The fashion industry is moving toward a more digitalized future, one that promotes improved efficiency and sustainability. This was the focus of the first day of the 2021 World Digital Textile Forum, hosted by the Advancement Association for Digital Textile (AADT) on Nov. 17.Day one featured fashion technology experts including Mark Harrop, CEO and founder of WhichPLM Group; Justin Huang, president of the Taiwan Textile Federation; Alexa Dehmel, owner of Active Sports Design Consulting; Amal Jomaa, head of fashion at So Real Digital Twins; and Victor Chao, CEO of Frontier.cool, who shared valuable insights on how digitization is transforming the textile industry as we know it.The four-day forum will be moderated by Nicole Chan, chairperson of the AADT. Chan is also an attorney-at-law and industrial consultant, board director of Dot Asia, ICANN ASO/AC, and vice chairman of the Digital Transformation Association.Fashion trends and disruptionsDuring his presentation, Harrop shared his thoughts on areas of high potential growth and what he considers disruptive trends in the industry today. He also addressed the metaverse, a word that has been thrust into the spotlight ever since Mark Zuckerberg announced Facebook's name change to Meta."We talk about the metaverse as if it's something brand new and it may be in the sense that it's going to pull the digital assets in, but in actual fact, digital technology has been around for a while. 3D footwear for 30 years, 3D apparel for already 20 years," Harrop said. He added that the industry is starting to see improvements in these solutions, which is allowing the entire ecosystem to be connected.Among the areas, Harrop sees as having high growth potential include: product planning, inspiration and concept, product lifecycle management (PLM), fact-based costing, digital color management, and sourcing and supplier management.Harrop talked about how the work from home (WFH) culture as a result of the COVID-19 pandemic is helping to drive digitization in fashion. WFH forced retailers, brands and manufacturers to urgently embrace a new set of collaborative solutions to enable design teams to collaborate virtually. One solution he pointed to is a digital storyboard that can interoperate with technology ecosystems.Harrop also highlighted a number of disruptive trends, including sizing and scanning; digital and component materials scanning; asset lifecycle management; 3D creative design (DPC); virtual showrooms; synthetic and fact-based costing; digital print and dyeing; IoT and value chain visibility; material, product and labor sustainability; artificial and business intelligence (AI and BI); and workflow and critical path.In terms of 3D, Harrop noted that it has crossed the chasm in terms of maturity. "As 3D solutions develop to deliver real, quantifiable benefits for the downstream, 3D is also starting to move upstream, not only supporting co-design but also co-development and manufacturing," he said."As we develop these 3D assets, we're then using them as products or components and we're placing them into virtual showrooms. This is the metaverse," said Harrop. "As we expand our footprint into these digital assets and they become widely accepted as a supplement for physical, we can now enable consumers to put on their headsets and go to a store and do virtual try-ons. And we, as a retailer or brand can see what our stores look like." Moving forward, he expects virtual showrooms to expand rapidly.Harrop also addressed how digital methods are enabling the industry to be more sustainable and eco-friendly. For example, direct-to-roll digital printing is not only more eco-friendly and sustainable, it uses less water, less energy, and produces less waste.Digitalization of Taiwan's textile industryHuang's presentation centered on four main topics to do with Taiwan's textile industry: introducing Taiwan's textile industry, the impacts of COVID-19, sustainable innovation and technology, and smart manufacturing.According to Huang, there are more than 4,500 textile and garment manufacturers in Taiwan as of 2020, employing more than 141,000 people. The total production value in 2020 amounted to NT$289.3 billion (US$9.78 billion) with export value reaching US$7.53 billion. Taiwan's textile industry mainly focuses on the upper- and mid-stream sectors, which account for 95% of the total value.Covid has had a major impact on Taiwan's textile industry. Exports value saw a significant decrease in 2020 compared to 2019, but is recovering in 2021. Despite this, Huang pointed to the rise in oil prices, materials shortages, the pandemic impact in Vietnam, and increased shipping/logistics costs as ongoing challenges as a result of the pandemic. However, he pointed to the pandemic as a turning point for Taiwan's textile industry.Taiwan has undergone two major transformations as a result of the pandemic. The first is to become more sustainable by taking into consideration the sustainability of raw materials, the manufacturing process, and the end product. The second is to increase smart manufacturing.By digitizing, automating and making factories smarter, manufacturers are able to visualize production information, easily access data, and manage systems. Not only does smart manufacturing have the added benefit of making facilities look cleaner and neater, but it also requires less labor while providing more actionable information, Huang highlighted.Huang added, "Investment in sustainability and digitalization will benefit not only the supply side but also the demand side."Opportunities presented by digital twinsWhat is a digital twin and how it is changing the fashion industry were the focus of Jomaa's presentation. So Real Digital Twins is a Switzerland-based company that specializes in helping companies create "cinematic quality, ready-to-use digital twins.""3D solutions for the fashion industry have existed for over 20 years, but it is important to make a clear distinction between a 3D file that is created as a mockup for rapid prototyping and a full digital twin," Jomaa said.A digital twin is a virtual representation of a product in 3D. It is an exact replica of a real-life product with the same physical properties and measurements, according to Jomaa. This means it can support the end-to-end process and not just a single segment.So Real's technology works by first scanning the product with an x-ray machine that creates volumetric data. In the next step, the company's artificial intelligence and machine learning software takes the volumetric data and converts it layer by layer to build the digital model in 3D. In the final step, the digital twin is created. Jomaa emphasized that the embedded metadata allows for the 3D model to support the entire product lifecycle."Digital twins can help transform the value chain from a linear process that moves from designing, planning, sourcing, supplying and finally the customer experience to a more interconnected process where the different steps overlap. It is a move toward a fully circular process rather than a vertically integrated operation that functions in separate silos," Jomaa explained.In the design process, digital twins empower designers to work in a more intuitive way with 3D models. It also helps to accelerate the design process, saving time and money, while also reducing waste and the carbon footprint. Instead of waiting for and producing physical samples, digital twins allow designers to make changes on the spot, create multiple variations of a design, and provide a realistic visual sample, all in real-time.Digital twin technology is also enabling the shift toward product customization. Consumers can customize products online with extreme accuracy, allowing for on-demand manufacturing and eliminating inventory. The data gathered from these customizations can also be used by the companies to better understand consumer preferences and help inform design decisions.Additionally, Jomaa noted, "digital twins are the future asset building blocks that make up the metaverse." Industry trendsetters like Nike are already expanding into the metaverse.Frontier.cool enables better digital fabric sourcingFrontier.cool, a co-organizer of the forum, is a Taiwan-based digital fabric platform that utilizes AI to create realistic textile and fabric images. As fashion becomes increasingly digital, digital fabric sourcing has become more and more important."With Frontier's groundbreaking AI, we are now able to scale like never before," Chao said. Frontier's Lasagna AI engine uses multiple texture maps and layers them together to create an accurate and life-like fabric image in 30 seconds or less, using an ordinary flatbed scanner. This allows textile mills to give potential clients a much clearer picture of what the material looks like and even apply it directly to their digital design work to see how it will look.Frontier has digitized fabric swatch cards and uploaded them to the cloud. Dehmel talked about how platforms like Frontier are revolutionizing digital fabric sourcing in today's fashion industry by making over 20,000 digital materials available in the cloud. The platform makes searching, managing and collaborating easier, and also facilitates a faster and better workflow."To be able to create a digital revolution within a brand, it needs to recreate the whole digital process of collection creation and the understanding that it all starts with the digitized fabric," Dehmel said.2021 World Digital Textile Forum, hosted by the Advancement Association for Digital Textile (AADT)The fashion industry is moving toward a more digitalized future

As the world undergoes the recent wave of smart transformation, the issue of energy supply is now more than ever a topic in the public consciousness. Designs for energy storage and supply systems targeting traffic systems and the power grid have also become a newfound product focus for power supply manufacturers and system integrators. As an established player in the power supply industry, FSP has also targeted the two major fields of smart transportation and energy storage, launching high-quality, highly integrated, and highly reliable total solutions that have seen numerous cases of successful market adoption in recent years.FSP points out that smart transportation systems have traditionally operated in mostly isolated environments with limited cross-system integration requirements. However, the advent of the 5G system in 2020 has opened up brand new possibilities for smart transportation that now demands integration and connectivity across systems to create more added value. In terms of the overall architecture, it is clear that smart transportation will rely on an Internet of Things-based architecture, which will be comprised of front-end devices that capture environmental or equipment information and send the data upstream to another back-end platform. Common front-end for smart transportation systems include devices like CCTVs, traffic signs, water level/ wind direction sensors, etc. With increasing diversity in the front-end devices and the multitude of functions they serve, the power supplies within these devices are also faced with an unprecedented level of challenges to overcome.In response, FSP has released a series of power supply solutions targeting smart transportation systems. Take parking lots as an example (Fig.1), a complete parking system of the modern age is comprised of systems and devices that work together to offer functions like vehicle/ plate/ parking space management, charging and timing functionality, parking management, and traffic management. All of the devices providing these functions will need a power supply. To target this need, FSP is offering highly integrated solutions in the form of PoE power supplies and UPS systems designed for CCTVs at the entrance and exits of parking lots. As for power management systems, FSP is confident that its products are fully compliant with the stringent operating temperature and communication protocol requirements. At the same time, FSP also has modular, miniaturized, and highly efficient CRPS and Slim product lines that are perfect for parking management systems and cloud platforms.Besides parking lot systems, the ubiquitously omnipresent traffic control systems (Fig.2) and smart street lights (Fig.3), which are thought to be important infrastructures for the smart cities of the future, all demand efficient, compact, and highly integrated power supply solutions. FSP's comprehensive product line has superior digitization, communication, modularity, and reliability, promising to be the solution to provide stable power for smart cities in the 5G era and ensure uninterrupted uptime.In the field of energy storage, governments and corporations around the world in recent years are switching en masse to new energy policies that favor a higher percentage of green power to curb further climate change. But due to the sporadic nature of renewable energy, governments, corporations, and families will all need to have energy storage devices in their grids to ensure a stable supply of power. As one of the top ten largest power supply manufacturers in the world, FSP has also extended its reach to this field.Broadly speaking, energy storage devices can be divided into three types: small, medium, and large. Small energy storage devices are generally mobile or portable energy storage sources, serving primarily as backup to the main system because of their smaller size. Medium energy storage solutions primarily target families and corporations to ensure power stability as well as help with regulate power costs. Lastly, large energy storage solutions are usually part of the local power grid, used for modulating power stability over a region. FSP's energy storage solutions are centered around small to medium size scenarios, such as the AGV 24/48V battery module, home appliance B2B mobile battery, and other medium-sized energy storage solutions for commercial or family installations.Looking forward, FSP wants to continue to discover potential clients from the commercial and home power grid market by focusing on three goals. The first is to develop distributed energy storage products under the 10kW capacity. The second is to develop a hardware-software-integrated energy management system. The third is to find more suppliers of lithium iron phosphate batteries to alleviate the relevant supply chain instability issues.In addition to existing efforts to improve product performance and applications, FSP is also actively looking for cross-field integration opportunities, most notably by joining hands with ADLINK from the 5G Ecosystem Alliance. ADLINK has extensive hardware capabilities in vertical application integration and has been a significant player in the field of smart transportation for many years, making them the ideal partner to integrate with FSP's power supply products. Besides ADLINK, FSP is also working with other partners in the alliance to strengthen its server system UPS product line, providing customers with high performance and high stability solutions by drawing from the strengths of partnering companies.The fact is that every system or device in the parking lot ecosystem requires a different power supply solution, and FSP can provide corresponding solutions depending on individual use case scenarios.FSP has a comprehensive power supply product line for traffic management systems that can ensure maximum system uptime.Smart street lights are considered to be one of the fundamental infrastructures for the smart cities of the future and are used in a variety of scenarios with each having different power supply requirements.

Quectel Wireless Solutions, a global supplier of IoT modules and antennas, has launched its new LTE-A Category 6 EM060K-GL module which features Citizens Broadband Radio Service (CBRS) capability to provide better service and a cost efficient solution for private mobile networks. With more than 300 private mobile networks deployed in the world, industries such as communications and IT, manufacturing, automotive, transport, utilities, public safety, mining and many others are using CBRS as a private network service. CBRS can help customers to build high capacity, low latency, robust wireless networks with improved quality of service guarantees.Quectel has developed the EM060K-GL to address the needs of customers that utilize these networks. Powered by the Snapdragon X12 LTE Modem from Qualcomm Technologies Inc, the EM060K-GL provides maximum data rates of up to 300 Mbps downlink and 50 Mbps uplink. The module has the M.2 form factor of 30.0 x 42.0 x2.3mm.In addition to supporting private CBRS networks, the EM060K-GL offers a wide range of global bands and can also be used to support carrier network capacity boost scenarios by aggregating a public coverage band and a CBRS band. With Dual SIM/embedded eSIM, the EM060K-GL can help customers swap data service easily between a public carrier and a private network.The EM060K-GL supports industry-standard interfaces (USB 3.0/2.0, PCIe 2.0 and PCM/SPI, MIPI) and offers functionalities including USB drivers for Windows, Linux, Android, a multi-constellation GNSS receiver for GPS, GLONASS, BeiDou and Galileo. The EM060K-GL is also pin to pin compatible with Quectel's existing EM06 series of M.2 modules and the EM12-G and EM120R-GL, which facilitates customers' design migrations on a wide range of applications such as industrial routers, home gateways, set top boxes, consumer laptops, rugged tablet and PCs and PDA devices.Neset Yalcinkaya, the Vice President of Product Management at Quectel, commented: "We see a wide range of market participants are actively engaged in developing and delivering services for private mobile networks. With so much opportunity and so many regulators planning initiatives to make spectrum available for private LTE usage, we expect significant market evolution in the next couple of years. Quectel's CBRS-capable modules, including the EM060K-GL, EG12-GT, EM120R/EM160R and our 5G modules, can help our customers to provide multiple and diversified services in this market to boost their business."Engineering samples of the EM060K-GL are available now for product testing and development to help device OEMs and systems designers with their innovative new products, optimizing business operations and processes.The EM060K-GL supports industry-standard interfaces (USB 3.0/2.0, PCIe 2.0 and PCM/SPI, MIPI)

The global textile industry is undergoing profound changes as it adopts and leverages new digital textile trends such as sustainable alternative materials, 3D design, technology-driven functional smart manufacturing processes, and the adoption of digital textile technologiesWhile we're not trying to "reinvent the wheel," we can certainly recognize that by adopting these new approaches, the textile industry can become an innovator with an integrated value chain, focusing on high-quality, eco-friendly, and cost-efficient materials.The digital transformation will reduce pollution and inventory by developing a greener approach to the ODM process - facilitating the goal of reduced waste, no returns, less shipping, and net-zero carbon emissions in the future.The Advancement Association for Digital Textile is a Taiwan-based non-profit association aiming to make Taiwan's textile industry the global pivotal manufacturing and sourcing hub for innovative, sustainable, and intelligent textiles - subsequently benefitting the entire industry, international communities, and the environment."AADT aims to utilize digital energy to create a co-working model for the apparel and fashion industries, transforming the traditional textile industry - which is oriented towards OEM and order taking - into a cross-domain innovative sector in this digital era," said Nicole Chan, Chairperson of AADT and former chairperson of the National Communications Commission.Frontier is a first-of-its-kind - accessible to all - digital fabric platform, utilizing AI to unleash productivity from offline to online in the most efficient way possible. In essence, Frontier is the gateway to the digital textile universe - for brands, designers, and the supply chain."Digital textile processes predominantly take place in APAC. In the pursuit of faster and cheaper shipments, brands must not just sacrifice the cost of the supply chain but use digital power to improve the textile industry. Production capacity and wisdom will allow textile practitioners to have a higher output value to enhance their lives. In addition, it will enable consumers to buy affordable, well-fitting, and low-carbon clothing." said Victor Chao, CEO of Frontier.cool.At the 2021 World Digital Textile Forum - held online - AADT and co-organizer Frontier will be joined by industry figureheads from WhichPLM, Virtuality Fashion, AADT, Browzwear, SO REAL Digital Twins, Frontier.cool, The Interline, Vizoo GmbH, Hanin, Six Atomic Pte. Ltd., Amazon Global Selling Taiwan, and DIGITIMES Asia.The event is scheduled to start on Tuesday, November 16 at 10:00 am (GMT) and will run until Friday, November 19. Registration is free for a limited time. Click here to register.AADT and Frontier to host World Digital Textile Forum 2021, which is scheduled to start on Tuesday, November 16 at 10:00 am.

The Internet has become an irreplaceable part of modern life, but our dependence on it has also exacerbated the problem of insufficient address spaces under the IPv4 protocol. To solve this problem, telecommunications providers in Taiwan started to transition businesses into using IPv6 in 2018. Recently, the Taiwan Network Information Center (TWNIC) also held a promotional seminar for the IPv6 protocol titled The Gateway to Global Access - IPv6 Promotional Seminar, inviting industry experts to share their experiences with IPv6 in cloud transformation and network management, thereby helping businesses better understand the new network protocol.The seminar was not only well-received by the audience watching online, but also saw a number of VIP guests in attendance including the Secretary General of the Cloud Computing & IoT Association in Taiwan Chen Huai-Tuo, Executive Director of the Taiwan Internet Association Kuo Yu-Tai, Chairperson of the Taiwan XR innovation Association and Board of Supervisor of Digital Solutions Multimedia Asia Jennifer Pai, Secretary General of the Taiwan Association of Information and Communication Standards (TAICS) Chou Sheng-Lin, and TAICS Executive Secretary Xu Jian-Chang.IPv6 has a bright future aheadTWNIC Managing Director and CEO Kenny Huang started out by making clear that while past efforts to transition from IPv4 to IPv6 had been slow due to a lack of clear demand, changes in the past two years have led to the emergence of three factors that are now greatly accelerating the transition. Firstly, all end devices now support IPv6 by default. Secondly, with the use of IPv4 becoming more expensive to maintain, the current free-to-use model of IPv6 has presented a clear incentive for businesses to switch over. Thirdly, IPv6 has important IT safety implications in that the 64-bit address space of the new protocol makes it much more difficult for hackers to use traditional scanning methods to find the IP of a target subnet. Coupled with the removal of the pseudo-security offered by NAT in the IPv4 system, businesses can now place a newfound focus on ensuring network safety via IPv6.Chen Huai-Tuo also said that the Internet is more important than ever in the new normal we find ourselves in after the pandemic. With demands for remote service on the rise, he is confident that IPv6 will have a bright future in Taiwan. Kuo Yu-Tai pointed out that Taiwan currently ranks 12th globally in terms of IPv6 adoption. While this is indicative of considerable progress, analysis reveals that these numbers are bloated due to most of them being from mobile users, meaning that Taiwan still has a long way to go. Jenifer Pai agreed that IPv6 is without a doubt the trend of the future and that further advancements in the digital economy and Internet technology will be able to help businesses better utilize the protocol to develop innovative services that will better cater to the demands of the times.IPv6 enhances transfer efficiency for cloud migrationCKmates Senior Technology Advisor Yang Chang-Ta and AWS Joint Innovation Center Manager Cheng Kai-Fu both acknowledged the importance of IPv6 in cloud services.Yang Chang-Ta said that the new age of digital technology is an opportunity for corporate change and that the quality and bandwidth of network transfers behinds these changes will be pivotal to their success. For example, the Artificial Intelligence of Things (AIoT) is heavily reliant on low-latency transfers to ensure that the data picked up by sensors can be transmitted in a timely fashion to the relevant edge devices or cloud platforms, which ensures that subsequent applications or analyses are not delayed. Another example is high performance computing (HPC), which runs on a large set of computation nodes connected to a network. These nodes all depend on the network having excellent network transfer efficiency to effectively export outputs and communicate with each other. And as 5G becomes mainstream, its high bandwidth, wide connectivity, and low latency will also create higher demands for data transfer. Once again, lackluster transfer efficiency would be a hindrance that could severely impact the development of 5G applications.However, efficient data transfer is no easy feat to achieve as devices desperately need a better addressing model. Thankfully, IPv6 is the solution for companies that are facing this challenge, meaning that in the future IPv6 will be needed for the transfer of both unicast and multicast traffic.Whatever changes a company decides to undergo, a shift to the cloud may eventually lie somewhere down the path. Yang Chang-Ta suggests that companies should look into incorporating AWS services to make cloud migration less costly and more accessible. He explained that most cloud service providers currently utilize dynamic IP assignment, which is difficult to use and implement. In contrast, AWS supports a bring your own IP (BYOIP) scheme that allows companies to smoothly transfer existing IP addresses to the cloud. For companies that have already transitioned over to using full IPv6 locally, they can retain all their existing settings when they make the change to cloud services using AWS."Besides implementing support for IPv6, Amazon is also working to help startups come up with more innovative ways to make use of the Internet," said Cheng Kai-Fu, explaining that projects such as AWS Activate and AWS Startup Migration are all aimed towards helping startups grow.For example, AWS Activate provides a certain quota of free data transfers to startups since many of them have limited funds during their early days. This mechanism has already helped more than 30,000 startups, including Airbnb and Stripe, and has accumulated a staggering US$1 billion in free data transfers offered during 2020.Cheng Kai-Fu pointed out that startups can simply apply for their free AWS Activate quota within 5 years of starting their company and get anywhere between 1 to 5 thousand USD in free data transfers, while startups with a capital of over US$50,000 are further eligible for US$10,000 in free data transfers. As for AWS Startup Migration, the plan targets established startup teams that have not yet been publicly listed. The plan helps startup teams migrate their services to the cloud by offering free resources and technical support. A good example of this would be the global live social entertainment platform 17LIVE, which utilized the service to move its streaming service to the cloud.Keys to IPv6 network administrationSiraya Networks Technical Lead Zheng Jun-Wen and Onward Security Assistant Manager Yang Cheng-Ying next provided a list of key factors to consider when dealing with IPv6 in maintenance and scheduling from a management and IT safety perspective.Zheng Jun-Wen drew from his 7 years of experience as a network admin to say that the most important thing for IT staff in dealing with IPv6 is to keep track of each end device at each level of the network model so they can quickly pin down problems when they occur. For example, monitoring software may be able to quickly report the problematic IP when a breach is detected, but that immediately presents more questions: what device does that IP correspond to? What switch is that device connected to? This is why IT staff must make sure that they have lookup tables ready so that the appropriate actions can be taken without delay.Currently, there are two main ways to match an IP address with the device's MAC address: SNMP pooling and LAN listening. SNMP pooling starts by polling the forwarding database (FDB) table of a switch, which lists the MAC addresses of all the devices connected to it. Next, it polls the neighbor discovery (ND) table, the equivalent of the Address Resolution Protocol (ARP) Table in IPv4, to match each IP to a corresponding device by their MAC address. By cross-referencing the FDB with the ND (or ARP) table, management will get a complete picture of the IP/MAC pairing and the switches they are connected to. However, since these tables are constantly updated, IT must also regularly update their table. The other method is LAN listening, which makes use of four packets under the NDP protocol in an IPv6 environment to create a lookup table: RS, RA, NS, and NA.Zheng Jun-Wen further stressed the importance for IT staff to keep a lookup table matching IP, MAC, and switches. He says that many worms will try to circumvent firewalls by spoofing their MAC addresses, so a lookup table allows identification of abnormal IP/MAC pairings before they can do damage. As long as the IT staff have a good grasp of the network's low-level information, the better they can react by taking the appropriate measures.Besides keeping tabs on the low-level network, Yang Cheng-Ying also shared a few common cyber threats and defense mechanisms in an IPv6 environment. Yang pointed out that many devices and servers now come with IPv6 enabled by default, but IT security often overlooks this fact when designing their security and firewall, resulting in the protocol becoming a threat vector for traffic hijack despite the company not yet implementing IPv6 in their network structure. Other attacks like DDOS attacks and ND attacks have also popped up on the IPv6 threat landscape.He therefore recommended that network admins and IT security staff should take note of the three following points to secure their company's IPv6 network.Firstly, existing weaknesses and attacks in IPv4 will likely remain conceptually the same in IPv6, differing only in the way the attacks are carried out on a technical level. Therefore, existing IPv4 security mechanisms should still be preserved for an IPv6 environment. Secondly, network admins and IT security should still be aware of the differences between the two protocols, and should also pay close attention to new weaknesses in IPv6 as they build up their technical competence in IPv6 security.Thirdly, while IPv6 isn't less secure when compared to IPv4, most devices and products in the current landscape lack safety features targeting IPv6. Since IPv6 may never fully replace IPv4, companies should always keep a close eye on the safety of their network environment in a dual-protocol setting.In the future, TWNIC will continue to hold similar promotional activities to encourage companies to upgrade to IPv6, thereby helping raise Taiwan's overall IPv6 adoption rate in becoming a leader in network applications globally.Kuo Yu-Tai, Jennifer Pai, Kenny Huang, Chen Huai-Tuo, and Chou Sheng-Lin (left to right)

In 2021, two of our most pressing issues are undoubtedly the COVID-19 pandemic, and the global trade tension. This year, NATEA is excited to host the 24th annual US Taiwan High Tech Forum (UTHF) virtual conference with the theme, "Blockchain, Semiconductor and its Intersection in the Future of Finance, Work and Network Infrastructure." The event will span across two half-days, with topics focused on around the semiconductor industry supply chain, blockchain and crypto industry :The November 5 session will focus on the semiconductor supply chain.The November 12 session will cover blockchains and the crypto industry.Credit: NATEAOn Day 1, Young Liu, Chairman of Foxconn and the forum's keynote speaker, will kick off the event. Jimmy Goodrich, VP of Semiconductor Industry Association, will then share his experience and insights into global supply chain policies. Brian Shieh from Applied Materials will follow on with his perspectives in the displays manufacturing industry. Colley Hwang, Founder and President of DIGITIMES, will close off with a talk on Perspectives on the Asian ICT Supply Chain Movement.Day 2 will feature Edward Chang, Adjunct Professor of Computer Science at Stanford University, who will discuss how to leverage blockchains for data security and privacy. Andrew Tang, Chairman of Draper Associates / Draper Dragon, will discuss the emerging trends in blockchain technologies and applications, and their impact on crypto and finance. Clara Tsao, Founder of Filecoin Foundation, will conclude the talks with her Introduction to Web 3.0 and Emerging Trends in Global Blockchain Policy.At the end of the 2nd day, a dedicated panel of industry experts will share and discuss their own perspectives around blockchain and crypto. Our current panelists include Clara Tsao (Founder of Filecoin Foundation) and Serra Wei (CEO of Aegis Custody).NATEA is the North America Taiwanese Engineering & Science Association, a non-profit and tax deductible professional organization founded in 1991. We empower our innovative leaders to broaden their impact by providing a forum for them to collaborate, share business insights, and promote the advancement of entrepreneurship within our community.For detailed information on event schedule registration, please visit our website at: www.uthf.net

DataVan, the world-renowned POS terminal provider, announced the launch of DataVan Central, an UEM (Unified Endpoint Management) solution connecting multiple DataVan devices through cloud to monitor real-time device status. This efficient remote management solution is believed to reduce update and maintenance costs for administrator. Meanwhile DataVan also released a short video to introduce DataVan Central on DataVan's Youtube channel (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Uh6flFzvvG0)."DataVan Central is a powerful IoT platform synchronously connecting numerous DataVan Devices, including POS, KIOSK, Box PC, and Panel PC, to provide real-time device status and alarm notification," said Crystal Chan, Sales Director at DataVan. "DataVan Central is helpful to reduce manpower and business travel cost through remote update and repair instead of on-site maintenance. In addition, it offers higher safety and reliability for endpoint device management due to contactless management."Chan also indicates that DataVan Central can demonstrate real-time device efficiency with data visualization showing on the built-in dashboard. These concise charts are advantageous to monitor device health and arrange device management ahead to keep devices at their best.Powerful and convenient DataVan Central is currently a free optional for clients who purchase DataVan's operating system, and it can be directly installed in operating system before shipping. "The pandemic really impacted our business environment. Therefore, DataVan would like to support our clients to together face this challenge," said Kris Hsu, General Manager at DataVan. "DataVan Central, as an ideal solution to endpoint management, can help clients concentrate on core marketing and business strategies, which is beneficial for business opportunity, industrial transformation, and innovation."Please visit DataVan official website to explore more DataVan Central features.DataVan Central platform

With the high bandwidth, low latency and expansive connectivity of 5G, the combination of edge computing, 5G and AI will maximize the digitization of smart cities and become one of the driving forces of growth for the server market in the future. Within the architecture of smart transportation applications, "cloud computing" is equivalent to the brain and can handle relatively complex processes, while "edge computing" acts as the nerve endings, which can directly handle real time computing processes at the site of data generation and adopt appropriate responses. Introducing AI computing into cloud and edge is the next step in the overall development of smart cities and smart transportation. It can realize the implementation of AI smart applications from the edge to the cloud.AI integrated with edge computing upgrades smart transportation applicationsEdge computing in smart transportation is the delivery of real time transportation information to edge computing servers for preliminary assessment through the 5G network. The data is then standardized for further analysis and handling. The edge computing servers are also capable of running AI processes and can store, filter and process the transportation data. Using the edge computing capabilities, feedback can be monitored in real time, thus realizing smart management for transportation.Chenbro has introduced the RM352 3U GPGPU Short Depth Edge Computing Server Chassis that can be fitted with up to 4 GPUs or FPGA accelerators, which can improve the performance of edge AI computing and machine learning. The edge computing server chassis also provide FIO (front I/O) and RIO (rear I/O) connection mechanisms, which are easy to maintain and manage and can satisfy different application needs. Many edge computing devices must be built in a limited space; therefore, Chenbro uses the 450mm ultra-short chassis to meet the requirements of edge computing deployment, combining high-performance computing, sufficient storage and network kits in a shallow-depth and small-sized chassis for flexible applications in the deployment of edge computing devices.Cloud servers with AI computing analyze smart transportation big dataDuring the data processing of smart transportation, information can be acquired and sent back to the cloud server for deep learning when the recognition and judgment accuracies of AI edge computing equipment need to be improved. Cloud servers rely heavily on computing performance. Servers using GPUs/GPGPUs can satisfy the deep learning needs of AI in the big data era, especially for the application of image recognition in vehicle flow identification or smart transportation data analysis.Chenbro launched the SR113 4U Rackable Tower Server Chassis, a GPGPU server chassis specialized for AI processing and deep learning. It can support up to 5 GPGPU cards. The AI processing server can use high performance computing to satisfy large scale processing needs and use pretrained deep learning models to analyze data. Maintaining high performance computing and chassis heat dissipation mechanisms are the keys to cloud server stability. In order to improve the cooling effects, the server chassis is designed with 4 pre-installed fans and 2 additional fans can be installed in the rear for CPU cooling and 2 exterior fans can be installed for GPU cooling. Chenbro provides AI processing server chassis with good cooling and tested integrated electromechanical components through powerful hardware technical support.From edge to cloud, hardware performance improvements accelerate AI implementationEdge computing will not replace cloud computing. In fact, edge computing supplements cloud computing. Currently, the trend of the two technologies working together is becoming more apparent, especially with the introduction of AI. Smart and high performance edge computing will be the last step in implementing AI applications. Therefore, Chenbro is actively investing in the development of edge computing servers and AI server chassis. Recently, Chenbro has introduced server chassis products that can be installed with a GPU card in the RM238 and RM245 series 2U Versatile Storage Server Chassis. These products can satisfy the application needs of customers from terminals to clouds, assisting customers in implementing AI in smart transportation and various aspects of smart cities.As 5G, AI and edge computing technologies revolutionize the industry, Chenbro will continue the development of AI and edge computing server chassis and realize support for multi-platform motherboards and GPU cards through the design concept of "compatibility". Chenbro provides compatible server chassis and helps system integrators choose different motherboards based on corporate user needs. Besides providing OTS standard products to white box server providers, system integrators and channel partners, Chenbro also designs customized server solutions according to the needs of different customers and develops new products with its partners. Through many years of research and development and manufacturing experience, Chenbro has developed diverse service models to satisfy customer needs and to seize the new business opportunities of the 5G and AIoT age.Chenbro has developed diverse service models to satisfy customer needs and to seize the new business opportunities of the 5G and AIoT age

In 2019, Pegatron Corporation officially founded its O-RAN technology team as a successor to its highly successful x86 design legacy. The new team is dedicated to the development of 5G O-RAN CU and DU base station products. The company also hopes to enter the 5G network scene by providing one-stop-shop 5G O-RAN solutions that target everything from multi-access edge computing (MEC), network administration, to network applications.To this end, Pegatron has invested considerable R&D resources into its hardware and software solutions as well as kept close working relationships with major international vendors, among which includes Microsoft, a key strategic partner for many Pegatron projects. Pegatron and Microsoft have already entered into multiple major collaboration frameworks for 5G O-RAN such as the Affirmed 5GC core network, the Azure IoT Edge implementation in Pegatron products, and more recently a collaborative project that massively boosts Taiwanese digital resilience. The project is the result of the joint collaboration from Pegatron, Microsoft, Wave-In Communication, and the Hsinchu City Government to create a disaster relief application package that uses the Azure Space satellite communication service as the underlying framework. The application package will remain operational during power outages caused by earthquakes, tsunamis, and typhoons, ensuring that the communication protocols used by police and firefighters remain available at all times and that emergency relief services are not interrupted.Building smart factories using proprietary Pegatron base stations and MECsPegatron says that since the company founded its O-RAN team, they have been utilizing their accumulated x86 hardware development energy and long-time partnerships with international vendors to create a proprietary PEGATRON branded stand O-RAN 5G base station. Besides product development, the O-RAN team has also been tasked with two important goals. The first is to help the company set up its basic 5G infrastructure to support distributed global production bases, while the second is to implement 5G applications within the company to accelerate internal digital transformation efforts.The PEGATRON base station comes equipped with a variety of important features. For example, it supports network function virtualization infrastructure (NFVI), making it compatible with the cloud infrastructure standards laid out in O-RAN, allowing for vastly improved system usability and expandability. It is also worth noting that the Affirmed Networks Standalone (SA) core network, which is part of the Azure for Operators suite, is also built on a virtualized SA core network and virtualized wireless testing platform, making it perfectly compatible with the PEGATRON base station. This means that point-to-point application solutions in dedicated 5G enterprise networks using the PEGATRON base station will be able to retain even greater flexibility and adaptability with different hardware in an even wider array of environments. Pegatron also designed its 5G O-RAN enterprise network in accordance with the 3GPP standard and incorporated support for MEC servers to more effectively make use of the high bandwidth and low latency of the 5G protocol.It is estimated that Pegatron's O-RAN team will be able to accomplish two major milestone goals by the end of 2021. The first is to finish deployment of the proprietary O-RAN base stations for the 5G enterprise network in Pegatron's demonstration factory by the year's end. The second is to have Pegatron products pass domestic product inspections alongside the National Development Council's plan to construct an Open Testing and Integration Centre (OTIC) laboratory and establish product standards for domestically manufactured base stations.As for Pegatron's factories, they produce thousands of different products each year and are constantly undergoing production line adjustments. Physical wiring constraints from the past age of ethernet connections have made such adjustments major rewiring projects that can take upwards of 2 to 3 weeks. But now with 5G infrastructure becoming standard within the company, factories are expected to be able to complete production line adjustments in as short as 2 to 3 days. Wireless 5G technology will also assist the company with the collection of big data in its production lines, allowing for constant analysis and optimization as all production statistics become digitized. The high bandwidth of 5G technology will also allow Pegatron to implement AI visual recognition quality inspection solutions that are constantly optimized through deep learning on MEC servers to conduct simultaneous mounting, assembly, and overall visual quality testing on finished motherboard products.A completed 5G application ecosystem with Microsoft Azure integrationWith Pegatron entering the Microsoft ecosystem, many Azure cloud services are also becoming easily accessible for both Pegatron and its clients. Currently, the PEGATRON base station is already supported by the Azure for Operators suite (a cloud native 5G core network). Since the suite is considered a mature product in overseas markets, this will make the PEGATRON base station a trusted and preferred product for many clients, shortening its time-to-market duration. At the same time, many artificial intelligence applications in recent years have turned to the Azure Applied AI service to reduce their edge computation complexity by containerizing their linguistic, visual, or audio processing. The trend has significantly cut down on development time, allowing for faster market expansion through accelerated 5G solution deployment.By contrast, Pegatron has found itself lacking in application know-how to implement point-to-point 5G O-RAN solutions despite being highly capable in the field of hardware development. This is why the company has turned to the massive Azure ecosystem for answers by using the Azure IoT Device suite as the first step in the company's plan to integrate Azure services into its fold. The most notable example of this would be the IoT Device Management function offered by Azure IoT Edge. The management utility can be used to remotely test smart factory deployments located in any corner of the globe, making it a perfect fit for smart factories application scenariosPegatron also hopes to integrate the Azure Stack HCI to enhance its server cluster features. The company plans to integrate its services with the Azure Stack Hub to satisfy mass computation demands for edge computation.Pegatron's latest Azure Space integration package has also been an media darling in recent news. The service will not only allow disaster response teams to utilize domestic 5G O-RAN base stations to keep internal communication channels clear during times of emergency but also ensure external communication availability by working with Microsoft's satellites. Both of these measures will significantly enhance the overall digital resilience of the communication infrastructure in Taiwan.Last but not least, another surprising revelation from Pegatron came during the virtually held Mobile World Conference in June. The company debuted a single server simultaneously connected to two DUs, allowing for exceptional computation resource efficiency and reaching download bandwidths of up to 1.7 Gbps and upload bandwidths of up to 400 Mbps. In the future, Pegatron will continue to invest in 5G O-RAN to provide customers with comprehensive solutions, accelerate deployment of innovative applications, and ultimately help partners realize a vision of a digitally transformed enterprise.

At the end of September this year, Mark Liu, Chairman of TSMC, was interviewed by the media. He made the promise to reduce carbon emissions by 20% by 2030 and achieve net zero emissions by 2050. When the interview was released, it became the focus of the industry. This was not just because of TSMC's astonishing sales, but also because the reductions of carbon emission by 20% equivalent to a single factory equal the annual carbon emissions of Taipei City. More importantly, because of the close interconnectivity of the semiconductor industry chain, TSMC's actions will influence every link of the supply chain. Using the 2030 goal as an example, the suppliers who do not comply with TSMC's demands will most likely lose orders. Therefore, carbon reductions have transformed from an additional action into a necessary matter for corporate survival.Although the carbon reduction actions of TSMC have rocked the semiconductor industry, Allan Tseng, Vice President of Reliability Engineering Division of iST, stated that several international brands have also set clear carbon reduction targets in recent years, including Microsoft, Google and Apple. The International Standards Organization has also already stipulated two greenhouse gas standards, ISO 14064 for organizations and ISO 14067 for products. Besides carbon reduction standards, another important standard for brands is ISO 50001 for energy management. The main purpose of this standard is to help corporations set energy reduction performance, and the performance must be achieved through a structural method. This requires the cooperation of related supply chains and for these supply chains, the easier method that provides significant results is to change the assembly process.Regarding the energy savings for assembly processes, the RoHS, passed by the EU in 2003 and officially implemented in 2006, must be mentioned. This directive limits the use of 6 hazardous materials in various equipment and devices. Among these materials, lead (Pb) is the primary material used in the soldering of circuit boards. Therefore, this directive has a substantial impact on electronic devices. Despite the big influence, the directive must still be followed. In the manufacturing process, the biggest difference between leaded and lead-free (Pb-free) is temperature. Solder containing lead can be soldered at 183-celsius degrees, while lead-free (Pb-free) solder needs to reach 217 to 220-celsius degrees. The high temperature leads to high energy consumption and can deform the PCB and large components.LTS solves the problems with lead-free processes, iST lowers the barrier for entryChiahao Chuang, CLR_BLR Engineering Dept. Manager of iST, then pointed out that a common problem during the assembly process is when a good IC is unable to pass testing after being mounted on the board after SMT. The most common problem in this situation is board warpage. He explained that there are many reasons for warpage. iST's Board Level Reliability (BLR) lab has found that a common reason for the warpage has been a System in Package (SiP) problem. This type of packaging integrates different chips into one package. However, because the different components of the materials and functions have different heat expansion constants, the board will become warped. This is especially apparent for materials that do not change linearly to heat, but changes exponentially to heat. This means that when the temperature reaches a certain level, the degree of bend will increase suddenly. In advanced manufacturing processes, warpage is a common situation. If the amount of warpage complies with the SMT controllable range, then adjustments to the SMT stencil design are possible. Products with greater warpage can also be corrected using the fixture in the manufacturing process.The warpage for larger chips in SiPcan reach several hundred μm. In later assembly stages, the warpage cannot be corrected with stencil design or soldering temperature, and the product will be returned to initial IC design remodification.In the past, in order to prevent poor soldering due to board warpage, iST's BLR lab would first use the internal Shadow Moiré simulation to confirm the warpage data and reduce the wasted soldering and short circuit problems through the adjustment of solder printing stencil design and reflow temperature. However, this method can only solve the warpage problem in the final stage. In order to prevent the warpage from reoccurring, the root problem must be dealt with, which is to reduce the manufacturing temperature. Therefore, due to the combination of this need and the aforementioned energy saving trend, Low Temperature Soldering (LTS) technology leapt into the market.Before talking about LTS, solder paste must be mentioned first. Early solder pasts were mainly made of tin (Sn) and lead (Pb). After the introduction of lead-free regulations, tin (Sn), silver (Ag) and copper(Cu) are widely used; then companies began using Sn with bismuth (Bi) for LTS. However, Sn with Bi will become brittle after soldering, so the companies began introducing various exclusive solder pastes. Currently, LTS primarily uses Sn, bismuth (Bi), silver (Ag) and other material combinations. The low temperature of LTS can solve the warpage problem and improve energy savings in the manufacturing process by 40% according to Intel in the iNEMI (International Electronics Manufacturing Initiative) report. Although the benefits are LTS are apparent, changes in the manufacturing process will influence every part of the process. So, without mandatory energy savings in manufacturing in the overall industry, the assembly companies will not change if they are not required to do so.However, with the changing times, not only are the customers demanding energy savings, the component companies are also changing their methods. The most significant example is the introduction of LTS processes in large CPU and GPU companies. With the pressure from upstream and downstream links in the supply chain, investments in LTS by assembly plants have become necessary. Allan Tseng state that for many companies, LTS is still a new technology. Both component and system companies are still unfamiliar with the technology and market regulations. Therefore, iST and DEKRA iST have separately introduced LTS verification platforms to help different companies to reduce the technological barrier for entry and assist with the smooth shipment of products.Chiahao Chuang further mentioned that the LTS verification platform of iST is mainly used to test the reliability of components and board levels. The electronics reliability analysis (RA) can be categorized into low strain rate testing and high strain rate testing. Low strain rate testing is mainly aimed at the effect of the aforementioned temperature and other environmental changes on the products. High strain tests responses to collision, such as a mobile phone falling on the ground. In terms of the heat cycle of the low strain, LTS performed better than lead-free (Pb-free) solder pastes. However, for high strain, the endurance of LTS is slightly worse. Therefore, there will be higher risks for equipment and assembly processes with LTS in the future. For high strain rate testing, including warpage, vibrations, and IC and PCB connection pull and push forces, items closely related to handheld products must be tested. Currently, although handheld devices are not yet required to use LTS, some IC companies have already started investing in R&D. In response to this, iST is already providing complete board level reliability testing services.DEKRA iST assists LTS in optimizing modular system product testing benefitsBesides components and board levels, LTS also has a relatively large impact on system plants. DEKRA iST will provide testing services related to this aspect. Bruce Liu, Engineering Development Office Senior Technical Manager of DEKRA iST, pointed out that in the iNEMI report, although products using LTS currently account for less than 1%, by 2027, the market share of LTS will reach 20% due to the push for environmental protection in various industries. There are three driving forces for companies to introduce LTS. The first is the aforementioned carbon reduction trend. With the quickening global climate change in recent years, companies in various industries are also accelerating their carbon reduction actions, with LTS being considered one of the best methods for carbon reduction in electronic products. The second is the improvement of yield and product reliability during the manufacturing process. The high temperature currently required by lead-free (Pb-free) solder pastes may cause cracks in motherboards or breaks in IC circuits during the manufacturing process. Additionally, due to the demand for thinner and more compact consumer products, the side effects of temperature will be amplified inside the smaller spaces, which will affect the lifespan of products. The low temperature characteristic of LTS can solves these problems. The third is the optimization of manufacturing efficiency. In order to prevent high temperatures damaging components during soldering, traditional SMT must use wave soldering to solder through-hole electronic parts onto the circuit board. When using LTS solder paste, the low temperature can simultaneously complete the soldering of SMT and through-hole electronic parts, and will not cause heat damage to the components and motherboards. By eliminating a step in the manufacturing process, the goals of assembly cost reduction and process efficiency improvement can be achieved.How can existing manufacturing processes be transformed into LTS processes? Bruce Liu stated two important points. The first point is that handheld or outdoor products using LTS must pass reliability assurance (RA) and failure analysis (FA). Because LTS is an old concept, new innovation technology, the soldering joint strength on the motherboard and whether it satisfies customer expectations and market needs must be verified through the two methods For RA and FA, DEKRA iST provides thermal stress testing and mechanical stress testing, which are the aforementioned high and low stress tests. Thermal stress testing uses the stress caused by a hot and cold cycle to degrade the soldering joints. Mechanical stress testing uses vibration or drop to test the strength of the soldering joints. These two tests are required test items for brands. Furthermore, by using failure analysis tools, the stress test compares the soldering joint quality before and after the test to ensure that the product complies with the reliable requirements. Bruce Liu said, with DEKRA iST's past experiences, the performance of LTS under mechanical or thermal stress is generally still not as good as existing high temperature lead-free solder paste. Therefore, companies which produce LTS have attempted to add elemental additions to reach or even surpass the strength of high temperature lead-free pastes.The second point is for indoor products with lower risks of vibration, drop and high temperature variation; LTS is more suitable because of the better environmental conditions, especially for products with lifespans between 2 to 5 years or products with adhesive protecting the soldering joints internally. If this type of product needs to be used in outdoor environments, the environmental temperature must be below 40-celcius degrees and the internal temperature of the product must not exceed 85-celcius degrees. Additionally, Bruce Liu also suggested that if the solder balls in the components use LTS, it must be treated carefully. When both the solder paste and the solder balls use LTS, the solder joints may easily be induced abnormal hot-tearing through solidified process, causing the failure risk of the product to increase.Complete professional services to help corporations implement ESGMichael Peng, Inter Connection Eng. Dept. Manager of DEKRA iST, stated that with the driving forces of energy conservation and carbon reduction trends and manufacturing performance, LTS is slowly becoming the focus of the global electronics industry. However, because the technology is rather advanced and there is insufficient data related to the soldering joint reliability and comparison of different low temperature soldering pastes, Taiwanese companies are worried that the various components on assembled motherboards will be incompatible. Therefore, most companies are still waiting to see the developments. However, as mentioned above, the upstream and downstream of the current industry chain have already been activated and the introduction of LTS has become a necessary step. So, companies must accelerate their adoption.In order to help Taiwanese companies accelerate their adoption of LTS, iST and DEKRA iST have already begun their market deployment, providing LTS testing and verification services for different links in the industry chain, such as components, board levels, and motherboards. Allan Tseng stated that his company and DEKRA iST own the largest reliability assurance laboratory in Taiwan. iST currently leads the world in the reliability analysis and verification of components and board levels. With extensive production capabilities and experience, DEKRA iST is also one of the leaders in the industry for system analysis and testing technologies. Facing various solder paste products launched by different companies in the current market, iST and DEKRA iST can provide professional and objective reports from a third party perspective using their years of experience.Anton Hsu, Sales Division Assistant Vice President of DEKRA iST, pointed out that consumer products have higher market sensitivity from the perspective of market analysis. Their transformation speeds are also higher. Currently, not only has several laptop, internet connectivity and other large product manufacturers developed LTS strategies, CPU and other component manufacturers have also taken action. As for enterprise equipment, such as servers, because there are more considerations for stability, their transformation is relatively slower. However, LTS has been deemed as an unavoidable trend for the future. Looking at the overall market, LTS will start experiencing large growths in 2022. He suggests Taiwan companies should utilize the many years of experience accumulated by iST and DEKRA iST to choose appropriate partners with professional data. Companies should record and optimize the figures of carbon footprint to implement the ESG goal of energy conservation and carbon reduction.Low Temperature Solder (LTS) can assist in carbon reductionVice President of Reliability Engineering Division of iST, Allan TsengiST, CLR_BLR Engineering Dept. Manager, Chiahao Chuang.DEKRA iST, Eng. Develop. Office Senior Technical Manager, Bruce LiuDEKRA iST, Inter Connection Eng. Dept. Manager, Michael PengDEKRA iST, Sales Division Assistant Vice president, Anton Hsu