By Ed Korczynski, Senior Technical Editor, Solid State Technology, SemiMD
The Internet-of-Things (IoT) adds new sensing and communications to improve the functionality of all manner of things in the world. Solid-state and semiconducting materials for new integrated circuits (IC) intended for ubiquitous IoT applications will have to be extremely small and low-cost. To understand the state of technology preparedness to meet the anticipated needs of the different application spaces, experts from GLOBALFOUNDRIES, Cadence, Mentor Graphics and Presto Engineering gave detailed answers to questions about IoT chip needs in EDA and fab nodes, as published in “IoT Demands: EDA and Fab Nodes.” We continue with the conversation below.
Korczynski: For test of IoT devices which may use ultra-low threshold voltage transistors, what changes are needed compared to logic test of a typical “low-power” chip?
Steve Carlson, product management group director, Cadence
Susceptibility to process corners and operating conditions becomes heightened at near-threshold voltage levels. This translates into either more conservative design sign-off criteria, or the need for higher levels of manufacturing screening/tests. Either way, it has an impact on cost, be it hidden by over-design, or overtly through more costly qualification and test processes.
Jon Lanson, vice president worldwide sales & marketing, Presto Engineering
We need to make sure that the testability has also been designed to be functional structurally in this mode. In addition, sub-threshold voltage operation must account for non-linear transistor characteristics and the strong impact of local process variation, for which the conventional testability arsenal is still very poor. Automotive screening used low voltage operation (VLV) to detect latent defects, but at very low voltage close to the transistor threshold, digital becomes analog, and therefore if the usual concept still works for defect detection, functional test and @speed tests require additional expertise to be both meaningful and efficient from a test coverage perspective.
Korczynski: Do we have sufficient specifications within “5G” to handle IoT device interoperability for all market segments?
Rajeev Rajan, Vice President of Internet of Things (IoT) at GLOBALFOUNDRIES
The estimated timeline for standardization availability of 5G is around 2020. 5G is being designed keeping three classes of applications in mind: Enhanced Mobile Broadband, Massive IoT, and Mission-Critical Control. Specifically for IoT, the focus is on efficient, low-cost communication with deep coverage. We will start to see early 5G technologies start to appear around 2018, and device connectivity,
interoperability and marshaling the data they generate that can apply to multiple IoT sub-segments and markets is still very much in development.
Korczynski: Will the 1st-generation of IoT devices likely include wide varieties of solution for different market-segments such as industrial vs. retail vs. consumer, or will most device use similar form-factors and underlying technologies?
Rajeev Rajan, Vice President of Internet of Things (IoT) at GLOBALFOUNDRIES
If we use CES 2016 as a showcase, we are seeing IoT “Things” that are becoming use-case or application-centric as they apply to specific sub-segments such as Connected Home, Automotive, Medical, Security, etc. There is definitely more variety on the consumer front vs. industrial. Vendors / OEMs / System houses are differentiating at the user-interface design and form-factor levels while the “under-the-hood” IC capabilities and component technologies that provide the atomic intelligence are fairly common.
Steve Carlson, product management group director, Cadence
Right now it seems like everyone is swinging for the fence. Everyone wants the home-run product that will reach a billion devices sold. Generality generally leads to sub-optimality, so a single device usually fails to meet the needs and expectations of many. Devices that are optimized for more specific use cases and elements of purchasing criteria will win out. The question of interface is an interesting one.
Korczynski: Will there be different product life-cycles for different IoT market-segments, such as 1-3 years for consumer but 5-10 years for industrial?
Rajeev Rajan, Vice President of Internet of Things (IoT) at GLOBALFOUNDRIES
That certainly seems to be the case. According to Gartner’s market analysis for IoT, Consumer is expected to grow at a faster pace in terms of units compared to Enterprise, while Enterprise is expected to lead in revenue. Also the churn-cycle in Consumer is higher / faster compared to Enterprise. Today’s wearables or smart-phones are good reference examples. This will however vary by the type of “Thing” and sub-segment. For example, you expect to have your smart refrigerator for a longer time period compared to smart clothing or eyewear. As ASPs of the “Things”come down over time and new classes of products such as disposables hit the market, we can expect even larger volumes.
Jon Lanson, vice president worldwide sales & marketing, Presto Engineering
The market segments continue to be driven by the same use cases. In consumer wearables, short cycles are linked to fashion trends and rapid obsolescence, where consumer home use has longer cycles closer to industrial market requirements. We believe that the lifecycle norms will hold true for IoT devices.
Korczynski: For the IoT application of infrastructure monitoring (e.g. bridges, pipelines, etc.) long-term (10-20 year) reliability will be essential, while consumer applications may be best served by 3-5 year reliability devices which cost less; how well can we quantify the trade-off between cost and chip reliability?
Steve Carlson, product management group director, Cadence
Conceptually we know very well how to make devices more reliable. We can lower current densities with bigger wires, we can run at cooler temperatures, and so on. The difficulty is always in finding optimality for a given criterion across the, for practical purposes, infinite tradeoffs to be made.
Korczynski: Why is the talk of IoT not just another “Dot Com” hype cycle?
Rajeev Rajan, Vice President of Internet of Things (IoT) at GLOBALFOUNDRIES
I participated in a panel at SEMICON China in Shanghai last month that discussed a similar question. If we think of IoT as a “brand new thing” (no pun intended), then we can think of it as hype. However if we look at the IoT as as set of use-cases that can take advantage of an evolution of Machine-to-Machine (M2M) going towards broader connectivity, huge amounts of data generated and exchanged, and a generational increase in internet and communication network bandwidths (i.e. 5G), then it seems a more down-to-earth technological progression.
Nicolas Williams, product marketing manager, Mentor Graphics
Unlike the Dot Com hype, which was built upon hope and dreams of future solutions that may or may not have been based in reality, IoT is real business. For example, in a 2016 IC Insights report, we see that last year $63.4 billion in revenue was generated for IoT systems and the market is growing at about 20% CAGR. This same report also shows IoT semiconductor sales of over $15 billion in 2015 with a CAGR of 21.1%.
Jon Lanson, vice president worldwide sales & marketing, Presto Engineering
It is the investment needed up front to create sensing agents and an infrastructure for the hardware foundation of the IoT that will lead to big data and ultimately value creation.
Steve Carlson, product management group director, Cadence
There will be plenty of hype cycles for products and product categories along the way. However, the foundational shift of the connection of things is a diode through which civilization will only pass through in one direction.