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Effective Writing and ChatGPT. The SEMI Test

Effective Writing and ChatGPT. The SEMI Test
by Bernard Murphy on 01-25-2023 at 6:00 am
Categories: AI, General
13 Comments

Writing and ChatGPT min

ChatGPT is a hot topic, leading a few of my colleagues to ask me as a writer what I think of the technology.  I write content for tech companies and most of my contacts freely confess that they or more often their experts struggle with writing. If a tool could do that job for them they would be happy and I would have to find a different hobby. Overlooking the usual hype around anything AI,  I have seen a few examples of ChatGPT rewrites which I found impressive. Since I can’t get onto the site to test it myself (overload?), I must base what follows on those few samples.

As a promoter of AI, I can’t credibly argue that my expertise should be beyond AI’s reach. Instead, I spent some time thinking about where it might help and where it probably would not be as helpful. This I condensed into four objectives I consider important in effective writing: style, expertise, message, and impact (SEMI, conveniently 😊). Think of these as layers which progressively build an impression for a reader, rather than sequential components.

SEMI

Style: Inexperienced writers commonly spend too much time here, suggesting a possible advantage for novices. Write a first pass in your own style, then run it through the tool. ChatGPT will output reasonable length sentences and paragraphs in a conversational style. Probably easier to read than your first-pass. I haven’t been able to check if it supports conference paper style (3rd person, passive voice, etc.). The technology seems like it could offer a real advantage to anyone agonizing over their awkward prose or endlessly circling around the right way to phrase a particular sentence. That said, I advise reading the output carefully and correcting as you see fit.

Expertise: AI isn’t magical. ChatGPT is trained over huge amounts of data but almost certainly not huge amounts in your specialized niche. It can provide well-written general prose embedding your technical keywords or phrases, but your readers are looking for expert substance or better yet novel expert substance, not prose decoration around tech/buzz keywords. Only you can provide that depth, through examples and analysis. ChatGPT can still help with style after you have written this substance.

Message: Your target readers are looking for articles with a point. What is the main idea you want to convey? Implicitly perhaps “buy my product”, but raw commercials have a small audience. The message should be a useful and informative review of a general opportunity, need or constraint in the market you serve. Something readers will find valuable whether or not they want to follow up. The message should shape the whole article, from opening to closing paragraph. I very much doubt that ChatGPT can do this for you unless that message is already written into the input text.

Impact: What should I remember the day after or a week after I have read your article? We don’t remember lists. Your article should build around one easily remembered message. We also don’t remember “more of the same” pitches. We remember novelty, a new idea or twist which stands out from an undifferentiated background of “me too” claims from others. Novelty can be in the message, in the expert examples you present, or in a (product independent) claim of the characteristics of a superior solution. You should also consider that your article leaves an impression about yourself and about your company, as a source to be trusted. Or otherwise.

One last note. Readers develop impressions in SEMI order. I don’t approach writing in this order. I first think about the message. For expertise, I specialize in a relatively narrow range of technologies, and I talk to client experts before I write to provide me with strong and current examples. Style is something I have developed over the years, though I will certainly experiment with ChatGPT when the site again becomes available. Finally, lasting impact starts with the message. I finish the first draft then move onto something else for at least a day. Coming back later gives me time to mull over and consider improvements to better meet each of the SEMI objectives.

I’d be interested to hear about your ChatGPT experiments 😊

Also Read:

All-In-One Edge Surveillance Gains Traction

2022 Retrospective. Innovation in Verification

Formal Datapath Verification for ML Accelerators

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All-In-One Edge Surveillance Gains Traction

All-In-One Edge Surveillance Gains Traction
by Bernard Murphy on 01-24-2023 at 10:00 am
Categories: AI, Ceva, IP

Surveillance cameras min

Like it or not, the surveillance market is growing, at a CAGR approaching 10%. Big brother concerns sometimes cloud the picture but overlook the much larger practical yet less hype-worthy applications for surveillance. Home and industrial security, enhanced traffic flow management, monitoring for fire and other fast-growing threats. In support of crime scene investigations and in bodycams. What is common to all these applications is that they must be deployable at volume, low power, sometimes portable, always connected. Supporting ever-increasing resolution while intelligently filtering data upload to only significant activity, for review by human monitors .

Profile of a state-of-art surveillance platform

Start with the basics. A surveillance camera can no longer afford to stream a full video channel. The communication overhead and cost would simply be too high. Video must be cleaned up through image signal processing (ISP). Then run through object detection to filter out all but significant frames for upload (a person, a possible fire, an emergency vehicle). Now multiply this basic framework to support several cameras. Some perhaps pointed in different directions, some providing a stereo view through 2 image sensors. Some may be fisheyes, supporting a 360o image. These might be complemented by other types of sensors such as motion and perhaps range detectors.

Processing each image view depends on strong ISP functionality, for noise reduction, dynamic range optimization, de-warping for fisheye views, and much more. Then image recognition through inferencing on one or more trained networks. However these independent views become much more powerful when combined through sensor fusion. The views from 2 stereo sensors together can provide a depth assessment. Motion or range input can further enhance those approximations. Detection across multiple sensors provides path information for a moving object. All this detection demands an advanced platform to simultaneously process object detection and fusion from multiple sensors inputs.

Novatek Microelectronics Corp recently released their NT98530 multi-sensor IP Camera SoC targeting surveillance, retail, smart city, and transportation applications. This SoC is a good example of a platform targeting just these goals. It supports 8 mega pixels at 60 frames/sec while simultaneously performing advanced object recognition on each frame. All in an SoC providing almost all the electronics required by that multi-sensor platform, at a unit cost which will support wide deployment at low power.

CEVA SensPro2 inside

CEVA is well known for their DSP-based solutions for computer vision, audio, wireless and AI and have been working together with Novatek for almost ten years now. SensPro2 builds on the earlier SensPro Gen-1, increasing performance across a range of neural net benchmarks by up to a factor of 2. Computer vision and SLAM benchmarks improve by as much as 5X. There are even better improvements in speech and radar processing. All continue to be supported by rich software libraries and tools for mapping standard networks onto the neural net platform. Novatek deployed their NT98530 on top of SensPro2. claiming it delivers superior real-time performance for computer vision, AI-based analytics and multi-sensing sensor fusion at the edge, for a powerful, flexible edge AI camera solution which customers can mold to their requirements.

CEVA sensor fusion IPs are already deployed in a wide range of OEM products, from smart TVs to fixed wireless access devices, robot vacuums and VR/AR headgear. You can learn more in this press release with Novatek and this product page.

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5G for IoT Gets Closer

Podcast EP140: Hyperstone’s Unique Position as a Supplier to the Industrial Market

Podcast EP140: Hyperstone’s Unique Position as a Supplier to the Industrial Market
by Daniel Nenni on 01-24-2023 at 6:00 am

Dan is joined by Steffen Allert. Since 2007, Steffen has been the Vice President of Sales for Hyperstone, a producer of Flash Memory Controllers for Industrial Embedded Storage Solutions. Steffen brings more than 20 years of sales and management experience in the semiconductor and electronics market.

Dan explores the unique position Hyperstone has as a supplier to the industrial market. Steffan explains the special demands this market presents regarding quality, low power, security, supply and reliability. Steffan discusses some of the new developments for the coming year at Hyperstone, including architectural enhancements to support greater security.

The views, thoughts, and opinions expressed in these podcasts belong solely to the speaker, and not to the speaker’s employer, organization, committee or any other group or individual.

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Webinar: Achieving Consistent RTL Power Accuracy

Webinar: Achieving Consistent RTL Power Accuracy
by Daniel Nenni on 01-23-2023 at 10:00 am
Categories: EDA, Events, Synopsys

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A comprehensive report from the US Department of Energy (DOE), “Semiconductor Supply Chain Deep Dive Assessment” (February 2022) calls for a 1000X energy efficiency improvement that is required to maintain future compute requirement needs given a finite amount of world energy production. Energy efficiency is at the top of designers’ minds today. A holistic approach to energy efficiency must start at the earliest stages of the design flow, at the architectural and micro-architectural levels. It is at those levels of abstraction where designers can evaluate power-performance-area tradeoffs and create energy-efficient architectures. Later stages in the design process present limited opportunities for power reduction.

Energy efficiency and power optimization efforts must be guided by power analysis at all levels of abstraction. Early power analysis is intrinsically less accurate than signoff power analysis in the implementation phases, but the goal of early power analysis must be to provide consistent accuracy to the designers to enable them to make informed decisions.

Traditional Register Transfer Level (RTL) power analysis tools take into account a very limited amount of information related to the actual implementation of the design. Fast synthesis technologies used in such tools are typically not timing driven, have limited parasitic capacitance estimation capabilities, build simple fanout-driven clock tree structures, and use imprecise heuristic methods for glitch power calculation.

These considerations call for the new generation of RTL power analysis tools to provide consistent accuracy by leveraging technology-related information, timing constraints, and accurate glitch power modeling. Such tools deliver a tight correlation of RTL power analysis vs. final signoff analysis in a consistent manner. This consistent accuracy is made possible only with the deep understanding of the implementation and signoff power calculation algorithms.

If you are designing chips for high-performance computing (HPC) and data center applications, bandwidth is, of course, a key consideration. However, as data centers get bigger and the required compute power increases, keeping power consumption to a minimum becomes a priority. In addition to power, latency is another key concern for HPC and data center SoC designers as access to the available memory pool is becoming a bottleneck and must be allowed in nanoseconds.

Webinar: Achieving Consistent RTL Power Accuracy

Register Transfer Level (RTL) power analysis, performed early in the design cycle, is a key component of end-to-end methodology to maximize energy efficiency. Such analysis has become a critical requirement for many IC designs today and in the future. Although RTL power analysis technology has been available to designers for many years, traditional approaches have relied on heuristic methods – thus lacking consistent accuracy. This webinar, presented by Alexander Wakefield, Synopsys Scientist, will focus on Synopsys RTL power analysis technology and best practices that achieve consistent accuracy in the design flow.

First, the motivation for RTL power analysis will be briefly outlined in the context of the overall methodology. Next, the basics of power consumption and associated calculations will be reviewed. Following that, several key factors affecting RTL power accuracy will be examined: fast synthesis and mapping, clock tree modeling, and parasitics estimation. These factors will also be compared with heuristic methods, and finally, some of the best practices to achieve good correlation and consistent accuracy will be covered.

REGISTER HERE

Presenter Bio:
Alex Wakefield is a Synopsys Scientist, with degrees in Engineering and Computer Science from the University of Adelaide, Australia. He has worked for more than 20 years in many areas including Synthesis, Simulation, SystemVerilog, UVM, Constraints, Coverage closure, and Embedded-Software. He has presented papers at many conferences and holds multiple patents. The last few years Alex has primarily been focused Power-Estimation, Leading the Synopsys global rollout of Power-Estimation with Zebu. He is involved in all Synopsys Power-Estimation engagements worldwide.

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UCIe Specification Streamlines Multi-Die System Design with Chiplets

Podcast EP139: The Third Quarter ESDA Market Data Report with Dr. Walden Rhines

Podcast EP139: The Third Quarter ESDA Market Data Report with Dr. Walden Rhines
by Daniel Nenni on 01-23-2023 at 8:00 am

Dan discusses the recent Q3 2022 ESDA report with Wally Rhines, Executive Sponsor of the SEMI Electronic Design Market Data report. While not tracking the record-breaking growth that has been seen over the past few quarters, growth is generally quite strong across the world. Dan explores the numbers with Wally, including some surprising growth results in certain regions.

The views, thoughts, and opinions expressed in these podcasts belong solely to the speaker, and not to the speaker’s employer, organization, committee or any other group or individual.

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Samtec Dominates DesignCon (Again)

Samtec Dominates DesignCon (Again)
by Mike Gianfagna on 01-23-2023 at 6:00 am
Categories: Events, Samtec, Semiconductor Services

Samtec Dominates DesignCon Again

Many technical shows have anchor tenants. Those are the companies that can be counted on to have a substantial booth presence, be active in the technical program and just pump life into the event at every turn. Samtec is that company for many shows around the world. And soon it will be time for them to work their magic at DesignCon in Santa Clara. . This show has clearly benefited from Samtec’s presence and energy for quite a while. Read on to see how Samtec dominates DesignCon (again).

Before I get into the details, know that DesignCon will be held at the Santa Clara Convention Center from January 31 – February 2. The show is focused on chip, board, and systems design engineers. This is the intersection where Samtec lives, so you can begin to see why they are prominent at this show. You can head to Samtec’s show page here to receive a free Expo Pass and 20% discount for conference passes. Free stuff is a great way to start any show.

Let’s take a look at where Samtec will be at DesignCon.

Start Things Off at Tuesday’s Welcome Reception, Sponsored by Samtec

Begin at the welcome reception, courtesy of Samtec. The event is Tuesday, January 31 from 6-8 PM in the Hyatt’s Santa Clara Ballroom.  The theme focuses on a tribute to engineers’ contributions to space exploration. Lots of cool gear and stories.

Author Meet & Greet

Istvan Novak, Principal SI-PI Engineer at Samtec, has created a new edition of Power Distribution Network Design Methodologies, which includes selected DesignCon papers from the past. Stop by the Samtec booth (#939) on February 1 from 2:30-3:00 to meet Istvan. He will be joined by several other prominent authors who will talk about their latest books as well.  

Product Showcase

On Wednesday at 3PM Samtec technologists will showcase high-speed interconnects staged for 224 Gbps signaling. You can learn about their power connectors and considerations required for high-speed channels – signal integrity and power integrity.

Booth Demonstrations Wednesday and Thursday

Samtec will be presenting multiple demonstrations featuring products that will help you design systems at 112 Gbps, as well as set you up for 224 Gbps. The details aren’t available yet, but I’m told you can expect production demos at 112G and proof-of-concept demos at 224G. Samtec knows how to create eye-catching, impressive demos. Don’t miss this.

And Everywhere Else 

Samtec products will show up throughout the show floor. Be sure to stop by Rohde & Schwarz (Booth #1049) and Keysight (Booth #1039).

Technical Sessions Tuesday-Thursday

There is also a robust technical program at DesignCon. Samtec is all over that as well. Here is where you can see them:

Panel – PCIe 6.0: Challenges of Achieving 64GT/s with PAM4 in Lossy, HVM Channels

January 31 (Tuesday), 4:45 – 6:00 PM, Ballroom FPanelist: Steve Krooswyk, Senior Signal Integrity Design Engineer at Samtec

Successful PCIe Interconnect Guidelines for 8, 16, and 32 GT/s
February 1 (Wednesday) 9:00 – 9:40 AM, R&S Workshop, Room TBD
Speaker: Steve Krooswyk, Senior Signal Integrity Design Engineer at Samtec

112 Gbps PAM4 Front Panel Connectivity – Real World Implementation and Correlation
February 1 (Wednesday) 11:10 – 11:50 AM, R&S Workshop, Room TBD
Speakers: Greg Vaught, VNA Product Planning Engineer, Rohde & Schwarz & Matthew Burns, Technical Marketing Manager, Samtec

A Novel Approach to 224 Gb/s Reference Receiver Design Using Raised Cosine Response for Noise Mitigation
February 1 (Wednesday) 2:00 – 2:45 PM, Ballroom G
Co-Author: Rich Melitz, Samtec

Panel – What Users Need from Power Integrity Simulators
February 1 (Wednesday) 4:00 PM – 5:15 PM, Ballroom F
Moderator: Istvan Novak, Samtec

3D Connection Artifacts in PDN Measurements
February 2 (Thursday) 9:00 AM – 9:45 AM, Ballroom G
Co-Author: Istvan Novak, Samtec

Cascaded vs End-to-End Multi-Pin Interconnect Simulation Models
February 2 (Thursday) 11:15 AM – 12:00 PM, Ballroom H
Speaker: Robert Branson, Samtec

Envisioning the Future of Power Integrity through the Eyes of Experience
February 2nd (Thursday) 2:00 PM, Cadence Sponsored Session
Speaker: Istvan Novak, Samtec

Conclusion

There you have it. This is most of the places you can see Samtec at DesignCon. It promises to be a great show. You need to be there to see how Samtec dominates DesignCon (again).

 

Podcast EP138: The Impact of Using a Physically Aware NoC with Charlie Janac

Podcast EP138: The Impact of Using a Physically Aware NoC with Charlie Janac
by Daniel Nenni on 01-20-2023 at 10:00 am

Dan is joined by Charlie Janac, president and CEO of Arteris IP. Charlie’s career spans 20 years in multiple industries, including design automation, semiconductor capital equipment, nanotechnology, industrial polymers, and venture capital.

Charlie discusses the benefits of using network-on-chip, or NoC IP on several types of design projects. He also discusses the substantial benefits of using physical awareness for the NoC and how to set up this valuable capability.

The views, thoughts, and opinions expressed in these podcasts belong solely to the speaker, and not to the speaker’s employer, organization, committee or any other group or individual.

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CEO Interview: Stephen Fairbanks of Certus Semiconductor

CEO Interview: Stephen Fairbanks of Certus Semiconductor
by Daniel Nenni on 01-20-2023 at 6:00 am
Categories: Certus Semiconductor, IP

Stephen Fairbanks headshot 1 1

Trained as a semiconductor Analog and RF Circuit Designer, Stephen Fairbanks has been designing and developing process-specific I/O and ESD libraries for 24 years. His foundational training began while attending Brigham Young University designing highspeed 32 GSPS data acquisition systems and RF interfaces for a time-of-flight mass spectrometer. Soon after, he joined Intel, where he became the lead developer of the ESD and I/O libraries for what was then Intel’s wireless, cellular, and mobile computing groups. He led the development of the I/O and ESD used on the initial generation and subsequent generations of wireless components for Intel Centrino chipsets and StrongARM cellular platforms. He was personally responsible for the ESD development and I/O support for three families of cellular communications processors and four families of handheld applications processors.

Leaving Intel in 2006, he became an ESD and I/O consultant, establishing SRF Technologies and Certus Semiconductor. Several of his most notable efforts were assisting companies to find ESD solutions for groundbreaking, first-generation technologies. These include but are not limited to ESD protection strategies on many of Qualcomm’s (Atheros) early generation RF front ends for cellular platforms; Inphi, Intel, Xilinx, and Freescale’s (NXP) first generation 10, 28, and 56 GBPS interfaces, and many of Synaptic’s early generation Touch-Screen Interfaces IC’s and Touch-Display IC’s.

Certus Semiconductor has the only commercially available production-proven high-voltage ESD solutions (-18V to 30V, including a 100V pk-to-pk RF Switch) in standard Low Voltage 3.3V, 2.5V, and 1.8V CMOS, for 40nm and below process nodes. These unique solutions have enabled several customers to interface NFC, high-voltage analog, and MEMS I/O’s directly, into low-voltage standard CMOS processes.

At Certus, Stephen has developed ESD process design rules, ESD libraries, and I/O libraries in logic, RF, mixed-signal, and high-voltage BCD processes at the 0.25um, 0.18um, 0.13um, and bulk-CMOS processes 90nm, 65nm, 45/40nm, 28nm, 22nm, 16nm, 12nm, 11nm, and 5/7nm processes. Stephen is familiar with several specialty processes, including HV BiCMOS, flash memory, SiGe, FD-SOI, SOS, and InP.

What is Certus Semiconductor’s backstory?

Certus Semiconductor began as a collaboration between myself, Freescale’s I/O and ESD team, and an ESD consultant, Markus Mergens of QPX. We started the business by putting together commercial I/O packages and marketing Freescale IP with SRF/QPX I/O and ESD custom solutions. When NXP acquired Freescale, the collaboration ended. I maintained the rights to the Certus Semiconductor brand and continued building the business under SRF Technologies. We have expanded our IP offerings to include I/O libraries as well as ESD solutions in many foundries, from 180nm to 11nm, with current R&D at smaller nodes.

What makes Certus’ I/O and ESD solutions unique?
Several features make our solution unique and appealing to our customers. Certus’ complete custom libraries target robustness, noise, distortion, low capacitance, increased ESD, and more. We offer smaller ESD footprints, removing the need for a special mask layer and saving money per wafer. Our low-capacitance ESD enables RF and high-speed digital I/O’s as well as extreme ESD up to 16kV and radiation hardening can also be achieved. We have 3.3V – 5V digital and analog solutions in native 1.8V processes and offer >20V switches using standard low-voltage CMOS technology, allowing for the direct integration of high-voltage analog, sensors, RF, and MEMS. I could continue listing the features that make Certus’ I/O and ESD solutions unique. However, the most important aspect is we tailor our I/O libraries to help our customers differentiate their products in their specific space and our solutions are the highest performance in the industry. Our primary goal is to give our customers a performance and cost advantage over their competitors.

What market segments benefit the most from Certus’ IP?
We have customers across the whole gambit of the industry. From video/audio chips, FPGA, MEMS, mobile phone chips, image processors, ASICs, automotive, sensors, and virtual reality, we offer the entire industry unique I/O and ESD solutions. Consumer electronics benefit from our exceptional ESD protection, smaller GPIO footprints, higher speeds, and lower power, all of which are cost conscious. We offer the Industrial electronics segment benefits from the ESD protection we can provide and the increased robustness, reliability, and feature sets. Regarding automotive, the benefits include increased robustness and higher ESD and voltage tolerances. The Aerospace sector benefits from our solutions’ increased robustness and reliability, high temperature, and radiation-hardened capabilities.

Why should companies choose Certus’ solutions?
If a company has no special requirements, it should use foundry IP. From my experience, that is often not the case, and companies are looking for specific features. If you are looking for features that foundry IP does not offer, such as increased performance, smaller area, or specific advantages over competitors (leakage, capacitance, noise, etc.), our solutions provide these features and more. Many times, we have yet to determine the exact product a customer is looking for, but through engagement, we figure out what our customers need and how we can best optimize their solutions. Additionally, through close interaction with our customers, we brainstorm new features they may not have considered an option, that helps expand their product’s capabilities.

What makes Certus stand out against its competitors?
We offer designs that our competitors do not have. Our I/O performance is addressed by our multi-protocol GPIO that supports various standards with extended specifications across multiple voltages, along with our specialized high-speed die-to-die interface solutions. Our solutions strip away unnecessary features and deliver better ESD performance in a smaller footprint. We optimize power by offering I/O’s that can operate at different voltages selectable by the system, we create dedicated I/O’s tailored for low-power operation. Robust ESD performance is challenging for many companies. ESD engineers founded Certus, and not only do we address standard ESD requirements such as HBM and CDM, we also provide on-chip solutions for standards such as system-level IEC 6100-24-2 and Cable Discharge Events.

Many of our competitors only offer ESD solutions and do not offer entire I/O libraries. Even those who do provide full I/O libraries do not work with their customers as we do. We work hand in hand with our customers and tailor our libraries to meet their needs. We aim to ensure our customers have the best I/O library to meet their needs. We take pride in engaging with our customers as though we were part of the internal I/O and ESD development teams. Finally, we have created a library of industry leading functions at leading nodes which allows us to quickly customize and meet customer’s requirements.

What do the next 12 months have in store for Certus?
We look to grow our business and partnerships over the next 12 months. We have added to our executive staff to expand our market focus and have increased our analog design capabilities. We are considering expanding into the analog design space as we have several customers with analog design needs. Additionally, we are strengthening our partnership with GlobalFoundries and several others. As we grow, we look to continue improving our existing IP and develop new solutions for smaller process nodes. In 12 months, we aim to be the go-to provider for custom I/O and ESD solutions.

How do customers engage with Certus?
We enjoy working closely with our customers and look forward to engaging with other forward-thinking companies. Contact info@certus-semi.com or visit us at www.certus-semi.com to get started!

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ATSC 3.0: Sleeper Hit of CES 2023

ATSC 3.0: Sleeper Hit of CES 2023
by Roger C. Lanctot on 01-19-2023 at 10:00 am
Categories: Automotive, Events

ATSC 3.0 Sleeper Hit of CES 2023

Ten years ago the Open Mobile Video Coalition was touting its plans to deliver free over-the-air television to mobile devices and automobiles. At the time, OMVC was seen as the realization of a dream of delivering video to cars – front seat and back.

The dream didn’t last long and the plans for ATSC M/H brought to the market by the OMVC died and with them the hopes for delivering a shot in the arm to the moribund automotive aftermarket. Those dreams are now being realized with the onset of ATSC 3.0 from the Advanced Television Systems Committee which exhibited at the Consumer Electronics Show – CES 2023 – last week.

The new standard, also known as NextGen TV, offers a host of enhanced experiences including support for HEVC for video channels up to 2160p 4K resolution at 120 frames per second, wide color gamut, high dynamic range, Dolby AC-4, and MPEG-H 3D audio, datacasting, enhanced public alerts, targeted advertising, and mobile television support. The technology also offers the prospect of enhanced positioning technology to support vehicle navigation and autonomous driving.

Perhaps even more important, though, is the key role the automotive industry is likely to play in the ongoing and widespread adoption of ATSC 3.0 in the U.S. and a handful of other geographies globally. Since the average television consumer is unlikely to ask for ATSC 3.0 in their next television set, it is most likely that auto makers will be in position to drive adoption and awareness of the new tech. (For home TV reception broadcasters will continue to support both the current ATSC 1.0 and the new 3.0 standards.)

With larger vehicles arriving in the U.S. market creating opportunities for both rear and front-seat entertainment, ATSC 3.0 presents a unique fore market and aftermarket opportunity. Car makers – most notably Hyundai, likely to be the first – will accelerate plans to introduce ATSC 3.0, while installers will be looking for aftermarket offerings – which are growing in number.

ATSC 3.0 arrives just as the likes of Kenwood/JVC, Alpine, Pioneer, Kicker, and other aftermarket players decamped from CES 2023 in favor of KnowledgeFest in February, according to the CEOutlook newsletter. The automotive aftermarket was hit hard once auto makers began building large-screen infotainment systems into their cars along with navigation and smartphone integration.

ATSC 3.0 may be a yawn for buyers of new digital televisions for their homes – but it represents a revelation for in-car solutions. The technology is particularly attractive for auto makers because it is suitable for datacasting of software updates – a solution rapidly sweeping the industry in the context of vehicles increasingly defined by large software portfolios.

ATSC 3.0 signals are already available to two thirds of the continental U.S. population focused around major metropolitan areas with nationwide coverage in sight by 2025. The technology offers a first-time experience for drivers and their passengers carrying, as they will, enhanced audio and video, local emergency communications, positioning assistance, and software updates. And, best of all, it is free. More importantly, it has already been tested in Michigan and elsewhere, proving the technology is robust and market ready.

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ZoneCast Blast Misses Its Mark

ZoneCast Blast Misses Its Mark
by Roger C. Lanctot on 01-19-2023 at 6:00 am
Categories: Automotive, Events

ZoneCast Blast Misses Its Mark

On my flight to Las Vegas for the annual Consumer Electronics show I dug in to Jeff Smulyan’s autobiographical “Never Ride a RollerCoaster Upside Down – The Ups and Downs and Reinvention of an Entrepreneur.” As CEO, Chairman, and Founder of Emmis Communications Smulyan has had a front row seat to the evolution of the electronics and broadcast industries. Reading the book is a great companion to one’s CES experience – where technology is always in flux and where, in years past the likes of Sirius Satellite Radio and XM duked it out from dueling on-the-showfloor booths before burying the hatchet and merging to become SiriusXM.

CES 2023 has also become the nexus of automotive innovation with multiple car companies in attendance and new tech announcements galore. In particular, multiple exhibitors are showing off their visions of in-car experiences including new audio and video technology, virtual reality, and clever interfaces.

Radio has always been a focal point for automotive innovation and this CES is no exception as Xperi will be showing off its DTS AutoStage technology which is now deployed in cars from Mercedes-Benz, Tesla, and Hyundai – with more to come. Xperi has led the charge to global adoption of digital radio technology which is transforming radio broadcasting and in-vehicle reception experiences.

Digital radio has unlocked radio’s potential for expanding its audience by enabling narrowcasting – more targeted broadcast content intended for different and very specific audiences. Whether via DAB or HD Radio, broadcasters are leveraging narrowcasting to increase the reach of their signals and content.

This development is only the latest iteration along radio’s evolutionary path to expand and grow its already dominant reach. The process began with the onset of FM technology which brought with it the concept of targeting specific audiences ultimately leading to broadcasters focusing on categories such as “adult contemporary” or “urban” music – since FM tended to be music-centric as the sound quality was so superior to AM, which became the home of talk radio – as noted by Smulyan.

In an age of digital advertising, though, radio has been centered around the “broad” in broadcasting. If you advertise on a radio station, you send the same message to the entire geographic footprint of the station’s signal. This is especially problematic if you are a politician not wanting to “waste” money on ads sent to listeners who were not constituents. Of course, this also manifests as traffic reports for jams occuring on the opposite side of town from particular listeners.

Enter, ZoneCasting from GeoBroadcast Solutions. ZoneCasting – now under review by the Federal Communications Commission, offers the potential for radio broadcasts to be geographically segmented to serve particular regional audiences with highly relevant news, weather, sports, content, traffic, and advertising. Broadcasters are interested but perhaps skeptical.

Enter the National Association of Broadcasters and large broadcast industry players like iHeartMedia. The NAB and iHeartMedia have expressed outright hostility to the new technology. It’s worth noting that Smulyan was working in the forefront of the radio industry when FM arrived and he immediately grasped the power and importance of audience segmenting.

Smulyan details his experiences and experiments with audience targeting with religious stations and, of course, WFAN – all sports. But targeting audiences with specific content types does not achieve the ultimate objective of most advertisers in a post-digital world.

Every other advertising medium enables highly specific geographic and demographic targeting of audiences – every platform other than radio, that is. ZoneCasting offers the prospect of opening the door to the next essential evolution of radio – introducing more focused geographic targeting of broadcast signals – without any change in receiving equipment.

I published a commentary several months ago in RadioWorld in support of ZoneCasting, regarding which the FCC has been accepting comments from interested parties as it presumably prepares to make a regulatory finding. I very quickly ran into the objections of the NAB.

I suppose I should feel flattered that the National Association of Broadcasters’ Chief Legal Officer and Executive Vice President of Legal Affairs Rick Kaplan saw fit to attack me in a guest RadioWorld posting for my support of GeoBroadcast Solution’s ZoneCasting technology – which will allow broadcasters to segment their signals to address different regional audiences and advertisers. Kaplan takes me to task for my “misguided” and “misleading” insights regarding GeoBroadcast Solution’s ongoing testing in Jackson, MS, and San Jose and San Francisco – with WRBJ and KSJO, respectively, among other tests.

Kaplan claims that ZoneCasting’s technology will create intolerable – to listeners – interference and interruptions in signals, something that would have been or that he claims has been shown from presumably “unskewed” research. Most revealing of all, though, aside from Kaplan’s mischaracterization of the results and the make up of those and other tests of ZoneCasting tech – flawed and biased in his estimation – is his expressed concern that ZoneCasting will segment the targeted audiences providing a justification for lower advertising rates overall.

This is the nub of Kaplan’s assertions: “ZoneCasting would have a negative effect on broadcasters’ advertising revenue. While broadcast radio’s unique appeal to advertisers is the ability to reach a wide audience in a local market, ZoneCasting would diminish that advantage by splintering listenership. ZoneCasting would depress advertising rates, as ad buyers leverage the availability of cheaper ads to demand lower rates from stations that choose not to deploy ZoneCasting and lead to a race to the bottom.”

This is classic fear, uncertainly, and doubt – FUD. ZoneCasting will actually open doors to new advertising and new advertisers. It will expand the market – like selling pizza slices instead of the entire pizza.

The results of ZoneCasting’s testing are in from reputable technicians demonstrating the efficacy of the technology – which, in different forms of FM boosting, has already seen widespread use. The NAB’s objections appear to revolve around the vested interests of the existing dominant players in the market. For large industry players ZoneCasting is indeed a risk and a vulneratility.

We have seen this resistance to technology and innovation before in the broadcast industry. Smulyan led the charge with NextRadio technology, seeking to accelerate the digitalization of radio and leverage the Internet to make radio searchable and content more discoverable. At that time, iHeartMedia was there to stand in the way of progress, just as they are today.

ZoneCasting represents the future of radio broadcasting. Whether GeoBroadcasting can overcome the resistance and opposition of parties vested in older technology remains to be seen. But to make real progress we do need to stop the spread of misinformation from those who ought to know better and are trusted with the future of the industry.

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