While natural resources are being drained slowly, energy costs are rising and demand for advanced power supply options is increasing. One of these options is digital power supply, which provides advanced power efficiency and improved power factor correction (PFC). With over 10 years of experience in the high-efficiency power supply unit (PSU) sector, Compuware Technology has been at the forefront for developing such technology and plans to be sporting various prototypes at Computex 2013. Compuware's associated VP Ivy Yeh spoke with Digitimes about what the company will be sporting at the event and what kind of trends it is preparing for in the future.Q: Compuware's theme for Computex 2013 is digital power supply. Please explain why the company chose this, as well as what kind of products can use digital power.A: Compuware believes that using digital design concepts will enhance power performance for all sorts of companies. As digital power supply demand is increasing in the market, vendors who can produce power supply products with better efficiency and improved PFC as well as less TDH percentage will also be in high demand - a trend that Compuware wants to show it is taking seriously. Also, while improvements to the above-mentioned factors are not necessarily new to redundant power supply, there are few vendors who can mass produce digital power, which is where Compuware comes in. The company wants to emphasize at Computex 2013 that it has already established an integrated supply chain for providing various redundant power supply products such as 800W/1280W/1400W/2000W redundant power supply units, all of which visitors can view at the event.Q: High-density power supply is also a focus for Compuware at Computex. What advantages does this technology have in the market and what kinds of customers are likely to use it?A: The width of a standard 19-inch chassis is fixed; however, for some high-end applications of which the motherboard and GPU card might occupy more space, a compact size power supply that has high density may be requested by the system integrator.For example, high density power supply will be the necessary mechanical design to fit in a 1U system demanding 1+1 redundant power solution. For this situation, Compuware has made its 400W/500W/600W/700W/980W models. If it is a GPU application, the GPU card will occupy more space, and thus, there will be less space for power supply. Additionally, HPC (high performance computing) and SC (supercomputing) applications request more memory slots on the main board. In that case, the size of the main board will be larger than a normal one and there will be smaller space for power supply.Q: Why are companies going to choose your products in the market? What are the company's strengths and advantages over other competitors?A: Compuware has been dedicated to create new products for such segments as cloud computing, supercomputing, high-performance computing and servers to meet new market demand, and focuses on implementing high-efficiency performance and high-density design into its products. These aspects have given Compuware a wide range of customers who continue to come back to us over the years, which continues to push the company's reputation in the server industry.Q: How are Compuware's new products adapting to new market trends?A: As the cloud computing concept keeps growing, demand for solutions including servers, storage, and data centers is also growing. Green products are also a key trend in the IT industry as well, thus higher efficient and performing power supplies are gaining more traction as solid system solutions. High efficiency is in high demand in the market, which happens to be the core value and strength of Compuware.Q: What other trends does Compuware see occurring in the market throughout 2013 and into 2014?A: Efficiency. This is still the key factor for now and in upcoming years in order to meet both green trends as well as help companies save costs.Q: How does Compuware's Taiwan branch as well as its manufacturing plants in Taiwan play a role in the development of the company's overall performance?A: The R&D team located in the Compuware Taiwan office offers high-end redundant power supply to the market. The branch also pays close attention to the reliability of every new product's power supply and its overall NPI (new product introduction). The Taiwan manufacturing plants meanwhile communicates with the R&D team to control the NPI state as to ensure quality.

As many motherboard players have started paying attention to the gaming market, Elitegroup Computer Systems (ECS), as a major motherboard vendor, is also set to expand its gaming business with a new product series. In addition, the company is eyeing better shipment performance in 2013, boosted by its new Durathon certification system to guarantee product quality. Digitimes recently met with company vice president of Channel Business Unit, Samuel Yeh, to talk about ECS' plans for Computex 2013, the status of its existing product lines, and its marketing strategies. Q: What new products or technologies will ECS showcase at Computex 2013? A: We will mainly focus on motherboard products and will showcase our new certification system called Durathon, an innovation that allows our motherboard products to feature quality surpassing the industry standards. Meanwhile, we will also release a new series of gaming motherboard products called LEET. Since demand for conventional PC products has already started to slow down, most motherboard players have turned to the high-end segment looking for opportunities. ECS will not miss this trend and will place significant resources on strengthening our competitiveness. At the show, you will be able to see our new Intel 8 series-based LEET motherboards with several demonstrations to showcase their performance. In addition to motherboards, ECS will also demonstrate several all-in-one PCs with our latest designs at the show. Some of the features include lay-flat support that allows multiple users to play games such as chess on flat table-like systems. We will also offer different display sizes from 21- to 23.6-inch for these all-in-one PCs. ECS also has some tablets we developed with Intel's support. These Intel-based tablets will mainly be pushed for OEM orders, and feature 7- or 10-inch displays. During the show, we will also host the finale of our MODMAN competition, a tournament for chassis customization enthusiasts. Q: Can you elaborate on Durathon certification and LEET gaming? How are these technologies going to help you gain advantages in the market? A: Durathon is a certification system that is far stricter than the average in the motherboard industry. We use better materials for our motherboards and put them through strict tests such as temperature tests running from minus 10- to plus 50-degree Celsius, higher than the industry's standard range of between minus 5 to plus 45, to ensure our customers receive products with higher than standard quality. Before shipping, our motherboards need to pass more than 1,500 tests including compatibility, functionality, temperature and system boot checks. Through these tests, we are aim to let customers know that a trustworthy motherboard needs to be at least able to pass these examinations before it is handed to them. The capacitors we use on our motherboards are also higher grade compared to the market standard. All these demands are aimed at providing our customers with products that surpass their value in price. In the future, we will continue to run Durathon certification and expand tests to ensure our product quality remains the highest. Durathon comes from two words: Durability and Marathon. We designed the certification system hoping our motherboards' durability and stability can be similar to running a marathon - long and tough. Through the program, we can demonstrate to customers our advantage over product quality. Q: What are the considerations when designing the LEET series? A: The product series' name LEET comes from the word elite, a favorite word used among gamers. If you see the logo designed for the series, it represents a fist, showing gamers are ready for competition and its golden color represents ECS' high-end Golden series product line. We designed the LEET brand to let gamers know that the products in the series are designed specifically for them and we are adding functions and technologies that they want. The launch of LEET will be a brand new start for ECS and we are very excited about the strategy. As for our marketing strategy, it will also be different from in the past. We will cooperate with gaming teams to endorse our products. We are already in negotiations with some teams and should have results in the near future. Q: What are the company's thoughts about the motherboard industry in 2013? Are there any specific markets that ECS is focusing on for 2013? A: I believe the gaming segment will continue to grow in the future. For example, we are now seeing increasing numbers of live broadcast gaming tournaments, showing that the number of people watching e-sports has increased. Therefore, we have high hopes about the gaming market's future and have placed a lot of resources into the development of our LEET series. As for the motherboard industry in 2013, we are taking a conservative attitude about its development, but yet still hope to see a good outcome. China will be an important market for us in 2013 as the country has already become the main driver of demand. Although we suffered a shipment drop in China in 2012, we will try to make it up gradually in 2013. Currently, ECS mainly ships own-brand motherboards to the China market and we are reconstructing our local channels, hoping to raise shipments. Q: What are ECS' thoughts about Intel's Haswell platform? Is it going to benefit the company in the second half? Are DRAM shortages affecting ECS' motherboard sales performance? A: The current status of the Haswell platform is in line with our expectations and since we have always followed Intel's steps, our strategy is unlikely to change. As for the DRAM shortages, since most gamers do not really care about the prices they pay for their hardware, the issue is unlikely to impact our sales in the short term. Q: What is MODMEN? What are you trying to achieve through the competition? Will the company look host more competitions in the future? A: MODMEN is a contest we are hosting for motherboard modding enthusiasts worldwide. The competition has already run for a year and will conclude on June 6 at Computex with a championship showdown. We currently have five candidates who will join the finals and the winner will receive a prize of NT$1 million (US$33,393). In addition to our judging panel, we will also have Computex visitors and fans on Facebook vote for the winner. We need to thank our Golden series motherboards for the birth of the MODMEN idea. Because of the motherboards, some users started developing unique chassis designs to fit with their Golden motherboards, and once we saw that was happening we decided to expand and promote the activity. If you come to our MODMAN tournament, you will see that modding is a rather interesting craft, modders demonstrate a lot of innovation, creativity and artistry in their designs. Q: What is the status of the all-in-one PC market? A: Despite the PC market's flat performance in recent years, the all-in-one PC segment is still expected to enjoy double-digit percentage growth in shipments in the future, and we expect to be able to catch up with the trend to achieve strong shipment performance. Sam Yeh, vice president of Channel Business Unit at ECSPhoto: Joseph Tsai, June 2013

Once chiefly known as an OEM for PC card readers and memory modules, Carry Technology has expanded its product portfolio to include Wi-Fi products and other peripherals for mobile devices such as smartphones and tablets. While continuing to maintain close relationships with its OEM clients, Carry Tech has also moved to expand its own-brand products, particularly in emerging markets.In an interview with Digitimes, Carry Tech president Taron Chang talked about the company's efforts to expand its own-brand business, which is now generating higher gross margins than its OEM business. Chang also shared his views about the prospects of the memory industry, as well as challenges and opportunities faced by the company.Q: At the end of 2011, Carry Tech launched its Apotop brand for storage solutions and peripherals targeted mainly at mobile devices. What progress has there been since the brand made its debut?A: At Computex 2012 we officially announced the Apotop brand. Products under the brand include not only the company's traditional areas of focus, such as card readers, DRAM modules, flash drives and SSD devices, but also innovative new products.Backed by our experienced R&D team, we introduced wireless storage devices designed specifically for popular iOS devices. In 2012, Carry Tech launched a travel Wi-Fi router enabling iPad users to set up their own Wi-Fi hotspots for use in places like hotels that only offered hard-wired access, and its second generation that includes a USB port and SD card slot for expanded memory - an all-in-one peripheral device to bring more convenience to popular tablet devices.This year, Carry Tech has enhanced its wireless storage devices by developing products targeted at not only iOS devices, but also devices running the Android OS platform. Designed for smartphones and tablets, our 2013 series can operate as a card reader, reading and sharing data much faster than the previous generation; as a connector, transferring files to devices from an SD card or USB drive; as a power bank, i.e. a portable battery charger; and as a wireless access point.With our expanded wireless storage products for popular mobile devices, the Apotop brand has gained wider recognition over the past year. You can find Carry Tech's Apotop products in all Apple outlets in Taiwan and around 200 others in Asia. We have also partnered with several airline companies to do inflight promotions for Apotop products.Though the value of sales generated from Carry Tech's own-brand products remains a lot smaller than its traditional OEM business, the former segment is generating higher gross margins than the latter. We expect the Apotop-brand products, particularly the wireless storage device series, to be the key growth driver for the company in 2013.Q: Carry Tech is a 21-year-old company that used to focus on the OEM business in the PC card reader and memory solution segments, with clients mostly from Europe, Japan and the US. What proportion of sales comes from your traditional business now?A: Currently, about 70% of Carry Tech's total revenues come from the OEM business. While exploring new growth opportunities, we continue to ensure a consistent supply to our contract customers. Carry Tech has steady income generated by its OEM business and production plants, where six SMT lines are installed.Q: Companies face certain issues when producing their own products both as an OEM supplier and also under their own brand. Does Carry Tech have similar issues?A: Our OEM and own-brand businesses are clearly distinguished. For the OEM business, we secure contracts from the world's major memory module vendors, which sell their solutions mostly in developed countries.Carry Tech's own-brand products are marketed chiefly through retail channels in emerging markets, such as Southeast Asia and the Middle East. But for Apotop-branded wireless storage devices, the product line represents our own innovation and does not overlap with our clients' products.Q: Which memory companies do you source chips from? Has Carry Tech been able to secure a steady supply from its chip partners in 2013?A: Carry Tech has maintained steady relationships with its existing suppliers, which provide timely delivery and quality products as promised. We need to ensure the reliability of our partners so that we meet our client's high standards.Carry Tech also takes appropriate measures to minimize the impact of supply-side constraints caused by uncontrollable events, such as power outages or severe weather conditions. In addition, we employ different procurement strategies for different markets so that the company is flexible in its operations to satisfy different market segments.Q: According to a new IHS iSuppli report, the adoption of SSDs in PCs will expand through 2017. What is Carry Tech's involvement in the field?A: Three years ago we expressed optimism about the PC SSD market, which, however, has thus far been a disappointment. But still, the market outlook is promising.SSDs will not be able to overtake hard disk drives as the major storage medium for PCs and notebooks in the short term, because prices for the former are still too high compared to those for the latter.Q: Some observers have noted that Thunderbolt is struggling to compete against USB 3.0 due to its high cost. What's your view on that?A: Thunderbolt and USB 3.0 interfaces both have their own strengths, therefore they target different tiers of the market.The transmission speed of Thunderbolt is twice as fast as USB 3.0, with the former technology allowing an entire HD movie to be transferred in 30 seconds. Therefore, developers specializing in Thunderbolt-compatible hardware demand high performance for multimedia and gaming, targeting the specific market tier that usually attracts gamers and PC graphics enthusiasts.USB 3.0 is considered a fast, user-friendly option. Hardware developers that favor USB 3.0 over Thunderbolt are generally more focused on user-friendly design in terms of price and functionality required.Carry Tech is proud to have been chosen by Intel as one of very few Thunderbolt partners in Taiwan to develop a variety of Thunderbolt-based storage products and media devices. We also have a lineup of USB 3.0 products for the mass market.Q: What is your outlook for the 2013 memory market?A: DRAM companies should find themselves in a more stable market. We see suppliers continue to scale down their output for the commodity memory sector, as demand shrinks due to weak PC sales. The market has now returned to a more balanced state, enabling price stability.I don't think that DRAM prices will see significant falls in 2013, unless some uncontrollable events happen.Carry Tech president Taron ChangPhoto: Jessie Shen, June 2013

With the motherboard industry reaching maturity and competition growing fierce, as the world's second ranked brand vendor, Gigabyte Technology has been aggressively trying to stay competitive in the market by coming up with new innovations to satisfy consumers.Digitimes recently had a chance to sit down with James Lo, director of Gigabyte's Motherboard Business Unit, Taiwan Sales Department and Service and Marketing Center; Raymond Tseng, vice president of Gigabyte's Motherboard Business Unit, Innovation & Creative Value Center; and Stewart Haston, marketing manager of Gigabyte's Motherboard Business Unit, to discuss the latest innovations the company is ready to display at Computex Taipei 2013, as well as its future outlook.Q: Where is Gigabyte's current position in the motherboard market? And what is the company's current status?Lo: In terms of sales, we are mainly focusing on the retail channel motherboard business and are currently the top-two vendor worldwide.Of current retail channel motherboard shipments, including those from brand motherboard vendors and regional brands, which are about 60-70 million units, Gigabyte and the number one vendor, Asustek Computer, together account for 40 million units, about two-thirds of the total volume, showing that we are one of the top-tier players in the industry, no matter whether you look at it in terms of volume, quality or revenues.Q: What new products or technologies will Gigabyte showcase at Computex 2013? What advantages do these products have that will allow them to outmatch their competitors?Lo: Basically, for this year, we have separated our motherboard product line into three major series: Ultra Durable, our conventional motherboard series for the mainstream market; OC, which has many unique functions designed specifically for the overclocking industry; and Gaming, a series that features the most advanced hardware and technologies to satisfy the demands of gamers.People used to use PCs only for work, but are now also using them for entertainment. Although some people are satisfied with standard specifications, there are always people hoping for better, and this has helped turn motherboards into premium products like smartphones, where there are a variety of choices from NT$5,000 (US$167) models to NT$20,000 models based on consumer needs. Gigabyte has become a well-known brand for supplying premium motherboard products.We have also become particular about our industrial design, especially our PCB coloring. In the old days, our motherboards were usually blue and black, but we are now making our motherboards and cooling components such as heat-sinks and heat-pipes in colors that are popular among gamers, such as green, orange and gray, to satisfy their desire to build PCs that will stand out at a LAN party or gaming tournament, as well as delivering the technical specifications expected of a performance PC.Haston: At the high-end level, it's not just about the hardware or specifications; it's about creating a brand, and most enthusiasts and DIY builders know that Gigabyte green is meant for gaming, while Gigabyte orange or black is meant for overclocking.We were the first vendor to launch an overclocking-specific motherboard and the move blew away overclockers and triggered many competitors to follow suit. So, the business is all about leadership, it's all about jumping in and doing things first.We have a competitor which only colors its products red for both the overclocking and the gaming segments, but for us, we see two different paths. Gaming is one specialized area and overclocking is another, and this strategy is how we differentiate ourselves in the high-end market.Tseng: Let me give a brief introduction to some new technologies we've put onto our motherboards. For the OC series, we soldered a couple of USB ports directly onto the motherboards, which is a feature optimized purely for overclockers.Meanwhile, we have also designed several features on our OC series motherboards to satisfy customers' need for fast, responsive Internet connections and better audio output, and some of these designs have also been adopted in our gaming and mainstream motherboards.Our strategy is aimed at satisfying customers from all different groups.We also designed a new BIOS, which took us one and a half years to complete, that changes its user interface color and adjustable options with the motherboard series being used, in order to give both visual and technical satisfaction to our customers.Q: What is onboard Amp-Up Audio technology? What factors did Gigabyte consider in deciding to push this technology?Tseng: Amp-Up Audio allows DIY users to replace the audio amplifier chip on their motherboard. By changing chips, the sound capabilities on their boards can be completely altered, allowing users to pick whichever they prefer.Haston: It's the DIY concept. The whole point of DIY is to allow users to try out different configurations, and so why not provide users the same option for their motherboard audio chips?We have done tests with the technology, and audio quality on motherboards without an Amp-Up chip inserted show a huge difference from those with a chip. And it's not just differences in audio volume, there are huge improvements in audio quality and clarity, while chips made by different companies will also output different kinds of sound.At launch, we will offer what we call the premium upgrade kit, which contains three Amp-Up chips for users to play with.Q: Since the motherboard industry is already mature, is there anywhere else that Gigabyte's motherboard business is looking to for opportunities?Lo: We are already in the top-two in the global motherboard industry; so basically, we already have a rather superior branding position, and with our long and attentive channel development, no matter what kind of fluctuations occur in the market, we will continue to be optimistic about performance in the future.In addition to motherboards, we also have a new product called Brix, designed based on Intel's Next Unit of Computing (NUC) concept.Haston: The Brix is smaller than Intel's NUC reference model and can support up to Intel Core i7 processors.Tseng: This product is a result of cross-business-unit cooperation. Although the Brix is made by other business units, the motherboard business unit is the one handling sales to retail channels.As James just said, we stand in a rather good position; therefore, in addition to strengthening our existing product lines, expanding into more PC-related applications is one of our major goals. Applications such as thin mini-ITX form factor motherboards and all-in-one PCs are both product lines that the motherboard business unit is providing support on.Light industrial PC applications such as kiosks, which need small form factor motherboards, for small-to-medium enterprises are also an area that we are expanding into, and in fact, many of our motherboard competitors are also aggressively competing for orders in these areas.Q: What is the status of motherboard competition in China? What strategies is Gigabyte taking to gain advantages in the market?Lo: China is a market with a scale similar to that of North America or Europe. There are 300-400 first- to third-tier cities in the country, with third-tier cities having populations of at least 1-2 million. The country's high population and good economy have allowed it to achieve a PC penetration rate higher than all other emerging markets, which has boosted motherboard demand in the country.Currently, close to 40% of motherboard shipments in the global DIY market are contributed by the China market, showing how important this market is to the motherboard industry. However, motherboards shipped to China are still mainly entry-level and low-end models.Since demand in the China market mostly comes from first-time buyers, while a large portion of consumers are price-oriented, price competition is a common strategy for gaining share in the market.Gigabyte has already been operating in China's motherboard market for more than 10 years, but we actually do not have any special strategy for the market except careful channel management, which includes both channel expansion and maintenance. For the future, we will continue strengthening our brand and releasing more new products and better services for the market.Currently, we are seeing rather healthy progress towards achieving our motherboard shipment goals for 2013.Tseng: Market shares have become an important index for the motherboard market. Only vendors with a good position can expect to continue to survive in the market.Many of the second- to lower-tier vendors have already been left out of mainstream motherboard competition, and we've seen most of them turning to focus on other industries to find better opportunities.Q: How about other emerging markets? What are Gigabyte's plans for them?Lo: We have also been operating in emerging markets such as Brazil, Russia, India and Southeast Asia for over 10 years, so these markets are not really much of a problem for us. As for the Africa market, we are still observing its status, but the market is still rather small currently.Q: What do you think of Thunderbolt's progress in the motherboard industry?Lo: In terms of technical ability, Gigabyte has no issues developing motherboards featuring Thunderbolt, and we are one of the few players able to do so.However, whether Thunderbolt can become a popular standard will depend on consumer demand.Q: What is the company's view of the motherboard market in the second half of 2013? Will Haswell or Windows 8 have a chance to boost motherboard demand?Lo: New product launches will definitely benefit us, as many consumers will try to replace their old PCs with new ones; therefore, we are optimistic about the sales contributions from Haswell and Windows 8.As for the second half, we expect the market to stay healthy and Gigabyte will continue to remain on a stable track.Motherboard executives at Gigabyte (from left to right): James Lo, Raymond Tseng and Stewart Haston.Photo: Joseph Tsai, June 2013

When it comes to digital power, iWatt claims that it is the inventor of digital power control for AC/DC. The company notes that its technology allows its customers to eliminate BOM costs by reducing components while adding reliability and enabling smaller designs. Over the past few years, the company has been able to grow its sales 50% a year and it has shipped more than one billion chips since 2007.In the fourth quarter of 2012, Digitimes had the opportunity to speak with iWatt senior marketing VP Scott Brown about the value of digital in AC/DC power adapters, solid state lighting (SSL) and LED TV back lighting.Q: The power control business is a very competitive industry. How have you been able to succeed?A: We are competing with large competitors with large sales forces and large manufacturing capabilities. We win because of our core technology. And while you see a lot of great technologies in the semiconductor industry, the trick is being able to bring it to market. We have shown that we can ramp quickly by leveraging our partnerships. United Microelectronics Corporation (UMC) is our exclusive foundry partner at the moment. We also use Advanced Semiconductor Engineering (ASE) in Taiwan and Shanghai, and Unisem in Malaysia for backend services.So far we've been focused on 5-10W power and we've been very successful there. We believe we have about strong market share in this segment. We are now moving up to the 10-40W segment and we believe we can retain our share in those markets.Q: Can you tell us a bit about your core technology?A: Our core IP is called PrimeAccurate. Basically, our digital technology comes into play through an accurate way of controlling the primary side of an AC-DC power supply. It is unique and patented.If you look at an AC to DC system - AC on the input, DC on the output - historically, a controller on the secondary side of the transformer would feed back to the primary side via an opto-isolator. With our technology, we eliminate the need for the opto-isolator and the secondary side controller, as well as some other discrete components by digitally analyzing the waveform on the primary side of the transformer. In doing this we can accurately determine not only the voltage but also determine the current on the secondary side.This combination of primary side control and accurate regulation makes us unique. There are imitators out there but they are not able to achieve our combination of primary side control and accuracy. Some companies may offer primary side controllers. Other companies offer accurate regulation by using a secondary side regulator. We are the only company that can combine those two key attributes into one product, allowing us to offer reduced cost, increased reliability and increased density.Prime accurate technology is embedded in about 85% of the products that we ship.Q: Can you elaborate more on your value proposition?A: In our key areas, whether it is chargers, adapters, or solid state lighting, having an accurate voltage or an accurate current can enable smaller solutions because there is less heat sinking required if you know what your power is going to be. It can also enable faster charging in adapters and brings more reliability to our customers' products.Our technology also takes it one step further. Any time you can take a component off the board it helps improve reliability. But in particular, eliminating the need for an opto-isolator is a significant improvement. In general, opto-isolators tend to fail sooner than most components in a system. In systems that have to survive surge voltages or systems that are plugged in all the time - networking systems in particular - the weakest link in a surge voltage situation is typically the opto-isolator.Q: How does your primary side solution compare with competitors offering secondary side regulation? Basically, how good is your solution?A: Well, for example, looking at voltage out in a constant voltage mode of operation, our tests show we can achieve +/-3%. Even in constant current mode of operation we can achieve +/-5%. This is as good if not better than conventional systems employing secondary side regulation. In fact, particularly for constant current we believe primary side regulation is actually better that secondary side. And if you are willing to use higher precision resistors in a system, we have customers that have achieved +/-2%.Moreover, as I mentioned previously, we provide a strong value proposition in the networking space as well. We are designed into home gateways, networking equipment, and we have significant share in that market. In areas such as industrial, smart meters and set top boxes, we are looking to replicate that success.Q: You have also been able to achieve success in the solid state market. How did you extend your coverage to that market?A: Our value in the charging space is a small, low-cost solution. We noticed the SSL space has the exact set of requirements. They have an AC input, DC output and makers want something small because it has to fit inside a bulb. In the case of retrofit bulbs, you have a very small amount of space to jam everything inside. And like anywhere else, they want something that was low-cost. So the exact same attributes that made us successful in the adapter market were equally applicable in the lighting space.We initially got into the space by taking our adapter chips and putting them inside light bulb. Having established ourselves, our digital heritage continued to pay dividends. We noticed that it is very difficult for an LED bulb to work with a conventional wall dimmer.Dimmers weren't designed with an LED in mind; they were designed to be used with a tungsten filament. These dimmers use triac (Triode for Alternating Current) to hack out portions of that AC wave form. That works fine when you are trying to warm up a wire in a vacuum, not so well when you have an LED light.The main difference is that LEDs react very quickly. Whatever current you inject into an LED, you basically get that same light wave in the output. On the other hand, when you heat up a traditional filament, you can't make it instantaneously cool down. It inherently gives you a nice long time constant when cooling and thus you can smooth out any glitches in the system during the transition. By contrast, LEDs do the exact opposite. But because they react so quickly, LED solutions can enable flicker to make it through into the light spectrum. This can be a real issue. It can be annoying and even if the flicker cannot be noticed with the naked eye, the IEEE has shown that flicker can be produced at a frequency that can induce epileptic fits. Using a digital approach, we are able to digitally eliminate sources of flicker.Q: You also have an LED solution for TV backlights. Is this based on the same technology you focus on in the solid state lighting segment?A: The technology we use for LED TV backlights is totally different from our technologies used in other areas but we still leverage our digital heritage. We found that through a digital control mechanism, we can help to balance the voltage mismatch between the LED strings that make up an LED backlight. By balancing the voltage mismatch, we are able to dissipate less power and heat in the driver units themselves, meaning you can get more drivers in a package and that means saving system costs. However, this is a whole new area for us so our share is quite small.iWatt senior marketing VP Scott BrownPhoto: Michael McManus

GaAs solar material maker Alta Devices boasts solar cells with an efficiency of 28.8%, but perhaps even more astonishing is the fact it can produce GaAs cells that are only 1-micron thick, which opens up the possibility of a whole new field of lightweight, flexible, mobile solar applications. The efficiency combined with the super thin form factor means that anything that can be moved, carried, or worn can eventually incorporate the technology.Digitimes had the opportunity to meet with Alta Devices at the Euroasia event hosted by Globalpress in Silicon Valley and then had a chat with company VP Rich Kapusta during his recent visit to Asia.Q: You have an efficiency of 28.8% with your solar cells. Can you explain how you achieve this?A: The material we use gives us our efficiency. We start with gallium arsenide (GaAs), which is known to be the highest energy density material on the planet. This is the material used for panels used by the space program and has always been the best solar material possible for single junction applications. However, working with GaAs has always presented challenges. It is extremely expensive and cells have typically been produced on a wafer that is rigid and thick, meaning not very flexible.The innovation we've provided is to figure out a way to grow the cell in a form factor that is extremely thin, giving us plenty of flexibility and reducing the material costs. The end result is that our cells are only 1-micron thick.Q: How do you achieve such a thin form factor? Is it the materials or process?A: We grow the cells on a standard 4-inch square GaAs seed wafer, which we purchase from a traditional semiconductor technology company in China. The innovation is in the manufacturing process.The first thing we do is grow what we call a release layer on top of the wafer. This is a super thin layer of aluminum arsenide where the crystals are perfectly matched to the gallium arsenide. On top of that is where we grow our gallium arsenide solar cells. These cells are only about 1-micron thick, compared to about 600-650 microns for typical solar cells. We also place a coating of metal and a layer of PET (polyethylene terephthalate) to protect the back side of the solar cell.Another key innovation Alta has developed is a process where we go back to the release layer and etch away all the aluminum arsenide. Etching that layer away separates the 1-micron GaAs layer from the seed layer, allowing us to then reuse the wafer. This overall process is the reason we can achieve such low costs for a GaAs solar cell. A 1-micron thick solar cell uses so little of the material that we can simply keep reusing the original wafer.Q: What does it mean when you say you can achieve low costs? Are you competitive with rooftop silicon-based cells in terms of dollar per watt?A: We don't really disclose our cost numbers but I am referring to GaAs when I talk about low costs. GaAs cells used in space run about a couple of hundred dollars per watt. We are probably an order of magnitude less than that, meaning we are under US$20 now and we fully expect to be in the single digits in the near future. Our scale is still small but we do have models that show that as we continue to grow our manufacturing capability, we will eventually be competitive with traditional silicon solar, whose costs today are in the US$0.70 range.But this is beside the point because commodity solar is not our main market. Our value-added is the efficiency that allows for dense, compact designs and our form factor which is lightweight and has virtually no thickness. Combined, these two qualities provide incredible possibilities in the mobile markets – where there is strong demand. In addition, we have no competition because nobody else can do what we do. This will allow us to not only scale our business but to be profitable every step along the way.Right now we have a very small 2MW pilot line in Sunnyvale, which in the grand scheme of solar is nothing in terms of capacity. However, even with that small capacity we have enough material to go after some extremely high value markets.Q: Such as...A: Military applications are our initial focus, in areas such as the UAV (unmanned aerial vehicle) market. For example, the US military has thousand if not tens of thousands of battery-powered UAVs. These UAVs are model-sized airplanes that are flown to basically set up a communications network or used in surveillance. Under the current system they fly for about an hour and then come back down to recharge. By applying our solar technology to the wing structure we've proven that we can essentially allow these UAVs to fly all day in the sun, changing the usage model from constantly recharging to launching one time in the morning and having soldiers going out to retrieve it in the evening.This is a huge value proposition for the military. You can set up more complex communication networks that are more consistent and reliable and can be sustained for a longer period of time if you are not constantly trying to manage it with planes going up or down. Also, the UAVs can be damaged when landing. However, the key value for the military is in battle zones, where reducing the number of landings/take offs can significantly reduce the risk of life, because it means fewer times are needed for solders to go out to retrieve the UAVs from the field.So this is a pretty decent sized market and we are the only one who can provide a solution.UAVs also can be applied for civilian use in farming applications, border patrol applications, pipeline management and even can be used by the news media. UAVs will eventually be used to address any problem that is currently done by sending someone out into the field or sending out a helicopter. We will be able to enable these UAVs to be out in the field for a much longer period of time.Q: Do you already have products deployed?A: We are currently in the testing stage, having the military validate that our technology works.Q: Do you have any other products being tested in the market?A: We are also working with the military on a charging mat. Soldiers out in the field can carry a mat that can be folded like a space blanket but can also provide 10W, 20W or 60W of power, depending on the size. This allows soldiers to carry less weight because they can use solar to recharge as opposed to having to carry additional batteries or to figure out how to carry a generator.Q: What about other market segments, like the consumer space?A: I believe the CE market is going to be a really big opportunity for us. For example, we have prototypes of phone covers that can be put on a typical smartphone. These covers can provide 1.3W of energy (literally) inside an office. With that amount of energy, a smartphone's battery life can be extended by about 10%. That doesn't sound like much but then again, think about how much R&D is being done in the semiconductor industry, display industry and battery industry to reduce power and extend the life of smartphones. We can do it simply by adding solar to the back of the phone and we can do it at a reasonably low cost. Moreover, this example is for someone who is inside the office all day. If you are spending more time outdoors, that number goes up dramatically for extending the battery life.For a typical tablet, the added surface area provides for about 10W of space, which is the same as plugging the device into a wall. Think about it, having the smartphone or tablet beside you while at lunch or at Starbucks would give you a charge for the rest of the day.We can uniquely enable these types of applications because of the thinness of our cells. We add basically no thickness to the phone itself because we can directly integrate into the case of the device. And there is no added weight because our solar cells probably weigh less than the plastic they are replacing. So with very little added cost and no change to the form factor, we can uniquely enable the ability to charge on the go.Then there are a whole range of mobile charging possibilities in developing nations where electricity for charging is much harder to come by than is coverage for mobile devices.These are examples of markets that people have tried to go after in the past but they never succeeded because the technology and prices points have never been that suitable.The other big opportunity for us is the automotive market. Think about solar embedded in car rooftops, which is something we expect will happen over the next five years. With our density we can get over 400W on top of a small car.Q: That's a lot of demand for a 2MW facility to take care of. What are your capacity expansion plans?A: We break ground on a new factory this year and that factory will be in production at the end of 2014. Capacity will initially be approximately 40MW but we will be able to scale it to about 200MW. When we get to that point, which is still not huge capacity, it will give us a cost structure that will allow us to go after these bigger markets. I expect related products to be available in the CE market first, simply because that market moves so quickly. The automotive market tends to be a little slower but we will be able to address all the markets we are targeting with capacity from our first factory.Q: I know you mentioned that you don't talk about costs per watt, but how much can we expect to pay for some of these consumer devices such as covers for a smartphone? A solar tablet cover would make a nice present, but not at US$200.A: We expect that these products will in the few dollars per watt range in terms of price – not cost but price. So, as a consumer you can expect to pay US$3-4 for the amount of solar you are putting on the smartphone.Q: So a US$50 iPad cover that eliminates the need for charging is not out of the question?A: It makes sense. And if someone were to integrate that into the tablet, it would be an interesting way to differentiate a product. Therefore we are currently talking to both OEMs and ODMs to gauge interest.Q: In terms of efficiency, what is your roadmap?A: We are currently at 29% for single junction cells but we have already demonstrated the ability to grow dual junction cells. We should be able to get to 33% this year with dual junction and when we scale our production facility, we fully expect that it will be dual junction cells that are mass produced.We also have the ability to grow triple junction cells and we expect those to be in the 38% range. They are a little more expensive to make and a little more complicated from a process standpoint. However, when we can produce them in quantity, it does open up the satellite market for us, if that's where we want to be. But we expect that dual cells at 33% will service the majority of our demand.Q: What are the origins of the company? You appear to be a solar company but a lot of your staff have a semiconductor background.A: The company is five years old. It was started by two professors who are very famous in the area of photonics and are well-known by everyone in the solar industry – Harry Atwater and Eli Yablonovitch. Eli has been doing what is called epitaxial lift-off (ELO) for years but he was doing it on postage stamp sized substrates. The challenge for the company was how to make it work on a 4-inch square wafer. So development and R&D has been focused around how to turn this concept into something that can be manufactured. That meant bringing in a lot of people involved with semiconductor equipment and manufacturing. So a lot of the know-how in the backend concerning how to make a factory that works reliably with good yields, that came from the semi worldQ: How much of the manufacturing equipment is custom?A: We have 16 steps in the manufacturing process and three of them are custom. So we do have a lot of off-the-shelf tools that you can find in either the semiconductor industry or in the solar industry. But the three steps that are unique to us are the ability to grow the cell quickly, the ability to etch the release layer reliably, and the ability to stitch the results together in sheets of any size or shape. These custom tools involve more than 77 patents on the related technologies. In addition, the volume of trade secrets makes it highly unlikely our process can be reverse engineered. We are talking about very high barriers to entry from a technology standpoint.Q: How about licensing the technology to someone who feels they have manufacturing expertise?A: We are looking at that but there are no official plans. If there are people out there who want to build a 10GW factory in China somewhere, we can certainly enable them to do that. But we are not going to do that right now. We are taking this one step at a time.Q: You mentioned being profitable on your way to growth, can you tell me a bit about your financial status?A: We are currently in the midst of (series) D-Round financing. We have already raised US$120 million over three previous rounds, and we are now looking to raise US$40 million more. Our current lineup of investors includes tier-one silicon valley VC firms such as KPCB, August Capital and Crosslink Capital, as well as a strong mix of corporate strategic investors. The interesting thing is that we plan to become cash-flow positive in 2014, so we expect that this round will be the last equity needed for the company, which is pretty incredible – breaking even on a US$160 million investment with only 2MW of capacity.Alta Devices VP Rich KapustaPhoto: CompanySolar charging matPhoto: CompanyFlexible solar cellPhoto: CompanySolar handset casePhoto: Companyepitaxial lift-off (ELO) toolPhoto: CompanySolar powered UAVPhoto: CompanySolar-powered tabletPhoto: Company

Vitesse Semiconductor has been a major player in the semiconductor industry for the past 28 years, from its role in the telecom area in the heyday of SONET/SDH to becoming involved in the Ethernet side of the business since the early 2000s. These two business units were then merged (the telecom unit, which is primarily SONET/SDH products and the SME business unit, which focuses on Ethernet), with the company going full tilt toward carrier Ethernet, with a focus on the IP edge.In the fourth quarter of 2012, Digitimes had the opportunity to attend the Euroasia event hosted by Globalpress in Silicon Valley, where we had the opportunity to be introduced to a number of leading technology companies, including Vitesse and company CTO Martin Nuss.Q: Can you tell us about the Vitesse product focus?A: We are very focused on the IP edge with low power ICs that can go into small cell base stations, femtocells and picocells in the wireless network. In 2013-2014, we expect the deployment of small cells in the network to bring us big opportunities. We thought the IP edge market was going to be a very large investment driver in the 2011-2015 timeframe so we went full in 2008 and we haven't looked back.Q: How about the products themselves?A: One of the key technologies we have been focusing on developing has been network timing, focusing on solutions based on the IEEE 1588 protocol (Precision Time Protocol), which provides frequency as well as time-of-day timing for wireless networks. We are currently on our fifth generation 1588 timing engine, which can meet TD-LTE and LTE Advanced timing requirements. This is currently a very important area because of the shift to packet switched networks (PSNs). What I mean is that timing used to be provided by the TDM network or GPS but both of those are not really viable options in an IP world.We also provide very sophisticated carrier Ethernet switch engines - with all the timing integrated. These solutions include strong feature integration such as for OEM operations, administration and maintenance. In terms of design wins, 2011 and 2012 were really good years for us primarily based on the 1588 timing capabilities in our ICs but also for the very low power switch engines for the mobile access base.Q: Obviously LTE is driving these opportunities. Can you tell us about the deployment scenario and investment profile you are seeing in the market, and the opportunities they are bringing Vitesse?A: The first step LTE service providers made was upgrading their macrocells to be multi-mode (2G/3G/4G) so they could accommodate getting decent coverage for users that have LTE compliant handsets, mobile devices and tablets. This has been going in the US, Japan and Korea in a very significant way. Europe is a little behind but is catching up. In China, China Mobile has said that it is going to roll out LTE in the late 2013 timeframe no matter what.In line with this trend, the key for us over the past few years has been our strength in 1588. The upgrade of the macro nodes to multi-mode has gone hand in hand with a transition from the traditional TDM backhaul connections to gigabit Internet and IP Internet connections. Now all of a sudden you don't have the timing provided by the TDM network. You need to provide timing either from GPS or from the network itself using the 1588 protocol. Our strength in 1588 has given us big opportunities in the upgrade of the entire mobile backhaul network, in areas such as cell site routers, aggregation routers and pre-aggregation routers as part of.In terms of timing, in new networks such as TD-LTE and LTE Advanced, we are talking about precision measured in parts per billion in frequency accuracy. They also need very accurate time of day and phase alignment between adjacent cells, as well as between macro cells and small cells, on the order of nanoseconds. The overall budget for LTE Advanced in terms of timing accuracy is about 500 nanoseconds, but you have to be able to maintain that over 20 or 21 network elements and you may have some network elements in between that are not timing aware. You might have DSL links at the last mile, or you may have microwave links at the last mile, that have issues with timing capabilities. And so those 500 nanoseconds are gone very quickly. So by providing highly precise 1588 timing in our switches and our PHYs we basically can guarantee that whatever our customers may do, the network elements that include our devices are not contributing significantly to any timing errors in the network.Q: Can you tell us what you expect moving into 2013?A: While the early LTE investment focus has been on coverage based on existing macro cells, these macro cells cannot provide the capacity needed for widespread LTE acceptance. As soon as you get enough LTE devices on the network you will need to start implementing small cells in addition to the macro cells in order to provide capacity in addition to coverage.As I mentioned previously, Vitesse is very focused on the IP edge with low power ICs that can go into small cell base stations, into femtocells and picocells in the wireless network. So the biggest opportunity for us in 2013-14 is the deployment of small cells in the network.For us it is important for two reasons - small cells require significant networking capabilities so it is not just point-to-point connectivity problem anymore because these small cells sit on lamp posts, or they sit on traffic signals, or they are placed in urban canyons. This means it is very hard to get them connected in a point-to-point fashion to some central aggregation point. So they are going to be connected primarily by microwave or millimeter wave technology. Research firm Infonetics recently forecast that almost 90% of small cells will be connected with microwave/millimeter wave technologies because those lamp posts and traffic signals don't have fiber or DSL connectivity.This has really changed the small cell backhaul problem from a point-to-point connectivity problem to a fairly sophisticated networking problem and we are the primary vendor for low-power networking switch engines that can be deployed with these small cells. We provide the backhaul IC chips that allow these small cells to be backhauled in a daisy chain or a partial mesh along the streets in urban corridors or urban canyons and then haul those back to a central aggregation point, but not in a point-to-point fashion.Q: Can you expand on your statement that you are the primary vendor for this segment?A: Most of these small cells have very tight power requirements, typically around 13 watts power over Ethernet power envelopes. Our competition can provide Carrier Ethernet switch chips with between 8-10 watts power and that would completely blow the 13 watt power envelope. We introduced switches in 2012 (called Serval) that are actually 1.5 watt chips that have all the timing capabilities, all the carrier Ethernet capabilities and are also MEF Carrier Ethernet 2.0 compliant at a 1.5 watt power envelope. We are really dominating today in the market for equipment for microwave/millimeter wave small cell backhaul.And because these cells are sort of daisy chained along the street level or there is a partial mesh, you need to provide more than connectivity. You also need to provide quality of service (QoS). You need to provide multiple classes of service for different traffic classes. You need to provide virtual Ethernet. You need to provide virtual connections to the different small cells along the way as they are being accumulated and aggregated from small cell to small cell.All of a sudden it has become a very complex networking problem where you need a sophisticated MEF CE 2.0 compliant switch. Traditionally these are on the order of 10 watts and you just don't have that in the small cell/small cell backhaul environment. Again, we provide a sophisticated switch engine optimized for this application at 1.5 watts.Q: You said the deployment of small cells in the network is important to Vitesse for two reasons. What is the other reason?A: It goes back to timing. I mentioned previously that network timing solutions could use GPS as a timing source. That may be OK in the United States and it may be OK in a macro station but it certainly is not OK for small cells, because they sit at the street level. GPS is well known, even in the US, to be susceptible to jamming and spoofing so you can change the time or jam the GPS signal and completely bring down the wireless backhaul network with cheap jammers that can be bought online.And that is a huge concern for mobile backhaul network providers. So IEEE 1588 is a much more reliable network-based timing technology and is becoming increasingly important. That is the other component that Vitesse provides. We are the leading 1588 timing provider in the industry.Q: Can you comment on what you see going on in China in terms of TD-LTE?A: China Mobile said it intends to deploy LTE in the 2013 time frame. As you said, China will use the TD-LTE flavor of LTE where the network timing requirements are much more stringent, this will be very beneficial for us. We are looking forward to the rollout.The other activities that we are involved in with China Mobile and its suppliers is cloud ran (C-RAN). A technology where instead of baseband processing being located at the cell side, it is done in a server that can be further down the network. The server does all the baseband processing and then the actual radio signals are being transported over fiber, or with our technology over microwave or millimeter wave, to what is called a remote radio head (RRH) or a remote radio head unit (RRHU). We are involved in R&D with China Mobile and its suppliers in this area. The timing requirements between the C-RAN servers and the remote radio heads are extremely stringent and we can supply precise timing to the remote radio heads.Martin Nuss, CTO VitessePhoto: Company

With excellent cost advantages, GaN-on-Si technology has become a new focus in the LED market in order to cope with the severe price pressure for LED makers. In recent years, this technology has made significant progress and will soon move into commercial production to grab the market of long-term dominating sapphire substrate technology.German-based AZZURRO Semiconductors, which has patented large-diameter GaN-on-Si technology, already sets up a 150mm manufacturing site in Dresden starting 24x7 operations. With advances in its 200mm technology, the company will begin ramping up of 200mm wafers by 2H13 or 1H14. Erwin Wolf, CEO of AZZURRO, believes that within two to three years, LED market will rapidly and significantly have been shift to GaN-on-Si technology.Though GaN-on-Si has significant advantages, the technical challenges have made it difficult so far to be widely adopted in LED market. "AZZURRO's patented strain engineering technology can control the thickness uniformity of GaN film and the wafer bow, as well as achieve high crystal quality, which are all important to the performance of manufacturing LED devices", Erwin Wolf said.He emphasized that, take the 150mm wafers that are already in mass production as an example, the thickness of GaN layer is over 6µm and wafer bow is below 20µm. Therefore, it can utilize existing standard CMOS production line for the chip manufacturing process. Silicon is easier to be removed than sapphire, so that it can not only shorten production cycle, but also achieve better yield.Regarding AZZURRO's 200mm wafer technology, "We can achieve the same performance in terms of bow, thickness, and crystal quality as those in 150mm. In addition, 200mm wafer can have extremely high emission wavelength homogeneity, which will be able to reduce the binning efforts when manufacturing", Erwin Wolf indicated. At present, AZZURRO can offer 200mm wafer samples to customers.AZZURRO's factory in Dresden has already been in full operations since this year, with area of 1500mm2 and two 150mm MOCVD production lines. One is dedicated for LED wafers and the other for power semiconductor wafers. AZZURRO plans to mass produce 200mm wafers by 2H13 or 1H14."Our business model is to provide GaN-on-Si wafers for customers to fabricate their own LED or power semiconductor devices. We will not manufacture end devices", Erwin Wolf said, "Though there are other companies offering GaN-on-Si wafers for power semiconductor, but AZZURRO is the only company that offers also GaN-on-Si wafers for LED."As GaN-on-Si is gaining momentum in LED market, those who invest in this technology are IDM makers, which will use GaN-on-Si technology for in-house only. Currently, no company provides GaN-on-Si LED wafer technology. "Therefore, for those LED makers who don't have in-house GaN-on-Si wafer, AZZURRO's technology will be the best solution for them to address the emerging trend in LED industry", Erwin Wolf stressed.For LED applications, AZZURRO provides two products: LED wafer and LED template. Erwin Wolf explained that LED wafers can be used straight away to produce LEDs, while LED templates are silicon substrates with grown GaN layer by AZZURRO. Customers can facilitate their in-house designed LED MQW structures. Because of business and intellectual property considerations, most customers prefer LED template model. And AZZURRO will provide complete development kits for them to shorten development cycle of LED template.For example, AZZURRO just announced in October that Taiwan-based Epistar has successfully migrated its LED structures to AZZURRO's 150mm GaN-on-Si LED templates. Regarding this joint project, Erwin Wolf said, "Of course, there are lots of challenges to overcome, and there are many process parameters that we haven't thought of before. This learning process can help us avoid mistakes next time and help customers smoothly transfer to GaN-on-Si substrate with our application notes and engineering supports."AZZURRO aims to enable the migration of LED market to GaN-on-Si technology. As 200mm wafer technology gets ready, Erwin Wolf said, "When the industry can achieve mass production of 200mm wafer with CMOS process, the cost effectiveness of GaN-on-Si will stands out, and then the whole industry will move to this emerging technology quickly."However, before this goal is achieved, AZZURRO's important job right now is to enable the mass production of 200mm wafer. "We are now talking with several foundries, hoping to jointly develop 200mm wafer mass production technology. There are lots of idle 200mm capacities that can be utilized. Since these equipments are already fully depreciated, with these equipments and existing infrastructure, we can speed up the mass production of 200mm wafer," Erwin Wolf stressed.Meanwhile, in respond to future expansion plan, AZZURRO will have capital expansion plan next year, right now the company is aggressively talking with different parties about the investment plan.Erwin Wolf, CEO of AZZURRO Semiconductors AG

Since the firm's founding in 1995, NTI has remained strong, growing steadily despite a few industry cycles of ups and downs. The firm currently has a solid position in the Hard Disk Drive (HDD)-related software market. This is due to the firm's two core competitive advantages: first is a mastery of software technologies for file management and back-up storage, as well as the capabilities to develop applications on multiple platforms; and the second is the firm's solid reputation due to years of experience and track record in this field.Commenting on this, Bill Yao, President/CEO of NTI, said, "NTI has good professional ethics and commercial reputation. Over the years, NTI has never been involved in any legal disputes regarding intellectual property rights, or experienced any financial problems. These are very important to our business partners." In fact, NTI maintains long-term partnerships with many tier-one IT hardware firms. In addition to the HDD and PC sectors, NTI will introduce software products for smartphone applications in 2013 and plan to enter the smart TV sector in 2014.Using software to realize innovationsLooking at the development trend of the entire IT industry, software firms seem to be edging closer and closer to becoming the core of the supply chain, because compared to hardware, software has the advantages of being flexible, low-cost and highly efficient. Therefore, many innovative ideas can be realized through software. In particular, for NTI's target sector, HDDs are massively-produced commodities that rely on software to create product differentiation.Citing NTI's cooperation with Toshiba as an example, Yao indicated, "Our backup software, NTI Backup Now EZ, is customized for Toshiba and can run only in Toshiba's hard disk drives. This type of bundle, due to the stickiness of backup software, can greatly increase the number of repeat purchases for Toshiba's hard disk drives." NTI also added some specially designed features to this software. For example, when the storage capacity reaches a certain level, the software will remind end users to buy Toshiba HDDs.According to an end-user market survey conducted by Toshiba, 88% of its customers are satisfied with NTI's software and more than 80% of the them note that when buying HDDs, the software embedded is second only to price as the most influential factor when making purchase decisions. This survey shows that the added value created by software to a hardware product is quite significant.NTI's current product portfolio mainly covers two areas. One of them mainly focuses on backup and cloning features, such as NTI Backup Now, cloning software Echo , real-time backup and synchronization software Shadow, and data encryption/ protection software Ninja. In addition, NTI has cloud-based backup software-as-service, NTI Cloud, which is an integration of software and cloud-storage services. The other area that NTI covers is Digital Media software. NTI's main product in this area is Media Maker. Since 2000, Acer has been bundling this software with its branded PC, and up to now, more than 200 million copies have been sold. Furthermore, NTI also provides Mac-version Shadow and Dragon Burn.Making sure powerful functions can be easily enjoyedEmphasizing that NTI's design philosophy is "Power with Simplicity," Yao noted, "We firmly believe that powerful functions are only meaningful when their designs are implemented through a simple and easy-to-use GUI and work flow to allow end users to pick up easily." For instance, NTI's cloning software Echo emphasizes that it can greatly simplify the cloning of HDDs or SSDs, so cloning is no longer something that only geeks know how to do. Echo allows ordinary end users to achieve cloning easily. This software has been recognized and bundled with products from international firms and brands such as Toshiba, PLDS Lite-On, and Verbatim.Also, apart from the current NTI Cloud services, private cloud products and services will be NTI's next major move. Yao noted that compared with public cloud, private cloud allows end users to personally and independently control and manage their cloud storage. Through NTI's software, a local HDD can become a cloud storage device that allows users to share and access from anywhere at any time. In addition, the cloud storage will be controlled solely by the end user without safety and privacy problems that may occur when using public cloud. At the end of this year or beginning of 2013, NTI plans to introduce private cloud products, and develop multiple apps on a single platform for mobile devices and PCs, providing end users a better private cloud user experience.Bill Yao, President/CEO of NTI

The following is an excerpt of an interview with Summer Luo, Chairman of BIG SUN Energy group and TOPPER SUN Energy Technology. In 2010-2011, solar firms around the world adopted massive capacity expansions which caused sales of related equipment to increase significantly. Oversupply problem occurred. Coupled with price competition from China-based solar firms, many Europe- and US-based solar firms declared bankruptcies because of ineffectiveness in cost-downs. Commenting on such market conditions, Summer Luo, Chairman of BIG SUN Energy group, holds a positive view: "This is the beginning of solar power replacing other energy sources. Commercialization of solar power can only be achieved when it is cheap enough." It is generally believed that once the price of solar modules reach US$1/W, the penetration of solar power will accelerate, and obviously that time has come, judging from the fact that global solar PV system adoption in first-quarter 2012 reached 10GW, a 174% increase on year. Luo added, "I predict the total global solar PV systems in operation will exceed 30GW this year, which is a significant amount of demand. Nevertheless, the supply chain will continue to experience oversupply. Therefore, except for the furthest downstream system makers and distributors, as well as customers, who will benefit, others - from module makers to others further up the supply chain - will not be able to obtain sufficient profits." "Vertical integration" business model is best among peers Under such market conditions, BIG SUN continues to accumulate profits that outperforms peers (highest first-quarter 2012 profits among Taiwan-based peers), and the key lies in the "vertical integration" business model of the firm, beginning from the production of monocrystalline solar cells to its subsidiary TOPPER SUN Energy Technology's production of high-efficiency solar modules, rooftop and ground-mount solar PV systems, and designs and sales of solar tracking systems. The firm has been successful in constructing solar power plants such as one at a large-size traditional poultry farm in Yiju Township in Chiayi County, Taiwan. The firm remodeled the poultry farm by adding 500kWp of solar PV systems. The power generated is more than sufficient for the farm's own use, and extra power is sold to Taiwan Power Company. Annual rate of return by selling power is 12-15%. In addition to "vertical integration," Big Sun has core competence of strong R&D capabilities. The R&D team led by Luo has accumulated close to 100 patents in six years. In particular, Luo, with astonishing strength in R&D, personally owns more than 50 patents. One of the best proofs of the firm's strong R&D is the recently launched "Intelligent Solar Tracking System." Luo indicated that "compared to other solar tracking systems by peers, our product can increase efficiency by 30-40%." Solar tracking systems have not been widely used by current solar power plants around the world because the systems are too expensive. Most solar tracking systems adopt a structure using ball screws and oil pressure poles. These parts are costly and hard to maintain, hence limiting the popularity of solar tracking systems. However, TOPPER SUN's iPV solar tracking system adopts a different structure. The solar tracking system's simple design breaks through the cost bottleneck The core technology allows TOPPER SUN's tracking system to adopt two steel cables to replace such parts as oil pressure poles, air compressor poles, and ball screws. The system can track the sun from all angles with accuracy comparable to solar tracking systems that adopt expensive parts. Due to the adoption of steel cables, Topper Sun's iPV solar tracking system is much cheaper compared to others. In addition, the simple design reduces maintenance difficulties significantly. Topper Sun's tracking system also has great durability against wind. For solar power plants, this product is a solution that offers low cost and high accuracy benefits. Luo emphasized, "This product uses an innovative structure to debottleneck problems with costs and maintenance and can effectively increase procurement willingness of solar tracking systems for solar power plants. The system's ability to increase power generating efficiency significantly makes it a revolutionary product." As solar power generation enters the era of low feed-in-tariffs (FITs), the importance of solar tracking systems has become more apparent. This is because in the past numerous governments provided high FITs for power generated by solar PV systems, allowing power plants to profit even though power generation was low. Now, prices have been falling, prompting power plants to do their best to capture maximum sunlight. Therefore the value of solar tracking systems is now treasured because of their capability of automatically following the sun in all angles. Therefore, the launch of the new solar tracking system by TOPPER SUN can be described as "the right product at the right time." Quality recognition and success in international markets For other solar firms, this year may still be an unstable year. However, for BIG SUN, in addition to the introduction of the new solar tracking system, Germany's UmweltBank (Environmental Bank) has agreed to give substantial loans to customers who adopt TOPPER SUN's own brand solar modules. This major breakthrough is adding advantage to the firm's overseas deployment. The agreement aforementioned gives 90% loan for installations that have solar modules less than 25kWp without going through the screening process. For installation between 25-50kWp, the bank will contact TOPPER SUN's Germany office by phone to make sure TOPPER SUN's products are used. After the confirmation, the bank will provide a loan of 90% of total costs. For installations above 50kWp, the bank will conduct credit checks. Luo emphasized that Germany is the most important solar product market in the world and the substantial loans provided by UmweltBank are like a guarantee of the quality of TOPPER SUN's own-brand solar modules. In fact, not only the quality of the solar modules has been recognized, the quality of monocrystalline high efficiency solar cells from BIG SUN has also won acclaim. The best proof is that the product has successfully entered the solar market in Japan. Luo indicated, "During the first financial crisis, our status as a firm providing the best monocrystalline conversion efficiency in Taiwan gained preferences by the Japan solar market. Japan continues to be an important market for us." Unlike other Taiwan-based solar firms that purchase patented technologies from large-size firms, BIG SUN has been developing its own R&D strength since the founding of the firm. This ensures BIG SUN can continue developing products from a firm foundation, avoid market turbulences, and move strenuously towards the goal of cleaner energy sources. Armed with in-depth understanding of "The Art of War" in the face of harsh challenges The bright future for the human race ties closely with clean energy, a belief that enthused Luo to enter the solar industry. Luo's determination has never changed, and he has steered the company through storms time and time again by invoking the success strategies he has learned from in-depth study of "The Art of War" by Sun Tzu, that is the five constant factors: the Moral Law, Heaven, Earth, The Commander, Method and discipline. Furthermore, in addition to the "vertical integration" business strategy and superior R&D strengths, BIG SUN embraces the five values ascribed to the Commander: wisdom, sincerity, benevolence, courage and strictness. These are the hidden factors that have allowed the company to remain solid when others in the industry struggle. Observing the future of the solar industry, Luo pointed out, "The elimination has yet to be over and will likely last till the second quarter of 2013."In this worsening market condition, BIG SUN has been bravely investing in R&D and introducing innovative technologies. The firm obviously is equipped with the crucial qualities to survive and win in the industry. Summer Luo, Chairman of BIG SUN Energy group and TOPPER SUN Energy Technology