Advantest Corporation's (TSE: 6857) 11 annual VOICE Developer Conference will feature dual sessions this month - May 16-17 in the United States and May 26 in China -- allowing semiconductor test professionals representing the world's leading integrated device manufacturers (IDMs), foundries, fabless semiconductor companies and outsourced assembly and test (OSAT) providers to come together to share ideas and information.Attendees will hear more than 100 technical presentations, meet with experts at this year's expanded technology kiosk showcase, visit partners' expositions, and attend social and networking events. Both conferences will feature the theme "Measure the Connected World and Everything in It."The detailed VOICE 2017 technical program is available online at https://voice.advantest.com/technical-program. It features Advantest customers, partners and employees from 12 countries and 22 different companies presenting their insights and best practices. This year's program will have eight technology tracks covering device specific testing, hardware design and integration, improving throughput, reducing time-to-market, new hardware/software test solutions, test methodologies, product engineering, hot topics in the ATE industry, and - for the first time - SmarTEST 8.0 for the V93000 platform. In addition to paper presentations, Advantest R&D engineers and technology experts will be available in kiosks to discuss other testing topics with attendees.A keynote speech will be delivered each morning of the conference. The Palm Springs event will open with a talk by Advantest's own Hans-Juergen Wagner, senior vice president of the SoC Product Group, who will detail the drivers, challenges and emerging trends of SoC device designs and the impact they have on test. The second day's keynote speaker, Chris Tarbell, will present a dynamic keynote address on hacking and the dark net. Tarbell is one of the most successful cyber security law enforcement officials of all time. He is responsible for infiltrating the hacker group Anonymous and taking down the notorious dark web drug trafficking site Silk Road, called "the most sophisticated and extensive criminal marketplace on the Internet."In Shanghai, Dr. Peter Chen, senior director, China Business Development, TSMC China Company Limited, will share his insights into the global semiconductor industry landscape, technology trends, and especially the ecosystem and market in China.VOICE 2017 in Palm Springs will be held at the Hyatt Regency Indian Wells Resort. The conference kicks off with a Welcome Reception on Monday, May 15 at 6:00 p.m. On Tuesday, May 16, VOICE takes place from 8:30 a.m. to 6:30 p.m., followed by an evening event in the region's Enchanted Desert. On Wednesday, May 17, VOICE takes place from 9:00 a.m. to 6:25 p.m., with an awards ceremony and prize drawings shortly thereafter.VOICE 2017 in Shanghai, China will be held at the InterContinental Shanghai Pudong on Wednesday, May 26 from 9:00 a.m. to 5:40 p.m., followed by an evening reception. Attendees should plan to attend the reception for the awards ceremony and prize drawings.Register online at https://voice.advantest.com/register/. Online registration closes on Friday, May 11, 2017. On-site registration starts May 16 with a higher registration fee. More event information is available on the VOICE website at voice.advantest.com.During the conference, follow #VOICE2017 on Twitter @Advantest_ATE or visit https://voice.advantest.com/social-media/ for more ways to connect. To help attendees get the most from VOICE 2017, Advantest has a VOICE Mobile App for both sessions located in the Apple App or Google Play stores. Search for "Advantest VOICE 2017 USA" and "Advantest VOICE 2017 China" to download.About VOICE 2017 Developer ConferenceManaged by a steering committee of volunteer representatives from Advantest and its customers, VOICE is the leading conference for the growing international community of users and strategic partners involved with Advantest's V93000 and T2000 SoC test platforms as well as Advantest memory testers, handlers and test cell solutions. The conference offers a unique opportunity to take part in making semiconductor testing operations as efficient and cost-effective as possible. Attendees gain and share valuable insights, build long-lasting relationships and learn what's new about Advantest test equipment, handlers and applications.About Advantest CorporationA world-class technology company, Advantest is the leading producer of automatic test equipment (ATE) for the semiconductor industry and a premier manufacturer of measuring instruments used in the design and production of electronic instruments and systems. Its leading-edge systems and products are integrated into the most advanced semiconductor production lines in the world. The company also focuses on R&D for emerging markets that benefit from advancements in nanotech and terahertz technologies, and has introduced multi-vision metrology scanning electron microscopes essential to photomask manufacturing, as well as groundbreaking 3D imaging and analysis tools. Founded in Tokyo in 1954, Advantest established its first subsidiary in 1982, in the USA, and now has subsidiaries worldwide. More information is available at http://www.advantest.com/.

Shinsung E&G has announced the achievement of 21.7% solar cell efficiency for mass production.The company requested the efficiency verification to SERIS (Solar Energy Research Institute of Singapore) located in Singapore to officially measure the initial production's efficiency. The results from the test for two weeks verified that the maximum efficiency reached to 21.71%.The most important thing from the result is that this test was performed with the cells produced during the initial mass production period. It is expected that the efficiency will be able to be increased by stabilizing production lines and developing additional technology in the future.The efficiency is the world class level of mono-crystalline PERC solar cells manufactured from mass production lines. Also, the advantage of the core technologies used in manufacturing solar cells is to reduce production costs, compared to other manufacturers; therefore the company expects the competitiveness in terms of marginal benefits.Shinsung E&G expects to produce 370W module with 72 cells and this product will produce 25W more than conventional modules in the market.In case of construction of 1MW solar power plant, 2,899pcs modules were needed but when applying high-powered solar modules, only 2,703pcs are needed. This also applies to rooftop as well as commercial where spaces are limited.In the recent solar market, there is a trend toward developing high-efficiency products to reduce production costs. Shinsung E&G’s high-efficiency solar cell is the product that matches with the trend. As a result, the company expects more demands from the existing customers as well as new ones.Dong-Seop Kim, Senior Executive Vice President and CTO of Shinsung E&G, said, "We are happy to achieve the high efficiency of the first mass production of PERC solar cells, but I think this is only the beginning. Shinsung E&G has become a leading provider with the world class efficiency achieved by continuous research and development. Furthermore, we plan to increase the efficiency of mass production by developing its own technologies and securing its original technology and will apply for a patent for the Shinsung E&G’s next generation PERC technology.”

Virtual Reality (VR), Augmented Reality (AR) and Mixed Reality (MR) are the recent emergence of consumer-ready technologies. These new technologies display immersive multimedia or computer-simulated contents, replicate an environment that simulates a physical presence in places in the real world or an imagined world, allowing the user to interact in that world. From strapping on the headset, grabbing the hand controllers, users could experience the magic power of going to a whole new world.These fancy and cool stuffs named VR as the umbrella term for all these immersive experiences. VR is going to change the way to see the multimedia videos, play games and training contents. With more applications and use cases to be created, the new business models and services will continuously change our everyday life.In the recent Taipei Game Show held in March 2017, major global brands, Internet giants and some local system makers aggressively tried to explore VR's potential. Most of the media report mentioning VR gaming experience and entertainment subjects, which present a superb user experience and beyond the audiovisual performance that PC or TV could provide. IDC forecasted the VR or AR headset devices will reach 99.4 million units in 2021 and nearly the 10-fold of the total shipment in 2016. They are expected to grow at a five-year compound annual growth rate (CAGR) of 58% from 2016 to 2021.While game developers are leading the way in promoting VR, many learning designers see virtual reality as a revolutionary tool for accelerating skill acquisition. For instance, VR can be used like a simulator for any technical task that's too dangerous, expensive, or inconvenient to practice in real life.Daryl Sartain, Director and VR Worldwide Head of AMD, talks about VR presence and market development in this interview. He is also the Founder and Chair of the ITA VR Advisory Council. While VR's revolution has seemed stalled for years, we saw some important launches of several major branded VR headsets and titles in 2016. Sartain has no doubts at all to see the VR becoming a real not only for the technical reasons but also from the application point of view. Today, with various use case scenarios and applications, plus multiple innovations and business models in different domains, VR is stepping into a booming market sector, he added.Professional VR solutions jumping with high demandsSartain indicates the difference of last one year and a half of VR industry is the commitment from the enterprises and ecosystems around the world and the belief of executives. This makes VR as a worldwide interests and gains momentum to take further steps beyond the categories of video gaming and entertainment titles. The passionate video gaming players contribute the visibility of VR. However, it is expanding toward many new territories including enterprises, business organizations, medical institutes and training associations.These new booming demands get attentions from domain experts, industrial designers, equipment manufacturers, contents creating and platform service providers. They are aiming to provide future development with creativity to fit many different forms. The question for VR right now is how it will evolve or how fast, in what direction it will go.Talked about the technical challenges of VR, many people uses the early design of headset caused the nauseated or unstable feeling when moving around. The good news is these questions have been well considered with recent VR headset design. And new development VR technologies, we are going to see many different innovation of hardware and software implementation focus on eye tracking, peripherals or hand controllers, tracking multiple people or interacting socially. These technologies help boosting transient and evolution to create more real use cases for ecosystems, hardware, software developers, and system makers reaching new audiences and rapidly grow its market.In the old days, most efforts and resources were invested to differentiate with the competitors or found partners to do different products. But In VR sectors, said Sartain, people are coming continuously with different ideas and concepts. Because so many requests and developments in ecosystems or partners, the biggest challenge for AMD VR teams is finding the best solution among these many products. From industrial design, silicon solutions and software hardware development, those seem to reach some stable ownership recently in the market. But until now, there is no single company taking a real lead in VR today. The entire VR industry is so far from the steady state and continuing to evolve. Everyone in the market is trying to participate or being relevant to VR.AMD investing resources in non-gaming VR industryThe new categories such as design, commercial training, and medical applications are really boosting by the VR. The professional applications including industrial, architectural, aerospace and automotive design have been long time with complete digital tool sets or CAD/CAM software solutions on hands doing the high complex design works.People from Wall Street, as another good example, have used 4 or 5 screens around to help them to track different financial data. If you calculate the power consumption and the expanse to spend for purchasing the panels, VR will have a very good chance to enter these various segments when people to participate the daily activities. And the same idea will apply to the education, with new applications designed to help teachers visualize different lessons or multimedia contents to high school or college students. VR is going to be becoming an everyday tool in various industries.VR is not only the gaming only. Medical, education or other high complex design professions are starting to look at VR solutions for fitting the future needs. It will go across every industry and ecosystem. With VR technologies continuing evolved, it is going to impact the ecosystems when different customize design or semi-customized design to be implemented for those varied demands. The gaming is obviously gonna happen in the market and AMD continues to support them. But it is important for AMD to deliver the messages in non-gaming industry.The questions for VR will be how soon it will come and what direction it will go. It is very difficult to say at this moment. With the full product lines of silicon solutions, AMD will engage and support the ecosystems for designing a lot more solutions in different price points, performance and use cases. AMD's silicon solutions will continue to provide more performance.AMD is fully committed to support AsiaAsia market such as Taiwan, China, Japan and Korea areas, is the single largest consumers of consuming emerging technologies in the world, Sartain noted. AMD is fully committed to provide best support for them. And there are more and more government sponsored industrial associations or consortiums with strong desire to play an important role in the VR industry. AMD is also involving, participating and Asia to strengthen the partnership in different Asia countries. With the efforts of ecosystems and partners, AMD tries to unlock the limits and boundaries of VR to satisfy different demands in the market.Daryl Sartain, AMD’s Director of Virtual Reality, sees VR is trending positively.

QSAN, enterprise data storage manufacturer, today announced the launch of the XCubeDAS 5300 series, the product range that meets SMB and Enterprise needs. The XD5300 series is the most advanced QSAN product to date, offering a cost-effective DAS for server expansion. It is also a RAID expansion enclosure for QSAN XCubeSAN series (Storage Area Network).The XCubeDAS 5300 series features a wide range of form factors and host connectivity options and all fully modular. The XD5300 range of DAS's includes the world's first 2U 26 bay, small form factor XD5326 in both dual active/active and single controller (upgradeable). This allows more deployment flexibility to meet user's budgets and rack density limitations.The XcubeDAS XD5300 systems offer fully redundant components for all major functions, including dual controllers, power supplies, fan, modules, host ports, and expansion ports, and can be perfectly used with XcubeSAN XS3200/XS5200 series. Besides hot swappable components, the XD5300 firmware is able to update without any system down time balancing I/O loading through multiple paths and dual controllers..QSAN's XD5300 comes with several key features:High Performance & High Throughput - the XCubeDAS 5300 series set a new storage standard for direct-attached storage. The series provides a smart and elastic runtime configuration of the 10 x 12Gb/s SAS wide ports support, and allows IT managers fully utilizing the 480Gb/s data bandwidth per system for various applications. The XD5300 Series can be connected in series of 10 XD5300 to achieve the maximum storage capacity.Flexible disk management - The LFF chassis of XD5324/5316/5312 models support mix and match 3.5"/2.5" SAS, NL-SAS HDD, and 2.5" SAS, SATA SSD. For SFF chassis of XD5326 models, it supports 2.5" SAS, NL-SAS HDD, and 2.5" SAS, SATA SSD.Versatile Topologies & Flexible Configurations - The XD5300 Series feature all 12Gb/s SAS topologies and permutations of all host and expansion port configurations. It supports all 12Gb/s SAS topologies, including Cascade, Reverse, and Tree and can be deployed freely to fit various connections to the host servers. With up to 10 x 12 Gb/s SAS ports support per system, this feature is crucial for users to plan a well-defined resource arrangement to achieve highly utilized performance and capacity of the XD5300 system.QSAN CubeView Central Management Software - Our self-developed software, the CubeView CMS (Central Management Software) can monitor and manage system log, disk drive status, enclosure, zoning function, firmware update, and, history record of system temperature, voltage, and fan speed. The systems also support command line and S.E.S. that allows IT managers completely control of the storage systems and agile configuration of powerful management.Wide Compatibility -QSAN's has invested extensive testing resources to verify compatibility with peripherals including HBAs, RAID controller cards, SAS HDDs, and SSDs to make sure there is maximum interoperability with the XD5300 series.Green Technology - To safeguard the earth and environment, the XD5300 product range uses various green technologies for energy savings and minimization of the carbon footprint such as Wake-On-SAS technology.Built with interoperability for the most popular operating systems, the XD5300 can be used for expansion of datacenter storage, archiving, cold storage, backup, large-scale surveillance, video streaming and editing. Compared to its Tier1 competitors, the XCubeDAS solution can be a more affordable alternative for all primary and secondary storage. Moreover, the XCubeDAS series can provide more than a 50% increase in performance, thanks to QSAN's revolutionary technology and the 24/7 free technical support. Click here for more information on XD5300.QSAN launches XD5300 series DAS storage systems for SMB/Enterprise market

eCloudvalley is now the first company in the Greater China Region (GCR) to achieve Amazon Web Services (AWS) Premier Consulting Partner status, which is the highest standard attainable in the AWS Partner Network (APN). In the global, this honor is awarded only to industry leaders, such as Accenture, Rackspace, and NTT Data. It demonstrates the significant investment that APN Partners have made in solution deployment and management on the AWS Cloud.Being an AWS Premier Consulting Partner places eCloudvalley among the highest level of APN Consulting Partners in the world. It demonstrates that eCloudvalley has achieved the highest level of performance and is staffed by highly qualified technical consultants in all business matters related to AWS. They possess extensive experience from providing technical advice to complete architecture solutions, and this experience is backed by certification in such programs as the APN Competency Program and AWS Managed Service Program. Demonstrating the company's commitment to developing its expertise, eCloudvalley has been invited every year since establishment to attend the annual "AWS re:Invent" conference, where certified partners are recognized for their achievements.Rapid Expansion, Rigorous AuditingeCloudvalley was established in Taiwan in 2014, beginning at the most basic partner level in the APN. With a small but highly qualified team of professionals, eCloudvalley expanded into China in 2015 and Hong Kong in 2016. Throughout our rapid advancement to becoming an AWS Premium Consulting Partner, we have been committed to staff training and development, thereby building experience and confidence. This commitment has paid off, with eCloudvalley finally being awarded Premier Consulting Partner status on April 7, 2017. Both the prestige of being awarded this status and the momentum with which it was attained demonstrate the depth of eCloudvalley's experience and capabilities.Experience and Capabilities, Assets, and Service DeliveryWith almost 100 AWS certifications, including five staff who have achieved "AWS All-5 Certification," the eCloudvalley team is the most experienced team in the GCR. It is from this depth of experience that eCloudvalley derives its capabilities in delivering solutions that increase business value, and this enables eCloudvalley to provide total system migration solutions that enable immediate up-scaling while saving on human resource and hardware costs. Worldwide, eCloudvalley has delivered more than 1000 AWS cloud projects, providing solutions for businesses in such industries as manufacturing, Internet technology, media, finance, and many others. This demonstrates eCloudvalley's complete range of experience in managing AWS Migration Services.As the only Premier Consulting Partner covering the GCR, eCloudvalley is a "born-in-the-cloud" service provider that is 100% focused on AWS. To provide complete in-cloud solutions, eCloudvalley has dedicated resources for nine regions in Asia, the United States, and Europe, ensuring that solutions can be tailored according to customer needs by providing flexibility for interregional up-scaling for both small local enterprises and multinational corporations.Our service delivery model is aimed at building a complete cloud ecosystem, in which we not only provide services but also connect people. With this in mind, every solution that eCloudvalley provides is delivered with a customer-obsessed focus. This commitment to service quality significantly enhances our customers' business value by providing cloud solutions that are entirely tailored to their needs. Our solutions have helped enterprises not only effectively save on operating costs and but also fulfill best practices. eCloudvalley's extensive experience and capabilities have been met with success in utilizing cloud resources to transform customer IT architectures and applications, and it is through this success that we have been able to enhance the business value of our customers.

AMD has announced its first dual-GPU graphics card designed for professionals: the Polaris-architecture-based Radeon Pro Duo. Built on the capabilities of the Radeon Pro WX 7100.The Radeon Pro Duo is equipped with 32GB of GDDR5 memory to handle larger data sets, more intricate 3D models, higher resolution videos, and complex assemblies with ease. Operating at a max power of 250W, the Radeon Pro Duo harnesses a total of 72 compute units (4,608 stream processors) for a combined performance of up to 11.45 TFLOPS of single-precision compute performance on one board, and twice the geometry throughput of the Radeon Pro WX 7100.The Radeon Pro Duo enables professionals to work up to four Ultra-HD monitors at 60Hz, drive the latest 8K single monitor display at 30Hz using a single cable, or drive an 8K display at 60Hz using a dual cable solution.The Radeon Pro Duo's planned availability is the end of May at an expected price of US$999.AMD Radeon Pro Duo graphics cardPhoto: Company

Learn about the latest in test equipment solutions by visiting leading semiconductor test equipment supplier Advantest Corporation's (TSE: 6857) booth at SEMICON Southeast Asia. The exposition takes place April 25-27, 2017, at the SPICE Arena in Penang, Malaysia. Advantest is a silver sponsor of SEMICON Southeast Asia.Under the theme, "Measure the Connected World and Everything in It," Advantest will exhibit in booth B139 showcasing the EVA100 measurement system, which uses the same test sequences for both design and production measurements, enabling users to establish a standardized measurement environment throughout their operations. This contributes to dramatically shorter time to market. Furthermore, the EVA100 uses an intuitive GUI, eliminating the need for complicated programming language. Meetings will be held both in and outside of the booth to discuss the EVA100 and Advantest's broader portfolio of ATE solutions.On Wednesday, April 26, at 13:10, Dr. Shang Yang, Advantest senior R&D and application engineer, will present a paper on "High-Density LSI Failure Analysis Technology Using an Ultra-High Resolution TDR System" during the IC Failure Analysis Forum.On Thursday, April 27, at 12:00, Mr. Tuttipattu Ramaswamy Sujanandan, Advantest staff application engineer, will present a paper on "IoT-Creating a Cost Effective High MultiSite RF Solution" during the Product & System Test Forum.Connect on Social MediaFor the latest information on test solutions from the industry leader, follow Advantest on Twitter @Advantest_ATE.About Advantest CorporationA world-class technology company, Advantest is the leading producer of automatic test equipment (ATE) for the semiconductor industry and a premier manufacturer of measuring instruments used in the design and production of electronic instruments and systems. Its leading-edge systems and products are integrated into the most advanced semiconductor production lines in the world. The company also focuses on R&D for emerging markets that benefit from advancements in nanotech and terahertz technologies, and has introduced multi-vision metrology scanning electron microscopes essential to photomask manufacturing, as well as groundbreaking 3D imaging and analysis tools. Founded in Tokyo in 1954, Advantest established its first subsidiary in 1982 in the USA and now has subsidiaries worldwide. More information is available at http://www.advantest.com/.

To meet the ever growing demands of the embedded and industrial storage market, Innodisk is launching the 3IE4 series with integrated Marvell controllers. Running on Innodisk's proprietary iSLC technology, it provides performance equal to that of SLC at a much lower cost. The iSLC technology in combination with integrated LDPC error correcting code ensures an extended lifespan; upward to seven times that of standard MLC products.Traditional MLC flash boasts high capacity, but often falls short with regards to product lifespan. SLC is a better choice for performance and longevity; however the cost is comparatively high. This is where iSLC comes in as a golden mean with a drastic increase in lifespan compared to MLC products, while sporting SLC like performance at a much lower price. This makes iSLC SSDs the perfect choice for industrial and embedded applications where MLC often do not meet longevity demands and SLC are seen as too costly.The in-house designed technology behind iSLC is simple, but ingenious. MLC cells which typically hold two bits are made to hold just one instead - effectively emulating SLC cells. With this is place, not only is lifespan increased, but write speed reaches SLC levels.Integrated thermal sensor technology enables stable operation even in extreme temperatures, which along with advanced power management further bolsters performance and reliability. Innodisk's own iData Guard technology smartly integrates hardware with firmware to ensure data integrity in the event of a sudden power outage.Product features:iSLC - increased performance and longevityLDPC ECC - extended product lifetimeHigh IOPS - faster performanceDRAM-less - increased data integritySupports S.M.A.R.T, TRIM, NCQ, and iData GuardFor further information, please visit our website at http://www.innodisk.com.About InnodiskInnodisk is a service-driven provider of flash memory, DRAM modules and embedded peripheral products for the industrial and enterprise applications. With satisfied customers across the embedded, aerospace and defense, cloud storage markets and more, we have set ourselves apart with a commitment to dependable products and unparalleled service. This has resulted in products, including embedded peripherals, designed to supplement existing industrial solutions and high IOPS flash arrays for industrial and enterprise applications. The expanded business lines are leading our next step in being a comprehensive solution and service provider in the industrial storage industry.Founded in 2005 and headquartered in Taipei, Taiwan, Innodisk supports clients globally with engineering support and sales teams in mainland China, Europe, Japan, and the United States. With abundant experience and an unrivaled knowledge of the memory industry, Innodisk develops products with excellent quality, remarkable performance, great cost-efficiency, and the highest reliability. For more information about Innodisk, please visit http://www.innodisk.com.

Wireless charging has been under development for years but its adoption has yet to take off. However, consumer demand for wireless charging can be expected to escalate with IoT and mobile devices becoming more widespread. Especially when people get to experience how convenient it is, user habits will change and wireless charging will ignite tremendous business opportunities.The world now looks forward to wireless charging particularly as Apple has recently joined Wireless Power Consortium amid rumors of whether next generation iPhones will feature wireless charging.Established in 1997, Microtips focused on the development of digital media testing products, including effectors, sound effect makers and audio mixers, at the early stage. Having accumulated years of R&D experience in digital signal processor technology, Microtips started to make a transition a few years ago. It has spent three years collaborating with Qualcomm to develop wireless charging solutions and has begun shipments of wireless charging products to handset and tablet makers this year.Devoted to R&D of wireless charging, Microtips joins AirFuel AllianceWhen it comes to wireless charging, we should first take a look at the dominating technologies. The wireless charging industry currently focuses on two types of technologies - magnetic induction, also known as the Qi standard, and magnetic resonance (MR). Originally there were three major industrial alliances driving the development of these technologies: the Wireless Power Consortium (WPC) established in 2008; and the Power Matters Alliance (PMA) and Alliance for Wireless Power (A4WP), both established in 2012. PMA and A4WP merged and formed the AirFuel Alliance (AFA) in 2015.As a member of the AirFuel Alliance, Microtips has obtained licensed technology from Qualcomm to develop MR wireless charging products. Steven Lu, CEO/president, Microtips, pointed out that when evaluating the two technologies, they found the better known magnetic induction is used more for short range transmission with the advantage of low costs but it is more susceptible to influence by distance and powering multiple devices at a time is hard to achieve. In comparison, magnetic resonance enables a charging distance of 4cm to 5cm and a higher charging wattage. The charging plate can be embedded in wood or plastic and allows one-to-many charging. Therefore, eying its future growth potential, Microtips decided to adopt the MR technology to develop Microtips' AIRON wireless charging products.Microtips is launching AIRON wireless charging products after two years of R&DSince obtaining the license for Qualcomm's MR technology three years ago, the Microtips team has spent two years on product R&D and successfully developed software, firmware and integrated solutions, particularly Bluetooth communication between the transmitter and the receiver and the power flow management of the wireless charging module, which are expert MR know-hows barring followers from entering the market. Microtips is officially launching its wireless charging brand AIRON this year. In addition to efficiency, safety is also critical to wireless charging so AIRON has obtained safety certifications from the authorities, including FCC, CE, NCC (Taiwan), and SRRC (China), stated Chung-Da Yang, sales and marketing, vice president, Microtips.Microtips chose MR also for its high transmission frequency up to 6.78MHz, wide operating temperature range between -20 degrees C and 55 degrees C, and charging wattage going from 10 W to 16W and further to 33W. MR wireless charging powers smartphones, tablets and two-in-one notebooks and can expand to support other electronic devices requiring higher wattages. AIRON features a wireless charging plate that can simultaneously power multiple devices based on the charging area and output power without needing proper alignment. Simply place devices in the charging area and charging will begin.Furthermore, the AIRON wireless charging plate can keep the battery at a high power level to minimize the chance of battery failure. The casing is manufactured with high quality fireproof and heat-resistant materials. There are also built-in protective circuits safeguarding the device being charged and the transmitter from short circuit and voltage, current and temperature exceeding the safe range. The design of AIRON emphasizes safety so concerns about overheating resulting in damage to the battery or device or even fire are eliminated.Leading the development of a joint platform, Microtips builds a wireless charging ecosystemThe establishment of a common standard and wide availability at public places will be the key to the popularity of wireless charging. Most of the products on the market have focused on the first generation wireless charging technology where the power supplying equipment and the device being charged must be closely and precisely aligned. Such inconvenience has resulted in poor user experience and negative impression. Now AIRON is aimed to bring a change for better user experience. In terms of placement at public spaces, Microtips has set up over 100 AIRON wireless charging sites, including the City Hall and museums of New Taipei City.Lu indicated that to build a complete wireless charging ecosystem in Taiwan and to drive booming development of the wireless charging industry, equipment suppliers, system integrators, software developers and cloud service providers have to undergo large-scale consolidation. Microtips is hoping to establish itself as a provider of total solutions, providing hardware to equipment suppliers and platforms to system integrators and software developers.Microtips hopes to become the platform that provides a backend system to app developers and an interface for online business start-ups to reach their target customers. Besides joining upstream and downstream vendors in the supply chain, more importantly, Big Data analytics is leveraged to conduct market education and capture Big Data opportunities arising from analyzing consumer habits. Wireless charging is needed at a range of public places, such as retail stores, tourist attractions and places of entertainment. When consumers' charging information is recorded along with the places they frequently visit and their favorite coffee shops, such consumer information is collected and analyzed and can be used for the purpose of precision marketing when combined with Bluetooth, Wi-Fi and Beacon. The world can expect more new business models to arise from wireless charging.Microtips introduces its new wireless charging product AIRON, developed based on the MR technology. The charging plate allows one-to-many charging.

Microtips founded its business on digital multimedia products in 1997 and has since been gradually gaining a secure foothold in digital signal processors (DSP) and expanding into "blue ocean" markets centered around digital audio and video signal products.Going forward, instead of rapid expansion, Microtips will prudently choose to offer products with a high technological barrier and high profit margin and develop new applications based on existing R&D achievements, stated Steven Lu, CEO/president, Microtips.LCD modules (LCM) and sound effect testing products are Microtips' steady revenue generators. New product lines include encrypted police cameras, fingerprint recognition modules, and wireless charging modules. Based on published data, Microtips' operating income has exceeded NT$ 1.2 billion for three years in a row, earnings per share growing from NT$ 0.85 in 2014 to NT$ 1.33 in 2015.It should be noted that with frequent terrorist attacks happening around the world, demand for police cameras is on the rise. Microtips has officially become a supplier to American police, starting to deliver shipments in the first quarter of this year. The system integrates face recognition and transmits real time images to the cloud during patrol duties. Furthermore, to serve as evidence, the video images captured by encrypted police cameras are made to be tamper resistant. Police cameras will become a highlight of Microtips' products for their high manufacturing barrier and profit margin.Fingerprint recognition modules, another new line of Microtips' products, support both swipe and touch fingerprint sensing for notebooks, tablets and smartphones, explained Lu. Business notebooks containing confidential information particularly need such security features. Therefore, Microtips has developed fingerprint scanning and recognition modules and is receiving growing orders from leading notebook manufacturers. This year's shipments are expected to significantly rise.In addition to police cameras, fingerprint recognition modules and a range of video applications, Microtips is also actively penetrating into the market of wireless charging modules. However, digital sound effect products and LCM remain its leading sources of revenue. In particular, orders for LCM used in standardized and customized displays and touch panels for healthcare, communications, office automation and manufacturing applications are showing steady growth. Going into its next 20 years of development, Microtips will continue to enhance R&D capabilities so as to sustain continuing growth.Microtips' future business strategy will focus on continuing revenue growth, indicated Steven Lu, CEO/president, Microtips.