Winbond Electronics Corporation, a leading global supplier of semiconductor memory solutions, today announced that FPGA manufacturer Gowin Semiconductor has embedded a Winbond 64Mb HyperRAM fast memory device in its new GoAI 2.0 machine learning platform.GoAI 2.0 is a complete, new hardware and software solution for machine learning applications. Compatible with the TensorFlow machine learning development environment, GoAI 2.0 is aimed at edge computing applications such as smart door locks, smart speakers, voice-activated devices and smart toys.The hardware component of the GoAI 2.0 platform, the GW1NSR4, is a system-in-package (SiP) featuring a FPGA and ARM Cortex M3 microcontroller for the machine learning application supported by Winbond's 64Mb HyperRAM supplied in known good die (KGD) format.The Winbond DRAM based on HyperRAM technology is ideal for Gowin's target applications, in which the electronics circuit needs to be made as small as possible, while providing sufficient storage and data bandwidth to support compute-intensive workloads such as keyword detection or image recognition. Winbond's 64Mb HyperRAM product has just connected 11 signal pins, so its connections to the host FPGA is minimal - the entire GW1NSR4 SiP has a footprint of just 4.2mm x 4.2mm in a BGA package. The 64Mb memory capacity provided by the Winbond device is sufficient to run both an operating system and to concurrently operate as buffer memory for a TinyML model, or as a frame buffer.The performance specifications of the Winbond's 64Mb HyperRAM include maximum data bandwidth of 500MB/s. It also offers ultra-low power consumption in operating and hybrid sleep modes.Jason Zhu, CEO of Gowin, said "The problem which Gowin Semiconductor has solved with the GW1NSR4 is to pack a high-performance and low-power edge computing engine in a tiny package. The Winbond KGD format and HyperRAM memory technology are ideal for this, because the die can be embedded in the same package as the FPGA, eliminating the need for DRAM as an external component"."Gowin is very happy that we had Winbond as our partner in the development of the GW1NSR4 because its expertise in the KGD package format and its help in integrating the die into the SiP helped us realize a very effective and reliable design in a short time."Winbond's HyperRAM products are available for high-volume production in densities of 512Mb, 256Mb, 128Mb, 64Mb and 32Mb. For more information, go to www.winbond.com.Gowin semiconductor embeds 64Mb HyperRAM DRAM from Winbond

Winbond Electronics Corporation, a leading global supplier of semiconductor memory solutions, announced that a high-performance, low-power Winbond 1Gb LPDDR3 DRAM product has achieved another great success in high bandwidth memory with Tsing Micro latest artificial intelligence (AI) system-on-chip (SoC).Beijing, China-based Tsing Micro's TX510 SoC is a highly advanced AI edge computing engine optimized for functions such as 3D sensing, face recognition, object recognition and gesture recognition. Paired with Winbond's LPDDR3 DRAM, which offers maximum bandwidth of 1866Mb/s and operates from a dual 1.2V/1.8V supply with power-saving features such as Deep Power-Down mode and a Clock Stop capability, the TX510 offers outstanding speed and accuracy in AI imaging applications.Tsing Micro (www.tsingmicro.com) has implemented an innovative architecture in the TX510 SoC: it includes a 32-bit RISC processor, a reconfigurable neural network engine, a reconfigurable general computing engine, an image signal processor and a 3D sensing engine. For shipping to customers, the TX510 is combined with Winbond's 1Gb LPDDR3 DRAM die in a single 14mm x 14mm TFBGA System-in-Package (SiP).Achieving computing throughput of up to 1.2 TOPS (tera operations per second), this SiP can perform accurate face recognition (false acceptance ratio of 1 in 10 million) in less than 100ms, and compare features with a library of 100,000 faces in less than 50ms. Peak operating power consumption is just 450mW, and the chip uses just 0.01mW in quiescent mode.The TX510 is intended for use in applications which require high-speed image detection and recognition, including biometric sensing, video surveillance, smart retail operations, smart home automation and advanced industrial automation.Wang Bo, CEO of Tsing Micro, said, "Evaluation of the Winbond LPDDR3 DRAM shows that it is highly competitive both in terms of speed and power consumption. But equally important to us when developing the TX510 was the support and expertise that Winbond provided to us in integrating the DRAM die into a SiP in such a way that it maintained high performance and high signal integrity while taking care of thermal management.""Winbond is fast gaining a reputation for providing excellent support to chip and SoC manufacturers which are developing leading-edge AI products. With Winbond low-power DRAM inside, AI products such as the TX510 can set new benchmarks for high performance and throughput while operating from a limited battery power supply," said Winbond.Winbond's LPDDR3 DRAM is in mass production. More information can be found at www.winbond.com.Tsing Micro ships its TX510 AI processor with a Winbond 1Gb LPDDR3 die integrated into a single SiPTsing Micro TX510

Winbond Electronics Corporation, a leading global supplier of semiconductor memory solutions, has announced that its W75F, the industry's first Secure Flash memory device with Common Criteria EAL5+ certificate, has now achieved the ISO26262 ASIL Grade D safety certification.For automotive market, the W75F Secure Memory is compliant with the AEC-Q100 and is now officially certified ASIL-D. The W75F device provides fault detection capabilities covering more than 99.9% of failures ranging from flash array cells, through the physical interface, and all the way to the host. The safety rating for the W75F surpasses that of internal embedded Flash memories while offering much more storage capacity that can potentially be scaled up to even higher densities.Winbond said, "The W75F is the ideal external secure memory companion, offering high level of security assurance at Common Criteria EAL5+. Now with the addition of ASIL Grade D certification, the W75F is even more beneficial for automotive platforms, which have to meet stringent requirements for security and functional safety. Winbond is the only flash vendor with the proven capability of designing devices that can bridge the gap between high safety and high security levels without compromising either."The W75F has also been certified with the Security Evaluation Scheme for IoT Platforms (SESIP) scheme for IoT and smart connected devices up to Level 3 with physical attacker.The W75F Secure Memory is the industry's proven secure external Flash device for code and data storage. It offers a dependable solution for manufacturers of connected systems, which want to defend their products against threats such as replay, rollback, man-in-the-middle, sniffing, side-channel and fault injection attacks.It is available in densities of 4Mb, 16Mb and 32Mb and is available in industry-standard SOP16, QFN32, and WLCSP packages.Key features of the W75F include:*Secure eXecute-in-Place (XiP) *Tamper-resistant *Code and data confidentiality and integrity *Mutual authentication with SoC *Shared memory architecture for multiple domains *21MB/s secured and authenticated throughput *100,000 program/erase cycles *20-year data retentionWinbond's W75F Secure Memory Element is in mass production. More information can be found at www.winbond.com.The W75F Secure Memory is the industry's proven secure external Flash device for code and data storage

No embedded device manufacturers would claim that the exposure of connected devices to security threats is due to vulnerabilities in the security components available on the market today. This would be ridiculous: it is easy to find specialist components such as secure elements or high-end systems-on-chip (SoCs) which will implement sophisticated forms of cryptography, secure on-chip key storage, power analysis and other security functions. Properly integrated into system designs, these components provide a strong shield for the device which hosts them.So if security components are readily available, why do successful attacks on embedded, connected devices continue on a daily basis? After all, the evidence of cyber attacks on electronics systems is abundant. Independent research shows that the number of cyber attacks on IoT devices in the US surged by 300% in 2019 compared to a year earlier. At the same time, it is estimated that some 57% of US IoT devices are vulnerable to attacks of a medium or high severity, and that each breach of an IoT end-point costs on average $9m.The financial cost of a successful cyber attack is due not only to the loss of revenue caused by service outage. Other costs include damage to the product manufacturer's brand, potential penalties from government authorities for breaching security regulations, and the diversion of skilled and expensive engineering resources from productive development work to urgent recovery and repair measures. Regulation in this area also continues to tighten, forcing IoT device manufacturers to pay attention to compliance requirements. The EU's Cybersecurity Act and China's Cybersecurity Law impose wide-ranging requirements backed by independent testing of device vulnerability, while the California Consumer Privacy Act imposes fines of $2,500 on companies for each unintentional violation.But despite all these costs and rules, compromised end-points remain vulnerable. In some cases, this will be because of a vulnerability in some part of the system beyond the secure element or secure SoC. Most commonly, such a vulnerability is in a standard external Flash memory storing critical code or data.In other cases, a device is exposed to cyber attack because the system has no secure element or secure SoC, and so lacks the sophisticated protection that it would provide.In both cases, the barriers to the implementation of hardware-level security are generally cost and difficulty. And it is true that high-end, payment-grade security components aimed at financial products such as payment terminals and mobile phones are technically complex and difficult for engineers who are not security specialists to implement.But now a new generation of secure Flash memory products has come on to the market to provide a secure hardware foundation for embedded devices which do not require payment-grade protection. Often featuring a standard Flash memory package footprint and pin-out, and controlled via the standard SPI NOR Flash instruction set, these secure Flash memories are easy for general embedded device designers to implement, but provide a comprehensive set of security functions to protect connected devices from attack on a system's integrity or data privacy.Why implement security in a memory device?It's traditional to conceive of non-volatile memory as a simple device: bits are written to it, and the same bits are then read out. It's generally thought of as a store, not a processor.In fact, of course, every NOR Flash memory used for code or application data includes logic to control memory operations and communications with the host via a serial peripheral interface. Secure Flash devices build on and extend this logic block to provide security functions alongside the memory control functions.Flash memory manufacturers such as Winbond have developed this new generation of secure Flash products because of the limitations of the embedded Flash memory provision in microcontrollers and SoCs. While advanced microcontrollers and SoCs have migrated to wafer fabrication processes at nodes smaller than 20nm, the scaling of embedded NOR Flash has not followed suit. This means that in the latest MCUs and SoCs, the embedded floating-gate flash process is not available and the capacity is often not large enough to store the sophisticated software code which they are intended to run.So in today's embedded device designs, application code is more commonly stored in an external Flash memory device. But if the device is connected - particularly if it is an IoT device connected to the internet - the boot code in external Flash is vulnerable to attack, and data is vulnerable to theft or intrusion, unless the memory device itself is shielded by comprehensive security functionality. This is the value of a secure Flash device, complementary to SoC/MCU securityThe key capabilities of secure FlashThe reason for replacing standard external NOR Flash in an IoT end-point with secure Flash, then, is to protect the integrity of boot code and application data. Various secure Flash devices on the market provide some form of secure storage. At its most basic, this security functionality provides for secure, encrypted authentication: this means that the Flash device will only permit the authorised host to perform Read and Write operations, protecting the data from being accessed by any device other than the host SoC.But this provides only a limited form of security protection. To protect against the many types of cyber attack, and to provide for compliance with regulations such as the EU Cybersecurity Law's Basic and Substantial levels of security functionality, Winbond has developed a multi-function secure NOR Flash memory, the W77Q, part of its TrustME family of secure Flash products. In addition to secure authentication, the W77Q provides: -*Resilience: protection, detection and recovery, to ensure that an IoT device can automatically reboot into known safe code even after a cyber attack has attempted to disable it *Root-of-trust to enable authenticated communication with the host SoC and with external systems such as cloud computing services. *Secure data storage *Secure channel from Flash to a trust authority in the cloud for over-the-air firmware updates. This channel means that the memory can update to a new version of boot code independently of the SoC, and even when the SoC has itself been compromised.The W77Q has been assessed by an external, accredited laboratory. It complies with the requirements of the EU's GDPR privacy legislation, and provides the 'Substantial' level of protection as specified by the EU's Cybersecurity Act. It holds security certifications including CC EAL2 (VAN.2), IEC62443, SESIP and the Arm Platform Security Architecture (PSA) certification.Resilience is particularly important for IoT devices - and is a capability missing from most secure Flash products. In some devices, such as utility meters, physical intrusion (tampering) is a common form of attack for which protection is required. Large, very valuable assets such as power generation plants or military bases might be subject to physical intrusion into a local area network.For IoT devices, however, the main threat is a scalable cyber attack exploiting a remote connection via the internet to the entire population of installed devices. The US National Institute of Standards and Technology's (NIST) SP 800-193 standard specifies mechanisms which protect firmware and configuration data from such attacks, and which can detect and recover from successful attacks. The W77Q provides the resilience functions required to conform to this standard. Resilience has three elements: protection against attack, detection of attacks, and recovery from attackFunctions such as encrypted authentication to prevent attempts by unauthorized devices to access data provide protection against attack. An attack might be successfully carried out on the host SoC, however, so the W77Q maintains the ability to detect when an attack has taken place. For instance, it checks that stored code has not been corrupted automatically, whenever the code is updated or accessed. It can also scan code on the instruction of the host device.If the W77Q detects that an attack has been successful and that, for instance, the compromised, authentic SoC has corrupted its own boot code, the Flash device automatically and with proper authentication recovers the platform firmware. It does so via its 'Safe Fallback' function, which reinstates boot code to a known safe version. This Safe Fallback function is backed by an authenticated watchdog timer, which can force the host SoC into a clean boot using the known safe code.Winbond's approach in developing the W77Q has been to provide an off-the-shelf set of layered security capabilities to enable easy deployment by customers. With the W77Q, Winbond provides: *End-to-end, out-of-the-box security, with no need for prior security expertise *Fast deployment *A complete solution backed by compatible products from security software vendors *Simple security certification *Affordability.By providing this comprehensive set of capabilities in a familiar SPI NOR Flash package with a standard footprint, Winbond can help ensure that no IoT device needs to go to market without proper protection against cyber attack.(Note: The author of this article, Hung-Wei Chen, is director of Security Solution Marketing and Application Division at Winbond Electronics.)The W77Q can institute a secure channel to a trust centre in the cloud for over-the-air software updates even when the host SoC has been compromised. (Image credit: Winbond)The W77Q can always be trusted to maintain platform health by protection, detection and recovery. (Image credit: Winbond)Comprehensive protection Comprehensive protection against cyber attacks requires the implementation of a layered set of security capabilities. (Image credit: Winbond)

GlobalPlatform, together with Winbond Electronics Corporation, Arm and Industrial Technology Research Institute (ITRI), hosted the first technology forum in Taiwan. With a mix of local on-site speakers in Taiwan and GlobalPlatform virtual on-line presenters, this event also shows the new normal in the pandemic era.Kevin Gillick, Executive Director of GlobalPlatform, offers two thoughts on IoT Cybersecurity. First of all, information security should not be an afterthought. The Internet of Things (IoT) is greatly expanding the size and scale of electronics devices and use-case scenarios. Security matters and must be taken very seriously. Secondly, to establish trust, independent third-party certification of IoT devices is needed. Performing thorough test procedures to grant certification will protect the brand image in the long run and keep customers satisfied with products.Arm promotes leading use cases of iSIMSamuel Chiang, Senior Business Development Director of IoT BU at Arm, presented the leading use cases of iSIM in the IoT sector. A great amount of NB-IoT devices levering LPWA technologies play an important role in smart city and smart grid applications. These devices, equipped with SIM cards to connect to a carrier's network, enable secure authentication. The physical hardware element, like SIM card, presents and adds an indispensable layer of security. However, SIM card technology has lasted for 25-years. It is starting to transform into a smaller and slimmer form factor of eSIM, which will directly mount to a printed circuit board to have further advantages compared to traditional SIM technology.But Arm takes another approach to introduce eSIM architecture, which is the new design concept leveraging tight integration with communication SoC chips to deliver the same security level as today's SIM technology. The advantages of eSIM technology are more compact, lower cost, and requires less power. Market research indicates that over 40% of IoT devices leverage eSIM technology, creating immense IoT business opportunities in the next decade. The iSIM technology will also unlock IoT hyper-scale opportunities.Arm offers the full silicon IPs and software solutions to build iSIM to meet fast time-to-market demands. This includes Arm core IPs and Kigen operating systems as core architecture. The iSIM Cybersecurity certification is using a composite scheme. The firmware and underlying IC will need to be certified based on the BSI-CC-PP-0084 standard. Then, combined with the operating system, the entire system will need to pass the BSI-CC-PP-0089 standards as a whole for future-proofing in telecom security. And ecosystem partners are ready to deliver the new design.ITRI highlighted whitelisting and VMI technology for blocking cyber attacksTzi-cker Chiueh, ITRI's Vice President and General Director of Information and Communications Research Laboratories, showed recent cybersecurity incidents that revealed a huge increase in hacked and breached data from public organizations. On this serious issue, there are two important lessons to be highlighted. They are (1) BYOD security, and (2) Software Vulnerability.Additionally, recent security research suggests that most companies have unprotected data and poor cybersecurity practices in place, making them vulnerable to data loss. The BYOD policy sometimes becomes one of the major leaks enabling malware, or malicious software to attack corporate internal networks. Chiueh provides a solution by introducing VMI (Virtual Mobile Infrastructure) technology for isolating the problems. The VMI makes smartphone a lower priority (the default policy being the lowest priority) to perform tasks such as making phone calls, running customized APPs and playing context and video audio streaming via cloud services. To reduce cybersecurity threats all internal IT resources, served on various virtual machines, are tightly managed and fully monitored.The basic strategy to prevent malware attacks is to install whitelisting in all products or equipment. Especially the fixed featuring equipment, things like ATM, machinery or equipment will use VMI to protect devices to be attacked. Most important thing for enterprise cybersecurity is draw a clear line of secure zone boundary. Then set the secure policy by consolidating management of multiple security layers, control policy to reduce the attack surface.Winbond presented its secure and certifiable non-volatile memory product portfolioThere are an estimated 5.8 billion connected IoT devices deployed today. And over 57% of these devices have been evaluated as having high security concerns facing software of security-critical backdoors. The system designer implements data security by introducing secure elements into secure storage devices to protect the integrity and confidentiality of code and data, and to avoid further attacks from hackers and malware. And security data payloads are continually on the rise as device manufacturers implement an increasing range of data-heavy functions such as biometric authentication and more complex forms of encryption which are harder for hackers to crack. And Winbond introduces its TrustME Secure Flash Solution.The TrustME Secure Flash devices also feature certified and proven Winbond security features such as cryptography, authentication, key storage, anti-tamper functions and protection against replay attacks. Winbond's TrustME Secure Flash product is the first external Flash memory device to gain a Common Criteria EAL5+ with VAN.5 security grade and PSA Certified Level 2 ready, as required for systems used in payments applications.Meanwhile, security by design is essential to address the security concerns in diverse IoT landscapes. The technology of secure booting and firmware updates will strengthen the robustness of Platform Security Architecture (PSA). To protect the confidentiality and integrity of code and data in IoT devices, Winbond provides series of secure memory product lines and solutions. For example, TrustME security products are the certified secure storage featuring security by design, immutable root of trust, secure boot, firmware confidentiality and integrity, trusted factory initialization of devices, and secure firmware updates. These flexible solutions will fit the requirements and growing demand of IoT security and Cybersecurity certification.GlobalPlatform IoTopia Secure FrameworkIn this forum, GlobalPlatform invited each of its technical committee Chairs to introduce key technology developments from their group. The following paragraphs are short summaries. The first speaker was Russ Gyurek, Chair of the IoTopia committee, which is developing a comprehensive framework for IoT security across industries. IoTopia proposes a common framework for standardizing the design, certification, deployment, and management of IoT devices with four foundational pillars: Secure by Design, Secure Onboarding, Device Intent, and Device Lifecycle Management. IoTopia is bringing together global and regional guidelines and requirements to help device manufacturers build products and services that satisfy regulatory mandates.GlobalPlatform sets the standard for Secure Element (SE)GlobalPlatform defines the SE as a core element to protect confidential and cryptographic data. There are three software execution layers to block the attack sequence. The SE is a physical layer to store and protect important data, such as signal frequency and cryptographic keys, so that hackers cannot exploit system vulnerabilities to attack valuable assets. SE Committee Chair, Karl Eglof-Hartel, presented SE hardware architectures and talked about iSIM technology simultaneously for connecting to Telecom networks.GlobalPlatform Trusted Execution Environment (TEE) standardsTEE Committee Chair, Christophe Colas, provided an update on the TEE TEE for IoT. TEE is an environment for executing code, in which those executing the code can have high levels of trust for accessing and protecting sensitive data against the programs to be run in the REE layers. The TEE is used to ensure a higher level of trust invalidity, isolation, and access control, when compared to more general purpose software environments. There is a specific Application Programmable Interface (API) and clear specification in the TEE Management Framework and Open Trust Protocol (OTrP) Profile for enabling management mechanisms. Global certification agencies use Common Criteria and ISO standards based on ISO/IEC 15408 to certify IoT device security functions. During the Q&A session, the audience asked about the status of the TEE specification for RISC-V platforms. Colas indicated that the work will be completed in 2021.GlobalPlatform Trusted Platform Services (TPS) standardsThe TPS topic was presented by TPS Committee Chair, Jeremy O'Donoghue. TPS provides mechanisms enabling access to platform services, such as Root of Trust (RoT), offered by standardized secure components such as the SE and TEE. And it serves to establish a Chain of Trust extending from the secure component within a device to a secure service. The service makes it easier for service providers and application developers in different market sectors to link together strong security technology offered by secure components in their products.Product CertificationCybersecurity certification is an important role in trust and security irrespective of products, services, and processes in the IoT value chain and ecosystem. GlobalPlatform develops and maintains a Certification Program related to the specifications it manages, to facilitate and assure interoperability within the marketplace. This includes the topic of GlobalPlatform Vice Chairman, Rob Coombs, who presented Platform Security Architecture (PSA), which is a security certification system aiming to build trust through an independent security assessment.GlobalPlatform Technical Director, Gil Bernabeu, highlighted security concerns as cyberattacks now cross between IT and OT networks. Also, governments are proactively and more frequently setting cybersecurity regulations which establish the need for cybersecurity certification schemes to keep up. Moreover, the volume and complexity of IoT products combined with varying regulations and certification frameworks make it challenging for IoT device manufacturers and service providers to validate the security of their products in a cost-efficient way and fit the requirement of Time to Market.Today, about 80% of global cybersecurity regulations are already addressed by GlobalPlatform standards. GlobalPlatform technical specifications are regarded as the industry standard for achieving interoperable, sustainable, and flexible IoT device deployments that support multi-application and multi-business model implementations. It ensures that secure components meet the required levels of security defined for a particular service, enabling service providers to confidently and effectively manage risk and comply with industry requirements. GlobalPlatform will support certification bodies in setting up certification schemes based on the Security Evaluation Standard for IoT Platforms (SESIP) methodology.Member of GlobalPlatform's SESIP sub-Task Force, Mr. Carlos Serratos, talked about SESIP in the last session of the afternoon. SESIP addresses the scale and complexity of the IoT ecosystem with an optimized approach to security evaluation that is designed specifically for IoT platforms and services. GlobalPlatform committees are working to bring consistency and trust to the IoT device security certification process and Cybersecurity standards, and align them with laboratories to drive consistency in product evaluations and certifications across the world. The GlobalPlatform cybersecurity standards are engaging quickly with the global IoT ecosystem.GlobalPlatform, together with Winbond, Arm and ITRI hosted the first technology forum in Taiwan

A long-forecast surge in the number of products based on artificial intelligence (AI) and machine learning (ML) technologies is beginning to reach mainstream consumer markets.It is true that research and development teams have found that, in some applications such as autonomous driving, the innate skill and judgement of a human is difficult, or perhaps even impossible, for a machine to learn. But while in some areas the hype around AI has run ahead of the reality, with less fanfare a number of real products based on ML capabilities are beginning to gain widespread interest from consumers. For instance, intelligent vision-based security and home monitoring systems have great potential: analyst firm Strategy Analytics forecasts growth in the home security camera market of more than 50% in the years between 2019 and 2023, from a market value of US$8 billion to US$13 billion.The development of intelligent cameras is possible because one of the functions best suited to ML technology is image and scene recognition. Intelligence in home vision systems can be used to: - Detect when an elderly or vulnerable person has fallen to the ground and is potentially injured- Monitor that the breathing of a sleeping baby is normal- Recognise the face of the resident of a home (in the case of a smart doorbell) or a pet (for instance in a smart cat flap), and automatically allow them to enter- Detect suspicious or unrecognised activity outside the home and trigger an intruder alarmThese new intelligent vision systems for the home, based on advanced image signal processors (ISPs), are in effect function-specific computers. The latest products in this category have adopted computer-like architectures which depend for low latency, highly responsive operation on fast DRAM system memory to store the application code running on the ISP.This article examines the factors affecting the choice of DRAM technology in the emerging category of home vision systems, and describes how DRAM manufacturers are responding to the specific demands of ISP-based architectures.System memory for a full-blown computer-cameraThe latest intelligent cameras for home monitoring use a neural network to perform image or scene recognition. These vision systems include an inference engine: this is a trained software algorithm which has 'learned' to recognise types of images or scenes by viewing and analysing thousands or millions of labelled images contained in a training dataset.Running an inference engine is a computationally heavy workload, so some of the latest home vision systems are based on a powerful integrated ISP with an AI inference engine from chipset manufacturers such as Ambarella. These ISPs typically feature a powerful Arm Cortex-A series applications processor core.Another popular way to implement home security camera designs, an approach known as "light AI," can use smaller, less powerful chipsets from manufacturers such as Omnivision, Kneron and NXP Semiconductors. While Omnivision and NXP are already globally famous suppliers of advanced sensor and processor chips, Kneron is fast emerging as a leader in AI technology - its KL520 was listed by EE Times as one of the top ten chipsets for edge AI applications.So these AI-inspired home vision systems are effectively computer-cameras - a very different kind of device from an old-style closed-circuit TV (CCTV) camera or a security camera which simply records time-stamped video footage of a scene. And so the new generation of home security cameras adopts a computer-style architecture, complete with fast DRAM memory large enough to store the complex inference engine and other application code.But unlike a tablet, smartphone or other general-purpose computer, the home vision system has specific image and inferencing functions for which the components and the system architecture can be optimised. And this means that the DRAM provision is limited to the needs of the image signal processing function, rather than of general computing tasks.As a result, home security camera manufacturers are finding that they can benefit from the use of specialised low- or mid-density LPDRAM, rather than the high-density 4GB, 8GB or 16GB DRAM arrays typically found in smartphones or laptop computers.Low power and long lifetimeThis substantially affects the manufacturer's choice of DRAM type, and of the provider of this DRAM.In high-end computers and tablets, OEMs need to maximise DRAM memory capacity and bandwidth and minimise its cost, which drives them to use the latest DRAM technology fabricated on a leading-edge process.In home security and monitoring cameras, by contrast, the emphasis is on: - Low power consumption - for instance, the design of a smart video doorbell must extend the run-time of its single-use alkaline batteries to minimise the frequency of battery replacement.- Long lifetime - the economics of the home vision system market require that a successful design is on the market for potentially three years or more. Suppliers of the components in these designs therefore need to make a longevity commitment to avoid the need for the OEM to periodically redesign the hardware.- Reliability - a home vision system might be installed in a fixed location and carefully positioned to capture the desired scene. This means that repair and replacement will require a technician to visit the installation - a much more expensive operation than shipping a failed laptop computer to a central repair laboratory. So customers and OEMs will place a high value on the reliability both of individual components and of the entire system.This then determines the key factors which affect the OEM's evaluation of DRAM products and suppliers. And the approach of specialty memory manufacturers will reveal a marked contrast with that of the large DRAM manufacturers fabricating on a leading-edge process and focussed on the PC and server markets.A specialty supplier of DRAM will provide a broad range of products for applications which can operate with legacy DRAM technology, rather than leading-edge products. Winbond, for instance, supplies the DDR, DDR2 and DDR3 standard versions of SDRAM, as well as Low-Power DDR, LPDDR2, LPDDR3, LPDDR4 and LPDDR4x mobile DRAM for power-conscious designs.The mainstream DRAM manufacturers' fabrication processes are also optimised for memory density and die cost. Manufacturers which choose not to follow the leading edge have the freedom to refine legacy fabrication processes to better meet the needs of customers in industrial, automotive, medical and consumer markets. In Winbond's case, the process implemented at its own mobile DRAM wafer fabrication plant in Taiwan is configured to minimise the devices' power consumption, helping Winbond's standard DRAM products to offer better power performance than competitors' standard products.OEMs operating in the home vision systems market also need to rely on the longevity of their component choices. Here, too, a specialty memory supplier's operation is configured to meet the market requirement. Winbond offers a standard 10-year longevity guarantee on its products from the date of introduction to the market.Finally, while mainstream high-density DRAM features interfaces compatible with the x86 microprocessor architecture used in PCs and servers, specialty DRAM can be adapted to provide for easier integration with other types of processors, and particularly with Arm architecture devices.To ease system integration for makers of home vision systems, Winbond has worked with ISP chipset manufacturers to support the reference design boards which provide the springboard for many security camera design projects. Software and hardware compatibility makes system integration easier for users of Ambarella ISPs in particular.Support for rapid development of new, more advanced vision systemsAs AI and machine learning technologies advance, the requirement for greater signal processing throughput and faster memory to support the ISP will grow. Specialty DRAM roadmaps should include provision for the introduction of new standard technologies, such as LPDDR4/4x, to provide increased bandwidth.Backed by comprehensive documentation and proven, high-quality in-house fabrication, Winbond's DRAM and Flash memory products provide OEMs with the confidence to build new, more intelligent capabilities into home monitoring and security vision systems.(Note: The author of this article, Jacky Tseng, is DRAM marketing manager at Winbond Electronics.)A camera or a computer?

Internet of Things (IoT), with the massive wireless connection technologies, the growing number of IoT devices, and the complexity of these connected things, introduces new cybersecurity challenges and risks to the marketplace. As reaching the ideal scenario of everything connected, mobile devices increasingly handle sensitive data and becoming more important than ever to ensure their security. IoT device security is even more critical now that 5G services are live. The breach of IoT devices allowing attackers to easily hijack the property poses an inherent risk to the security of enterprises which deploy the technologies. And worldwide spending on the IoT has been impacted by these worries. The cybersecurity solutions of IoT are getting more attentions than ever.GlobalPlatform is a non-profit industry association highly regarded as the international standard for enabling digital services and devices to be trusted and securely managed. On Tuesday, 25 August 2020, GlobalPlatform, with support of Primary Sponsor and Full Member Winbond Electronics Corporation, together with Arm and Industrial Technology Research Institute (ITRI), hosted an IoT Security and Certification Schemes Workshop at Sheraton Hsinchu Hotel in Zhubei City, Taiwan. The workshop provided the latest information about the technology dynamics of Secure Element (SE) and Trust Execution Environment (TEE). At the same time, it showed several countries' development status and government policies, plans and regulations in Europe and North America, specifically designed to support IoT device manufacturers and certification bodies to establish their own IoT device security certification schemes.Kevin Gillick, Executive Director of GlobalPlatform, in his opening remarks through remote video conferencing, thanked Winbond, Arm and ITRI teams for making this half physical and half virtual workshop possible. Responding to IoT security has built a tight collaborative relationship between industries and governments, he adds. With a mix of local on-site speakers and GlobalPlatform virtual presenters, participants shared a great opportunity to interact with subject matter experts.An estimated 75.44 billion IoT devices will be in the marketplace by 2025. This astronomical number is even posing a more serious threat to security and privacy than ever. GlobalPlatform's work brings greater trust to the IoT eco-system. To deploy the security framework of "secure enough" is an essential task to begin. The Security Evaluation Standard for IoT Platforms (SESIP) methodology will standardize security certification for IoT industries and give device makers and solution vendors the ability to demonstrate alignment with market requirements, use cases and regulations.GlobalPlatform, established 20 years ago, is driven by approximately 80 member companies. Members share a common goal to develop GlobalPlatform's specifications, which are today highly regarded as the international standard for enabling digital services and devices to be trusted. And while avoiding attack threats, it will protect services and provide end users with trusted information that is securely managed throughout the IoT products lifecycle.5G Chain of Trust framework to protect information and privacyDr. Yeali Sun, Commissioner of Taiwan National Communications Commission (NCC), in her keynote session, highlighted 5G broadband networks as a major driving force for industrial digitization and technology upgrade. 5G will deliver benefits to the nation, society, economy, industry, enterprises and individuals. 5G is playing the role of enabler to create more economic prosperity. That is the reason why the WEF (World Economic Forum) sets 5G as the forth industrial revolution. 5G networks are constructing a beneficial infrastructure for digital innovation.5G network infrastructure provides the high data speed and flexibility needed to cultivate new services and innovative applications. Leveraging software defined network and modern ICT technologies in scale, 5G network security is becoming critical for many countries. 5G services rely on sufficiently trustworthy access across the network, Sun noted. There are several important topics that need to be addressed including 5G network governance, trusted hardware/software and supply chain, trusted operation and management, trusted end-to-end operation, integration of cybersecurity with operations and privacy protection.Either 5G equipment or IoT devices, these products are a complex combination of many components and involve multi-stakeholders such as hardware manufacturers, software developers, service providers, end users and data owners. To verify whether these devices are secure enough, she simply asks two questions to make things clear. First, can device owners acquire devices through a trustworthy supply chain? And second, can a device owner maintain positive control over the device?At the end of her speech she offered two major conclusions. The first, cybersecurity capability is imperative for network operators, service providers and regulatory government agencies. Second, the hardware Root of Trust (RoT) in IoT is a promising way of providing the foundation to establish a Chain of Trust (CoT) for the device to provide assertions about the device to the information.Making Taiwan a trustworthy international secure components and systems supplierIn his keynote address, Dr. Edwin Liu, President of ITRI, spoke about the fast migration towards a digital life in the post-pandemic era. This brings two major challenges and issues, which are IoT network security and supply chain management. Taking action to solve these issues will earn global trust and transform Taiwan into an important force in the global economy. He analyzed the types of cybersecurity threats to showcase participants the case studies which cause massive economic loss for global societies.Taiwan's strength in semiconductor and ICT sectors plays a central role in global IoT supply chains. Due to international customers' strict safety requirements, it is enabling Taiwan manufacturers to further invest in technology. And the fact that the number of cybersecurity attacks is increasing every day is also helping Taiwan's cybersecurity protection capabilities to rapidly upgrade. For example, based on many years of technical development, ITRI hosts several collaborative projects with various vendors for introducing systems such as a specialized supply chain monitoring system, a software based cybersecurity diagnostic system, and software and hardware tamper-resistant technologies to avoid code change while transferring data files.The same thing applies to Taiwan's PC server manufacturers as they establish the supply chain security testing standards for OT and IT networks. They are also taking actions to prevent non-authorized software or firmware from being installed into IC chips while purchasing from vendors. Meanwhile, logistics partners also provide proof of their practices to improve cybersecurity across the supply chain, thus increasing the security levels for customers.Taiwan manufacturers are providing layers of cybersecurity solutions across the entire eco-system, leveraging its strength in both IC chips and electronics manufacturing services. Through cybersecurity standards and certification, Taiwan continues to invest in its information and digital industries to take a leading position to transform Taiwan into a critical force in the global economy. ITRI is setting a goal to build a cybersecurity industry that can integrate with 5G, digital transformation, and Taiwan national security, striving to create cybersecurity systems and an industrial chain that can protect the country and earn the world's trust.Building Taiwan cybersecurity eco-system to keep the Internet of Things Safe and SecureTraditionally, people with more resources are more likely to have security concerns. In today's connected world, there is no denying that smart applications and 5G networks create immense value and opportunity. But on the other hand, cyber vulnerability is leading to a loss of consumer confidence. Consumers need reliable security to protect private data of every individual in the digital world. We believe that non-secure IoT devices pose a severe cyber-threat that must be addressed by securing technologies used for the storage of data, code, and credentials in all connected devices.The essential concept of IoT is everything connected. Compared with the more mature architecture of PC's and smartphones, the IoT cybersecurity eco-system is still in the very beginning stage. Due to the ever-growing complexity and flexibility of IoT applications, all devices are connected and becoming things in the IoT world. For this sensitive situation, there are some thoughts that matter. We need consumers with safety and cybersecurity concepts. We request industries to provide secure technologies. We expect governments to set the standards and certification processes. And we require the building of a neutral security validation mechanism in Taiwan. These are serious concerns that need to be addressed to realize the market potential of IoT.Winbond is the leading global supplier of code storage memory solutions and secure memories. And Nuvoton is a major solution provider of MCU and server ICs. Both are key components to control the operation of machines and electronics devices. To integrate upstream and downstream of IoT supply chains covering semiconductor components to electronics devices via networking connection, cloud platforms and to the end point applications, each layer needs to equip with proper cybersecurity technologies to offer a dependable solution for manufacturers of connected devices against cyber threats and attacks. Semiconductor products are the base of Root of Trust. And they are the initiation of Chain of Trust.Mr. Arthur Yu-Cheng Chiao, Winbond Chairman and CEO, gave his keynote on the topic "Catch IoT Opportunities with An Eco-system and Security Solutions", he explained that Taiwan is the global site of electronics manufacturing services with complete electronics supply chains and a strong foundation for an IoT cybersecurity eco-system. As a member of GlobalPlatform, Winbond has moved to collaborate with GlobalPlatform in promoting IoT information security and working out a set of IoT security standards that Winbond hopes to introduce as its accreditation system in Taiwan. Serving as a bridge to promote vertical division of the cybersecurity eco-system among players in different segments, and pushing for their cooperation with the government, Winbond will promote its strategy for digital safety for Taiwan in the era of Internet of Things.GlobalPlatform with support of primary sponsor Winbond hosted an IoT Security and Certification schemes workshop

Winbond Electronics Corporation, a leading global supplier of semiconductor memory solutions, today revealed that the latest system-on-chip (SoC) from artificial intelligence (AI) pioneer Kneron, the KL720 launched in Aug, includes a 1Gb LPDDR3 DRAM die from Winbond.Kneron has risen rapidly to prominence in the market for AI processor chips following the launch of its breakthrough product, the KL520 SoC, which combines proprietary software and hardware technologies to achieve very high AI performance while maintaining low power operation. The KL520, in use today in battery-powered applications such as smart locks and drones, includes a 512Mb LPDDR2 from Winbond.Kneron's new KL720 SoC opens up a new set of low-power/high-performance applications for AI and machine learning technology, offering a higher maximum output of 1.4 TOPS (Tera Operations Per Second), and industry-best performance efficiency of 0.9 TOPS/W.Winbond's LPDDR3 DRAM is supplied as a Known Good Die (KGD) and co-packaged with a new Kneron neural processing unit (NPU) in the KL720. Supporting the high throughput and performance efficiency of the KL720, Winbond's LPDDR3 DRAM offers a maximum bandwidth 8.5GB/s, operates from a dual 1.2V/1.8V supply, and includes power-saving features such as Deep Power-Down mode and a Clock Stop capability.New in the KL720: Simultaneous video and speech processingSetting a new benchmark for performance in AI applications, the Kneron KL720 is capable of processing 4K, Full HD or 3D sensor video images in real time to support AI applications such as face recognition in security cameras or gesture control in public kiosks. It can also perform natural language processing, so allows for intuitive speech recognition and eliminates the need for pre-defined keywords. The 1.4 TOPS performance is even fast enough to support concurrent real-time video and natural language processing.Kneron's determination to set a new standard for edge AI performance underlies its choice of Winbond's LPDDR3 for the KL720. Albert Liu, founder and CEO of Kneron, says: "Kneron has exhaustively evaluated the DRAM products available today. It is clear to us that Winbond's LPDDR3 offers the best combination of high bandwidth and low power consumption for the demanding new edge AI applications that the KL720 enables. Just as important as the performance of the silicon, however, is the support that Winbond has given us to help us optimize the interface between our NPU and the DRAM. We are pleased that the relationship with Winbond, which began with the KL520, continues now and into the future with the development of the next-generation product to follow the KL720.""With the KL720, Kneron has set a new benchmark for performance and efficiency that no other chip manufacturer, even the giants of our industry, are able to match today. We at Winbond are very proud to be associated with the success of Kneron, and are excited to see a new generation of AI-enabled products come to market based on the KL720 with Winbond DRAM inside," said Winbond.Winbond's LPDDR3 DRAM is in mass production. More information can be found at www.winbond.com.The KL720 is available from Kneron for sampling now. More information can be found at www.kneron.com/solutions/soc.

As the world emerges from the COVID-19 crisis, it is likely to leave lasting impacts not only on the patients who have been treated by dedicated doctors and nurses, but also generally on the way that medicine is practised.As a leading manufacturer of specialty memory ICs, Winbond is constantly looking ahead to understand the broad trends in areas such as the medical equipment market. It is clear that post-COVID changes in patient health monitoring and in the way that medical services are delivered face-to-face are going to create greater demand for personal and wearable medical devices. This change in the pattern of demand has important implications for users of memory products.As this article argues, the new state of the medical electronics market calls for wide deployment of secure memory devices, and for non-volatile memory chips which can store greater quantities of user data at a lower cost-per-bit.Personal medical devices at risk of intrusion or attackIf COVID-19 has taught us anything, it is the risk to health when large numbers of potentially infected people congregate in a confined space.For the foreseeable future, social distancing is going to continue to be mandatory in indoor spaces for citizens in many countries. Like schools and factories, hospitals too will be looking for ways to reduce the number of people gathered inside at any one time, to make it easier to maintain distance between people.Health systems are therefore going to be giving high priority to technologies which enable monitoring and diagnosis to take place outside the hospital, and which do not require the patient to be admitted to a ward for observation.Consumers are already familiar with wearable activity trackers which monitor physiological signs such as the user's heart rate. Now Winbond expects to see a rapid expansion in the use by medical practitioners of wearable devices for use in the treatment of a range of conditions.Patients can be expected to embrace this new approach to medical treatment. Covid-19 will not be the last novel virus to cause an epidemic: HIV, MERS and SARS are other recent examples, and a growing human population is certain to catch new diseases transferred from wild animals. And through COVID -19 we have learned that we are less likely to suffer if we are healthy at the time we become infected. Activity and health trackers provide a new way for consumers to maintain a more healthy lifestyle and to increase their resistance to new illnesses.So both specialist wearable diagnostic equipment and consumer wearable devices seem likely to become much more widely used post- COVID. This broad expansion of the user of wearable medical technology has huge implications for security, for two reasons:- Specialist medical equipment will in some cases be safety-critical - the user's life will depend on it. So the device must be safe from malicious attacks, such as denial of service attack, which could disable or impair its operation. - Private user data are logged and transmitted by a wearable device, normally over a wireless link such as a Bluetooth® Low Energy radio to a host device such as a smartphone. It is crucial to the user's trust in their device that these data should only be shared with authorized entities such as the user's physician.The risk to connected, wearable devices is real. Official bodies such as the US Food and Drug Administration (FDA) have issued a stream of warnings to device users and manufacturers about known risks, such as the SweynTooth family of cybersecurity vulnerabilities affecting Bluetooth Low Energy radio chipsets. The FDA's March 2020 announcement about SweynTooth said that 'software to exploit these vulnerabilities in certain situations is already publicly available'.Winbond is ready to help manufacturers of wearable and medical equipment to protect against threats such as SweynTooth by providing secure memory for code and data storage. In medical devices, exposure to threats is greatest when data or code are in transit: for instance, when logged heartbeat measurements are uploaded via a Bluetooth Low Energy link from a wearable heart monitor to the user's smartphone; or when updated firmware is delivered over-the-air from the cloud to the wearable device.In simple wearable products, security provision may be confined to a microcontroller or system-on-chip (SoC), which will include a small on-chip Flash memory area for secure code storage. In more sophisticated devices, however, the size of the code will be too large for the embedded MCU's memory, requiring the use of external Flash for code storage. If this external memory, however, does not provide security functions such as an encryption engine and a root-of-trust, then it will be vulnerable. And no matter how secure the host MCU or SoC, if the external memory is at risk, the whole device and its data are at risk.This is the problem solved by Winbond's TrustME family of secure memory products. The latest TrustME memory product, the W77Q, protects connected devices from remote software attack. By ensuring robust, end-to-end security in connected medical devices it enables:- Secure code updates, including over-the-air updates, via an end-to-end secure channel between an update authority and the W77Q even when the host MCU or SoC has been compromised.- Secure boot and root-of-trust- Authenticated and encrypted data transfer between the Flash device and the host- Execute-in-Place (XiP) of boot and application code- System resilience, enabled by the key security functions of protection, detection and recoveryHow to store a torrent of personal user data at lower costThe use of wearable and in-home patient monitoring equipment will relieve pressure on medical facilities and facilitate social distancing in surgeries and hospitals. But this personal equipment will generate a torrent of personal data. Multi-sensor monitoring equipment is already available to track various vital signs simultaneously, such as heart rate, heart-rate variability, blood oxygen levels, and temperature.Wearable devices cannot be assumed to have continuous access to the internet, so the system architecture has to allow for local storage of these user data. This means that wearable medical devices need high-density, non-volatile memory. And because decisions about a patient's diagnosis and treatment might be based on the data, data integrity is a mission-critical requirement.The traditional choice of memory type for non-volatile, error-free storage of data is NOR Flash. In low densities of below 512Mbits, NOR Flash is a cost-effective choice. When data capacity of 512Mbits or more is required, however, the fabrication process advantage of NAND Flash comes into play.Winbond's outlook on the medical equipment market suggests that high-reliability, high-speed alternatives to NOR Flash for user data are likely to become increasingly popular. This is why Winbond has developed new technologies to increase the Read and Write performance of its reliable Single-Level Cell (SLC) NAND Flash products.For instance, the W25N QspiNAND family is available in densities of 512Mbits, 1Gbit, 2Gbits and 4Gbits. It shares the same interface as conventional SPI NOR Flash for easy replacement in existing designs, and at densities of 512Mbits offers a lower cost-per-bit and a smaller board footprint. The W25N devices also feature fast Program/Erase performance, and high reliability: their specifications include more than 100,000 Program/Erase cycles, and longer than 10 years' data retention. An on-chip Error Correction Code (ECC) engine ensures that data in storage are free of bit errors.Winbond also offers a migration route to higher performance , for medical devices integrating a higher number of sensors and operating at higher sampling speeds: the High-Performance QspiNAND Flash and OctalNAND Flash products offer the same high-reliability SLC NAND Flash quality, but with even higher data bandwidth.A new generation of personal medical devicesThe implications of the Covid-19 pandemic are still emerging, but it is already clear that the medical world will need to embrace the use of more personal and wearable technology. Data are the key to these emerging personal medical devices - and this has huge implications for the design of security and storage systems.Winbond's forward-looking approach to memory technology has seen it take a lead in the development of secure NOR Flash products and high-reliability, high-density QspiNAND Flash. As the market for wearable medical technology evolves, OEMs can expect Winbond to continue to introduce new product types and technologies to meet the latest requirements for secure and low-cost code and data storage.The new state of the medical electronics market calls for wide deployment of secure memory devices, and for non-volatile memory chips which can store greater quantities of user data at a lower cost-per-bit.

Around the world, the Covid-19 pandemic, and the strict lockdowns which governments have imposed to try to control the spread of infection, have brought short-term upheaval to every aspect of people's lives.But looking ahead at the months and years to follow once the immediate crisis has passed, which changes in ordinary life are likely to endure? And how does a memory IC manufacturer such as Winbond ensure that it is ready to meet the changed requirements of electronics device OEMs?Winbond has worked hard to adapt its strategic product and technology plans in the light of the changed circumstances that it is now forecasting. This is the company's broad assessment of how the post-Covid world is going to shape up, and of the demands that this will place on suppliers to the memory IC market.Home working and home entertainment will become the new normalWhen governments imposed pandemic lockdowns, citizens were told that those who could work from home, should work from home. Companies scrambled to put in place new systems and processes which would allow for all or most workers to work from home.What was originally intended to be a short-term fix has turned out to be an efficient way of working. To most people's surprise, home working is one of the few positive changes to emerge from the pandemic. It turns out that people like it, and so do companies - it is a win-win. People save the time that they would otherwise have spent commuting, so have more time to spend with their families, or on leisure activities.And companies are now exploring the scope to save money on the provision of work spaces, particularly for office staff. They are also keen to make savings on business travel. Workers have discovered that they can achieve on video conference calls made on platforms such as Microsoft Teams, Zoom or Skype almost as much as they could in a face-to-face meeting, but without the cost, time and energy involved in business travel.For the sake both of people and of the organisations which employ them, home working is here to stay. And this means that there will be a surge in demand for the technologies which enable computing and communications equipment to work efficiently and effectively. Fibre-to-the-home (FTTH) and Wi-Fi 6 routers will be particularly popular to meet the home worker's need for high internet bandwidth. We will also see higher demand for computing equipment for home use. As so often before, predictions of the death of the PC are set to be proved wrong. We also expect to see strong growth in the market for the peripheral devices which make home working more comfortable or efficient, and for high-performance smartphones.Many home computing and communications devices depend on robust NOR or NAND Flash for boot code storage. Winbond's investment in developing QspiNAND Flash technology is important in this context: the QspiNAND Flash devices are lower-cost alternatives to conventional NOR Flash for storing code bigger than 512Mbits. The QspiNAND Flash products provide high-speed Read and Write performance sufficient for Code Shadowing operation, and have a small package size and low pin count, enabling OEMs to reduce the size and cost of the board. Board and cost savings are also a benefit of low pin-count HyperRAM memory devices for use in space-constrained computing peripherals such as wireless headsets or True Wireless earbuds.Another lockdown phenomenon which looks set to continue post-Covid is the use of advanced technology for home entertainment. Streaming video services such as Netflix and Amazon Prime are now even more popular than before. But another effect that Winbond forecasts is the emergence of demand for 8K TVs for the ultimate home cinema experience. Here, Winbond's Low-Power DDR3 (LPDDR3) DRAM products are the ideal choice: in the T-CON module in an 8K TV, a single LPDDR3 replaces multiple alternative components to offer a substantial space and cost saving.Societies will accept greater intrusion into private lives in the name of disease preventionAccepted practice will differ from country to country. But the general trend that we can already see around the world is that citizens will grant permission to the authorities to acquire and keep data about their movement and their contact with actually or potentially infected people, provided that this intrusion into privacy is required to limit the spread of Covid-19 or other infectious diseases.This trend has already led to the use of smartphone radio technologies and apps to work out who has been close to known infected people. In future, we can expect to see greater deployment of potentially even more intrusive technologies, such as IP cameras in public places, and camera drones monitoring compliance with social distancing regulations in public spaces.But while citizens might accept the acquisition and use of personal data for strictly medical purposes, they will not accept misuse or mishandling of the data. This looks set to boost demand for proven security components which can protect electronics devices such as cameras from tampering or hacking attack.Security and encryption are commonly regarded as functions to be implemented in a high-end digital system such as a microcontroller, Secure Element or microprocessor. But system designs in which boot code and/or personal data are stored in an external memory also need to take account of security requirements. Winbond anticipated this requirement for secure code storage with the development of its TrustME family of Secure Flash Memory products. The latest TrustME memory product, the W77Q is "Security by Design" to prevent IoT devices from remote software attack. The W77Q provides hardware root-of-trust and secure, encrypted data-storage and data-transfer capabilities. By ensuring robust, end-to-end security in IoT devices it enables:* Secure code updates, including over-the-air updates, via an end-to-end secure channel between an update authority and the W77Q even when the host processor or SoC has been compromised.* Secure boot and root-of-trust* Authenticated and encrypted data transfer between the Flash device and the host* Execute-in-Place (XiP) of boot and application code* System resilience, featured by the key security functions of protection, detection and recoveryDRAM development also puts Winbond in prime position to meet the emerging needs of manufacturers of IP cameras and camera drones for surveillance and people tracking. As in 8K TVs, so in these video devices the latest LPDDR3 DRAM will provide the high bandwidth which high-resolution video systems require, while offering easier integration into end product designs than the LPDDR4 or LPDDR5 generations of DRAM technology.Robots and AI will replace human workers at an accelerating paceThe Covid-19 pandemic has demonstrated how vulnerable some companies are to the suspension of operations when workers become unavailable. In future, companies will be looking to implement more resilient systems which rely less on the physical presence of human workers in a specific location.In addition, by reducing the number of human workers required to operate on any given site, organisations will make it easier to maintain social distancing in the workplace.This trend for the adoption of robotics, backed by increasingly sophisticated Artificial Intelligence (AI) and machine learning technologies, will lead to rapid growth in demand for fast microprocessors (MPUs) and graphics processors (GPUs). The sophisticated and complex software which these devices execute will in turn drive the market for high-density, high-bandwidth code storage devices.Winbond's long-range strategic planning enabled it to detect this emerging requirement before the current market conditions caused interest in AI and robotics to flourish. One result was the development of its OctalNAND Flash memory.The first OctalNAND Flash device, the 1Gbit W35N01JW, sets a new benchmark for the Read performance of NAND Flash technology: a maximum Continuous Read throughput of 240Mbytes/s, three times faster than Winbond's earlier high-performance W25N-JW QspiNAND Flash family, and almost 10 times faster than general QspiNAND Flash products on the market.At this level of performance, OctalNAND Flash can replace Octal NOR Flash with limited loss of Read performance, and at a lower cost-per-bit at densities higher than 512Mbits. Winbond's OctalNAND Flash is thus an ideal replacement for Octal NOR Flash for storing large code bases, such as those of robots and other systems which take advantage of the capabilities of AI and machine learning.Anticipating the memory requirements arising from mega-trendsWhile the world's focus in 2020 is rightly on the immediate medical emergency of Covid-19, it is right to be looking forward to the changes in business practices and technology operations which the pandemic is likely to cause. By carefully analysing market requirements and understanding end user behaviour, Winbond puts itself in an excellent position to develop the memory products which will help its customers succeed in a post-Covid world. From QspiNAND Flash to TrustME Secure Flash memory to LPDDR DRAM, Winbond has memory products which are ready for the future, whatever it might bring.(Note: Johnson Chen is executive sales director at Winbond Electronics.)Three mega-trends for a post-Covid world