Using 'semicon' simulation for drug discovery

Most of us have heard of simulation in semiconductors. However, using the technique in drug discovery/pharmaceuticals is indeed unique. The Cellworks Group Inc. (CWG) has managed to achieve this unique status by developing in silico based physiologically aligned predictive analysis platforms based on a systems biology approach.

These contain quantitative and dynamic maps of metabolic and cell signaling pathways, which are relevant to several diseases like cancer, inflammation, diabetes, CNS, infectious diseases, etc. The company was founded in June 2005, with corporate office in California, USA and the R&D team stationed in Bangalore, India.

Taher Abbasi, CEO & COO, CWG and Cellworks Research India Pvt Ltd, said that drug researchers can "simulate" these in silico platforms with various disease triggers, biological target inhibition/activation to represent functional drug action, patient sub-types with the overall objective to understand the disease physiology and treatment therapies in the context of a physiological view.

Simulation in pharma
Modeling and simulation have been used very successfully in fields such as aeronautics and semiconductors. However, their adaptability within the pharmaceutical domain has been anemic until now. Physiology simulation and modeling is crucial for identifying the issues early in the development cycle and in creating more efficacious and safer drugs.

Abbasi, a former Cadence employee, said: "Coming from the VLSI/chip industry, we are used to using automation technologies, especially simulation. One of our co-founders is Dr. Shireen Vali, who has a deep scientific background. We looked at how we could bring in the concept of simulation into drug discovery." The company has just crossed 65 members and is growing. "We have covered a pretty broad range of diseases and we have also brought together people who are experts in their respective fields."

Cellworks took the idea of simulation into drug discovery by looking at diseases, identifying the biological processes involved with a particular disease, and then looking at the biological players -- such as proteins, enzymes, etc., finally leading to building a unique dynamic map -- which is underlined by mathematics, he added. "As it is mathematics, it is similar to say, looking at transistors," he said.

Cellworks has an underlying computational engine, which is an OD (ordinary differential equations) solver, and solves those. The first layer is biology, the second -- mathematics, and the third -- semiconductors. Abbasi said: "Under the hood, we have put in the best practices of the semiconductor industry, especially, the automation part. This should handle pathways, runtime capacity and analysis capability to probe the system for data."

Cellworks' goal is crystal clear. Its mission is to be the infrastructure supplier to the pharmaceutical industry, by enabling the different components of this industry to carry out drug discovery. Besides this, Cellworks also aims to become the equivalent of Goggle Maps/Earth for understanding the human physiology, disease progression and predict the biological responses and therapeutic effects of drugs.

Huge market opportunity
So what is the market opportunity in this domain? As per Cellworks' estimate, the total available market (TAM) is said to be worth $1bn+ for collaborative R&D, disease platforms and in-house drug research. The pharmaceuticals and biotech industries spend over $51bn yearly on drug research.

The vast majority of this money goes into projects that have to be cancelled because of unanticipated side-effects, toxicity or lack of potency which is discovered in clinicals when very large expenses have already been incurred. Abbasi added, "We will and we can create and own the largest and most comprehensive IP of the dynamic physiological maps and computational infrastructure for the in silico analysis of cell physiology and disease pathology."

He pointed out that the only way to reduce costs and improve on the first time succession is to prototype a drug in a virtual environment -- similar to simulation in semiconductors/chip design. "The key is to first get the biology right, followed by the focus on chemistry, which is similar to frontend and backend in chip design," he noted. "Only then can you drive the in vitro and in vivo experiments through in silico."

Cellworks has already tasted early success. So far, it has created seven base disease platforms, which are physiologically validated. It is also working on live projects with initial customers, collaborators on these platforms. These platforms contain 100+ validated sub-pathways, which model over 10,000 reactions and 30,000 parameters.

The seven base disease platforms include: oncology platform (Glioma, Breast cancer), inflammation platform (RA and IBD), metabolic-syndrome platform (Diabetes II), skin (Pigmentation), pre-term endocrinology, infectious diseases, and neuro-degenerative disease platform (Parkinson's).

Cellworks has established strong active collaborations/partnerships in several areas. Notable being the UC Davis relationship in oncology, neuro-science, pharmacokinetics and inflammation; Cedar-Sinai/UCLA on pediatrics/pre-term delivery research, NIMHANS in Bangalore, for CNS work; UoH for oncology and Indian Institute of Sciences, Bangalore for heat shock proteins.

Cellworks has created a fast and scalable software platform for validation and analysis of disease platforms. The software platform allows it to simulate and verify at the subsystem level as well as at the disease level. It enables easy integration and re-use of models, intuitive debug and analysis of the platform. Next, it has a natural language processing system for enabling pathway analysis and validation.

Abassi added: "We are working with Orchid Chemicals on an arthritis project. We had real success regarding the usage of our technology in various R&D and production projects." Most of the R&D is done out of India, with only two people based in the US for marketing/sales.

Cellworks had done a small round of funding in January 2007 worth $1mn. Abbasi said, "We will do another round of funding in Q3-08 now that we have success stories and customers in place."

R&D innovation: nano-scale to tera-scale

Justin Rattner, VP and Senior Fellow CTO, Intel Corp., while speaking at the recently held CXO Forum organized by the India Semiconductor Association (ISA), highlighted the various innovations Intel has created over the years and continues to do so.

There are some hurdles to innovation. For instance, success brings conservatism and then, there is the curse of high-volume manufacturing. It led to Andy Grove's famous statement: "Only the paranoid survive". Obviously, massive inertia and innovation do not blend. Rattner mentioned certain external hurdles, especially, anti-Innovation policies and standards that hamper innovation.

Moore's Law drives innovation
Moore’s Law has been driving innovation at Intel. These have been in the form of high-K metal gate transistors at 45nm -- the first new transistor architecture in 35 years! There's more, in form of phase change memory (PCM) below 45nm, non-planar tri-gate transistor beyond 32nm, and carbon nanotube transistor

Some recent multi-disciplinary innovations include 45nm Core 2 Duo, Nehalem uArch, power management, quad core through package technology, Silverthorne/LPIA, USB/PCI Express, vPro, and WiMAX and 802.11n, respectively. Intel has made sustained Advances in silicon technology. In 2007, it developed 32nm SRAM with 1.9 billion transistors, with 32nm slated for 2009.

Sustained advances in micro-architecture include Intel Core -- new microarchitecture 65nm (2006), Penryn compaction/derivative at 45nm (2007), Nehalem -- new microarchitecture 45nm (2008), Westmere compaction/derivative 32nm (2009), and Sandy Bridge new microarchitecture 32nm (2010). "This shows our sustained microprocessor leadership," added Rattner.

There are plans to further reinvigorate Intel architecture -- by high throughput computing, IA programmability, ease of scaling for software, array of enhanced IA cores, and increasing teraflops of performance. Its 45nm Silverthorne is based on the Menlow platform and promises 'Full Internet in Your Pocket.'

Intel has also made advances in integration and packaging, such as multi chip packages, Wifi + WiMAX, processor + chipsets + accelerators, 60 percent smaller CPU packages, and 100 percent lead-free technology*. By 2008, Intel is committed to having all 45nm CPUs halogen free.

Innovations in memory, communications
Intel has also made innovations in memory technology. Robson Technology, which has NAND Flash cache, has 1.5X faster application load times, has 1.5X resume from hibernate, gives 0.4W average power savings, and is used in the Santa Rosa platform.

The other innovation is solid-state drives. These are embedded in a range of devices, from handhelds to servers. Compared to HDDs, these give 1/10th the power, >10X performance, and are 1,000X more durable.

Innovations in communication technology include things like adaptive antenna and front-ends, digital CMOS radio, and reconfigurable baseband. Intel has also developed the world’s 1st TeraFLOPS supercomputer on a die. It features 80 cores, 1TFLOP at 62W, and 256 GB/s bisection.

Intel has also unleashed the era of tera. These are in the form of tera bits –- Si Photonics and tera bytes –- 3D stacked memory. The latter includes 256KB SRAM per core, 4X C4 bump density, and 3200 thru-silicon vias.

Similarly, Intel's innovation in tera-scale software include RMS workloads, C++ for parallelism, Ct for nested data parallelism (race-free irregular parallel computation), and hardware assisted STM C transactional memory, which ensures concurrent access with no errors.

Intel has also done innovations for emerging regions. Rattner touched upon Research (at the Berkeley Lablet), which involves a long-distance WiFi solution: 6Mb/s at 100+ km. This has been tested at the Aravind Eye Hospital in Tamil Nadu. It has allowed doctor/patient videoconferences. Thirteen rural villages have been connected so far, going on to 50 villages. The impact has been tremendous -- 2,500 exams per month, over 30,000 so far; cataracts, glaucoma, cornea problems have been diagnosed; and 3,000 people have had their vision restored so far.

Intel has also been a champion in innovating through collaboration. These have been in form of academic open-collaborative (pre-competitive research) -- Carnegie Mellon, Berkeley, University of Washington; industrial partnerships (product differentiation) -- an example being the ciscointelalliance.com, and consortium (ecosystem benefit) -- via the ISA, Continua, Innovation Value Institute, Trusted Computing Group, etc.

Intel's focus areas for 2008 include:
a) tera-scale computing -- unleashing the next generation of applications.
b) Platform* on a chip (POC) -- 'Platform' integration on chip with IA.
c) Trusted services -- technologies for secure service opportunities.
d) Carry small, live large -- context aware usage models and platforms.
e) Ultimate connectivity -- connected 'all-ways' for future platforms.

LabVIEW 8.5 delivers power of multicore processors

National Instruments (NI) recently released the latest version of LabVIEW -- LabVIEW 8.5, which delivers the power of multi-core processors to engineers and scientists.

According to Jayaram Pillai, MD, India, Russia & Arabia, NI, new processors with multicore are coming out. Processing power is now split into two separate cores. With multicore, you are doing parallel processing. LabVIEW is a very dataflow programming tool. It is not sequential -- it is decided by the data itself. And inherently, it has always been parallel processing. NI has taken the advantage from LabVIEW 5 -- due to dual-core processing. It used multi-threaded architecture.

Assign different tasks on different cores
With processor technology shifting to multi-core, there is a need to run efficiently on the processor. For LabVIEW, you can assign different tasks on different cores -- which are independent. They don't have to run at the same speed. Those are the challenges multi-core seeks to address.

The technology NI has, the single application that you can build in LabVIEW, it aids in taking advantage of multicore. Part of a program can be assigned to one core. Another part is, if you don't want to club, it can run on the another core. All of this happens on one program.

So how is the new version better? As you want to accomplish more things, you have to go to higher levels of extractions (or abstractions). The graphical program is a very high level of abstraction. You can accomplish more with the graphical programming.

Another area where LabVIEW is finding itself is in the design space. Building systems today is very complex. NI builds into three stages -- design-prototype-deploy.

As an example, the Railways want to detect trains that have bad wheels. They collect data from railway lines -- lot of signal processing and maths were done. NI knows how to detect defective wheels. It put sensors to that signal, go to the field and do some trials. Once you know the algorithms and the BIOS required, you can go into designing. You take the prototype and make that into a product. Each stage, in the past, used different tools.

Since it is all the way -- from design to deployment -- it can all be done with LabVIEW. This capability -- that it can start at design and prototype, etc., brings greater value to engineers. NI call this process as graphical system design.

Community LabVIEW
Commenting on NI's activities in India, Jayaram Pillai said LabVIEW 8.5 is a major release. "Over the last 10 years we've been in India, we have changed its hardware platdform. One thing that remains common is LabVIEW and what it does for scientists and engineers. We've been able to create a community around LabVIEW. There are users and programmers of LabVIEW. There are certified developers, companies that have been built around LabVIEW. There are applications built around LabVIEW," he added.

Looking at graphical programming, over the last 10 yrs -- the biggest challenge for Pillai has been to address customers needs for engineers who can program LabVIEW. There's enough excitement in the market about LabVIEW. There are 1,100 jobs at least for LabVIEW.

There are people writing toolkits that can work with LabVIEW, which includes IP, developers, companies, customers, products, systems built around LabView. This has been happening within India.

Pillai said that similar to any technology adoption, there's a take-off stage. "It is called the S Curve, and we are at the bottom of the curve. The potential is huge. Our big challenge is to be able to create more engineers in the market. I feel that over 1,000 engineers are required," he added.

From an academic standpoint -- India has about 400,000+ engineers passing out each year. Only 25 percent are hireable, with reasonable training, by companies. The IITs, state governments, etc. take care of it. That means, there are business opportunities for companies to start finishing schools for training these people for the industry.

Lots of companies are getting into these finishing schools. These students will learn about the tools that they would later need to use.

Pillai stressed that it was important how the country looks at academicians. He said: "We haven't got into this stage as much. The IT industry has done very well and created a huge appetite for engineers. The majority of engineers passing out are hired by the IT companies."

He added: "LabVIEW is getting accepted by people in various projects. We've created a LabVIEW community -- the whole ecosystem."

Outlook for 2008

According to Pillai, algorithm enineering is key during the design phase. LabVIEW 8.5 has a new tool for design stage of the graphical system design.

With LabVIEW, users can increase performance through graphical programming for multi-core processors and FPGAs. Pillai said: "At the design stage, you want to give the engineer multiple computing options. The engineer is concerned about deployment, but he would like to move from Windows to real-time. This should be done seamlessly. LabVIEW FPGA has been around for a long time."

Programming in FPGA is not simple. NI's offer to engineers is: look at the FPGA as a platform and program it freely without even needing to know what's the VHDL code! LabVIEW can run on Windows, and move to RTOS and FPGA, and all of it is seamless.

As an example, Lego has a product called Mindstorm -- a robot. That robot has sensors. It is targeted at 10-yr olds. On one side, a 10-yr old can program LabVIEW. All details are there in LabVIEW. On another side, it can be used in the largest, physics experiments. So LabVIEW is not complex to use.

LabView has been shipping formally since last month.

Power awareness critical for chip designers

The holy grail of electronics -- low-power design, or having the requisite power awareness is extremely critical for chip designers working on both high-performance applications and portable applications. For one, it determines the battery lifetime of a device, besides determining the cooling and energy costs. It is said that several of today's chip designs are limited in terms of power and still require maximum performance.

Touching on the global factors, S.N. Padmanabhan, Senior Vice President, Mindtree Consulting, said the Kyoto Protocol mandates energy conservation efforts.

Low-power design challenges
Asia, as we all know, has been emerging as a major energy consuming society. Shortage of electricity is becoming a major concern. There is a huge strain on nations to meet the rising needs/halt rise. There is also a rapid increase in all types of electronic goods in growing economies. As a result, increased efficiencies and reduced consumption should be beneficial as a whole!

In the Indian context, the country has around 125 million televisions sets, 5 million automatic washing machines, 10 million white goods, 200+ million other electronics, over 90 million cell phones and 50 million land lines, etc. A 1W reduction in white goods and TVs would lead to a saving of 140 Mi Watts of power! And, a 10 mW reduction in phones will save 1.4 Mi Watts!! Therefore, it makes even more sense to go low power!

Mindtree's Padmanabhan said IC power budgets have come down drastically. It is <2W for four out of five chips designed. There has also been a simultaneous manipulation of multiple parameters (P=CV2f). Next, there are several leakage issues in 65nm and smaller geometries, which can no longer be ignored.

Add to all of these are factors that there is a lack of availability of comprehensive tools and techniques, as well as analog designs. In such a scenario, designers need to be very clear about their objectives -- is it achieving lowering average power, lowering the maximum peak power or lowering energy.

Jayanta Kumar Lahiri, Director, ARM, pointed out challenges associated with batteries. Battery storage has been a limiting factor. Battery energy doubles in a decade and surely, does not follow the Moore’s law. Next, there have hardly been major changes in the basic battery technology. The energy density/size safe handling are limiting factors as well for batteries.

He added that the low-power challenge is four-fold in the VLSI domain. These are -- leakiness; more integration means more W/cm^2; EDA tools not that good in low power domain and does not co-relate sometimes with the silicon, and variability of device parameters make things worse.

Toshiyuki Saito, Senior Manager, Design Engineering Division NEC Electronics Japan, said low power is necessary for customer's success -- in form of heat suppress for wired systems and improved battery life time for mobile systems. It also brings cost competitiveness for SoC suppliers in terms of packaging cost, and development cost and turnaround time. Finally, it would contribute to preserving the global environment.

Addressing low power challenges
What are semiconductor and EDA companies doing to address the low-power design challenges? Padmanabhan said several techniques were being employed at the circuit level. However, each one of those had limitations.

These include AVS -- which provides maximum savings, reduces speed, but may need compensation; clock gating -- which does not help to reduce leakage and needs additional gates; and adaptive clock scaling -- which needs sophistication and is not very simple; and finally, the use of multi threshold cells for selective trade-off.

Emerging techniques include efficient RTL synthesis techniques, which is fast, but leaky, vs. slow and low power; power aware resource sharing, which is planning to be done at the architectural level and synthesis, but is not as widely used as other techniques; and power gating methodology -- which makes use of sleep transistors, has coarse and fine grained methods, reduces dynamic and leakage power, and also exploits idle times of the circuit.

He added that power optimization should start at the architecture and design stages. Maximum optimization can be achieved at the system level. Also, the evolving power optimization tools and methodologies required collaborative approaches.

Power Forward Initiative
Pankaj Mayor, Group Director, Industry Alliances, Cadence Design Systems, said low power imperative is driving the semiconductor and EDA industries. He said, "design-based low power solution is the only answer!" Traditional design-based solutions are fragmented. Basic low power design techniques, such as area optimization, multi-Vt optimization and clock gating were automated in the 1990s.

There has since been an impact of advanced low-power techniques. These advanced techniques include multi-supply voltage (MSV), power shut-off (PSO), dynamic and adaptive voltage frequency scaling (DVFS and AVS), and substrate biasing. Cadence's low-power solution uses advanced techniques.

According to Mayor, the Power Forward Initiative (PFI) has created an ecosystem as well. The Power Forward Initiative includes Cadence and 23 other companies across the design chain, as of the end of December 2007.

The year 2007 also saw a continued Power Forward industry momentum. In Q1-07, Common Power Format or CPF became the Si2 [Silicon Integration Initiative] standard. The Cadence Low Power Solution production released V 1.0 in this quarter as well. In H2-07, the industry has seen over 100 customers adopting CPF-based advanced low power solution as well as ~50 tapeouts.

CPF allows holistic automation and validation at every design step. Arijit Dutta, Manager, Design Methodology, Freescale Semiconductor exhibited the advantages of using the CPF in wireless, networking and automotive verticals at Freescale.

Indian designers could lead in EDA product development

There will be the multi-nationalization of the product development process, according to Walden C. Rhines, chairman & CEO, Mentor Graphics. More executives recognize that "access to qualified personnel" is the key driver. As per A.T. Kearney Global Services Location Index 2007, India is the most attractive offshoring destination. He was speaking at the Though Leadership Forum organized by the India Semiconductor Association.

Touching on the evolution of EDA, and the role of Indian designers, Rhines said that most electronic engineers did not consider themselves "risk takers". Most electronic engineers also don't like to change tools and fewer even consider "hot" new tools.

On the contrary, young engineers and recent university graduates eagerly adopted new technology. It is a way for them to distinguish themselves, get the productivity advantage and they were less invested in existing methodologies.

Indian designers smart
Comparing Indian designers with the rest of the world, he said that electronic designers in India, on an average, are less experienced than in the United States, Europe and Japan. However, they are on an average, as smart, or smarter, than those in United States, Europe and Japan. There has been an increasing influence of India design centers on the multinational design flows and tools.

Disruptive change creates leadership opportunities. There has been improved power and cost through improved system architecture. The C synthesis enables faster architectural exploration and shorter time to Verilog.

C synthesis matches or exceeds hand coded RTL efficiency, as per STMicroelectronics (Reed-Solomon, Galois Field Multiplier). There have also been system architectural innovations to reduce die size -- Ericsson mobile platforms. There is a need to iterate to find the optimum architecture.

Now, Indian designers have been early adopters of C-based design. The reasons were, one there was a willingness to try new approaches and two, it caused multinational parent companies to accelerate their own adoption.

India is likely to be a leader in transaction level design. They have been able to extract fast, accurate power and timing models from RTL. They have managed runs 100x-1000x faster vs. RTL, retained accuracy at the gate level and RTL, their models run with application software for hardware/software cosimulation, and they have done transaction-based verification using emulation. It has been the same for UPF-compatible verification.

Some other areas of verification where India may lead the way are assertions, coverage based verification, and algorithmic test bench synthesis.

Adoption of place and route technology
Let us see how the adoption of new place and route technology has influenced the industry. When a design flow breaks, what breaks the most often? Place and route breaks every two technology generations. Technology generations ramp to peak volume. Place and route utilizes a semiconductor company's internal software until gate array routers emerge.

Cell-based layout requires hierarchical router with timing. Tangent attacks leading-edge 0.75 micron designs. Later, Cadence became the dominant place and route supplier at 0.35 micron as the fabless industry grew demand. [Cadence acquired Tangent in 1989]. However, at 0.25 microns, SoC drives new technology requirements. This led to the collapse of the FAM business model.

SoC needs "break" the flow. ArcSys emerged at 0.35/0.25 micron. It addresses SoC requirements for large sizes and interconnect delay. It goes public as Avant!, and is later acquired by Synopsys. However, a timing closure crisis emerges at 0.13 micron. Cadence and Avant!/Synopsys try to extend older tool architectures.

Now, timing closure "breaks" the design flow. At this point, Magma emerges at 0.13 micron with timing-driven layout solution. At 90nm, Magma dominates timing-driven design. It also approaches Cadence, Avant!/Synopsys place and route market share. What the industry witnesses is that a new problem emerges and a new, leading-edge solution provider enters every two nodes.

And now, pressures are creating 65/45nm discontinuity. These are process and design variations, low-power requirements, and large design data sizes. Explosive growth in complexity requires multi-corner, multi-mode analysis.

Achieving power/performance design goals requires analysis of corner cases for manufacturing and operational variability. Manufacturing variability multiplies the required corner cases. Hence, manufacturing variability now "breaks" the place and route flow at 65nm. With the advent of 45nm, it demands design for manufacturing (DFM), and ushers in more corners.

Implications for EDA in India
So what are the implications for EDA in this scenario, especially from an Indian context? One, introduce and support leading-edge design tools in India. Two, EDA startups will focus initial sales efforts in San Jose and India. Three, purchasing decisions will increasingly incorporate India design teams to drive flows and decisions. Four, India will emerge as the test bed for new design ideas. As a result, Indian designers would exercise their influence by demanding the best-in-class design tools and capabilities.

Indian designers should always remain open to new design approaches. They should beware of becoming risk adverse as they become more experienced. They should need to stay abreast of the emerging innovations by maintaining close contact with EDA companies, including start-ups. They also need to make EDA suppliers aware of their issues and challenges.

Can we expect exciting times in 2008?

Welcome 2008! May I wish all my readers a very happy and prosperous 2008. Another year's gone past. We have a habit of looking back to see at what happened and what could have been.

A lot has been written already about 2007 and what to expect in 2008. So let's just touch upon some of the events from 2007 and some expectations from 2008.

For India, 2007 was a great year for the semiconductor industry -- first, the Indian government announced the semiconductor policy, followed some months later by the fab policy. Both were tremendous firsts in India's science and technology, and not IT, history. Everyone hopes that the Indian semiconductor industry will take off this year. Eyes are focused on the embedded segment, what with the global semiconductor industry reportedly facing 'an embedded dilemma.'

An issue hitting the EDA industry is that, the cost of designing or developing the embededded software for an SoC actually passed the cost of desgining the SoC itself in 2007. The world needs to avoid this software crisis, and India is well placed to take full advantage and play a major role, given its strength in embedded.

In IT, it's been a mixed sort of a year for Apple, which hit big time with the iPhone, seemed not to make waves with either the Safari browser or the Leopard OS. Microsoft had the Vista OS, but then, Vista didn't exactly warm the hearts of users or those who wished to upgrade their OS, including yours truly. Maybe, 2008 would ring in better times for Vista.

While on browsers, Firefox has gained lot of ground. However, by the end of 2007 came the news that the Netscape Web browser -- which started it all -- would soon be confined to history.

Netscape Navigator was the world's first commercial Web browser and launch pad of the Internet boom. It will be taken off on February 1, 2008, after a 13-year run. Time Warner's AOL, its current owner, has reportedly decided to kill further development and technical support to focus on growing the company as an advertising business. The first version of Netscape had come out in late 1994.

In gaming, there are admirers of Wii, PS3 and Xbox 360, and will remain the same. Which one of these gaming consoles will reign supreme, eventually, is difficult to predict.

In consumer electronics, lines are surely blurring between portable media players (PMPs) and portable navigation devices. Also, it would be interesting to see how digital photo frames survive 2008. A reported tight supply, especially for seven-inch models, has led to some makers in Asia either postponing mass production or extending lead times. Surely, makers cannot add more entertainment functions in smaller screen models, to keep costs down.

In the security products market, IP cameras and video servers should have a better year, with more emphasis now on video surveillance. In fact, some friends have been querying me as well regarding their potential.

On components, we can hope to see more growth for solid polymer capacitors in 2008, and among PCBs some fabricators should start manufacturing high-density interconnect (HDI) PCBs this year.

In wireless, we should witness TD-SCDMA in operation prior to the Beijing Olympic Games. Backers would like to see TD-SCDMA succeed, given the effort Datang-Siemens has made on the technology, as also the Chinese government, which issued spectrum for TD-SCDMA nearly five years ago!

Let's all welcome 2008 and look forward to more exciting things happening.

Semicon outlook 2008: Global market likely to grow 6-11 percent amid recession fears

While a majority of analysts at a recent panel discussion on global semiconductor outlook predicted semiconductor growth in the range of 6-11 percent during 2008, some other panelists predicted 2008 to be flat year or a year of negative growth.

There were fears of a possible recession in 2008, along with concerns surrounding consumer spend that could be hit by higher oil prices and the US mortgage crisis.

This panel discussion was organized last week by Semiconductor International, USA. Here is the full report.

Semi forecasts mixed for 2008

Amid concerns of a possible recession in the US economy in 2008, analysts at a recent Webcast hosted by Semiconductor International, were divided in their forecasts for the coming year. A majority predicted semiconductor growth to be in the range of 6-11 percent during 2008, while some others predicted 2008 to be flat year or a year of negative growth.

Anne Craib, director of Market Research, International Affairs and Finance, Semiconductor Industry Association (SIA), said the global economic situation needed to be factored in, as well as its impact on consumer demand.

She said: "Semiconductor demand is driven over 50 percent by consumer demand currently. That is something we should increasingly be aware of. Areas like gas prices and the home mortgage market are things that we previously would not have paid much attention to that we have had to take into account in our forecasting this cycle.” She was confident of the semiconductor industry reaching 7-8 percent CAGR during 2008.

Steve Szirom, President, InsideChips.com, added that many economists were predicting recession in 2008. He said: "The demand-supply balance should be somehwat better than this year. We may have a demand driven recession." He adopted a pessimistic view for 2008, predicting -8 percent growth.

DRAM weak, NAND bright

Gary Grandbois, principal analyst for iSuppli Corp., noted: “We have reduced our forecast to 7.5 percent for 2008 and think it might go lower than that. We think it’s going to be a negative first half. Certainly in the DRAM area, it’s looking very poor. We think it will improve in the second half, almost mirroring 2007, but giving us a far weaker year in 2008 than we’ve expected.”

Richard Gordon, Managing Vice President, Semiconductors, Gartner Dataquest Research, agreed with Grandbois, adding that DRAM would see a negative side in 2008. "Our forecast is 6 percent for 2008, and it doesn't factor in the US recession," he said.

While the DRAM market has been predicted to be negative next year, analysts see a positive market for NAND in 2008. New applications, such as WUSB (wireless USB), increase in cell phones, higher content in portable media players, etc., are likely to drive growth.

Commenting further on the outlook for 2008, Moshe Handelsman, President, Advanced Forecasting Inc., noted that 2007 would be the peak of current IC cycle. "From that point on, the underlying demand for semiconductors will decline and decline in 2008. We are negative about 2008," he added.

Carl Johnson, Executive Director, Research Infrastructure, concurred that the industry had become much more global. "We now have to look at the mortgage debacle, etc. Consumers will be very tight in first half of this year." He added, "I would say, next year's going to be flat."

Mike Cowan, an independent semiconductor industry analyst, said the growth would be about 8.15 percent during 2008. "The dynamics of the market and the industry will change month-to-month as well," he quipped.

Capex likely to dip in 2008

Regarding capex in 2008, Carl Johnson of Research Infrastructure, expects the next year to be bumpy as far as capital spending is concerned. "We're in a downturn right now. Foundries, who are investing lot more money in older process generations, and that is a function of some of the other older IDMs and fabs, are actually shutting down and saying, 'we can go over to the foundries and process wafers for less than what we can do it on our own'. We are seeing lot of consolidation within the fab space. Mid-level players are consolidating. The customer base is clearly narrowing."

The cost of designing some of these leading-edge devices, and getting them to market, and then following it up with another product, if you don't want to be a one-product guy, is a real challenge. That is limiting the number of players that are going into the mega fabs. So, the field is narrowing in 65nm, and 45nm, and as we get to below 45nm, the field is going to get much, much narrower.

According to him, capital spending is likely to be down in 2008. "I am predicting 10 percent down next year. There's also going to be a great consolidation in the devices manufacturing community, and also in the capital equipment community. We are seeing a number of M&A activities in the capital equipment business. It will also go into the supply chain business."

Gartner's Richard Gordon said the research firm was forecasting capex to be down by -15 percent in capex in 2008, and that includes -30 percent in the DRAM sector. He added: "Looking at the individual companies in the DRAM space, I won't be surprised to see that go even lower. So, -15 percent in capex can get even worse as 2008 unfolds. We will see it coming back. But, it will take a while for demand to catch up with supply."

EDA industry in catch-up mode

The EDA industry is said to be lagging behind the semiconductor industry at the moment, and is in the catch-up mode, according to Gary Smith, President, Gary Smith EDA.

Commenting on the outlook for the EDA market, Smith said the EDA industry is in a lttile unusual position. He said: "The market's been flat for the past four years. Tools for 65nm, 45nm silicon design have also been delayed." The R&D was not put in because of the recession. "Right now, we are in a position of lag in the market," he added.

EDA tools cover two process generations. The industry is just starting to introduce 65nm and 45nm tools. That generation is being called the DFM generation tool. Smith said: "It is even more important to the semiconductor industry as we run into manufacturing problems that they are relying on design tools to solve, rather than on semiconductor equipment." That's a major shift in the market!

EDA to grow 7.8 percent in 2008

According to him, the industry is now now into a pretty good growth area. "We were 11 percent last year, 10.2 percent to come in this year. We will be a bit down next year at 7.8 percent," he forecast. This has been attributed mainly to the EDA industry's lag in the market. "Some are moving to 32nm. And certainly, a lot of work is being done in 45nm," he added.

Smith noted: "The EDA industry is in the catch-up mode. We will lag them. We are expecting the downturn to really hit us in 2009. However, we are not an industry that goes negative often. No matter what you guys do, you still have to design something. So, when you go into recession, typically, the way you get out of recession is you generally design your way out!"

DFM, ESL growth drivers

Among the growth drivers is the DFM (design for manufacturing) issue, which is increasingly getting more complex. There is said to be a move to restrict the design rules that is in place now for 45nm. "We are going to see major changes in 32nm; that'll have impact on tools," he added.

The other issue is parallel computing that has become a major task for the EDA industry. "With signal threading, we can no longer handle designs over 100 million gates. Of course, at 45nm, you can do a 100mn gates. That rewriting process is another issue that is also slowing out down. That's a full three-year re-write," Smith said.

Further, EDA is also starting to move up into the ESL. The electronic-system level (ESL) is going to shift the EDA market more into the systems market, and serve less on its dependency on the semiconductor world.

New fabs in India, China

There have been a lot of announcements made regarding new fabs, especially in places such as India, China and Brazil.

Gary Grandbois at iSuppli said: "Brazil is a better example. India just announced that they are building new fabs. What we saw at the turn of the century is that the industry split into two areas -- one traditional components manufacturer and second is the SoC manufacturer. Those are the companies that need leading edge fabs."

According to him, the cost of R&D was going out of sight for process development. "We're also seeing consolidation of research groups. We expect that come down to five consortiums or less. All companies can afford do their own process development once the basic process has been developed."

There are going to be different types of fabs. With globalization, lot of countries may decide they want to have a fab. Brazil announced one. "You're going to see them all over the world. The market's going to change," he added.

Anne Craib from the Semiconductor Industry Association said: "If you look at the cost structure, it costs over $1bn to build and operate a fab in the US. The question is where is the fab going to be located? The US companies will continue to be major players. Again, the question is: where is it going to be economically feasible? The interest is outside of the US."

New elements likely in 32nm

On the subject of integration of MEMS, 3D, etc., Carl Johnson from Research Infrastructure said, "A very large topic with the design community is big change in computer architecture -- the big change is the multicore -- that's the biggest driver now."

Jim Feldhan, President, Semico Research Corp., noted that the industry is going to hit limits with silicon processing at some point of time. "We have to bring in new elements. In 32nm, there'll be only a handful of companies who can push real hard there and can afford it."

Push to 450mm fabs unlikely?

Finally, is there be going to be a push to 450mm fabs and how's the impact going to be like?

iSuppli's Gary Grandbois, said that curently the industry was expecting that it would need to abandon silicon in 2020. "If we don't have any silver bullets by then, we are going to use nano stuff to augment CMOS. We don't know what that's going to be."

He added: The issue is: are we going to use silicon at all in 2020? If we start developing equipment for 450mm, we're not going to have that very soon. What they have to consider, what is the payback for that move?"

We would love to hear from you on how you see the semiconductor industry going in 2008.

Top 5 semiconductor trends in India during 2008

And what's in store for the Indian semiconductor industry during 2008? Well, expect the Indian semiconductor to grow at 25-35 percent in the coming year!

S. Janakiraman, president and CEO –- R&D Services, Mindtree Consulting, and chairman, India Semiconductor Association (ISA), said at a recent meeting that those questioning India's need for fabs would feel terrible on missing out on the opportunities currently being provided by India, by 2015.

Here are the top five trends you can get to see happening in India in the semiconductor space in 2008.

1. More growth for India

The Indian semiconductor industry has been forecasted to grow by 25-35 percent during 2008 by the ISA.

2. Increase in design activities

On the design side, we are seeing an increase in various activities. More complex analog and digital designs are happening. More of physical designs are happening, including taking those designs up to the foundries – those are also increasing.

3. More of ATMP initially

In 2008, we will be seeing more of the assembly, testing, marking and assembly (ATMP) happening in the country.

4. Fabs some time away

The fundamental fabs are still a little far away. Most companies likely to start off by initially testing waters by making some level of investments in ATMP before moving on to fabs. One cannot rule out prospect of some leading Indian company investing in fabs.

5. Product companies will emerge eventually

Product companies are likely to emerge, although, they may start off by first manufacturing electronics products, and later move on to the emergence of semiconductor product companies.

Top 10 global semiconductor trends for 2008

It is really difficult to stick your neck out and predict. That's what makes the analyst's jobs so difficult. Things happen and pass you by so quickly. For instance, as an example, who would have thought that Samsung would face a substantial blackout that would halt six chip production lines in a complex operated by the world's largest flash memory producer?

Plans for the fab in India are now well under way. There have been questions like, do we need fabs? The year 2008 is the year of presidential elections and the Summer Olympics. Will we really see a recession in 2008? Here are some of the trends that are visible for 2008. Would love to hear from you.

1. Semiconductor firms may have to face a recession year in an election year

Yes, strange as it may sound, this just might happen! Concerns about consumer spending, caused by higher oil prices, mortgage crisis in the US and fears of a possible recession have made analysts more cautious, albeit optimistic. Analysts are wary of an impending recession in semiconductors during 2008. That, it should fall in the year of the US presidential elections makes it all the more intriguing. The nervousness is already showing in the slowing down of some markets.

2. DRAM market looks weak in 2008

Will DRAM prices rebound? Remains to be seen, although DRAMeXchange says that Taiwanese suppliers are likely to have their output to trim by 10-25 percent during February (Chinese New Year) as they usually plan for an average of 3-7 days of annual facility maintenance during this period. DRAMeXchange regards this as a possible catalyst for a price rebound in near term. Analysts haven't helped either, with some saying DRAM will be on the slow side or even negative in H1-08.

3. NAND market will remain hot

You can bet, it will! Analysts remain upbeat for a positive NAND market in 2008. The reason being – new applications such as wireless USB, increase in cell phones memory capacities, higher content in portable media players, etc. We hope it is not a flash in the pan. There are rumors of another iPhone along the way!

4. Power will remain major issue

This isn't going to change anytime soon! Power awareness is crucial for portable applications. It determines battery lifetime, and there's an increased amount of computation involved as well. Power awareness is extremely crucial for high-performance applications. It determines cooling and energy costs. Many chip designs today are power limited and still require maximum performance.

5. EDA has to catch up

And fast! Analysts at a recent webcast hosted by Semiconductor International elaborated how the EDA industry was in a position of lag in the market. The DFM issue is increasingly becoming more complex. There is said to be a move to restrict the design rules that is in place now for 45nm. We are likely to see major changes in 32nm. That will have an impact on the EDA tools.

6. Need to solve the embedded dilemma

It is said that in 2007, the cost of designing or developing the embedded software for an SoC actually passed the cost of designing the SoC itself! We seem to be in the middle of a software crisis that is going to hit the entire electronics industry in the next five to six years.

Analysts are wary of an impending recession in semiconductors during 2008

7. Consolidation in the fab space

Some of the other older IDMs and fabs are said to be actually shutting down and going over to the foundries and process wafers for less than what they can do on their own. In this respect, we are seeing a lot of consolidation within the fab space. The mid-level players are consolidating. The customer base is clearly narrowing. The field is narrowing in 65nm and 45nm, and as we get to below 45nm, the field is going to get much, much narrower.

8. Capital equipment guys will continue to move to other markets

The best example, you can think of, is Applied Materials, which is into innovative equipment, service and software products for fabrication of chips, flat panel displays, solar photovoltaic cells, flexible electronics and energy efficient glass. Even the smaller guys are moving into LEDs or MEMS markets. That tells us what these companies are thinking about the semiconductors market.

9. Spend on capital equipment to drop

Gartner is expecting the long overdue capital spending correction in DRAM market to push the capital equipment market into contraction. Another slow year from foundry, along with concerns of US economic recession, adding to the downside. However, NAND spend should ramp up.

10. Mini fabs in developing countries

India has announced fab plans. There have also been talks of mega fabs and mini fabs elsewhere. There are going to be different types of fabs! With globalization, lot of countries may decide they want to have a fab. The market's going to change.

However, bear in mind that the outlook on new fab starts appears weaker, as many companies have cut back on spending to wait for the market to improve. After a forecasted 8 percent YoY increase in fab construction spending in 2007, levels are likely to be flat in 2008.

Top 10 tech trends likely to make waves in 2008

It is quite a task to predict what the New Year has in store for us. My friend Radhika Nallayam at CIOL and I, present you a list of technology trends likely to make waves in 2008.

1. Greening of IT
Data centers of today are witnessing very high power consumption and cooling requirements. Skyrocketing energy consumption surely poses a challenge to the environment. Besides this, the hazardous effect of e-waste is also a major environmental concern in today’s IT sector. (It is estimated that more than 800 million PCs will be replaced during 2007 and 2012)

As a result, the IT world has started realizing the need for ‘greening of IT’ to minimize the harmful effects of energy expulsion from IT operations and data centers. (Green Data Center report from Symantec Corp. states that nearly three-fourths of respondents of the survey stated they have interest in adopting a strategic green data center initiative).

The ‘green IT’ movement has already succeeded in creating environmental responsibility among major IT vendors across the globe.

2. Is 2008 going to be the year of Linux?
It’s been years since we started talking about the ‘year of Linux’. Finally, good news for open source buffs? Well, we really can’t predict that. But, there is a hope that the coming time could be a real turning point in the history of open source, making 2008 the year of Linux on desktop. Though Linux will not be a direct replacement for Windows, we are definitely going to see a major increase in the number of end-users adopting Linux.

PC giant Dell, at the beginning of this year, gave us a positive sign by introducing Linux computers. A number of other vendors are also betting high on Linux. Ubuntu has already received recognition among mobile users and server market. Linux Desktop, though gradually, is gaining momentum. At this point in time, we can only wait and watch the game!

3. Will Vista be the OS to own?
When Microsoft launched Vista, Gartner’s analysts suggested ignoring the new operating system until 2008 and not to rush into upgrading. So, it’s time for us to rethink. Lots of users are still waiting for the first service pack to arrive before upgrading from Windows XP. And, hopefully, SP1 is likely to arrive in the beginning of 2008.

Vista definitely offers some advanced security feature and more polished interface. But due to some concerns related to application compatibility and more hardware requirements, consumers, till now, were reluctant to switch to Vista.

However, some recent surveys show that a lot of companies are now willing to upgrade to Vista. Microsoft expects Vista to be accountable for 85 percent of operating system sales in fiscal 2008 compared with 15 percent for Windows XP. Majority of the consumers will, sooner or later, have to migrate to Vista. Well, that could be in 2008.

4. IPTV sees big surge in popularity
IPTV (Internet Protocol Television) is already in spotlight. It has opened up new possibilities for consumers, service providers and content providers. From a mere technology concept, IPTV has completed the first stage and has become a real service. In some countries, it is almost in the mass-market stage. IPTV is considered to be one of the most highly visible services to emerge as part of the development of next-generation networks (NGN).

There are many more questions to be answered pertaining to the business model, pricing, packaging and the technology itself. But, the coming year is definitely going to see more developments in the IPTV space.

One thing worth mentioning, which may prove to be crucial for IPTV to reach its market potential, is the devlopments of standards for IPTV. The International Telecommunication Union (ITU) recently announced the first set of global standards for IPTV. So, there are definitely some good news for us. And, no doubt , as long as the demand for high-quality personalized content exists among the consumers, IPTV will not struggle to reach new horizons.

5. Will 802.11n arrive?
The 802.11n, the latest in the set of WLAN standards, comes with truly high speeds i.e. 4-5 times faster than 802.11g and fifty times faster than .11b! It also offers better operating distance comparing to the current wireless networks. Wow! This is really something the enterprises would love to invest in.

There is no doubt that 802.11n is well positioned to redefine wireless networking. But, would the new standard finally arrive in 2008? Ratification of the new standards is been delayed for quite a long time now and the users are really keen to see the faster version of Wi-Fi, without any more delay.

However, experts predict that ratification won’t happen overnight and it’s going to take some more time. Though some Wi-Fi vendors( Cisco, Aruba, Trapeze) have already launched 802.11n products, technology installations may happen only in the middle of 2008.

6. Short-range wireless technologies that will create a buzz
Short-range wireless technology is not just about Bluetooth anymore. New entrants like High-speed Bluetooth, Wireless USB and ZigBee are getting traction too. Demand for high data transfer rates has increased over the years with the increase in video and audio content on portable devices like mobile phones, laptops as well as on multimedia projectors and television sets.

Though high-speed Bluetooth is in its primary stage of development, it is expected to be 100 times faster than the current technology. This next-generation Bluetooth will hopefully hit the market in 2008.

Wireless USB is targeting 1Gbps throughput. Vendors have already introduced wireless USB hubs, adapters and laptops in the market. However, wide adoption of the technology depends on how soon it is going to be embedded into digital cameras, camcoders, MP3 players etc.

ZigBee is the wireless connection used by sensors and control devices. It is expected to find traction in commercial building automation in 2008.

7. No end in sight for high-definition (HD) war
Is the war between Blu-ray and HD DVD high-definition video formats never ending? Well, there, definitely, is an end. But that may not be in 2008 Analysts in the industry predict that the high-definition war may last for another year and a few months. There is a strong market position for both the standards currently and this makes it difficult to predict the winner.

Meanwhile, there has been no improvement in the sales of both the technologies this year as consumers still feel both Blu-ray and HD DVD are expensive.

On the other hand, Toshiba recently introduced comparatively low priced HD DVD players. This initiative definitely poses a challenge for Blu-Ray companies. To cope with this, they will have to cut down the hardware prices of Blu-ray. If that happens, the war will continue for some more time.

8. Shift from magnetic to solid-state hard drives
At present, the market is dominated by magnetic hard drives. But the future seems to be of solid-state hard drives as magnetic hard drives have limited data transfer speed. Solid-state hard drives are based on flash memory and is much faster memory solution. They also have advantages such as low noise and low power consumption. High pricing is the primary hindering factor for solid-state hard drives to become mainstream.

Major players like Seagate are betting high on solid-state technology and have plans to offer it next year. Solid-state hard discs are likely to be more popular in the laptop market. If prices fall down, we can see a slow shift happening from magnetic to solid-state hard drives in 2008.

9. Is 2008 going to be a banner year for wireless?
We no more worry about the clutter of wires. Offices have gone wireless. Cities are going wireless. All portable devices have embedded wireless technologies. We are moving fast towards a ‘wire-free’ world. So, 2008, beyond doubt, is going to see much more technology developments.

Though the ‘wireless’ world won’t be a true reality so soon, the need for seamless mobility and freedom is surely going to drive more wireless technology advancements.

The upcoming 802.11n will redefine enterprise networking in the coming year. Fixed Mobile Convergence (FMC) will tie fixed and mobile networks to deliver enhanced user experience. 2008 is expected to be the year of Mobile WiMax as well. Above all these, 2008 will probably witness open access to all networks, which in turn will open up more opportunities.

10. The ‘iPhone mania’ to continue
iPhone rates as the most memorable new product for 2007. Yes, it literally shook the mobile phone world in 2007. Now, doubtlessly, companies would love to follow Apple’s path by introducing similar products. So, 2008 is certainly going to see mobile phones with more and more web services and multimedia functionalities integrated into it. So, 2008 could very well be a year of ‘iPhone-like’ products from Apple’s rivals.

Semiconductor outlook 2008: EDA to grow 7.8pc; semicon 6-11pc

Forecasters at the panel discussion the 2008 Semiconductor Industry Forecast webcast presented by Semiconductor International were guarded in their predictions -- which were a mixed bag -- with the majority predicting semiconductor growth in the range of 6-11 percent during 2008.

However, some other panelists predicted 2008 to be flat year or a year of negative growth. There are fears of a possible recession in 2008, along with concerns surrounding consumer spend that could be hit by higher oil prices and the US mortgage crisis. Hence, the need for forecasters to be watchful with their predictions.

EDA playing catch-up; to grow 7.8pc
The EDA industry is said to be lagging behind the semiconductor industry at the moment, and is in the catch-up mode, according to Gary Smith, President, Gary Smith EDA, while commenting on the forecast for the EDA industry.

On the outlook for the EDA market, Smith said the EDA industry is in a lttile unusual position. He said: "The market's been flat for the past four years. Tools for 65nm, 45nm silicon dsign have also been delayed." The R&D was not put in because of the recession. "Right now, we are in a position of lag in the market," he added.

EDA tools cover two process generations. The industry is just starting to introduce 65nm and 45nm tools. That generation is being called the DFM generation tool. Smith said: "It is even more important to the semiconductor industry as we run into manufacturing problems that they are relying on design tools to solve, rather than on semiconductor equipment." That's a major shift in the market!

According to him, the industry is now now into a pretty good growth area. "We were 11 percent last year, 10.2 percent to come in this year. We will be a bit down next year at 7.8 percent," he forecast. This has been attributed mainly to the EDA industry's lag in the market. "Some are moving to 32nm. And certainly, a lot of work is being done in 45nm," he added.

Smith noted: "The EDA industry is in the catch-up mode. We will lag them. We're expecting the downturn to really hit us in 2009. However, we're not an industry that goes negative often. No matter what you guys do, you still have to design something. So, when you go into recession, typically, the way you get out of recession is you generally design yr way out!"

DFM, ESL, parallel computing EDA growth drivers
He said that DFM, parallel computing and ESL were the growth drivers. Among the drivers is the DFM issue, which is increasingly getting more complex. There is said to be a move to restrict the design rules that is in place now for 45nm. "We're going to see major changes in 32nm; that'll have impact on tools," he added.

The other issue is parallel computing that has become a major task for the EDA industry. "With signal threading, we can no longer handle designs over 100 million gates. Of course, at 45nm, you can do a 100mn gates. That rewriting process is another issue that is also slowing out down. That's a full three-year re-write," Smith said.

Further, EDA is also starting to move up into the ESL. The ESL is going to shift the EDA market more into the systems market, and serve less on its dependency on the semiconductor world.

As for the inhibitors, an issue hitting the EDA industry right now is that, in 2007, the cost of designing or developing the embededded software for an SoC actually passed the cost of desgining the SoC itself. "So, we're in the middle of a software crisis that's going to hit the entire electronics ind in the next five or six years," he added.

Next, the industry has been also going to muticore, multiprocessor architecture. That demands a completely new programming model. According to Smith, what was unthinkable six months ago, is now a major topic of discussion -- that is abandoning C as a programming language! That's going to be a major shift in the industry.

Tariff concerns in Europe
Earlier, in a discussion regarding concerns about tariffs in Europe, and how will it impact the industry, Anne Craib, Director of Market Research, International Affairs and Finance, Semiconductor Industry Association (SIA), said: "We are working on a number of policy initiatives that we see as potential challenges in consumer sector." In Europe, there is an effort to re-classify goods that have business and consumer funtionalities, as consumer products not covered by tariff-free agreement.

As we see continued convergence, for example, the cell phone will be covered, so, there are questions as to whethe a cell phone has a cam or an MP3 player, and will that be considered as a consumer device or a business device. The result could be the imposition of fairly steep tariffs in the mid to high teens. "When you start to increasing your pricing to that level, it could potentially affect consumer demand. We havent seen that happen yet, but it's an issue that we are quite concerned," she added.

SIA is also concerned about some efforts in other parts of the world to put in place proprietary standards that could drive up the cost for manufacturers for accessing those markets -- by requiring to make devices that are specific to certain markets -- that wouldnt be interoperable. Most of them could affect the downstream products, but not semicon specifically. However, there are areas that the industry also needs to be aware of.

Stay tuned for full report later!

Kodiak brings PTT conferencing, group SMS to India

US-based Kodiak Networks is in the business of voice-based VAS for mobile networks. It has a large presence in Bangalore ~200 full-time employees, with a total global workforce of 260. All R&D, testing and customer support are handled out of India.

Kodiak's worldwide growth and application adoption puts a spotlight on this region for innovation and business success. The demand for wireless voice services continues to grow globally, but especially in this region.

According to Dr. Giridhar Boray, Country Manager - India, Kodiak Networks, three major operators have deployed the Kodiak Connected Portfolio [Idea, Airtel and Tata], and that Kodiak will continue to announce new applications geared toward business users and consumers.

He said that operators faced a common trend worldwide -- increasing subscriber growth and declining revenues. Hence, the operators are now looking at VAS. Push-to-talk (PTT), as a solution, is becoming popular in the USA. An example is Nextel, which grew out of Fleetcall, has evolved into cellular.

Dr. Boray said: "Initially, all operators were waiting for 3G, but they could not wait. They wanted PTT in 2G, with migration into 3G." Delving into history, he pointed out that AllTell, a CDMA operator and Kodiak's first customer, agreed to trial PTT product in 2002. Kodiak's customer base has swelled to 16 globally, since!

Dr Boray said: "In PTT, you need to have a dedicated button and a speaker. Our solution goes into the voice channel." He explained that for 2G PTT, the industry adopted two approaches -- PTT on the voice channel or PTT on the data channel.

Some of Kodiak's competitors reportedly introduced PTT on data channel. India's Tata Teleservices was the first to use PTT, but the service was discontinued after some time. Dr. Boray also added that for using PTT, the US government mandates that any service that is put on to the network can be legally intercepted or tapped as a matter of national security.

Kodiak's next big customer was AT&T Wireless, which tested its PTT solutions. A lot of its customers in the US are regional operators, who have roaming agreements with the bigger operators, which also helped Kodiak.

AT&T Wireless was also able to drive handset vendors to use PTT via Kodiak's solutions. "Right now, 45+ handset models carry our solutions," added Dr. Boray. "These include Blackberry, LG, Samsung, Nokia, Motorola, ZTE, etc."

Conferencing, group SMS trials in India
India hosts Kodiak's development center. He mentioned TRAI's statement on PTT that, PTT is legal as operators are able to meet the ADC requirements, plus all regulatory requirements related to voice, such as lawful interception. "They did not say that PTT on data channel was incorrect. To do that, you would need to first build the infrastructure," he added. Kodiak's solutions work on both GSM and CDMA standards.

Kodiak has now evolved PTT into two-way conferencing. As an example, on the Airtel Blackberry, users can select up to six people and do conferencing. Dr. Boray said: "We also have the application on the SIM card as AVS (advanced voice services). From our side, you can conference with up to 30 users, but operators generally allow the selection of up to five to six users from your contacts list."

Kodiak will be offering conferencing as well as group SMS with Airtel. "Only one SMS goes to the server, which distributes it," he said. "Group SMS, conferencing, etc., should be helpful during emergencies."

Touching on Kodiak's partnership with Airtel, Dr. Boray said: "Airtel started over six months back as a market trial. It is offering the services to some corporates, but only on postpaid. We will be extending it over prepaid as well over the next few months." As for the charges, he said that the customers would probably get deducted as per the existing and applicable NLD and ILD call charges.

Kodiak is also trialing the service with Idea in New Delhi. The next trial is with Tata Teleservices over BREW-enabled handsets. Kodiak offers applications for BREW.

Dr. Boray added: "We also want to enter into the prepaid coverage. Prepaid is widely used in enterprises as well." Besides these three -- Airtel, Idea and Tata -- Kodiak is in discussions with some other operators as well. Kodiak also offers voice SMS, which it is not pushing hard enough for the moment. Kodiak's India chief said that the enterprises may find value in this application.

PTT rollout with JMCC in China in Q1-08
Kodiak has also announced the first commercial PTT deployment in China for China Mobile's Jiangsu Mobile Communications Co. (JMCC). Its target are corporate users with an emphasis on transportation, municipalities, and retail segments. The PTT subscribers will be billed a monthly service charge (bundled service offering).

The initial launch will include Nokia Symbian GSM handsets. According to Dr. Boray, the roll-out is scheduled for Q1-2008. "JMCC is a big operator. This win will also help us get into the other provinces of China as well," he added.

The Kodiak PTT voice-based solution provides superior mobile coverage compared to previously trialed data/GPRS solutions. It is the only solution with QoS resulting in best-in-class reliability and speed for JMCC customers. Also, Kodiak PTT provides users with a convenient alternative to trunked radio (one handset provides function of both a radio and a mobile phone).

Some of Kodiak PTT's unique features include: real-time presence and availability indicators; quick group calling up to 10 group members; convert to cellular (upgrade a one-way PTT call to a two-way cellular call); PTT/GSM call waiting; permission-based contact management; and contact alerts.

Dr. Boray added: "Lot of IM features are also making their way into PTT. Our focus is on group communications."

Continued growth in 2008
To add to Kodiak's PTT success in 2008, eight new PTT handsets are likely to be announced in the first half of the year. Significant PTT customers in three regions are likely to be announced as well. Finally, 2008 will also see two Open OS, downloadable PTT client versions announcements with commercial customers.

Research firm In-Stat believes that the number of PTT global subscribers will grow to 67.8 million by the end of 2009. PTT/PoC has an opportunity to reach non-traditional business and consumer (especially youth) markets. One-third of In-Stat respondents would consider switching carriers in order to be able to use PTT/PoC.

According to a Wintergreen Research report from September 2007, there were 45.6mn PTT subscribers in 2006 and 64mn in mid 2007. This is likely to reach 340mn by 2013. The PTT subscriber revenue of $1.2bn in 2006 is also likely to reach $16.7 billion in 2013.

Multi-generation platform support
Kodiak's solutions are built on the Kodiak RTX platform, which will support the converged IMS network architecture with a software upgrade.

Kodiak RTX is a multi-generation platform that spans 2G and 3G network technologies, and extends services to social networks and IM communities. Kodiak IMS applications also leverage the Kodiak IMS Client framework.