Category: Portfolio

4DS Plots ReRAM Roadmap [Byline]

/ Gary Hilson

4DS Memory Limited has broken its radio silence to lay out its go-forward plans for its Resistive RAM (ReRAM) technology.

The company said its interface switching capabilities based on PCMO (Praseodymium, Calcium, Manganese, Oxygen) delivers significant advantages over other filamentary ReRAM technologies, making its high-bandwidth, high-endurance persistent memory suitable for AI, big data and neural net applications.

4DS’ ReRAM requires no refresh within its persistence window and can be “refreshed” within the DRAM operating window, which makes it able provide high bandwidth and high endurance while using less energy.

He said the company’s roadmap includes a development agreement with Belgium-based imec for a 20-nm Mb chip with 1.6B elements to be run at imec in 2024.

4DS’ use of PCMO makes its ReRAM different from other ReRAM makers, in that the switching mechanism is based on the interface characteristics of the cell—the entire interface area is involved in the switching. Other ReRAM makers use a filamentary wire, which proves long cell retention.

In PCMO ReRAM, oxygen ions are moved in and out of the cell by the electric field pulse. When this oxygen is present, the cell conducts, and it is said to be SET. When the oxygen is removed, the current path is lost, and it is said to be RESET.

A key advantage of 4DS’ PCMO-based interface is that the pulse response is very fast, and endurance is higher.

4DS is focused on two goals this year: It’s continuing to work with imec to fab out a 20-nm cell to make it competitive with other ReRAM technologies, and the company sees no point in waiting to strike potential partnerships and start new application discussions.

Using praseodymium is a unique choice by 4DS, and the company could encounter issues getting a praseodymium-based process to a maturity level that will allow it to be put into mass production and drive out the costs.

There are a few ReRAM devices available at present for special applications, with Fujitsu Semiconductor and Renesas offering standalone products.

Weebit Nano began working to commercialize SiOx ReRAM technology developed by Rice University, with the goal of avoiding troubles other technologies had by using materials that would not create issues in a standard CMOS logic fab, such as silver or magnetic materials. The company has advanced its technology several new generations and is no longer purely SiOx. In early 2020, Weebit Nano said it was looking to ramp up its discrete ReRAM efforts based on customer demand.

Read the full story for EE Times.

Gary Hilson is a freelance writer with a focus on B2B technology, including information technology, cybersecurity, and semiconductors.

The microLED market is still alive after Apple’s exit [Byline]

/ Gary Hilson

Had Apple opted to exit the microLED market two years earlier, it might have been the death knell of the industry, but a Yole Research analyst who has his pulse on the technology is cautiously optimistic despite the tech giant’s recent pivot.

In an interview with Fierce Electronics, Eric Virey, principal analyst covering displays at Yole, said after investing an estimated $3 billion into microLED development and convincing Osram to spend $1.3 billion of its own money to build a fab so Apple could make its smartwatch, Apple pulled the plug and cancelled the project.

Prior to Apple taking an interest in microLEDs, the technology was barely on anyone’s radar. Apple spent $450 million in 2014 to acquire a startup, which for it wasn’t a lot of money, but for everyone else it was a significant amount of money and put microLEDs on the map.

Read my full story at Fierce Electronics.

Gary Hilson is a freelance writer with a focus on B2B technology, including information technology, cybersecurity, and semiconductors.

Thwarting counterfeit electronics is tough and requires scale [Byline]

/ Gary Hilson

Counterfeit electronics are at best an annoyance to consumers and, at worst, a threat to national security.

Whether it’s an outright fake or a gray market device, the prevalence of counterfeit electronics is fueled by demand that’s not being met by the available supply. When there’s a high demand that’s not being fully met, there’s more room for outright counterfeit chips, as well as gray market items, which might be a genuine chip that’s packaged as new when it has in fact been used somewhere else for several years.

Putting gray market chips into systems is like turning back the speedometer of a car to make it appear there’s mileage on it, but it obscures the wear and tear that could have serious implications on the system it’s being used in.

Read my full story at Fierce Electronics.

Gary Hilson is a freelance writer with a focus on B2B technology, including information technology, cybersecurity, and semiconductors.

AI is enhancing diverse computer vision technologies [Byline]

/ Gary Hilson

Autonomous vehicles have been driving advances in vision technology, but vendors are targeting other practical applications because broad adoption of self-driving vehicles appears to be taking longer than expected.

Virtual reality (VR) and augmented reality (AR) both have need of improved cameras and sensors for practical use cases, while the trend toward “uncaging robots” for industrial applications such as warehouse fulfillment and manufacturing requires smarter vision technology, which spans 2D cameras to 4D LiDAR.

Layering artificial intelligence (AI), machine learning, and neural networks onto computer vision technologies further expands the many applications for a wide range of sensors and cameras.

Read my full story at Fierce Electronics.

Gary Hilson is a freelance writer with a focus on B2B technology, including information technology, cybersecurity, and semiconductors.

Demands from the cloud fuel hard drive innovation [Byline]

/ Gary Hilson

The hard drive is dead. Long live the hard drive!

The cost of NAND flash has dropped precipitously in the last decade, and tape still wins in cost per bit, but hard disk drives (HDDs) continue to rule the data center.

The focus has moved from the individual PCs to scaling the data center with purpose-built hard drives that have their own attributes and with more consideration being given to total cost of ownership (TCO). Energy consumption measured by watt per terabyte is also an important attribute as it plays into TCO and trends toward sustainability.

Read my full story for Fierce Electronics.

Gary Hilson is a freelance writer with a focus on B2B technology, including information technology, cybersecurity, and semiconductors.

Smaller LEDs are scaling up for uses such as lighter AR glasses, automotive [Byline]

/ Gary Hilson

Light-emitting diodes (LEDs) are getting smaller, but the process to make them small isn’t easy – at least not yet.

Not unlike many semiconductor technologies, including emerging memory devices, making LEDs smaller is possible, but not always cost effective. The LEDs found in your average flatscreen TV are a mature technology, but manufacturing microLEDs still has its growing pains.

The potential for microLEDs is broad and goes beyond flat panel televisions and smaller displays for smartphones and automotive – there are some interesting medical applications, too.

Read my full story for Fierce Electronics

Gary Hilson is a freelance writer with a focus on B2B technology, including information technology, cybersecurity, and semiconductors.

AI boosts optical connectivity demand [Byline]

/ Gary Hilson

Cloud computing raised expectations for data speeds, but artificial intelligence (AI) workloads are placing even more pressures on bandwidth to move data faster and reliably.

While protocols like the Compute Express Link (CXL) are helping to optimize where data is stored so it is closer to where it needs to be, connectivity remains crucial to moving it as fast as possible. After a dip in adoption, optical transceiver technology is seeing an uptick to scale AI in the data center by companies like Amazon and Google, while connectivity is getting baked into full-stack systems along with hardware and software.

Read my full story for Fierce Electronics

Gary Hilson is a freelance writer with a focus on B2B technology, including information technology, cybersecurity, and semiconductors.

4 Reasons Retailers Love NaaS [Portfolio]

/ Gary Hilson

Just as Software-as-a-Service (SaaS) has made inroads into retail as a means of shifting IT responsibilities for applications to a third party, a similar model for networking is gaining popularity. The Network-as-a-Service (NaaS) paradigm reflects the reality that deploying a network in a store, regardless of size, adds complexity to IT — both in terms of installation and ongoing management.

Not only does NaaS support scalability and flexibility for businesses prone to seasonal fluctuations, but it also provides a platform to capture customer insights that drive revenue growth.

Read my blog post for Cincinnati Bell Technology Solutions.

Gary Hilson is a freelance writer with a focus on B2B technology, including information technology, cybersecurity, and semiconductors.

Smart Car Test Facility Sees the Big Picture [Byline]

/ Gary Hilson

TORONTO — Testing various electronics components such as memory to make sure that they can withstand the rigors of the automotive environment has long been standard operating procedure. But today’s smarter cars and emerging autonomous vehicles must be put through their paces as a complete package.

In Europe, this can now be done at the AstaZero 5G test facility, a joint venture of Swedish state-owned Research Institutes of Sweden (RISE) and Chalmers University. In a telephone interview with EE Times, AstaZero CEO Peter Janevik said that it’s the most advanced testing environment for self-driving vehicles, designed to provide the data necessary to predict vehicle behavior in real-life situations without the need for on-the-road testing.

Read the full story on EE Times.

Gary Hilson is a freelance writer with a focus on B2B technology, including information technology, cybersecurity, and semiconductors.

Intel Combines Optane Options with New Processor Class [Byline]

/ Gary Hilson

TORONTO — Only months after announcing it would slowly wind down its 3D Xpoint collaboration with Micron Technology, Intel Corp. has outlined where it sees the persistent memory delivering the most benefits.

Its latest data center strategy includes two new members of its Xeon process family. The Xeon E-2100 processor is available immediately, while its Cascade Lake advanced performance processor will be released in the first half of next year.

The E-2100 processor is aimed at small- and medium-size business and cloud service providers to support workloads on entry-level servers, as well as across all computing segments for sensitive workloads that need enhanced data protections. Cascade Lake, however, is a new class of scalable Xeon processor, said Lisa Spelman, vice president and general manager of Intel Xeon products and data center marketing.

Read the full story on EE Times.

Gary Hilson is a freelance writer with a focus on B2B technology, including information technology, cybersecurity, and semiconductors.