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US economy grew at solid 6.5% rate in Q2 and returns to pre-pandemic level
The US economy expanded at a 6.5% rate in the second quarter, showing slight improvement from the first quarter’s 6.3% growth, but disappointed expectations for 8.5% rise.
Solid figures, despite the pace was below expectations, as consumer spending and business investments were tempered by supply chain constraints, boosts expectations that economic expansion will remain strong for the remainder of this year.
Economists say that real GDP has fully recovered what it lost during the downturn in 2020 but remain cautious as resurgence of in Covid-19 infections, mainly its new Delta variant, higher inflation, if sustained, as well as ongoing chain supply disruptions, continue to pose a risk which could slow the economic activity.
The US economy is expected to grow around 7% this year, which would be the biggest annual growth since 1984, with prevailing optimism resulting in upgrade of the outlook for 2021 and 2022, compared to projections made in April.
The US government provided an aid worth nearly $6 trillion since the pandemic started in March 2020 that helped the economy to stay afloat during the crisis.
Nearly half of the population has been vaccinated against coronavirus that allows the population to start returning to pre-pandemic activities and boosts consumer spending, which accounts for more of two thirds of the US economy and is expected to continue to grow, despite rising cases of coronavirus infections in a number of states and fading fiscal support.
The US Federal Reserve also pointed to strong growth and diminishing negative impact from pandemic but remain cautious on existing risk to the outlook from slower than expected recovery in the labor sector and kept the interest rate and asset-purchases unchanged in its July policy meeting.


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TLM MENA has unveiled a new air cleaning device to sterilize indoor air.
Developed by its European manufacturer, TechLumen, the air sterilization unit has been lab tested and certified with the ability to reduce more than 93% of bacteria and viruses from the air in just one hour of use.
Beyond one hour the device effectively wipes out any threat of airborne microbes in enclosed spaces.
Using an advanced UVC technology to neutralize microbes in the air safely, the device will enable businesses with high footfall to protect their patrons from illnesses that are airborne as aerosol or may be circulated from air conditioning units.
Recent studies from global experts have indicated that viruses including coronavirus may remain in the air for more than one hour as aerosol. Contact with infected aerosol within the indoor atmosphere can lead to disease transmission.
“The best way to reinvent ourselves and our society amid the coronavirus pandemic is to develop ways to safeguard ourselves using innovation and technology,” said Yannis Grigoriadis, managing director of TLM MENA, the distribution arm for the European manufacturer TechLumen.
“Extreme circumstances call for extreme engineering. The engineers at the manufacturing plant TechLumen have done just that with the introduction of an air cleaning device that can significantly reduce the bacterial and viral charge from indoor spaces using UVC technology.
"We are proud to be able to introduce this device in the market as a significant advancement towards protecting ourselves from the current threat.”
The device, named Sterilumen UT-225, is lab tested and certified by two European laboratories and is proven to effectively neutralize viruses, bacteria, protozoan, yeast, fungus, etc. It is a careful and precise combination of UVC light, the spatial proximity within the device, and the time contaminated air is moving within the Sterilumen UT-225 that enable these results.
The system draws in the contaminated air and eliminates the viruses/bacteria through various UVC channels, and then delivers clean air back into the room. Each unit can clean up to 300 cubic meters of open space in one hour. The UVC will effectively kill the viruses and clean air is released through a carbon filter system.
Sterilumen UT-225 has been specifically designed and manufactured to accommodate the need for air sterilizing in populated spaces such as restaurants, offices, classrooms, hotels, airports, gyms, entrances, and clinics.
The device is 100% safe around people; the UVC radiation of this device is completely isolated within its walls making it safe for anyone in proximity. This device has been tested and proven in laboratories wherein people were present for 12 hours.
Grigoriadis added: “Daily use is recommended for a safe, virus-free environment. Surface sterilizing, while also necessary, is not sufficient in providing complete protection against viruses.
"It is important that the air we breathe in closed spaces is sterilized and virus free. For example, the problem arises when although a public space is being continually sterilizing surfaces, there is currently no way to sterilize the atmosphere while people are still present. So, what happens if an asymptomatic person is in the room without realizing his/her status?
"It’s not possible to spread vapor to disinfect the entire space, nor can we use an open UVC light, while people are present. Sterilumen is the only solution to keep the microbial load of the atmosphere as low as possible while people are still in that space.”
Laboratory results have been proven by both testing facilities to show that the Sterilumen UT-225 can kill 93.2% of all microbes within the first hour (the tested space was 100 square meters).
The results complement CDC recommendations for UVGI, which is considered as an effective method in reducing the transmission of the airborne bacterial and viral infections by the organization. There are no known microorganisms that are resistant to the UVC exposure.
UVGI has been used for over 40 years for disinfecting drinking water, air, pharmaceutical products and surfaces against human pathogens.
Sterilumen UT 225 has been tested by Qlab and Eurogenetica.

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President Obama is in Cleveland, Ohio, today planning to talk about his plan to strengthen U.S. manufacturing by investing in new technology.
For starters, President Obama is expected to announce that the Department of Defense is launching a competition for leading manufacturers, universities and non-profits to form a new manufacturing hub focused on research and building prototypes of revolutionary fibers and textiles with what the White House calls “extraordinary properties.” The $75 million federal investment will be matched by more than $75 million of private sector resources.
The competition will be nationwide, but Obama is expected to note that the concept of such a research center—an expansion of the National Network for Manufacturing Innovation—started in nearby Youngstown, Ohio. Called “America Makes,” the Youngstown center started in 2012, bringing together researchers from industry, academia and government.
The President is also expected to explain a $320 million competition to strengthen small manufacturers. Non-profits in 12 states will compete for $158 million in Federal funds matched by $158 million or more in private investment over five years to provide technology and engineering expertise to small manufacturers through the latest round of competitions to strengthen the Manufacturing Extension Partnership (MEP)’s network of centers in these states.
A new White House and U.S. Commerce Department report titled, “Supply Chain Innovation: Strengthening America’s Small Manufacturers,” describes what it calls a dense network of small manufacturers that make up the backbone of America’s supply chains. These manufacturers play an increasingly important role in U.S. supply chains and the manufacturing sector overall because they employ 42 percent of all U.S. manufacturing workers.
Dense networks of these small manufacturers are vital to the process of taking a product from concept to market, and the exchange of manufacturing know-how across suppliers is essential for the diffusion of the new product ideas and innovative processes that give U.S. manufacturing its cutting edge, the report explains. However, small manufacturers face steep barriers to innovation—from invention, to commercialization, to the diffusion of new technology. For example, small manufacturers contribute less than one-third of all manufacturing R&D, despite making up 98 percent of manufacturing firms, and as a general rule, small firms are one-seventh as likely as large firms to conduct R&D, according to the report.
As a result, small manufacturers are often in the positon of having to adopt technologies invented by others. They also face unique barriers in accessing the capital and expertise to take on the risk of new technologies. One of the results of the challenges they face in adopting new technologies and processes, is that small manufacturers are only 60 percent as productive as large manufacturers, according to the report.
The White House Supply Chain Innovation Initiative will focus on public-private partnerships and new federal efforts to strengthen U.S. manufacturing overall by addressing the challenges small manufacturers face because, as the report notes, strengthening America’s supply chains and the small manufacturers at their core is essential to the long-term competitiveness of U.S. manufacturers both large and small. Manufacturers spend on average 60 percent of the price of their final product on purchased inputs, the report explains, so differences in the quality and nimbleness of their supply chains can make or break a manufacturer’s ability to compete.
What are your thoughts on initiatives to strengthen small manufacturers, and therefore manufacturing supply chains overall? Secondly, what impact would such initiatives have on your supply chain?


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Editor’s note: This story was originally published in the Aug. 11 issue of the The Daily Texan.
When UT research labs closed in March due to COVID-19, neuroscience PhD student Lauren Hewitt traded her microscope for a sewing machine.
Small businesses across the country have begun making masks as state mandates to wear them have increased. Hewitt first started making masks for friends and family and then later expanded the business. As of Aug. 11, she had donated $350 of the proceeds she has made from her Etsy shop to local nonprofits, such as the Austin Justice Coalition, Connections and Black Queer Lives Matter in ATX.
“I started making masks as a way to deal with pandemic anxiety,” Hewitt said. “It felt like I was doing something to help.”
Before making any masks, Hewitt said she reviewed multiple studies on face mask materials and filters. Hewitt takes precautions like adding filter pockets, multiple layers and a nose wires for individuals who wear glasses. She then made the masks using science-themed fabric, including dinosaur and galaxy designs.
Like Hewitt, business management information systems junior Evie Shaw and business and finance junior Amie Nyugen also decided to make masks. After Thousand Thread, a platform they created in 2018 for students to rent and borrow clothes, paused services due to COVID-19, they shifted their focus to creating and donating face masks.
Shaw and Nyugen posted on the Thousand Thread’s Instagram account saying for every ten likes they got they’d sew and donate one mask. For the 350 likes they received, Shaw and Nyugen made and donated 35 masks to the Ascension Seton Medical Center in Austin.
They handmade the masks using some materials they already had on hand to continue promoting sustainability through Thousand Thread.
“Our whole thing is to make what you can with what you have already. We wanted to continue that mission,” Shaw said.
After studio art sophomore Naja McDonald received the campuswide email on June 29 mandating the use of face coverings in the Fall, she said she began designing masks as a way to provide safe yet fashionable options for students.
“I just wanted to design something that would look cute with everybody’s outfits and take their minds away from everything,” McDonald said.
McDonald partnered with her grandmother, who had been a seamstress her whole life, to create distinct Longhorn-themed designs for the UT community. Her grandmother sews the masks while McDonald designs and markets them on social media.
“I was just thinking, we go to UT and everybody loves to show their UT pride and wear UT shirts, things like that,” McDonald said. “So if I need to wear a mask everyday, then I want a UT mask.”
McDonald said her mask-making business is an opportunity to expand her design and marketing experience while also providing an extra source of income for her and her grandmother.
Although larger businesses help make masks more financially accessible, Hewitt said people should buy from small businesses instead to help support the community. Hewitt plans to keep making masks as long as there’s a need for them. She hopes to be back in the lab soon, sporting one of her own science-themed creations.
“I think it’s really cool that people know me personally and can buy a mask for me because I put my time into it,” Hewitt said. “It’s very personally fulfilling knowing that I have that personal connection to people buying masks from me.”


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The SOI Consortium and member companies had a significant presence at two important events in China recently: the World Semiconductor Congress (WCS) in Nanjing and the SOI Academy, including an FD-SOI Training Day in Shanghai.
Nanjing is especially known as a leading RF chip design hub in China, but WCS went well beyond RF. The three-day 2019 event was held at the Nanjing International Expo Center. It attracted over 30,000 visitors, 5000 of whom attended the various summit forums.
The SOI Consortium organized the SOI Forum, which was part of an afternoon Innovation Summit. Presentations were given by members of the SOI Consortium team, and by leaders from our membership, including Simgui, NXP, Incize, ST, IBM, Cadence and Xpeedic. Some of those presentations are now available from our website — click here to get them.
Earlier in the day, SOI Consortium member VeriSilicon participated in a morning session on AI and IoT Wireless Communications. They presented their low-power Bluetooth design platform for GlobalFoundries 22FDX, and CEO Wayne Dai moderated a lively round-table discussion.
Following hard on the heels of the Nanjing event, the SOI Consortium team and members headed to Shanghai for the SOI Academy 2019, hosted for the second year in a row by member SIMIT (Shanghai Institute of Microsystem and IT under the Chinese Academy of Sciences). The two-day event attracted more than 250 professionals from more than 100 domestic and foreign IC companies and research institutes.
Keynotes by SOI Consortium Executive Director Carlos Mazure, SITRI CEO Mark Ding and Jean-Eric Michallet, Head of the Microelectronics Components Department at Leti and bizdev director for the SOI Consortium focused on the SOI ecosystem. The SITRI and Leti talks also gave updates on their research and industrialization alliance. Further talks were given by leaders from Soitec, GlobalFoundries, VeriSilicon, IBM and Xpeedic. These addressed the growing FD-SOI ecosystem, applications in automotive electronics, 22 nm and 10 nm FD-SOI devices, advanced SOI substrate technology, China’s FD-SOI development, the FD-SOI manufacturing process, product design, EDA tools and all aspects of industry’s software and modeling value chain.
Several speakers noted that more and more local Chinese customers are actively adopting FD-SOI for low-power, high-performance chips.
The second day was devoted to hands-on professional training, given by experts from Leti using an actual PDK and punctuated by in-depth discussions. This helped the IC designers to fully understand the advantages and flexibility of FD-SOI in low-power logic, analog/mixed-signal and RF.
All in all, “It was a great success,” concluded Jean-Eric MICHALLET, Head of the Microelectronics Components Department at Leti and bizdev director for the SOI Consortium. Plans for the next SOI Academy are already underway, with plans to extend the topics to include more on photonics, RF, power and MEMS.
Join us! In partnership with our members, the SOI Consortium is co-organizing and participating in two key SOI events coming up in China over the next few weeks. On May 18th, we’ve put together an SOI Forum at the World Semiconductor Congress (WCS) in Nanjing. And on May 23rd & 24th, we’ve teamed up with our members SIMIT, Sitri and Leti for another in our series of SOI Academies, including an FD-SOI Training Day. (The last one this past winter was a terrific success – read about that here if you missed our coverage at the time.)
At WCS, the SOI Forum (sub-forum #8) is part of the afternoon Innovation Summit. We’ll cover the broader SOI ecosystem, including both RF-SOI and FD-SOI – from wafers to design through manufacturing. Presentations will be given by members of the SOI Consortium team, and by leaders from our membership, including Simgui, NXP, Incize, ST, IBM, Cadence and Xpeedic. Click here or scan the QR code for the full program and registration information.
Also at WCS, SOI Consortium member VeriSilicon will be participating in a morning session on AI and IoT Wireless Communications (sub-forum #4). They’ll be giving a presentation on their low-power Bluetooth design platform for GlobalFoundries 22FDX, and their CEO Wayne Dai will be moderating a round-table discussion. You can get more information on that (in Chinese only, tho) here, or follow VeriSilicon on WeChat.
The SOI Academy in Shanghai is an opportunity for experienced designers to gain solid expertise in FD-SOI. The event begins in the afternoon of May 23rd with a series of informative plenary talks by members of the SOI Consortium team, and by experts from our members Leti, Soitec, VeriSilicon, GlobalFoundries and NXP. The FD-SOI Training starts the next morning, on May 24th.. This is a hands-on event lead by top experts from Leti. The morning is devoted to digital design in FD-SOI, and the afternoon to RF design (including for 5G) in FD-SOI. Attendees will get a comprehensive understanding of design techniques for low-power chips leveraging the multiple benefits and flexibility of FD-SOI technology. Get more information here, or from the WeChat QR code.
We’ve got a busy schedule! To keep up to date with where we and our members will be promoting the SOI ecosystem, be sure to check our Events page regularly.
The world’s SOI wafer leader, Soitec is posting strong sales and issuing a steady stream of compelling announcements. This is clearly good news for everyone in the SOI ecosystem, as the outlook for the various families of SOI wafers is excellent.
Soitec CEO Paul Boudre told ASN, “I’m excited because of the fundamentals behind the growth. Reaching down the supply chain gives us the ability to help our customers with the next generation. We’re not in a technology push, but in a technology pull. It’s long-term growth we’re seeing.”
Soitec has brought people from the device side into the company to better understand the solutions customers need, he said. They’re talking to the carmakers, telcos and more, working one-on-one with them to understand the constraints and the problems they are trying to fix, in order to deliver a solution based on the Soitec product roadmap. Boudre is particularly excited about 5G. It’s not just new handsets and systems: the entire infrastructure will require a massive upgrade, across which Soitec has a role to play supplying SOI wafers.
They also have other SOI and engineered substrates for specific markets like filters, displays, imaging and power. He adds that they’re seeing nice growth in SOI wafers for photonics, driven by cloud computing, and for smart power in markets like automotive and white goods.
Here’s a roundup of some recent developments. Chips made on RF-SOI wafers are in every mobile phone made on the planet these days, so lets look at what they’re doing there first. We’ll follow that with an update on the surge of activity on FD-SOI wafers.
It’s no secret that the runaway success of RF-SOI for front-end modules (FEMs) in mobile phones has stretched wafer capacity mightily. To help address this, in February 2019 Soitec and China’s SOI wafer leader Simgui announced an enhanced partnership and increased production capacity of 200mm SOI wafers in China, securing future growth. The two companies redefined their manufacturing and licensing relationship to better serve to better serve the growing global market for RF-SOI in mobile and Power-SOI in automotive and consumer electronics.
Since the two companies signed their original licensing and technology transfer agreement in May 2014, Simgui has mastered Soitec’s Smart Cut™ proprietary process to deliver world-class RF-SOI and Power-SOI products. Simgui’s strategic partnership with Soitec allows them to use the same tools and processes to deliver the same products meeting the same specifications.
Simgui has invested in their Shanghai fabrication line in order to double annual 200mm SOI wafer production capacity from 180,000 to 360,000. The fab is production ready, having been qualified by multiple key customers inside and outside China.
Simgui CEO Dr. Jeffrey Wang notes, “China has design, wafer manufacturing and good momentum in the IC industry. We are committed to our strategic partnership with Soitec to keep advancing SOI as China’s key differentiator.”
China Mobile’s interest in the SOI ecoystem is clear: they’ve presented at the SOI symposia in Shanghai for two years running now. In a February 2019 press release, Soitec announced that they’ve joined the China Mobile 5G Innovation Center – and they’re the first materials supplier to do so. The China Mobile 5G Innovation Center is an international alliance chartered to develop 5G communication solutions for China, the world’s largest wireless communications market with 925M mobile subscribers. The Center aims to accelerate the development of 5G by establishing a cross-industry ecosystem, setting up open labs to create new products and applications, and fostering new business and market opportunities.
Soitec’s RF-SOI wafers have been critical in the deployment of 4G communications, and the opportunity in 5G is even bigger. Plus the company’s FD-SOI wafers enable the technology that brings unique RF performance, making it an ideal solution for many applications including mmWave communications such as 5G transceivers. They are also enabling full RF and ultra-low-power computing integration for IoT and edge computing.
In January 2019, Soitec announced that they have expanded their collaboration with Samsung Foundry on the FD-SOI wafer supply, securing the high-volume Samsung needs to meet industry’s current and future demands in consumer, IoT and automotive applications. The agreement is built on the existing close relationship between the companies and guarantees wafer supply for Samsung’s FD-SOI platform starting with the 28FDS process.
“Samsung has been committed to delivering transformative industry leading technologies,” said Ryan Lee, Vice President of Foundry Marketing at Samsung Electronics. “FD-SOI is currently setting a new standard in many high-growth applications including IoT with ultra-low-power devices, automotive systems such as vision processors for ADAS and infotainment, and mobile connectivity from 5G smartphones to wearable electronics. Through this agreement with Soitec, our long-term strategic partner, we hope to lay the foundation for steady supply to meet high-volume demands of current and future customers.”
“This strategic agreement validates today’s high-volume manufacturing adoption of FD-SOI,” said Christophe Maleville, Soitec’s Executive Vice President, Digital Electronics Business Unit. “Soitec is ready to support Samsung’s current and long-term growth for ultra-low power, performance-on-demand FD-SOI solutions.”
In February 2019 Soitec announced they’d become a strategic partner in Silicon Catalyst’s start-up incubator. Silicon Catalyst is a Silicon Valley-based incubator providing silicon-focused start-ups access to a world-class network of advisors, design tools, silicon devices, networking, access to funding and marketing acumen needed to successfully launch their businesses.
Soitec will engage in this start-up ecosystem to gain insight into the newest technologies and applications across high-growth markets, and to guide nascent technologies to successful market penetration.
“As a Strategic Partner of Silicon Catalyst, Soitec has a unique opportunity to grow our visibility among early-stage semiconductor companies,” said Thomas Piliszczuk, Executive VP of Global Strategy for Soitec. “Engineered substrates give semiconductor related start-ups a competitive edge in developing new high-performance, energy-efficient solutions.”
Pete Rodriguez, CEO of Silicon Catalyst said, “Soitec is creating technical advances that are enabling the next generation of products across many market segments. Their SOI technology is a key ingredient to meet the diverse challenges for breakthrough differentiated semiconductor products, combining ultra-low power with excellent analog/mixed-signal performance.”
And finally, jumping back a few months, at the end of 2018 Soitec announced that their SOI wafers are at the heart of a new Renesas SOTBTM energy harvesting chipset, opening a self-powered future for IoT devices. SOTB is how Renesas refers to its FD-SOI technology.
(BTW, here at ASN we’ve been covering the work that Renesas has quietly done on this technology since 2005 (!). And we did a piece about an EETimes Japan article back in 2015 that revealed the launching of the 65nm work. )
Soitec supports the Renesas SOTB chipset with a special version of its FD-SOI wafer product line. The new Renesas SOTB-based chipset overcomes the energy constraints of IoT devices and reduces the power consumption to approximately one-tenth that of the existing products in the market today. That makes the chipset perfectly suited for extreme low-power, maintenance-free and energy harvesting applications including wearable devices, smart home applications, smart watches, portable appliances, infrastructure monitoring systems, industrial, business, agricultural, healthcare, as well as health and fitness apparel, shoes, drones and more.
Renesas has developed its energy harvesting chip using its unique SOTB 65nm process technology that achieves both low active current of 20 μA/MHz and deep standby current of 150 nA. As a result, Renesas’ SOTB chipsets offer enhanced control of the transistor electrostatics and reductions in both the standby and active currents to levels never before achieved. Additionally, Renesas has successfully delivered the dopant-less channel to suppress Vth variability for the ultra-low voltage operation, and the ultra-low power back bias control to reduce the standby current at the same time.
“To spur innovations in IoT and consumer applications, we have integrated our exclusive energy-harvesting SOTB technologies into our Energy Harvest Controller,” said Mr. Toru Moriya, Vice President of Renesas’ Home Business Division, Industrial Solutions Business Unit. “We are confident that our SOTB technology built on Soitec’s ultrathin substrates can deliver unmatched capabilities for developing maintenance-free IoT devices that never require power supply or replacement, giving rise to a new IoT global market based on endpoint intelligence.”
The new R7F0E Embedded Controller is the first device based on Renesas’ SOTB technology. Developers can now design applications that need no battery or recharging. The R7F0E features: an Arm® Cortex® -M0＋; operating frequency up to 32 MHz, and up to 64 MHz in boost mode (that’s body bias in action!); memory of up to 1.5 MB flash, 256 KB SRAM; and active current consumption while operating at 3.0V of just 20 µA/MHz, and in deep standby of 150 nA with real-time clock source and reset manager. As of this writing, Renesas indicates it’s engaging select customers through July 2019, with mass production in 4Q19. Read more about the R7F0E on the Renesas website.
There were over 220 participants at the recent SOI Academy FD-SOI Training event organized in Shanghai. The event extended over two days, with the first day covering a basic introduction to the technology as well as the ecosystem worldwide and in China. The second day was hands-on professional training. Attendees got a comprehensive understanding of how to leverage the benefits and flexibility of FD-SOI design techniques for low-power chips including logic, mixed-signal/RF and analog blocks.
They had a great line-up of experts from whom to learn – check out the agenda here. There was also a follow-up press release (in Chinese) from SITRI here. There will be more of these SOI Academy events in cities across China in the year to come – we’ll keep you posted (and of course, keep checking back for news on the Consortium’s Events page).
The two-day seminar and hands-on FD-SOI design training was (superbly!) co-organized by SITRI and Leti, with the support of the SOI Industry Consortium at the Jiading SIMIT campus outside of Shanghai.
Just to put this in perspective, SIMIT and SITRI are absolutely key players in China’s chip ecosystem. SIMIT is the Shanghai Institute of Microsystem and Information Technology, one of the most venerable institutes in the Chinese Academy of Science (CAS) and one of the world’s earliest pioneers in SOI. SITRI is the Shanghai Industrial μTechnology Research Institute, an international innovation center focused on globally accelerating innovation and commercialization of More-than-Moore for IoT. Both institutions are under the aegis of Dr. Xi Wang, Chairman of SITRI, Director General of SIMIT, Academician of CAS, and champion of all things SOI in China.
At this Shanghai event, the participants came from industry (including big companies, SMEs and startups) and technical institutions. In fact as well as attendees from Shanghai people voyaged from other cities such as Shenzhen and Chengdu.
The designers participating to the FD-SOI training day were all experienced in design and highly motivated in learning FD-SOI design, notes Carlos Mazure, Chairman & Executive Director of the SOI Industry Consortium, and Executive VP of Soitec. “This made it possible to dive into the specificities of FD-SOI,” he said, adding that, “The focus on RF was very timely.”
The first afternoon opening keynotes were made by SITRI CEO Dr. Mark Ding and Leti EVP Dr. Julien Arcamone. These were followed by overview talks by execs from Soitec, Verisilicon and GlobalFoundries.
After a lively networking break, three talks delved into FD-SOI technology. The first was by Professor Sorin Cristoloveanu, Laureate of the IEEE Andrew Grove Award and Director at the CNRS (the French National Center for Scientific Research – the largest governmental research organization in France and the largest fundamental science agency in Europe). He covered device physics and characterization techniques. This was followed by talks on the technology by Soitec Fellow Bich-Yen Nguygen, and by Dr. Christophe Tretz, IBM Sr. Engineer on product design methodology.
The day ended with a dinner, where Professor Cristoloveanu says enthusiastic technical discussions continued unabated (and continued even further in follow-up emails), lots of business cards were exchanged, and opportunities for further education were explored.
The second day, designers got hands-on training from Leti experts using FD-SOI PDKs, first in the morning on digital, then in the afternoon on RF. Everyone loved the lively discussion and in-depth exchanges between the experts and the designers. They agreed that FD-SOI has important applications and differentiated competitive advantages for IoT, 5G, automotive, AI and other fields. At the end of the training, Leti and SITRI jointly issued SOI Academy certificates of completion to the designers.
Feedback from participants was very good. Some asked for further education and for hands-on testimonials from companies that are already designing and manufacturing products on FD-SOI.
“The participants were focused, motivated, involved, with good knowledge, which helped make the three hours of Digital training effective,” said Dr. Alexandre Valentian, Leti Sr. Expert, Digital Design. “The IT team was very helpful in setting up the training, the students accounts and the hardware infrastructure.”
“The training on Basics of FD-SOI RF circuit was a great success thanks to the efficiency of our Chinese partners and also thanks to the enthusiasm and the good level of our trainees. As senior Expert of CEA Leti I was really impressed by the professionalism of the organization team. For all these reasons, I’m very glad to have had the opportunity to contribute to the 2018 SOI Academy,” said Dr. Baudouin Martineau, Leti Sr. Expert, RFIC Design & Technologies.
“The professionalism, efficiency and enthusiasm of our Chinese partners and the level and technical relevance of all trainees made the training on Basics of FD-SOI RF circuit a great success and fruitful experience,” added Frédéric Hameau, Sr. RF Research Engineer, Leti Project Leader, Architecture, IC Design & Embedded Software Division, RF Architectures and ICs Laboratory. “It was a pleasure to get the opportunity to be part of this first edition of SOI academy 2018.”
The organizers would like to thank the sponsors, including: the SOI Consortium and its members Soitec, VeriSilicon, GlobalFoundries, Simgui and Cadence, as well as Mentor, ProPlus and other companies and institutions in China and worldwide. Dr. Mazure notes that special recognition must go to Dr. Julien Arcamone, EVP, Leti-CEA and to Qing Wang-Bousquet, SITRI representative, for the perfect and smooth organization, and to the Leti instructors, who are international experts and highly committed.
“As one of the main initiators and organizers of the 2018 SOI Academy, I wanted to personally thank all of you for your respective contribution to this first edition of the SOI Academy,” concludes Dr. Arcamone. “Undoubtedly, it was a great success, very well organized and fluid and we can be proud of that.”
The presentations from the SOI Consortium sponsored workshop held during Semicon West are now posted and freely available on the website – click here to see the full agenda with links to the presentations. The workshop, entitled 4G/5G Connectivity: Opportunities for the SOI Supply Chain, was well-attended and generated excellent discussions.
If you don’t have time to look at all of the ppts, here are quick overviews.
Handel Jones is an industry veteran, China expert and longtime follower of the SOI ecosystem. High performance with low power consumption are the key requirements for the continued growth in the semiconductor industry, he said, making FD-SOI the right choice for a wide range of products. Here’s how he sees it:
He estimates the yearly TAM (total available market) for FD-SOI based products in the range of $46 billion over the next 10 years, largely driven by needs for ultra-low power and RF integration. He goes on to break out volumes by applications (including ISPs – image signal processors; and CIS – CMOS image sensors), foundry markets by feature dimension and to map out technology trends.
Mobile Radio Transformation in the Age of 5G: A Perspective on Opportunities for SOI, Peter Rabbeni, Vice President, Globalfoundries.
Peter Rabbeni is an RF expert par excellence, having overseen the shipping of over 35 billion RF-SOI products to date. In his presentation, he details how 5G NR (New Radio) sub-6GHz frequency band specifications significantly increase frequency range and channel bandwidth, and how new band support and MIMO complexity and die size per handset are driving complexity in RF FEMs. Furthermore, 5G/mmWave phased arrays are driving a paradigm shift in the approaches that can be taken, he explains, so greater integration is needed. Here’s a great slide showing where GF’s two main SOI technologies come into play:
Working in partnership with industry leaders around the world, Leti has been the research powerhouse behind all things SOI since the early 1980s. In fact Reuters ranks them #2 in their most recent list of the World’s Most Innovative Research Institutions. This presentation reviews the key technical benefits of FD-SOI for IoT and IMT (that’s international mobile communications, btw).
This presentation really puts the context around engineered substrates. Here are two excellent and useful slides here that identify which engineered substrates go where in the 5G world, and the engineered substrates that Soitec provides. Check these out:
Ultra-thin Double Layer Metrology with High Lateral Resolution, Bernd Srocka, Vice President, Unity GmbH.
In case you’re not familiar with them, Unity provides a wide range of solutions in metrology and inspection. Both the top silicon layer and BOX layer of wafers for FD-SOI applications have draconian requirements that have required new approaches in metrology to ensure the thickness and homegeneity control of these very thin layers.
Shanghai-based Simgui partners with Soitec, using SmartCut™ technology for the production of RF-SOI wafers. It is doubling its capacity to reach 400K over the next year, and expanding into 300mm. China is aggressively working on 5G and plans to deploy 5G commercialization in 2020. Jeff Wang’s is a terrific presentation detailing the rollout. (BTW, in addition to the massive funding effort underway, the government created the National Silicon Industry Group (NSIG) to support the semiconductor material ecosystem in China. You’ll want to keep up with what’s going on here). Here’s the slide that summarizes the SOI ecosystem in China – the presentation then goes on to detail who does what.
Inspection and Metrology Relevance in SOI Manufacturing, Jijen Vazhaeparambil, Vice President & General Manager, KLA-Tencor.
K-T has played a strategic role in the SOI story going back for decades (and in fact they wrote a piece for the third edition of ASN back in 2005!), ensuring metrology innovations for things that hadn’t previously need detection and measurement. With each new set of requirements, they rose to the occasion with wafer metrology solutions that helped increase quality and decrease costs. This presentation recaps some of them.
“GlobalFoundries, TowerJazz, TSMC and UMC are expanding or bringing up RF SOI processes in 300mm fabs in an apparent race to garner the first wave of RF business for 5G, the next-generation wireless standard,” writes Mark Lapedus of Semiconductor Engineering. His recent piece, RF-SOI Wars Begin, explains why demand across the supply chain is currently tight.
Rest assured, the supply situation is being addressed fast. By next year, 300mm-based RF-SOI manufacturing (vs. 200mm) will increase from 5% to 20%. But with insatiable end-user demand for greater throughput, overall RF-SOI device demand is increasing in the double-digit range, so 200mm-based manufacturing is also expanding fast.
SOI wafer manufacturer Soitec has 70% of the RF-SOI wafer market share. The other RF-SOI wafer manufacturers – Shin-Etsu, GlobalWafers and Simgui – all use Soitec’s RF-SOI wafer manufacturing technology.
This is an excellent, comprehensive piece, that clearly explains the complexities of the markets, the devices, the manufacturing and the supply chain. It’s a highly recommended read.
BTW, the SOI Consortium is organizing a 4G/5G SOI supply chain workshop during Semicon West (July ’18). Sign up or get more information on that under the Events tab here on the consortium website.
Of course, here at ASN, we’ve been covering RF-SOI for over a decade. You can use our RF-SOI tag to access most of the pieces we’ve done over the years.
China Mobile is the world’s largest* telco. So when Danni Song, one of the company’s high-level project managers presented at the SOI Consortium’s 5th International RF-SOI Workshop in Shanghai, you can bet people listened. With each new slide, a glowing sea of cell phone cameras rose over the heads of the audience in the huge, packed ballroom.
Over the last month, there’s been a lot more coverage of 5G in the press (especially after the recent Mobile World Congress (MWC) – check out Junko Yoshida’s EETimes piece for example). For ASN readers who want to know more about 5G and RF-SOI in China, here’s a reminder that Song’s presentation, and many of the others given by leading companies at the RF-SOI Workshop last fall, are now posted on and freely available the Consortium website Events page. Click here for the listing and links.
The theme of the workshop was IoT, mobile, 5G connectivity, and mmW. As Dr. Xi Wang, Director General of SIMIT/CAS (the Shanghai Institute of Microsystem & Information Technology in the Chinese Academy of Sciences), said in his opening keynote, China is strong in RF-SOI. RF-SOI will be growing at a CAGR of over 15% for the next five years, and China has production, design, wafer manufacturing and good momentum. “We will make a great contribution to the whole IC industry,” he predicted.
Of note, too, Russell Ellwanter, CEO of TowerJazz, gave what turned out to be a very inspirational keynote about Value Creation, and the importance of treating your suppliers with respect. He credits his company’s close relationship with RF-SOI wafer-supplier Soitec for TJ’s claim to the world’s best linearity. Five of their seven fabs do RF-SOI. LNA (low-noise amplifers) are a big market driver, and with RF-SOI they can integrate the LNA with the switch.
Here are some more highlights from the day – but by all means check out the presentations for details. (You can click on the illustrations to see them in full screen.)
In her presentation, Embrace a Brand New Cooperation in 5G Era, Song asked where RF-SOI could help in her wish list. Could it increase integration and decrease cost and power consumption? Can it help improve NB-IoT device performance? The supply chain needs to come back around into a circle, so that the telcos are connected to and get insights from the wafer substrate providers, she said.
China Mobile has a 5G Innovation Center, and has established test labs in 8 cities. And the government has announced a 5G launch in 2020, with pre-commercial trials now going into 20 cities. So she was at the RF-SOI Workshop as much to listen and learn as to share China Mobile’s vision.
The presentation by Kidetoshi Kawasaki, GM of Sony Semiconductor Solutions, focused on antenna tuning, which he said is one of the fastest growing things in cell phones. Antenna Tuning Progress & SOI Single Chip Integration for 4G/5G UE (note that UE = user equipment) looks at antenna aggregation, and why it is important for carrier aggregation (CA) and MIMO. Sony has developed an SOI-based next-gen process for 5G integrating passive components. That’s why RF-SOI is important and will be continued to be used in the mobile market, he said.
GF has developed demo vehicles to help customers, said Sr. Director of the RF Business Unit, Peter Rabbeni. (Over the years they’ve shipped over 32 billion RF-SOI devices, btw.) In his presentation, RF-SOI: Delivering Performance & Integration for the Next Generation of Mobile,he noted that RF is becoming more complex than digital. As a result there is a need to integrate to help reduce cost: this is a direct correlation to the standards that are driving complexity. At the same time, performance requirements are increasing, so the challenge is driving increased performance at the same or lower cost than previous generations of products.
To meet 4G/LTE and 5G’s evolving performance demands, GF has recently introduced two new RF-SOI platforms, which he detailed in the presentation. 8SW enables increased integration of front-end modules (FEMs), while 45RFSOI is for mmWave FEMs. (In a separate presentation, IDDO-IC CEO Denis Masliah presented a Differential Complementary Millimeter Wave Power Amplifier for 5G using 45RFSOI process, which is currently being fabbed by GF.)
The two leading RF-SOI wafer suppliers, Soitec and partner Simgui, both gave excellent presentations. Though Soitec EVP Bernard Aspar’s presentation Engineered Substrates as Foundation of Innovation in RF is not posted, he made some important points. Up til now, RF-SOI has mainly been about switches and tuners, he said, but there are other opportunities that offer the potential for huge growth. The full supply chain needs to be prepared, he said, and suppliers need to understand each other. Each technology requires the right substrate – and even as we move into sub-6GHz 5G, there is still work to be done in 4G. In fact Soitec is now offering services to help customers better understand new substrate options.
Soitec’s partner in China, Simgui, now uses Soitec’s Smart CutTM technology for RF-SOI wafer production. Together the two are now producing over a million 200mm RF-SOI wafers/year, said Simgui Sr. Director, Kerui Wang. His presentation, RF-SOI – a Secured Substrate Supply Chain, looked at their strategic partnership with Soitec, wherein they use the same tools and processes to deliver the same products meeting the same specs.
Two leading fabless companies – RDA Microelectronics (which was acquired by Spreadtrum) and SmarterMicro also presented their RF-SOI activities. Although their ppts are not posted, here are a few highlights.
Longtime ASN readers will recall that RDA has been shipping high-volume, RF-SOI based chips to Samsung and others for over five years. In the presentation, RF-SOI in Current and Future RFFE Solutions, Engineering AVP Joseph Jia said that over last two years alone they’ve released almost 50 RFFE (front end) chips on RF-SOI. They see RF-SOI as the right match for switches, tuners and NB-IoT because of the low-voltage and tunability advantages.
SmarterMicro’s CTO, Peter Li, sees RF-SOI as a cornerstone of 5G. In his presentation, Reconfigurable RFFE in 5G, he said the goal is smart systems on fewer dies to decrease size and cost.
Jeff Zhu, assistant director at SMIC, presented SMIC, 0.13um RF-SOI Platform Updates. Mainland China’s largest foundry has recently moved its RF-SOI process from 180 to 130um, and he walked us through some chip designs.
Throughout the day, presenters noted that RF is a great opportunity for China to take a leadership position. As one panelist at the end of the day noted, RF depends more on expertise and talent than digital, which depends more on manpower.
Just before the Shanghai events, there was a 2-day event sponsored by the City of Nanjing, co-organized by SOI Industry Consortium and the City of Nanjing. Over 200 participants attended the workshop and tutorials on SOI applications, SoC development and manufacturing, EDA & IP ecosystem, as well as a design tutorial for More than Moore SOI ecosystem. Almost all of those presentations are now posted on the Consortium – click here to get them.
Some of the participants in the SOI Consortium’s delegation also had the opportunity to visit the enormous Nanjing Sofware Park. Nanjing, we learned, is often considered China’s “RF capital”. The list of the world’s major RF players working in partnership there is certainly an international who’s who.
So, lots of good RF-SOI/5G info on the SOI Consortium website – check it out!
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The FD-SOI and RF-SOI events in Shanghai and Nanjing were absolute success stories. Over the course of five days, hundreds of executives and design engineers packed halls for talks by the leaders of the top ecosystem players, and for tutorials given by the world-renowned design experts.
These annual events have been ongoing in China now for a few years now. Citing the tremendous growth of SOI, Dr. Xi Wang, DG of SIMIT and head of the Chinese Academy of Science in Shanghai said in his keynote, “We’ve come a long way.” Five years ago, he recalled, very few people in China even knew what SOI was. Today the central government has recognized its value, and the ecosystem is riding a wave of growth and strength. A national industrial IC group has been approved for investment, and design/IP are ready. The industry has reached a consensus, he said, that FD-SOI is cost-effective and complementary to Finfet, while RF-SOI has reached an almost 100% adoption rate in front-end switches for mobile phones.
Many of the presentations are now publicly available on the Events page of the SOI Consortium website. Here are the links:
Over the next few weeks, I’ll cover the highlights of each of these events. Their success clearly represents a tremendous vote of confidence for the SOI ecosystem in China and worldwide.
“The success of these SOI events is a testament to China’s recognition of the great opportunity of SOI-based chip technologies. FD-SOI decreases power consumption and enables deep co-integration of digital, analog, RF, and mm-wave. RF-SOI enables 4G and 5G connectivity with even richer integrated functionalities. It allows the fusion of the RF switch, LNA, and PA, for supporting both traditional sub-6GHz but also mm-wave frequency ranges. SOI technologies also offer a means for China – already the world’s largest chip consumer – to leap to the forefront of chip design and manufacturing,” noted Giorgio Cesana, Executive Co-Director of the SOI Consortium.
The events were followed by top tech news outlets in China. Links follow below (the pieces are in Chinese; or you can open them in Google Translate or Chrome to read them in the language of your choice). Tip: in these pieces you’ll find lots of great pics of key slides, including some that have not been shared on the Consortium website.
FD-SOI coverage included pieces in top pubs such as EETimes China, EEFocus, EDN China (plus a focus piece) and Laoyaoba to name a few. Leading bloggers also posted excellent overviews as well as pieces about specific presentations, including those by Samsung, GlobalFoundries and Handel Jones.
Suddenly they’re everywhere: opportunities to learn more about FD-SOI and RF-SOI. Over the next couple of months you can find them in China, Europe and Silicon Valley. Some are organized by the SOI Consortium, others by foundries and partners.
Here’s a quick listing with links for more info on how to register for upcoming China events.
Nanjing, China. SOI Workshop & Tutorial, 21-22 September 2017.
Organized by the Nanjiing city government and the SOI Consortium. The first day is packed with top presenters, including NXP, ST, Samsung, GlobalFoundries, Cadence, Synopsys, as well as design and IP partners. The second day is a tutorial covering FD and RF-SOI, as well as imagers and photonics. Sessions will be given by Synopsys, Silvaco, Incize, ST, Soitec, and the SOI Consortium.
Shanghai, China. FD-SOI Tutorial. 25 September 2017.
Organized by VeriSilicon and the SOI Consortium. Tutorial covers: tech overview; analog/RF/mixed-signal; neuromorphic and IoT processors; EDA & design process flow; eNVM; and using forward & reverse body bias. Session leaders are from SOI Consortium, GlobalFoundries, ST, Soitec, UCBerkley, Evaderis and Greenwaves.
Shanghai, China. FD-SOI Forum. 26 September 2017.
Organized by VeriSilicon, Simgui, SIMIT and the SOI Consortium. The focus is on Ultra Low Power computing, RF, EDA/IP ecosystem growth and accelerating adoption. Presentations by Dr. Xi Wang of China’s SIMIT/CAS, GF’s CEO Dr. Sanjay Jha, Samsung’s EVP & GM Dr. ES Jung, as well as from Ron Martino, VP & GM from NXP; Paul Boudre, CEO of Soitec; IBS, NSIG, GF, UC Berkeley, VeriSilicon, Cadence and Synopsys. There’s also a very impressive line-up for a final panel discussion.
Shanghai, China. International RF-SOI Workshop. 27 September 2017.
Organized by Simgui, Sitri, SIMIT, VeriSilicon and the SOI Consortium. Now in its 5th year, this conference has grown very quickly: last year it was in a ballrooom with standing room only (note that RF-SOI chips are now found in pretty much every smart phone on the planet). The focus this year is on IoT, mobile, 5G connectivity, and mmW. Keynotes are from TowerJazz, Sony and China Mobile. Presentations from RDA, SMIC, Simgui, Will-Micro, GF, Soitec, Silvaco and Screen.
BTW, for events organized by the SOI Consortium, many of the presentations are available on the website (from Tokyo this summer, for example, and Silicon Valley last spring – and going on back through 2015). Scroll down through Events to Past Events to find them.
FD-SOI makes sense for China. That was the key message SOI wafer leader Soitec made in a press conference on FD-SOI for a select group of journalists just before Semicon China this spring. News then quickly spread, and resulted in over 150 FD-SOI articles in the top China technology and business press.
Soitec also put together a super FD-SOI resource page, with lots of information in Chinese (you can see it here).
Soitec execs Thomas Piliszczuk, SVP of Marketing & Biz Dev and Christophe Maleville, SVP of the Digital Electronics BU joined forces with the CEO of the Chinese wafer company Simgui and the VP of the National Silicon Industry Group (NSIG). They made the case that FinFETs, bulk and FD-SOI will co-exist, FD-SOI is an excellent technology for China on two fronts:
It was a powerful set of messages and clearly resonated throughout the press. Here’s a quick look (with a little help from Google Translate…) at what some of the top publications had to say.
The ChinaByte article was one of many that reported on the key points that the Soitec folks made at their press conference, leading with the headline that FD-SOI can help the China innovation blueprint. Other points included:
With a daily page views of over 1.7 million, CCINET is an influential site. The headline they ran was about how Soitec has promoted the ecosystem of FD-SOI and shares its innovate engineered substrates in China (link here). The thrust was that FD-SOI represents an opportunity for China. It covered the basics of FD-SOI, Soitec’s role as the leading global engineered substrate expert and partnerships in China with Simgui and Sitri, and FD-SOI’s strong ecosystem.
In a long and detailed piece, EETimes-China documented Soitec’s decade-long history in China, explained the special role of Soitec’s Smart CutTM technology in manufacturing the ultra-thin wafers for FD-SOI, then covered the scope of the ecosystem and the value propositions. There was also a follow-up piece by International Editor Junko Yoshida in the global edition of EETimes (see here).
Many publications focused on how Soitec and FD-SOI supports China’s innovation plan. They include: Power System Design; ECCN; Electronic Products China; 21ic; Electronic Engineering & Product World; EC.HC360; Microwave Journal; and China Electronic Market
China Electronic News noted how FD-SOI supports “Made in China 2025”. The headline of the China Business Journal article (which got a lot of WeChat attention) positioned FD-SOI as a new choice for the semiconductor industry, and a chance for China become an industry leader. EEWorld cited Simgui’s and NSIG’s affirmation that FD-SOI adoption is moving fast and will have a bright future in China. EEFocus looked at how FD-SOI compares with FinFETs (very well!), and cites Soitec’s Maleville as saying FD-SOI represents a 6 million wafer/year opportunity in China by 2020.
SST/China called FD-SOI the best choice for mobile and IoT. Of course we can’t cover all the other articles here, but with the Soitec press conference having generated over 150 pieces in the China tech and biz press, that message is now clearly out there.


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Scottish distillery Glenlivet has launched a rare 50 year-old, $25,000 whisky, which will go on sale exclusively at Harrods in London on October 1st.
The new whisky series is called The Winchester Collection and “Vintage 1964” is the first release from this endeavour, anticipated to become one of the most sought after and priceless whisky collections to be released.
Only 100 bottles of this Speyside single malt, priced at $25,000 each, will go on sale around the world in limited distribution. An undisclosed number of further releases from The Winchester Collection will then follow, with “Vintage 1966” confirmed to be next in line.
No expense has been spared in creating the whisky’s bottle, from hand-blown glass to the inclusion of Cairngorm stone in the bottle itself.
The spirit began life 50 years ago when Captain Bill Smith-Grant, the last remaining descendent of The Glenlivet distillery’s founder, George Smith, laid down a specially selected cask in 1964.
Under the care and guidance of current Master Distiller, Alan Winchester – from whom the collection takes its name – that Vintage 1964 has been deemed ready to be enjoyed.
“This release marks a milestone for The Glenlivet. Casks of this age and quality are such a rare thing these days that I’m immensely proud to introduce the first of these rare vintages of preserved stocks from the distillery’s rich past,” said Winchester


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China improves own operating system to catch up on Apple, Microsoft
It’s possible that by October, China could have its own operating system to take on imported competitors like Microsoft Corp, Google Inc and Apple Inc, Xinhua news agency said on Sunday.
Computer technology has brought tension between China and the United States following a series of run-ins concerning cyber security.
China is now tapping on how to assist its domestic industry to reach the level of imported systems such as Microsoft’s Windows and Google’s mobile operating system Android.
The said system would initially become availbale on desktop devices and later to smartphone and other mobile devices, Xinhua said, quoting Ni Guangnan leading an official OS development alliance established in March.
"We hope to launch a Chinese-made desktop operating system by October supporting app stores," Ni told the trade paper. Some Chinese OS already existed, but there was a large gap between China’s technology and that of developed countries, he added.
He added that he hopes domestically built software would be able to take the place of desktop operating systems within one to two years and mobile operating systems within three to five years.
Lat May, China barred government in using Windows 8, Microsoft’s latest operating system, which was a blow to the U.S. technology firm’s business which sparked fears China was moving to safeguard domestic firms. Microsoft is also under investigation for anti-trust violations.


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The cost of a steak to put on the grill continues to escalate and it is largely due to a shortage of truck drivers in Illinois and the rest of the country.
Industry officials said the driver shortage is pushing the entire pricing system up as supply chains are disrupted.
Matt Hart, executive director of the Illinois Trucking Association, said 97% of the trucking companies he surveyed say they are short of drivers. He added the shortage is having an effect on “not only the things that we are buying, but the things we throw away.”
Hart said Chicago’s garbage facilities are being overrun because there are not enough drivers to haul the trash out of the city.


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Peninsula-based Waze lit-up Twitter at the start of the month when an Israeli website, followed by Tech Crunch and Patch, reported that Apple was trying to buy the company.
The story quickly circled the globe, bringing cheers from iPhone users who’ve already downloaded the app, and jeers from Android users who feared that their favorite traffic app would be ruined by Apple.
But the latest buzz from Waze is that the Israeli-based company has turned down more than one suitor in the past year, preferring to grow the company into its own mega-brand.
Operations Manager Mikhel Dave sat down with Patch Editor Joan Dentler last week at the company’s U.S. headquarters in Palo Alto to extol the virtues of Waze.
Also on RedwoodCity-Woodside Patch:
- Dragon Theatre to Celebrate Grand Opening in Downtown Friday
- Redwood City Soldier Finishes Tour of Duty in Afghanistan
- Giants' World Series Trophy Coming to Redwood City!
- Port of Redwood City Business Up 9 Percent
- Sustainable Redwood City Makes a Big Change
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SUBWAY has launched its first ever seasonal sub, the Festive Feast.
EAT. has announced the launch of its new Christmas food range, which will be on sale from 16th...
Wagamama has extended its steamed bun range in its autumn menu, which also features a variety of...
Eat Out current issue
Three Cheers Pub Co has raised £15,000 in less than four weeks for the Kivuli Trust to help change...
South coast craft beer festival, The Brighton Tap Takeover will return this spring for a second...
Gourmet wrap grab & go concept Wrap It Up! has opened its first site in Liverpool near Central...


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Last year at Computex ASUS revealed their new Transformer AiO (All in One) Windows 8 PC that doubles as an Android tablet, and today we have good news for anyone that owns this unique device. While most smartphones and tablets are still waiting for the latest version of Android, ASUS has just started pushing out Android 4.2.1 Jelly Bean for this beast of a device.
As you can see above, it certainly isn’t small. Being a regular desktop PC running Windows 8, that can then detach and act as a tablet for anyone willing to wield such a huge device. I mean, it’s only 18.4-inches, no big deal. More details can be found from our Transformer AiO hands-on from last year.
Today we’re getting reports from Android Police that the device is currently getting the much anticipated update to Android 4.2.1 Jelly Bean right from ASUS themselves. Way to push out updates at a quick pace there guys, but we have a feeling a few regular Transformer Tablet owners might not be happy to see this get it first.
As you can see from the screenshot above, many have already received the over the air update this afternoon from ASUS. One important aspect is 4.2 brings multiple user accounts to the slate, something that a device like this could really use since it doubles as a PC. As usual the update is rolling out, but you can head into settings and manually check for and accept the update should you not want to wait.
So, would any of you actually carry around an 18.4-inch tablet?


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Not all ideas are good ideas. In a controversial photo posted to Reddit, one man revealed that Mountain Dew has created a a new, junk food abomination: a Doritos-flavored soft drink.
Steve Barnes posted the single image of a solo cup he had sampled at a taste-testing event to Reddit, in front of a "Mtn Dew: Dewitos" banner, sending the internet into a horrified frenzy.
"I didn't realize my weird taste testing experience would become so popular!" Barnes exclaimed. "It honestly wasn't that disgusting. It tasted like orange with a Doritos after taste. It tasted like straight Doritos afterwards though. Weirdest thing I've ever drunken," Barnes told the Reddit community.
Barnes told ABC that the taste-testing was held at an event on the Kent State University campus, called "Dew After Dark." The small setup included several booths where volunteers could sample several different flavors, including Lemon-Ginger, Habanero Mango and Rainbow Sherbet. At the end, there was an electronic survey and T-shirt giveaway.
"The Lemon-Ginger flavor tasted like ginger ale, the Habanero Mango tasted like really spicy mango, and the Rainbow Sherbet had a really overly sweet fruity flavor," Barnes told ABC. "Maybe I'd buy the Lemon Ginger or Rainbow Sherbet flavors. I wasn't too hot on the other ones."
PepsiCo confirmed they are testing the Doritos-flavored drink, though did not confirm if it will become available in stores any time soon, reported Time.
Students from Ohio and Kansas also reported tasting the Dewitos soda:
Photos used with permission.
Would you drink Dewitos? Let us know in the comments below.


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The Disney+ Hotstar VIP subscription offers the latest episodes of Indian TV shows at 6am on a daily basis.
Reliance Jio has started teasing a bundle offer under which it will include a Disney+ Hotstar VIP subscription for 1 year. The Mumbai-based operator had provided Hotstar Premium subscriptions in the past also. However, this is the first time that Jio customers will get the annual Disney+ Hotstar VIP subscription for Rs. 399 a year. It will bring access to Disney+ shows, movies, and Kids content alongside exclusive Hotstar Specials and live sports including cricket, Premier League and many more.
As teased on its official site, Jio is set to offer the Disney+ Hotstar VIP subscription for one year. There is, however, no clarity on whether the bundling subscription will be limited to specific plans. The operator has also not provided any details around the launch date of the offer. It does mention that the bundle will be “coming soon”.
Another move to counter Airtel?
Last month, Airtel brought the Rs. 401 prepaid recharge plan with the Disney+ Hotstar VIP subscription for a year. The plan also includes 3GB high-speed data allocation and a validity of 28 days.
Jio appears to be taking on Airtel by offering similar Disney+ Hotstar VIP benefits for its prepaid customers. The operator did provide Hotstar Premium subscriptions in the past. Back in 2016, it reportedly offered the Hotstar Premium subscription to its subscribers via Jio Play. Jio Fiber users also received the Disney+ Hotstar Premium subscription recently through the JioTV+ service.
However Jio seems to be taking over the market by the end of this year as it gets merged with the Disney plus+Hotstar.
Furthermore, JioTV is currently offering 688 channels on its platform in almost all languages, such as Tamil, Telugu, Kannada, and many more. So, now we are going to list some steps that will help you to get this service from JioTV.


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Mi 10 and Mi 10 Pro will be the first batch of Xiaomi devices to receive the update
Xiaomi has officially revealed that both its Mi 10 and Mi 10 Pro devices will receive Android 11 updates.
According to the Chinese vendor, Android 11 comes with MIUI 12 which includes a series of improvements, especially in managing conversations and device controls.
Conversations: Android 11 enables users to manage their conversations across multiple messaging apps at one place in the notification shade. New functions will allow users to respond to messages from the drop down notifications section.
Bubbles: Bubbles in Android 11 will float on top of other apps and be accessible for users in different situations. Bubbles can be expanded to reveal full app functions and can be collapsed when not used.
Device Controls: The phone turns into a “digital wallet and keys” which offers a one touch path to controlling users’ connected smart devices without the need to open additional apps.
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The Federal Government has introduced a new set of taxes on beer, imported vehicles and single-use plastics. It has also been added to the list of items banned from being imported into the country.
Under the newly introduced taxes, the Federal Government will charge N75 per litre of beer or stout imported into Nigeria. According to the Minister of Finance, Zainab Ahmed, N75 per litre will be charged on “beer and stout including all alcoholic beverages and beer not made from malt- whether fermented or not fermented” in 2023. This new excise duty on beer and stout will be increased to N100 per litre in 2024.
Before the new rates, the government taxed imported alcoholic beverages using valorem rates- levying of tax or customs duties) proportionate to the estimated value of the goods or transaction concerned. Now there is a specific rate, not an estimate. The same excise rate for beer will be applied to the importation of wine.
Under the tax laws, two-litre engine vehicles will attract an Import Adjustment Tax (IAT) of two per cent while vehicles with four-litre engines and above will attract a four per cent IAT with effect from 1 June 2023. The Federal Ministry of Finance Budget and National Planning quietly issued a circular (HMFBNP/MDAs/circular/2023FP/04) to all Ministries, Departments and Agencies on April 20, 2023 informing them of the new developments.
The Federal Government has also revised the import prohibition list with the inclusion of used motor vehicles above 12 years from the Year of manufacture; Paracetamol tablets Syrups; Cotrimoxazole tablets and Syrups; Metronidazole tablets and Syrups and Chloroquine tablets and Syrups.


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The recently-released Nokia 9 PureView smartphone has a major security flaw in its fingerprint authentication technology.
Users have reported that the fingerprint scanner on the Nokia 9 PureView sometimes unlocks the device when it reads an unregistered fingerprint.
A video also shows the device being unlocked by simply placing a pack of chewing gum on the on-screen fingerprint sensor.
Users on Reddit have also reported the same issue, stating that the smartphone can often be unlocked with any fingerprint or even other objects.
However, HMD Global that the company is rolling out an update which is meant to address this problem worldwide.


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A US security company called Norse, which specialises in darknet monitoring, has built a real-time map that shows where cyber attacks are being launched from around the world »
A comprehensive study spanning 1,500 years shows how white-tailed and golden eagles were once found across Britain and Ireland, but populations plummeted as a result of human activity »
In what is best described as a flash memory willy-waving demo, Kingston has unveiled a 1TB USB thumbdrive -- that’s over a thousand gigabytes on your keyring »
Our team of synchronised swimmers assessed the MP3 players for comfort, ease of use and sound quality »
Wired.co.uk reviews the Samsung Galaxy Tab S »


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Fliegenbanner (Fly banner)Posted: October 30, 2009
From wired.co.uk …
A company at a German trade show has attached tiny banner advertisements to flies and set them loose on unsuspecting visitors, in a bizarre yet effective marketing stunt.
The banners, measuring just a few centimetres across, seem to be causing the beleaguered flies a bit of piloting trouble. The weight keeps the flies at a lower altitude and forces them to rest more often, which is a stroke of genius on the part of the marketing creatives: the flies end up at about eye level, and whenever a fly is forced to land and recover, the banner is clearly visible. What’s more, the zig-zagging of the fly naturally attracts the attention because of its rapid movement.


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Intel revealed the direction it's taking to right the ship after facing crippling delays with its 10 nanometer CPUs.
At an Architecture Day event in Santa Clara, company executives spoke about the technique being used to develop future processors. Chief among those is what Intel calls Foveros, a new 3D packaging technology in which processors are stacked on top of each other. The idea is to shorten the distance between electric signals, thereby improving power consumption and performance.
The technique allows Intel to match different dies -- CPUs, GPUs, and Ai processors -- to create an efficient system-on-a-chip (SOC). Intel showed off a functioning Foveros chip with a 10nm CPU and an I/O chip, reports our sister site Tom's Hardware.
The most pressing concern for Intel is solving its 10nm nightmare. The company has fumbled for years to produce smaller processing nodes, specifically reducing the current 14nm chipsets down to 10nm. The 10nm chips, codenamed Ice Lake, were scheduled for mass production in 2018, but Intel was forced to delay the release after running into yield issues.
To appease the forming mobs, Intel re-released 14nm processors with higher clock speeds, and, therefore, small performance boosts. There now appears to be a light at the end of the tunnel. Intel introduced a new microarchitecture called Sunny Cove, which is based on a 10nm manufacturing process. The architecture should enable overall performance gains, reduced latency and allow for more processes to be simultaneously executed.
Sunny Cove will arrive on Core and Atom processors in the latter half of 2019. Intel hasn't clarified whether Sunny Cove would first arrive on Ice Lake chips. The company published a new roadmap for its next-generation CPU platforms. Sunny Cove will be followed by Willow Cove, which will debut in 2020 with improved caching and more security features. In 2021, Intel is expected to release a Golden Cove microarchitecture with a focus on performance and AI. Atom CPUs will similarly coincide with microarchitecture releases of Tremont in 2019, Gracemont in 2021 and "Next" Mont in 2023.
Intel also showed off a new Gen11 integrated graphics engine that will provide the backbone for upcoming integrated graphics units. According to Tom's Hardware's Paul Alcorn, a demo of the 10nm processor using Gen11 graphics ran Tekken 7 "amazingly well." Along with reducing memory demands, the new architecture will support multiple 4K and 8K video streams and provide up to 30 percent bitrate reduction with hurting image quality compared to the Gen9 microarchitecture. These are the first integrated graphics expected to reach a teraflop of performance, which means you should expect upcoming ultrabooks to run modern games at higher frame rates.
Intel also teased the upcoming Xe architecture that will follow Gen11. It will mark a shift from integrated graphics to the upcoming discrete GPUs that Intel announced earlier this year. Intel is targeting a 2020 release for Xe-based graphics cards.
Cover Image: Intel
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Phillip Tracy is the assistant managing editor at Laptop Mag where he reviews laptops, phones and other gadgets while covering the latest industry news. After graduating with a journalism degree from the University of Texas at Austin, Phillip became a tech reporter at the Daily Dot. There, he wrote reviews for a range of gadgets and covered everything from social media trends to cybersecurity. Prior to that, he wrote for RCR Wireless News covering 5G and IoT. When he's not tinkering with devices, you can find Phillip playing video games, reading, traveling or watching soccer.


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Once upon a time, software makers asserted that pricing played no part in customers' purchase decisions. Customers looked at features, user support programs, future directions, compatibility -- everything but price, the marketers said.
But now, price wars -- the bugaboo of mature product lines like color televisions -- are being waged in the personal computer software business.
Three of the industry's biggest players are engaged in vicious price promotions for their spreadsheets, wooing one another's customers with cut-price offers and giving away complimentary products.
International Business Machines Corp. recently halved the price of its OS/2 operating system in an effort to compete with Microsoft Inc.'s Windows. Now, word processing is emerging as a pricing battleground.
Most software makers predict that the current round of price promotions will end this year and won't permanently hurt lofty profit margins. And they are trying to wage their price wars without actually cutting the prices that most customers pay.
But the industry is playing a risky game. Customers rarely pay list prices for software anyway. Now, savvy buyers can often get top-quality software for less than half the discounted "street prices" offered by mail-order houses and warehouse stores. Software buyers could become as addicted to deals as auto buyers are to rebates.
William Zachmann, head of Canopus Research, Duxbury, Mass., notes that price-cutting strategies are tempting because software production costs are tiny compared with the $300 discount price for much business software. Moreover, top-selling products in each category all perform the same basic functions and incorporate most of the same special features, making premium pricing harder to explain.
To be sure, list prices aren't changing. And mail-order prices have actually edged up in recent years because software publishers have stopped the quarterly discounting to resellers that they once relied on to meet sales targets. Robert Weiler, senior vice president, sales and marketing, at Lotus Development Corp., says: "I don't think prices are eroding." But he concedes that "spikes of tactical pricing are going on."
For years, PC software vendors avoided price competition because customers were wedded to a few standard products. Corporate buyers, in particular, remained loyal to Lotus' 1-2-3 spreadsheet, Wordperfect Corp.'s WordPerfect word processor and Ashton-Tate Corp.'s dBase data-base software. Each carried a list price of $495 or more and sold at discount for $250 or more. Buyers decided it was better to pay the price than risk having unpopular software. Retailers preferred the profits they made on expensive software.
Software publishers kept developing upgrades of their software that they sold to existing customers at a cut price. But they kept high prices on the products and snickered at suggestions that consumers wanted lower prices. Says Mr. Zachmann of Canopus Research: "Every industry comes up with some explanation of why they're exempt from the laws of the marketplace. The fact is, any bozo can write software, and often they do."
In 1989 Borland International Inc. of Scotts Valley, Calif., began pushing what it called "competitive upgrades" -- industry jargon for deep discounts for people who switch from a competitor's product. It sold its well-reviewed Quattro spreadsheet to 1-2-3 users for $99. And it began cutting into 1-2-3's 70% market share. "Borland really set the whole pricing issue on its ear," says Robert Brown, an Atlanta consultant.
The current round of price cuts exploded with customers' move to Microsoft Windows, a graphical operating system that makes many software programs easier to use. Windows has been selling like hot cakes, and vendors are racing to develop Windows software. Microsoft, which has a big head start in the Windows market, hopes to dislodge the established leaders in spreadsheets, word processors and graphics. To grab or hold market share, many of Microsoft's competitors have resorted to cutting prices.
Richard Pickett, president of Merisel of El Segundo, Calif., the second-biggest software distributor, says the price wars reflect vendors' desperation to capture market share in the Windows market. "People believe the quicker they get out with a product and the more installed base they have, the better it will be for them long-term," he says.
Lotus still isn't ready to start selling its Windows version of 1-2-3, but as market leader, it won't want to risk cheapening its key product. To counter Microsoft's thrust, it gave away its $495 Ami Pro word processor for Windows with each sale of its high-end 1-2-3. The action seeded Ami Pro in a lot of companies that hadn't tried it previously, Lotus says.


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The number is a 1.1m rise since this time last year.
Despite the growth, 300,000 wrongly believe they have full regulatory protection in the event of a problem leaving them exposed to “financial harm,” says the regulator.
Of the 1.9m that still hold cryptoassets – such as Bitcoin, Ripple or Ether – half have more than £260.
The research is part of the FCA’s work with the Government and Bank of England to understand market size, consumer profiles and attitudes towards cryptoassets.
In the March Budget, Chancellor Rishi Sunak announced plans to consult on whether to bring some cryptoassets into UK financial promotions regulation.
A policy statement is due this year following a consultation on banning the sale of certain cryptoasset derivatives to retail investors.
The figures for the latest FCA research are based on a recent study conducted online by YouGov which saw 2,681 participants questioned.
- The majority of cryptoasset owners were generally “knowledgeable” about cryptoassets, aware of the lack of regulatory protection and understand the risk of price volatility;
- An estimated 300,000 cryptoasset owners believe they have protection, which leaves them at potential risk of financial harm;
- Adverts play a key role in influencing cryptoasset consumers’ decisions, with more than a third of respondents saying an advert made them more likely to purchase cryptoassets;
Of those who buy cryptoassets, 83% do so through non-UK based exchanges, the study found.
The FCA’s interim executive director of strategy and competition, Sheldon Mills, said: “Cryptoassets present risks and opportunities for consumers and we hope these insights will help inform the policy debate in the UK and internationally as the use of these assets continues to grow.”
The FCA has previously warned that cryptoassets are “highly volatile and risky.” Many are not currently regulated in the UK.


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STATEN ISLAND, N.Y. — King Kullen is closing its Arden Heights store less than three years after it increased its presence on Staten Island by purchasing five supermarkets here.
It was the Long Island-based grocery retailer’s only location in the borough at the time of the 2007 purchase — and the third to shut its doors since.
“The lease is expiring at our store located at 244 Arden Ave. on Staten Island,” said King Kullen vice president Thomas Cullen in a statement. “Unfortunately, King Kullen could not come to an agreement with the landlord over terms of a new lease. As a result, the store will be closing at the end of December 2010.”
Cullen declined further comment through a spokesman about the fate of the store’s employees.
At 53,000 square feet, the free-standing King Kullen has anchored the Village Greens Shopping Center on Arden Avenue since 1990.
Its closure will create a vacancy in an otherwise fully occupied shopping center that is home to CVS, Chase, State Farm Insurance, a pizzeria, bagel store, nail salon, hair salon, skin and body shop, travel agency, sushi restaurant, Chinese takeout, dry cleaner’s, coin laundry and hardware, optical, card and liquor stores.
CVS is expanding into the spot that was occupied by Wendy’s until it closed abruptly last summer.
King Kullen announced in November 2007 that it had forged a deal to buy four Island Waldbaum’s stores and a Pathmark from the Great Atlantic and Pacific Tea Company for an undisclosed price.
The transaction was inspired, in part, by a Federal Trade Commission decision: After the A&P Company purchased the Pathmark chain, the FTC became concerned that the company, which also operates Waldbaum’s, would have a monopoly on the Island.
Since that purchase, the store in New Dorp’s Hylan Plaza went out of business and reopened as a Pathmark, and the one at 778 Manor Rd. in Castleton Corners also was shut down.
Both closed their doors last year: Castleton Corners when King Kullen was unable to renegotiate a lease extension, and New Dorp because competition from nearby Stop & Shop and ShopRite slowed business.
There was a King Kullen in Stapleton dating to 1985; it closed and was sold to Western Beef in 1997.
After the Arden Avenue store closes, three King Kullen supermarkets will remain on the Island, at 3251 Richmond Ave. in Greenridge, 4343 Amboy Rd. in Eltingville and 1441 Richmond Ave. in Graniteville.


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Since the announcement on September 18 that the production, sale and import of electronic cigarettes will be completely banned, the Indian government has succumbed to lawsuits, and it is not a lawsuit, but two.
On September 26, the High Court of Calcutta in the eastern city of India heard two cases against the Indian government to issue an e-cig ban. This is the first time the Indian government got sued after banning the sale of electronic cigarettes this month.
According to a Reuters report on September 27, one of the lawsuits filed in the High Court of Calcutta was an e-cigarette importer and the other was an e-cigarette company.
The plaintiff’s lawyer, Abysek Manu Singhwei, said that the government’s ban involves legal issues and is arbitrary and excessive.
India is a developing country. At present, we don’t have much understanding of the legal environment in India. While we don’t know if this accusation will finally win, the High Court of Calcutta in the eastern Indian city is willing to handle it, which is also a huge improvement, indicating that the Indian government can’t do anything at its own will.
The United States is still investigating, and has not yet issued a report that proves that it is related to e-cigarettes. The information currently known is not directly related to e-cigarettes. India has come directly to make a one-size-fits-all ban: after the ban is announced, any vaping production, manufacturing, import, export, transportation, sales (including online sales), distribution, advertising (including online advertising) are all crimes.
The first violation of the ban will result in a maximum imprisonment of one year or a fine of 100,000 rupees (about $1500), or both. The recidivist is sentenced to a maximum of three years’ imprisonment and a fine of 500,000 rupees (about $7000).
The authority is too lazy to think about more. Or there should be some tobacco companies laughing loud behind the scene.
The reason for the total ban on e-cigarettes is to consider for young people, “Let our citizens, the health of our young people no longer take risks.” In fact, everyone who knows that this reason cannot withstand scrutiny and is hypocritical.
There are approximately 106 million smokers in India, and more than 900,000 people die each year from diseases associated with tobacco. If you really think about adolescents, you should regulate the development of e-cigarettes and prohibit sales to minors. If you think about smokers, you should learn from the UK, study e-cigarettes, and strongly support the development of e-cigarettes.


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Tens of millions of additional vehicles may soon be recalled due to faulty airbag inflators that can explode during a crash and injure or even kill occupants.
The U.S. National Highway Traffic Safety Administration (NHTSA) has determined that approximately 41 million inflators made by Tennessee-based supplier ARC Automotive between 2000-2018 are defective and should be recalled. Another 11 million from Delphi, under a licensing agreement with ARC Automotive, happen to be in the same situation.
- Also: GM Recalls 42,000 SUVs With Potentially Deadly Airbags in Canada
- Also: 38,000 Older BMWs Hit With “Do Not Drive” Order Due to Takata Airbags
A public hearing will be held on October 5 allowing the two companies and other parties to present evidence that would prove there is no defect. The NHTSA will later decide if a recall is indeed necessary or not.
Vehicles possibly affected this time around come from General Motors, Ford, Stellantis, Hyundai, Tesla and Toyota. Earlier this year, GM recalled more than one million units in North America, over 42,000 of which were in Canada—all of them midsize SUVs covering the 2014-2017 model years including the Buick Enclave, Chevrolet Traverse and GMC Acadia.
ARC Automotive has been under investigation by the NHTSA since 2015. The company has previously disagreed with the agency's tentative conclusion that its airbag inflators are defective. It claims the exploding inflators were the result of "one-off manufacturing anomalies" that were later addressed by automakers in various recalls.
BMW, Ford, Volkswagen and others have also recalled a number of their vehicles equipped with ARC inflators. To this day, at least nine incidents globally (seven in the U.S.) have been reported. Two people have died, but more could follow if vehicle owners don’t have their faulty airbags replaced.
This is starting to sound a lot like what happened with out-of-business Japanese supplier Takata, which is responsible for the biggest auto-related safety recall ever with over 100 million inflators recalled around the globe. About two dozen motorists have been killed by exploding Takata inflators.


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NEW YORK (CBSNewYork) -- It's the end of an era for a matzo making business in New York that's now headed to a neighboring state in order to continue production.
As CBS2's Meg Baker reported, Streit's Matzos on Rivington Street in the Lower East Side was started by Aron Streit 90 years ago.
"He opened up the modern machine bakery here with his eldest son in 1925," said co-owner Alan Adler.
After 90 Years On Lower East Side, Streit's Matzos Moving To New Jersey
Adler's great-grandfather said customers used to form lines down the block to get their matzo.
But soon, that will be no more.
Operations at the factory are set to end come summertime, but you can always find Streit's matzo at your local supermarket, Baker reported.
"There's just many logistical difficulties that we just can't fight with anymore on the Lower East Side," Adler said.
As the business changed to wholesale, large delivery trucks found trouble in turning down narrow city streets.
Streit's also ran out of space for new equipment.
"While everything else is getting smaller -- computers and everything else -- matzoh making equipment is just getting bigger," Adler said.
The original machinery is still used for production.
"This machinery probably dates back to the 30's, early 40's," Adler said. "The oven has been the big problem."
The factory employs more than 50 people along the assembly line.
Adler said they're too upset to talk about the move, Baker reported.
"Employees go back here 30 years, 20 years -- family members, fathers and sons, cousins, uncles, nephews -- very sad for all of us," Adler said.
But it was a decision he said they had to make.
"Economically, just can't run an operation like this in Manhattan out of four converted tenement buildings in the 21st Century," Adler said.
Production will continue in Manhattan through the Jewish holidays this spring, then move permanently to Streit's current satellite factory in Moonachie, New Jersey.
Another co-owner, Aaron Gross, told WCBS 880's Peter Haskell the decision was gut wrenching, but the satellite factory is better logistically.
"There is some more modern packaging equipment. To be on one story, on one floor, to have a distribution center along side the manufacturing," he said.
The new property owners have yet to determine what the building will be used for.
Check Out These Other Stories From CBSNewYork.com:
for more features.


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Another Loss for Toyota, but Signs of RecoveryIan Rowley
In more normal economic times, the announcement of a quarterly loss running to hundreds of millions of dollars would be a grim statistic for Toyota (TM). After all, on its way to overtaking General Motors in 2008 as the world's largest automaker, Toyota would regularly meet or beat profit forecasts. And it made more money than any other automaker. At a press conference in Tokyo on Aug. 4, though, a smaller-than-expected loss was greeted as a sign that the worst may be over for Toyota and other Japanese automakers. "We're making steady progress," Toyota Senior Managing Director Takahiko Ijichi told reporters.
At first glance the figures don't look too great. For the three months ended in June, Toyota lost $818 million, compared with a $3.7 billion profit during the same period in 2008. Its loss compares unfavorably with Honda (HMC), which eked out a small profit in the same period, and Nissan (NSANY), which posted a $158 million loss. It is also the third quarter in a row in which Toyota has lost money.
For all that, the figures were far better than most industry watchers expected. A survey of five Tokyo auto analysts by Bloomberg News projected a loss of $1.9 billion for the quarter. Toyota's red ink was also an improvement on the last two quarters, when it lost $8.1 billion and $1.7 billion, respectively. What's more, it came despite sales slumping 38% year-on-year, to $40.3 billion.
Stimulus Is Working Perhaps more important, Toyota sweetened earnings and sales projections. Citing the positive impact of government stimulus measures in Japan and other countries, it now expects to lose $4.7 billion for the year ending March 2010, compared with a previous loss forecast of $5.8 billion. Sales, meanwhile, are now expected to reach $176.8 billion, $3.1 billion more than its earlier forecast. And Toyota said it anticipates selling 100,000 more vehicles this year than an earlier estimate, after better-than-expected sales in Japan. Government incentives such as "cash for clunkers" schemes had "begun to trigger a revival in some countries," Ijichi said.
Toyota could also benefit from a weakening of the Japanese yen. As the world financial system wobbled last fall, the yen surged against the dollar and other currencies and remains at painfully high levels for Japanese exporters. Toyota's new sales and profit projections assume an exchange rate of 90 yen to the dollar between now and the rest of the financial year. That compares with today's yen-dollar rate of 94.9. Given that a one-yen weakening of the currency's value against the dollar adds about $400 million to Toyota's bottom line, its forecasts could prove conservative if the yen stays below the assumed rate.
Toyota's relatively positive numbers follow the pattern of Honda and Nissan, which announced their numbers on July 29. After auto sales around the world collapsed last fall following the demise of Lehman Brothers, Japan's Big Three automakers each took a series of painful cost-cutting measures, including not renewing the contracts of temporary workers, temporarily closing factories, and delaying or canceling projects.
At Toyota, no saving, it seems, has been too small. In wintertime, the heat in factories was turned down, causing workers to wear sweaters to stay warm. Office staffers were encouraged to take the stairs rather than elevators, to save electricity. And suppliers have been under huge pressure to cut the cost of parts. "We're facing a once-in-100-years crisis," said Akio Toyoda, a scion of the founding family, after Toyota said he would become the company's president. Evidence suggests the bitter medicine is working. Toyota on Aug. 4 said that its cost-cutting efforts, including the creation last fall of an Emergency Profit Improvement Committee, produced $2.4 billion of savings during the April-June quarter.
Hot Demand for the Prius Toyota is also benefiting from the popularity of the new third-generation Prius hybrid. Ijichi said that demand for the new Prius continues to outstrip supply and that production is running at full capacity. Indeed, Toyota would make more Priuses if it could but is constrained by a shortage of battery packs. Relief should come soon. Toyota's battery unit, Panasonic EV Energy, is increasing output of hybrid batteries and will soon have the capacity to make 800,000 packs a year, an increase of 300,000. By next summer, annual capacity will rise a further 200,000.
Yet even if the signs point to recovery, it is difficult to see Toyota returning to previous levels of profitability any time soon. For that to happen, a prolonged recovery of sales in the U.S., traditionally Toyota's most important source of profits, is vital. While U.S. sales are falling less quickly than at the start of 2009 (Toyota was down 11% in July), that still seems far off. For the three months that ended in June, sales in North America slumped to 387,000 cars and trucks, compared with 729,000 for the same period a year ago. That has left Toyota—which has delayed opening a Prius plant in Mississippi and is considering the future of the New United Motor Manufacturing plant in California after joint-venture partner GM said it was dissolving its stake—with substantial overcapacity. One further concern is what will happen once stimulus spending wears off. "The market environment seems to be improving," says Ijichi, "[but] it is not clear yet if sales can stabilize without government measures."
In the absence of robust sales growth, the company, under new chief Toyoda, will continue with efforts to rein in costs. The signs are hopeful: For the full year, Toyota now expects its Emergency Profit Improvement Committee to find savings of $9.5 billion, up from a previous target of $8.4 billion. That won't get Toyota back in profit for the full year, but it at least makes the losses a little less painful. "The car market is surely going to recover sometime in the future—we are not overly pessimistic," Ijichi added. "In the meantime, we will keep reducing our costs."


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Robert “Bob” Bukowsky, former vice president of sales for Ideal Industries, Sycamore, Ill., died at age 71. Ideal described Bukowsky as “a world-class salesman” who joined the company as national sales manager and was named vice president of sales in 1993. Bukowsky and his wife, Franca, were regulars at the industry’s association meetings for more than 20 years. Among his many honors, he received the National Association of Electrical Distributors’ Associate Award for outstanding ...
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