Category Archives: MEMS

STMicroelectronics (NYSE: STM) has taken underwater accuracy to new heights with its latest miniature pressure sensor, which is featured in the new Samsung Gear Fit 2 Pro.

As smart watches and wearable fitness trackers permeate the fabric of everyday life, owners want to go further with their devices and track performance across extra activities like swimming. Samsung’s Gear Fit 2 Pro, the next generation of sports band, supports these trends with features like built-in GPS, continuous heart rate monitoring, and larger on-board memory to do more even when not connected to a smartphone. ST’s new waterproof pressure sensor, the LPS33HW, is part of the mix: resistant to chemicals like chlorine, bromine, and salt water, it is ideal for pool or sea swimming, and will also resist soaps or detergents used when showering or cleaning.

Wearables are only just beginning to swim, and waterproofing pressure sensors creates challenges beyond just protecting the electronics. The LPS33HW is not only the most accurate, but also helps OEMs get their products to the store-shelves more quickly by recovering sooner after the stresses of manufacturing. Other sensors can require up to seven days to regain maximum accuracy after coming off the production line, but devices containing the LPS33HW are ready for action in less than half that time. This is due to the sensor’s high-performance built-in processor and the advanced formula of its water-resistant gel filling.

“Wearable trackers enhance smart living, and can now deliver an important extra boost with the go-anywhere ruggedness aided by our water-resistant LPS33HW sensor,” said Andrea Onetti, MEMS Sensor Division General Manager, STMicroelectronics. “Samsung takes advantage of the pressure sensor’s best-in-class performance for the new Gear Fit 2 Pro range and users will appreciate both its accuracy and toughness.”

In addition to smart consumer devices like wearables, other equipment including industrial sensors and utility meters can also benefit from the robustness and high measurement accuracy of the LPS33HW. The 10bar pressure sensor can withstand being submerged up to 90 meters, and the very low RMS pressure noise of 0.008mbar allows apps like an altimeter, depth gauge, or weather monitor to deliver consistent and stable results. The sensor accuracy drifts by less than ±1mbar per year.

When soldered to a circuit board during product manufacture, the accuracy is affected by less than ±2mbar, and returns to normal after less than 72 hours – significantly quicker than similar water-resistant pressure sensors.

The LPS33HW is in production now, in a 3.3mm x 3.3mm x 2.9mm cylindrical metal package suitable for use with O-ring seals, priced from $4.50 for orders of 1000 pieces.

Fibers made of carbon nanotubes configured as wireless antennas can be as good as copper antennas but 20 times lighter, according to Rice University researchers. The antennas may offer practical advantages for aerospace applications and wearable electronics where weight and flexibility are factors.

The research appears in Applied Physics Letters.

The discovery offers more potential applications for the strong, lightweight nanotube fibers developed by the Rice lab of chemist and chemical engineer Matteo Pasquali. The lab introduced the first practical method for making high-conductivity carbon nanotube fibers in 2013 and has since tested them for use as brain implants and in heart surgeries, among other applications.

The research could help engineers who seek to streamline materials for airplanes and spacecraft where weight equals cost. Increased interest in wearables like wrist-worn health monitors and clothing with embedded electronics could benefit from strong, flexible and conductive fiber antennas that send and receive signals, Pasquali said.

The Rice team and colleagues at the National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST) developed a metric they called “specific radiation efficiency” to judge how well nanotube fibers radiated signals at the common wireless communication frequencies of 1 and 2.4 gigahertz and compared their results with standard copper antennas. They made thread comprising from eight to 128 fibers that are about as thin as a human hair and cut to the same length to test on a custom rig that made straightforward comparisons with copper practical.

“Antennas typically have a specific shape, and you have to design them very carefully,” said Rice graduate student Amram Bengio, the paper’s lead author. “Once they’re in that shape, you want them to stay that way. So one of the first experimental challenges was getting our flexible material to stay put.”

Contrary to earlier results by other labs (which used different carbon nanotube fiber sources), the Rice researchers found the fiber antennas matched copper for radiation efficiency at the same frequencies and diameters. Their results support theories that predicted the performance of nanotube antennas would scale with the density and conductivity of the fiber.

“Not only did we find that we got the same performance as copper for the same diameter and cross-sectional area, but once we took the weight into account, we found we’re basically doing this for 1/20th the weight of copper wire,” Bengio said.

“Applications for this material are a big selling point, but from a scientific perspective, at these frequencies carbon nanotube macro-materials behave like a typical conductor,” he said. Even fibers considered “moderately conductive” showed superior performance, he said. Although manufacturers could simply use thinner copper wires instead of the 30-gauge wires they currently use, those wires would be very fragile and difficult to handle, Pasquali said.

“Amram showed that if you do three things right — make the right fibers, fabricate the antenna correctly and design the antenna according to telecommunication protocols — then you get antennas that work fine,” he said. “As you go to very thin antennas at high frequencies, you get less of a disadvantage compared with copper because copper becomes difficult to handle at thin gauges, whereas nanotubes, with their textile-like behavior, hold up pretty well.”

The 63rd annual IEEE International Electron Devices Meeting (IEDM), to be held December 2-6, 2017 at the Hilton San Francisco Union Square hotel, may go down as one of the most memorable editions for the sheer variety and depth of its talks, sessions, courses and events.

Among the most-anticipated talks are presentations by Intel and Globalfoundries, which will each detail their forthcoming competing FinFET transistor technology platforms in a session on Wednesday morning. FinFET transistors are a major driver of the continuing progress of the electronics industry, and these platforms are as important for their commercial potential as they are for their technical innovations.*

Each year at the IEDM, the world’s best technologists in micro/nano/bioelectronics converge to participate in a technical program consisting of more than 220 presentations, along with other events.

“Those who attend IEDM 2017 will find much that is familiar, beginning with a technical program describing breakthroughs in areas ranging from mainstream CMOS technology to innovative nanoelectronics to medical devices. The Sunday Short Courses are also a perennial favorite because they are not only comprehensive but are also taught by accomplished world experts,” said Dr. Barbara De Salvo, Scientific Director at Leti. “But we have added some new features this year. One is a fourth Plenary session, on Wednesday morning, featuring Nobel winner Hiroshi Amano. Another is a revamped Tuesday evening panel. Not only will it focus on a topic of great interest to many people, it is designed to be more open and less formal.”

Other features of the IEDM 2017 include:

  • Focus Sessions on the following topics: 3D Integration and Packaging; Modeling Challenges for Neuromorphic Computing; Nanosensors for Disease Diagnostics; and Silicon Photonics: Current Status and Perspectives.
  • A vendor exhibition will be held, based on the success of last year’s event at the IEDM.
  • The IEEE Magnetics Society will again host a joint poster session on MRAM (magnetic RAM) in the exhibit area. New for this year, though, is that the Society will also hold its annual MRAM Global Innovation Forum on Thursday, Dec. 7 at the same hotel, enabling IEDM attendees to participate. (Refer to the IEEE Magnetics Society website.) The forum consists of invited talks by leading experts and a panel discussion.

Here are details of some of the events that will take place at this year’s IEDM:

90-Minute Tutorials – Saturday, Dec. 2
These tutorials on emerging technologies will be presented by leading technical experts in each area, with the goal of bridging the gap between textbook-level knowledge and cutting-edge current research.

  • The Evolution of Logic Transistors Toward Low Power and High Performance IoT Applications, Dr. Dae Won Ha, Samsung Electronics
  • Negative Capacitance Transistors, Prof. Sayeef Salahuddin, UC Berkeley
  • Fundamental, Thermal, and Energy Limits of PCM and ReRAM, Prof. Eric Pop, Stanford University
  • Hardware Opportunities in Cognitive Computing: Near- and Far-Term, Dr. Geoffrey Burr, Principal Research Staff Member, IBM Research-Almaden
  • 2.5D Interposers and High-Density Fanout Packaging as Enablers for Future Systems Integration, Dr. Venkatesh Sundaram, Associate Director, Georgia Tech 3D Systems Packaging Research Center
  • Silicon Photonics for Next-Generation Optical Interconnects, Dr. Joris Van Campenhout, Program Director Optical I/O, Imec

Short Courses – Sunday, Dec. 3
The day-long Short Courses provide the opportunity to learn about important developments in key areas, and they enable attendees to network with the industry’s leading technologists.

Boosting Performance, Ensuring Reliability, Managing Variability in Sub-5nm CMOS, organized by Sandy Liao of Intel, will feature the following sections:

  • Transistor Performance Elements for 5nm Node and Beyond, Gen Tsutsui, IBM
  • Multi-Vt Engineering and Gate Performance Control for Advanced FinFET Architecture, Steve CH Hung, Applied Materials
  • Sub-5nm Interconnect Trends and Opportunities, Zsolt Tokei, Imec
  • Transistor Reliability: Physics, Current Status, and Future Considerations, Stephen M. Ramey, Intel
  • Back End Reliability Scaling Challenges, Variation Management, and Performance Boosters for sub-5nm CMOS,Cathyrn Christiansen, Globalfoundries
  • Design-Technology Co-Optimization for Beyond 5nm Node, Andy Wei, TechInsights

Merged Memory-Logic Technologies and Their Applications, organized by Kevin Zhang of TSMC, will feature the following sections:

  • Embedded Non Volatile Memory for Automotive Applications, Alfonso Maurelli, STMicroelectronics
  • 3D ReRAM: Crosspoint Memory Technologies, Nirmal Ramaswamy, Micron
  • Ferroelectric Memory in CMOS Processes, Thomas Mikolajick, Namlab
  • Embedded Memories Technology Scaling & STT-MRAM for IoT & Automotive, Danny P. Shum, Globalfoundries
  • Embedded Memories for Energy-Efficient Computing, Jonathan Chang, TSMC
  • Abundant-Data Computing: The N3XT 1,000X, Subhasish Mitra, Stanford University

Plenary Presentations – Monday, Dec. 4

  • Driving the Future of High-Performance Computing, Lisa Su, President & CEO, AMD
  • Energy-Efficient Computing and Sensing: From Silicon to the Cloud, Adrian Ionescu, Professor, EPFL
  • System Scaling Innovation for Intelligent Ubiquitous Computing, Jack Sun, VP of R&D, TSMC

Plenary Presentation – Wednesday, Dec. 6

  • Development of a Sustainable Smart Society by Transformative Electronics, Hiroshi Amano, Professor, Nagoya University. Dr. Amano received the 2014 Nobel Prize in Physics along with Isamu Akasaki and Shuji Nakamura for the invention of efficient blue LEDs, which sparked a revolution in innovative, energy-saving lighting. His talk will be preceded by the Focus Session on silicon photonics.

Evening Panel Session – Tuesday evening, Dec. 5

  • Where will the Next Intel be Headquartered?  Moderator: Prof. Philip Wong, Stanford

Entrepreneurs Lunch
Jointly sponsored by IEDM and IEEE EDS Women in Engineering, this year’s Entrepreneurs Lunch will feature Courtney Gras, Executive Director for Launch League, a local nonprofit focused on developing a strong startup ecosystem in Ohio. The moderator will be Prof. Leda Lunardi from North Carolina State University. Gras is an engineer by training and an entrepreneur by nature. After leaving her job as a NASA power systems engineer to work for on own startup company, she discovered a passion for building startup communities and helping technology-focused companies meet their goals. Named to the Forbes ’30 Under 30′ list in 2016, among many other recognitions and awards, Gras enjoys sharing her stories of founding a cleantech company with young entrepreneurs. She speaks on entrepreneurship, women in technology and clean energy at venues such as TEDx Budapest, the Pioneers Festival, and the IEEE WIE International Women’s Leadership Conference.

 

On 14-17 November in Munich, SEMICON Europa will co-locate with productronica for the first time, for a focus on innovation and the future of the electronics manufacturing supply chain. Gathering key stakeholders from across the electronics manufacturing supply chain, the extensive range and depth, programs and networking events make the platform a necessity for players across the European electronics industry. SEMICON Europa will take place at Messe München Hall B1.

An Opening Ceremony will include a welcome speech by Ajit Manocha, president and CEO of SEMI, followed by Laith Altimime, president, SEMI Europe, plus four keynotes:

  • Bosch Sensortec: Stefan Finkbeiner, CEO, on how environmental sensing can contribute to a better quality of life in the context of the IoT
  • Rinspeed Inc.: Frank M. Rinderknecht, founder and CEO, on how to create innovative technologies, materials and mobility means of tomorrow
  • SOITEC: Carlos Mazure, CTO, executive VP, on contributions and benefits of engineered substrates solutions and thin-layer transfer technologies, focusing on applications in the smart space
  • TSMC Europe: Maria Marced, president, on opportunities for new business models to apply in the Smart City

“We are at the brink of a new wave of innovation ─ called the “Fourth Industrial Revolution” or “Smart Manufacturing.” It’s driven by connected devices and smart applications known as the IoT. This presents many opportunities for closer collaborations at global level, connecting key players, key ecosystems and building on the strengths of players in the value chain,” said Laith Altimime, president of SEMI Europe.

New programs on Flexible Electronics, Materials, and Automotive expand SEMICON Europa’s impact:

Returning programs include:

Register for programs before 12 November for a discount: http://www.semiconeuropa.org/register

SEMICON Europa offers free programs available on the exhibition show floor, including the TechARENA sessions ─ from MedTech to Lithography, Smart Manufacturing and Photonics, and many other topics.

For the fourth time at SEMICON Europa, INNOVATION VILLAGE will bring early-stage technology companies, the semiconductor industry’s top strategic investors, and leading technology partners together. This year sponsors include the City of Dresden and Volkswagen.

More than ever, there are unique opportunities to network with peers and connect with a large number of stakeholders at SEMICON Europa as attendees gather at the SEMICON CXO Luncheon, SEMI Member Breakfast, and SEMI Networking Night.

Connect! Register here and stay in touch via Twitter at http://www.twitter.com (use #SEMICONEuropa)

China IC industry outlook


October 17, 2017

SEMI, the global industry association and provider of independent electronics market research, today announced its new China IC Industry Outlook Report, a comprehensive report for the electronics manufacturing supply chain. With an increasing presence in the global semiconductor manufacturing supply chain, the market opportunities in China are expanding dramatically.

China is the largest consumer of semiconductors in the world, but it currently relies mainly on semiconductor imports to drive its growth. Policies and investment funds are now in place to further advance the progress of indigenous suppliers in China throughout the entire semiconductor supply chain. This shift in policy and related initiatives have created widespread interest in the challenges and opportunities in China.

With at least 15 new fab projects underway or announced in China since 2017, spending on semiconductor fab equipment is forecast to surge to more than $12 billion, annually, by 2018. As a result, China is projected to be the top spending region in fab equipment by 2019, and is likely to approach record all-time levels for annual spending for a single region.

Figure 1

Figure 1

This report covers the full spectrum of the China IC industry within the context of the global semiconductor industry. With more than 60 charts, data tables, and industry maps from SEMI sources, the report reveals the history and the latest industry developments in China across vast geographical areas ranging from coastline cities to the less developed though emerging mid-western regions.

The China IC industry ecosystem outlook covers central and local government policies, public and private funding, the industry value chain from design to manufacturing and equipment to materials suppliers. Key players in each industry sector are highlighted and discussed, along with insights into China domestic companies with respect to their international peers, and potential supply implications from local equipment and material suppliers. The report specifically details semiconductor fab investment in China, as well as the supply chain for domestic equipment and material suppliers.

Figure 2

Figure 2

The MIPI Alliance, an international organization that develops interface specifications for mobile and mobile-influenced industries, today announced the formation of an Automotive Birds of a Feather (BoF) Group to solicit industry input from original equipment manufacturers (OEMs) and their suppliers to enhance existing or develop new interface specifications for automotive applications. The group is open to both MIPI Alliance member and non-member companies to represent the broader automotive ecosystem.

Automobiles have become a new platform for innovation, and manufacturers are already using MIPI Alliance specifications as they develop and implement applications for passive and active safety, infotainment and advanced driver assistance systems (ADAS).MIPI interfaces such as Camera Serial Interface 2 (MIPI CSI-2SM), Display Serial Interface (MIPI DSISM) and Display Serial Interface 2 (MIPI DSI-2SM) are ideal for a variety of low- and high-bandwidth applications that integrate components such as cameras, displays, biometric readers, microphones and accelerometers. MIPI I3CSM helps automotive systems designers minimize the complexity, cost and development time for products that use multiple sensors in a space-constrained form factor. Highly sensitive, mission-critical automotive applications also benefit from MIPI interfaces’ low electromagnetic interference (EMI), a capability that’s been proven in billions of mobile phones and other handheld devices.

“Automakers already rely on MIPI Alliance’s industry-standard interfaces to enable a wide variety of applications, including collision mitigation and avoidance, infotainment and navigation,” said Matt Ronning, chair of the MIPI Alliance Automotive Subgroup and the Automotive BoF. “This call for participation helps ensure we cast a wide net to capture expertise to aid with extending existing and shape future MIPI specifications and collectively help realize the vision of how connected cars and automotive applications will evolve over the next decade. Just as mobile handset manufacturers benefited from the standardization that MIPI Alliance has provided, automotive OEMs would similarly benefit.”

“Active participation of automotive OEMs, tier-one and tier-two suppliers is greatly appreciated and necessary to, for example, work out the data link requirements between surround sensors, electronic control units, actors and displays for driver assistance and autonomous driving projects beyond 2020 and incorporate them into MIPI interface specifications,” said Uwe Beutnagel-Buchner, vice-chair of the MIPI Alliance Automotive Subgroup and the Automotive BoF.

For short-distance communications (< 0.3 meters), the MIPI CSI specification is the most widely adopted in automotive camera applications; MIPI DSI is rapidly gaining adoption also. The Automotive BoF Group’s initial focus will be to examine how MIPI specifications can potentially be extended to support communication link distances up to 15 meters, and at the same time support the high data rates associated with cameras and radar sensors for autonomous driving systems.

Join the MIPI Alliance Automotive BoF Group

The MIPI Automotive BoF is seeking additional qualified experts from OEMs, tier-one suppliers, component suppliers and related companies to provide key input into current and future MIPI interface specifications. The Automotive BoF is expected to convene via teleconference on a biweekly basis, with face-to-face meetings planned as necessary.

Companies already participating in MIPI Alliance’s Automotive BoF Group include: Analog Devices, Inc.; Analogix Semiconductor, Inc.; BitSim AB; BMW Group; Cadence Design Systems, Inc.; Continental Corporation; Etron Technology, Inc.; Ford Motor Company; Genesys Logic, Inc.; Hardent Inc.; Lontium Semiconductor Corporation; Microchip Technology Inc.; Mixel, Inc.; Mobileye, an Intel Company; NVIDIA; NXP Semiconductors; ON Semiconductor; Parade Technologies Ltd.; Qualcomm Incorporated; Robert Bosch GmbH; Sony Corporation; STMicroelectronics; Synopsys, Inc.; TE Connectivity Ltd.; Tektronix Inc.; Teledyne LeCroy; Texas Instruments Incorporated; Toshiba Corporation; Western Digital and others.

ArterisIP, the supplier of silicon-proven commercial system-on-chip (SoC) interconnect IP, today announced it has joined the FDXcelerator Partner Program. This program enables SoC designers to integrate ArterisIP interconnect IP into their projects with the ability to accelerate the timing closure process for FDX-based designs. The partnership speeds the development of pioneering products in applications from automotive ADAS and machine learning to small IoT processors.

ArterisIP offerings participating in the FDXcelerator program include:

  • The Ncore Cache Coherent Interconnect IP with Ncore Resilience Package, which has been chosen by the industry’s leading automotive ADAS, autonomous driving, and machine learning SoC vendors for its power, performance, and area advantages and ISO 26262 functional safety features.
  • The FlexNoC Interconnect IP with FlexNoC Resilience Package, which is the backbone interconnect for most mobility and consumer electronics SoC designs where power consumption, performance, and cost are key design metrics.
  • The PIANO Timing Closure Package, which assists back-end timing closure with technology that works earlier in the SoC design flow, thereby reducing schedule risk.

“The addition of ArterisIP to the FDXcelerator Partnership Program has already realized benefits with the implementation of an FD-SOI automotive ADAS multi-processor SoC with fellow FDXcelerator partner Dream Chip Technologies,” said Alain Mutricy, senior vice president of product management at GF. “ArterisIP’s commitment to GF’s FDX technology enables a scalable on-chip interconnect IP technology that will help our customers meet stringent automotive safety requirements.”

“GF’s FDXcelerator program plays an important role for ArterisIP, enabling us to gain access to FD-SOI technology process and design information to enable improved automation of our interconnect timing closure assistance technology,” said K. Charles Janac, President and CEO of ArterisIP. “Interconnect timing closure assistance is becoming imperative as technologies like FD-SOI shrink feature sizes and allow ever-increasing transistor and wire densities.”

GLOBALFOUNDRIES today unveiled AutoPro, a new platform designed to provide automotive customers a broad set of technology solutions and manufacturing services that minimize certification efforts and speed time-to-market. The company offers the industry’s broadest set of solutions for a full range of driving system applications, from informational Advanced Driver Assistance Systems (ADAS) to high-performance real-time processors for autonomous cars.

Today, the automobile semiconductor market is approximately $35 billion, and is expected to grow to an estimated $54 billion by 2023. This is driven by a need for new technologies that promise to enhance the driving experience such as navigation, remote roadside assistance and advanced systems that combine data from multiple sensors with high-performance processors that make control decisions.

“As vehicles move rapidly toward greater autonomy, auto manufacturers and parts suppliers are designing new ICs,” said Gregg Bartlett, senior vice president of the CMOS Business Unit at GF. “GF’s diverse automotive platform combines a range of technologies and services that meet the complexity and requirements for applications that enable connected intelligence for the automotive industry.”

Building on 10 years of automotive experience, the company’s AutoPro technology platform includes offerings in silicon germanium (SiGe), FD-SOI (FDX), CMOS and advanced FinFET nodes, combined with a broad range of ASIC design services, packaging and IP.

GF’s CMOS and RF solutions deliver an optimal combination of performance, integration and power efficiency for advanced sensors (radar, lidar, cameras), ADAS and autonomous processing (sensor fusion and AI compute) and body and powertrain control, with embedded eNVM technology for in-vehicle MCUs, as well as connectivity and infotainment systems. The company’s BCD and BCDLite® technologies provide high-voltage capabilities, with a path to supporting 48 volts that enable automotive power solutions for electric powertrain, Hybrid-electric (HEVs) and Internal Combustion Engine (ICE) vehicles.

These automotive solutions are available now, with additional access to quality and service across GF’s manufacturing fabs in the U.S., Europe, and Asia. GF AutoPro solutions support the full range of AEC-Q100 quality grades from Grade 2 to Grade 0.

AutoPro Service Package

In addition to GF’s technology platform, the company has initiated its AutoPro Service Package designed to ensure technology readiness, operational excellence and a robust automotive-ready quality system to continually improve quality and reliability throughout the product life-cycle.

GF’s Service Package builds on the company’s proven automotive quality and operational controls, providing customers access to the latest technologies which are designed to meet strict automotive quality requirements defined in the ISO, International Automotive Task Force (IATF), Automotive Electronics Council (AEC), and VDA (German) standards.

GF is currently working with major OEM customers and suppliers to develop and produce chips of the optimum quality and reliability as required by the various automotive applications.

Toshiba Corporation (TOKYO:6502) today announced that its board of directors has approved a further investment by Toshiba Memory Corporation (TMC), a wholly-owned subsidiary that manufactures Flash memory, in manufacturing equipment for the Fab 6 clean room under construction at Yokkaichi Operations. TMC will invest approximately 110 billion yen as a second investment in Fab 6 for the installation of additional manufacturing equipment in the Phase-1 clean room.

Production at Fab 6 will be entirely devoted to BiCS FLASH, Toshiba’s innovative 3D Flash memory. As Toshiba announced in its August 3, 2017 release “Update on Toshiba Memory Corporation’s Investment in Production Equipment for Fab 6 at Yokkaichi Operations”, TMC has previously invested approximately 195 billion yen in Fab 6 as its first investment covering the installation of manufacturing equipment in the Phase-1 clean room and the construction of the Phase-2 clean room.

Demand for TMC’s next generation 3D Flash memory devices is expected to increase significantly due to growing demand for enterprise SSDs in datacenters, SSDs for PCs, and memory for smartphones; TMC expects this strong market growth to continue in 2018. TMC’s investment timing will position it to capture this growth and expand its business.

The investment in Fab 6 will enable TMC to install manufacturing equipment for 96-layer 3D Flash memories, including deposition and etching equipment.

There is no change in the FY2017 Financial Forecast announced on Aug 10, 2017, as the impact of the additional investment will be realized after FY2018. However, the FY2017 investment plan for Toshiba Corporation Storage & Devices Solutions Segment will be revised from 330 billion yen, as announced on August 10, to 400 billion yen by accelerating a part of the investment previously planned for FY2018. This will be used with the remaining 40 billion yen in the FY2017 investment plan, bringing this second investment to 110 billion yen. As announced on March 17, 2016 announcement “Notice of Construction of New Semiconductor Fabrication Facility,” Toshiba decided on a construction and equipment investment plan for the new fabrication facility, with an estimated cost of approximately 360 billion yen from FY2016 to FY2018. The company will update its investments plans to reflect any subsequent changes.

TMC has recently asked SanDisk, its collaborator in three joint ventures for investment in manufacturing equipment at TMC’s Yokkaichi Operations, whether it intends to jointly participate in this second investment for the Phase-1 clean room in the Fab 6 facility.

Gartner, Inc. this week highlighted the top strategic technology trends that will impact most organizations in 2018. Analysts presented their findings during Gartner Symposium/ITxpo, which took place through Thursday.

Gartner defines a strategic technology trend as one with substantial disruptive potential that is beginning to break out of an emerging state into broader impact and use, or which are rapidly growing trends with a high degree of volatility reaching tipping points over the next five years.

“Gartner’s top 10 strategic technology trends for 2018 tie into the Intelligent Digital Mesh. The intelligent digital mesh is a foundation for future digital business and ecosystems,” said David Cearley, vice president and Gartner Fellow. “IT leaders must factor these technology trends into their innovation strategies or risk losing ground to those that do.”

The first three strategic technology trends explore how artificial intelligence (AI) and machine learning are seeping into virtually everything and represent a major battleground for technology providers over the next five years. The next four trends focus on blending the digital and physical worlds to create an immersive, digitally enhanced environment. The last three refer to exploiting connections between an expanding set of people and businesses, as well as devices, content and services to deliver digital business outcomes.

The top 10 strategic technology trends for 2018 are:

AI Foundation
Creating systems that learn, adapt and potentially act autonomously will be a major battleground for technology vendors through at least 2020. The ability to use AI to enhance decision making, reinvent business models and ecosystems, and remake the customer experience will drive the payoff for digital initiatives through 2025.

“AI techniques are evolving rapidly and organizations will need to invest significantly in skills, processes and tools to successfully exploit these techniques and build AI-enhanced systems,” said Mr. Cearley. “Investment areas can include data preparation, integration, algorithm and training methodology selection, and model creation. Multiple constituencies including data scientists, developers and business process owners will need to work together.”

Intelligent Apps and Analytics
Over the next few years, virtually every app, application and service will incorporate some level of AI. Some of these apps will be obvious intelligent apps that could not exist without AI and machine learning. Others will be unobtrusive users of AI that provide intelligence behind the scenes. Intelligent apps create a new intelligent intermediary layer between people and systems and have the potential to transform the nature of work and the structure of the workplace.

“Explore intelligent apps as a way of augmenting human activity and not simply as a way of replacing people,” said Mr. Cearley. “Augmented analytics is a particularly strategic growing area which uses machine learning to automate data preparation, insight discovery and insight sharing for a broad range of business users, operational workers and citizen data scientists.”

AI has become the next major battleground in a wide range of software and service markets, including aspects of enterprise resource planning (ERP). Packaged software and service providers should outline how they’ll be using AI to add business value in new versions in the form of advanced analytics, intelligent processes and advanced user experiences.

Intelligent Things
Intelligent things are physical things that go beyond the execution of rigid programming models to exploit AI to deliver advanced behaviors and interact more naturally with their surroundings and with people. AI is driving advances for new intelligent things (such as autonomous vehicles, robots and drones) and delivering enhanced capability to many existing things (such as Internet of Things [IoT] connected consumer and industrial systems).

“Currently, the use of autonomous vehicles in controlled settings (for example, in farming and mining) is a rapidly growing area of intelligent things. We are likely to see examples of autonomous vehicles on limited, well-defined and controlled roadways by 2022, but general use of autonomous cars will likely require a person in the driver’s seat in case the technology should unexpectedly fail,” said Mr. Cearley. “For at least the next five years, we expect that semiautonomous scenarios requiring a driver will dominate. During this time, manufacturers will test the technology more rigorously, and the nontechnology issues such as regulations, legal issues and cultural acceptance will be addressed.” 

Digital Twin
A digital twin refers to the digital representation of a real-world entity or system. Digital twins in the context of IoT projects is particularly promising over the next three to five years and is leading the interest in digital twins today. Well-designed digital twins of assets have the potential to significantly improve enterprise decision making. These digital twins are linked to their real-world counterparts and are used to understand the state of the thing or system, respond to changes, improve operations and add value. Organizations will implement digital twins simply at first, then evolve them over time, improving their ability to collect and visualize the right data, apply the right analytics and rules, and respond effectively to business objectives.

“Over time, digital representations of virtually every aspect of our world will be connected dynamically with their real-world counterpart and with one another and infused with AI-based capabilities to enable advanced simulation, operation and analysis,” said Mr. Cearley. “City planners, digital marketers, healthcare professionals and industrial planners will all benefit from this long-term shift to the integrated digital twin world.”

Cloud to the Edge
Edge computing describes a computing topology in which information processing, and content collection and delivery, are placed closer to the sources of this information. Connectivity and latency challenges, bandwidth constraints and greater functionality embedded at the edge favors distributed models. Enterprises should begin using edge design patterns in their infrastructure architectures — particularly for those with significant IoT elements.

While many view cloud and edge as competing approaches, cloud is a style of computing where elastically scalable technology capabilities are delivered as a service and does not inherently mandate a centralized model.

“When used as complementary concepts, cloud can be the style of computing used to create a service-oriented model and a centralized control and coordination structure with edge being used as a delivery style allowing for disconnected or distributed process execution of aspects of the cloud service,” said Mr. Cearley.

Conversational Platforms
Conversational platforms will drive the next big paradigm shift in how humans interact with the digital world. The burden of translating intent shifts from user to computer. The platform takes a question or command from the user and then responds by executing some function, presenting some content or asking for additional input. Over the next few years, conversational interfaces will become a primary design goal for user interaction and be delivered in dedicated hardware, core OS features, platforms and applications.

“Conversational platforms have reached a tipping point in terms of understanding language and basic user intent, but they still fall short,” said Mr. Cearley. “The challenge that conversational platforms face is that users must communicate in a very structured way, and this is often a frustrating experience. A primary differentiator among conversational platforms will be the robustness of their conversational models and the application programming interface (API) and event models used to access, invoke and orchestrate third-party services to deliver complex outcomes.” 

Immersive Experience
While conversational interfaces are changing how people control the digital world, virtual, augmented and mixed reality are changing the way that people perceive and interact with the digital world. The virtual reality (VR) and augmented reality (AR) market is currently adolescent and fragmented. Interest is high, resulting in many novelty VR applications that deliver little real business value outside of advanced entertainment, such as video games and 360-degree spherical videos. To drive real tangible business benefit, enterprises must examine specific real-life scenarios where VR and AR can be applied to make employees more productive and enhance the design, training and visualization processes.

Mixed reality, a type of immersion that merges and extends the technical functionality of both AR and VR, is emerging as the immersive experience of choice providing a compelling technology that optimizes its interface to better match how people view and interact with their world. Mixed reality exists along a spectrum and includes head-mounted displays (HMDs) for augmented or virtual reality as well as smartphone and tablet-based AR and use of environmental sensors. Mixed reality represents the span of how people perceive and interact with the digital world.

Blockchain
Blockchain is evolving from a digital currency infrastructure into a platform for digital transformation. Blockchain technologies offer a radical departure from the current centralized transaction and record-keeping mechanisms and can serve as a foundation of disruptive digital business for both established enterprises and startups. Although the hype surrounding blockchains originally focused on the financial services industry, blockchains have many potential applications, including government, healthcare, manufacturing, media distribution, identity verification, title registry and supply chain. Although it holds long-term promise and will undoubtedly create disruption, blockchain promise outstrips blockchain reality, and many of the associated technologies are immature for the next two to three years.

Event Driven
Central to digital business is the idea that the business is always sensing and ready to exploit new digital business moments. Business events could be anything that is noted digitally, reflecting the discovery of notable states or state changes, for example, completion of a purchase order, or an aircraft landing. With the use of event brokers, IoT, cloud computing, blockchain, in-memory data management and AI, business events can be detected faster and analyzed in greater detail. But technology alone without cultural and leadership change does not deliver the full value of the event-driven model. Digital business drives the need for IT leaders, planners and architects to embrace event thinking.

Continuous Adaptive Risk and Trust
To securely enable digital business initiatives in a world of advanced, targeted attacks, security and risk management leaders must adopt a continuous adaptive risk and trust assessment (CARTA) approach to allow real-time, risk and trust-based decision making with adaptive responses. Security infrastructure must be adaptive everywhere, to embrace the opportunity — and manage the risks — that comes delivering security that moves at the speed of digital business.

As part of a CARTA approach, organizations must overcome the barriers between security teams and application teams, much as DevOps tools and processes overcome the divide between development and operations. Information security architects must integrate security testing at multiple points into DevOps workflows in a collaborative way that is largely transparent to developers, and preserves the teamwork, agility and speed of DevOps and agile development environments, delivering “DevSecOps.” CARTA can also be applied at runtime with approaches such as deception technologies. Advances in technologies such as virtualization and software-defined networking has made it easier to deploy, manage and monitor “adaptive honeypots” — the basic component of network-based deception.

Gartner clients can learn more in the Gartner Special Report “Top Strategic Technology Trends for 2018.” Additional detailed analysis on each tech trend can be found in the Smarter With Gartner article “Gartner Top 10 Strategic Technology Trends for 2018.”