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New chip technology to enhance energy efficiency of AI-connected devices

Mohammed Fahad
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New chip technology to enhance energy efficiency of AI-connected devices
  • Improvements in chip energy efficiency will turbocharge AI and semiconductor industry with new capabilities in always-on AI devices.
  • The new suite of disruptive chip technologies will be promoted through the FD-SOI & IoT Industry Consortium to accelerate industry adoption by lowering the design barrier to entry in FD-SOI chips.
  • The innovation has been demonstrated by researchers from National University of Singapore (NUS), together with industry partners Soitec and NXP Semiconductors.

Researchers from National University of Singapore (NUS), together with industry partners Soitec and NXP Semiconductors, have demonstrated a new class of silicon systems to enhance the energy efficiency of AI-connected devices by leaps and bounds.

The innovation has been demonstrated in fully-depleted silicon-on-insulator (FD-SOI) technology, and can be applied to the design and fabrication of advanced semiconductor components for AI applications which will significantly advance the capabilities of the semiconductor industry.

The new chip technology has the potential to extend the battery life of wearables and smart objects by a factor of 10, support intense computational workloads for use in Internet of Things applications, and halve the power consumption associated with wireless communications with the cloud.

The new suite of disruptive chip technologies will be promoted through the FD-SOI & IoT Industry Consortium to accelerate industry adoption by lowering the design barrier to entry in FD-SOI chips.

Improving performance

“IoT devices often operate on a very limited power budget, and hence require extremely low average power to efficiently perform regular tasks such as physical signal monitoring. At the same time, high peak performance is demanded to process occasional signal events with computationally-intensive AI algorithms. Our research uniquely allows us to simultaneously reduce the average power and improve the peak performance,” Professor Massimo Alioto, who is from the NUS College of Design and Engineering’s Department of Electrical and Computer Engineering, said.

Prof Alioto, who also heads the Green IC group, at the NUS Department of Electrical and Computer Engineering, said the applications are wide-ranging and include smart cities, smart buildings, Industry 4.0, wearables and smart logistics.

Game changer

“The remarkable energy improvements obtained in the FD-fAbrICS program are a game changer in the area of battery-powered AI devices, as they ultimately allow us to move intelligence from conventional cloud to smart miniaturised devices,” Alioto said.

Research conducted by the NUS FD-fAbrICS joint lab showed that their FD-SOI chip technology can be deployed at scale with enhanced design and system integration productivity for lower cost, faster market reach, and rapid industry adoption.

Alioto said the innovation has the potential to accelerate the time to market for key players in Singapore’s semiconductor ecosystem,

 “We hope to facilitate the adoption and deployment of our design technologies at scale through the FD-SOI & IoT Industry Consortium. This is a significant contribution to the AI and semiconductor industry in Singapore, as it enables a competitive advantage while reducing the overall development cost of FD-SOI systems.”

Zoho not ready to announce anything regarding “chip fabrication unit”

Ana Mary Joseph
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Zoho not ready to announce anything regarding “chip fabrication unit”
  • “All I can say right now is that this technology is vital for our nation and we need companies to step up and make the investment,” Vembu says.
  • India has given green signal to construction of three semiconductor plants worth over $15b by firms including Tata Group and CG Power.

India’s software-as-a-service provider Zoho clarified on X social media platform that the “company is not ready to announce anything yet on semiconductor fabrication unit”.

The Zoho Founder and CEO Sridhar Vembu had announced plans in March to create an advanced chip design facility in Tenkasi district in Tamil Nadu.
Reported have hinted that Zoho had submitted a proposal to invest between $500-$700 million under the production-lined incentive (PLI) scheme for a chip design and manufacturing facility in the country.

“All I can say right now is that this technology is vital for our nation and we need companies to step up and make the investment,” Vembu posted on X.

He said that the government is very supportive and now is the time but I cannot say more “right now”.

Personal mission

“Our nation needs to step up our investment in industrial R&D, with industry and academia working together to figure out all the complex technologies that underpin economic prosperity.”

“My personal mission is to combine that R&D focus with RD (rural development) in a holistic way,” he said, adding that “I am sorry I cannot say more right now.”

According to the latest industry data, the current electronics manufacturing at nearly $103 billion translates to a semiconductor requirement of $26-$31 billion.

Prime Minister Narendra Modi laid the foundation stone for three semiconductor projects worth Rs1.25 trillion in March this year.

In February, India gave green signal to construction of three semiconductor plants worth over $15 billion by firms including Tata Group and CG Power, with plans to manufacture and package chips for sectors including defence, automobiles and telecommunication.

Post pandemic and layoffs impact video games industry

Ana Mary Joseph
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Post pandemic and layoffs impact video games industry
  • About 20,000 people were laid off between January 2023 and May 2024.
  • In 2023, estimated layoffs were 10,500 and approximately 60 per cent of studios affected by layoffs were owned by a larger company, down from the 64 per cent in 2022.
  • The estimated total for layoffs in 2024 is expected to be 9,500.

Sony’s gaming sector performed the most with 17 per cent year on year increase to $27.4 billion in fiscal year 2023.

The Japanese giant shipped 20.8 million PlayStation 5 consoles and this number was significantly downgraded from the original target of 25 million set in April 2023. 

For the upcoming fiscal year, the company expects a drop in gaming-related revenue by $440 million due to the lack of major exclusive titles and waning interest in the current iteration of the PlayStation 5.

The Chinese company – Tencent – came in second with $25 billion revenue.  International and domestic games revenue accounted for about 29 per cent of Tencent’s total revenue.

However, Microsoft, company behind Xbox, could not catch up with Sony’s and Tencent’s revenues. The US giant reported $15.5 billion, down $700 million compared to a year ago.

Ray of hope for Microsoft

If the revenue generated by Activision Blizzard, which Microsoft finalised its acquisition of this past October, between July 2022 and June 2023 is any indicator, it could muscle past its Chinese rival Tencent.

This also depends on whether Xbox’s plans for its Game Pass subscription service pan out. Drastic cost-cutting by closing critically acclaimed studios like Tango Gameworks, whose latest games Hi-Fi Rush and Ghostwire: Tokyo reportedly attracted upwards of one million players each, suggests that the subscription-to-purchase pipeline doesn’t yet work as envisioned.

The Big 3 in the video gaming industry are Nintendo, Microsoft, and Sony. These three companies are major video gaming hardware makers and currently dominate the console gaming market. Due to this infrastructure advantage, the Big 3 are the biggest video game publishers worldwide, making billion of US dollars from video games every year.

Microsoft is not the only company with a major stake in gaming that’s closing studios or cutting down its workforce.

Missing projections

According to crowd-sourced database Game Industry Layoffs, about 20,000 people in the games industry were laid off between January 2023 and May 2024.

In 2023, estimated layoffs were 10,500 and approximately 60 per cent of studios affected by layoffs were owned by a larger company, down from the 64 per cent in 2022. The recorded data suggests that 2023 has seen roughly a 22 per cent increase in global layoffs.

28 studios shut down in 2023, the biggest being Volition Games (Embracer Group) – the smallest being Dang! Indie studios made up a little over 40 per cent of closures, with Asian and Swedish owned studios accounting for roughly 20 per cent each.

The estimated total for layoffs in 2024 is expected to be 9,500.

So while Xbox Game Pass lagging behind expectations is one factor to consider, the state of the games industry as a whole, missing projections and having overestimated growth potentials driven by the coronavirus pandemic, continues to be fragile.

New snail-inspired robot can climb vertical surfaces

Mohammed Fahad
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New snail-inspired robot can climb vertical surfaces
  • The sliding suction allows a lightweight robot to slide vertically and upside down, achieving high speeds and does not require energy during static adhesion.
  • The robot also demonstrated high loaded sliding ability carrying 1kg mass, ten times heavier than itself. 

Researchers at the University of Bristol have designed a robot to mimic the motion of a snail that can scale walls easily, potentially changing how difficult-to-access surfaces such as blades of wind turbines, hulls of ships, aircrafts and glass windows of skyscrapers are autonomously inspected.

These features also endow sliding suction with great potential for future applications in robotic fields, including industrial gripping, climbing, outdoor and transportation. 

Adding to the increasing innovative new ways robots can navigate, the team, based at the Bristol Robotics Laboratory, fitted the robot with a sliding suction mechanism enabling the device to slide on water, a substitute of a snail’s mucus which also acts as an adhesive.   

Snails can stably slide across a surface with only a single high-payload sucker, offering an efficient adhesive locomotion mechanism for next-generation climbing robots. The critical factor for snails’ sliding suction behaviour is mucus secretion, which reduces friction and enhances suction. 

Sliding suction robot

 “People know that snails have a stable adhesive sliding behaviour, even though they are carrying a heavy payload, in this case a shell.  Inspired by this, we presented a ‘sliding suction’ mechanism and developed a sliding suction robot, which achieved comparable sliding ability as snails,” Tianqi Yue, Lead author, said.

As mucus plays an important role in the sliding suction mechanism, the team used water as cheap, easy-to-access and clean artificial mucus to help the robot slide while the suction remained.

They optimised the materials of the suction cup, designed the mechatronic system of the robot, and were able to demonstrate practical applications of the robot, such as carrying a 200gm mass and avoiding obstacles. The robot also demonstrated high loaded sliding ability carrying 1kg mass, ten times heavier than itself. 

The sliding suction allows a lightweight robot to slide vertically and upside down, achieving high speeds and does not require energy during static adhesion.  

 “Through the performance of sliding suction robot, we demonstrated that sliding suction offers low energy consumption, high adhesion efficiency and safety, high loading capacity and low complexity, while only leaving a quick-to-evaporate water trail,” Yue said. 

Moreover, he said that the proposed sliding suction mechanism is a novel clean climbing strategy and will significantly advance the development of the next-generation climbing robots.

Consumer goods firms need to fail early in their AI initiatives to gain knowhow

Ana Mary Joseph
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Consumer goods firms need to fail early in their AI initiatives to gain knowhow
  • Adopting AI can pose very real financial and security risks and training an AI can prove very expensive, especially if the task being automated is complex and requires an advanced AI.
  • Fostering a culture of transparency around the risks of AI will help drive industry application and protect consumer goods companies and customers from the potential pitfalls of this evolving technology.

Consumer goods companies need to understand the technical, financial, and organisational requirements of any AI application to reliably assess the level of risk that application represents, an industry expert said.

Rory Gopsill, Senior Consumer Analyst at GlobalData, said that consumer goods companies need to fail – and fail fast – in their AI initiatives to gain the knowhow.

“Consumer goods companies need to consider how an AI should be trained to enable it to function cost-effectively. They also need to consider which delivery model is the most suitable from a data security and infrastructure cost point of view.”

According to GlobalData’s Q1 2024 Tech Sentiment Poll, over 58% of respondents believe AI will significantly disrupt their industry.

However, consumer goods companies should remember that the technology has limitations and risks. Chatbot failures caused Air Canada and DPD financial and reputational damage, respectively, in the first quarter of 2024. DeepMind’s own CEO warned against AI overhype in April 2024.

Gaining the knowhow

“Industry professionals remain bullish about AI’s potential to disrupt numerous industries, including consumer goods. In reality, adopting AI can pose very real financial and security risks. Training an AI can prove very expensive, especially if the task being automated is complex and requires an advanced AI,” Gopsill said.

Moreover, if an AI application requires training data that is commercially sensitive or confidential, he said that a company may choose to train the AI in a private cloud environment rather than a less secure public cloud. Purchasing and maintaining the necessary IT infrastructure for this would be very expensive and organisationally demanding.

 “Consumer goods companies need to be aware of these (and other) risks when choosing to develop AI applications. If they are not, their AI initiatives could fail with serious consequences. For example, sensitive data could be exposed, development costs could outweigh the application’s benefits, the quality of the AI application could be diminished, or the project could simply never get finished,” he said.

Understanding these risks, he said will enable consumer goods companies to fail early and safely and to learn from that failure.

“This will equip them with the knowledge to implement AI in a way that is safe and profitable. Fostering a culture of transparency around the risks of AI will help drive industry application and protect consumer goods companies and customers from the potential pitfalls of this evolving technology.”

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UAE corporate tax drags Yahsat first-quarter income down 8%

TCN Bureau
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UAE corporate tax drags Yahsat first-quarter income down 8%
  • Working on completing the procurement of Thuraya 4, to be launched into space in the second half of this year.

UAE’s satellite solutions provider – Yahsat – net income fell eight per cent to AED99 million for the first three months of the year, reflecting the introduction of nine per cent UAE corporate tax this year.

However, revenues grew one per cent for the period versus the prior year to a record AED371 million while EBITDA grew seven per cent to reach AED247 million.

Underpinning this strong performance was revenue growth across two segments. Infrastructure, the Group’s largest segment providing communications capacity to the UAE Government by means of an index-linked long-term contract, continued to grow its year-on-year revenues by one per cent.

Managed Solutions, the Group’s second largest segment by revenue, providing complete value-added satellite communications solutions primarily to the UAE Government and related entities, reported impressive revenue growth of 19 per cent as well as higher margins, building on a strong prior year performance.

The Mobility Solutions segment, which provides mobile satellite services using L-band spectrum, recorded lower revenues, mainly on fewer equipment sales.

Data Solutions, the smallest segment, offering satellite-based broadband data solutions, saw revenues fall on lower subscriber numbers.

 “Yahsat has achieved another set of strong quarterly results, demonstrating further progress in growing our core business of serving the UAE Government’s requirements for satcom solutions,” Ali Al Hashemi, Group Chief Executive Officer of Yahsat, said.

“We also continue to progress toward finalising the full contract for the new $5.1 billion capacity and Managed Services Mandate with the UAE Government and the related procurement contract with the satellite manufacturer for two new satellites, Al Yah 4 and Al Yah 5. Further, we are working on completing the procurement of Thuraya 4, to be launched into space in the second half of this year, which will renew and continue Thuraya’s success story for many more years to come.”

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