Monthly Archives: June 2011

Femtocells: The Next Billion Dollar Market

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In a previous blog, I discussed some information from a Cisco report on the massive growth in mobile data and its impact on the economics of the business for mobile network operators.  Here will we explore its ramifications on the build out of future network topologies.  As Lisa Su, SVP & GM, Networking and Multimedia Group at Freescale Semiconductor, discussed at the recent April IDC Smart Technology Conference in San Francisco, conventional approaches of building more macrocells by mobile network operators (MNO) will not cost-effectively meet the mobile data growth requirements.  The likely answer is femtocells.

According to Infonetics in their first quarter (1Q11) 2G/3G/4G Femtocell Equipment Market Share and Forecast report, the total global revenue from femtocells used in consumer, enterprise, rural and public spaces grew 45% during the past 4 quarters (from 1Q10 to 1Q11).  Infonetics expects the global femtocell market to grow 31% in 2011 over 2010 to $300 million and by 2015 to be a multibillion dollar market.

So what is a femtocell and why does it matter?

More complex heterogeneous network topologies will need to be created in order to meet the specific demands of the mobile data community.  Yes, of course, macrocells will remain the main guts of any service provider’s mobile network.  However, given their high cost and NIMBY (not-in-my-backyard) considerations, other tailored approaches, such as enterprise and residential femtocells, will be required.

Femtocells are portable/low-power mobile phone base stations that use a standard internet connection to link with the MNO’s network.  They provide great coverage over a limited area to a single MNO and are often integrated with other technologies, such as DSL modem, WIFI connectivity, etc.  In addition to the restriction to a single network, you can restrict which phones can use the network to provide a private femtocell for a residence or provide an open femtocell for an event.

For instance, when a major technology conference hits a convention center, larger femtocells can be rolled up for a temporary increase in coverage and bandwidth to handle the peak load requirements of all those additional smartphones, tablets and temporary hotspot connections.   Similarly, enterprises using femtocell technologies, can potentially offer better coverage and reception for their employees.  Service industries, such as hotels and multi-unit dwellings, can do the same for their customers.  Finally, individual femtocells can be used to provide coverage for households that have bad or non-existent coverage.

So what does this mean for embedded systems? 

More complex networks will require more intelligent network devices.  Consequently, developers of these solutions will need to design more sophisticated on-board software and management, most of which is best executed on Spansion NOR flash.

Since these systems are more numerous and widespread, they need to be more reliable and last longer.   Once in place, a reliable long-lasting supply of NOR Flash memory is critical.  MNOs cannot afford to have increased levels of service events or frequent technology refreshes due to obsolesces of components.

In short, the future offers incredible promise for the mobile data consumers. Feeding their voracious appetite for data and video can be a profitable endeavor if it is scaled intelligently.  Otherwise, it could be very painful for the MNO’s bottom line.

Creating Electronics Innovation By Licensing IP and Technology

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In my journeys around the world, meeting with the leading providers of the most advanced electronics, I walk away inspired and challenged to find ways we can enable more innovation in their markets. I challenge all of my Spansion colleagues on how we can be a strategic partner to help customers innovate more efficiently and faster – to make a difference in the electronics that touch all of our lives at home, at work, on the go.

Innovation may mean different things to different people – the coolest gadget,  solving new design challenges, more jobs, industry recognition and awards.  For me, it means leveraging our extensive IP portfolio of more than 2,000 patents on everything from technology, know-how, process methodology and design expertise, to create new markets and new classes of products that solve our customers’ needs and substantially enhance the lives of consumers.

Today we reached a significant milestone in Spansion’s history.  After two and half years of litigation, we reached an agreement with Samsung to resolve our differences and settle all ongoing patents. I am extremely proud of our engineers who have worked diligently over the years on developing Spansion’s patent portfolio.   Protecting and monetizing our IP is core to Spansion’s growth strategy.

This agreement today validates the strength of our IP portfolio and demonstrates our employees’ determination and smart innovation – two important values of Spansion.  We have a strong foundation to build from and we plan to expand our licensing business for both our IP and technology.

Spansion is on a path to enable innovation in next generation electronics. I look forward to innovating with our customers and the industry.

Spansion’s Fab-Lite Manufacturing Strategy Gains More Weight

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Spansion put more weight behind its Fab-Lite manufacturing strategy by expanding our relationship with Semiconductor Manufacturing International Corporation (SMIC), China’s largest and most advanced semiconductor foundry.  We recently announced that we have extended our current foundry arrangement to expand the 65nm capacity and include the manufacture of Spansion’s 45nm NOR Flash memory.

So why Fab-Lite?

Spansion operates a model that utilizes efficient, low-cost internal manufacturing, augmented with production capacity at third party companies for legacy technology production, cost effective 300mm capacity expansion and advanced technology production capability.  Our Austin, TX facility is the core of this flexible manufacturing strategy.  We built our foundry network around the capabilities of the Austin fab  to include support for legacy and advanced processing nodes. FSET, in Aizu Wakamatsu is our partner for technologies older than 110nm and enables the product longevity Spansion customers require.  Texas Instruments, also in Aizu Wakamatsu, provides additional 110nm capacity that is shared with our Austin facility.  For more advanced nodes, SMIC provides 65nm (as well as Austin) and now 45nm NOR Flash production.

We can tune our product mix in Austin and leverage our network of foundry partners as needed to fulfill customer demand.  Yet, Spansion still maintains our internal manufacturing excellence, providing confidence that our new innovations will seamlessly transition from their prototype stage to full production.

Balancing Demands

Fab-Lite also helps Spansion continually balance the competing demands for its manufacturing facilities.  Due to the nature of the customer requirements in the embedded systems marketplace, Spansion product lines have a longer lifespan than you might find from other suppliers.

Spansion also announced that we met our commitment to move into production our 1 Gb and 512 Mb versions of the Spansion GL-S NOR Flash memory.  Meeting this commitment, along with our flexible fab strategy allows Spansion to deliver our lastest innovations in a timely manner, meeting our customers embedded system requirements.

Through our Fab-Lite manufacturing strategy, we can effectively satisfy the customer demand for the latest innovations, with the right quality, in production volumes.  This approach to manufacturing gives Spansion the capacity and capabilities it needs for the future with a structure that ensures a continual cost reduction path for our customers.

Apple’s iCloud Pushes Demand for LTE Deployments

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About 25 years ago, teens were demanding, “I want my MTV” and driving cable companies to enable more entertainment content. Fast forward to today, they are screaming, “I want my Justin Bieber” streamed to my wireless device. Leading edge companies are rolling out new Cloud services to meet the demand.  Now, the pressure is on the mobile network operators (MNO) to improve their infrastructure to enable the new wave of entertainment content.

This week at WWDC in San Francisco, Apple made its announcement of a new service called iCloud.  Utilizing resources at a massive 500,000 sq. ft. data center in North Carolina, iCloud provides a cloud-based music synchronization service for your OS X and, more importantly, iOS devices.  iCloud automatically downloads any new music purchase to all your devices over Wi-Fi — or over 3G if you choose.  Moreover, iCloud is replacing MobileMe as the synchronization of all the other data types on your phone, including photos, mail, calendars, contacts, etc.

iCloud is not alone in providing rich media via the cloud; Google and Amazon both have similar services.  Others services such as NetFlix, HBO to Go, etc. are not synchronizing rich media, but rather streaming them. The potential millions of iPhone iPad, Android and other users each wanting real-time downloads of music and video must be sending shivers down the spines of the operations and business people at AT&T, Verizon, Sprint, etc.

Enter 4G or LTE (Long-Term Evolution)

Just building more of the same 3G wireless networks will not meet the customer demand and most definitely is not financially viable. To profitably meet the upcoming bandwidth requirements of services like iCloud and other rich-media streaming solutions, MNOs must transition to LTE-based 4G technologies. So what is LTE?

Evolution is the keyword; it is the evolution from current GSM/WCDMA and CDMA networks to a new common standard that promises to be 2-5x more efficient in providing a better experience for end-users and better cost economics for MNOs.   It leverages two critical new techniques for access: Orthogonal Frequency Division Multiplex (OFDM) and Multiple Input Multiple Output (MIMO) antenna technologies.  OFDM can split the data into multiple narrowband subcarriers that handle a portion of the data at a lower bit rate and MIMO technology creates multiple paths between the device and the base station to increase the coverage due to better signal-to-noise ratios and higher user bandwidth.

More Sophistication Requires More Sophistication

Implementing LTE both at the base station as well as the mobile device is clearly challenging embedded systems designers. The complexity of delivering this new-sophisticated functionality requires increased sophistication from the embedded semiconductor solutions.

At Spansion, we are working with our partners to provide NOR Flash memory solutions to meet the needs of these LTE infrastructure systems. High reliability code and data storage is required for these state-of-the-art next-generation communications systems.  Spansion GL NOR Flash memory, with its wide density range, is perfectly suited for this advanced networking gear and helps ensure systems are up and running so users get quick access to content.