On the occasion of the 40th anniversary of the founding of Shenzhen SAR, the first Munich South China Electronics Fair was held at the Shenzhen International Convention and Exhibition Center. During this period, CoreTech interviewed nearly 20 leaders and executives from leading companies and potential companies in the global electronics industry chain, and launched a special report on the topic, "Come to Shenzhen", to discuss with many industry insiders about the global electronics industry trends, China's semiconductor development and technological innovations, as well as other hot topics.
This article is a transcript of an interview with Wang Chao, Senior Product Director of Extreme Ocean Semiconductor. Mr. Wang is the Senior Product Director of JX Semiconductor, and has nearly 20 years of experience in marketing and product planning for chip manufacturers, and has served in the MCU departments of STMicroelectronics and NXP for a long time.
Joyo Semiconductor (hereinafter referred to as "Joyo Semiconductor") is a wholly owned subsidiary of Apex Microelectronics. With 20 years of experience in IC design, JH Semiconductor's products include 32-bit industrial-grade general-purpose MCUs, low-power Bluetooth chips, and industrial IoT SoC-eSE security chip products and solutions.
Interview Transcript
1. What is your first impression of Electronica South in Munich?
Wang Chao, Senior Product Director of Polaris Semiconductor:
Although it is the first time for Munich Electronics South to be held in Shenzhen, it is actually well-known in the electronics industry for a long time, and the influence of Munich Electronics South in the industry as well as the show's planning ability is trustworthy. So this time, I wish this exhibition a complete success.
2. What are the new products that we are showcasing at this exhibition? Please tell us about their performance characteristics, key advantages, etc.
Wang Chao, Senior Product Director of Jumhoi Semiconductor:
Regarding new products, Jumhoi has brought two series of products this time, the first one is the general-purpose 32-bit MCU series, and the second one is the Oikawa GS series, which is targeted at the high-end industrial Internet of Things (IoT) field
In the 32-bit general-purpose MCU series, Jumhoi has introduced the industrial-grade expansion type APM, which is the most popular type in the industry. launched the industrial grade extended APM32F072xB and industrial grade enhanced APM32F051x8 series MCU new products.
These two MCUs adopt a new manufacturing process, add capacitive touch function and HDM CEC interface, which can accurately recognize touch input commands to meet the needs of advanced control applications, and achieve ultra-low operating power consumption of 50% lower than the mainstream competitors in the market, and more than 1x higher Flash erase speed.
In addition, this year, we also launched five models of Daichuan GS series SoC-eSE big security chip for high-end industrial IoT field. This series of products are based on the domestic flat-top brother XuanTie CPU, support for dual-core, 4-core to 7-core multi-core heterogeneous architecture, in line with the state secrets of the second level of standards, and the use of domestic leading level of embedded eSE security unit technology, with a full range of integrated security protection capabilities, compared to the more independent security chip program on the market, the big Chuan eSE single-chip SoC program has a higher integration, lower power consumption and higher security. The eSE single-chip SoC program offers higher integration, lower power consumption, and higher security than more standalone security chip solutions on the market.
3. What is the opportunity of the founding of Extreme Ocean Semiconductor? What is the current product layout?
Wang Chao, Senior Product Director of Extreme Ocean Semiconductor:
Extreme Ocean Semiconductor is formerly known as the IoT chip division of Apex Microelectronics, which was established in 2015, and was formally established as an independent operating company in December 2019 in response to the booming development of the Internet of Things (IoT) industry, after four years of internal incubation.
In fact, when the company's business is bigger and needs to expand its scale into the next field, most of them will adopt this matrix form to operate and manage, and the establishment of an independent company helps the subsidiary's business to operate flexibly and facilitates incentives and performance assessment.
At present, the parent company Aipac focuses more on the development of printers and peripheral chips for printers, and the main business of Polaris is mainly outside of the printing industry, and the current products cover 32-bit industrial-grade general-purpose MCUs, low-power Bluetooth chips, and industrial Internet of Things (IoT) SoCs - eSE big security chip products and solutions.
4. As of today, what are the new developments in technology and market for the MCU series products of ExtremePower Semiconductor?
Chao Wang, Senior Product Director of Extreme Ocean Semiconductor:
In the market, Extreme Ocean APM32 series MCUs have been widely used in consumer electronics, smart home and medical devices since their mass production release in 2019. And Polaris has been certified by IEC61508 to expand into the industrial field, established close cooperation with domestic industrial intelligent manufacturing benchmark enterprises, to provide high security, high reliability domestic MCU product solutions for industrial control core equipment. Currently, we have been defining and designing M4 and M7 cores for mid-range and high-end MCUs, and we will be laying out high-value, high-threshold automotive-specific MCUs in the future to achieve full industry coverage in the MCU field.
Technically speaking, Jumhoi's products have the following advantages:
1) Stable and Reliable: The full range of products cover the operating temperature range of -40 ~ +105, with an ESD rating of up to 8KV, and a strong anti-jamming capability to meet the demands of harsh operating environments.
2) Good portability: Helps customers reduce chip replacement costs, shorten product development time, and accelerate time-to-market.
3) High-safety: has passed China's IEC61508 and USB-IF certifications, and supports industrial-grade MCU+Safety Chip product portfolio, which meets industrial and automotive high reliability standards, and is currently applying for the relevant German certifications.
4) Strong customization capability: Based on years of experience in product development, ExtremeSea is able to meet the customization needs of customers with multiple cores and multiple architectures of SOCs.
5. In the past two years, the development of domestic MCU has been relatively fast, and the market shipments have been rising, how do you see the domestic MCU market now?
Wang Chao, Senior Product Director of Polaris Semiconductor:
At present, the continuous development of 5G new infrastructure, artificial intelligence and Internet of Things (IoT) trillion-dollar market has brought a broad market space for domestic MCUs. In addition, the U.S.-China trade war has also catalyzed the process of chip domestic substitution, under the dual influence of internal and external factors, domestic MCU ushered in a new wave of rapid development opportunities.
However, it is worth noting that although the development of domestic MCUs is accelerating, they are now mainly concentrated in low-end applications, and the high-end market is still dominated by foreign manufacturers.
6, in the future planning, the sea of semiconductor MCU will be in what areas to strengthen the product advantage, to enhance market competitiveness?
Wang Chao, senior product director of JX Semiconductor:
From JX, in the future, on the one hand, it will increase the investment in R&D of MCU chips and technological innovation, to provide customers with products with lower power consumption, higher performance, higher stability and cost-effective. The company will launch the M4 core-based mid-range and high-end products by the end of 2021, and the M7 core-based chips are also under active preparation, so that potential customers can communicate with the company.
In addition, for the high-end industrial control field, we will launch the industrial grade MCU + security chip product portfolio strategy; for the consumer electronics field, we will provide based on MCU + Bluetooth, MCU + sensors, MCU + WIFI, MCU + authentication and other programs, to provide more customized for different scenarios for the market.
7. The Ocean Semiconductor's Oikawa series is a security chip, what aspects of chip design do you think should be taken into account to ensure the security of IoT?
Wang Chao, Senior Product Director of Extreme Ocean Semiconductor:
The design of Extreme Ocean's GS series of secure chips is based on the following three aspects of IoT security:
First, the chip's secured+reliable and fault-tolerant design: Through the construction of a trustworthy execution environment and customizable hardware mechanisms, the security resources of the IoT are guaranteed to be confidential, and the security resources of the IoT are guaranteed to be safe.
The first is the secure chip + reliable fault-tolerant design : By building a trusted execution environment and customizable hardware mechanisms, the confidentiality and integrity of IoT security resources are guaranteed.
The second is to adopt a highly integrated eSE embedded chip design: the security subsystem is embedded as a single chip module, which can realize multi-bit integrated security protection, so as to effectively guarantee the security of the chip device itself as well as the security of IoT data information.
Three is a multi-core heterogeneous chip design: the use of the national production of Pingtou brother XuanTie CPU, can provide dual-core, 4-core to 7-core flexible mix of CPU kernel design, with "business application acceleration and security protection" double advantage, support for the Internet of Things in specific areas of the special IP customization.
8. How does the market view the security of IoT now?
Senior Product Director of ExtremePower Semiconductor, Mr. Wang Chao:
With the continued development of the Internet of Things (IoT) trillion-dollar market, security threats such as user data theft and illegal manipulation of endpoints have been increasingly exposed. In this way, ensuring information security during IoT data transmission and device connectivity is critical to the development of a stable and orderly connected era.
Especially with the intensification of international trade disputes, more and more domestic companies are paying attention to IoT security issues and are eagerly seeking out secure domestic chip alternatives.
9. What are your expectations for next year's Moot Show? Will you continue to attend?
We will continue to support Munich Electronics South in 2021. We also expect that we will continue to enhance our brand awareness and gain more quality customers at the show.