IF / News

Chipsets

Field programmable gate array (FPGA) market size was valued at USD5.27B in 2014 and is expected to grow at a CAGR of 8.4% from 2015 to 2022; according to Global Market Insights. Consumer electronics application was responsible for revenue of USD650M in 2014 and is predicted to grow at 8.9% CAGR from 2015 to 2022. Rising prominence of smart devices such as mobile phones, tablets and MP3 players are the major growth drivers. (Green Mountain Outlook, Laoyaoba)

Qualcomm is the latest company to proclaim that 5G will transform the way we live life and do business, after commissioning a study that predicts that the 5G value chain will generate up to USD3.5T in revenue in 2035, and create up to 22M jobs worldwide by then. (Laoyaoba, RCT Wireless, Light Reading, Qualcomm, report, report[cn])

Tim Leland, vice president of product management at Qualcomm indicates that there are plenty of obstacles to extended reality at present and urged the industry to work collectively to bring the future into focus faster. He is presenting what they are calling “extended reality” (XR), an umbrella term to encapsulate VR, AR, and MR. (VentureBeat, press, Atman360)

Touch Display

Head-up displays (HUDs), navigation information reflected on windshield glass to exempt drivers from watching screens of navigation devices for driving safety, have been increasingly adopted for high-end automobile models by Japan- and Germany-based car makers and there is expected to be large potential demand for such devices, according to Digitimes Research. (Digitimes, press)

Royale will finish the construction of the new 6^th generation flexible OLED line and start commercial production in 2017. The production line will have a monthly capacity of 500K glass substrates. (iTer News, OfWeek, NBD)

Japan Display Inc (JDI) is considering a deeper restructuring than it first announced, including seeking outside financial help, as its late entry into OLED technology has caused the loss of business with Apple. (Laoyaoba, US News, Reuters, Japan Times)

Japan Display Inc (JDI) is considering a deeper restructuring than it first announced, including seeking outside financial help, as its late entry into OLED technology has caused the loss of business with Apple. Sharp, a unit of Hon Hai Precision Industry, has expressed interest in a tie-up. (Laoyaoba, Digitimes, Japan Times)

Samsung Display is expected to start mass production of OLED panels for Apple’s  iPhone 8 later Jun 2017. Samsung is likely going to ship more than 10M screens every month. Apple is believed to have ordered 80M screens in 2017 alone.  (CN Beta, Softpedia, Sam Mobile, The Investor)

Camera

SK Hynix reportedly prepares to use the vertical thin poly-Si channel (VTPC) technology of 3D NAND on its next generation CIS. That technology can improve backside illumination CIS’s dark current issue, and also increase high density resolution. (Laoyaoba, Digitimes)

Smartphones

Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s government has reportedly asked Apple to lay out details of the money it plans to pump into the country and the potential number of jobs the investment will create. (CN Beta, Economic Times, Business Today, Mobile World Live, Business Insider)

Tencent has reportedly filed pre-indictment suit against OPPO, requesting the court to order OPPO to stop interfering Tencent’s “housekeeper application” infringement, and also order one of the Wuhan’s retailers stop selling OPPO phones. (Sohu, Laoyaoba)

Samsung Galaxy J3, J5 and J7 2017 variants are announced: J3 – 5” HD TFT display, Samsung Exynos 7570 processor, 13MP + 5MP cameras, 2GB RAM, 16GB storage, 2400mAh battery. J5 – 5.2” HD Super AMOLED display, Samsung Exynos 7870 processor, 13MP + 13MP cameras, 2GB RAM, 16GB storage, 3000mAh battery. J7 – 5.5” FHD Super AMOLED display, Samsung Exynos 7870 processor, 13MP + 13MP cameras, 3GB RAM, 16GB storage, 3600mAh battery.  (GizChina, GSM Arena, Phone Arena, Android Headlines)

Huawei Y7 Prime is announced – 5.5” HD IPS LCD display, Qualcomm Snapdragon 435 processor, 12MP + 8MP cameras, 3GB RAM, 32GB storage, Android 7.0, fingerprint sensor, USB Type-C, 4000mAh battery, HKD1800. (Android Headlines, Phone Radar)

PCs / Tablets

Fujitsu President Tatsuya Tanaka said that the company expects to reach an agreement “soon” on integrating its personal computer business with Lenovo Group. (CN Beta, Reuters, The Register)

Huawei Matebook D, E (2-in-1) and X are officially launched in China: D – 15.6” 1080p display, Intel Core i5 / i7 processor, 4 / 8 / 16GB RAM, 256GB SSD / 1TB HDD, from CNY4988. E – 12” 2K display, Intel Core i5 / m3 processor, 4 / 8GB RAM, 128 / 256GB SSD, from CNY4988. X – 13” display, Intel Core i5 / i7 processor, 4 / 8GB RAM, 256 / 512GB SSD, 41Wh battery, from CNY6988. (Gizmo China, My Drivers, My Drivers, My Drivers, Automachi, Sohu)

Huawei MediaPad M3 Lite is announced – 8” / 10” 1920×1200 IPS LCD display, Qualcomm Snapdragon 435 MSM8940 processor, 8MP + 8MP cameras, 3 / 4GB RAM, 32 / 64GB storage, fingerprint sensor, 4800 / 6600mAh battery, from CNY1399. (CN Beta, NDTV, Android Community)

Wearables

Massless debuts its new virtual reality pen, which can both write in virtual reality spaces and be pointed precisely at VR objects, meaning it can be incredibly useful for a number of applications including civil and mechanical engineering and animation. (Android Headlines,  VentureBeat, Sina, Sohu)

According to Digi-Capital, mobile AR hardware from Apple, Samsung, Huawei and others could deliver an installed base over 400M users by 2021, Facebook, Apple, Tencent, Snap and others could drive a mobile AR software user base in the hundreds of millions next year, and billions by 2021. Mobile AR software platforms could deliver over 4 times the number of users of dedicated mobile AR hardware. (VentureBeat, Digi-Capital, press, Toutiao, PC Games)

ASUS VivoBaby is a baby-monitoring system that tracks an infant’s skin temperature, heart rate and abdominal movements. It can be programmed to automatically alert parents to any sudden changes to the baby’s condition via the Vivobaby app.  (TechNews, PC World, ASUS)

Internet of Things

Lyft will work with driverless software company NuTonomy to develop fleets of driverless vehicles. The two will focus not just on the robot sensor system but on routing, booking, and on how the system “interacts and communicates with the rider.” (CN Beta, The Verge, LA Times, TechCrunch)

Terry Guo, the chairman of Hon Hai Precision indicates that the assembly of large quantity of production by robotics still needs 5~10 years to realize; and in about 30 years, pure labor, heavy physical or dirty works can be done by automated or robotics. (Focus Taiwan, Digitimes, Laoyaoba, Taipei Times)

The expansion of artificial intelligence (AI)-enabled services from companies including Google, Amazon, Apple, Microsoft and Samsung Electronics is expected to drive growth of the AI-powered digital assistants market, which is on track to exceed 4B consumer devices by the end of 2017, according to IHS Markit. The device base will grow to more than 7B by 2020 as digital assistants become common across all consumer electronics categories. (IHS, press, P5W)

Samsung Electronics is rumored to be preparing a home audio device likely to be equipped with its own voice assistant Bixby. Samsung has been granted design patents for a new standalone audio device at a time when the tech giant is looking to expand Bixby’s applications.  (BGR, Korea Herald, Android Headlines, Sohu)