Samsung strikes drive deal with Google

Samsung Electronics has agreed to supply Google with its advanced three-dimensional NAND flash (3D NAND) solid state drives (SSD).

This deal is considered another huge boost for Samsung to go ahead of its chief overseas rivals in the race for development of 3D NAND technology, said officials.

"The agreement calls for Samsung to supply 3D NAND SSD products for Google datacenters. Samsung is in discussions with Google to end some minor differences such as guaranteed shipments and pricing," an executive from a Samsung Electronics partner company told The Korea Times, Tuesday.

The exact value of the deal is unknown, but the executive said the worth is "sizeable."

A Samsung Electronics spokesman declined to comment on the agreement. Google representatives were not immediately available for comment either.

The deal comes a few days after its chief U.S.-based memory chip rival Micron Technology teamed up with Intel for their new 3D NAND technology.

Samsung's factory in Xian, China ― the main location to fabricate 3D NAND chips ― will increase its annual shipments of 3D NAND chips to 960,000 wafers this year, from last year's estimated 480,000, according to research firms.

From a technology point of view, 3D NAND is a type of flash memory that stacks memory die on top of each other within a single package using specialized interconnectors. The vertical stacking allows for a significantly higher density of memory cells and improves performance and reliability.

The 3D NAND is a breakthrough in overcoming the density limit currently facing the planar (2D) NAND architecture and floating gates used in conventional flash memory, as well as yielding speed and endurance improvements.

3D NAND SSDs for datacenters have higher margins than those used in portable devices such as notebooks and smartphones ad datacenters need more storage capacity and faster speeds for data-processing.

In a related note, Samsung previously agreed with Amazon to export its 3D NAND technology, while Apple was testing the quality of Samsung 3D NAND SSDs as the iPhone designer also intends to use Samsung products. Facebook is another target for Samsung to promote its 3D NAND SSDs.

Samsung seeks to improve its 3D NAND technology as the world's biggest memory chip producer believes it will be an important growth driver.

In August 2013, Samsung released the first-generation SSDs for datacenters and the company released the 3D NAND SSDs in October last year.

While Samsung has first mover advantage, SanDisk, Toshiba and SK hynix are also well positioned to benefit from the industry's shift and come up with their 3D NAND offerings.

Samsung, however, say it will be several generations ahead and will have solved the teething problems of controller design and other architectural issues.

 http://www.koreatimes.co.kr/www/news/tech/2015/03/133_176227.html

Intel opens acquisition discussions with Altera

Altera, a maker of chips for networks and cars, would be Intel’s biggest purchase ever

http://www.wsj.com/articles/intel-in-talks-to-buy-altera-1427485172

New 3D NAND flash will triple capacity of SSDs, Intel and Micron say

Standard consumer SSDs will increase up to an astounding 10TB of storage, thanks to a new type of 3D NAND flash memory that Intel and Micron introduced Thursday morning.
The two companies, longtime joint partners in NAND flash development, said the breakthrough isn’t to make larger flash chips, but thicker ones. Much like Manhattan, when you’re out of space, the only way to go is up.


Executives at the two companies said that by stacking the NAND they can greatly increase the capacity. The new 3D NAND technology stacks flash cells vertically in 32 layers to achieve a 256Gbit multilevel cell (MLC) and 384Gbit triple-level cell (TLC) die that fit within a standard package. Both say this approach will yield greater efficiency and lower the cost too.
Pack a bunch of those together, and the end result is a tripling of capacity over today’s drives, at least initially. For a standard 2.5-inch SATA drive that means up to 10TB of space; for the M.2 drive type used by most laptops, the 3D NAND will boost capacities up to 3.5GB.
"This 3D NAND technology has the potential to create fundamental market shifts," said Brian Shirley, Vice President of Memory Technology and Solutions at Micron Technology, in a statement. "The depth of the impact that flash has had to date—from smartphones to flash-optimized supercomputing—is really just scratching the surface of what's possible."


The chips are already sampling at both companies, and Intel said it expects to offer products for sale using the 3D chips in the later half of this year. But how long will the chips last before they fail? That information wasn’t disclosed.
Intel did say it expects to offer products using the new NAND chips this year.
Why this matters: SSDs have drastically impacted computing—but even as prices have dropped, the capacities still lag far behind those of traditional magnetic hard drives. This 3D NAND announcement puts SSDs on a density increase that could very well see it eclipsing hard drives, at least for most people’s needs.

http://www.pcworld.com/article/2902246/new-3d-nand-flash-will-triple-capacity-of-ssds-intel-and-micron-say.html

Intel's Deep Learning Play: Next-Gen Xeon Phi Could Challenge NVIDIA GPUs

Intel disclosed new technical details about its next -generation Xeon Phi processor to a small group of technology analysts-journalists at one of its Hillsboro sites this week. First revealed last year, the “Knights Landing” chip is expected to ship later this year, however Intel showed pre-production parts parts running in a Hillsboro test lab. The briefing included a whiteboard design walkthrough by Avinash Sodani, Knights Landing Chief Architect at Intel, a product update by Hugo Saleh, Marketing Director of Intel’s Technical Computing Group, an interactive technical Q&A and a lab demo of a Knights Landing system running on an Intel reference-design system. The architectural differences between Knights Landing and prior Phi products is substantial and should translate to much easier adoption and a broader set of commercial applications, including areas like deep learning, genomics, databases and general purpose containerized (Docker) workloads. Unlike more specialized processors, Intel describes Knights Landing as taking a “holistic approach” to new breakthrough applications.
Unlike the current generation Phi design, which operates as a coprocessor, Knights Landing incorporates x86 cores and can directly boot and run standard operating systems and application code without recompilation. The test system, which resembled a standard server board, with socketed CPU and memory modules was running a stock Linux distribution. This is made possible by the inclusion of a modified version of the Atom Silvermont x86 cores as part of each Knights Landing ’tile’: the chip’s basic design unit consisting of dual x86 and vector execution units alongside cache memory and intra-tile mesh communication circuitry. Each multi-chip package includes the a processor with 30 or more (rumored up to 36) tiles and eight high-speed memory chips. Although it wouldn’t offer specifics, Intel said the on-package memory, totalling 16GB, is made by Micron with custom I/O circuitry and might be a variant of Micron’s announced, but not yet shipping Hybrid Memory Cube, but this wasn’t confirmed. The high-speed memory is conceptually similar to the DDR5 devices used on GPUs like NVIDIA's NVDA -0.58% Tesla.

Intel is long on device-level technology details, but short on specifics regarding the types of business problems, applications and users Phi targets. So far, Phi has been used by HPC applications like scientific simulations, modeling and design, with product announcements often happening during supercomputing conferences. Yet as NVIDIA demonstrated at GTC,, the opportunities for compute hardware supporting wide, vector operations built for highly parallelized algorithms, whether general purpose GPUs or now Xeon Phi, extends far beyond the supercomputer niche. As I previously discussed, NVIDIA has morphed its GPU architecture into a powerful engine for calculating deep learning neural network algorithms that is now being applied to accelerate SQL database operations and analytics.
The internals of a GPU and Xeon Phi are much different, however both share many common traits: dozens (Phi) to thousands (GPU) of lower performance (Phi) to relatively simple cores (GPU), vector processing units and very high-speed local memory and buses. The creative exploitation of this capability isn’t limited to scientific or graphics calculations and seems limited only by the imagination of developers. But on this front, Intel didn’t have encouraging news. Although Saleh mentioned deep learning as a potential application, he couldn’t point to specific customers or researchers using Phi for anything but traditional scientific HPC problems.

Source: Kurt Marko

Unlike NVIDIA, which announced the price and availability of a Titan X development box designed for researchers exploring GPU applications to deep learning, Intel wouldn’t share details about when OEM partners will have Knights Landing systems, whether any ould be sized and priced for individual developers, nor a timeline for what Saleh characterized as a Phi developer program, which will include access to hardware, updated software tools and training materials. But developer resources, outreach and evangelism are critical to any success Phi is to have, particularly since the hardware itself represents a substantial departure from the standard x86 microarchitecture, and here NVIDIA has a big head start.
Yet thinking of Phi as an alternative GPU or vector processor is wrong since it’s actually a hybrid that includes dozens of full-fledged 64-bit x86 cores. This unique design, if used right, could significantly accelerate certain parallelizable application categories besides HPC simulation like deep learning and data analytics that use vector calculations, while offering drop-in computational offload for standard x86 code.
Read more:
http://www.forbes.com/sites/kurtmarko/2015/03/25/intels-deep-learning-play/

Organic LEDs, carbon nanotubes may light up future fabrics

With the emergence of wearable electronics that monitor fitness and health, there is a growing need for more flexible light-emitting devices. One option that researchers have been interested in is developing fabrics with integrated light-emitting devices. Unfortunately, fabrics themselves are not a suitable surface for current light-emitting materials. However, a team of scientists have found a way around this issue by integrating the light-emitting devices directly into fabrics using a new technology: light-emitting device fibers.
These research team, based in China, worked with polymer light-emitting electrochemical cells (PLECs). Like many other light-emitting devices, PLECs have a structure that is composed of two metal electrodes connected to a thin organic layer that acts as a semiconductor. Because PLECs have mobile ions incorporated into the semiconductor, they have many benefits compared to other light-emitting diodes (LEDs): low operating voltage, high efficiency in converting electrons to photons, and high power efficiency. PLECs are also a good option because they do not require the use of metals that are sensitive to air and they can be used on rougher surfaces; these characteristics make them suitable for large-scale manufacturing.
These fiber-shaped PLECs have a coaxial structure with four layers. Using a solution-based processing, a steel wire, which acts as the base of this fiber, is dip-coated with a thin layer of ZnO nanoparticles. This layer has two key functions: protecting the light-emitting layer that's applied next; and decreasing the leakage of the current, thus enhancing current efficiency.
Next, the electroluminescent polymer layer is deposited onto the wire using dip-coating. Finally, a sheet of aligned carbon nanotubes is wrapped around the bundle using a dry-drawn form of spinnable carbon nanotubes. Because the carbon nanotubes were highly aligned, they provided the fiber with high electrical conductivities. Imaging revealed that the fibers had a uniform diameter and a smooth outer surface.
The scientists who created these fibers determined the lifetime of the devices. They found that the fibers gradually light up over a 21-minute period and gradually dim over a four-hour period; in these studies, the light emitted by the fibers was blue. The fiber lit up when a voltage of 5.6V was applied and reached a peak intensity at 13V. When the fiber is pre-charged, it displays a rapid turn-on response that is similar to conventional LEDs.
The brightness of the light emitted by the fibers was almost entirely independent of viewing angle. When the fibers were bent, they maintained their brightness above 90 percent and no obvious damage was observed. Though only blue light was explored in these studies, the team believes other colors could be displayed as well.
Together, these studies demonstrate that these light-emitting fibers can be woven into fabrics without compromising their luminescence, which makes them a promising candidate for the development of wearable electronics and other fabric-based electronics in the future.

http://arstechnica.com/science/2015/03/organic-leds-carbon-nanotubes-may-light-up-future-fabrics/

IBM to share technology with China in strategy shift: CEO

(Reuters) - IBM Corp will share technology with Chinese firms and will actively help build China's industry, CEO Virginia Rometty said in Beijing as she set out a strategy for one of the foreign firms hardest hit by China's shifting technology policies.
IBM must help China build its IT industry rather than viewing the country solely as a sales destination or manufacturing base, Rometty said at the China Development Forum, an annual Chinese government-sponsored conference bringing together business executives and China's ruling elite.
"If you're a country, as China is, of 1.3 billion people you would want an IT industry as well," the chief executive said on Monday. "I think some firms find that perhaps frightening. We, though, at IBM ... find that to be a great opportunity."
Rometty's remarks were among the clearest acknowledgements to date by a high-ranking foreign technology executive that companies must adopt a different tack if they are to continue in China amid growing political pressure.
A number of U.S. technology companies operating in China are forming alliances with domestic operators, hoping a local partner will make it easier to operate in the increasingly tough environment for foreign businesses.
China has been pushing for the use of more Chinese and less foreign-made technology, to grow its own tech sector and in response to ex-U.S. National Security Agency contractor Edward Snowden's leaks about U.S. cyber surveillance.
IBM's sales in China have stabilized after a sharp drop that began in the third quarter of 2013 following Snowden's revelations. The Armonk, New York-based company reported a 1 percent slide in revenue in China during the fourth quarter of 2014, compared with the prior year.
IBM's new approach allows Chinese companies to build everything from semiconductor chips and servers based on IBM architecture, to the software that runs on those machines.
Last week IBM said Suzhou PowerCore Technology Co will begin producing a version of IBM's Power8 chip to run on Chinese-made servers. Its POWER line of processors is often used for intensive calculations in financial services, where Chinese banks have been required by new government regulations to use more domestic vendors.
The U.S. company had already announced a series of partnerships with Chinese vendors and now packages its database software with products from Inspur, a server hardware maker and IBM rival, and has also struck agreements with Youyou, a Beijing-based software firm.
Other vendors are making similar efforts.
SAP SE Greater China head Mark Gibbs for instance said in October the company sought to be a "complementary player to the Chinese market” by selling its software on hardware made by Lenovo Inc and Huawei Technologies.


http://www.reuters.com/article/2015/03/23/us-china-tech-ibm-idUSKBN0MJ14X20150323

Chip Gear Makers Look Less Fab

Samsung may be squeezing more life out of the expensive equipment it uses to fabricate semiconductor products. That may be bad news for the firms that depend on selling new gear, but perhaps not as bad as the market is making out.

Read more:
http://www.wsj.com/articles/chip-gear-makers-look-less-fab-heard-on-the-street-1427043217

New Usecases Broaden Mobile ID, NFC

BARCELONA -- Several Mobile Digital ID solutions were shown at Mobile World Congress (MWC), held here last month, but the traditionally PC-based technology is challenging for an increasingly mobile world.

Several existing systems rely on the presence of smartphones to unlock devices. Chrome OS uses Bluetooth connection to an Android smartphone or tablet to unlock a Chromebook and Chromebox. Using mobile identification in this fashion is difficult as many people do not have access to a laptop or desktop computer, or they share one with others and don't want to install a digital ID on it.
In cities such as Barcelona where cellphone penetration is over 100%, smartphones are the best recipients for a digital ID as they are usually not shared and are often close at hand. To writ, the city of Barcelona introduced its MobileID application in September 2013, and has been adding new services to it ever since. Currently, Barcelona residents can use the app to access several city services, pay taxes, and request resident certificates and permits. The city also makes the MobileID API available to third parties, such as financial institutions, to provide additional services where securely identifying the user is critical.
The security platform supporting this ID meets national and international legal and technical standards that are transparent to citizens, who interact only with their mobile phone application.

Continue reading by clicking the link below: 

http://www.eetimes.com/document.asp?doc_id=1326089

Four Ways 3D Printing is Shaping Product Design and Manufacturing

Read the article here:

http://whitepapers.manufacturing.net/20150305_stratasys_four-ways-3d-printing-is-shaping/?abm_pos=5&abm_adtype=text_ad&abm_type=headline&abm_adcategory=paid

Samsung mass produces memory chip for mid-end smartphones

South Korea's tech giant Samsung Electronics Co. said Thursday it has started mass producing a 128-gigabyte (GB) memory chip for mid-end smartphones, paving the road to release more high-capacity handsets at reasonable prices.

Samsung said the mobile memory chip is based on the embedded MultiMedia Card (eMMC) 5.0 and 3-bit NAND technology. It also boasts a data transmission speed of 260 megabytes per second.

"While flagship smartphones are already transitioning to 128GB memory storage based on Universal Flash Storage 2.0 or eMMC 5.1 standards, mid-market smartphones will now be able to increase their storage capacity to 128GB as well," Samsung said in its press release.

The production follows another move made by Samsung last month, when the company said it has churned out the 128GB Universal Flash Storage (UFS) that is faster and slimmer, and consumes less power compared with previous flash memory chips.

The high-end version of memory chips announced in February is aimed at top-tier models, such as the latest Galaxy S6, which will hit the market in April, while the latest edition is meant for low-to-mid-end smartphones.

"Samsung has extended its 3-bit NAND business from SSDs for data centers, servers and PCs to the entire mobile memory storage market," Samsung said. "Samsung will continue to broaden its application of 3-bit NAND Flash memory by developing higher-performance and higher-density solutions." (Yonhap)

http://www.koreaherald.com/view.php?ud=20150319000176

StorTrends claims $0.5 per gigabyte price point for all-flash 3600i storage arrays

by Daniel Robinson

17 Mar 2015

StorTrends, the data storage division of American Megatrends Incorporated (AMI), has introduced a line of all-flash storage arrays that are designd to meet the needs of performance-intensive applications at half the price of any other platform, hitting a price of 50 cents per gigabyte.
Available now, the StorTrends 3600i all-flash array family is based on two different types of solid state drives (SSDS); one designed for write performance and the other optimised for read performance. It also uses state-of-the-art deduplication and compression to achieve "amazing capacity savings", according to the firm.
Thanks to this, StorTrends is able to hit a new low price point of 50 cents per gigabyte. The news comes after Sandisk launched its own InfiniFlash line of all-flash arrays, claiming to break through the $1 per gigabyte mark for the first time.
"Until today, the vast majority of customers have been shy of all-flash storage primarily due to the cost. AMI has broken down this barrier by offering all-flash storage for less than $0.50 per GB," said the director of AMI's StorTrends division, Justin Bagby.
"This is due to the highly efficient data deduplication, compression and Enlift caching technology that is offered within the StorTrends 3600i series."
Another unique feature that AMI claims for its storage platform is the ability to optimise performance for the specific needs of each environment. To achieve this, it uses the StorTrends iDATA Analysis Tool to profile capacity utilisation, IOPS usage, network bandwidth and the volume of reads versus writes in a customer's IT environment to classify the amount of "write data" versus "read data" required.
StorTrends' platform also supports snapshots, automated data tiering, active/active or active/passive failover configuration, WAN optimisation for replication and SSD-based data encryption.
The StorTrends 3600i series is available with Write Tier SSD capacities of 200GB, 400GB, 800GB and 2TB, as well as Read Tier SSD capacities of 128GB, 256GB, 512GB and 1TB.
Pricing starts at $24,999 (about £17,000), including 24 x 7 phone technical support and next business day on-site replacement.

http://www.v3.co.uk/v3-uk/news/2399872/stortrends-claims-usd05-per-gigabyte-price-point-for-all-flash-3600i-storage-arrays

Most 2015 Apple A9 Chips To Be Manufactured By TSMC

A recent report reveals that TSMC will be responsible for 70 percent production of Apple A9 and A9X chips. The remaining percentage will be assigned to Samsung.

The A9 chip is designated for the 2015 iPhone, while its A9X cousin will be landing in the 2015 iPad. Production of the chips is expected to help raise TSMC's revenues by up to 3 or 4 percent in 2015. This will eventually lead to an increase in earnings per share this year and even in 2016 — by up to 12 percent and 7 percent, respectively.
"We believe TSMC will earn most of the A9 orders thanks to its superior yield ramp and manufacturing excellence in mass production," said Rick Hsu and Olivia Hsu of Daiwa Securities in a statement.
"We expect TSMC to earn all of Apple's A9X orders for the next generation iPad and most of the A9 for the next generation of iPhone, aggregating to an allocation of over 70 percent."
The Japanese brokerage added that TSMC should expect the production to begin contributing to its revenues in the August to October period. This will be possible as the initial production of the A9X chip is slated to commence in March while the A9 chip will begin its production in April.
"Previously, we assumed TSMC would earn only A9X orders," said the brokerage. "We now expect the addition of A9."

Several rumors have previously suggested that Samsung would produce the majority of Apple's A9 chip sets, and that the Galaxy maker would be taking the lead against TSMC in producing the chips.
An opposing rumor in early 2015 posited that Taiwan-based TSMC would be the company responsible for production of the A9.  
The latest development in what has seemed like a tug-of-war between Samsung and TSMC had somehow settled the issue and confirmed that Apple doesn't intend to rely much on Samsung as the chip supplier anymore.
Dubbed the world's largest contract chip maker, TSMC saw a drop in its sales in February, by 28.1 percent, which the company attributes to the month's lower number of working days.
Nevertheless, February's record of sales is still higher in the grand scheme — with the company experiencing 33.8 percent in growth compared with the same month last year. That number, coupled with the rising demand for mobile devices, suggests that the semiconductor industry will have an overall better performance this year than in 2014.

http://www.techtimes.com/articles/39864/20150316/majority-of-2015-apple-a9-chips-may-be-manufactured-by-tsmc.htm

Violin Memory Launches Global Partner Program

Click on link to read the story:

http://www.channelinsider.com/storage/violin-memory-launches-global-partner-program.html

Violin Memory is looking to the channel to help it to broaden the appeal of its all-flash arrays.

Violin Memory executives see the company's new global partner program as a key step in its effort to broaden the appeal of its all-flash arrays.
Although Violin Memory gained initial traction in the enterprise market, it is now looking more to the channel to extend its reach into small and midsize enterprises following the recent introduction of the Violin Flash Storage Platform, which is priced equivalent to a high-end magnetic storage system, said Jeff Nollette, worldwide vice president of channel sales for Violin Memory.
"We've made a much [more] friendly product for the channel," said Nollette. "We're now going well beyond a Fortune 500 kind of company play."
- See more at: http://www.channelinsider.com/storage/violin-memory-launches-global-partner-program.html#sthash.QZQLGZSN.dpuf

Violin Memory is looking to the channel to help it to broaden the appeal of its all-flash arrays.

Violin Memory executives see the company's new global partner program as a key step in its effort to broaden the appeal of its all-flash arrays.
Although Violin Memory gained initial traction in the enterprise market, it is now looking more to the channel to extend its reach into small and midsize enterprises following the recent introduction of the Violin Flash Storage Platform, which is priced equivalent to a high-end magnetic storage system, said Jeff Nollette, worldwide vice president of channel sales for Violin Memory.
"We've made a much [more] friendly product for the channel," said Nollette. "We're now going well beyond a Fortune 500 kind of company play."
- See more at: http://www.channelinsider.com/storage/violin-memory-launches-global-partner-program.html#sthash.QZQLGZSN.dpuf

Fujitsu's thin heat pipe could help smartphone chips run cooler

http://www.pcworld.com/article/2896672/fujitsus-thin-heat-pipe-could-let-smartphone-chips-run-cooler.html

If parts of your phone are sometimes too hot to handle, Fujitsu may have the answer: a thin heat pipe that can spread heat around mobile devices, reducing extremes of temperature.
Fujitsu Laboratories created a heat pipe in the form of a loop that’s less than 1mm thick. The device can transfer about 20W, about five times more heat than current thin heat pipes or thermal materials, the company said.
The technology could improve smartphones’ performance by helping cool their CPUs and other heat-producing components, spreading that heat more evenly across other parts of the phone.
Overheating has been an issue with some Samsung Galaxy smartphones, and the Korean manufacturer apparently dropped Qualcomm’s Snapdragon 810 processor from the Galaxy S6 due to excessive heat concerns.


While heat pipes have been used in laptops, they are uncommon in smartphones, where sheets of metal or graphite have been used instead. Fujitsu said its pipe is the first of its kind under 1 mm thick that can be used in thin electronic devices.
The pipe consists of a stack of 0.1mm-thick copper sheets containing channels through which water circulates by capillary action, meaning it will work regardless of a smartphone’s orientation. One part of the heat pipe sits over a heat source such as a CPU, which evaporates the water. Another part, a thermal diffusion plate, acts as a condenser, turning the vapor back into liquid and returning it to the evaporator part.
While the heat pipe doesn’t remove the heat from the smartphone, it might limit overheating in particular areas by spreading heat around and reducing the temperature of the hottest spots.
“For current smartphones, we predict the surface temperature to be reduced by several degrees, although this will vary depending on a variety of factors such as the internal structure of the smartphone,” a Fujitsu spokesman said via email.
The heat pipe could also reduce the frequency of automatic restrictions that smartphone CPUs apply when temperature is expected to rise, the spokesman added, meaning CPUs could work unhindered more often.
Fujitsu aims to commercialize the technology, which can be customized for different mobile device designs, by early 2018. It’s also looking into uses in communications, medical and wearable devices. Meanwhile, it plans to present the work at the Semiconductor Thermal Measurement and Management Symposium (SEMI-THERM) in California next week.

Samsung seals big SSD chip deal with Apple

http://www.koreatimes.co.kr/www/news/tech/2015/03/133_175177.html

By Kim Yoo-chul

Samsung Electronics struck another major chip deal with Apple with an estimated monetary value of "billions of dollars," helping Samsung further strengthen its chip business.

The latest agreement is calling for Samsung Electronics to sell its latest solid state drive (SSD) storage devices using its V-NAND technology to Apple's new range of ultra-slim and high-end notebook models, two people directly involved with the deal told The Korea Times, Friday.

"Samsung Electronics recently agreed with Apple to provide SSDs using its latest three-dimensional (3D) V-NAND tech. The deal is estimated to be worth a "few billion dollars," said one of the people.

Samsung's chip factory in Xian, China, will handle the production.

While Samsung will start providing Apple with entire chunks of the requested SSD products, the shipment volume, however, is subject to change according to situations, he said.

The deal is the third of its kind and Samsung will be responsible for at least half of the production of mobile DRAM chips to be used in upcoming iPhones.

Apple has also enlisted Samsung to handle 80 percent of the production of the A9 chipset to power new iPhones, pushing Taiwan's TSMC back to the secondary position in the highly profitable mobile application chip business.

"Samsung's SSD products with 3D V-NAND technology offer a significant performance boost in performance and endurance as compared to its predecessors, making them ideal for use in high-end notebooks. Samsung is the only company to mass produce the products currently," said the other people.

Unlike DRAM chips, SSD is based on NAND flash technology. The 3D NAND is an upgraded NAND flash technology. NAND chips are used to store data inside all digital devices from smartphones to TVs, even after the products are switched off.

Samsung Electronics' spokesman in Seoul declined to confirm the agreement as it doesn't comment on client-related issues.

Conventional hard disk drives (HDD) are rapidly being replaced by SSD as Samsung, which is the world's top memory supplier, is heavily promoting the sale of SSD products.

"Client SSD attach rates in notebooks, including ultrabooks, were up significantly last year and we see further growth ahead. We expect hybrid HDDs and SSDs to capture an increasing share of storage units in PCs," said Bernstein Research's senior analyst Mark C. Newman in a recent report.

The people said Samsung's 3D-NAND SSD storage technology makes it more suitable for general consumer application in key devices such as notebooks and gaming PCs.

The agreement comes a few days after Samsung Electronics' memory chip division head Kim Ki-nam told local reporters that the first quarter will also be good in terms of profits.

Its chip business reported 2.7 trillion won in operating profit last year, accounting for 51 percent out of total operating profit that Samsung Electronics earned.

Samsung's logic-chip business, which manages processors, has returned to the black since early this month. Analysts say the division will report about 1 trillion won operating profit this year, while the company's memory chip business is expected to get more than 12 trillion won in profits, helping the semiconductor division see a record in annual profits.

Nanya to invest NT$40bn in upgrades

http://www.taipeitimes.com/News/biz/archives/2015/03/13/2003613393

‘LIFESAVER’:The company said it would use 20-nanometer technology upgrades to produce low-power DDR4 chips, which it is set to begin producing in volume in 2017

Nanya Technology Corp (南亞科技), the world’s fourth-largest DRAM chipmaker, yesterday said its board has approved a spending plan that would see NT$40 billion (US$1.27 billion) invested over the next two to three years in upgrades to manufacturing facilities that would allow it to produce 20-nanometer (nm) DRAM chips.
That would make Nanya Technology the world’s fourth chipmaker capable of supplying 20nm DRAM chips after Samsung Electronics Co, SK Hynix Inc and Micron Technology Inc’s Inotera Memories Inc (華亞科技).
Inotera is a DRAM venture between Micron and Nanya Technology.
The advanced technology “will be a lifesaver for Nanya Technology,” company president Charles Kau (高啟全) told reporters.
“Only 20nm technology can be used to [cost-efficiently] make low-power DDR4 and DDR4 chips, which together will account for 80 percent of the world’s DRAM market in 2018,” he said.
Samsung’s newly released Galaxy 6 smartphone and One M9 handset from HTC Corp (宏達電) are equipped with low-power DDR4 chips, Kau said.
“Without low-power DDR4 chips, Nanya Technology’s sales and revenue will run out of steam in the future,” Kau said.
To fund the technological migration, Nanya Technology plans to raise up to NT$20 billion by issuing fresh shares to new strategic partners and by arranging bank loans in the second half of this year.
Kau declined to comment on speculation that Japan’s Toshiba Corp and US DRAM module maker Kingston Technology Corp are interested in forming a tie-up with Nanya Technology.
Nanya Technology plans to begin volume production of 20nm technology in 2017.
Based on Nanya Technology’s plan, half of its 60,000 wafer capacity will be upgraded to 20nm technology by licensing technology from Micron. The chipmaker now makes DRAM chips mostly on 30nm technology.
The company’s board also gave the go-ahead to distribute a cash dividend of NT$2 per share, after the company reported net income of NT$28.24 billion last year, or NT$11.77 per share.
The dividend payout represents 2.52 percent of dividend yield based on the stock’s closing price of NT$79.5 in Taipei trading yesterday.
Commenting on the global DRAM market outlook, Nanya Technology vice president Lee Pei-ing (李培瑛) said average selling prices of DRAM products would stabilize next quarter as demand gradually recovers from slow seasonal demand this quarter.
However, global PC demand is still weaker than expected for this quarter, which is likely to add extra pressure to the company’s average selling price, Lee said.
For the first two months of the year the company’s cumulative sales rose 0.37 percent year-on-year to NT$7.95 billion, according to data compiled by the Taiwan Stock Exchange.
Nanya shares rose 2.32 percent yesterday in Taipei trading, outpacing the broader market’s 0.76 percent increase.

 

Altera adds 30A DC-DC converter

http://www.electronicsweekly.com/news/design/power/altera-adds-30a-dc-dc-converter-2015-03/

Altera is adding a 30A PowerSoC DC-DC step-down converter to its Enpirion power solutions for FPGAs.
The 30A EM1130 is the first in a family of integrated digital DC-DC step-down converters that will provide power management for Altera’s Generation 10 FPGAs, specifically for Arria 10 and Stratix 10 FPGA core and transceiver power supply rails. Altera DC/DC converters have an integrated inductor to reduce total solution size, low on-resistance integrated MOSFETs and tight output voltage regulation accuracy.
PMBus provides the interface for Altera SmartVID technology which allows the converter to provide the Arria 10 and Stratix 10 FPGAs with a lower voltage (VCC) for power savings while maintaining the performance of the specific device speed grade.
The PMBus interface also allows the EM1130 to communicate with the system to provide telemetry—measurement of key parameters such as current, voltage and temperature.
- See more at: http://www.electronicsweekly.com/news/design/power/altera-adds-30a-dc-dc-converter-2015-03/#sthash.x8dJhm2f.dpuf

Altera is adding a 30A PowerSoC DC-DC step-down converter to its Enpirion power solutions for FPGAs.
The 30A EM1130 is the first in a family of integrated digital DC-DC step-down converters that will provide power management for Altera’s Generation 10 FPGAs, specifically for Arria 10 and Stratix 10 FPGA core and transceiver power supply rails. Altera DC/DC converters have an integrated inductor to reduce total solution size, low on-resistance integrated MOSFETs and tight output voltage regulation accuracy.
PMBus provides the interface for Altera SmartVID technology which allows the converter to provide the Arria 10 and Stratix 10 FPGAs with a lower voltage (VCC) for power savings while maintaining the performance of the specific device speed grade.
The PMBus interface also allows the EM1130 to communicate with the system to provide telemetry—measurement of key parameters such as current, voltage and temperature.
- See more at: http://www.electronicsweekly.com/news/design/power/altera-adds-30a-dc-dc-converter-2015-03/#sthash.x8dJhm2f.dpuf

http://www.reuters.com/article/2015/03/12/us-intel-forecast-idUSKBN0M81JU20150312

Intel cuts revenue forecast as desktop demand weakens

By Anya George Tharakan and Sai Sachin R

Thu Mar 12, 2015 6:23pm EDT

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Visitors look at tablets at the Intel booth during the 2014 Computex exhibition at the TWTC Nangang exhibition hall in Taipei June 3, 2014.

Credit: Reuters/Pichi Chuang

(Reuters) - Intel Corp (INTC.O) slashed nearly $1 billion from its first-quarter revenue forecast as small businesses put off upgrading their personal computers, sending the chipmaker's shares down more than 5 percent.
Fewer companies than Intel had expected replaced desktop PCs running on outdated Microsoft operating systems, leading to weak demand for its chips. Intel also cited "challenging" macroeconomic and currency conditions, particularly in Europe.
"The macro environment is not robust enough for people to upgrade their PCs the way they normally would," Topeka Capital Markets analyst Suji De Silva said.
Intel said on Thursday that it expected first-quarter revenue of $12.8 billion, plus or minus $300 million - about 7 percent lower than its earlier forecast of $13.7 billion, plus or minus $500 million.
Though dominant in the market for chips used in PCs, Intel has been slower than rivals such as Qualcomm Inc (QCOM.O) to adjust in recent years to the growing popularity of smartphones.
When Microsoft Corp (MSFT.O) wound down support for its Windows XP operating system last April, Intel had expected a bounce in demand from small- and medium-sized businesses. But this has not happened.
Businesses and consumers are taking an "if it ain't broke, don't fix it" attitude to their old PCs, Summit Research analyst Srini Sundararajan said.
According to BlueFin Research Partners, 75 million-76 million PCs will be shipped worldwide in the first quarter, a decline of 8-9 percent from the preceding quarter.
Intel, whose historic "Wintel" alliance with Microsoft once delivered breathtakingly high profit margins, has been trying to offset the impact of slower PC upgrades by making chips for devices such as "2-in-1s", which function as both laptop and tablet.
Intel said the mid-point of its gross margin range would remain at 60 percent, plus or minus a couple of percentage points.
Intel's shares were down 4.8 percent at $30.76 in late afternoon trading on the Nasdaq. Microsoft's shares were down 2.4 percent at $41.
Shares of ASML Holding NV (ASML.O), the world's largest maker of semiconductor production equipment, were down 2 percent at $104.40.

Xilinx moves programmable chip design to system-level

Read the article on Electronics Weekly

http://www.electronicsweekly.com/news/products/fpga-pld/xilinx-moves-programmable-chip-design-system-level-2015-03/

Xilinx moves programmable chip design to system-leve - See more at: http://www.electronicsweekly.com/news/products/fpga-pld/xilinx-moves-programmable-chip-design-system-level-2015-03/#sthash.KVvw9Ian.dpuf

Xilinx continues to introduce FPGA development tools which it expects will make design of programmable devices accessible to a range of non-specialist developers.
The SDSoC for the company’s Zynq All Programmable SoCs and MPSoCs is configured to simplify device programming by using an Eclipse integrated design environment (IDE).
The intention is to support system-level design and the tool has a C/C++ full-system optimising compiler, automated SW acceleration in programmable logic and automated system-level interconnect generation.
The compiler targets both the Zynq’s ARM processors and the programmable logic.
The Eclipse IDE with C/C++ runs on bare metal or operating systems such as Linux and FreeRTOS as its input.
According to Giles Peckham, European marketing manager, Xilinx, the tool enables the creation of “complete heterogeneous multi-processing systems, including reuse of legacy HDL IP Blocks as C-callable libraries”.
“Unlike traditional separate hardware-centric and software-centric flows, which can result in development delays and uncertainty in system architecture and performance, SDSoC is architected to provide rapid system profiling, SW acceleration in programmable logic, and system architecture exploration in a familiar framework,” said Peckham.
SDSoC provides board support packages for Zynq All Programmable SoC-based development boards including the ZC702, ZC706, as well as third party and market specific platforms including the Zedboard, MicroZed, ZYBO, and Video and Imaging development kits.
- See more at: http://www.electronicsweekly.com/news/products/fpga-pld/xilinx-moves-programmable-chip-design-system-level-2015-03/#sthash.KVvw9Ian.dpuf

Xilinx continues to introduce FPGA development tools which it expects will make design of programmable devices accessible to a range of non-specialist developers.
The SDSoC for the company’s Zynq All Programmable SoCs and MPSoCs is configured to simplify device programming by using an Eclipse integrated design environment (IDE).
The intention is to support system-level design and the tool has a C/C++ full-system optimising compiler, automated SW acceleration in programmable logic and automated system-level interconnect generation.
The compiler targets both the Zynq’s ARM processors and the programmable logic.
The Eclipse IDE with C/C++ runs on bare metal or operating systems such as Linux and FreeRTOS as its input.
According to Giles Peckham, European marketing manager, Xilinx, the tool enables the creation of “complete heterogeneous multi-processing systems, including reuse of legacy HDL IP Blocks as C-callable libraries”.
“Unlike traditional separate hardware-centric and software-centric flows, which can result in development delays and uncertainty in system architecture and performance, SDSoC is architected to provide rapid system profiling, SW acceleration in programmable logic, and system architecture exploration in a familiar framework,” said Peckham.
SDSoC provides board support packages for Zynq All Programmable SoC-based development boards including the ZC702, ZC706, as well as third party and market specific platforms including the Zedboard, MicroZed, ZYBO, and Video and Imaging development kits.
- See more at: http://www.electronicsweekly.com/news/products/fpga-pld/xilinx-moves-programmable-chip-design-system-level-2015-03/#sthash.KVvw9Ian.dpuf

S. Korea tops rivals in global wafer manufacturing

http://www.koreaherald.com/view.php?ud=20150310000345

South Korea, one of the world's most tech-advanced countries, trumped its rivals in wafer capacity last year, market data showed Tuesday, reflecting its solid footing in the semiconductor business.

The monthly share of Asia's fourth-largest economy in terms of wafer capacity stood at 21.1 percent at the end of December, outrunning Taiwan by a slim margin of 1.7 percentage points, according to the latest data compiled by U.S.-based IC Insights Inc.  The figures are based on the producers' capacity for 200mm wafers.

Japan was behind the two nations with 18.3 percent in the tallied month.

South Korea beat its rivals in just four years. It ranked third at the end of 2010 with a 15.2 percent share, and Japan and Taiwan held 22 percent and 21.5 percent, respectively.

A wafer refers to a thin slice of semiconductor fabricated with integrated circuits that is used as the base material for memory chips. The wafer capacity is considered a gauge of chip production by a manufacturer.

The market researcher, in its five-year forecast, said South Korea will keep its top ranking in wafer capacity in 2019, with an estimated 21.9 percent share. Taiwan will likely trail closely behind with 20.7 percent, followed by Japan at 16.2 percent.

China is expected to increase its wafer capacity over the next five years to 10.9 percent from 9.2 percent, it said.

IC Insights projected that the four Asian countries will account for about 70 percent of the global wafer production. (Yonhap)

Qualcomm puts silicon brain in flagship Snapdragon 820 chip

http://www.cio.com/article/2891053/qualcomm-puts-silicon-brain-in-flagship-snapdragon-820-chip.html

Qualcomm wants to help future mobile devices learn about their users, by putting cognitive computing capabilities into its next mobile microprocessor, the Snapdragon 820.
The chip will provide mobile devices with some brain-like learning capabilities by incorporating features from Qualcomm’s Zeroth platform. Mobile devices built with the Snapdragon 820 will be able to learn about users over time, picking up human activity patterns and anticipating actions.

 

 

Putting the machine learning features on the chip, rather than in the cloud, will make mobile devices more personal and more useful than they are today, said Derek Aberle, president of Qualcomm, in a news conference at Mobile World Congress in Barcelona on Monday.
Devices will be able to learn more about users and their habits by associating and analyzing information collected through voice, sound, video and images. The initial use cases will be basic, but will grow over time, Aberle said.
In an on-stage demonstration, a camera in a mobile device with Zeroth features was able to identify users and attach name tags to them on the fly. It’s much like attaching name tags to pictures in Facebook, but in this case it was happening automatically—and locally.
Qualcomm already has over thirty applications in mind for its Zeroth technology, some of which will be on display at its booth at MWC, and expects the potential uses to become more complex over time, as devices learn more about their users. For example, a smartphone could help make buying decisions and redirect users to the closest shop based on location information.
Beyond mobile devices, the Snapdragon 820 chip could go into cars, robots, virtual reality headsets and other products, ultimately helping drones and robots move around without human intervention. Qualcomm is investing heavily in computer vision, and the experimental Zeroth chip has already been used in a robot that can make navigation decisions to avoid obstacles.
Qualcomm is targeting the Snapdragon 820 chip at premium devices. It will succeed the existing 64-bit Snapdragon 810, which has not been adopted as widely as Qualcomm had hoped. Samsung reportedly dropped it from the Samsung Galaxy S6 due to overheating issues, replacing it with its homegrown Exynos chip. But HTC used the 810 in its HTC One M9 smartphone, announced Sunday at Mobile World Congress.
The Snapdragon 820 processor will also be Qualcomm’s first to use its homegrown ARM-based chip architecture called Kryo, which has been in the works for a few years. The architecture had been delayed, and for recent processors Qualcomm had to adopt off-the-shelf Cortex-A57 and A53 64-bit processor designs from ARM, which are also used by many other mobile chip makers.
Qualcomm is also applying the Kryo architecture to a server chip it has in the works.
Test units of the Snapdragon 820 will start shipping in the second half of this year. Qualcomm did not say when devices containing it will go on sale.