Clientron Corp., a world-leading manufacturer of thin client and embedded systems, announcing PCoIP zero client availability for enterprises adopting Amazon WorkSpaces cloud based desktop computing service.Clientron D401/ F400 PCoIP zero clients, built with Teradici PCoIP processors, support dual display (D401) and quad display (F400) for high definition performance with most secure and easy manageability. "In addition to supporting VMware Horizon View, VMware Horizon DaaS, and PCoIP remote workstation solutions, now there is another choice for using Teradici PCoIP technology to access Amazon WorkSpaces service," said Kelly Wu, president and CEO of Clientron. "We are proud to support Amazon WorkSpaces service with Clientron zero clients to deliver an outstanding desktop experience with lower total cost of ownership."Traditional virtual desktop infrastructure (VDI) requires significant capital investment and can be complex to deploy and manage. With Amazon Workspaces, the need for up-front investment and ongoing maintenance are eliminated, and along with additional savings for server and client licenses (e.g., Windows OS license and VDA)."Teradici is excited to join Clientron to extend the benefits of its D401 and F400 PCoIP Zero Clients to a rapidly growing base of enterprise customers for Amazon WorkSpaces," said Dan Cordingley, president and CEO of Teradici. "Simple to deploy and manage, PCoIP Zero Clients are high performance, ultra-secure devices for virtual computing environments – and the perfect enterprise desktop for Amazon WorkSpaces."Amazon WorkSpaces, a fully managed desktop computing service in the cloud, allows customers to easily provision cloud-based desktops that give end-users access to the documents, applications and gives the desktop as a service category significant momentum. Please contact Clientron sales or visit our website http://www.clientron.com/ to learn more about our PCoIP Zero Clients for Amazon WorkSpaces.Clientron PCoIP zero client solutions support VMware Horizon View, VMware Horizon DaaS, Amazon WorkSpaces and PCoIP Remote Workstation solutions.

Gigabyte Technology Co. Ltd., a leading manufacturer of motherboards and graphics cards hosted last week at its headquarter in Taipei a Secret OC session in the effort to give its soon to be launch motherboard, the X99-SOC Champion, a test run to see if it is able to live up to its name. 7 of the world's most experienced professional overclockers gathered in Gigabyte's OC Lab to see just how fast the Gigabyte X99-SOC Champion board was under LN2.The results are impressive; after 7 days of almost nonstop benching by HiCookie, Sofos1990, Dinos22, Vivi, SteponZ, SniperOZ and YoungPRO, the team of elite overclockers achieved a total of 9 World Records, 23 Global Firsts and 25 Hardware Firsts all using the X99-SOC Champion. On top of that, HiCookie also managed to reach the top of the Reference Clock Worldwide Overall Ranking for X99 motherboards with a score of 182.49 MHz! Lastly, 4 additional World Records were also achieved using the already famous Z97X-SOC Force."After this Secret OC, I am confident the X99-SOC Champion will be a success. Even though it was hard work and we had a lot to accomplish, everyone had tremendous fun testing firsthand the new X99-SOC Champion." commented HiCookie, Chief Overclocking Evangelist, Gigabyte Motherboard Business Unit. "These secret overclocking sessions are very important as they allow us to prove the quality and the performance of our new products, and also allows us to fine tune them before their launch. Considering the amount of World Records, Global 1st and Hardware 1st we achieved, everyone should get ready to see a lot more of the X99-SOC Champion!"Gigabyte X99-SOC Champion to Launch at CESFeaturing the latest Intel X99 Chipset and support for Intel's Core i7 Extreme Edition (LGA 2011-v3 socket) processors and latest DDR4 memory support, the X99-SOC Champion looks very promising. Launch of the new overclocking flagship motherboard is scheduled to take place January 5th, 2015 at CES, Las Vegas – USA where HiCookie, Sofos and Dinos22 will be on hand to see if they can break some new world records live at the event. More information about the specifications and look of the X99-SOC Champion shall be revealed then.For more details about GIGABYTE X99 motherboards, please visit: http://www.gigabyte.com/products/main.aspx?s=42Overclockers were busying in breaking records

Headquarter of TOI Locate in Taipei Neihu Science Park, after a long period in LCD module manufacturing and production, TOI has been regarded as one of the special industrial applications and manufacturing foundry leaders. Regarding to these changes in the industrial structure in these recent years, the low profit become normal in the hardware market and TOI seeks to develop other new business model as prepare for its future business version. Twinwill Commutech Inc (TCI) was set up and 100% owned by TOI, which focus on IC design, Capacitive TP and controller, software development, also integrate Group's professional view of science and technology and make Group bigger.Aim to become "The Rise of New enters in Touch Industry". TCI plays the role as the front of Group and integrate both resources – Hardware and Software.In order to process a revolution, develop and produce a large size touch controller is the main target of TCI in 2015, in addition to have this large size touch controller can be connected in its large size touch panel and consider the compatibility between products; self and mutual capacitive touch circuit design.David Liu, the Managing Director of Twinwill Optronics Inc said the new generation touch controller has the main feature on multitude pins, which is slightly higher price than other manufacturers, but due to more pins feature, the performance function is times more than a traditional touch controller. Overall, it saves more cost for customers.In the market of larger size Touch Panel, Taiwan still has a gap to improve from the traditional Resistive to the latest Capacitive Technology. The Capacitive touch interface is not only operating easy by flexible sliding touch, it also supports multi-point touch control. "When walk on the street in Tokyo, capacitive technology already use in many large vending machines and even POS machines in restaurants" said by David Liu.Twinwill already spend years to develop and manufacture Capacitive TP technology, TOI hope this movement is going to bring more exciting and prospective for TP industry in Taiwan market. More about TOI and TCI visit the website of http://www.twinwill.com.tw/

As smart mobile devices become daily necessities, various new devices including smartphones, smart watches, and smart glasses are emerging, and along with them come diverse market needs for acoustic applications and operating modes.MEMS microphones serve as a key differentiating feature in smart devices. In response to this market trend, Knowles, the world's leading supplier of MEMS microphone and acoustic solutions, held a technical workshop to present multiple innovative solutions while celebrating the 40th anniversary of its Taiwan office.These pioneering technologies will change the way consumers interact with mobile devices through speech, voiceprint, and gesture applications and enable new operating modes to answer to the evolving needs for interfaces of new generations of smartphones and mobile devices.Ole-Petter Brusdal, vice president, global sales, Knowles, said, "Knowles' Taiwan branch office, the first in Asia, was established in 1974. The 40th anniversary marks a major milestone. For years, we have been committed to working with regional industry leaders in hearing healthcare as well as partners in mobile consumer electronics and computing industries with outstanding acoustic engineering design capabilities. Knowles delivers complete services including testing, superior customer service, and after-sales support, and will keep on strengthening collaboration with the regional partners to seize emerging market opportunities."First of all, Knowles continues to enhance performance of the SiSonic microphone so that it delivers outstanding super wideband effects, flat frequency response, high SNR, consistent sensitivity, low power consumption, and miniaturized form factors. Knowles has also introduced the design of placing four microphones on high-end mobile phones – two in the front and two in the back – to attain high-quality stereo sound recording.Knowles's design also provides a special microphone opening to beat the space constraint of mobile phones, making the solution more practical. In addition to HD sound quality, Knowles has also developed new applications enabling low-power always-on, touchless and audio zoom features for handsets.During the workshop, Knowles also gave an in-depth look into the advancements in audio zoom, integrated audio solutions, I2S direct attach microphones, ultrasound applications, smart audio modules, and N'Bass technology.Brusdal emphasized that based on these innovations, Knowles will be devoted to creating solutions bringing differentiated features for customers' products, and will provide complete services ranging from design to production to help clients roll out reliable products. He is optimistic about the opportunities arising from the demand for innovative interface technologies and hopes to create a win-win situation by strengthening local technical support and services for Knowles' customers.Vice President Global Sales of Knowles, Ole-Petter Brusdal

Leading semiconductor test equipment supplier Advantest Corporation (TSE: 6857, NYSE: ATE) has introduced its new M6245 test handler, offering industry-leading productivity with minimal downtime by incorporating the company's latest advances for handling double data rate (DDR) and Flash memory devices."By combining improved positioning accuracy, higher throughput and tighter temperature control in a single system, our latest handler enables the most efficient testing of advanced memory ICs," said Hiroki Ikeda, FA (factory automation) division manager of Advantest Corporation.The M6245 handler incorporates a visual-alignment system that improves test yields by achieving contact accuracy to within 0.3 mm ball pitch. This makes the system capable of handling memories with fine pitches. The highly precise alignment capability also allows faster set-up and calibration, contributing to higher system productivity.In addition, a new handling design for M6245 ensures maximum throughput while applying visual alignment to support fine-pitch devices. The design also enables the highest possible throughput when using mechanical alignment for current pitch devices.Productivity is maximized by the new handler's high level of automation. Semiconductor devices are automatically re-tested from initial testing, reducing the workload on operators while helping to ensure the highest possible yield.Using Advantest's proprietary new thermal technology "dual-fluid design," the temperature of each device under test can be maintained to within ±1 degrees C throughout the range of -20 degrees C to 100 degrees C while temperature accuracy is ±2 degrees C over the ranges of -40 degrees C to -20.1 degrees C and 100.1 degrees C to 125˚C. This enables highly accurate testing of memory ICs that operate over a wide spectrum of temperatures.The system also incorporates Advantest's new handler data visualization framework, which enables real-time monitoring of a test cell's status from any internet-enabled connection.Shipments of the M6245 handler are scheduled to begin in the first quarter of calendar year 2015.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 a 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/.

In accordance with the latest trend in smart-phone, tablets and computers, U-Reach Inc., the data equipment expert, announces the first & proactive OTG Micro USB Duplicator in 2014.OTG USB Integrates Your Mobile WorldAndroid, the most widely used open system platform for tablets and smart phones. In recent years, more than 70% mobile devices are activated with it. Since most of these devices are built-in with Micro USB interface to transfer or store data. A new designed storage media features Micro USB (OTG) support in Flash drive; this will play an important role in next mobile world.Dual Interface Design Creates FlexibilityTo enhance a user's experience, U-Reach allows two USB interfaces on this unique Micro USB (OTG) duplicator. In an instant, a quick and easy swap socket module, users can turn the duplicator to become either a "USB duplicator" or "OTG USB" to a custom to different usage requirements. The flexibility transformation can help you save time and money.Precise Duplication & Inspection TechnologiesIn addition, with high speed duplication & multiprocessing, U-Reach Micro USB (OTG) duplicator also brings leading flash inspection technologies; "Capacity test", "Read/write speed detection" and "Bad-sector search" are three essential and useful functions for flash trading, "Event Log Report","Burn-in test", "Format" and "Erase" are also a specialized capabilities to help guarantee a workable Micro USB OTG drive by the flash manufacturer. All of these great features mentioned are included in U-Reach Micro USB (OTG) duplicator.U-Reach provides a wide range of Micro USB (OTG) duplicator from 1 to 9, 1 to 19 till 1 to 119 to meet all users' needs. To learn more about Micro USB (OTG) duplicator, please visit us at http://www.ureach-inc.com/Note: Not all smart-phone or tablets can supports USB (OTG) drives, please contact the vendor for additional information if USB OTG is supported.The Way to Zero-Defect OTG USB Drive - The First Ever OTG (Micro USB) Flash Drive Duplicator

Driven by growing demand in emerging markets including China, the Middle East, and Africa, smartphones broke the one-billion mark in unit shipments in 2013, while tablet shipments reached 234 million units, surpassing notebook shipments. Although shipments of mobile devices will still have a double-digit increase in 2014, the growth is exhibiting signs of slowing down. As a result, device makers are now eyeing the emerging markets for IoT and wearable devices to save themselves from the price wars looming in the maturing mobile device segments.Seeing the global consumer market's increasing demand for wearable devices and IoT applications, CEVA, the world's leading supplier of DSP solutions and Connectivity IPs for Wi-Fi and Bluetooth, held the 2014 CEVA Technology Symposium on November 21, 2014 in Hsinchu to help Taiwan-based makers quickly respond to market needs and grab a slice of the mobile device market. The symposium highlighted new communication, audio, speech, image, and vision products in addition to LTE-A, Wi-Fi, Bluetooth, and GPS solutions. Experts and CEVA partners were also there presenting views on market trends and research achievements, with an aim to help attendees venture into the IoT market.CEVA is the world's largest DSP supplier and has licensed three times more DSP technologies to IC design houses than any competitor in the semiconductor IP industry. More than 250 customers have adopted CEVA's technologies with chipset shipments reaching 5.5 billion units. CEVA DSP accounted for 40% of the mobile devices market in 2013 and audio chips reaching 3.5 billion cumulative units. It is evident that CEVA's DSP products not only have outstanding performance and comprehensive functions but also are widely accepted by the market.Barbara Yu, Country Manager, CEVA, pointed out, "CEVA doesn't just design high performance and energy efficient DSP chips; we also provide various software, hardware and development tools that our IDM and OEM partners need. That's the reason why CEVA has been winning customers' support for all these years. We help customers quickly respond to market trends and enable them to launch products at the shortest time to market. CEVA's long-term partners include Novatek, Samsung, Intel, ST, and NXP."Mobile devices experiencing slow growth; wearable devices and IoT trending upAccording to a recent DIGITIMES Research report, mobile Internet devices will still maintain high shipment growth in 2015 to reach 1.899 billion units worldwide, of which smartphones will account for about 1.488 billion units, or 78% of the mobile device market. However, it remains to be seen whether the growth rate will hold the crucial 20% level. Tablet shipments will fall short of previous expectations and slip to about 244 million units due to a lack of killer applications.Wearable devices and IoT applications will be the new force driving the next surge of the mobile device market, indicated Joanne Chien, Senior Analyst & Director, DIGITIMES Research. Wearable devices have great room for development as they are usually designed to work in connection with the increasingly popular smartphones. Given the maturing technology and decreasing costs, a myriad of smart watches and wristbands has been launched since the second quarter of 2014, which is believed to be filling the gap resulting from slumping tablet sales.IoT, which has been receiving a great deal of attention from the global information technology industry, involves three major elements: a connecting element, a sensing element, and a processing unit. CEVA, holding the largest share of the DSP market, started its deployment in the IoT market at an early stage. With its keen sense of market needs, CEVA has established complete product lines for all three major IoT elements, which will help Taiwan-based corporations quickly penetrate into market segments such as smart home and wearable devices.Eran Briman, VP Marketing, CEVA, remarked, "IoT seeks to create higher values by enabling automatic transmission of data to back-end servers. As such, connecting elements are definitely the cores of IoT development. For example, the smart home cannot do without connection to various devices such as smartphones, wristbands, and monitoring devices so wireless transmission elements including Wi-Fi, Bluetooth, ZigBee, and PLC are essential. CEVA is one of the few suppliers in the world that are capable of delivering total solutions."As opposed to other competitors who supply single-purpose solutions, CEVA offers a low power consumption core, CEVA-TeakLite-4 DSP, with a combination of highly reliable connection module devices for customers to choose among Wi-Fi, Bluetooth, ZigBee, and PLC modules based on the market positions of their products so that the customer's design process can be simplified to accelerate time-to-market.Designed specifically for vision and image applications, CEVA-MM3101 is highly sought-afterNovatek Microelectronics Corp., formerly an enterprise products business unit of UMC, has been a major player in the market for over 14 years. Novatek specializes in the design, development, fabrication management, and sales of IC solutions. Upholding values in innovations, quality, and services, Novatek strives to keep up with market trends and has successfully transformed into an IC design company focused mainly on display and image processing technologies. Being a leading provider of display and digital audio/video multimedia solutions, Novatek's products include flat panel display driver ICs, video and TV controller ICs, digital broadcast controller ICs, image controller ICs, and optical storage media chips.To improve traditional digital cameras' poor performance in low-light shooting, Novatek's new product, NT96665, adopts the image processing CEVA-MM3101 which allows the image controller IC to clearly record 1080P high resolution videos in nighttime and backlight conditions.Yen Hsi Lee, Technical Marketing Manager, Novatek, said, "We have used CEVA-MM3101 in many of our development platforms. For example, CEVA solutions help the NOVA 3D-NR platform achieve camera calibration for lens distortion, eliminate image noise, and enhance overall recording performance."CEVA has been cultivating the market of image and visual solutions for many years. CEVA-MM3101 launched in 2013 is especially designed for use in image enhancement and computer vision applications. It features hardware acceleration to ease processor load and thereby save precious power and computation resources. There are over 750 most frequently used computer visual functions in the CEVA-CV database used in mobile computing, PC, smart TV, NUI devices, and advanced driver assistance systems (ADAS). Therefore, as development of image sensors for cameras encountered a bottleneck, LinX turned to CEVA-MM3101's superior image processing capabilities to develop proprietary multi-aperture imaging technologies, allowing smartphones to take pictures with quality comparable to that produced by single-lens reflex cameras.Ziv Attar, CEO & Founder, LinX, pointed out, "With 1/3 inch image sensors, the current camera modules on smartphones are only able to deliver 13-megapixel picture quality at best. The technical bottleneck will not likely be broken until 2018 so even the newly launched iPhone 6 and Sony Xperia Z3 cannot offer surprising photography performance."Attempting to overcome the barrier in camera module development so that smartphones can take SLR camera-like pictures, LinX utilized the technology of stacking two or four lenses and successfully enhanced shooting with assistance from CEVA-MM3101 chip. In addition, post-shooting touch-ups and background changes can be achieved through image tools more easily and efficiently than traditional processes.CEVA-MM3101 supports facial recognition technologies for unlimited applicationsTo promote safety on the road, many automobile manufacturers are committed to the development of smart cars. It is hoped that complete information can be provided to the driver in the maneuver of vehicles through additional assistance from sensing elements and imaging chips. CEVA-MM3101 features robust detection capabilities and embeds in the database CV cores and algorithms needed by advanced driver assistance systems (ADAS), so CEVA-MM3101 has been widely adopted in car safety systems.Xiaoshu Zhai, Vertical Marketing Manager, CEVA, stated, "Compared to self-driving cars that are still under development, smart cars better answer current consumer needs as they are able to actively detect approaching pedestrians and automobiles to help the driver watch out for conditions around the vehicle to build a safer driving experience."eyeSight has extensive experience and unique technologies in the development of human machine interface, indicated Thomas Li, VP Business Development, eyeSight. Outstanding achievements have been made in various gesture and palm detection and tracking functions. The software functions are made possible with the superior computation capabilities of CEVA-MM3101.Tim Llewellynn, CEO, Nviso, pointed out, "Nviso is making significant achievements in 3D facial imaging. With the help of CEVA-MM3101, facial recognition is faster and more accurate. Applied in the field of smart car, this technology can help lower occurrences of accidents by recognizing signs of fatigue on the driver's face and raising an alert to warn the driver via protection mechanisms."Irida Labs, focused on visual and image processing software, has also developed a variety of solutions based on the CEVA-MM3101 platform, including video stabilization, shutter calibration, face detection and recognition. CEVA-MM3101 is a high-performing and energy-efficient platform, and with its open API architecture, it is easily integrated with various software and hardware. Even the most complicated imaging and vision algorithms can be completed in a short time, indicated Vassilis Tsagaris, CEO, Irida Labs.Masayuki Shirahama, FAE Manager-Japan, CEVA, said, "CEVA provides complete development tools with CEVA-MM3101 so that our partners can make good use of the hardware computing resources to simplify and expedite software development."Designed for mobile devices, CEVA-TeakLite-4 is highly recognized for its speech processing capabilitiesCEVA launched the fourth generation speech processing chip CEVA-TeakLite-4 to address the needs of the mobile and consumer electronics market. CEVA-TeakLite-4 is capable of delivering optimized speech clarity in noisy environments by adopting advanced pre-process technologies to lower background noise and improve speech clarity. CEVA-TeakLite-4 additionally features increased data processing speed and transmission bandwidth. CEVA-TeakLite-4 is a high-performing, energy-efficient DSP chip specifically designed for smartphones, IoT devices, and smart homes. It is estimated that CEVA-TeakLite-4 will be included in 850m smartphones by 2018, accounting for 43% of the market, said Eran Belaish, Product Marketing Manager, Audio/Voice, CEVA.CyWee Motion, devoted to offering applications integrating innovative entertainment and diversified technologies, owns multiple human machine interaction patents internationally. Extensive innovative research achievements include remote motion interaction, wireless high-definition transmission, image/face/object tracking, and cloud processing engines, which are well received worldwide.CyWee Motion has been collaborating with CEVA for many years and has used CEVA-TeakLite-III in various product lines, which are very popular among customers, said Shun Nan Liou, GM, CyWee Motion.NXP Software, having been a partner with CEVA since 2012, launched LifeVibes software based on CEVA TeakLite DSP chip to provide Internet phone services. This takes business meetings that could only be conducted in the office onto mobile devices. LifeVibes's speech recognition performance is significantly boosted by CEVA-TeakLite, enhancing online voice conferencing, indicated Sam Kuo, Senior Acoustic Engineer, NXP SW.Simon Jeong, Director of Asia Sales, Sensory, concurred that CEVA-TeakLite does show outstanding speech processing capabilities, which has greatly facilitated Sensory's business expansion.CEVA's complete wireless transmission technologies satisfy needs of IoT applicationsThe reason why the global market is paying attention to IoT is that data can be automatically transmitted to back-end servers to create higher values. Consequently, wireless communication elements become critical cores driving IoT development. As opposed to other competitors who supply single-purpose solutions, CEVA offers a low power consumption core, CEVA-TeakLite-4 DSP, with a combination of highly reliable connection module devices for customers to choose among Wi-Fi, Bluetooth, ZigBee, and PLC modules based on the market positions of their products, so that the customer's design process can be simplified to accelerate time-to-market.Franz Dugand, Sales and Marketing Manager, Connectivity BU, CEVA, stated that CEVA Bluetooth 4.0 features Bluetooth Low Energy (BLE), so it is more suitable for use in mobile devices with low power consumption as the communication range is kept within 50m although the transmission speed may be slightly lower. CEVA Bluetooth 4.0 is an ideal choice to build an IoT environment.Zhihan Xu, CEO, Maxscend, indicated that CEVA presents the best solution to the market by first integrating a Wi-Fi module with a DSP chip so as to save designers from having to do the integration and adjustment themselves, and the integration also results in compact chip dimensions.Apart from Wi-Fi and Bluetooth, ZigBee and PLC are also indispensable technologies in the development of IoT. CEVA additionally provides related communication modules which can help SGA Innovations seize IoT opportunities, said Ronen Gazit, VP R&D, SGA Innovations.Eli Ariel, CEO, Galileo Satellite Navigation, stated, "CEVA's DSP has full features and compact package sizes, enabling us to reduce development costs, so we have launched software GPS solutions based on this platform, which supports geographical data of multiple countries and regions, helping us tap the global market."Taiwan-based manufacturers have been encountering setbacks in markets worldwide as they have been unable to grasp opportunities in cloud computing and mobile devices. They are advised to take advantage of CEVA solutions and thereby seize surging IoT opportunities and regain their leading positions in the global information and communication market.Barbara Yu, Country Manager, CEVAEran Belaish, Product Marketing Manager, AudioVoice, CEVAEran Briman, VP Marketing, CEVAFranz Dugand, Sales and Marketing Manager, Connectivity BU, CEVA (RivieraWaves)Masayuki Shirahama, FAE Manager-Japan, CEVA

NXP Semiconductors N.V. (NASDAQ: NXPI) today announced that Mr. Frank Chen has joined NXP as the VP, Taiwan Sales and Country Manager effective 1st December 2014. Frank is based in Taipei and responsible for Sales across all NXP products in Taiwan and the Country Manager. He replaces Vincent Sun who decided to retire as of 31 December 2014."Frank brings over 20-year professional experiences to NXP. From a manufacturing perspective as well as Marketing & Sales he was selected for this position based on his proven track record of business leadership through strong partnerships and customer success. He joins us from Freescale where he was the Taiwan Country Manager. We also thank Vincent for his dedication and contribution over the past 3 years and we wish him well as he begins his retirement," said Li Zheng, Senior Vice President; Global Sales and Marketing, Greater China and China Country Manager."At NXP, we pride ourselves on being involved with the future, through innovative products our customers bring to market. By working closely together, we help customers and partners differentiate new and unique applications that are shaping the modern world for the better. This requires all of us to be forward-thinking and consistently involves bringing the best talent into NXP," further commented Li Zheng. "Recently, NXP reoriented its business to better address defined, customer-specific application areas. We're excited to work together with like-minded customers and partners in Taiwan and are committed to continue these success stories with even more exciting applications and innovations ahead of us."About NXP SemiconductorsNXP Semiconductors N.V. (NASDAQ: NXPI) creates solutions that enable secure connections for a smarter world. Building on its expertise in High Performance Mixed Signal electronics, NXP is driving innovation in the automotive, identification and mobile industries, and in application areas including wireless infrastructure, lighting, healthcare, industrial, and consumer tech and computing. NXP has operations in more than 25 countries, and posted revenue of $4.82billion in 2013. Find out more at http://www.nxp.com/.

SNUG Taiwan 2014 was recently hosted by Synopsys Taiwan in Hsinchu, with representatives from almost 30 heavyweight customers sharing ideas and presenting their design and research achievements. Senior managers from important partners such as Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Company (TSMC), MediaTek Inc., United Microelectronics Corporation (UMC), and Imagination Technologies also gave keynote speeches at the event.SNUG: The largest and most comprehensive advanced design technology platform in TaiwanThe two-day event covered topics such as physical design, synthesis, testing, circuit simulation, verification, debugging, systems, IP, hardware emulation, and FPGA-based prototyping. The event, which was attended by over 1,200 IC design engineers, saw nearly 30 heavyweight semiconductor firms present their technological achievements. SNUG is currently the largest and most comprehensive platform in Taiwan where insights into advanced IC design technologies are shared and discussed.In his speech, Robbins Yeh, Chairman of Synopsys Taiwan, noted that the Taiwan branch of the US-based company was established 23 years ago. SNUG Taiwan, which was first held in 2001, has been growing with Taiwan's semiconductor industry and this year marks the event's 14th anniversary. Synopsys' 2014 global revenues are estimated to exceed US$2 billion, ranking number 16 among all software firms worldwide and marking an important milestone for the EDA sector.Synopsys cultivates the largest R&D team of all foreign software firms in TaiwanCurrently, Synopsys has more than 370 R&D personnel in Taiwan, which is the biggest R&D team among all foreign software firms operating in Taiwan. With close collaboration with academia, business partners, and research organizations, Synopsys demonstrates continuous commitment to the Taiwan market.Yeh stated that as the IT industry enters the post-PC era, firms have been working closely together, moving from division of labor vertically to vertical integration. Hence, the SNUG Taiwan 2014 set theme as "Innovation and Collaboration" to demonstrate a hope that industry players can join forces in the face of severe competition and capture new business opportunities with innovative designs.In his speech, Paul Lo, Senior VP of Synopsys Design Group, introduced innovative technologies in P&R (place-and-route), verification, prototyping, and IP solutions.Innovation and collaboration to help Taiwan firms overcome increasingly complex design challengesAccording to statistics from market research firms, the global semiconductor market is likely to grow by 5% in 2014 and continue to grow in the next three years, driven by robust developments in the mobile, cloud computing, and Internet of Things (IoT) applications markets. In recent years, many technology firms have been striving to accelerate their own innovations, and at the same time making efforts to increase economies of scale and enhance technological prowess through acquisitions. Lo added that there are likely to be more acquisitions in the future as the cloud computing and IoT markets heat up.The semiconductor process technology has already come to 16/14nm FinET nodes and is moving towards 10/7nm. Lo emphasized that FinET requires support from manufacturing processes, circuit simulation, physical IP, custom design, physical verification, implementation, signoff and various SoC design processes. Synopsys' design tools are ready for this type of advanced process, and at the same time it has been working closely with wafer foundry houses. Currently, there are more than 250 design projects on the sub-22nm nodes and more than 100 design projects on the 16/14nm FinET technology nodes, showing Synopsys' full support to help customers achieve designs using advanced processes.At the same time, demand remains strong for 130/90/65/40nm mature processes as applications for automotive, medical, sensor and various smart devices become popular. Synopsys strives to incorporate advanced design functions into existing nodes to help customers achieve optimal results.Synopsys' innovative technology fulfills advanced design need at each process nodeHenry Sheng, Group Director of Synopsys, outlined the company's latest development of P&R solutions. While volume production on 18-inch wafers is expected to ramp up in 2018, according to Sheng, the ITRS blueprint also indicates that the semiconductor industry will proceed to the 7nm process technology node in 2017. Hence it is foreseeable that the industry is entering an era of extremely high quantity of extremely small transistors.Although the industry's focus has been on continuous development of advanced technology, demand for mature technology remains strong. According to a 2013 study, although the sub-40nm advanced processes accounted for more than 60% of total wafer shipments, the 40nm and above mature processes accounted for as high as 88% of all design starts.In particular, the markets for automotive, medical and IoT applications have been growing and these applications will mainly use mature process technology. Analog, mixed-signal, 3D-IC and MEMS technologies will play more important roles, and therefore firms need to achieve design differentiation at every process node in order to beat competitions.Sheng stated that as design complexity increases, routing becomes more difficult and there are many rules that must be followed. Synopsys has been working toward building optimal PPA design using more advanced routing functions.IC Compiler II and Verification Compiler: A major focus of SNUG Taiwan 2014Synopsys' recently introduced IC Compiler II and Verification Compiler solutions were another focus of SNUG Taiwan 2014.Sheng noted Synopsys' IC Compiler has been the industry-leading design tool. Over the past few years, Synopsys has continued developing technology to maintain the leading position of IC Compiler, and at the same time has been striving to improve the design team's productivity by devising new P&R systems.IC Compiler II was developed to accelerate physical design by adopting a new multi-threaded infrastructure able to handle designs with more than 500 million instances. In addition, IC Compiler II incorporates important technologies of IC Compiler such as conjugate-gradient layout placer and ZRoute router.IC Compiler II is a full chip-level design that delivers a groundbreaking 10-times increase in design throughput while reducing memory consumption by five times. The product comes with super high capacity, special timer, and analytical engine.Yu-Chin Hsu, VP of R&D at Synopsys Verification Group, explained that as the chip complexity increases, design verification faces three challenges: scale, efficiency and cost. The industry must find more comprehensive solutions integrating previous a-la-carte tools to overcome these challenges.Verification Compiler is a comprehensive solution that integrates the latest generation of verification technologies. The solution includes advanced debugging tools, static and formal technologies, simulation, verification IP, and coverage analysis. By integrating these technologies, the product can increase design throughput by five times and greatly improve the efficiency of debugging. This allows SoC design and verification teams to use the same product to create a complete verification process.Furthermore, Verification Compiler is based on the industry-leading Verdi3 debug environment, featuring UVM-aware debug, transaction-level debug, HW/SW debug, power-aware debug, and interactive debug. These functions are all built together on an easy-to-use environment to greatly improve debugging efficiency.SNUG is currently the most important technology exchange platform in Taiwan's IC design industry and Synopsys Taiwan will continue bringing in innovative technology to closely collaborate with local semiconductor design firms and manufacturers.Paul Lo, Senior Vice President of Synopsys Design GroupRobbins Yeh, Chairman of Synopsys Taiwan

Leading semiconductor test equipment supplier Advantest Corporation (TSE: 6857, NYSE: ATE) has launched a new multi-purpose parametric measurement unit (PMU) module, the T2000 PMU32E, to enhance its T2000 platform's capabilities in testing digital, analog and power-management system-on-chip (SoC) devices.The new high-density, 32-channel module is fully compatible with Advantest's original PMU32 module – even using the same tester interface unit (TIU) – while offering twice the resolution and accuracy. This enables a T2000 tester equipped with the new PMU32E module to achieve high-level measurement accuracy, set-up time and gang functionality similar to those of a T2000 EPP (Enhanced Performance Package) tester."By using our new PMU module with its built-in performance improvements, our customers can gain the functionality of an EPP tester at a lower capital investment," said Dr. Toshiyuki Okayasu, executive officer and executive vice president, SoC Test Business Group at Advantest Corporation.With the T2000 PMU32E, the measurement time is more than two times faster than with the earlier module. In particular, DC linearity measurement time is much faster due to an enhanced sampling rate and enhanced data transfer. These faster operating speeds lead to significantly higher throughputs and a lower overall cost of test.Operating efficiency is further improved by the new module's ability to run test programs already developed for the earlier PMU32 module. In addition, the new module features twice as much memory capacity, expanding the capabilities of the channel-independent arbitrary waveform generator (AWG) and digitizer.The PMU32E also supports load testing of on-die regulators (ODR) with its ISVM (current source and voltage measurement) ganging function.Advantest expects to begin shipping PMU32E modules to customers by the first quarter of 2015.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 a 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/.