March 2010

One of the panels at the Semico Outlook Conference (March 2, 2010) focused on issues concerning the communications infrastructure. Some common themes were the carriers meeting the challenge of return on investment (ROI), meeting the growing demand for band width, and reducing power consumption.

The mainstream press and popular culture tend to focus on the various gizmos people around the world are clamoring for, such as smart phones, eReaders, notebooks, and other personal handheld electronics. Networking homes and businesses are hot topics. And of course people keep talking about “cloud computing,” but many are not aware that these are actually large data centers. In order for all of these things to connect, work and satisfy consumers, the communications infrastructure is necessary.

The panel was moderated by Hugh Durdan, COO of eSilicon. Speakers were Bradley Howe, (VP IC Engineering/Altera), Young Sohn (Pres. & CEO/Inphi) and Lisa Su (Sr VP &GM/Freescale).

Durdan kicked off the panel pointing out that social networking is putting pressure on communications networks. He cited a recent example of AT&T suspending sales of iPhones because of lack of BW.

Microchip Technology has announced a series of 11 new 8-bit PIC® microcontrollers, ranging from 8 to 64 pins, which use Microchip’s nanoWatt XLP Technology to attain active power consumption less than 50µA/Mhz. Low power, combined with the large number and variety of functions integrated onto these MCUs make them ideally suited for a wide range of applications. These functions include on-chip analog to digital conversion, timekeeping, UARTs, EEPROM, LCD control, a capacitive touch screen controller and others. In addition, there is up to 56KB of program memory and 4KB of storage memory. Low-operating power, of course, makes this MCU ideal for battery powered applications.

Semico believes that this series of PIC® MCUs will find homes in numerous applications. Their low power and high level of integration are very attractive benefits. In addition, Microchip, as always, is providing a comprehensive suite of design tools and evaluation platforms.

Morry Marshall
VP Strategic Technologies
Semico Research Corp.

Dr. Tsugio Makimoto, Chairman of the Society of Semiconductor Industry Seniors, spoke this morning at the Semico Outlook event about "Chip Innovations Opening the Age of the Digital Nomad."  He pointed out that devices from the Communications, Computing, and Consumer areas are converging into more intelligent portable digital products, driven by the digitalization of everything and with chip innovation.  He noted how PC companies are changing, just in the last few years.  Apple is becoming a consumer company with the iPod, Microsoft is now in the game business with the Xbox, and, most significantly, IBM sold its PC business to Lenovo. 

Our world has transitioned from analog to digital, and chip innovation has been the most important enabler of this transition.  Dr. Makimoto showed a slide of a $6 million Cray-1A supercomputer from 1976, based on 5 micron bipolar technology.  He said the Cray's performance specs are comparable to the 2006 iPod Shuffle, which is based on 90nm CMOS technology.  Dr. Makimoto predicts that the "Digital Nomad" will change where and how we live, reducing or eliminating rush hour as more people telecommute and live in rural settings.  Remote health care and education will also fuel this trend, as will the desire to live a "low-carbon" lifestyle with solar power, an electric car, and LEDs for green lighting.  Dr. Makimotor predicts that the next big thing will be language translation and recognition.