BROWSING: Smart Factory

Nordic Semiconductor’s new cellular IoT module, billed as the world’s smallest and lowest power, according to its maker, could “kick-start a new wave” of cellular IoT applications, including in tracking, metering, industrial intelligence, and smart cities. The Trondheim-based firm said its nRF9160 ‘system-in-package’ (SiP) is...

With brand new silicon, a vibrant support network, and a profile burnished in the early IoT rush, LoRa specialist Semtech is looking to spread its wings and rise above the challenge from cellular IoT carriers. Outside of the IoT space, the US semiconductor outfit has...

“The kaleidoscope has been shaken, the pieces are in flux.” It is a phrase written for a different time, and another sphere – a generation ago, which seems like a lifetime, to mark a political transformation, which now seems so slight Because the future is...

The European Commission (EC) has stepped up its strategy to foster AI in the region, with a four-step plan and a target of €20 billion of private and public investments by the end of 2020, and €20 billion per year afterwards. The EC will contribute...

Siemens will overhaul the production system and eliminate data silos at Mintal Group, the largest maker of carbon ferrochrome in China, and one of its biggest steel producers. High carbon ferrochrome is the base material of stainless steel. The deal with Siemens covers the build...

Note, this is the third part of a wide-ranging interview with AT&T President of IoT Solutions Chris Penrose; for the first instalment go here. AT&T has used the line before: it is a ‘master systems integrator’, it says. There is a job to create order...

German industrial giant Siemens has been contracted to increase productivity and reduce downtime at a coal mine in China by connecting, analysing and optimising the performance of four mine hoist systems. Siemens has won the deal from the YanZhou Coal Mine Company. It will collect...

Note, this is the second part of a wide-ranging interview with AT&T President of IoT Solutions Chris Penrose; for the first instalment go here. In all, AT&T has connected 48 million devices around the world. It counts 2,000 different “types of deployment” down the years....

The greatest challenge for Chris Penrose, president of IoT solutions at AT&T, is just to order and manage the multiplying opportunities afforded by the advancement of machine connectivity and intelligence. For Penrose, the key is that business is repeatable, and his resources within the business...

The Industrial Internet Consortium (IIC) has announced results from a pair of testbeds investigating, alternatively, artificial intelligence (AI) for smart buildings management and ways to connect up old factories to new smart manufacturing tools. In the first case, Dell EMC and Toshiba have developed an...

Swedish vendor Ericsson is looking at ways to employ artificial intelligence to enable advanced “fingerprinting” of mobile radio networks to enhance the positioning resolution of LTE-M and NB-IoT devices. The initiative will have implications for both the consumer and enterprise space, it said. However, the...

OSIsoft's PI System is now available on Amazon Web Services (AWS). The company has launched a suite of products to enable industrial players to more easily run and manage its data management platform, which unites data from operational and information environments, on AWS. These...

The sense to design and build a custom system-on-chip (SoC) is plain, we understand from an earlier companion piece. As we also understand, from the first part of this post, the process of IoT chip design is logical, much like constructing a printed circuit...

In a flurry of activity, the makers of modules, chips and embedded systems have announced a number of product and service initiatives to extend, simplify and secure industrial IoT systems; u-blox, Analog Devices, Altair Semiconductor, and Eurotech appear. IoT maker u-blox unveils multi-band NB-IoT module,...

Siemens has bundled a number of edge devices running artificial intelligence (AI) applications into its digital enterprise portfolio, and bolstered its partner activity and support around its MindSphere platform alongside. Siemens has booked out an entire hall at the SPS IPC Drives 2018 event in...

The number of cellular IoT connections, comprising NB-IoT and LTE-M technologies, will reach 4.1 billion in 2024. As reference, the new forecast reckons the number of cellular IoT connections, mostly of machines, will outrun the total number of 5G connections, mostly of people, by a...

The wisdom of bespoke chip design for IoT products is plain, and already discussed in some detail. UK based Arm says a custom chip will produce a higher-grade product, with optimised performance, and save money in the end. Fine. But how should developers, with little...

Amid a recent flurry of announcements around LoRa technology and the LoRaWAN protocol, US IoT company finds itself helping out with smart city solutions in the Persian Gulf, microcontroller maker Microchip has integrated with Actility's ThingPark network to accelerate IoT deployments, and Semtech, itself,...

In a serious-minded classroom setting at Electronica 2018 earlier this month, up in the gods at Munich Messe, UK-based chip design company Arm presented to a handful of enthusiasts about the virtues of custom (system-on) chips for industrial IoT products. Enterprise IoT Insights was among...

As part of its industrial showcase at Electronica 2018 in Munich, in Germany, last week, semiconductor manufacturer STMicroelectronics brought artificial intelligence (AI) right to the factory floor. The Swiss-French firm showed low-power 32-bit micro-controllers running AI-enhanced technologies for condition monitoring and predictive maintenance. The point...

Scandinavian operator Telia is to follow its early deployment of 5G in Helsinki, in Finland, by connecting the city of Oulu, in the north of the country, to 5G technologies to serve smart city and industrial applications. Finnish vendor Nokia is handling the network...

Industry 4.0 enablement prompts NXP investment NXP Semiconductors has opened an Industry 4.0 development centre in Hamburg, in Germany, to support global manufacturing customers in pursuit of bespoke industrial IoT (IIoT) solutions. The new Industrial Competency Centre (ICC) will help manufacturers with machine learning, industrial communications,...

Chinese giant Alibaba told a packed-out room at Electronica 2018 in Munich, in Germany, yesterday that Europe is well placed in the emerging tech arms race against China and the US, specifically for development of artificial intelligence (AI) technologies. UK universities and German corporations,...

Siemens said sales were about square for the year, at €83 billion for the 12 months ended September 30, as a stonking performance for its ‘digital factory’ IoT and automation business, among certain others, offset a decline at its ailing power and gas division. Profit...