Tatung Co. (TWSE Stock Code 2371), a leader in the smart energy industry that offers turnkey energy-saving system integration solutions, has stepped up efforts expanding overseas, with its latest target markets in the Middle East. Equipped with years of experience in system integration and the abundant resources from firms under the Tatung Group, Tatung presented its total smart energy-saving solutions at Middle East Electricity 2014 in Dubai.Tatung gained much attention and business opportunities during its debut at Middle East Electricity 2013. This time, Tatung demonstrated its ambitions for the Middle East market by expanding its booth size at Middle East Electricity 2014. "As a total energy-saving system integration specialist with rich experience in Taiwan, Tatung is enhancing its brand visibility and exploring business opportunities in the Middle East area. It is also looking to further identify customers' needs in terms of smart energy-saving and high-efficiency industrial applications and energy products," said Frank Shiue, vice president of Power BG at Tatung.Leveraging the Tatung Group's resources, the company has customized system solutions specifically for the Middle East market, such as: mechatronic systems designed for superior power transmission, and safe and reliable electricity distribution; smart energy-saving systems that include PV, smart energy management, intelligent green building, ESCO and highly energy-efficient equipment solutions; new-generation power grids based on bidirectional communications technology that provides short-time or real-time electricity information to consumers and power companies, enabling various smart grid systems and central monitoring systems for factories, office buildings and public facilities.The products Tatung showcased at the event included the newly patented Smart Partial Discharge Analyzer that can accurately and quickly detect and locate faults in oil-insulated high-voltage equipment (such as transformers). The product guarantees smooth running of a power system. Other energy-saving and high-efficiency products highlighted at the show included: high-efficiency motors, amorphous transformers, wires and cables, smart meters, advanced metering infrastructure, commercial air conditioning solutions and thin-film cells.Dates: Feb. 11-13, 2014Location: Dubai International Exhibition Centre, UAEBooth: 2A12

Fortrend Liquid Diamond treated glass boasts anti-germ capability - for all environments, both outdoors and indoors - that is four times better than that of untreated glass. The capability was tested by the Food Industry Research and Development Institute (see Test Report below).The Fortrend-developed anti-germ Liquid Diamond layer treatment prevents germs and viruses from growing, and can be applied to a variety of surfaces like plastic, metal and glass.It can be used on many different environments and devices: household items, such as glassware, drinking water processors, electrical appliances, air cleaners and air conditioners; bathrooms, where germs could grow fast on toilets, faucets or tiles because of the moistures; 3C products, from keyboards, mobile phone protective glass sheets to tablets, that are indispensable today; the facades of buildings, such as the glass windows, paintings and so forth.And people's contact with touch panels, a popular man-machine interface, is growing fast. Public health experts have already warned that the number of germs on a touch panel may be 30 times that on a toilet seat. The industry needs to resolve the issues of germ growth on glass, and Fortrend Liquid Diamond is a perfect answer to these issues, providing high added-value to enhance touch panel makers' competitveness.The Food Industry Research and Development Institute's Test Report

The increasing worldwide terrorist attack and theft has become driving force in explosion of surveillance systems to protect lives and assets. Every newly built public or private building now requires a complete security and safety plan.As desert dunes soar next to towering skyscrapers, W Doha Hotel & Residences dazzles by the Arabian Sea. As more and more high-end hotels are built in Qatar, W Hotel wanted to provide more secured experiences for their employees and their valuable guests during their stays in W Hotel for competitive hotel market in Qatar. Therefore, W Hotel turned to EverFocus for a well-planned surveillance system.In order to provide a complete safe environment for its guests, W Hotel chose EverFocus's cameras and later installed around four hundred fifty EverFocus advanced surveillance cameras in their main entrances, lobby, hallways, stairs, and at the front desk. In order to satisfy W Hotel's requiements, EverFocus worked with the system integrator Genius Vision Digital (GVD) for a complete solution. Installed EverFocus surveillance cameras include EHN3260 IP IR dome, EPN4220 speed dome, and EZN3260, EZN3340 bullet type cameras.Taiwan Excellence Award winner EPN 4220 is a best-in-class network-based speed dome camera specifically designed for professional applications. It offers 2 megapixel resolution and a built-in 20x optical zoom, aimed at guaranteeing impeccable image quality, in addition to cutting-edge features, such as digital slow shutter (DSS), wide dynamic range (WDR), and dynamic noise reduction (DNR). Equipped with an IP66-rated housings and true day/night function with a removable IR cut filter, the EPN 4220 is certainly designed to withstand all environments. The advanced motion detection function also meets the needs of almost every end-user.EHN3260 is a 2 megapixel IP wide dynamic Day/Night outdoor IR dome that is perfect for both indoor and outdoor environment. W Hotel installed 398pcs of EHN3250 cameras in the hotel because its P-IRIS Lends, WDR, high performance noise filter, True Day/Night function provide high quality image and meet the vandal proof needs that the hotel required at the same time.EZN3260 and EZN3340 bullet type IP cameras are also used in this project. EZN3260 is a 2 Megapixel Wide Dynamic Outdoor Bullet IP camera patented algorithm for expert exposure control in dynamic lighting environments. Its highlight suppression backlight compensation/Control (HSBLC) intelligently masks the extreme blooming effects from high-contrast light sources such as car headlights. EZN3340 is a 3 Megapixel outdoor bullet IP camera with the same design as EZN3260 but higher performances that can monitor further distance in darker areas.Hotel surveillance has become more important than ever. A well organized and installed surveillance system can not only protect the hotel itself but also the guests. 441 EverFocus cameras are installed for complete surveillance and protection in W Hotel. With the installation of the hotel video surveillance, not only it can keep guests safe from theft, violence, but also provide evidences, prevent crimes and thus create a better and pleasant stay for all the guests visiting W Hotel.Video surveillance is the perfect security solution for hotels and resorts. EverFocus surveillance solutions have been widely used in different vertical markets including businesses, housing, banking, retail. EverFocus has the most cost effective video camera solution for you all around the world.W Hotel chooses EverFocus as a preferred Security System Provider

After the terrorist attack 911 in the US, the whole wide world begins to attach importance to the security surveillance system. Along with the development of technologies, IP network based surveillance also follows and is becoming more mature than ever. One after another, digital products have joined Internet of Things and the Cloud, and security industry as well, keeping abreast with the times, and moving forward to the intelligentization and customization business model. How the security industry would adjust its pace to catch up this developmental tendency, is worthy of attention.The pure hardware supply seems no longer be able to meet the diverse needs of users. Security monitoring products moves towards the integration of the hardware and the software, customization and intelligent applications such as video analysis. We used to employ the manpower for investigating, comparing and analyzing the recorded data, which is extremely time-consuming and the analysis accuracy could vary according to different person in charge. Nowadays, through specific analytical firmwares, users can perform intelligently the work that labor could not achieve alone normally, to reduce costs and to improve precision of the analysis.The basic technology in the intelligent surveillance which we are familiar with is motion detection for example. On the contrary, there are more complex features as face recognition, behavior analysis and so on, which are more widely used in surroundings like so-called smart buildings, smart city, and smart campus where advanced functions are needed. The intelligentization has become a popular tendency to reduce labor costs, to improve efficiency and to provide diverse services for users. The intelligent monitoring will be more and more popular in the coming years, and more widely used in every field.Taiwanese company, Nimax, has introduced in 2013 on the market, the high resolution AI face tracking camera with numerous smart features, such as face tracking, digital defog to name a few. At the same time, with on field experience accumulated for years, Nimax has solid technical strength to provide customized monitoring system for security field as well as other domains.In 2014 Secutech Taipei International Security Expo, Nimax will focus on network-based HD cameras, HD SDI systems, 180 degree image correction module, as well as promoting a different cooperation business model, providing actively of customized services and cross-industry alliance partnership for instance, in the aim of providing tailor-made intelligentized video modules, in the hope of adding product value for customers and users.The customization of video module will be the main promotion goal for Nimax this year. In recent years, through the cooperative efforts with international partners, Nimax has successfully introduced customized products for school, door phone intercom system, industrial production, consumer entertainment (ex: photo sticker machines), industrial machinery and military base. In the future, Nimax will more actively work on cross-industry collaboration, in the hope of spreading innovative intelligentized camera module for a wider use.

Imagination Technologies announced that the latest version of its popular Codescape debugger now supports the full range of MIPS CPUs, offers new Linux and RTOS awareness features, and provides heterogeneous debug of SoCs using one or more of Imagination's portfolio of MIPS and Ensigma processors. With Codescape 8.0, Imagination's customers and developers have a complete, proven and powerful debug solution that goes beyond the CPU.Codescape is used by Imagination and its licensees for fast, easy debugging across a wide range of Imagination's programmable IP, including MIPS CPUs and Ensigma RPUs (radio processors) with PowerVR GPU (graphics processor) support coming in 2014. With Codescape, developers can simultaneously examine the code of each of these processors, as well as the interactions between them, accelerating product development and enabling faster time to market. The Codescape debugger provides comprehensive debug across the whole SoC, supporting multiple operating systems, architectures and technologies, including the MIPS instruction set architecture (ISA), MIPS SIMD architecture (MSA), the Ensigma Modulation and Coding Processor (MCP) ISA and hardware multi-threading.Says Tony King-Smith, EVP marketing, Imagination: "Imagination has been investing in our innovative Codescape heterogeneous debugging technology for more than a decade in support of our broad and expanding portfolio of processor IP. Our proven Codescape tools are an integral and strategic part of our comprehensive software toolchain, with powerful features and advanced functionality that work across our IP cores. We believe that Codescape is the only truly heterogeneous debugging technology, giving our customers a distinct competitive edge."Codescape is a fast and fully-featured graphical debugger that includes the following features:*Multi-core, multi-thread and multi-OS task support*Ability to debug MIPS CPUs, Ensigma RPUs and other Imagination IP on the same SoC in a single view*Bare metal, Linux and RTOS aware debug*Support for Windows, Linux and Mac OS hosts including 64-bit*Powerful graphical scripting for greater control and visualization of target data*Supported by a range of high-speed JTAG and trace probes*Supports connection to MIPS Instruction Accurate Simulator (IASim) and QEMU (Emulator)Codescape can be used both with the powerful Codescape GUI and as a plugin with Eclipse. With built-in graphical scripting for data visualisation, virtual prototyping and debugger extendibility, Codescape is compatible with a range of emulators, FPGA systems and final silicon.Future additions will include support for 64-bit MIPS cores, MIPS SIMD architecture and other new micro-architectural and ISA features.AvailabilityA range of Codescape 8.0 debugger products, targeting different feature sets and capabilities, is available now. Contact info@imgtec.com for more information.About CodescapeThe Codescape development environment delivers new levels of development tool integration, tackling all aspects of high-performance, heterogeneous SoC platform development, and includes support for an ever increasing number of Imagination's programmable IP cores.Codescape is an end-to-end solution, supporting development needs from IP evaluation through to product delivery and customer support. The one-stop solution eases the development cycle and helps Imagination's customers deliver the quality of finished product that their customers expect in the fastest possible timeframe.

The speed of NAND flash memory has made a rapid progress. The ONFI v4.0 that is under development will use the 1.2VDDR3 transmission interface technology. Single channel flash transmission rate can reach the speed of 800 MB/s. As a result, solid state drive (SSD) products adopting SATAIII (6Gbps) as the transmission interface are about to face an insurmountable bottleneck.Instead, the PCIe interface technology is promising. The introduction of the new M.2, SATA Express, PCIe x16 add-in card, and SFF-8639 are all new generation SSD products that the storage device industry are banking on to transcend the performance limitations.SATA 6G reaching a bottleneckCc Wu , Innodisk's vice president of Embedded Flash Div. , discussed at a recent forum the application of the flash storage devices used by the industrial control sector as well as the evolution of the storage transmission interface specifications for IDE, SATA, and other interfaces. Wu indicated that the NAND flash manufacturing process has continued to progress each year from 60nm in 2006, 50nm in 2007, 42nm in 2008, 34nm in 2009, 27nm in 2010, 24nm in 2011, 21nm in 2012, and 19nm in 2013 and early 2014.The current industrial mainstream storage devices still adopt the rewritable and high tolerance SLC made using processes between 42nm and 21nm. MLC has also begun to penetrate into the industrial application sector since 2012, manufactured at the 21nm to 19nm nodes. Because TLC has a smaller number of rewritable times and the price difference between TLC and MLC is not as great as that between SLC and MLC, TLC applications are still mostly for consumer electronics, and the industrial market has yet to adopt them. When TLC will find its way into the industrial market remains to be seen.Judging from the evolution of flash performance, ONFI and Toggle mode have both become the mainstream flash interfaces. Under ONFI v3.1/Toggle mode 2.0, flash adopts the DDR2 interface transfer technology with transmission rates reaching 400MB/s (ONFI v3.1) or 533MB/s (ONFI v3.2), and the operating voltage reduced to merely 1.8V(SSTL_18). ONFI v4.0, which is being developed, will adopt the DDR3 transmission interface with the operating voltage dropping to 1.2V and the highest single-channel transmission rate reaching up to 800MB/s.In terms of performance, if an ONFI 3.2 NV-DDR2 goes with a 16KB Page MLC and Cache Read/Cache Program, the read speeds of single-channel 1-die, 2-die, 4-die, and 8-die stacks can reach as high as 533MB/s, and the respective write speeds can reach 20MB/s, 41MB/s, 82MB/s, and 164 MB/s. As for 16KB Page SLC chips, the write speeds can reach 73MB/s, 146MB/s, 291MB/s, and 533MB/s (in full load) under the same Cache Read/Cache Program conditions. But now the 600MB/s rate of SATAIII (SATA 6G) is about to become a transmission bottleneck for flash chips. To develop SSDs with higher transmission speeds, we must turn to the next generation of higher-speed transmission interface as early as possible.SATA remains as mainstream industrial interface, but set to give way to Mini PCIe/M.2In terms of flash applications in the industrial sector, a significant number of SLC has been used in embedded devices, acting as the embedded operating systems' boot storage with capacity mostly under 2GB. When more than 32GB in storage capacity is needed, MLC is a more cost-efficient alternative.When the storage capacity is less than 2GB and demand for storage is high, SLC can be used as an embedded OS hard disk to provide a higher degree of reliability and extend the service life for such products as industrial PCs, gaming machines, automation equipment, and military equipment. When the device needs storage of more than 32GB, MLC can be used as a data disks for storing application programs, enabling higher SSD capacity and providing better cost-efficiency for product segments including surveillance, POS, networking and digital signage.Take an industrial motherboard for an example. The designs mentioned above allow for numerous connection interfaces to connect the storage devices. They include: PATA CF/IDE DOM (Disk on Module) that can connect to the conventional 40pin IDE interface; SSD with 1.8 inch SATA or 2.5 inch SATA; SATA DOM, mSATA, SATA Slim, Cfast, or CF-SATA memory cards that connect to the SATA interface; USB modules that connect to a 10-pin USB connector; SD/micro SD memory cards that can be read through a card reader; and the eMMC and uSSD single-chip disks that are built into the motherboards.These various interfaces must have at least five years of product life in order to serve industrial purposes. In the past, newly designed motherboards would often keep the old transmission connection interfaces in use for several more years to give clients more time to transition to new interfaces. At the same time, multiple interfaces can cover a wide range of differentiated applications. Small-size connection interfaces are also required due to system space constraints. SATA remains as the mainstream transmission interface for industrial applications.PCIe to become the ultimate solutionCc Wu provided a chronicle of the SSD evolution in terms of form factors and transmission interfaces. In 1995, the CompactFlash (CF) had a transmission rate of only 8.3 MByte/s (PIO mode 2). In 1999, the Secure Digital (SD) specification was jointly developed by SanDisk, Matsushita and Toshiba. The SATA Rev 1.0a specification was launched in January 2003, which increased the transmission rate to 150MB/s (1.5Gbps). In 2003, the PCI-SIG organization premiered the PCIe 1.0a single plane (1x plane) achieving the transmission rate of 250MB/s (2.5Gbps). The SATA Rev 2.0 was unveiled in 2006, which improved the transmission rate to 300MB/s (3Gbps). In January 2007, PCI-SIG released the PCIe 2.0 specification whereby the single plane (1x plane) with a transmission rate up to 500MB/s (5Gbps).In June 2008, the SATA Rev 3.0 interface boosted the transmission rate to 600MB/s (6Gbps). In 2009, JEDEC developed SATA Slim (MO-297A). In September 2009, the SATA-IO organization introduced the mSATA interface. In 2010, the PCIe Gen3 enabling single-plane 1GB/s (8GT/s) was launched. The SATA Express interface appeared in 2011 and Intel released the M.2 (NGFF) interface in 2012. The high-speed transmission interface evolution continues.The PCI Express (PCIe) interface evolution started with PCIe 1.0,which was based on the 8b/10b encoding scheme with x1 transmission rate reaching 2.5GT/s (250MB/s) and the x16 transmission rate at 4GB/s. Then came PCIe 2.0, which was based on the 8b/10b encoding scheme boosting the x1 transmission rate to 5GT/s (500MB/s) and the x16 transmission rate to 8GB/s. PCIe 3.0 adopted the 128b/130b encoding principles, raising the x1 transmission rate to reach 8GT/s (1GB/s), and the x16 transmission rate to 16GB/s. PCIe 4.0 is expected to have an x1 transmission rate exceeding 16GT/s (2GB/s), and the transmission rate can reach 32GB/s in the x16 mode.PCIe interface form factors and market trendsPCIe has diverse interface form factors. A Mini PCIe connector has 52 pins and works well with cloud computing and data centers; PCIe x16 is used in graphic cards and PCIe SSD emphasizes high IOPS; M.2(NGFF) launched by Intel in 2012 features three sizes - 2242, 2260 and 2280 - that are currently used in Ultrabooks.The 2.5-inch SSD has adopted the SATAIII (600MB/s) interface. The SATA Express combines the conventional SATA and PCIe interfaces and provides x2 dual planes. PCIe 2.0/3.0 x2 can achieve 1GB/s and 2GB/s. Asustek has showcased motherboards adopting SATA Express, and their interfaces are compatible with conventional SATA cables and PCIe connectors.Finally, the SFF-8639 interface is currently used in the back panels of the enterprise-grade 2.5-inch storage devices. It can connect to PCIe, SATA as well as SAS storage devices, and is compatible with SATA Express. SFF-8639 offers six PCLe lanes, but only a maximum of four can be used at a time. PCIe 2.0/3.0 can raise the transmission rate to 2GB/s and 4GB/s, respectively.In terms of the industry support for SFF-8639, Dell's PowerEdge R820/R720 1U Servers are connected through PCIe HBA adapters at the backplane connection and expansion slots, and it is adopted by Apple's MacBook Air as well as some MacBook Pro models. However, it is still rarely seen in the industrial computers/motherboards. Micron has premiered the P320h 2.5-inch PCIe SSD that adopts the SFF-8639 connection interface. It supports the x4 PCIe Gen2 specification and its sequential read and write speeds can reach 1.75GB/s and 1.1GB/s, respectively.SSDs developed with the PCIe interface in the form of x16 add-on cards include: OCZ's Z-Drive R4(PCIe-SATA+SATA SSD); Micron's P420m; Fusion IO's ioDrive; Seagate's X8 (Virident); and OCZ's Z-Drive R5 native PCIe SSD cards. They provide high IOPS that is most needed by servers. Their transmission rates can reach up to 1.5GB/s to 3GB/s, or even up to 6.5GB/s.Industrial motherboards have miniPCIe slots of the 50.8mm (L) x 29.8mm (W) x 4.4mm (H) size. In the past, these slots were slated to accept Intel's Wi-Fi wireless LAN modules. Manufacturers have also modified them into mSATA slots with similar pin counts. M.2 (NGFF) can serve as a new generation of slot/interface specifications compatible with miniPCIe, USB, SDIO, UART, PCM, I2C, and SATA(mSATA) add-on cards. There are Socket 1 Type 1630, 2230, 3030; Socket 2 Type 2242, 3042, which support PCIe x2/SATA; and Socket 3 Type 2260, 2280, 22110, which support PCIe x4/SATA.PCIe is poised to replace the existing SATAIII to become the future mainstream specification for storage device. Judging from the history of storage devices where a transition would usually take three to five years, Cc Wu expects that PCIe SSDs will become the mainstream by 2015. In addition, judging from the fact that Apple's MacBook Air and MacBook Pro have already adopted M.2 and SFF-8639, the transition of the SSD industry will continue to accelerate. Various SSD products adopting PCIe will start to appear in the market in the second half of 2014.Cc Wu, Innodisk's vice president of Embedded Flash Div.

MSI, leader in Graphics Card Technology, is pleased to announce the availability of its new GTX 750 and GTX 750Ti models. MSI offers models aimed at performance in the GAMING series with the GTX 750Ti GAMING and the GTX 750 GAMING as well as models rounded for everyday use, the GTX 750 1GD5 and GTX 750Ti 2GD5. One stand-out feature is the low power consumption that requires the need of an external power connector. This enables low-power builds with next-gen NVIDIA Maxwell graphics power and features.The MSI GAMING benefitMSI's GAMING series is designed to provide gamers with quality they can rely on. For Graphics Cards this means you get the best thermal solution and components to make sure you stay cool and stable no matter how long your gaming session is. The Twin Frozr IV Advanced is remarkably silent while maintaining excellent temperatures while the Military Class 4 components are designed to remain stable in extreme conditions. The MSI Gaming App puts the gamer in control with a choice of Silent, Gaming and OC modes to utilize performance or silence based on the need of the gamer.For more information, please visit: http://www.msi.com/product/vga/N750Ti_TF_2GD5OC.html http://www.msi.com/product/vga/N750_TF_1GD5OC.htmlGTX 750Ti GAMING

In the industrial PC market, there is strong demand for high-performance, highly reliable and ruggedized SSDs (solid-state drives). Apacer Technology has overcome SATA III technology barriers and developed the ultra-performance Combo SATA Drive (CSD), and Corepower technology protects data in cache from impact of power disruption. Their water- and dust-proof capabilities are improved by special coating and molding technologies. Apacer also provides industrial- and military-class protection/erase methods and cloud computing-based monitoring software to enhance data protection and remote maintenance capability.Big changes in storage device interfacesRobert Lee, Director of R&D Dept. at Apacer outlined the development of interface technology for storage devices, their specifications, and SSD applications in industrial PC. Serial ATA International Organization (SATA-IO) released SATA Rev 2.5 in October 2005, SATA Rev 2.6 in February 2007, SATA Rev 3.0 in June 2009, SATA Rev 3.1 in July 2011. In August 2013, the SATA-IO released SATA Rev 3.2 and several new interface specifications such as SATA Express (derived from PCI Express) and M.2 (NGFF), specified definition of microSSD and removable SSD modules (universal storage modules, USM) and optimized solid-state hybrid drives.The specification of SATA Express, a new 2.5-inch storage device interface added to SATA Rev 3.2, keeps the original SATA Connector, with definition changed as two sets of 7-pin SATA Port connectors + 3/4-pin PCIe signal. SATA Express is compatible with existing SATA connectors, allowing use of two connection cables. If a SATA Express male connector is plugged in, the interface switches from SATA Express to PCIe. SATA Express is designed to be 2-lane (x2), two-way multiplexing of serial signals with a maximum transfer speed of 2GB/s (PCIe 3.0).M.2 originated from Next Generation Form Factor (NGFF) unveiled by Intel at its 2012 IDF and is specifically designed for add-on cards of Ultrabook and tablet SSDs. M.2 is used in SSD cache, Type 2242 SSD Cache Slot B measuring 22mm x 42mm, and SSD add-on cards, Type 2260 SSD Slot C measuring 22mm x 60mm and Type 2280 SSD Slot C measuring 22mm x 80mm and Type 22110 SSD Slot C measuring 22mm x 110mm.microSSD (uSSD) is SATA-IO's specification (JEDEC MO-276) specific to SATA SSD, a single chip through integrated packaging of NAND flash and the controller die. A microSSD chip measures 20mm x 16mm in FPBGA (fine pitch ball grid array) package with pitch of 0.5mm. microSSD can be directly soldered on the motherboard of a small embedded system to save space of the PCB.Device Sleep (DEVSLP) is an advanced power management protocol for SATA, but has not been used in all industrial PC equipment or general motherboards. In the past, power management for SATA was done through software command, with operation from active state to partial state and then to slumber state. The addition of DEVSLP definition to SATA Rev 3.2 enables SATA peripheral components to go into DEVSLP state for further power saving.PCIe to become mainstream, but application to industrial PC may see longer waitAlthough a shift from SATA to PCI Express for storage devices will be an unstoppable trend, such a shift will not happen in the near future because motherboards used in industrial PC need much time to design and obtain certification, Lee said. PCI Express interface has progressed from 8b/10b coding, single-lane (x1) transfer speed of 2.5-5GT/s (250-500MB/s) and 16-lane speed of 4-8GB/s for PCIe Gen1 & Gen2 to 128b/130b coding, single-lane (x1) transfer speed of 8GT/s (1 GB/s) and 16-lane speed of 16GB/s for PCIe Gen3.In terms of SSD device sizes, M.2 (NGFF), with 67/75 Connector and 22m x 42/60/80/110mm in dimensions, allows for SATA and PCIe interfaces. MO-300 (mSATA), whose 52-pin mSATA slot is derived from miniPCIe slot, can support SATA and PCIe. A 2.5-inch SSD measuring 100mm x70 mm can support SATA and PCIe (SATA Express/SFF-8639), while MO-297 (SATA Slim) storage modules, despite their 7+15 SATA Connector, so far support only SATA but not PCIe.SSD solutions for embedded systemsSSDs have been widely adopted by embedded systems including POS (point of sale/service), medical devices, servers, games consoles and tablets for booting and storage purposes. For industrial PC purposes, the order of priority in selecting SSDs was previously: reliability>performance>cost. But the priorities have now changed depending on different market segments. The emphasis may be on performance: performance>reliability>cost; or, more or less similar to consumer devices, the order may become: cost> reliability>performance. All of them, Apacer will add more kinds of application for industrial PC.For application to industrial PC, SSDs have faced serious challenges to meet requirements of very high speed, cache data protection upon power disruption and ruggedized design, such as water- and dust-proof. In addition, enhanced information security is a must. Users may also want to constantly keep track of the SSDs' conditions and service life, and they may also need smaller and lighter SSD products.SSD for industrial PCThe Apacer-developed 2.5-inch Combo SATA Drive (CSD) is a SSD device consisting of two SSD systems with two SSD controllers on a single SSD PCB. Under RAID 0 operations, the motherboard of CSD, specifically for industrial PC, supports 2-port SATA and reaches nearly PCIe Gen2 x2 performance (1GB/s). Based on CrystalDiskMark v3 testing, the CSD has sequential read and write speeds of 1,024MB/s and 602MB/s respectively. Apacer offers CSD models of SLC SSD/MLC SSD hybrid design, with SLC for OS and MLC for data storage.Apacer CSD uses a SFF-8482 29-pin SAS male connector which, based on notch design, can be connected with a SAS female connector at the backplane of a server or network-attached storage device, but not a SATA female connector. System products with SAS female connectors on motherboards can be connected with, in addition to SATA SSD/hard disk drives, Apacer CSDs for quicker operations and backup.DRAM is added to most SSDs as data cache to increase read/write speeds, but this runs the risk of losing data on DRAM cache if power supply is disrupted. To solve the problem, Apace adopts CorePower technology, using special power protect circuit which, upon power disruption, supply power for controller ICs to write back data from cache to non-volatile NAND flash to prevent loss of data.For SSD reliability protection design, Apacer adopts low-pressure molding technology to completely clothe ICs and pins on PCBs to avoid oxidation and bending, and this also increases shock-resistance as well. In addition, Apacer adopts inexpensive conformal coating as well as nano coating which can enhance resistance to oxidation, moistures and corrosion by chemicals, solvents or carbon dioxide.In terms of data protection, Apacer adopts the following technologies: CoreSecurity by virtue of unique encryption to prevent SSDs from being shifted to other platforms for reading; CoreProtector to prevent data, hard disks and devices from being written at three protection levels; CoreEraser Technology to provide functions of quick erase, full erase and military-class erase (MIL Erase).To keep track of SSD conditions - such as storage capacity, firmware, S.M.A.R.T values, system workload, block erase count, estimated service life, SSD health, system power hour/cycle/failure - it is usually necessary to install monitoring software in the PC equipped with the target SSD. Instead, Apacer provides SSDWidget, a cloud computing-based monitoring application available for download to handsets or tablets with iOS, for monitoring Apacer's SSDs. Apacer SSDs built-in any connected device will send encrypted information on their operations to servers of the clients' private clouds, and the information can be accessed and displayed using SSDWidget anytime. In addition, such information can be browsed using connected devices setup for the purpose.Apacer has developed uSSD, a microSATA Disk Chip (uSDC) measuring 20mm x 16mm in FPBGA 156 and supporting SATA III. uSDC has been applied to mobile devices, storage on board, slim notebooks and Chromebooks. In addition, Apacer has developed SATA Disk Module which is directly plugged in a 7-pin SATA connector without using a power cable. Power is supplied from the male connector (Not 7-pin) with extra fixed pin of the motherboard SATA port through the female connector of the port to SATA Disk Module.To meet demand for slim SSDs, Apacer has developed a SSD of only 5mm in thickness that features a SATA 6Gb/s interface. Compatible with a 22-pin SATA connector, it weighs only 57g. Compared to Seagate's and Western Digital's 5mm HDD models, Apacer's 5mm SSD has the advantages of 450MB/s sequential read/write speeds and compatibility with SATA connectors.While there are many SSD models for industrial PC, Apacer provides SSD solutions with customized hardware and firmware to meet clients' needs running embedded systems, Lee pointed out.Robert Lee, Director of R&D Dept. at Apacer

The Heraeus Photovoltaics Business Unit will be attending PV EXPO to be held at Tokyo Big Sight, Japan, from February 26-28, 2014. Heraeus will be highlighting their new metallization pastes for conventional and novel cell designs. These pastes have demonstrated improved conversion efficiencies and higher performance at a lower cost per Wp. To discuss Heraeus' innovative product portfolio and services, visit us at booth E51-14 in hall 4-6.The products to be highlighted at the show will be the SOL9350 Series and the SOL325 Series, which are currently commercially available. Also featured will be the Heraeus SOL9620 Series, front-side pastes for conventional and LDE solar cells.The industry-leading SOL9350 Series, designed for n-type solar cells with p+ wafer surfaces, provides cell manufacturers with improved cell efficiencies and excels through improved printability. On bifacial n-type solar cells, the SOL9350 Series can be used in conjunction with other Heraeus pastes. The SOL325 Series of low activity pastes can be either used as back-side tabbing paste on standard p-type solar cells and on PERC cells, or for printing front-side floating busbars in Dual Printing.New at Heraeus is the SOL9620 Series. Preliminary customer testing has demonstrated that the SOL9620 Series enables cell manufacturers to further improve their c-Si cells' efficiencies at an industry-leading level. This series of pastes for conventional solar cells has shown excellent contact performance on lightly doped emitters (LDE) and ultra-lightly doped emitters (ULDE). By using this new paste, significant efficiency improvements have been achieved on 90Ω/sq. and 110Ω/sq wafers, relative to the best commercially available front-side pastes.Visit us at this year's PV EXPO at Tokyo Big Sight at our booth E51-14 in hall 4-6, from February 26-28, 2014. Our Japanese and English speaking team of experts will be happy to have discussions with you and to give you more information on our products and services for the PV industry. You can also go to www.pvsilverpaste.com for more information.About the Heraeus Photovoltaics Business UnitThe Heraeus Photovoltaics Business Unit is an industry leading developer and manufacturer of silver metallization pastes for the photovoltaic industry. For over 40 years, Heraeus has built a reputation of innovation, extensive research and new product development in thick film technologies for some of the most prominent companies within a variety of industries. In the field of photovoltaics, the Heraeus Photovoltaics Business Unit applies this history and its innovative technology to offer metallization pastes for solar cell applications. The Heraeus SOL Series of silver pastes is specially formulated to provide higher efficiencies and wider processing windows, resulting in better yields and higher output for cell manufacturers.Heraeus, the precious metals and technology group headquartered in Hanau, Germany, is a global, private company with more than 160 years of tradition. Our fields of competence include precious metals, materials and technologies, sensors, biomaterials and medical products, quartz glass, and specialty light sources. In the financial year 2012 Heraeus generated product revenues of EUR4.2 billion and precious metal trading revenues of EUR16 billion. With more than 12,200 employees in over 100 subsidiaries worldwide, Heraeus holds a leading position in its global markets.

Addressing the embedded market's demand for high-performance, energy-saving and connected systems, Microchip has developed solutions basing on the MIPS32 microAptiv core architecture, offering support for high computing power per megahertz, large memory capacity and a wide variety of peripherals. The integrated development framework that combines versatile in-house or third-party drivers, libraries, real-time operating systems and middleware components substantially shortens the time for development and verification of 32bit MCU program codes. The PIC32MZ EC family Microchip's PIC32MZ Embedded Connectivity (EC) family consists of 32bit microcontrollers developed for embedded applications with Internet connectivity. "PIC32MZ is a breakthrough that features large memory capacity and integrated peripherals. It provides class-leading performance such as 330 DMIPS and 3.28 CoreMarks/MHz at 200MHz, enabling more than three times the performance of the previous-generation PIC32MX MCUs, and downsizing storage space/density of program codes by 30% compared with competitors' 32bit MCUs," said CY Lin, technical manager at Microchip. "Boasting industry-leading designs, PIC32MZ incorporates the 12bit analog-to-digital converter (ADC) with a sampling rate of 28M per second, much faster than ordinary MCUs whose ADCs offer maximum sampling rates no higher than a few MHz. PIC32MZ can be relied on to create applications that have been previously beyond imagination." PIC32MZ's remarkable features include: maximum 2MB flash and 512KB SRAM; dual-panel flash with Live Update that allows original firmware burning to be continued in a different flash memory block of a running MCU to which the upgraded firmware is simultaneously downloaded; and SRAM capacity which is four times as large as that of the previous-generation MX family. "PIC32MZ integrates peripherals such as Hi-Speed USB 2.0, 10/100Mbps Ethernet controller, two CAN 2.0b control modules, six UARTs, six SPI/I2S serial interfaces, five I2C communications interfaces, and 4bit Serial Quad Interface (SQI)," Lin said. "PIC32MZ with the built-in hardware crypto engine encrypts data such as AES/3DES/HA, MD5 and HMAC, reinforcing safety of e-commence, such as on-line shopping." The PIC32MZ EC family provides a series of development tools, from entry-level Starter Kits, Plug-in Modules (PIMs) to full Developer Boards. A Starter Kit costs about US$119, and a PIM US$25. A Starter Kit with Multimedia Expansion Board II allows peripherals to directly plugged-in to form embedded system prototypes. And a 168-pin to 132-pin adapter board costs US$59. The PIC32 family and its roadmap Lin also outlined the roadmap for Microchip's PIC32 MCU family, in which "DMIPS performance" and "specification/function" form the horizontal axis and the vertical axis, respectively. PIC32MX1/2 MCU series (66/83DMIPS; far left), which are MCUs with 28-44 pins, provide diversified memory capacities: 16-32KB flash/4-8KB SRAM, or 64-128KB flash/16-32KB SRAM. And they also support peripherals such as USB, I2S, CTMU (charge time measurement unit) and PPS (peripheral pin select). PIC32MX3/4/5/6/7 MCU series (105/131DMIPS) come with 64-100 pins. The entry-level PIC32MX3/4 MCUs provide memory capacities from 32-512KB flash/4-32KB SRAM, as well as built-in USB controllers. The midrange PIC32MX3/4 models provide memory capacities from 64-512KB flash/16-128KB SRAM, and they support peripherals such as USB, I2S, CTMU and PPS. The high-end PIC32MX5/6/7 models provide memory capacities from 64-512KB flash/16-128KB SRAM, and they support USB, Ethernet and two CAN controllers. The newly introduced PIC32MZ EC family (330DMIPS) offers memory capacities, from 1-2MB flash/512KB SRAM, and other functions such as HS USB, Ethernet, two CAN controllers, hardware crypto engine and PPS for various application segments, such as consumer electronics, acoustics, factory/building, household automation, environmental monitoring, electric meter, renewable energy control modules, automobile electronics, household appliances and dashboards. PIC32MZ EC's core architecture, function blocks and developer kits PICMZ EC is based on Imagination's MIPS32 microAptiv core (codename: M4K) with a 5-stage pipeline design and a clock rate of 200MHz. The microAptiv core which renders computing performance of 1.65DMIPS/MHz incorporates a built-in DSP (digital signal processor) and 159 DSP accelerating instructions for switching between 16bit MIPS16 and 32bit MIPS32 instruction sets, demanding less storage space for program codes. Moreover, the interrupt controller substantially reduces latency of an interrupt operation, enabling better power performance. Microchip offers entry-level Starter Kits and PIMs for embedded PIC32MZ EC MCUs. The entry-level Starter Kit with integrated debugging and program development functions features scalable designs such as PIC32 expansion board and specific daughter card, USB power supply, 10/100Mbps Ethernet, bi-directional USB 2.0 OTG controller, 4MB SQI Flash and PIC32MZ EC MCU chip for on-line developer and software download. As a good option for users who are proficient in the Explorer 16 developer boards based on Microchip's 16bit PIC24 and dsPIC or 32bit PIC32 MCU, PIC32MZ PIM can be directly plugged into the Explorer 16 developer board for upgrade of embedded application development by means of PIC32MZ EC MCUs. Multimedia Expansion Board II contains an LCD panel providing versatile features such as high WVGA (800x480), capacitive multi-touch function, VGA (640x480) front-facing lens (300K pixels), Wi-Fi and Bluetooth radio frequency component, 24bit stereo, 3-axis accelerometer and temperature sensor, all of which can be installed on Starter Kit for embedded multimedia applications. Microchip also presents software for decompression of MP3 or AAC, graphical HMI and Internet connectivity. As summarized by Lin, the brand new PIC32MZ EC is a competitive product family characterized by high performance at 200MHz, 330DMIPS and 3.28CoreMarks/MHz, maximum memory capacities including 2MB flash and 512KB SRAM, maximum 48 channels, 12bit ADC with the sampling rate of 28Msps, hardware crypto engine, and chip encapsulation rivaling 64pin QFN/124 VTLA (9x9mm) and cost the buyer just US$6.68 (unit price based on 10K pieces). MPLAB Harmony integrates embedded software and hardware Based on the integrated development environment of MPLAB X IDE, MPLAB Harmony is an integrated interoperable component development framework for Microchip's PIC32 MCUs. MPLAB Harmony coordinates all software solutions including in-house or third-party middleware, drivers, peripheral libraries and RTOS (real time operating system) for interactions. All related third-party software solutions are directly sold by Microchip and they are available at microchipDIRECT, the portal site of Microchip for instant technical support, through which a buyer can be authorized for resale, assistance and warranty. The embedded system developers are meeting the challenges as follows: (1) Complexity: Terminal devices are getting more complicated, which requires large numbers of support items and longer development time. Software accounts for 60% of the entire development time. (2) Rework: When different RTOSs are adopted, new errors may arise in terms of incompatibility between software, and this increases the risk of having to rework program codes. (3) Inconsistency: When the RTOS, middleware and drivers have to be incorporated onto the same platform, conflicts may arise. (4) Test drag: 60% of resources in software development are spent on testing and verifying the compatibility of components. If errors are detected when it has already entered the verification process, the time needed to fix them will be 10 times as much as that needed to fix them at the initial design stage. (5) Fragmented support: it is difficult to obtain all software components from a single supplier's website. (6) Obsolescence: The future is unpredictable, and when considering a software component, the developer must evaluate future economic risks. MPLAB Harmony, Microchip's fully integrated development framework, has the following advantages: (1) reduced R&D schedule and expenditure; (2) all in-house and third-party source codes tested, debugged and verified by Microchip without re-work and a user's program codes highly reusable in the Harmony framework; (3) modularized framework effectively enabling stack and integration of software components; (4) pre-tested software components with possible mistakes excluded before verification; (5) Microchip's single-source MPLAB Harmony program codes covering third-party software components; (6) faster time to market because of reduced lead-time. Steven Lin presented the architecture of MPLAB Harmony as follows: the lowest layer of peripheral libraries (PLIB) consists of PIC32MX and PIC32MZ; the second layer of device drivers consists of Interniche's TCP/IP and freeRTOS or Wittenstein's OpenRTOS; the third layer of Middleware consists of Interniche's TCP/IP and freeRTOS, Wittenstein's OpenRTOS and Micrium μC-OS/III, and wolfSSL's CyaSSL Embedded SSL. The fourth layer of common system services consists of USB device, USB host, TCP/IP, file system, Wi-Fi 802.11g, cryptography libraries, GDDX/GRC graphics, MP3/AAC decoder, peripheral libraries and math/DSP libraries built in MPLAB Harmony. Furthermore, other components such as Bluetooth audio stack, smartphone accessories, Class B safety and mTouch sensing will be incorporated in the future. At present, the users can freely access the fundamental framework and most libraries of MPLAB Harmony, which has been available for download from Microchip's website since November 18, 2013.The users have options to purchase third-party developer tools and drivers/libraries (the premium edition). Lin concluded that MPLAB Harmony as a development framework integrating most cross-industry software components provides one-stop shopping services that facilitate porting and reduce lead-time. Steven Lin, Technical Manager, Microchip