U.S. Dept of Commerce: Huawei restriction begins Friday

Wilbur Ross, U.S. Secretary of Commerce, announced that restrictions on the export of U.S. technology to Huawei begin on Friday.

Earlier, the Bureau of Industry and Security (BIS) of the U.S. Department of Commerce, confirmed that Huawei and its affiliates have been added to the Bureau’s Entity List. The reason given is that "Huawei is engaged in activities that are contrary to U.S. national security or foreign policy interest."

For companies on the Entity List, a license must be issued by BIS for the sale or transfer of U.S. technology. A license may be denied if the sale or transfer would harm U.S. national security or foreign policy interests.

“This action by the Commerce Department’s Bureau of Industry and Security, with the support of the President of the United States, places Huawei, a Chinese owned company that is the largest telecommunications equipment producer in the world, on the Entity List. This will prevent American technology from being used by foreign owned entities in ways that potentially undermine U.S. national security or foreign policy interests,” said Secretary of Commerce Wilbur Ross. “President Trump has directed the Commerce Department to be vigilant in its protection of national security activities. Since the beginning of the Administration, the Department has added 190 persons or organizations to the Entity List, as well as instituted five investigations of the effect of imports on national security under Section 232 of the Trade Act of 1962.”

https://www.commerce.gov/news/press-releases/2019/05/department-commerce-announces-addition-huawei-technologies-co-ltd

On Thursday, Huawei issued a statement condemning the decision by the Bureau of Industry and Security (BIS), saying "This decision is in no one's interest. It will do significant economic harm to the American companies with which Huawei does business, affect tens of thousands of American jobs, and disrupt the current collaboration and mutual trust that exist on the global supply chain."

https://huawei.eu/media-centre/press-releases/media-statement-regarding-decision-bureau-industry-and-security-bis-us

Read More

FirstLight acquires Maine Fiber Company

FirstLight, which delivers fiber, Internet, data center, cloud and voice services to enterprise and carrier customers throughout the northeastern U.S., has acquired Maine Fiber Company (MFC), a dark fiber leasing company with a 1,100-route-mile, high-capacity fiber network in the state of Maine. Financial terms were not disclosed.

FirstLight said the MFC network adds unique routes into Canada including a cable landing, the Maritime Express Route from Nova Scotia to Boston, as well as additional diversity to FirstLight’s robust network.

MFC was established in 2009 to drive the construction of the Three Ring Binder - a network of three fiber rings encircling rural western, eastern and northern Maine. The network was built through a combination of a federal grant and private investment.

“Acquiring MFC is very exciting for FirstLight. We have a long-standing, positive working relationship with this organization and are impressed with what they have been able to accomplish since the company’s inception in 2009,” stated Kurt Van Wagenen, President and CEO of FirstLight Fiber. “The companies have leveraged their strong ties over the years to expand broadband access to customers in Maine and beyond.  We expect the integration process will be swift and seamless to our customers and stakeholders.”

http://www.mainefiberco.com/
https://www.firstlight.net/firstlight-acquires-maine-fiber-company/

Read More

ADTRAN's SmartOS gateways leverage Super-Vectoring

ADTRAN introduced its new SmartRG 652ac (SR652ac) residential and small business gateway with the ability to deliver highly competitive broadband—up to 700 Mbps — without service or customer disruptions via bonded super-vectoring (VDSL2 profile 35b) technology.

ADTRAN said this highly scalable fiber broadband extension technology is ideal for the rapidly growing MDU/MTU markets because it uses the existing in-building wiring to each unit. Further, service providers can run super-vectoring in parallel to other xDSL technologies in their access network, adding additional operational savings.

The SR652ac also provides advanced capabilities via its open software platform (based on OpenWrt), including self-service portals, self-healing Wi-Fi and subscriber analytics. When paired with the ADTRAN 1148SVX 48-port sealed broadband micronode, operators now have a highly scalable solution to create efficient and cost-effective whole-home and whole-business Wi-Fi environments without the time and expense of pulling new facilities to each unit.

“The design philosophy with SmartOS is to give service providers a single, open source-based, secure software framework so that providers gain consistency and commonality to reduce testing or qualification cycles and increase speed to market for new and innovative services,” ADTRAN’s Senior Vice President of Subscriber Solutions & Experience, Jeff McInnis, said. “We can significantly reduce the cost and resources required to introduce new solutions into a network and help our customers bring better services to their subscribers through our feature-rich, SmartOS platform—enhancing the experience for everyone.”

ADTRAN acquires SmartRG for Connected Home software platforms

Thursday, December 06, 2018  ADTRAN  

ADTRAN has acquired SmartRG Inc, a supplier of open-source connected home platforms and cloud services for broadband service providers. Financial terms were not disclosed.

SmartRG, which is based in Vancouver, Washington, offers a portfolio of cloud-management, analytics, Wi-Fi-enabled residential gateways along with a SmartOS software platform.

SmartRG counts more than 3 million devices in service and over 1.3 million devices under management in North America, the Caribbean and South America. The company expects to scale and drive growth through its differentiated software solutions as more customers shift from closed, proprietary options to SmartOS—its open-source-based, cloud-enabled solution suite.

ADTRAN said SmartRG's Smart OS, together with its own ADTRAN Mosaic platform, provides full end-to-end management and orchestration solutions from cloud edge to subscriber edge. Service providers understand that bandwidth must now be delivered not only to the doorstep but down to every device within a home to meet consumer expectations.

Read More

Smartoptics debuts passive optical mux/demux and OADM

Smartoptics announced its H-Series platform for passive optical layer nodes, such as CWDM and DWDM multiplexers/demultiplexers and OADMs.

Smartoptics said its new passive multiplexing and OADM solutions take advantage of new component technology. Special attention has been paid to handling, compactness and flexibility, resulting in a 1 RU chassis housing a variety of filter modules and giving up to five times higher packing density than previous solutions.

The H-Series platform comprises a high-density 1 RU chassis that can be equipped with combinations of filter modules for state of the art CWDM and DWDM mux/demux and DWDM OADM applications.

The H-Series is fully compatible with the ITU optical grid and interconnects seamlessly with Smartoptics transponder and muxponder products as well as with other vendors’ products. It is available for immediate delivery, and shipments have already begun to initial customers.

Kent Lidström, CTO of Smartoptics, says: “Smartoptics’ long time experience of open line systems for CWDM and DWDM has taught us the importance of a cost-efficient passive optical networking platform. Therefore, we have used best of breed components to achieve maximum flexibility and compactness at the lowest possible cost when building the new H-Series. We can now proudly offer the smartest solution to your passive optical networking needs.”

Smartoptics is based in Oslo, Norway. The company was founded in 2006.

https://www.smartoptics.com/wp-content/uploads/2019/05/SO-DS-H-Series_overwiev_R4.0.pdf

IX Australia deploys Smartoptics’ low cost 100G Open Line System

Thursday, December 06, 2018  Australia, DWDM, OLS, Smartoptics  

Internet Exchange Australia (IX Australia) has deployed Smartoptics' DCP-M40 Open Line System and Pluggable DWDM QSFP28 PAM4 transceivers to provide high capacity links to metro locations in Sydney.

The new, automated, network was delivered by Independent Data Solutions (IDS) and provides IX Australia with lowest cost 40 x 100 Gb/s traffic capability over a single pair of fibers.

The new Smartoptics DCP-M40 Open Line System enables up to 40x100G wavelengths over spans exceeding 50km with fully automated addition of new channels for ease of use.

Oslo-based Smartoptics AB said space and power considerations were important factors in the technology choice due to the cost of colocation and available power in hosting facilities. The 1U form factor and max 45W power consumption for a fully loaded 40 channels system were significantly differentiating factors over more traditional coherent transponders.  

Read More

MACOM appoints Stephen G. Daly as CEO

MACOM Technology Solutions Holdings appointed Stephen G. Daly as its new President and CEO, effective immediately, following the resignation of John Croteau.

Croteau had served as President and Chief Executive Officer since December 2012. Mr. Croteau will be available to MACOM in an advisory capacity for the next two months to ensure a smooth transition.

Daly has served on MACOM’s Board of Directors since March 2015 and has over 25 years of experience in the semiconductor industry. Prior to joining MACOM’s Board of Directors, Mr. Daly had served for almost ten years as Chairman, President and Chief Executive Officer of Hittite Microwave, a provider of analog and mixed signal integrated circuits, modules and subsystems for commercial and military radio frequency, microwave and millimeterwave applications.

Read More

Ooredoo Qatar picks Nokia for 5G cloud native core

Ooredoo Qatar has selected Nokia to build a 5G cloud native core network.

Nokia's AirFrame solution, which will be deployed in Ooredoo's data centers in Doha, encompass Virtualized Network Functions (VNFs), including Mobile Core for Voice, with Cloud Packet Core, Subscriber Management Registers and Policy control on a cloud platform. The solution also includes Nokia CloudBand for virtual infrastructure management, Nokia NetAct, Nuage Networks for data center network automation, and Nokia Professional services.

Yousuf Abdulla Al Kubaisi, Chief Operating Officer, Ooredoo Qatar, said: "The modernization of our core network will enhance our capabilities to innovate with new services. It will also help us to meet additional demands for high-speed data services in general as well as bursts in demand, particularly in upcoming mega sporting events. Our 5G network will open the flood-gates for machine learning, automation and micro-services use-cases for consumer and business customers in the country."

Bernard Najm, head of the Middle East Market Unit at Nokia, said: "We are excited to partner with Ooredoo Qatar to set up a 5G core network that is truly 'cloud native' from the ground up, not just an evolution of current core solutions. Our solution supports all flavors of mobile access network technologies and enables our customers to bring new 5G services to market rapidly. The solution provides the low latency, high throughput and content-rich services that will support Ooredoo Qatar's business goals immediately and well into the future."

Read More

VMware to acquire Bitnami for app migration tools

VMware will acquire Bitnami, a start-up offering application packaging solutions for major cloud and Kubernetes environments. Financial terms were not disclosed.

Bitnami, which is based in San Francisco, has its roots in creating Windows and Linux installers for independent software developers. More recently, Bitnami has focused on packaging applications in ready-to-run virtual machines and cloud images to the world's leading cloud providers.

VMware said Bitnami will enable its customers to deploy application packages on any cloud— public or hybrid—and in the most optimal format—virtual machine (VM), containers and Kubernetes helm charts. Further, Bitnami augments VMware's existing efforts to deliver a curated marketplace to VMware customers that offers a rich set of applications and development environments in addition to infrastructure software.

https://cloud.vmware.com/community/2019/05/15/vmware-to-acquire-bitnami/

Read More

Trump declares national emergency to secure ICT supply chain

President Trump declared a national emergency over the security of the nation's communications infrastructure and signed an executive order aimed at mitigating "threats enabled by information and communications technologies or services designed, developed, manufactured, or supplied by persons owned by, controlled by, or subject to the jurisdiction or direction of a foreign adversary."

The Secretary of Commerce is called upon to adopt rules and regulations within the next 150 days prohibiting transactions with entities deemed to pose a security risk to the United States.

The term “information and communications technology or services” is defined as "any hardware, software, or other product or service primarily intended to fulfill or enable the function of information or data processing, storage, retrieval, or communication by electronic means, including transmission, storage, and display."

The order does not mention any countries or companies specifically but could be interpreted to include any U.S. technology suppliers to major OEMs.

https://www.whitehouse.gov/presidential-actions/executive-order-securing-information-communications-technology-services-supply-chain/

Read More

U.S. Commerce Dept adds Huawei to control list

The U.S. Department of Commerce's Bureau of Industry and Security will add Huawei Technologies and its subsidiaries to its "Entity List" - potentially blocking the company from purchasing certain products from U.S. suppliers, according to The Washington Post and other news sources.

Wilbur Ross, U.S. Secretary of Commerce, stated that his team is "committed to ensuring that information and communication technology and services in the United States provide a safe and secure foundation for innovation and economic prosperity."

https://www.washingtonpost.com/world/national-security/trump-signs-order-to-protect-us-networks-from-foreign-espionage-a-move-that-appears-to-target-china/2019/05/15/d982ec50-7727-11e9-bd25-c989555e7766_story.html?utm_term=.a5894fc41ef9

Read More

Cisco posts revenue of $13.0 billion, up 6%

Cisco reported third-quarter revenue of $13.0 billion, up 6% year over year. Net income (GAAP) was $3.0 billion or $0.69 per share, and non-GAAP net income of $3.5 billion or $0.78 per share. The result reflect the divestiture of Service Provider Video Software Solutions (SPVSS) business in October.

"Our strong performance in the quarter was across the business, reflecting our customers' confidence in our strategy, business model and market-leading portfolio," said Chuck Robbins, chairman and CEO of Cisco. "Technology is at the heart of our customers' strategies and we are building the technology to help them achieve their business objectives."

Q3 FY 2019 Highlights

• Revenue -- Total revenue was $13.0 billion, up 6%, with product revenue up 7% and service revenue up 3%. 
• Revenue by geographic segment was: Americas up 9%, EMEA up 5%, and APJC down 4%. 
• Product revenue performance was broad based with growth in Security, up 21%, Applications, up 9%, and Infrastructure Platforms, up 5%.
• Gross Margin --  On a GAAP basis, total gross margin, product gross margin, and service gross margin were 63.1%, 62.0%, and 66.3%, respectively, as compared with 62.3%, 61.0%, and 65.8%, respectively, in the third quarter of fiscal 2018.
• Software subscriptions were 65% of total software revenue, up 9 points year-over-year.

https://investor.cisco.com/home/default.aspx

Read More

LF Edge announces Project EVE Seed Code

LF Edge, an umbrella organization within the Linux Foundation that aims to establish an open, interoperable framework for edge computing independent of hardware, silicon, cloud, or operating system, announced Project Edge Virtualization Engine (EVE) seed code contributed by LF Edge founding member ZEDEDA.

With Project EVE, edge gateways and devices run a variety of edge workloads simultaneously, decoupling application management from the underlying hardware. Applications can be deployed in standard virtual machines (VM) or container environments and be managed through a standard set of APIs.

“With Project EVE, the goal is to create a single virtualization standard for edge devices for the industry to build around so that we can enjoy the benefits of cloud-native applications sooner rather than later,” said Said Ouissal, co-founder and CEO of ZEDEDA. “Imagine how much more impact we can achieve now that edge applications can be reliably managed and secured.”

Additionally, LF Edge welcomes new Associate and Liaison member organizations Industrial Internet Consortium (IIC), the LIONS Center at the Pennsylvania State University, OTAinfo, and University of New Hampshire’s Interoperability Lab (UNH-IOL).

"We are excited to see the LF community continue to collaborate on building unified edge solutions,” said Arpit Joshipura, general manager,  Networking, IoT and Edge Computing, the Linux Foundation. “We appreciate ZEDEDA’s leadership in helping us advance On-Prem Edge IoT with initiatives like Project EVE, and are eager to showcase the broad capabilities of LF Edge onsite in Santa Clara while welcoming our newest members."

Linux Foundation targets Unified Open Source Framework for the Edge

Thursday, January 24, 2019  Linux Foundation  

The Linux Foundation is unifying a number of its projects into a new umbrella organization to establish an open, interoperable framework for edge computing independent of hardware, silicon, cloud, or operating system. The goal is the formation of a software stack that brings the best of telecom, cloud, and enterprise (representing location, latency and mobility differentiation).

LF Edge is initially comprised of five projects: Akraino Edge Stack, EdgeX Foundry, and Open Glossary of Edge Computing, formerly stand-alone projects at The Linux Foundation. The initiative also includes a new project contributed by Samsung Electronics, which will create a hub for real-time data collected through smart home devices, and another project from ZEDEDA, which is contributing a new agnostic standard edge architecture.

“The market opportunity for LF Edge spans industrial, enterprise and consumer use cases in complex environments that cut across multiple edges and domains. We’re thrilled with the level of support backing us at launch, with 60 global organizations as founding members and new project contributions,” said Arpit Joshipura, general manager, the Linux Foundation. “This massive endorsement, combined with existing code and project contributions like Akraino from AT&T and EdgeX Foundry from Dell EMC, means LF Edge is well-positioned to transform edge and IoT application development.”

LF Edge is already supported by the following founding members: (Premier) Arm, AT&T, Baidu, Dell EMC, Dianomic Inc., Ericsson, HP Inc., HPE, Huawei, IBM, Intel, inwinStack, Juniper Networks, MobiledgeX, Netsia, Nokia Solutions, NTT, OSIsoft, Qualcomm Technologies, Radisys, Red Hat, Samsung Electronics, Seagate Technology, Tencent, WindRiver, Wipro, ZEDEDA; and (General) Advantech Co., Alleantia srl,  Beechwoods Software Inc., Canonical Group Limited, CertusNet, CloudPlugs Inc., Concept Reply, DATA AHEAD AG, Enigmedia, EpiSensor, Foghorn Systems Inc., ForgeRock US Inc., Foundries.io, Hangzhou EMQ Technologies Co. Ltd., IOTech Systems Ltd., IoTium, KMC, Linaro, Mainflux, Mocana, NetFoundry, Packet, Pluribus Networks, RackN, Redis Labs, VaporIO, Vitro Technology Corp., Volterra Inc., Wanxiang Group; and (Associate) Automotive Edge Computing Consortium (AECC), Beijing University of Posts and Telecommunications (BUPT), Electronics and Telecommunications Research Institute (ETRI), Infrastructure Masons, Inc., and Project Haystack.

More about LF Edge projects:

• Akraino Edge Stack -- creating an open source software stack that supports high-availability cloud services optimized for edge computing systems and applications;
• EdgeX Foundry -- focused on building a common open framework for IoT edge computing.
• Home Edge Project -- seed code contributed by Samsung Electronics, is a new project that concentrates on driving and enabling a robust, reliable, and intelligent home edge computing framework, platform and ecosystem running on a variety of devices in our daily lives.
• Open Glossary of Edge Computing -- provides a concise collection of terms related to the field of edge computing.
• Project EVE (Edge Virtualization Engine) -- contributed by ZEDEDA, will create an open and agnostic standard edge architecture that accommodates complex and diverse on- and off-prem hardware, network and application selections.

Read More

Alibaba's cloud division hits US$1.151 billion in quarterly revenue

Alibaba Group reported that its cloud computing division generated revenue of RMB 7.726 billion (US$1.151 billion) during the March quarter, up 76% over the same period last year. Adjusted EBITA margin for the division was (2%). Adjusted EBITA was a loss of RMB 164 million (US$24 million).

The company said growth in cloud computing was primarily driven by an increase in average spending per customer.

Cloud computing now represents 8% of Alibaba Group's overall revenues.

For all of 2019, Alibaba Group reported an 84% growth in revenue for cloud computing for a total of RMB 24.702 billion (US$3.681 billion), with an Adjusted EBITA Margin of (5%).

https://www.alibabagroup.com/en/ir/presentations/pre190515.pdf

Read More

IDC: Worldwide semiconductor revenue to dip 7.2% in 2019

International Data Corporation (IDC) is predicting that worldwide semiconductor revenue will decline to $440 billion in 2019, down 7.2% from $474 billion in 2018. This follows three consecutive years of growth, with year-over-year growth of 13.2% in 2018.

Other key findings from IDC's Semiconductor Application Forecaster (excluding memory) include:

• While the computing industry experienced strong growth in 2017 and 2018, the SAF forecasts semiconductor revenue for the computing industry segment to decline 5.1% this year but will show a positive CAGR of 1.3% for the 2018-2023 forecast period. Two bright spots for the computing segment are x86 servers and SSDs, growing with an 11.3% and 9.8% CAGR respectively for 2018-2023.
• Semiconductor revenue for the mobile wireless communications segment will grow 1.8% year over year this year with a CAGR of 4.8% for 2018-2023. Semiconductor revenue for 4G mobile phones will experience a slowdown as 5G phones begin to ramp up in 2020, becoming mainstream by the middle of the next decade. RF subsystem in mobile devices will continue to drive the majority of the revenue growth as the subsystem continues to support more complexity, additional antennas, and the increase in bands on every phone.
• The consumer semiconductor segment will grow at a 6.4% CAGR for 2018-2023 as consumer IoT devices and home automation continue to gain traction and scale. Connected devices will continue to drive more sensors and processing at the edge.

"The current market downturn is being driven by a broad weakness in demand specifically centered in China and an ingestion of excess inventories in some of the major markets including automotive, mobile phones, and cloud infrastructure," said Mario Morales, program vice president, Semiconductors at IDC. "We expect the market to bottom by end of the third quarter this year as we work through inventories and demand begins to gradually return. Cloud infrastructure investment, 5G mobile devices, WiFi 6 adoption, Smart NICs, automotive sensors, powertrain technologies, AI training accelerators, and edge inference SoCs will be instrumental in our growth expectations for 2020 and beyond."

https://www.idc.com/getdoc.jsp?containerId=prUS45075919

Read More

MediaTek completes standalone 5G call on 2.6GHz with Ericsson

Ericsson and MediaTek completed a 5G standalone end-to-end call on the 2.6GHz band based on 3GPP’s 5G December 2018 specifications.

The test was completed in April in a lab in Ottawa, Canada, connected a MediaTek chipset with an Ericsson Radio System radio AIR 6488 5G using 5G NR commercial software and dual-mode 5G Cloud Core solution. The call was fully compliant with 3GPP’s Release 15 specifications for 5G from December 2018, providing maturity and better support for 5G SA commercial live network launches.

Per Narvinger, Head of Product Area Networks, Ericsson, says: “We continue to promote interoperability so we can build a strong 5G ecosystem, and have reached an important milestone with MediaTek. As non-standalone 5G is maturing, we are also paving the way for standalone 5G to deliver on the full promises of 5G.”

Read More

Clearfield expands its operations and R&D in North America

Clearfield announced the expansion of its manufacturing warehouse space and R&D facilities to keep up with increasing demand for its products created by wireless and FTTx roll outs.

This growth takes place at the company’s headquarters in Minneapolis and its manufacturing facility in Tijuana, Mexico.

“We’re reaching the tipping point for fiber-based services where the commercial and market opportunities for both the residential and business markets cannot tolerate delay,” said Cheri Beranek, Clearfield president and CEO. “Network operators need products and partners that can help them lower the operational and capital costs of deploying fiber and Clearfield is committed to be that partner as our recent expansions demonstrate.”

http://www.SeeClearfield.com

Read More

Arista's 7800R switches deliver 400G scalability for cloud networks

Arista Networks introduced its new 7800R3 Series switches boasting 36 400G ports per line card, a 4X increase compared to prior modular systems, to address the largest cloud data center routing requirements.

The rollout includes the new Arista 7800R family for 400G cloud networks and the next generation of the Arista 7500R, 7280R Series. All R3-Series feature the proven VoQ deep buffer architecture, with support for 400G, increased route scale and new telemetry functions.

The 7800R3 Series is initially available in 4 and 8 slot modular chassis, with up to 576 ports of 400G or 460Tbps of capacity for the largest scale environments, with a choice of both 100G and 400G modules with optional MACsec for secure interconnect across data centers. The 7800R Series support Segment Routing, MLAG, ECMP, EVPN and VXLAN technologies.

Arista 7800R3 Series Universal Spine 

• Non-blocking 460Tbps of system capacity
• High density 10/25/40/50/100/400G Ethernet
• Scalable to 576 wire speed 400G ports
• Ultra deep buffers up to 24GB per line card
• Class-leading latency of 3.5usec
• 14.4Tbps of fabric capacity per line card
• Virtual Output Queues per port and CoS to eliminate head of line blocking

Arista 7500R3 Series Universal Spine

Enhancements to the 7500R3 Series deliver density and performance improvements with investment protection. The 7280R3 Series offers up to 48 400G ports that can be split into up to 192 100G ports.

• Non-blocking 230Tbps of system capacity
• High density 10/25/40/50/100/400G Ethernet
• 288 wire speed 400G ports
• Ultra deep buffers up to 16GB per line card
• Class-leading latency of 3.5usec
• 9.6Tbps of fabric capacity per line card
• Virtual Output Queues per port and CoS to eliminate head of line blocking

Arista is also supporting Inband Network Telemetry (INT), IPFIX and Network Address Translation (NAT).

• 7280PR3-48 and 7280PR3-24 offering 48 400G ports in 2U and 24 400G ports in 1U
• 7280CR3-96, offering 96 100G ports in 2U and
• 7280CR3-32P4, offering 4 400G ports plus 32 100G ports for space efficient Spines

All new platforms are available with 400G-OSFP or 400G-QSFP-DD configurations.

The new R3 Series products are shipping in Q3 2019.

http://www.arista.com

Read More

Samsung charts progress from 10nm to 3mm Gate-All-Around

Samsung Electronics is making rapid progress in 3nm Gate-All-Around (GAA) process technology, which could see first tape out in 2021 and mass market production as early as 2022.

Compared to 7nm technology, Samsung’s 3GAE process aims to deliver a 45% reduction in chip area with 50% percent lower power consumption, and 35% higher performance, potentially benefiting applications as diverse as mobile, network, automotive, Artificial Intelligence (AI) and IoT.   Samsung's GAA MBCFET (Multi-Bridge-Channel FET) uses a nanosheet architecture, enabling greater current per stack. WhileFinFET structures must modulate the number of fins in a discrete way, MBCFET™provides greater design flexibility by controlling the nanosheet width.

At Samsung Foundry Forum event in Santa Clara California, company executives outlined the fabrication roadmap from today's 10nm down to 3nm. Some highlights:

• 14/10nm - these are in high volume manufacturing. These will remain long-lasting technologies into the future
• 8nm - the most advanced non-EUV technology
• 7nm FinFET - currently under mass production for mobile applications. The first tape out was in 2018. IP re-use is supported.
• 6nm FinFET -- mass production of 6nm process devices in the second half of 2019
• 5nm FinFET - the product design of Samsung’s 5nm FinFET process, which was developed in April, is expected to be completed in the second half of this year and go under mass production in the first half of 2020
• 4nm FinFET - will represent the maximum scaling of the 7nm family, and development will be completed later this year - 
• 3nm Gate-All-Around (GAA) process development is on track and will leverage MBCFET (Multi-Bridge-Channel FET) based on nanosheet technology. A Process Design Kit (PDK) version 0.1 for 3GAE was released in April. This will be the future beyond FinFET.

“We stand at the verge of the Fourth Industrial Revolution, a new era of high-performance computing and connectivity that will advance the daily lives of everyone on the planet,” said Dr. ES Jung, President and head of Foundry Business at Samsung Electronics. “Samsung Electronics fully understands that achieving powerful and reliable silicon solutions requires not only the most advanced manufacturing and packaging processes as well as design solutions, but also collaborative foundry-customer relationships grounded on trust and shared vision. This year’s Foundry Forum is filled with compelling evidence of our commitment to progress in all those areas, and we’re honored to host and converse with our industry’s best and brightest,” Dr. Jung added.

Read More

Vodafone UK to launch 5G on 3 July 2019

Vodafone announced plans to activate its commercial 5G network for both consumers and business customers in seven cities across the UK on 3 July 2019. Launch cities are Birmingham, Bristol, Cardiff, Glasgow, Manchester, Liverpool and London.

Vodafone's 5G pricing will be the same as 4G for both consumers and business customers.

Vodafone expects to launch 5G roaming in the UK, Germany, Italy and Spain over the summer.
Vodafone UK CEO Nick Jeffery said: “We started our 5G journey more than three years ago. We led the way in setting 5G standards to ensure phones and networks work well together. We upgraded our masts to be able to take 5G without disruption. And we were the first UK company to test 5G over our all-fibre core fixed and mobile network.

UK operators: Huawei ban would bring heavy cost

Saturday, April 06, 2019  UK  

A restriction placed on Huawei in the telecom supply chain could delay a full 5G launch by between 18 and 24 months and cost the UK economy between £4.5bn and £6.8bn, according to a study published by Mobile UK, which is the trade association for the UK’s mobile network operators -  EE, O2, Three and Vodafone. The study argues that a delay to 5G rollout while operators make alternative procurement arrangements with other suppliers may seriously...

READ MORE

Read More

Huawei hosts partner summit in London

Huawei is willing to sign a "no spying" agreement with the government of the UK to appease critics as major carriers continue their 5G rollouts.

Speaking at the Huawei UK Partner Summit 2019 in London, Dr. Liang Hua, Chairman of Huawei Board, said his company is increasing its investments in the nation, including opening a new training centre in Birmingham to train engineers on the use of 5G technology and solutions. The centre will have the capacity to train more than 500 engineers a year and is due to open in June.

"We are in a leading position for 5G. We participated in the UK government's 5G trials and are ready to support our customers' commercial 5G launches in the UK. We are supporting the national rollout of Fibre-To-The-Premises (FTTP) technology in the country. We also have competitive and innovative solutions for connecting hard-to-reach areas," stated Dr. Liang.

https://www.huawei.com/en/press-events/news/2019/5/uk-partners-18years-success-working-huawei

Read More

SiTime ships MEMS Super-TCXOs for 5G radio synchronization

SiTime announced volume production of its Elite Platform of temperature-compensated oscillators (TCXOs) that provide high stability and dynamic performance at 105°C for IEEE 1588-based synchronization in 5G/4G+ radios and enable wireless service providers to begin their network overhaul.

SiTime's Elite Super-TCXOs leverage its unique DualMEMS temperature sensing and TurboCompensation technologies. The SiT5356/7 MEMS Super-TCXOs deliver dynamic performance for timing stability in the presence of environmental stressors due to air flow, temperature changes, vibration, shock, and electromagnetic interference. The SiT5356/7 can be factory-programmed to many combinations of frequency, stability, voltage, and pull range. This programmability enables designers to optimize the clock configuration while significantly reducing the lead-time and customization costs associated with quartz TCXOs where each frequency is custom built. The device also integrates multiple on-chip regulators to filter power supply noise, eliminating the need for a dedicated external LDO.

“5G is expected to revolutionize the data economy but first it is re-writing the rules for wireless network deployment,” said Piyush Sevalia, executive vice president of marketing at SiTime. “5G radios will be deployed in outdoor environments – on lamp posts, buildings, traffic lights – with exposure to heat and rapid temperature changes that can cause loss of radio synchronization, which can disrupt services like advanced driver assistance systems and telemedicine. Unlike other timing vendors, SiTime takes a systems approach to solve these problems. We optimize our SiT5356/7 Super-TCXO system of MEMS, analog, advanced packaging and temperature compensation to deliver industry-leading performance of ±100 ppb stability and ±1 ppb/°C frequency slope (ΔF/ΔT) over -40°C to 105°C. We believe that radios with SiTime’s Super-TCXOs will minimize disruptions to 5G/4G+ services and ensure a better user experience.”

https://www.sitime.com/

Read More