Rapid development in wireless technologies has fueled a relentless move toward an always-on, communicating society. This is placing tremendous pressure on engineers to deliver the features and content enabled by high-bandwidth while reducing the resulting power consumption.

The Industrial Economics & Knowledge Center estimated communication device production value in Taiwan at about $23 billion in 2007, with wireless communication cornering about $16 billion. The government-led WiMAX network infrastructure is expected to boost Taiwan's wireless industry growth. The growth in wireless comms and broadband markets will enable high-bandwidth multimedia, including mobile TV, which requires engineering prowess in DSP. The processing requirements for A/V and other computing apps put even more pressure on the power budget. With consumers balking at increasing power consumption, engineers are faced with tough choices as well as technological innovation and new markets.

Energy issues
In Taiwan as elsewhere, the awareness of global warming and the urgency of remedial action are growing. With 0.35 percent of the world population and nearly one percent of the world's CO₂ emissions, Taiwan has started to move along the road to "cleanliness." Steps taken include 103 wind power units that annually cut about 250,000 tons of CO₂ and 1.53 million square meters of solar panels that check another 336,000 tons.

Several major electronics makers have taken steps toward environmentally responsible operations. About 1,000 electrical and electronics products carry the Energy Star label. UMC, TSMC and Nanya PCB are among companies that achieved 80 percent or higher "Clean & Green" score from CLSA, an investment-banking group that conducts regional studies on corporate governance.

Servicing both signal processing and energy conservation trends this year, IIC-Taiwan will be held on Sept. 9-11 in Taipei. Supporting "New Thought in DSP & Multimedia Systems Design," the event will host seminars on signal processing and portable audio; a summit on Next-Generation Wireless Design; and the HDMI Developers Conference. Under the green technology umbrella, IIC-Taiwan will bring Asia engineers seminars on power and green technologies, and a panel discussion on Clean Energy Initiatives covering topics like sustainable electronics and improving power efficiency.

EE Times-Asia looks forward to bringing you information on new technologies and market opportunities to help achieve the optimum balance between features and power consumption.

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