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TIRIAS RESEARCH
WIRELESS/DSP NEWSLETTER
March 8, 2018

This issue:
IOT DevCon/ML&AI DevCon, Broadcom/Qualcomm, Embedded World, MWC, VR over 5G, ML TIRIAScast 

We’re entering a busy March conference and news cycles. We have some wrap ups on Mobile World Congress and Embedded World. The Broadcom/Qualcomm drama keeps going and we have both written content and a podcast on the topic.

Please note that we will be rebranding the Wireless/DSP Newsletter in the coming months around a new name and some changes in format. However, we will continue to cover the latest technology, including DSPs, and other industry activities. If you have recommendations on what you would like to see in future newsletters, please send it to kevin(at)tiriasresearch.com

We always encourage you to check our website at www.TIRIASResarch.com for our new reports and whitepapers.

Extension Media and TIRIAS Research team up for 2018 conferences 
We’re excited to announce that TIRIAS Research and Extension Media have agreed to cooperate on the editorial planning for three extension media conferences in 2018: Machine Learning & AI DevCon, IoT DevCon, and IoT Security DevCon. The call for papers is already out for the co-located ML & AI DevCon and IoT DevCon are out (both conferences will be co-located this year). Please consider applying to present a paper or sponsor at these high quality conferences.
[http://www.iot-devcon.com/]
[http://mldevcon.com/]

The Broadcom vs. Qualcomm Drama Continues, Part 2
Broadcom’s hostile bid for Qualcomm continues to take new turns. Just prior to the shareholder’s meeting on March 6, Broadcom it appeared that Broadcom would succeed in supplanting six of the eleven board members based on early shareholder voting results. However, amongst growing concern about US competitiveness and national security implications, the US Government requested a postponement of the vote and the shareholder meeting pending a CFIUS review. Despite Broadcom’s plans to relocate the company headquarters back to the US by mid-May, there is concern about Broadcom’s business model relative to Qualcomm’s importance to the US economy and government. Meanwhile, Qualcomm’s acquisition of NXP looks like it will be approved by the NXP shareholders after the offer was increased from $37b to more than $43b. The deal has now been approved by all governments, but the Chinese government. TIRIAS Research believes that the NXP acquisition will be completed, and there’s a good chance Broadcom’s offer will be thwarted by the US government review.
For more information check out the latest articles and podcast on the hostile takeover:
Forbes article and TIRIAScast podcast.

The Calm Before the (5G) Storm
While there were plenty of new smartphones and other mobile devices launches at MWC, the real focus was on the coming of 5G and AI. In addition, the reviews on the new devices was split. Some believe that the new slate of mobile devices will continue to drive demand while many others were concerned about the lack of innovation around form or function. This lackluster reception combined with the coming of 5G in 2019, may prove hazardous for overall smartphone shipments in 2018.
The following is a quick recap of many of the new devices announced at MWC:

• Alcatel 1X & 1C smartphones
• Alcatel 5 smartphone
• Alcatel 3C, 3V & 3X smartphones
• Asus ZenFone 5 and 5Z smartphones
• Cat S61 smartphone and construction tool
• Huawei Mate Book X Pro laptop
• Huawei MediaPad M5 & M5 Pro tablets
• Land Rover Explore rugged smartphone
• Lenovo Yoga 730 & Flex 14 laptops
• LG V30S ThinQ smartphone
• Nokia Sirocco smartphones
• Nokia 7 smartphone
• Nokia 8110 phones
• Nokia 1 smartphones with Android Go
• Samsung Galaxy S9 & S9 Pro smartphones
• SikurPhone smartphone with a cryptocurrency wallet
• Sony Xperia X72 & X772 Compact smartphones
• Vivo Apex smartphone
• Xiaomi Mi Mix 2S
• ZTE Blade V9 & Blade V9 Vita smartphones
• ZTE Tempo Go smartphone with Android Go

New Tech at Embedded World and MWC
With MWC and Embedded World begin held the same week, there were also a number of technology and semiconductor product announcements, including:

• AMD announces the Epyc 3000 series embedded processors
• ARM introduces a soft SIM solution called Kigen that works in conjunction with the previously announced Arm CryptoIsland security solution
• Just prior to the conferences, Arm introduced Project Trillium for machine learning applications at the edge
• Ceva introduces the PentaG 5G-NR platform for 5G-NR enhanced mobile Broadband (eMBB) solution for eMBB applications capable of 10Gb/s. The PentaG platform includes the Ceva-XC4500 DSP, 5G AI processor, Vector MAC unit, cluster of CEVA-X2 DSPs, and polar and LDPC encoder and decoder accelerators.
• Cypress announced Excelon FRAMs for mission automotive and industrial mission critical applications. The new products range in density between 2Mb and 8Mb.
• Excelon Ultra offers 4-8Mbit industrial-grade storage with a 108-MHz Quad Serial Peripheral Interface (SPI) Intel introduced the Movidius Neural Composite Stick for a plug-in AI solution
• Kontron announces COM Express and Mini-ITX boards using the AMD Ryzen embedded V1000 processors
• MediaTek announced the Helio P60 mobile SoC for mid-range smartphones
• Microchip announced two new microcontroller families (the PIC16F18446 and ATmega4809) with integrate Analog-to-Digital (ADC) converters aimed at sensor hubs.
• Microsoft announces Windows 10 IoT support for NXP’s i.MX6 and i.MX7 processors
• NXP introduced the i.MX RT high-performance processors for real-time embedded computing applications; the K32W0x low-power MCU that includes 802.15.4 and Bluetooth 5 wireless connectivity; and an IoT in a package processor solution that combines an i.MX6 with 802.11ac wireless connectivity
• NXP also announced a more cost effective version if the i.MX8M multimedia SoC family, called the i.MX 8M Mini. NXP was able to make the i.MX8M Mini so cost effective by using the 14nm LPC FinFET process to reduce the die size, which reduced cost even considering the low mask cost of planar process.
• Silicon Labs introduced the WF200 transceivers and WFM200 modules for low-power Wi-Fi solutionsSupermicro introduced the X11SD motherboards for edge solutions. The X11SD motherboards leverage the Intel Xeon-D-2100 processor.
• Qualcomm announced the Snapdragon 700 series mobile SoCs for mid-range smartphones
• Qualcomm announced the Snapdragon 820E for embedded applications

Emerging Consumer 5G Applications Advance at Mobile World Congress: Huawei Cloud VR
Network service providers are looking to low latency 5G networks for streaming consumer content. At Mobile World Congress 2018, Huawei announced a 5G Cloud VR SIG which includes AMD, HTC, IBM, Microsoft, HUAWEI CLOUD, Unity Technologies, TPCast, Noitom, Immersive Robotics, NGCodec, Sennheiser, Texel, Tsunami VR.
Their news release made a bold statement, “Future Cloud VR head-mounted display (HMD) equipment will soon be completely cable-free as 5G wireless connections replace traditional wired units. Meanwhile, the most complex feature of the VR system (computer graphics rendering), will no longer be locally hosted, as it is moved to the cloud server. 5G networks will send user interaction to the cloud and send the processed images back to users in real time.”

Recent Articles by TIRIAS Research

Long-term Trend Or Passing Fad: Tech Events Shift Focus To AI
Entering March, a diverse set of technology conferences and exhibitions that used to be aimed in different directions are now aligned on artificial intelligence (AI), at least at a high level.

IBM’s Big Bet On Cloud AI Will Pay Off
With the cloud giants and many governments investing heavily in AI R&D, what’s a mere multinational corporation to do? IBM spent the past few years restructuring to address the combination of cognitive services and cloud platforms.

Qualcomm Datacenter Technologies May Have Improved Server TCO With Arm
The standout decisions in Qualcomm’s Centriq 2400 SoC design were going 64-bit only, scaling out single-socket server nodes and initial manufacturing in Samsung’s 10nm silicon process. The result is similar performance to Intel Xeon Scalable with about half the power consumption.

Hatch Entertainment Picks Qualcomm Centriq 2400 Instances For Cloud Gaming Service
Hatch Entertainment is, in effect, seeding many CSPs with new Qualcomm Centriq 2400-based servers to evaluate using for additional workloads. This will make it easy for these CSPs to evaluate the TCO of Qualcomm Centriq 2400-based servers. It’s the beginning of a virtuous cycle.

The Microsoft and Qualcomm Always Connected PC Connects At MWC
Microsoft and Qualcomm are moving forward on the Always Connected PC platform with a series of new announcements at Mobile World Congress (MWC). Microsoft and Qualcomm announced three OEM partners, each with an initial model of the Always Connected PC: the ASUS NovaGo (2-in-1 convertible), the detachable HP ENVY x2, and the Lenovo Miix 630 (2-in-1 detachable).
All three models will be available online from Amazon and in Microsoft Stores in the U.S. next month. In the U.K., the models will be seen in Asus Stores, BT Shop, John Lewis, Microsoft Stores, and PC World. In China, JD.com is the announced etailer. Unieuro will offer the PCs in Italy; Boulanger and Fnac in France.

TIRIAScast podcasts

Paul Teich, Principal Analyst, and David Teich, Senior Analyst, (yes, they are brothers) published an episode of TIRIAScast. It covered TIRIAS Research in recent news, mentioned the upcoming conferences and events at wish TIRIAS Research analysts will appear, and then delved into a discussion of the reasons behind the release of the Machine Learning Overview paper available on our site (). The discussion centered around the need to understand the full stack of the machine learning industry, from business need the level of chips, in order to plan for growing demand for ML solutions. There is also a brief discussion about the difference between the two key types of machine learning: supervised and unsupervised. The podcast runs 16 minutes and is available here.

Recent Quotes

Wave Computing Chooses MIPS 64-bit RISC
While MIPS rattled off a host of AI processor companies who have adopted MIPS, the AI market is still in an early phase.
(Paul) Teich told us he sees several different AI accelerator camps. First, there is the GPU gang consisting of Nvida and AMD, plus Arm, Qualcomm and others for mobile. (Kevin) Krewell added, “Nvidia rules the market from here.”

With Windows ML, Intel AI to Invade Mobile PCs
Intel/Movidius VPU goes mainstream
Kevin Krewell, principal analyst at TIRIAS Research, told us, “Adding native Windows support will flag developers that the Movidius VPU is going more mainstream.”

Mobile AI Race Unfolds at MWC
No AI benchmarks
Jim McGregor, principal analyst at TIRIAS Research, concurred. “This is a confusing topic because there are few details and no benchmarks,” he said. “MediaTek and others make it sound like these AI solutions can do anything,” but they are not usually true, McGregor added.
Kevin Krewell, principal analyst at TIRIAS Research, warned, “The biggest problem I see is that each silicon and IP vendor is doing Machine Learning differently. Arm may have the best opportunity to standardize multiple vendors on one IP.”

Microsoft Gives Devs More Open Source Quantum Computing Goodies
The most significant change from Microsoft may be the increase in speed of its quantum simulator, said Paul Teich, principal analyst at TIRIAS Research.
Its performance is now four to five times faster, he told LinuxInsider, which permits a much faster testing and optimization loop, particularly on simulations involving 20 or more qubits.
“That’s aimed directly at IBM’s simulator,” Teich said.

Please remember to look for other articles from TIRIAS Research through our media partners: Forbes, EE Times, The Next Platform, and ECT News, including CRM Buyer, Tech News World, Linux Insider, E-Commerce Times.

New Research Reports

TIRIAS Research announces the publication of TIRIAS Research Machine Learning Overview, the first report in the new TIRIAS Research Machine Learning service. Machine learning (ML) is beginning to have a major impact on the technology sector. Infrastructure to applications are being designed to leverage the benefits of machine learning. But what is machine learning? This first report seeks to address that question by providing an overview of ML today. It will describe the stack, from business need, through software and algorithms, to the infrastructure and chips needed to support a new way of processing information. In conjunction with the report, we are offering 30 minutes of consulting time with David Teich, the Senior Analyst for the service to discuss the service and answer questions about machine learning, the market, and the outlook.
David Teich, Machine Learning Analyst

With more than 35 years of high-tech industry experience focused on B2B software, David’s experience spans development, systems consulting, sales, and marketing on platforms spanning mainframes, mid-sized systems (UNIX, Linux, and other), Apple and Wintel PCs, and mobile devices.
Report Price: US$400.00

To purchase this report and schedule a time with the analyst, please contact Kendra McGregor at kendra@tiriasresearch.com.

The new AR/VR research service has had a great reception. In The Cloud is the New Training Ground for Virtual Reality, we look at the potential for VR to move to the cloud to enable mobile clients to deliver high-performance experiences otherwise inaccessible for the next decade. In Virtual Reality is the New Training Ground for Artificial Intelligence, we examine the intersection of VR and AI in the cloud to advance AI training through advanced visual and sensor simulation.
Simon Solotko, AR/VR Analyst
The TIRIAS Research AR/VR service is led by Simon Solotko, an accomplished VR and AR pioneer who serves as a mentor at the German Accelerator.

For more information on the TIRIAS Research AR/VR service, please refer to the attached information or contact Simon Solotko at simon@tiriasresearch.com or by phone at 512-508-1054.

TIRIAS Research Whitepapers

Two recent whitepapers of note:
TIRIAS Research has published a new whitepaper, eSilicon Builds ASIC Business on Leading Edge Chip Design, that explores how advanced application specific integrated circuits (ASIC) chip design and manufacturing for leading-edge applications such as networking and artificial intelligence can be successfully outsourced.

The Instantaneous Cloud: Emerging Consumer Applications of 5G Wireless Networks sponsored by NGCodec. To support the 5G Cloud VR SIG, TIRIAS Research has released its latest whitepaper. TIRIAS Research tracks the intersection of emerging technology and the invention of new applications. Emerging 5G networks will carry consumer context and input into the cloud, and stream contextual or graphically intense experiences back down to users with low latency, nearly eliminating our ability to perceive lag in even the most sophisticated and immersive user experiences. New applications which take advantage of fast response and high sustained bandwidth can form an instantaneous cloud which provides visually immersive experiences directly to consumers. Key technologies include cloud experience engines, graphics rendering, and video encoding. Architectures include cloud-edge computing with servers designed specifically for streaming high performance graphics experiences, virtualized and available to mobile users from the cloud.

All our whitepapers can be found here.
The whitepapers for the Qualcomm Centriq server SoC can also be found on the Qualcomm website here.

TIRIAS Researchers can be found in public!

List of upcoming events and TIRIAS Research participation. For meetings with the TIRIAS Research staff, please reach out to the appropriate analyst.

• International Conference on Quantum Communication, Measurement and Computing/QCMC (Paul Teich)
• SXSW in Austin, Texas (Paul Teich and Simon Solotko)
• IBM Think (Jim McGregor and Paul Teich)
• VRDC/GDC (Kevin Krewell)
• GTC (Kevin Krewell, Jim McGregor, David Tech, and Paul Teich)
• OCP Summit (Kevin Krewell and Paul Teich)
• OpenPOWER Summit (Paul Teich)

As always, we encourage your feedback
Kevin Krewell, Jim McGregor, Paul Teich

TIRIAS Research is a high-tech research and advisory firm, an independent third-party resource to high-tech companies. We provide custom research and advisory services on technologies, markets and ecosystems to a select group of technology industry leaders. Our Principal Analysts have decades of in-depth expertise in silicon, software, and systems specification, design and deployment.

http://www.tiriasresearch.com/about/

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The newsletter formerly written by Will Strauss on DSP and wireless technology.

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