Computer monitors and notebooks featuring HDR (high dynamic range) have been a highlight in this year’s major consumer electronics tradeshows from CES to Computex. According to WitsView, a division of TrendForce, HDR as a feature is now spreading into the PC market following its widespread adoption in the TV market last year. Demand growth of HDR-capable monitors for gaming is especially robust, and correspondingly Taiwan-based electronics brands are actively developing this market segment. The market for HDR-capable monitors are expected to expand rapidly once major vendors in IT industries have established a separate HDR standard specifically for their products.
TrendForce’s latest research on the automotive electronics market finds that government policies worldwide to reduce carbon emissions have facilitated faster adoption of ICT-based solutions within the automotive industry. According to TrendForce’s analysis, the global average value of analog ICs and power transistors for power management will come to US$209 per vehicle in 2017, an increase of 11% from US$188 in 2016. Furthermore, the automotive industry is projected to account for 23% of the total worldwide demand for power transistors this year. Automotive has become the second largest application for power transistors, while the industrial application is the leading source of market demand for the product.
Rapid progress in the development artificial intelligence (AI) has allowed humans to communicate with robots using natural languages. TrendForce’s breakdown of global sales of service robots for 2016 reveals that voice-based assistant robots accounted for the majority share of the total sales at nearly 50%. Robot vacuum cleaners made up the second-largest share of total service robot sales at nearly 40%. This finding and other data can be found in TrendForce’s latest report on the robotics industry.
The introduction of the deep Learning (DL) approach to machine learning has led to incredible developments in artificial intelligence (AI) over the past few years, attracting interests from cloud computing and semiconductor chip businesses. According to TrendForce’s latest research on AI, the three forces that drive advances in machine learning are software, hardware and data. AI systems based on DL requires vast amounts of data to train their abilities such as identifying objects and processing requests. Therefore quantity and quality of data directly affects AI systems’ accuracy. As cloud and software platform companies compete to bring AI solutions for different applications, ownership and access to data will become crucial to their strategies.
Following Sony’s introduction of CLEDIS (Crystal LED Integrated Structure) displays and Apple’s acquisition of LuxVue, more technology companies are exploring the possibilities of micro-LED in various display applications. LEDinside, a division of TrendForce, reports that there are now nearly 100 private companies and research organizations participating in the development of micro-LED displays. Besides Apple and Sony, there are other major technology brands that invest in micro-LED. Notable cases include the acquisition of InfiniLED by Facebook’s Oculus and the partnership agreement between Ostendo Technologies and KDX. By entering this field in advance, these companies hope to gain favorable positions in the future.