Fictron Industrial Supplies Sdn Bhd
No. 7 & 7A,
Jalan Tiara, Tiara Square,
Taman Perindustrian Sime UEP,
47600 Subang Jaya,
Selangor, Malaysia.
No. 7 & 7A,
Jalan Tiara, Tiara Square,
Taman Perindustrian Sime UEP,
47600 Subang Jaya,
Selangor, Malaysia.
+603-8023 9829
+603-8023 7089
Fictron Industrial
Automation Pte Ltd
140 Paya Lebar Road, #03-01,
AZ @ Paya Lebar 409015,
Singapore.
+65 31388976
sg.sales@fictron.com
Automation Pte Ltd
140 Paya Lebar Road, #03-01,
AZ @ Paya Lebar 409015,
Singapore.
+65 31388976
sg.sales@fictron.com
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Contact Us Today To Get The Best Prices On Repairs And Supplies On General Electric Automation
Aug 5, 2019
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Contact Us Today To Get The Best Prices On Repairs And Supplies On General Electric Automation Systems!
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Aug 5, 2019
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Contact Us Today To Get The Best Prices On Repairs And Supplies On Fuji Automation Systems!
Aug 5, 2019
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Contact Us Today To Get The Best Prices On Repairs And Supplies On Beijer Automation Systems!
Aug 2, 2019
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Mitsubishi To Make Plug-In Hybrids In Thailand
Aug 1, 2019
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Mitsubishi Motors will produce plug-in hybrids in Thailand beginning in early 2021, the automaker's first foray into producing the environmentally friendly cars outside Japan. Chairman Osamu Masuko stated the plan Wednesday at a news conference here. Mitsubishi will invest about 10 billion yen ($92 million) to set up production equipment at a plant in Laem Chabang, in the eastern province of Chonburi. The hub will produce the Japanese automaker's Outlander plug-in hybrid.
Electric vehicles are assumed to gain ground in Southeast Asia. Mitsubishi will test the market by first rolling out plug-in hybrids since they are not restrained by sparse charging infrastructure or battery capacity, which limits travel distances for full-electric vehicles. Critical parts such as for instance batteries will be sourced from Japan for local assembly. Mitsubishi targets an annual output of 3,000 units, which at the start will be sold in Thailand.
The automaker introduced its first plug-in hybrid in 2013. Last year, it produced about 54,000 at facilities in central Japan's Aichi Prefecture, with about 90% exported to Europe and beyond. In July, Mitsubishi started selling imported Outlander plug-in hybrids in Indonesia. Thailand has readied tax incentives to encourage domestic production of plug-in hybrids and electric cars. The government asked automakers to submit production proposals by the end of 2018. Japan's Toyota Motor, Honda Motor and Mazda Motor are among those thinking about manufacturing these vehicles in the country.
Mitsubishi's Laem Chabang plant boasts an annual capacity of over 420,000 units, among the automaker's largest output hubs. The automaker has now exported a total of 4 million vehicles from Thailand - an achievement marked by Masuko's visit this week. On top of the plug-in hybrid facilities, the company plans to invest 25 billion yen over the next several years to upgrade coating facilities and automate its plants.
Intel Shows Off Chip Packaging Powers
Aug 1, 2019
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Packaging has still arguably never been a hotter subject. With Moore’s Law no longer providing the oomph it once did, one path to better computing is to connect chips more tightly together within the same package. At Semicon West earlier this month, Intel showed off three new research efforts in packaging. One combines two of its existing technologies to more strongly integrate chiplets—smaller chips linked together in a package to form the kind of system that would, until recently, be made as a single large chip. Another adds better power delivery to dies at the top of a 3D stack of chips. And the final one is an improvement on Intel’s chiplet-to-chiplet interface called Advanced Interface Bus (AIB).
The first effort, dubbed Co-EMIB, is generally a way of combining two existing Intel packaging technologies: EMIB (for embedded multidie interconnect bridge) and Foveros. The earlier bridges two chiplets over a short distance horizontally using a small piece of silicon embedded in a package’s organic substrate. The interconnect lines on silicon can be made narrower than on the organic substrate and can be packed together more tightly to form a high-bandwidth chip-to-chip connection. It is used in systems including Intel’s Stratix 10 FPGA, which is actually an FPGA chiplet linked to two high-bandwidth DRAM and four high-speed transceiver chiplets in the same package.
Foveros is Intel’s 3D chip-stacking technology. It allows die-to-die connections that are just 50 micrometers apart, leading to high-bandwidth vertical connections. Through-silicon vias (or TSVs), conductors that pass vertically through the silicon of the bottom die, connect the stack to the package substrate. Combining the two into Co-EMIB lets two or more Foveros stacks communicate through high-density EMIB bridges to build more complex systems. That might seem a clear thing to do. But with connections only micrometers apart, an organic substrate that is hard to make perfectly planar, and a reasonably large area to pattern, it was actually quite difficult.
“The scale of it becomes more and more critically [dependent] on how you can hold all your dimensional tolerancing through the assembly process,” says Johanna Swan, a fellow at Intel’s components research and technology development group. “The process tricks become more important in order to manage the size of structures. We’re able to show there’s a path for maintaining that dimensional stability over a larger area.” The second research effort, Intel’s Omnidirectional Interconnect (ODI), essentially allows for EMIB-like vertical connections. These are larger than ordinary through-silicon vias—about 70 micrometers across versus a typical TSV’s 10 micrometers. The large diameter makes them especially well suited to deliver power to the top die in a 3D stack, according to Swan. “As you scale that area, you get cleaner, more efficient power delivery,” she says.
MDIO, the product of the third effort, should be available in 2020 according to Intel’s Semicon West presentation. It offers 200 gigabytes per second per millimeter of chip edge versus AIB’s 63 GB/s-mm, and it uses 0.50 picojoules per bit versus AIB’s 0.85. Intel compared MDIO to TSMC’s LIPINCON technology, which is also estimated in 2020 and delivers 67 GB/s-mm at about the same picojoules per bit. Intel R&D will continue to try to increase the number of bumps—the solder ball on/off ramps from a chip—available in a given area, says Swan. But ultimately, wiping out solder is the goal. The intermetallic interface between the solder and the copper interconnects limits current, so Intel, and others, are exploring a technology called hybrid bonding, which uses a dielectric material and heat to connect one chip’s copper pads to another without solder.
First Programmable Memristor Computer
Aug 1, 2019
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Wanting to speed AI and neuromorphic computing and cut down on power consumption, startups, scientists, and established chip companies have all been looking to do more computing in memory rather than in a processor’s computing core. Memristors and other nonvolatile memory seem to lend themselves to the task particularly well. And yet, most demonstrations of in-memory computing have been in standalone accelerator chips that either are built for an exclusive form of AI problem or that need the off-chip resources of a separate processor in order to operate. University of Michigan engineers are claiming the first memristor-based programmable computer for AI that can work on all its own.
“Memory is really the bottleneck,” says University of Michigan professor Wei Lu. “Machine learning models are getting larger and larger, and we don’t have enough on-chip memory to store the weights.” Going off-chip for data, to DRAM, say, can take 100 times as much computing time and energy. Even if you do have everything you need stored in on-chip memory, moving it to and fro to the computing core also takes too much time and energy, he says. “Instead, you do the computing in the memory.” His lab has been working with memristors (also called resistive RAM, or RRAM), which store data as resistance, for more than a decade and has demonstrated the mechanics of their potential to efficiently perform AI computations such as the multiply-and-accumulate operations at the heart of deep learning. Arrays of memristors can do these tasks efficiently because they become analog computations instead of digital.
The new chip brings together numerous 5,832 memristors with an OpenRISC processor. 486 specifically-designed digital-to-analog converters, 162 analog-to-digital converters, and two mixed-signal interfaces act as translators between the memristors’ analog computations and the main processor. “All the functions are implemented on chip,” says Lu, an IEEE Fellow. “To show the promise, you can’t just build the individual pieces.”
At its best frequency, the chip used just over 300 milliwatts while performing 188 billion operations per second per watt (GOPS/W). That does not compare well to Nvidia’s latest research AI accelerator chip at 9.09 trillion operations per second per watt (TOPS/W), although without considering the energy cost and latency of transmitting data from DRAM. But Lu points out that the CMOS portion was built using the two-decade-old 180-nanometer semiconductor manufacturing process. Moving it to a newer process, such as to 2008-era 40-nanometer tech, would drop power consumption to 42 mW and boost performance to 1.37 TOPS/W without needing to transfer data from DRAM. Nvidia’s chip was made using a 16-nanometer process that debuted in 2014.
Lu’s team put the chip through three tests to prove its programmability and ability to handle a wide variety of machine learning tasks. The most straightforward one is called a perceptron, which is used to identify information. For that task, the memristor computer had to recognize Greek letters even when the image of them was noisy. The second, and more difficult task was a problem of sparse coding. In sparse coding, you are trying to build the most efficient network of artificial neurons that will get the job done. That means that as the network learns its task, it has neurons compete with each other for a place in the network. The losers are excised, leaving a more brain-like and efficient neural network with only the connections absolutely needed. Lu demonstrated memristor-based sparse coding in 2017 on a smaller array.
The final task was a dual layer neural network capable of what’s called unsupervised learning. Rather than being presented with a couple of labelled images to learn from, the chip was given a bunch of mammography test scores. The neural network first worked out what the important features of the combination of scores were and then distinguished malignant from benign tumors with 94.6 percent accuracy. The next version of the chip, which Lu says will be done next year, will have both faster, more-efficient CMOS and multiple memristor arrays. “We will use multiple arrays to show you can tie them together to form larger networks,” he says. Lu has formed a startup called MemryX with the aim of commercializing the chip. His previous RRAM startup, Crossbar, is also chasing the AI space. Last year Crossbar inked a deal with aerospace chipmaker Microsemi and demoed a chip that did face recognition and read license plates.
Artificial Intelligence in Manufacturing
Aug 1, 2019
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Artificial Intelligence (AI) is changing many industries, including manufacturing. We will see AI operating manufacturing, quality control, materials waste and maintenance, as well as saving design time. AI is the replication of human intelligence processes in computer systems. These processes include the procurement of information and the use of rules for using the information, thereby reaching fairly right or positive findings with the ability to self-correct.
The first uses of artificial intelligence are already in regular industrial activities, such as for instance language recognition to accomplish basic tasks, recording environs using cameras, laser beams, or X-rays, and providing virtual personal assistants for logistics. Just the past year, 62 percent of large corporations are utilizing AI technology. Using big data, AI is giving Industry 4.0 huge improvements. Intelligent software uses the high volumes of data produced by a factory to identify developments that can be used to make manufacturing processes more economical. Factories are continuously adjusting to new conditions and optimizing operations without operator input. Employees at many factories still inspect parts themselves to spot defects, which is incredibly tiring, but deep-learning algorithms takes half a second to inspect a part. This technology can pick out minuscule details and defects far better than the human eye.
Apart from monitoring challenges in the air, AI can also cut down the damaging emissions pumped into it in the first place by manufacturing facilities. AI is a new tool to help us better control the impact of climate change and protect the planet. AI can sense the environment, think, learn, and act in response to what it senses, using programmed objectives. AI has served to researchers achieve about 94 percent precision in identifying tropical cyclones, weather fronts and atmospheric rivers, which can cause substantial rain. These are often difficult for humans to recognize on their own. By improving weather forecasts, AI can help companies that depend on weather forecasts, such as manufacturers and logistics companies.
In line with a study by the World Bank, 98% of the world’s waste is delivered to landfills, dumped into the oceans or being incinerated, although a substantial majority of consumables are recyclable. The main reason for this is due to the high level of contaminants found in recyclables today, making former clean material essentially unrecyclable and financially unmarketable. Not only does AI help identify waste that can be recycled, it has a one percent defect rate preventing waste.
Cloud-based machine learning allows manufacturers to simplify communication between their many branches. Data collected from one production line can be interpreted and shared with other branches to automate material purchases, maintenance and other operations that were recently done by hand. 62 percent of business buyers want manufacturers to foresee their demands. That's unbelievable in and of itself, but it's also bothersome for customer service, as 63 percent of customers claim that customer service isn't as fast or easy as they require. Customer service needs increasingly advanced technological capabilities to span the customer expectation disparity.
Customer service is poised for a revolution with a 143 percent growth in AI anticipated in the next few years. AI is not used to customer service departments, as fewer than a fourth of organizations are using it today. AI strategies are positioned to unburden repetitive, time-consuming things from customer service agents. Gathering basic information from a customer is the most common AI use. Chatbots, which is AI technology that simulates voice or text-based conversations with humans, automate routine tasks. Today, only 23 percent of service departments are using chatbots, with high-performing customer service departments using chatbots two times more than under-performers.
AI is going to influence manufacturing in ways we have not yet expected. As AI gets control the manufacturing plant and automates tedious and routine human tasks, workers will get to focus on intricate and inventive tasks. While AI takes care of routine jobs, humans can focus on steering innovation and steering their business to advanced levels with expected profits to increase by 36%. Using AI, manufacturers will be able to create quick, data-controlled decisions while facilitating enhanced production results. Management will be able to improve process effectiveness, reduce operational costs, expedite superior scalability, and facilitate product development. Artificial Intelligence in manufacturing is achieving a wider degree of acceptance. Smart factories will drive $37 trillion in new value by 2025, giving rise to new research projects. The technology is now . . . the research is on the move. How will your manufacturing company move forward with the technology?
S. Korea Leaps To World¡¯s No. 3 Electronics Powerhouse Last Year
Jul 31, 2019
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South Korea step to the world’s third largest electronics manufacturing powerhouse with its output expanded more than 50 percent from five years earlier, but its heavy reliance on components like memory chips suggests that the country is vulnerable to external shocks. According to the Korea Electronics Association on Tuesday, Korea produced $171.1 billion worth of electronics products, up 53.3 percent from 2013. The country was responsible for 8.8 percent of the global electronics manufacturing output last year, elbowing out Japan to become the third largest in the world and up one notch from five years ago.
China was the world’s largest electronics powerhouse with $717.2 billion or 37.2 percent of the entire worldwide electronics production, followed by the United States with $245.5 billion or 12.6 percent. Korea’s electronics output grew 9 percent generally every year since 2013, the third fast among global top 20 after Vietnam with 11.7 percent and India with 10.9 percent. China’s annual electronics output growth averaged 2.9 percent and the U.S. 1.0 percent over the same period, whereas Japan’s electronics output shrank 2.3 percent.
Components such as semiconductors made up a lion’s share of 77.3 percent of Korea’s electronics output last year, up 18.8 percentage points from five years ago. Wireless communication devices were responsible for 10.0 percent and computers 7.8 percent. Computers accounted for the largest 34.2 percent share of China’s total electronics production, while wireless communication devices comprised 32.3 percent of U.S-made electronics. Japan also depended heavily on components with the sector occupying 56.6 percent.
By sector, Korea was the world’s second largest electronics components maker with a 19.2 percent share, after China with 24.1 percent. Korea’s wireless communication devices production was the fifth largest in the world with a 4.3 percent share after China with 46.4 percent, U.S. 20.0 percent, Vietnam 8 percent, and India 4.4 percent. It also was No. 5 for computer manufacturing, accounting for 3.3 percent of worldwide production. China was responsible for more than half or 59.7 percent of global computer production, followed by Mexico with 6.0 percent, U.S. 4.9 percent, and Japan 4.0 percent.
Market experts warned Korea’s hefty reliance on electronics components, especially semiconductors, would make the country more vulnerable to external risks. In fact, the country’s exports have contracted since last year due to a plunge in global memory chip prices from soft demand for electronics devices and data centers.
Additional woe has added to the export-reliant country following Japan’s decision to curb export of chip- and display-making materials, a big blow to Korea’s semiconductor and display industries that have led the country’s export, the country’s key growth driver.
Microsoft London¡¯s Flagship Store Opens
Jul 31, 2019
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The new Microsoft London flagship store has launched, a stone’s throw from archrival Apple’s local store. Among those welcoming the public on the 22,000sqft store’s launch day was the US tech company’s UK CEO Cindy Rose, who said the store was a “symbol of Microsoft’s enduring commitment to the UK”, which allows people to “experience the best the company has to offer.” “Thank you for helping us make history today,” she announced.
The large three-storey Microsoft London location features adequate wood and glass surfaces conspicuously featuring a large video wall and the brand’s most advanced devices. It houses a dedicated gaming room and technical support area, in addition to a selfie area and a design lab where visitors can create their own personalised covers for Surface devices.
The store’s second floor enterprise area is a place to support, train and grow businesses using the Microsoft 365 software suite as well as to assist in solving business challenges such as AI, data security, collaboration and workplace efficiencies. It also contains an area for hosting events, as well as meeting rooms and a showcase space for demonstrating how customers – including Carlsberg and Toyota – are digitally transforming
“There are very few locations in the world that feature all the different parts that make up what Microsoft is,” said chief marketing officer Chris Capossela. “The early adoption of technology in the UK has been very impressive. That’s important when the company is thinking about what investments to make and where to make them. This flagship would not be in London if we didn’t have a very strong commercial business in this country. We thought very deeply about this.”
One guest at the Microsoft London launch, James from Reading, said: “I want to see what they can offer businesses. The outside of the store looks incredible; it’s a masterpiece of architecture.”
Google Removes Seven Spying Apps From The Google Play Store
Jul 31, 2019
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Security firm Avast’s mobile threat researchers realized seven “stalker” apps from the Google Play Store. The apps were typically manufactured by a Russian developer and spied on their targets. All of the apps were consequently removed by Google, but not before they had been installed a total of 130,000 times in aggregate. Two of the apps, Spy Tracker, and SMS Tracker, were installed over 50,000 times each.
The apps were produced to help users haunt their kids, significant others, employees and others. They tracked the target’s location, collected his/her contacts, SMS and call history. But, for these apps to work, the person doing the stalking had to have access to the target’s phone and install one of the apps on that device. The snoop then used his email address and password to have the same app sent to his own phone. Once placed on the target’s phone, the app showed the spy how to get rid of any sign that it had been installed. No icon come out to alert the person being stalked that an app had privately been loaded on his or her phone.
“These apps are highly unethical and problematic for people’s privacy and shouldn’t be on the Google Play Store. They promote criminal behavior and can be abused by employers, stalkers or abusive partners to spy on their victims. We classify such apps as stalkerware, and using apklab.io we can identify such apps quickly, and collaborate with Google to get them removed.”-Nikolaos Chrysaidos, head of mobile threat intelligence and security, Avast
The apps that were removed included:
Track Employees Check Work Phone Online Spy Free
Spy Kids Tracker
Phone Cell Tracker
Mobile Tracking
Spy Tracker
SMS Tracker
Employee Work Spy
China's 5G Economy Takes Shape As Carriers Step Up Investment
Jul 31, 2019
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China's state-run telecommunications companies are speeding to usher in the 5G era, not just for consumers but also for industries that stand on the cusp of data-driven technological transformations - from steelmaking to health care. China Mobile aims to build over 50,000 5G base stations in much more than 50 cities across the vast mainland, allowing it to launch commercial service by the end of this year. Chairman Yang Jie announced the strategy on the sidelines of the Mobile World Congress 2019 in Shanghai in late June. The company also hopes to launch its own smartphone brand and, in 2020, expand the base station network to around 300 cities.
The wave of construction and investment by China Mobile and other state carriers means much more than just the arrival of lightning-fast transmissions. For the government, it is a way to strike job creation and support embattled equipment suppliers like Huawei Technologies as the trade conflict with the U.S. drags on. Armed with a fresh license from Beijing, China Mobile has placed 38.7 billion yuan ($5.62 billion) worth of orders with major telecom equipment makers to secure base stations and other components, in accordance with Chinese media reports. Although the value of the orders deliverable within 2019 is unknown, it will probably go beyond the company's plan to invest 15 billion yuan to 17 billion yuan in 5G technology this year, published in March.
China Mobile will also boost the introduction of 5G smartphones and other devices. It plans to release its own-brand smartphone, the Forerunner X1, in August, with production claimed to be farmed out to a contract manufacturer in Taiwan. In 2020, China Mobile intends to produce a budget handset priced in the 1,000 yuan to 2,000 yuan range.
Fellow state player China Unicom is poised to produce 5G trial services in 40 cities, including Shanghai. President Li Guohua has said the company will use 5G to promote the spread of digital devices in China. In addition to services for the general public, China Unicom has plans to tie up with major manufacturers and other companies to expand the industrial use of 5G.
China Unicom has already developed a strategic alliance with China Baowu Steel Group, the nation's largest state-owned steelmaker, in the 5G field. Under the agreement, the carrier will set up a 5G communications network in the steelmaker's main Baoshan iron mill in order that all operations can be overseen in real time. The goal is to prevent accidents, improve steel product quality and cut production costs, company officials explained.
The mobile carrier has concluded the same deal to help a partnership between China's Chery Automobile and U.K.-based Jaguar Land Rover improve efficiency and quality through automation. The next-generation wireless technology is also anticipated to give cars new functionality while bringing autonomous driving closer to reality. Yet another mobile player, China Telecom, intends to build 5G base stations in more than 40 cities. It has already in progress performance tests on facilities and handsets in eight cities, in cooperation with top Chinese telecom equipment maker Huawei Technologies.
The government granted 5G business licenses to the four telecom operators in June, hoping to spur investment and help shore up a Chinese economy hit by the trade war with the U.S. The China Academy of Information and Communications Technology (CAICT), a government-affiliated research organization, projects that direct 5G-related output, such as sales of facilities and handsets, will be worth 484 billion yuan in 2020. By 2030, the value is expected to balloon to 16.9 trillion yuan, including ripple effects on other industries.
The issuance of the licenses was also seen as an endeavor to support Huawei, which has been targeted by the U.S. government as an alleged security threat. According to Chinese media, about half of China Mobile's orders for 5G equipment in June went to Huawei. Among the other beneficiaries, Sweden's Ericsson ranked a distant second, with 30%. Huawei will provide half the handsets China Mobile will use in its trial 5G services. The rest will also be supplied by Chinese players - 20% each from ZTE and Xiaomi, and 10% from Oppo. Investment in 5G is also expected to support employment in China, amid concern that dwindling trade with the U.S. will hurt the job market. CAICT says the investment spree will directly create 540,000 jobs in 2020. Including indirect effects, 5G is expected to be responsible for the creation of 20 million jobs by the time the tech is widespread in 2030.
Russell Finex - Self-Cleaning basket strainers for chemical manufacturing
Jul 31, 2019
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Lucite International Group Ltd. (known as Lucite) is a world leader in the design, development and manufacture of acrylic-based products. As part of the Mitsubishi Chemical Corporation, the company has many manufacturing plants around the world, producing polymers, monomers, composites and resins for many applications such as dental, medical, coatings, adhesives and glass. At its production plant in Newton Aycliffe, UK, Lucite manufactures a number of premium speciality polymers and resins, particularly fashioned and put together alongside its customers.
Lucite had once practiced problems when filtering an adhesive resin, used in the production of surgical plasters. A key stage of the resin process line is filtration - ensuring oversize contamination such as foreign particles and agglomerates are eliminated. This guarantees the quality and consistency of the product - a key requirement for a medical application - as well as protecting the downstream strategy of membrane filtration. However, filtration of these high-viscosity, sticky adhesives can be overwhelming, and Lucite had spotted problems when using traditional static basket strainers to carry out the filtration process.
Having previously relied upon these self-cleaning basket strainers for other applications, Lucite consulted Russell Finex once again for a solution to filtering acrylic resins. The solution was an EF803 Self-Cleaning Russell Eco Filter®. These inline filters provide an excellent solution to ensuring the quality of high-viscosity liquids such as adhesive resins and have the capacity to meet Lucite's required throughput of 400 litres per hour.
For over 85 years Russell Finex has manufactured and supplied filters, sieves and separators to improve product quality, enhance productivity, safeguard worker health, and ensure liquids and powders are contamination-free. Throughout the world, Russell Finex serves a variety of industries with applications including food, pharmaceuticals, chemicals, adhesives, plastisols, paint, coatings, metal powders and ceramics. Contact Russell Finex to find out more details regarding how screening solutions can optimize your product quality.
This article is originally posted on Tronserve.com
Lucite had once practiced problems when filtering an adhesive resin, used in the production of surgical plasters. A key stage of the resin process line is filtration - ensuring oversize contamination such as foreign particles and agglomerates are eliminated. This guarantees the quality and consistency of the product - a key requirement for a medical application - as well as protecting the downstream strategy of membrane filtration. However, filtration of these high-viscosity, sticky adhesives can be overwhelming, and Lucite had spotted problems when using traditional static basket strainers to carry out the filtration process.
Having previously relied upon these self-cleaning basket strainers for other applications, Lucite consulted Russell Finex once again for a solution to filtering acrylic resins. The solution was an EF803 Self-Cleaning Russell Eco Filter®. These inline filters provide an excellent solution to ensuring the quality of high-viscosity liquids such as adhesive resins and have the capacity to meet Lucite's required throughput of 400 litres per hour.
For over 85 years Russell Finex has manufactured and supplied filters, sieves and separators to improve product quality, enhance productivity, safeguard worker health, and ensure liquids and powders are contamination-free. Throughout the world, Russell Finex serves a variety of industries with applications including food, pharmaceuticals, chemicals, adhesives, plastisols, paint, coatings, metal powders and ceramics. Contact Russell Finex to find out more details regarding how screening solutions can optimize your product quality.
This article is originally posted on Tronserve.com
America Makes Announces Its Third Satellite Center to be Located at the NIAR
Jul 31, 2019
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America Makes proudly announces that its third America Makes Satellite Center will be located on the campus of the Institute's Platinum-level member, Wichita State University (WSU) within the facilities of the National Institute for Aviation Research (NIAR) in Wichita, Kan. The Memorandum of Understanding (MOU) between America Makes, which is maintained by the National Center for Defense Manufacturing and Machining (NCDMM), and WSU-NIAR was declared today at 4:00 p.m. CDT at the America Makes TRX+ event being held at the National Center for Aviation Training (NCAT).
'On behalf of all of us at America Makes, we are pleased to announce the selection of NIAR as the site of our third America Makes Satellite Center,' said America Makes Executive Director John Wilczynski. 'For more than 30 years, NIAR has created a name for itself as the most competent university-based aviation research center in the United States, providing research, design, testing, certification and training to the aviation manufacturing industries. As our next America Makes Satellite Center, NIAR will have the special distinction of being our first industry-specific Satellite Center solely focused on advancing the use of additive manufacturing within the aerospace industry. We are excited for this enhanced collaborative partnership with NIAR to get underway.'
Of WSU-NIAR's selection as America Makes' next Satellite Center, John S. Tomblin, Ph.D., WSU Vice President for Research and Technology Transfer and NIAR Executive Director said, 'We're recognized to be acknowledged as a useful research partner for the Institute. We have already seen great rewards as members of America Makes, and we wish our enlarged contribution as a Satellite Center to magnify those for us and for America Makes.'
Managed by NCDMM, America Makes is the national accelerator for additive manufacturing (AM) and the first Institute within the Manufacturing USA network. As a public-professional partnership, America Makes currently has a membership community comprised of approximately 220 member organizations, carrying together our nation's brilliant technical minds from all corners of government, industry, and academia to produce a hub of advanced manufacturing development in AM.
The objective of the America Makes Satellite Center model is to increase the reach of the existing America Makes mission by complementing and expanding its latest regional, industrial, and technological footprint. America Makes created its first Satellite Center in 2015 at the W.M. Keck Center for 3D Innovation on the campus of the University of Texas at El Paso (UTEP). Most recently in March 2019, America Makes announced that its second Satellite Center would be placed at the Texas A&M Engineering Experiment Station (TEES), a part of The Texas A&M University System, in College Station, Texas.
America Makes Director of Partnerships & Community Relations Erin O'Donnell added, 'America Makes is committed to smartly increasing the Satellite Center infrastructure in such a way that brings the most overall perks to our membership community and the additive industry at large. Within the areas of each of the Satellite Centers, we see an ecosystem similar to what we have accomplished within the greater Youngstown area. America Makes has capitalized on the strength of shared goals and synergies of local organizations, including the Youngstown Business Incubator and Youngstown State University, to advance the innovation in and the adoption of additive.
'Our goal for the Satellite Centers is to leverage the existing collaborative partnerships and further grow them into a larger ecosystem of additive specialization,' continued Ms. O'Donnell. 'With NIAR joining the America Makes Satellite Center infrastructure, we are very aroused to concentrate on certifying and qualifying additive technologies within the aerospace sector. The effects of such an effort are poised to have a great impact on our membership community, the aerospace sector, and the additive manufacturing industry.'
NIAR's mission is to conduct research, move technology and enhance knowledge for the purpose of progressing the nation's aviation market. With 20 on-site labs with representation by nearly every aerospace OEM, NIAR offers capabilities, technology, and expertise that are unlike those of any other test lab. Additionally, NIAR is also home to the Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) Center of Excellence for Composites and Advanced Materials (CECAM) and the National Center for Advanced Materials Performance (NCAMP), which is backed through the FAA and Air Force Research Laboratory. These centers promote the safety, research, manufacturing and design elements of today's aviation industry, strengthening airworthiness assurance in the short- and long-term.
Ryan Wicker, Ph.D., P.E., Director of the Keck Center at UTEP, learning of America Makes' selection of NIAR as a Satellite Center provided, 'I am very pleased that America Makes is growing to include NIAR as its latest Satellite Center. As the first America Makes Satellite Center, we have liked leveraging our relationship to grow opportunities in additive manufacturing both regionally and nationally by growing new educational programs at UTEP, creating and delivering training to active military and Department of Defense personnel around the globe, pursuing state-of-the-art research to advance knowledge and applications, and building a new regional economy around these technologies. I am personally looking forward to working with NIAR and the entire America Makes team on continuing to drive the additive manufacturing revolution forward.'
From the point-of-view as the new TEES Executive Director of Manufacturing Initiatives, Office of Business Development, former America Makes Executive Director Rob Gorham added, 'We offer sincere congratulations to our friends at NIAR. The Satellite Center model is incredibly important for us at Texas A&M. We fully welcome the objective of advancing additive manufacturing competencies in the U.S. and are proud to do so within the state of Texas. I look forward to integrating our capabilities with those of NIAR in support of the America Makes mission.'
This article is originally posted on Tronserve.com
'On behalf of all of us at America Makes, we are pleased to announce the selection of NIAR as the site of our third America Makes Satellite Center,' said America Makes Executive Director John Wilczynski. 'For more than 30 years, NIAR has created a name for itself as the most competent university-based aviation research center in the United States, providing research, design, testing, certification and training to the aviation manufacturing industries. As our next America Makes Satellite Center, NIAR will have the special distinction of being our first industry-specific Satellite Center solely focused on advancing the use of additive manufacturing within the aerospace industry. We are excited for this enhanced collaborative partnership with NIAR to get underway.'
Of WSU-NIAR's selection as America Makes' next Satellite Center, John S. Tomblin, Ph.D., WSU Vice President for Research and Technology Transfer and NIAR Executive Director said, 'We're recognized to be acknowledged as a useful research partner for the Institute. We have already seen great rewards as members of America Makes, and we wish our enlarged contribution as a Satellite Center to magnify those for us and for America Makes.'
Managed by NCDMM, America Makes is the national accelerator for additive manufacturing (AM) and the first Institute within the Manufacturing USA network. As a public-professional partnership, America Makes currently has a membership community comprised of approximately 220 member organizations, carrying together our nation's brilliant technical minds from all corners of government, industry, and academia to produce a hub of advanced manufacturing development in AM.
The objective of the America Makes Satellite Center model is to increase the reach of the existing America Makes mission by complementing and expanding its latest regional, industrial, and technological footprint. America Makes created its first Satellite Center in 2015 at the W.M. Keck Center for 3D Innovation on the campus of the University of Texas at El Paso (UTEP). Most recently in March 2019, America Makes announced that its second Satellite Center would be placed at the Texas A&M Engineering Experiment Station (TEES), a part of The Texas A&M University System, in College Station, Texas.
America Makes Director of Partnerships & Community Relations Erin O'Donnell added, 'America Makes is committed to smartly increasing the Satellite Center infrastructure in such a way that brings the most overall perks to our membership community and the additive industry at large. Within the areas of each of the Satellite Centers, we see an ecosystem similar to what we have accomplished within the greater Youngstown area. America Makes has capitalized on the strength of shared goals and synergies of local organizations, including the Youngstown Business Incubator and Youngstown State University, to advance the innovation in and the adoption of additive.
'Our goal for the Satellite Centers is to leverage the existing collaborative partnerships and further grow them into a larger ecosystem of additive specialization,' continued Ms. O'Donnell. 'With NIAR joining the America Makes Satellite Center infrastructure, we are very aroused to concentrate on certifying and qualifying additive technologies within the aerospace sector. The effects of such an effort are poised to have a great impact on our membership community, the aerospace sector, and the additive manufacturing industry.'
NIAR's mission is to conduct research, move technology and enhance knowledge for the purpose of progressing the nation's aviation market. With 20 on-site labs with representation by nearly every aerospace OEM, NIAR offers capabilities, technology, and expertise that are unlike those of any other test lab. Additionally, NIAR is also home to the Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) Center of Excellence for Composites and Advanced Materials (CECAM) and the National Center for Advanced Materials Performance (NCAMP), which is backed through the FAA and Air Force Research Laboratory. These centers promote the safety, research, manufacturing and design elements of today's aviation industry, strengthening airworthiness assurance in the short- and long-term.
Ryan Wicker, Ph.D., P.E., Director of the Keck Center at UTEP, learning of America Makes' selection of NIAR as a Satellite Center provided, 'I am very pleased that America Makes is growing to include NIAR as its latest Satellite Center. As the first America Makes Satellite Center, we have liked leveraging our relationship to grow opportunities in additive manufacturing both regionally and nationally by growing new educational programs at UTEP, creating and delivering training to active military and Department of Defense personnel around the globe, pursuing state-of-the-art research to advance knowledge and applications, and building a new regional economy around these technologies. I am personally looking forward to working with NIAR and the entire America Makes team on continuing to drive the additive manufacturing revolution forward.'
From the point-of-view as the new TEES Executive Director of Manufacturing Initiatives, Office of Business Development, former America Makes Executive Director Rob Gorham added, 'We offer sincere congratulations to our friends at NIAR. The Satellite Center model is incredibly important for us at Texas A&M. We fully welcome the objective of advancing additive manufacturing competencies in the U.S. and are proud to do so within the state of Texas. I look forward to integrating our capabilities with those of NIAR in support of the America Makes mission.'
This article is originally posted on Tronserve.com
CMS installation milestone celebrated at Bombardier¡¯s Singapore facility
Jul 31, 2019
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The company’s Service Centre at the Seletar Aerospace Park in Singapore saw the installation of the Lufthansa Technik AG nice HD Cabin Management System (CMS) in a Global Express aircraft, the first of its kind in the Asia-Pacific location. The work was conducted on behalf of a customer who desired to modify the aircraft’s existing CMS.
“This Global Express XRS customer sought a facility that had the capability to take on such an upgrade to enhance the customer experiences,” said Simon Wayne, General Manager of the Singapore Service Centre. “The passenger control units for the nice HD system fit into the Global’s current locations, which saved the customer time and money.”
The wider relevance of the news is in the increased capability of the Singapore site. As previously announced in February, the center is quadrupling in size to go an approximate 430,000 sq ft. Bombardier will use the facility to offer services to its range of Bombardier Global, Challenger and Learjet aircraft, offering maintenance, refurbishment and modification. The upgraded facility scheduled to start in 2020.
“This achievement underscores the outstanding engineering and maintenance teams that we have at the Singapore Service Centre serving our users in the Asia-Pacific region,” said Jean-Christophe Gallagher, Vice President and General Manager, Customer Experience, Bombardier Business Aircraft. “Since opening in February 2014, the Singapore Center has established itself as a center of excellence for all forms of retrofits, maintenance procedures and upgrades. With the expansion of this facility, we will maintain to create customers in the Asia-Pacific region with improved excellence and service options and create future opportunities to reach more achievements like this one.”
This article is originally posted on Tronserve.com
“This Global Express XRS customer sought a facility that had the capability to take on such an upgrade to enhance the customer experiences,” said Simon Wayne, General Manager of the Singapore Service Centre. “The passenger control units for the nice HD system fit into the Global’s current locations, which saved the customer time and money.”
The wider relevance of the news is in the increased capability of the Singapore site. As previously announced in February, the center is quadrupling in size to go an approximate 430,000 sq ft. Bombardier will use the facility to offer services to its range of Bombardier Global, Challenger and Learjet aircraft, offering maintenance, refurbishment and modification. The upgraded facility scheduled to start in 2020.
“This achievement underscores the outstanding engineering and maintenance teams that we have at the Singapore Service Centre serving our users in the Asia-Pacific region,” said Jean-Christophe Gallagher, Vice President and General Manager, Customer Experience, Bombardier Business Aircraft. “Since opening in February 2014, the Singapore Center has established itself as a center of excellence for all forms of retrofits, maintenance procedures and upgrades. With the expansion of this facility, we will maintain to create customers in the Asia-Pacific region with improved excellence and service options and create future opportunities to reach more achievements like this one.”
This article is originally posted on Tronserve.com
iPhone 5G With An Apple Modem Closer To Reality With $1 Billion Intel Deal
Jul 29, 2019
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Apple is on its way to making a 5G iPhone with its own modem thanks to today's $1 billion acquisition of most of Intel's smartphone modem business. It's another way whereby Apple will assert end-to-end control over its devices. The Apple-Intel deal will see as much as 2,200 Intel employees join Apple, with all-important intellectual property, equipment and leases, according to today's official announcement. In the end, Apple will hold a combined 17,000 wireless technology patents.
In spite of what you may read, TechRadar isn't predicting an Apple-made 5G modem inside the iPhone 11 or the iPhone 2020 – even the iPhone 2021 sounds far-fetched. The announcement marks the beginning of monumental task ahead for Apple. There will almost most likely be a 5G iPhone in the interim. Apple, in the end, does have a six-year agreement with 5G modem supplier and chip maker Qualcomm. That's how the 2020 iPhone probably will give Apple fans their first taste of 5G speeds.
When will Apple launch an iPhone 5G?
With today's news, Apple will be able to wean itself off of the Qualcomm modem that is in many previous-generation iPhones and expedite the progress of its own 5G smartphone modem, which is something Intel had struggled to do on its own. Currently, the iPhone XS, iPhone XS Max, and iPhone XR all have 4G LTE with Intel modems and that's not expected to change with the forthcoming iPhone 11 series. Some iPhone 8, iPhone 8 Plus, and iPhone X models have Qualcomm modem chips.
Apple and Qualcomm consented to stop suing each other back in April (and Apple had to pay Qualcomm a hefty multi-million-dollar fine in the end). Today's deal is inclined more than just bad blood. Apple has had a habit of bringing tech in-house when it can – we expect Apple-designed ARM-based MacBook chips in 2021, too. A series of 5G iPhone rumors point to the first iteration launching in 2020. Nevertheless this Apple-Intel deal won't close until the fourth quarter of 2019, leaving the Apple less than a year to turnaround a 5G iPhone modem. It does not give Apple so much time to develop its own modem, never mind a 5G version that competes with the Qualcomm modem chip already inside the Samsung Galaxy S10 5G. So it may still have to license modems from Qualcomm.
Google Pledges $348,000 In Seoul National University To Back AI Research
Jul 29, 2019
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Korea’s top academic name Seoul National University has received a pledge of maximum $348,000 from Google to back its artificial intelligence research and development. The two corporations will sign a memorandum of understanding on AI education and research Thursday, the school said. John Lee, chief executive of Google Korea, and officials from Google Asia’s university cooperation team are expected to attend the signing ceremony.
Under the collaboration, the U.S. tech giant will assist the university’s AI research, participate in doctoral research projects, design classes and offer student internships at Google. Additionally to technical and consulting support, the company is expected to provide up to $348,000 in funding over the next two years. The latest collaboration is expected to spur similar backing from Korean conglomerates like Samsung, SK and LG all competing for AI supremacy in fear of losing local talents to the American giant.
Talks with Google had first started off in the university’s engineering department but were subsequently elevated to the top administration level. “This agreement is significant given the role of universities in the era of the 4th Industrial Revolution,” said a Seoul National University official.
Along with the signing of the MOU, the university plans to set up an AI committee and step up efforts to create an AI cluster near campus. Founded in 1946, Seoul National University is a national research university commonly regarded the most distinguished university in South Korea. It topped Reuters’ ranking of Asia Pacific’s Most Innovative Universities in 2019. The Times Higher Education World University Rankings (2019) placed it as 63rd in the world and 9th in Asia.
China's Tech Startups Flourish In Talent-Rich Second-Tier Cities
Jul 29, 2019
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Chinese technology startups are flocking to second-tier cities, profiting from large talent pools and operationals costs that are significantly lower than in main metropolises such as Shanghai and Shenzhen. Chengdu, a city in Sichuan province, has started to become a hive of esports and gaming startups. In Hubei Province, Wuhan has enjoyed a flurry of startup activity spurred by the success of streaming unicorn Douyu.
Commercial rent and staff are cheaper than in key cities such as Beijing or Shanghai, and a wealth of universities offer fertile ground for companies seeking engineers. Regional governments are now working at the central government's behest to cultivate startups, and Chengdu and Wuhan are seizing those opportunities. 'Chengdu has a good environment for developing games,' said Wang Jian, chairman of game startup Chengdu Uminton Interaction Technology.
Uminton was established in 2014 and began to branch out after landing a hit in 2017 with a basketball game developed for online services conglomerate Tencent Holdings and is now worth 200 million yuan ($29 million). It is now working at developing a game for esports tournaments, Wang said. Compared with bustling Shanghai, for example, Chengdu residents are more 'laid-back' and enjoy online games more, said Yin Han, chair of the Association of Chengdu Cyber Game Industry esports organization.
Chengdu is home to roughly 300 production companies, which has in turn spawned contract developers in the area. One under Tencent was responsible for the hit smartphone game Honor of Kings, adapted for the West under the name Arena of Valor. Startups armed with cutting-edge tech are proliferating in Chengdu and Wuhan. Wuhan hosted 3,527 such companies in 2018, according to China's National Bureau of Statistics - the 10th-highest in the nation, while Chengdu came in at 13th with 3,000.
This is in part because a wellspring of talented young people. According to China's Ministry of Education, Wuhan is just behind first-ranked Beijing in terms of the number of colleges it has in 2017, at 84 against the capital's 92. Chengdu placed 10th with 56. Chengdu and Wuhan still trail Beijing, Shanghai, Guangzhou and Shenzhen, in terms of the number of startups. The main cities each host 10,000 to 25,000. But Chengdu and Wuhan are catching up with metropolises like Hangzhou, which positions eighth with 3,919 high-tech businesses and hosts the headquarters of Alibaba Group Holding, China's leading e-commerce player.
Sichuan and Hubei were each home to four unicorns - unlisted companies worth $1 billion or more - in a late-2018 survey by research company itjuzi.com. This placed them among the top six provinces for unicorns from a national total of 202. One Chengdu-based unicorn, Chengdu Yiyun Technology, offers an app that lets doctors share information. The service now has registered about 550,000 doctors throughout China, and the company is valued at $1.2 billion. In the future, Chengdu Yiyun plans to expand into new areas like marketing medicine online.
For the time being, Hubei's Douyu has risen to unicorn status operating its popular eponymous livestreaming platform. Over three days in mid-June, the welcomed crowds of young people to an open-air stadium for an annual Douyu festival. The company was founded in 2014 and reported revenue of 3.6 billion yuan for 2018 - up around 90% from the previous year. Having gone public in the U.S. on July 17, Douyu, which counts Tencent among its investors, is now valued at roughly $3.7 billion. Registered users reached around 250 million in 2018. Viewers can interact with streamers in real time.
Information technology startups in fields from comics production to games and education have turned up in Wuhan. Douyu Vice President Yuan Gang told Chinese media that he hoped his company will help bring greater prosperity in Wuhan's startup culture. 'Wuhan's concentration of colleges and research bodies supports the city's development,' said Takehiko Saeki, head of the Wuhan office of the Japan External Trade Organization. The schools are academically strong and churn out talented tech workers. People also are likely to settle longer in Wuhan, with a lower population outflow than coastal areas.
Office rent in China's second-tier cities can also be about half that in Shanghai, and normal monthly income about 70%, industry sources said. Investors are also looking for new targets in cities beyond the major metropolitan areas, said a report by Reality Institute of Advanced Finance, a research body.
Alibaba Targets 30 Million US SMEs
Jul 29, 2019
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Alibaba has started its platform to enable US businesses to sell their products to millions of Alibaba.com consumers in the US and all over the globe. Close to 30 million small and medium-sized businesses in the US – such as manufacturers, wholesalers and distributors – can now better access the US$23.9 trillion global B2B e-commerce market, an opportunity that is six times bigger than the global B2C e-commerce market.
Alibaba is furthermore co-producing a series of “Build Up” workshops and webinars with local chambers of commerce and B2B organizations throughout the country – including Score, one of the nation’s prominent non-profit networks of volunteer, expert business mentors.
“Alibaba purposes to encourage entrepreneurs and enable them to succeed on their own terms,” said Alibaba Group’s head of North America B2B John Caplan. “With 10 million active business buyers in as much as 190 countries and regions, we are reshaping B2B commerce by providing the tools and services needed for US SMB companies to compete and succeed in today’s global marketplace.”
“Alibaba’s announcement to welcome US sellers onto its B2B marketplace shows the Chinese retail giant’s desire to diversify its product offering,” said Emarketer principal analyst Jillian Ryan. “Currently, about 90 per cent of the goods sold on the marketplace are from factories in China that are often manufacturing custom goods-to-order for buyers across the globe. Buyers on the platform are from developed nations like the US, Canada, India, Australia, Brazil and the UK, and these buyers want to be able to source goods from the US.”
As part of its extended services, Alibaba has streamlined the ability to build and manage a single digital store on the global Alibaba.com platform; installed valuable transaction capabilities, including online payment; built CRM and communications tools to enhance the direct ownership of customer relationships; advanced digital marketing tools to target any appropriate B2B demand; and provided an option to work with Alibaba.com’s US-based Seller Success team.