Author: Techtime

Nano Dimension will start selling its PCB Printer this year

NANO DIMENSION PCB PRINTER
Posted on by Techtime
PCB prototype produced by DragonFy 2020 Printer
PCB produced by DragonFy 2020 Printer

During the first quarter of 2017, Nano Dimension has successful supplied of six additional DragonFly 2020 3D printers to customers. As of today, a total of 13 beta customers.”With thousands of unsolicited requests for information on our products, I am confident that we are on track to begin commercial sales of our DragonFly 2020 3D printer by year end,” said Amit Dror, Nano Dimension’s CEO.

“Our printers have now been integrated by industry leaders in the fields of defense, technology, medical devices, smart transportation and manufacturing, among others. The feedback that we have received from these early adopters has been extremely positive and informs our processes as we work to transition from beta testing to commercial sales”.

Nano Dimension fro Ness-ziona, Israel, was founded in 2012 and developed 3D printed electronics systems and advanced additive manufacturing technology. Its products combine three advanced technologies: 3D inkjet, 3D software and nano materials. The company’s primary products include the first 3D printer dedicated to printing multi-layer PCBs (printed circuit boards) and advanced nanotechnology-based conductive and dielectric inks.

Total revenues for the first quarter of 2017 were $118,000, compared to $46,000 in the fourth quarter of 2016. In fact, the fourth quarter of 2016 was the first quarter that Nano Dimension generated revenues. Research and development (R&D) expenses for the first quarter of 2017 were $2,508,000. To prepare for its commercial phase by year end, the Company recently completed training with Flex Ltd. (previously Flextronics). Flex will serve as the Nano Dimension primary manufacturer of the DragonFly2020 printer.

The company filed a patent application for a process to print a series of multilayered rigid PCBs, connected through printed flexible conductive connections, and a patent application for the printing process of electrical circuits with embedded electrical components. Recently it received approval for a $370,000 grant from the Israel Innovation Authority to develop processes related to 3D printing of advanced ceramic materials in inkjet technology.

Ability’s New Directors and Disappointing Results

ABILITY INTERCEPTION SYSTEM
Posted on by Techtime

Ability’s stock price in NASDAQ rocks restlessly between hopes and despair. Yesterday, when the company announced new director, the trade price jumped from $0.68 to approximately $0.9. But the disappointing annual report dropped it back to $0.7. It all started in April 2017 with a group resignation of five independent directors: Amnon Dick, Efraim Halevy, Amos Malka, Meir Moshe and Shalom Singer, who left the company following disagreements with the founders regarding Ability’s financial operations. Their resignation dropped the stock price from $1.2 to $0.7.

Ability's Dramatic Rock in NASDAQ
Ability’s Dramatic Rock

This week Israeli provider of tactical communications intercepting solutions, Ability Inc. (NASDAQ: ABIL) has appointed Levi Ilsar as Chairman of the Board. Levi Ilsar is an independent financial and business consultant to private and public companies with more than four decades of accounting and finance experience including capital raising, public offerings, corporate mergers and acquisitions, as well as treasury operations and purchasing and budgetary monitoring. He served as a member of the board of directors of U. Dori Engineering Works, a company listed on the Tel Aviv Stock Exchange. Beside Ilsar, Ability has also appointed Brigadier General (Ret.) Eli Polak and Nimrod Schwartz as an independent directors.

Chairman from the Army

During his military career he served as a commander and as an intelligence officer in various operational units in combat zones and during war time. Brigadier General Polak brings extensive experience with technology-rich intelligence and information gathering in complex and ever-changing work environments. Nimrod Schwartz is an entrepreneur and investor and has served as a director for many startups, some of which have gone public or have been acquired by leading multinational companies.

At first, the investors loved the newcomers, but when the annual report was published, the trade price sunk again. The numbers are gloomy with a small beam of hope: Revenues for the full-year 2016 were $16.5 million compared with $52.2 million for 2015. Revenues for the fourth quarter of 2016 were $2.5 million compared with $2.0 million for the fourth quarter of 2015. Revenues include the contribution from the first ULIN sale, which amounted to approximately $1.3 million in the fourth quarter of 2016. ULIN is the most advanced product of Ability. It acronyms Ultimate Interception, and is a SaaS interception system with voice, text and Geo location capabilities.

Cash and cash equivalents at December 31, 2016 totaled $11.8 million compared to $25.8 million as of December 31, 2015. The company added a warning to its report: “Due to the significant decline in revenues and an increase in legal and professional services fees, the Company has suffered losses from operations, and has a net capital deficiency that, along with other matters, raises a substantial doubt about its ability to continue as a going concern.”

TI’s New Radar Sensors for Autonomous Driving

mmwave radar sensor
Posted on by Techtime

Texas Instruments Inc. (TI) unveiled what it says is the world’s most precise single-chip millimeter wave sensor: It is a 76GHz-81GHz Frequency Modulated Continuous Wave (FMCW) radar in a single-chip that can measure distances lower than the width of a single strand of human hair. With this product, TI targets hyper sensing emerging markets such as Autonomous Driving, Industrial Robotics and Control, Homeland Security, Medical Devices and more.

Development Board for Radar Sensor Applications
mmWave Radar Development Board

TI’s new millimeter wave (mmWave) single-chip CMOS sensors includes five solutions across two families of sensors with a complete end-to-end development platform (SDK). Available for sampling today, the AWR1x and IWR1x families combines analog and RF circuitry with digital signal processing to enable the implementation intelligent sensing solutions.

The designers can choose a sensor with MCU, a sensor with DSP, or a sensor with MCU and DSP all together in a single chip.

Looking Through Walls

The sensing capabilities options can reach less than a 4-centimeter range resolution with accuracy down to less than 50 micrometers, and lower precision with multitude ranges up to 300 meters. IWR1x and AWR1x mmWave sensors can sense through plastic, dry wall, clothing, glass and many other materials, and through environmental conditions such as lighting, rain, dust, fog or frost. They are adapted to Automotive industry demands, including ISO 26262 approval which enables Automotive safety integrity level (ASIL)-B.

Texas Instruments Automotive Radar

The AWR/IWR sensors portfolio is a self-contained FMCW transceiver single-chip solution in the band of 76-81GHz With 4GHz available bandwidth. It is built on TI’s low-power 45-nm RFCMOS process. Simple programming model changes can enable a wide variety of sensor implementation (Short, Mid, Long) with the possibility of dynamic reconfiguration for implementing a multimode sensor. It consists of 4 Receive Channels and 3 Three Transmit Channels (Two Can be Used Simultaneously).

Specially Designed CMOS Transistor

According to Gregory Delagi, senior vice president, Embedded Processing at Texas Instruments, TI has been developing high frequency CMOS circuits over the last 10 years. “This enabled the integration of all the functional blocks of a mmWave sensor into a single chip. The advanced mixed signal circuits enable 10 times higher accuracy compared to sensors deployed today. Our ultra-low power transistors enable sensing function at 25% of current sensors with options for going down to as low as 150 mW.

“The portfolio scales from a high performance front-end to a single chip integrating RF, microcontroller, DSP and Interfaces in the same die, and addresses two key markets: We believe they will create a significant impact on both these markets by making sensors more accurate, smaller and simpler.”

Industrial Applications for Radar Sensors

The sensors are available today and appears in a BGA Package and a new mmWave software development kit (SDK) includes sample algorithms and software libraries which simplify RF designs through less than 20 simple application programming interfaces (APIs). By leveraging TI estimates that with its mmWave SDK platform engineers can start developing their applications in less than 30 minutes.

For more information: www.ti.com/mmwave-pr-eu

Karamba Security raised $12M for car cyber solution

KARAMBA AUTOMOTIVE CYBER CARWALL
Posted on by Techtime

Karamba Security, a provider of cybersecurity solutions for connected and autonomous vehicles, today announced $12 million in Series B funding, bringing total investment in the company to $17 million, one year after closing a seed round. The funding was driven by investors’ excitement over customer engagements, resulting from Karamba’s unique automotive cyberprevention technology. The investment will be used to expand customer support, sales and R&D organizations so that it can meet the rapidly growing demand. Existing investors YL Ventures and Fontinalis Partners led the round, followed by GlenRock Israel.

karamba cyber carwall
Karamba CEO Ami Dotan

“Prevention is key,” said Ami Dotan, Karamba’s co-founder and CEO. “Our technology makes sure that only what’s part of the factory settings can run. Our deterministic approach stands in sharp contrast to network-based solutions that rely on probabilities to try to identify attacks in progress and block them – a technique that creates safety risks.”

Autonomous Security solution

Karamba has invented Carwall, the first Autonomous Security solution for the Automotive Industry. Carwall checks every function call made in real time, to see whether the call complies with a path mapped out in the factory settings. When a hacker tries to run foreign code or attack functions in memory, Carwall detects and blocks the attack attempt. It also reports the attempt with all the relevant contextual information. The result is attack prevention with forensics data that pinpoints the vulnerability and enables fast response time and fixes.

In a little more than a year since coming out of stealth in April 2016, Karamba has engaged with 16 automotive OEMs and Tier-1 suppliers, and was recognized with the 2017 North American Frost & Sullivan Award for Automotive New Product Innovation. According to Mordor Intelligence, The global market for cyber security for cars was USD 16.85 million in 2015 and is expected to grow to USD 1166.14 million by the end of 2020, at a CAGR of 102.62%.

IAF replaces manned patrol planes with Heron UAS

Posted on by Techtime

The Israeli Air Force (IAF) is replacing its manned Sea Scan maritime patrol aircrafts, with Israel Aerospace Industries’ (IAI) maritime version of the Heron 1 (Code named Shoval) unmanned air vehicle systems set to take over in this role.

IAI SEA SCAN UAS HERON
Sea Scan exit service

IAI reported this week  Thatt he IAF ordered additional Heron 1 UAV Systems equipped with a maritime radar and electro-optical payload, for maritime patrol and intelligence missions on everyday bases.

The previous platform, the manned Sea Scan airplanes are to exit service. Following the retirement of the Sea Scan (Code named Shachaf) from operational service in the IAF, the Shoval remains solely responsible for aerial supervision of Israel’s naval arena.

The HERON is a Medium Altitude Long Endurance (MALE) UAS for strategic and tactical missions that can stay in the air for up to 30 hours. It consists of 2 proven automatic taxi-takeoff and landing systems (ATOL), Satellite communication (SATCOM), retractable landing gear and fully redundant avionics.

The maritime model is equipped with the MOSP electro-optical payload made by the TAMAM division of IAI, and a lightweight airborne maritime surveillance radar made by ELTA. Heron 1 fleet will provide comprehensive protection of naval borders and strategic infrastructures. Shaul Shahar, General Manager of the IAI Military Aircraft Group, said that the capabilities of this UAS “provides a better solution for the maritime patrol mission than currently exists at the IAF.”

Nova Measuring rides the wave of 3D-NAND

Posted on by Techtime

[Photo above: Dr. Shay Wolfling, CTO of Nova]

Nova Measuring Instruments started 2017 with a strong momentum. The company announced a record quarterly revenue of $54.4 million, up 8 % sequentially and 60% year-over-year, above guidance of $50 to $54 million. Most interestingly, the provider of metrology solutions for process control in semiconductor manufacturing lines made a record quarterly bookings from 3D-NAND memory device manufacturers. This phenomena sent Benchmark analyst to raise its target price in NASDAQ to $27. As a result, Nova went up from $22.1 last week to $25.5 today, and a company value of $681 million.

Nova Measuring Instruments at NASDAQ

According to Benchmark, “NAND flash memory remains in short supply with 35% bit growth expected this year and next. The continuing ramp of next gen 3D devices with increased layer counts, up to 64 layers, should support demand for Nova’s metrology tools.”  During the first quarter TSMC represented 43% of sales and 27% of sales were to Samsung.

Inside Samsung and TSMC

Both will remain the major customers: “We see 2018 opportunities from both TSMC and Samsung. Increased 3D NAND production at the 7nm and 5nm nodes is expected later this and next year at TSMC. The first stage of investment for Samsung’s 18 Line, now in pilot production, will be able to produce about 40,000 to 50,000 300mm wafers per month. Annual wafer output from this fab is estimated to grow to over 1 million wafers over the next three years.”

Fulfilling this promise is not easy. Dr. Shay Wolfling, the Company’s Chief Technology Officer, told Techtime that new semiconductors production techniques raise the need for a new approach in critical dimension measurements and process control. “Now is the time to develop new ideas. To find a way to integrate all the known methods of test and measurements into a unified multi disciplinary solution.”

What are the main challenges?

Wolfling: “FinFET transistors and 3D NAND flash memories are just the beginning, and mark the direction for the future 3D semiconductors. 3D devices incorporate multitude of materials, hidden structures ans nano-metric dimensions.  We will need new wavelengths, such as DeepUV, Infra Red and X-ray, and new algorithms to combine all the information into a coherent process control. Optical measurements, for example, can give you critical dimensions data, while the X-ray gives you characterization of materials in the wafer.

“In Nova, following the acquisition of ReVera two years ago, we already integrate optical and X-ray data into a Hybrid Metrology Solution. It also means Big Data capabilities in the semiconductor production line. Currently we invest in all those areas. In fact, our research group works as a standalone body to ensure consistent operation without any disruption. We see direct link between our commitment for research and development, in amount of 24%-25% of total sales- and the recent success of the company.”

Elbit Systems Presents Autonomous Mortar System

Posted on by Techtime

Elbit Systems will present its latest version of the Spear mortar system, Spear MK2, at the International Land Warfare and Logistics Conference in Latrun, Israel (May 16-18). The Spear MK2 is a 120 mm fully autonomous modular mortar system. The upgraded system provides situational awareness, wider area coverage, quick deployment and has autonomous or manual activation requiring only two-three crew members. The mortar system is deployed and operational within only sixty seconds, equipped with a command and control system providing battlefield management and situational awareness capabilities, fire missions’ prioritization and monitoring of personnel assignments.

Attack Result forecast

SPEAR MK2 is a fully autonomous, vehicle-mounted 120mm soft recoil mortar system for high-mobility platforms. It and is being used extensively by the US Army, NATO and the Israel Defense Force. It consists of a Control and Command system, enabling the mortar system to be operated autonomously and aimed without the need for external reference points. The company said it can be integrated with a variety of battle management systems (BMS) and includes technical fire management, scheduled fire plans, a prioritization target process and an attack result forecast.

Smart operation

The system also manages ammunition, personnel, assignments and serial number equipment reports.Targeting information is relayed to the fire control system (FCS) which computes the ballistic data and orders the electric drive system (EDS) to position the mortar barrel to the exact azimuth and elevation. The mortar fire control system (MFCS) receives feedback from the north finding system (NFS) and inclination gauge units (IGU). The the system also  generates a comprehensive tactical picture that includes both friendly and enemy forces along with additional battlefield elements, enabling accurate threat analysis and an attack result forecast.