Telesphere Videoconnect: Videoconferencing in the cloud!

If analysts are to be believed, the videoconferencing and telepresence market will more than double to $5 billion in annual revenue over the next four years. In this context, Phoenix, US-based Telesphere has introduced the VideoConnect, a hosted video service that promises to enable any size business to implement videoconferencing quickly and cost-effectively by targeting its webcam-equipped PCs, room-based video systems, videophones, smartphones, tablets and softphones.

Telesphere VideoConnect expands the company’s already broad range of cloud-based business communication solutions, such as hosted voice, hosted call center and hosted call recording for businesses.

So, what exactly is Teleshphere Videoconnect and how does it make use of the cloud? According to Sanjay Srinivasan, CTO, the VideoConnect is a hosted video conferencing service that allows callers to join reservationless video conferences using a variety of end points, including video phones, tele-presence room systems, softphones with webcams on PC, and also targets the multitude of tablets and smartphones. It supports HD quality video.

"All of the bridging/conferencing intelligence resides in the cloud and the end users need not have and operate complicated video equipment on premises. Additionally, being in the cloud, it removes the complexities of having to deal with firewall and NAT traversal issues as it is based on industry standard IP protocols. Users join a video conference by dialing in to a bridge, and entering a passcode," he added.

Naturally, that leads to what the hosted infrastructure involves. Srinivasan said: "The infrastructure involves amongst other things the bridging/conferencing systems and network session border controllers to allow seamless NAT/firewall traversal and bandwidth control/management to support a variety of network bandwidth availability situations."

In call bridging, it says that up to 12 simultaneous legs can be enabled. Does this mean that up to 12 users can be on one call on Videoconnect?

"Yes," said Srinivasan. "Up to 12 users/legs can be on a call. Of course, if one of the legs is a conference room, that only counts as one leg independent of the number of people in the room assuming there is one camera in there."

One-to-one calls are kept free, for now. Therefore, does it mean this is a free solution for most users?

He said: "This means that two endpoints on our network are able to have a peer-to-peer video call at no charge. A good example of this might be a multi-site customer that has people having video calls with each other and if they use a video phone with good sized screen, they can use it for ad hoc conferencing as well."

Now, what kind of pricing strategy has Videoconnect firmed up, if at all? "The pricing strategy will be made available in updates coming soon. However, the overall strategy used will be in line with the concept of hosted services in general enabling customers to leverage this capability with monthly fees," concluded Srinivasan.

Available to select Telesphere customers immediately, Telesphere VideoConnect features an intuitive user interface (UI) and hosted infrastructure that combine to create a nearly flat learning curve for employees.

Ether 1.3.1 phone adaptive antenna solution integrates with smartphones!

San Diego, USA based Ethertronics Inc., enabling innovative antenna and RF solutions to deliver the best connected experience, has launched Ether 1.3.1, a phone adaptive antenna solution. Ready for integration with smartphones or other classes of phones, the Ether 1.3.1 can realize design benefits such as 50 percent reduction in antenna volume, yet maintain compliant performance.

According to Laurent Desclos, president and CEO, Ether 1.3.1 allows an antenna system to dynamically tune itself for optimum performance. Phone form factors are constantly changing throughout the design cycle.

“Current solutions, using passive antennas, require the antenna to be re-tuned with each change to the phone form factor, lengthening the time to market. Ether 1.3.1′s advanced active circuitry is able to adapt to changes in the form factor, reducing the need for lengthy antenna redesigns.”

In addition, Ether 1.3.1 can be designed to take up less volume than other antennas (up to a 50-percent reduction), providing more space for other components, and yet, still remain specification compliant.

Is this solution only suitable for smartphones then? Desclos said that Ether 1.3.1 is not limited to just smartphones. It can be integrated into all tiers of devices such as feature phones and tablets supporting 2G, 3G, and 4G mobile device designs. Ether 1.3.1 is said to be ready for commercial deployment. Several design references have been accomplished to date. Products from OEMs will be announced in the future.

It is said that Ether 1.3.1 allows more freedom in antenna structure design. Elaborating, Desclos said: “Ether 1.3.1 allows more freedom in antenna structure design in a few core areas: size, placement and ability to meet performance specifications. Through the use of active impedance matching techniques, smaller volume antennas can be achieved.”

This is especially important as phone form factors shrink, while more components are added to phones for increased functionality (cameras, GPS, etc.). Ether 1.3.1 can additionally be used to achieve compliance as the antenna system can be dynamically tuned for known challenge areas in specification compliance.

Finally, how can the Ether 1.3.1 solution be tuned for tougher challenges by toning down the antenna size?

Typically, when the antenna’s size is decreased, performance suffers since there is less volume area to cover the required bandwidth. The beauty of active impedance matching is that the technique allows for the antenna volume to be reduced by as much as 50 percent and still maintain compliant performance. As a result, active impedance matching allows for a wide range of designs, since the technique is applicable to a broad range of form factors.

Global forecast estimates based on WSTS's May semicon sales: Cowan LRA model

This is a continuation of my coverage of the fortunes of the global semiconductor industry. I would like to acknowledge and thank Mike Cowan, an independent semiconductor analyst and developer of the Cowan LRA model, who has provided me the latest numbers.

The WSTS posted May 2011′s HBR, Historical Billings Report, on its website on Tuesday, July 5th, 2011.

According to the WSTS’s HBR, May’s actual sales came in at $23.494 billion with the corresponding May 3MMA sales at $25.031 billion. It should be noted that two months experienced slight downward sales revisions from last month’s published HBR, namely March (down by $0.147 billion) and April (down by $0.112 billion), respectively.

The Cowan LRA model’s sales forecast estimates for May as published last month were $24.565 billion (actual) and $25.474 billion (3MMA), respectively. Thus, the model’s May MI (Momentum Indicator) came in at minus 4.4 percent.

This indicates (mathematically speaking) that the semiconductor industry’s actual May sales result was much lower than the model’s expectation by $1.071 billion and that, most probably, 2011′s sales growth will be trending downward for the rest of this year.

Plugging the latest actual sales number for May into the model yields the following updated sales and sales growths forecast estimates for 2011:Source: Cowan LRA model.

The key take-aways from comparing the latest versus previous month's forecast results are highlighted below:
* 2011's sales forecast estimate fell by $3.937 billion to $318.391 billion (from last month's sales forecast estimate of $322.328).
* Correspondingly, 2011's sales growth forecast estimate dropped by 1.3 percentage points to 6.7 percent (from last month's 8.0 percent sales growth forecast estimate).
* June 2011's actual sales forecast expectation is $29.435 billion which corresponds to a June 3MMA sales estimate of $25.445 billion assuming no (or minor) sales revisions for either April or May's previously published actual sales from last month.

Next month's forecast update based upon June's actual sales are expected to be available on or about Friday, Aug 5th, 2011.

Now, there is EDA software piracy!

Great! That's what was required!! As though software piracy isn't enough, there is now an article about EDA software piracy!!!

According to the article, the anti-piracy committee of the Electronic Design Automation Consortium (EDAC) estimates that 30-40 percent of all EDA software use is via pirated licenses. That's a huge number!

What are the chief reasons for EDA software piracy? Surely, it can't be attributed to the Far East countries alone, and definitely not China and Taiwan, and perhaps, India, for that matter.

Everyone in the semiconductor industry knows that EDA software is required to design. There are hefty license fees involved that companies have to pay.

Designing a chip is a very complex activity and that requires EDA software. EDA firms send out sales guys to all over the country. Why, some of the EDA vendors are also known to form alliances with the technical colleges and universities. They offer their EDA software to such institutes at a very low cost.

Back in 2006, John Tanner wrote an article in Chip Design, stating: EDA tools shouldn't cost more than the design engineer!

However, how many of such EDA licenses are properly used? Also, has the EDA vendor, who does go out to the technical institutes made a study about any particular institute's usage of the EDA tool?

The recently held Design and Automation Conference (DAC) showered praises on itself for double-digit rise in attendance. Was there a mention of EDA piracy in all of that? No way! If so, why not?

The reasons are: the EDA industry already churns out a sizeable revenue from the global usage of EDA software. EDA firms are busy trying to keep up with the latest process nodes and develop the requisite EDA tool. New products are constantly being developed, and so, product R&D is a continuous event! Of course, in all of this race, the EDA firms are also looking to keep their revenues running high, lest there is an industry climb-down!

Where then, are the reasons for EDA firms to even check, leave alone, control piracy?

An industry friend had this to say regarding EDA software piracy. "It is the inability to use certain 'tool modules' only at 'certain time'. Like, if a IP company wants to just run PrimeTime (Synopsys) few times to ensure its timing worthiness before releasing that IP, and doesn't need it after that. However, it is is not possible to get such a short time license." Cost and unethical practices by the stake holders were some other reasons EDA users have cited.

Regarding the status in India, especially, the difference isn't that much, from say, China. Another user said it is not such a prevelant, 'worrisome' aspect, yet. Yet another EDA user said that EDA piracy is there more in the sense of 'unauthorized' usage than 'unpaid' usage -- not using it for what it is supposed to be used for. For instance, using academic licenses for 'commercial developments', etc.

That leads to the key question: can EDA software piracy be curtailed to some extent? One user feels that yes, it can. Perhaps, Microsoft type 'detection' technologies exist. However, another said that the EDA companies' expenses have to do, so it can be more than actual losses. Hence, they are probably not quite doing it!

SanDisk's iNAND Extreme family of embedded eMMC storage devices for high-end mobile and tablets

SanDisk Corp.'s embedded storage is in most of all top computing device brands. It recently launched the iNAND Extreme family of embedded eMMC storage devices for high-end mobile and tablets.

Gadi Ben-Gad, product marketing manager for SanDisk, said: "This very high performance line of iNAND products joins the existing iNAND and iNAND Ultra lines, which are very successful in the mobile, tablet and consumer electronics markets. The first generation of these products (iNAND Extreme) will be sampling in a few weeks.

"iNAND Extreme products offer up to 50MB/s write and 80MB/s read sequential performance and very high random performance designed for the next generation of high-end mobile and tablet devices. SanDisk continues to monitor market trends and requirements and diversifying the embedded offering in the market, to answer to the different requirements of the different mobile, tablet and consumer electronics segments."

So, how will SanDisk play a strong role in these areas? According to Ben-Gad, SanDisk works closely with a broad and diverse set of mobile and tablet OEMs. The company also works very closely with the majority of the leading mobile chipset vendors and standardization bodies in the mobile/tablet ecosystem to ensure optimal integration and technological support.

He added: "SanDisk is a fully vertically integrated company with substantial expertise in NAND flash technology, system technology and product design with years of experience in designing embedded and removable mobile storage devices. SanDisk is very well-positioned to understand, develop and support the future storage requirements in mobile, tablet and consumer electronics devices."

Finally, I must thank Ms. Jody Privette Young, LymanPR, for making this happen.

Applied Vantage Vulcan RTP -- better side of anneal

Applied Materials Inc. has launched the Vantage Vulcan RTP advanced spike anneal system, an innovation in chip manufacturing technology.

Rapid Thermal Processing (or RTP) is a semiconductor manufacturing process, that heats silicon wafers to high temperatures (up to 1,200 °C or greater) within a few seconds. It is used often during semiconductor device manufacturing to enhance desired attributes, such as conductivity.

Sundar Ramamurthy, appointed VP, GM, Front End Products, Silicon Systems Group, Applied Materials, presented on the Applied Vantage Vulcan RTP, which will help the company maintain RTP leadership for the next decade.

The Vantage Vulcan RTP provides in-class temperature uniformity for higher yield. There are sharper temperature spikes for faster chips. It also features low-temperature control for new applications. Besides, it offers efficient energy usage for lower carbon footprint.

Applied’s RTP is the technology and marketplace leader. The RTP is a growing ~$500 million market opportunity. Vantage Radiance Plus facilitates a tool of record at virtually every top chip maker. The Vantage Vulcan is in place at top chip makers for spike anneal. It also happens to be the industry’s greenest RTP solution, as its advanced system design improves the usage of grid energy.

Innovation in semiconductor manufacturing technology has seen the carbon footprint savings per system equivalent to taking four mid-size sedans off the road.

Mobility and connectivity are said to be driving growth in lower power, high performance chips that find use in smartphones, tablets, mobile PCs and servers. Rapid Thermal Processing (RTP) is the thermal process, which heats silicon wafers to ultra-high temperatures on a timescale of a few seconds. It is used for anneals and oxidation.

Applied's Vantage Vulcan RTP provides a revolutionary backside heating design. Within-die spike anneal thermal variability is provided with frontside heating. There is a 3X decrease in within-die thermal variability with Vulcan system’s backside heating. The thermal processing roadmap now enables 28nm node and beyond with sharper spikes and full-range temperature control.

It enables low-temperature regime control, such as closed-loop control from <75°C, unique sensors for accurate, low-temperature measurement and new capability for advanced low-temperature applications.

XConnect's VIE set to make video calls as easy as voice calls!

XConnect, a leader in next-generation interconnection and ENUM-directory services, has launched the global Video Interconnection Exchange (VIE) – the world’s first neutral federation for exchanging video calls across networks, operators, service providers, B2B exchanges and vendors.

VIE is said to make video calling as easy as making a voice call – whether using a laptop, desktop, tablet or mobile phone – from anywhere in the world. By connecting video “islands,” VIE will dramatically accelerate worldwide mass-market adoption of video calling and conferencing by service providers, enterprises and consumers.

So, how exactly is the XConnect VIE really going to improve video/telepresence calling? XConnect CEO Eli Katz, said: "The driver behind VIE is to enable ubiquitous video calling; to make video calling as simple as making a phone call. That is, to allow the many different video services to interconnect, and allow person-to-person video calling regardless of the network, device and video service."

What are the communication charges involved as of now? He added: "VIE - like all of XConnect services - is offered on a modular basis. Customers have a menu of services that they choose to “consume.” Pricing is based on their choices. Typically, charges are structured on subscription (joining fees) and then usage-based charges."

What are these video islands that XConnect VIE shall connect? According to Katz, IP-based services, such as video and HD voice, are usually limited to within the service provider’s own network. In the vast majority of cases, calls that need to go between networks are still reliant on the PSTN interconnect infrastructure, which means IP-based services cannot be supported – creating “islands.”

For video services to work on a cross- network basis, each one of the video services/networks needs to be interconnected via IP, avoiding the PSTN completely. So currently, a SKYPE video user can only make video calls to another SKYPE user; such a user cannot initiate calls to another video service, for example, Facetime.

Katz added: “Video islands” exist due to interconnection challenges above, as well as interworking problems between different services, such as:
* Not having the prerequiste knowledge that the device being called can support video calling.
* Differences in video and audio codecs implemented by video providers.
* Differences in signalling systems.
* Differences in screen size and frame rates.

He explained: "VIE is built on our Interconnect 2.0 platform – which includes carrier ENUM registry and multimedia IP interconnection hub services. By joining VIE, the video service provider gains an immediate multilateral (one-to-many) IP technical and commercial interconnect with every other VIE member.

"The carrier ENUM registry is utilised to discover if the party being called can support video and the type of video service they support (i.e., codecs). The interconnection hub handles the signalling and interworking challenges to ensure seamless interconnection of the call between the two video networks."

Isn't the no. of operators (5) low, to start off with? What are the plans for expansion? Specifically, what are XConnect's plans for Asia!

Katz said that the five initial members of VIE include a mix of service providers and managed telepresence exchange providers, representing approximately 1 million video endpoints.

"VIE is available globally, and we are already in discussions with operators in Asia who have expressed strong interest in joining VIE. We will be making further announcements detailing members in the following months," he noted.