Tony Massimini's blog

About a year ago Sand9 was a startup just coming out of stealth mode.  Little was known other than it had innovative MEMS timing technology.  The company is starting to roll out product to market.  On September 3, 2013 Sand9 announced the TM061 and TM361 touted as the “First precision MEMS Timing products for the Internet of Things and Mobile.”  On November 18, 2013 the company announced the TM651 to meet the rigorous requirements for precision timing in communications infrastructure, industrial and military applications.

Sand9 is using a platform strategy for its product lines.  The two platforms are MR (MEMS Resonator) and TSMR(Temperature Sensing MEMS Resonator).  The first device offered for MR is the TM061.  The first one for TSMR is the TM361.

Sand9 implements a piezoelectric MEMS technology.  Traditional MEMS use electrostatic technology which has issues with performance and low power.  According to the company, its piezoelectric resonator architecture has higher performance and lower power.  The temperature detection and compensation in the TSMR is achieved by sandwiching a layer of Si (silicon) between two layers of SiO2 (silicon dioxide).  As the temperature increases SiO2 stiffens while Si softens.  The two layers compensate each other.

Microchip has announced an addition to its 32-bit MCU line of PIC32 called the PIC32MZ Embedded Connectivity (EC) family.  The PIC32 is based on the MIPS architecture.  The new PIC32MZ is Microchip’s first MCU to feature Imagination’s MIPS microAptiv™ core.

The microAptiv core adds 159 new DSP instructions that enable the execution of DSP algorithms at up to 75% fewer cycles than the PIC32MX families.  Microchip has tripled the performance over its previous generation reaching 330 DMIPS.  The microMIPS instruction set also enables improved code density for the PIC32MZ.

Microchip has integrated a large number of peripherals, mostly to support high speed connectivity: Hi-Speed USB, 10/100 Ethernet MAC, 2 CAN 2.0b modules, 6 UART, 6 SPI / I²S, 5 I²C™ and SQI (Serial Quad Interface).  The SQI supports high-speed interface to external Flash.  Integrated onto the PIC32MZ is up to 2MB of Live-Update Flash.  This is the Flash technology Microchip acquired with SST.

The PIC32MZ targets a broad range of applications which include automation (factory, building and home), consumer audio, automotive, security, power meters and cloud computing. 

John Koeter of Synopsys spoke at the Semico Impact Conference: Focus on the IP Ecosystem (November 6, 2013) about a new class of data center SoCs. Koeter is vice president of the Marketing Solutions Group at Synopsys. In this capacity he is responsible for the marketing of Synopsys' DesignWare® Intellectual Property (IP), Professional Services and System-Level Design products.

Koeter noted the trend of increasing internet traffic which is being driven by the mobile market. Globally, peak Internet traffic is expected to grow 3.5x from 2012 to 2017, a 29% CAGR. This will impact the IP world, as semiconductors are expected to meet the changing needs of the data centers. He foresees a major sea change in the data center. The trends are for software defined networks (SDN) and low power micro servers. Also, there will be improvements in the cost/performance ratio achieved through application acceleration with PCIe SSDs.

According to Koeter SDN will reach 35% penetration of the Ethernet switching by 2016. Data centers are moving away from proprietary solutions that are vendor specific. For semiconductor companies this represents $3.7 billion market for SDN and network infrastructure. New architectures are emerging to meet the needs of the data centers. The new semiconductor devices will be SDN-enabled switch ASSPs and SDN-enabled communication processors. Highly integrated processors for new micro servers which are focused on reducing power are necessary.

Last week there were reports in the media that users were complaining of off-the-mark readings from the Apple iPhone 5S compass.  Compared to the previous iPhone 5, Apple’s native compass app is displaying discrepancies an average of 8 to 10 degrees with both devices running iOS7.

This has caused “wonky” game experiences such as in driving and physics-based games that rely on tilting the screen for in-game motion.

This has brought into question whether or not this is a hardware malfunction with the motion sensors or some other chip.  There are several teardowns available online.  An examination of the bill of materials shows that the iPhone 5S has:

• Gyro: STmicro
• eCompass (magnetometer): AKM
• Accelerometer: Bosch Sensortec
• NXP LPC18

The NXP LPC18 is an ARM Cortex-M3 MCU.  It is a coprocessor for the Apple A7 Apps Processor.  This MCU is the sensor hub controller of the iPhone 5S.  It has been referenced as the M7.

The first things that came to my mind as to the cause of the problem: 

Sensor Fusion is both a hardware and software solution and begins with the combination of more than one sensor.  But there is much more to this solution than integrating sensors.  The objective is to combine the data collected by the sensors in order to extract and use the information.  This requires an algorithm which works with the operating system and makes data available to high level applications such as personal navigation, activity monitoring, context awareness and augmented reality.  This algorithm is often embedded in a microcontroller known as a sensor hub which connects to an applications processor.

On September 23, 2013 ST and Movea announced their agreement to integrate Movea’s SmartMotion technology into the STM32F401 microcontroller operating as a low-power sensor-hub controller.

ST is the leading supplier of MEMS sensors for the consumer and communications market, in particular smart phones.  The company also offers it line of ST32 ARM based MCUs as sensor hub controllers. 

Movea is a leading provider of Sensor Fusion algorithms offering data fusion and motion processing firmware, software, and IP for the consumer electronics industry.  The company offers a comprehensive set of SW, firmware and tools to enable an advanced-motion user experience. 

Movea’s firmware will be integrated into the STM32F401 sensor management platform.  The STM32F401 with SmartMotion technology and tools will be available in Q4 2013. 

The MEMS market is poised for significant growth thanks to major expansion of applications in smart phone and automotive. These two applications driving the increase use of MEMS sensors and actuators will further reduce cost and power while increasing performance, thus fostering new markets including health and fitness as well as home and building automation. Finally, the continuing growth of MEMS will provide new injection of growth in the slowing semiconductor market.

In 2013, Semico expects a total MEMS market of $16.8 B but by 2017 it will have expanded to $28.5 B, a 70 percent increase in a mere four years time. In 2011, 39 percent and 30 percent of all MEMS were being made for automotive and smart phone applications, respectively. Today, Semico expects 40 percent to be destined for smart phones and a mere 25 percent for automotive. Today’s smart phone will not only have the standard accelerometer, magnetometer, and gyroscope; it will also come with pressure sensor to provide altitude data—detailing the floor in a high rise of the user—as well as MEMS in one or more microphones, in the autofocus of the cameras and in SAW filters and resonant cavities in the radio of the phone.

I know I should be on vacation enjoying myself, but Comic Con in San Diego allows me to mix business and pleasure. As I say every year, there were more nerds than you can shake a light saber at.

For those unfamiliar with ComicCon it is the largest convention for comic books in the world. However, it covers a great deal more. Science fiction and fantasy TV and movies are heavily represented. These are usually tied in with comics and animation. There is also a strong tie in with video games.

For the sixth straight year ComicCon was sold out for all four days with attendance of 125,000 each day. It is the largest convention through out the year for the city of San Diego. The event ran from July 18 to July 21. There are so many companies that want to tap into the energy and excitement of Comic Con that a lot of activity has spilled out into downtown San Diego. Many people who cannot get badges into the convention center take advantage of this. Consequently several companies demo upcoming video games for all platforms at various venues spread out over the area. Microsoft had a separate gaming lounge in one of the major hotels.

Content is King! Without enough material there is little incentive to buy the hardware. What consumers want to see and how they want to interact with it drives the development of the electronics. It is not surprising that many attendees are technically savvy early adopters.

Even when I have fun, I am still an analyst.  During Memorial Day weekend I attended Phoenix Comicon.  This convention has been growing every year and has a wide variety of tracks for all interests and genres.  I decided to check out the Microsoft XBox Panel.

The XBox panel was run by a Microsoft employee who is on the Xbox Live team. This was a free and open discussion with the audience about the latest developments with XBox and provided the speaker with customer feedback.  Several details about XBox One could not be answered.  More information will come out at the E3 show this June.

The presenter for Microsoft emphasized that the XBox services take the XBox beyond the console.  This includes XBox Music, XBox Video and XBox SmartGlass.  The platform is evolving into delivering entertainment services not just games.  Microsoft is also working to bring the power of the cloud to XBox One.

Particular attention was given to SmartGlass.  This is a companion application for both XBox 360 and XBox One.  It can be downloaded to any portable device with Windows 8, Windows Phone, iOS, Android (version 4.0 and higher) and Windows Server 2012.  It was announced at E3 2012 and released in October 2012.  According to the Microsoft spokesperson, SmartGlass is a growth area.

Google Glass is gaining more interest.  The product will not be officially available to consumers until early 2014.  However, devices have been delivered to developers. 

CNET got its hands on one for a teardown.  Except the teardown didn’t go much further than a few pieces that could be easily removed. To get to the processor or memory would require destroying the plastic housing.  At a retail price of about $1,500 that is not likely to happen.  What has been figured out comes from Google’s specs, software developers and debugging tools.

According to Google, Glass has a high resolution display.  The camera is 5 megapixel and the video is 720p.  Connectivity is 802.11 b/g Wi-Fi and Bluetooth.  Total Flash memory is 16 GB of which 12 GB is available to the user.  It has a micro USB cable and charger. 

What has been determined is that the main processor is the Texas Instruments OMAP 4430 with 1 GB of RAM.  TI first targeted OMAP for the smartphone market.  It has lost market share to other chip vendors, notably Qualcomm.  However, TI has refocused OMAP on a broader market, including consumer. Amazon uses the TI OMAP 4430 in the Kindle Fire. 

Android developers note that there are 16 sensors which are part of the Google Android Sensor Manager system.  These sensors are used by apps developers.  They are listed: