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Exagan, an innovator of gallium nitride (GaN) semiconductor technology enabling smaller and more efficient electrical converters, has established Exagan Taiwan Ltd. with a new sales and applications center in Taiwan – the company’s first step in its global market deployment – to accelerate the development and use of fast, intelligent GaN power solutions in the region.

The facility in Taipei’s Nankang Software Park officially opened today during ceremonies attended by Exagan’s president and CEO Frédéric Dupont, COO Fabrice Letertre and Asia sales director Ralf Kilguss. Kilguss is heading up regional sales in Asia, leveraging his 20 years of experience in the semiconductor and power electronics markets.

“With this new application center, our company experts will be able to work closely with local customers on evaluating and designing GaN-based solutions while speeding the technology’s adoption in the rapidly growing charger and server sectors, which are being driven by a very dynamic Asian market,” Dupont said.

Since its creation in 2014, Exagan has developed multiple partnerships in Asia to support its product design, development and manufacturing, thus establishing a robust supply chain with proven solutions for the targeted markets.

Earlier this year, Exagan launched its safe, powerful G-FET™ power transistors and G-DRIVE™ intelligent and fast-switching solution featuring an integrated driver and transistor in a single package. These are designed for easy system implementation in applications including servers and USB chargers.

The number of devices with at least one USB type C port for the simultaneous transfer of electrical power, data and video is forecasted to grow to nearly five billion units by 2021, according to market research firm IHS Markit, while total server shipments are expected to expand at a CAGR of 14 percent over the period of 2018 to 2023, as forecasted by Digitimes Research.

Micron Technology Inc. (NASDAQ: MU) today marked its 40th anniversary with a celebration on the steps of the Idaho state Capitol, one of many celebrations at Micron sites around the world.

From its early days as a startup in Boise 40 years ago, Micron has established itself as the world’s fourth-largest semiconductor company, with the broadest portfolio of memory and storage solutions in the industry. Today, Micron employs more than 34,000 people in 17 countries globally. Micron has contributed nearly 40,000 patents over the course of its history, and the company’s commitment to innovation continues to serve as an engine for its expansion and growth. Over the last 40 years, Micron’s high-performance memory and storage solutions have helped enable many broader technology advances in diverse end applications such as Personal Computing, Mobile Smartphones, Networking and Cloud Computing. In the future, Micron’s products will play an instrumental role in delivering storage and faster access to data that will continue to drive breakthroughs in new areas such as artificial intelligence, machine learning and autonomous driving.

“Our 40-year history is a great story of innovation and tenacity, and we are proud of our legacy,” Micron President and CEO Sanjay Mehrotra said. “Micron is scaling new heights and our technology is the foundation on which the AI revolution is being built. We look forward to the next decade with great optimism and excitement – and the confidence that the technology evolution is increasingly making Micron an indispensable player and key partner to the ecosystem and to our customers.”

Micron’s leadership and contributions extend to the communities in which it operates. The Micron Foundation, which the company established in 1999, has donated more than US$100 million in 17 countries. In the past two years alone, the Micron Foundation has contributed nearly $25 million globally. At the Boise celebration, Mehrotra announced the “40 For Good” program, awarding donations to four Boise-area charities. Last week at its inaugural Insight 2018 event, Micron announced a $1 million grant for universities and nonprofit organizations to conduct research on AI. The event featured keynotes and discussions with some of the industry’s most important thought leaders in the fields of AI, machine learning and data science.

At the Boise state Capitol celebration today, Idaho Gov. Butch Otter and Boise Mayor Dave Bieter joined the festivities, commending Micron on its success and commitment to local communities.

“Micron has created a vibrant legacy of leadership and innovation in their industry and an enviable record of civic involvement within our state,” Otter said. “The Micron Foundation has made tremendous investments in critical educational and community infrastructure. As one of Idaho’s largest employers, Micron has played a vital role in providing not just jobs, but meaningful careers. Through their 40 years, Micron has been a big part of Idaho’s success in diversifying our economy and expanding our economic base. With their continued wise and steady leadership, I have no doubt that Micron’s best years are yet to come.”

Business leaders around the world extended their congratulations to Micron on its 40th anniversary.

“In the course of the last 40 years when I was in the industry, many technology companies have come and gone,” NVIDIA Founder, President and CEO Jensen Huang said. “Yet the great ones, somehow, reinvent themselves, and surf the waves, and somehow are always ahead of it. Micron is one of those great companies.”

“As data continues to rise in importance, so does the need to securely and efficiently store and access it,” said Richard Yu, executive director and CEO of the Consumer Business Group for Huawei Technology Co. Ltd. “Micron has proven to be a reliable and innovative partner, helping Huawei address its data storage needs and supporting our growth as a networking and communications leader. We look forward to our future work with Micron.”

“Decades ago Micron allowed a small Dutch startup into its fab and has since been instrumental in ASML’s success. I have experienced firsthand the innovation and tenacity that have enabled Micron to survive and thrive when so many others did not,” ASML President and CTO Martin van den Brink said. “It has been a privilege to be part of Micron’s 40-year journey. Throughout the years, Micron has remained fully committed to our shared goal to successfully push leading-edge technology forward as a core differentiator. Congratulations to the whole Micron team on your 40th anniversary.”

“Micron is a longtime supplier for our business that has pivoted to provide memory solutions across Dell’s core technologies, from edge devices to data centers,” said Jeff Clarke, vice chairman, products and operations, Dell Technologies. “It is great to work with a company that not only delivers on our current needs, but listens, innovates and leads as new opportunities emerge to serve our customers.”

Samsung Electronics Co., Ltd. today announced that it has completed all process technology development and has started wafer production of its revolutionary process node, 7LPP, the 7-nanometer (nm) LPP (Low Power Plus) with extreme ultraviolet (EUV) lithography technology. The introduction of 7LPP is a clear demonstration of Samsung Foundry’s technology roadmap evolution and provides customers with a definite path to 3nm.

Samsung’s newest EUV fab under construction in Hwaseong, South Korea (Photo: Business Wire)

The commercialization of its newest process node, 7LPP gives customers the ability to build a full range of exciting new products that will push the boundaries of applications such as 5G, Artificial Intelligence, Enterprise and Hyperscale Datacenter, IoT, Automotive, and Networking.

“With the introduction of its EUV process node, Samsung has led a quiet revolution in the semiconductor industry,” said Charlie Bae, executive vice president of foundry sales and marketing team at Samsung Electronics. “This fundamental shift in how wafers are manufactured gives our customers the opportunity to significantly improve their products’ time to market with superior throughput, reduced layers, and better yields. We’re confident that 7LPP will be an optimal choice not only for mobile and HPC, but also for a wide range of cutting-edge applications.”

The characteristics and benefits of EUV technology

EUV uses 13.5nm wavelength light to expose silicon wafers as opposed to conventional argon fluoride (ArF) immersion technologies that are only able to achieve 193nm wavelengths and require expensive multi-patterning mask sets. EUV enables the use of a single mask to create a silicon wafer layer where ArF can require up to 4 masks to create that same layer. Consequently Samsung’s 7LPP process can reduce the total number of masks by about 20% compared to non-EUV process, enabling customers to save time and cost.

The EUV lithography improvements also deliver increased performance, lower power and smaller area while improving design productivity by reducing multi-patterning complexity. Compared to its 10nm FinFET predecessors, Samsung’s 7LPP technology not only greatly reduces the process complexity with fewer layers and better yields, but also delivers up to a 40% increase in area efficiency with 20% higher performance or up to 50% lower power consumption.

The road to EUV technology

Since Samsung’s research and development in EUV began in the 2000s, the company has made outstanding progress through collaborative partnerships with industry-leading tool providers to design and install completely new equipment in its manufacturing facilities to ensure the stability of EUV wafers. The initial EUV production has started in Samsung’s S3 Fab in Hwaseong, Korea.

By 2020, Samsung expects to secure additional capacity with a new EUV line for customers who need high-volume manufacturing for next-generation chip designs. As an EUV pioneer, Samsung has also developed proprietary capabilities such as a unique mask inspection tool that performs early defect detection in EUV masks, allowing those defects to be eliminated early in the manufacturing cycle.

“Commercialization of EUV technology is a revolution for the semiconductor industry and will have a huge impact on our everyday lives,” said Peter Jenkins, vice president of corporate marketing at ASML. “It is our great pleasure to collaborate with Samsung and other leading chip makers on this fundamental shift in semiconductor process manufacturing.”

7nm LPP EUV Ecosystem

The Samsung Advanced Foundry Ecosystem™ is also fully prepared for the introduction of 7LPP with EUV. Ecosystem partners across the industry will be providing Foundation and Advanced IP, Advanced Packaging, and Services to fully enable Samsung customers to develop their products on this new platform. From high-performance and high-density standard cells to HBM2/2e memory interfaces and 112G SerDes interfaces, SAFE™ is ready to help customers implement their designs on 7LPP.

Silicon Integration Initiative, an integrated circuit research and development joint venture, announced today that IBM and GLOBALFOUNDRIES have contributed patented technology to support the Si2 Unified Power Model standard, the industry’s first significant power model enhancement in many years.

Early stage estimation of System on Chip power consumption is fundamental to ensuring new SoC designs meet or exceed power specifications when fabricated. For a credible estimate, the power models must comprehend the target implementation technology and circuitry, along with voltage and temperature conditions. At the same time, power estimation results are needed quickly to perform rapid “what if” scenarios.

UPM’s multi-level power modeling capability provides the necessary level of modeling detail required at various stages of design. Abstract high-level equations to gate-level characterization tables can be accommodated through the same, standard interface. Beyond this, the UPM interface, upon acceptance and approval by the IEEE’s P2416 working group, will be a direct plug-in to the widely-used IEEE 1801 stub created for power models.

The IBM and GF contributions enhance UPM by providing a new and unique approach to power modeling. Rather than storing pre-characterized, process-voltage-temperature specific data, UPM models store power proxies that represent different contributors to overall power consumption, such as sub-threshold leakage, gate leakage, and dynamic power. Appropriately entitled “power contributors,” this approach vastly simplifies and reduces the power modeling effort, and allows the power model to be voltage and temperature independent, enabling a single power model to be used at a multitude of voltages and temperatures.

SoC designers using UPM with contributor-based modeling will ultimately be equipped with thermally-aware, system-level power estimation. In addition, the late-binding of specific PVT conditions at simulation run-time will provide accurate, early estimates of leakage power, which increases exponentially with increasing temperature. The donated technology covers key aspects of contributor-based power modeling including model abstraction, generation, compression and evaluation.

Contributor-based modeling will be fully integrated into UPM, which forms the basis for P2416, the planned IEEE standard for developing and maintaining interoperable, IC design power models. P2416 is scheduled for balloting in early 2019.

Jerry Frenkil, director of Si2 OpenStandards, said the IBM and GF contributions bolster UPM and provide P2416 with proven and ready-to-use modeling methods. “These power proxies enable voltage and temperature-independent modeling which greatly reduce the model generation and support effort,” Frenkil explained. “They also enable late binding of voltage and temperature conditions at simulation run-time, a major benefit for both IP developers and SoC designers.”

“IBM is pleased to donate this advanced modeling technology to Si2’s UPM development to facilitate interchange of IP power data,” said Dr. Leon Stok, vice president of EDA at IBM. “We have used contributor modeling internally on several generations of IBM micro-processors to great effect. We look forward to seeing UPM contributor models being provided by IP block developers so that entire systems, consisting of both internal and external IP, can be modeled efficiently using a common modeling standard. Additionally, the combination of power contributors and multi-level modeling structures promises major cost and resource improvements in creating and supporting IP power models.”

“UPM directly addresses a major industry need—accurate and efficient system-level power models,” said Richard Trihy, senior director of design enablement at GF. “Since IP providers need only produce a single model for a multitude of PVT points, these models enable significant productivity gains in model generation. Our clients will also get a good early estimate of their systems’ total power, including leakage, which can operate at high temperatures.”

“These contributions from IBM and GF come at a fortuitous time,” said Dr. Nagu Dhanwada of IBM, chair of the IEEE P2416 Working Group and the Si2 UPM development project. “The P2416 Working Group is rapidly gathering momentum towards IEEE standardization. We anticipate going to ballot early next year.”

Micron Technology, Inc., (NASDAQ: MU) today announced it has appointed two distinguished  finance and technology industry leaders, Mary Pat McCarthy and Steve Gomo, to its board of directors and audit committee.

McCarthy is a veteran of KPMG, a world-leading audit, tax and advisory firm, where she led the international practice serving software, electronics, communications and media companies. McCarthy has extensive experience in the technology space through client engagements with many leading companies. As U.S. Vice Chair, McCarthy focused on growing KPMG’s global business and developing partners’ skills. She also held the position of Executive Director of KPMG’s Audit Committee Institute and has deep boardroom experience, along with hands-on involvement with corporate governance, IPOs, mergers and acquisitions, and the SEC. McCarthy currently serves on the boards of Palo Alto Networks Inc. and most recently Andeavor and Mutual of Omaha. She is a Certified Public Accountant and received her Bachelor of Science in Business Administration from the Creighton University in 1977.

Gomo has more than 40 years of global financial and management experience, most recently having served as Executive Vice President and Chief Financial Officer at NetApp from 2002 to 2011, where he oversaw finance, legal, workplace resources and investor relations functions. During Gomo’s tenure, NetApp, a leading provider of innovative storage and data management solutions, experienced exponential business growth, expanding to more than 130 offices worldwide, increasing revenues more than fivefold, and achieving a threefold rise in market cap. Gomo currently serves on the boards of Nutanix, Inc. and Enphase Energy, Inc. He received his Bachelor of Science in Business Administration from the Oregon State University in 1974, and a Master of Business Administration in Finance from the Santa Clara University in 1977.

“I am honored that Mary Pat and Steve will add their exceptional talents and experience to our board of directors,” said Micron President and CEO Sanjay Mehrotra. “In her tenure at KPMG, Mary Pat served as a senior audit partner to major clients advising countless iconic Silicon Valley companies. Steve’s visionary management at NetApp helped drive exponential company growth. We certainly will benefit from their advice and insights as our business evolves, and as memory and storage solutions play an increasingly central role in advancing areas like artificial intelligence and machine learning.”

“Mary Pat and Steve are distinguished leaders with deep expertise and significant public-company board experience,” said Micron Chairman Robert Switz. “Their backgrounds will bring additional strength to our board, and I am confident they are going to provide valuable perspectives as Micron continues to grow.”

By Emir Demircan

SEMI today confirmed its support for a Joint-Industry Cooperation on an RoHS Review aimed at urging the European Commission to, at a minimum, consider dedicating more resources to a targeted outreach programme with third countries. The Joint-Statement is as follows:

Since its inception in 2002, the RoHS Directive has become a global reference point for regulation of hazardous substances in electrical and electronic equipment (EEE). This has been effective and given the EU a competitive advantage. The worldwide impact of RoHS is significant and the undersigned associations consider that this should be considered in the roadmap for reviewing the Directive.

RoHS-type laws have been introduced or are currently being introduced in more than 40 jurisdictions outside the European Economic Area (EEA). These include China, India, the Eurasian Customs Union and the Gulf States. Sometimes RoHS is copied exactly. However, often it is not. For example, countries might introduce a completely different approach on the scope, exemptions and declaration of conformity. Each time a new “RoHS” law is proposed, industry has to establish a bi-lateral dialogue with the relevant local public authorities improving the knowledge and understanding of regulatory stakeholders based on experience with the framework legislation in the EEA. Industry continues to spend a lot of time and money to ensure alignment with EU RoHS as far as possible. This is crucial for the global and complex EEE supply chains.

The European Commission’s DG TRADE “Market Access” services have been helpful with draft laws that have been notified to the WTO and have raised concerns with the Technical Barriers to Trade (TBT) Committee as well as bi-laterally with the countries in question. A recent example was the draft legislation in the United Arab Emirates.

Each time the EU updates the legislation, for example, withdrawing, renewing or granting an exemption, adding a substance, this will have a domino effect on the rest of the world.

To this end, we urge the Commission to, at a minimum, consider dedicating more resources to a targeted outreach programme with third countries. The EU recently adopted a Regulation on responsible minerals supply chains and DG TRADE subsequently launched such outreach with the United States, China, India, United Arab Emirates, Colombia, Mexico, South Africa, Malaysia, Thailand and Canada.

We, the undersigned associations, endorse the Commission’s roadmap for the evaluation and the aim to review and improve the effectiveness, efficiency, relevance of the RoHS Directive, as well as coherence with other EU laws and policies. However, we feel this important global dimension is absent and should be incorporated into the Review.

The Joint-Statement with the full list of participating associations can be accessed here.

SEMI encourages its members to communicate the Joint-Statement at regional and national levels. For more information, contact Emir Demircan, senior manager Advocacy and Public Policy, SEMI Europe, at [email protected].

Gartner, Inc. today highlighted the top strategic technology trends that organizations need to explore in 2019. Analysts presented their findings during Gartner Symposium/ITxpo, which is taking place here 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.

“The Intelligent Digital Mesh has been a consistent theme for the past two years and continues as a major driver through 2019. Trends under each of these three themes are a key ingredient in driving a continuous innovation process as part of a ContinuousNEXT strategy,” said David Cearley, vice president and Gartner Fellow. “For example, artificial intelligence (AI) in the form of automated things and augmented intelligence is being used together with IoT, edge computing and digital twins to deliver highly integrated smart spaces. This combinatorial effect of multiple trends coalescing to produce new opportunities and drive new disruption is a hallmark of the Gartner top 10 strategic technology trends for 2019.”

The top 10 strategic technology trends for 2019 are:

Autonomous Things

Autonomous things, such as robots, drones and autonomous vehicles, use AI to automate functions previously performed by humans. Their automation goes beyond the automation provided by rigid programing models and they exploit AI to deliver advanced behaviors that interact more naturally with their surroundings and with people.

“As autonomous things proliferate, we expect a shift from stand-alone intelligent things to a swarm of collaborative intelligent things, with multiple devices working together, either independently of people or with human input,” said Mr. Cearley. “For example, if a drone examined a large field and found that it was ready for harvesting, it could dispatch an “autonomous harvester.” Or in the delivery market, the most effective solution may be to use an autonomous vehicle to move packages to the target area. Robots and drones on board the vehicle could then ensure final delivery of the package.”

Augmented Analytics

Augmented analytics focuses on a specific area of augmented intelligence, using machine learning (ML) to transform how analytics content is developed, consumed and shared. Augmented analytics capabilities will advance rapidly to mainstream adoption, as a key feature of data preparation, data management, modern analytics, business process management, process mining and data science platforms. Automated insights from augmented analytics will also be embedded in enterprise applications — for example, those of the HR, finance, sales, marketing, customer service, procurement and asset management departments — to optimize the decisions and actions of all employees within their context, not just those of analysts and data scientists. Augmented analytics automates the process of data preparation, insight generation and insight visualization, eliminating the need for professional data scientists in many situations.

“This will lead to citizen data science, an emerging set of capabilities and practices that enables users whose main job is outside the field of statistics and analytics to extract predictive and prescriptive insights from data,” said Mr. Cearley. “Through 2020, the number of citizen data scientists will grow five times faster than the number of expert data scientists. Organizations can use citizen data scientists to fill the data science and machine learning talent gap caused by the shortage and high cost of data scientists.”

AI-Driven Development

The market is rapidly shifting from an approach in which professional data scientists must partner with application developers to create most AI-enhanced solutions to a model in which the professional developer can operate alone using predefined models delivered as a service. This provides the developer with an ecosystem of AI algorithms and models, as well as development tools tailored to integrating AI capabilities and models into a solution. Another level of opportunity for professional application development arises as AI is applied to the development process itself to automate various data science, application development and testing functions. By 2022, at least 40 percent of new application development projects will have AI co-developers on their team.

“Ultimately, highly advanced AI-powered development environments automating both functional and nonfunctional aspects of applications will give rise to a new age of the ‘citizen application developer’ where nonprofessionals will be able to use AI-driven tools to automatically generate new solutions. Tools that enable nonprofessionals to generate applications without coding are not new, but we expect that AI-powered systems will drive a new level of flexibility,” said Mr. Cearley.

Digital Twins

A digital twin refers to the digital representation of a real-world entity or system. By 2020, Gartner estimates there will be more than 20 billion connected sensors and endpoints and digital twins will exist for potentially billions of things. Organizations will implement digital twins simply at first. They will 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.

“One aspect of the digital twin evolution that moves beyond IoT will be enterprises implementing digital twins of their organizations (DTOs). A DTO is a dynamic software model that relies on operational or other data to understand how an organization operationalizes its business model, connects with its current state, deploys resources and responds to changes to deliver expected customer value,” said Mr. Cearley. “DTOs help drive efficiencies in business processes, as well as create more flexible, dynamic and responsive processes that can potentially react to changing conditions automatically.”

Empowered Edge

The edge refers to endpoint devices used by people or embedded in the world around us. Edge computing describes a computing topology in which information processing, and content collection and delivery, are placed closer to these endpoints. It tries to keep the traffic and processing local, with the goal being to reduce traffic and latency.

In the near term, edge is being driven by IoT and the need keep the processing close to the end rather than on a centralized cloud server. However, rather than create a new architecture, cloud computing and edge computing will evolve as complementary models with cloud services being managed as a centralized service executing, not only on centralized servers, but in distributed servers on-premises and on the edge devices themselves.

Over the next five years, specialized AI chips, along with greater processing power, storage and other advanced capabilities, will be added to a wider array of edge devices. The extreme heterogeneity of this embedded IoT world and the long life cycles of assets such as industrial systems will create significant management challenges. Longer term, as 5G matures, the expanding edge computing environment will have more robust communication back to centralized services. 5G provides lower latency, higher bandwidth, and (very importantly for edge) a dramatic increase in the number of nodes (edge endoints) per square km.

Immersive Experience

Conversational platforms are changing the way in which people interact with the digital world. Virtual reality (VR), augmented reality (AR) and mixed reality (MR) are changing the way in which people perceive the digital world. This combined shift in perception and interaction models leads to the future immersive user experience.

“Over time, we will shift from thinking about individual devices and fragmented user interface (UI) technologies to a multichannel and multimodal experience. The multimodal experience will connect people with the digital world across hundreds of edge devices that surround them, including traditional computing devices, wearables, automobiles, environmental sensors and consumer appliances,” said Mr. Cearley. “The multichannel experience will use all human senses as well as advanced computer senses (such as heat, humidity and radar) across these multimodal devices. This multiexperience environment will create an ambient experience in which the spaces that surround us define “the computer” rather than the individual devices. In effect, the environment is the computer.”

Blockchain

Blockchain, a type of distributed ledger, promises to reshape industries by enabling trust, providing transparency and reducing friction across business ecosystems potentially lowering costs, reducing transaction settlement times and improving cash flow. Today, trust is placed in banks, clearinghouses, governments and many other institutions as central authorities with the “single version of the truth” maintained securely in their databases. The centralized trust model adds delays and friction costs (commissions, fees and the time value of money) to transactions. Blockchain provides an alternative trust mode and removes the need for central authorities in arbitrating transactions.

”Current blockchain technologies and concepts are immature, poorly understood and unproven in mission-critical, at-scale business operations. This is particularly so with the complex elements that support more sophisticated scenarios,” said Mr. Cearley. “Despite the challenges, the significant potential for disruption means CIOs and IT leaders should begin evaluating blockchain, even if they don’t aggressively adopt the technologies in the next few years.”

Many blockchain initiatives today do not implement all of the attributes of blockchain — for example, a highly distributed database. These blockchain-inspired solutions are positioned as a means to achieve operational efficiency by automating business processes, or by digitizing records. They have the potential to enhance sharing of information among known entities, as well as improving opportunities for tracking and tracing physical and digital assets. However, these approaches miss the value of true blockchain disruption and may increase vendor lock-in. Organizations choosing this option should understand the limitations and be prepared to move to complete blockchain solutions over time and that the same outcomes may be achieved with more efficient and tuned use of existing nonblockchain technologies.

Smart Spaces

A smart space is a physical or digital environment in which humans and technology-enabled systems interact in increasingly open, connected, coordinated and intelligent ecosystems. Multiple elements — including people, processes, services and things — come together in a smart space to create a more immersive, interactive and automated experience for a target set of people and industry scenarios.

“This trend has been coalescing for some time around elements such as smart cities, digital workplaces, smart homes and connected factories. We believe the market is entering a period of accelerated delivery of robust smart spaces with technology becoming an integral part of our daily lives, whether as employees, customers, consumers, community members or citizens,” said Mr. Cearley.

Digital Ethics and Privacy

Digital ethics and privacy is a growing concern for individuals, organizations and governments. People are increasingly concerned about how their personal information is being used by organizations in both the public and private sector, and the backlash will only increase for organizations that are not proactively addressing these concerns.

“Any discussion on privacy must be grounded in the broader topic of digital ethics and the trust of your customers, constituents and employees. While privacy and security are foundational components in building trust, trust is actually about more than just these components,” said Mr. Cearley. “Trust is the acceptance of the truth of a statement without evidence or investigation. Ultimately an organization’s position on privacy must be driven by its broader position on ethics and trust. Shifting from privacy to ethics moves the conversation beyond ‘are we compliant’ toward ‘are we doing the right thing.’”

Quantum Computing

Quantum computing (QC) is a type of nonclassical computing that operates on the quantum state of subatomic particles (for example, electrons and ions) that represent information as elements denoted as quantum bits (qubits). The parallel execution and exponential scalability of quantum computers means they excel with problems too complex for a traditional approach or where a traditional algorithms would take too long to find a solution. Industries such as automotive, financial, insurance, pharmaceuticals, military and research organizations have the most to gain from the advancements in QC. In the pharmaceutical industry, for example, QC could be used to model molecular interactions at atomic levels to accelerate time to market for new cancer-treating drugs or QC could accelerate and more accurately predict the interaction of proteins leading to new pharmaceutical methodologies.

“CIOs and IT leaders should start planning for QC by increasing understanding and how it can apply to real-world business problems. Learn while the technology is still in the emerging state. Identify real-world problems where QC has potential and consider the possible impact on security,” said Mr. Cearley. “But don’t believe the hype that it will revolutionize things in the next few years. Most organizations should learn about and monitor QC through 2022 and perhaps exploit it from 2023 or 2025.”

Gartner clients can learn more in the Gartner Special Report “Top 10 Strategic Technology Trends for 2019.” Additional detailed analysis on each tech trend can be found in the Gartner YouTube video “Gartner Top 10 Strategic Technology Trends 2019.”

Seoul Semiconductor (KOSDAQ:046890), a global developer of LED products and technology, announced that it and Seoul Viosys Co., Ltd. have successfully resolved two patent infringement lawsuits filed in the U.S. Federal District Court for the Central District of California against Archipelago Lighting, Inc. (“Archipelago”), a company that sells LED light bulbs.

In 2017, Seoul filed the first patent infringement lawsuit against Archipelago for infringement of 12 LED patents covering various aspects of Seoul’s long-established Acrich technology. A few months later, Seoul filed a second patent litigation against Archipelago accusing additional products of infringement of 8 other Acrich technology patents.

In the lawsuits, Archipelago acknowledged that LED components used in its LED light bulbs were manufactured by several third party suppliers. Although Archipelago had no knowledge of any Seoul Semiconductor patents, or the possibility of infringement, Archipelago did not dispute that the LED light bulbs in question infringed Seoul Semiconductor’s patents. Archipelago also did not dispute the validity of the relevant Seoul Semiconductor’s patents and agreed to pay a license fee in order to affirm its commitment to respecting the intellectual property rights of others. Based upon these admissions, the California Central district court entered judgments in favor of Seoul in these cases. Seoul’s asserted patents include technologies for LED drivers for high-voltage operations, Acrich MJT (multi junction technology – over 6V high power chip), filament LED bulb structures, LED packaging, LED epitaxial growth, and LED chip fabrication.

Seoul is the pioneer of Acrich technology that enables high-voltage operation with a high power output using only a small number of LED units. Specifically, Acrich technology utilizes proprietary LED driver technology to enable high-voltage operation, as well as proprietary MJT technology for mounting and integrating many LEDs within a small area. This maximizes the available space in LED products and power efficiency by 20%, facilitating a simple circuit design and significantly reducing the size and cost of LED products.

Nam Ki-bum, Executive Vice President of the Lighting Department at Seoul Semiconductor, said, “While Seoul will continue enforcement actions to prevent unauthorized use of Acrich technology, we will offer a license program with reasonable terms for companies that recognize and respect the value of Acrich technology. This will promote the distribution of innovative technology products in the market.” He added, “For young entrepreneurs and small entities that wish to pursue technology innovation, this will help them achieve business success, while Seoul continuously works to encourage a fair competition market where intellectual property rights are respected.”

GLOBALFOUNDRIES today announced the addition of nine new partners to its growing RFwave Partner Program, including Akronic, Ask Radio, Catena, University of Waterloo Centre for Intelligent Antenna and Radio Systems (CIARS), Giga Solution, Helic, Incize, Mentor Graphics and Xpeedic Technology. These new partners will provide unique mmWave test and characterization capabilities along with design services, IP and EDA solutions that will enable GF clients to rapidly implement RF designs in applications spanning Internet-of-Things (IoT), mobile, RF connectivity, and networking markets.

The RFwave Partner Program builds upon GF’s industry-leading radio frequency (RF) solutions, such as FD-SOI, RF CMOS (bulk and advanced CMOS nodes), RF SOI and silicon germanium (SiGe) technologies. The program provides a low-risk, cost-effective path for designers seeking to build highly optimized RF solutions for a range of wireless applications such as IoT across various wireless connectivity and cellular standards, standalone or transceiver integrated 5G front end modules, mmWave backhaul, automotive radar, small cell and fixed wireless and satellite broadband.

“As the RFwave program continues to expand, partners play a critical role in helping to serve our growing number of clients and extend the reach of our RF ecosystem by providing innovative RF-tailored solutions and services,” said Mark Ireland, vice president of ecosystem partnerships at GF. “These new partners will help drive deeper engagement and enhance technology collaboration, including tighter interlock around quality, qualification and development methodology, enabling us to deliver advanced highly integrated RF solutions.”

GF is focused on building strong ecosystem partnerships with industry leaders. With the RFwave program, GF’s partners and clients can now benefit from a greater availability of resources to deliver innovative, highly optimized RF solutions. The new partners join current RFwave Program members including asicNorth, Cadence, CoreHW, CWS, Keysight Technologies, Spectral Design, and WEASIC.

Toshiba Memory Corporation (TMC) today announced the appointment of Stacy J. Smith as Executive Chairman, effective on October 1, 2018.

Smith brings a long and proven track record of executive leadership to TMC. He has extensive international experience, having both lived and led organizations in the Asia-Pacific, Latin America, Europe, the Middle East and Africa. He will work closely with CEO Yasuo Naruke to provide overall leadership to the business.

Smith previously spent three decades at Intel leading organizations across multiple disciplines. In his role as President, Manufacturing, Operations and Sales, from 2016 to 2018, he led 40,000 employees involved in worldwide manufacturing, technology development, supply chain, pricing and sales. He also served as Intel’s Chief Financial Officer for almost a decade and in this role also had responsibility for corporate strategy, M&A, and Intel Capital. Prior to that he served as Intel’s Chief Information Officer and Vice President for Sales for Europe, the Middle East and Africa.

Smith also brings strong board leadership experience. He currently serves as board chairman at Autodesk and as a director for Metromile. He served previously as a director for Virgin America and for GEVO. He also serves on the Board of Trustees for The Nature Conservancy of California and on the University of Texas McCombs School of Business Advisory Board. Smith attended The University of Texas at Austin, where he received his MBA in 1988 and his BBA in 1985.

“We are thrilled that Stacy is joining Toshiba Memory Corporation in this crucial leadership role at an important time in the company’s history,” said Yasuo Naruke, President and CEO of TMC. “With Stacy’s wealth of international leadership experience and knowledge of the semiconductor space, there is no doubt he is the perfect person to help lead our company in the next phase of growth as an independent company.”

“I am excited to take on this important challenge, and honored to join the TMC team,” said Smith. “Toshiba invented flash memory, and with TMC now operating as an independent company with increased capacity to invest in developing and growing semiconductor technology, the company has a strong growth trajectory ahead of it.”

Smith’s hiring follows the acquisition this year of TMC by an industry consortium led by Bain Capital Private Equity. Bain Capital Private Equity has a long history of successful investments in Japan including Skylark, Jupiter Shop Channel, BellSystem24, Domino’s Pizza Japan, Ooedo Onsen, and Asatsu-DK. The firm’s deep market knowledge, extensive local networks and expertise in driving operational improvement strategies have made Bain Capital a valued partner for Japanese companies.

“Stacy is the right leader to help TMC, already a technology leader in the flash memory industry, achieve its potential as an independent company,” said David Gross-Loh, a director of TMC and a managing director and co-head of Asia for Bain Capital Private Equity. “We are very pleased to welcome Stacy to TMC and look forward to working closely with him and the expanded management team.”