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EE TimesISSUE 1589 MONDAY, OCTOBER 11, 2010 WWW.EETIMES.COMTHE NEWS

SOURCE FOR THE CREATORS OFTECHNOLOGY

Japan hangs hat on Android, sensors 12

INDIA’S LOFTY IPAMBITIONS 26

October 11, 2010 Electronic Engineering Times 3

CONTENTS OCTOBER 11, 2010

OPINION 4 Commentary: U.S. must

fast-track rare earth policy

58 Last Word: When tight lipssink projects

NEWS OF THE TIMES 9 Microsemi’s play for Actel

raises questions for FPGAs

12 Japan hangs hat onAndroid, sensors at CEATEC

18 Mixed reviews for Logitech’s Revue

GLOBAL WATCH 22 Toshiba’s glasses-free

3-D TV: Worth the wait?

23 Renesas reaches for cloudmarkets with SoC strategy

COVER STORY 26 ‘Ideas’ could be India’s

next growth industry

INTELLIGENCE 34 IBM characterizes

single-atom memory

36 iSuppli trims industrygrowth projection for 2010

DESIGN + PRODUCTS 39 Global Feature: Network- vs.

host-based processing

47 Under the HoodSemiconductor scaling:Strong medicine for homehealth care

51 Planet Analog: Dc-level mismatch in multi-gigabit serial data transmission

EE LIFE 56 Pop Culture: Software

omission sounds alarm for cross-team dialogue

Investigations: CRT teamreads between the lines

34An EE Times Group Publication®(516) 562-5000; Fax: (516) 562-5325Online: www.eetimes.com

CEO, EE Times GroupPUBLISHERPaul Miller(415) [email protected]

EDITOR IN CHIEFJunko Yoshida(516) [email protected]

NEWS DIRECTORGeorge Leopold(516) [email protected]

EXECUTIVE EDITOR/EDITOR IN CHIEF, EE TIMES EDGENicolas Mokhoff(516) [email protected]

ART DIRECTORDebee Rommel(516) [email protected]

SEMICONDUCTORS EDITORMark LaPedus(408) [email protected]

COMPUTING, MEDICAL DEVICES EDITORRick Merritt (408) [email protected]

WEST COAST ONLINE EDITORDylan McGrath(415) [email protected]

EDITORIAL DIRECTOR, DESIGN AND PRODUCTSPatrick Mannion (516) [email protected]

EDITORIAL DIRECTOR, EMBEDDED, EVENTSRon Wilson(415) [email protected]

PRODUCTS STRATEGISTBrian Fuller(415) [email protected]

EUROPEPeter Clarke, LONDON; EUROPEAN NEWS DIRECTOR(011) 44 7767 865593 [email protected]çoise Pelé, PARIS EDITOR(011) 33 1 73 28 17 76 [email protected] Holland, LONDON EDITOR(011) 44 20 8319 1324 [email protected]

INDIAK.C. Krishnadas, EDITOR [email protected]

CONTRIBUTORS

David Carey, END-SYSTEMS ANALYSIS(512) 338-3654 [email protected] R. Colin Johnson, TECHNOLOGY(971) 570-4162 [email protected] Schweber, ANALOG DESIGN(781) 839-1248 [email protected] Scouras, NEW PRODUCTS(347) 312-3162 [email protected]

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4 Electronic Engineering Times October 11, 2010

COMMENTARY

According to a Bloomberg report,China in July reduced rare earth exportquotas for the rest of the year by 72 per-cent, inflating prices morethan sixfold for some rareearth materials vital to theenergy, military, electronicsand manufacturing sectors.

The U.S. GovernmentAccountability Office, in abriefing to congressionalcommittees on “Rare EarthMaterials in the DefenseSupply Chain,” warns thatwhile rare earth oredeposits are geographicallydiverse, current capabili-ties to process rare earthmetals into finished mate-rials are limited mostly toChinese sources. The Unit-ed States can no longerclaim a role in all stages ofthe supply chain for mate-rials based on the rareearths, the GAO notes .

China’s dominance not only hasimplications for global availability andpricing of rare earth-based materialsbut also could jeopardize U.S. defensereadiness. In a concern closer to theindustry, ceding control of both mag-netic polarities of the world’s magnetsto China—magnets being the key elec

tronic components that use rare earthelements—could hold consequences forproducers of electronics.

The GAO report statesthat the fate of materialsbased on such elements asneodymium, dysprosiumand terbium is largely inthe hands of Chinese sup-pliers. China has adopteddomestic production quotason rare earth materialswhile slashing export quo-tas. It has increased exporttaxes on all rare earth mate-rials to a range of 15 to 25percent.

Still think China’s indus-trial ambitions are purelybenevolent?

Rebuilding the U.S. sup-ply chain for rare earthmaterials to a level that willensure sustainability couldtake 15 years. Development

is dependent on new technologies thatsome experts believe will not be avail-able on a production scale for up to fouryears and will require high startupcosts. There is also an intellectual prop-erty rights issue: Japanese and other for-eign companies own key technologypatents for manufacturing neodymiumiron boron magnets, and some of those

The U.S. House of Representatives hasapproved H.R. 6160, the Rare Earths and Criti-cal Materials Revitalization Act of 2010, author-izing development of a domestic rare earthmaterials program to address short-term scarci-ties and ensure long-term supply for thenation’s security, economic and industrialrequirements. The nod comes none too soon.

U.S. must fast-track policyon rare earth materials

Rebuildingthe supplychain forthese criticalresourcescould take15 years

patents do not expire until 2014.One hopeful sign is a recent contract

between Boeing and U.S. Rare EarthsInc. under which Boeing will use a ver-sion of its remote sensing technology toidentify and confirm rare earth depositsat sites for which USRE owns the min-eral rights. USRE will use the Boeingfindings to expand its exploration andincorporate large-scale mapping of con-firmed and suspected rare earthdeposits.

USRE holds the rights to significantdeposits of rare earth elements in theUnited States, according to the U.S. Geo-logical Survey.

Meanwhile, Molycorp Inc., currentlyacknowledged to be the Western Hemi-sphere’s only producer of rare earths,this month rehired Stan Trout as direc-tor of magnet manufacturing toadvance its “mines to magnets” strategyof modernizing and expanding itsMountain Pass., Calif., processing facili-ty. Trout is considered a leading expertin the design and manufacture of per-manent rare earth magnets. For the past10 years, he ran industry consultancySpontaneous Materials. Before that, heworked for Magnequench—one of thelast companies to make neodymium-iron-boron permanent rare earth mag-nets in the United States—as well as forHitachi Magnetics, Crucible Magneticsand Recoma, in addition to his first stintat Molycorp.

Trout helped pioneer the use of per-manent rare earth magnets in early MRIequipment as well as in other applica-tions. He “is one of the few individualsin the United States who has the knowl-edge and practical experience necessaryto lead our rebuilding of this manufac-turing capacity in the U.S., which Moly-corp is on track to accomplish in 2012,”Molycorp CEO Mark Smith said whenTrout’s rehiring was announced.

But it’s going to take a lot of blood,sweat and tears to revive the long-neglected rare earth materials manufac-turing industry. Molycorp has a longhistory, having discovered the rareearth metal bastnasite in Mountain Passback in 1949, but it has undergonemany organizational changes in its bidto be an effective producer. The compa-ny currently manufactures approxi-mately 3,000 tons of commercial rareearth materials per year. By 2012, it

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COMMENTARY

expects to be producing at a rate of20,000 tons of rare earth oxide equiva-lent per year and to offer a range of rareearth products, including high-purityoxides, metals, alloys and permanentmagnets.

China’s export and tariff rule changesfor the rare earths are a wakeup call fornations that have let their own capabili-ties lapse. The U.S. government mustfast-track its policy on rare earth miner-al exploration, development and com-mercialization.

The rare earths are critical ground. p

By Nicolas Mokhoff ([email protected]), editor in chief of EE Times’ all-digital editions and executive editor of EE Times

READERS RESPOND

Just issue fast-track visas to scientistsand engineers specialized in rare earthrefinery technologies.

The time frame could be cut downto less than 10 years. — pixies

I would ask the President how he plansto overcomethis huge prob-lem, since hementions allthe time howimportant it isto focus onrenewableenergy and to

stop paying huge amounts of [energy]dollars to the Middle East . . . oh, andlet’s not forget about bringing industri-al jobs back to the U.S.

In this case it seems the UnitedStates will pay lots of [materials] dol-lars to China, or IP costs to SouthKorea and Japan. — Baolt

Since it will take us quite a few years to start getting to the point ofproducing these metals, the patentsdon’t become an issue until they arebeing used. Sounds like we arealready behind in getting started, ifthey expire in 2014! — JLS

Can our elected officials not overcomethe Chinese lobbies and all the dollarsbeing thrown at them thanks to all theextra profits being generated by thisfalse scarcity? Boycott Chinese goodsuntil they reverse this, or impose anequal tax rate on all Chinese imports.

— new2coding

Unfortunately, [exerting pressure onthe Chinese] is unlikely to be possible.The U.S. and EU . . . are addicted tocheap Chinese labor and have movedalmost everything to China. Now theChinese have secured power over production and, gradually, resources.We should focus on new technologiesthat won’t require China’s involve-ment, and [rethink] globalization.

— Baolt

I heard China is soon going to becomethe world’s strongest economy. May bethis is one way [it’s getting there].

— Sheetal.Pandey

Wow, an export tariff. I haven’t heardof that happening since the 19th cen-tury. Anybody still think that the Chinese believe in free trade?

— Kaiser Silicon

I just read an article on eetimes.comthat talks about the development of an electric motor that doesn’t rely onrare earth magnets (“Japan developselectric motor sans rare earth metals,”http://tiny.cc/flhay). Perhaps the restof the world should follow suit.

It seems that we are being sur-prised by this development [in China],but should we have been surprised?It makes great business and politicalsense to control these high-tech met-als; why would we in the U.S.—or anyother country—not already be engagedin securing supplies?

It makes me wonder . . . — Robotics Developer

Our infatuation with low-cost laborallowed China to call the shots in rareearth metals used by the electronicsindustry. Japan and the U.S. cannotafford to be cut off. So yes, whileJapan is trying to find alternate solu-tions to using rare earth elements inits motors, the U.S. cannot afford towait for this kind of development to

come to fruition. It needs to startopening the mines it closed earlier to catch up. — Nic_Mokhoff

Rare earth metals are neededfor electric motors [used inproducts] including hybrid electricvehicles, commercial wind turbinesand high-speedtrains. WithChina trying to corner themarket on rareearth elements,it is trying tobecome amajor manu-facturing playerin the abovetechnologymarkets.

A recent PBS news segment stated there was only one U.S. rareearth metal mining operation and thatit needed help to get production up.A recent U.S. Geological Survey reportfound deposits of minerals includingrare earth in Afghanistan may beworth $1 trillion.

It seems only fair that U.S. compa-nies should have mining rights to theAfghan deposits. — Davewav

China is also investing heavily in Africaand in South America to access natu-ral resources such as rare earth mate-rials. A monopoly or near-monopoly on these resources is not in the inter-est of anybody. I do not think the Chinese officials are stupid [enough] to use these materials as economicweapons. I believe they are simply trying to secure their own supplies, like any other major power [would do],including the U.S.

— KB3001

This is yet another lesson that nonation should cede its manufacturingpower to another. Too many times, U.S.companies and the government havelet industries and key technologiesslip away because of financial short-

sightedness and failure to supportnational imperatives. — kdboyce

lJOIN THE CONVERSATION ONLINE

http://tiny.cc/96tn5

‘Wow, anexport tariff. . . Anyonestill thinkthat theChinesebelieve infree trade?’

‘Yet anotherlesson thatno nationshould cede itsproductionpower toanother’


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OF THE TIMESNews

Microsemi’s play for Actelraises questions for FPGA marketBy Dylan McGrath

MICROSEMI CORP. last weeklaunched a $430 million tender offer forprogrammable logic vendor Actel Corp.to leverage synergies in the military,aerospace and industrial markets,according to executives. But Microsemialso plans to stop marketing Actel prod-ucts into some applications, they said.

James Peterson, Microsemi’s presi-dent and CEO, said the company would“disengage” Actel from “nonproductive”businesses aimed at commercial mar-kets in which Actel lags programmable-

logic market leaders Xilinx Inc. andAltera Corp. “We will not continue todilute profitability by chasing the twobig competitors in the marketplace,” hesaid. “That’s not Microsemi’s game.”

Many interpreted Peterson’s com-ments to mean that Microsemi woulddiscontinue some Actel products. RussellGarcia, Microsemi’s executive vice presi-dent of marketing and sales, later saidhis company would not kill any Actelproduct lines, but neither would it seekfurther design wins in sockets where the

appeal of Actel products is not sufficientto command high margins.

Garcia said Microsemi would insteadfocus engineering, marketing and salesresources on applications in whichActel’s low-power, mixed-signal andradiation-hardened FPGAs offer themost value to customers and thus themost potential profits to Microsemi.

“These products are so differentiatedin the marketplace,” Garcia said. “Wewant to take full advantage of that andcontinue to grow and build on it.”

Many observers were caught offguard by the proposed acquisition, butMicrosemi executives said the two com-panies’ common strengths in the mili-tary and aerospace segments promise anideal match. “The purpose of this deal isnot to enter an FPGA market,” Garciasaid. “The purpose is to add breadth and

DEALS

Microsemi continues itsbuying spree with a bid thatexploits mil/aero ‘synergies’but rocks the longstandingFPGA status quo

NEWS OFTHETIMES

scale to the markets we both play in very well.” The acquisition is part of Microsemi’s strategy to “move up

the value chain,” he said. Craig Berger, an analyst with FBR Capital Markets, echoed

that comment in a report issued late last week, saying thatthe acquisition would allow Microsemi “to move up the val-ue curve and supply its defense and aerospace customerswith more sophisticated systems-level solutions.”

Berger noted that the deal would bring Microsemi capabili-ties in aerospace-targeted flash FPGAs, low-power FPGAs,radiation-hardened FPGAs, FPGAs with integrated ARM Cor-tex microcontrollers (Actel’s SmartFusion line), and otheranti-tamper technologies.

Peterson said Microsemi and Actel have 80 percent overlapin common customers and that Actel dominates in manymil/aerospace markets.

The Actel acquisition, which is pending the results of a$20.88 per share cash tender offer in place for 30 days, wouldbe the most expensive and ambitious in a string of transac-tions Microsemi has made in recent months. Last month,Microsemi acquired the assets of VT Silicon, a maker ofmultiband RFIC solutions for the mobile wireless broadbandmarket. In April, it paid roughly $100 million for White Elec-tronic Designs Corp., a specialist in ICs and modules fordefense and aerospace applications.

Last year, Microsemi made several acquisitions, snappingup Electro Module Inc., Endwave Corp., Nexem Inc. and aSpectrum Microwave power product line.

According to Garcia and Steven Litchfield, executive vicepresident and group president of Microsemi’s High Perform-ance Analog and Mixed Signal Group, the moves are part ofthe evolution of Microsemi from a vendor of discrete compo-nents to a supplier of integrated system solutions.

Berger said Microsemi “is building meaningful scale withsuppliers and customers as the firm approaches the $200 mil-lion-per-quarter revenue level.”

Small player, minimal impactActel is ranked fourth in the FPGA market, with a total share ofabout 6 percent. It reported revenue of $191 million for fiscal2009, slightly below Lattice Semiconductor’s $194 million.Those results place both companies far behind Xilinx andAltera, which reported revenue for their most recently con-cluded fiscal years of $1.8 billion and $1.2 billion, respectively.

Ian Ing, an analyst for Gleacher & Co. in San Francisco, saidthat because of Actel’s relative size, the impact of its acquisi-tion on the FPGA market would be small. He said the compa-ny has “tried to make a go” of competing with Xilinx andAltera in commercial markets with its flash-based FPGAs.Nonetheless, he expects Microsemi to pull back on thoseefforts, concentrate on Actel’s strengths in military/aerospaceand treat Actel as a “cash cow,” though he added that Microse-mi would probably maintain some level of investment inActel’s antifuse FPGAs.

While an acquisition of Actel wouldn’t have much of amaterial impact on the programmable logic market, it wouldshake up a status quo that has been entrenched for manyyears. Actel, founded in 1985, has never been a dominant sup-plier, but it has been one of only four standalone companiesto survive in a market in which dozens have failed. Roughly50 companies have made plays for FPGA market share sincethe devices were invented in the late 1980s; nearly all haveexited the field, folded or been acquired.

In addition to the four established programmable-logicvendors, there are several promising startups, includingAchronix Corp., SiliconBlue Technologies Corp. and TabulaInc. Some established semiconductor vendors, such as AtmelCorp. and Cypress Semiconductor Corp., hold slivers of theprogrammable-logic market.

On news of the tender offer, Actel’s stock gained nearly 31 percent last Monday, closing at $20.95. Peterson saidMicrosemi was not the only suitor for Actel, though he didnot identify the other interested parties.

FBR analyst Berger said he was aware of two other biddersfor Actel, including a private equity firm. He said he did notexpect the other interested parties to raise their bids for Actel,noting that the other suitors would have had ample time toraise their existing bids before Actel’s shares went higherthan $20.

Peterson said the terms of Microsemi’s definitive agree-ment with Actel call for the latter company to pay a “breakupfee” of about 3 percent, or about $17.5 million, if the acquisi-tion is not completed. p


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NEWS OFTHETIMES


Japan hangs hat on Android, sensorsBy Junko Yoshida

MAKUHARI, JAPAN — CEATEC, Japan’s premier consumerelectronics show, spotlighted three trends that the Japaneseindustry appears to have embraced as guiding principles:

• When in doubt, go with Android. Most Japanese CE ven-dors are in survival mode against Apple and are hanging theirhats on Google’s open-source OS for platforms such as smart-phones and media tablets.

• Sensors rule. Japanese engineers might have found theirtrue calling: developing products, from robots to home healthcare devices, that leverage the power of sensors. Many of thesensor-packed offerings at CEATEC were pretty creative; somewere pretty strange.

• Don’t take your eyes off displays. Most Japanese compa-nies realize they will never be the next Intel or ARM, but theyalso know that hammering away at display innovations willkeep the door open to novel apps and markets.

CEATEC

bYour lovin’ teddy bearThese high-tech teddies, shown at Fujitsu’sbooth, embed a CMOS image sensor, severalmotors, voice sensors and 13 touch sensors.They wave back when waved at, respond to asmile, and coo and wiggle when touched.Smarter than the average bear?

bThrowing displays a curveFujitsu showed curved displays made of thin, lightweightmaterials that can be wrapped around pillars.

The bendable structures consist of glass tubes, filledwith phosphor and xeon gas, that are vertically aligned inan array. Images are controlled using electrodes attachedto the back of the tubes. The tubes emit light using thesame principle applied in plasma displays.

bCybernetic songstressJapan continues its love affair with robotics, and the objectsof its affection grow ever more weirdly realistic. The HRP-4Centertained a crowd at Yamaha’s booth. Loaded with Yama-ha’s Vocaloid singing synthesis software, she belted outtunes on request, moving in rhythm with the music andeven subtly changing her facial expressions—blinking coylyand smiling—as she sang. What stage presence!

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NEWS OFTHETIMES


bBiofeedback valentineYou might want to hold tight to this heart-shaped device whenyou’re away from your loved one. It lets you transmit your bodytemperature and heartbeat to a waiting digital heart back home,according to NTT Docomo.

Think of it as a mood ring on steroids. The digital heart is embedded with sensors and an LED to meas-

ure your heartbeat, body temperature and grip pressure. The devicetranslates information into vibrations, warmth and LED colors, thentransmits the data to your mobile phone via Bluetooth. Your phonesends the information via a 3G wireless network to your loved one’shandset, which transmits the data via Bluetooth to his or her owndigital heart. That device then vibrates, glows red or blue andwarms up in response. Once the two hearts are in perfect sync,they flash in rainbow colors. Ain’t love grand.

fMEMS shutter display ditches the filterHitachi Displays demonstrated a MEMS shutter display co-developed withPixtronix Inc. MEMS shutter displays, unlike LCD displays, need no color filter or polarizer and are said to use light very efficiently.

The device adjusts color tones by opening and shutting the MEMS shutter at high speed, nimbly changing the amount of light coming fromthe LED backlight as well as natural light.

The specs show that the prototype display has a screen size of 2.5 inch-es, pixel counts of 320 x 240 (QVGA), a pixel pitch of 163 micrometersand a 120 percent color gamut based on NTSC standards.

Hitachi claims that the device can display images in reflective mono-chrome mode with very low power consumption, suiting e-reader applica-tions, and that it can display moving pictures at lower temperaturescompared with LCDs.

bStaking a claim for GalapagosJapanese mobile handsets have often been light-yearsahead of the competition, so why have they so rarelyfound a global market? The stock answer is “Galápagossyndrome,” a metaphor for Japan’s increasing techno-logical isolation from the rest of the world.

Japanese mobile phones, the theory goes, are likethe endemic species that Darwin discovered on theGalápagos Islands: so highly adapted to their environ-ment that they bear little resemblance to their mainlandcousins. Packed with bells and whistles that makesense only in the local market, Japanese cell phoneshave evolved to the point that they have no relevance tousers outside Japan.

Now Sharp has chosen to wear the Galapagos labelas a badge of honor, using it as the brand for a series ofmedia tablets. The 5.5-inch mobile version features a1,024 x 600 LCD touchscreen and a trackball; thehome version has a 1,366 x 800 display.

Both come with 802.11/b/g Wi-Fi, and, of course,run Android.

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NEWS OFTHETIMES

SAN FRANCISCO — The first GoogleTV device, the $300 Logitech Revue, premiered here to mixed reviews. The product scored kudos for integrat-ing broadcast and Web video on any HDMI-capable HDTV and for support-ing personal media playback and 720-progressive videoconferencing. But its$300 price tag—plus another $149 foran HDTV camera—will dampen sales,analysts said.

The Revue integrates the functionali-ty of Logitech’s HarmonyRemote universal A/Vcontrollers, which cost asmuch as $200 and are notwidely used. Meanwhile,Roku and Apple are sell-ing set-tops that bringWeb content to the TVfor as little as $99. The Logitech offeringwill also compete with a growing arrayof TVs, game consoles and Blu-ray play-ers that bring Web content to the TV.

“If Logitech sells a million of these,they will be doing very well,” said ColinDixon, senior partner at market watcherThe Diffusion Group (Frisco, Texas),which predicts “steady but not spectacu-lar growth” overall for Web TV set-tops.

The Revue is nonetheless a com-pelling alternative to Cisco Systems’Umi, a $599 device that delivers HDTVvideoconferencing at 1080-progressiveresolution using an Intel Canmoreprocessor and other dedicated hardware.“It will be hard for Cisco to competewith the Revue,” said Dixon. “Logitech’ svideo quality is clearly not as good asthe Umi’s, but it is good enough.”

The Revue uses the Intel CE4100Sodaville; the same processor will poweran upcoming Sony TV integrating theGoogle TV software. The code thatenables searches across broadcast TV andWeb content requires at least 1 Gbyte ofDRAM and 4 Gbytes of NAND flash.

Dish Network, thus far the only serv-ice provider supporting Google TV,helped create a special protocol to letusers search content stored on a DishDVR and schedule recording. APIs forthe protocol will be made availablewhen a Google Android Web site forGoogle TV apps goes live early next year.

Dish will sell the Revue set-top andkeyboard for $179 plus a $4/month acti-vation fee to new and existing cus-tomers. The unit can access electronic

program guide data from any cable orsatellite service, but it will not provideinteractive services such as searching orautomating recording on DVRs fromother service providers.

The Revue keyboard uses Logitech’s2.4-GHz wireless technology runningon two AA batteries to link to the set-top. A smartphone-sized remote con-troller sells as a $129 option.

Logitech’ s $149 TV cam is its firstexcursion outside PC Webcams. It willalso sell indoor and outdoor securitycameras that can be controlled usingGoogle TV for $299 and $349.

Logitech CEO Gerald Quindlen saidthe Revue is the first of many productsin the works for Google TV. But thecompany’ s focus will continue to be onkeyboards, remotes and other peripher-als, not set-tops, he added.

“Today is just the beginning of thisplatform and what we intend to doaround it,” Quindlen said. p


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CONT

© 2010 Intel Corporation. Intel, the Intel logo, Intel Sponsors of Tomorrow™ and Intel Sponsors of Tomorrow logos are trademarks or registered trademarks of Intel Corporation or its subsidiaries in the United States and other countries.

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CHARLES H. MOORE, who developedmany patented microprocessor tech-nologies and is known as the inventorof the Forth programming language, issuing patent licensing firm TechnologyProperties Ltd. LLC (The TPL Group)and its subsidiary Alliacense LLC, alleg-ing fraud, breach of fiduciary duty andbreach of contract.

Moore filed the suit in CaliforniaSuperior Court in Santa Clara County.He is also requesting preliminaryinjunctive relief against TPL and Allia-cense and has filed individual suitsagainst Daniel E. Leckrone, TPL Groupchairman; Daniel M. Leckrone, Allia-

cense president; and Michael Davis, Alli-acense senior vice president of licensing.

Numerous patents originally filed byMoore are included in the Moore Micro-processor Patent (MMP) portfolio,which was owned and administered byPatriot Scientific Corp. (San Diego)until a June 2005 settlement of an earli-er patent dispute under which Patriotagreed to unify its interests in the MMPpatents with those of TPL Group.

At that point the TPL Group andPatriot became joint owners of theMMP portfolio. With Alliacense actingas the licensing agent, they achievedsome success in persuading semicon-

ductor companies, including AdvancedMicro Devices, Intel and several Japan-ese vendors, to pay for licenses. Thoughdetails were not disclosed, it is believedthat many of the payments, involvingsums in the millions of dollars, wereone-off fees for licenses in perpetuity.

In April of this year, Patriot sued TPL,alleging contractual breach on nonpay-ment of $1 million that had been dueon Feb. 28, 2010.

The MMP portfolio includes patentsthat are said to cover fundamental tech-nology used in microprocessors, micro-controllers, DSPs, embedded processorsand systems-on-chip.p

Microprocessor pioneer sues patent pool firmsBy Peter Clarke

IP IN THECOURTS


GlobalWATCH

MAKUHARI, JAPAN — CEATEC atten-dees queued up at Toshiba’s booth herelast week for a peek at what 3-D willlook like without those clunky glasses.

The wait averaged 90 minutes tocheck out the 20- and 12-inch autostereo-scopic LCD 3-D TV sets that Toshibaplans to release for the Japanese marketin December. A host of consumer elec-tronics manufacturers, including Sony,are believed to be working on glasses-free 3-D TV solutions, but only Toshibathus far has shown models scheduledfor commercial launch.

Toshiba also demonstrated a 56-inchLCD 3-D TV prototype that will requireno special glasses for 3-D viewing. Butthe company said it has no immediateplans to launch the 56-inch model.

In an interview with EE Times, YuzoHirayama, chief research scientist at the

multimedia laboratory of Toshiba’s cor-porate R&D center, said the company’smanagement had decided there was “noreason to keep the fruits of our researchresults hidden in our lab. ‘If we know itworks,’ they said, ‘we should get it outthere in commercial products.’ ” Hiraya-ma has been working on glasses-free 3-D TV technologies since 2005.

Toshiba designed its TVs using alenticular lens system, which leverageswell-understood principles for enablingautostereoscopic high-definition 3-D.

Developers of glasses-free approacheshave long struggled to overcome thetechnology’s low resolution and limitedviewing angle. Toshiba claims to haveaddressed those problems in its firstcommercial autostereoscopic models.

The demonstration showed that allthree Toshiba TVs have a viewing angle

CONSUMER

Toshiba’s glasses-free 3-D TV:Worth the wait?By Junko Yoshida

of about 40° (if viewers step beyond thatboundary, they will see double imageson the screen). The previous viewing-angle maximum for experimental glass-es-free approaches was about 20°,Hirayama said. “We doubled the view-ing angle by developing special soft-ware to optimize light emission fromthe center, right and left of the screen.”

To improve the screen resolution,Toshiba engineers developed a specialpanel technology and integrated propri-etary multiparallax conversion chipswith Toshiba’s Cell processor engine.

More pixelsThe panel design team turned out ahigh-definition, LED-backlit LCD panelthat packs 8.29 million pixels, or “aboutfour times the pixels used in a full HDpanel,” Hirayama said. The Toshibapanel used in the 20-inch TV can pro-duce a final 3-D image at 1,280 x 720 res-olution, Hirayama noted.

The panel also uses 1,440 LEDs posi-tioned directly under the LCD to bright-en 3-D images.

The 20-inch TV’s resolution still fallsshort of the 1,920 x 1,080 resolutionreproduced on a large-screen TV requir-ing glasses for 3-D viewing. Still, Toshi-ba’s autostereoscopic TV looks far betterthan other glasses-free 3-D TV demos.

Beyond packing more pixels into theLCD panel, Toshiba engineers arrangedeach pixel to support the display of RGB in a layout expressly designed for3-D imaging. By systematically aligningpixels and adopting a perpendicularlenticular sheet, Toshiba’s LCD paneleliminates blurring, or the verticalwave pattern (caused by interference in the display cycle) that plagues otherautostereoscopic 3-D technologies.

The difference was visible on theCEATEC show floor, where Sharpshowed 3.8-inch and 10.6-inch glasses-free 3-D panels on which the verticalwave pattern could be seen. Sharp is theLCD panel supplier for Nintendo’supcoming 3-D handheld.

Toshiba collaborated on 3-D paneldevelopment with Toshiba Mobile Display Co., a subsidiary focused onsmall to midsized LCD displays. Toshiba

Conventional 3-D using a lenticular sheet. Toshiba’s new glasses-free 3-D technology.

Toshiba doubled the viewing angle for its newglasses-free 3-D TV by optimizing light emission

from the center, right and left areas of the screen.

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GLOBAL WATCH

BUSINESS FOUNDRIES

Renesas reaches for cloud markets with SoC strategyBy Peter Clarke

JAPAN’S RENESAS ELECTRONICSCorp. has announced measures it sayswill strengthen the company’s system-on-chip business and its approach to thenetworking and industrial infrastruc-tures that support cloud computing.

Emphasizing the importance of inter-nal design and manufacturing, Renesassaid its main thrusts would includememory devices and SoCs with memo-ry for networking; USB controllers;SoCs with built-in Ethernet PHYs; andmicrocontrollers for smart-grid applica-tions. It laid out plans to gain marketshare in many of those areas.

Renesas’ first SoC business unit willconcentrate on the infrastructures thatsupport cloud computing, whereby var-ious service applications are providedover the Internet via such devices asPCs, smartphones and mobile handsets.By concentrating resources on the net-working and industrial areas, Renesasaims to increase the annual sales of itsSoC business by an average of 5 to 7 per-cent per year from fiscal 2010 to fiscal2012, expanding its market share ineach focused area.

For example, Renesas will focus onmemory devices for networking equip-ment and SoCs for USB devices. It cansupply such memories as quad-data-

rate/double-data-rate SRAM, low-laten-cy DRAM and ternary content-address-able memory.

The company also intends to expandits SoC lineup with devices that inte-grate memory and peripheral functions.It aims to grow its market share inmemory devices for network equip-ment from 40 percent this year to 60percent in fiscal 2012.

Renesas has released a USB 3.0-com-pliant host controller chip and said itplans to launch hub controllers andother USB 3.0-compliant SoCs forperipheral devices starting in 2011. Itaims to increase its global market shareof USB SoCs from 15 percent at presentto 30 percent in the 2012 fiscal year.

Next month, Renesas plans to sampleSoCs that incorporate Ethernet physi-cal-layer functions for real-time pro-cessing and high reliability inindustrial automation products. Thecompany said it expects to build itsglobal market share in SoCs for indus-trial devices from 25 percent this yearto 30 percent in fiscal 2012.

For the smart-grid market, Renesaswill provide SoCs with Ethernet, ZigBeeand powerline communications func-tionality, together with MCUs offeringpower measurement features. p

declined to identify its partner for its56-inch glasses-free 3-D TV prototype.

Heavy-duty postprocessingAt the heart of Toshiba’s 3-D technologyare an integral imaging system and aperpendicular lenticular sheet to dis-play natural images, according to Toshi-ba. The image processing technologycreates nine parallax images from theoriginal content to deliver 3-D images.

Hirayama said Toshiba engineers

developed several chips to accomplishvarious image postprocessing tasks. “Inprinciple, what such LSIs have to do isto take a 2-D image, estimate its depthand create nine images from nine direc-tions to deliver 3-D images,” he said.

So was the 90-minute wait for thedemo worth it? Judging by Toshiba’sresults compared with earlier technolo-gies for glasses-free 3-D viewing, theanswer would be yes. But consumers arebound to be underwhelmed by the initial

models’ screen size, and Toshiba MobileDisplay has no plans to develop large-screen LCDs, so finding a large-panelpartner is a must. The 12-inch modelwill sell for roughly $1,400 and the 20-inch model for $2,800, so Toshiba willalso have to tweak its architecture to getthe cost down. And it may have to decidesoon whether to allow its chip division to sell or license Cell engines to others.

For now, Toshiba is offering noanswers to those questions. p

TSMC gets nod for130 nm in ChinaBy Mark LaPedus

TAIWAN’S GOVERNMENT hasapproved foundry giant Taiwan Semi-conductor Manufacturing Co. Ltd.’sapplication to upgrade its 200-mm fabin Shanghai, China, to 0.13-micron(130-nm) technology, according to aReuters report.

The change represents a further relax-ation of the rules governing TSMC’s pro-duction in China; Taiwan earlierallowed TSMC to migrate to 0.18 micronfrom 0.25 micron before approving themost recent application. The restrictionsreflect the Taiwanese government’sdesire to keep leading-edge chip produc-tion on the island.

TSMC continues to operate its lead-ing-edge fabs on its home turf. The com-pany announced recently that after the28-nm node, it plans to skip the 22-nm“full node” and move directly to the 20-nm “half node”; manufacturing willtake place in Taiwan.

Even at 130 nm, TSMC is behind thecurve in China, where homegrownfoundry Semiconductor ManufacturingInternational Corp. is ramping up 65-nmproduction.

Hynix Semiconductor, meanwhile,manufactures leading-edge memoriesin China. And Intel plans to make 65-nm devices at its new Chinese fab. p

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stood the power of entrepreneurship and wealth creation.”If you’re wondering how India might go about reinventing

itself as a country known for its inventions, cast a glance atsome of its prosperous Asian neighbors. “India has to moveaway from the me-too mindset. If a product or service comesout of the U.S. or elsewhere, there is a tendency to think thatit should be copied here, probably tweaked a bit to fit into theIndian environment,” said Bob Kondamoori, managing direc-tor of venture capitalist firm Sandalwood Partners. But Japan,too, “was into the copy act” before its engineers and entrepre-neurs became innovators, Kondamoori noted. “Then cameChina. [Now] you see a tremendous amount of innovationcoming from these two countries, as well as from Taiwan.

“It’s just a matter of time before India emerges from its cocoon.”

India watchers note that world-changing innovations likethe transistor, the PC, the cell phone and the Internet didn’t

‘Ideas’ could be India’snext growth industryBy Sufia Tippu

BANGALORE — If eyes roll when talk turns to India’s promise as a high-tech innovation hub, it’s understandable;certainly, that promise remains unrealized. Still, there aresigns everywhere of an emerging entrepreneurial class, and potentially game-changing ideas are being hatched notonly among the country’s IT establishment, but also in thehumblest corners of a land where 70 percent of the popula-tion of 1.2 billion still scrapes by on half a dollar a day.

“We get literally 30 to 40 ideas from entrepreneurs everyweek. Not all are great, but there is a lot of confidence andenthusiasm,” said N.R. Narayana Murthy, chief mentor andco-founder of Infosys Technologies and the founder of $129million venture capital firm Catamaran, symbolically namedfor the light, nimble craft used by local fishermen. India’s 8.5 percent GDP growth has engendered “tremendous confi-dence in the country among the younger generation,” Murthysaid. “A lot of them are willing to take risk; they have under-

COVER STORY

PANORAMIC V IEW OF THE GE INDIA TECHNOLOGY CENTER CAMPUS.


spring from arid soil but were nurtured in rich R&D environ-ments where the supporting ecosystem was already wellestablished. In contrast, India’s infrastructure buildout beganin earnest only three decades ago.

IT and beyondThe seeds of India’s rise as an IT power were planted in the1980s, when conglomerates Tata Consultancy Services andWipro zeroed in on the software business and Infosys openedits doors. Several hundred startups followed in their foot-steps, but only a few have stood out from the pack in terms ofpatented innovations. They include Cosmic Circuits in powermanagement, Ittiam in DSP applications, MindTree in com-munications products, Subex in operations support systemsand Tejas Networks in the telecom space.

Going forward, India’s best chances to make its mark oninnovation may be in cleantech and other disruptive tech-nologies that can improve the quality of life for the world’spoor while enriching their inventors and investors. One suchinvention along that vein, a low-cost, durable, prosthesisknown as the Jaipur foot, has restored function to amputeesthe world over and is probably the best-known Indian inno-vation to have found a global market.

Other recent inventions that hold similar promise include:• A hybrid electric/kerosene stove that saves 70 percent on

fuel costs compared with conventional stoves that burn liq-uefied petroleum gas. The stove uses a 6-V coil to heatkerosene for cooking. One liter of kerosene lasts for eighthours, and the stove consumes one unit of electrical powerfor every 20 hours of use.

• Mitti Cool, the so-called village fridge. Invented by a pot-ter, Mitti Cool is made from special clay (mitti) and uses evap-oration to cool three or more storage chambers for water,fruits and vegetables.

0Q1 Q2 Q1 Q2Q3 Q4

20102009

1

2

3

4

5

6

7

8Equity financing for venture-backedcompanies*Amount invested ($B)

Total U.S.Total Europe (converted $)**Total Mainland ChinaTotal CanadaTotal IsraelTotal India

*Includes cash investments by professional venture capital firms, corporations,other equity firms and individuals in companies that have received at leastone round of venture funding

**Exchange rate based on the first day of the month of the financing round

Venture capital investment in IndiaDeals and equity flow into startups

Source: Dow Jones VentureSource

2Q ’101Q ’104Q ’093Q ’092Q ’091Q ’09

Amount invested ($M)Number of deals

0

10

20

Number of deals

Amou

nt in

vest

ed ($

M)

30$400

$300

$200

$100

$0


COVER STORY

• Modified lanterns that produce light equal to a 100-wattbulb but run on kerosene, diesel or ethanol. The lamp has awick coated with high-temperature materials, such as silica; a self-cleaning nozzle; and a special glass that reduces thechances of explosion.

• A diesel motorcycle that doubles as a tractor when theback wheel is removed and replaced with a spiked cylinder.

• A micro-windmill-based mobile charger that uses windpower to charge phones and laptops.

Chances are, the creators of these inventions weren’t think-ing far beyond their own needs or those of their nearestneighbors when they devised their novel solutions to com-monplace problems. Few probably dared to hope they wouldgrab the attention of the Indian market at large, much lessthe global marketplace. They weren’t looking for what thelate management guru C.K. Prahlad called “the fortune at thebottom of the pyramid.”

But others are.

Enter the VCs“I feel the only way to abolish poverty is to embrace entrepre-neurship and create lots of jobs with high disposable income.If I can encourage entrepreneurs and youngsters to do that, itwould be wonderful,” said Murthy. Among the organizationsin which his firm has invested is SKS Microfinance, whichfunds cottage industries launched by poor rural women.

A number of well-known funds have set up shop in India,but entrepreneurs looking for angels are often disappointed.

“Indian startups and entrepreneurs have to work with avery different environment,and we recognize that outhere in [Silicon] Valley,”said Sun Microsystems co-founder Vinod Khosla, wholater became a general part-ner at VC firm Kleiner,Perkins, Caufield & Byersand today is a partner atKhosla Ventures. “To dobusiness in India, you haveto be a little creative andinnovative to thrive. But Iam still quite positive onIndia. The way to grow aneconomy is through entre-preneurship and capital-ism, and India seems tohave figured out the rightformula.

“Clearly, there are still alot of issues. Starting abusiness in India is still harder than it needs to be. But Ibelieve fundamentally that the major energy breakthroughswill have to compete at ‘Chindia’ prices, because you have 2.5 billion people [in China and India] trying to raise them-selves from poverty to a Western standard of living.”

Organizations such as The Indus Entrepreneurs; theNational Entrepreneurship Network, a Wadhani Foundation

AT GE, INDIA IS ALREADY AN R&D HUB“The greatest danger for most of us,” Michelangelo Buonarrotisaid, “is not that our aim is too high and we miss it but that itis too low and we reach it.” The 5,500 employees of the GEIndia Technology Center, which has filed more than 1,000patents in the 10 years since its founding, cannot be accusedof aiming too low.

A decade ago, the center was housed in a small, rentedspace in the International Tech Park and employed a couple ofhundred people. Today it sits on a sprawling, bucolic campus

and is GE’s largest integrated R&D operation outside the U.S.“When you cross-fertilize scientists, engineers and market-

ing people, they all come together not just to create new sci-ence and engineering but to create new ways to approachyour development,” said Sanjay Correa, vice president andmanaging director of GE Tech India.

The results of the center’s R&D work are funneled into GEproducts and often go to serve local needs. One device under-going pilot testing, for example, would filter groundwater toreduce toxins such as arsenic, which is present at dangerouslevels in some village water supplies. The device would be mar-keted “through not-for-profit organizations or the government toget it installed in those villages,” Correa said. “The device doesnot need electricity; gravity pulls the water through a specializedmembrane that will get rid of bacteria as well as toxic metals.”

Biomass conversion technology that would collect agricul-tural waste and convert into usable energy is another focus.Since the usable biomass varies from crop to crop, a special-ized converter that could handle the different biomass types isdue to be tested soon.

One GE Tech India innovation that has already found localuse is the MAC 400 Ultra portable ECG machine. Designed,developed and manufactured in India, the simple, lightweight(1.2-kg) portable machine can record up to 100 ECGs on asingle battery charge and does not require a trained physicianfor operation. A standard 12-lead ECG interpretation programis built in. — Sufia Tippu

Weighing just 1.2 kg, the MAC 400 portable ECG machinecan record up to 100 ECGs on a single battery charge anddoes not require extensive medical training to operate.

‘To do business in India,you have to be a little creative and innovative tothrive,’ says Vinod Khoslaof Khosla Ventures.

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COVER STORY

project; Nasscom; the India Semiconductor Association; theNational Innovation Foundation; and the Rural InnovationNetwork offer networking opportunities for Indian entrepre-neurs. But most of the business founders here who manage tohold their heads above water are able to do so only withfinancial help from friends and relatives.

“It’s all about connecting with the right VC and gettingsomeone to vouch for you; otherwise things just don’t hap-pen,” said Partha Ray, who with partner T. Rai tried and failedto secure funding for a semiconductor project. Today, Ray andRai are back at their office jobs, but both hope to give entre-

preneurship another go in the future.MindTree Consulting (now MindTree Ltd.) co-founder

S. Janakiraman suspects the VC and private-equity firms thatgot burned as a result of the recent global economic melt-down pulled back in India just as they did elsewhere. ButJanakiraman expects “the investment climate for startups tochange for the better as firms see a few success stories fromstartups making it big in India.”

Nasscom, the primary trade organization for India’s soft-ware services industry, estimates that there are 652 early-stage IT companies in the country. VC Sharad Sharma at the

Sources at Indian IT trade organization Nasscom and at variousventure capital firms that do business in India listed the followingstartups as among the country’s most promising:

8KMiles Web ServicesProvides on-demand outsourcing infrastructure and collaborationtools to enable a distributed development platform in a cloudenvironment.http://www.8kmiles.com

Cocubes.com Offers an SMS-enabled online campus recruiting and job place-ment platform that connects colleges, companies and students.http://www.cocubes.com

Eko India Financial ServicesDeveloper of a financial transaction platform that delivers basicbanking services through mobile access devices by connectingmobile and banking infrastructures.http://eko.co.in

Expert Voicetap TechnologiesProvides knowledge engine to connect knowledge seekers withexperts over various media, including textual chat or voice.http://voicetap.in

GQuotient SystemsDesigns green ICT solutions for information and communicationstechnology optimization; leverages SaaS technology for deliveryto customers.http://www.gquotient.com

Gridbots TechnologiesMakes industrial, educational and domestic robots for the Indianmarket; some models are used as learning tools for robotics students.http://gridbots.com

Indrion Technologies IndiaAn infrastructure automation solutions provider whose focus is embedding context sensitivity into apps for the industrial,enterprise and public utility/service markets, among others.http://indrion.co.in

Les Travenues TechnologiesOffers a mobile travel search engine that lets users searchacross multiple sites and book directly on the transactional site.http://www.ixigo.com

Media SynpaticsA provider of teleradiology solutions that can transfer images onvery low bandwidth for remote diagnosis.http://www.medsynaptic.com/

PathPartner Technology ConsultingA design services firm targeting semiconductor companies,mobile OEMs and videoconferencing equipment OEMs; recentlyreleased an Android-based media-phone software stack for ODMsand telecom operators.http://www.pathpartnertech.com

SammaaN FoundationCalling itself an advocate for India’s “downtrodden,” rents rickshaws to drivers for a nominal fee; also helps drivers obtaininsurance and set up small bank accounts.http://www.sammaan.org/

Srishti SoftwareSoftware provider focusing on Web content management andhealth care markets.http://www.srishtisoft.com

TeleDNAProvides mobile value-added service infrastructure for telecomproviders.http://www.teledna.com

Webaroo TechnologyProvides a mobile-enabled social messaging platform that canbe tailored for consumers or businesses.http://www.smsgupshup.com

WHERE THE IDEAS ARE: STARTUPS TO WATCH

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COVER STORY

Indian Angel Network said the numbers are rising as thestartup environment grows more hospitable “due to severalfactors: better availability of angel/seed capital, the openingup of the domestic market and the ability to penetrate theSMB [small- and midsized-business] market in the West usingsoftware-as-a-service business models.”

But India is a huge country with enormous needs, and theVC pool is just not deep enough to float every worthy busi-ness plan. Seedfund partner Bharati Jacob said it’s not evenpossible to go through all the plans the fund receives.

One hurdle for startups seeking funding is India’s asset-based economy. “For a working capital loan from an Indianbank, you have to show asset-based collateral; they don’t val-ue the intellectual property or capitalization of R&D that youhave,” said Sandalwood’s Kondamoori, who has spent morethan 25 years in the Silicon Valley investment communityand says he is always on the lookout for promising startups

in India and China. “It’s different in the U.S., which is an earn-ings-based economy; the valuations [of U.S. companies] arevery high based on earnings. A lot of this kind of metrics—measuring and building valuation in companies—needs tocome into Indian management teams. Anyone I speak to inIndia always talks about revenue and top-line growth; theydon’t concentrate on net margins.”

Kondamoori believes such metrics will fall into place asmore Indian companies start listing on the established globalexchanges, as reservations booking service Makemytrip didin April with its Nasdaq IPO.

“Right now, there is no saturation in the [Indian] marketplacefor any product or service,” he said. “Take the telecom sector, forinstance . . . today every telecom operator is interested in merelyputting up towers and attracting subscribers, and the way theygo after the subscribers [by making incremental, cent-by-centcuts in charges for calls] is taking its toll; they are losing moneyall the way. There is so much one can do in the telecom space ifyou really want to innovate, but everyone is too busy grabbingtheir share of subscribers . . . I think once saturation takes place,then innovation will definitely come in.”

Alok Mittal, a partner at Canaan Partners, noted that while

India has engineering talent in spades, that’s not enough tobuild successful startups. “You need product managers whoare able to chart out the road map and carry it through. Andyou need customers who would like to buy tech innovationfrom India—and right now, we don’t see customers rushingto buy products from startups. This, in turn, affects the avail-ability of capital” for Indian tech startups.

The dearth of global customers for Indian innovationsreflects Indian companies’ inability thus far to get the hang ofglobal marketing, said Ravindran Govindan, executive chair-man of Singapore-based Mercatus Capital. “Most of the [Indi-an] companies I meet with have global products, but they arenot able to brand the product well and market it. When VCslike us do manage to connect with some good companies, weare able to accelerate the growth tenfold,” Govindan said.

Indian companies are self-sufficient and steeped in the cul-ture—perhaps to a fault, as they can be provincial in outlook,said Govindan. “They carry the culture into the market, andit’s extremely difficult to break through. When you enter aforeign market, it is just not about opening an office there; it’sabout knowing how to talk, how to engage people in relevantconversation, how to negotiate shrewdly and, most important,how to sell. I feel this where India is really lacking.”

On the other hand, the eastward expansion of technologymarkets is bringing the global marketplace to Indian compa-nies’ doorstep, noted Raj Khare, co-founder of media conver-gence startup SureWaves. “The center of gravity is shifting toemerging markets such as India and China. Earlier, the [vol-ume] markets were in the Western world, and it was not reallypossible for someone to sit here and say that he or she wasgoing to innovate for someone living in San Francisco. But nowit’s much easier, and entrepreneurs feel it’s a risk worth taking.”

Those startups that do succeed here are often led by sea-soned professionals. “I had three very important thingschecked off: I had a fair idea of what I wanted to do in my com-pany, I had a team that I trusted to be able to do that and I haddone this startup thing before,” noted Narasimhan (Kishore)Mandyam, co-founder of cloud computing startup Impelcrm(formerly PK4 Software Technologies), which sells the ImpelCRM contact management SaaS. “The initial challenge was toconvince people in India that a cloud offering made sense.When we realized, very quickly, that it was an evangelical sale,we switched the emphasis to marketing Impel CMS to people[who were already sold on the cloud concept]. Although that’sa smaller number, any number in India is big.”

A final piece of the puzzle for India’s tech entrepreneurs isthe cooperation and support of the country’s government.

Kondamoori believes tax exemptions on the portion ofprofits poured back into R&D would stimulate “innovation,IP [creation] and long-term sustainability.” Couple that withglobal reach and global ambition, he said, and “it’s just amatter of time” before India is known as an innovation hub.

Said Mercatus’ Govindan, “I see a spark in India, and if thiscountry if given the right platform—government support, anorganized initiative—innovation will take off.

“This is the future wealth [of India] . . . the wealth of ideas.” p

Sufia Tippu is a freelance technology journalist in Bangalore, India.

Canada

2%China

8%Israel

2%India

3%

30% of investment ventures are outside U.S.Venture capital investment by major region,first half of 2010

Source: Dow Jones VentureSource

Europe

15% United States

70%


Intelligence

TOMORROW’S “ULTIMATE” MEMORY chips are expectedto encode bits on individual atoms. IBM’s Almaden ResearchCenter recently demonstrated the capability using iron atomswhen it unveiled a pulsed technique for scanning tunnelingmicroscopes.

Pulsed STMs yield nanosecond time resolution, a require-ment for designing the atomic-scale memory chips, solar pan-els and quantum computers of the future.

“My hope is that we can spawn a great following [of developers who will be] doing nanosecond time resolutionand atomic-scale spatial resolution with their STMs,” saidAndreas Heinrich, a physicist at the IBM Almaden Lab

(San Jose, Calif.).Invented at IBM in the 1980s, scanning tunneling micro-

scopes have become the workhorse of the semiconductormaterials industry. Their resolution extends to the atomicscale, allowing individual atoms to be imaged, but conven-tional STMs are slow at making such delicate measure-ments. IBM researchers claim the pulsed technique puts theSTM’s ability to measure time on a par with the nanoscale

accuracy of its distance measurements.

Pumping ironIBM’s pump-probe technique works similarly to howa pulsed laser works. First, a pump signal is passed

into the material from the STM tip to put the atom’selectron spin in a known state. Next, after a waitingperiod, a smaller probe signal is used to make a measurement. By repeating the process, each timeextending the delay between the pulses by a fewnanoseconds, the method can accurately measure theelectron spin relaxation time, or how long a bit ofinformation is retained by a single iron atom.

Today’s DRAM cells must have their bits refreshedevery 50 milliseconds or so, but by using the pulsed-STM technique, IBM has determined that single ironatoms would need to be refreshed about every 250nanoseconds—about 200,000 times more frequently.

“We now know the answer to the question, ‘Whathappens when you try to store information on a singleiron atom?’ And we hope that in the longer-termfuture, we can make similar progress in answeringquestions about solar cell efficiency and quantum com-puters,” said Heinrich.

The pulsed-STM technique will be adapted to meas-uring the efficiency of individual solar cells by using alight pulse as the pump to stimulate the solar cell, thenprobing it with the STM tip.

As for using pulsed STM to reveal the inner workingsof quantum computer gates, Heinrich believes that “ifwe can put quantum bits on surfaces so they have to

interact with each other, then basically we will be showing a new way of performing quantum computations truly onthe atomic scale.

“That’s my vision of the future of quantum mechanics.” p

IBM characterizes single-atom memoryBy R. Colin Johnson

MATERIALS

Pulsed STMs yield nanosecond timeresolution, required for designingatomic-scale memory, solar panelsand quantum computers

CURBING ITS ENTHUSIASM a bit for the global chip market as 2010 winds down, forecaster iSuppli Corp. hastrimmed its growth forecast for the year to a still-impressive32 percent.

Having predicted in May that the market would recordgrowth of 31 percent in 2010, the research firm joined withmost other forecasters in raising its chip growth prediction to35 percent in August. But iSuppli now says it sees softeningdemand and rising inventories tempering 2010’s growth per-formance, and it expects the chip business to experience a softlanding in 2011, with semiconductor revenues setto rise just 5.1 percent.

“There has been a significant slowdown in thesecond half in consumer demand for some elec-tronic devices, including PCs,” Dale Ford, seniorvice president at iSuppli, noted in a statement.“Meanwhile, inventories have been buildingthroughout the semiconductor supply chain.

“These factors will conspire to cause a smallsequential decline in semiconductor revenue inthe fourth quarter.”

The 32 percent growth figure implies globalsemiconductor sales amounting to $302 billion in2010, up from $228 billion in 2009, a particularlydifficult year that saw markets tank in the firsthalf as the global economic crisis spread.

Despite the reduced outlook, revenues in 2010will still rise by about $74 billion over 2009’s total,resulting in a record sales year that will come in$28 billion higher than 2007, the previous peakyear for semiconductor revenues, according toiSuppli’s semiconductor industry analysis.

The firm now expects that industry revenues inthe fourth quarter will decline 0.3 percent compared with thethird quarter, which would be roughly in line with typical sea-sonal changes and would be the first sequential decrease sincethe market collapse in the fourth quarter of 2008 and first quar-ter of 2009.

PC market leads reboundSemiconductor demand this year has been driven by sales ofdata processing equipment, including the various PC cate-gories. With shipments of mobile PCs and tablets havingsoared in 2010, semiconductor sales to this area will haverisen overall by 38.6 percent by the end of December, accord-ing to iSuppli.

The next-strongest growth area is wireless communica-tions, fueled by booming demand for smartphones. Globalsemiconductor sales to the wireless communications areawill rise by 30 percent in 2010.

Even the lowest-growth markets are expected to generateimpressive semiconductor consumption in 2010. Wired com-munications and consumer electronics will drive semicon-ductor revenue growth of 25.4 percent and 26.5 percent,respectively, this year.

In terms of specific semiconductor products, the hottest

items in 2010 are DRAMs, voltage regulators, LEDs, program-mable logic devices and data converters. Revenues for each ofthose products are projected to grow by more than 43 percentthis year. DRAMs lead the group, with 87 percent projectedgrowth, on the strength of the soaring PC market and firmingaverage selling prices.

Sequential quarterly growth in 2011 is expected to follow amore normal seasonal pattern compared with 2010, withdeclining revenues in the first quarter followed by improvingsales that will reach a peak in the third quarter.

The long-term growth expectation is for average annualgrowth of slightly more than 4 percent between 2010 and2014, according to iSuppli. p

Semiconductor industry watchercuts 2010 growth projectionBy Peter Clarke

MARKET FORECAST


INTELLIGENCE

Semiconductor revenue by application market

Dataprocessing

Automotiveelectronics

Consumerelectronics

Wirelesscommunication

Wiredcommunication

Industrialelectronics

20092010Growth

0%

5%

10%

15%

20%

25%

30%

35%

40%

45%

Grow

th (%

)

Reve

nue

($bi

llion

s)

0

20

40

60

80

100

120

140

Source: iSuppli

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CPU CLOCK SPEEDS have remainedessentially constant over the past sever-al years, resulting in a rapid rise in thenumber of CPUs used in high-end sys-tems to keep pace with the performanceboosts predicted by Moore’s Law. Sys-tem size on the Top500 list of supercom-puting sites has changed rapidly; inNovember 2009, the top 10 systemsaveraged 134,893 cores, with five sys-tems larger than 100,000 cores.

This rapid increase of system size andthe associated proliferation of compute

elements used in a single user job haveincreased the urgency of addressing sys-tem characteristics that impede applica-tion scalability.

By providing low latency, high band-width and extremely low CPU over-head, Infiniband has become the mostcommonly deployed high-speed inter-connect, replacing proprietary or low-performance solutions. The Infinibandarchitecture is an industry-standard fab-ric designed to provide high scalabilityand efficient utilization of compute

DESIGN PRODUCTS+

Network- vs. host-based processing: Lessons learnedBy Gilad Shainer

GLOBAL FEATURE


Editor’s note: In early Sep-tember, EE Times’ Com-munications Designlinepublished an article byQLogic’s Joseph Yaworskioutlining how to achievegreater Infiniband per-formance using onload-ing (view the article athttp://tiny.cc/jh0x8).

Naturally, Mellanox’sGilad Shainer took excep-tion to Yaworski’s con-tention and submitted arebuttal, presented here.

Shainer makes a per-formance-based argu-ment for offloadingnetworks, explainingwhy, in the case of Infini-band, they provide theneeded scalability formultiple system coreswhile ensuring maxi-mum core performancefor user applications.

Some readers disagreed;you might too. Join the discussion athttp://tiny.cc/0alqg.

And to submit yourown technical feature toEE Times and its networkof Designlines, contactPatrick Mannion at [email protected] (631) 543-0445.

processing resources. Infiniband scalability

has already been provedon multiple large-scalesystems on the Top500 list.Los Alamos National Lab’sRoadrunner (4k nodes and130k cores), NASA’s instal-lation (more than 9knodes and 82k cores), theChina National Universityof Defense Technology’sTianhe (3k nodes and 72kcores), Jülich Supercom-puting Center’s JuRoPaand HPC-FF (3k nodes and30k cores), the TexasAdvanced ComputingCenter installation (4k nodes and 63kcores) and Sandia National Labs’ RedSky (5.4k nodes and 43k cores) all useInfiniband solutions that provide net-work-based processing.

In offloading solutions, or network-based processing, the entire networktransport is handled and performed bythe network interface card (NIC) oradapter, including error handling, dataretransmissions for reliable data trans-fer, and other sophisticated communi-cations such as the Message PassingInterface (MPI). Onloading (host-based)solutions, by contrast, rely on the hostCPUs to perform any task that is relatedto data transfer between servers orbetween servers and storage—from datagathering to data packet creation, trans-port checks, reliability, physical-to-vir-tual memory translation and security.

Simply put, offloading frees the CPU from the need to handle server-to-server communications and insteaddedicates most cycles to the user appli-cations. Onloading networks, by con-trast, are analogous to the proverbialstring and two metal cans that weplayed with as children.

Why onloading?The appeal of onloading solutions is thesimplicity of building them (thus mytelephone-game analogy). Since all net-work processing is done by the host, theNIC or the adapter need only include a

bridge from the host-based interface (in most cases today, it is PCI-Express)and the network interface (Infiniband,Ethernet, etc.), along with a buffer forshock absorption (protecting the net-work from data bursts). Such systemsrequire no investments in new technol-ogy development.

The big drawback to onloading solu-tions is the scalability and performancethey can provide. As more overheadprocessing is done by the CPU, less CPUtime is available for user applications,resulting in lower system performanceand scalability.

Consider the difference between theEthernet and Infiniband solutions onthe Top500 list. Since most of the Ether-net solutions require the TCP (i.e., thetransport) to be handled by the CPU,the Ethernet-connected systems achieveonly 50 percent efficiency on average,meaning 50 percent of the system capa-bility is wasted. But the network-pro-cessing based Infiniband-connectedsystems on the Top500 list demonstrateup to 96 percent efficiency, maximizingthe CPU cycles for the user applicationand hence the overall system return oninvestment.

Balancing the systemOffloading network solutions eliminatethe CPU overhead related to process-to-process communications, data transferreliability, memory translations and

process protections (or security) and datasegmentation andreassembly. Moreover,offloading is the onlyway to counter theeffect of system noiseand jitter on applicationperformance and scala-bility (for example, byoffloading MPI collec-tive communications),and it is the only way to allow overlap be-tween computationsand communicationswithin the server.

Scientific simulationcodes frequently use collective commu-nications. Offloading networks typical-ly include programming capabilities forspecial features, as well as simulationof future problems.

With the increase in demand forhigher performance and scalability,offloading solutions are required inorder to balance the increased numberof CPU cores and to provide a solutionthat can maximize the platform com-pute capability. Offloading does requiresophisticated technology and advancedsimulations for the NIC or adapter de-sign, however, so only a limited num-ber of vendors have the knowledge andcapabilities required to produceoffloading networks.

System latency User applications reside in the userspace, where no protection can be guar-anteed for the process data. Data move-ment thus needs to involve a safeguardentity to ensure that data from oneprocess will not erroneously overwritethe memory space of another process,which would result in data destructionand security issues. Such an entity canbe the host CPU in the kernel space orthe networking adapter.

If the task falls to the CPU in the ker-nel space, a buffer copy of the user dataneeds to be made there before the datais sent to the wire, and a user-to-kernelsystem call and CPU interrupt need to be triggered. Data copying in largemessages can increase the negative per-formance effects as a result of cachetrashing, translation lookaside buffers(TLBs) and the like. That implies higher


DESIGN PRODUCTS+

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RDMA write latency comparison

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Figure 1. Latency comparison of a network write transactionon different Infiniband solutions.

Gilad Shainer is a senior director of HPC and technical computing at MellanoxTechnologies. He holds a BSc and an MSc from Technion-Israel Institute ofTechnology.

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latency for data transfer, ascan be seen in Figure 1,which compares serverwrite transaction latenciesin onloading and offload-ing Infiniband solutions.Latencies can be up to 700percent higher for onload-ing solutions.

One can question thelatency difference forremote direct memoryaccess (RDMA) writes inlight of the MPI latencydata provided by variousvendors. Vendors ofoffloading and onloadingsolutions alike tout abouta 1-microsecond latencyfor MPI transactions. Sinceoffloading solutions demonstratearound 1-μs latency for RDMA writeand send transactions, it is obvious thatthe MPI latency would be in the samerange. On the other hand, onloadingsolutions demonstrate 7-μs latency forRDMA write transactions, so how canvendors promote figures of around 1 μsfor MPI latency?

The reason is that with onloadingsolutions, MPI latency benchmarks sendthe data directly from the user space tothe network and write the data backfrom the network to the user space,avoiding the buffer copy and the kernelspace memory mapping. While that’sacceptable in the case of artificial bench-marks, avoiding memory checking andallowing process isolation in productionusage can result in data reliability andsecurity issues that would be unaccept-able in systems that host many users,such as in cloud computing.

Network message rateIn addition to latency and throughput,a well-known benchmark is the net-work message rate, which is basicallythe network throughput divided by themessage size (for small message sizes).

In the case of onloading networks,this benchmark tests the ability of theCPU cores to create a network packetand send it through the two metal cansand the string. Assuming that the bridg-ing between the host interface, or PCI-Express, and the network interface(Infiniband, for example) is sufficient toallow the interfaces’ maximum data

speed, more messages will be sent onthe wire as more CPU cores are used fornetwork packet creation.

But there are two things to keep inmind when this benchmark is applied toan onloading solution. First, all of theCPU resources are being used for net-work packet creation; therefore no CPUis available for the user applications. Sec-ond, the same network packet is beingsent to the wire over and over again.That does not reflect the real applicationsituation, in which the data on the wirevaries from packet to packet.

In other words, for onloading net-works, message rate is a CPU bench-mark and not really a networkbenchmark.

For offloading networks, the messagerate benchmark truly measures the net-work’s ability to create data packets andsend them to the target. The CPU is notinvolved in the data transfer and there-fore is free for the user applications.

For Infiniband message rate testing,in particular, there are two knownbenchmarks: the Infiniband messagerate and MPI message rate.

The IB message rate benchmarkmeasures the number of Infinibandpackets that can be sent between twohosts. The MPI message rate bench-mark measures the number of MPI mes-sages that can be sent between twohosts and allows several MPI messagesto be accumulated within a singleInfiniband packet.

These two tests describe the range ofmessage rates (lower boundary and

upper boundary) that agiven interconnect solu-tion can support, from asingle packet message to multiple messagesencapsulated within asingle network packet.The message rate that anapplication will see willbe within that range.

If the application hasburstiness characteris-tics—that is, if it tends tosend bursts of small mes-sages between nodes—the message rate usedwill be toward the upperlimit of the interconnect.

Figure 2 compares themessage rate areas

between two Infiniband solutions: onethat includes full transport offload(Mellanox ConnectX-2 adapters, in thiscase) and one that relies on the CPU foronloading (QLogic QLE7342 adapters, inthis case). As can be seen, the messagerate supported by the offloading solu-tions ranges from 22 million to 90 mil-lion messages/second; the rangesupported by the onloading solutionsextends from fewer than 1 million mes-sages/s to 23 million messages/s.

Moreover, the onloading resultsrequire CPU cycles to create the net-working packets, so in the presence of areal application, the onloading messagerate area would shrink.

Applications performance When considering interconnect latency,CPU overhead and the message rateinfluence performance and productivity.To demonstrate the performance differ-ence, we tested two of the most com-monly used applications in the high-performance computing space: Fluentand LS-DYNA (see Figures 3 and 4).

The application performance testingprovides a genuine comparison. A sin-gle benchmarking platform was used:eight nodes, each with dual Intel XeonX5670 processors at 2.93 GHz.

The results show that MellanoxInfiniband (offloading) demonstratesup to 16 percent higher performancewith Fluent and up to 36 percent higherperformance with LS-DYNA on theeight-node system. The performancegap increases with system size.


DESIGN PRODUCTS+

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Mellanox msg rate area (between lower and upper boundaries)Qlogic msg rate area (between lower and upper boundaries)

Figure. 2. Message rate area comparison between offloading(green) and onloading (red) Infiniband solutions.

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Scalability and productivityWhen one invests in the latest CPUtechnologies and a fast connection tohost memory, it is critical to ensure that those resources can be fully uti-lized, as well as to connect them viahigh-performance, offloaded network-ing solutions.

As indicated above, the MellanoxConnectX Infiniband adapter is anoffloading solution. It delivers theentire transport offload with addedsophistication, such as MPI collectiveoffloads and data reduction.

The ability to offload MPI collectivecommunications is important for high-performance computing applicationsbased on MPI.

Collective communications, whichhave a crucial impact on the applica-tion’s scalability, are frequently used byscientific simulation codes, such asbroadcasts for sending initial inputdata, reductions for consolidating datafrom multiple sources and barriers forglobal synchronization. Any collectivecommunication executes certain globalcommunications operations by cou-pling all processes in a given group.That behavior tends to have the mostsignificant negative impact on theapplication’s scalability.

In addition, explicit and implicit com-munication coupling, used in high-per-formance implementations of collectivealgorithms, tends to magnify the effectsof system noise on application perform-ance, hampering application scalability.

Mellanox ConnectX adapters addressthe collective communication scalabili-ty problem by offloading a sequence ofdata-dependent communications to thehost channel adapter. This solution pro-vides the mechanism needed to supportcomputation and communicationsoverlap, allowing the communicationsto progress asynchronously in hard-ware as computations are processed bythe CPU. It also reduces the effect of sys-tem noise and application skew onapplication scalability.

Onloading solutions do the opposite;they eliminate any way to overlapcomputation and communicationscycles. Thus they magnify the effectsof system noise and jitter on applica-tion performance.

As tests show, network offloading

solutions are critical for high-perfor-mance system scalability, performanceand productivity. Onloading solutionscan negatively affect the system efficien-cy and therefore are not recommendedfor scalable HPC systems. The main (andprobably only) reason for onloadingsolutions could be their price. Surpris-ingly, however, public market surveyshave found no real price gap betweenonloading solutions and offloading solu-tions in the Infiniband market.

For cases in which price gaps do exist,one should always review the entiresystem cost (i.e., by taking into accountboth capital expenses and operationalexpenses) and the desired return oninvestment before making a decision.

From the performance figures, onecan see that for Infiniband systems,

offloading networks provide the need-ed scalability for multiple system coreswhile ensuring maximum core per-formance for user applications. Onecan argue that the frequency of theNIC or adapter is not as fast as theCPU, but such speed is not required.Offloading adapters need to be able tohandle all incoming and outgoing dataat wire speed, and since this is done ina highly parallel way, they can main-tain the needed scalability and highperformance without running at CPU-like frequencies. As the number ofcores grows, the adapters provide high-er throughput.

Thus, using adapters that can handleall network data at wire speed, as in afull offloading architecture, is the secretfor scalable systems. p


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Figure 4. Performance comparison between offloading (blue) and onload-ing (red) for LS-DYNA app; green line indicates the percentage difference.

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DESIGN PRODUCTS+

THERE HAS ALWAYS been a naturalconvergence between the worlds oftechnology and medicine. As long agoas 1612, Italian physicist Sanctorius’development of the first medical ther-mometer hinted at how science andengineering would increasingly berelied upon to advance the practice ofmedicine. Over time, other scientificdiscoveries and developments, such asthe harnessing of X-rays by German

physicist Wilhelm Conrad Roentgen in1895 and the invention of the electro-cardiograph by Dutch physiologistWillem Einthoven in 1906, furtheradvanced the state of the medical arts.

A milestone for the melding of tech-nology and medicine was the inventionof the silicon transistor in 1954; fromthere the integration of electronics intomedical applications took off, leadingto such developments as the first suc-

cessful implantation of an artificial car-diac pacemaker in 1958; the use of ultra-sound imaging for diagnostics by 1960;the invention of computed tomographyscanning in 1972; and the arrival ofcommercial MRI scanners in 1980.

As semiconductor technologyimproved and met increasingly strin-gent requirements for performance,reliability, power consumption andcompact size, its utility for medicalapps became more apparent to design-ers and engineers. The characteristicsand form factor of ASICs and FPGAshave made them a natural fit for use insmall patient monitors such as bloodglucose meters and blood pressure mon-itors. For example, ultralow-powerASICs have been designed into hearingaids to improve utility without com-prising the units’ small size.

Systems-on-chip are increasinglybeing designed into portable andimplantable medical equipment. And

Allan Yogasingam ([email protected]) is technical marketinganalyst for UBM TechInsights.

Toshiba TMP86CP23AUGMicrocontroller

Connection topressure sensor

Cypress SemiconductorUSD and PS/2 controller

Semiconductor scaling: Strongmedicine for home health careBy Allan Yogasingam

UNDER THE HOOD

RFICs and other wireless sensors arebeing pursued for their ability to trans-mit data from inside the body via small,implantable units to external devicesthat monitor a patient’s organ activity.

Inside a BP monitorSome of semiconductor scaling’s contri-butions to medical technology can nowbe found at the corner drug store. At mylocal pharmacy, for example, I was ableto purchase the Omron HEM-790ITCANarm cuff blood pressure monitor.

Until very recently, if you wanted anaccurate determination of your bloodpressure, you would visit your doctor’soffice, where the doctor or an assistantwould take your reading using a med-ical laboratory-grade sphygmomanome-ter. If you had a chronic ailment thatrequired continual monitoring of yourblood pressure, you would have tomake repeated office visits—unless you had your own lab-grade sphygmo-manometer and the medical training tooperate it properly and then accuratelyinterpret the results.

Blood pressure monitors like theOmron model now let you measureyour pressure easily at home, usingelectric inflation, sensors and algo-rithms to return readings that can bestored in the devices’ software manage-ment system and reviewed by your doctor.

How have advancements in technolo-gy made such home medical devices areality? A look inside the Omron unitrevealed a simple design that effectivelyuses semiconductor technology to repli-cate a classic medical instrument.

The pressure sensor itself is notable.Within the sensor part of the unit, theactive sensor is a pressure transducer.As the arm cuff is inflated and thendeflated, a membrane within the trans-ducer flexes as the air pressure changes.The sensor measures the differentialpressure and produces an output volt-age that varies with the pressure meas-ured in the cuff. Special circuitrywithin the pressure sensor minimizeserrors caused by changes in tempera-ture, and an amplifier circuit condi-tions the signal sent from the pressuretransducer. With that circuit, the out-put voltage from the blood pressuresensor becomes linear with respect to

the pressure measurement.The main board of the blood pressure

monitor features two ICs that helpimplement its primary functions. TheCypress Semiconductor enCoRe(enhanced component reduction) USBcombination low-speed USB and PS/2peripheral controller is the primaryinterface between the blood pressureunit and the user-designated computeron which the data will be stored. TheCypress device, an 8-bit RISC microcon-troller, features 256 bytes of RAM and aSerial Peripheral Interface communica-tions block.

Data received from the pressure sen-sor is handled by the Toshiba 8-bit

CP23AUG microcontroller, which features 48 kbytes of ROM; 2 kbytes of RAM; and an eight-channel, 10-bitA/D converter.

The future of medicine is one inwhich technology will have penetratedevery facet of health care. And withadvances in technology that have seencomputers scaled down to the size ofa dime and wireless technology readilyavailable through evolutions in wire-less architecture, the future of medicineis now.

Health care facilities and professionalsare embracing the advances in comput-ing and wireless technology to providemore efficient, more effective care. p


DESIGN PRODUCTS+

Toshiba 8-bit CP23AUG microcontroller.

Cypress combination USB andPS/2 controller.

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DESIGN PRODUCTS+

AC COUPLING USING a series capaci-tor is a simple method for couplingmulti-gigabit transmitters andreceivers. It requires only one inexpen-sive passive component and eliminatescomplications due to mismatchedtransmitter and receiver dc voltage lev-els. However, low-frequency cutoff limi-tations of ac coupling capacitors canlimit system performance for randomand long run-length encoded data.

Careful matching of transmitter andreceiver common-mode voltagesallows direct coupling of the transmit-ter and receiver, eliminating the needfor ac coupling capacitors. When it isimpossible to match the common-mode voltages, dc coupling of thetransmitter and receiver can be real-ized by using voltage-leveling circuits.While voltage leveling circuits do addcomplexity to the circuit, dc couplingcan enable significant improvementsin system performance.

Signal distortions that mayresult from ac couplingThis article describes the low-frequencycomponents of long data patterns andthe signal distortion that occurs fromblocking these components. Otherrelated issues, such as the effects ofunbalanced high and low logic levels,(e.g., baseline wander and resulting biterrors) are also discussed. On the highfrequency end of the spectrum, ac cou-pling capacitors exhibit self-resonanceand begin to behave like inductors.However, the inductivereactance is actually quitesmall compared with thecharacteristic impedance(Z0) and the real problemis with lower frequencies.

Attenuation of the low-frequency portions of aserial data stream distorts

the signal in ways that can be difficultto observe on a high-speed oscilloscope,but these distortions may cause biterrors. In a commonly observed exam-ple, a system may exhibit error-free per-formance with a 27 – 1 pseudorandombit sequence (PRBS), but the same sys-tem may generate many errors whenthe test pattern is changed to a 231 – 1PRBS, Figure 1. The RC filtering effectof the coupling capacitor results in slowbaseline fluctuations that induce zero-cross jitter. This jitter, although pathand pattern dependent, appears almost

random and is not readily compensatedby transmit pre-emphasis or analogreceive equalization techniques.

Resistive networksThe familiar pi or tee network, used tomatch unequal impedances, can beextended to shift dc levels while main-taining equal characteristic imped-ances, Figure 2. This can work well ifthe dc mismatch is not large but it caus-es greater than 6-dB attenuation whenthe common mode voltage differs bymore than a 3:2 ratio. In addition, the

Accommodating dc-level mismatchin multi-gigabit serial data transmissionBy Eric Sweetman

PLANETANALOG

Figure 1

Figure 2


resistor network requires board spaceand additional attachment pads, both ofwhich can degrade signal integrity athigh data rates. Finally, the resistivematching network consumes a signifi-cant amount of power.

Common positive supply railTypically, CML outputs are referencedto the positive supply. When transmit-ters and receivers are powered with dif-ferent voltages, the resulting dccommon modes differ by about thesame amount as their respective sup-plies. The signal common-mode volt-ages can be made identical by operatingthe devices from a common positivevoltage supply with different negativesupplies, Figure 3.

Series diodeA third approach is to use a series diodein place of the ac coupling capacitor,Figure 4. This is possible when the

diode forward bias voltage is within thespread of the difference in dc commonmode voltage. A small forward bias cur-rent, through a resistor to VCC, keepsthe diode in conduction. This matchesdc offset with no ac signal attenuation.It requires fewer components than aresistor network and, since the biasresistor is high resistance, does notaffect signal integrity. Pre-emphasis andinput equalization can function nor-mally and complex run-length encodedor scrambled data do not degrade jitteras much as with ac coupling.

Proven methodEach of these methods is quantitativelyanalyzed as well as validated with labmeasurements of practical systems. Eyediagrams, jitter plots and bit error ratio(BER) data are included to illustrate theeffects of the different coupling meth-ods on multi-gigabit systems thatinclude lossy transmission lines and

equalizers. Each method has its placedepending on data rate, encoding com-plexity and dc common mode mis-match. For the most demandingcombination of design constraints, wehave shown that the biased series diodeoffers the best performance with mini-mal increase in complexity and powerconsumption. p

Eric Sweetman is a principal engineer for theSerial Data Solutions Product group atVitesse Semiconductor Corporation. Eric hasworked in various research and developmentroles covering signal integrity, radio frequen-cy identification (RFID) and interconnecttechnologies. Prior to joining Vitesse in2003, Eric held signal integrity and RFIDR&D positions at Accelerant Networks andLucent Technologies. Eric holds severalpatents in RFID technology. He holds a PhDand MS in physics from the University ofMichigan and an BS in physics from MIT.

DESIGN PRODUCTS+

Figure 3

Figure 4


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EETIMES.COM PRODUCTS:IT’S SHOW TIME September marks the return of conferenceand exhibition season, and two of the indus-try’s biggest are the Intel Developer Forumand Embedded Systems Conference–Boston.Product stories abounded. Our product-storylist this issue includes two synopses of ourcoverage, with links to those roundup stories.

IDF coverageIntel’s vision for new 32- and 22-nm proces-sors; Dialog’s one-chip power manage-ment/clock driver companion IC; congatec’snew Ultra-Mobile Module; Aurora’s single-board computer; LeCroy’s new interposer;Green Hills’ optimized RTOS and more.http://bit.ly/9fK7Um

ESC Boston coverage RFM’s low-cost 900-MHZ FHSS module;Freescale–Cirrus’s reference design for digi-tal utility meters; Green Hills support forNetLogic’s XLP CPUs; Cypherbridge, Nabtoroll Web server module. http://bit.ly/bLLsIi

AnalogAnalog Devices offers16-bit ADC at 250 Msamples/sADI announced the AD9647 16-bit ana-log/digital converter, operating at 250

megasamples per second. http://bit.ly/cW3Dg4Vendor: www.analog.com

Precision, high-bandwidth op amp Maxim Integrated Products has introducedthe MAX9622, a precision operationalamplifier with high gain bandwidth.http://bit.ly/aOxZ9yVendor: www.maxim-ic.com

DC-DC buck regulatorssimplify PoL power designsMicrel Inc. rolled out its SuperSwitcherII family of integrated MOSFET buck regulators for high power density dc/dcapplications.http://bit.ly/b7RCCJVendor: www.micrel.com

Boards, buses:Roboteq programmable 2 x150A dc motorcontroller targets mobile robot, automation The HDC2450 is an intelligent motor con-troller from Roboteq capable of directly driv-ing two dc motors up to 150 amps each atup to 50 volts. http://bit.ly/9KWwCHVendor: www.roboteq.com

ElectromechanicalFOUR-slot 3U conduction-cooled enclosuremeets mil specsDesigned for VPX 3U modules, Dawn VME

Products’ ruggedize four-slot conduction-cooled enclosure is marketed under thebrand name VPX Cube.http://bit.ly/bKdADAVendor: www.dawnvme.com

Mentor unveils ready-to-use platform forembedded systems developmentMentor Graphics Corp. has delivered theEmbedded ReadyStart Platform, a “ready touse” solution comprising integrated soft-ware IP, tools and services targeting popularhardware boards and SoCs. http://bit.ly/9DKmzVVendor: www.mentor.com

IP/EDASynopsys enhances FPGA synthesis: 4x speedup plus team design capabilitiesSynopsys announced a number of enhance-ments to its Synplify Pro and Synplify Pre-mier FPGA synthesis tools to offer a 4Xspeedup over traditional logic synthesis.http://bit.ly/cMkfYAVendor: www.synopsys.com

Cadence defines Cortex-A15 MPCoreimplementation methodologyCadence Design Systems Inc. said it is pro-viding an optimized implementationmethodology for the new ARM Cortex-A15MPCore processor. http://bit.ly/9v2uj6Vendor: www.cadence.com


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EE LIFE

IT WAS THE BIG DAY for the softwareteam, which was scheduled to demon-strate the latest and greatest version ofits SNMP network management soft-ware for marketing. Manymonths’ worth of sweat-and-blood software designwork was about to bejudged. The new hardwarewas, well, just hardware.

The prototype hardwarehad already been set up inthe lab and debugged, andit was transmitting test traffic packetsbetween multiport network hubs with-out error. That was a problem for the

software team, which wanted to demon-strate how its management informationbase (MIB) could tally and report allsorts of transmission anomalies.

As a member of the hard-ware team, I watched fromthe sidelines as the softwareteam put on its dog-and-ponyshow, demonstrating the vari-ous packet counters andpotential alarm scenarios thatwould be flagged uponreceipt of packets in excess of

preset thresholds. The marketing teamwas impressed with how our product’ssoftware was about to kick assorted

competitors’ products into oblivion.At the end of the presentation, I real-

ized that a significant feature had notbeen demonstrated, but rather thanbring it up without sufficient data I wait-ed until I had the equipment all tomyself. With nobody watching, I simu-lated the “backhoe has cut the cable” sce-nario by removing the fiber-optic cablethat interconnected two hubs. I waitedfor the alarm; nothing. What the heck?

When I asked a software team mem-ber why the software had not sent outan alarm when presented with my “lossof optical signal” hardware alarm bits,he replied, “We don’t monitor those bits;

Software team’s omission soundsalarm for cross-team dialogueBy Glen Chenier

A STARTUP I worked for in the early’80s invented a technique to “burn”images on 35-mm slide film, a pixel at atime. We used a custom CRT that pro-duced a very small spot of constantbrightness, along with optics to imagethe spot onto film. The electronics posi-tioned the spot in x and y on the CRTface, turned on the spot to expose 1 pix-el on the film for a precise amount oftime, then turned off that spot andmoved to the next pixel. The procedurewas repeated for 4,000 spots horizontal-ly and 2,000 rows.

The image was built up through a redcolor filter and then repeated through

blue and green color fil-ters, to produce an 8-Mbitbit-mapped image with24-bit color resolution.That quality level isabout where consumerdigital cameras are now—and this was at a timewhen computer moni-tors were just beginning to have color.

We built an early prototype to testthe concepts. It filled a rolling bench,allowing us to roll it into a darkroomfor imaging, since the imaging pathwasn’t light tight. We hooked up theprototype to a PC and ran some test

code. It took a few hours tobuild up an image. When wedeveloped the film, the resultswere good enough to indicatewe were on the right track.Management was pleased and,based on our early success,arranged to display the productat an upcoming trade show.

When we took the next step and spedup the deflection circuitry, however, theimages were full of diagonal light anddark stripes. We made some changes inthe electronics and tried again, to noavail. Fixing the problem was going tobe a slow process. There was no image

POP CULTURE

ENGINEERINGINVESTIGATIONS

Pesky diagonal lines on custom CRT confound designersBy Charles Glorioso


EE LIFE

SJOIN THE FUNLike this content? Check out EE Life, our new community site, or sign up for ourweekly EE Life newsletter and get this content delivered directly to your inbox:http://tinyurl.com/335x6q3. It’s chock full of unique content written by, inspired by and commented on by engineers. From things that go bump in the lab to productsthat didn’t perform quite as expected and the absurd things that happen, EE Lifeexplores what it means to be an engineer today. Have a good story you’d like to seepublished? E-mail [email protected], and we’ll be happy to eat up a chunk of your15 minutes of fame.

that was never in the requirements forthe MIB.” That annoyed me, since I hadput a lot of effort into the fiber-opticlink design and had specifically includ-ed the optical carrier sense hardware cir-cuit for alarm reporting purposes. Afterall, if an interhub fiber link crashed,hundreds of users would be cut off.

When I asked the director of softwareabout the omission, he answered thatdesigning software specific to the opti-cal link functions would have takenextra development time, so he’d kept allport software as simple as possible.After all, zero packets could just meanthat nobody was using the network.

He didn’t get the difference betweenan individual twisted-pair port for a sin-gle user and an optical interhub portthat served hundreds. So the MIB couldreport damaged packets, but not a com-plete network failure. Huge oversight.

Marketing was upset to learn the MIB

to look at on the CRT, just a slowly mov-ing spot; the only way to see the imagewas to expose color film and then spendan hour or so developing it.

Still, we tried everything we couldthink of. Was the high-voltage powersupply modulating the spot brightness?Turn off its modulation and expose aframe. Develop the film. Cuss; samestripes of light and dark. Was the low-voltage power supply modulating theanalog deflection? Create an experi-ment and expose the film. Cuss; samestripes. Was the PC somehow interfer-ing with the unit? Build a very longcable to the PC, move the PC out of theroom, expose more film. Cuss.

We became fairly sure that the pat-terns were beats against 60-Hz interfer-ence, because when we changed thedeflection rate, the width and orienta-

tion of the stripes changed. But wecould not find an electrical path for theinterference. Meanwhile, the tradeshow was drawing nearer—as were themanagers looking over our shoulders.

Eventually, and in desperation, wemoved the whole table out into themain lab, closed all the shades, waiteduntil after dark, turned out the lightsand made some images—which borealmost no pattern of stripes. When wemoved the bench back to its originalposition, the patterns returned. Tiredand confused, we went home.

In the morning, someone suggestedmagnetic interference with the CRTbeam itself. We bought some mu metal,which is used for magnetic shielding.We formed a cone of the mu metal andinserted the CRT totally into the cone.When we made an image with the

bench in the original location, it wasnearly perfect. It turned out the CRTwas so sensitive that its beam was beingdeflected by the line-voltage wiring run-ning in the wall next to the test bench.

We managed to get the first full unitfinished by working all night before thetrade show. The demo unit had two lev-els of magnetic protection: a steel hous-ing and a mu metal cone fitted to theCRT. It weighed 50 pounds, and it madegreat images.

Ultimately, the product was a techni-cal success. The market wasn’t there,however. The company was soonacquired, and our lab was closed.

Charles Glorioso has more than 40 years’experience in electronics design and man-agement. He has a BSEE from Purdue andan MSEE from Illinois Institute of Technology.

could not report a broken optical link,and it insisted that the code be rewrit-ten to include monitoring and report-ing of optical carrier detect bits. Thedirector of software soon disappeared.

Lessons learned? First, when a hardware function is designed into aproduct, be sure the software teamunderstands why. Then recheck part-way through the project to ensure the

team has gotten it right. Further, keepin contact with other design teams dur-ing a project, even if their work doesnot directly affect yours. Recognizinganother team’s design oversight early ina project saves trouble at the end, whenall of the contributions are integrated. p

Glen Chenier is a design consultant basedin Allen, Texas.


LAST WORD

An earlier model had worked great,but the new design has an importantnew feature, and there are no analyticalmodels to predict its performance. Thedesigner is nervous; the new design isbeyond his experience, but there’s notime to inch up the learningcurve. The Boss is impatient.

The original designer leavesthe project midway through.Meanwhile, managementkeeps changing the spec.

Product testing is suspendedwhen the test manager realizesthe handcrafted first articlewould catastrophically fail.But the Boss is out of town andcan’t be reached, and no one isbrave enough to tell him aboutthe failure anyway.

Production moves ahead.The product is released to greatfanfare and is a spectacular disaster. In less than an hour of operation, asfriends, families and competitors watch,it destroys itself and several lives as well.The Boss, who is still out of town, issuesa statement: “Imprudence and negli-gence must have been the cause, and theguilty parties must be punished.”

This isn’t the story of the latest techindustry flameout but the tragic tale ofthe Vasa, a ship launched on Aug. 10,1628. The Boss was King Gustavus IIAdolphus of Sweden, who at the time ofthe Vasa’s construction and testing wasleading his invading army into Polandand counting on his new ship to helpwin the war.

When the Vasa was commissioned,

Sweden’s navy, with only single-gun-deck ships in its fleet, was behind itsrivals. Gustavus II wanted the Vasa tosport two decks of guns to project Swe-den’s power. But shipbuilding was anart, and no designer in the Swedish

Empire was sufficiently versed in dimen-sion and ballast to design such a vessel.

The initial designer, Henrick Hybersts-son, had been conservative, specifying24-pound guns for the lower deck and12-pound guns for the upper deck.Hyberstsson died a year before construc-tion finished. The King decided he want-ed to project more power and ordered24-pound guns for the upper deck aswell. The new shipbuilders complied.

As part of the stability testing ofevery ship, 30 sailors would run fromside to side 10 times to try to capsize it.When testing the Vasa, shipmasterJoran Matsson, quickly realizing thecraft would flip, called off the test afterthree cycles. Admiral Klas Fleming wit-

nessed the disastrous test. It was hisresponsibility to tell the King and haltthe design, but he was too frightened ofthe King’s response and never men-tioned the stability problem.

At 4 p.m. on launch day, the ship setsail for what was to be a short cruisearound the bay, with 90 sailors andtheir families—wives and children—aboard to celebrate the pride of theSwedish navy. With only four of her 10sails unfurled, the Vasa pulled awayfrom the pier.

The Council of the Realm describedthe events in a letter to the King, whowas still away waging war in Prussia:

“When the ship left the shelter ofTegelviken, a stronger wind entered thesails and she immediately began to heelover hard to the lee side. She righted herselfslightly again until she approached Beck-holmen, where she heeled right over, andwater gushed in through the gun ports untilshe slowly went to the bottom, under sail,pennants and all.”

The top-heavy Vasa had trav-eled just 1,300 meters beforesinking, leaving 25 entombed.

Why did the Vasa fail? The bal-last not only was insufficient tooffset the weight of the mastsand the gun decks but was com-posed of round river rocks thatrolled with the ship, inducingthe craft to roll even more. Aninquiry was held and testimonyheard. Ultimately, no one waspunished, though many hadbeen culpable.

The story of the Vasa stillholds lessons for advanced prod-

uct development.• Express your concerns when man-

agement changes the specs in the mid-dle of the product design.

• There is no substitute for an analyti-cal model that can accurately predictperformance before you commit tohardware.

• When you test the first article, usethe data to verify how well it matches thepredictions; use the data to “hack into”the design to determine its limitations.

• Never hesitate to voice your con-cerns to management. The last thingthey want is a surprise. p

By Eric Bogatin, signal integrity evangelist atBogatin Enterprises (www.bethesignal.com)

The Boss is under pressure to show up the com-petition, and he is pressuring his productdevelopment team to deliver something thatwill blow everyone else away. A new product isplanned that will show the world how power-ful and important The Boss and his operationreally are.

When tight lips sink projects

The 400-year-old

story of theVasa

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