Internet of Things - Company and Research Focus

I have trained a few manufacturing & engineering techs (technicians) in the semiconductor and electronics industries over the years and I can tell you that in no uncertain terms that whatever I've ever been able to do has been as a direct and indirectly has been because of the technicians that I worked with or for me on my product development teams  (Specifically @Cherie Robinson who was hands down the best engineering technician that this engineer could possibly be lucky to have had to work and collaboratie with - those printed circuit boards don't build themselves)   In this video Gina Robles is part of a team that introduces bare #silicon into the factory and then ships off the finished product to its next step.  As a #manufacturing tech at #Intel Arizona, It’s a job she loves, and one she’s had for +26 years. Gina shares more about life in the fab in this video.

This is part 1 of a 2 part series from my colleague Mr. Hyo-June Kim formerly of Samsung Electronics. When I was training TRIZ at Intel Corporation, he likewise was responsible for the training of the folks at Samung,  This part and the second one to follow are illustrative of the how Samsung approached the solution set of Steve Jobs of One Hand User Interface and Samsung's solution set of Smart User Interface, there are a couple videos here too to get your head wrapped around this....for all of you Software Engineering and UX/UI folks out there, here's an illustrative example of how TRIZ methods have been used to help  direct the thinking to come up with competitive designs. #TRIZ #UX #UI #Apple #SystematicInnovation 

Faced with the problem of chip bottlenecks, Huawei recently released a patent for a new extreme ultraviolet (EUV) lithography technology. Huawei's patent EUV technology solves the problem that coherent light cannot be made uniform due to the formation of a fixed interference pattern. It is optimized on the basis of extreme ultraviolet light lithography devices. In order to achieve the purpose of uniform light. Huawei's abandondoned its illusions of subservience to US technology restrictions and is signalling it will be investing in the R&D of lithography machines. The lithography machine is an indispensable key equipment for wafer manufacturing, and the most advanced manufacturer of lithography machine technology is made by the Dutch company ASM, who develops and manufactures DUV (Deep EUV) lithography machines and EUV lithography machines. The former is mainly for manufacturing Wafers with a low-end process below 28nm, the latter mainly manufactures wafers with a high-end process below 7nm. EUV lithography uses 10-14 nanometer extreme ultraviolet light provides the highest technical level in the market. Due to the US restrictions , mainland manufacturers can only purchase DUV lithography machines, but cannot obtain EUV lithography machines. The high-performance chips developed by Huawei, such as the Kirin 9000, cannot be manufactured by ASML's high-end EUV lithography machine, and the current domestic equipment in mainland China cannot produce chips with advanced processes such as 7nm and 5nm in the short term. Other Chinese have also proposed technologies related to EUV lithography machines. - Tsinghua University has overcome the technical barriers of light sources and mastered new light sources that can be used in EUV lithography machines. The Chinese Academy of Sciences has also mastered the technology of objective lens systems.  Despite these technology moves, it is not easy to manufacture a lithography machine because its internal components exceed 100,000 and require a huge supply chain. This could be a major obstacle for Lu Fang to make his own lithography machine. By Huawei developing their own lithography machines, and at the same time develops technology to "bypass" lithography machines altogether, as in  stacked IC technology that has already been proposed (2D, 2.5D and 3D) provides multiple paths forward for Huawei and other Chinese seminconductor manufacturing firms.  ASML recently announced at a customer meeting that it will continue to increase its R&D investment. 

Inflation, business downcycle, and uncertainties of the Ukraine War may have converged into a perfect storm to force Intel Corp to push back its original plan of starting mega fab construction in the first half of 2023. German newspaper Volksstimme reported that Intel has decided to delay its original target of fab construction in Magdeburg  coming online in 2027 will be pushed back, hoping to get more subsidies from Germany and the EU. Intel spokesperson Benjamin Barteder said , "Geopolitical challenges have grown and demand for semiconductors has fallen. This means we cannot yet give a definitive date for the start of construction."  The report said rising energy cost and raw materials has exceeded Intel's expectations, and geopolitical tension made a funding gap emerge. Intel said  "We are working with partners in the government to push the project forward,". Construction costs have also run amok. The budget for each fab was estimated at EUR17 billion, but now getting closer to EUR20 billion. The heavy burden of equipment expenditures for new fabs is also another huge pressure for Intel.  "Intel is too ambitious, it is investing for Arizona fab expansion, as well as US$100 billion in the Ohio mega fab, and multi-billion expansions at its Ireland and Israel fabs simulteanously," It might have been over-optimistic in 1H 2022. Intel has announced that it would cut capital expenditures to US$25 billion for 2023 from the previously announced US$27 billion and is planning job cuts.

Mastodon, a decentralized social media platform that many are turning to as a Twitter alternative, saw its userbase skyrocket from about 300,000 monthly active users to 2.5 million between October and November, Mastodon’s CEO, founder, and lead developer Eugen Rochko said in a new blog post.   Mastodon isn’t the only Twitter replacement that people are turning to. There’s Post, headed up by former Waze CEO Noam Bardin, Hive, which recently relaunched after dealing with some security issues, and familiar social platforms like Discord, Tumblr, and Reddit. And despite the growing interest in something that’s not Twitter, the bird app is still hanging on; more than 17.5 million people voted in Musk’s recent poll asking if he should step down as the CEO of Twitter, after all. (The people voted in favor of him quitting.) Musk has also repeatedly claimed that the site’s usage is at an all-time high. Elon Musk officially took over Twitter in late October, meaning Mastodon’s huge jump in users almost directly followed Musk’s new ownership. Rochko’s post also addressed Twitter’s now-reversed bans on sharing links to Mastodon, many journalists, and the @joinmastodon account itself following the still-in-place ban on @ElonJet. “This is a stark reminder that centralized platforms can impose arbitrary and unfair limits on what you can and can’t say while holding your social graph hostage,” Rochko said. “At Mastodon, we believe that there doesn’t have to be a middleman between you and your audience and that journalists and government institutions especially should not have to rely on a private platform to reach the public.”

The European Union on Monday accused Facebook parent Meta of breaching antitrust rules by distorting competition in the online classified ads business, the bloc’s latest maneuver to curb the power of Big Tech companies. In its complaint following an investigation launched last year, the EU’s executive commission took issue with Meta's tying its online classified ad business, Facebook Marketplace, to Facebook. It’s also concerned that Meta imposes unfair trading conditions on rivals “for its own benefit.” “The claims made by the European Commission are without foundation,” said Tim Lamb, Meta’s head of EMEA competition. “We will continue to work with regulatory authorities to demonstrate that our product innovation is pro-consumer and pro-competitive.” The company said it will study the complaints and is fully cooperating with the Commission’s investigation. The commission, the 27-nation bloc’s top antitrust enforcer, said that by tying Marketplace to its social network, Facebook users automatically have access to Marketplace “whether they want it or not,” raising concerns that competitors are shut out because the tie gives Marketplace an advantage that they can’t match. 

The RISC-V instruction set has given the design engineer a solid basis for system design using an FPGA with a processor core and standard or custom extensions. The no-cost RISC-V instruction set is open and frozen, and processor designs and extensions will continue to work well, even as RISC-V evolves. RISC-V-based processors are used for imaging and sensor interface, military and aerospace, Internet of Things (IoT), automotive and rail transportation, and industrial controls. RISC-V designs offer high-data throughput that is needed across several applications, including smart embedded vision, hybrid and electric vehicles, wireless communication infrastructure, and robotics. And the ease of running a real-time operating system, including Linux, makes for robust control systems design. FPGA's are probably the best way to implement RISC-V processor-based designs. The engineer may choose a soft-core processor that is implemented using the FPGA fabric or a hard-core CPU that is physically implemented as a structure in the silicon during manufacturing. A soft core may offer a higher level of design reuse and reduced obsolescence risk, while the hard core is the performance champ. FPGAs are great for implementing operations that are either very complex or time-consuming for general-purpose CPUs. Block ciphers and cryptographic functions, for example, are performed by CPUs using a great many cycles and requiring much more time than a specialized FPGA fabric available as a fully designed IP core.

+46,000 people lost +$1 billion on crypto trading to scams and fraud between Jan. 1, 2021 through March 31, according to the FTC.

Since fiscal year 2019, the SEC has received over 23,000 tips, complaints and referrals involving the crypto markets. While FTX’s failure “precipitated price decreases in Bitcoin and other crypto-assets,” there has been “limited impact on the broader U.S. financial system” due to the current regulatory framework. The crypto currency market is rife with fraud, failures to comply with existing laws and big swings in volatility, but the recent implosion of digital currency exchange FTX hasn’t hampered the broader financial system, according to a report released Friday by Treasury’s Financial Stability Oversight Committee. “FTX is a shock to that market,” a Treasury official said, adding that the bankruptcy underscores the committee’s concern about crypto highlighted in a report it released in October. The committee, which was created after the financial crisis to identify looming risks to the financial system, reiterated its call for Congress to pass legislation that allows U.S. regulators to police spot markets for crypto assets that aren’t securities. The council also said lawmakers need to address regulatory arbitrage, when companies take advantage of more favorable or lighter regulation in multiple jurisdictions to circumvent tighter oversight in the U.S.

U.S. Marines with 3rd Assault Amphibian Battalion, 1st Marine Division, conduct operational tests to deploy the Amphibious Combat Vehicle (ACV), the Assault Amphibious Vehicle (AAV) replacement.
The three ships that make up the Makin Island Amphibious Ready Group (ARG) – USS Makin Island (LHD-8), USS John P. Murtha (LPD-26) and USS Anchorage (LPD-23) – and the 13th Marine Expeditionary Unit (MEU) embarked going to be the first ARG/MEU to deploy with the new ACV.  

So its Saturday evening here in the US as I write this, and I came across this most famous of songs "East Bound and Down" by Jerry Reed, that its embedded in one of the better films of 1977, besides "Star Wars" that has to be be in one of my top 3 films, and I also think Burt Reyonolds best film of his career, in my opinion...not for nothing, enjoy this break from all of your scrolling through the posts on LinkedIn, and Twitter and catch a smile, as I did in watchin Burt do Burt, and Jerry Reed put a soundtrack to it, well matched by the way.  Enjoy.

AT&T is very bullish on the future of connected cars and said it’s working with BMW and Polaris on connected vehicle technologies.

BMW is using “AT&T NumberSync for Connected Car” for owners of select vehicle models equipped with BMW Personal eSIM. AT&T’s technology syncs the BMW owner’s smartphone number with their car to use mobile data and make and receive hands-free calls on the go in the U.S. – even if their smartphone isn’t with them. The AT&T NumberSync for Connected Car costs $20 per month + taxes and fees. AT&T has already talked about how it is distributing its 5G standalone, and has launched 10 5G edge zones and plans to roll out 2 more before the EOY 2022 Mike Troiano, SVP of product and pricing for AT&T Business, said, “These network edge zones are part of the massive infrastructure we’ve put in place to support a more connected transportation ecosystem. The zones combine 5G standalone core with other advanced technologies to bring network services closer to the user, allowing for faster response times when accessing data.” Troiano said AT&T has “relationships with dozens of automakers”  AT&T would like to turn into reality that Vehicles talk to each other, interacting with traffic lights, and seeing around corners.
Ambulances sending X-rays taken in transport to a hospital in near real-time and cars becoming mobile wallets with the use of blockchain technology and IoT.

India starts investing in the global semiconductor market. India's Tata Group will begin producing semiconductors in the country within a few years, a move that the chairman of the group's main company said will make the South Asian country a key part of global chip supply chains. Tata Sons Chairman Natarajan Chandrasekaran revealed that the conglomerate plans to launch new businesses in emerging fields such as electric vehicles.  Video is from DW News

Intel reported Q1 2023 results showing a staggering 133% annual reduction in earnings per share. Revenue dropped nearly 36% year over year to $11.7 billion from $18.4 billion a year ago, its largest quarterly loss in the company history. It’s the 5th consecutive quarter of falling sales for the semiconductor giant and the 2nd consecutive quarter of losses. It’s also Intel’s largest quarterly loss of all time, beating out the fourth quarter of 2017, when it lost $687 million. “We still have more work to do as we reestablish process, product, and cost leadership, but we continue to provide proof points each quarter,” said CEO Pat Gelsinger.  Global PC shipments dropped nearly 30% in the Q1, according to IDC, (the entire industry is in a slump) from Intel’s Client Computing group, who make desktop and laptop PCs, reported $5.8 billion in revenue, down 38% on an annual basis. “We are seeing increasing stability in the PC market with inventory corrections largely proceeding as we had expected,”  Intel’s Data Center and AI segment suffered an even worse decline, falling 39% to $3.7 billion. “Server and networking markets have yet to reach their bottoms as cloud and enterprise remain weak,” Gelsinger said.  “Maybe the best way to describe it is I think for the back half of the year, we feel like we’ll be comfortably in the 40s from a gross margin perspective,” CFO David Zinsner said on the call.

This is part 2 of a 2 part series from my colleague Mr. Hyo-June Kim formerly of Samsung Electronics. When I was training TRIZ at Intel Corporation, he likewise was responsible for the training of the folks at Samung,  This second one is illustrative of the how Samsung created the Digital Wallet solution set as a part of Samsung's competitive solution set of Smart User Interface vs Steve Jobs of One Hand User Interface, there are a couple videos here too to get your head wrapped around this....for all of you Software Engineering and UX/UI folks out there, here's an illustrative example of how TRIZ methods have been used to help  direct the thinking to come up with competitive designs as well as how to do a Digital Wallet. #TRIZ #UX #UI #Apple #SystematicInnovation

It is related to EUV lithography technology Huawei announced a new patent  According to the official Chinese website of the State Intellectual Property Office, Huawei Technologies Co.,  announced a patent related to lithography technology on November 15, with the patent application number 202110524685X. According to the disclosure, the patent application provides a reflector, a lithography device and its control method, which relate to the field of optics and can solve the problem that coherent light cannot be homogenized due to the formation of a fixed interference pattern. Based on the extreme ultraviolet light lithography device Optimized to achieve the purpose of uniform light. The lithography apparatus includes a coherent light source, a mirror (also called a decoherent mirror), and an illumination system. The reflecting mirror can be rotated; for example, a rotating device can be provided in the photolithography apparatus, and the reflecting mirror can rotate driven by the rotating device.  The apparatus, after being reflected by the rotating mirror, the light emitted by the coherent light source is divided into multiple sub-beams by the illumination system and projected onto the mask plate for photolithography. The illumination system is an important component, and its main function is to provide high-uniform illumination (uniform light), control exposure dose, and realize off-axis illumination, etc., so as to improve the resolution of lithography and increase the Depth of focus. The uniform light function of the lighting system can be realized by a Kohler lighting structure. The lighting system includes a field flyeye mirror (field flyeye mirror, FFM), a diaphragm flyeye mirror (diaphragm flyeye mirror, PFM), and a relay mirror group 33;  The relay mirror group generally included +2 relay mirrors. The illumination system divides the light beam from the coherent light source into multiple sub-beams through the field of view compound lens and each sub-beam is adjusted to the direction of irradiation and the shape of the field of view through the diaphragm compound lens , and is adjusted by the relay lens group. After adjusting the size and/or shape of the field of view, it is projected onto the illuminated area of ​​the reticle. Setting the reflector on the optical path between the coherent light source  and the illumination system, in this case, the phase of the light emitted by the coherent light source is continuously changed after being reflected by the rotating reflector.  When the light is reflected by the mirror  it's divided into multiple sub-beams by the illumination system and projected onto the mask, the interference pattern formed in the illuminated area of ​​the mask is constantly changing the illumination The cumulative light intensity of the field of view within the exposure time is uniformized, so as to achieve the purpose of light uniformity, and then solve the problem of why the light cannot be uniform due to the formation of a fixed interference pattern by coherent light.

Binance, one of the world's largest cryptocurrency exchanges, is facing questions about its business model and the stability of crypto markets. Binance chief strategy officer Patrick Hillmann joins CBS News to discuss the impact FTX's collapse is having on the market, a 6 minute video

Steve Jobs is considered by many to be the mastermind of Apple and its immeasurable impact on the world of technology. According to one former company exec, however, Jobs wouldn’t have gotten as far as he did without the assistance of Tim Cook, who served as Executive VP for Worldwide Sales and Operations and now CEO of Apple.  “While I’m in no position to comment on many things about [Jobs], the journey of ...Tim Cook and others, the closest to him, as an outsider when people would ask me, I’d say ‘if it weren’t for Tim Cook, Steve wouldn’t have succeeded...” Satjiv Chahil, former CMO at Apple). The reason for that, Chahil explained, was because operationally, the company was “always a disaster.” “Products wouldn’t show up,”. “Some wouldn’t work. They’d land in the wrong country.”  When Cook was asked by Jobs to join Apple in 1998, he initially served as Senior VP for Worldwide Operations. One of his first major moves was closing factories and warehouses around the world, instead opting to establish relationships with contract manufacturers. As a result, according to CNN Business, “Apple’s inventory, measured by the amount of time it sat on the company’s balance sheet, quickly fell from months to days.”  Cook also helped spearhead early company investments into flash memory, which helped Apple create its initial products like the iPod Nano. “Ever since [Jobs] got Tim Cook, they’re like a machine,” Chahil said. “The products always landed in the end. In companies, the unsung heroes are the operation guys who make everything work. But there’s nothing brilliantly new that hit.” Cook became lead operations in 2007, then filled in the CEO role in 2009 when Jobs took his 1st MLA (medical leave of absence). In 2011, he took the helm once more when Jobs was forced to take another MLA due to cancer. Cook became in charge of Apple’s operations, keeping the ship afloat for Jobs in the meantime.

That assertion, that ESG improves the bottom or top line of a firm, puts the cart before the horse. Instead, it’s vital 1st to ask questions: what exactly are ESG, “socially-responsible” and “sustainable” investing? Do they make logical (and functional) sense? What are the key empirical claims? Do these claims correspond to reality? Whom does ESG and others benefit?  The article highlights 5 Hard truths that ESG’s enthusiasts obscure or refuse to acknowledge:  (1) ESG isn’t just internally inconsistent: it’s fundamentally incoherent, innately subjective and in crucial respects unmeasurable. (2) Investors’ concerns about ESG’s returns are justified: there’s no convincing evidence that “socially responsible” or “environmentally sustainable” investments outperform – and there are strong reasons to expect that today they don’t and in the future they won’t. (3) Concerns about “greenwashing” are warranted: with prominent ESG investment vehicles as high-fee bottles containing the same wine as lower-fee and non-ESG investments. (4)  Warren Buffett and Charlie Munger “certainly aren’t leading the charge on ESG investing.” What does that tell you? - meaning no value in it.  (5)  ESG doesn’t benefit investors, and on balance likely harms them. It does, however, it does benefit advocates at investors’ expense. ESG fails morally: its advocates encourage its practitioners to parade their vanity, ignore shareholders and evade accountability. ESG, in short, is socially irresponsible

We are in the midst of a semiconductor design renaissance. Nearly every major company in the world has their own silicon strategy as they try to become vertically integrated. There are also more chip startups than ever. The industry is rapidly shifting away from using Intel CPUs (x-86 CISC Architecture) for everything,  designs are flocking towards heterogeneous architectures which are more specialized for their specific task. Specialized chips massively outperform CPUs if software challenges are solved, but there is a dark side to this specialization strategy. Fixed cost are exploding, and volumes are driven down massively for these designs. Semiconductors are an industry of economies of scale, and this is only becoming more apparent with each new technology generation.

Wafer manufacturing is a cycle of defining features with lithography and building them with deposition, etch, and other process steps. The leading edge of semiconductors involve using more than 60 unique layers of lithography and accompanying steps. Each of these layers necessitates a unique photomask. Wafer prices are increasing, but the cost of a mask set is increasing even more rapidly. The chart above from IC Knowledge demonstrates the conundrum. Volumes have to be significantly higher across eras of process technology to take advantage of the economic improvement from shrinking transistors.  Read on for more of Dylan Patel's thorough analysis on this challenge facing the semiconductor industry.

The collection of all the masks is called a mask set. These photomask sets convert the design from a chip architect to physical features. In the most laymen terms, a mask set can be thought of as a group of stencils which contains the design of a chip. Every unique chip design requires its own mask set. There are many clever tricks that are being used to lower costs of designing that chip, but the biggest hinderances to bringing that design to market is the cost of a mask set. On a foundry process node, at 90nm to 45nm, mask sets cost on the order of hundreds of thousands of dollars. At 28nm it moves beyond $1M. With 7nm, the cost increases beyond $10M, and now, as we cross the 3nm barrier, mask sets will begin to push into the $50M range.

An introductory look at RISC-V and how discrete chips and cores provide a learning experience that gives designers a head start in gaining familiarity with the architecture and tools. Reduced Instruction Set Computers (RISC) are not new architectures; they have been around for decades as an alternative to the Complex Instruction Set Computers (CISC) that preceded them. Like CISC processors, different manufacturers have different internal architectures, peripherals, I/O, and instruction sets. This requires having development tools tailored to the specific manufacturer and parts to develop a design. Development tool-makers deal with this by maintaining different "plug-ins" and header files for the development toolchains for each processor—quite a task. The RISC-V project began in 2010 at Berkeley, CA, with both Berkeley and non-Berkeley experts and contributors, it's only been since 2018 that RISC-V has gained more attention from processor manufacturers and design engineers. This is due to its promise of freeing designs from being locked into a manufacturer's part or family of parts. RISC-V is an open specification for an Instruction Set Architecture (ISA) that allows any manufacturer to make a processor that will run the same code. Why is the timing of this so important? The Advanced RISC Machine (ARM) architected processors are the dominant RISC force in the market today, but it is not uncommon for a company to pay six-figure licensing fees up front and very high-cost royalties.  Many factors are in play to ensure the long-term sustainability of leading-edge technologies, especially for military and security needs. The open-source RISC-V architecture is well-positioned to satisfy everyone’s needs.

The key is that the uses of open-source RISC-V instructions are layered and extensible. This means that using the open-source standard instructions set still allows the creation of Application Specific Instruction-set Processors (ASIPs) by letting designers add instructions that perform deeply embedded functions more efficiently. This can take the form of chip maker's extensions that differentiate themselves or ASIC/FPGA hardware developed from the mind of design engineers everywhere. EDA vendors can support extensions through Verilog or VHDL, for example.  

U.S. authorities opened a preliminary investigation into General Motors' Cruise autonomous driving program following sudden stop incidents, according to a notice seen Friday by AFP. The National Highway Traffic Safety Administration (NHTSA) is reviewing 2 types of incidents that result in Cruise vehicles "becoming unexpected roadway obstacles,"  Cruise began offering 1st-in-the-nation commercial driverless taxi service to the public in part of San Francisco in June. While there have been no fatalities from the incidents, 2 people were slightly injured, the investigation comes on the heels of an ongoing NHTSA probe into Tesla's "Autopilot" driver-assistance system. The agency received three incident reports in which Cruise vehicles were struck by another auto from the rear following a "hard braking maneuver,". Cruise recalled 80 vehicles in 2022 to upgrade software following an incident in June in which one of its cars was hit from the rear by another vehicle after breaking sharply while making an unprotected left turn. The review by NHTSA's Office of Defects Investigation covers around 242 vehicles and aims to determine the frequency of the incidents and their safety consequences.

A vice president of the European Parliament has been charged with corruption over allegations that World Cup host Qatar paid huge bribes to influence EU policy. Eva Kaili has been stripped of her powers after investigators reportedly found bags of cash in her home. She's one of four people arrested so far in connection with the scandal.

Envision AESC, a Japanese electric vehicle (EV) battery company and BMW supplier, announced December 6 it would build a new battery factory in Florence County, South Carolina. The “gigafactory” will cover 1.5 million square feet, employ 1,170, and cost about $810 million. AESC said the new plant would support battery manufacturing for new EVs built at BMW Group’s Spartanburg plant, also in South Carolina. The new factory is slated to produce a 30GWh of output a year, and AESC says it will use renewable energy sources, battery recycling, and energy management software to operate at net zero carbon emissions. AESC CEO Shoichi Matsumoto, in a statement, said the new plant is “a milestone” in the company’s mission to produce batteries for a new generation of electric vehicles.

The “advanced battery format” models will feature 20% higher energy density than existing batteries, which AESC says will reduce charging time and increase vehicle range.

Five states have banned TikTok on government devices, citing national security concerns over the app's ties to China. Robert Anderson, chairman and CEO of Cyber Defense Labs, spoke to CBS News about the extent of those security concerns.  "The (TikTok) App is in the hands of a country that does not share (or respect) or values"