TechEye

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• Move over, Moore’s Law
• Crocus springs to capture MRAM market
• Met police talks up 'Minority Report' predictive software
• Nvidia researcher says 450nm wafers are way overdue
• Intel dumped by Lenovo phone project
• Don't trust Microsoft with your data, ex employee warns
• Minister orders review after NHS computer chaos
• Monsanto gets into data farming
• Ireland beats the Europack at inward investment
• The CPU’s reign as Czar is over

Move over, Moore’s Law Posted: 03 Oct 2013 05:34 AM PDT Compound semiconductors are used in satellites and fibre optics and connectivity is the name of the game. That’s according to  Drew Nelson, CEO of IQE. According to Nelson, IQE has 650 staff at 11 manufacturing operations around the world,  and has been going for 25 years. It leads in several markets and supplies half of the wafers that go into wireless devices. Nelson said Gordon Moore, the inventor of Moore’s Law, “is a very clever fellow” and recognised a trend. Humans find ways to make things faster and cheaper and will continue, but probably in a different way over the next 20 years.  And he thinks compound semis will play a major role in this different kind of Moore’s Law. Silicon is approaching its limits, according to Nelson, but compound semiconductors have very much more functionality and flexibility.  The material properties of compound semis are fundamentally better than silicon. From a power perspective compound semis have a clear lead over silicon.   In compound semis you can mix all sorts of different materials together. IQE sells wafers to chip companies, and the trends driving its adoption are high speed connectivity, efficient energy, and safety and security, Nelson said.   He said that in the third generation solar panels will be vastly more efficient than the current generation, and based on compound semis.  He believes that PV based on compound semis (CPV) will be over 50 percent efficient, compared to silicon PV at around 44 percent. There are also big market opportunities for GaN on Si (Gallium Nitride on Silicon) in the LED market too, because of its superior switching properties and efficiencies.

Crocus springs to capture MRAM market Posted: 03 Oct 2013 05:19 AM PDT Crocus Nano Electronics is building a production facility in Russia and has a manufacturing agreement with Chinese foundry SMIC. It has a licence agreement with IBM for 65/45nm MLUs (memory logic units), and will go into volume production towards the end of this year. No MRAM product has yet entered the market but Crocus believes it has solved stability problems with magnetic memories.   Benchmarks show its technology is high speed at read and write, a factor of three tenths of flash and is also very temperature resistant. Crocus will eventually move to 28 nm technology for its generation 4, as the following roadmap shows. The magnetic technology performs secure and fast data and user authentication and confidential information bever leaves the MLU and can operate at speeds of 15ns. CEO Jacques Noels claims that the Crocus MLU is disruptive and will be used for mobile commerce and in smart phones because of its inherent security. It has tested the MLU extensively in all known hacking attacks.   The markets Crocus believes it can capture are automotive and for secure commerce and will be worth $2 billion by 2015, Noels estimates. The company will ship millions of units next year, he said.

Met police talks up 'Minority Report' predictive software Posted: 03 Oct 2013 04:27 AM PDT Inspector Knacker of the Metropolitan Police has splashed out on some software which, it is claimed, will forecast where offenders will strike next. The Metro has waxed ever so lyrically that the software is exactly what Tom Cruise used in the hit flick Minority Report. Of course, it doesn't wire psychics into a mainframe. Actually the report is about a computer algorithm which looks at crime statistics and criminal behaviour models to produce 'predictive areas' where burglars and muggers are likely to target. This means cops can increase patrols in areas perceived to be at risk. According to the Met, when the idea was tried in Manchester, street violence dropped by 26 percent. The software can predict that a spot, no larger than 250 yards across, is likely to become a crime scene. A pilot scheme saw 'significant reductions' in burglaries in Hackney, Wandsworth, Newham and Lewisham and the police think that the computer algorithms are 'seven times more accurate than chance'. Met commissioner Bernard Hogan-Howe now wants to use the technology to tackle antisocial behaviour and vehicle crime and extend its use across London. However, the system was developed in America from the same kind of calculations used to predict earthquakes, which is interesting because it still can't be done. Professor Shane Johnson, of University College London department for crime science, who is helping police develop the system, found that burglars' tactics closely match the behaviour of wild animals searching for food. Burglars return to sites they have found productive but move on when they realise supplies are exhausted, he said.

Nvidia researcher says 450nm wafers are way overdue Posted: 03 Oct 2013 03:51 AM PDT A major problem for the IC industry is design process interaction and there are other problems associated with nodes less than 20 nanometres. That’s how John Chen, a senior research scientist at Nvidia, opened his keynote at IEF 2013. He dubs the problems the three Ps – performance, perfection and precision. Each nanometre counts and every angstrom matters at the 20 nanometre level.   Design Process Interaction means that each transistor at the sub 20nm level depends on its neighbours. Design rules become very complex and the rule book is torn up and that has an implication for yields. There are three discontinues in 20 nm and beyond – the fist is FinFET. The second discontinuity is an economical one – the die cost and the yields you get from the wafer.  Die cost = F (scaling, wafer-cost(n) yield), where n is the process complexity factor because of the number of masking steps required.  When the n factor increases, the wafer costs increase.  The third discontinuity is the 450mm wafers which are overdue for the IC industry because that will reduce the die cost. He believes that developments such as zero leakage transistors, III-V and Ge channel and carbon nanotubes will overcome the technology challenges the industry faces. Chen studied quantum physics and of course now we’re really close to the boundaries of quantum physics in semiconductor manufacture. Chen has worked at Xerox PARC, TSMC and now Nvidia. He worked at Xerox Palo Alto research centrer in the mid 1980s and Alto was the first PC he worked on – Xerox also invented Ethernet, and VLSI technology. In 1987 TSMC started and Chen worked there to service so called fabless companies and in every market segment the fabless firms represent a major force, he said. Now Chen is at Nvidia and he believes the Nvidia Kepler 110 is one of the most advanced semiconductors on the planet, with 2048 cores on 28  nanometre technology.  It has 7.1 billion transistors and 20 kilometres of metal length.

Intel dumped by Lenovo phone project Posted: 03 Oct 2013 02:51 AM PDT Fashion bag maker Intel's push into the mobile market might not be going as well as it hoped. One of its key partners, Lenovo, which seemed to be keen on its Atom vision for mobile, has dumped the chip in favour of Qualcomm. This is bad news for Intel as Lenovo had been one of the few phone makers to sign up to use an Atom chip to power its K900 smartphone. Now it seems Lenovo has decided not to stick Intel inside the successor device, known as Vibe Z. Chipzilla has confirmed the change, but told All Things Digital that its relationship with Lenovo phones was not over. After all, hadn't Lenovo signed up to be a launch partners for Bay Trail, and didn't it own a bunny which it might come home to find boiled? It is possible that phones with the Atom had not sold that well. Lenovo started selling the Intel Atom-powered K900 in Thailand and Malaysia, bringing to eight the number of places the device has been sold. Motorola is the only other prominent phone maker to include Intel chips, using them for the Razr i in the EU. There have been reported sightings in India from Lava, from Megafon in Russia and French carrier Orange, but they're just about on par with the stats for alien abductions. Intel's problem might be temporary. The Atoms lack built-in support for a broad range of networks, including LTE networks. Chipzilla is frantically trying to integrate mobile support for more functions into its processors.

Don't trust Microsoft with your data, ex employee warns Posted: 03 Oct 2013 02:44 AM PDT People should be very careful about trusting Microsoft anywhere near their personal data, a former employee has warned. Caspar Bowden, a privacy analyst who left the software giant in 2011, said that he does not trust the company after the Snowden leaks about online government surveillance. Bowden said that, in the past, he had some difficulty making anyone else in the EU understand his concerns. Talking to the Metro, he said he approached many of the European authorities with his concerns and they just shrugged. After the Edward Snowden leaks proving him right, he is suddenly in demand as a pundit. Microsoft and other internet giants have been fighting a public backlash after former National Security Agency contractor Snowden proved they were handing over user data to a US surveillance program called Prism. The Vole has denied allegations that the NSA can directly access its servers. But Bowden has stopped using Microsoft products in favour of open source software and has not owned a mobile phone for two years. He did not know about Prism when he was at Microsoft, even though questions of privacy should have crossed his desk. He does not trust Microsoft now. Bowden has called for the creation of an 'EU cloud' and said users should be warned when they log on to services based in the US that they may be under surveillance.

Minister orders review after NHS computer chaos Posted: 03 Oct 2013 02:38 AM PDT Health secretary Alex Neil has ordered a review of NHS computer systems after a cock-up in Scotland. More than 500 appointments and operations were postponed after servers at NHS Greater Glasgow and Clyde failed. Over 459 outpatient appointments, 14 inpatient procedures, 43 day cases and 48 chemotherapy treatments were postponed over the last couple of days because doctors, nurses and administration staff were left unable to access vital clinical information, including patients' records. Neil told the Scottish Express that NHS Greater Glasgow and Clyde has fixed the "problem with the server" [surely there must be more than one, even in Scotland -ed] and started reloading users back on to the system. No data was lost and half of the NHS users now have access to the system, and the remainder should have access soon, he said. Neil promised that there would be a robust review of IT systems and backup systems across the health service. The problem appears to be in the software. Experts have been despatched from Microsoft and Charteris to "try to get to the root cause of the problem". There have been the usual "leaves on the line " apologies about the inconvenience. Robert Calderwood, chief executive of NHS Greater Glasgow and Clyde said that the IT problems were "unprecedented". He said that, thanks to a lot of hard work from the IT department, the vast majority of the services have been maintained and around 7,400 procedures and appointments planned over the past 36 hours have gone ahead as scheduled. For example, the vast majority of chemotherapy sessions went ahead although a small number of sessions were postponed. Labour health spokesperson Neil Findlay warned the situation was "very worrying" because similar IT systems were used across Scotland. He called for an an independent review of all of IT systems across Scottish health boards.

Monsanto gets into data farming Posted: 03 Oct 2013 02:23 AM PDT One of the most powerful agricultural businesses in the known world, Monsanto, has decided to expand into the IT industry. More famous for creating genetically modified crops, suing farmers who illegally grow its seeds, and having lots of its former employees in good government jobs, Monsanto is the world’s largest agricultural business company. But this week it bought weather analytics firm Climate Corporation for over $930 Million, although Techcrunch thinks the figure is much higher, claiming it is more like $1.1 billion. Climate Corp focuses on predicting hyper-local weather patterns using custom machine-learning algorithms, and then recommending crop insurance and risk-management products. But Monsanto wants the company - founded in 2006 by a team of software engineers and data scientists who previously worked at Google - to get its foot in the door for its new data farming business. Monsanto has an Integrated Farming Systems division, which uses big data to help farmers plant and harvest crops more efficiently. Weather tracking will help its efforts and allow Monsanto to better market its genetically engineered crop seeds. But it is big data and a custom risk-management analytics system will provide the outfit of a reliable new source of revenue from Monsanto’s farming customers.

Ireland beats the Europack at inward investment Posted: 03 Oct 2013 02:14 AM PDT Barry O’Leary, CEO of IDA Ireland, opened up the proceedings for the IEF 2013 here in Dublin.  Corporation tax is only 12 percent here, and there’s only four million or so people live in the Emerald Isle. How does the Irish Development Agency do it? The US accounts for three quarters of our investment and the value is $200 million.  The IDA has six locations in the USA, and three in Europe with offices in India, Brazil and China. The companies spend about 19 billion Euro and IDA is active in nine sectors, but four are the most important including ICT such as Intel, HP and the rest. The next category is pharmas and related companies. The third area is the international finance area and an area of huge growth is social media, digital content with Google, Amazon, Twitter and the like. Google has 2,800 people in Ireland and Ebay and Paypal between them have over 2,000 people. The IDA strategy is to get a high market share and the areas it targets include manufacturing and R&D.  Because of the high number of multinationals it’s very important that we keep these big brand names. IBM built a big campus for manufacturing but doesn’t manufacture any more and focuses on software.  When Intel came in the late 1980s and has invested well in excess of seven billion. Apple has 4,000 people here but now it’s the operation hub for Europe rather than manufacturing as it used to do down in Cork. Newer companies here in Ireland include Huawei, Trip Advisor and Twitter.

The CPU’s reign as Czar is over Posted: 03 Oct 2013 02:00 AM PDT You can forget about CPUs and the future depends on the cooperation of different engines on SoCs, said Tony King-Smith, EVP marketing, Imagination Technologies here in Dublin today King-Smith of Imagination consulted his crystal ball to discuss the future of silicon IP.  He said that for volume businesses, consumer trends and behaviours can never be underestimated. Even though they might not understand what technology is, they know how technology relates to their lives. Understanding the real trends is more important than endless spreadsheets, he said.  All target markets are converging on common SoC platforms. It makes its money out of licensing, a little bit like ARM. Everything is connected to the cloud and unified memory is a huge driver for the future. SoCs means everything is now mobile, and continues to have advanced capabilities. SoCs are the only way to get scaleability, said King-Smith. Everything is dominated by power these days and because there’s so much churn people are driving demand.  He said that on-chip accelerators have come a long way and now centreing a system on the CPU isn’t much cop any more.  It has to cooperate wwith the other elements. Ne architecture does not fit all applications. Putting everything onto the CPU doesn’t work any more. Imagination believes that heterogeneous Socs is the future, and each of the processors, whether it’s CPU, GPU, VPU  (videos) or RPU (radio) has to be optimised.   Each processor has its own optimised architecture and needs, said King-Smith. They’re all programmable and optimisable.  GPUs are dominating SoC processing, he said.  GPUs will occupy the largest area of many SoCs. Memory bandwidth is the biggest challenge for manufacturers and physical design optimisation is important too – but “power is the ultimate battleground”, said King-Smith.  Dark silicon is one of the new economic challenges, he said. Benchmarks usually ignore power but Imagination wants to change all of that.

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