements at the school using a HAL-HPC300 handheld particle counter and an aeroQUAL Series 200 formaldehyde gas monitor showed an indoor formaldehyde concentration of 0.42ppm, 4.25 times higher than the legal limit (0.08ppm), indicating a dire need for improvement. With the AW-450 and AP-550 units in operation, formaldehyde concentration dropped to 0.02ppm, a removal rate of 95.24%.One more application scenario of AP-550 was in a soap factory of a biotechnology company, where the soap scraping operation causes dust to rise in the air, resulting in a constantly high PM2.5 concentration. A measurement taken by CHD Tech at the site indicated a concentration level of 93?gg/m3. The factory then introduced AP-550 and thereby successfully reduced PM2.5 concentration by over 91% to 8?gg/m3, an experience that others can draw from.CHD Tech now mainly relies on its sales team along with word-of-mouth marketing to promote its air quality management business and plans to incorporate online marketing in the future to strengthen its expansion, commented Su. Target markets will include hospitals, clinics, postpartum care centers, chemistry labs or pharmaceutical labs where concentrations of PM or harmful chemicals are generally higher and therefore there is a greater need for air purification.AP-550 air purifierAP-550 air purifier

Implementation of cloud infrastructure is occurring at a phenomenal rate, outpacing Moore's Law. Annual growth is believed to be 30x and as much 100x in some cases. In order to keep up, cloud data centers are having to scale out massively, with hundreds, or even thousands of servers becoming a common sight.At this scale, networking becomes a serious challenge. More and more switches are required, thereby increasing capital costs, as well as management complexity. To tackle the rising expense issues, network disaggregation has become an increasingly popular approach. By separating the switch hardware from the software that runs on it, vendor lock-in is reduced or even eliminated. OEM hardware could be used with software developed in-house, or from third party vendors, so that cost savings can be realized.Though network disaggregation has tackled the immediate problem of hefty capital expenditures, it must be recognized that operating expenditures are still high. The number of managed switches basically stays the same. To reduce operating costs, the issue of network complexity has to also be tackled.Network DisaggregationAlmost every application we use today, whether at home or in the work environment, connects to the cloud in some way. Our email providers, mobile apps, company websites, virtualized desktops and servers, all run on servers in the cloud.For these cloud service providers, this incredible growth has been both a blessing and a challenge. As demand increases, Moore's law has struggled to keep up. Scaling data centers today involves scaling out – buying more compute and storage capacity, and subsequently investing in the networking to connect it all. The cost and complexity of managing everything can quickly add up.Until recently, networking hardware and software had often been tied together. Buying a switch, router or firewall from one vendor would require you to run their software on it as well. Larger cloud service providers saw an opportunity. These players often had no shortage of skilled software engineers. At the massive scales they ran at, they found that buying commodity networking hardware and then running their own software on it would save them a great deal in terms of Capex.This disaggregation of the software from the hardware may have been financially attractive, however it did nothing to address the complexity of the network infrastructure. There was still a great deal of room to optimize further.802.1BRToday's cloud data centers rely on a layered architecture, often in a fat-tree or leaf-spine structural arrangement. Rows of racks, each with top-of-rack (ToR) switches, are then connected to upstream switches on the network spine. The ToR switches are, in fact, performing simple aggregation of network traffic. Using relatively complex, energy consuming switches for this task results in a significant capital expense, as well as management costs and no shortage of headaches.Through the port extension approach, outlined within the IEEE 802.1BR standard, the aim has been to streamline this architecture. By replacing ToR switches with port extenders, port connectivity is extended directly from the rack to the upstream. Management is consolidated to the fewer number of switches which are located at the upper layer network spine, eliminating the dozens or possibly hundreds of switches at the rack level.The reduction in switch management complexity of the port extender approach has been widely recognized, and various network switches on the market now comply with the 802.1BR standard. However, not all the benefits of this standard have actually been realized.The Next Step in Network DisaggregationThough many of the port extenders on the market today fulfill 802.1BR functionality, they do so using legacy components. Instead of being optimized for 802.1BR itself, they rely on traditional switches. This, as a consequence impacts upon the potential cost and power benefits that the new architecture offers.Designed from the ground up for 802.1BR, Marvell's Passive Intelligent Port Extender (PIPE) offering is specifically optimized for this architecture. PIPE is interoperable with 802.1BR compliant upstream bridge switches from all the industry's leading OEMs. It enables fan-less, cost efficient port extenders to be deployed, which thereby provide upfront savings as well as ongoing operational savings for cloud data centers. Power consumption is lowered and switch management complexity is reduced by an order of magnitudeThe first wave in network disaggregation was separating switch software from the hardware that it ran on. 802.1BR's port extender architecture is bringing about the second wave, where ports are decoupled from the switches which manage them. The modular approach to networking discussed here will result in lower costs, reduced energy consumption and greatly simplified network management.

Torex Semiconductor has enhanced the XD6121/XD6122/XD6123/XD6124 series of voltage detectors for in-vehicle applications. Featuring a watchdog function based on a CMOS process, these detectors achieve high accuracy and a low quiescent current.The XD6121/XD6122/XD6123/XD6124 series newly launched by Torex outputs a signal with a delay time set by an internal delay circuit with no need for external components. The output type is L level on detection (VDFL).In order to maintain device stability (redundancy) in in-vehicle applications, a single IC is often used instead of an internal microcontroller with a watchdog function or voltage detection function. With this product, there is no need for external components to set the delay time, and this provides a significant advantage for customers in terms of lowering the quiescent current and space savings. In addition, the product complies with AEC-Q100 (Grade 3), according to Torex.A watchdog ON/OFF function is incorporated, and the watchdog function can be turned OFF while maintaining the voltage detection function by setting the EN/ENB pin to L or H level. This contributes to further lowering of the quiescent current when the function is stopped.The EN/ENB pin is internally pulled up to VIN or pulled down to VSS, and can be used in the OPEN state while the watchdog function is used. This helps the customer design redundancy.The detected voltage can be set to 1.6V, 2.2V, 2.3V, 2.4V, 2.9V, 3.0V, 3.1V, 4.4V, 4.5V, or 4.6V by laser trimming. Six types are selectable from 50ms to 1.6s for the watchdog timeout time. Five types are selectable from 3.13ms to 400ms for the release delay time. The product is housed in the versatile SOT-25 package.About Torex Semiconductor Ltd.Torex Semiconductor is a provider of CMOS power management ICs targeted toward battery powered and energy efficient applications. Torex specializes in CMOS analog technology, with LDO voltage regulators, voltage detectors and DC/DC converters making up our core product offering. Torex website: http://www.torexsemi.com/XD6121/XD6122/XD6123/XD6124 Series, SOT-25 (2.8 x 2.9 x h1.3mm)

Although wireless charging has gathered much attention in the market in recent years, it has not yet been adopted on a large scale owing to issues such as convenience, costs, safety, and so forth. As opposed to the traditional coil-based wireless charging technology, collaborating with Energous, Dialog Semiconductor shall be providing consumers with unparalleled experience through its distinctive RF-based wireless charging technology. In addition, with wearables and IoT devices as target markets, Dialog attempts to open up much more ample business opportunities for wireless charging applications."As a leading provider of power technology, Dialog has been closely paying attention to the momentum of wireless charging market. However, the reason Dialog did not rashly devote itself while coil-based wireless charging technology was on the rise is that we did not consider this technology as a practical solution to wireless charging," Mark Hopgood, Director of Strategic Marketing at Dialog stated."For consumers, wireless charging is expected to be capable of charging all sorts of electronic devices easily and flexibly, but in reality, existing wireless charging requires the device to be precisely placed on the chargers, and it imposes restrictions. Hence, in the past few years, although it has been a great hype in the market, as it could not completely fulfill users' expectations for wireless charging, it had not been considered successful," he stressed.Strategic collaboration with EnergousTwo years ago, Dialog found Energous, a start-up whose RF-based wireless charging technology once again triggered Dialog's interest in this market. However, since RF-based technology of any kind calls for approval of regulatory authority to ensure safety and anti-interference, Dialog had remained its conservative stance before Energous's technology received permission.It was not until last summer had Energous announced a secured permission of FCC and become the first RF-based wireless charging technology that was approved by FCC, marking a significant milestone for its commercial application. Consequently, Dialog swiftly made a public announcement about its investment in and strategic collaboration with Energous, becoming the global exclusive supplier of Energous' WattUp wireless charging chips.Hopgood states that Energous is a three-year-old startup, so for it to enter the consumer market, it demands sufficient resources to cope with large-scale production, technical services, reliability requirement, and so forth. By cooperating with Dialog, we shall assist them in chip testing, quality assurance, and on top of our close manufacturing relationship with TSMC, through which Energous gains access to more competitive production costs, supply chain synergies is demonstrated, creating a win-win situation.Moreover, Dialog can make use of its leading Bluetooth Low Energy, power management, and AC/DC power conversion chips to complement with Energous's solution, enabling a comprehensive solution with cost-effectiveness and high scalability to target at a wide range of products, such as IoT devices, wearables, hearing aids, headphones, smartphones, and automobiles.Unparalleled RF-based wireless charging technologyAs Hopgood explains, different from the existing coil-based inductive or resonant wireless charging, the biggest breakthrough of WattUp technology lies within its RF-based wireless charging technology, which receives radio from transmitters and converts it to power, exempting the traditional coil design that takes up extra space. In addition, with the flexibility and compact size advantages of antenna designs, they allow wireless charging for small devices, such as hearing aids or IoT sensors, as well as greater freedom of orientation, which ensures effortless charging at any angle.Such uncoupled wireless charging creates a whole new experience of using electronic devices whilst charging, with Dialog claiming it as the beginning of an unprecedented era of wireless charging 2.0.However, Hopgood also indicates that compared to the existing inductive (A4WP standard) and resonant (Qi standard) wireless charging, these three technologies each has its strength in terms of cost, scalability, power, efficiency, size, distance, and so forth, and therefore shall continue to coexist in the market. What makes WattUp stand out in the market is that it can provide the same flexibility of A4WP standard, but the with same low-cost advantage of Qi. Therefore, it is particularly suitable for low power wearables and IoT devices. Moreover, WattUp is only capable of supplying 10 watts at maximum, so it is a completely different application from companies providing vehicles or public areas with high power wireless charging, such as WiTricity.Based on Energous's product roadmap, WattUp has three different versions, near field, mid field and far field, whose charging distances are 5mm (contact type), 90cm, and 450cm respectively. Furthermore, depending on the distance, it provides different power specifications from several watts, hundreds of mW, to tens of mW respectively.Therefore, according to to different charging distances and power, WattUp offers different wireless charging scenarios. For a near-field application, it is the most typical case of placing devices, such as phones, on a transmitter to allow for contact-type wireless charging, fully charging the phone. Nonetheless, its difference between the existing Qi standard is that WattUp doesn't require specific orientations, enabling random placing as well as improved flexibility.As for a mid-field application, transmitters can be installed in PC to charge peripherals, such as keyboard and mouse, simultaneously. In this context, since the power supply is limited to only hundreds of mW, trickle mode is made capable of charging smartphones, maintaining phone battery power. The advantage is that phones can be used while its battery being kept easily, so manufactures can adopt batteries of a smaller capacity when designing phones, making phones thinner than ever.Finally, in the case of a far-field application, due to the charging distance being 450 cm, IoT node devices, including smart homes and IoT sensors, can be charged remotely. It satisfies the need of IoT sensors for sustaining battery life for a longer number of years, offering a much more effective solution.In response to the concerns over safety and interference for wireless charging technology expressed by the industry, Hopgood states that since WattUp operates around ISM band 5.8GHz, there is no interference with the existing WiFi or any other wireless communication technologies. Regarding mid-field and far-field versions, a beam-forming technology shall be incorporated to create a 3D energy pocket around the device as Bluetooth signal confirms the whereabouts of the charging device, continuing charging as the device moves. Besides, subject to the requirement of FCC, WattUp is constrained to immediately lower its power by 50% once the distance exceeds 1 meter to ensure safety.He draws attention to the underlying fact that being granted FCC permission suggests consumers need not to worry about safety and interference issues. Following the permission given to near-field technology, Dialog had officially launched a relevant chip and evaluation board solution. Mid- and far-field solutions shall progressively make official launches Q3 this year and next year, then fostering an unparalleled wireless charging application. Meanwhile, Hopgood suggests that products which adopt the near-field solution are to be expected as of the end of this year.Mark Hopgood, Director of Strategic Marketing at Dialog

Microsemi Corporation (Nasdaq: MSCC), a leading provider of semiconductor solutions differentiated by power, security, reliability and performance, announced its PolarFire field programmable gate array (FPGA) engineering samples (ES) are available for ordering. The PolarFire FPGA family provides the lowest power, cost-optimized mid-range devices spanning from 100K logic elements (LEs) to 500K LEs. Its PolarFire Evaluation Kit, already shipping to key customers, is also available for ordering from the company and its distribution channels.In addition, Microsemi's Libero SoC PolarFire Design Suite has been updated with version 1.1 Service Pack 1 enabling design starts for the broad customer base, together with key quick start demonstration designs for rapid evaluation and prototyping.Microsemi's PolarFire FPGA ES devices, which feature 12.7G transceivers and offer up to 50 percent lower power than competing mid-range FPGAs, have shipped to early access program (EAP) customers since February and are now available for all customers. The FPGA product family is ideal for a wide range of applications within wireline access networks and cellular infrastructure, defense and commercial aviation markets, as well as industry 4.0 which includes the industrial automation and Internet of Things (IoT) markets."After successfully shipping initial ES devices and hardware kits in February to our early access and select tier-one customers for system integration and advanced evaluation, we are pleased to reach another key milestone in the PolarFire family rollout by making ES and a high-performance evaluation platform available to our broader customer base," said Shakeel Peera, senior director of SoC product marketing, at Microsemi. "The release of the evaluation kit allows customers to port complex designs and test out advanced features - including 12 Gbps package protocols, high-speed DDR3/4 memory interfaces and general purpose input/outputs (IOs), as well as complex signal and waveform processing, all in the industry's lowest power, cost-optimized midrange FPGA."Multiple demo reference designs are available now with full design files for Libero SoC PolarFire targeting the PolarFire Evaluation Kit, including JESD204B Interface, PCI Express (PCIe) Endpoint, 10GBASE-R Ethernet Loopback, DSP FIR Filter and Multi-Rate Transceiver Demo, with additional reference designs planned over the coming months.Microsemi's PolarFire Evaluation Kit is a comprehensive platform for evaluating the company's recently introduced PolarFire FPGAs and is well-suited for high-speed transceiver evaluation, 10Gb Ethernet, IEEE 1588, JESD204B, Synchronous Ethernet (SyncE) and CPRI. The solution is also ideal for a wide variety of end markets and applications, including communications (high-speed transceiver evaluation, full-duplex 12.7 Gbps SerDes channel testing, SyncE and 1588 applications, and dual Gigabit Ethernet RJ45 solutions), industrial (PCIe edge testing, and SyncE and 1588 applications), and aerospace and defense (encryption and root-of-trust, secure wireless communications applications, aircraft networking, and actuation and control). The kit features a high-pin-count FPGA mezzanine card (FMC), numerous surface mount assemblies (SMAs), PCIe, dual Gigabit Ethernet RJ45, small form-factor pluggable (SFP) modules, DDR4 and USB.Offering additional design support for customers, Microsemi's Libero SoC PolarFire Design Suite provides high productivity with its comprehensive, easy to learn, easy to adopt development tools for designing with Microsemi's PolarFire FPGAs. The suite includes a complete design flow with Synopsys SynplifyPro synthesis and Mentor Graphics ModelSim mixed-language simulation with best-in-class constraints management, as well as Microsemi's differentiated FPGA debugging suite, SmartDebug. The SmartDebug tool enables hardware debugging using the in-built dedicated signal probe and offers advantages including live on-chip debugging, eliminating extra FPGA resources, reduced FPGA design debug cycles and enabling read-write capability to LEs and memory blocks. The release of v1.1 SP1 includes faster run time, DDR3 support, and support for advanced 10 Gbps transceiver based protocols, as well as IBIS Algorithmic Modeling Interface (AMI) models for advanced simulation of signal integrity.Key features of the kit include:- 300K LE PolarFire FPGA in an FCG1152 package (MPF300TS-1FCG1152I)- HPC FMC connector- 1x SFP+ cage- IEEE1588 phase-locked loop (PLL)- SMA connectors for testing of full-duplex 12.7Gbps SerDes channel- 4GB DDR4 x32 and 2GB DDR3 x16- PCI Express (x4) edge connector- 2 x RJ45 for 10/100/1000 Ethernet using serial gigabit media-independent interface (SGMII) on general purpose input/output (GPIO)- Dual 10/100/1,000 BASE-T PHY (VSC8575) for SyncE and 1588 application- Power management unit for 1 or 1.05 volt (V) PolarFire FPGA core voltage- USB to universal asynchronous receiver/transmitter (UART) interface- Embedded programming and debugging using serial peripheral interface (SPI) and Joint Test Action Group (JTAG)- On-board power monitoring- 2 x 1Gb SPI flash memoryAvailabilityPolarFire 300K LE FPGA devices are available for ES ordering now with standard lead times. PolarFire Evaluation Kit MPF300-EVAL-KIT-ES is available for ordering and shipping now. Libero SoC PolarFire v1.1 SP1 software is available for immediate download. For more information, visit www.microsemi.com/polarfire or email sales.support@microsemi.com.About PolarFire FPGAsMicrosemi's new cost-optimized PolarFire FPGAs deliver the industry's lowest power at mid-range densities with exceptional security and reliability. The product family features 12.7 Gbps transceivers and offer up to 50 percent lower power than competing FPGAs. Densities span from 100K to 500K LEs and are ideal for a wide range of applications within wireline access networks and cellular infrastructure, defense and commercial aviation markets, as well as industry 4.0 which includes the industrial automation and internet of things (IoT) markets.PolarFire FPGAs' transceivers can support multiple serial protocols, making the products ideal for communications applications with 10Gbps Ethernet, CPRI, JESD204B, Interlaken and PCIe. In addition, the ability to implement serial gigabit Ethernet (SGMII) on GPIO enables numerous 1Gbps Ethernet links to be supported. PolarFire FPGAs also contain the most hardened security IP to protect customer designs, data and supply chain. The non-volatile PolarFire product family consumes 10 times less static power than competitive devices and features an even lower standby power referred to as Flash*Freeze. For more information, visit www.microsemi.com/polarfire.About MicrosemiMicrosemi Corporation (Nasdaq: MSCC) offers a comprehensive portfolio of semiconductor and system solutions for aerospace & defense, communications, data center and industrial markets. Products include high-performance and radiation-hardened analog mixed-signal integrated circuits, FPGAs, SoCs and ASICs; power management products; timing and synchronization devices and precise time solutions, setting the world's standard for time; voice processing devices; RF solutions; discrete components; enterprise storage and communication solutions, security technologies and scalable anti-tamper products; Ethernet solutions; Power-over-Ethernet ICs and midspans; as well as custom design capabilities and services. Microsemi is headquartered in Aliso Viejo, California and has approximately 4,800 employees globally. Learn more at www.microsemi.com.

Electronic systems account for an increasing share of automotive parts and therefore software plays a growingly important role in car safety and performance. To ensure the quality of software development, Automotive SPICE (Software Process Improvement and Capability dEtermination) jointly developed by German automakers, dubbed A-SPICE, has gradually become a common standard followed by automobile manufacturers worldwide.Kevin Huang, Greater China Functional Safety Product Manager, TUV NORD, commented the newly published draft version of the automotive industry's widely-used standard IATF 16949 required suppliers to provide capability assessment reports based on A-SPICE when they develop software. Although the requirement is not included in the final official version, this is still an indication that the automotive industry regards software quality requirement a must and it is only a matter of time before such requirement is officially added to standards.Furthermore, the automotive industry is gradually turning to A-SPICE in place of the CMMI assessment model, which has been in use by the software industry for a long time. For example, a well-known CMMI level 3 certified auto parts supplier was recently required by its customers to rebuild its development process following the A-SPICE standard."The said two instances resulted in an increasing number of inquiries by Taiwan-based vendors regarding A-SPICE since 2016. TUV NORD already has experiences in helping Taiwan-based businesses build up A-SPICE compliant projects, including semiconductor makers and ODM companies," indicated Huang. "When automakers approach suppliers in Taiwan, they will definitely require suppliers to improve their processes as a prerequisite for entrance into the supply chain. This is the direction where the whole automotive industry is headed. Vendors hoping for a share of the automotive electronics market with a high technological barrier must be willing to devote resources to build up a competitive edge. We are seeing quite a number of Taiwan-based vendors aggressively expanding into this field."TUV NORD collaborates with German consulting firm Method Park to provide training and implementation services in regard to the A-SPICE standard for the Taiwan market. Sunil Kumar, Director Asia, Expert Consultant, Method Park Consulting GmbH and a Principal A-SPICE Assessor and Instructor, he also represents Japan, China, India and Korea in intacs, pointed out almost all of German automakers are using A-SPICE to assess supplier capability in software development since the standard was first established by German automakers in 2005. Industries in Japan, China, Korea and the U.S. are also attaching growing importance to A-SPICE, making it a worldwide standard.Similar to CMMI, A-SPICE assesses capability and defines five capability levels??L1 to L5. Currently automotive manufacturers' requirements on individual projects mainly focus on L2 (managed process) and L3 (established process). What distinguishes A-SPICE from CMMI is that A-SPICE imposes meticulous requirements on software/system, System requirements, system architecture design, software requirements, software architecture, detailed design, coding, five different level of testing, integrity, certification, and even the processes of project management, configuration management and quality assurance. The CMMI model, on the other hand, focuses more on defining high-level engineering processes.Kumar indicated CMMI has more room for self-interpretation so automakers tend to opt for A-SPICE with stringent requirements on process details. In addition, intacs, the organization in charge of A-SPICE management, specifically divides its operations into three independent units respectively overseeing standard setting, training and assessment for the purpose of ensuring impartial certification results. A-SPICE now has set standards for 32 processes, 11 of which are related to engineering and the remaining include management, supporting and other processes.Different customers have different requirements on the processes. For example, BMW, Volkswagen and Audi demand that their suppliers comply with the standard for 16 processes (HIS Scope) while Volvo, Ford and Jaguar mandate compliance for 21 processes (HIS Extending). Automakers can have more flexibility in how to evaluate supplier capability based on their project requirements. Moreover, as automotive electronic systems comprise more than software, the standard also offer plug in concept to incorporate requirements on hardware and mechanical engineering development processes in the future to further guarantee quality.TUV NORD and Method Park provide complete A-SPICE services including training, difference analysis, consultation and support for process implementation, pre-assessment and final assessment. Huang commented with the automotive industry's rapid development, the ISO 26262 functional safety standard is also another important criterion in addition to A-SPICE for vendors that want to expand into the automotive electronics market. As a more practical and efficient approach, vendors should start with implementing A-SPICE compliant processes and proceed to ISO 26262 on the A-SPICE basis, suggested Huang.Huang emphasized one major advantage of TUV NORD is its hands-on experiences gained from serving customers around the globe. In particular, TUV NORD is well aware of the different requirements by different automakers and therefore is capable of providing the type of integrated certification services that vendors need to expedite their penetration into the automotive electronics market.Sunil Kumar, Director Asia, Expert Consultant, Method Park (left) and Kevin Huang, Greater China Functional Safety Product Manager, TUV NORD (right)

Kilopass Technology Inc., a leading provider of semiconductor logic embedded non-volatile memory (eNVM) intellectual property (IP), today announced that Cista Design Inc., a leading developer of advanced digital imaging solutions for mobile handsets, consumer electronics and surveillance camera markets; has licensed Kilopass XPM one-time programmable (OTP), anti-fuse, NVM memory IP.Cista Design will include the Kilopass IP in a new CMOS Image Sensor (CIS) being fabbed on the Semiconductor Manufacturing International Corporation ("SMIC"; NYSE: SMI; SEHK: 981) independently developed 130nm back-side illumination (BSI) technology platform. Kilopass OTP IP will store trimming data for the analog and mixed signal circuits in addition to pixel mapping data for the new Cista Design CIS chip.Wilson Du, CEO and President of Cista System Corp. stated, "We needed a reliable intellectual property vendor of OTP NVM for the SMIC 130nm BIS process node. The low leakage SMIC process uses three aluminum metal layers for reduced cost and supports pixel sizes down to 1.4-micron for implementing our 8MP resolution CIS. We chose Kilopass because of its availability on the SMIC process and their reputation as a vendor with a breadth of offerings on the major foundries worldwide."We are thrilled that Cista Design chose our OTP NVM for their CMOS image sensor," said Charlie Cheng, president and CEO of Kilopass Technology. "The CIS market is both high volume and experiencing dramatic growth thanks to the multiple cameras being built into mobile phones and especially in automobiles. Our OTP NVM is well suited for chips targeting these markets, where each chip coming off the assembly line is programmed at test time with parameters that need to be written once and never changed."Find out more at www.cistadesign.comAbout SMICSemiconductor Manufacturing International Corporation ("SMIC"; NYSE: SMI; SEHK: 981) is one of the leading semiconductor foundries in the world and the largest and most advanced foundry in mainland China. SMIC provides integrated circuit (IC) foundry and technology services at 0.35-micron to 28-nanometer. Headquartered in Shanghai, China, SMIC has a 300mm wafer fabrication facility (fab) and a 200mm mega-fab in Shanghai; a 300mm mega-fab and a second majority owned 300mm fab under development for advance nodes in Beijing; and 200mm fabs in Tianjin and Shenzhen. SMIC also has marketing and customer service offices in the U.S., Europe, Japan, and Taiwan, and a representative office in Hong Kong. For more information, please visit www.smics.com.About KilopassKilopass Technology, Inc., a leading supplier of embedded NVM intellectual property using standard logic CMOS processes to deliver one-time programmable (OTP) and few-time programmable (FTP) memory. With more than 60 patents granted or pending and more than 3,000,000 wafers shipped from a dozen foundries and Integrated Device Manufacturers (IDMs), Kilopass has 170 customers in applications ranging from storage of firmware and security codes to calibration data and other application-critical information. The company is headquartered in Santa Clara, Calif. For more information, visit www.kilopass.com or email info@kilopass.com.Follow Kilopass on Twitter at https://twitter.com/kilopass_.

SilTerra Malaysia Sdn. Bhd., a Malaysian home grown leading semiconductor wafer foundry, and Zhuhai Chuangfeixin Technology Co., Ltd. ("CFX"), an memory IP design house, jointly announced the production release of Anti-Fuse One-Time-Programming (OTP) IP in SilTerra's 160nm and 110nm High Voltage technology.CFX's Anti-Fuse OTP memory macro is silicon characterized and qualified on SilTerra's High Voltage technology. The OTP has demonstrated to achieve 10 years of data retention reliability and passed 1000hours of burn-in reliability tests. The CFX Anti-Fuse OTP IP is cost optimized in term of area and density, and do not require extra process masking steps.The IP would enable our customers to set parameters to optimize the power consumption, performance and color gamut of display driver IC."We are pleased to partner with CFX to offer silicon proven Anti-Fuse OTP IP on SilTerra's High Voltage technology. This would enhance our IP offering to meet our customer expectation in term of cost and data retention reliability especially in power management IC and display driver IC market." said Yit Loong Lai, Executive Vice President of Worldwide Sales and Marketing of SilTerra."With our Anti-Fuse OTP memory IP fully qualified in both SilTerra's 160nm and 110nm High Voltage technology, CFX is able to expand our IP business not only in local China market but also to serve oversea design houses, who need our Anti-fuse OTP solutions. Our technology has such advantages as ultra-high reliability and security, wide operation temperature range (-45 degree C to 125 degree C), high speed, ultra-low power, high density, low program voltage and low post-program resistance. It provides high performance and cost effective solution to our customers" commented by Dr. Zhigang Wang, President and CEO of Zhuhai Chuangfeixin Technology Co., Ltd."Moving forward, we will continue to work closely with CFX to expand the Anti-Fuse OTP solution into our 110nm CMOS Logic technology platform." Lai added.About SilTerra Malaysia Sdn BhdSilTerra Malaysia Sdn Bhd is a semiconductor wafer foundry offering fabrication and design support services in CMOS logic, High-Voltage, Mixed-signal, RF and MEMS technologies down to 90 nanometer feature size. SilTerra's wafer fab has a design-in capacity of 40,000 eight-inch wafers per month and currently serves customers in US, EU, Latin America, Taiwan, Korea and China.Environmentally vigilant, SilTerra delivers award-winning, world-class performance to its customers seeking flexible capacity, custom technologies, competitive advantages and around the clock customer support. SilTerra is ISO 9001:2008 and ISO 14001 certified. Starting commercial production in 2001, the company's headquarters and factory are located in Malaysia's Kulim High-Tech Park, with sales and marketing offices in San Jose (California) and Hsinchu (Taiwan).For additional information on SilTerra or its services, please visit www.silterra.com About Zhuhai Chuangfeixin Technology Co., Ltd.Zhuhai Chuangfeixin Technology Co., Ltd. ("CFX") is a leading memory IP provider with its design and engineering offices in Zhuhai (China), Beijing (China), and Milpitas (Silicon Valley, California).CFX's Anti-Fuse OTP technology provides most competitive memory macro size and most reliable performance to its customers. The OTP-IP core is 100% CMOS process compatible, and its implementation does not require special process optimization or additional process steps.For additional information on Chuangfeixin, please visit www.chuangfeixin.com

Artificial intelligence (AI) has grown to become more mature due to aggressive development by related players over the past few years and is now able to support more applications including autonomous driving, robots and voice assistant platforms. NVIDIA has been a pioneer of AI technology development and its expertise on GPU parallel computing also makes the company one of the top suppliers of deep learning hardware.GPUs originally served only as an engine for stimulating human imagination, conjuring up virtual worlds in video games and Hollywood films, but after over 20 years of development since 1999, NVIDIA's GPUs are now able to simulate human intelligence, running deep learning algorithms and acting as the brain of computers, robots, and self-driving cars that can perceive and understand the world.When asked about what is the definition of AI and what AI is capable of doing, NVIDIA general manager and vice president of Accelerated Computing business unit Ian Buck said it is better to think it as a new way of doing computing. AI has grown to become more known by people throughout the past decade because of its ability to replace the traditional algorithms and instead of needing human to give specific instructions for it to process, its neural network is able to figure out the algorithms itself from data.By giving a few million images of an object to an image network, it will be able to learn the most efficient way to detect the object. This is actually a new way of computing and instead of writing the code manually, people can let AI figures out the code for them, Buck noted.At Computex 2017, NVIDIA announced partnerships with Taiwan-based server players including Foxconn Electronics (Hon Hai Precision Industry), Inventec, Quanta Computer and Wistron to develop GPU-oriented datacenter products, aiming to fulfill market demand for AI cloud computing hardware.NVIDIA will provide these server players early access to its HGX reference architecture based on Microsoft's Project Olympus initiative, Facebook's Big Basin systems and NVIDIA'sDGX-1 AL supercomputers, as well as its GPU computing technologies and design guidelines to help them develop GPU-accelerated systems for hyperscale data centers.Buck pointed out that via the cooperation, server players can choose how they wish to design the layout of their datacenter server systems and the components they wish to adopt to create differentiation from each other and provide added value for their customers. NVIDIA's engineers will maintain close communication with these players to ensure they receive the support needed for hardware buildups, so the players are able to conduct development of datacenter server systems in the least amount of time and quickly release their products to market.NVIDIA is fully aware that clients want to have special customization such as form factor and method of cooling, for their server products, and therefore is working with the ODMs to create products using NVIDIA'sHGX-1 architecture.NVIDIA's vice president of Solutions Architecture and Engineering team Marc Hamilton also gave detail on NVIDIA's latest technology. He noted that the HGX reference design is created meant for the high-performance, efficiency and scaling requirements that cloud datacenter servers need and it will also serve as the basic architecture for ODMs to design their cloud computing datacenter servers.The standard HGX design architecture includes eight NVIDIA Tesla GPU accelerators in the SXM2 form factor and connected in a cube mesh using NVIDIA NVLink high-speed interconnects and optimized PCIe topologies. With a modular design, HGX enclosures are suited for deployment in existing data center racks across the globe, using hyperscale CPU nodes as needed, Hamilton added.However, this is not the first time NVIDIA has established collaboration with server players. In early March, NVIDIA announced collaboration with Microsoft to push a new hyperscale GPU accelerator to drive AI cloud computing: The HGX-1 hyperscale GPU accelerator, an open-source design released in conjunction with Microsoft's Project Olympus.The new architecture is designed to meet the demand for AI computing in the cloud – in fields such as autonomous driving, personalized healthcare, human voice recognition, data and video analytics, and molecular simulations. It is powered by eight NVIDIA Tesla P100 GPUs in each chassis, as well as NVIDIA NVLink interconnect technology and the PCIe standard – enabling a CPU to dynamically connect to any number of GPUs. This allows cloud service providers that standardize on the HGX-1 infrastructure to offer customers a range of CPU and GPU machine instance configurations.NVIDIA believes that cloud workloads are growing more diverse and complex than ever, and the highly modular design of the HGX-1 allows for optimal performance no matter the workload. It also provides up to 100 times faster deep learning performance compared with legacy CPU-based servers, and is estimated to deliver one-fifth the cost for conducting AI training and one-tenth the cost for AI inferencing.With its flexibility to work with data centers across the globe, HGX-1 offers existing hyperscale data centers a quick, simple path to be ready for AI.Buck pointed out that NVIDIA currently has two major areas where it can contribute in the AI market. One is in the datacenter, a lot of end devices actually need to communicate back to datacenters to get answers and NVIDIA has been focusing on developing AI technologies and training the neural network to learn new things. NVIDIA also works with its partners to develop software and hardware and is supplying kits including Cuda, cuDNN and TensorRT, which leading frameworks and applications can easily tap into, to accelerate AI and research.The second area is the GPU used in devices. An example is autonomous driving system. Since a car cannot only rely on datacenter to drive, equipping a super computer into car is a necessary work for the application. NVIDIA has several solutions including Jetson embedded platform and GPUs that are used for datacenter, can be adopted into the super computer.Microsoft, NVIDIA and Ingrasys, a Foxconn subsidiary, collaborated to architect and design the HGX-1 platform, which they are sharing widely as part of Microsoft's Project Olympus contribution to the Open Compute Project, a consortium whose mission is to apply the benefits of open source to hardware, and rapidly increase the pace of innovation in, near and around the data center and beyond.To further improve the HGX platform's performance, NVIDIA launched Volta, its new GPU computing architecture, created to drive the next wave of advancement in artificial intelligence and high-performance computing in early May at NVIDIA's GTC show. The first Volta-based processor, the NVIDIA Tesla V100 data center GPU, is able to bring extraordinary speed and scalability for AI inferencing and training, as well as for accelerating HPC and graphics workloads.Hamilton noted that Volta, NVIDIA's seventh-generation GPU architecture, is built with 21 billion transistors and is able to output a performance that is equivalent to 100 CPUs in deep learning applications.Volta provides a 5x improvement over Pascal, the previous-generation NVIDIAGPU architecture, in peak teraflops, and 15x over the Maxwell architecture, launched two years ago. This performance surpasses by 4x the improvements predicted by Moore's law.Datacenters need to deliver exponentially greater processing power as these networks become more complex. And they need to efficiently scale to support the rapid adoption of highly accurate AI-based services, such as natural language virtual assistants, and personalized search and recommendation systems.Volta will become the new standard for high performance computing. It offers a platform for HPC systems to excel at both computational science and data science for discovering insights. By pairing CUDA cores and the new Volta Tensor Core within a unified architecture, a single server with Tesla V100 GPUs can replace hundreds of commodity CPUs for traditional HPC.Technologies include Tensor Cores designed to speed up AI workloads. The Tesla V100 GPU is equipped with 640 Tensor Cores to deliver 120 teraflops of deep learning performance, equivalent to the performance of 100 CPUs.An improved NVLink provides the next generation of high-speed interconnect linking GPUs, and GPUs to CPUs, with up to two times the throughput of the prior generation NVLink.Developed in collaboration with Samsung, the GPU supports 900GB/s HBM2 DRAM, allowing the architecture to achieve 50% more memory bandwidth than previous generation GPUs, essential to support the computing throughput of Volta.Both NVIDIA Tesla P100 and V100 GPU accelerators are compatible with HGX. This allows for immediate upgrades of all HGX-based products from P100 to V100 GPUs.With new NVIDIA Volta architecture-based GPUs offering three times the performance of its predecessor, ODMs can feed market demand with new products based on the latest NVIDIA technology available.HGX is an ideal reference architecture for cloud providers seeking to host the new NVIDIAGPU Cloud platform. The NVIDIAGPU Cloud platform manages a catalog of fully integrated and optimized deep learning framework containers, including Caffe2, Cognitive Toolkit, MXNet and TensorFlow.NVIDIA is seeing strong growth in AI applications across different channels, noted Buck adding that people are highly interested in hyperscale cloud, traditional OEM and AI-supported personal workstations. Demand from AI developers and researchers for high-end consumer-based PCs and notebooks has also been picking up.Currently, all major public cloud computing service providers have adopted GPU-power datacenter servers for their calculation need and the driving force for such a trend is AI, Buck said.This fact also corresponds to the latest market trend. In 2016, Taiwan's server revenues increased 4.8% on year, reaching NT$555.8 billion (US$18.6 billion) because of increased server demand worldwide. Revenues are estimated to grow to NT$588.6 billion in 2017 as demand from datacenter clients including Amazon, Google, Facebook and Microsoft is expected to rise further.With demand for products featuring AI, such as robots, smart voice assistants, and autonomous driving solutions, continuing to see growth, GPU-oriented datacenter server shipments are expected to gain popularity in the industry.Although many of the related applications are not yet fully mature, business opportunities have grown quickly over the past few years. With NVIDIA's close involvement and assistance, especially on the software side, AI is expected to become a new growth driver for the IT industry and a new business direction that Taiwan-based hardware players can venture into to seek new opportunities.NVIDIA HGX reference architectureNVIDIA Tesla V100

Camera manufacturer Basler is adding 20 new high-resolution models to the portfolio of its most successful camera series, the ace. The ace line now includes over 120 cameras, representing the largest camera series in the industrial image processing market. To distinguish the models more easily, Basler will group the ace series into three product lines from now on: ace classic, ace U and ace L.Twelve ace Models with Sony Pregius Global Shutter SensorsTwelve of the 20 new cameras are equipped with the IMX253, IMX255, IMX267 and IMX304 sensors from Sony's Pregius line. These twelve models form the ace L product line offer resolutions of 9 and 12 megapixels and frame rates of up to 40 fps. These cameras stand out in particular due to the well-known, brilliant Pregius image quality at high resolutions and a pixel size of 3.45 µm. State-of-the-art global shutter technology ensures distortion-free images, even at high speeds. These qualities make the twelve new ace models well-suited especially for applications in highly automated 3D inspection systems or in traffic monitoring, for example in tolling.Eight ace Models with Sony STARVIS Rolling Shutter SensorsIn addition to these twelve cameras, Basler introduces eight new ace models with the IMX178 and IMX226 sensors from Sony's STARVIS line. These models join the ace U product line. Equipped with the latest rolling shutter technology and featuring high resolutions of 6 and 12 megapixels with up to 59 frames per second, they demonstrate their full potential especially in microscopy applications and less complex automation tasks in the electronics industry. The innovative BI (back-illuminated) sensor technology provides outstanding sensitivity at a small pixel size of 2.4 micron (IMX178) or 1.85 micron (IMX226). With these particularly light-sensitive sensors, the eight new ace cameras offer excellent image quality even in low light conditions.All 20 new ace models are available with the proven GigE or USB 3.0 interface and conform to GigE Vision 2.0 or the USB3 Vision standard. The GigE models excel with high-performance GigE Vision 2.0 features such as PTP. The ten color models also include the PGI feature set, the unique combination of 5x5 debayering, color-anti-aliasing, denoising and improved sharpness. Basler's pylon Camera Software Suite also ensures a fast and simple integration of the ace cameras. All 20 models are available as design-in-samples.New Names for an Easy OverviewWith the introduction of the 20 new models, Basler also presents a new naming system for the ace series. To make the selection clearer for customers and to better distinguish the various model features, Basler will group the ace series into three product lines from now on: ace classic, ace U and ace L. You can find a detailed description of the different product lines here: www.baslerweb.com/ace-product-linesMore Information: www.baslerweb.com/new-aceBasler adds 20 new high-resolution models to its ace camera series.