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Mystery Behind GlobalFoundries’ ‘Feature-Rich Node’

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In Ford’s latest earnings call, CEO Jim Farley explained that Ford chose GlobalFoundries as its semiconductor supplier over Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Co. with two goals in mind. Ford is seeking to ensure the capacity exists for an adequate supply of its automotive chips. The automaker also seeks to develop “feature-rich” chips and nodes to support the automotive industry.

The first goal, clearly, is about managing Ford’s supply chain. But regarding the second goal, what on earth do Ford and GlobalFoundries mean by “feature rich”?

Car Culture Morphs into High-Tech Car Dependency

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By George Leopold

What’s at stake?

The Ojo-Yoshida Report spoke with author Peter Norton to discuss his latest book, Autonorama: The Illusory Promise of High-Tech Driving. Norton, an associate professor of history in the Department of Engineering and Society at the University of Virginia, coined the term Autonorama as a “technofuturistic” label for decades-old auto industry marketing that now promises a driverless future. We’ve seen this show before, Norton argues, and, as in the past, it won’t deliver safe, sustainable “mobility solutions.” The author pulls no punches in documenting decades of unfulfilled auto industry promises, tracing the history of car dependency and its transition to high-tech car dependency, and offers recommendations for more efficiently transporting people to and from their destinations.

Here’s our conversation with the author Peter Norton.

AV shuttles, many trials and many interations

What Decades of Roboshuttle Misfires Teach Us

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By Junko Yoshida

What’s at stake?
If you’ve been convinced that autonomous vehicles are the future for transportation systems, take a hard look at the humble roboshuttle, an early proving ground for AV concepts. Highly automated buses and shuttles have been around for a couple of decades, but few of those deployments have made it past trials to become sustained commercial enterprises. The self-driving van’s boxy build and plodding pace often get the blame for the riding public’s indifference. Unless developers and municipalities start paying proper attention to transportation market fundamentals, however, it may be naïve to assume that robotaxis will fare any better. We believe the chronic malaise of the roboshuttle business holds lessons for the broader AV industry.

Silicon Labs’ CTO on IoT ‘Catalyst Moments’

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By Junko Yoshida

What’s at stake?‌
‌When it comes to easy-to-use IoT, we are still not there. The stakes are high for a pure-play IoT company like Silicon Labs. Silicon Labs’ CTO Daniel Cooley explains why Matter, an upcoming smart-home interoperability protocol backstopped by Apple, Google and others, matters in the consumer IoT space. He also pinpoints the breakthrough events in IoT’s journey thus far.

It’s Rethink or Sink for Prophesee

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By Junko Yoshida

What’s at stake:
The art of growing a startup business lies in “finding a path” that’s timely, practical and scalable. Many sensor startups, mesmerized by AV hype, bet their future on automotive. Prophesee, based in Paris, was one such early gambler. The CEO now sees that it’s time to pivot. But which way? What are his options?

Even for seasoned Tier Ones and OEMs, complying with automotive safety regulations is no cakewalk. For a tech startup pursuing the ADAS/autonomous vehicle market, conformance with and validation to the slate of applicable safety regulations could pose insurmountable hurdles.

Yole CEO: TSMC Builds a Leading-edge Fab in Europe? It’s ‘Nonsense’

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What’s at stake? China’s Communist Party clearly isn’t giving up on its long-term goal to absorb Taiwan into China. When, if ever, Beijing might pull the trigger is anybody’s guess. Taiwanese companies tend to downplay the possibility, but those reassurances haven’t assuaged the world’s fear that it might happen. In no small part, that’s because Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Co.’s success in chip production has made Taiwan economically and politically critical to the whole world.