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Tuesday, May 8th, 2018

Time Event

8:30a

Netgear Launches the Cable Orbi - A Mesh Wi-Fi System with an Integrated Cable Modem

Most home networks fall under one of three categories:

ISP-supplied gateway (modem and wireless router combo) with optional wireless extenders
Discrete modem and a standalone wireless gateway / router (coupled with optional network extenders, or, a Wi-Fi system)
Discrete modem, discrete wired router, and switches / access points

All three choices have their pros and cons, with the first option being preferred by consumers who are not tech-savvy to begin with. In that case, the customer usually pays a monthly rental fee to the ISP. The maintenance of the gateway (including firmware updates) is handled by the ISP too.

Vendors such as Arris and Netgear have tried to play in this market segment with modem-router combo products in retail for direct purchase by the consumers. Such products have typically presented some usage challenges:

Unsatisfactory activation process for the modem-router combo device (unlike the case of the ISP-supplied modem)
ISP-handled firmware updates, preventing patching of router firmware for vulnerabilities / preventing users from taking advantage of new Wi-Fi router features developed by the vendor for their wireless routers product-line.

Today, Netgear is launching the Orbi cable modem - a dual PCB solution with the same form-factor as that of the existing Orbi RBK40 kit. The dual PCB solution refers to the cable modem and the wireless routers coming on distinct boards, with separate firmware for each. ISPs can handle the firmware update for the modem segment, while the consumers can update the wireless router firmware independently. The activation process has also been simplified by Netgear, with new features in the Orbi mobile app making it a seamless process.

Netgear has been very active in releasing new firmware features for their Orbi products (tying in with their pivot to a services-based revenue model for their offerings). Features such as 'Circle with Disney' (which has a premium subscription option) are turning out to be hits based on the feedback we have received from current Orbi customers. The ability to update the Orbi router firmware independent of the cable modem firmware is a key feature of the Cable Orbi.

Addressing the two main concerns with combo devices allows Netgear to promote the advantages of an Orbi with an integrated modem:

The modem / router device can act as the master in a mesh Wi-Fi system.
Combining the modem and router into one device implies fewer devices to purchase for the consumer.
Existing Orbi satellites can be repurposed for usage with the Orbi Cable master unit

Netgear has two SKUs with the Cable Orbi hardware - the Cable Orbi Router (CBR40), priced at $300, is a single device that integrates the modem and wireless router into one unit. The Cable Orbi Kit (CBK40) bundles a satellite with the Cable Orbi Router for $400.

Coming to the technical specifications, the CBR40's wireless components are derived from the AC2200 Orbi RBK40 introduced last year - a Qualcomm Atheros IPQ4019 network processor with Wi-Fi SON features, and separate 2x2 radios for the client devices and the backhaul. The cable modem PCB is based on the Intel Puma chipset (we have reached out to Netgear to confirm that it is not the one affected by the network latency issue). It is a DOCSIS 3.0-compliant modem with a 32x8 channel bonding configuration supporting a maximum of 1.4 Gbps downstream and 262 Mbps upstream bandwidth.

Netgear is obviously building on the success of the Orbi lineup with the integration of a cable modem into the lineup. This definitely increases the addressable market for Orbi products within the home networking space. Consumers using ISP-supplied gateways to blanket large areas with Wi-Fi would do little wrong in opting for the CBR40 or CBK40. Power users and tech-savvy consumers might prefer a more flexible solution with a discrete modem, router, switches, and access points. The Cable Orbi is not meant for those folks. For the average consumer, the Orbi lineup now has SKUs that can cater to varying requirements and budgets.

Gallery: Netgear Launches the Cable Orbi - A Mesh Wi-Fi System with an Integrated Cable Modem

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11:30a

Google I/O Opening Keynote Live-Blog (10am PT)

Hello everybody and welcome to the Shoreline Amphitheater in Mountain View where we're live at Google's IO 2018 opening keynote.

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4:20p

TSMC Details 5 nm Process Tech: Aggressive Scaling, But Thin Power and Performance Gains

At a special event last week, TSMC announced the first details about its 5 nm manufacturing technology that it plans to use sometime in 2020. CLN5 will be the company’s second fabrication process to use extreme ultraviolet (EUV) lithography, which is going to enable TSMC to aggressively increase its transistor density versus prior generations. However, when it comes to performance and power improvements, the gains do not look very significant.

Just like other fabs, TSMC will gradually ramp up usage of ASML’s Twinscan NXE:3400 EUV step and scan systems. Next year TSMC will start using EUV tools to pattern non-critical layers of chips made using its second-gen 7 nm fabrication technology (CLN7FF+). Usage of EUV for non-critical layers will bring a number of benefits to the CLN7FF+ vs. the original CLN7FF process, but the advantages will be limited: TSMC expects the CLN7FF+ to offer a 20% higher transistor density and a 10% lower power consumption at the same complexity and frequency when compared to the CLN7FF. TSMC’s 5 nm (CLN5) technology will increase the usage of EUV tools and this will bring rather massive advantages when it comes to transistor density: TSMC is touting a 1.8x higher transistor density (~45% area reduction) when compared to the original CLN7FF, but it will only enable a 15% frequency gain (at the same complexity and power) or a 20% power reduction (at the same frequency and complexity). With the CLN5, TSMC will also offer an Extremely Low Threshold Voltage (ELTV) option that will enable its clients to increase frequencies of their chips by 25%, but the manufacturer has yet to describe the tech in greater detail.

The rather small, incremental improvements that TSMC is discussing for the CLN7FF to CLN7FF+ and CLN7FF+ to CLN5 transitions indicate that it gets increasingly harder to offer decent gains from generation to the next. It remains to be seen whether all of TSMC’s leading-edge customers will keep adopting all the latest process technologies that the company offers, or will miss certain cycles given small incremental increases, but large companies (such as Apple) adopted all the latest fabrication processes in the recent years (i.e., it made economic sense to adopt them).

Advertised PPA Improvements of New Process Technologies Data announced by companies during conference calls, press briefings and in press releases
	TSMC
	16FF+ vs 20SOC	10FF vs 16FF+	7FF vs 16FF+	7FF vs 10FF	7FF+ vs 7FF	5FF vs 7FF
Power	60%	40%	60%	<40%	10%	20%
Performance	40%	20%	30%	?	higher	15%
Area Reduction	none	>50%	70%	>37%	~17%	45%

Moving on to the readiness of TSMC’s process technologies with EUV, “Foundation” IP for CLN7FF+ has been validated in silicon, but various important blocks required for 28–112G SERDES, embedded FPGAs, HBM2, and DDR5 interfaces will not be ready before late 2018 or even early 2019. Fully certified EDA flows for CLN7FF+ will be ready by August. Meanwhile, EDA flows for CLN5 are in their infancy: version 0.5 will be ready by July and numerous IP blocks (PCIe 4.0, DDR4, USB 3.1, etc.) will not be ready until 2019.

Next up is equipment readiness. As reported, TSMC is building a separate fab to make chips using its CLN5 process technology. The new Fab 8 will use numerous Twinscan NXE:3400 scanners, but TSMC admits that at present the average daily power levels of the light sources for their EUV tools is only at 145 W, not enough for commercial usage. Some of the tools can sustain 250 W production for a couple of weeks and TSMC has plans to hit 300 W later this year, but EUV tools still need improvements. There are also some issues to be solved with things like pellicles (they transmit 83% of EUV light and are expected to hit 90% next year), so EUV lithography in general is not ready for prime time just now, but is on track for 2019 – 2020.

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8:15p

Google Kicks Off Android P Beta, Details Shush Mode, Usage Dashboard, & Other New Features

Today at Google I/O 2018, Google announced several new Android P features that will see adoption in the newest Beta released today. We’ve first covered a few of P’s new features in our first developer preview coverage back in March.

Adaptive Battery

Adaptive battery is a new application wakeup management framework that is aimed at improving idle battery life through limiting application wakeups. The mechanism creates application standby “buckets” in which it groups applications based on usage history of the given user. Often used applications will be put in the highest priority buckets which isn’t limited in terms of background usage. Lower tiers of buckets further limit the rate at which applications are allowed to wake up through jobs, alarms or network activity. Google states that this new mechanism allow for up to 30% less CPU application wakeups which will translate directly into better idle battery life.

Adaptive Brightness

Adaptive brightness is a new mechanism built into vanilla Android that tracks the user adjusted brightness on top of the autobrightness behaviour and will automatically then adapt the user’s preferences over time. We’ve seen this sort of behaviour from OEMs but this has seemingly been fed back into core Android. This features is said to also be able to improve battery live as it allows for lower screen brightness level, yet still be sufficiently bright enough for the user based on his habits.

Android Actions

We’re used to application shortcuts – usually when you’re clicking on an application it will launch the default main activity. The new actions framework allows for applications to launch directly into a specific activity along with some sort of metadata on what exactly you want to launch. As such actions can be viewed as specialized shortcuts deeper into an application’s logic and allows to skip several steps in the process.

Implementations of actions can be for example be brought up in various places such as the results of a search; the action takes into account the search parameter and will be able to show a relevant activity for the action’s application. Android developers will need to declare actions in new applications.

Slices

Slices are new windows into application activities that are designed to expose rich application content outside of the app. These are fully functional UIs that are meant to be embedded externally in other applications. For example slices can be used in a similar way actions were in the beforementioned search example, only this time around they provide a variety of options in terms of providing content to the user.

Google’s take on gesture navigation

There’s absolutely no arguing on what inspired Google to introduce gesture controlled navigations in the latest P previews. Having finally demonstrated it today at I/O, the functionality is relatively straightforward even though it differs from Apple’s implementation. Instead of always showing multitask, home-button and back buttons, Android P will by default only show the home button. The back button will now be contextual and show or hide itself based on where the user finds itself. The multitask button now is actually the home button which acts as a slider – sliding it left or right will scroll through the recents apps list and switch to the selected app on release.

Volume tuning

A big and ancient annoyance of Android was the attempt to adjust media volumes before media actually played – this resulted in unwillingly adjusting the ringtone volume. Android P now defaults the media volume button controls to the media volume by default. Samsung had introduced this already as an option into their O builds and it’s really good to finally see this adopted by Google as well as it’s such a simple quality of life improvement in terms of user experience.

Digital wellbeing features

Google made a lot of emphasis on trying to improve the balance in the case of excessive technology usage in everyday life. Three main features are at play here. Android P includes a new Do Not Disturb feature that can be enabled manually or by putting the phone face down. This will turn off all notifications sounds or feedback – except from crucial contacts that can be whitelisted in case of emergencies.

To further try to put self-imposed restrictions onto users, P will introduce something called app timers. The OS will prompt the user a warning once he exceeds the application time over a day and will gray out the app to discourage further usage.

Wind down is a functionality that allows to set a “bedtime” after which the phone will switch to black & white mode which reduces visual stimulus in the evening and is meant to help with sleep.

The Dashboard is a new statistics UI which shows usage patterns and history of various apps over time. This is seemingly a similar breakdown of application usage as the battery statistics but here it’s sorted by usage time rather than by battery lifetime.

Vendor Availability for P Beta

Google also surprised a lot by announced several partner OEMs (Nokia, Vivo, OnePlus, Xiaomi, Sony, Essential, & Oppo) launching beta previews for Android P on their latest lead devices. Qualcomm in a short press release today announced that it’s been working with Google to provide early builds for early commercial availability for the next version of Android – so it seems most of the work here in enabling such short lead times in vendors adopting P comes at the credit of Qualcomm. Naturally Treble support in the lead devices is also a significant factor into enabling them to quickly adopt Android P in such a way.

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Related Reading:

Ask Me Anything Rules

Adaptive Battery

Adaptive Brightness

Android Actions

Slices

Google’s take on gesture navigation

Volume tuning

Digital wellbeing features

Vendor Availability for P Beta