IF / News

Chipsets

Samsung Electronics is making great strides in claiming the No. 1 spot in system semiconductors in 2030. Samsung Electronics has been cooperating with its competitors at home and abroad in the field of system semiconductors. (Laoyaoba, Business Korea)

Intel, in partnership with Accenture and Sulubaaï Environmental Foundation, a Philippine-based nonprofit dedicated to protecting Palawan’s natural resources — detailed Project CORaiL, an AI-powered platform that monitors and analyzes the resiliency of coral reefs. Since its launch in May 2019, it has collected 40,000 images of the reef surrounding Pangatalan Island, which researchers have leveraged to gauge reef health in real time. (CN Beta, VentureBeat, Forbes, Accenture, Intel)

Touch Display

EverDisplay (EDO) has recently started to produce AMOLED displays for tablets and laptops. The first rigid AMOLEDs are a 11.5” 1728×2368 and 15.6” 3840×2160 4K rigid displays for Huawei’s tablets and laptops. The first flexible ones are a 12.8” 1888×1728 panel for tablet-like devices and a 15.6” 3840×2160 4K flexible AMOLED for laptops. (OLED-Info, EE World)

Visionox’s subsidiary Ruinuo Optoelectronics OLED production is put into operation, with a total investment of CNY1.42B an area of 200 acres. It mainly builds 10 flexible electronic component production lines, covering the development, production, assembly and sales of flexible electronic devices. When it is completed, it can produce 2.4Mm² of flexible electronic components annually, with an estimated annual sales of CNY2.4B and profits of CNY570M. (51Touch, Laoyaoba, Sigmaintell, ChinaFPD)

Samsung is allegedly in talks from BOE for 6.67” flexible OLED screens for at least one Galaxy S21 model. Samsung Galaxy A91 is too rumored to feature a 6.67” Full HD+ OLED panel by BOE, with the panel expected to have an Infinity-U cutout for the selfie camera. Samsung Display’s market share is expected to drop from 80% in 4Q19 to 69% in 4Q20. (Sam Mobile, ZDNet, Phone Arena)

Merck has announced that it has acquired the OLED patent portfolio for display applications from Konica Minolta. The acquired portfolio comprises over 700 patent families. The acquired IP will be used to “further enhance Merck’s position as key supplier of OLED materials”. (OLED-Info, Digitimes, Merck, Sina)

Young Optics expects shipments for pico-projection optical modules to double sequentially in 2Q20, as local governments in China are ending lockdowns along with easing of the coronavirus pandemic. (Digitimes, Digitimes, UDN)

Camera

Samsung seems to be working on its first smartphone with a pop-up camera. The smartphone is believed belongs to Galaxy A series at the mid-range segment. (Engadget, Pigtou, GSM Arena, Money Control, MSN, Sina)

Memory

ChangXin Memory Technologies (CXMT) has signed a patent license agreement with Rambus, according to the China-based DRAM maker. (Digitimes, press, Electronics Weekly, Digitimes, TechWeb)

Sensory

MIT CSAIL has developed a control method, Conduct-A-Bot, which uses muscle sensors and motion detection for more ‘natural’ robot control. Algorithms detect gestures using both user’s movement as well as the activity in biceps, forearms and triceps. User can wave hand, clench fist or even tense arm to steer the bot. (Engadget, MIT)

Amazon proposes an AI-driven approach to multiple-source localization, or the problem of estimating a sound’s location using microphone audio. In the experiments involving real and simulated data (the former from the AV16.3 corpus) and up to three simultaneously active sound sources, the proposed approach has shown an improvement of nearly 15% compared with a state-of-the-art signal-processing model. (VentureBeat, Amazon)

Biometrics

Israel’s Corsight AI, which has developed technology to recognize faces concealed by masks, goggles and plastic shields, raised USD5M from Awz Ventures, a Canadian fund focused on intelligence and security technologies. The company will use the funds to market the platform and to continue development. (CN Beta, Leiphone, PYMNTS, Reuters)

Hanwang, China’s facial-recognition company, says its technology has reached 95% accuracy in identifying mask wearers. The company even claims that it is more accurate in real life, where its cameras take multiple photos of a person if the first attempt to identify them fails. Hanwang’s system works for masked faces by trying to guess what all the faces in its existing database of photographs would look like if they were masked. (FT Chinese, Epoch Times, Financial Times, Reuters)

Apple’s certain high-end models of the iPhone 12 will revert to Touch ID in 2020 fall. Touch panel display partner GIS and assembly partner Qualcomm are allegedly working together with OLED display firm BOE on incorporating ultrasonic fingerprint recognition technology into its displays. (CN Beta, UDN, Apple Insider, Tech Post)

Proxy, creator of digital identities for the physical world, has announced that it has acquired Motiv, maker of smart ring, to bring digital identity signals to wearables for the first time and revolutionize the way people use technology to interact with the world around them. (TechCrunch, SlashGear, Business Insider)

Egis Technology (EgisTec) has made inroads into China’s fingerprint sensor market, with its products now finding their way into the supply chain of Huawei’s 5G smartphones, including Honor 30 Pro / Pro+, and nova 7 Pro models. (Digitimes, CNYES)

Battery

Qualcomm has introduced Qualcomm Quick Charge 3+ Technology, which will be available first on Qualcomm Snapdragon 765 & Snapdragon 765G, followed by other new Snapdragon platforms across tiers in 2020. It has fast Charging and better efficiency: 0%-50% in 15 minutes, 35% faster and 9 degrees Celsius cooler comparing to previous generations. (Android Central, Qualcomm)

Connectivity

India’s Bharti Airtel has awarded a USD1B contract to Nokia to expand and modernize its 4G network in 9 circles, including rural areas, where Nokia has already provided equipment to the telecom operator. (Gizmo China, Economic Times, IT Home, Sohu)

Phone

Global smartphone shipments are expected to contract by 15% on year to 1.15B units in 2020, as major brands including Samsung, Huawei and Apple all have slashed their shipment targets for the year in the wake of coronavirus pandemic, according to the latest estimate of Digitimes Research. (Digitimes, Digitimes, press, CN Beta, Mac Rumors)

India’s smartphone market posted excellent results in 1Q20, with shipments up 12% to 33.5M units, despite the impact of a nationwide lockdown in the final week of Mar 2020, due to the coronavirus. Leading vendor Xiaomi achieved a market share of 30.6%, shipping 10.3M smartphones in the quarter. vivo grew shipments by close to 50%, overtaking Samsung for the first time to take second place. (Phone Arena, Canalys, press, Laoyaoba)

Xiaomi Mi 10 Youth 5G is official – 6.57” 1080×2400 FHD+ Super AMOLED, Qualcomm Snapdragon 765G, rear quad 48MP-periscope 8MP telephoto OIS (5x optical zoom, 50x hybrid zoom)-8MP ultrawide-2MP macro + front 16MP, 6+64 / 6+128 / 8+128 / 8+256GB, Android 10.0, under-display fingerprint, 4160mAh 22.5W, CNY2099 (USD300) / CNY2299 (USD324) / CNY2499 (USD324) / CNY2799 (USD400). (GSM Arena, Mi.com, CN Beta)

Samsung Galaxy J2 Core (2020) is launched in India – 5” 540×960 qHD TFT, Samsung Exynos 7570 Quad, rear 8MP + front 5MP, 1+16GB, Android 8.0 (Go Edition), no fingerprint scanner, 2600mAh, INR6,299 (USD83). (GSM Arena, Samsung)

PC Tablet

According to IDC, the online sales of tablets increased by nearly 100% year-on-year in Feb 2020, and maintained a substantial increase of nearly 50% in Mar 2020. In addition to the obvious increase in sales of ordinary tablets, educational tablets have also grown vigorously. In 2019, the overall shipment of the education tablet market is about 4M units, and it is expected that the shipment will be close to 4.4M units in 2020, and will reach 4.7M units in 2021. The mainstream brands of educational tablets include BBK, Read Boy, You Xue Pai, Subor, HJX, iFlytek, etc. (CN Beta, IDC, press)

Robotics

DJI Mavic Air 2 is announced, featuring a 48MP 1/2” camera sensor that captures 12MP pixel binned images for more details and sharpness. The drone is also capable of recording 4K videos at 60fps, 8K Hyperlapse videos, HDR video, and slow-mo videos at 120fps or 240fps at 1080p resolution. Apart from a 3-axis gimbal, Mavic Air 2 is also using EIS while recording videos. The regular Mavic Air 2 package is priced at USD799. (Pocket-Lint, Gizmo China, Neowin, DJI, IT Home)