Electronics announcements have taken center stage at auto shows across the globe, and a record number of automakers attended CES this year where their latest revelations (e.g., Audi’s A3 and Kia’s Uvo) had everyone talking. In a sense, we are witnessing the birth of a new category of enthusiast – the auto-geek – who stands at this pivotal point where the technology and automotive industries intertwine.

Growing demand for interactive connectivity from auto-geeks and traditional consumers alike will accelerate progress in car infotainment and user interface (UI) systems while shaping the future of the auto industry.  Auto-makers who respond most quickly to this demand will be rewarded with competitive advantage, and in some cases, brand allegiance.

Technology’s role as a key product differentiator continues to be evident at the Chicago Auto Show, where automakers and tech innovators are currently gathered to showcase the latest and greatest.  This includes Continental Automotive demoing “Simplify your Drive,” a vehicle that allows the driver to personalize the driving experience. The motor, chassis and infotainment settings can be configured to fit any situation on the road.

While the ability to design a personalized driving experience is an exciting prospect, it also leads to the question:  What if a car could learn from its driver, anticipate needs and just do it for you? Maybe the question isn’t “what if?” but “when?”

Currently, flash memory serves as the backbone of most new display, safety, vision and control systems. Spansion GL parallel NOR Flash memory provides fast data access for increased interactivity, faster boot times and an enhanced user experience that increases passenger safety and brings the driving experience to life. Moving forward, the industry’s reliance on NOR Flash memory will become increasingly evident as the next wave of automotive technology transforms the driving experience. Imagine a car that can suggest a restaurant based on a driver’s habits or sense when they are tired by recognizing facial expressions and tone of voice.

Software-based infotainment systems and UI solutions are rapidly propelling the current wave of developments in automotive electronics, but perhaps the industry will need to explore other opportunities in order to take this technology to the next level. Specialized hardware may provide the increased speed and reliability needed to make the truly intelligent car a reality. In fact, I believe there is huge potential for telematics and UI advances to be driven largely by hardware innovation in the coming years. We’ve only scratched the surface of what’s possible, and I for one, can’t wait to see (and contribute to!) the next “car of the future.”

Even in challenging times, it is important for corporations to continue supporting corporate social responsibility (CSR) to build stronger communities, engage with customers and build stronger brands. A 2011 CR Global Best Practices study by Corporate Responsibility (CR) Magazine, the Corporate Responsibility Officer Association (CROA) and NYSE Euronext revealed more respondents are committed to corporate responsibility than in 2010 and a growing number of companies continue to implement programs.

I recently had the opportunity to present Spansion’s donation to the Sunnyvale School District to help fund their Beyond the Bell program. Beyond the Bell is a Winter Camp enrichment program that the Sunnyvale School District and the city of Sunnyvale created to keep students interested in education during winter break. Most camps, such as ones my son has attended in the past, focus on fun or sport activities.  Sunnyvale’s Beyond the Bell features classroom lessons in the morning at Columbia Middle School and hands-on learning experiences at various sites in Santa Clara County in the afternoon. The enrichment program is the only of its kind for public middle school students in the area. Beyond the Bell Winter Camp directly links activities such as golf and dining out to classroom lessons in vocabulary and math. Activities are designed to take education to the next level; for example, math is used to calculate the distance of a golf ball or to double a recipe.

Our customers around the world are increasingly asking about our CSR programs so we will be sharing more about what we are doing in the areas of community involvement, environment, health and safety, and developing innovative products that are energy efficient, easy to use and environmentally friendly.

Apps on Your Fridge by Samsung http://bit.ly/nZXCPo

According to the Zpryme Smart Grid: Smart Appliance Insights report, “from 2011 to 2015, the global household smart appliance market is projected to grow from $3.06 billion to $15.12 billion, respectively with a compound annual growth rate (CAGR) from 2011 to 2015 is projected to be 49.0 percent.” With a large market growing larger that fast, companies take immediate notice.  That was definitely evident by the myriad of announcements of smart appliances at the recent International Consumer Electronics Show in Las Vegas.

There is Smart and There is SMART

As discussed in a recent New York Times article “Not Quite Smart Enough”, smart appliances have a ways to go before they can be really “smart appliances”.  Andrew Martin warned us not to expect a Jetsons lifestyle anytime soon.  Well, let’s look at the types of smartness in today’s appliances and see if he is right.  Typically, you find smartness in four areas:

• Interaction with other appliances and the smart grid
• Interaction with owner’s smartphone as a remote management solution
• A centralized hub in the kitchen to information from the Internet
• An ability to track interesting information, such as food in the refrigerator

The low-hanging fruit is the first three items while the last one is the most difficult.  Integration into a smart meter (and consequently the smart grid) is probably the easiest and most non-invasive.  With additional information about energy consumption devices, you and your utility can better manage your overall energy consumption and manage the load.

The next level of smartness is to allow remote monitoring and access through your smartphone or tablet device. Your washer can tell you when your wash cycle is done and you can easily stop and start the dryer when leaving and returning to your home. No guarantees on wrinkle-less clothes though.  Now, if it could only separate the whites from the colors!

The smart refrigerator promises to be a hub of information from the Internet within the kitchen.  Internet radio solutions like Pandora and Spotify can be streamed and recipes, photos and weather can be displayed. The key question is how easy will it be to manage this additional source of information; will consumers go to their refrigerator as opposed to their tablet or smartphone?

The last level of smartness is the most difficult, but the killer application for smart appliances.  Smart appliances hold the possibility of being information databases about their primary activity.  For example, refrigerators would track the food inside.  Imagine being able to cross-reference a recipe with the contents of your refrigerator while standing in the supermarket.  Or by knowing the upcoming expiration dates, forever ending the science experiments that you are afraid to clean up that exist in the deep recesses of your refrigerator!

Unfortunately, today the information database approach requires significant human interaction – scanning the receipt or the individual bar codes. For someone with specific dietary needs, it may be a good solution, but for most people, we don’t want to work hard to understand our refrigerator. More automated solutions are needed.

The Value Needs to Exceed the Cost

Much of the discussion of smart appliances has been about the technology integration; however, the adoption will explode when the consumer benefit exceeds the cost, including acquisition cost, ease of interactivity, and reduced privacy risks.

Value-added software will be critical for consumers to pay an additional premium.  The increasing complexity of the software will drive more sophisticated memory requirements leading to more use of NOR flash at higher densities. The communications with the smart grid will drive more requirements for performance.

With your smart meter talking directly with your refrigerator, air-conditioning and washer/dryer, valuable data is leaving your home. This information is great to help manage their energy usage, but brings a host of privacy and security issues, particularly around personal information.  For example, will that gallon of Ben & Jerry’s Chunky Monkey ice cream eaten in the span of last week come back to bite you with higher health insurance payments?  Or will you simply be overwhelmed with coupons from Haagen Dazs trying to muscle in on the action?

Protecting your personal data will require Flash Memory that cannot be tampered with. NOR flash often contains the software that secures access to the content as well as the operating system and other middleware. Designers use the security features within the NOR flash such as permanent lockable region to protect against write or erase access by hackers and a One Time Programmable (OTP) region for sensitive data such as encryption keys and unique IDs.

Someday We Will Have the Jetsons

Unlike Andrew Martin’s assessment in the New York Times article referenced above, smart appliances do indeed have huge potential to change our lives for the better.  The technology exists or will shortly exist to solve many of the remaining challenges to smart appliance adoption and when the value outweighs the costs, adoption will soar.  Now, when can I get “Rosie the Robot” so she can make my bed in the morning?

The Goal is a fictional account of a plant manager, Alex, who is tasked with making his factory profitable and efficient.  After many starts and stops and a very interesting analysis of a Boy Scout hike featuring Herbie – the slowest scout, Alex comes to realize that the final throughput of the factory is determined by the rate of the slowest operation in the sequence (“the Herbie”).

You Have to Program the NOR Flash At Least Once

So what does this have to do with NOR Flash? NOR Flash, whether parallel or serial, will store software that runs an embedded system.  At some point in the manufacturing process, it will be programmed at least once if not multiple times and maybe more when the final product is put into service.  So the speed at which you can program the Flash memory is an important factor when selecting a device and ultimately contributes to the profitability of your products.  You need to optimize the programming step in the manufacturing process to ensure that it has sufficient capacity to be close to the required demand.

Notice that the flow is balanced with demand, not capacity.  If the programming step becomes the bottleneck in the manufacturing process, an hour lost there is an hour lost by the entire system.  It will be the place where valuable inventory builds up and, if the manufacturing line is not optimized, will cause excessive inventory in other locations of the factory until programmed chips can be completed.

3X Faster Programming Speeds

Programming speed is critical to address this concern. For example, Spansion® FL-S serial Flash memory and Spansion GL-S parallel Flash memory have a programming speed of 1.5Mbytes per sec. It is 3x faster than the closest competing devices in the industry.

With up to one third of the programming time of its competitors, the Spansion FL-S and GL-S Flash memories are much less likely to become “the Herbie” in the manufacturing process, can enhance the throughput in a balanced manufacturing environment and/or reduce the costs in the programming step by requiring less programming stations.

While pin count, performance and capacity may be on the top of your mind when selecting a NOR Flash product to put into your embedded system, don’t forget that the product needs to be built with profit in mind and faster programming speeds can also help reduce the indirect costs of making the product.

It is interesting to find myself working for another company that’s innovating in a way that will help boost our customer’s profitability.

Widespread Usage of Connected Embedded Devices

2011 provided the tipping point in the use of connected embedded devices. Tablets and smartphones have conditioned the consumer to expect instant-on, ready-access to their valuable data, including the Internet, email, social media and digital entertainment. An embedded device that is not connected to the Internet now feels as awkward as using a portable CD player.

The mobile consumer is driving the connectedness, but in 2012 we will see more of the “Internet of Everything,” where embedded systems interact automatically with other embedded systems. Wireless Sensor Networks gathering and transmitting valuable information, microelectromechanical systems (MEMS) creating interactions between electronics and the real world, and near field communication (NFC) enabling convenient short-range communication between electronic devices will increase the value of connected embedded devices and drive their requirements for non-volatile storage.

Increasingly Advanced Embedded Applications

This additional usage of connected devices will drive increasingly advanced embedded applications. Smart meter adoption combined with home automation will create enhanced requirements for flexible communication and stronger security techniques in those smart meter and home automation systems.

In the automotive marketplace, we are seeing even more control electronics for electric/hybrid powertrains (including battery management), powertrain applications (including engine, transmission, and emissions control), active safety systems, and driver assist systems (including blind-spot & lane-departure warning and parking assist).

As everyone struggles with providing better levels of healthcare with fewer resources, innovation in healthcare delivery approaches will continue to grow.  A December 2011 report on the UK Whole System Demonstrator Programme showed “that if used correctly telehealth can deliver a 15% reduction in A&E visits, a 20% reduction in emergency admissions, a 14% reduction in elective admissions, a 14% reduction in bed days and an 8% reduction in tariff costs. More strikingly they also demonstrate a 45% reduction in mortality rates.” With results like this, an increase in funding of telehealth solutions is almost a certainty.

These are just a couple of examples of the growing sophistication of embedded applications.  All of them create more complex software needing advances in current Flash technology.

Greater User Interface Interactivity

Users are also increasingly becoming discontent with interacting with embedded devices through only simple commands and pushing buttons; they want to interact using speech recognition and natural language processing.  The introduction of Siri by Apple in 2011 has highlighted the latency demand for this functionality.

Providing greater user interface interactivity leads to increased complexity for the embedded system and greater memory requirements.

Pressing a button is easy to understand.  When the button is pressed, the program responds. However, speech recognition brings a new level of variability to the inputs into the system, requiring more sophistication to interpret and respond correctly. The opportunity for innovation in this market will be big.

Increased Interest in Underlying Technologies of Non-Volatile Memory

Over the past 10 years, we have seen rapid growth in both NOR and NAND flash memory.  However, we are seeing some difficult technology issues to scale smaller than 32nm nodes.  Floating gate devices that store their charges in a floating gate isolated by insulators are having issues with smaller node sizes.  As the oxide surrounding the charge gets smaller and smaller, it is prone to leakage due to defects in the tunnel oxide.

Also, floating gate devices need a control gate to control the channel for the floating gate.   Accommodating the necessary performance characteristics of the control gate vis a vis the floating gate limits the scaling of floating gate for both NOR and NAND applications.  The techniques used to program the NOR and NAND flash also limit the ability to scale to more advanced nodes.

Since NAND applications have less programming requirements, i.e. page mode versus random operations, they can scale further than NOR devices.  However, both are being capped by the limitations of floating gate technologies.  We will see significant discussion about charge-trapped solutions as well as yet-to-be proven technologies such as MRAM, phase-change memory, and resistive RAM.

Accelerated Rollout of New Cellular Technologies

According to the LTE World Summit 2012, up to 139 long term evolution (LTE) networks will be deployed across 5 continents by operators in 2012.  This superfast mobile broadband will not only provide a large demand for NOR Flash memory for its own infrastructure, but also provide the communications infrastructure for many of the trends discussed above.

Also, according to Richard Webb, directing analyst for microwave and small cells at Infonetics Research, “femtocells will gain mass-scale traction in 2012, at which point the year-over-year unit growth rate will jump to over 100%, and will stay at triple-digit levels in 2013.”  Femtocells are portable/low-power mobile phone base stations that use a standard internet connection to link with the MNO’s network.  The combination of LTE, femtocells and Wi-Fi networks is going to lead to a persistent, superfast network connection for the widespread usage of connected, embedded devices.

Indeed, 2012 will be an exciting year for Flash memory and Spansion.  The importance and criticality of the information stored on our devices has never been higher and we are dedicated to providing the best solutions for our customers and their data.

Come join us for the ride!

Nothing new.

Seeing as 7 is a lucky number and no, I didn’t hit the big 777 jackpot on a Vegas slot machine. I thought I would give my list of 7 top phrases of CES 2012:

1) Smart – Smart appliances were prominent in both the Samsung and LG booths.  What is a smart appliance?  Internet-connected refrigerators and washer/dryers can provide social networking, access to Internet content, and remote monitoring and access.

Now, you could use your smartphones to check your mom’s best recipe against the contents of your Smart wifi-enabled refrigerator and get a text message telling you you’re out of meat. In the future, almost all home appliances will connect to the Internet, so networking and security will become key word of 2012. Spansion Flash will be critical to maintaining privacy of this information.

Smart is not new for digital TVs and is becoming a standard feature of all new TVs for access to over-the-top programming as well as the occasional Google search or Skype session. The coolest new function in TVs was the addition of built-in microphones for voice-control to avoid complex remotes.  Is this smarter? It certainly is better and leads to our second top phrase, voice recognition.

2) Voice Recognition – Speech-based controls have become the center of attention among consumer electronics and voice recognition is a key feature in many new products—HDTVs, tablets, smart phones, remote controls and cars.  Many big manufacturers including Sony, Panasonic and TCL presented voice-controlled products at 2012 CES.

3) Google TV – Marvell Semiconductor presented a reference design for Google TV IP STB, based on its Armada 1500 chip. While Marvell touts it as a 2^nd-generation Google TV, it appeared not significantly different from other smart TV interfaces, which integrate online services like YouTube and Netflix and live television. Marvel didn’t discuss any potential manufacturers of this 2^nd-generation Google TV. However, the market is wide open since few large TV manufacturers have yet announced any Google TV solutions.

4) Tablets and Smartphones – Tablets and smartphones galore…and not only from the tablet manufacturers, but also new products from chipset suppliers such as Intel, Nvidia and Qualcomm.  One new trend was different sizes.  Some smartphones were being unveiled in larger formats; for example, the new Samsung Galaxy Note is a whopping 5.3” screen by phone standards.  Meanwhile, some tablets were going the other way in smaller formats.  Toshiba was showcasing a 5.1” tablet.  Clearly, the lines will get more blurred over time.

5) Mirror-Less Cameras – Fujifilm announced their Mirror-Less X-Pro1 with APS-C 16M “X-Trans CMOS” sensor inside developed by Fujifilm. Fujiflim introduced more randomness in the color filter array to minimize both moiré and false colors, eliminating the need for an optical low-pass filter in the lens thereby unleashing full “unfiltered” lens performance. The system will ship in late February for around $2000, including body and a lens.

Canon has yet introduced a Mirror-Less camera, but they have ratcheted up the specs of their latest camera Canon PowerShot G1 X Digital Camera. It has new 14.3-megapixel CMOS sensor with wide dynamic range and shoots images at high speeds at full resolution (Up to 4.5 fps for 6 frames).

Reaction speed is becoming critical for these cameras and digital camera manufactures are evaluating using high performance NOR flash instead of NAND.

6) Android –“Android” was the word I heard most concerning the OS of these various tablets, smartphones and SmartTV. Several manufacturers including Motorola, Sony and Huawei demoed their products on Android 4.0.

For example, Motorola introduced its Droid RAZR MAAX and Droid 4 products running Android 4.0 Ice Cream Sandwich.  The RAZR MAAX has a 4.3-inch bright display with a 1.2 GHz TI OMAP4 processor, 3300mAh battery and fast 4G LTE.  Droid 4 is the latest in Motorola’s smartphones. The new Droid has a 4-inch qHD display and an 8-megapixel rear camera that can record 1080p Full HD video.

Chinese hardware giant Huawei introduced the world’s slimmest phone, the Ascend P1 S.  Its 4.3 inch touchscreen comes with Corning Gorilla Glass. Inside is a dual-core 1.5GHz TI OMAP 4460 Cortext-A9 processor running the Android 4.0 Ice Cream Sandwich making the phone, according to Huawei, the fastest and most compact smartphone in its segment.  Huawei leads us to our last phrase.

7) Chinese Manufacturers – There were many Chinese electronics manufacturers with large booth presences at 2012 CES, presenting their newest SmartTV, smartphone and tablet products.

I had talked with an interesting Chinese camera module maker – Sunny Optical Technology. While they only had a tiny booth, the camera module they showed ships 10 Million units every month! CTO Mark Xu indicated that they would be opening a new office at San Jose next month to support worldwide tier 1 tablet and smartphone customers.

I cannot help but believe that is this trend that will accelerate.  Spansion has an excellent presence in Asia Pacific, but our headquarter location in Silicon Valley is surely going to be an advantage to support these Chinese companies coming to US.

Nothing new.  No way! We are seeing improvements and innovations in almost every area of the consumer electronics business.  Higher performance, more sophisticated software, embedded connectivity, lower power consumption and increasing elegant user interfaces are all driving the new designs.  Spansion’s family of Flash products are ready to make 2012 and beyond a great year for all consumers and manufacturers.

And our most popular post?  Our June 28^th blog post on “Femtocells: The Next Billion Dollar Market.”  Below is the list of the Top 10 blog posts in order of popularity:

1 – Femtocells: The Next Billion Dollar Market

Apparently, our readers are interested in either potentially large growth markets or simply how they can get a better mobile phone signal in their home. Our blog on Femtocells certainly piqued their interest covering the potential market growth, why it is important to the telecommunications industry and its impact on embedded systems design.

2 – Leadership in a Downturn

In this blog our CEO, John Kispert, outlines Spansion’s plans on how to successfully manage through the semiconductor industry’s cyclicality during the current macroeconomic challenges. He outlines the company’s commitment to innovation, perseverance and teamwork to deliver successful solutions for our customers.

3 – The Future of NOR Flash Memory

It is not clear if it was “Samson,” the 66-million-year-old dinosaur skeleton – one of the largest Tyrannosaurus Rex specimens – or Cliff Zitlaw’s presentation on how NOR Flash’s current trajectories and operational characteristics will enable usage in future applications that made this the third most popular post, but one can only hope it was the latter.

4 – Spansion’s Fab-Lite Manufacturing Strategy Gains More Weight

This post discussed the increased commitment to our Fab-Lite manufacturing strategy with our expanded relationship with Semiconductor Manufacturing International Corporation (SMIC), China’s largest and most advanced semiconductor foundry.  We extended our current foundry arrangement to expand the 65nm capacity and include the manufacture of Spansion’s 45nm NOR Flash memory.

5 – Spansion Serial NOR Flash Memory Performance Demo on Freescale i.MX28 Platform

Sometimes you just want to get techy.  In this video blog entry, Bob France, the VP of Customer Engineering, shows the performance gains that can be achieved with our Serial NOR Flash Memory in quad I/O mode over standard single I/O operation using a Freescale i.MX28 evaluation platform.

6 – Surveillance Cameras and NOR Flash

This post coming from Spansion Japan looked at the trends towards the proliferation of surveillance cameras and their unique requirements on embedded memory. In short, it isn’t enough to simply capture the video; you need to better and quickly understand what is it.

7 – There’s More Than SSDs at Flash Memory Summit

In this real-time report from Flash Memory Summit in August, Stephan Rosner talked about an interesting panel conversation on the use of Flash Memory in embedded applications.  With participants from NXP, Xlinx and Spansion, there was an excellent discussion from all aspects of the design process.

8 – Apple’s iCloud Pushes Demand for LTE Deployments

This blog post is talking about the potential impact of Apple’s June announcement of iCloud on telecommunications infrastructures.  The blog explores LTE deployments and the challenges of meeting the requirements for rich-media content streaming.

9 – Migrating to Spansion GL-S NOR Flash Memory

Another video blog, but this one is by Doug Kearns, Manager, Spansion Field Application Engineering. His mini-tour de force reviews the new Spansion GL-S family of 3V NOR Flash memory and highlights key facts when using this industry-leading NOR Flash memory.  Definitely worth a look for its insights.

10 – Creating Electronics Innovation By Licensing IP and Technology

In this June blog, John Kispert announces our agreement with Samsung to successfully resolve all outstanding patent litigation. It outlines how the agreement validated the strength of our IP portfolio and demonstrates our employees’ determination and smart innovation – two important values of Spansion.

So there you have it…the most popular topics in 2011.  We had a lot of fun this year with Memory Matters and hope that you had fun, too.   Please enjoy your holiday season and let’s look forward to an exciting 2012.

This goes way beyond the old days of telephone consultations to videoconferencing, client-server systems with mobile tablets and in-home remote monitoring systems. The key is the convenience of the system and the reliability and fidelity of the data.                                                                                                                                                

Store and Forward, Interact, and Monitor

There are many different ways that the data can be used.  The most basic is to gather the data, store it and then forward it at a later date.  For example, that x-ray, CT or MRI may not be examined by a radiologist located onsite. Your information could be sent as far away as India for diagnosis. Advancements in Internet bandwidth and workstations have enabled images to be viewed pretty much anywhere in the world. This is a popular example of “store and forward” telemedicine.

“Take two aspirins and call me in the morning” is the classic joke about a phone conversation with a doctor. However, increasingly interactive telemedicine services are being used.  What is driving it? The rising incidents of chronic diseases such as diabetes and heart disease, along with a shortage in doctors, particularly in rural areas and within certain medical specialties.

Finally, telemedicine is critical for the remote monitoring of patients, either in a chronic or emergency situations. Access to real-time data from remote devices and expanding patient health data records is providing the potential for significant improvements in cost and effectiveness of medical treatment.  Interestingly, one is starting to see large projects for mobile health clinics that combine these features, particularly in places with large rural populations like China.

A Huge Market with Huge Technical Challenges

According to a 2009 report from Pike and Fischer, the market for telemedicine devices and services will be nearly $3.6 billion by 2014.  However, there are large technological challenges with building out the devices and telecommunications infrastructure to support the growth. This lies in two areas: the telecommunications infrastructure to enable the vast amounts of data transfers between various sites and the sophistication of the monitoring and communications devices used by the patients and doctors.

Spansion is heavily involved in the build-out of next generation telecommunications infrastructures. High reliability code and data storage is required for 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 doctors get quick access to the data.

Similarly, Spansion Flash plays a critical role in the design of effective monitoring devices.  These Wearable Wireless Body Area Networks provide the sensors and communications to monitor the health and conditions of the patient with chronic diseases like diabetes, heart disease and asthma.  In addition to being “fashionably wearable,” these devices need to have reliable, secure communications with very high fidelity of data and time monitoring.  They also need to interoperate smoothly with the Internet communications and be very energy efficient.  Designing these embedded systems is not a trivial task and requires sophisticated software and storage capabilities on board the device.

We are only seeing the start of telemedicine.  There are many avenues of growth, including telepharmacy, telesurgery, telerehabilitation, telenursing, etc.  Spansion’s Flash Memory solutions are positioned well to provide the onboard storage needed to achieve the full potential of these solutions.

Today, windmills, now known as wind turbines, are much more sophisticated than those quaint old structures. They are a critical part of our future of alternative energy.  According to Alternative Energy News, wind power capacity growth will be reaching 447GW by year 2014. Also, wind energy is critical for the reduction in CO2 emissions; according to a recent report by the European Wind Energy Association (EWEA), by 2020, the EU wind industry would avoid 342 million tons of CO2, equivalent to 31% of the EU’s target of reducing emissions by 20%.

Durable, Efficient and Economical

From a recent National Renewal Energy Laboratory report, the U.S. wind potential from the most productive areas is almost 10,500 GW capacity at 80 meters (compared to only 35GW operating in the U.S. at the end of 2009). The potential is huge.  However, most of the wind potential comes from the windy central regions – North and South Dakota, Nebraska, and Kansas. Also, many wind farms are placed offshore in the ocean. Unfortunately, wind turbines need to be put where the wind blows and often that is not a very accessible location.

Consequently, wind turbines need to be durable and easy-to-maintain. Also, they need to be economical to make to maximize their value.  Reliable and accurate data collection about operations, wind and weather forecasting are also necessary to help improve energy output. Wind turbines need a steady wind flow to function properly; when confronted with extreme conditions, their blades wear out very fast.

Motor Controls in a Flash

Motors are the workhouse of all industries and a critical component of most wind turbine designs.  Today engineers are being driven to increase the level of integrated automation in order to control performance, reduce downtime, improve safety, and improve efficiency, all while reducing costs. Also, today’s automated equipment are also capable of being controlled remotely with wireless data communication capability. Motor controllers and the microprocessors inside are becoming more intelligent, driving the need for the right Flash memory.

Spansion® NOR Flash memory is the perfect choice for these demanding applications due to its quality, reliability and long-term product support.  With fast access time to ensure a quick boot and high levels of interactivity to support real-time monitoring and diagnostics, the NOR Flash can respond to the specific requirements of these difficult-to-reach environments.

Is it just another technology that is replacing human capital or does it have farther-reaching consequences? Definitely, it is the latter since smart meters have the power…um, capability…to record energy usage in periods as short as an hour and electronically deliver the information to the utility with implications for improvements in the billing systems and management of quality and energy loading.

One of the utility’s biggest challenges is to match energy consumption to energy generation. Since the original meters only tracked the total energy consumed but did not know when it was consumed, utilities were limited in their pricing options. Smart meters now offer the capability of different pricing options based on usage patterns.                                                                                                                                                                                                      

Communicating through the “Internet of Things”

Of course, this only works if the smart meter reliably and securely communicates to a central location. Since the meters are located in various environments from urban centers to toney suburbs to rural locales, the communication solutions and types of networks can be complex and varied, including cellular networks, power line communications, Wi-Fi, and satellite & radio communications. Connecting these smart meters into a reliable smart grid is truly a leading-edge example of the emerging “Internet of Things”.

Power line communications also offers the potential of the smart meter talking directly with your power consuming appliances in your home. Suddenly, your refrigerator, air-conditioning and washer/dryer are having a relationship with your smart meter and the utility company. While providing the consumer with value information to manage their energy usage, this advancement brings a host of privacy and security issues.

With systems that can collect and analyze the energy consumption, consumers can learn how to change their usage patterns to reduce the cost of their energy.  Also, if excess energy is generated at the consumption location due to solar panel installation, that energy can be delivered back to the grid, rated and credited to the consumer’s account.

Flash Memory is Central to the Operation

Both Spansion GL and Spansion FL Serial (SPI) NOR Flash memory are critical for the develop next-generation energy solutions and management applications such as renewable energy, the smart grid and green appliances. With the intelligence is being designed into these systems, performance and capacity requirements are increasing. The NOR flash must have the capability of storing and executing code to not only monitor the usage, but also provide communication back to the central office and remote management of the devices.  Also, in some cases, it needs to store specific data in the meter itself.

Since the lifespan of these smart meters is 10 years or more, the reliability and product availability of the NOR flash is important. The utilities cannot afford to have malfunctions with the meter itself.  The meters operate in harsh climate extremes, requiring industrial level temperature support from -40C to 85C range. Also, as these devices have a long lifespan, it is likely that they will be refreshed in the field with software upgrades.  Fast programming speeds, upwards of 1.5MB/s, will allow for efficient support of the devices.