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Category: TECHNOLOGY

  • The Need For Semiconductor As A Service

    The Need For Semiconductor As A Service

    Photo by Laura Ockel on Unsplash

    THE SEMICONDUCTOR AS A SERVICE

    The software industry has adapted to the demand of business and consumers by changing the licensing and product delivery model over the last three decades. The post-1990 saw standalone one-time fee-based software with no incremental feature updates except security-related and termed as the pay and use model. Then post-2000, with the proliferation of the internet, the software license model moved to pay over month/year and also came with features and security updates. The software industry termed it as Software-As-A-Service Model. Post-2010, the software industry adapted to the changing business and applied the licensing model from software to platform, which came not only with features and security updates for the software itself but also the platform the software will run on. It has allowed software developers to provide more over the top services.

    In comparison to the software industry, the hardware industry (mainly the semiconductor industry) has not adopted the product delivery model. It has been constant and driven by build and ship, with no ability to provide new hardware features on the go. If there are security flaws in the hardware, then those are suppressed by an Over-The-Air (OTA) update. Consumer and business buying the piece of silicon get locked in with the product. It is also not easy to provide new features at the silicon level. On top, the majority of the products shipped by the semiconductor industry end up getting used differently based on the hardware company’s need. 

    The semiconductor products (from CPUs to NPUs to GPUs to ASICs to FPGAs to DSPs to Mixed/Analog/Digital devices) have a long design and manufacturing cycle. It also means a long-term vision of the future market needs and then aligning the investment in the design to the manufacturing process accordingly. As per the market demand, semiconductor products need to be more adaptable with in-built features that are more relevant a few years down the line and can be activated post-production.

    Semiconductor-As-A-Service Is Possible Today Than Ever Due To The Shrinking Transistor Size That Allows More Silicon Features To Be Built-In Today For The Future Needs.

    The approximate life of a smartphone is anywhere between three to five years. However, the majority of companies stop providing critical software updates that make the smartphones redundant. The launch of new smartphones with new silicon and software grabs consumer’s attention and they end up buying a new smartphone with the latest silicon features.

    Imagine, having adaptable silicon with features built-in that can be unlocked a few years later and thus making the hardware as new as the software? Either vendors or consumers can decide which silicon features should be activated and how it helps the device performance. Such a process will allow the semiconductor industry to deliver silicon services under Semiconductor-As-A-Service model.

    Semiconductor-As-A-Service – A product delivery business model for the semiconductor industry which allows silicon design and manufacturing with in-built silicon features that can be unlocked in the future as the market demand and software requirements align. For example – More graphics for new gaming applications. These silicon features can be enabled with the help of software updates and require a subscription or one-time payment license. The list of features can be endless, from more cache memory to DRAM memory to extra processing cores to additional GPU for gaming applications to secondary cellular (perhaps 6G) antenna. The shrinking transistor size and growth of heterogeneous integration as a More-Than-Moore (MTM) solution makes such features in silicon possible. Silicon area with extra features can reside inside the smartphone launched in 2020 as an inbuilt hidden feature with the option to enable in 2022 as long as consumers are willing to pay. Such service can also be bundled with software features wherein the smartphone manufacturers can tie the new feature like extra memory or storage.

    Picture By Chetan Arvind Patil

    THE PROCESS OF SEMICONDUCTOR AS A SERVICE

    Semiconductor-As-A-Service implementation can unlock a plethora of opportunities not only for the semiconductor industry but also for the software industry. However, implementing Semiconductor-As-A-Service requires a specific process to be followed from designing to manufacturing. It also requires the semiconductor industry to take risks by providing advanced technology node use today rather than a few years down. Using advanced technology is the key to fitting more silicon features that can be unlocked post-production as it allows more silicon in the smallest possible area as this helps in providing more features at the transistor level.

    Semiconductor-As-A-Service Process:

    Identify Future Software Needs – These software features should be those that become bottlenecks for consumers. It can be from understanding whether the consumers will need more memory than the product has been shipped with so that with the growing data-driven application enabling an extra memory at the silicon level can cater to the software demand. The same goes for CPUs and GPUs for processing power.

    Design Silicon With In-Built Hidden Features – Post identification of future software needs, packing the silicon with features that get unlocked in the future. The majority of these features will reside inside the System-On-A-Chip (SoC), as the active components are the ones that can provide more benefits of service-based features than passive components. Usage of advanced technology node is key to enabling such silicon level features.

    Ability To Enable The In-Built Hidden Silicon Features – Incorporating the in-built hidden silicon feature requires not only designing it with secure memory to store keys to activate features but also requires a secure manufacturing process. The secure way of design and manufacturing ensures that there are no security flaws that can be exploited by hackers.

    Innovative Manufacturing And Packaging – The critical piece of the Semiconductor-As-A-Service process is to ensure that the manufacturing flow and the packaging technology use advanced techniques to consider the effects when more silicon area is activated. Activating new features (more memory or processing capability) can have significant power and thermal effect.

    Product Cost: Planting more silicon with the expectation that it will get used in the future under a pay-as-use service is a business risk. It is vital to price such products so that the design and manufacturing costs invested gets recovered even when in-built hidden features do not get utilized.

    Above are the five key process steps that lay the foundation of Semiconductor-As-A-Service. It has the potential to make the silicon more adaptive. It will require massive research and development before the industry can use it as a real-world solution.

    Picture By Chetan Arvind Patil

    THE NEAR-TERM IMPACT OF SEMICONDUCTOR AS A SERVICE

    If Semiconductor-As-A-Service is implemented and widely used, then it has the potential to transform the computing industry.

    The ability to enable an extra layer of processing power on the go provides a new way to process data. With 3.5 billion 5G subscribers by 2026, the data consumption will skyrocket, and having silicon with in-built hidden features to cater to such high processing and memory demand will take computing to another level. Semiconductor-As-A-Service can also enable date centers and OEMs vendors with avenues to save cost and increase revenue by providing silicon level services.

    Semiconductor-As-A-Service Provides Avenues To Put Future Silicon Technology In Today’s Silicon Area

    FABs, FAB-LESS, IDMs, OSATs, and ATMPs will be able to use technology designed for future silicon today. It will help them understand its impact and usage before launching future silicon technology on a large scale. The semiconductor industry has already started embracing chiplets and heterogeneous computing. These two semiconductor and computing techniques can provide a perfect starting point where more silicon can be incorporated to use it in the future.

    IP based semiconductor business is going to benefit the most as it will allow designers to incorporate more features that can be locked and unlocked as per the need. FAB-LESS companies will make more business by providing vital features as-a-service.

    Semiconductor-As-A-Service also means every device out in the market is different than others as silicon features can be enabled and disabled to the consumer’s liking.

  • The Importance Of End-To-End Semiconductor Cluster Ecosystem

    The Importance Of End-To-End Semiconductor Cluster Ecosystem

    Photo by Laura Ockel on Unsplash

    THE END-TO-END SEMICONDUCTOR CLUSTER ECOSYSTEM

    The semiconductor industry is vital for high-tech advancement. From smartphones to satellites, a small piece of silicon forms the base for millions to trillions of data points. It is why worldwide, the semiconductor industry is a Key Enabling Technology (KET) provider. Semiconductor product development requires various resources to come together. With the growing demand for smart hardware, the need to develop these resources in-house is more critical than ever.

    In semiconductors, no single country wants to be 100% reliant. Countries are ramping up in-country semiconductor design and manufacturing efforts.

    The complexity of both the design and the manufacturing aspects of semiconductors makes it a tough business. It takes years and decades to come up with a turnkey ecosystem to drive in-country semiconductor design and manufacturing. The cutting-edge technology that is required to become self-reliant in semiconductor design and manufacturing demands a radically different approach than incentive-based schemes, which the majority of the governments provide.

    The End-To-End Semiconductor Cluster Ecosystem Requires In-Country Development And Growth Of Semiconductor To Drive Key Enabling Technology

    End-To-End Semiconductor Cluster Ecosystem: An end-to-end semiconductor design, manufacturing, and support ecosystem that enables seamless semiconductor product development. It requires different components of the semiconductor product development to be done in-country rather than globally. It drives in-country economic and talent development and is cost and time effective.

    The End-To-End Semiconductor Cluster Ecosystem is what countries should focus on building to pitch themselves as a one-stop destination for all semiconductor solutions. However, it is easier said than done. The list of different types of resources and solutions that are required to develop a semiconductor cluster ecosystem is long. Depending upon the market size and focus area, countries can have a different smaller focused end-to-end semiconductor cluster ecosystem that has all the components of semiconductor design to manufacturing to customer delivery.

    Picture By Chetan Arvind Patil

    THE COMPONENTS OF THE END-TO-END SEMICONDUCTOR CLUSTER ECOSYSTEM

    Creating a semiconductor cluster ecosystem is not easy. There are different components required to ensure that the environment supports the semiconductor business. Following are the major components of the semiconductor cluster ecosystem:

    RESEARCH AND DEVELOPMENT

    Research and Development (R&D) is key to both basic and applied science innovation. R&D requires the cooperation of government, academia, and industry. Given how complex semiconductor product development is (from technology node to packaging to power requirements), continuous and steady R&D spending is vital as it forms the base of the semiconductor cluster ecosystem.

    According to the Semiconductor Industry Association, in 2019, the U.S. semiconductor industry R&D spending was 16.40% of total sales. Europe spending was 15.30% of total sales, while Taiwan, Japan, China, Korea spending was 10.30%, 8.40%, 8.30%, 7.70%, respectively. It clearly shows the importance of R&D spending and how it helps drive the leadership in the semiconductor business.

    Countries wanting to implement the semiconductor cluster ecosystem need to increase R&D spending by collaborating with academia and industry, to drive advanced solutions for the market.

    DESIGN (FAB-LESS/EDA/IDM):

    Without the semiconductor design, there is no manufacturing. Countries around the globe are attracting businesses to design in-country. This requires setting up of FAB-LESS business which can drive the design of Analog, Digital, Processor, Memory, and Sensor-based products. To cater to the needs of FAB-LESS, EDA companies are required who can provide software-based tools to drive circuit to layout design, simulation, and validation. Apart from FAB-LESS, there are several IDMs (Intel, NXP, Marvell, etc.) which cater to the need of both the design and manufacturing aspect of the semiconductor.

    The development of an in-country design ecosystem requires a talent pool. This demands universities with excellent infrastructure that can provide deep technical training required to drive gain expertise in semiconductor engineering.

    MATERIAL:

    No FAB or OSAT in the world produces the materials required to bring the silicon to life. Different chemicals, silicon, photomasks, gases, substrates, compounds, etc., are required to develop the wafers and packaged materials. There is a big dependency on specific countries and companies that provide such materials.

    Semiconductor material development and procurements also mean a good understanding of the engineering aspect and as said it requires heavy R&D activities within the country where the materials eventually will get used, either by the FAB or the OSAT.

    EQUIPMENT:

    Semiconductor equipment is a billion-dollar market. Both FAB and OSAT require heavy machinery to process and assembly wafer silicon. ASML is the largest supplier in the world of lithography systems for the semiconductor industry apart from ASM, Applied Materials, and TEL. On the other hand, ADVANTEST, TEL, and Teradyne are the largest supplier of ATE-related equipment.

    Both FAB and OSAT equipment are vital to ensure the materials and design eventually get made in the form of a product. A country with a stronghold on the semiconductor equipment manufacturing market is key to anything semiconductors.

    FAB:

    Fabrication of semiconductor devices requires dedicated facilities with large clean rooms. The investment to create such a facility is big and is the primary reason why there is only a handful of semiconductor FAB around the world. Even out of the existing FABs, not all are equipped to handle the advanced technology node that the semiconductor industry has ventured into.

    TSMC, Intel, GLOBALFOUNDRIES, and Samsung Semiconductor are competing with each other to grab the opportunities presented by technology node 5nm and beyond. To make countries self-reliant in semiconductor, FAB play a vital role. It has pushed governments without any FAB facilities to provide incentives to set up new advanced FAB. However, setting up FAB also requires a supporting ecosystem, and this is why countries should focus on the cluster-based ecosystem that provides in-country end-to-end semiconductor solutions.

    OSAT:

    Outsourced Semiconductor Assembly And Test (OSAT) is as important as FAB. Packaging the products with the right technology enables long life. Testing every die on the wafer is vital to ensure there is no reliability or test escape. OSAT enables defect-free parts to the customer. They drive the back end of semiconductors, which in itself is a billion-dollar market.

    Historically, OSATs have been located in the Asia Pacific and have been dependent on America and Europe due to the R&D and design lead these two continents hold. For a semiconductor cluster ecosystem, all the major components need to be catered to, not only specific ones. This is why OSAT is trying to get into FAB and is also investing in in-house design.

    ATMP:

    Assembly, Testing, Marking, and Packing (ATMP) is different than OSAT. OSATs take the bare wafer silicon and convert it into a packaged product, which is then shipped to the ATMP houses. ATMP receive packaged semiconductor products from different OSATs and then they assemble it together on a printed circuit board (PCB). All the semiconductor devices are connected to form a working computer system and clear marking details are put on the PCB to ensure traceability of devices. As the last step, the PCB is covered with an aluminum or plastic body before being shipped to the customer in a fancy box.

    China is the leader in ATMP. India is another upcoming destination. Dell and Foxconn are the world’s largest ATMP houses. Having ATMP houses in-country provides economic development but at the same time negates the benefits when a country becomes 100% importer of semiconductor products. This is what has happened with India’s ATMP ecosystem.

    MISCELLANEOUS:

    Apart from all the major components, there are some crucial minor components that are also critical for the semiconductor cluster ecosystem. These include logistics, distribution, and enterprise-level software. Having delivery and development houses for these activities is also critical in ensuring an end-to-end semiconductor cluster ecosystem. Given these solutions are driven mostly by software in today’s day and age, the majority of countries have both development and R&D centers catering to the future of how to efficiently to logistics to distribution with the help of data and software.

    SUMMARY: End-to-end semiconductor cluster ecosystem requires all of the above components to be in close proximity. However, as of today, there is not a single full end-to-end semiconductor cluster ecosystem in the world. The majority of the semiconductor cluster ecosystem has one or max three of the above components. Given the race between countries to attract the world’s best semiconductor business and talent, the focus on the end-to-end semiconductor cluster ecosystem needs to increase by leveraging facilities within the same location or country. Having more FABs and then relying on other countries for OSATs and ATMPs is never going make a single country the destination for all semiconductor needs, and that is what the majority of the countries in the last two to three years are trying to achieve. Unfortunately, that is not possible till an end-to-end semiconductor cluster ecosystem is built in-country.

    Picture By Chetan Arvind Patil

    THE ACTIVE SEMICONDUCTOR CLUSTER ECOSYSTEM

    There are a handful of semiconductor cluster ecosystems located in different countries. However, these clusters do not cater to all the components discussed above. It will not be valid to call these centers a semiconductor cluster ecosystem, but it does show the importance of having one or more semiconductor components within vicinity.

    Following are a few active semi semiconductor cluster ecosystem but not end-to-end:

    Intel – Portland, Oregon, USA And Chandler, Arizona, USA: Intel has advanced FABs in Portland, Oregon, and Chandler, Arizona. There are two big universities in the proximity of these two FAB locations: Portland State University and Arizona State University. Cross-industry and academia collaboration at these two locations have to lead to the launch of several innovative semiconductor solutions. The exchange of talent for research activities has also helped. Intel’s presence in these two locations guided the formation of a semiconductor support environment that has helped its FAB execution. This is also the primary reason why TSMC has chosen Arizona as the destination of their next 5nm plant.

    ASE Global – Kaohsiung, Taiwan: ASE Global has multiple OSAT facilities in Taiwan. Kaohsiung plant stands out due to the proximity to other package technology solution providers like Amkor. The competition has helped with the development and availability of the semiconductor raw materials required to smoothly operate an OSAT facility.

    TSMC – Hsinchu, Taiwan: TSMC has several FABs around the globe with the majority of the FABs located in Hsinchu, and has helped TSMC develop an ecosystem that has allowed universities and OSAT nearby to thrive. Having OSAT and FAB in the same location also reduces the cost and time of product development.

    Newport Wafer Fab – Newport, United Kingdom: Newport Wafer Fab is the latest addition to the semiconductor ecosystem and promises to be the one-stop FAB needs for the UK region. It has tied up with Cardiff University to enable future compound semiconductor development. Showcasing why having universities nearby helps.

    Samsung – Gyeonggi, China: Samsung like TSMC has FABs in a different part of the world, with the majority located in Gyeonggi. China being home to both the OSAT and ATMP houses, has allowed Samsung to take advantage of the in-country ecosystem of semiconductors.

    TAKE AWAY: Above examples show the importance of having one or more semiconductor cluster ecosystem components in proximity. Imagine having all the semiconductor components in one location and that too within a single country. The benefits from employment, development, and growth will be immense. Whether or not such an ecosystem will end up getting developed, but for sure, countries are racing to attract the best talent and semiconductor businesses to drive in-country semiconductor growth.

    Picture By Chetan Arvind Patil

    THE WAY FORWARD FOR END-TO-END SEMICONDUCTOR CLUSTER ECOSYSTEM

    The semiconductor industry is going through massive critical changes. From mergers to acquisitions to new companies to new FABs, all this is shaking up the semiconductor business.

    Traditionally, semiconductor design and manufacturing has been all about specific regions/countries in the world having a stronghold on either the design or manufacturing or equipment. Post-2020, the story is going to change. Majority of the country has already started chasing giants of the semiconductor industry to set up their designs for manufacturing houses.

    Country With The End-To-End Semiconductor Cluster Ecosystem Will Lead In The Digital Technology World.

    Governments need to develop their country as an end-to-end semiconductor cluster ecosystem, with a solution for every component of the semiconductor development cycle. Having one facility and not the other is only going to make the new facilities in the new country dependent on the old facilities in other countries.

    The country that can create an end-to-end semiconductor cluster ecosystem is going to have an advantage over others and will lead the digital technology competition.

  • The BIG-5 Are Becoming Semiconductor Companies

    Photo by İsmail Enes Ayhan on Unsplash

    THE NEED TO PROCESS DATA

    Internet usage is growing. Every new user generates a new type of data. The technology companies are always eager to process and understand new consumer behavior. It requires continuous research and development of both the software and the hardware.

    Software development has advanced in the last two decades. It has kept pace with the need to understand and process data due to the development of software libraries and frameworks. The large amount of data that has generated post-2010 has helped the Deep Learning (DL), Machine Learning (ML), and Artificial Intelligence (AI) frameworks train networks, and that is now allowing new data to be processed faster and accurately.

    Hardware is vital in ensuring that the processing of data using training and prediction frameworks occurs in the shortest time possible. It requires a massive amount of computing. The majority of the technology companies now rely on massive data centers equipped with advanced computer architectures.

    BIG-5 – Facebook, Amazon, Apple, Microsoft, Google – FAAMG

    To fully utilize computer architectures, an in-depth architecture-level understanding is required. It is not always possible to do so, as the data centers still run general-purpose computer architectures that do not cater to different types of data the big technology companies have to process.

    The disconnect between the software, the hardware, and the data has promoted the need to move from General-Purpose SoC To Application-Specific SoC. Not all data companies are capable of setting up a dedicated team that can focus on in-house silicon development to come up with an Application-Specific SoC.

    To overcome the reliance on semiconductor companies, the BIG-5 (FAAMG) technology companies have started (or have already developed) developing in-house SoC with the hope of opening up the silicon to different data companies around the world.

    Picture By Chetan Arvind Patil

    THE PUSH FOR IN-HOUSE SILICON

    Two major factors drive the push to develop new computer architectures (silicon):

    • Memory
    • Parallel computing

    Memory:

    • Modern applications are becoming memory intensive and also demand faster computation. To process requests from memory-intensive applications in the shortest possible time, the data needs to reside closer to the processing unit.
    • The time to bring the data from SSD to DRAM to Cache adds cycles and delays processing of the data. To overcome such bottleneck, semiconductor companies have implemented the following three techniques:
      • Cache Prefetching:
        • Bring the data near the processing unit in advance to minimize cycle time
      • Increasing Level Of Cache:
        • Add Leve-1 (L1), Level-2 (L2 – Shared), and Level-3 (L3 – Shared) small (KB/MB) cache memory to improve memory prefetching speed
      • Enable High Bandwidth Memory:
        • An extra layer of large high-speed memory between Last Level Cache (LLC – Either L2 or L3) and DRAM to speed up prefetching
    • All the above three techniques improved the response time of processing units. However, as the application data started growing, the cache and memory trashing became a new hurdle.
    • Multiple processing units sharing the same level of memory started corrupting each other’s data to process the request faster. On top of all this, the lack of interconnect bandwidth added further bottlenecks.

    Parallel Computing:

    • Apart from being memory intensive, applications have become compute-intensive too. It prompted the need to have multiple processing units within the same SoC. Running multiple data requests on a single processing unit or two separate processing units provided a way to accomplish the task in the shorted possible time.
    • The processing units still relied on the low-level memories to bring the data to be processed quickly. It means new SoC designing techniques that can allow the sharing of cache and high bandwidth memories in elegant ways without compromising on the need to add latency.
    • Adding more processing units to a single SoC is not the solution. On top, the developers have to keep comping up with smart ways to distribute the data to multiple SoC to speed up the processing.
    • Distributed computing is what the majority of the technology companies have adopted to ensure the data is processed quickly. It means a massive number of servers with thousands of SoC and a large amount of memory. Over time this has increased the cost of operating data centers.

    Even though in the last decade, semiconductor companies have come up with unique computer architecture to cater to both memory and compute-intensive applications, it has not been enough to adopt the changing processing requirement of BIG-5.

    The need to handle memory and parallel computing demand by modern workloads and applications efficiently at the architecture level has pushed BIG-5 to go for in-house silicon.

    THE STATUS OF IN-HOUSE SILICON

    BIG-5 has been gearing towards the development of adaptive computer architecture for data and operating systems.

    Facebook:

    Facebook started working on in-house silicon a couple of years back. With a growing user base across multiple platforms (Instagram, WhatsApp, Messenger), Facebook ramped up silicon effort last year.

    They have a silicon team that is focusing on Application-Specific SoC development that not only caters to data centers but also portable devices like Oculus.

    Amazon:

    Amazon Web Services (AWS) is one of the leaders in cloud solutions. The desire to have customized SoC is vital to ensure the consumers and enterprises can make most of the wide range of computing services AWS provides.

    Apart from AWS, Amazon’s growing range of Echo products is also pushing it to drive in-house silicon development. Amazon is betting big on ARM architecture to drive its silicon needs.

    Apple:

    Apple was always into silicon development. This year with the Apple M1 launch, they are making big bets on in-house silicon development that caters well to their need.

    With Siri about to become the default search option on all the Apple devices, the need to have data-centric customized silicon will grow.

    Microsoft:

    Microsoft always had a keen interest in hardware. They already have a strong team of researchers focusing on hardware research. The Surface line of products has shown strong growth, and the SQ1 line of SoC establishes Microsoft’s goal of making Windows smoother to use on silicon.

    Recently, Microsoft also announced a plan to develop Secure Chip with the help of semiconductor giant Intel and AMD.

    Google:

    Like Microsoft, Google also has a dedicated team that has heavily contributed to silicon development via different computer architecture domains. They have already announced plans to develop in-house silicon for Pixel and Chromebook devices.

    A few years ago, Google showcased the world Tensor Processing Units (TPUs) to speed up the training of data set using the TensorFlow framework. Google’s latest data shows they have been successful in doing so.

    Picture By Chetan Arvind Patil

    THE POSSIBLE FUTURE SCENARIOS

    BIG-5 is betting big on in-house silicon development. This requires not only years of planning and investments but also a dedicated semiconductor development team and flow chain. Going forward there are two possible scenarios that BIG-5 might take:

    Scenario 1:

    BIG-5 will keep collaborating with semiconductor companies (Intel, ARM, AMD, and Qualcomm) to design silicon for their products and data centers with strict control over features and the manufacturing process. It will enable BIG-5 to enter the in-house FAB-LESS business model.

    Scenario 2:

    BIG-5 will slowly move away from semiconductor companies and spin-off an in-house team with a full turnkey silicon development chain. It will be more like an IDM business model and might require the acquisition of existing semiconductor manufacturing units.

    The probability of the second scenario occurring soon is unlikely. In a decade or so, BIG-5 may go big on the semiconductor business and try to keep themselves as in-house FAB-LESS silicon developers (while owning a piece of IDMs/FABs), which will ultimately play in the hands of FAB/Pure-Play Foundries like TSMC and GLOBALFOUNDRIES.

    Whichever scenario ends up occurring, there will be exciting developments in computer architectures that will drive the semiconductor industry to new levels.

  • The Challenges And Way Forward For Computer Architecture In Semiconductor Industry

    The Challenges And Way Forward For Computer Architecture In Semiconductor Industry

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    OVERVIEW

    Computers are designed to provide real-time feedback to all user requests. To enable such real-time feedback, Central Processing Unit (CPU) is vital. CPU is also referred to as processing units or simply processors. These incredibly small semiconductor units are the brain of the computer and are capable of performing Millions/Billions of Instructions Per Second (MIPS/GIPS). High MIPS/GIPS, means faster data processing.

    A lot of processing goes on inside these processing units. With the advancement of the technology nodes, more processing units are being glued together to form System-On-A-Chip (SoC). These SoCs have different individual units like GPU, DRAM, Neural Engine, Cache, HBM, ASIC accelerators, apart from the CPU itself.

    It is incredibly difficult to design an SoC that has the best of two important worlds of computer architecture: Power and Performance.

    Both in academia and the industry, Computer Architects (responsible for design and development of next-gen CPU/SoC) play a key role and are often presented with the challenge of understanding how to provide faster performance at the lowest power consumption possible. It is a difficult problem to solve.

    The battery technology has not advanced at the speed at which SoC processing capability has. Shrinking technology node offers opportunities to computer architects to put more processing power, but at the same time, it also invites issues related to the thermal and power budget.

    All this has lead to semiconductor companies focusing on design challenges around the power and performance of the SoC.

    CHALLENGES

    Semiconductor industry has been focusing on two major SoC design challenges:

    • Challenge 1: Efficient and low latency SoC design for portable devices
    • Challenge 2: High throughput and performance oriented SoC for data center
    Picture By Chetan Arvind Patil

    Challenge 1:

    • Portable:
      • Portable devices suffer from the constraint on the battery capacity. The battery capacity has been increasing mainly due to the shrinking board inside these devices due to the shirking transistor size.
      • This has allowed the OEMs to put more lithium-ion. However, to balance the form factor and portability, batteries cannot be scaled out forever. It is a challenge for OEMs to understand how to manage portability by balancing the battery size apart from making the computer system efficient with low latency.
    • Efficiency And Low Latency
      • To tackle efficiency and low latency, innovative designs are coming out in the market with the ability to adapt the clock and voltage domain depending on the application being executed by the user. It is no more about how many cores are in the SoC, but more about how an application-specific core can provide a much better user experience than ever.
      • This has presented researchers with an interesting problem of improving the performance per watt (PPW). To improve PPW, researchers around the globe are taking different approaches around DVFS schemes, apart from improving transistor level techniques.
      • Frequency and voltage level scaling also has a direct impact on the response time. Processing units like CPU are designed to provide low latency so that all the request coming in, can be catered to in real-time.
      • Improving efficiency without compromising on the latency is still a big challenge for the computer architects.

    Challenge 2:

    • Data Center:
      • On the opposite pole, data centers are designed to be compute-intensive. The SoC required to cater data center has exactly the opposite need compared to portable devices. As companies become data aggregators, the analysis requires dedicated hardware that provides streamlined computation of the data on the go.
      • This is prompting companies like Google, Facebook, and Amazon to come up with their silicon that understands the data being generated and how to swiftly analyze it on the go.
    • Performance And High Throughput:
      • Designing custom SoC requires a fresh look and is drastically different than the block based approach. Improving throughput requires high speed interconnect to remove bottlenecks in data processing, else the performance will be affected.
      • In order to improve throughput, the data needs to reside near the computation block. This demands a new way to predict data to be used in order to bring in the cache or add a memory hirerachy with the help of MCDRAM.

    The challenges are many and researchers around the globe are already working to provide elegant computer architectures both from academia and the industry.

    WAY FORWARD

    As the need of the application running on the computer systems is changing, so is the approach to designing SoC. Various examples from different companies show how the development of computer architecture is changing and will eventually help others come up with new computer architectures.

    These new architecture designs are taking the traditional approach of computer architecture and providing a different way to tackle both memory and compute bottlenecks.

    Cerebras came up with Wafer-Scale Engine (WSE), which is developed on the concept of fabricating full wafer as a single SoC. The performance data of WSE show a promising future of how computer architecture becomes more wafer-level designing than die level. WSE also takes different approach on interconnects by utilizing wafer scribe lines to transfer data which provide more bandwidth.

    Fungible’s Data Processing Unit (DPU) architecture is another way forward that shows how SoC will be increasingly get designed for scale-out systems to handle massive data.

    Picture By Chetan Arvind Patil

    Google’s TPU and Amazon’s Inferentia shows how custom ASIC based SoC will become de-facto. Companies that generate a lot of data will try to run their center on in-house developed SoC.

    Apple’s M1 launch showed how ARM will start eating the x86 market for energy-efficient portable devices. In few years, the integration will become more intuitive and might attract other x86 portable devices OEMs who have failed to take Windows on ARM to its true potential.

    NVIDIA’s bid to acquire ARM shows that the future GPU will be designed with a blend of fusion technology that will combine ARM/CPU with GPU more than ever. This will allow data centers to improve on latency apart from focusing on throughput.

    In the end, all these are promising development for the computer architecture community. Provides numerous opportunities to research and develop new ways to enable lower latency and higher throughput while balancing power consumption.

  • The Semiconductor Industry Shake Up

    Photo by Jason Leung on Unsplash

    THE SEMICONDUCTOR INDUSTRY STATUS

    In 2020, the semiconductor industry has seen both negative and positive trends.

    The first half of 2020 showed mostly the negative trend driven by the COVID-19 restrictions, as it lead to slower semiconductor production and increased inventory due to decreasing sales. The second half of 2020 has been more positive. The sales have gone up and production lines are 100% occupied, to cater the newly launched devices and products by vendors across the globe.

    Apart from the steady increase in design, development, and production, merger/acquisition have gone up too. There have been some unexpected takeovers which are bound to have a strong impact in the long run.

    The semiconductor industry from a product point of view can be divided into:

    • CPU
    • GPU
    • SoC/MPSoC/RFSoC
    • ASIC/FPGA/ASSP/ACAP
    • Digital/Analog/Mixed
    • Memory
    Picture By Chetan Arvind Patil

    The mergers and acquisitions that have occurred in 2020 have affected each of the above product domains.

    All these acquisitions from the design have shaken up the semiconductor design industry. However, at the same time, it is turning out to be a boon for semiconductor manufacturing, as many IDMs plan on becoming FAB-LITE to focus more on the design aspect and increase share the mobile, AI, and data center market.

    This raises the question of how the future of semiconductor design and manufacturing is going to be.

    THE SEMICONDUCTOR INDUSTRY SHAKE UP AND FUTURE

    Taking a look from the semiconductor design point of view, it is getting clear that companies are more focused on a specific product domain and want to dominate the market. To achieve this, companies are either creating new asset via acquisition or selling old asset that do not align with the goal.

    Intel last year sold its smartphone modem business to Apple and this year Intel also decided to sell NAND memory business. This shows that Intel wants to focus on its strength of personal and data center computing. For sure, NVIDIA’s acquisition of ARM is concerning for Intel, given how much strength an established IP from ARM will give NVIDIA and also allow it to extend its business from GPUs to CPUs, and that too smartphone business which is not Intel’s primary domain.

    On top, with AMD’s solid performance and acquisitions, the fight for smart computing is going to heat up. AMD (since 2009) and NVIDIA are FAB-LESS semiconductor companies. This allows AMD and NVIDIA to focus more on the design aspect and let external manufacturers take care of the manufacturing. This is a big advantage as semiconductor manufacturing is hard and takes a long time to perfect.

    Picture By Chetan Arvind Patil

    All these points towards a major shake-up that will occur in near future. The business mode; will change and semiconductor companies will go either:

    • FAB-LESS
    • FAB/Pure-Play Foundry

    Competing in both the arena as a single entity is going to be challenging. Spinning off or selling part of the semiconductor manufacturing might be a more viable solution. Such shake-up will eventually end up creating more business for the semiconductor manufacturing companies and they will have to predict today and start planning on increasing the capacity (or acquisition) to keep the business running.

    It will be vital for countries like India to take advantage of such market business change by coming out with policies that heavily incentivize semiconductor manufacturing.

  • The Smart

    The Smart

    Photo by Rahul Chakraborty on Unsplash

    THE SMART

    As technology is progressing, the world is becoming smarter. The decision making is becoming more data-driven rather than experience-driven. People around the globe rely more on smart systems to find solutions to their daily problems. With the proliferation of Artificial Intelligence and its influence on day to day life, the world is only going to become more reliant on smart services and products.

    The smart software and hardware systems have already found its way into every consumer product. Cars are becoming more connected. Homes are becoming more energy-efficient due to data-driven decisions. Logistics and transportation are data-enabled too. All this has enabled companies to spend wisely, while being profitable at the same time.

    The next decade is going to see the wider adoption of smart devices. The impact of these devices is going to enable a smarter ecosystem. Software companies are also launching smart hardware, which is also helping in the growth of the smart ecosystem market.

    There are certain key areas where smart technology is going to enjoy an exponential growth.

    THE SMART KEY AREAS

    Major areas where the smart technology is going to be more profitable are:

    • Smart Data
    • Smart Environment
    • Smart Manufacturing
    • Smart Transportation

    Smart Data: The systems that are being deployed across the cities, offices, houses, industrial areas, etc., are by default being designed to monitor the surroundings. The major goal of these systems is to capture the data in the cleanest form possible. The subsequent system doesn’t have to post-process the data and this ensures that the decision is provided in the shortest possible time. The data collection, processing, and the presentation are going to be the critical piece in order to classify a system as smart data ready. Smart data has already seen tremendous growth in the last decade and promises to be on the same path.

    Smart Environment: In the last decade, as technology innovation has progressed, so has the use and deployment of it. The turnkey infrastructure projects have embraced the new possibilities that smart solutions are capable of providing. The buildings are becoming more sensor-driven. The cities are becoming more connected. The open spaces are more secure due to smart security cameras. The schools and offices are more eco-friendly. All this is becoming possible due to the efficient use of spaces that are being created with the usage of the smart systems, which can project and provide an optimized solution against the capital expenditure. The net-zero concept is the main driver in enabling the smart environments around the cities and countries. With new infrastructure projects, the smart environment domain is only going to enable the growth and adoption of the smarter technologies.

    Picture By Chetan Arvind Patil

    Smart Manufacturing: Manufacturing is hard. The time and effort required to build a product involves a lot of steps and resources. Any company that is into manufacturing has one major goal: eliminate waste. The waste can be at any stage from the procurement to development to delivery. Money saved in manufacturing without compromising the quality is money earned. Companies are relying more on the robotic decision (while balancing human resources) to optimize the manufacturing process. Smart manufacturing is also relying on artificial data decisions to make a more profound judgment based on the market need, in order to manufacture the products efficiently. Industry 4.0 is here, but in a few years time, the world will move to Industry 5.0, which will rely more on smart manufacturing. As the factories start to invest in smart manufacturing to reduce waste, the opportunities for the smart solution providers will also grow. It has already started happening in automobile and semiconductor manufacturing.

    Smart Transportation: It is human nature to move from one place to another in the search of better opportunities. Uber and Lyft have already provided a sneak peek on how future transportation is going to be. With Waymo expanding the driverless riding services, more driverless cars will inevitably be seen around. This points out how the world is going to adopt smart transportation that is connected and statistically geared to be safer than human-driven cars. The logistics domain is also going to adopt to these smart technologies to save on the cost and become more profitable. As more companies and startups put in talent to make vehicles ecosystems smarter, the opportunities in this area will also keep growing.

    These are the four key areas, where the smart ecosystem is enjoying (and will keeping doing so) faster adoption and positive growth.

    THE SMART FUTURE

    The smart solution heavily relies on both the smart software and smart hardware.

    Smart software: In the last decade, software has become more advanced that ever. The machine learning, deep learning, and artificial intelligence solution created on top of the vast amount of data collected due to internet adoption, have ensured that the systems can understand the need before it is needed. As more people come on board the online world, the growth and usage of the smart software is also going to increase.

    Smart Hardware: Hardware development has kept the pace with the software, however, the hardware innovation has always relied on massive systems that are power-hungry. The supercomputers are capable of providing solutions in seconds, but that comes at a steep cost. Slowly, the hardware is also getting embedded with artificial intelligence, at the architecture design stage, to make it more adaptive and thus ensuring smart solution at low cost. The possibility of performing massive computation at source is going to make the computer systems more smarter and faster than ever.

    It will be interesting to see how the growth in the smart software and the smart hardware solutions in the next decade is going to shape the smart world.

  • The HaaS

    The HaaS

    Photo by Taylor Vick on Unsplash

    The software business delivery model has been constantly changing. It has adapted the need of the market by leveraging all the possible ways to deliver the software solution hassle-free. From installing software using a CD-ROM or USB Flash Drive to installing over the internet, the ease of accessing and using software has changed a lot.

    The customers have also adapted to the changing landscape. From worrying about configuring the license key correctly to transitioning to subscription (monthly/yearly) model has provided numerous benefits.

    One major change in the software delivery model has been the cloud services, which has pushed the applications from the desktop to the browsers. This has greatly eliminated the need to configure the operating system and environment settings required to ensure that the application works flawlessly. Today, with the click of a button, one can securely log on to the website and access the software tools using any browser without worrying about the underlying operating system.

    While the software has certainly made great progress, hardware has not been behind. The sole reason one can access software tools remotely is that the data centers located in the different parts of the world are working in harmony. This is to ensure that all the requests are processed with zero downtime and minimal delay. The underlying network of hardware ensures that, low latency is not a hindrance in accessing the software features. This has removed the need to maintain self-hosted servers and has allowed customers to instead invest in other critical solution to make the day to day task more productive.

    The software licensing and delivery model today is termed as Software-As-A-Service (SaaS). It is a subscription-driven model where the application is hosted on a server and can be simultaneously accessed by all the subscribers without any resource constraints. The server will have all the software dependency pre-configured to let the developers focus on the delivery.

    To run the SaaS model, a set of hardware tools are required. Instead of spending millions of dollars on the hardware infrastructure and maintenance, many enterprises and solution seekers have moved to the hardware licensing and delivery model and it is termed as Hardware-As-A-Service (HaaS).

    The major difference between SaaS and HaaS, is the application. SaaS is primary all about software, while HaaS is not just about computer hardware and system but also about all those smart hardware solutions that are running the SaaS.

    THE HaaS APPLICATIONS

    The application areas of any given product is what differentiates it from competitors. In the last decade, the HaaS application has increased and many smart hardware providers have moved to the product-based service model.

    The important application area of HaaS has been the data center, where cloud service providers (Amazon, Google, Microsoft, etc.) and content delivery networks (Akamai, Cloudflare, etc.) have created plethora resources to cater the growing need and demand of software enterprises. Anyone can rent as many nodes required and deploy a solution. The shared and dedicated website hosting also falls into the same category. Renting out per month basis than buying the hardware and setting up in the office is more cheaper and reliable. HaaS (Hardware == Data Center) also eliminates the cost of setting up a dedicated team to handle all the data center related issues.

    The growth of smart devices has lead to change in the way consumers consume these products. Taking the queue from the smartphone business, it is evident that a new version of the smartphone is launched every year. This automatically prompts consumers to buy a new one due to the attractive features. Shelling out more than $500 every year on a smartphone is not what every consumer would like to do. To tackle this issue, the service providers (mainly cellular one) moved to the HaaS model (Hardware == Smart Device), in which they started providing the smartphone as part of a monthly plan than paying upfront. It certainly has pros and cons, but has provided consumers the ability to switch to better devices as and when required. This smartphone subscription model is now being extended to several other smart devices like cameras, drones, watches, security, T.V., and the list is endless.

    Picture By Chetan Arvind Patil

    Mobility is a very crucial part of the day to day life. In the transportation area, the HaaS model (Hardware == Vehicle) has been in use for decades. The model of renting the vehicle for a specific period is well proven and widely used. Due to the proliferation of vehicles for hire services, the HaaS model is being applied more relentlessly. From car to skateboard to electric bike to bicycle, now everything is available under the HaaS model. The growth of point-to-point will keep extending the application area of the HaaS within the mobility domain. Gen-Z and Gen-Alpha are going to mostly rent the vehicles under the HaaS model than spending money to purchase one.

    As countries around the world move towards 5G and Wi-Fi 6, the digital landscape will also change as more consumers will have the ability to connect to the online world. This will demand a vast array of the internet of things that needs to be deployed across cities, states, and countries. The business (internet service providers) will unlikely follow the trend of settings technology on their own. This is where the HaaS (Hardware == Internet of Things) model will come in as a way to save cost while providing services.

    Apart from the discussed application areas above, there are still miscellaneous domains where the HaaS model can be applied. It is already in use in the airline industry, where purchasing air crafts has moved to a year-long rental agreement. A similar concept will start to fill in the developing world where services are more vital now than ever.

    THE HaaS BENEFITS

    Technology when applied correctly, provides numerous benefits. SaaS showed many benefits to the software world. Same applies to the hardware world due to the HaaS implementation.

    Cost is one of the major benefits of HaaS. The ability to rent out as many nodes for as many days required has provided new way for consumers to manage the cost. In many cases, consumers can spend money wisely in other critical areas. The ability to terminate and forget about the infrastructure is also one keys to why the HaaS model is getting popular.

    The HaaS provides a way to access services anywhere. From data centers to mobility all are available at the click of the button. The HaaS will be deployed and available at the doorsteps. Majority of the cities around the world are already equipped with several HaaS services and this has provided reliable uptime to the services.

    Picture By Chetan Arvind Patil

    Portability is another important benefit of HaaS. The option to switch smart devices to a new one without worrying about the cost is one example. Even with data centers, one can move from one cloud HaaS provide to another, without the need to understand the underlying process and technical challenges.

    With SaaS, the quality and reliability of software services improved. Always on services and customer support was a great addition to the SaaS model and it has ensured that the customers are never out of help. The same quality and reliability solutions have been extended to the HaaS model and are taking the customer experience to a new level.

    Digital transformation, expanding high-speed network, and advancement in the semiconductor solution is only going to improve the HaaS experience.

    THE HaaS FUTURE

    Given the expansion of the artificial intelligence and autonomous solutions, it is highly unlikely that the HaaS delivery model will change much from the existing one.

    The HaaS in the future will keep evolving around the following three important aspects:

    • Users
    • Middleware
    • Services
    Picture By Chetan Arvind Patil

    Users are the consumers for the HaaS model and paying for the service. Middleware is the connectors between the users and service providers and gets the share of both sides of businesses. Services are the different solution providers with innovative services and products.

    It will be interesting to see if the industry moves to a new way of subscribing to the services. Currently, the business is moving around pay as a use model, and it has worked wonders both for the service providers and the consumers. However, every model evolves, and with the rate at which the technology is advancing, it will be important to adapt the business model accordingly. What new way of supporting these services will come, only time will show.

  • The Edge Computing

    The Edge Computing

    Photo by Tony Stoddard on Unsplash

    In the hardware systems, the cache is used by Central Processing Units (CPU) to reduce the time which is required to access the data from the lower level memory like RAM. It does so by bringing the data beforehand (depending on the policy used) in the cache, which re-sides closer to the CPU.

    This allows CPUs to perform calculations faster as the cycle time gets reduced and the latency is lowered. It also lowers the time and energy required to perform the computation task.

    Same concept is applicable for the software systems, in which caching of data leads to faster access which reduces the response time and improves user experience. Content Delivery Network (CDN) is one of the best examples of software caching. Even web browsers use it.

    Image
    Picture By Chetan Arvind Patil

    However, both the hardware and the software caching systems are good from a data point of view, but not for computation. In the hardware systems, data is brought closer to the CPU for processing while in software systems the data is brought closer to the user after processing. For both the systems, if the source data is updated, then new data has to be fetched, which adds cost, time, and energy.

    With the growing digital user base and improved connectivity around the world, the importance of caching is increasing to cater the data and computation demand.

    In order to serve this growing demand, the edge computing is being deployed. In a nutshell, the edge computing provides data and computation closer to the nodes requesting it with the help of widely deployed array of hardware. This leads to faster response time, reduces time to deliver the content, and provides massive distributed processing power.

    EDGE COMPUTING BENEFITS

    Large scale deployment of the edge computing is going to be a win-win situation for both the businesses and the consumers. The hardware and software deployment and development around the edge computing are also going to bring a tremendous amount of skill-based employment opportunities. The edge computing has numerous benefits. There are already several solutions from the semiconductor industry for the edge computing.

    One of the important benefit of the edge computing is the computation speed. The edge computing can distribute the single task across different edge nodes, which reduces time to accomplish task. With 5G and Wi-Fi 6, the off-loading of the task to nearby edge nodes is going to ensure low latency and reliable service.

    By reducing the number of hopes required to access the computation and data resources, the edge computing will also provide better security. The computation to be performed can be done by nearby nodes and the data to be accessed can also be stored at the same nodes. This process shields against any intruders trying to access the data by reducing the number of hops.

    Picture By Chetan Arvind Patil

    The edge computing is also designed to be scalable. There are no restrictions on the number of edge nodes that a specific network can hold, as long as the edge computing network is balancing the supply and demand requirement, and is not high on cost.

    Adoption of 5G will be a gradual process. Consumers will take time to upgrade devices that are 5G compatible. To cater to the previous generation (2.5G/3G/4G) technology users, interoperability is important. The edge computing is capable of providing interoperability, thus both new and legacy devices can work with the same edge node.

    The major application areas of the edge computing is going to be On-Device Artificial Intelligence (AI), which will allow smart devices (smartphones, cameras, sensors, etc.) to off-load the compute intensive task to the nearby edge nodes.

    The edge computing will take digital experience to the next level.

    EDGE COMPUTING OPPORTUNITIES

    Every new technological solution presents new opportunities for the businesses. Consumers also gain due to the new products and services. From a business point of view, the edge computing provides several ways to generate revenue.

    The edge computing will drive the introduction of new products. Both software and hardware solutions will be introduced. Businesses can explore the edge computing in form of Edge As A Service (EAAS) by allowing smaller companies access to the edge resources in order to provide over the top services. This will also drive revenue.

    Picture By Chetan Arvind Patil

    Computing at the edge also requires a networks of hardware that can accept the task request, process it, and send it back to the requester. To develop such smart hardware for the edge computing, the semiconductor companies are comping with low energy and high-performance electronic chips, which can used by the developers to launch new hardware products. All this opens new revenue opportunity for different segments for smaller, mid to high scale enterprises.

    The edge computing on top of the smart hardware will increase the adoption rate of the digital services. This will also lead to acquisition of new consumers and will open multiple revenue opportunities.

    The edge computing offers exciting benefits and opportunities. Both businesses and consumers are going to be at advantage.

    The major application areas that the edge computing is going drive are smart cars, smart cities, smart industry, smart manufacturing, and smart home automation systems.

    Picture By Chetan Arvind Patil

    It will be interesting to see how the industry comes forward and uses the edge computing to launch new digital solutions for the market.

    The country which will deploy and adopt the edge computing enabled 5G networks faster is going to be the leader in digital services and information technology for the next decade.

  • The Drones Are Flying

    Photo by asoggetti on Unsplash

    DRONE

    Unmanned Aerial Vehicles (UAV) have been in use since 1849. Several countries around the world have invested in massive research and development activities to make use of UAV for surveillance activities by the armed forces. All the military-grade UAVs are distinctly complex and wide-body machines.

    In recent years, due to the development in the semiconductor process technology and the advancement in software development, the form factor of high-tech hardware and software solutions have been shrinking. Along with the improved connectivity and wireless communication technology, the UAVs are now also being used by civilians for personal and professional non-military activities.

    The civilian UAV are more popularly known as drone.

    Picture By Chetan Arvind Patil

    With the flying capability and ability to get controlled remotely, the drone can reach places easily where humans require heavy machinery to do so.

    The primary usage of the civilian drone has been for aerial photography and videography due to the high-resolution cameras that the drone can fly with. Lately, the application area has widened to agriculture, scientific research, and numerous other business segments.

    DRONE APPLICATIONS

    There are different areas where the drone is useful. Mainly in the areas where deployment of the drone can lead to lower operating cost compared to the existing solutions.

    In Agriculture it is not only important to monitor the yield of the crops but also critical to understand the effect of the new agriculture technique. Going by the traditional approach of performing the acres of land inspection manually is not only time consuming but is a labor-intensive task too. This is where the drone come into the picture. The drone can either fly from nearby centers to monitor the farming or can reside near the field. In both the cases it can be controlled remotely. On top, farmers can also be trained to fly the drone.

    The drone can be programmed with the map of the agriculture land to automatically capture the aerial high-resolution pictures and videos. The data captured can then be uploaded to the cloud servers for further analysis. The farmers can then get the accurate feedback on the progress of their crops, along with live audio/video advice.

    Another important application area of the drone is to perform survey. Surveys can be to understand the structure of a high rise, finding any faults on long pipelines located in terrain land, checking on the high rise electric pole lines, and many other important areas where humans will require heavy instruments (high cost) to reach. The drone can also be very handy in surveying bridges and tunnels. Similar to the agriculture application, the data captured from the cameras can aid in understanding whether maintenance is required or not.

    Picture By Chetan Arvind Patil

    The drone are also being used for adventure activities like capturing videos during a movie stunt, aerial view of national parks and many other adventure activities. The high resolution cameras provide breathtaking view from a point of location that humans cannot read easily.

    The drone is already is use at police and firefighter departments across the world. The primary reason to use the drone by the police departments is to inspect suspicious areas. With the help of sensors and cameras, the drone can per-alert and provide details about whether it is safe enter the area or not. The firefighters are deploying water loaded drones to put off the fire in buildings or complex, where it is not safe for a human to reach. Civil engineering and the oil/gas industry are also increasingly deploying the drone to inspect infrastructures in order to predict maintenance.

    Lately, the most crucial use case of the drone being discussed a lot is the delivery of the packages within the city flying zone. Few of the companies have already got an operating license to do so on a pilot basis. If implemented at large scale across different cities, the cost and time benefits are humongous.

    The drone will also help in reducing the carbon footprint.

    DRONE HURDLES

    The drone have numerous use cases. Hardware companies are launching new drone concepts every month. At the same time the software companies are making it easier to fly the drone along with data capturing and processing.

    However, with opportunities come hurdles.

    Currently, the biggest battle around the drone is who can use it for the commercial purpose. Many countries are coming up with the state and national level policies on the drone commercial activities. The major (and important) requirement is going to be the basic training and license required to operate the drone. It will take a few more years before the drone policies are aligned between the businesses and governments.

    Picture By Chetan Arvind Patil

    The next big challenge is the privacy. Due to the ability to fly at high altitudes, the drone may capture aerial footage of the private locations. There are already the drone catcher technologies, however these require investment and capital which not everyone can afford. Hence, clear guidelines and laws need to be defined around the drone and the privacy breach.

    Safety is another hurdle. The autopilot has been in use for a long time but only for commercial flights flow by trained pilot. When it comes to the drone, the operator is not trained for hours. It is certainly possible to automate the drone flying, but there are still users who would like to control the drone flight. There is a possibility that the flight control can be lost, thus raising safety concerns.

    The drone are becoming cheaper year-on-year. Every year, new solutions and the software/hardware technologies in the drone is also making it costly. To break even the investment on the drone systems from the business and consumers point of view can be challenging task. A subscription based buying model can be helpful.

    DRONE FUTURE

    The drone segment is poised to become a $50 Billion market by 2025. The application areas are clearly defined. Many new use cases and promising innovation around the drone technology are being implemented by several companies and startups around the world.

    Ecommerce and logistics companies have already started to experiment with the drone delivery services. Drone enables faster delivery, are more carbon-friendly, and lower the shipping cost. The drone delivery system will be game changer for cities with heavy road traffic.

    Picture By Chetan Arvind Patil

    The drone will also drive innovation of smart hardware and software products. With the expanding market, new electronic sensor-based solutions will be developed along with smart software tools to make drone flying experience safer. All this will open new revenue sources for both the software and the hardware businesses.

    The time for the drone to take off has come.

  • The Modern Ecosystem – Technology Platforms

    The Modern Ecosystem – Technology Platforms

    Photo by Reginar on Unsplash

    An ecosystem requires synchronized interaction of a Producer, Environment, and a Consumer. The inter-dependency and synchronous working leads to a perfect ecosystem on which life survives.

    In the last few decades, the definition of the ecosystem has been applied to the technology world. Ecosystem development in different business segments has enabled innovations, which has in turn provided the world with new products and solutions.

    Picture By Chetan Arvind Patil

    In technology, an ecosystem is majorly reliant on the software and hardware systems. Due to the increased proliferation of internet users worldwide, the ecosystem has moved to the digital domain too.

    All the ecosystems in software, hardware, and digital domain have created different platforms for anyone with the right skills to develop elegant solutions. The connected world allows anyone to take advantage of the existing infrastructure to provide products and services directly to the intended consumer.

    However, the development of ecosystems has been limited to each of these three domains only and it is vital to understand how future modern platforms will look like.

    HARDWARE PLATFORMS

    The invention and innovation of transistors in the last half-century made possible the development of several unique hardware solutions that have taken computing to every corner of the world.

    The form factors of computing devices have changed a lot in the last two to three decades, largely due to the Moore’s law. Every year the world gets to witness incredibly compact and insanely fast computer systems.

    The computers that were only supposed to be part of the research centers in the form of mainframe and servers, transformed into the smaller form factor of desktops in the 1980s and 1990s.

    The desktop allowed everyone to have their personal computers (PCs) at homes and offices. These PCs are capable of performing fast calculations, running high resolution videos and games apart from having ability to run applications that allow completion of numerous tasks in the shortest possible time.

    Picture By Chetan Arvind Patil

    In the late 1990s and early 2000s, portable laptops took over the world. Companies started innovating with advancement processors and graphics, and so were able to deliver content on the go. Businesses also became more mobile.

    Right after laptops, smartphones were launched in the early 2000s which allowed on the go connectivity. Smartphones connected the world at the click of a button. The form factor and battery life made it very easy to capture and consume information in real time.

    All these hardware devices have lead to the creation of hardware platforms that allow anyone to be connected and perform task remotely. The ecosystem of hardware platforms ensures that one can deploy ideas, software, and applications for consumers to use from anywhere on any hardware of their choice.

    The amazing innovative work being done by semiconductors, manufacturing, and assembly companies around the world is also the major reason for the existence of hardware platforms for everyone.

    With the improvement in connectivity, these hardware platforms have become the most critical part of the life. All the smart devices, computers, servers, sensors, and internet routers together drive hardware platforms, that are enabling innovation like never before.

    SOFTWARE PLATFORMS

    In parallel to the invention of hardware (transistors and electronics chips), one more innovative work was getting developed. It started with different types of programming languages and then moved to graphical user interface (GUI). A combination of both gave birth to the advanced softwares.

    Software took advantage of the computing capability of the hardware to provide solutions that allowed completion of tasks in hours, which otherwise would take days. Later on, with the introduction of operating systems, the hardware started to become more intuitive and smart.

    UNIX, LINUX, and Microsoft Windows played key role in ensuring that developers can contribute by deploying applications written for hardware systems.

    Picture By Chetan Arvind Patil

    Software innovation has also allowed access to the hardware internals with the help of drivers written using different libraries. With the synchronized working of the operating systems, libraries, and applications on top of a hardware platform enabled data transfer.

    In the pre-internet era, data transfer was largely limited to a floppy disk, hard drive, and a pen drive. However, post-internet era has been all about data packet transfer from one hardware to another with the help of secure software platforms.

    Software, which started a journey on mainframes as punch cards, now could run on the smallest possible hardware and sensors with minimal power consumption. This has lead to the creation of software platforms that allow the world to be digitally connected and is more real-time than ever.

    DIGITAL PLATFORMS

    Hardware and software have been in existence for many years. The last 40 years saw numerous innovations, form factors, and the true potential of these two computer systems. The computer solutions built with hardware and software combination helped building a nexus between people by providing enormous life-enriching smart solutions.

    Today, with the internet becoming part of everyone’s life, the opportunities for the next few decades are infinite. Already, modern services in 2020 are more data-driven which ensure that the right product is available at the right time for the right user.

    The combination of hardware, software, data, and the internet has provided a new platform to the world, called digital platforms.

    Picture By Chetan Arvind Patil

    Digital platforms are built on top of the hardware and software, but it differs from hardware and software platforms due to the additional use of data and the internet to provide over the top product and services. With the help of the internet, products and services can be optimized and delivered remotely.

    The data points generated with the increased usage of the internet allows any business to adapt to the consumer’s needs by accessing demand based on data points from different consumer behavior.

    As the world moves towards more advanced wireless solutions, the innovative solutions on top of the digital platforms are only going to increase.

    TECHNOLOGY PLATFORMS

    In computer programming, the concept of Application Programming Interface (API) is so powerful that it gets overwhelming to realize the elegance of solutions it helps to implement.

    In short, API allows access to the services with the help of the software commands. For example, consider the payment gateway on an eCommerce website using a third party payment solution to process payments. With the help of API, the consumers can pay using different payment modes while the eCommerce website need not be worried about the processing and security of the payment details, as it relies on the secure API from by the third party.

    Similarly, there are other solutions in the market that are API driven.

    Picture By Chetan Arvind Patil

    The technology platform applied using API will play a crucial part in realizing the one world market,

    Technology platforms are a combination of hardware, software, and digital platforms with the added element of a producer and a consumer. It is an open platform that has consumers on board with producers who have become capable of selling products without investing capital in the underlying technology.

    Technology platforms also allow single or combination of other platforms to exists and thrive. The creators of the technology platforms themselves will not be able to make full use of it until and unless the platform itself is open to both the producer and consumer.

    One of the major drawbacks of technology platforms will be the amount of time and capital expenditure it will take to create. Not every company will be able to develop the technology platforms, and thus their number will be limited.

    It is fair to say that the technology platforms were already in the making for the last few decades. Today, these platforms are more relevant than ever. Mobile networks is one example of such platforms that allow hardware to digital platforms creation.

    It will be exciting to see how the next decade with the proliferation of high-speed wireless networks will drive the technology platform innovation.