1. Foxconn is NOT just anybody to be in the parts bin.
   
   
   Foxconn taking aggressive moves to enter IoT industry
   
   “Foxconn Group is transforming to be a High technology solution provider, including hardware and software value creation.
   
   
   A snip from the cc.....
   
   
   With this significant increase in engagement activity, we are very pleased that our customers that are now involved in their second or third designs are effectively leveraging the knowledge they gained during their first design efforts. This lessens the investment in our engineering resources that we need to make with these customers to drive new design opportunities in production and demonstrates the leverage inherent to our business model. This was consistent with the strategic goals we covered in our last conference call.
   
   commentary, the news item from Foxconn is useful incremental info. It is a 2nd design for them, so until that item we could NOT put Foxconn into the above snip of text.
   
   Now we can.
   
   Fear and depression among holders is real. If QUIK could not deliver the service for a HUGE ODM like Foxconn they would not get a slot like this for a 2nd device.
   ANd IF we can get a 2nd device it allows consideration of a 3rd and 4th,
   They are ambitios and want to be a Player in the IoT, we want to get to know these guys very well.
   
   Nice job QUIK get us the 3rd and 4th one too.
   
   WHen will RUntastic have a new wearable.
   If we can get a 2nd device at Foxconn we can do it at Runtasic/Adidas,
   
   PS LG and SEC do they have anything in common?
   
   Yes they are both in Korea, but they are both Sensory inc. customers of audio. Nice 

    

   jfieb, 7 minutes agoEditDeleteReport

   #5Reply
2. 

   jfiebActive Member

   New

   Up from the archives to read...a loooong time ago '14
   
   Foxconn’s wishlist for wearables and the Internet of Things
   chnology is not yet ready to underpin a mass market for wearable e-products.
   
   The Taiwanese company, almost certain to take major production contracts on the newly launched Apple Watch, has identified the absence of at least one critical component: a WPU or ‘wearables processing unit’.
   
   With its Hon Hai arm looking to develop Foxconn wearables/Internet of Things products – the company set up a wearables incubator last year – the often secretive technology giant offered an overview of necessary technologies during a presentation at Semicon Taiwan in Taipei.
   
   Addressing the low power, communications and sensor requirements for both wearables and the Internet of Things, Jason Tsai, senior manager for Innovation in Digital Systems at Foxconn’s Hon Hai Precision Industries, said, “We strongly suggest that ARM develops something suitable for a wearable device. Even the Cortex M0 [ARM’s smallest processor] is not suitable as a WPU.”
   
   He added that in the drive for greater interoperability of devices in a cloud-based environment will also need further integration of SoC and operating system development.
   
   “The best company at that has been Apple,” said Tsai, although he also noted Google’s ongoing work with Android Wear. But Foxconn sees HTML5 as increasingly important “because one web page equals one app”.
   
   “We believe HTML5 will be the choice for the next generation of operating system. It interlinks the cloud and ‘big data’ services,” he added.
   
   HTML5 will have the additional benefit of providing a common standard around which new wearable and IoT products can cluster and communicate. Today, wearables tend to use a proprietary OS – apart from the iOS variant for the Apple Watch, Samsung has installed the Tizen OS and more recently Android Wear on the Gear product line.
   
   Tsai made his comments to an audience that included senior executives from ARM and also Imagination, both of which are already battling for early-stage wearables design wins with their existing IP.
   
   Tsai argued that the increasing fragmentation makes the case for further innovation at the lower end in terms of device capability, and also at the high-end as cloud-based analysis and processing drive computing toward true implementations of artificial intelligence.
   
   Foxconn’s IoT/wearables design strategy
   Foxconn breaks down the infrastructure for the wearables/IoT market into an 11-3-2 matrix by screen size, network and cloud type. This in turn feeds into eight ‘lifestyle’ use types (see illustration).
   
   
   The 11-3-2 matrix for wearables and the Internet of Things, and target markets (Foxconn)
   
   According to these markets and their demands, Foxconn has gone on to identify the IC requirements for projects that address the market’s low, middle and high ends.
   
   Notwithstanding the need for the WPU, Tsai said that company can see applications at the low-end today for, say, the ARM Cortex M or silicon based on the 8051 architecture.
   
   At the middle end, Cortex R or MIPS configurations can be used. But, at the high end, as ‘big data’ makes more demands, 64bit ARM v8 and general purpose GPU options come into their own.
   
   But these essentially seed initial development and early adopter devices. More is needed.
   
   Beyond further innovations in the CPU and OS, Foxconn’s other technology demands for wearable/IoT devices include more cost effective dynamic voltage scaling for power management and fingerprint sensors with 500dpi resolution.
   
   Foxconn exports cost-down model to wearables
   As is generally acknowledged, cost will be the critical factor in realizing successful wearable/IoT products. Foxconn’s 11-3-2 matrix illustrates, however, that the market may tend more towards a plethora of vertical design requirements rather than the kind of flat horizontal ones that would more easily lend themselves to savings through mass production.
   
   Nevertheless, Foxconn has identified the typical wearables product as needing to incorporate five ‘IC requirements’:
   
   

   • SoC (apps processor)
   • Memory
   • Connectivity
   • Peripherals
   • Sensor

   Its approach now is to take the same IE-ECRS business methodology it uses to achieve efficiencies in factories and apply it to the core of designs for wearables and the IoT. ECRS breaks down as:
   
   

   • Eliminate
   • Combine
   • Rearrange
   • Simplify

   “We have accumulated a great deal of experience of using this model in manufacturing and now intend to apply the same theory to the Internet of Things,” said Tsai.
   
   
   
   
   Commentary; DO not miss the key incremental info here...its not the units of this win, its that it is a follow on to the first one its Foxconn.
   
   Can we become a regular supplier for ALL thier IoT ambitions?
   
   Now we can at least put it on the table to discuss.
   
   Nice work QUIK.
   
   This is Foxconn.