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Recent progress in the engineering of plasmonic structures has enabled new kinds of nanometer-scale optoelectronic devices as well as high-resolution optical sensing. But until now, there has been a lack of tools for measuring nanometer-scale behavior in plasmonic structures which are needed to understand device performance and to confirm theoretical models.

semiconductor microparticles“For the first time, we have measured nanometer-scale infrared absorption in semiconductor plasmonic microparticles using a technique that combines atomic force microscopy with infrared spectroscopy,” explained William P. King, an Abel Bliss Professor in the Department of Mechanical Science and Engineering (MechSE) at Illinois. “Atomic force microscope infrared spectroscopy allows us to directly observe the plasmonic behavior within microparticle infrared antennas.” 

The article describing the research, “Near-field infrared absorption of plasmonic semiconductor microparticles studied using atomic force microscope infrared spectroscopy,” appears in Applied Physics Letters.

“Highly-doped semiconductors can serve as wavelength flexible plasmonic metals in the infrared,” noted Daniel M. Wasserman, assistant professor of electrical and computer engineering at Illinois. “However, without the ability to visualize the optical response in the vicinity of the plasmonic particles, we can only infer the near-field behavior of the structures from their far-field response. What this work gives us is a clear window into the optical behavior of this new class of materials on a length scale much smaller than the wavelength of light.”

The article compares near-field and far-field measurements with electromagnetic simulations to confirm the presence of localized plasmonic resonance. The article further reports high resolution maps of the spatial distribution of absorption within single plasmonic structures and variation across plasmonic arrays.

“The ability to measure near field behavior in plasmonic structures allows us to begin expanding our design parameters for plasmonic materials,” commented Jonathan Felts, a MechSE graduate student. "Now that we can measure the optical behavior of individual features, we can start to think about designing and testing more complex optical materials.”

The authors on the research are Jonathan Felts, Stephanie Law, Daniel M. Wasserman, and William P. King of the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign, along with Christopher M. Roberts and Viktor Podolskiy of the University of Massachusetts. The article is available online. This research was supported by the National Science Foundation.

STMicroelectronics has revealed that its Orly system-on-chip (SoC) is powering a new generation of advanced set-top boxes announced on April 17 from NTT Plala Inc., an Internet / IPTV service provider in Japan. This STB has been developed by Sumitomo Electric Networks, Inc., a Japanese equipment producer for home entertainment and broadband service providers, with operations around the world.

ST’s Orly was selected as the high-end SoC best fit for Sumitomo’s global set-top box middleware platform based on Linux, Android Ice Cream Sandwich and HTML5. In particular, the Orly’s dual-core ARM Cortex-A9 MPCore processor allows the set-top boxes to run the Android operating system and so connect easily to new marketplaces including mobile ecosystems. Moreover, the integrated ARM Mali 3D graphics processor has allowed Sumitomo to create a rich user interface for Android-based services.

By integrating a dedicated real-time multimedia processor, multi-standard video decoding engines, and high-performance video encoding with support for HD and 3DTV standards, ST’s Orly provides the ideal platform enabling operators to deliver high-quality, innovative broadcast and Internet-based services. Its high processing capabilities enable fast transcoding for true multi-screen experiences on PCs, televisions, tablets and mobile devices throughout the home. Other important features include a high-performance security engine supporting the latest conditional access specifications and Digital Rights Management (DRM) for IPTV, OTT (Over-The-Top) and multi-screen, multi-room services with DLNA (Digital Living Network Alliance), ST’s proven Faroudja video-enhancement technology, media and data-driven applications, and support for Internet video standards.

ST’s Software Development Kit (SDK), created specifically for the SoC, supported Sumitomo’s efforts to simplify and accelerate the development of smart IPTV set-top boxes. The SDK provides components and tools needed to run Android on the set-top box and integrate proprietary IPTV middleware, while also supporting rich user-interface development leveraging native Android tools.

"By offering new smart IPTV STBs, we enhance user interface operability and deliver triple-tuner functionality," said Katsumi Nagata, Board Director, Executive Director, Technology and Engineering Division, NTT Plala Inc. "By supporting Japan’s first cloud game called ‘Hikari TV Game’ and various applications called ‘Hikari TV Apps’, we are offering more convenient smart TV services that perfectly fit the lifestyle of our customers."

"We are very proud to introduce our new generation of set-top boxes offering smart features for IPTV services and high performance for seamless end-user experiences," said Hiroaki Nishimoto, Director & Co-CTO, Sumitomo Electric Networks, Inc. "The new generation of our StreamCruiser SmartTV common STB platform middleware allows our customers to choose the SoC that is best suited for the strategic positioning and expected use-case of the STB, since our solution is independent of the architecture of the SoC while providing the APIs to allow Android, native Linux and HTML5 applications the secure access to the hardware engines and optimized usage of the multi-core."

ST’s Laurent Remont, Digital Convergence Group Vice President and Unified Platform Division General Manager, added, "We are delighted that NTT Plala and Sumitomo have chosen to work with ST, resulting in successful delivery of advanced set-top boxes capable of delivering seamless high-quality viewing and innovative services to multiple connected devices throughout the home.

In recent years, TFT-LCD technology has dominated the display panel market, everything from small, medium and large screens, to the point where all other rival display technologies such as e-paper, PDP, and CRT have steadily been losing their positioning. Amidst this trend, only the AMOLED panel market, led by Samsung Display, emerged as the most formidable competitor to TFT-LCD, showing a steady and fast growth.

Several fast-moving panel manufacturers see the potential in the AMOLED panel business and are planning to enter this market in the near future. Despite such interest in the market, only a handful of companies, including Samsung Display, LG Display, and Sony, are successfully producing on a large scale.

This state can be attributed to several obstacles. The first is the higher degree of technical difficulty in producing AMOLED panels compared to TFT-LCDs. Even with successful AMOLED production, toppling TFT-LCDs from their current dominant position of performance and cost advantageousness is a daunting task. In addition, the market is trending toward bigger screens with higher resolutions, which make penetrating the competitive AMOLED market even harder because the late comers have to develop both standard and cutting-edge technologies at the same time.

As a result, AMOLED manufacturers will strive to penetrate the market with diverse strategic planning this year in order to overcome the various technological and competitive obstacles. More specifically, the majority of manufacturers already producing TFT-LCD panels are busy reckoning gains and losses of making AMOLED panels alongside and how they will be able to maximize profits with minimized investment. 

The paradigm shift of the small and medium-sized OLED manufacturing process and substrate process deserves attention in 2013. In the small and medium-sized OLED manufacturing process, open mask-applied WOLED structure is being widely attempted, since it is easy to implement even though the performance is inferior when compared to high precision deposition methods, such as traditional fine metal mask evaporation-applied RGB light-emitting structure, LITI, and ink jet printing. There is also an attempt to produce unbreakable AMOLED panels with a goal to replace flatbed glass used for substrate and encapsulation layer with plastic and thin-film coating, respectively. If realized, the emergence of such an unbreakable AMOLED screen should stand as a groundbreaking innovation for the display panel market as a whole along with the related technology applications sector.

Displaybank has researched the issues and strategies for each and every player in the AMOLED market and published its timely report “AMOLED Panel Makers’ Business Strategy and Market Forecast” in order for the companies to safely navigate through obstacles. The report should offer firms insight into penetrating the competitive AMOLED panel market with helpful and individualized strategies.

The market for Bluetooth semiconductors is expected to boom by nearly 100 percent from 2011 to 2017, with the majority of the growth driven by demand for wireless combination integrated circuits (ICs) and mobile system-on-chip (MSoC) devices with integrated wireless connectivity that are used in mobile devices like smartphones and media tablets.

Worldwide shipments of ICs that include Bluetooth technology are set to rise to 3.1 billion units in 2017, up 91 percent from 1.6 billion in 2011, according to a new report entitled Bluetooth—Classic or Smart Ready  from IMS Research, now part of IHS. While shipments of standalone Bluetooth chips are substantial, the market is currently dominated by combination ICs that incorporate support for multiple wireless technologies in addition to Bluetooth. However, the fastest-growing segment of the Bluetooth chip market is MSoCs, whose shipments are expected to rise by a factor of 18 from 2012 to 2017.

The graph below presents the IHS forecast of global Bluetooth-enabled chip unit shipments.

Bluetooth semiconductor shipments to double

“Smartphones and media tablets are packing increasing capabilities into products that have a lower cost and a thinner form factor,” said Liam Quirke, connectivity analyst at IHS. “All this is driving demand for more highly integrated ICs, including Bluetooth-enabled connectivity chips and MSoCs. Most of the leading smartphone platforms already make use of integrated connectivity ICs, and increasingly will adopt Bluetooth-enabled MSoCs in the future.”

No blues for Bluetooth chips

Combination connectivity ICs accounted for 75 percent of total Bluetooth chip shipments in 2012. However, due to the rise of MSoCs, the combination chips will see their share of the Bluetooth market decline to 55 percent in 2017, although their shipments will continue to rise as the overall market expands.

By 2017, MSoCs will account for 23 percent of the market, up from just 2 percent in 2012 and zero in 2011.  Standalone devices’ share of the market largely will remain flat, declining to 21 percent in 2017, down from 24 percent in 2011.

Combo ICs at the cutting edge

Many of today’s most popular and advanced smartphones and tablets are employing combination connectivity ICs.

For example, Apple Inc.’s iPad Mini and iPhone 5 employ Broadcom Corp.’s BCM4334 single-chip, dual-band combo device, as revealed by a dissection of the products conducted by the IHS iSuppli Teardown Analysis Service. The BCM4334 includes support for Wi-Fi and an FM radio receiver, along with Bluetooth.

Based on a virtual teardown, IHS iSuppli believes that Samsung’s new Galaxy S4 smartphone includes the Broadcom BCM4335, which integrates Bluetooth, along with the FM radio and a complete 5G Wi-Fi system.

MSoCs multiply

The MSoC takes the integration of combination chips to the next level, forming a single chip that incorporates the cellular baseband, applications processor and wireless connectivity.

The release of Qualcomm’s Snapdragon S4 family of processors in 2012 integrated these various elements, with many incorporating both Bluetooth and Wi-Fi. In these components, the digital portion of the connectivity IC is integrated into the SoC, taking advantage of benefits such as less power being required by the more advanced manufacturing process. The analog counterpart is situated in a companion IC, which includes components for both Wi-Fi and FM radio.

“MSoCs benefit manufacturers by reducing design complexity while providing lower-cost mobile platform solutions,” Quirke noted. “IHS is projecting that lower-end smartphones will be quick to adopt such solutions.”

Reinventing Intel


April 19, 2013

Intel logoIntel is looking to reinvent itself.

With PC shipments reportedly in free fall, the company reported a sharp decline in its quarterly profits last week, which isn’t surprising, given that the company’s PC chip division accounted for 64 percent of its total revenue and 89 percent of its operating income in 2012. The company reported net income to $2.05 billion, a decline of 25 percent from $2.74 billion in the period last year.  However, analysts at IHS believes Intel has the innovation to stay on top this year, but other reports from decision makers at the semiconductor chip giant have indicated that Intel might have something new up its sleeves.

Uncertain environment at Intel

Intel became the world’s largest semiconductor maker after developing a partnership with Microsoft, and together the two companies have dominated the PC industry for 25 years. But 2013 is proving to be treacherous for the PC industry. The previous IHS forecast predicted global PC shipments would rise by 3.4 percent in 2013. However, given the dismal results in the first quarter, it appears that shipments are unlikely to achieve growth for the year. IHS downgraded its forecast for worldwide PC shipments to be flat at best, but the market is more likely to suffer a 1 percent to 2 percent decline. This follows a dismal 2012, when global PC shipments decreased by 3.3 percent, the first decline in 12 years.

“The PC Industry is facing major challenges as it struggles to find a place in the consumer’s budget amid the rising popularity of the lower-priced media tablet,” said Craig Stice, senior principal analyst for compute platforms at IHS. “Windows 8 has yet to trigger a new PC replacement cycle. While there have been many new product introductions intended to revitalize the market, like the ultrathin mobile PCs and convertibles with touch screens, it seems consumers have yet to discover the return on investment for these higher-priced systems.”

For the most part, Intel reacted with great agility to weakening demand for its products, cutting down its inventories very rapidly in the fourth quarter of 2012 to avoid being stuck with excess stockpiles, according to IHS. The company in the fourth quarter was the most aggressive of all semiconductor suppliers in reducing its inventories, cutting them by 11 percent, or $585 million, compared to the third quarter of 2012—the largest decrease on a dollar basis of any chipmaker during the quarter. Intel’s inventory liquidation partly was due to a reduction in production as the company migrated to a new process technology for manufacturing its chips: 14nm lithography.

Sales of netbooks, a product Intel dominated with its Atom family of low-end processors, have been badly impacted by the downturn in the PC market as well as the growth in the media tablet.  Netbook shipments this year are forecast to amount to just 3.97 million units, down a gut-wrenching 72 percent from 14.1 million units in 2012.

The demand for Intel’s other big source of revenue, chips for computer servers, is evolving, too. Basic servers are relying more and more on cloud computing, creating opportunities for new competitors to develop cheaper designs as the simpler method drives down prices (and, ultimately and unfortunately, profit margins).

Mobile devices and an unexpected move: The surprising bet that could save Intel

Despite Intel’s travails, IHS says the company is expected to continue to maintain its leadership in the global semiconductor market at least through 2013. However, Intel is betting on investments in the mobile market and, surprisingly, pay-TV to carry it even further than that.

According to the New York Times, Intel had been criticized for its lethargic reaction to the rise in the mobile market. Intel in 2012 held a 5 percent share of the market for digital baseband and applications processors used in mobile phones and other mobile devices. Intel is pushing to expand this product line this year. Aside from its legacy Infineon business, Intel had seen some design win activity from its Atom product line in smartphones from Lenovo, Motorola and various Chinese brand OEMs. Furthermore, Intel has introduced its LTE platform.

“IHS expects Intel to continue to attempt to build off these early wins and ramp penetration in the mobile platform market—specifically in smartphones,” said Francis Sideco, senior director for consumer electronics and communications technologies at IHS. “However, even if Intel is successful in this area in 2013, it won’t enjoy rapid growth, but rather slow and steady progress. The company faces significant challenges because of the momentum and positioning of strong incumbents such as Qualcomm, which holds a market share in the mobile-phone semiconductor business that is currently seven times larger than Intel’s.”

However, its greatest departure is its plans for selling a television set-top box and subscription service, which Intel officials say will offer enough regular television content to serve as a substitute for a cable subscription. Variety magazine’s Andrew Wallenstein recently spoke with Erik Huggers, head of Intel Media, the company’s most secretive division, to get the inside scoop on what Intel plans to offer.  Huggers didn’t reveal much to Wallenstein, but here’s what we know:

  • Intel intends to allow subscribers to purchase a package of broadcast and cable channels that will be supplemented by various VOD options. The package will also be available across mobile devices.
  • Intel will not be offering a la carte channels. The programming partners (such as Time Warner, News Corp., Disney, Viacom, etc.) will never go for that. But Intel has also hinted there might be more flexibility in the bundles of channels offered, as opposed to what consumers get with basic cable.
  • Intel has also made clear that its new device is not expected to come in at a lower price point than most other pay-TV services. Instead, what will make Intel’s device unique is a user experience that is “touted as a quantum leap over the traditional multichannel set-ups that have been rendered anachronistic by innovators like Apple and Netflix.”
  • Intel has confirmed that the device will come with a camera that will recognize which viewer in a household is watching so as to personalize the programming (and presumably advertising) to individual tastes. But don’t worry, the company made clear the feature can be turned off.

New Intel leadership could also play a role in its reinvention

And in the midst of the chaotic and uncertain technological revolution, Intel is also scrambling to find a new leader. In November, Paul Otellini, who had been CEO since 2005, caught everyone off guard when he announced his resignation, saying that it is time to transfer Intel’s helm to a new generation of leadership. Otellini declined to provide further information on why he was leaving just three years short of retirement age.

While Intel has yet to indicate a main candidate for the role, Chairman Andy Bryant may offer insight into what Intel is looking for. The New York Times reported that Bryant tells employees at meetings that Intel must fundamentally change, even if the computer chip maker still has what it takes to succeed in engineering and manufacturing.

In order to meet the rapidly growing business demands in the Chinese market and further expand the mass market in that region, Freescale Semiconductor announced today that the company plans to open ten new sales offices covering key areas across the mainland area. The new sales offices will include experienced sales and technical teams to support the needs of its regional customers.

Freescale China has branch offices in Beijing, Shanghai, Shenzhen, Chengdu, Qingdao and Hong Kong. The company recently opened new sales offices in Nanjing, Wuhan, Guangzhou and Hangzhou and plans to open another six sales offices by the end of this year in Xiamen, Chongqing, Changchun, Dalian, Zhuhai and Changsha. By 2014, Freescale China’s offices are expected to span nine provinces and four municipalities across the mainland area, covering the majority of China’s domestic customer base.

“The Asia-Pacific market, led by China, is not only one of Freescale’s fastest growing markets in the world but also one of the most important ones,” said Dr. Kai Wang, vice president and general manager of Freescale’s Asia-Pacific region. “We are planning to add these new sales offices to allow us to further enhance our ability to serve a broader customer base in China, especially the small and medium-sized customers.”

Late last year, Freescale announced five core product areas: microcontrollers (MCUs), digital networking, automotive MCUs, analog and sensors and RF. Freescale also realigned its resources to focus on high-growth areas like China and select opportunities in Korea, Taiwan and Japan. All of these efforts were undertaken to help the company grow in these key markets.

Freescale is also strengthening its strategic relationships with independent design companies. Last year, Freescale signed a “Connected Partner” agreement with ZLG-MCU, a leader in the Chinese domestic embedded product field. Freescale also recently formed a strategic partnership with Lierda Science and Technology, a leading company in the local embedded product field focusing on the Internet of Things.

Freescale entered the China market in 1992 and currently has approximately 4,000 employees in the region. In addition to the sales offices, the company has a package testing factory in Tianjin and five R&D centers located in Beijing, Shanghai, Suzhou, Chengdu and Tianjin.

Freescale Semiconductor focuses on embedded processing solutions, providing industry leading products that are advancing the automotive, consumer, industrial and networking markets.The company is based in Austin, Texas, and has design, research and development, manufacturing and sales operations around the world.

North America-based manufacturers of semiconductor equipment posted $1.14 billion in orders worldwide in March 2013 (three-month average basis) and a book-to-bill ratio of 1.14, according to the March Book-to-Bill Report published today by SEMI.  A book-to-bill of 1.14 means that $114 worth of orders were received for every $100 of product billed for the month.

The three-month average of worldwide bookings in March 2013 was $1.14 billion. The bookings figure is 5.9 percent higher than the final February 2013 level of $1.07 billion, and is 21.3  percent lower than the March 2012 order level of $1.45 billion.

The three-month average of worldwide billings in March 2013 was $1.00 billion. The billings figure is 2.8 percent higher than the final February 2013 level of $974.7 million, and is 22.2   percent lower than the March 2012 billings level of $1.29 billion.

“Continued improvement in three-month average bookings for new semiconductor manufacturing equipment is reflected in the March figures, which indicate a 23 percent improvement over the prior quarter," said Denny McGuirk, president and CEO of SEMI.  “While the overall expansion of new manufacturing capacity remains muted, we see continued investment in technology upgrades by the world’s chip makers.”

The SEMI book-to-bill is a ratio of three-month moving averages of worldwide bookings and billings for North American-based semiconductor equipment manufacturers. Billings and bookings figures are in millions of U.S. dollars.

  Billings
(3-mo. avg)		 Bookings
(3-mo. avg)		 Book-to-Bill
October 2012 985.5 742.8 0.75
November 2012 910.1 718.6 0.79
December 2012 1,006.1 927.4 0.92
January 2013 968.0 1,076.0 1.11
February 2013 (final) 974.7 1,073.5 1.10
March 2013 (prelim) 1,001.6 1,137.1 1.14

The data contained in SEMI’s release were compiled by David Powell, Inc., an independent financial services firm, without audit, from data submitted directly by the participants. SEMI and David Powell, Inc. assume no responsibility for the accuracy of the underlying data.

SEMI is the global industry association serving the nano- and micro-electronic manufacturing supply chains.

The fast growing market for sensors for smart phones is re-shuffling the ranks of MEMS suppliers. For the first time, suppliers of inertial sensors have surpassed the major makers of micro mirrors and inkjet heads that have long dominated the industry on Yole Développement’s annual ranking of the Top 30 MEMS companies.

 top 30 MEMS suppliers

STMicroelectronics increased MEMS sales by ~10 percent in 2012, to become the first company with $1 billion in MEMS revenue, moving past Texas Instruments to become the sector’s largest company. Robert Bosch saw 14 percent growth, to ~$842 million in MEMS sales, pushing ahead of both Texas Instruments and Hewlett Packard for the first time to become the second ranking player, according to Yole’s figures. Both ST and Bosch have been aggressively expanding their consumer product lines to offer customers a broad range of sensors, and increasingly also combinations of sensors in a single package for easier integration at lower cost. Their growing volumes also help keep their fabs running more efficiently, for the assured manufacturing capability that volume users demand.  ST, Bosch and other major inertial sensor suppliers saw strong revenue growth despite the 20 percent-30 percent drop in average selling prices for accelerometers and gyroscopes over the year–because of even bigger ramps in unit volume.

“ST increased unit production by 58 percent, to 1.3 billion MEMS devices in 2012, up to some 4 million units a day—not counting its foundry business,” notes Yole Market & Technology Analyst, Laurent Robin. “It’s hard for many companies to match that.”

Yole calculates the MEMS industry overall saw another ~10 percent growth in 2012 to become an ~$11 billion business– in a year when the semiconductor industry saw a ~2 percent decline. The Top 30 companies account for nearly 75 percent of that total MEMS market.

The traditional gap between the big four MEMS makers and the rest of the pack narrowed this year, as strong demand for more MEMS sensors in both consumer and automotive markets drove strong growth across a range of suppliers. Knowles Electronics saw better than 20 percent growth to climb into fourth place with some $440 million in revenues from MEMS microphones, closing in on HP. Panasonic and Denso were close behind with more than $350 million in MEMS sales in their largely automotive markets.

Mobile phones and tablets were the real sweet spot for big growth opportunities, though. Chinese electret microphone supplier AAC made the top companies ranking for the first time as its MEMS microphone sales jumped ~90 percent to ~$65 million, as it became the second source for the iPhone. InvenSense saw some 30 percent growth as it ramped up production of its inertial sensors. Triquint saw a 27% increase in revenues from its BAW filters.

Murata moved sharply up the ranking as its acquisition of VTI created ~$179 million in combined MEMS revenue.

Meanwhile, the traditional major MEMS markets for micromirrors and inkjet heads have matured and slowed, with demand for inkjet heads particularly hit by the consumer printer market’s rapid turn away from replaceable heads to page-wide and fixed-head technologies. That hit revenues at both the inkjet companies and their manufacturing partners.

Yole defines MEMS as three dimensional structures made by semiconductor-like processes, with primarily mechanical, not electronic, function. We also include magnetometers, as they are now so closely integrated with MEMS inertial sensors, and all microfluidics, including those on polymer. Yole figured MEMS units and value at the first level of packaged device. For companies that do not release MEMS revenues, Yole estimate the figures based on data for product market size, market share, product teardowns, reverse costing, and discussions with the companies.

Increasing HD video content, social networking, shared data via the cloud, low power consumption, and “instant on” features continue to drive growth of consumer, communication, and computing devices that use NAND flash memory. While applications are many, IC Insights forecasts smartphones, tablet computers, and solid-state drives (SSDs) to be among the biggest users of NAND flash memory in 2013 (see figure).

NAND flash memory

Smartphones are forecast to account for 26 percent of the $30.0 billion NAND flash memory market in 2013.  (The NAND flash market is forecast to grow 12 percent in 2013 from $26.8 billion in 2012).  According to data from IC Insights’ 2013 IC Market Drivers Report, approximately 56 percent of total cellphone shipments in 2013 (975 million of 1,745 total shipments) are forecast to be smartphones, up from 750 million or 42 percent in 2012 and 30 percent in 2011.  This is significant because smartphones contain as much as 9x more NAND flash than a basic or enhanced cellphone.

Another high-volume application for flash memory in 2013 is solid-state drives, which are built with high-density NAND flash chips and feature standard mass-storage interfaces that are found on hard-disk drives.  SSDs are forecast to account for 13 percent of NAND flash memory sales this year.

SSDs are built in form-factor sizes that are identical to hard-disk drives (such as 1.8- and 2.5-inch modules) so they can be easily plugged into existing PC and notebook designs.  In recent years, SSD-storage capacity has quadrupled annually, and now it appears that solid-state drives are becoming serious challengers to conventional hard-disk storage in portable computers.  Recently, SSD-storage solutions have gained favor in large server computers, which stand to benefit from the faster read/write speeds of flash-memory-built drives as well as reduced power consumption.  Notebook PCs, installed car navigation systems, industrial equipment, and digital video recorders (DVRs) are a few additional applications that are being targeted for SSDs.

Tablet PCs and HHP devices—handheld players such as music/video players and handheld game systems—are expected to be significant consumers of NAND flash in 2013 as well. Tablet PCs are the fastest growing segment of the PC market and represent one of the fastest-growing consumer devices of all time. Shipments of tablet PC devices like the iPad grew to 117 million units in 2012, almost double the 65 million shipped in 2011.  Tablet PC shipments are forecast to reach 167 million units in 2013.  Leading tablet PCs typically feature 16GB of NAND flash as a starting point.

With time running out until U.S. component manufacturers are legally required to disclose their usage of conflict minerals to the federal government, many companies are woefully unprepared for the new regulations, with more than one-third of firms indicating they haven’t even commenced compliance planning, according to a survey from information and analytics provider IHS.

In a poll conducted last week during an IHS webinar entitled “The Clock’s Ticking: How to Comply with the New Conflict Minerals Regulations,” more than 35 percent of respondents—a plurality of the attendees—said they have made no plans on how to conform with the rules set out by the SEC Dodd-Frank Wall Street Reform and Consumer Protection Act on conflict materials, which will start to go into effect in May 2014. Just 7.5 percent said that they were well-prepared for compliance.

The survey was taken of 134 electronics industry managers during the IHS webinar on April 9.

The Congo connection

Conflict minerals are raw materials mainly sourced in the war-torn country of the Democratic Republic of Congo.

The materials—tantalum, tungsten, gold and tin—are widely used in the electronics market, in products ranging from cellphones to hearing aids, to pacemakers. For example, IHS estimates that $0.15 worth of tantalum was contained in every smartphone shipped when Dodd-Frank was originally signed in 2010. In 2012, this would amount to $93 million worth of tantalum in smartphones.

The SEC rules took effect in August 2012, with initial reporting required by May 2014. The rules affect publicly traded companies in the United States.

However, electronics manufacturers procure products and materials from all over the globe, so the likelihood is high that one or more supply-chain partners will require information regarding the sourcing of the four conflict minerals.

Compliance costs

While complying with the SEC rules is time-consuming and costly, the process may not be as complicated as originally projected.

One of the key industries involved in processing conflict minerals —smelters— are getting involved in and supporting compliance efforts, said Scott Wilson, content solution strategist at IHS.

“Smelters are a good control point, and this simplifies how far back in the supply chain companies have to go,” Wilson told the webinar audience.

Nevertheless, Wilson advises companies across the electronics supply chain to be prepared to provide compliance information by next May. Even if a business does not use conflict minerals in its products, it has to demonstrate it has conducted due diligence in making that determination. There is existing guidance to assist in the process, Wilson said. These include guidelines already in use issued by the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development that outline the key aspects of compliance.