Bits&Chips 7 | 15 November 2019 | Wireless (Dutch)

15 NOVEMBER 2019 | 13 DECEMBER 2019

World Solar Challenge

Sorrow, frustration and exuberant jubilation

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Senseglove

Giving Volkswagen a virtual feel for the job

FOUNDING FATHER FLASHES BACK ON WI-FI

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Marc Klein Wolt

Managing Director, Radboud Radio Lab Assistant Professor of Astronomy, Radboud University Nijmegen

Bernard Tenbroek

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O

pinion EDITORIAL Nieke Roos is the chief editor of Bits&Chips.

Game of marbles

O

ver the last four years, researchers from Eindhoven University of Technology (TUE) have been working hard on sensors to explore hard-to-reach and even inaccessible environments. Together with colleagues from Aachen, Amsterdam, Groningen, Leuven, Trento and the Antea Group, they’ve been developing smart marbles, the size and shape of golf balls, that can perform all kinds of measurements while floating in a reactor vessel or passing through water mains or oil pipelines.

Recently, the TUE published a feature on this EU-funded project called Phoenix, boasting all its merits.

Meanwhile, on the other side of the Atlantic, Ingu Solutions is deploying its Pipers: sensors, the size and shape of golf balls, that can detect and locate leaks, defects, magnetic features and restrictions in pipelines. The ­Calgary-based start-up is focusing on industrial chemical production, fluid dynamics laboratories, water utilities and oil and gas companies.

The similarities are remarkable but not coincidental. The common denominator being Incas3. Heavily supported by the province of Drenthe, this Assen-based institute was co-founded in 2008 by John van Pol and Heinrich Wörtche, two nuclear physicists from Groningen, as the managing and scientific director, respectively. Their ambition: to put the northern region on the map as the world center for sensor research.

Van Pol and Wörtche very energetically set out to build their empire.

They started promoting Incas3 zealously, initiated several projects and created a separate company, Incas3 Solutions, to bring the inventions from Assen to the market. None of the projects really panned out,

though, and to top it all off, it turned out that any money to be made had to be used to pay back the government funding. In 2016, the institute went bankrupt, after having burnt millions of (public) euros.

First contact with Canada already dated back to the early days of Incas3. In 2008, Van Pol connected with Saskatchewan’s Petroleum Technology Research Center, which wanted to map wormholes created

The similarities are remarkable but not coincidental by a specific oil extraction process.

The idea was to see if a sensor could be made small enough to travel through a w ­ ormhole reservoir to provide more information and potentially lead to better production.

In June 2015, Van Pol left Incas3, taking this project and a few of his employees across the ­Atlantic, basically continuing Incas3 Solutions under a new name: Ingu Solutions.

At approximately the same time, the very same project found its way to the south of the Netherlands. In January 2015, while captaining the ship in Assen, Incas3 co-founder Wörtche secured a second job in Eindhoven.

As a TUE professor of “miniature wireless explorative sensor systems”, he became one of the driving forces behind the Phoenix project. Funded by a 3.6-million-euro European Horizon 2020 grant and assisted by part of the Assen team, he embarked on a similar journey to build upon the Incas3 research.

Four years later, Ingu Solutions appears to be doing well. Van Pol’s smart marbles were selected by energy multinational Chevron for its catalyst program, received multiple start-up awards and have screened well over 100 pipelines for more than 30 operators in the oil & gas and water & wastewater markets. Having raised additional capital from investors, including Chevron, Ingu is now gearing up for international growth.

After four years of research, Wörtche’s smart marbles are only just ready to enter the market. Stirring and mixing equipment supplier Jongia and the South Holland drinking water company Oasen have expressed an interest in testing them.

There’s even mention of plans to go to Canada to help oil companies in Saskatchewan. Under the name Smarble, a project has been set up to develop a business plan that should lead to a start-up company being formed as a joint effort of the two partners, the TUE and the Antea Group. This spinoff received a 100,000 euro grant from the Launchpad program, in addition to the Horizon 2020 money.

So, on the one hand, there’s technology conceived in Drenthe with millions of Dutch government funding that’s now being successfully monetized in Canada. On the other hand, millions of European backing are being used to develop the exact same business in Eindhoven. Somehow, this game of marbles feels like a colossal abuse of taxpayers’ money.

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CONTENTS IN THIS ISSUE OF BITS&CHIPS

17

20

News

Background

The sun sets on the 2019 World Solar Challenge

Senseglove gets a feel for VR

From sorrow and frustration to exuberant jubilation, here’s how the Benelux fared in the Australian Outback.

11 News

Yes!Delft start-up Senseglove is giving trainees at Volkswagen, Google Deepmind and other customers a virtual ‘feel’ for the job.

12

Record number of orders mark next phase of EUV adoption

7 Noise 8 It’s official: Intel is playing catch-up 11 Record number of orders mark next phase of EUV adoption 17 The sun sets on the 2019 World Solar Challenge 49 Harnessing lithium’s explosive chemistry for better batteries

How the conception of ASML took some convincing

Opinion 3 9 16 23 34 48

Game of marbles – Nieke Roos The headhunter – Anton van Rossum I dream of electromobility – Joachim Burghartz The IoT is all about energy efficiency – Cees Links Smoke signals – Bram Nauta Who manages your system architecture? – Jan Bosch

Background

12 How the conception of ASML took some convincing 20 Senseglove gets a feel for VR

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STAY TUNED FOR OUR EVENTS IN

37

2020

DUTCH MACHINE LEARNING CONFERENCE MARCH ’S-HERTOGENBOSCH

5G IN HIGH-TECH SYSTEMS Theme Wireless

WaveLAN: the tech that brought Wi-Fi to the world One of the founding fathers, Bruce Tuch, discusses the journey from the Dutch-developed WaveLAN to the globally recognized Wi-Fi.

27

TUE, NXP and KPN roll out the red carpet for 5G

Theme Wireless 27 30 32 35 37

TUE, NXP and KPN roll out the red carpet for 5G Direct digital transmitters pave the way for 5G Multiphysics simulations for 5G RFICs and SoCs A new era of spectrum use thanks to AI and SDR WaveLAN: the tech that brought Wi-Fi to the world

Interview

44 I f you already know everything, how will you ever learn something new?

APRIL EINDHOVEN

FROM IDEA TO PRODUCT TO BETTER PRODUCT MAY EINDHOVEN

DUTCH SYSTEM ARCHITECTING CONFERENCE JUNE ’S-HERTOGENBOSCH

SOFTWARE-CENTRIC SYSTEMS CONFERENCE OCTOBER EINDHOVEN

DIGITAL TWIN CONFERENCE OCTOBER EINDHOVEN

BENELUX RF CONFERENCE DECEMBER NIJMEGEN

BITS-CHIPS.NL/EVENTS

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NOISE

Source: Statistics Netherlands

2015

2018

15 12 9 6 3 0

Machines and machine parts

Metal and metal products

Horticulture

Natural gas

High-quality plastics

Top 5 highest-earning domestic Dutch exports (in billion euros) In terms of domestic added value due to exports, the Netherlands earns the most from machinery and machine parts, such as chip manufacturing and food processing equipment. Last year, the added value for these products approached 16 billion euros, according to Statistics Netherlands. That’s almost 4 billion more than in 2015 and far more than the second most profitable exports, ie metal and metal products. However, Statistics Netherlands considers meat, dairy, beverages and so on as separate items. If one would create a single food and beverage category, that would be the one with the highest earnings (25.1 billion euros in 2018). PvG

Software

Linus Torvalds is not a programmer anymore

Asked how Linus Torvalds, creator of the Linux kernel, spends his working hours these days, he answered: “I read and write a lot of e-mail.” Coding is rarely, if ever, on his to-do list anymore.

Of course, as Linux’s principal developer, a lot of code still passes his desk every day while reviewing patches and pull requests. But, if he doesn’t reject a proposal outright, he’ll suggest improvements only using pseudo-code. In short, Torvalds is a code manager and maintainer these days, not a programmer, and that’s fine with him. “My job really is, in the end, to say no. Somebody has to say no. And because developers know that if they do something that I’ll say no to, they do a better job of writing the code.” A little tip for those trying to get Torvalds to sign off on their submissions: explain what you’re doing. PvG

Quantum technology

The latest quantum conundrum

So did Google achieve quantum supremacy or not? It didn’t, some agree with IBM, because the series of calculations Google had its 53-qubit quantum computer do can still be performed in a reasonable time by a classical computer. It did, others say, because the Credit: IBM

NEWS

Semicon

Will TSMC have to pick sides?

Credit: TSMC

According to the Financial Times, US officials are asking their Taiwanese counterparts to persuade TSMC to stop manufacturing chips for Huawei. Both TSMC and the Taiwanese government deny having received any such requests but given the effort the US has been putting into slowing down China’s technological development – Huawei’s in particular – it’s hard to imagine TSMC isn’t at all in American crosshairs.

After all, except for Samsung and TSMC, most of the world’s chip firms rely on the foundry to manufacture the most advanced semiconductor processes. The Americans would love to deny those to the Chinese, though they also fear getting cut off themselves at some point. That puts TSMC in an awkward position. It doesn’t want to choose sides, and can probably afford not to right now, but it might have to at some point.

Something to think about, for Europeans as well. PvG

quantum computer did it over a thousand times faster than the world’s fastest supercomputer. And then there’s the issue of relevancy. Google’s task was specifically designed to showcase quantum supremacy but hardly useful in the real world. Some people argue that only by solving something of at least some practical use, quantum supremacy can be achieved. There’s probably no right answer here because the concept of quantum supremacy just isn’t well-defined. Relevancy was never factored into it, nor did anyone bother to define how much faster a quantum computer should be to be able to claim supremacy. But it’s fair to say Google’s work represents another step forward towards the quantum computer the world has been dreaming about. PvG 7

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ANALYSIS CHIPS

It’s official: Intel is playing catch-up Things are heating up in the X86 processor market. After taking a backseat to Intel for more than a decade, AMD (together with TSMC) has edged itself into technological leadership.

Paul van Gerven

I

ntel is “investing to recapture process leadership going forward”, said CEO Bob Swan on an earnings call with investors.

The truth had to come out, eventually: Intel is no longer king of the hill in integrated circuit technology. Even if the company starts delivering on its promises and 10nm volume shipments will get going for real, AMD’s equivalent 7nm chips have been in production at TSMC for some time now.

Intel’s 10nm products were originally slated to move into production late 2015.

When the chips never appeared on the market in 2016, the processor maker explained it was shuffling some parameters of Moore’s Law around. The additional development time is accompanied by a proportional increase in density and performance, Intel assured. In other words: there will be no net deviation from the historical trend.

But by its own admission, the company’s technological goals had been too ambitious. Aggressive scaling goals combined with implementation of several new technologies, such as cobalt interconnects and self-aligned quad-patterning lithography, proved extremely problematic to realize.

Manufacturing yields just wouldn’t reach acceptable levels.

And so 10nm chips didn’t appear at the rescheduled launch date, around the summer of 2017. The deadline then moved to 2018, and to an unspecified quarter in 2019 next. As we near the end of 2019, rumors are abound that the 10nm generation (or at least major product lines within it) will be a total failure.

Intel vehemently denies this. In fact, at the latest conference call, CEO Swan announced that the “10nm product era has begun”. A couple of products seem to be 8

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Ryzen is AMD’s processor line for desktop, mobile and embedded platforms.

shipping indeed, but industry watchers now want to know if they’re actually worth their salt. While getting 10nm up and running, Intel put out several upgraded versions of 14nm chips (up to 14nm++++). These may now be so good, that there’s little incentive to buy 10nm parts on performance. In fact, even on early roadmaps Intel presented, it took one or two updates for 10nm (to 10nm+ or 10nm++) to start outperforming 14nm(++++).

Shake off

Meanwhile, AMD has been earning praise for its 7nm consumer and server products, which seem to be on par with more expensive Intel processors, or even better at some tasks. And that’s before the 7nm design is moving to TSMC’s 7nm+ process, which employs EUV lithography and delivers some additional performance upgrades.

This will presumably happen in 2020.

Credit

: AMD

In the third quarter – the first ‘full 7nm quarter’ – AMD posted its highest revenue since 2005, despite game console chips weighing down sales. “I’m extremely pleased with our progress as we have the strongest product portfolio in our history, significant customer momentum and a leadership product roadmap for 2020 and beyond,” said AMD CEO Lisa Su. She’s not exaggerating: AMD may not be miles ahead, but Intel is playing catch-up right now.

It’s not like AMD is hurting Intel much financially, however: the latter posted record quarterly revenues as well in Q3. And Intel still controls roughly 75 percent of the market. But losing the edge technologically is nonetheless painful for a company that flaunted its leadership in the past and prided itself on flawless execution cycle after cycle. Even if Intel manages to retake pole position, it will take a long time before it can shake off the 10nm bust.

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pinion

THE HEADHUNTER Anton van Rossum anton.van.rossum@ir-search.nl

Ask the headhunter B.A. asks: M.R. asks: Forthe about ve yearsofnow, I’ve been As R&Dfimanager a fast-­ growing working as a senior chipI engineer at semiconductor start-up, spend a lot thetime semiconductor division of for a large of selecting candidates my KoreanThese technology really team. days, wecompany. regularly Ireceive like itgood there, although I’ve reached my very applications from Iranians personal peak in thewise organization.

To but we wonder if it’s to hire them. move reallycan need Do youahead, know ifI they worktoonspeak govKorean and that How seems ernment projects? do impossible other tech with my limited language companies deal with this? skills.

Because I’m ready for the next step in my career, I’m answers: talking to an AmerThe headhunter ican in the I, too,company have noticed the Netherlands. influx of enThey offfrom er meIran. a challenging role in an gineers At Eindhoven Uniinteresting technology segment and versity of Technology alone, there my enthusiasm growing every are already 148is employees andday.

28 We’re currently in the negotiation students of Iranian descent and I phase forit the contract. suspect won’t be different at other I didn’t universities. have many concerns technical There areabout also the salary.

I assumed the company many engineers from Iran applying would make me a suitableThe offerlevel based to European companies. of on myuniversities experience,over skillthere set and the some is quite cost of living the Netherlands.

To high but the in future perspective for simplify matters, I listed mygood, current engineers isn’t particularly so income components therestricgross I’ve heard.

Due to allwith trade and net in all, I to getac-a tions, it’samounts. virtually All impossible net annual of 92,500 euros, quire certainsalary components, software including benefits such doesn’t as a freemake furand equipment, which nished gratuitythe pay,politanlife any apartment, easier. In addition, nualand airline tickets to myisn’t country of ical cultural climate all that birth andfor theeveryone, costs of my pleasant anddaughter’s the road international To myhas. surprise, west beckons –school. as it always I received a much offer: 80,000 Since 2006, the lower UN Security Couneuros year net (30 percent tax facil hasper adopted a number of resolucility),requiring but no apartment and none of tions Iran to cease uranithe other specialfor benefi I now have. um enrichment thetsproliferation tryingweapons. to convince the compaof I’m nuclear These resoluny to increase their offer.accompanied I’ve sent my tions were increasingly contract with measures my terms toofpersuade employby restrictive ment, a tax to declaration andthat all calthe country comply with deculations, including comparisons of mand, thereby aggravating worldthe cost of livingThis in thehas Netherlands wide tensions. also had versus Korea, but not made much consequences forI’ve Iranian engineers progressfor yet.employment Perhaps weincan canlooking Europe.

cel my participation in the pension Fearing their specialist knowledge scheme, whichforwould win me missile a gross will be used the Iranian 800 euros per else can I program, themonth.

DutchWhat government do tospring convince the company match last announced an to immedimy current salary? ate screening of Iranian students and scientists in the Netherlands.

The headhunter answers:

Skipping participation in a collective pension is impossible; it’s mandatory.

The overview you’ve provided shows that your current employer has a very complete package of benefits to attract and retain top talent. I assume this is one of the reasons why

Inquiries with several large semiconductor companies show You’ll have to Iranians to be judge your ‘golden blacklisted handcuffs’ on their The problem with the technology in true merits question, however, is that it involves

many specialized areas, such as meyou accepted the offer to work intechKochanical engineering, aircraft rea a fewelectrical years ago.engineering Now that you’ve nology, and reached thephysics. ceiling inMany your career and (nuclear) engineers yourthus childbeislabeled going as to“nuclear”. school, you’ll can have to judge these ‘golden handcuffs’ Consulting Dutch governmental on their true merits.

As you’ve indiorganizations on what obstacles cated, the life for you and your there are social for Iranians wanting to partnerat isn’t very exciting because work technology companies in you Netherlands don’t speak Korean andhelpful. life in the isn’t very a cityNetherlands of millions Enterprise like Seoul will get The Agency bored indoesn’t the longconcern run.

(RVO) itself with Although it’s quite understandable government regulations in this area to take your salary ascomthe and leaves it current to the business starting point for a possibleand transfer, munity.

The Immigration Natyou’ll also need to be realistic.

I’m not uralization Service (IND) doesn’t ruling out thebetween possibility that there discriminate nationalities areits companies in Europe that can ofin highly skilled migrant procefer you higher salary, but isn’t you have dure – aabackground check part to the findscreening. them first. I’m aware of top of

salaries Intel, Broadcom and QualIn theatbusiness world, people are comm, but they’re much now aware of the located problem.in Inquimorewith expensive and they’re ries severalregions large semiconducnot companies in the ‘hiring mood’.

Of course, tor show Iranians to be you can findalongside companies in Silicon blacklisted, some other Valley where your qualities certainly nationalities.

US-based Cadence, for would be doesn’t appreciated, but getting instance, appreciate Iraniansa work visainto there is almost coming contact withimpossible. its AmerYou’ll have to make choice, also ican technology.

The asame applies weighing the quality of life of your to other inEDA software providers. family businesses and your possess further acareer in These plethora technology.

If you monof technologies thatchoose can bethe used in ey, you’ll have to keep industry. on searching. the defense or nuclear That There will be no increase this bid. makes it very difficult forinIranian engineers to fulfill a position within the R&D department of a chip company.

It’s quite distressing to see so many Iranian engineers having to deal with this ‘boycott’. After all, only a few people will actually have ‘passed on’ knowledge used in weapons of mass destruction or missile programs. What I hear about Iranian engineers working in the West is that they generally fit very well into Western culture, are highly motivated for their jobs and have good technical skills.

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ANALYSIS SEMICON

Record number of orders mark next phase of EUV adoption The first ‘EUV devices’ are on the market, but that’s only the beginning. The number of EUV layers in chips will keep increasing and that’s good news for ASML – but also a bit of challenge.

Paul van Gerven

ing to adopt EUV for their next-­generation memory chips.

So that’s a lot more EUV layers, which means a lot more EUV scanners will be needed. This is reflected by the exploding order intake at ASML last quarter: 5.1 billion euros, mainly driven by a whopping 23 orders for EUV scanners. EUV profitability is not yet on par with DUV, but it’s safe to say ASML is really starting to reap the rewards of twenty years of development.

“This is the right point in time to express a big thank-you to everyone, not just at ASML but also in the ecosystem, who was involved in making this happen,” said Dassen in a video statement. “[The achievement] is fundamental in creating a solid underpinning for a very bright future for ASML.”

Conservative projection

Like always, it’s ASML’s job to get all those machines in its customer’s fabs on time.

Already some delays have manifested themCredit: ASML

A

SML CFO Roger Dassen called it a “momentous quarter” for EUV lithography: the first devices with EUV-made chips have been sold. In August, Samsung launched the Galaxy Note10 smartphone line, powered by 7nm SoCs fabbed in-house.

And early October, TSMC confirmed shipments of N7+ chips had commenced. The recently launched Huawei Mate 30 smartphone, for example, has its processor manufactured at the Taiwanese foundry.

And this is just the beginning, as far as deploying EUV is concerned. On average, Samsung and TSMC incorporate 10 EUV layers in their 7nm chips. The 5nm node, which is right around the corner, will double that. Even before that, both chipmakers will start a 6nm half-node, in which EUV use is presumably also stepped up compared to 7nm. Additionally, production capacity will ramp up in anticipation of high demand for 5G and AI chips. And, to top it all off, DRAM manufacturers are start-

selves: instead of the scheduled 30, 26 EUV scanners will be shipped this year. The remaining four will be postponed to early 2020. This is caused by a few weeks of delay in the supply chain, specifically the modular vessel for the EUV source powering the NXE:3400C scanner – an issue that has now been resolved.

It’s not entirely clear if the four systems moving into 2020 affect the projected number of shipments in that year. Previously, capacity was estimated at 30-35 systems, so 39 shipments in 2020 if ASML plays catch-up. Answering questions from investors, CEO Peter Wennink set the goal at 35 shipments but qualified that as a conservative projection. “We do have more capability,” he said, later adding that through cycle time reductions and improving production efficiency, capacity could eventually be pushed to 50 units per year without building additional facilities.

Ailing memory

Financially, the year developed pretty much as ASML predicted. Sales were mainly driven by logic, which started to pick up after the first quarter (2.2 billion euros) and accelerating as the year progressed.

ASML expects to end the year with 3.9 billion euros of quarterly sales, which would be more than enough to top last year’s record sales. “Considering the market, that’s a significant feat,” commented Dassen, referring to the ailing memory market.

Looking forward, ASML is optimistic about 2020 as well. Logic will continue to drive demand, and at some point, the memory market is expected to go into recovery mode – which historically brings big swings in demand. When exactly that will happen, is hard to pinpoint, however.

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B a c kg r o u n d

Semicon

How the conception of ASML took some convincing Back in the 1980s, Philips wasn’t particularly keen on working with the much smaller company ASM International. Only by cozying up to the Dutch government, ASMI CEO Arthur del Prado managed to nudge Philips into the partnership that we know today as ASML. Jorijn van Duijn

A

round 1980, in the wake of fierce American and Japanese competition, the European Community ­initiated its first cohesive effort in support of the European microelectronics industry.

Within the Netherlands, public awareness about the significance of microelectronics for economic growth in the future rose as well. Yet, it seemed like the Netherlands were missing the boat.

This not only was a source of concern to the Dutch electronics behemoth Philips but also to the much lesser-known semiconductor equipment manufacturer ASM International. Though Philips initially would barely acknowledge the existence of the company from Bilthoven, the firms ended up working together after some shrewd manipulation of Dutch economic policy. The result of that collaboration: ASML.

Sideswiping Philips

In an interview published in January 1981, Eduard Pannenborg, director of the prestigious Philips Research Laboratory, complained about the lack of entrepreneurship and initiative with regard to micro­electronics in the Netherlands. Philips was alone, according to him.

This caught the eye of ASMI’s founder and chief executive, Arthur Del Prado. So far, the 49-year-old businessman had been trying in vain to get support for his growing company. Neither the Dutch government nor Philips had been willing to take 12

7

up his overtures. Two weeks after Pannenborg’s interview in the newspaper, Del Prado sent a letter to the Philips executive.

The letter clearly stipulated the entrepreneur’s position vis-à-vis the changing economic policies of the Dutch and European authorities: “I completely agree with many of your comments, in particular your observations concerning the absence of European industrial policy, ... and, finally, with your comments with regard to the Dutch industrial climate in relation to the lack of entrepreneurial spirit in this country.”

Del Prado then continued to applaud Pannenborg’s statements about the Dutch entrepreneurial spirit, even though the businessman politely confronted the Philips executive with the fact that he didn’t practice what he preached. As a national champion in electronics, Philips itself had to lead by example: “Although we did many proposals for collaboration to Philips, time and again it was the American industry where we did find intensive support for launching almost all of our current and latest products. If you argue that the Dutch young people lack entrepreneurial spirit, I would counter that in my view Philips lacks the pioneering spirit that might co-determine the development of a Dutch ‘Silicon Valley’ in miniature.”

Although the letter was politely acknowledged by Pannenborg’s office, Philips didn’t respond. It seems that big Philips still disregarded the small Dutch company in semiconductor equipment for its size and its impetuous reputation as an equipment supplier. But Del Prado had something up his sleeve, which would turn the tide and put him and his company in the spotlight.

On 19 May 1981, ASM International conducted its initial public offering (IPO) at the United States capital market for technology enterprises, the Nasdaq. A novelty for the Netherlands, ASMI being the first Dutch company to be listed there. This tour de force launched the Bilthoven corporation into the major leagues, a feat that couldn’t be ignored by either Philips or the Dutch authorities.

Enjoying the new attention and admiration, Del Prado seized the opportunity to express his assessment of the Dutch climate for microelectronics publicly. In October 1981, in a page-long article in a leading Dutch national newspaper, NRC Handelsblad, he showed off his achievements and vented his frustrations about the Dutch business environment.

In “Silicon Valley at the Jan Steenlaan”, Del Prado publicly restated the argument of his letter to Pannenborg earlier that year.

Deliberately, if not articulated directly, he took a sideswipe at Philips. Also, the Dutch capital market had to catch it. Still, at the end of the article, he emphasized his pride

in being a Dutchman, articulating the hope that the industrial climate in the Netherlands would improve.

Animosity

Del Prado’s rising star and his advances toward collaboration didn’t go unnoticed at the Dutch Ministry of Economic Affairs and the Ministry of Education and Sciences.

The government officials were interested to learn about his opinion on the matter and included him in some of their deliberations.

In these contacts with the Dutch ministries, Del Prado presented himself as the only legitimate conversation partner on the subject of semiconductor production equipment. By September 1982, he was personally invited as a board member of the Foundation for Centers of Microelectronics (Stichting Centra voor Micro-­Electronica, SCME) for a period of three years. The SCME was set up in response to one of the

Eduard Pannenborg expressing concern about Europe losing ground to the US and Japan in the semiconductor market.

Source: De Telegraaf

governmental advisory commissions and reports in 1980. Its task was to enlighten the Dutch public about microelectronics beyond the overshadowing predominance of Philips. Through these new interactions with government officials, ASMI became an active player in the transformation of Dutch economic policies.

Del Prado also needed to forge a relationship with Philips. This occurred by fits and starts. After the media attention, the entrepreneur came into contact with several engineers of the Philips Research Laboratory.

While this resulted in some visits, real collaboration failed to materialize. Moreover, for the first European Microelectronics Program, Philips and ASMI didn’t cooperate. To the dissatisfaction of Del Prado and the public officials, both companies submitted proposals independently of each other.

The ongoing animosity between ASMI and Philips was counterproductive to the inter-

ests of both the government and the companies themselves.

Del Prado leveraged his new relationship with the Dutch Ministry of Economic Affairs in his flirtations with the Dutch giant in electronics. Since Philips enjoyed substantial financial support from the Dutch government and the company had argued for more European collaboration, the ministry had the means to urge Philips to hear ASMI out. And Del Prado was persistent, countering every argument of Philips managers against collaboration. It became more and more difficult for Philips to neglect or deny the advances of the small Dutch enterprise.

A new company

On 7 October 1982, during a meeting at the Ministry of Economic Affairs in The Hague, Del Prado finally detected an opportunity.

In this meeting with the ministry’s interim director-general of industry, Jan Hillige,

ORDER NOW

“ASML’s Architects is an impressive book, a curious book and a book for the curious. (…) Clearly a labour of love by Raaijmakers but nonetheless an easy read.”

Peter Clarke, eeNews, February 1, 2019 “Rene Raaijmakers’ book on the history of ASML is a monumental work in its depth and breadth from ASML’s beginning through 1996. (…) No tech company’s history has ever been covered to such a degree.”

Dan Hutcheson, The Chips Insider, February 1, 2019

techwatchbooks.nl/architects

B a c kg r o u n d

Semicon

and Ab de Boer, the director of the Philips Science and Industry (S&I) department, the intentions of Philips to commercialize an in-house developed lithography stepper machine were discussed. Philips S&I was looking for a resourceful manufacturing partner to introduce the system to the market. Del Prado set himself up as a ministering angel.

After all, lithography was a lucrative market. Yet, a few months earlier, in February 1982, Del Prado observed in a letter to a staff member: “As you know, I’m very skeptical to make serious efforts to engage the competitors in lithography, this late, with the big boys in this area (Perkin Elmer, GCA, Hitachi, Canon, etc.). Unless this happens together with one of the big companies like Philips or others, or if we could make a big leap forward in a new direction – x-ray or something else.”

Since Philips seemed to be looking for a partner in lithography, one of Del Prado’s preconditions for engaging the lithography market was fulfilled.

Next to a procurement contract for ­A SMI’s horizontal furnaces by Philips Elcoma, the wafer stepper constituted the first real opportunity to have Philips and ASMI collaborate. After the meeting, Del Prado wrote a letter to De Boer: “After ample consultation, I intend to confirm the position of ASM to reassure you that if Philips decides to introduce its wafer stepper into the American and Japanese markets, it could consider ASM as a partner for this project after all. ... Assuming that the wafer stepper is a fairly complete engineered product, ASM will be willing to take up the ‘final assembly’ and marketing of the stepper in America.”

To remove any objections, Del Prado detailed how he envisaged the collaboration, from manufacturing and marketing to development. With regard to the funding of the endeavor, he suggested: “The eventual need to attract venture capital seems no insurmountable problem for us.

ASMI equipment, as well as the considered collaboration in lithography:

On pre-order now

“As an attentive observer of the conversation, I cannot evade the impression that an in-depth analysis of the opportunities for collaboration between ASM and S&I might be fruitful ... To conclude, I hope that also through ASM and Philips, the Dutch industry of IC production equipment and materials may capture and retain an international position of strength.”

techwatchbooks.nl Perhaps the Ministry of Economic Affairs might play a role in this regard, in particular if it proves possible to substantiate the spillover effects to the Netherlands.”

Del Prado finished his argument by ensuring that ASMI didn’t engage in speculative projects, which might result in unnecessary risk, but he also pointed to Philips’ responsibilities for the Dutch micro­electronics industry: “Many speak about the leading role of Philips for Dutch microelectronics, and European collaboration is considered of paramount importance by Philips; it would be a pity, then, if an American partner were to be preferred, without giving the opportunity to a young but successful Dutch company with a solid American subsidiary of its own.”

Although it would take another several months to convince Philips, a beginning was made. Del Prado knew which chords he had to play to ensure the attention and backing of the Dutch government. He emphasized that the cultivation of Dutch capabilities and knowledge in microelectronics was of strategic interest and that a collaboration between ASMI and Philips constituted a most promising approach.

The receptivity for his charm offensive was confirmed in a successive letter by Hillige. The public official was content with the intended purchase by Philips Elcoma of

In his thorough study of the history of ASML, René Raaijmakers has indicated that it would take another six months before Philips would return on Del Prado’s proposal. By September 1983, following a second public offering of ASMI’s stock and Del Prado’s nomination of Dutch Executive of the Year, both parties agreed to create a joint venture in order to market Philips’ wafer stepper technology. The joint venture was named ASM Lithography.

Finally, then, the two Dutch players in the global microelectronics market joined forces in order to propel the Dutch industry forward. The Ministry of Economic Affairs was content. Through Del Prado’s persistence and the ministry’s intermediation, ASMI had managed to convince Philips and create a new Dutch semiconductor equipment company in the prestigious market for optical lithography. In the following years, the Dutch government continued and expanded its support for ASM Lithography.

The joint venture proved that collaboration within the Dutch economy could result in promising and highly innovative initiatives.

Jorijn van Duijn has studied the history of ASM International over six years, relying upon interviews and Arthur del Prado’s personal archive. In the capacity of PhD candidate, he’s affiliated with Rijksmuseum Boerhaave and Maastricht University. This article is an excerpt from his PhD dissertation entitled “Fortunes of high-tech: a history of innovation at ASM International, 1958-2008”, which will appear at Techwatch Books late November.

Edited by Paul van Gerven

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O

pinion

MOBILITY Joachim Burghartz is the director of the Institut für Mikroelektronik Stuttgart (IMS Chips) and the former director of Dimes at Delft University of Technology.

I dream of electromobility

W

hat do Stuttgart and Delft have in common? Underground train stations, of course, but let’s not talk about these questionable ideas. Let’s talk about the daily traffic jams. The metropolitan area of Stuttgart houses 5.3 million people, many of whom commute over long distances every day between home and work. In Delft – or, even better, the Randstad – this applies to some 8 million people.

Their reasons are diverse. First of all, housing costs are ever-­increasing, forcing people to live far outside the city centers where they work.

Secondly, public transport has been too unreliable and too expensive to be widely accepted. In the Netherlands, there’s an alternative: a well-­ developed bicycle infrastructure due to the flat landscape. Something we can only dream of in hilly Stuttgart.

But Baden-Württemberg as the first German state governed by a green party has taken on the challenge. The situation in the city of Stuttgart is difficult as the level of pollution is high. The sources of fine dust include exhausts from diesel cars but also from trucks serving the construction sites of the underground train station. The city has taken countermeasures by setting up fences covered with moss and special stationary vacuum cleaners to capture the particles. Their effectiveness is questionable, though.

Better to attack the root cause of pollution. Traffic through the city center has been discouraged and public transport has been made more attractive by reducing the fares. Many employers, including my institute, encourage public transport by financially supporting the so-called job ticket.

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Like in many large cities, there’s also a shift to both personal and shared electromobility, including electric cars, e-bikes, motor scooters and e-scooters. The shared vehicles are scattered throughout the city center and even the suburbs. I myself have been driving a BMW I3 for three years. I feel good about that car, since I’m not polluting my city with any exhaust, just with a little brake wear

I do feel quite bad about still being part of that crazy traffic debris owing to its battery recuperation. I do feel quite bad about still being part of that crazy traffic. Also, the logistics of recharging the car battery happened to be challenging.

This is one of the bottlenecks of electromobility. It should work like those lawnmowers that automatically return to their charging stations.

Even better, those autonomous electric vehicles should be able to move to their point of use. Then, shared electromobility would really take off and would work smoothly with public transport, banning more and more cars from the inner city.

A quite interesting side effect of being docked to a charging station is that the resulting network of connected batteries making up for an enormous electric storage infrastructure could seamlessly be used to store energy from photovoltaic generators in urban areas. This will certainly take some time to materialize.

Meanwhile, I’m going to hand in my leased I3. As of 1 November, I’ll be using public transport for my commute to work. And I will switch back to a conventional car or maybe a plugin hybrid, which I will only use infrequently for moving heavy shopping goods and for long-distance travel.

In the long run, I’m counting on new ideas in public transport. In Stuttgart, the train and tram lines are radially pointing to the city center, so you always need to cross that for transfer between suburbs. The city now considers cable cars to better link the outskirts since they can use the existing infrastructure. As a side effect, this should positively add to the image of Stuttgart, which right now is mostly known in the media for its buried train station and high level of pollution.

The ruling green party is working hard to change this image. There are plans to entirely free the university grounds from cars, turning it into a green campus. I’m hoping for electric buses that cross the campus and e-scooters that I could hire through an app to take me from the exit of the train station to my institute. I surely hope for something like this to happen before I retire.

Credit: Agoria Solar Team

NEWS SOLAR

The Agoria Solar Team became champions of the Challenger Class for the first time in the team’s 8 attempts.

The sun sets on the 2019 World Solar Challenge After two years of intense designing, innovating and building, the week-long solar vehicle competition in the Australian Outback has come to an end. From sorrow and frustration to exuberant jubilation, here’s how the Benelux fared.

Collin Arocho

T

he curtain has drawn closed on a wild week of racing at the 2019 Bridgestone World Solar Challenge (BWSC) in Australia. The five teams representing the Benelux region, the Eindhoven and Delft Universities of Technology, the University of Twente, KU Leuven and a consortium from the Groningen area, are finally home after a weeks-long camping trip in the heart of the land down under. Some of the teams return celebrating their successes, while others are left to lick their wounds – but all of them

already starting to think about what to do differently next time around in 2021.

All the teams from the Benelux participated in the competitive divisions of the BWSC. First was the Challenger Class that pits teams against each other with one goal in mind: speed. The Cruiser Class also rewards speed, however, the car’s distance to the market is also considered. This means that subjective criteria such as practicality, comfort, design and innovation also play a role in determining the champion. Af-

ter the successful completion of the race, teams pitch their car to a panel of judges that evaluate each car’s features before casting a vote for the winner.

Blowing in the wind

After some controversy surrounding cost and sustainability of the project, it was anything but certain if the University of Twente (UT) would be able to compete. The team was having trouble finding an investor to foot the bill for their car, including the solar 7 17

Credit: Jorrit Lousberg

NEWS SOLAR ters per hour when I smelled something burning,” describes team driver Tim van ­Leeuwen. “I asked our chase vehicle if it could be the car, but all measured values appeared normal. It wasn’t long before smoke filled up the cockpit. I immediately knew something was wrong.”

1st time champions

The Vattenfall Solar Team watched as their car caught fire and burned to rubble.

panel that came with a 390,000-euro price tag on its own. Better late than never, the team ultimately secured the financial support needed, but their car Red E had much to prove in what potentially could be the team’s last chance at gold.

Right out of the gate, Solar Team Twente pulled to the front of the pack and built a 21-minute lead, putting the competition on notice – Twente came to win. Though its lead was greatly diminished, over the first 2,300 km of the 3,000+ km race, the team had maintained the lead. After 15 years of failed attempts, UT felt closer than ever to pulling off the victory. Cue mother nature. Roughly twenty minutes into day four, with the team driver battling the strong crosswinds of the Outback, a strong gust caught Red E and pushed it off the road into a ditch, damaging the car beyond repair and killing any hopes of finally taking the checkered flag.

On what was certain to be an exciting final day of racing, the defending champions were determined to push forward and capture their 8th BWSC trophy. The Belgians, however, weren’t going down without a fight, having already cut the remaining lead to just two and a half minutes. Suddenly, just 263 km from the finish line in Adelaide, disaster struck. The cockpit of the NunaX filled with smoke forcing the pilot to pull off to the side of the road, where the Vattenfall Solar Team watched as their car caught fire and burned to rubble – along with any chance of defending their crown.

“It seemed we had the wind in our back: we were in the lead, driving 100 kilome-

Having finished 3rd in the previous BWSC and fresh off last year’s win in the Carrera Solar Atacama event in Chile, expectations were set high for the Agoria Solar Team from KU Leuven. With the cars of the strongest competitors being dealt fatal blows, the Belgians had a clear path to victory. Their car, Bluepoint, was tunedin and maintaining strong form, having already eliminated the gap between them and the race leaders. With about 250 km to go, the KU Leuven students surged to the front of the pack to take the lead.

Despite a final push from the Tokai University of Japan, Bluepoint successfully held off any threats and was the first to arrive in the South Australian city of Adelaide. With an average speed of 86.6 km/h, the Agoria Solar Team took the checkered flag, completing the race almost 12 minutes ahead of the 2nd place finishers, to become champions of the BWSC Challenger Class for the first time in the team’s 8 attempts.

The final regional participants in the competitive Challenger Class were the newcomers from the Top Dutch Solar Racing team, who returned with some encouraging results. In its first ever solar competition, the team – which is a collaboration

With Twente out of the race, the seven-time champion and perennial favorites of the Vattenfall Solar Team, from Delft University of Technology (TU Delft), were now at the top of the board. Despite holding the lead, NunaX saw its advantage dwindle at three consecutive checkpoints: from 43 minutes at Coober Pedy to 24 minutes at Glendambo and finally to only 8 minutes as the day came to an end at the Port Augusta checkpoint. The Belgian Agoria Solar Team were hot on their heels and closing the gap.

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A strong gust caught Red E and pushed it off the road into a ditch, damaging the car beyond repair.

Credit: Jerome Wassenaar

Up in smoke

Development tools THOUSANDS OF TOOLS FROM HUNDREDS OF TRUSTED MANUFACTURERS

Credit: Bart van Overbeeke

in one location

In the Cruiser Class, Solar Team Eindhoven celebrated its fourth consecutive win.

between the Hanze University of Applied Sciences, the University of Groningen and the Noorderpoort vocational training center – finished just off the podium. The team car, Green Lightning, crossed the finish line in 4th place, averaging 78.4 km/h on the 3,000+ km journey.

Cruising to victory

The lone Benelux competitor in the Cruiser Class was the threetime defending champion from Eindhoven University of Technology (TUE). Having won this division of the BWSC every time since its inception, Solar Team Eindhoven’s Stella Era had plenty of hype to live up to. Unfortunately for the students from TUE, it wasn’t all smooth sailing for the Stella Era. Just a few minutes into the first day of racing, the team was stopped by an untimely red light, situated at the foot of a steep incline. With no momentum to move up the hill, three of the team’s passengers were forced to get out to cut down on total weight. Then, on the 5th day of the competition, Stella Era’s warning lights came on and the car suddenly shut down, costing valuable time.

Fortunately for the team, the issues could be addressed, and Stella was fast to get back on the road.

In the end, TUE was one of only three competitors in the Cruiser Class to finish the race before the judges made their assessments. The panel awarded the Stella Era with the highest score for efficiency, 111.7, as well as the most points for comfort and innovation, 93.1 – sending Solar Team Eindhoven to its fourth consecutive BWSC win.

“It was certainly not obvious that we could become world champions for the fourth time,” reflects team manager Carijn Mulder while speaking at the event awards ceremony. “All challenges have kept the team sharp during the preparations and the race until the last moment. We’re all very proud of our high scores and the victory.”

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B a c kg r o u n d

Electronics

Senseglove gets a feel for VR After developing a physical therapy device for the rehabilitation of stroke victims, Senseglove augmented its scope. Now, the Yes!Delft start-up is using simulators to give trainees at Volkswagen, Google Deepmind and other customers a virtual ‘feel’ for the job.

Collin Arocho

Pivot

Just before this, virtual reality specialist Oculus was in the process of a buyout by Facebook. Even though the VR company had only released a development prototype, the social media tech conglomerate coughed up more than 2 billion dollars to add Oculus to its long list of acquisitions. For Den Butter, this was a definite sign. “It was pretty clear to me the virtual world was going to be the future of computing. It still needed several years to develop, but this 3D computing space and its developing market were going to be the next big thing.”

At this time, the state of the art in virtual reality consisted of a headset with a con20

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Credit: Senseglove

B

ack in 2015, Senseglove co-founders Gijs den Butter and Johannes ­Luijten were graduate students at Delft University of Technology. As one of their student projects, the duo had the idea to develop a robotic hand that could help stroke victims through rehabilitation while at home. “When you’re paralyzed by a stroke, you need to do a lot of exercises. Most of the time it’s just a physical therapist opening and closing your hand,” comments CEO Den Butter. “We thought it would be way more efficient if the patient could do it in their own time with the help from a robotic hand, because the more training you have, the better you recover.”

Armed with a prototype they developed as students, the pair went to the Yes!Delft high tech start-up incubator to pitch their idea, and in 2017, Senseglove was created. But just three months after launching the business and trying to validate its business model, it became very clear that getting into the therapeutics market, especially for a starting business, was going to be next to impossible.

troller. If you wanted to interact with an object, for instance to pick something up, you would simply use the controller to click on it and the object would float in front of you until you clicked to put it down again.

“I’m an interaction designer,” explains Den Butter, “this was not, in any way, a natural interaction.” Senseglove’s idea: if its system of robotics and motors could be used to open hands for therapy patients, the same method could be flipped around. The motors could be utilized to resist a closing hand and with the right tension, it could simulate the action and actually be felt.

With its prototype in hand, still intended for medical purposes, the start-up headed to the Cebit Expo, where it attracted the attention of an unlikely client: Volkswagen. The automotive giant had a keen interest in the Senseglove system as it solved

a growing problem in its industry. Namely, the car maker’s training centers were shifting toward the virtual world, but with the current technology, the training lacked the ability for any realistic touch feature. “So, what do you do when Volkswagen says they want to buy your product?” poses Den Butter. “You pivot. You switch your market.

What’s better than having Volkswagen as the launching customer?”

The Senseglove team immediately got to work looking for ways to implement its product as a training device. But after about a year of development, it ran into a brick wall. The problem: the motor technology was simply way too complex to integrate into wearables. It was too bulky and heavy. The plan had to be scrapped and the company was once again sent back to the drawing board.

actual intelligence is always in a computer or server,” clarifies Den Butter. “But there’s a microprocessor in the glove that can process those commands. This dictates how to interpret signals and activates vibrotactile motors inside the palm and fingertips.”

Credit: Senseglove

Obstacles

Dynamic gestures

Credit: Senseglove

This time, the Delft-based start-up came up with an innovation for a passive system of force feedback – what Senseglove considers to be its core IP. It consists of a glove-like exoskeleton that has a thin wire and strategically placed, patent-pending motor blocks embedded. In addition, there’s a system of internal pullies and springs that pull back on the wire to simulate force. The system can create a variable stoppage force of up to 40 newtons, or 4 kg. Den Butter: “That’s quite intense for force feedback on the fingers. With that sort of feedback, you’re able to actually feel the virtual objects.”

In addition to the developments in hardware, this new direction required some hefty adjustments to the software, all

of which are done in house. As the system is no longer used only for open and close functions, it needs to be designed to take into account natural interaction and physics-based gripping. This means that ­ it’s not just the ‘contact’ with objects that needs to be felt, there needs to be a recognition of dynamic gestures like squeezing, rotating or turning the interactive item – all of which are software-heavy features.

As there’s very little processing power in the gloves themselves, nearly all the interactions are calculated externally. Input from embedded sensors is sent to a computer where the information is processed and then relayed back to the gloves. This communication can be streamed wirelessly, via Bluetooth, or wired with a USB cable. “The

Though the system is still in development, Senseglove went to market with its first development kit in September of 2018. Having already produced hundreds of units, its customer list consists of several a­ utomotive, research and robotics companies from around the world. These include VW, Airbus, Google Deepmind and Honda. More importantly, however, is that these aren’t just customers, but they’re providing feedback to the young company to assist with further tweaks and development of the product. “They’re giving us constant feedback on how to improve both our software and hardware to better meet their needs,” says Den Butter.

Despite all the progress made, there’s still a laundry list of obstacles Senseglove needs to overcome. First, because all the computations take place externally, issues of lag have exposed themselves. With the wireless transmission of the data, via Bluetooth, it takes about 20 milliseconds to receive the force feedback, which is noticeable and less than ideal. To remedy this, the best option is to connect via USB cable, which r­ educes the latency to around 10 milliseconds and is considered to be good. The problem: now you’re tied to a computer with limited movement – which also isn’t optimal.

Another issue with the device, at least in its current form, is the sheer size. The exoskeleton is big and bulky. Yes, it’s adjustable, making it a one-size-fits-all solution and that helps to keep the cost down, but the reality is that the ‘glove’ is a rather large structure and it fits somewhat awkwardly.

To solve this issue, Senseglove is already working on its next-gen glove, which is designed to fit more like a glove and made from fabric, rather than the hard exoskeleton. “The technology is there to actually build this into a glove-ish type of product,” claims Den Butter. “It will contain small pieces of plastic to offer some form of stiffness and rigidity as this is needed to be able to transmit the force to the end of the fingertips. That’s where you feel most of the forces you encounter.”

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TESTEN EN METEN D e s k u n d i g e p a r t n e r s . M e r k l e i d e r s . O n e i n d i g ve e l ke u z e .

nl.rs-online.com

O

pinion

IOT Cees Links is a Wi-Fi pioneer, founder and CEO of Greenpeak Technologies and currently General Manager of Qorvo’s Wireless Connectivity business unit.

The IoT is all about energy efficiency

O

ne distinct benefit of the IoT is that it’s generally applicable to every area of the economy.

This particularly holds true for energy efficiency improvements. Connecting devices, gathering data and personalizing the technology is the same basic premise, regardless of whether we’re looking at a large commercial office tower, a medium-sized apartment building or a single-family home. The IoT’s scalability results in energy efficiency benefits for all.

The IoT promises ‘intelligent buildings’, offering the ability to view overall building operations and receive the data needed to improve efficiency, lower costs and improve the overall experience for everyone involved. For commercial building managers, it brings a fundamental shift. Before the IoT, they churned along armed with a set of tools like spreadsheets, monthly utility bills and operations procedures. This approach focused more on tracking the operations inside the walls than on optimizing them. With the data gathering and processing brought by the IoT, building management can go beyond operations tracking and make better, informed decisions that create efficiencies and save money.

Homeowners, too, tend to focus on getting bills paid and making sure these are ‘in line’ with expectations.

The IoT offers a new perspective on improving those bills. Rising energy costs in the form of ever-higher utility bills are a common concern for homeowners. Using more energy than is really needed is problematic for our wallets, as well as for the environment.

Of course, there’s more to I(o)T than energy efficiency: there’s added comfort and convenience too, though these things often go hand

in hand. A truly smart power system in a home would monitor and manage how and when power is consumed. It could be used to control the amount of time your kids

The smart home can alert the homeowner and control the power and water spend on their electronic devices and to deactivate power-consuming ­appliances or systems when not in use. After the family goes to bed, it can turn off the AC or heating in the unused areas and just keep it on in the areas where people are sleeping.

And since many people prefer cooler temperatures for sleeping, the system could be smart enough to slowly reduce the temperature at night.

There are also some less obvious energy efficiency advantages that the IoT can offer to businesses and consumers. What about unexpected expenses like accidents and equipment failures?

Let’s look at water heaters, for example. When a water heater starts to go bad, that’s typically because of a slow leak. This type of equipment failure can be tricky to identify. If not immediately detected, the costs of the leak can quickly add up. In many cases, the water heater continues to run, inefficiently warming up the water that’s traveling to the dishwasher or shower, along with the water that’s leaking out. This runs up the utility

bill without the homeowner receiving the benefit of enjoying all the hot water. The simplest fix is to install a sensor that just sends an alarm when it detects a water heater leak. But by taking it a step further and connecting that leak detector sensor to a network that includes actuators, the smart home can alert the homeowner and control the power and water.

Of course, water heaters can also fail due to a tank rupture that spills gallons of hot water, floods the house and creates costly damage. The same type of damage can result from a frozen water pipe that breaks. A smart home with a water flow sensor can be programmed to notice when water is moving in the pipes when no one is home. It can send a notice to the homeowner and turn off the water at the main valve, saving valuable resources and avoiding high water bills and expensive flood damage.

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28 NOVEMBER

2019

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PROGRAM Keynote 10:00

Flying to the moon for radio astronomy at low frequencies Mark Bentum (Astron/TU Eindhoven) & Marc Klein Wolt (RU Nijmegen)

11:00

Break

Keynote 11:30

5G RFIC design challenges and opportunities Bernard Tenbroek (Mediatek)

12:30

Lunch

13:30

14:00

5G

Automotive

5G antenna design for mobile phones Jim Creed (Hi-Tech)

What prevents your car from being stolen?

Jan van Sinderen (NXP)

5G

Automotive

Challenges of mm-wave OTA test Jan Fromme (National Instruments)

Microwave imaging technology for automotive Andreas Reil (Rohde & Schwarz)

14:30

15:00

15:30

Break

Packaging

Entrepreneurship

5G mm-wave from an antennas and propagation perspective Ulf Johannsen (TU Eindhoven)

Increasing launching options for Dutch semiconductor start-ups Mike Beunder (TD Shepherd)

Packaging

Entrepreneurship

Advanced packaging for RF and mm-wave applications Tanja Braun (Fraunhofer IZM)

How to create a winning nanotechnology based venture Peter Vanbekbergen (Imec.Xpand)

16:00

16:30

17:00

17:30

Break

Advanced technologies

IOT

SiGe BiCMOS technology for mm-wave, THz and fiber-optic communication systems Rene Scholz (IHP Solutions)

BLE radio integration meets analog: integration challenges of tomorrow’s BLE SoC Johan van der Tang (Dialog)

Advanced technologies

IOT

MEMS for reconfigurable RF and microwave circuits Roberto Gaddi (Cavendish)

Wi-Fi Wake-Up Radio Geert Awater (Qualcomm) Drinks and dinner

Subject to change

OscillOscOpe innOvatiOn MeasureMent cOnfidence. ¸scope rider: ¸rtc1000: ¸rtB2000: ¸rtM3000: ¸rta4000: ¸rte series: ¸rtO series: ¸rtp series:

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THEME WIRELESS

TUE, NXP AND KPN ROLL OUT THE RED CARPET FOR 5G 4G cellular network capacity is about to reach its limit but the transition to the nextgeneration 5G network will certainly be no easy task. In an effort to ensure the rollout of the new technology, the Dutch private and public sectors are teaming up as Eindhoven University of Technology joins industry giants NXP and KPN to pave the way.

Collin Arocho

A Credit: Bart van Overbeeke

s the number of connected devices and network capacity demands continue to explode, the fourth generation of cellular-­ network technology, known as 4G, is fast approaching the end of the line.

In anticipation of the release of the new 5G network, Eindhoven University of Technology (TUE) is linking

with NXP and KPN from the Dutch private sector to usher in new innovations for the successful rollout of the next-gen cellular network.

Similar to its 3G predecessor, 4G uses low-frequency bands to transmit data – meaning the bands on the radio signal spectrum from 700 MHz to 2 GHz. While it’s nearly 100 times

faster than 3G, with maximum speeds around 40 megabits per second (Mb/s), the current standard is simply not going to cut it going forward. Consumer and industrial markets have already begun to shift toward a system of interrelated computing devices, objects and machines – known as the internet of things (IoT) – where issues of latency, or data lag, have proven to be a nightmare for innovators. Cumulatively, the demand for mobile broadband data will only go up in the coming years.

Millimeter wave

Historically, it has taken about ten years to establish each new generation of the wireless network. With every increment, the data rates are improved by a factor of 100. The expectations for 5G are no different. At its initial release, slated for 2020, 5G will start by utilizing the 4G infrastructure and the same low-­ frequency bands. By 2022, however, a new radio band of 3.5 GHz is expected to be opened in the Netherlands and available for licensing, followed by other bands in significantly higher ranges, such as 30 GHz and up – socalled millimeter wave.

This is the point where the network of the future will require new technology – 5G mm-wave. “At first, it will be a kind of evolution from 4G to 5G,” explains project leader and TUE professor Bart Smolders. “When 5G millimeter wave is deployed, that’s the point you’ll see the big jump in 7 27

THEME WIRELESS data speeds. We’re talking about going from 100 Mb/s to perhaps as high as 10 Gb/s. That’s the technology we’re working on together with NXP.”

Industry 4.0

Offering potential speeds higher than household broadband internet, the expectations for the 5G network are incredibly steep. For that reason, it’s difficult to understate the perceived value of such a shift in technology.

Latency issues will be a problem from a bygone era, which means the doors will be wide open for innovators, from virtually every industry, to develop new methods for a connected future. Potentially revolutionizing the way connectivity is understood.

From developments in med-tech monitoring and wearables to increases in production at high-tech factories, or autonomous driving trains, buses, and cars, the opportunities seem limitless, at least for now. Smolders: “Some ex-

amples of industries that could really benefit from these ­advances include companies like ASML or VDL. In factories, all kinds of mechanical movements could be controlled using a wireless link instead of a wired infrastructure. It’s often referred to as industry 4.0, and low latency is key for such applications.”

Step by step

While all the possibilities of 5G are exciting, there are still some challenges to overcome. One of the main

5G by TUE, NXP and KPN

Eindhoven University of Technology (TUE) is ­linking with chipmaker NXP and telecom giant KPN to usher in new innovations for the successful rollout of the next-generation 5G network. TUE’s participation in this project is co-funded by Holland High Tech, Top Sector HTSM, with a public-private partnership grant for research and innovation.

barriers to the rollout of the new network is the sheer size of the infrastructure upgrades that will need to be implemented. Because 5G will adopt higher frequencies, the propagation loss of the signals will increase. In other words, the higher the frequency, the lower the distance the waves can travel. As a result, the network will require a mass installation of smaller, 150-meter cells equipped with massive MIMO (multiple-­input, multiple-output) technology. Essentially, this technology groups together antennas on the transmitter and receiver in order to ensure better spectrum efficiency and throughput.

Because of the number of cells that will be needed, streetlights are one of the best installation options, in order to offer broad connectivity.

Additionally, the intricacies and implications of any new technology can be difficult to prognosticate.

Therefore, the collaborators suggest

5G SIMULATION SOLUTIONS

Multiphysics Simulations

Accelerate your 5G innovations and design for devices and networks with multiphysics analysis www.ansys.com 28

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Award winning

Credit: Bart van Overbeeke

Despite these challenges, the collaborative is quite advanced in its work.

In fact, as part of the separate European project called the EAST consortium (“Smart everything, everywhere access to content through small cell technologies”), NXP and TUE, among others, received the Catrene Award for driving 5G innovation. The honor came thanks to their efficient 5G small cell and massive MIMO system.

This method allows for the switching of 5G transmitters across bands without unwanted signals in other bands, in addition to reducing power consumption and saving costs.

While the Dutch cooperation takes place under the guidance and direction of the industry leaders from NXP and KPN, it’s the students from Eindhoven University of Technology that

Credit: Bart van Overbeeke

taking an incremental approach to implementation. “Mm-wave components are becoming available just now but it’s still a step towards a massive rollout of full-speed 5G for consumers,” says NXP system architect Marcel Geurts. “The lower bands are far more similar to what’s already available, so it’s a very obvious choice to go step by step and utilize the current infrastructure. Mm-wave technology is currently used in fixed wireless access deployments in the US and for mobile applications in city centers in several countries.”

The Dutch cooperation developed new beam-steering technology, allowing the radiating antennas to drive the beams into multiple specific directions and using multiple polarizations.

are at the heart of this public-private collaboration. In these projects, PhD and master’s students receive firsthand experience in the development and design process of 5G solutions, working hand in hand with the Dutch industry giants. In fact, through their collaborative efforts, the Dutch collaborators have already yielded some impressive results of their own.

Demonstrator

One outcome of the collaborative work stems from close cooperation between KPN and TUE. For this part of the project, PhD students worked closely with engineers from the telecom company to develop new channel sounders – a device to measure signal quality in the field. This data will give engineers valuable insight into the

planning process for installing base stations for the rollout of 5G. Additionally, in anticipation of the shift to 5G, NXP has already spent the last five years developing amplifiers and more efficient antennas for millimeter-wave technology. By capitalizing on the chipmaker’s five-year head start and its technology prowess, the engineering PhD students at TUE were able to jump in and help design a new demonstrator with expanded chip capabilities for next-gen products. The team developed new beam-steering technology, allowing the radiating antennas to drive the beams into multiple specific directions and using multiple polarizations, as opposed to being limited only to a single polarization – a feat that requires double the number of chips normally needed and presents a plethora of additional complexity and challenges.

“It was a very successful cooperation,” describes Geurts. “We weren’t just the suppliers of a component. We really wanted to drive the system specifications based on the customer needs and the result was this next-gen technology. This project, with NXP chips that are already being produced, is an example of how this collaboration can work and the result is that we become a better partner to our customers.”

High Tech Highlights

A series of public-private ­success stories by Bits&Chips 7 29

THEME WIRELESS

DIRECT DIGITAL TRANSMITTERS PAVE THE WAY FOR 5G Conventionally, analog-intensive transmitters are being used for both handheld and infrastructure applications. However, with the rapidly growing need for higher bandwidth and higher system efficiency/ integration, direct digital transmitters are gaining more attention to accommodate the demanding requirements of 5G and other advanced wideband applications.

Mohsen Hashemi

I

n a modern digital transmitter, the digital input data is converted into two digital signals. These are used to modulate two parameters of the transmitted RF signal in order to increase the spectral efficiency. The input data can, therefore, be mapped on a 2D constellation diagram, which can be represented in a Cartesian or a polar system.

Based on these coordinate systems, there are two general transmitter (TX) architectures: Cartesian TX and polar TX (Figure 1). Cartesian TX combines two orthogonal RF signals (with a 90-degree phase difference) whose amplitudes are modulated by the real (I) and imaginary (Q) parts of the input data, respectively. Polar TX uses a single carrier signal where the amplitude (AM) and phase (Φ) are modulated by the amplitude and phase of the input data. The multiplication of AM and

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Φ can be done directly by the output power amplifier.

At ItoM, we’ve designed RFICs for various TX applications, both in Cartesian and polar architectures. In an ideal Cartesian TX, all of the signal processing operations are linear, so there’s no limitation on the signal bandwidth. In a polar TX, on the other hand, the conversion from I and Q signals to AM and Φ is highly nonlinear, which in the frequency domain, translates up to a 5x expansion in the bandwidth of AM and Φ signals compared to the final output signal.

That’s why, although a polar TX can normally show a higher power efficiency, it cannot handle wideband signals. Because of this, it’s only suitable for rather low-bandwidth applications such as Bluetooth Low Energy (BLE) or Wi-Fi standards with less than 80 MHz of bandwidth. Cartesian TX architectures are much more

suitable for wideband applications, such as 5G communication systems where the signal bandwidth will be 100-400 MHz.

Analog Cartesian transmitter

Figure 1: Cartesian TX vs. polar TX

In a conventional analog-intensive Cartesian TX (Figure 2), the digital input signals I and Q are converted to analog by two DACs and passed through a low-pass filter (LPF) to remove the spectral sampling replicas (SSRs). Two mixers then upconvert the analog I and Q signals by multiplying them with two RF signals having a 90-degree phase difference. These two amplitude-modulated RF signals are combined to create a single RF signal of which both the amplitude and phase are modulated. Such a circuit is called a Cartesian modulator.

As the resulting signal is normally very low-power, it should be amplified before being sent to the antenna.

This is done using a power amplifier (PA), which in general also requires a driver stage. In such a system, the PA is designed in a nonlinear mode of operation to be power-efficient and is subsequently linearized using digital pre-distortion (DPD). However, to ensure the wideband performance of the whole TX, the DACs, mixers, combiner and sometimes even the driver should be intrinsically linear.

Otherwise, the DPD cannot correct for the high level of nonlinearity.

Since the PA is nonlinear, its input should be pre-distorted in such a way that after passing through the nonlinear PA function, the output signal is reconstructed identical to the original input, except for a gain factor. For a 400 MHz signal, for example, the TX lineup including the driver should be capable of working linearly with a modulation bandwidth of up to 2 GHz. Such a demanding bandwidth can take too much engineering effort and power consumption, unless the PA is designed in a linear mode, but that would compromise the power efficiency. This is undesirable, especially for high-power applications such as base-station transmitters. For a 100 W PA, the difference in efficiency between a linear and a nonlinear variant

Figure 2: A conventional analogintensive Cartesian TX with DPD

can be around 30 percent, meaning that about 30 W of power would be wasted just to maintain the linearity.

Direct digital transmitter

By removing the LPF, and combining the mixer and the DAC in an arrayed topology, we can make a single circuit block known as an RFDAC, which directly converts the digital input signal to the amplitude of the RF signal. In an RFDAC, the mixer is divided into an array of sub-mixers, implemented by simple AND/XOR logic gates. Together with the least and most significant bit units (LSB/MSB) of the DAC with minimal implementation, they form an array of sub-RFDACs. Since there’s no explicit low-pass filtering, except for the RFDAC’s intrinFigure 3: sic zero-order-hold (ZOH) behavior, A direct digitalthe SSRs can appear rather strongly intensive Cartesian at the output, especially if the signal TX with DPD bandwidth is very high. A common

solution is to push and attenuate them as much as possible by increasing the RFDAC’s sampling frequency.

Since the linearity constraints on the mixer are relaxed, an RFDAC-based Cartesian modulator consumes less power than a conventional modulator and is able to deliver even more output ­power. The RFDAC units can actually be designed as sub-PA cells in such a way that they not only deliver much higher power but are also efficient enough to do without the external driver and power amplifier stage. Such a structure is called a direct digital transmitter (DDTX, Figure 3).

Whereas in an analog Cartesian TX with a nonlinear PA, the signal bandwidth is limited to 20 percent of the DAC, mixer and driver bandwidth, in a DDTX, bandwidth is mostly limited by the sampling rate (in practice, actually, to less than 20 percent of the sampling rate). In advanced CMOS nodes, this can easily go beyond 5-6 GHz. Such a structure can potentially handle signal bandwidths up to 500 MHz at the antenna input more easily than its analog-intensive counterpart. As analog solutions might also require multiple chips and modules, a DDTX is superior to an analog TX in terms of system integration as well.

The digital solution is paving the way for achieving the wideband, high system efficiency and high system integration requirements of 5G and future wideband applications.

Mohsen Hashemi is a senior RF analog design engineer at ItoM in Eindhoven and a PhD candidate with the microelectronics department at Delft University of Technology.

Edited by Nieke Roos

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THEME WIRELESS

MULTIPHYSICS SIMULATIONS FOR 5G RFICS AND SOCS The transition to 5G is exciting but no small task given the degree of complexity at various points in the system. Multiphysics simulations simultaneously solve power, thermal, variability, timing, electromagnetics and reliability challenges across the spectrum of chip, package and system to promote first-time silicon and system success.

Laurent Ntibarikure

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ystem-on-chips (SoCs) and radio frequency integrated circuits (RFICs) for 5G smartphones and networks need to manage huge amounts of antenna data and offer significantly high processing capabilities in thermally and power-­constrained environments.

The growing interdependence of various multiphysics effects like timing, power, electromagnetics, thermal ­ and reliability in sub-16nm designs poses significant challenges for design closure. Traditional margin-­ driven, silo-based design approaches to the chip, package and board have limited simulation coverage and fail to unravel potential design weaknesses, causing field failures.

Multiphysics simulations simultaneously solve power, thermal, variability, timing, electromagnetics and reliability challenges across the spectrum of chip, package and system.

Early analysis is key, but this comes with some requirements for SoC and intellectual property (IP) designs.

The most important ones pertain to power efficiency, power integrity, reliability, advanced packaging and electromagnetic crosstalk.

Power

The shift from 4G to 5G is expected to deliver a spike in cell edge data rates from 10 Mb/s to more than 1 Gb/s, plus a 50 percent gain in energy ef32

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ficiency. For evolving generations of 5G implementations, the main focus is on predicting power profiling early in the chip design phases. Specific attention has to be paid to spectrum-­ related issues, traffic characteristics, radio interference and interoperability and network access-related issues.

Power efficiency is a key design consideration for 5G devices. Average power, peak power, peak change in power and sustained worst-case average power are all important for thermal robustness, power integrity and cost of system operation. Early feedback is critical to achieving 5G power targets.

For 5G SoCs, power grid signoff through traditional approaches isn’t feasible. This is due to severe routing constraints that can potentially cause timing convergence issues down-

stream. For advanced FinFET technology processes, the power grid’s node count is very high and any reduction in node count will affect accuracy. With very small design margins, power signoff solutions leave little margin for error. The slightest inaccuracy can result in product failure. It’s important, therefore, to analyze the entire power grid flat rather than partitioning the design with a “divide and conquer” approach.

The need to model electromagnetic effects from DC up to mm-wave calls for special handling of layouts.

Reliability

Design for reliability is another key consideration for advanced SoCs used in 5G communication systems. These SoCs, for example, will be instrumental in enabling future mission-­ critical applications like self-driving cars. Reliability issues can be challenging at advanced Fin-

FET nodes. FinFET designs have a high dynamic power density, and power directly impacts the chip’s thermal signature. Accurately modeling the temperature distribution onchip by considering the chip in the context of the system is critical for ensuring its reliable operation.

Electrostatic discharge (ESD) design and verification are also becoming extremely challenging with the prominent use of IPs and high-speed interfaces in SoCs. ESD checks are now one of the key signoff metrics.

Almost 55 percent of the failures are interconnect-related and can be avoided by performing systematic ESD checks during the design phase.

But ESD protection that works at the IP level may not work at the SoC level due to poor connectivity to other IPs and circuits in the SoC. Therefore, it’s important to analyze the ESD protection schemes at the SoC level, across multiple voltage domains, to make sure they provide the intended low-resistance path for discharging a potential ESD event without stressing the functional devices.

Packaging

Advanced packaging technologies will be the key driver of heterogeneous integrations in next-­generation edge compute data centers and 5G electronics systems to achieve extreme performance, high system ­

bandwidth, low power and low cost.

The Internet of Everything – enabled by 5G infrastructure – will generate huge amounts of data to be processed and stored. The ability to handle such large volumes of data will be threatened by limited system bandwidth between the traditionally packaged processor and the memory integrated into the system.

Hence, advanced 2.5D/3D IC packaging technology will become a popular choice for 5G system designs. Short interconnection paths enabled by through-silicon vias between stacked chips lead to higher performance because of increased I/O speed. They also consume lower power because of their reduced capacitance and their smaller form factor due to the stacking of multiple dies. This is indeed a very promising technology, although it’s fraught with many challenges owing to its complexity.

Electromagnetics

Integrating a high-power beamforming module with sensitive analog and RF circuitry can lead to substrate noise propagation between the two, which can impact the overall performance. For accurate power noise analysis, it’s important for a designer to model the propagation of substrate noise in a dynamic voltage drop analysis. Integrating the digital beamforming module with

sensitive analog and RF circuitry can cause switching noise to propagate through the substrate if insufficient isolation is guaranteed.

For reliable operation of the ­millimeter-wave RF module, it’s critical to have a methodology that allows for modeling of the substrate noise generated in a digital beamforming module using digital noise injection.

The methodology also needs to perform analyses to determine the frequency and time-domain response of the analog/RF blocks.

For 5G, RF front-end circuits, high-performance reference oscillators and associated interconnects must be designed properly to ensure reliable operation at 6 GHz up to mm-wave frequencies. On-chip mixed-­signal components are affected by electromagnetic effects and their design considerations should include self- and cross-coupling among various sensitive mixed-signal circuit blocks. Careful examination of the layout, parasitic inductance and capacitance, substrate modeling and trace resistance is critical for reliability. The need to model electromagnetic effects from DC up to mm-wave calls for special handling of layouts.

Laurent Ntibarikure is an application engineer at Ansys.

Edited by Nieke Roos

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pinion

WIRELESS Bram Nauta is a professor of IC design at the University of Twente.

Smoke signals

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long time ago, we already had wireless communication. Like we know from the western movies: people were making a small fire on a hilltop and with a piece of cloth, they shaped the stream of smoke in a sort of on-off-keying modulation.

Since we’re among nerds here anyway, let’s have a look at how power efficient this type of communication was. First, the harvesting of the energy we need: a decent fire has – say – 5 logs of wood, which burn well for half an hour. Extrapolated to one year, 24/7 communication requires 90,000 logs per year. With 500 logs per cubic meter of wood, this is 180 m³ per year. In a typical forest, wood grows with 7 m³ per 10,000 m² per year, so we need 250,000 m² of forest to keep this single fire burning.

Now the bitrate: my guess is that with a few smoke symbols and a bit of practice, one can send about 2 bits per second. This is 64 megabit/year.

My mobile subscription today gives me 20 gigabyte/month, which is 1920 gigabit/year. This is equivalent to 30,000 fires in parallel, requiring 7,500 km² of forest to keep my communication going. And since communication to my ‘base station’ is two-way, we can safely say I need 15,000 km² of forest.

The earth has about 200,000,000 km² of land, so in theory, there’s room for a maximum of only 13,000 people to communicate like me on this planet. So, I fully understand that the people making these kinds of calculations back then freaked out and searched for other ways of wireless communication.

We invented electrical energy, batteries, radio communication and cheap microchips and now billions of people can communicate wire34

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lessly gigabits per day with simple handheld devices at very low cost.

What progress! Yes, we want more!

We want the Internet of Things, 5G, 6G, more bandwidth! We want to increase our bandwidth with at least a factor 100 in the next decade.

A conservative estimation says that all wireless communication today consumes about 1 percent of the total energy used on this planet. And given that power dissipation in wireless communication scales linearly

The 100 times 1 percent becomes a bit of a problem with bandwidth, without additional measures, the 100 times 1 percent becomes a bit of a problem.

Communication roadmaps predict the migration to “free frequency space” at tens of gigahertz frequencies because that’s where the free bandwidth is. But at those frequencies, communication will be limited to line of sight and relatively short distances. Beamforming techniques to aim those radio beams require a lot of transmitters and receivers per terminal. The 5G terminals being developed at 28 GHz already have a serious cooling problem. Without cooling, they may catch fire! (And we don’t want to go back to smoke signals.)

But we actually may use a modern version of smoke signals: for certain IoT applications, for example, we may actually go back in time and ‘see’ the bits again. If we have a short distance and line of sight anyway, why not make an ultra-low-power

monochrome display – like an e-book – tag, on which a type of QR code is visible representing the data. One central optical camera can then see a lot of these tags and receive the information in a massively parallel way at very low power.

Finally, we should re-think radio communication completely. We’re still sending too much radio power, too long, to places where it’s not being used, and that even harms other users. I’m sure we can come up with other ideas if we think energy-­ centric. We might go back to our oldschool IR remote control technology or even throw USB sticks to each other. But anything is better than smoke signals.

THEME WIRELESS

A NEW ERA OF SPECTRUM USE THANKS TO AI AND SDR A team of Imec researchers, together with scientists from Rutgers University, have participated in the finals of the Darpa Spectrum Collaboration Challenge. Their idea: using AI to teach wireless devices to avoid spectral collisions.

Els Parton

S

ince Marconi sent the first wireless signal across the oceans back in 1901, nothing much has changed: a wireless link between two appliances still relies on the fact that the two parties have agreed beforehand on which frequency they’ll use to communicate. Following, the spectrum has been divided into rigidly and exclusively licensed bands, each reserved for one type of communication.

Only a few narrow unlicensed bands

can be used freely. These have been occupied by Wi-Fi, Bluetooth or the IoT, for example. In these unlicensed bands, traffic has exploded. In most licensed bands, in contrast, the spectrum is either underutilized or hardly used. Consider bands that are reserved for emergency communication or for sporadic bursts from satellites.

This static frequency plan leads to problems. Just think of 4G communication that becomes unusable after

an attack or of areas without 3G or 4G signal where forest fires blaze and communication is a matter of life or death. Or think of employees trying to work in train stations, coffee shops or any other place, getting frustrated with the slow Wi-Fi because of too many users in the same area.

Towards a flexible RF allocation

If we want to continue this wireless era without these hurdles, we

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THEME WIRELESS have to rethink our spectrum usage.

Software­-defined radios (SDRs) could hold the solution. Indeed, SDRs can change the frequency, timing and waveform characteristics of their ­wireless transmissions, enabling them to move freely among the spectrum and share unused channels. A ­ rtificial intelligence and machine learning will be an indispensable part of these SDRs for smarter frequency use.

These radios don’t just need to be smart. They also – and foremost – must be collaborative and have to continuously communicate with one another to coordinate how the spectrum is used from moment to moment. AI will allow to coordinate their activity and predict the behavior of other radios that are also using the spectrum.

Such an innovative system for wireless communication is able to share the spectrum with competing radios by scanning it for free space.

The main goal is to support more traffic with a quality of service that’s much better than would be possible with a fixed spectrum allocation.

This, of course, without interfering with the radios that have the licensed rights to operate in those bands.

The Darpa Spectrum Collaboration Challenge

The prestigious Darpa challenges are global competitions in which

r­esearchers work on specific themes to overcome problems that affect the entire world. The team that comes up with the best solution to a specific technological challenge is awarded a cash prize, with which it can further develop its idea. A notable challenge at the end of the 1960s was to connect computers with each other. This produced the Arpanet, the predecessor of the Internet as we know it today. More recently, the Darpa Grand Challenge sparked the idea for Google’s self-driving car.

In 2017, a new challenge was launched, the Darpa Spectrum Collaboration Challenge, calling on scientists to develop the best possible wireless network system – one that also works reliably in eg crisis situations. In the competition, the organizers play out several scenarios where the various radios have to collaborate to run applications to the best of their abilities. One of the scenarios is set at a shopping mall with a coffee bar, a restaurant and a number of other stores. Each of them has separate communication nodes that are accessed by varying numbers of customers and data loads throughout the day. For each s­ cenario, a great number of games is played, with each game involving a number of access points and a selection of team radios that should collaborate to achieve the best outcome.

Do you have an unstructured design flow and no time or knowledge to improve it? www.dizain-sync.com PCB, FPGA, Cabling and Chip design environments 36

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As the only European team, IDLab – an Imec research group at the universities of Antwerp and Ghent – participated in this contest, together with scientists from US-based Rutgers University. They decided to focus on artificial intelligence. Things can go sideways when the digital information sent out by different wireless devices ‘collides’ because the d ­ evices are using the same channel on the wireless spectrum. By teaching wireless devices like smartphones to ­figure out what other devices are doing and predicting when they’ll use which channels, these collisions can be avoided. As a result, it’s no longer necessary to make wireless communication plans or agreements in advance – something that’s impossible in crisis situations anyway.

The interdisciplinary group of researchers predict that such AI-based solutions could be ready for use in the short term. They’re working with Antwerp’s fire department, for ex­ ample, to enable them to stream live images of fires to their command vehicles. Getting those images there requires building a new wireless network. With their idea, the team finished 6th in the Darpa challenge final on 23 October.

Els Parton is a scientific editor at Imec.

Edited by Nieke Roos

THEME WIRELESS

WAVELAN: THE TECH THAT BROUGHT WI-FI TO THE WORLD Wi-Fi, one of the most recognizable technologies on the planet, turns 20 this year. While Steve Jobs and Apple had a hand in bringing it to the masses, the building blocks of the world-renowned technology sprouted from right here in the Netherlands. One of its founding fathers, Bruce Tuch, discusses the journey from the early days of the Dutch-developed WaveLAN to the globally recognized Wi-Fi. Collin Arocho

I

t was 1985 when the American Federal Communications Committee (FCC) authorized new rules for spread spectrum. In radio communications, spread spectrum techniques are used to distribute a signal across a frequency domain, which results in a wider bandwidth.

This wider bandwidth helps secure communications while also reducing interference or noise.

“I could have never imagined while working at NCR Nieuwegein on this feasibility study, what this seed would

eventually grow into,” recollects Bruce Tuch. Tuch, the former CTO at WCND Nieuwegein (formerly NCR Systems Engineering) was a core developer of WaveLAN, the predecessor of Wi-Fi. At the WaveLAN20 symposium in the Utrecht suburb, he came to celebrate 20 years of Wi-Fi and reunite with many of the others that contributed to the world-altering technology.

RF chops

At the time, local area networks (LANs) were operating at a minimum

of 1 Mb/s, which was the standard for internet connectivity. But engineer Don Johnson of the National Cash Register Corporation (NCR) technology research, based in Dayton, Ohio, had the idea to utilize the new spread spectrum to establish wireless cash registers. The problem was figuring out how. For Tuch, the timing of all of this couldn’t have been any better.

“The timing was perfect for me. I was a kid from Brooklyn, living in the Netherlands. I got my RF chops while designing chips for televi-

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sion tuners at Philips in Eindhoven, but I was looking to move closer to ­Utrecht,” remembers Tuch. “NCR saw an opportunity to develop within this wireless domain and they gave me a chance. All I had to do was convince corporate to fund the feasibility study – and that’s exactly what we did.”

Goosebumps

In these days, there were two main methods for spreading spectrum under the new FCC guidelines: direct sequence and frequency hopping.

Direct-sequence spread spectrum (DSSS) is a modulation technique that uses codes to scramble and spread data by short radio pulses over large bandwidths. For every bit you send out, you’re actually sending out a code that represents that bit, called a chip. If you spread by a factor of 10, you send out 10 chips for each bit.

The alternative approach, frequen-

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cy hopping, jumps from channel to channel to modulate and spread the radio signal. “Early in the system analysis, we decided that at the 1-2 Mb/s parameters, and especially looking toward the future of higher speeds, frequency hopping would not have the range, nor the robustness that direct-sequence spread spectrum offered us and we weren’t going to put our energy there,” Tuch recalls.

In the feasibility testing, engineers determined that achieving 1-2 Mb/s speeds in the retail market was possible, but only with minimal spreading of the signal, by no more than a factor of 10 or so. The problem: the FCC’s rules were incredibly vague and didn’t specify how much the signal needed to be spread. “We knew we had to spread the spectrum, but we had no idea by how much,” says Tuch. “The military was spreading signals by a factor of hundreds or thousands, but

trying to reach our speed parameters in the retail environment, spreading that much wasn’t an option.”

Looking for concrete answers, Tuch jumped on a plane to Washington DC to meet with the FCC and find out the minimal spread allowed.

Expecting to get an answer with numbers like 64 or 128 (used in military antijamming applications), he was left flabbergasted when he got the FCC’s official answer: 10. “I got goosebumps leaving that meeting,” exclaims Tuch. “I think I danced out of the FCC building. This was great!

I knew we could do a 2 Mb product.”

First product

On his return to NCR, Tuch was thrilled to share the news. The competition was all spreading by much higher numbers, based only on ­misinterpretations and assumptions of the FCC guidelines. With his new-

we launched that, suddenly companies were taking notice of the speeds that we were capable of,” remembers Tuch. “We really set a directional pace and showed that higher speeds were possible, but now everyone was ready to jump into the arena.”

Wireless Andrew

Bruce Tuch at the WaveLAN20 symposium, catching up with many of the others that contributed to the world-altering technology

found clarity, he knew his team was on the cusp of something big. Over the weekend, team design engineer Hans van Driest had cracked a code to spread a signal to 11 chips long – just over the FCCs threshold. “Once I saw this code, my heart skipped a beat,” reminisces Tuch. “I knew this was a defining moment, a differentiating milestone.” The code was a ‘reinvention’ of the Barker code, which was commonly used in radar systems and had all the properties needed for a robust indoor communications system.

Armed with this information from the FCC, the results of the feasibility study and the 11-chip Barker code, NCR Nieuwegein went to corporate management with a proposal for a vertically integrated product for the retail market. Because of their expertise from the study, NCR decided that Tuch’s group within the company was the best suited to make and develop the product and by the end of 1990, they had done just that. “That’s when we made the first WaveLAN 2 Mb product and that was quite revolutionary. Once

By the mid-90s, Carnegie Mellon had already spent a decade in creating a vast and open infrastructure for university researchers, professors and students to access the Internet, called the Andrew Project. After the release of WaveLAN, provost Alex Hills ­became interested in pursuing a wireless adjunct to the project that he called Wireless Andrew. The university reached out to NCR with the idea of launching the first fully-­ integrated wireless LAN on the entire campus – a-first-of-its-kind project. A ­launching customer of sorts.

The initial objective at the rollout of Wireless Andrew was to allow researchers to conduct further research into wireless connectivity. For instance, in the field of robotics by connecting robots wirelessly, rather than through wires. Also, in the field of protocol research, learning how devices behave when switching between wireless and cellular networks. But after its release in 1997, Carnegie Mellon and NCR got some interesting results. Before long, they

The first WaveLAN prototype board

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noticed that it wasn’t so much the researchers, but students that were using the wireless network.

“The network was made so that it was hard to get into without passwords and control, but students are really good at what they do,” laughs Tuch. “They figured out how to get in and started using it much more than anyone else on the campus. They became enthralled with it. The kids were innovators. They weren’t just using it for research; they were connecting with their friends, writing papers and reports and, maybe most of all, gloating to their friends at other universities about Carnegie Mellon having the first campus-wide wireless LAN.” This was just a glimpse at the potential what wireless LANs could offer.

Married couple

Working with other experts in the Institute of Electrical and Electro-

40

7

nics Engineers (IEEE) 802 group, which establishes the standards for local area networks, a new set of protocols was ratified for a new specific standard for wireless LANs – 802.11.

Essentially, the new approved standards adopted the features of the WaveLAN product – DSSS using the same Barker code. But with these new standards in place, Tuch’s attention was already turned to achieving the next generation of wireless connectivity with speeds as fast as 10 Mb/s.

After some infighting with chip vendors Harris Intersil, which slowed progress, the two companies opted to bury the hatchet. Now putting their heads together, utilizing an improved coding scheme from Richard van Nee, the duo submitted a joint proposal for IEEE 802.11 approval – 802.11b, which established a new specification that extended speeds up to 11 Mb/s on the same 2.4 GHz band – that was

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ratified almost immediately. Tuch: “At that time, the IEEE meetings ­weren’t going anywhere; it was just mud wrestling between two of the bigger groups. But at the next meeting, when everyone expected us to argue and entertain them, we came in like a married couple walking down the aisle.”

Apple Airport

Around 1998, simultaneously with 802.11 discussions, Steve Jobs brought in Dick Allen to help him find a supplier of the ‘best-in-class’ wireless technology to be integrated with the release of Apple’s iBook. Initially, this was for the 2 Mb/s standard.

Allen, who regularly attended the 802.11 meetings, reached out to Tuch to find out just how close they really were to the 11 Mb/s product. Luckily for Apple, Tuch and his team were on the verge of a major breakthrough.

“It was really good timing for Apple because you know, they don’t want to launch something when someone else has it too. They want to be first,” explains Tuch. “When they launched this thing, they were the first because we worked with them om the early stages and during our chip development. This way, they could announce that not only did the iBook have wireless LAN, but it was the first wireless LAN capable of 11 Mb. No one else had it. But even more importantly, it was extremely affordable at only 99 dollars because we made the business decision to give them the product, basically at cost.”

There was one hiccup, however.

Just before its release, Apple discovered they had a big problem. While the laptop was fully integrated with the wireless LAN card, it was having trouble connecting to the Airport base station – the signal had disappeared. “It turns out, this beautifully sleek and shiny-metallic base station, which was approved by Jobs, was essentially a Faraday cage,” quips Tuch.

“Steve had a bit of a reality distortion field around him, so nobody wanted to enter that field. If you did, once you left, you might suddenly believe you could change the laws of physics.

The first Apple iBook with WaveLAN

Fortunately, by changing the product to plastic, they could still achieve the shiny look, only this time, the device would work.” Crisis averted.

levels on the connections screen, which by 2001 was fully integrated.

Tuch: “The advantage for us was that we were early to work with them to integrate. When XP launched, we had already passed their Windows compatibility test, known as WHQL, and already had the certificate that our solution was compatible with the system. Furthermore, because of our close working relationship with the software company, when XP launched, they told their entire community of users and all their OEMs around the globe that the Lucent solution was the card that they’d been using and had shown to have great operation. Suddenly PC OEMs were calling up looking to get their Lucent 802.11b cards. So, that definitely didn’t hurt us.”

Windows XP

Just after this, in 2000, wireless LAN became known simply as Wi-Fi – a trademark that has become so popular, in recent years the term is often used as a synonym for the Internet.

The technology was out there, and the world was buying in. Suddenly, software developers from Microsoft were calling the engineers in Nieuwegein – who were now part of Lucent – with lists of technical questions about the WaveLAN card. Microsoft was ready to include wireless LAN in its next OS – Windows XP. Tuch boarded a plane and flew to Seattle for a meeting at the Microsoft HQ with Jawad Khaki, the corporate VP in charge of Windows OS networking. Microsoft wanted to make sure that Windows XP, and all future releases, were equipped with native Wi-Fi. They were looking to integrate a WaveLAN-like look and feel to show access points in the barcoded signal

WaveLAN20

At the WaveLAN20 symposium held on 29 October in Nieuwegein, WaveLAN, the precursor of Wi-FI, was presented with the IEEE Milestone for developments with significant achievements that have stood the test of time for at least 25 years.

7 41

DISCOVERY FACTORY 10 YEARS On 22 October, Eindhoven’s Parktheater was all about technology. In a beautiful setting, 300 employees, sponsors and friends of the Discovery Factory celebrated the 10-year anniversary of the science center of Brainport region Eindhoven.

F

rom past to future Founders Chris Voets and Hugo Vrijdag kicked off the evening telling stories from the past. They started the Discovery Factory back in 2009 in a former Philips factory in Eindhoven, based on their educational program ‘The Inventors’ using an innovative storytelling concept. A lot of partners (see the bottom of this page) also contributed to this walk down memory lane. With their help, the Discovery Factory has inspired 250,000 children for a future in design and technology.

From being innovative and always aiming for a sustainable future, the subject rapidly shifted to the Discovery Factory’s latest developments.

Movie premiere The latest developments include the educational program “The Inventors’ Best Kept Secret”, aimed at children aged 9 and 10. A new movie from director Chantal de Jong is the starting point of this educational project. All invitees

witnessed the official movie premiere. It tells the story of a young inventor named Finn who’s eager to come up with a new invention. His friend Kiki studies people. In an exciting adventure, they discover that together, they make the perfect team creating inventions that really contribute to people’s needs! The movie was the climax of the evening. But more importantly: from now on, children, parents and teachers can watch the movie in the Discovery Factory and be inspired for a future in innovation and technology.

Educational program for schools near you In connection with the movie, a primary education program is available. Does your company want to support schools in your region with technology education? Contact the Inventors at the Discovery Factory (info@deontdekfabriek.nl).

They’ll use their 10-year experience for enthusing all school children and youngsters for a future in tech – even if it means organizing an inventors contest on behalf of your company!

The Discovery Factory is there to inspire youngsters for a future in design and technology. Projects are supported by tech companies such as ASML, Brainport Industries, Daf Trucks, Frencken Europe, Hager, NTS Group, Philips, Stam en De Koning and VDL Group, and by Bits&Chips as the media partner.

discoveryfactory.nl

INTERVIEW REINIER PERQUIN (THERMO FISHER SCIENTIFIC)

IF YOU ALREADY KNOW EVERYTHING, HOW WILL YOU EVER LEARN SOMETHING NEW? In the midst of a tight Dutch labor market, companies are working harder than ever to keep and attract new talent. Thermo Fisher software manager Reinier Perquin believes that providing his employees with training opportunities not only helps bring in new personnel, but it also keeps his people fresh.

Collin Arocho

T

hermo Fisher Scientific, a multinational leader in biotechnology product development, employs more than 70,000 people around the world. But how does a company, with such a large global footprint, manage to keep its workers and continually draw in new employees? According to the software group manager from Thermo Fisher’s Eindhoven offices, Reinier Perquin, the main attraction for engineers is the opportunity to work on cutting-edge projects. An example: using advanced software to help solve the problem of global diseases. To get these talented engineers on board, Perquin says investment in training – both technical and social – is a valuable tool.

As a manager within the Thermo Fisher R&D department in Eindhoven, Perquin is routinely interviewing to bring new faces to the software group. What he’s noticed in these meetings: training budgets are increasingly important to attracting prospective colleagues. “In some interviews, it’s one of the first questions that people will ask. We’re 44

7

seeing that more and more. While we don’t offer individual training budgets, we understand how important it can be, so we have a group budget specifically to encourage our employees to utilize training opportunities,” explains Perquin.

Do you prefer internal or external training?

“We offer both to our employees but getting an outside view can be very helpful and that’s why we encourage external training. Our workers can gain new insights and learn about emerging technologies and ­cutting-edge methods. In my department, we’re seeing that the whole architecture of software is evolving before our eyes. Before, it was closed off but now you see things happening in the cloud or edge computing. That happens because new technology enables that. In software, you must constantly learn and adjust. So, if you don’t invest in yourself, then, in the end, you stand still. These trainings are a great method to enhance skills and learn about novel solutions.”

What’s the greatest benefit of offering your employees training?

“Well, first of all, people are really busy with their day-to-day tasks.

Sometimes it’s good to step outside and take a break from thinking only about your work. It gives people the opportunity to not only get a break from their daily challenges but to focus on enhancing their personal skill set,” describes Perquin. “Also, it gives our engineers the opportunity to meet people from other companies and build a social and professional network. If people sit still too long without training – especially externally – they start to think in certain ways within their comfort zones. For some problems, you need to think outside of the box – not in absolutes like, ‘We’ve always done it like this, so we’ll continue to do this like this’.

That’s the wrong mentality. Trainings help to disrupt this way of thinking.”

What type of courses are your workers choosing?

“Being in software, we often see our employees opting for training

Credit: Vincent van den Hoogen

in design patterns in emergent architecture, taught by Onno van Roosmalen at High Tech Institute.

In software, you see a repetition of certain patterns. By giving these patterns common names, essentially creating a unified software language, our engineers can better communicate and solve problems. Onno and I have a long history, going back to university, so I know the level of the knowledge that’s being taught and that training is easy to approve for our employees.”

Are there any other trainings you utilize?

“To be honest, we probably spend most of our budget on the soft-

skills training – probably more than the technical trainings. Sometimes when people come straight from university, they tend to think that they know everything. Technically, these people can be very strong but often their soft skills are their weakest spot. Everyone wants to believe they’re system architects but I always say, an architect is not a technical person. In that situation, soft skills are more important than the whole technical level. If you already know everything, how will you ever learn something new? Sometimes they don’t realize it and they need time for reflection. That’s something the soft-skills training is incredibly helpful with.”

Do you notice a return on your investment? Does it help output?

“Absolutely. I don’t see it as we’re losing three days of work; I see it as a worthwhile investment, both for the company and for the individual. I believe it helps in terms of productivity, especially the soft skills. We see very positive changes because people realize that if they want to achieve something, they may need to adopt a different approach. We see that trainees come back communicating ideas more clearly and working better with people and it makes them a far more effective employee. We find that our colleagues come back with new ideas, new energy and new inspiration. It keeps people fresh.”

7 45

ELECTRONICS

Practical machine learning

This course gives the possibility to get solid and state-of-the-art knowledge on machine learning and its applications. You will learn how to build a robust Machine Learning system suitable to solve real-world industrial projects on a step-by-step approach. The course is a set of lessons followed by intensive practical exercises with Matlab and perClass. It is structured to be useful also without this software. Emphasis is put on a “how-to-do-it” approach going beyond an inventory of methods. The teachers have extensive experience with design of industrial machine learning systems in different application areas. Intended for engineers from R&D and practitioners interested in machine learning and deep learning. The course is suitable both for those who are new to machine learning and who are already familiar with it.

Data: 17 – 21 February 2020 (5 consecutive days) Location: Eindhoven Investment: € 2,700.00 excl. VAT

MECHATRONICS

Motion control tuning (MCT)

The performance of controlled mechanical servo systems in an industrial setting is generally achieved by using PID controllers. In systems that suffer from dynamics and vibrations it is often useful to use additional filters. The application of frequency domain techniques for analyzing requirements, describing controllers and carrying out experiments to find the optimal settings is very useful and will be treated during this course. Starting with the time domain, the complete basis of control is repeated, placed in a modern framework, validated experimentally and applied to mechanical servo systems. During the course all aspects of ‘motion control’ are covered, including the use of feedforward steering. Participants have a BSc/MSc degree in electrical engineering, mechanical engineering, mechatronics, physics or equivalent practical experience and some basic understanding of servo control.

Data: 27 – 29 November & 2 – 4 December 2019 (6 days in 2 weeks) Location: Eindhoven Investment: € 4,495.00 excl. VAT

SOFT SKILLS & LEADERSHIP

Time management in innovation

The world of technical innovations is moving fast. That is exciting and challenging, but it also means that as a technical professional you often perform under tight deadlines and tremendous work pressure. Keeping up with the project seems hard and meeting your deadlines seems difficult. To perform at a peak you have to find a balance between doing things yourself and delegating tasks to others. Finding a way between “good” stress which helps you perform and “bad” stress when things get too much is often more difficult than one assumes. Finding a way to keep an overview is key to avoid stress. In this training, you will understand how to peak and perform better yet keeping a balance between “good” and “bad” stress.

Data: 28 November & 17 December 2019 (1,5 day) Location: Eindhoven Investment: € 695.00 excl. VAT

SOFTWARE

Secure coding in C and C++

This course will change the way you look at your C/C++ code. We’ll teach you the common weaknesses and their consequences that can allow hackers to attack your system, and – more importantly – best practices you can apply to protect yourself. We give you a holistic view on C/C++ programming mistakes and their countermeasures from the machine code level to virtual functions and OS memory management. We present the entire course through live practical exercises to keep it engaging and fun.

Data: 2 – 4 December 2019 (3 consecutive days) Location: Eindhoven Investment: € 1.850.00 excl. VAT

hightechinstitute.nl

SOFT SKILLS & LEADERSHIP

OPTICS

Effective communication skills for technology professionals – part 2

Applied optics in Eindhoven

Time management in innovation

Expected in September 2020 (15 weekly morning sessions)

20 – 22 November 2019 (3 days + 1 evening) Starts 28 November 2019 (1,5 day)

Effective communication skills for technology professionals – part 1

2 – 4 December 2019 (3 days + 1 evening)

How to be successful in the Dutch high tech work culture 6 December 2019 (1 day)

Improve the power of your speech 11 December 2019 (1 day)

Leadership skills for architects and other technical leaders Starts 30 January 2020 (2 times 2 days + 2 evening sessions)

Creative thinking – full course

6 & 7 April 2020 (2 consecutive days)

Consultative selling for technology professionals 8 & 9 April 2020 (2 consecutive days + 1 evening)

Benefit from autism in your R&D team 14 April 2020 (1 day)

ELECTRONICS Practical machine learning

17 – 21 February 2020 (5 consecutive days)

EMC for motion systems

6 – 8 April 2020 (3 consecutive days)

Ultra low power for Internet of Things 16 – 17 April 2020 (2 consecutive days)

EMC course for mechatronic engineers 15 May 2020 (1 day)

Design of analog electronics – analog IC design Starts 7 September 2020 (11 days in 18 weeks)

Design of analog electronics – analog electronics 1 Starts 14 September 2020 (9 days in 16 weeks)

MECHATRONICS Advanced motion control

18 – 22 November 2019 (5 consecutive days)

Actuation and power electronics

19 – 21 November 2019 (3 consecutive days)

Passive damping for high tech systems

19 – 21 November 2019 (2,5 consecutive days)

Dynamics and modelling

25 – 27 November 2019 (4 consecutive days)

Motion control tuning

27 November – 4 December 2019 (6 days in 2 weeks)

Mechatronics system design – part 1 6 – 10 April 2020 (5 consecutive days)

Design principles for precision engineering 22 – 26 June 2020 (5 consecutive days)

Thermal effects in mechatronic systems 23 – 25 June 2020 (3 consecutive days)

Experimental techniques in mechatronics 23 – 25 June 2020 (3 consecutive days)

Starts 18 February 2020 (15 weekly afternoons)

Modern optics for optical designers – Part 1 Modern optics for optical designers – Part 2

Expected in September 2020 (15 weekly morning sessions)

SOFTWARE Introduction to deep learning 19 November 2019 (1 day)

ISTQB Advanced test analyst

Starts 19 November 2019 (5 days)

Embedded Linux

25 – 29 November 2019 (5 consecutive days)

Secure coding in C and C++

2 – 4 December 2019 (3 consecutive days)

Object-oriented analysis and design – fast track 9 – 12 December 2019 (4 consecutive days)

Object-oriented system control automation Starts 6 February 2020 (2+3 consecutive days)

Software engineering for non-software engineers NEW !

Starts 19 March 2020 (2 evening sessions)

Multicore programming in C++

23 - 25 March 2020 (3 consecutive days)

SYSTEM Introduction to deep learning 19 November 2019 (1 day)

Systems modelling with SysML

25 – 28 November 2019 (4 consecutive days)

System architect(ing) in Eindhoven 9 – 13 March 2020 (5 consecutive days)

Value-cost ratio improvement by value engineering 16 & 17 April 2020 (2 consecutive days)

O

pinion

SYSTEM ARCHITECTURE Jan Bosch is a research center director, professor, consultant and angel investor in start-ups.

You can contact him at jan@janbosch.com

Who manages your system architecture?

T

his week, I spent two days in systems engineering workshops.

Systems engineers are concerned with designing products and solutions including mechanical, electronic and software components. Systems engineers and architects address all requirements of a system, including regulatory constraints, such as functional safety, customer-facing functionality, such as the features that the customer uses on a daily basis, and evolvability and maintainability, decreasing the total cost of ownership over the lifetime of the system.

The systems engineering workshops were concerned with the implications of digitalization, which we define as software + data + artificial intelligence. The consequence of digitalization on most of the systems is that changes are required to their architecture. The interesting finding was that in several companies, there was nobody in the organization who was responsible for the overall systems architecture. Instead, the original architecture had become incarnated in the organizational structure. Each of the departments or units was responsible for one subsystem or component in the traditional architecture.

Of course, the strong relationship between architecture and R&D organization isn’t new. Many are aware of Conway’s law from 1967 and the BAPO model (Business-­ArchitectureProcess-Organization). However, in both cases, the assumption is that there’s some role or team that governs the overall system architecture.

How can so many organizations end up without such a role or team?

One explanation is that in many industries, there’s a ‘dominant design’ 48

7

that has been established as the standard everyone in the industry adheres to. It allows individual companies to provide specific components identified in the dominant design.

The same pattern occurs inside the organization, where each component in the dominant design is mapped to an organizational unit. The interfaces between the components are then

In many organizations, there’s no role or team governing the overall system architecture used as coordination and integration points within the organization. Once the dominant design has been established in an industry, there’s actually no need within the company to govern or manage the system architecture as the industry as a whole operates according to this architecture.

The consequence of digitalization is that, in many industries, the dominant design that has been in place for many years or even several decades ceases to be the optimal solution.

Instead, we need to return to architecture design to explore alternative architectures that better support the incorporation of software, data and artificial intelligence. The realization I had this week was that many companies are not realizing that the

‘dominant design’ architecture of their industry is outdated and needs to be replaced with a better alternative. This requires large amounts of experimentation with various architecture alternatives across the industry. Each company needs to conduct its own architecture experiments with the aim of identifying the new dominant design for the industry.

The challenge I want to highlight is that although companies need to experiment with alternative architectures, many have no system architecture function that actually is able to perform this experimentation. Either there’s no system architecture governance in the company at all or the system architecture and engineering function has atrophied to the point that it only manages small decisions within the context of the conventional ‘dominant design’ architecture such as selection of suppliers, interface management or system validation.

Concluding, digitalization is causing the disruption of the ‘dominant design’ architecture in many industries. In industries where that architecture has been the norm for many years or even decades, companies have no or severely atrophied systems engineering functions that are unable to provide governance of nor experimentation with the system architecture. This lack of capability is extremely dangerous for incumbent companies from a disruption perspective in any industry as ecosystem-­ level disruption is typically driven by the introduction of a new architecture that’s adopted as the new dominant design. So, the question I’d like to leave you with is: who manages your system architecture?

NEWS ENERGY

Harnessing lithium’s explosive chemistry for better batteries This year’s Nobel Prize in Chemistry has been awarded to the fathers of the lithium-ion battery.

Together, they found a way to channel lithium’s explosive nature into something useful.

Paul van Gerven

L

ithium’s reactivity is a double-edged sword as far as making batteries is concerned. The ease with which the metal gives up its electrons is, on the one hand, a godsend, as that process (and its reverse) is exactly what belies any conventional battery. The downside is that metallic lithium isn’t very picky about where its electrons go. Compounds such as water and oxygen will do just fine, and they take them eagerly – explosively eagerly, in fact.

While the potential of lithium for making batteries was recognized very early, it wasn’t until the 1960s that researchers dared dream about taming the element’s hotheadedness. This is exactly what this year’s winners of the Nobel Prize in Chemistry did. Many researchers contributed to the creation of the lithium-ion battery as we know it today, but according to the Nobel Committee, John Goodenough, Stanley Whittingham and Akira Yoshino provided the crucial pieces of the puzzle.

Superior alternative

Easily giving up electrons is just one of the characteristics that make lithium great for batteries. It’s also the lightest metal available, which certainly helps for increasing energy density. Lithium atoms or ions are also

Basic operating principle of the lithiumion battery. Lithium is stored in layered structures at both the anode and cathode, which are separated by a barrier to prevent short circuits while also allowing ion transport.

quite small, meaning they travel easily and can be stored in the nooks and crannies of ‘porous’ materials. This characteristic turned out to be perhaps the most essential of all.

Primitive lithium-ion batteries used metallic lithium as one of the electrodes. When discharging, this is called the anode and this is where lithium atoms give up their electrons, which go on to travel through the circuit and provide power. The lithium ions that are produced simultaneously travel through a liquid (not water!) to the other electrode (cathode), where they’re reunited with an electron and ‘stored’.

Working in the labs of Exxon in the 1970s, Whittingham decided to try titanium disulfide (TiS2) to accommodate the lithium in the cathode: solid TiS2 has a layered structure with lots of room for guests. The material worked quite well, even showing complete reversibility of the processes involved. This boded well for creating rechargeable batteries, but alas, after a while, spikes would start to form from the surface of the metallic lithium. These dendrites could grow all the way to the TiS2 electrode, short-circuiting the battery and potentially setting it on fire.

The solution to this seemed obvious: replace the metallic lithium with another material capable of taking in lithium revers-

ibly. As the driving force for the battery to produce current ultimately depends on the relative energy states of lithium at both electrodes, it had to be a different material than TiS2, though.

Although Goodenough didn’t discover this material, his work helped a lot in finding it. He actually found a better alternative to TiS2 cathodes. He knew that cobalt dioxide (CoO2) has a similar structure as TiS2 but he had reason to believe it would be even more hospitable to lithium. He was right, and thanks to the characteristics of CoO2, the search for a better anode could be significantly broadened.

Petroleum coke

In the end, however, the anode material that took the crown had already been extensively researched well before Goodenough’s breakthrough: graphite. It had been known for a long time that graphite can accommodate metal ions. Like the cathode materials, the carbon derivative has a layered molecular structure.

Initially, the research seemed to show that graphite is too unstable to use as an anode because the action of lithium and solvent molecules constantly moving in and out destroyed the layered structure. After screening many types of graphite-­like materials in the late 1980s, however, Yoshino found one that was stable and performed well. This particular grade of petroleum coke, a byproduct of oil refining, proved to combine graphitic parts that house the lithium and non-­ordered domains that keep the material stable.

Thus, all the necessary ingredients came together. The first commercial lithium battery was released in 1991, using Yoshino’s petroleum coke as the anode and Goodenough’s CoO2 as the cathode. Its descendants, however, use graphite after all because an electrolyte has been found that doesn’t destroy it.

7 49

Quality literature for the high tech

Vacuum Science and Technology (2016),

written by three Dutch vacuum specialists, is a must-have for everyone working in vacuum-based research, instrumentation, development, production or business.

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On techwatchbooks.nl, you can find exciting books on technology

UPCOMING ISSUES

Riding the hype cycle

Bits&Chips in 2020 Next year, we’ll focus on these topics: Edition Feature

Date of publication

1

21 February 2020

2 From idea to product to better product

Machine learning

1 May 2020

3

Career and leadership in high tech 12 June 2020

4

Trends in software development

4 September 2020

5

Technologies for the IoT

2 October 2020

6

Wireless

20 November 2020

Bits&Chips 8 | 13 December 2019

Subject to change

In its 2019 Hype Cycle, Gartner distinguishes 29 emerging technologies to experiment with over the next year, falling into five major trends. In the last edition of this year, Bits&Chips explores how high tech companies from this region are riding the hype cycle.

Interested in contributing? nieke@techwatch.nl

Interested in advertizing? sales@techwatch.nl

About Bits&Chips

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Bits&Chips is a publication of Techwatch BV in Nijmegen, the Netherlands.

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Publication dates 15 November, 13 December Copyright All rights reserved. (c) 2019 Techwatch BV. No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording or otherwise, without the prior written permission of the publisher.

Disclaimer Though the publisher and editors take the utmost care in creating, compiling and distributing the information in Bits&Chips, they cannot guarantee the information is correct or complete. The publisher and editors are in no way liable for damages that may arise in connection with the publication of information in Bits&Chips. Columnists and external staff write in a personal capacity. Reader responses fall outside the publisher’s and editors’ scope of responsibility. The publisher and editors are in no way liable for the content and signature of reader responses. The editors reserve the right to edit responses and to publish them in part or not at all.

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