7 minute read

Chip Zero has big goals

Next Article
2023 MediaKit

2023 MediaKit

- The semiconductor industry needs a lot of new factories when the market doubles. Maybe sometime arond 2050, we too could have our own 300-millimeter factory, Rautee envisions.

According to Seikku, Finland has something to offer in certain niche areas, also in production. This requires new production lines, and in the Chip Zero project, a new Kvanttinova line is planned next to Micronova's test line. Its task would be to enable the manufacture of slightly larger volumes, but also to scale products towards larger production facilities.

From a garage to a 1.3 Billion euros distribution company proven in automotive applications, to protect the internal circuitry. The lid, made from high-grade surgical steel, is sealed with an o-ring and secured with epoxy adhesive. This unique package design ensures an ingress-protection rating of IP58 to withstand immersion in over one meter of water, certified according to IEC 60529 and ISO 20653. In addition, the sensor can sustain up to 10Bar over-pressure.

The German Rutronik is one of Europe's leading broadline distributor of electronical components. Now the company celebrates its 50th year in business.

See more here -> etn.fi/15027

GOODBYE, 32-BIT MOBILE APPS

Arm has announced Arm Total Compute Solutions 2023 (TCS23), which will be the platform for next generation mobile computing. TSC23 also ends the support for 32-bit applications.

Total Compute Solutions is Arm's name for the platform on which different processors are implemented. The first processors are the power core X4, the Cortex-A720 aimed at the mid-price category and the Cortex-A520 for basic phones.

For example, the combination X4 + 5 x A720 + 2 x A520 is available for nextgeneration Android flagship phones. This combination promises 27 percent more performance, according to Arm. For developers, the end of 32-bit support is of course a significant issue.

Last year, Mediatek's Dimensity 9200 was the first application processor to exclusively use 64-bit Armv9 cores. At the same time, Google's Pixel 7 was the first device where 32-bit applications could no longer be run. With the new processors, 32-bit applications will be a thing of the past. In the end, it is not a very big change, as 64-bit mobile apps have had to be added to the Google Play store since 2019.

Finland is not the first place that comes to mind when looking for significant developers in the semiconductor industry. However, the country has quite an honorable history in semiconductors and now the industry will is aiming to become a huge business by 2030.

In the Chip Zero locomotive project started by Business Finland and led by Picosun, which develops ALD manufacturing devices, the goal is to grow the semiconductor business to 10 billion euros during the current decade. The goal is high, because at the moment there are 5000 employees in the industry and it generates an annual turnover of around one and a half billion euros.

At first, the idea sounds crazy, but Finland isn´t planning a billion-euro factory where processors for the next generation of iPhones are made. Instead, Chip Zero aims to develop solutions and processes that can make microcircuits emission-free throughout their life cycle.

In the starting seminar of the Chip Zero program Picosun's technology director Jani Kivioja clarified that the goal requires new solutions for the entire life cycle of the circuits. We need to develop resource-efficient manufacturing technology and components. The passage of each silicon wafer must be achieved with clearly less energy consumption than at present. This requires a new approach.

- Currently, there is no focus on sustainability in seiconductor production. A lot of harmful chemicals are used in the processes, no recycling is done and the production chains are separate, Kivioja listed.

It is estimated that the total turnover of semiconductor industry will grow to a trillion dollars, or $1000 billion, by 2030. So could Finland someday have a billiondollar factory that produces 300millimeter wafers? According to Okmetic CEO Kai Seikku, the answer is no. But Picosun CEO Jussi Rautee sees it differently.

Murata Electronics' CEO Tomy Runne sees Kvanttinova as an important tool together with Micronova and Tampere's SoC line.- If we could produce something here in three weeks, we would beat our competitors. In semiconductor manufacturing, speed means everything, Runne emphasized.

Picosun, an Applied Materials company, has received funding from Business Finland to form an R&D program in the country focused on reducing the environmental impact of semiconductor manufacturing.

The four-year program, called “Chip Zero,” seeks to bring together companies across the semiconductor ecosystem in Finland with a shared mission of developing chips with zero lifetime emissions by reducing the carbon footprint of chip manufacturing and increasing the efficiency of semiconductor decarbonization applications. Picosun will initiate and lead the program with a significant grant from Business Finland. The aim is to scale the program over time with contributions from ecosystem partners to reach more than 100M€ in R&D investments.

Helmut Rudel founded Rutronik in 1973 in Ispringen, near Pforzheim, Germany. The expertise of the independent familyowned company lies in the distribution of semiconductors, passive and electromechanical components, embedded boards, storage and displays, as well as wireless products. The distributor's customers drive high-growth future markets around Industry 4.0, Inustrial IoT, Future Mobility, and Energy & Power.

In the 1970s, color television became increasingly popular in Germany, especially because of the 1972 Olympic Games and the Soccer World Cup in 1974. Exactly in the period between these two major sporting events, in 1973, Helmut Rudel founded Rutronik, which was specialized on the distribution of passive components. Rutronik is now one of Europe's largest electronics distribution companies and generated sales of 1.28 billion euros in 2022. Worldwide, the family-owned company now employs more than 1,900 people in over 80 offices.

- We are happy and proud to celebrate our 50th anniversary in the electronics industry this year, said Thomas Rudel, CEO and chairman of the board at Rutronik. From a small family business that I founded in a double garage in Ispringen in the early 1970s with great

Ultrafast current sensing

Asahi Kasei Microdevices (AKM) is developing a new ultra-fast response current sensing technology. This technology is ideal for high frequency applications and will allow for smaller, more efficient electrical systems. AKM demonstrated the new technology for the first time in 9-11 May 2023 at PCIM Europe.

To further optimize efficiency and packaging size of high frequency applications, Asahi Kasei Microdevices is developing a new current sensing technology featuring an ultra-fast response time. Utilizing this technology substantially increases the switching frequency of power supply systems, such as ACDC and DC-DC converters, contributing to the overall size reduction of electrical systems. It is ideal for high frequency control in applications using silicon carbide (SiC) or gallium support of my wife, we have become a leading distribution company for electronic components within 50 years, added Helmut Rudel, founder and president of Rutronik (pictured left). nitride (GaN) switching devices, as well as for the overcurrent protection of electrical systems. In the future, Asahi Kasei Microdevices is aiming to utilize this technology in automotive applications, such as on-board chargers and DC-DC converters. valmistajien valikoimassa. Yhdessä oman tutkimus- ja kehitystoimintamme sekä laitteistoista ja ohjelmistoista koostuvien patentoitujen järjestelmäratkaisujemme kanssa onnistut pysymään sovelluksessasi askeleen edellä.

More than 40,000 customers benefit from the diverse product portfolio of leading manufacturers, technical support, individual logistics solutions, and inhouse research and development (R&D). Rutronik has established design centers in Singapore and Lithuania specifically for its own R&D activities. With Rutronik System Solutions, the distributor is transforming itself into a system provider with unique, partly patented system solutions consisting of hardware and software to shape fast-moving innovation cycles in the industrial environment. With proof-of-concepts, Rutronik System Solutions significantly accelerates the pre-development phases of its customers to shorten the time-to-market of their new applications.

Asahi Kasei Microdevices will showcase the new technology for the first time in a demonstration showing the ultra-fast measurement of a triangular current wave at PCIM Europe.

In addition, the company showcased an AC servomotor control demonstrator utilizing a coreless current sensor IC with a sigma-delta digital output, as well as the CZ375x, a coreless current sensor IC of the Currentier product line with a high current capability up to 100 Ampere root mean square (Arms).

Luotettavaa ja monipuolista - Rutronikin valikoima

„ Puolijohteet

„ Passiiviset komponentit

„ Interconnect- ja sähkömekaaniset komponentit

Cybersecurity to the next level – ensure business continuity

Tynjälä, Country Manager of Check Point Software.

Technological advances and the global geopolitical situation have taken cybersecurity to a whole new level. It affects us all, whether we are individuals, society, businesses, communities or public organisations, let alone governmental preparedness.

According to Check Point Research, the number of cyber attacks in Finland increased exponentially in 2022, up 81 % compared to 2021. The average number of attacks per organisation was 1 228 per week. Attacks on cloud-based networks increased by 48 % globally last year.

grow, creating a new, everchanging attack surface. The rapidly growing interest of hackers in AI technologies will further increase the number of attacks. For example, the AI bot ChatGPT has already been used to write malware code and phishing emails. ChatGPT account credentials and stolen ChatGPT Premium accounts are traded on the dark web. Sensitive organisational data can be compromised when cybercriminals gain access to queries from the owner of a hijacked account.

„ Sulautetut piirilevyt ja järjestelmät

„ Näytöt ja monitorit

„ Tietotallennustekniikat

„ Langattomat teknologiat

Haluaisitko tietää meistä enemmän? Vieraile osoitteessa www.rutronik.com

„ Akkukennot

„ Virtalähteet

According to the "Information Security in Finnish Organisations 2023-2025" survey conducted by Check Point Software and Loihde Trust, one in four Finnish companies have identified a business-impacting security incident in their organisation in the last two years. The most common of these were data leaks and security challenges related to personal records. In the future, three out of four large Finnish companies believe they will face a cyber attack.

Digitalization and the spread of cloud computing will continue to

According to IBM Security's Cost of a Data Breach report, the cost of a data breach to an organisation in 2022 was at an all-time high, averaging $4.35 million. The indirect cost of an extortion attack averaged $4.54 million, not including the ransom itself.

Despite all this, companies are not always ready to make significant investments in security. Security may not be seen as a business enabler and profitability enhancer, or the risks may be seen as theoretical if the company has not yet suffered a security breach. There is also often a lack of clarity about who is responsible for security, for example in the case of SaaS services or cloud solutions. Critical infrastructure protection in Finland is only beginning to wake up.

As economic growth slows, it is important to ensure that business continuity is safeguarded. Information security cannot just be a necessary expense but must be an integral part of an organisation's business continuity planning. Achieving cyber resilience requires a holistic, proactive approach to security: comprehensive, consolidated and collaborative solutions. This is currently not common practice, and the problem is often that companies' solutions do not communicate with each other in the event of a data breach. This makes companies vulnerable.

This article is from: