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www.us- tech.com


Tech-Op-ed December, 2016


SOUNDING OFF By Walter Salm


Editor Emeritus


More Gigafactories Needed


L


ithium. It’s number 3 in the Periodic Table, it is the lightest of known metals, and was first used as early as the 2nd Century A.D. in ancient Greece by physician Soranus to control bipolar disorders. The Greek


physician didn’t know it was the lithium that was working the wonders, but the element occurred naturally in the alkaline waters in his town of Ephesus, and helped people with mania and depression. It wasn’t isolated as an ele- ment until 1817 in Sweden. Lithium is an incendiary, a fact that has come home to roost with the


many lithium battery fires we have experienced, most recently in a whole bunch of new Samsung cell phones that were so crammed full of functionali- ty that there apparently was not enough room for battery and processor heat to dissipate adequately. And not too long ago, Boeing had to ground all of its spanking-new 787 Dreamliners because of fires in the lithium batteries that were part of the aircraft’s electrical system. Why has this become such a problem now? Because we have been taking


too much of today’s technology for granted, without noticing the pimples on otherwise flawless complexions. The tiniest of defects or leaks in the battery case can spell disaster because pure lithium exposed to the atmosphere will explode, it’s that flammable. Yet we find it in batteries in millions of cell phones, tablets and computers, simply because it’s so much more efficient at storing energy in batteries than anything else that the scientific community has discovered to date. For all of their potentially disastrous properties, lithi- um ion rechargeable batteries are still a vast improvement over nickel-cadmi- um batteries which did a gradual disappearing act once the lithium products were deemed practicable. If we are manufacturing and using so many Li-ion batteries, why are


there still incidents of spontaneous fires? For one thing, designers of products that use these storage devices tend to think of lithium batteries as a commod- ity, a technology that has been well developed and refined. That idea is fine as far as it goes, but there are still suppliers — particularly in China — who will think nothing of cutting corners where safety margins and materials are concerned, and let the buyer beware. The manufacturing buyer must also be very aware of the potential danger, because his products can get some very bad press and end up with very costly recalls, as in the case of Samsung. And as for the Boeing Dreamliner, the “fix” has been to provide better battery con- tainment in fireproof boxes to prevent the spread of any more lithium fires. Containment? How about a redesign? I don’t think I would want to board a Dreamliner until this problem has been totally resolved. In the good news department, there has been a breakthrough develop-


ment at the University of Maryland in College Park. Researchers there have replaced the hazardous lithium-coated carbon disc at the heart of coin-cell batteries with a lithium-coated ceramic disc. The new disc has resisted all ef- forts to purposely ignite it, and may point the way toward a whole new class of non-combustible lithium batteries. And it still remains to be seen whether or not this technology can be upsized to the larger batteries that we use in computers, electric automobiles and Dreamliners. Manufacturing such a bat- tery would require retooling an entire industry, and since over 85 percent of all Li-ion batteries are now made in Asia, it gives U.S. manufacturers a new opportunity to rebuild and reshore a major part of the electronics manufac- turing industry. Tesla is building its gigafactory, a gargantuan battery plant in Nevada that is expected to be up and running by 2020. Now it’s time for other U.S. companies to follow suit. r


PUBLISHER’S NOTE


By Jacob Fattal Publisher


Hijacking on the Information Highway


P


oorly-secured, Internet-enabled devices have become targets in the lat- est round of cyber attacks. The recent attack on Internet infrastructure company Dyn in late October, in which a huge number of IoT devices


were used to obstruct access to sites including Twitter, Amazon, Netflix, Pay- Pal, and many others, begs for greater security for the Internet of Things and connected devices. Dyn is a major DNS provider that translates URLs into the actual numerical IP addresses of the servers that host websites, a bit like an Internet phonebook. In this case, a massive amount of Internet-enabled devices, including


DVRs and video cameras fell prey to a piece of malware that exploited their connectivity to flood Dyn’s network with illegitimate traffic. The consequence was a series of Internet outages that reached from Dyn’s headquarters in New Hampshire to the West Coast. This sort of cyber attack demonstrates the need for robust information


security. With more and more data being transmitted globally per year — Cis- co forecasts annual traffic exceeding 2.3 zettabytes by 2020 — we should ex- pect the task of keeping our connected systems safe to become only more dif- ficult. This year’s electronica in Munich, Germany, demonstrated a rapidly ex- panding global component market, especially for automotive and industrial electronics. The trend toward automation and the Internet of Things is driv- ing requirements for more and better sensing, information, and communica- tions technology in our factories, vehicles and homes. The German Electrical and Electronic Manufacturers’ Association (ZVEI)


has reported that electrical and electronic components account for 30 percent of today’s automobile production value. With the headlong rush into autonomous driving, vehicle controls are becoming incredibly complex electronic systems. With such emphasis on connected technologies in vehicles, the concern of keep- ing them secure and protecting their passengers must be addressed. Possible is- sues range from attacks on vehicle data systems to interference with entire smart road infrastructures. In the next few years, we are likely to see au- tonomous driving begin to play a role in our everyday lives, with some experts forecasting millions of such vehicles taking to the roads by 2020. In February, U.S.Tech heads to ATX/MD&M West in Anaheim, California,


and then on to IPC APEX in San Diego. These strong shows are also sure to see new ideas about the security of interconnected production equipment on the shop floor. Now that 2017 is upon us, we can hope for and wish all of our readers a safe, prosperous and secure new year. r


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