North American semiconductor equipment industry posts September 2018 billings
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North American semiconductor equipment industry posts September 2018 billings

North America-based manufacturers of semiconductor equipment posted $2.09 billion in billings worldwide in September 2018 (three-month average basis), according to the September Equipment Market Data Subscription (EMDS) Billings Report published today by SEMI. The billings figure is 6.5 percent lower than the final August 2018 level of $2.37 billion, and is 1.8 percent higher than the September 2017 billings level of $2.05 billion.“Quarterly global billings of North American equipment suppliers experienced their typical seasonal weakening in the most recent quarter,” said Ajit Manocha, president and CEO of SEMI. “Relative to the third quarter, we expect investment activity to improve for the remainder of the year.”The SEMI Billings report uses three-month moving averages of worldwide billings for North American-based semiconductor equipment manufacturers. Billings figures are in millions of U.S. dollars.Billings(3-mo. avg.)Year-Over-YearApril 2018$2,689.925.9%May 2018$2,702.319.0%June 2018$2,484.38.0%July 2018$2,377.94.8%August 2018 (final)$2,236.82.5%September 2018 (prelim)$2,091.91.8%Source: SEMI, October 2018
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Release time：2018-10-25 00:00 reading：1374 Continue reading>>
Canon Marketing Japan announces that it has signed an exclusive distribution agreement with ClassOne Technology Inc.
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Canon Marketing Japan announces that it has signed an exclusive distribution agreement with ClassOne Technology Inc.

Canon Marketing Japan Inc. (CEO: Masahiro Sakata) has signed an exclusive distribution agreement in Japan with ClassOne Technology Inc. (CEO: Byron Exarcos) and it will start receiving orders for ECD tool Solstice® in 2018.ClassOne Technology Inc. is a supplier of wet process equipment for the 200mm and smaller semiconductor industry. The Solstice® platform delivers the highest quality plating of Au, Ni, and Cu at low cost, as well as variety of wet process functionality, such as metal lift off, resist strip, Au de-plating, UBM etch, and anodization.Solstice® is available in 2-, 4-, and 8-chamber variants, and provides industry-leading uniformity and throughput with the smallest footprint, automation capability, controllability, and lowest cost of ownership. Solstice® is ideally suited to growing customers who need to move from ≤200mm wet bench processing to high-volume automated single-wafer production.The agreement with ClassOne Technology will assist CMJ in expanding its business in the high-growth segment of high speed optical communication, 3D sensing including ToF, high frequency power devices, and related device markets. CMJ offers extensive experience in introducing the highest quality equipment from around the world and will provide world-class technical and field support for ClassOne products after system delivery.
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Release time：2018-09-28 00:00 reading：1060 Continue reading>>
'No one can take us down,' China's state-run media claims as trade war heats up
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'No one can take us down,' China's state-run media claims as trade war heats up

U.S. President Donald Trump, left, and Xi Jinping, China's president, shake hands during a news conference at the Great Hall of the People in Beijing, China, on Thursday, Nov. 9, 2017.China's state-run media outlets sounded a confident tone in Monday editorials and warned that U.S. trade pressure against the country would not only strain bilateral relations between the two nations but could negatively affect the American economy and wider global markets.Those reactions followed the latest round of mutual tariffs targeting U.S. and Chinese goods taking effect Monday, escalating trade tensions between the world's two largest economies.The U.S. levied tariffs of 10 percent on $200 billion of Chinese products with the rate set to increase to 25 percent by the end of the year. The Chinese government retaliated with taxes on 5,207 U.S. imports worth about $60 billion. Before Monday's penalties took effect, the U.S. and China had already applied tariffs to $50 billion of each other's goods.In Monday editorials, Chinese state-controlled newspapers such as Global Times and China Daily's editorial pages were quick to claim that Beijing had stayed calm and fair in the face of Washington's trade pressure.If the U.S. is using trade pressure as a negotiating tactic against Beijing, it would jeopardize both countries' economies and the effects would likely spill over to the larger global economy, an editorial published by China Daily on Monday said."The US' unilateral trade moves have not only damaged normal China-US trade activities, but also could stunt world economic growth," the state-controlled newspaper reported. "So if the Trumpadministration continues to stick to its unilateral and protectionist stance, and refuses to respect the fundamental norms of mutual respect and consultation, it would be difficult for the two sides to make substantial progress in any future trade talks."The editorial added that China has remained sincere in its efforts for a fair trading agreement, in contrast to U.S. "trade bullying."Other media editorials highlighted the broader erosion of U.S.-China relations as a result of Washington's accusations about unfair business and regulatory practices benefiting Beijing.For one, China Daily claimed in another editorial that America's accusations of China engaging in "theft" and forced transfer of intellectual property and other "unfair" trade practices may strain the longstanding consensus between both countries.As such, if U.S. trade measures against China were meant as a bargaining chip in negotiations "they may actually end up rendering further engagement even more difficult, if not completely impossible," the editorial said.For its part, the Global Times, China's hyper-nationalistic Communist Party-run tabloid, in a Monday editorial called for Americans to recognize China's strength in the trade disagreements."China is doing what it should. China is honest and principled and a major trade power with intensive strengths. No one can take us down," it said.
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Release time：2018-09-28 00:00 reading：1148 Continue reading>>
The Trade War Has Limited Impact on North American Data Centers, but Server Makers May Consider Moving Production Facilities out of China
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The Trade War Has Limited Impact on North American Data Centers, but Server Makers May Consider Moving Production Facilities out of China

　　According to the latest report by DRAMeXchange, a division of TrendForce, North American markets contribute to around 40% of the global server demand, but Trump’s threat of steep tariffs on Chinese goods, including server imports, may bring more risks to Taiwanese server ODMs, whose production are mainly based in China. Therefore, Taiwanese server makers are now considering moving their production facilities back to Taiwan. With the next wave of tariffs going into effect on September 24, tariffs of 10 percent will be imposed on Chinese products like servers, server modules, motherboards and network switches, so server makers are bound to relocate their facilities to minimize the impacts of the trade war on their businesses.　　The trade war has limited impact on North American Data Centers　　According to Mark Liu, senior analyst at DRAMeXchange, around 40% of the global server demand comes from North American markets, among which ODM Direct orders from Google, AWS, Microsoft and Facebook account for 20% of the global server demand. However, the new round of tariffs may have limited impact on North American Data Centers, who are unlikely to face significant cost increase of servers, for the server manufacturers have taken measures to minimize the impacts.　　Particularly, Google and AWS will be the least influenced, for the server ODMs working with the two companies locate the manufacturing houses mainly in Taiwan. These ODMs will continue to increase the share of Taiwan-based production. In addition, the assembly houses of servers are located in Europe and America, thus will not be influenced by the tariffs. As for Facebook and Microsoft, the two have negotiated with their server ODM partners in advance, taking risk assessment and figuring out measures for the future. Their ODMs have already developed plans of moving production facilities, and will make adjustments according to the updates of trade policies.　　Server ODMs are considering moving their production facilities out of China to minimize impacts　　On the contrary, Taiwanese server ODMs, such as like Quanta, Wistron, IEC, and MiTAC, will be largely impacted by the latest round of tariffs due to the rising costs for key components, including motherboards and server modules. Some of the motherboards are made in China-based L6 manufacturing houses, while the server modules are assembled and packaged in China as well. In comparison, their L10 assembly houses, which are mainly located in the tax-free zone on the US-Mexico border, will be hardly influenced.　　Quanta mainly focuses on ODM Direct business and making server products for data center customers in North America, with Google, AWS, Azure and Facebook being its major clients. Quanta, which locates its L10 assembly houses in the U.S., may be significantly influenced by the new tariffs if the servers are directed imported from China. Therefore, it has been considering moving the server manufacturing out of China to avoid the cost increases of server units and server components. In addition, the rising labor costs in China have also made the server makers relocate their facilities in Taiwan and Southeast Asia.　　IEC will be the least influenced by the new round of tariffs among the major server makers, because over 60% of its revenue comes from conventional ODM business, where it makes servers for other branded server suppliers. Following that, orders from major American and Chinese Cloud service companies like Google, Baidu and Alibaba, also contribute to a considerate part of IEC’s business. For products to be shipped to North America, IEC will continue to assemble them in Czech and Mexico. To avoid potential trade issues and to lower the costs, IEC may also move its production lines of barebone motherboard and Level 6 grade server from Shanghai back to Taiwan in the future.　　Wistron, as the world’s largest supplier of motherboard and the server supplier to OEMs including Dell and HPE, will be greatly impacted by the new tariffs for its manufacturing houses are mainly located in China. To cope with the trade issues through more flexible production plans, Wistron may build new production lines in Taiwan in addition to current facilities in Zhongshan, China. The assembly of servers for North American data center customers will remain in the tax-free border zone, thus will be less impacted by the trade war.　　DRAMeXchange notes that, for the short term, server makers tend to move the manufacturing out of China or relocate the assembly sites to avoid the potential tariffs. However, considering the potential risks in the long run, the server makers may consider moving the facilities back to Taiwan.
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Release time：2018-09-21 00:00 reading：1418 Continue reading>>
Private equity giant KKR sees 'significant' opportunity for 'outsized' returns in China amid trade war
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Private equity giant KKR sees 'significant' opportunity for 'outsized' returns in China amid trade war

Executives at private equity giant KKR recently visited China and came away believing that a powerful investing opportunity awaits, due in significant part to the ongoing trade war.China already has been trying to adapt from an export-based economy to one powered by consumers, particularly the burgeoning millennial crowd and its appetite for the latest technological gadgets and apparel trends. The process, though, has been slow and questions have been raised about whether the nation can maintain its long tradition of being among the world's growth leaders.That's about to change, according to an analysis by Henry McVey, KKR's head of global macro and asset allocation. The firm manages $148.5 billion and was ranked second in the world for 2017 in funds raised among its peers, according to Private Equity International.McVey and his fellow executives saw a nation in transition, pushed most recently by the Trump administration's move to levy billions in tariffs against Chinese imports."Overall, we believe that the current trade wars with the United States will only accelerate China's shift away from an export economy dependent on global trade/flows towards a more self-reliant consumer services economy that is gaining prominence, particularly within Asia," he wrote.Consumers purchasing Xiaomi products at its flagship store in Hong Kong. "No doubt, this transition will take time, and it will likely be complicated in the near term by the political agendas of both the East and the West," McVey added. "However, the long-term trends of the Chinese millennials helping to accelerate the transition of the nation towards more of a domestically focused, services-based economy with increasing technological advancements is undeniable."For investors, that will mean "a significant long-term opportunity" despite the trade tensions, amid a need "to help fund this transition and receive potentially outsized returns along the way."At an industry level, KKR sees technology and agriculture as being the main areas of interest. Semiconductors and soybeans have been key impacted areas during the ongoing trade battles, and are thus positioned best to provide a chance to capitalize, according to the analysis.On a macroeconomic level, the surging millennial population is setting up as a big difference-maker.The demographic numbers 828 million strong in China, compared to just 66 million in the U.S. They're heavily influenced by online shopping sites, which in turn will drive the nation's economic future, McVey wrote."The power of Baidu, Alibaba, and Tencent (BAT) to decide which companies succeed or fail in China's vast consumer and corporate markets has become both outsized and unprecedented," he said."Indeed, by being part of the BAT network and infrastructure, several of the companies we met with in the healthy foods, data center, and logistics businesses are quickly emerging as almost preordained winners, often at the expense of incumbent companies in the more traditional consumer categories (many of which are multinational players)."The change is "secular, not cyclical, and it has critical implications for return on capital in the Chinese corporate sector," McVey added.The enthusiasm did come with a note of caution: Growth in China has been uneven across sectors, with financials serving as a counterweight to otherwise strong performance. McVey said crosscurrents in both domestic and international policies can "materially enhance or diminish the investment thesis.
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Release time：2018-08-13 00:00 reading：1348 Continue reading>>
The Global Sales Revenue of DRAM Modules for 2017 Recorded a Significant Growth of 69% Thanks to Rising ASP
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The Global Sales Revenue of DRAM Modules for 2017 Recorded a Significant Growth of 69% Thanks to Rising ASP

DRAMeXchange, a division of TrendForce, reports that the global sales revenue of DRAM modules for 2017 totaled US$11.7 billion, amounting to a significant growth of 69% compared with the result of the previous year. The high revenue is due to the nearly 50% YoY growth of DRAM ASP, although the contribution of the spot market to the total DRAM revenue is getting smaller.Due to difficulties in process migration, oligopolistic market, and lack of new production capacity, DRAM products have seen a considerable price rise in 2017, with specialty DRAM recording the highest growth. Despite the decreasing contribution to total DRAM revenue, spot market appeared to be more price-sensitive, and suffered stronger price fluctuations when DRAM was in undersupply. For the whole year of 2017, the ASP in the spot market increased by over 60% and greatly contributed to the revenue of module makers.Kingston topped the 2017 sales revenue ranking; ADATA ranked 2nd thanks to its low-price DRAM inventory at a high levelA few large module makers continued to dominate the market in 2017 and were more secure in their positions. The first top five module houses in the top 10 ranking took 85% of the global revenue market share. They together with the last five module houses in the top 10 ranking accounted for 93% of the year’s total revenue.Kingston again held on to first place because the company benefitted from its increased DRAM shipments and higher prices. The company’s DRAM sales revenue grew by almost 60% YoY in 2017 to another record high. However, Kingston witnessed less growth momentum than other small- and medium-sized module makers due to its high base and its focus on DDR3 products. Kingston offers mainly DDR3, which benefits less from the rising ASP compared with mainstream DDR4 products. Despite this, Kingston still topped the 2017 sales revenue ranking.Amid undersupply of DRAM, ADATA’s annual sales revenue increased significantly by 146%, thanks to its low-price DRAM inventory at a high level. With flexible sales capabilities, ADATA managed to take second place in the year’s global ranking, surpassing Smart Modular Technologies and Ramaxel.Transcend Information continued to develop industrial DRAM modules; Team Group had made inroads into the gaming marketIn terms of Taiwan-based suppliers, Transcend Information ranked 7th in 2017 and 6th in 2016, with a more conservative sales revenue growth in the past three years. The company has been shifting from the highly volatile and risky spot market to more stable industrial products. Consequently, Transcend Information has managed to increase its profitability thanks to the stable industrial DRAM market and higher profit margin than its original business in the spot market.Apacer Technology has been always relatively conservative in procurement, thus has been less benefited from the low-price inventory. On the other hand, the company has focused on the industrial DRAM sector for many years and developed related products lines. Meanwhile, it also made inroads into markets of industrial IoT and gaming products. With a stable level of profitability, Apacer Technology has also decreased the risks brought by fluctuations in the memory industry.Team Group has demonstrated a strong ambition to differentiate from other module makers. After years of hard work, Team Group has launched a series of gaming products with very positive feedbacks. Particularly, the speed of its gaming DRAM modules has reached an industry-leading 4500Mhz. Gaming DRAM modules accounted for more than 50% of the sales revenue of Team Group. This percentage was much higher than that of general module makers, resulting in almost double DRAM sales revenue for the company in 2017.
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Release time：2018-07-31 00:00 reading：1237 Continue reading>>
Toshiba Considers Cancelling Sale of Semiconductor Business
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Toshiba Considers Cancelling Sale of Semiconductor Business

Toshiba Corp. is said to be considering scrapping its plan to sell the memory chip unit.According to semiconductor industry sources on May 13, Toshiba is seriously considering the retraction of its sales plan as Chinese regulators indefinitely postponed their antitrust review of the deal.China’s recent move was a decisive cause of Toshiba considering retracting its sales plan. The deal was initially scheduled to close by March 31. However, the date was pushed back to May 1, as China’s antitrust authority slowed down the review. Nevertheless, it is still uncertain whether the deal can be approved, though it is reviewed by China by the end of this month. Toshiba will have the right to discontinue the deal starting from May. In short, Toshiba will be able to decide on whether to proceed the deal, going back to the starting point.Toshiba is now in a completely different situation from September last year when the company decided to sell its memory business. Until just recently, Toshiba was about to fall into a state of capital impairment and be delisted due to a failure in nuclear power business in the United States. Accordingly, the company tried to inject capital in a hurry by selling its cash cow memory chip unit.Toshiba saw its financial conditions improve after successfully increasing US$5 billion (5.34 trillion won) of capital by issuing new stocks at the end of last year. Then, shareholders started opposing the sale of memory chip business. Seiji Inagaki, president of Dai-ichi Life Holdings Inc., a shareholder and creditor of Toshiba, said, “I don’t want to sell Toshiba’s semiconductor business.” Some say that Toshiba will be able to make more profits when it lists the memory chip unit instead of selling it because the sales amount offered by the US-Korea-Japan consortium is too low. The Wall Street Journal reported a day ago that Toshiba almost gave up the sale of its semiconductor business division.Meanwhile, Toshiba agreed to sell its memory chip unit to the consortium consisting of US’ Bain Capital Private Equity and Apple and South Korean chipmaker SK Hynix and the Innovation Network Corp. of Japan (INCJ) for 2 trillion yen (US$18.3 billion or 19.53 trillion won) in September last year. However, the deal is about to fall through as Chinese regulators stalled approval, the final step before the completion of the sale.
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Release time：2018-05-15 00:00 reading：1263 Continue reading>>
Can Huawei Match Apple TrueDepth?
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Can Huawei Match Apple TrueDepth?

　　Now that Samsung’s Galaxy S9 is already on the market and Huawei’s P20 announcement is looming large (the Chinese mobile giant will hold a press conference here next Tuesday), imaging experts have declared 3D sensing the new battleground for the mobile industry.　　However, far from clear is whether either Samsung or Huawei will be able to catch up with Apple’s iPhone X.　　Because the bar set by Apple’s TrueDepth camera is so high, Pierre Cambou, activity leader for MEMS and imaging at Yole Développement, predicts that it may take a year or longer for competitors to offer 3D sensing technologies comparable to iPhone X.　　Unlike the megapixel race of olden days, 3D sensing will be a tougher challenge for most smartphone vendors — because a 3D camera contains myriad components that need to be aligned. It also requires competent supply chain management. Cambou called the 3D camera “a bundle of sub-devices.” He said, “Remember Apple iPhone X?  Companies involved in it include: STMicroelectronics, LG Innotek, Foxconn, ams, Lumentum.”　　As for Samsung’s Galaxy S9, some reviewers are already calling its front-facing sensing technology “a disappointment.”　　A CNET story earlier this month said: “An in-depth look at Samsung's new biometrics verification system — and how it stacks up against the iPhone X’s Face ID — shows it's not quite safe enough for mobile payments.”　　This is because “Samsung's facial recognition system uses a regular camera to create a 2D map of your face, contrasted with Apple's Face ID, which creates a complex 3D scan of your facial pattern.” People were able to fool Samsung's technology on last year's Galaxy S8 by using photos. Apparently, that trick still works with the S9.　　Leading up to Huawei’s P20 launch scheduled next week, numerous press reports are singling out “triple cameras” as the new handset’s key feature.　　Why triple cameras?　　Are three cameras better than two?　　We asked Eran Briman, vice president of marketing and business development at Corephotonics, a market leader in dual-camera technologies. He told us: “Triple cameras are a brand-new territory that's just about to begin and yet to prove its value.”　　Noting that triple cameras could come in many forms and configurations, he said they could serve different goals. These include “low light performance, zoom, depth, higher resolution, and image quality as a whole,” he explained.　　According to Briman, triple-camera combinations could include a) a color (RGB) camera, a monochrome camera, and a third camera providing either ultra-wide field of view (FoV) or a 2x telephoto narrow FoV; b) a fisheye (ultra-wide-angle) camera, a standard wide camera and a 2x telephoto camera; or c) a standard wide-angle, a 2x telephoto and a 5x telephoto to enable super-zoom capability. He noted, “Other configurations are also possible, including various image sensors,” Briman said.　　But here’s the thing. “All of these triple cameras can provide more accurate depth information compared to dual camera designs,” said Briman.　　“The main reason is the fact that the baseline (distance between the cameras) would be larger, especially cameras one and three. The larger the baseline, the more accurate the depth is (but also the software has greater challenges, dealing with occlusions, synchronization and others),” Briman said.　　He added, “Also, by combining information from three cameras, theoretically you could gain better depth information.”　　In other words, Huawei’s triple cameras appear to illustrate the company’s effort to enhance depth-sensing technology. While no confirmation is available, Huawei’s suspected 3D sensing partner is Qualcomm. Last summer, Qualcomm announced that it’s been working with Himax Technologies to make a fully integrated structured light module (SliM). The San Diego giant said then that its 3D depth-sensing camera module was slated for mass production in the first quarter of this year.　　Who’s who in 3D sensing　　If smartphone vendors are indeed so hot for depth sensing, who are their key technology providers?　　Before naming names, here’s a recap on how Apple’s 3D camera works.　　As Yole previously explained, in enabling the front of the iPhone X to identify its owner’s face and unlock the phone, Apple combined a ToF proximity detector with an infrared “structured light” camera that can either use uniform “flood” or “dot-pattern” illumination.　　First, the iPhone X combines an infrared camera with a flood illuminator that projects uniform infrared light forward. It then takes images, which, in turn, trigger a face-detection algorithm.　　This function, however, isn’t meant to run all the time. The infrared camera linked to the ToF proximity sensor signals the camera to take a picture when it detects a face. The iPhone X then activates its dot pattern projector to take an image.　　Both the regular and dot-pattern images then go to the application processing unit (APU), which puts them through a neural network trained to recognize the owner and unlock the phone.　　Yole’s Cambou noted that no 3D image is computed at this point. The 3D information is contained in the dot-pattern image. “To run 3D applications, the same APU can use another algorithm [that] computes the depth map of the image,” he said.　　He added, “The iPhone X takes advantage of the massive processing power available in the A11 chip, as structured light approaches are known to be computationally intensive. The use of a neural network is the key technology that made it possible.”　　Basically, there are three different types of technologies that make 3D sensing possible: stereo, structured light and time of flight (ToF) sensing. Yole put together a table as follows, illustrating strengths and limitations of each of those depth-sensing technologies.　　Since each 3D camera consists of a host of sub-devices, here’s a rundown Yole shared with us.　　First, stereo or active stereo is realized through the combination of the followings:  two global shutter NIR cameras offered by Omnivision, STMicroelectronics; NIR Illumination (optional) supplied by Osram, Lumentum, Finisar, ams; and 3D hardware accelerator (vision processor) provided by Iniutive, Intel Movidius.　　Second, for structured light, necessary sub-devices include: 1 global shutter NIR cameras, offered by Omnivision, STMicroelectronics; structured NIR illumination (optional), provided by ams, Himax, Namuga, Goertek; and 3D reconstruction software. Such software is developed by companies like Apple Primesense, Mantis, Namuga and Orbbec.　　Third, the ToF category needs a ToF camera, supplied by PMD, Sony/Softkinetic, and NIR illumination (optional) from companies such as Osram, Lumentum, Finisar, ams.　　Cambou noted both ams and STMicroelectronics offer ToF proximity detectors, but based on only a few pixels. Neither company has developed a ToF camera yet, he said.　　Hurdles for Apple competitors　　Assuming that iPhone X’s TrueDepth is as far ahead of everybody else as Yole says, what exactly is missing from other 3D-sending implementations?　　Cambou believes that the “neural engine” is one of the key enablers and that’s also a key hurdle for Apple’s competitors. “Qualcomm apparently has rushed a ‘me too’ solution but... nothing happened yet,” he noted.　　Then, “You need the complete 2D-3D camera system, that fits in the front side of a smartphone, below $15 price point,” he said. This is not impossible but it’s really hard, he said.　　Further, “This complete system must achieve a certain degree of biometric identification performance,” Cambou added. “If a picture is enough to fool the system, then you don't have a solution.”　　He observed, “I think that is where the problem lies. Apple knew from the start what it wanted a 3D camera for. It worked on user interface including a biometric solution, while competition was trying to sell IKEA furniture on the other side of the phone.”　　Cambou added, “The level of performance needed for the Apple identification system has set the standard way above competitions’ know-how. Struggles at Himax are an indication that the application was not well understood by the OEMs.”　　Beyond Qualcomm-Himax collaborations, are there other examples?　　Cambou noted that Mediatek is in the 3D-sensing game as an APU provider. Mediatek is striving to provide CNN — somewhat similar to Apple’s neural engine — for biometric check. Apparently, Mediatek would provide a CNN accelerator on future solution for Xiaomi, and it is integrating an Orbbec-designed 3D camera, Cambou added.　　Wild card　　We can all debate forever which 3D camera modules are more secure, if the identification system is to be used for mobile payments. But one thing we shouldn’t forget, said Cambou, is the China factor.　　In the end, which 3D sensing is good enough for China’s Alipay, for example, will be decided by China. China’s vast population already depending on tools like WeChat and Alipay makes China the default decider of the next-generation technology.
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Release time：2018-03-23 00:00 reading：1539 Continue reading>>
Can Ex-Intel Exec Succeed with Old ARM SoC?
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Can Ex-Intel Exec Succeed with Old ARM SoC?

　　MADISON, Wisc. — Ampere Computing, a startup led by former Intel President Renée James, unveiled its ARM-based server SoC, promising to “accelerate hyperscale cloud computing innovations.”　　James' new company will target the fast-growing data-center server market dominated by Intel. Perhaps, therefore, this is a story about redemption.　　However, it remains far from clear whether this will attain poetic justice for James. Industry observers remain skeptical that Ampere’s ARM server SoC can make a dent in Intel’s near-monopoly.　　A little history behind Ampere　　After all, Ampere’s “new” server SoC chip isn’t exactly new.　　According to Linley Gwennap, principal analyst at the Linley Group and a close follower of the market segment, the ARM-based server SoC Ampere is pitching today was originally designed by Applied Micro Circuits Corp. (AMCC) back in 2015. Known as the X-Gene 3, it was AMCC’s third-generation ARM-based server SoC, running at 3 GHz, made in a 16nm FinFET process at TSMC.　　AMCC’s X-Gene 3, however, never got into production. AMCC, suffering from losses on its previous generation server SoCs and ballooning development cost for X-Gene 3, sold out to Macom in late 2016. Macom, however, from the get-go, focused its interest in the communications part of AMCC, not its X-Gene ARM server business. The X-Gene enterprise ended up getting shopped around, eventually being acquired by the Carlyle Group, a private equity firm.　　Meanwhile, after leaving Intel in the summer of 2015, James joined Carlyle in early 2016 as an operating executive. The Carlyle Group rebranded the X-Gene ARM server SoC business as Ampere. James became CEO last fall.　　In short, Ampere’s “new” server SoC is “the same processor that’s been kicked around on the market for a while,” said Gwennap.　　To be fair, in restarting what used to AMCC’s third-generation ARM server SoC business, the Carlyle Group infused new blood into Ampere’s existing staff of 250 people.　　Among a handful of ex-Intel engineers Carlyle installed at Ampere include: a 30-year Intel veteran, Atiq Bajwa, as Ampere’s chief architect, and Rohit Vadwans, as executive vice president of hardware engineering. Bajwa, at Intel, was the head of X86 architecture for all products, while Vadwans worked at Intel as a head of platform engineering. Greg Favor, who was AMCC’s lead architect of X-Gene SoCs, remains at Ampere as Senior Fellow.　　Ampere roadmap　　Kumar Sankaran, Ampere’s vice president of software and platform engineering, told us that Ampere’s first product will be coming out before mid-2018.　　Highlights of the SoC will include a large number of cores (32 ARM V8 64-bit cores) and performance up to 3.3GHz, low power consumption at 125 watts,  memory capacity of 1 Terabyte per socket, and high bandwidth PCIEs — 42 lanes of PCIE Gen 3 — accommodating external add-ons. Ampere claims that its debut X-Gene 3 offers 33 percent higher memory capacity and bandwidth than rivals’ SoCs.　　Ampere (Santa Clara, Calif.) believes it will benefit from 64-bit ARM V8-A architectural license originally acquired by AMCC.  Ampere regards the license as key to its ability to further customize silicon designs. “We can even control the power a chip draws in accordance with applications,” explained Sankaran.　　Shane Rau, research vice president for computing semiconductors at IDC, told EE Times, “An architectural license buys you long-term design choice and differentiation.”　　He added, “If you’re a serious server processor vendor vying for the average selling prices and margins of the segment, you must select your target customers and markets and design for them, have a combination of price, performance, power, and features that differentiate yourself, and sustain that differentiation over the long term.” In short, an architectural license allows all that, whereas a standard ARM core does not.　　But given that other chip vendors such as Cavium, Huawei (which owns HiSilicon), Broadcom, Qualcomm and others also have ARM’s architectural license, it’s unclear how big an edge accrues to Ampere.　　ARM ecosystem getting ready?　　Ampere’s Sankaran told us that the market today is hungry for an instruction-set architecture offering that is an alternative to X86.　　But, is it? Intel’s continued dominance on the server SoC market suggests an underwhelmed market demand for ARM-based server processors.　　IDC’s Rau told us, “It’s clear that what hampered the efforts of prior ARM server processor vendors was the lack of a hardware and software ecosystem and processor designs that could not scale in performance sufficiently to compete with x86 server processor vendors.”　　However, Rau averred that the ARM ecosystem of OEMs, cloud service providers, ODMs, OS vendors, application vendors “is sufficient to produce a capable data center system” today.　　Asked about the processor designs, Rau said, “I cannot speak to the technical merits of Ampere’s design specifically.” But he noted, “I can say that the latest generation of server processors designs, including Ampere’s, Qualcomm’s, and Cavium’s have attributes that prior generations didn’t, attributes such as more processor cores, higher performance cores, and bigger caches which are all attributes of performance scalability.”　　Evolving requirements　　Ampere is targeting workloads performed by cloud hyperscalers.　　Gwennap observed that data center requirements have continued to evolve. A few years ago, this market was all about web tier applications, “doing more boring stuff like web pages and emails,” said Gwennap. “Today, it is more about big data and data analytics including deep learning.” Every time an “Alexa” command pipes up to the cloud, data-centers servers must recognize the voice and be ready to process and analyze.　　In the end, for Ampere to win the market, “they need to deliver better value,” said Gwennap. “This is about offering better performance per watt, and per dollar. Qualcomm, for example, has already set a bar high” in that regard.　　Cloud hyperscalers “need a flexible combination of price, performance, power, and features,” noted Rau.　　As for specific designs for server SoCs, IDC’s Rau observed that Intel has the broadest product portfolio of X86 server processors primarily targeted at “2-socket systems and higher.”　　In contrast, AMD and ARM vendors are targeting 2-socket systems and lower, specifically, single socket. Rau said, “There could be some sense to that.” He believes customers will prefer a single processor either optimized through their own internal designs or through the configuration of system to server-specific workloads, such as storage or networking.　　Future　　Asked about Ampere’s future, Rau appears to keep faith in Renée James and the backing from the Carlyle Group. He sees James’ role as all about “establishing relationships with major potential customers.” Carlyle’s support “will be critical if it is sustained over the long-term roadmap of products that Ampere is promising.”　　Gwenapp remains skeptical. For Ampere to succeed, its first product — based on AMCC’s former X-Gene 3 — must either blow the doors off the cloud-server market, or it has to hit a home run with its next-generation products, he explained.
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Release time：2018-02-06 00:00 reading：1569 Continue reading>>
Karamba Says It Can Protect <span style='color:red'>CAN</span>
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Karamba Says It Can Protect CAN

　　Automotive cyberattacks, once the stuff of science fiction, are a clear and present danger today for most car OEMs and tier ones.　　A host of startups and tech companies are already proposing multiple layers of security for connected vehicles. But coming into sharp focus now is how to protect a 30-year-old CAN bus.　　Israel-based Karamba Security unveiled this week a new security software called SafeCAN, designed for protection and authentication of in-vehicle CAN bus network communication.　　Thus far, Trillium, a startup in Japan, has been the sole voice promoting CAN bus protection, with a product called SecureCAN. Trillium offers a CAN bus encryption and key management system for protecting payloads less than 8 bytes.　　Maxed-out CAN bus　　Now, Karamba is in the game, claiming it better because SafeCAN authenticates a CAN-bus-based network with “zero network overhead.”　　Assaf Harel, Karamba Security CTO and co-founder, sees what he views as the currently saturated CAN bus as the problem. In modern cars, the number of controllers is 80 to 100. But network traffic flowing on the CAN has grown almost exponentially, “saturating the network bandwidth,” he said. Noting that CAN bus throughput is low at about 1 Mbps, Harel said, “In most cases, the CAN network is maxed out.”　　Miroslav Pajic, assistant professor in the Department of Electrical and Computer Engineering at Duke University, observed, “Authenticating car networks is an urgent and important matter that the automotive industry has been coping with for several years.” He noted in a statement: “Saturated car networks created technological barriers in finding a solution that will authenticate all traffic to and from the car’s safety systems, such as brakes and airbags, exposing them to physical and cyberattacks.”　　Hence, the focus of Karamba’s SafeCAN is on implementing network authentication “without overtaxing the car’s internal communications to protect and authenticate CAN bus communications.”　　Native unencrypted bus　　The protection of CAN bus is critical because it’s a native unencrypted bus. Today, all vehicles that depend on CAN bus for internal communication between safety ECUs have implemented no security features over that bus. As David Uze, Trillium’s CEO, once told us, “With CAN bus, it’s possible to access every function of the car, including control locks, steering, and brakes.” All that accessibility makes CAN bus a perfect playground for hackers.　　Trillium’s solution uses its ultra-lightweight block cipher to encrypt CAN (and LIN) messages in real time. Uze claimed that Trillium’s symmetric block cipher and key management system allow SecureCAN to “encrypt, transmit, and decrypt within the 1-ms threshold,” which is required for automotive CAN bus real-time applications.　　Karamba demurs. Karamba’s CTO told us, “Authentication or encryption requires additional network packets (such as keys and headers).” In the company’s view, any such additions of overhead will become unsustainable because the CAN network is chock-full. Karamba’s Harel observed, “Trillium’s solution requires changing the symmetric keys between ECUs several times every second. This adds a lot of overhead to the already saturated CAN bus.”　　How SafeCAN works　　If so, how does Karamba’s SafeCAN work?　　Harel explained that the safety ECUs (e.g., brakes, airbags, etc.) are paired with a legitimate ECU that sends commands when the car is on the road (e.g., Body Control ECU). Source and destination ECUs exchange the keys and store them in memory, so no key exchange is required over the network. When the source ECU (e.g., Body Control) sends instructions to the destination ECU (brakes), it encrypts in real time. The encrypted message travels via the CAN network and opens at the destination ECU (brakes) with negligible performance impact.　　He stressed, “The size of the encrypted message is identical to the size of the original (pre-SafeCAN) message. It means that there is no additional network overhead required for the encryption.”　　In short, the safety ECU can receive only encrypted messages (i.e., sent by a legitimate ECU). Any unencrypted message is the result of a hack. The assumption is that the hacker doesn’t have the key because only the legitimate source has it. The safety ECU will ignore such messages.　　Motivation　　Many factors motivate carmakers and Tier Ones to get serious about automotive cybersecurity.　　On one hand, regulators are breathing down their necks, demanding solutions. The auto industry faces the need to comply with security regulations now being laid out by the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration (NHTSA) and U.S. Department of Transportation (DOT). There is a newly published federal guidance, Automated Driving Systems (ADS): A Vision for Safety 2.0. The U.S. House of Representatives has passed guidelines defined in the SELF DRIVE Act.　　Also, the automotive industry has become aware of the financial consequences of dawdling on security. The wakeup calls include Chrysler’s recall of 1.4 million vehicles and a flaw in General Motors’ OnStar RemoteLink system, through which a hacker found a way to remotely unlock doors and start engines.　　Other examples include malicious messages sent via third-party dongles, as seen in the hack of a Progressive Insurance dongle, which was connected to the car to monitor a driver’s behavior for favorable insurance policy prices. Karamba’s Harel observed, “Such an attack enables the hacker to send malicious commands to a car’s safety system by impersonating a legitimate source.”　　Security also gets even more critical for over-the-air updates. OTA mechanisms can be compromised, sending malicious updates to safety systems. Harel claimed, “SafeCAN will prevent such impersonations.”
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Release time：2017-12-15 00:00 reading：1399 Continue reading>>

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