As the market for advanced semiconductor technology continues an endless march forward, the industry faces increasing challenges to sustain the current pace of innovation. Leading-edge process technology is increasingly cost-intensive while design companies are developing chips with unprecedented complexity that presents more challenges than ever to mass produce. This confluence of factors is leading us towards a new model where chip design companies must redefine relationships with their manufacturing and technology partners to pool resources in order to capitalize on these inflection points. Whether its mobility or media convergence in the home or cloud computing in the data center, the next-generation of technology will require an unprecedented level of performance, power efficiency and cost-effectiveness to deliver on its full potential. This presentation will explore the current model for collaborative innovation and how it will evolve to capitalize on future market opportunities.
Energy exists in many forms all around us. Mechanical kinetic energy, thermal energy, solar energy, even biochemical energy are being tapped to power innovative sensor systems and communication networks. Energy harvesting is a term new to our vocabulary, but is an old concept. For years, devices have been invented to capture ambient energy to perform useful functions. Recent advances in micro-power circuit design, electronic energy capture systems and electro-mechanical systems have dramatically increased the capability to utilize this ambient energy. Peter Henry will discuss both the historical basis for energy harvesting and will look into current cutting-edge technology for self-powered systems. Examples include the latest industrial and university innovations in vibration sensing, environmental sensing and distributed micro-power networks. Energy harvesting technology is driving dramatic new commercial and public safety opportunities for leaders in this field.
Despite the downturn in the economy, the medical market stands out as a safe, long term growth area for semiconductor companies. With recent advancements in chip technologies, modern health care devices such as blood glucose meters, cholesterol meters, blood pressure meters and intelligent exercise monitors are now more accessible and affordable for individuals than ever before. In fact, today’s manufacturing and supply chain management methodologies enable very high volume production, driving the cost of these portable gadgets down enough to meet the requirements of individual owners. At the heart of such smart, portable medical gadgets is often a modern, low power microcontroller (MCU) with significant on-chip analog intelligence built in for precise measurement and information processing. With high performance and targeted integration, these MCUs enable medical devices to be more flexible and affordable, high speed and high precision with lower power and smaller form factors. In the end, the goal is to provide a solution that will ultimately improve the quality and accessibility of health care in the market. Opening up the medical word, semiconductor companies can drive portable medical applications with cutting-edge technology that offers accurate measurement, longer battery life and extremely low system cost.
Cloud computing is taking the information technology industry by storm. In this new model, computing power resides in large data centers, and users around the globe drive the ever-increasing demand for computing power, storage capacity, and network bandwidth. Innovations in high-performance semiconductor solutions are enabling key elements of the cloud computing platform, such as server virtualization, core optical networks, Converged Ethernet, wireless broadband, and solid state disks (SSDs), to deliver applications and services with security, reliability, and energy efficiency. This talk will discuss key trends and growth opportunities for high-performance semiconductor solutions that enable cloud computing.
Throughout history humans have played games. Gaming is mainstream entertainment in the United States, but not in emerging markets like Brazil, Russia, China, and India. Rampant piracy, high import duties, lack of local content, and high product prices create difficult economic conditions for product manufacturers and content providers. Enter Zeebo, a wireless system that will provide interactive fun and learning for the next billion consumers in the world's emerging markets by addressing these challenges head on. The Zeebo console was designed exclusively for emerging markets and leverages Qualcomm technologies, 3G networks and the BREW ecosystem to enable wireless digital distribution of culturally-relevant content and services. John Rizzo, CEO of Zeebo, will discuss the disruptive and positive impact an innovative new approach to consumer electronics, wireless digital distribution and the accompanying business model can have on the global marketplace and ultimately on end consumers.
Advanced wired home networking solutions are capitalizing on the worldwide conversion of multimedia content, including video, from analog to digital. Multimedia content is now easy to store on digital video recorders, or DVRs, gaming consoles, digital versatile disk, or DVD, recorders and personal computers. The ability to store this content on various devices has created “islands” of digital entertainment within the home. Innovative wired home networking products bridge these islands and allow consumers to access their multimedia content throughout the home. Today, wired home networking products could be embedded in a wide variety of consumer electronic devices. Service providers can employ the new home networking solutions to offer consumer applications such as multi-room DVR, multi-room and online gaming, personal computer-to-television personal content sharing, and streaming of downloaded movies stored on a personal computer to a television.
Future wired home networking technologies will significantly change the way high-definition television-quality video, or HD video, and other multimedia content such as movies, music, games and photos are brought into and delivered throughout the home. Wired home networking solution over coax are targeting service provider-based deployments to create solutions that address the complex requirements associated with delivering multiple streams of HD video into and throughout the home while seamlessly coexisting with video, voice and data services that are using the same coaxial cable infrastructure.
Echelon’s vision of the smart grid is in reality an all-embracing energy network. Everything that draws power from, or contributes power to, the grid will one day be commonly considered part of the smart grid, down to individual devices and products in homes and buildings. Smart metering solutions created as a networked infrastructure are a critical part of the smart grid that enable energy saving programs such as automated demand response, load balancing, and pre-paid energy. As market and regulatory needs change, smart grid solutions need to be extend beyond the meter to include new edge devices, new software enabled services, and to accommodate new payment and pricing models for consumers. Only a system solution to metering will achieve these goals, and be future proof enough to expand into home automation networks (HANs), enterprises and beyond.
