In this blog, you will find A 2 Z about Arduino, Electronics, microcontroller, Raspberry pi projects, Computers & laptops BIOS & Schematics & New Technologies robotics & automation.
In a recent Twitter thread, I self-identified as "some days Deanna, some days Riker." Others shared their own "Star Trek Spectrum," from Worf to O'Brien and McCoy to Neelix. That led me to think more about Deanna Troi: the half-human, half-Betazoid empath who served as Lieutenant Commander and the ship's counselor for most of Star Trek: The Next Generation.
Electromagnetic interference (EMI) is a disturbance caused by radiation fields created by electronic devices such as cellular phones or laptops. EMI causes unacceptable degradation of systems or equipment performance. Therefore it’s important to develop an effective shielding material to protect the environment and workplace from EMI. Electromagnetic interference (EMI) is a disturbance caused by radiation […]
The post Electromagnetic Interference And Compatibility: Indian Scenario appeared first on Electronics For You.
We at Smart Infrastructure Division in Siemens Ltd. is one of the top tier global suppliers of products, systems, solutions, and services for the efficient, reliable, and intelligent transmission and distribution of electrical power. As the trusted partner for the development and extension of an efficient and reliable power infrastructure that industry and the portfolio […]
The post JOB: EMS Engineer At Siemens appeared first on Electronics For You.
Mixed-signal Analog circuit design Engineer (High Speed PHYSICAL Interface Development). We’re looking for an A&MS Circuit Design Engineer to join the team. Does this sound like a good role for you? This role involves analyzing various mixed signal techniques for dynamic and static power reduction, performance enhancement and area reduction. You’d leverage your strong understanding […]
The post JOB: Analog Design Engr, II At Synopsys appeared first on Electronics For You.
Job Description C++/Embarcadero C++ Builder developer. What You will Be Doing Serves as the technical expert in C++/Embarcadero C++ builder application development process Has end-user interaction experience for requirements gathering, understanding customer needs, and working with multiple groups to coordinate and carry out technical activities which include new development, maintenance, and production support activities. Work […]
The post JOB: Technical Engineer II At Arrow Electronics appeared first on Electronics For You.
Hello everyone! This week, we have new Bluetooth® gamepads from 8BitDo: a pro version with rumble, motion, and turbo functionality, and a lite version (in blue and yellow) for those of you wanting to get started with robotics or gaming. After that, we have five new Raspberry Pi products for you to check out. We round out the day with a new AI Development Board from Himax!
We'd also like to let you know that we are in the middle of our month of sales, with unique daily deals every week day from November 2-26. Be sure to check out this blog post for details on our daily deals, Black Friday and Cyber Monday sales!
Now, let's take a closer look at all of our new products!
The 8BitDo SN30 Pro Bluetooth Gamepad is the world's first fully-featured retro controller. It boasts a full button set with clickable joysticks, rumble vibration, motion controls, wireless Bluetooth, rechargeable battery, home and screen shot buttons, and a USB-C connector - not to mention a proper d-pad. The 8BitDo SN30 Pro provides an easy-to-interface controller for your Bluetooth-enabled robotics projects.
The 8BitDo Lite Bluetooth Gamepad (in yellow or blue) is an ultra-portable controller made for 2D games and more. Beyond its compatibility for Windows machines, Steam, Switch and Raspberry Pi, the 8BitDo Lite provides an easy-to-interface controller for your Bluetooth-enabled robotics projects.
This 8 MP IR camera module is capable of 1080 p video and still images, and connects directly to your Raspberry Pi. Similar to the non-IR Raspberry Pi Camera, connect the included ribbon cable to the CSI (Camera Serial Interface) port on your Raspberry Pi, boot up the latest version of Raspbian and you are good to go!
This is the official case for the Raspberry Pi 3 Model A+ (it also fits the Raspberry Pi 1 Model A+ as well). The case is a two-piece ABS press-fit enclosure with access to the USB, HDMI, Audio and Ethernet ports. A slot on the bottom gives you access to the MicroSD card as well.
We are also now carrying three official Raspberry Pi HDMI cables - two Micro HDMI to HDMI-A in 1 m and 2 m lengths, as well as a regular HDMI-to-HDMI in a 1 m length.
Last up this week, the Himax WE-I Plus EVB Endpoint AI Development Board is the perfect solution for just that - a computer/machine vision or AI endpoint. In collaboration with Google TensorFlow Lite for Microcontrollers' framework and Synopsys embARC MLI library, the Himax WE-I Plus EVB provides a complete development environment to deploy all TensorFlow Lite for Microcontrollers examples: Person detection, Micro speech and Magic wand for Vision, Voice and Vibration applications.
That's it for this week! As always, we can't wait to see what you make! Shoot us a tweet @sparkfun, or let us know on Instagram or Facebook. We’d love to see what projects you’ve made!
System amplifier includes enhanced output power, bandwidth and noise performance for mobile radio, IoT, satellite and radar applications Rohde & Schwarz has introduced a new system amplifier. Designated R&S SAM100, the microwave amplifier sets new standards in ease of operation, robust design and super-compact footprint within the 2 – 20 GHz range with up to […]
The post New Approach To Microwave Device Manufacturing With System Amplifier appeared first on Electronics For You.
Many companies are now working on quantum computers and their applications. Here is a brief introduction to what some of them are doing. Google Back in 2018, Google had developed an innovative quantum-based processing solution known as Bristlecone, which is a 72-qubit device that is said to fetch necessary improvement on various options available in […]
The post Quantum Computing In 2020 appeared first on Electronics For You.
Whenever you learn a new subject or skill, at some point you need to pick up the particular language that goes with that domain. And the only way to really feel comfortable with this language is to practice using it. It’s exactly the same when learning programming.
In our latest research seminar, we focused on how we educators and our students can talk about programming. The seminar presentation was given by our Chief Learning Officer, Dr Sue Sentance. She shared the work she and her collaborators have done to develop a research-based approach to teaching programming called PRIMM, and to work with teachers to investigate the effects of PRIMM on students.
As well as providing a structure for programming lessons, Sue’s research on PRIMM helps us think about ways in which learners can investigate programs, start to understand how they work, and then gradually develop the language to talk about them themselves.
Sue began by taking us through the rich history of educational research into language and dialogue. This work has been heavily developed in science and mathematics education, as well as language and literacy.
In particular the work of Neil Mercer and colleagues has shown that students need guidance to develop and practice using language to reason, and that developing high-quality language improves understanding. The role of the teacher in this language development is vital.
Sue’s work draws on these insights to consider how language can be used to develop understanding in programming.
Sue identified shortcomings of some teaching approaches that are common in the computing classroom but may not be suitable for all beginners.
PRIMM was designed by Sue and her collaborators as a language-first approach where students begin not by writing code, but by reading it.
PRIMM stands for ‘Predict, Run, Investigate, Modify, Make’. In this approach, rather than copying code or writing programs from scratch, beginners instead start by focussing on reading working code.
In the Predict stage, the teacher provides learners with example code to read, discuss, and make output predictions about. Next, they run the code to see how the output compares to what they predicted. In the Investigate stage, the teacher sets activities for the learners to trace, annotate, explain, and talk about the code line by line, in order to help them understand what it does in detail.
In the seminar, Sue took us through a mini example of the stages of PRIMM where we predicted the output of Python Turtle code. You can follow along on the recording of the seminar to get the experience of what it feels like to work through this approach.
The PRIMM approach is informed by research, and it is also the subject of research by Sue and her collaborators. They’ve conducted two studies to measure the effectiveness of PRIMM: an initial pilot, and a larger mixed-methods study with 13 teachers and 493 students with a control group.
The larger study used a pre and post test, and found that the group who experienced a PRIMM approach performed better on the tests than the control group. The researchers also collected a wealth of qualitative feedback from teachers. The feedback suggested that the approach can help students to develop a language to express their understanding of programming, and that there was much more productive peer conversation in the PRIMM lessons (sometimes this meant less talk, but at a more advanced level).
The PRIMM structure also gave some teachers a greater capacity to talk about the process of teaching programming. It facilitated the discussion of teaching ideas and learning approaches for the teachers, as well as developing language approaches that students used to learn programming concepts.
The research results suggest that learners taught using PRIMM appear to be developing the language skills to talk coherently about their programming. The effectiveness of PRIMM is also evidenced by the number of teachers who have taken up the approach, building in their own activities and in some cases remixing the PRIMM terminology to develop their own take on a language-first approach to teaching programming.
Future research will investigate in detail how PRIMM encourages productive talk in the classroom, and will link the approach to other work on semantic waves. (For more on semantic waves in computing education, see this seminar by Jane Waite and this symposium talk by Paul Curzon.)
If you would like to try out PRIMM with your learners, use our free support materials:
If you missed the seminar, you can find the presentation slides alongside the recording of Sue’s talk on our seminars page.
In our next seminar on Tuesday 1 December at 17:00–18:30 GMT / 12:00–13:30 EsT / 9:00–10:30 PT / 18:00–19:30 CEST. Dr David Weintrop from the University of Maryland will be presenting on the role of block-based programming in computer science education. To join, simply sign up with your name and email address.
Once you’ve signed up, we’ll email you the seminar meeting link and instructions for joining. If you attended this past seminar, the link remains the same.
The post PRIMM: encouraging talk in programming lessons appeared first on Raspberry Pi.
Whenever you learn a new subject or skill, at some point you need to pick up the particular language that goes with that domain. And the only way to really feel comfortable with this language is to practice using it. It’s exactly the same when learning programming.
In our latest research seminar, we focused on how we educators and our students can talk about programming. The seminar presentation was given by our Chief Learning Officer, Dr Sue Sentance. She shared the work she and her collaborators have done to develop a research-based approach to teaching programming called PRIMM, and to work with teachers to investigate the effects of PRIMM on students.
As well as providing a structure for programming lessons, Sue’s research on PRIMM helps us think about ways in which learners can investigate programs, start to understand how they work, and then gradually develop the language to talk about them themselves.
Sue began by taking us through the rich history of educational research into language and dialogue. This work has been heavily developed in science and mathematics education, as well as language and literacy.
In particular the work of Neil Mercer and colleagues has shown that students need guidance to develop and practice using language to reason, and that developing high-quality language improves understanding. The role of the teacher in this language development is vital.
Sue’s work draws on these insights to consider how language can be used to develop understanding in programming.
Sue identified shortcomings of some teaching approaches that are common in the computing classroom but may not be suitable for all beginners.
PRIMM was designed by Sue and her collaborators as a language-first approach where students begin not by writing code, but by reading it.
PRIMM stands for ‘Predict, Run, Investigate, Modify, Make’. In this approach, rather than copying code or writing programs from scratch, beginners instead start by focussing on reading working code.
In the Predict stage, the teacher provides learners with example code to read, discuss, and make output predictions about. Next, they run the code to see how the output compares to what they predicted. In the Investigate stage, the teacher sets activities for the learners to trace, annotate, explain, and talk about the code line by line, in order to help them understand what it does in detail.
In the seminar, Sue took us through a mini example of the stages of PRIMM where we predicted the output of Python Turtle code. You can follow along on the recording of the seminar to get the experience of what it feels like to work through this approach.
The PRIMM approach is informed by research, and it is also the subject of research by Sue and her collaborators. They’ve conducted two studies to measure the effectiveness of PRIMM: an initial pilot, and a larger mixed-methods study with 13 teachers and 493 students with a control group.
The larger study used a pre and post test, and found that the group who experienced a PRIMM approach performed better on the tests than the control group. The researchers also collected a wealth of qualitative feedback from teachers. The feedback suggested that the approach can help students to develop a language to express their understanding of programming, and that there was much more productive peer conversation in the PRIMM lessons (sometimes this meant less talk, but at a more advanced level).
The PRIMM structure also gave some teachers a greater capacity to talk about the process of teaching programming. It facilitated the discussion of teaching ideas and learning approaches for the teachers, as well as developing language approaches that students used to learn programming concepts.
The research results suggest that learners taught using PRIMM appear to be developing the language skills to talk coherently about their programming. The effectiveness of PRIMM is also evidenced by the number of teachers who have taken up the approach, building in their own activities and in some cases remixing the PRIMM terminology to develop their own take on a language-first approach to teaching programming.
Future research will investigate in detail how PRIMM encourages productive talk in the classroom, and will link the approach to other work on semantic waves. (For more on semantic waves in computing education, see this seminar by Jane Waite and this symposium talk by Paul Curzon.)
If you would like to try out PRIMM with your learners, use our free support materials:
If you missed the seminar, you can find the presentation slides alongside the recording of Sue’s talk on our seminars page.
In our next seminar on Tuesday 1 December at 17:00–18:30 GMT / 12:00–13:30 EsT / 9:00–10:30 PT / 18:00–19:30 CEST. Dr David Weintrop from the University of Maryland will be presenting on the role of block-based programming in computer science education. To join, simply sign up with your name and email address.
Once you’ve signed up, we’ll email you the seminar meeting link and instructions for joining. If you attended this past seminar, the link remains the same.
The post PRIMM: encouraging talk in programming lessons appeared first on Raspberry Pi.
Based on Tunnel magnetoresistance (TMR), the small-sized magnetic sensor features high operating frequency Coto Technology has announced the release of its new RedRock RR122-1E73-511 / 512 wafer-based TMR (Tunneling Magnetoresistance) digital omnipolar sensor. The RR122-1E73 TMR sensor features an operating frequency of 2500 Hz, a voltage supply range of +1.7V to +5.5V and an extremely […]
The post Digital Magnetic Sensor Having High Sensitivity And Low Power Intake appeared first on Electronics For You.
Qualcomm is a company of inventors that unlocked 5G ushering in an age of rapid acceleration in connectivity and new possibilities that will transform industries, create jobs, and enrich lives. But this is just the beginning. It takes inventive minds with diverse skills, backgrounds, and cultures to transform 5Gs potential into world-changing technologies and products. […]
The post JOB: Engineer – Linux Device Driver Development appeared first on Electronics For You.
Abstract This is the Job Description for the Automation Engineer within Automation and Tools Q&OE. Handling This Job Description shall be retained, updated, controlled and issued by the BMAS/SA Managed Services Service Line Operate Quality and Operational Excellence and be approved by the Head of Automation and Tools Q&OE. Approved copies shall be retained in […]
The post JOB: Automation Engineer Job stage 4 At Ericsson appeared first on Electronics For You.
Responsible for designing, building, delivering and maintaining software applications & services. Working in the areas of machine, cloud, platform and/or application. Responsible for software lifecycle including activities such as requirement analysis, documentation/procedures and implementation. Roles and Responsibilities In this role, you will: Collaborate with system engineers, frontend developers and software developers to implement solutions that […]
The post JOB: Software Engineering Specialist At GE appeared first on Electronics For You.
Artificial intelligence (AI) is being used more frequently in our daily lives, with systems such as Siri and Alexa becoming commonplace in many households. Many households themselves are "smart," powered by devices that can control your lights, heating and air, and even the music playing. And those music players are powered by AI that recommends songs and artists you may like.
Whether you are a senior leader or an individual contributor, you make decisions based on your personal, peers', and colleagues' experiences and feedback. If the people around you are evolving, you will grow with them, as will the organization you support. If the backgrounds and knowledge of the people around you are diverse and changing, you and your team will benefit.
Owing to the rise of the stay-at-home economy brought about by the COVID-19 pandemic, yearly Apple MacBook shipment for 2020 is expected to reach 15.5 million units, a 23.1% increase YoY, according to TrendForce’s latest investigations. Thanks to the November 11 release of the new Mac models and the Apple Silicon M1 processor, MacBook shipment is expected to set a record high in 2021 by reaching 17.1 million units and potentially growing by more than 10% YoY.
Although retail price remains the same across newly released and preexisting 13.3-inch MacBook models, the new Apple Silicon M1 processors, based on ARM architecture, that are now replacing the Intel x86 CPUs found in older MacBooks represent a significant decrease in power consumption, thereby extending the new MacBook’s battery life. At the same time, the M1 processor is designed to have its various capabilities work in tandem with macOS Big Sur, in turn creating a synergistic effect between different products in the Apple ecosystem and delivering faster processing power and a better experience for the end user.
At the moment, 13.3-inch MacBook Air and MacBook Pro are the only products equipped with M1. The Apple Silicon M series processors are expected to see integration in 14-inch and 16-inch MacBook Pros starting next year. As Apple integrates the Apple Silicon M series of processors across various product ranges, and the processor’s performance improves, consumer demand for MacBooks is expected to remain strong in the future.
TrendForce indicates that, based on the forecasted 1.9% YoY growth in global notebook computer shipment for 2021, Apple’s market performance is outstanding in comparison. Not only will the company benefit from its in-house processor and increase its MacBook shipment next year, but Apple is also projected to increase its share in the global notebook market from 8% in 2020 to 8.7% in 2021.
The post Apple’s First in-House SoC for Macs Projected to Propel MacBook Shipment to 17.1M Units in 2021 appeared first on EE Times Asia.
The CH101 from TDK InvenSense is a ToF (time-of-flight) ultrasonic rangefinder with a range of 4 centimeters to 1.2 meters. What sets the CH101 apart from other ultrasonic sensors that we've seen in the past is that it's capable of ranging multiple objects within its field-of-view simultaneously. This is made possible by an integrated system-on-chip that crunches the numbers and then provides digital range readings via I²C.
Our Qwiic breakout provides voltage regulation and level shifting for the standalone CH101-00ABR sensor. Space around the sensor is left clear for attaching the acoustic housing of your choice. TDK has provided .STEP files for several acoustic housing options that you can print with a reasonably high resolution 3D printer. There is not yet an Arduino compatible library for this sensor, however there is an API and extensive documentation available from TDK.
Features:
Documents:
I recently had the chance to test drive SparkFun's A La Carte custom board ordering system, and that opportunity came at just the right time to solve an issue for my business. As an artist and electronics consultant working from home I needed a way to solder custom SMT PCBs, and I needed it quickly to support an installation at the Museum of Boulder.
Having been interested in building a DIY reflow toaster oven for some time, and with access to a suitable toaster, the solution was clear: I just needed a control board that would allow for feedback control of the temperature within the toaster.
SparkFun products have always helped to accelerated prototype design - soldering headers to a breakout and wiring up your breadboard is certainly faster and more accessible than a totally custom process:
So why do I often still find myself carrying out the above steps? In reality, there are a few different levels of prototype between initial concept and a mass produced consumer product. Level one - an amalgamation of breakout boards interconnected by jumper wires - is just the "afternoon" implementation. It can be put together quickly but then it suffers these drawbacks:
The next level in the prototype continuum is a custom PCB meant to replace the breadboard and jumper wires from the first level. This solution is definitely more durable and easier to scale up. It is also attractive because typically the only soldering required is the connection of simple PTH headers. At this level you are still faced with a few barriers to entry:
A La Carte creates a completely different path in prototyping, which eliminates all of the above issues! Anyone with an idea can configure a board with the sensors, actuators, inputs, outputs, connections and controller that they need. The program keeps track of pin capabilities and power constraints, and will warn the user when the requested design is electrically infeasible. It then automatically generates a PCB design which is very similar to an assembly of breakouts, and of course SparkFun will order the PCBs and manufacture as many copies as you need.
Coming back to the toaster issue, I was facing a few considerations:
Some things that were not a concern in this design:
Given these needs, A La Carte was a perfect fit.
All you need to use A La Carte is a concept. In my case it was simple:
On top of that, I thought it would be cool to leave the door open for wireless control in the future.
I started by going to the A La Carte designer tool, where I was prompted to choose a controller. Considering the simplicity of this project, my familiarity with the Apollo3 products, and my desire to ultimately use Bluetooth Low Energy for wireless control, I selected the Artemis controller module.
I then searched for an encoder and found one under the 'inputs' section. This would allow the user to navigate menus (scrolling) and make selections (clicking). It also has some LEDs built in, which can be additional output channels.
For displaying information to the user I chose the 16x2 character LCD screen. It was located in the 'outputs' section (if your search says nothing was found, try checking the other categories!). This would allow creation of simple text menus for operation and configuration of the controller.
After that, I added two thermocouple amplifiers and two relays to measure and control the oven temperature respectively.
I named my project, added a description, and adjusted the dimensions of the board until I got something that looked pretty good. Overall the process took less than half an hour and absolutely no design experience! I was able to order the board and start working on software immediately.
An advantage to using SparkFun products and A La Carte that may be under-appreciated is the support for rapid prototyping in software. Each of the blocks in ALC is based on an existing SparkFun product, the vast majority of which have complete Arduino support. While I waited for my boards to arrive, I was able to start my software development process.
My first step was to install the Arduino libraries for each main component (LCD, thermocouple amplifier and encoder) and check out the basic examples. I then made sure that I installed the core support for the Apollo3 microcontroller and selected the 'RedBoard Artemis ATP' board to take advantage of the direct pin mapping. Finally I assembled the relevant portions of the example code into a simple test sketch, choosing the appropriate pins based on the schematic that was generated from ALC. I checked that the code would compile and then got to work preparing the toaster oven while the boards shipped to me.
The convenience of getting started that quickly can't be understated! I was glad to be able to get this tool running quickly and get back to the other aspects of my business.
// BOARD: SparkFun RedBoard Artemis ATP
#include <SparkFun_MCP9600.h>
#define thermocoupleSDA D9
#define thermocoupleSCL D8
MbedI2C thermocoupleWire(thermocoupleSDA, thermocoupleSCL);
MCP9600 thermo0;
MCP9600 thermo1;
void setup() {
Serial.begin(115200);
delay(500);
Serial.println("toaster oven begin");
thermocoupleWire.begin();
thermocoupleWire.setClock(100000);
thermo0.begin(0x60, thermocoupleWire);
thermo1.begin(0x66, thermocoupleWire);
pinMode(17, OUTPUT);
pinMode(38, OUTPUT);
}
void loop() {
uint32_t now = millis();
static uint32_t toggle_relays = 0;
static uint32_t relays_state = false;
if(now >= toggle_relays){
toggle_relays = now + 30 * 60 * 1000;
relays_state = !relays_state;
digitalWrite(17, relays_state);
digitalWrite(38, relays_state);
}
if(thermo0.available() && thermo1.available()){
Serial.print(now);
Serial.print(", ");
Serial.print(thermo0.getThermocoupleTemp());
Serial.print(", ");
Serial.print(thermo1.getThermocoupleTemp());
Serial.print(", ");
Serial.print((thermo0.getAmbientTemp()+thermo1.getAmbientTemp())/2);
Serial.print(", ");
Serial.print(relays_state);
Serial.println();
}
}
When the boards arrived in the mail, I had everything else ready to accept them. I simply tightened down the screw terminals on the relay outputs, plugged in my K-type thermocouples, and uploaded my test sketch from Arduino.
This simple test left the heating elements on for half an hour and then turned them off. The two internal temperatures as well as the board (ambient) temperature were all recorded.
With some simple post-processing I was able to see that the oven could heat up at about one degree Celsius per second maximum. I will add some insulation to increase that slope to between two and three degrees per second. The cooling slope can approach negative two degrees Celsius per second with the door open - this should be sufficient and I plan to add a servo to open the door to help control cooling.
The value of producing functional prototypes quickly and with little specialized knowledge is priceless. As a stepping stone to a final design, A La Carte will be useful for entrepreneurs and R&D engineers alike.
The mobile communications industry, and notably the RAN (radio access network) sector, has for long been a complex and relatively slow moving sector.
Not anymore! Not at the moment!
Just in the past weeks:
Let’s unpick some of these headline events.
One of the first Special Reports published by EE Times was dubbed “The Redemption of Nokia” and the author chronicled the myriad of re-inventions and re-incarnations of the century-and-a-half year old Finnish group.
Set in that context, the latest restructuring, announced late last month, was not a game-changer but is still a powerful statement by relatively new CEO Pekka Lundmark. Accompanied by disappointing third-quarter results, including a 7% year-on-year decline in revenues to $6.2 billion , gloomy forecasts , and the bitter loss of a multi-year $6.6 billion RAN contract to Samsung at Verizon in the US, the new strategy laid out by Lundmark signals the end of the much touted “end-to-end” philosophy for tackling the mobile communications business.
All this was compounded by the revelation that Nokia had failed to win any contracts for RAN gear in the world’s largest market, China, and forecast that its global share of the RAN business could decline next year to 27 per cent.
Though stressing there are no current plans for any asset sales, Lundmark said the company is being reorganized around four main business units: Mobile Networks; IP and Fixed Networks; Cloud Network Services; and Nokia Technologies. There will also be four corporate functions, one of which will focus on strategic planning, long term research (including Nokia Bell Labs), and IT and digitalization.
The biggest challenge
The biggest challenge will face Tommy Uitto, who retains leadership of the Mobile Networks division, which currently accounts for almost half of the company’s total sales, but also faces the toughest pressures on margins, notably in the 5G RAN business. He must be reassured that Lundmark stressed Nokia “would do what it takes to win in 5G”.
That will include significant increased funding in R&D. In the recent past, spending on R&D, including in the vitally important Mobiles group, has been declining, a stark contrast with increased funding in this sector at arch rivals Ericsson and Huawei, and maybe even more so at Samsung.
One of the biggest problems in the mobile network group’s product line-up has been a reliance on FPGAs, but Lundmark signaled that this has been rectified by deploying new SoC’s based on the company’s ReefShark chip technology, which is expected to lead to major system cost savings. In the third quarter, the company said, 37% of 5G shipments were based on products using its in-house ReefShark portfolio, a major improvement on the last quarter of 2019.
Meanwhile perhaps the biggest changes will be seen in the newly created ‘Cloud and Network Services’ division. This combines the existing software and enterprise units, core network offerings including both voice and packet core, private networks, and also takes in the global services operation. It will be headed by Raghav Saghal, head of the fast growing enterprise business.
The carve-up also makes a new division out of the IP and fixed networks operations, but leaves the Technology division largely unchanged.
Lundmark suggested the new set-up “will simplify the structure and make it easier for customers to do business with us”. He signed off the new strategy announcement with a realistic tone, stressing “the good progress we have made is not enough. Our financial performance in 2021 is expected to be challenging, and more change is needed.”
At least part of this ‘change’ likely referred to a comment near the end of the official statement. “Proposed organizational changes referenced in this release may be subject to consultation with employee representatives in certain jurisdictions “. That seems to be a clear signal there may be further job losses at the company , which currently has 98,000 employees That headcount is already down from 103 000 in the previous year.
Meanwhile Huawei is facing its own demons, having last week reported a slide in growth and profits for its first three quarter of the year.
While the Chinese group reported revenues of Yuan 673 billion (about $100.6 billion) for the period -– up 9.9% over the same term last year that compares with growth in the same period of 2019 of a very impressive 24.4%.
It is important here to add a caveat that Huawei does not break out segment results, so it is difficult to know where the changes have occurred. The company now has a successful and fast growing handsets business as well, and is increasingly relying on this to boost both revenues and profits.
The company added the numbers “basically met expectations”, but Huawei warned its “global supply chain was put under intense pressure, and its production and operations saw increasing difficulties.” The company said it was working hard “to find solutions” at both its infrastructure and handsets groups.
Huawei’s banishments
The recent announcement of plans for a fab in the Shanghai area to get past tough sanctions imposed by the US administration is just one part of that effort.
But the banishment of Huawei’s 5G mobile communications gear from many European and other regions’ operators continues to intensify on an almost weekly basis. Over the past fourteen days, it was the turn of Belgian, Italian, Slovenian and Bulgarian carriers to cease buying gear from the company, joining bigger countries such as the UK, Sweden and Finland.
It was of course the UK that started the ball rolling, spurred on by its security services as well as pressures from the US administration.
In its arguably most strategic European market, Germany, Huawei has to date not been banned from installing 5G gear at operators such as Deutsche Telekom. But the government has insisted on new, strict oversight on what mobile operators can source from so-called “high risk” vendors such as the Chinese groups ZTE and Huawei for both the core part of their networks as well as the RAN.
DT is the biggest carrier exposed to the ban, being been heavily reliant on Huawei for much of its 4G and LTE networks. As in the UK, the operators may be forced to take out some of this gear and replace it with gear from other providers such as Nokia or Ericsson.
Meanwhile trade relations with India, an enormous market for the company for 3G and 4G gear, are being dangerously strained by security concerns, and compounded by regular border clashes between the two countries. These issues are expected to lead to a review of plans for India’s 5G network roll-out. This despite the reality that to achieve its ambitious plan to roll out the next generation cellular technology throughout the vast country and achieve its ambitious digitalization strategies, India is hugely reliant on relatively cheap infrastructure gear. To date Huawei has made that possible.
Fast growing Indian carrier Jio had opted for equipment from Samsung for its networks, and has indicated it would also opt for the South Korean company’s technology for 5G. However, things could change as India is only now setting the rules for its first spectrum auction for 5G, expected by the middle of next year.
Australia was the first to impose bans on Huawei network infrastructure gear, in late 2018, and Canadian carriers Telus and Bell Canada have inked a deal to collaborate on rolling out a 5G networks, and have chosen core and RAN gear from Ericsson and Nokia, and to exclude Huawei.
But of course, as already indicated, the Scandinavian duo are not the only players any more, with Samsung and Japanese group NEC making meaningful inroads, notably in the RAN part of the network. Apart from the game-changing Verizon deal, the South Korean company has scored 4G and some 5G deals for RAN at carriers such as Sprint and AT&T in the US, KDDI in Japan and Spark in New Zealand. Of course it helps that it has a massive lead in deals in its home territory, which has long been at the forefront of introducing new iterations of cellular technologies.
The market by the numbers
According to recent reports from market research group Dell’Oro, Samsung’s global market share has almost doubled over the past two years in existing infrastructure to 3%. The analysts also posit the company is poised to benefit for 5G deals on the back of its experience in helping build out South Korea’s 5G networks, one of the first to have gone live. Dell’Oro suggests its share in the 5G business as of this year is between 5% and 10%. The fact that it enjoys a secure supply chain, not least for semiconductor devices, certainly is adding to its advantage when it comes to competing against Huawei.
For all that progress, Dell’Oro figures Huawei, Ericsson and Nokia between them currently account for between 70 to 80 percent of the global mobile network infrastructure market. And when it comes to swapping out legacy Huawei equipment, an expensive and time consuming dilemma now faced by and ever-increasing number of operators, notably in Europe, they see Nokia and Ericsson as better options since they, unlike Samsung, are better able to supply gear that can cope with solutions covering networks working on 3G to 5G standards.
The South Korean company’s riposte to that is that there is limited benefit from having a ‘single RAN’, and that it can actually be more secure and faster for the carriers to overlay 4G and 5G technology on these existing 2G and 3G networks.
It is also interesting to note that, as of early this year, Samsung was second only to Huawei in patents activity for the 5G generation, according to intellectual property tracking group IPlytics.
Finally, let’s consider the disruptive Open RAN bandwagon. That term seems even more relevant as Ericsson is finally coming round to the ‘openness’ concept. The company’s response when asked whether it had any products or systems lined up for the concept, its immediate response would be that it was not convinced about its cost and performance measures, but it would continue to be a contributor to the work within the O-RAN Alliance.
And at its recent third quarter earnings call, Borje Ekholm, the company’s CEO conceded that Open RAN “is something that is clearly going to happen” but he “does not see Open RAN having a major impact in the 2021-22 timeframe. After that I think it will start to impact revenues for us — it will start to impact the way business models evolve going forward.”
He added “we are going to make sure we’re well positioned.”
Perhaps forecasts such as the recent one from Rethink Technology are beginning to get through.
Though hardly a strong endorsement, it is certainly a major shift from recent criticism of the technology notably its security aspects.
For now though, the Swedish group continues to focus on cloud RAN application software for distributed and centralized units, as well as a new radio gateway to connect to remote radio units.
Meanwhile, one of the groups that have sprung up around the O-RAN push, The O-RAN Alliance has celebrated its two years of operation by announcing a spate of new specifications for disaggregated RANs and said last week it had appointed three more executives to its board of directors, to serve for the next two years. Significantly, they are all from carriers — Japanese groups KDDI and Rakuten Mobile, and Vodafone.
All three are at the forefront of trialing and deploying at the earliest stage networks based on O-RAN technology. Their representation — there are now 15 operators on board — are crucial as it will, after all, be their decisions that decide the pace at which Open-RAN becomes a reality.
O-RAN, plus and minus
The new specifications include an end-to-end system testing framework and a hardware reference design for indoor picocells.
However the many positives regarding the prospects for Open RAN were somewhat dented when Mavenir, a pioneer in the technology, put on hold its planned IPO on grounds of “market volatility”.
The company only filed papers with the SEC for entry to the NASDAQ a few weeks ago. Those documents also showed that both Nvidia and Intel had bought shares in Mavenir from the company’s owner Siris Capital ahead of the filing.
Let’s end with part of a statement during Nokia’s third-quarter profits call by CEO Pekka Lundmark, which seems to be an excellent and insightful precis of where we are, and where we may be heading, in this exciting sector.
“Telco operators will continue to need to support massive capacity demands with commensurate cost increases. As a result, we expect capex to remain constrained as operators will look to drive a step-change in cost effectiveness.
“The broad trend towards open architectures with increasing virtualization will accelerate. This will be driven by cost pressures as well as the need to increase speed and agility.
“Adoption will vary widely and a full transition is more than a decade away, but the shift to more open interfaces, virtualization and cloudification, network function disaggregation, AI-driven automation and optimization is well under way.”
The post A Shakeout Set for RAN Sector? appeared first on EE Times Asia.
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