IEF 2012: Turning recession into opportunity!

Future Horizons recently organized and held the 21st Annual Electronics Forum on Oct. 3-5 at Bratislava, Slovakia. Here are excerpts from some of the proceedings:

Mojy Chian

Mojy Chian, senior VP Design Enablement. GlobalFoundries presented on ‘Foundry 2.0: The Era of Collaborative Device Manufacturing.’: Despite some predictions to the contrary, the foundry-based fabless model is not going away, and moreover it is driving manufacturers and device designers closer together. But like all living organisms, especially those in electronics, we have to continue to evolve. There are warning signs, both technical and economic, emerging in the foundry business that warrant our attention, and in fact require a re-thinking of how best to apply our resources and energy.

Recent talks of fabless companies investing in their own fabs, and of foundries developing ‘single company fabs’ underscore the sense of urgency. Clearly, we must change – Call it Foundry 2.0! This will be driven, ironically, by a move toward a more IDM-like model. Strategic collaboration that creates a ‘virtual IDM-like interface’ to chip design companies will help further close the gap between process teams at the manufacturing companies and design teams at the fabless companies.

With daunting technical challenges like 3D stacking, 450mm fabs, new transistor architectures, multipatterning, and the long-term viability of extreme ultraviolet (EUV) lithography, collaboration – early, often and deep – is really the only practical approach given the cost and complexities involved.

John Lofton Holt. founder, and chairman of the Board of directors. Achronix, presented on “Embedded FPGAs – Enabling The Next Generation Of Flexible SoCs.’: The system-on-chip (SoC) ecosystem is at a fundamental crossroads. With total

John Holt

chip development and manufacturing costs exceeding $100 million at 22nm, it is no longer cost effective for most SoC designers to build a discrete chip for every application. As a result, SoC designers are investing in programmable intellectual property (IP) for IO expansion, emerging standards compliance and application acceleration.

This programmable IP ranges from microcontrollers and processors to simple state machines that are register-programmable. Nearly every SoC built today has some kind of programmable IP. The programmable logic industry is addressing this SoC challenge in a different way. Coming from the “other end of the spectrum”, the major public FPGA manufacturers are implementing more and more hard IP on their dies to reduce the area penalty of the programmable logic for specific applications.

These techniques, while effective for some mid-range volume applications, will not scale to high volume SoCs. The major public FPGA companies are also very hesitant to license their programmable fabric to SoC designers, fearing competition in their core markets and erosion of margins.

Rudy Lauwereins

Rudy Lauwereins, VP Smart Systems Technology Office, IMEC, presented on ‘Providing “Insite” In The Unknown Design Space’: As technology scaling nears the “final frontier”, designers are confronted with an increasing number of restrictions.

Printing smaller and smaller features remains possible, but requires more and more regular layout patterns. Transistors can still be reduced in size, but may fall short of meeting electrical specifications. Smaller wires are becoming a performance bottleneck.

As technology scaling becomes less ideal, established design paradigms start to break. Creative and innovative solutions are required to sustain the momentum of Moore’s law: hitting the sweet-spot for cost and performance requires tight interaction between the technology development community and the design community. In an increasingly fabless world, imec’s Insite program builds the bridges between these communities.

Semiconductor supply chain dynamics: Future Horizons @ IEF2011

The last decade heralded a dramatic transformation in supply chain dynamics, driven by the complexity challenge of staying on the More Moore curve. On the demand side, the high cost of fabs persuaded almost all integrated device manufacturers (IDMs) to use foundries for their leading-edge wafer supply.

The ever-increasing process complexity and its negative impact on manufacturing yields forced the adoption of sophisticated foundry-specific design-for manufacturing (DFM) techniques, effectively committing new chip designs to a single foundry and process.

At the same time, the industry adopted a much more cautious lagging rather than leading demand approach to new capacity expansion, resulting in under-supply and shortages in leading-edge wafer fab capacity. To make matters worse, the traditional oxide-based planar transistor started to misbehave at the 130nm node, as manifested by low yields and higher than anticipated power dissipation, especially when the transistors were supposed to be off, with no increase in performance, heralding the introduction of new process techniques (e.g., high-k metal gates).

Even before these structural changes have been fully digested, supply chain dynamics have been further disrupted by the prospective transition to 450mm wafer processing, to extreme ultra violet (EUV) lithography, and from planar to vertical transistor design.

Transistor design
Since the start of the industry, adding more IC functionality while simultaneously decreasing power consumption and increasing switching speed—a technique fundamentally known as Moore’s Law—has been achieved by simply making the transistor structure smaller. This worked virtually faultlessly down to the 130nm node when quite unexpectedly things did not work as planned. Power went up, speed did not improve and process yields collapsed. Simple scaling no longer worked, and new IC design techniques were needed.

While every attempt was made to prolong the life of the classic planar transistor structure, out went the polysilicon/silicon dioxide gate; although this transition was far from plain sailing, in came high-k metal gates spanning 65nm-28nm nodes. Just as the high-k metal gate structure gained industry-wide consensus at 28nm, it too ran out of steam at the 22nm-16nm nodes, forcing the introduction of more complex vertical versus planar transistor design and making the IC design even more process-dependent (i.e., foundry-dependent). Dual foundry sourcing, already impractical for the majority of semiconductor firms, will only get worse as line widths continue to shrink.

Thrive or survive…going for gold in post-recession recovery: Malcolm Penn @ IEF2010, Dresden

Malcom Penn, chairman and CEO, Future Horizons.

According to Malcom Penn, chairman and CEO, Future Horizons, 2010 — a barnstroming year — will likely see the global semiconductor industry grow by 31+ percent. He was delivering the company’s forecast at the ongoing 19th International Electronics Forum (IEF) 2010 in Dresden, Germany, which ends here tomorrow. He said it would take a disaster of the scale of Lehmann Brothers to derail this now!

Some of the other forecasts made by Malcolm Penn include:
* 2011: +28 percent; based on: peak of the structural cyclical boom (could stretch into 2012).
* 2012: +18 percent; based on: normal cyclical trash cycle starting 2H-2012 (1H-2013?).
* 2013: +3 percent based on: market correction in full flow (could be negative, cap ex overspend and inventory build depending).
* 2014: +12 percent; based on: start of the next cyclical recovery (single digit, if 2013 is negative).

Given the now unavoidable 2010-11 fab shortage, the growth upside for 2010-12 is huge!

The forecast track record of Future Horizons is quite interesting. As per forecasts made during the IFS2010 in Jan.2010, the chip fundamentals was said to be in very good shape. The industry was starting its recovery with shortages. Also, the ASPs had already stopped faling. The inventory levels were at an all-tme low. Finally, the capacity was tight, and spending, weak!

All of this added up to two years of very strong growth in prospect. Penn had said: “It doesn’t get much better than this. But, despite what the numbers say, still no-one believes beyond the next quarter!  “Ah but” is still driving the industry consensus!

Industry fundamentals don’t lie — believe in them or die! The capacity famine was instigated two+ years ago — well before the crasj, today’s shortage was inevitable. The recovery dynamics will continue to strengthen. Future Horizons’ forecast is now +31 percent ~$300 billion. The next trash dynamic has still not yet triggered. It is unlikely to happen before 2011, meaning, 2012 impact. However, the economic uncertainty remains the biggest risk. Also, the global financial system is fundamentally flawed.

AMD, Intel settle all disputes! What a relief!!

The big news: Intel and AMD announced a comprehensive agreement to end all outstanding legal disputes between the companies, including antitrust litigation and patent cross license disputes! What a relief!

In a joint statement the two companies commented, “While the relationship between the two companies has been difficult in the past, this agreement ends the legal disputes and enables the companies to focus all of our efforts on product innovation and development.”

As per the agreement the two companies obtain patent rights from a new five-year cross license agreement, Intel and AMD will give up any claims of breach from the previous license agreement, and Intel will pay AMD $1.25 billion. Intel has also agreed to abide by a set of business practice provisions.

AMD will drop all pending litigation including the case in US District Court in Delaware and two cases pending in Japan. AMD will also withdraw all of its regulatory complaints worldwide.

Ramkumar Subramanian, VP, Sales & Marketing, AMD India, said: “This is a historical settlement for the microprocessor industry. The settlement will set transparent ground rules for open, competitive markets, with which Intel, in full public view, has agreed to comply. Fair and open competition dictates that the best product wins and market forces prevail. I am very confident that this development will help us strengthen our market position.”

This is just the kind of news the global semiconductor industry needs! It is hopefully, on path of a major recovery after having faced the worst recession.

It is heartening to note that the two rivals have buried the hatchet and shaken hands — a plea I’ve been making via my blog posts for such a long time.

It would do both Intel and AMD a world of good to focus on their core competencies and continue to produce all of those magnificent chips that make all of our lives so easy and meaningful!

Good work guys and congratulations. May you have all the success and lead the global semiconductor industry to greater heights in the future.

Excerpts from Future Horizons’ IEF 2009 — II

Presenting excerpts of some more key presentations made on day 1 and 2, resepectively, at the recently held International Electronics Forum 2009 (IEF 2009), in Geneva, Switzerland, from Sept. 30-Oct. 2, which was held under the auspices of the Geneva Chancellerie D’Etat & Istitut Carnot CEA LETI.

May I also take this opportunity to thank Malcolm Penn, chairman and CEO, Future Horizons.

“ICT: Key For Global Competitiveness” — Enrico Villa, chairman, CATRINE

Enrico heads up the Cluster for Application and Technology Research In Europe on NanoElectronics (CATRINE) and through his organisation Europe is preparing for our future with development projects in nanotechnology, microelectronics, photonics, biotechnology and advanced materials.

Electronic and information systems are worth $87 trillion and growing, which is about 10 percent of global GDP. Such systems have penetrated all aspects of life, created millions of jobs and has been a motor of productivity growth.

Microelectronics is a key enabling technology for electronics and ICT, and as a consequence the semiconductor market grows at twice this GDP. The role of electronics will increase in the future and will have an impact in society due to its use in healthcare, aids for an aging population, easing transportation bottlenecks and lowering energy costs.

To meet these targets electronics and ICT must be affordable to the population at large – meaning that semiconductors must meet the trend of doubling performance every two years, reduce price per function by 40 percent per year and aim for R&D nearly 20 percent of sales.

In an example given public lighting is 13 percent of energy costs – a change to semiconductor LEDs can save a third of this energy. Enrico sees moving from ideas to products is one area where Europe is weak, but thankfully projects Jessi/Eureka/Catrine/Medea+ are bringing together cooperation between European players.

This has enabled European companies and universities to work together and create critical masses to make global products. This is born out in the fact that Europe has several global-sized semiconductor companies and two European equipment-material suppliers that are world leaders.

“Raising The Bar On Semiconductor R&D Management, Execution & ROI” — Ronald Collett, CEO, Numetrics Management Systems

Working with the company PRTM Ron is tasked to raise the management competence within the semiconductor industry so companies can compete in the global arena. The semiconductor industry is going through a profound change with the vertically chip companies disintegrating and outsourcing their manufacture. Headcount has fallen, there are fewer start-ups and everybody is cutting costs.

Companies that will survive are those with well differentiated products and superior product development ability. PRTM has produced an integrated framework of product development capabilities, which compares company actual performance against industry best practice and timescales.

It is a fact that 60 percent of semiconductor projects slip in time by at least one quarter and 16 percent slip by more than one year. The system allows ‘fact-based planning and decision making’ and allows management to get no surprise shortfalls in revenue or margin.

At a detailed level, the engineer can make a fact-based project cost estimation and can reliably make staffing requirements and schedules. It allows ‘what-if’ project analyses and calculates risk. The immediate impact is usually a reduction of projects, but a better time-to-market and ROI. An industry shakeout is inevitable and demands will overwhelm all, but the best.

“Building Complex Embedded Software Applications On Leading Edge Silicon” — Martin Orrell, General Manager, Multimedia Technologies, The Technology Partnership

TTP is an independent product development company involved in a wide range of products including embedded systems in medical devices, PC peripherals, MP3 players and automotive, industrial and traffic control.

Martin’s view is that one of the difficulties in embedded design is to recognise that the hardware and software boundaries tend to blur. Using software rather than hardware has its advantages, particularly where the standards and specifications have not firmed up, but software often costs more than the customer planned.

Costs can be saved by the re-use of silicon and software IP, the starting platform and roadmap, trimming the specification and through innovation. TTP has a wide range of experience and can often view a customer project from a different perspective and Martin gave a number of good examples of case studies where this was the case.

To finalise, two tips were given to product developers: More complex software does not mean higher project costs and silicon targeted for a different market can enable innovative opportunities in your own market.

Chip market outlook: Back to normal abnormality? — Malcolm Penn @ IEF2009, Geneva

Malcolm Penn, Chairman & CEO, Future Horizons.

Future Horizons has revised its 2009 global semiconductor industry forecast to -14 percent growth (+/- 2 percentage points). This was revealed by Malcolm Penn, Chairman & CEO, Future Horizons, while delivering the company’s forecast at the ongoing 18th International Electronics Forum (IEF) 2009 in Geneva, Switzerland, which ends here tomorrow. ”He said, “It’s all about good management … only the bad times tell!”

Some of Penn’s other forecast summaries include:

* Economic recovery is said to have already started from 2H-2009.

* Further ‘50 percent’ cap ex reduction.

* Memory price recovery 2H-2009.

* Still lots Of blood on the road near-term

* Strong will get stronger as weak go to the wall.

* Watch for tight capacity starting 2H-2009.

* Crisis is the time to implement change (brings out the best and worst).

* R&D/new products/sound marketing will win (not counting pencils and scrapping the free coffee).

Outlook for 2010 and beyond

Penn also presented the company’s outlook for the global semiconductor industry for 2010 and beyond. These include:

* 2010: +19 percent based on: continuing recovery momentum (NB … this could be a lot, lot higher).

* 2011: +28 percent based on: peak of the structural cyclical boom (NB … this could stretch into 2012).

* 2012: +18 percent based on: normal cyclical market correction starting 2H-2012 (1H-2013?).

* 2013: +3 percent based on: market correction in full flow (NB … this could be negative).

The year 2014 could well see the start of the next cyclical recovery! Given the impending 2010 fab shortage, the upside for 2010-12 is said to be huge.

The 2009 forecast – how did we do so far?

First, let’s look at the 2008 forecasts:

Q4-08 Forecast (Jan): -22.5 percent, making overall Year -2.3 percent

* Q4 (Dec) Guidance: (Intel -20 percent, Nvidia -40/-50 percent, Broadcom -20percent/-23 percent. TSMC -30 percent, Others –20/-50 percent-ish

* Q4-08 Actual: -24.2 percent, making 2008 YoY -2.8 percent (both slightly worse).

Now, on to the 2009 forecasts:

* 2009 forecast (Jan): -28 percent.

* Q1 -20 percent (continuing Q4’s decline, but at a slower rate).

* Q2 -2 percent (market settling down and decline bottoming out).

* Q3 +12 percent (normal, but slightly subdued seasonal and structural growth).

* Q4 +3 percent (normal 4th quarter seasonal slowdown).

* Q1-09 Actual: -15.3 percent (better than Jan. forecast). Jan., not March, saw start of correction to Q4-08’s over-reaction.

* Q2-09 Actual: +16.9 percent (Much better than Jan. forecast). Also, Q1 (not Q2) was the trough with a strong April-June rebound.

* Q3-09 Outlook: +12 percent (No change In Jan. or Jul. forecast). The Q2 inventory correction spurt over with ‘normal’ seasonal growth.

* Q4-09 Outlook: +3 percent (No change in Jan. or Jul. forecast). The normal 4th quarter seasonal slowdown.

2009 Forecast (Jul): -14 percent (Much better than Jan. forecast/no change from Jul.). Minor downside risks (Q3 +8 percent and Q4 +2 percent. making year -16 percent). There is a significant upside potential (Q3 +16 percent and Q4 +4 percent, making year -12 percent).

What’s changed since January’s IFS2009?

According to Malcolm Penn, Future Horizons’ ‘Rose Glass’ scenario came true! He said: “We correctly forecast the pattern of the recovery. The rebound came one quarter earlier than expected.” Given below is a snapshot of what’s happened since the IFS2009 in January.

In January, the world was reeling from Q4’s unprecedented collapse with December peppered with last minute Q4 downward guidance warnings. Everyone was affected – from Intel downward, the collapse was a total meltdown and completely across the board – covering all markets and regions.

Next, there was absolutely zero visibility into the first quarter guidance. Many firms refused to even comment. Some said, “We Simply Have No Idea!” Others offered such a wide range of options that the guidance was meaningless.

The December’s WSTS results (released early Feb.) showed December (and hence, Q4) slightly worse than the Oct/Nov momentum at -24.2 percent (vs. –22.5 percent). The March’s WSTS results (released early May) showed March (and hence, Q1) slightly better than the Jan/Feb momentum.

In brief — from meltdown (Q4-08) to stabilisation (Q1-09) and rebound (Q2-09) in three quarters — even for the chip industry dynamics, this was unprecedented, said Penn.

I will be adding more here, a bit later… stay tuned!

Convergence driving technology trends, says Sasken chief

Sasken Technolgies was earlier known as SAS and it was focusing on product development. Later, it moved on to services. Speaking about this shift, Rajiv C. Mody, chairman and CEO, said that Sasken has always been, from day one, working on both simultaneously.

Sasken initially started out in the EDA space and had one product in the simulation space. It was writing a simulator, addressing large complex designs and methods to simplify the designs. Simultaneously, Sasken was also doing a lot of services for large telecom companies in the areas of designing. This was continued and eventually, Sasken expanded in the area of telecommunications.

Subsequently, Sasken started building products in the telecom space. However, one significant difference is that anything that it does, it impacts Sasken’s customers’ top line as Sasken address the R&D side of the business.

Not so long back, Sasken were also a VLSI player. It decided to disband the design tool part of the business and focus completely on communications. Now, Sasken does a lot of business in chip design, which is part of VLSI. Today, it is among the leading providers of semiconductor design, working on all kinds of complex system-on-chip (SoC), as well as 65nm design.

Sasken has filed for 39 patents so far, of which 16 have been granted. Those remaining are in the process, and typically, once a patent has been applied for, it takes four years before being granted.

It has invested close to Rs 40 crore in R&D in 2007. In the first two quarters of this financial year, it has invested about Rs 15 corers in R&D. Sasken focuses on next-generation technologies, which would shape up the way things are to come in this new, converged world.

Mody said: “The fundamental thing driving this entire change is convergence — essentially entertainment, media, news, information — all of it being available at push medium as well as pull medium. Wireless is also playing a very significant role.”

All of these combinations are creating newer opportunities – starting with, say, for example, in the service provider-side, new billing methods have to be put in place because it’s going to be triple- and quad-play kinds of situations.

Simultaneously, on the handset side, with more and more computing power being made available, newer kinds of applications have started playing significant role. As a result, Sasken is now scanning the entire gamut to position itself and take advantage.

Sasken will continue to invest in products in the mobile handset space. It also has a significant role to play on the multimedia and the application frameworks. Mody added: “To give you an idea, for the mobile handset, direct broadcast is going to play a significant role. People are already talking about high definition (HD) on mobile. You will see all those kinds of interesting things coming about, and we will participate.”

Sasken had also acquired a Finnish firm. This acquisition has worked extremely well and its full integration has been done. Mody said: “We have significant engagements because of our presence in Finland and the capabilities that they bring, not only with the existing, but also with the new costumer base. We are thriving and this has given us the capability to do full end-to-end handset design and testing.”

Sensor fusion and converging elements

Sensor fusion encompasses hardware and software elements. There can be many data sources, such as MEMS. non-MEMS, etc.

The obvious question: why sensor fusion? Tony Massimini, chief of technology, Semico Research Corp., USA, said that it is useful for power savings, and the initial reason was to improve accuracy and reliability of inertial measurement units (IMUs, etc. If we look at the progression of sensors to sensor fusion, there have been simple interrupts such as screen orientation, tap detection, fall detection, and so on. IMUs are available for location-based services (LBS) and navigation, and IMUs are available and other data sources, etc.

Source: Semico Research, USA.

Senosr fusion enhances user experience with portable devices. The growth is driven by smartphones. Competing devices will add more features to keep up with smartphones such as tablets, notebooks (ultraportables). Key growth markets today will provide basis for future end use markets (see graph: systems with sensor fusion). The market will likely grow at CAGR of 58.8 percent till 2016.

New end use markets and applications include areas such as gaming, HUD (heads-up display), sports, health and fitness, personal navigation, personal medical, context awareness, voice recognition, visual recognition, augmented reality and automation.

Sensor fusion is used for enhancing the user experience. For instance, add data to 3D axes frame of reference. Sensor fusion offers always ON and low latency. You can also connect to external sensors — wearable for health and fitness. Life tagging is possible too, e.g. photo and video library for context aware services. Next, there is improved security with biometrics.

Summarizing the sensor fusion market, the MEMS sensor ASPs continue to erode. There are an increasing number of sensors. There are improved MEMS sensors, including hardware accelerators. There is interaction with cloud for data. It also enables application innovations. Finally, there are new end use markets.

PC’s Electronic Components Blog named top resource for electrical engineers! ;)

Today, Feb. 14th, has turned out to be a great day for me! I received an email early morning, which stated: PC’s Electronic Components Blog is featured on the list of 100 Top Resources for Electrical Engineers that we published on ElectricalEngineeringSchools.org, USA!

Wow! This happens to be my sixth world title in a row!! The picture of the award badge is given alongside!!!

I am so very happy that my blog on electronic components has bagged an award! I had started my career writing about electronic components for Asian Sources Media, now Global Sources‌, in Hong Kong.

Back in those days – 1994-1995, there used to be some presence of electronic components made by local manufacturers, especially in Naraina Industrial Area, New Delhi. I still remember, very clearly, doing the rounds of Naraina, along with my friend, Dolly! Back then, most of the components were made for colour TV sets, and a few makers had just started making components for cellular phones.

Today, there are big-sized, very large representatives of electronic components in India.

I recall one of my earlier stories was on DIP switches. There used to be slide and rocker types of DIP switches. I wonder whether they are still used today! Maybe, they are, in some electronic devices! I also recall there used to be some demand for TV antennae at that time, as well as for cell phone antennae! How time has flown by since!!

May I take this opportunity and offer sincere thanks to all of my readers, well wishers, friends and acquaintances I have made over the years for their continuous love and support! Without you, no award is ever possible!

I’d like to conclude by taking the names of two gentlemen, who have spurred me on to write blogs on components, electronics and semiconductors, as well as telecom. They happen to be Alfred Cheng. country manager, Hong Kong, Global Sources, and Spenser Au, former publisher, CTG and now, CEO, Global Sources, Hong Kong, who made me work on the Telecom specs tables.

A word is also due for Raj Gopinath, my editor-in-chief at Asian Sources, and Daniel Tam, who replaced Spenser, back in 1999, as publisher of CTG. Special mention needs to be made of Claudius Chan, who I consider as a ‘guru’ of electronic components. Whatever I am today is largely due to my time spent at Global Sources! Thanks a lot, my dear friends!!

Alfred just sent me a mail saying: Hi Pradeep, How many more prizes would you like to win, my friend? I wish I could write as good as, maybe 50 percent as good as you do since we used to work together in the electronics industry. Thanks a lot, my friend!

Outlook for global telecom: 2013 year of LTE?

Stoke Inc. is an established player in LTE security, commercial Wi-Fi and LTE enablement, and is already engaged research into small cell signaling issues. It will be displaying a range of solutions for the global telecom industry at the forthcoming Mobile World Congress 2013 in Barcelona, Spain.

Outlook for telecom in 2013
First, I asked Stoke about the outlook for the telecom industry in 2013. According to Dave Williams, CTO, Stoke, 2013 will be the year of LTE globally. Deployments will accelerate worldwide. It is significant that Europe, in particular, has woken up to LTE.

Next, large-scale infrastructure suppliers are experiencing shifts in demand. While operators in the Americas and Japan are high spenders, in Europe there are major vendors whose technology posture is while newer players have become rising stars

Further, Wi-Fi as an ongoing force in the industry – with subscribers accustomed to ‘leaving’ their cellular providers for Wi-Fi options, operator services such as international roaming and rate plans are losing their money-spinning potential. 3G data plan revenues are shrinking because of the superior appeal of Wi-Fi to subscribers. Operators must accommodate this reality in their LTE planning.

Williams added that a trend will be the polarization of the device landscape. The Android’s dream of many device manufacturers with one software interface has faded. We’re seeing a polarized landscape of Samsung/Google versus Apple. RIM is struggling and facing further potential challenges as many of its enterprise contracts approach end of life in 2013. Microsoft may emerge as a player in in the tablet area. Look for some M&A activity from unexpected areas. Also, small cells are seen as the answer to spectrum challenges, but the rollouts will be slow for the next two years as the technology matures.

Finally, driven primarily by the popularity of Apple and Samsung personal devices, BYOD – Bring Your Own Device – to work is a ground-up movement that has taken ID departments and security practitioners by surprise. This is likely to push regulatory measures – especially in the area of security – in the relatively near term. Access providers are under even more threat from the security perspective. It is not all bad, though. For savvy operators, there is the prospect of providing trusted, high quality and easy connections to a large proportion of the estimated 7 billion BYOD users worldwide.

It would be interesting to hear about what are Stoke’s plans for the MWC 2013. Williams said, “At MWC, look for Stoke to announce its new generation LTE mobile border access gateway, new LTE signaling capabilities in its Security eXchange and, on the Wi-Fi eXchange side, a new event access offering in conjunction with an ecosystem of partners.”

Stoke’s Wi-Fi exchange gateway solution
Elaborating on Stoke’s Wi-Fi exchange gateway solution, he said the Wi-Fi eXchange is a gateway application that automatically authenticates Wi-Fi attached subscribers and securely links them to their 3G or LTE cellular network services and/or to the Internet.

Wi-Fi eXchange enables the operators to maximize the benefits of service provider Wi-Fi while limiting traffic loads on the mobile core through dynamic, selective traffic steering. Wi-Fi eXchange is an important catalyst for operators seeking to transition from Wi-Fi as merely RAN congestion relief to Wi-Fi as a new service delivery medium.

On Jan. 23, Stoke announced the newly-available Wi-Fi eXchange gateway that is engaged in multiple commercial service trials uncovering new ways for telecommunications operators to incorporate Wi-Fi as a revenue-supporting service. In a single unit, Wi-Fi eXchange introduces a broad set of extremely flexible Wi-Fi management capabilities previously unavailable to mobile broadband carriers.

Wi-Fi Alliance has been instrumental in driving the evolution of Wi-Fi strategies, providing a forum for Wi-Fi operators, equipment providers and hardware manufacturers to develop industry-wide standards and programs which are critical to mass market adoption. The Passpoint certification program, launched in June 2012, has seen significant industry adoption so far.