THE BIG IDEA

Actionable intelligence for the global electronics industry

q The Big Idea Cell nets get small

q Company Teardown� Silicon Labs stays the course

page 5

q EET on the QT Vulnerable drones; Protecting space

tourists; Rambus and Unitypage 8

q VC Watch U.K.’s eoSemi shakes up oscillators

page 11

q Market Data Europe’s MEMS push

page 13

See, page 14

March 2012

http://confidential.eetimes.com

Small Cells Shaking UpCellular Networks

A new class of compact basestations, nowbeing defined, promises to act as a

disruptive influence in the next big waveof cellular-network infrastructure

Over the next two years, the relatively staid market for cellular base -stations will see a disruption equivalent to the advent of the tabletcomputer. That’s when a new wave of small-cell basestations sport-ing hybrid cellular/Wi-Fi radios will emerge, giving operators new

ways to build out their networks and consumers new ways toremain connected.

With market dynamics in flux, small and emergingsystem makers are looking for ways to grab a slice ofthe $40.3 billion basestation market long dominatedby Alcatel-Lucent, Ericsson, NEC and Nokia SiemensNetworks. Some of the entrenched giants already areusing acquisitions to shore up their positions.

Carriers will forge their own partnerships aroundsmall cells, looking to share the hefty costs of building out whatamounts to a new tier of their wireless networks. In some cases,they may end up sharing cells mounted on streetlights or inpublic buildings with other operators, cities or businesses.

The carrier deals could spawn new market dynamics thatwill ripple through the supply chain. Smart semiconductormakers that anticipate the waves and carefully ride them to

new opportunities will avoid getting washed away.

Inside the small cellsTo date, cellular basestations have usually come in one

size, owned and run by individual carriers that placed them insealed outdoor boxes at the foot of antenna towers. These main-

frames of the wireless world came under assault a few years agoby femtocells, small residential terminals that extend coverage

generally to individual homes in dead zones. Though femto-cells are showing slow but steady growth, industry ana-lysts no longer see them as a market disrupter. Instead,

they are used more as commodity systems provided free bycarriers to help fill coverage gaps.

Over the past year, the concept of something more signifi-

cant in the no-man’s land between a traditionalbasestation and a femtocell has gained swaywith network planners. A mix of carriers andprivate companies plan to use these small cellsto form a second tier of the wireless network,one that provides greater capacity in urbanprecincts and extends coverage in rural areas.

Indeed, small cells could solve carriers’ biggestproblems: a flood of mobile data in cities and alack of low-cost options and spectrum to extendtheir networks. But network planners and engi-neers are still defining the small-cell basestation.

The Femto Forum trade group of operatorsand OEMs captured the shift in focus just beforelast month’s Mobile World Congress, renamingitself the Small Cell Forum.

Concepts for micro-, pico- and metrocells areevolving. Several flavors of products are apt toemerge. Some will focus on indoor installationsfor a few users in a confined space, such as anoffice or shop. Others will be more robust for useoutside by larger groups of more mobile users.

All sides agree that next-generation base -stations will need to support a mix of 3G, 4GLong Term Evolution (LTE) and Wi-Fi networks.They also will have to work seamlessly to handoff traffic to each other and to the traditionalbasestations across all three nets.

Those requirements force a lot of work in soft-ware and standards that are still very much inprogress. The 3rd Generation Partnership Project(3GPP), for instance, is still hammering out a specfor IP flow mobility (IFOM) to bring some of theauthentication, security and management capa-bilities of a cellular connection to Wi-Fi links.

Illustrating the software complexity, the engi-neering team at IP.Access (Cambridge, U.K.), oneof the more successful of the up-and-comingsmall-cell startups, has 20 software engineers forevery hardware engineer. IP.Access struck a dealwith Radisys to make back-end gateways to pairwith its homegrown small cells and software inorder to offer a package that tries to rival offer-ings from such giants as Ericsson.

EE|Times Confidential March 2012

2

THE BIG IDEA

Next-generation

basestations

will have to

support a mix

of 3G, 4G LTE

and Wi-Fi

networks—and

seamlessly

hand off traffic

A Guide to Big Players in Small CellsCompany Status OutlookEntrenched giantsEricsson Acquired carrier Wi-Fi company Promises merged cellular/Wi-Fi microcells in

Belair Networks in February 2012 early 2013

Alcatel-Lucent Rolled out Light Radio modules in 2011 Claims to be working on small-cell designs with sevencarriers, including, China Mobile, Telefonicaand Verizon

Nokia Siemens Acquired Flexi Zone mesh-networking In trials with release in first-quarter 2013Networks technology from Motorola in 2011 to

make 100 small cells appear as one to carriers

SpoilersHuawei Said to be significantly undercutting Announced Atom-brand small cells

competition in basestation prices

China Mobile Started Cloud RAN initiative in March Aims for volume product shipments in 20162011 to run basestation jobs on x86 servers

The femto startupsIP.Access Struck deal with Radisys to co-design Promising 3G/4G LTE/Wi-Fi small cells ready for

gateways field trials in early 2013

Ubiquisys Claims femtocell lead with 32 contracts Developed novel model going into trials using IntelAtom to run caching and other apps

Source: EE Times Confidential

3

EE|Times Confidential March 2012

Three sets of companies will converge overthe next two years on the small-cell market withnew products. Along with IP.Access, a wholecrop of femtocell companies will collide withthe entrenched giants coming in from the mar-ket for macro basestations, as the traditionalboxes are now called. Somewhere in the middlethey will meet companies such as Alvarion thathave been selling carrier-grade Wi-Fi systems toquickly offload strained mobile data nets.

The action will begin in earnest next yearwhen most of the players expect to have hybrid3G/4G/Wi-Fi small cells ready for carrier trials. Ifall goes well, carriers should start investing inreal deployments in 2014 as part of a secondwave of the LTE networks.

Setting the trend, the first wave of LTE deploy-ments started in late 2010 using standard macrobasestations. Alcatel-Lucent and Ericsson wonmost of the business from AT&T and Verizon,who have deployed three-quarters of the LTEbasestations to date. Nokia Siemens Networkshas a handful of contracts from carriers in SouthKorea and Japan that represent most of theremaining LTE market.

It’s been a slow roll for LTE. So far, only 9 mil-lion subscribers are using the 4G nets out ofabout 3.6 billion cellular subscribers worldwide.Of those, 1.3 billion subscribers are already onbroadband nets. Many European carriers are justgetting started with LTE trials, focusing first onmacro basestations.

It’s only after the first layer of macro LTEbasestations goes in that the second tier of smallcells will follow. But preparations for thatdeployment already are under way.

Consolidation started when Ericsson boughtcarrier Wi-Fi specialist Belair Networks in

February. At the Mobile World Congress,Ericsson promised microcells that will combinethe two companies’ technologies in 2013.

Who will follow next is anyone’s guess.IP.Access and Ubiquisys, which together supplymost of today’s femtocells, are living on multi-ple rounds of venture-capital investments thathave swelled to as much as $60 million each.Partnerships are in place that could pave theway to acquisitions. Ubiquisys already suppliesfemtocells on an OEM basis to NEC and NokiaSiemens Networks; IP.Access supplies femtos toCisco for AT&T’s network.

Cost dynamicsCarriers face their own pressures. European

operators have spent an estimated $8 billion onLTE spectrum and face spending another $30 bil-lion to roll out LTE. Meanwhile, over-the-topservices on their networks are siphoning offbusiness for such data-heavy services as stream-ing music and movies.

Those pressures led Vittorio Colao, chief exec-utive officer of Vodaphone, Europe’s largest car-rier with more than 400 million subscribers, torenew a call for co-investing in building out thecellular network. “So far we have not succeededin getting anyone to do it,” he says.

Nevertheless, Franco Bernabe, chair of TelecomItalia and of the GSMA group of operators thathosts Mobile World Congress, says that buildingout LTE nets is the top priority for carriers today.

European carriers already are passing the costsqueeze on to small-cell makers. A network plan-ner for Spain’s Telefonica called for small cellsthat cost less than $1,000, three orders of magni-tude less than traditional basestations, which sellfor more than $1 million each. Telefonica is test-ing prototype Light Radio small cells from Alcatel-Lucent that cost from $2,000 to $5,000.

Meanwhile, availability of $100 femtocell boxeshas skewed carriers’ expectations, notes AndyTiller, vice president of marketing for IP.Access, acompany that has provided such systems. “Thereality is the hardware for small cells is more thantwo or three times more expensive than for femto-cells, and then you have to deal with the extrasoftware complexity of hybrid cellular/Wi-Fi carri-er networks—and you have to make a businessout of it. These small cells will sell in tens of thou-sands of units, not millions like the femtocells.”

Two potential spoilers out of China are addingpressure to the cost squeeze. HuaweiTechnologies (Shenzhen) already is significantly

THE BIG IDEA

The action will

pick up in

2013, when

players have

hybrid small

cells ready for

carrier trials

Growing the Small-Cell MarketTotal small-cell shipments by unit• 3.2 million in 2012

• 62.4 million by 2016 (small cells become 88%of all basestations)

Breakdown by small-cell type• Femtocells: 2.5 million in 2012 to 59 millionin 2016

• Enterprise and public-area picocells: 140K in2012 to 540K in 2016

• Public-access microcells and metrocells (mainlyoutdoors): 595K in 2012 to 2.9 million in 2016

Source: Informa Telecoms & Media

EE|Times Confidential March 2012

4

A third-party

software suppli-

er could

become the

equivalent of

an arms dealer

to all sides

THE BIG IDEA

undercutting prices of Ericsson and Alcatel-Lucent in macro basestations, operators say. Forits part, China Mobile (Hong Kong), the world’slargest carrier with 650 million subscribers, isworking on a plan to use data centers of x86-based servers to replace basestations altogether.

Intel, IBM, Huawei and ZTE have collaboratedon proof-of-concept designs for the Cloud RadioAccess Network (C-RAN) concept. Intel isalready at work on a next-generation SoC that,when paired with one of its Xeon server chips,could handle many of the DSP functions of abasestation.

It could take a few years before commercial C-RAN products are ready and a decade before theygain widespread use, predicts Bill Huang, head ofR&D at China Mobile. Huang is quick to admitthat China Mobile will need big backhaul pipes.China has an unusually hefty amount of opticalfiber in place to connect remote antennas to thedata centers—but, Huang jokes, it could requirean army of robots to install enough fiber to

make the concept practical nationwide.As players sort out their next move, a few

intriguing opportunities are emerging. A third-party software supplier could aim to become theequivalent of an arms dealer to all sides, withcode to manage traffic across cellular and Wi-Finets. Alternatively, an open-source project couldtry to commoditize the secret sauce by getting thecellular community to develop it.

Hardware challenges abound as well. NickJohnson, chief technologist at IP.Access, looks inchagrin at the eight fat power amps his small-celldesign needs to handle the four cellular bands ithas to service.

The first chipmaker managing to launch a poweramp or support circuits that could span 700–900MHz and/or 1.7–2.6 GHz and handle 2xs3 multiple-input/multiple output (MIMO) operation will havea big win on its hands for small-cell makers.Johnson claims that at least two chip companiesare in advanced stages with such products.

The power-amp issue is one of many wherechipmakers could apply new techniques andsmart integration to help handle cost constraints.Before the big battles in small cells are over, plen-ty of silicon opportunities are likely to emerge forsuch existing players as Freescale, Broadcom,Mindspeed and Texas Instruments along withnew ones such as Intel.

All sides should expect shifts up and down thesupply chain as standards are put in place, designsare completed and OEMs and operators collide andcollaborate to build out a new class of more distrib-uted cellular networks. –Rick Merritt

Small Cells, Big GrowthSmall cells could account for 88% of all cellsby 2016

2011 2015

Small-cell total 3,197,809 62,365,50

Macrocell total 5,167,522 8,857,291

Total Cells 8,365,331 71,222,791

Source: Informa Telecoms & Media

EE Times ConfidentialA UBM Electronics Publication(516) 562-5000; Fax: (516) 562-5325

CEO, UBM ElectronicsPUBLISHERPaul Miller(415) 947-6631paul.miller@ubm.com

EDITOR IN CHIEF, EE TimesConfidentialGeorge Leopold(516) 562-5090george.leopold@ubm.com

EDITOR IN CHIEF, EE TimesJunko Yoshida(516) 232-7835junko.yoshida@ubm.com

ART DIRECTORDebee Rommel(516) 562-5280debee.rommel@ubm.com

CONTRIBUTING EDITORSPeter Clarke, London(011) 44 7767 865593peter.clarke@ubm.com

Dylan McGrath, San Francisco(415) 738-6428dylan.mcgrath@ubm.com

Rick Merritt, San Jose(408) 930-7372rick.merritt@ubm.com

Nicolas Mokhoff, New York(516) 562-5625nicolas.mokhoff@ubm.com

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To subscribe, please go to http://confidential.eetimes.comMarketing contact: Linda Uslaner, linda.uslaner@ubm.com or 516-562-5843Sales contact: Kevin Davies, kevin.davies@ubm.com or 610-420-5028

Riding a wave of its ownmixed-signal designsinto a broad-based horizontal market, SiliconLaboratories is “well positioned” to competeagainst Texas Instruments for a supporting rolein the emerging “Internet of Things,” saysSilicon Labs CEO Necip Sayiner.

Since nearly every chip company CEO withdecent mixed-signal expertise is trumpeting anInternet of Things strategy, Sayiner’s claimscome as no surprise. You might even say thattrumpets are cheap.e

But Sayiner plans to back up his talk with aseries of new products, including chips that inte-grate microelectromechanical systems (MEMS),sensors, radio frequency (RF), microcontrollerand analog technologies. The company hopes toroll out the devices this year. With that in mind,Sayiner likes his chances of gaining prominencein the Internet of Things market.

On March 1, Silicon Labs announced thatSayiner will pass the top spot to Tyson Tuttle,Silicon Labs’ chief operating officer. The transi-tion takes effect on April 18. Tuttle, who hasbeen with Silicon Labs since 1997, appears tohave been groomed for some time. He becameCOO last year, managing the company’s busi-ness units and R&D activities.

During a conference call announcing thesuccession, Tuttle said, “I am already intimate-ly involved in day-to-day operations.” He alsomade clear that his view of Silicon Labs’ strate-

gy differs little from Sayiner’s. “We are not inneed of a new strategy,” Tuttle said. “We have agreat business and we’d like to preserve andbuild upon what made it successful.”

Silicon Labs already has succeeded with its80C51-based microcontroller units (MCUs). Inlate February it added 32-bit MCUs based on theadvanced-RISC-machine (ARM) architecture.

Though the ARM-based MCU market is “aspace already well served” by Silicon Labs’competitors, Sayiner stresses, “We’d like to

think that what we are sellingisn’t [just] MCUs but mixed sig-nals with MCU in it.”

As the Internet of Thingsmoves from concept to reality,where everything from doorknobs to lightbulbs and thermo-stats are expected to have an IPaddress and a link to the Internet,Silicon Labs sees a growing oppor-tunity for flooding the marketwith low-power, low-cost mixed-signal microprocessor units(MPUs)—“integrated with sens-ing, communications and smarts

in a single device,” Sayiner says. Investment-banker Piper Jaffray recom-

mends Silicon Labs’ stock as “overweight,”meaning a better value for the money. In itsmost recent research note on Silicon Labs, thefirm’s research analyst concludes that “webelieve Silicon Labs has very strong, and yet tobe announced, new products in the lab.”

One could surmise that silicon tuners,quartz-free oscillators and mix-signal ICs inte-grated with MCUs are three key reasons whyboth financial and industry analysts are payingattention to Silicon Labs.

TransformationSilicon Labs was founded in 1996 by threeindustry veterans from Crystal Semiconductor.Though the company was initially focused onestablished products such as cellular trans-ceivers and analog modems, it now positions

Three Reasons To Take SiliconLabs Seriously

EE|Times Confidential March 2012

qCOMPANY TEARDOWN

5

Departing CEO

Sayiner is

betting that

Silicon Labs will

have a promi-

nent position in

the emerging

Internet of

Things market

Outgoing Silicon Labs CEO Necip Sayiner (left), incomingCEO Tyson Tuttle. Sayiner’s tenure ends in April

EE|Times Confidential March 2012

6

qCOMPANY TEARDOWN

Silicon Labs stands on solid financial ground, boosted by its morethan 60% gross margin

2005 2006 2007 2008 2009 2010 2011

Revenue $239M $288M $337M $416M $441M $493M $492M

Gross margin 66.5% 65.1% 61.4% 62.4% 63.8% 66.0% 61.6%

(Note all the gross margin numbers are based on non-GAAP figures)Source: Silicon Labs

itself as a vendor of “high-performance, ana-log-intensive, mixed-signal ICs.”

The company’s annual revenue in the fiscalyear ending December 31 was $491.6 million,down slightly from $493 million a year earlier.The company stands on solid financialground, having posted a profit every quartersince its 2000 IPO. The company’s gross mar-gins have impressively exceeded 60 percent.

Sayiner says the company has undergone “asignificant transformation” since he joined asCEO six and a half years ago. Just five yearsago, most of its current products didn’t exist.Sayiner’s plan was to expand Silicon Labs’business in two directions, delving deeper intovertical product segments while capturingbusiness in broad-based horizontal markets.

In the past two years, Silicon Labs’ TVtuners have recorded significant growth inone vertical market: broadcast.

The silicon TV tuner is a decade-old marketsegment that’s been hyped, targeted and tack-led unsuccessfully by pioneering silicon tuner-chip vendors such as Microtune. The TV mar-ket “stubbornly resisted any significant pene-tration of silicon tuners prior to 2009,” accord-ing to IHS iSuppli. Silicon tuners fared well indigital cable and satellite set-tops but faltered inTV sets still receiving analog and digital broad-cast signals. TV manufacturers were turned offby the high cost of silicon tuners as well as bytheir subpar analog performance.

According Sayiner, the market took off twoyears ago “when we cracked the code,achieved the level of performance TV OEMshad expected and began offering [silicontuners] at the right cost.” In 2011, Silicon Labs’silicon TV tuners were in “20 percent of allTVs sold globally,” he claims.

The company isn’t alone in benefiting fromthe move to silicon tuners. NXP

Semiconductors has been delivering similarhigh-performance silicon TV tuners based on aBiCMOS process. MaxLinear also is catching up.

Silicon Labs expects silicon-tuner penetra-tion into the TV market to rise to about 50 per-cent in 2012. It also expects that its own sili-con TV tuner’s market share will grow to atleast 30 percent this year.

If Silicon Labs owed its success exclusivelyto silicon TV tuners, it would just be anotherone-hit wonder. But it has hitched its future toSayiner’s diversification strategy.

With the broader market representing morethan 40 percent of the company’s revenue,Sayiner predicts that “in a few quarters, weexpect 50 percent of our revenue to come fromthis segment.” Products targeting broad-basedmarkets include mixed-signal MCUs, timingdevices, human-interface controllers, and sen-sors and wireless receivers.

Crystal-based oscillators are one area inwhich Silicon Labs has made headway, accord-ing to the CEO. The focus is on quartz-free,ultrastable silicon-oscillator technology aimedat providing all-silicon solutions. “The frequen-cy of an oscillator is determined by the thick-ness of crystal quartz,” Sayiner says. That meansit requires a unique quartz-crystal resonator togenerate each frequency. “It involves a mechani-cal process of cutting the quartz,” he adds.

The company has developed and patented aflexible-silicon architecture, coupling its oscil-lator to a phase-locked loop and using a DSP asa corrector, that lets it provide “an oscillator ofany frequency at any type of resolution cus-tomers require, very quickly.” Sayiner says,adding “We can register it, test it and ship itjust in two days.”

For low- to midrange oscillators, SiliconLabs uses a “MEMS structure as a resonator”and integrates it on top of a CMOS IC. The

EE|Times Confidential March 2012

7

architecture “almost looks like through-sili-con vias,” Sayiner says. “We believe this willcreate good stability for low-cost oscillators.”

Silicon Labs has been refining the CMOS-plus-MEMS approach since acquiring thetechnology two years ago from a SiliconValley startup called Silicon Clocks. The goalis “integrating a crystal in any IC, thus remov-ing the need for a discrete crystal,” Sayinersays.

Steve Ohr, Gartner’s research analyst foranalog and power semiconductors, expects sil-icon clocks and timing controllers to result inimpressive growth for Silicon Labs. The com-pany “carved out a slot for itself with its owncrystal-based oscillators and clock generatorsoffering high frequency and high precision,”Ohr says.

He cautions, however, that “with SiliconClocks, Silicon Labs is moving into promisingbut technically difficult terrain.” Coupling aMEMS resonator “has a different set of manu-facturing challenges,” Ohr says.

Further, the MEMS-based approach is “get-ting a lot of attention from heavyweights likeIDT, TI and ADI , and even relative new -comers like ON Semiconductor,” Ohr says. “Itpromises to be highly price-competitive in afew short years.”

Semico Research’s new report on MEMSoscillators concludes that the technologyremains “at a nascent stage” and pegs its sizeat less than 1 percent of the $6.3 billion tim-ing market, but adds that “the potentialgrowth of MEMS oscillators continues toattract more vendors. There are currently ninevendors shipping MEMS oscillators. Twomore have announced they will start shippinglater in 2012. More are expected to jump intothis market.”

Mixed-signal MCUsIntegrating more mixed-signal components

into MCUs is a big industry trend. “There ishardly an 8-bit microcontroller out there fromany manufacturer that doesn’t have A/D con-verters on the front and D/A converters ontheir tail,” notes Ohr.

NXP, for example, has an elaborate 8-bit linewith the same 80C51 core used by Silicon Labs.

“Where SiLabs has upped the ante on this isin putting a 16-bit converter on the front of an8-bit controller [taking the data in two stages]and a 12-bit converter on the back,” Ohr says.The structural change is important because12bits is about all the resolution a machine toolcan handle, “but the extra bits enable process

monitors to account for things like ‘bearingwobble,’” he adds.

Ohr also stresses that Silicon Labs isn’t thefirst company to take this approach. “AnalogDevices has a line of microverters [that] willtalk to an ARM core as well as the 80C51.” But“to be sure, Silicon Labs has made ultralow-power versions of the 80C51, enabling it tocompete with ARM for slots in handheldportables.”

Similar arguments apply to Silicon Labs’upcoming 32-bit ARM-based microcontrollers.

“Companies such as STMicro, TI andFreescale offer 32-bit MCUs that include someanalog capabilities. For example, TI’s Stellarisline includes an ARM CPU plus analog capa-bilities such as A/D converters, USB transceiv-er and voltage regulator,” says Linley Groupfounder Linley Gwennap. “Silicon Labs differ-entiates with a better ADC, capacitive sensorsfor touch panels, high-drive analog I/O andmuch lower active and sleep current.”

Gwennap continues, “Most of the compo-nents Silicon Labs is integrating are usefulacross a broad range of markets, whichincreases their value. Every design needs anoscillator, most need a voltage regulator andmany need USB. The capacitive sensors allowsystems to use touch controls instead of pushbuttons. These are becoming increasinglypopular in consumer electronics, bothbecause of their ‘cool’ factor and because theyeliminate costly and failure-prone buttons.”

Recalling how silicon TV tuners languishedfor a decade without taking off, Sayiner pre-dicts that the Internet of Things will remain aniche unless the industry can offer low-costlow-power solutions (low-battery power or nobattery necessary) integrated with sensors,low-power wireless connectivity and othersmarts on a single device. The concept “willnot get adopted in a big way without such asupport, because these devices need to go toevery node, including doors, windows, thermostats and smoke alarms."

What are Silicon Labs’ chances of making adent in the still largely hypothetical Internetof Things?

Gwennap thinks its chances are good.“Silicon Labs MCUs reduce system cost byintegrating analog components. Their lowpower, particularly in sleep mode, is ideal forbattery-powered devices,” he says. “Theseadvantages should gain consideration forSilicon Labs, even in the face of establishedMCU competitors such as TI and Freescale.”–Junko Yoshida

qCOMPANY TEARDOWN

“Most of the

components

are useful

across a broad

range of mar-

kets”—increas-

ing their value

EE|Times Confidential March 2012

8

qEET ON THE QT

The Weak Link in Drone DeploymentsAs regulators try to figure out where unmanned aircraft fit in thenation’s crowded airspace, opposition to the deployment of commer-cial drones is growing on several fronts. Civil liberties groups, includ-ing the Electronic Frontier Foundation, are among those lead-ing the charge against what they view as intrusive “eyes in the sky”that could be used for unauthorized surveillance.

A host of technical issues also must be resolved before theFederal Aviation Administration’s plan to deploy civiliandrones can proceed. Among them is how to shield the vital and vul-nerable radio-frequency (RF) links that will be used to control drones.

Communications experts such as Ganesh Gopalakrishnan of theOptoelectronics Industry Development Association worrythat RF links used to control drones could be hacked or otherwiseinterfered with. That could spell disaster for an unmanned aircraft fly-ing over a populated area.

“Absolute control over the RF link will be next to impossible froman RF engineers’ perspective and [based on] the technology andcontrols available today,” another worried engineer says. “Can youimagine the RF equivalent of the Internet group ‘anonymous’ wherethey break into the RF link and start messing with these drones?”

Crashes and mid-air collisions over urban areas are another con-cern, despite FAA assurances that it will take steps to ensure safeoperation of drones. Drones flying above 400 feet will require FAAauthorization.

Nevertheless, at least one metropolitan police force has reported acrash while testing a drone. The Montgomery County Sherriff’s Officenorth of Houston confirmed a crash in early March. The prototypedrone was reportedly 18 feet off the ground when controllers lostcontact with it. The drone hit the county SWAT team’s armored vehi-cle, resulting in “blade strikes,” officials confirmed. –George Leopold

Markets

Safety Concerns Could Stall Countdown for SpaceTouristsCommercial companies developing spacecraft that could carry thrillseekers to the edge of space or into orbit have been lining up cus-tomers willing to dish out large sums for a heavenly view.

With the fledgling industry literally about to take flight, lawmakersand regulators need quick responses to emerging issues such as thesafety of space tourists in what is an inherently risky enterprise. Criticslike space analyst John Pike have warned that space entrepreneurssuch as Elon Musk of SpaceX, Richard Branson of Virgin Galacticand Jeff Bezos of Blue Origin haven’t completed anywhere near theamount of rocket and spacecraft testing needed to ensure a measureof crew safety beyond what NASA astronauts can expect.

Pike, founder of GlobalSecurity.org, argues that space accidentsare inevitable and that it is unclear whether a commercial industry cansurvive the death of a space tourist.

Lawmakers are debating safety issues related to space tourism,including whether or how the Federal Aviation Administration(FAA) should work with other federal agencies such as the NationalAeronautics and Space Administration (NASA) to develop strictsafety standards for commercial space operators. They also are debatingthe sticky issue of liability in the event of an accident. One unresolvedquestion is whether the government should extend “shared liability andindemnification protection” to the commercial spaceflight industry.

Much of legislators’ attention is focused on the FAA’s Office ofCommercial Space Transportation, which, among other things, is chargedwith ensuring the safety of space tourists. In anticipation of coming com-mercial launches, the Obama administration is requesting a 2.6 percentincrease in the office’s fiscal 2013 budget, to $16.7 million.

Critics worry that the office’s dual role as regulator and promoter ofcommercial spaceflight creates a conflict of interest. “The public needsa clear understanding of the risks involved with commercial spacetransportation, and it will need to be convinced those risks are beingeffectively managed,” Rep. Jerry Costello (D-Ill.) warned during a hear-ing earlier this month on the FAA office’s budget.

Among the proponents of commercial space tourism, Rep. StevenPalazzo (R-Miss.), chair of a House space panel, pointed out during thehearing that the FAA office has licensed more than 200 launches since1989 without a fatality—“which is a notable record in this inherentlyrisky business.”

With the list of planned commercial launches of space tourists grow-ing, promoters and skeptics alike will soon find out whether safety regu-lations designed to protect space tourists are sufficient to ensure ahappy landing. –George Leopold

EE|Times Confidential March 2012qEET ON THE QT

9

Here Come 5G Nets

Alcatel-Lucent, Ericsson, Huawei and a handful of European uni-versities are requesting funds from the European Union to start a newresearch project on fifth-generation (5G) wireless networks. A decision on whether to fund the proposal is expected this fall.

Though details of the proposal remain secret, researchers are dis-cussing the broad outlines of what such a network would look like.Chinese researchers also are contemplating the outlook for 5G nets, butthose talks are less advanced than those in Europe.

“It’s still quite early, but for those of us in research it’s the right timeto starting thinking about what 5G might mean,” said Tod Sizer, head ofwireless research at Alcatel-Lucent’s Bell Labs division, in an interviewwith EE Times Confidential.

Only about 9 million of today’s 3.6 billion cellular subscribers are onthe 4G Long Term Evolution (LTE) networks now being deployed.Nevertheless, Sizer notes, research efforts in Europe and elsewhere ledto the definition of today’s 3G and 4G standards.

The major issue shaping the new wave in cellular is a growing diver-sity of devices and services.

Sizer expects a mixed bag of machine-to-machine communicationsto generate even more traffic in the next decade than today’s rapidlygrowing use of smartphones and tablets. “There will be an explosion ofmachine-to-machine devices that have no user interface,” he predicts.

That will include everything from simple wireless sensors to sophisti-cated high-definition video-surveillance networks. Each new device andservice will have its own set of needs. “A one-minute delay for a tem-perature sensor is acceptable, but in a video call it is not,” Sizer says.“You can’t characterize in any shape or form these devices—some willneed short bursts of information, and some will need a lot.”

New devices and services also will drive significant changes in net-work architecture. For example, voice-over-Internet protocol (VoIP) on anLTE network can require up to 40 bytes of header information to trans-mit a 24-byte chunk of voice data. “The way we set up calls needs tobe streamlined a great deal to make nets more efficient,” Sizerexplains. “The amount of control signaling and message passing can’tdwarf the actual data sent.”

In addition, networks will need to “determine what apps are runningand their requirements, so they can modify themselves.” That impliesthat next-generation switches and routers “may need to be very differ-ent,” Sizer adds.

At the same time, 5G nets could be a more heterogeneous mix ofcellular and Wi-Fi links, further complicating network architectures. Next-generation LTE standards already in the works greatly simplify datasharing between cellular and Wi-Fi nets.

Unity Gives Rambus a Horse in the Memory RaceThere was a time when Unity Semiconductor was a promising start-up working on next-generation nonvolatile memory. Like others, however,Unity discovered it was extremely difficult to outflank incumbent NANDflash-memory technology.

In 2002, Unity began working on a metal-oxide variable-resistortechnology called CMOx for use in a cross-point memory. Its plan wasto introduce new memory components as early as 2010. The termCMOx was meant to emphasize compatibility with standard CMOSprocesses. By August 2010, Unity was forced to abandon its productplans and move to an intellectual-property licensing model. In January2011, Micron Technology bailed out the company with an undis-closed investment.

Given that history, one wonders why Rambus would pay $35 millionto acquire Unity.

Rambus’ memory strategy involved trying to get ahead of the curveto replace DRAM and flash technologies. Former Unity CEO DavidEggleston, now a Rambus senior vice president of nonvolatile memorystorage, says Unity realized it would take longer to get memory productsto market. That meant it needed a foster parent to nurture its still-promising technology. The Rambus deal was a good fit, despite ongoinglegal battles between Rambus and Micron.

Under terms of the deal, Unity can continue its CMOx joint-develop-ment program with Micron. Eggleston makes clear that Rambus isn’tsimply trying to exploit Unity’s patents: 147 granted and others pend-ing, built up over a decade of research. Rather, Rambus is backingUnity to continue technology development and create memory intellec-tual property and cores that it can license to new customers.

Despite the long gestation of its technology, Unity’s advantage in thememory market rests with both its materials technology and its com-pact cross-point memory cell. Stacked cells are critical when the areapenalty of underlying decode circuitry is added to the equation.

"Unity has learned how to build selectivity into the memory cell,"says Eggleston, adding that filamentary-resistive RAMs exhibit high-cur-

Nuts & Bolts

As a result, 5G will focus more on network flexibility and less onwhizzy new data rates: “5G needs to be a discussion about providingservices flexibly, not new data rates,” Sizer says. “The service needs tobe separate from the underlying technology.”

Nevertheless, Sizer estimates that 5G’s improvements could boostdata rates by a factor of two over LTE, “but I don’t think an order ofmagnitude is needed as it was with 4G systems.

“There’s slight room for improvement, but we have been close to[theoretical limits on maximum data rates] for many years,” he says.“Improvement [in raw data rates] will require use of small cells andmultiple antennas.” –Rick Merritt

DEALS

EE|Times Confidential March 2012

10

qEET ON THE QT

rent write. “It is limiting this current through a bi-layer in CMOx thatRambus sees as valuable.”

The technology is based on the movement of oxygen vacancies in ametal-oxide crystal lattice. However, Unity and Rambus remain quietabout the particular metal-oxide bi-layer materials they are using.Known metal-oxides for ReRAMs, sometimes called memory resistors ormemristors, include titanium, tantalum and hafnium oxide.

Issues surrounding an industrywide transition to ReRAM are mademore complex with the upcoming transition to extreme ultraviolet (EUV)lithography, needed to write minimum geometries below 20 nano -meters. Eggleston says NAND flash could shift to vertical integrationwithout going to EUV. That would buy NAND flash some addition time.

Eggleston expects vertical NAND and vertical ReRAM to co-exist inthe market. Hewlett-Packard and partner Hynix Semiconductorare aiming to bring their memristor to the market as early as 2013. Thatprompts Eggleston to predict that “2015 is the time for commercializa-tion of ReRAM,” with a 2018 transition to vertical ReRAM.

Rambus is working with Micron and equipment supplier AppliedMaterials to develop the right implementation point, number of layersand atomic-layer-deposition processes to optimize its thin-memoryoxide layers.

“I think it's a good buy for Rambus, considering what they got for themoney,” says Alan Niebel, principal analyst at Web-Feet Research,which closely tracks the memory market. “I still believe the team thatwent over to Rambus has a motivation [to succeed].”

Niebel adds, however, that it remains unclear whether CMOx or anyother technology can displace flash. “They've got two more years ofhard work to bring it to production-ready status,” he notes. –Peter Clarke

RIVALS

The Face of Korea’s Mobile Software PushMeet David C. Park, code jockey.

David could be mistaken for a model. He’s quick to flash a wide,handsome smile from under a swirl of jet-black hair. A white tie accentshis black shirt, and a black overcoat is tailored to his slim frame.

David is a software research engineer for LG Electronics, one ofsome 5,000 mobile software developers in South Korea. He’s the polaropposite of the stereotypical software nerd: no pocket protector, nohorn-rimmed glasses.

We bumped into David at the bustling LG stand at the MobileWorld Congress, where some 60,000 attendees had come to checkout the latest in cellular gadgets and networks. Park helped lead thedesign of the software for the Optimus Vu, LG’s latest, greatest smart-phone, showcased front and center at its stand.

It’s an impressive handset: Despite the unusually large five-inch dis-play, the device is just 8.5-millimeters deep.

One of the cool things about the Optimus Vu is its note-taking capa-bility. On any application, users can make annotations with a small sty-lus, then save their notes, print them and send them as jpegs. Theimplementation looked smooth and sophisticated.

Nearly 20 years ago, note taking was going to be the killer app thatignited a new era in pen computing, spawning a raft of startups withnames that played on the words pen, ink or note. It never happened.The hardware was too slow and power hungry, and mobile data net-works were still in their infancy. But nothing ever dies in electronics, andperhaps technology has caught up with digital notes.

LG’s archrival Samsung clearly thinks so. It made a big splash witha similar design, the Galaxy Note, unveiled in expensive Super Bowl adstwo weeks earlier. The Korean giant promoted it on Barcelona city busesand in a multistory poster on a building outside the entrance to the bigmobile show.

Who had the idea first is inconsequential. The point is that Koreancode jockeys such as David Park are plugged in and trying to push theboundaries of what’s next in mobile. Their level of style and sophistica-tion should be raising eyebrows in Cupertino. –Rick Merritt

British fabless-chip startup eoSemi is sam-pling a CMOS replacement for kilohertzcrystal oscillators while disclosing detailsof its technology.

The company is targeting 32-kHz crystaloscillators used in mobile phones, whereeoSemi engineers believe it can offer +/–30ppm or better accuracy over a wide temper-ature range. The devices require onlymicroamps of current and can provide sig-nificant space and cost savings.

Though harmonic oscil-lator circuits can be fabri-cated in silicon, the mate-rial produces wide varia-tions in material proper-ties, ultimately resultingin variations in frequency;such circuits have a ten-dency to drift against tem-perature or in response tostresses in transistors thatmake up the circuit.Hence, it is common prac-tice to include separate,more precise oscillators based on the piezo-electric effect in crystal materials. Mostconsumer devices use at least one quartzcrystal oscillator to provide basic referencesignals that drive digital clock circuits andother necessary timing and frequency ref-erences. But current oscillators are bulky.

In response, eoSemi has developed atechnology it calls ATOC, for accurate tim-ing oscillator circuit. ATOC is designed toreplace bulky quartz crystals with an ICimplemented in 180-nanometer mixed-sig-nal CMOS that is smaller and easier to inte-grate, uses less power and costs less thancompeting products.

The company was formed in November2005 by chip industry veteran Ian Macbeth,who serves as CEO, and three colleagues;fellow co-founder Adrian Bratt holds downthe post of vice president of engineering.Both worked for Anadigm and PilkingtonMicroelectronics, developers of field-pro-

grammable ICs. Until 2009, eoSemi wasself funded. Since then, eoSemi hasreceived $4.5 million in venture capitalfrom NESTA Investments, Capital-E andEnterprise Ventures.

The founders took a deliberate approachto identifying and developing the technolo-gy. The resulting ATOC technology lookslike a particular application of a digitallycontrolled analog circuit.

Rather than striving for perfect silicon,eoSemi focuses on sensingand then compensatingfor performance changesbased on temperature andphysical stresses within adevice. The fundamentalcircuit design allows theoscillator’s output fre-quency to be tuned in realtime, compensating fordrift over the device’s life-time. The calibrationoccurs during manufactur-ing: Codes specific to each

device are programmed into nonvolatilememory on the die.

The device draws 8 microamps in activemode and delivers an accuracy of under +/–30 ppm over an operating temperaturerange of –40 to +85°C. That means the tim-ing reference complies with system-designrequirements of major 3G handset manufac-turers, the company notes. The primaryoscillator is a fairly conventional, harmonicRC circuit, according to Macbeth. Keepingpower low was again the challenge, he adds,along with the rigorous application of bestmanufacturing practices.

“The crystal oscillator is a space hog,”explains Steve Cliffe, the company’s vicepresident of sales and marketing. “Thecrystal is a single-function timing compo-nent that consumes disproportionateboard space in a phone. It is a costly andproblematic dinosaur.”

A crystal oscillator plus decoupling

Startup Says Its SiliconOscillator Beats Crystals, MEMS

EE|Times Confidential March 2012qVC WATCH

11

Codes that are

specific to each

device are

programmed

into nonvolatile

memory on the

die during man-

ufacturing

C O N T A C TeoSemi Ltd.

Somerford Business CourtCongletonCheshireCW12 4SN

United KingdomTel: +44 1260 285880

www.eosemi.com

Ian Macbeth

EE|Times Confidential March 2012

12

capacitors can consume more than 70square millimeters of board space, versus 5square millimeters for some solutionsbased on microelectromechanical systems(MEMS). The eoSemi chip takes up 2square millimeters.

In addition, the company has designedits first product to be a drop-in replacementfor crystal oscillators, so that no significantelectrical redesign is needed. “It can go inthe same package as a processor,” saysMacbeth, adding that this could reducechip-real-estate cost to zero.

Competing silicon oscillators are typical-ly less accurate and draw more current,while MEMS-based products are targeted atthe megahertz-frequency market. MEMSdraw milliamps, and require two dice thatincrease cost, Cliffe says.

The quartz-timing-component market isestimated at about $4 billion for 2011 bymarket researcher Consulting Associates &Services (Cupertino, Calif.). Oscillatorsoperating at 32 kHz for timing applicationsaccounted for about $800 million; themegahertz-frequency-oscillator-componentmarket totals about $1.7 billion.

The initial focus at eoSemi is the 32-kHz

timing market, but the company’stechnology is equally applicable tothe megahertz frequencies, compa-ny executives claim. Mobile-phonemakers have long been seekingsuch a solution.

Macbeth stresses that eoSemi is aproduct company rather than an IPlicensor. Nonetheless, the mobile-handset market is notoriously diffi-cult to crack. After consulting withphone manufacturers, eoSemi con-

nected with foundry giant TaiwanSemiconductor Manufacturing to fabricateparts for supply partners that will brandthe products on behalf of eoSemi.

The first product based on its ATOC tech-nology is a 32-kHz timing-reference circuitdesignated SO32768. Commercial produc-tion using a chip-scale package measuring1.5 by 1.5 mm will start in the third quarterof 2012.

The company “has made remarkableprogress in commercializing its technologyso quickly,” industry analyst MarkSherwood said in a statement. “The markethas waited a long time for silicon oscilla-tors. Now it seems that the launch of com-mercial products may be closer than wethought possible.”

The startup employs 12 engineers and isset to begin manufacturing its first productafter burning through a meager $5 millionin venture funding. Though the venture-capital markets remain “brutal,” Macbethsays eoSemi is continuing to raise moremoney to build out its business. “The Bseries is not what it used to be,” he says.“People now not only expect a revenuestream but also profitability.” –Peter Clarke

Commercial

production

using a chip-

scale 1.5-mm-

square pack-

age will start in

the third quar-

ter of 2012

qVC WATCH

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To subscribe, please go to http://confidential.eetimes.comQuestions? Contact us at linda.uslaner@ubm.comor 516-562-5843

Breakdown of $4 Billion Quartz Market in 2011

Source: CS&A Xtal & Oscillators Market Report

MEMS Landscape for Europe,Middle East, Africa

Europe and the Middle East remain centers of diver-sified micro manufacturing, distinguished bytheir concentration of leading R&D centers,diverse range of small and midsize enterprisesand their focus on emerging growth markets. Theregion has 316 fabs spread across 32 countriesfrom Morocco to Estonia, dominated by powerelectronics and MEMS, according to YoleDéveloppement’s recent survey of the manufac-turing infrastructure, “European and Middle EastMicroelectronics Database 2011.”

Though much of Europe’s semiconductor pro-duction remains in mainstream CMOS and ana-log ICs (with more than 50 fabs), a significant por-tion of the region’s business focuses on specialtygrowth markets, such as power semiconductorsand MEMS, along with R&D and pilot productionfor next-generation technologies.

The European region is particularly strong inpower-semiconductor production, whichaccounts for 75 fabs, or almost 25 percent of theregional total. The sector, which includes diodes,thyristors, MOSFETs, insulated-gate bipolar tran-sistors, power ICs and power modules, hasmatured to support the large European trans-portation market. Demand for reducing powerconsumption is creating opportunities andhealthy growth for more efficient power manage-ment in everything from smartphones and TVs tosolar inverters and hybrid electric vehicles.

The region also is a center of MEMS expertise,with 56 MEMS fabs. Though MEMS sites inEurope outnumber semiconductor fabs, IC vol-umes remain larger. Still, sales of MEMS deviceshit roughly $10 billion in 2011 and should postabout 15 percent average compound annualgrowth, to about $20 billion by 2016, according toYole estimates. As the technology becomes easierto use in everything from location-aware searchto energy efficiency to pathogen identification,systems makers of all kinds are finding moreMEMS sensor applications. (Yole’s databaseincludes biomedical MEMS products made on sili-con and glass, but not microfluidics on polymer.)

MEMS Fabs Expand inEurope, Middle East

EE|Times Confidential March 2012qMARKET DATA

13

Source: Yole Développement

Total number of wafer lines in EMEA region: 360

European fabs dedicated to MEMS: 56

MEMS R&D centers in Europe, Middle East: 36

In addition, European companies are drivingemerging printed-electronics technology, with 24sites at some stage of preproduction. Thoughthese are not yet production sites, they do repre-sent a selection of companies that are likely to bethe future producers of these technologies.

Europe’s high-volume IC makers includenumerous companies manufacturing at advanced-process nodes, including 10 chip makers operating12-inch wafer lines and six that are producingdevices at the 45-nanometer node.

At the same time, the region continues to driveinnovation with its micro-manufacturing-research efforts, with 36 major R&D centers acrossEurope and the Middle East working both on next-generation IC technology and on other silicon andcompound-semiconductor technologies. Several ofthese research centers have pilot lines for emerg-ing technologies; these centers are starting to offerfoundry services for low- and medium-volumeproduction for niche emerging markets, which

14

EE|Times Confidential March 2012qMARKET DATA

will better utilize their facilities andimprove their manufacturing expertise.

Despite the large number of power-elec-tronics and MEMS makers, the majority offabs still use 6-inch or smaller wafers. Themajority are also small and midsize busi-nesses, with 80 to 85 percent of the fab sitesemploying fewer than 500 workers.

Despite the proliferation of small fabsacross the region, the big economies ofWestern Europe still dominate the busi-ness. Germany, France and the U.K. accountfor roughly 50 percent of total wafer lines

in the region. Ranked by total clean-roomarea, however, Italy replaces the U.K. in thetop three.

Yole’s study of the European and MiddleEast fab infrastructure also draws on datacompiled by the SEMI industry group’s“World Fab Watch.” Readers should notethat the combined data includes more totaltypes of fab lines than total productionsites, because companies often maintaindifferent types of lines at the same site.–Jérôme Mouly, technology and market ana-lyst, Yole Développement

EE Times ConfidentialPresentsSpecial Report:MEMS Databaseand ReportIncludes a databaseof over 200 companiesworking in theMEMS sector

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