Panasonic sets up innovation centre in Bengaluru
Panasonic opened its first India Innovation Centre (IIC) in collaboration with global software major Tata Consultancy Services (TCS) in this tech hub to develop transformative solutions for its wide range of products.
“The Centre of Excellence (CoE) in the IIC will focus on five domains spanning connected home/community, mobility, energy, industrial and financial solutions, with the partners collaborating in the knowledge of technologies, industry best practices and understanding of the growing domestic market,” said the Indian arm of Panasonic in a statement.
Transforming its business model to offer disruptive technologies in the Internet of Things (IoT), Mobility and Artificial Intelligence (AI), Panasonic is foraying into local manufacturing and development of appliances.
“The Centre, located in the IT bellwether’s Bengaluru campus, will focus on open innovation in the consumer electronic space, leverage the technology with us and create geography centric USPs to develop innovative solutions,” said Panasonic managing executive officer Daizo Ito on the occasion.
D3 Semiconductor’s agreement with Mouser Electronics
D3 Semiconductor announced that Mouser Electronics is now its global distribution partner. According to the agreement, Mouser is stocking D3 Semi’s full product line of +FET™ line of 650V-rated superjunction MOSFETs, which exhibit best-in-class performance in hard-switched applications such as PFC boost and inverters used in telecom, enterprise computing, UPS and solar.
D3 Semi marks its entry in the power electronics industry by changing the DNA of power devices. Its product roadmap combines mixed-signal functions with high-voltage switching devices to provide the highest product reliability along with the ability to quickly tailor solutions for a wide variety of applications. In addition to supporting power markets in the Americas and Europe, D3 Semi has a presence in Asia through its affiliate company, D3 Asia.
Tianma Selects Orbotech for its Flex AMOLED Gen 6 Fab
Orbotech Ltd. announced today that Tianma Micro-electronics Co. Ltd., a producer of display solutions with over three decades of experience in the Flat Panel Display (FPD) field, has selected Orbotech’s ArrayChecker and Automated Optical Inspection (AOI) solutions for its production line upgrade to flexible AMOLED technology.
Tianma has invested approximately $1.8 billion to extend its Gen 6 AMOLED fab in Wuhan, China. The Wuhan fab is designed for the production of flexible AMOLED display panels which are rapidly gaining popularity in consumer electronics devices. When the new line ramps up to mass production during the second half of 2017, Tianma expects to achieve capacity of 30,000 panels per month, with an additional 30,000 per month capacity increase in 2018.
Fujitsu readies robot that discerns emotions, preferences
Fujitsu hopes to catch up with SoftBank Group and Sharp in the robotics business by releasing an interactive talking robot in October that can recognize emotions and even what a person likes for dinner.
This will be the first commercial robot for the Japanese information technology group, including industrial uses. Fujitsu envisions use at reception desks, care facilities and other service jobs, as well as in the home. The company determined that the robot has achieved a natural level of conversation thanks to cloud technology that stores data from conversations.
Fujitsu expects the robot to cost a few hundred thousand yen, plus separate system development costs to fit the customer’s desired function. Fujitsu targets annual sales of around 30 billion yen ($264 million) for its robot-related segment in fiscal 2020.
Fujitsu invested in Tokyo venture Unirobot in January and has worked with the company to develop an interactive device. For starters, Fujitsu will link its artificial intelligence technology to the venture’s bot, Unibo.
Fujitsu’s AI, known as Zinrai, specializes in analyzing emotions based on such factors as tone of voice and is already in use at the company’s call centers. For the robot, Fujitsu will add technology that helps it understand context unique to the Japanese language.
JTAG Technologies provides interface to MAC-Panel SCOUT
JTAG Technologies announced the immediate release of a new JTAG/boundary-scan test hardware interface product compatible with the MAC Panel mass interconnect system. The JT 2147/eDAK is a multi-function signal conditioning module that allows ‘ideal world’ connections from JTAG Technologies PXI and PXIe DataBlasters to the MAC panel ‘Scout’ connection system.
Based on the popular QuadPod architecture from JTAG Technologies, the JT 2147/eDAK is an enhancement of JTAG ‘s current DAK interface and has been specifically designed for robust high-integrity ATE systems. In using the JT 2147/eDAK, test system builders will greatly simplify their wiring task and, at the same time, retain the excellent signal integrity assured by the QuadPod’s active interface.
In addition to four independent JTAG Test Access Ports (TAPs), the JT2147/ eDAK features 64 digital I/O scan channels plus 16 ‘static’ DIOs. Each TAP can be programmed to operate through a range of voltage levels and two can also operate as other test and programming interfaces such as BDM or SWD.