Green energy efficiency will continue to lead the 2010 semiconductor industry

The global semiconductor industry has just passed the thrilling 2009, in the run-up to the new 2010, the dawn of recovery in many areas. Yu Minhong, vice president of the national semiconductor and Yu, general manager of the Asia Pacific region (Simon) talked about his observation on 2010, sharing his forecast for the coming year and views.

Would you please briefly review the global semiconductor industry in 2009 and ask you to explain the market expectations for the semiconductor industry in 2010?

According to the iSuppli report, although the global semiconductor revenue for two consecutive years of negative growth, but in the fourth quarter of YOY (year-over-year) is expected to grow, which can be said to be a picture of the semiconductor industry recovery. ISuppli expects 2009 global semiconductor sales will only be reduced by 16.5% compared with last year.

According to iSuppli's forecast, although the semiconductor industry has gradually been signs of recovery, is expected to continue in 2010 there will be a quarterly growth trend. But it has to wait until 2011 or 2012 to restore the level of overall semiconductor sales.

What do you think is the most important technology development and application in 2010? What are the factors that contribute to the growth of these technologies and applications?

The world today is "green", with three of the most popular issues, including energy efficiency, lighting efficiency and solar energy. We believe that the application of 2010 most development potential is around the three themes, such as alternative energy, portable consumer electronics, wireless communication infrastructure, electric vehicle and hybrid vehicle power management device and LED lighting system. Solar energy

From the view of the current economic situation, the importance of energy efficiency and the rapid increase, people around the world pay more and more attention to energy saving, and the shortage of non renewable energy use in their cognitive. Therefore, we are more and more concerned about the development of alternative energy sources, such as solar energy. National Semiconductor integrates a number of power management technologies introduced by the SolarMagic power optimizer, which can increase the power output of the solar power system. The innovative power optimizer, ICSU2, is widely used by solar operators and is expected to grow significantly in 2010.

energy efficiency

Taking the mobile phone as an example, with the rapid development of 3G, the battery life has become an important factor in the application of mobile phone. At the same time, consumers hope that the appearance of the product is more compact and light. Portable electronic products with more complete functions and longer service life will be more popular. National semiconductor power management technology has successfully extended the battery life of portable products, we will continue to develop innovative portable power management solutions.

As for the basic equipment, wireless communication network and data storage center, the application of the power density, thermal management and operating costs of the proportion of energy are difficult issues, must adopt the new system architecture can solve. For example, there are usually thousands of servers in the data center, and each server needs to consume a lot of power, which increases the cost of energy and the need to buy expensive cooling equipment.

In the past, we would stress that regardless of how much to increase the performance of the device, but now companies are more focused on performance and power to find a balance between. National Semiconductor in 2003 launched the PowerWise AVS (Adaptive Voltage Scaling) technology, the highest can effectively reduce the power consumption of the system 2/3.

Lighting efficiency

LED is characterized by longer life, less power consumption, and no toxic substances such as mercury.

LED has become the fastest growing application. At the same time, LED lighting applications in the wave of energy saving has made great progress. From home lighting to street lamps, lighting from the landscape to the parking lot, parks and other public facilities lighting, LED lighting is coming into our lives.

Many countries have launched and city street policies related to the high voltage sodium lamp plans to gradually switch to more efficient LED lighting to replace high energy consumption, the ultimate goal is to use all of the LED lighting system in families and office places, incandescent lamp and compact fluorescent tube.

For the power management section, what is your latest product strategy?

In order to help customers better manage energy at the system level and save design time, we launched a program called "DesignMadeEasy". The program makes full use of the National Semiconductor's rich product portfolio and the leading online design tools to help users simplify design and improve work efficiency.

With advanced online design tools, small and medium enterprise customers can easily complete the selection of components, system design to order analog chip. Further, the United States National Semiconductor will be more closely with customers to ensure that customers at the beginning of the system design can choose the right energy saving system architecture.

Together with the "easy design steps," the program also includes the SIMPLESWITCHER power module and other new simulation subsystem series products. This series of products can be easily integrated into the customer's system design, and the product also has high added value.