Category Archives: MEMS

EV Group (EVG), a supplier of wafer bonding and lithography equipment for the MEMS, nanotechnology and semiconductor markets, today announced that its EVG GEMINI 300mm automated wafer bonding system is ready for implementation into MEMS high-volume manufacturing (HVM). This marks an important milestone for the MEMS industry, which until now has utilized smaller 200mm wafer substrates for MEMS HVM. The combination of industry-leading alignment and excellent temperature and pressure uniformity for high-force permanent bonding on EVG’s benchmark, production-proven GEMINI 300mm platform now brings this critical process to 300mm MEMS manufacturing. In addition, the ability of the GEMINI wafer bonder to support 300mm MEMS manufacturing enables more cost-effective implementation of emerging applications, such as CMOS-MEMS integration.

According to market research and strategy consulting firm Yole Développement, the consumer MEMS market is projected to achieve a 12.3 percent compound annual growth rate (CAGR) from 2015 to 2020, with much of this demand being driven by the need for increasingly sophisticated, more numerous and lower-cost bulk acoustic wave (BAW) filters and microphones for smart phones and other mobile electronic devices. To support this growing demand, MEMS manufacturers will need to increase their production capacity as well as integrate more complex manufacturing processes in their production flow.

Many MEMS devices have very small moving parts, which must be protected from the ambient environment. High-force permanent wafer bonding allows wafer-level capping of MEMS devices, which seals a wafer’s worth of MEMS devices in one operation—after which the capped devices can then be packaged in a much simpler and lower-cost package. Enabling this process on larger 300-mm substrates, EVG’s GEMINI platform allows MEMS manufacturers to increase production yields as well as lower their overall cost of production. At the same time, the GEMINI’s ability to perform permanent bonding of 300mm MEMS wafers allows for CMOS-MEMS integration—the combining of CMOS and MEMS technology to enable more sophisticated integrated MEMS devices—without requiring chip-to-wafer bonding or wire bonding, which can increase production costs or increase the footprint of the MEMS device.

“For more than 15 years, EV Group has revolutionized automated wafer bonding, and established itself as the clear technology and market leader with the largest installed base of automated production wafer bonding systems worldwide,” stated Paul Lindner, executive technology director at EV Group. “Representing the first platform to incorporate all wafer bonding process steps in a single automated system, GEMINI has proven to be one of our most successful products. As part of EVG’s Triple-i philosophy, we have continually innovated this product over the years to achieve new levels of capability and performance for our customers, including supporting advanced packaging HVM applications such as CMOS image sensors and 3D-ICs. Now, we are bringing the capabilities and success of this versatile platform to our MEMS customers to support their evolving needs—whether it be higher production capacity to meet rising consumer demand, more integrated MEMS systems with improved functionality and accuracy, or new types of devices enabled by CMOS/MEMS integration.”

The GEMINI 300-mm automated wafer bonder incorporates many features to enable high throughput, high post-bond yield and low cost of ownership, including:

  • EVG’s SmartView NT automated bond alignment system, which provides sub-micron alignment accuracy and transfer of the aligned wafer pair using proprietary bond chuck technology. This is crucial for ensuring optimal wafer-to-wafer bond yields
  • A modular design that allows customers to customize, scale or even reconfigure their systems for different bond processes according to their production needs
  • Integrated wafer preparation and conditioning, including oxide removal, which is critical to ensuring maximum bond strength between wafers
  • Swap-in modules for rapid changeover and optimum serviceability, depending on bond processes and pre-processing needs
  • Ability to handle bond temperatures of up to 500 degrees Celsius and bond forces up to 100 kilonewtons (kN)
  • Optimized temperature uniformity as well as controlled rapid heating and cooling capability

Demonstrations of the EVG GEMINI 300mm wafer bonder for MEMS applications are available at EVG’s headquarters in St. Florian, Austria.

GLOBALFOUNDRIES, a provider of advanced semiconductor manufacturing technology, announced today that Alain Mutricy has joined the company as senior vice president of the Product Management Group. In this role, Mutricy is responsible for the company’s leading edge and mainstream technology solutions and go-to-market activities for these differentiated products.

Mutricy succeeds Mike Cadigan, who will transition to a newly created role as senior vice president of global sales and business development.

“Alain is an accomplished senior executive with more than 25 years of experience in the consumer electronics, mobile, and semiconductor industries,” said GLOBALFOUNDRIES CEO Sanjay Jha. “He brings a strong portfolio of successes contributing to growth, profitability, and competitiveness for global product organizations, which will help him build on the strong foundation we have already established in our product management group. I am thrilled to welcome Alain to the GlobalFoundries team.”

Before joining GlobalFoundries, Mutricy was founder and executive adviser at AxINNOVACTION, a consulting firm that promotes action to unlock and accelerate innovation in big organizations, as well as co-founder and CEO of Vuezr, which attempted to revolutionize mobile direct marketing by delivering product visual recognition to consumers’ mobile devices via augmented reality.

From 2007-2012, Mutricy served as senior vice president of portfolio and device product management for mobile devices at Motorola Mobility Holdings, Inc., where he led a global team responsible for defining the company’s mobile devices product portfolio strategy and structure. He and his team advanced a strategic focus on Android-based smartphones, which included the widely acclaimed family of DROID by Motorola products. During his tenure at Motorola Mobility, Mutricy was also responsible for defining and directing the Mobile Devices business unit’s global strategy for silicon and software platforms, as well as leadership of a global R&D team responsible for designing and implementing integrated circuits, wireless chipset solutions, platform software, product software for non-CDMA products, and an ecosystem strategy for mobile devices.

Prior to joining Motorola in 2007, Mutricy served at Texas Instruments for 18 years, where he was promoted to vice president in January 2002. From 2004 until his departure from Texas Instruments, Mutricy served as vice president and general manager for the company’s Cellular Systems Solutions business. In that role, he was responsible for commercializing and building a leadership position for the company’s wireless chipset solutions for GSM/GPRS/EDGE/3G and OMAP application processors. Prior to leading Cellular Systems Solutions, Mutricy was general manager for the Texas Instruments OMAP business, which he led from start-up status to global leadership between 2000 and 2004. Additionally, from the time he joined Texas Instruments in 1989, Mutricy was promoted through a series of general- management positions, each with increasing scope and responsibility in areas including sales, marketing and general management.

Mutricy holds a master’s degree in engineering from ENSAM and an MBA from HEC Group—both in Paris.

Gartner, Inc. has highlighted the top 10 Internet of Things (IoT) technologies that should be on every organization’s radar through the next two years.

“The IoT demands an extensive range of new technologies and skills that many organizations have yet to master,” said Nick Jones, vice president and distinguished analyst at Gartner. “A recurring theme in the IoT space is the immaturity of technologies and services and of the vendors providing them. Architecting for this immaturity and managing the risk it creates will be a key challenge for organizations exploiting the IoT. In many technology areas, lack of skills will also pose significant challenges.”

The technologies and principles of IoT will have a very broad impact on organizations, affecting business strategy, risk management and a wide range of technical areas such as architecture and network design. The top 10 IoT technologies for 2017 and 2018 are:

IoT Security

The IoT introduces a wide range of new security risks and challenges to the IoT devices themselves, their platforms and operating systems, their communications, and even the systems to which they’re connected. Security technologies will be required to protect IoT devices and platforms from both information attacks and physical tampering, to encrypt their communications, and to address new challenges such as impersonating “things” or denial-of-sleep attacks that drain batteries. IoT security will be complicated by the fact that many “things” use simple processors and operating systems that may not support sophisticated security approaches.

“Experienced IoT security specialists are scarce, and security solutions are currently fragmented and involve multiple vendors,” said Mr. Jones. “New threats will emerge through 2021 as hackers find new ways to attack IoT devices and protocols, so long-lived “things” may need updatable hardware and software to adapt during their life span.”

IoT Analytics

IoT business models will exploit the information collected by “things” in many ways — for example, to understand customer behavior, to deliver services, to improve products, and to identify and intercept business moments. However, IoT demands new analytic approaches. New analytic tools and algorithms are needed now, but as data volumes increase through 2021, the needs of the IoT may diverge further from traditional analytics.

IoT Device (Thing) Management

Long-lived nontrivial “things” will require management and monitoring. This includes device monitoring, firmware and software updates, diagnostics, crash analysis and reporting, physical management, and security management. The IoT also brings new problems of scale to the management task. Tools must be capable of managing and monitoring thousands and perhaps even millions of devices.

Low-Power, Short-Range IoT Networks

Selecting a wireless network for an IoT device involves balancing many conflicting requirements, such as range, battery life, bandwidth, density, endpoint cost and operational cost. Low-power, short-range networks will dominate wireless IoT connectivity through 2025, far outnumbering connections using wide-area IoT networks. However, commercial and technical trade-offs mean that many solutions will coexist, with no single dominant winner and clusters emerging around certain technologies, applications and vendor ecosystems.

Low-Power, Wide-Area Networks

Traditional cellular networks don’t deliver a good combination of technical features and operational cost for those IoT applications that need wide-area coverage combined with relatively low bandwidth, good battery life, low hardware and operating cost, and high connection density. The long-term goal of a wide-area IoT network is to deliver data rates from hundreds of bits per second (bps) to tens of kilobits per second (kbps) with nationwide coverage, a battery life of up to 10 years, an endpoint hardware cost of around $5, and support for hundreds of thousands of devices connected to a base station or its equivalent. The first low-power wide-area networks (LPWANs) were based on proprietary technologies, but in the long term emerging standards such as Narrowband IoT (NB-IoT) will likely dominate this space.

IoT Processors

The processors and architectures used by IoT devices define many of their capabilities, such as whether they are capable of strong security and encryption, power consumption, whether they are sophisticated enough to support an operating system, updatable firmware, and embedded device management agents. As with all hardware design, there are complex trade-offs between features, hardware cost, software cost, software upgradability and so on. As a result, understanding the implications of processor choices will demand deep technical skills.

IoT Operating Systems

Traditional operating systems (OSs) such as Windows and iOS were not designed for IoT applications. They consume too much power, need fast processors, and in some cases, lack features such as guaranteed real-time response. They also have too large a memory footprint for small devices and may not support the chips that IoT developers use. Consequently, a wide range of IoT-specific operating systems has been developed to suit many different hardware footprints and feature needs.

Event Stream Processing

Some IoT applications will generate extremely high data rates that must be analyzed in real time. Systems creating tens of thousands of events per second are common, and millions of events per second can occur in some telecom and telemetry situations. To address such requirements, distributed stream computing platforms (DSCPs) have emerged. They typically use parallel architectures to process very high-rate data streams to perform tasks such as real-time analytics and pattern identification.

IoT Platforms

IoT platforms bundle many of the infrastructure components of an IoT system into a single product. The services provided by such platforms fall into three main categories: (1) low-level device control and operations such as communications, device monitoring and management, security, and firmware updates; (2) IoT data acquisition, transformation and management; and (3) IoT application development, including event-driven logic, application programming, visualization, analytics and adapters to connect to enterprise systems.

IoT Standards and Ecosystems

Although ecosystems and standards aren’t precisely technologies, most eventually materialize as application programming interfaces (APIs). Standards and their associated APIs will be essential because IoT devices will need to interoperate and communicate, and many IoT business models will rely on sharing data between multiple devices and organizations.

Many IoT ecosystems will emerge, and commercial and technical battles between these ecosystems will dominate areas such as the smart home, the smart city and healthcare. Organizations creating products may have to develop variants to support multiple standards or ecosystems and be prepared to update products during their life span as the standards evolve and new standards and related APIs emerge.

More detailed analysis is available for Gartner clients in the report “Top 10 IoT Technologies for 2017 and 2018.” This report is part of the Gartner Special Report “The Internet of Things“, which looks at the necessary steps to building and rolling out an IoT strategy.

ON Semiconductor Corporation has teamed up with RFMicron, Inc. to unveil multifaceted Internet of Things, or IoT, sensor platform supporting battery-free operation.

The IoT Platform Development Kit, SENSORRFGEVK, brings together a series of performance-optimized computing and connectivity modules to facilitate quick and effective deployment of battery-free wireless sensing technology and IoT hardware in locations where power and space constraints are of particular concern. This streamlined and flexible solution takes the approach of moving much of the system’s intelligence away from where the sensors are situated, and placing it on the cloud. Each IoT Platform Development Kit incorporates ON Semiconductor’s battery-free wireless sensor tags, which use RFMicron’s Magnus S2 Sensor IC, and can perform temperature, moisture, pressure, or proximity sensing functions.

The platform also features a UHF RFID reader module with 32 decibels-milliwatt (dBm) power rating and an 860 megahertz (MHz) to 960 MHz frequency range. Localized data processing is performed by the ARM Cortex-A8 based AM335x system-on-chip (SoC). The platform has the capacity to transfer captured data either wirelessly (via WLAN, Zigbee, Z-Wave, UHF Gen 2, etc.) or using wireline infrastructure (via KNX, CAN, SPI, Ethernet. etc.). This development kit complements ON Semiconductor’s existing wireless sensor evaluation kit, SPS1M-EVK, which provides a set of tools test our sensor capabilities.

“This IoT Platform Development Kit opens up greater opportunities for IoT-based data-acquisition/monitoring enabling the implementation of wireless sensors quickly and effectively into many applications. Using it, the data from multiple sensors can rapidly be accessed, analyzed and used on multiple backend networks,” states Gary Straker, vice president and General Manager of Protection and Signal Division at ON Semiconductor. “As a result of this platform, wireless sensing technology can now be deployed into application scenarios where a mains supply is simply not available or where replacing batteries would be too difficult and costly to undertake. This ground-breaking product will markedly broaden the scope of IoT deployment and this development kit offers a tool that makes evaluating the technology simple for multiple application use cases. Through this wireless sensing technology we will be able to connect what was previously un-connectable.”

The platform also possesses an intuitive touch-enabled user interface, plus LEDs, headers and switches designed to enhance its configurability and expand its operational potential. The sophisticated accompanying software allows the platform to fit seamless into any supported network, serving as a dedicated node. Built-in application firmware will assist engineers in implementing more effective IoT-based data-acquisition/monitoring systems irrespective of their experience level. The combination of all the functions above in a single self-contained board creates an integration tool IoT platforms can use to easily evaluate wireless sensing technology in their ecosystems.

Scientists at Nanyang Technological University, Singapore (NTU Singapore) have developed a chip that allows new radar cameras to be made a hundred times smaller than current ones.

With this NTU technology, radar cameras that usually weigh between 50 kg and 200 kg and are commonly used in large satellites can be made to become as small as palm-sized.

Despite being small, they can produce images that are of the same high quality if not better compared to conventional radar cameras. They are also 20 times cheaper to produce and consume at least 75 per cent less power.

Developed over the past three years at NTU, the promising technology has already secured S$2.5 million in research funding from Singapore government agencies.

The radar chip has attracted the attention of several multinational corporations, and is now being researched for use in Unmanned Aerial Vehicles (UAVs) and satellite applications.

Assistant Professor Zheng Yuanjin from NTU’s School of Electrical and Electronic Engineering who led the research, said that the size and effectiveness of the chip will open up new applications not possible previously.

“We have significantly shrunk the conventional radar camera into a system that is extremely compact and affordable, yet provides better accuracy. This will enable high resolution imaging radar technology to be used in objects and applications never before possible, like small drones, driverless cars and small satellite systems,” said Asst Prof Zheng.

NTU's tiny microchip for radar imaging embedded on a PCB board (small square chip on the upper right). Credit: NTU Singapore

NTU’s tiny microchip for radar imaging embedded on a PCB board (small square chip on the upper right). Credit: NTU Singapore

Advantages over current technology

Current radar camera systems are usually between half and two metres in length and weigh up to 200 kg. They cost more than US$1 million on the market and can consume over 1000 watts in electricity per hour, the energy equivalent of a household air-conditioning unit running for an hour.

Known as Synthetic Aperture Radar (SAR), these large radar cameras are often carried by large satellites and aircrafts that produce detailed images of the Earth’s surface. Objects longer than a metre, such as cars and boats, can be easily seen by the radar camera mounted on an aircraft flying at a height of 11 kilometres.

Unlike optical cameras which cannot work well at night due to insufficient light or in cloudy conditions, a radar camera uses microwaves (X-band or Ku-band) for its imaging, so it can operate well in all weather conditions and can even penetrate through foliage.

These detailed images from radar cameras can be used for environmental monitoring of disasters like forest fires, volcano eruptions and earthquakes as well as to monitor cities for traffic congestions and urban density.

But the huge size, prohibitive cost and energy consumption are deterrents for use in smaller unmanned aerial vehicles and autonomous vehicles. In comparison, NTU’s new radar chip (2mm x 3mm) when packaged into a module measures only 3cm x 4cm x 5cm, weighing less than 100 grams.

Production costs can go as low as US$10,000 per unit, while power consumption ranges from 1 to 200 watts depending on its application, similar to power-efficient LED TVs or a ceiling fan.

It can also capture objects as small as half a metre which is twice as detailed as the conventional radar camera used in large aircrafts or satellites.

Potential applications of the new radar chip

Asst Prof Zheng said that when mounted on UAVs, it can take high quality images on demand to monitor traffic conditions or even the coastlines for trespassers.

“Driverless cars will also be able to better scan the environment around them to avoid collisions and navigate more accurately in all weather conditions compared to current laser and optical technologies,” he added.

“Finally, with the space industry moving towards small satellite systems, such as the six satellites launched by NTU, smaller satellites can now also have the same advanced imaging capabilities previously seen only in the large satellites.”

Large satellites can weigh up to 1,000 kg, but microsatellites weigh only 100 to 200 kg.

Recognized internationally with strong market interest

NTU’s new radar chip was presented and published at the prestigious International Solid-State Circuits Conference (ISSCC) 2016. Commonly referred to as the “Olympics of Integrated Circuits Design,” ISSCC is the world’s top forum for presenting advances in solid-state circuits and systems and is attended by major industry players.

The chip was developed by Asst Prof Zheng’s team of five at NTU’s VIRTUS IC Design Centre of Excellence. The group was the first from Singapore to publish in ISSCC and is also the most published local group, with seven papers to date.

NTU’s new technology has attracted the attention of many multinational corporations, such as US aerospace company Space X; Netherlands semiconductor company NXP; Japanese electronics giant Panasonic, and French satellite maker Thales.

The next phase will be research in space applications to be carried out at the Smart Small Satellite Systems – Thales in NTU (S4TIN), a joint laboratory between NTU and Europe’s largest satellite manufacturer Thales Alenia Space.

Game changer for Singapore

Associate Professor Low Kay Soon, Director of NTU’s Satellite Research Centre, said the new radar chip will be a game changer in the space industry, which will bolster Singapore’s growing reputation as a satellite building nation.

“Monitoring the environment with a clear image using a traditional optical camera is always very challenging due to clouds and changing light conditions,” said Assoc Prof Low.

“This is especially the case for the tropics where the sky is always cloudy. With a miniature radar-on-chip system, it cuts down the required weight and size of the payload that a satellite needs to carry.

“More significantly, the lower power consumption makes it very suitable for microsatellites such as the X-SAT or VELOX-CI which NTU has launched. For small satellites, there is a limited area to mount the solar panels, which limits its power generation. Consequently the conventional SAR systems cannot be used due to its high power requirements.”

Asst Prof Zheng says it will take another three to six years before NTU’s new radar chip is ready for commercial use. He is now working with NTU’s innovation and enterprise company, NTUitive to find industry partners to license the technology or to spin off a company.

Director of VIRTUS, NTU Professor Joseph Chang added: “Singapore is one the very few select countries in the world with advanced technical capabilities to design complex microchips for space applications.”

“NTU professors associated with VIRTUS have received research funding of over S$5 million from Singapore and various countries like the United States, to design microchips for space applications. Recently, two patents have been filed for the novel design of these microchips.”

VIRTUS filed ten patents in the last year alone, for various innovative microchips with applications ranging from image processing to computing.

According to Markets and Markets global forecasts and analysis, the global market for radar systems is estimated to grow to US$24 billion by 2020.

According to IC Insights’ new 2016 edition of The McClean Report, total worldwide semiconductor industry capital spending is forecast to show low single-digit growth in 2016 after registering a 1% decline in 2015.  As discussed below, last year’s drop in semiconductor industry capital spending was a significant departure from historical patterns that go back more than 30 years.

Figure 1 shows the annual worldwide semiconductor industry capital spending changes from 1983-2015.  Over the past 33 years, there have been six periods when semiconductor industry capital spending declined by double-digits rates for one or two years (1985-1986, 1992, 1997-1998, 2001-2002, 2008-2009, and 2012-2013).  It is interesting to note that in every case except the 2012-2013 spending downturn, within two years after the period of decline in capital spending, a surge in spending of at least 45% occurred.  The second year increases in spending after the cutbacks were typically stronger than the first year after a downturn with the lone exception to this being the 2010 spending rebound after the 2008-2009 downturn.  This was because most semiconductor producers tend to act very conservatively coming out of a market slowdown and wait until they have logged about 4-6 quarters of good operating results before significantly increasing their capital spending again.

As shown in Figure 1, the streak of strong capital spending growth within two years after a spending cutback timeperiod ended in 2015, with capital spending registering a 1% decline.  IC Insights believes that this is yet another indication of a maturing semiconductor industry.

Figure 1

Figure 1

More detailed information on semiconductor industry capital spending, including 2016 capital spending forecasts by company, can be found in IC Insights’ flagship market research report, The McClean Report—A Complete Analysis and Forecast of the Integrated Circuit Industry. The new 478-page McClean Report provides IC market and technology trend forecasts from 2016 through 2020.

Vesper, a designer of advanced acoustic-sensing technology, today announced a partnership with AAC Technologies Holdings Inc., a miniature technologies solution provider, for the commercialization of the world’s first piezoelectric MEMS (microelectromechanical systems) microphones for consumer electronic devices.

Vesper’s first piezoelectric MEMS microphone will be integrated into AAC Technologies’ product portfolio of innovative solutions for fast-moving consumer electronics markets, such as smartphones, tablets, wearables and Internet-of-Things (IoT) devices.

“Since the first MEMS microphones were introduced more than ten years ago, the market has exploded into a high-growth global industry exceeding US$1B annually,” said Jack Duan, COO, AAC Technologies. “We believe there is an opportunity to introduce high-performance microphones that are immune from common environmental contaminants such as water, shock and dust. These attributes make Vesper’s technology an excellent choice for device companies that want to deliver a rich, immersive acoustic experience.”

Vesper’s microphones also feature very high signal-to-noise ratio (SNR) and very low noise, delivering outstanding acoustic performance for a wide range of applications.

“Our relationship with AAC Technologies will allow us to deliver reliable, stable and acoustically satisfying MEMS microphones for the vast and still-growing very high-performance MEMS microphone market,” said Matt Crowley, CEO, Vesper. “With a track record of innovation in acoustic solutions, a mature worldwide distribution channel, and a customer base that includes many of the world’s top-tier mobile-device manufacturers, AAC Technologies is an ideal partner for Vesper.”

Global sales of smartphones to end users totaled 403 million units in the fourth quarter of 2015, a 9.7 percent increase over the same period in 2014, according to Gartner, Inc. However, this was their slowest growth rate since 2008. In 2015 as a whole, smartphone sales reached 1.4 billion units, an increase of 14.4 percent from 2014.

“Low-cost smartphones in emerging markets, and strong demand for premium smartphones, continued to be the driving factors,” said Anshul Gupta, research director at Gartner. “An aggressive pricing from local and Chinese brands in the midrange and entry-level segments of emerging markets led to consumers upgrading more quickly to affordable smartphones.”

Mr. Gupta said that 85 percent of users in the emerging Asia/Pacific market are replacing their current midrange phone with the same category of phone. In addition, currency devaluations against the U.S. dollar in many emerging markets are putting further margin pressure on many vendors that import devices. Current market conditions are prompting some vendors to consider setting up manufacturing operations in India and Indonesia to avoid being hit by future unfavorable currency devaluations and high import taxes.

In the fourth quarter of 2015, Samsung and Huawei were the only two top-five smartphone vendors to increase their sales to end users (see Table 1). Apple suffered its first decline in sales of smartphones — iPhone sales were down 4.4 percent.

Table 1

Worldwide Smartphone Sales to End Users by Vendor in 4Q15 (Thousands of Units)

Company

4Q15

Units

4Q15 Market Share (%)

4Q14

Units

4Q14 Market Share (%)
Samsung

83,437.7

20.7

73,031.5

19.9
Apple

71,525.9

17.7

74,831.7

20.4
Huawei

32,116.5

8.0

21,038.1

5.7
Lenovo*

20,014.7

5.0

24,299.9

6.6
Xiaomi

18,216.6

4.5

18,581.6

5.1
Others

177,798.0

44.1

155,551.6

42.3
Total

403,109.4

100.0

367,334.4

100.0

*The figures for Lenovo include sales of mobile phones by both Lenovo and Motorola

Source: Gartner (February 2016) 

Although Samsung was the No.1 vendor, Gartner analysts said the company faces challenges. “For Samsung to stop falling sales of premium smartphones, it needs to introduce new flagship smartphones that can compete with iPhones and stop the churn to iOS devices,” said Mr. Gupta.

With an increase in sales of 53 percent in the fourth quarter of 2015, Huawei achieved the best performance year over year. Huawei’s increased brand visibility overseas, and its decision to sell almost only smartphones, gave it a higher average selling price in 2015.

For total sales of smartphones in 2015, Samsung maintained the No. 1 position, but its market share declined by 2.2 percentage points (see Table 2). In 2015, Apple sold 225.9 million iPhones, to achieve a market share of almost 16 percent. Huawei’s smartphone sales approached 104 million units, up 53 percent year over year.

Table 2

Worldwide Smartphone Sales to End Users by Vendor in 2015 (Thousands of Units)

Company

2015

Units

2015 Market Share (%)

2014

Units

2014 Market Share (%)
Samsung

320,219.7

22.5

307,596.9

24.7
Apple

225,850.6

15.9

191,425.8

15.4
Huawei

104,094.7

7.3

68,080.7

5.5
Lenovo*

72,748.2

5.1

81,415.8

6.5
Xiaomi

65,618.6

4.6

56,529.3

4.5
Others

635,368.5

44.6

539,691.3

43.4
Total

1,423,900.3

100.0

1,244,739.8

100.0

*The figures for Lenovo include sales of mobile phones by both Lenovo and Motorola

Source: Gartner (February 2016) 

In terms of smartphone operating system (OS) market, Android increased 16.6 percent in the fourth quarter of 2015, to account for 80.7 percent of the global total (see Table 3). “Android benefited from continued demand for affordable smartphones and from the slowdown of iOS units in the premium market in the fourth quarter of 2015,” said Roberta Cozza, research director at Gartner. In the premium segment, despite Apple’s slower year-over-year fourth-quarter sales, Apple narrowed the market share gap with Samsung in 2015 as a whole. 

Table 3

Worldwide Smartphone Sales to End Users by Operating System in 4Q15 (Thousands of Units)

Operating System

4Q15

Units

4Q15 Market Share (%)

4Q14

Units

4Q14 Market Share (%)
Android

325,394.4

80.7

279,057.5

76.0
iOS

71,525.9

17.7

74,831.7

20.4
Windows

4,395.0

1.1

10,424.5

2.8
Blackberry

906.9

0.2

1,733.9

0.5
Others

887.3

0.2

1,286.9

0.4
Total

403,109.4

100.0

367,334.4

100.0

Source: Gartner (February 2016) 

Nanoelectronics research center, imec, and digital research and incubation center, iMinds, today announced that its respective board of directors have approved the intention to merge the research centers. Using the imec name, the combined entities intend to create a high-tech research center for the digital economy. The transaction is expected to be completed by the end of 2016, with the united organization staged to bring added value to existing partners while further strengthening Flanders’ authority as a technology epicenter and region focused on creating a sustainable digital future.

iMinds will be integrated as an additional business unit within imec, resulting in a new research center that will fuse the technology and systems expertise of more than 2,500 imec researchers worldwide with the digital competencies of some 1,000 iMinds researchers representing nearly 50 nationalities. The additions of iMinds’ flagship open innovation research model -ICON- (in which academic researchers and industry partners jointly develop solutions for specific market needs), iStart entrepreneurship program (supporting start-up businesses), and Living Labs will strengthen the unique capabilities and assets of imec as a research and development center.

Imec has been a global leader in the domain of nanoelectronics for more than 30 years, and has innovated applications in smart systems for the Internet of Things (IoT), Internet of Health, and Internet of Power. It has built an extensive and worldwide partner network, as well as in Flanders, and has generated successful spin-offs. iMinds’ activities span research domains such as the IoT, digital privacy and security, and the conversion of raw data into knowledge. Its software expertise is widely renowned and its entrepreneurship activities in Flanders are first-rate.

“The proliferation of the Internet of Everything has created a need for solutions that integrate both hardware and software. Such innovative products that optimally serve tomorrow’s digital economy can only be developed through intense interaction between both worlds. There are infinite opportunities in domains such as sustainable healthcare, smart cities, smart manufacturing, smart finances, smart mobility, smart grids, or in short, smart everything. Research centers such as imec, with its widely acclaimed hardware expertise, and iMinds, an expert in software and ICT applications, are uniquely positioned to bring these concepts to life,” stated Luc Van den hove, president and CEO of imec. “Furthermore, iMinds is widely recognized for its business incubation programs and open access to SMEs, and, this merger provides us with a unique opportunity to jointly reach out to the Flemish industry and further elevate Smart Flanders on the global map.”

“Flanders faces the enormous challenge of realizing a successful transition towards tomorrow’s digital society; a transition that must happen quickly, considering the urgency to reinforce Flanders’ industrial position,” commented Danny Goderis, CEO of iMinds. “The merger between imec and iMinds is Flanders’ answer to this rapidly accelerating digitization trend. We have a clear ambition to pair more than 3,500 top researchers across 70 countries with an ecosystem of Flemish companies and start-ups, thereby significantly increasing our economic and societal impact. Together, we can help Flanders boost its competitiveness and claim a strong international position.”

Now that the intention to merge has been approved, the merger protocol will be developed and the integration process of imec and iMinds will be initiated immediately. The current iMinds activities will constitute a third pillar next to imec’s units. iMinds will remain headquartered in Ghent with its researchers spread across the Flemish universities. The ambition is to operate as one organization by the end of 2016.

Flemish Minister of Innovation Philippe Muyters welcomes the fact that iMinds and imec join forces: “Thanks to their pioneering work in their respective fields, they have put themselves on the world map. When they were founded, the line between hardware and software was still very clear. Today, and especially in the future, this line is increasingly blurring – with technology, systems and applications being developed in close conjunction. The merger anticipates this trend and creates a high-tech research center for the digital economy that keeps Flanders on the world map. The gradual integration of both research centers, and the agreement to preserve their respective strengths and uniqueness, will make for a bright future.”

Today, at the 2016 Mobile World Congress, Bosch Sensortec introduces its first generation of sensor hub products with optimized vital sensing features. These devices fuse photoplethysmography (PPG) signals with the onboard inertial MEMS sensors signals for robust, motion compensated heart rate measurement and provide users with valuable insights about their wellbeing and fitness level using Firstbeat’s field-proven vital analytics algorithms.

Vital analytics for an enhanced user experience

These new BHV250 and BHV160 sensors are designed for always-on sensor enabled wearable applications such as fitness wristbands, earphones and smart textiles. As a complete sensor solution they feature ultra-low power consumption in a compact package, with integrated software and a wide-range support for different PPG chipsets. The integrated software from Firstbeat processes raw sensor data to open up a world of motion-compensated vital monitoring, activity recognition applications and gesture based user interfaces.

The unique combination of the Bosch’s Vital Sensor Hubs with Firstbeat’s extensive vital analytics software enables a rich user experience by providing the tools for sleep analysis, calorie consumption calculation, fitness training evaluation, and “stress and recovery” monitoring. The myriad of future applications is only limited by the designer’s imagination.

“With this all-round sensor subsystem, our customers can now focus on providing added value to their end users, confident in the knowledge that they have a highly integrated, ultra-low power solution”, said Jeanne Forget-Funk, VP Marketing at Bosch Sensortec. “With the fitness tracking and wearables markets expanding so rapidly, we await with great interest the explosion of innovation that will be triggered by this technology.”

“Firstbeat’s analytics software creates a digital model of a user’s physiology through advanced modeling of heart function and heart rate variability (HRV)”, said Joni Kettunen, CEO and Co-founder of Firstbeat. “The Bosch sensor subsystem provides the accurate data and flexible programmability that enables our software to deliver new insights to users at ultra-low power consumption.”

Product details

The BHV250 and BHV160 integrate innovative 3- respectively 6-axis inertial MEMS sensors designed around the new Bosch Sensortec DSP ‘Fuser Core’ powering Firstbeat’s vital analytics software. Both devices include an accelerometer, and the BHV160 also includes a gyroscope.

The Android Wear-compatible sensor hubs are the components with the lowest power consumption available on the market today, helping to significantly extend system battery life time. 

The sensor hubs have tiny footprints that are indispensable for applications where space is tight. The BHV160 measures 3 x 3 x 0.95 mm3, while the BHV250 only a mere 2.2 x 2.2 x 0.95 mm3.

Samples are available today to qualified customers. Mass production is ramping up in Q2 2016. For pricing, please contact Bosch Sensortec.

Market forecast

According to industry analysts, wearables are a market of increasing importance. IDC predicts that by 2019, total shipments in the wearables market will reach some 214 million units.