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VOLUME 32 - NUMBER 5 Multi-Show Product Preview THE GLOBAL HI-TECH ELECTRONICS PUBLICATION May, 2017
Wacker’s Global Growth Prompts Investment in R&D
By Steve Leberstien
Munich, Germany — Wacker Chemi- cal grew its worldwide sales by two
MIRTEC showcases a full line of inspection systems, includ- ing the MV-6e inline 3D AOI machine. 5-show Product Pre- view begins on… Page 76
How to Choose the Best EMS Provider
David Raby of STI Electronics weighs the capabilities of EMS providers; OEMs consider re- turning from Mexico; BotFac- tory develops PCB prototypes.
Page 20 Electronics
Manufacturing Products
Wacker’s innovation center for silicones in Ann Arbor, Michigan. The R&D lab will focus on products for the American market. (Photo Credit: Wacker Chemie AG)
FlexLink intros its GENIUS 1- LD high-speed laser marker with a dual-laser head. Section begins on…
Page 26 This Month's Focus: SMT and Production
ASM optimizes supply chain through smart factory im- provements; Rehm targets energy efficiency in reflow; Mentor takes traceability to new levels. Beginning on…
Page 60
Speech Recognition: Less Power, More Applications
Cambridge, MA — The butt of jokes as recently as 10 years ago, automat- ic speech recognition is now on the verge of becoming a chief means of interacting with computing devices. In anticipation of the age of
voice-controlled electronics, MIT re- searchers have built a low-power chip specialized for automatic speech recognition. Whereas a cell phone running speech-recognition software might require about 1W of power, the new chip requires between 0.2 and 10 mW, depending on the num- ber of words it has to recognize. In a real-world application, that probably translates to a power sav-
ings of 90 to 99 percent, which could make voice control practical for rela- tively simple electronic devices. That includes power-constrained devices that have to harvest energy from their environments or go months be- tween battery charges. Such devices form the backbone
of the Internet of Things (IoT), which refers to the idea that vehicles, appli- ances, civic structures, manufactur- ing equipment, and even livestock will soon have sensors that report in- formation directly to networked servers, aiding with maintenance and the coordination of tasks. “Speech input will become a
natural interface for many wearable applications and intelligent devices,” says Anantha Chandrakasan, the Vannevar Bush professor of electri- cal engineering and computer sci- ence at MIT, whose group developed the new chip. “The miniaturization of these devices will require a differ- ent interface than touch or keyboard. It will be critical to embed the speech functionality locally to save system
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percent in 2016, in spite of modest growth in GDP around the world, achieving a record €5.4 billion (USD
$5.8 billion) in sales. The company’s polysilicon group benefitted from growth in the global solar market and reached record sales of over 66,000 metric tons, although at lower prices than in 2015. Siltronic, Wacker’s semiconduc-
tor unit, saw sales of approximately €933 million (USD $1 billion), lifted by strong demand in the second half of 2016, as well as a favorable ex- change rate with Japanese yen and improvements in plant productivity. This year has so far delivered
growth in both volume and price, es- pecially in semiconductor wafers
Continued on page 6
Silk Sensor Could Speed New Material Development
Gaithersburg, MD —Consumers want fuel-efficient vehicles and high-per- formance sporting goods, municipali- ties want weather-resistant bridges and manufacturers want more effi- cient ways to make reliable vehicles and aircraft. What is needed are new lightweight, energy-saving composites that will not crack or break even after prolonged exposure to environmental or structural stress. To help make that possible, re-
searchers working at the National Institute of Standards and Technolo- gy (NIST) have developed a way to embed a nanoscale damage-sensing probe into a lightweight composite made of epoxy and silk. The probe, known as a mechan -
ophore, could speed up product test- ing and potentially reduce the amount of time and materials needed for the development of many kinds of new composites. The NIST team created their
probe from a dye known as rho- damine spirolactam (RS), which changes from a dark state to a light state in reaction to an applied force. In this experiment, the molecule was attached to silk fibers contained in- side an epoxy-based composite. As more and more force was ap-
plied to the composite, the stress and strain activated the RS, causing it to fluoresce when excited with a laser.
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