Over the past few years, India has escalated its in-house production of electronic products, but in spite of that growth, import of these items, mostly components, continued at the same volume. The picture shows that there are various impediments in the sector, which still needs to be addressed like the companies must manufacture finished goods in large quantities and at competitive prices. Also, there is a lack of investments in producing ICs, irregular power supply, supply chain disruptions, and many more.
‘It is not only about what you say. It is also about how you say it.’ This old-age adage quite aptly sums up the need for human beings to communicate effectively with each other. The necessity of humans to interconnect with one another through voice and sounds has presented a future where communication with machines has become inevitable.
A key enabler for the increasing adoption of voice communication has been accelerated with the expansion of the Internet of Things (IoT) and artificial intelligence (AI). Integration of AI at the endpoint— combined with advances in voice analytics—is changing the availability of products, and the consumption of product experiences are giving rise to a new ecosystem of companies that are participants and enablers of these products. Intelligent endpoint solutions are making it possible to implement both online and offline systems, reducing reliance on always-on internet/cloud connections. This, in turn, is creating new opportunities to solve many challenges related to real-time voice analytics across several consumer and industrial applications. The advances in psycholinguistic data analytics and affective computing make allowance for inferring emotions, attitudes, and intent with data-driven voice modeling. With the voice medium becoming a natural way for humans to interact, it will lead to improvements in measuring intent from voice recognition and voice analytics.
Challenges of Using VUIs
Voice user interfaces (VUIs) allow the user to interact with endpoint systems through voice or speech commands. Despite mass deployments across a wide range of applications, VUIs have some limitations.
Poor sound quality: Inconsistent sound quality with continued background noise can make voice recognition a challenge. Voice controllers in IoT can only operate flawlessly if the sound is crystal clear, which is a formidable task in a noisy environment. A voice-enabled assistant can only be truly effective if it is able to support different languages and accents, as well as isolate the human voice from the background noise.
Power consumption: Voice Command systems are restrictive as they require the activation of at least one microphone as well as the processor that recognizes the wake word.
Real-time processing: Slow or congested networks can result in command latencies that can impact the user experience. This issue may be addressed by implementing distributed intelligence at the endpoint with the ability to process the voice command in real time without any reliance on the centralized cloud system.
Accuracy and noise immunity: Voice recognition accuracy and background noise immunity are always major concerns when designing any VUI system. Voice recognition presents a number of challenges as there can be multiple sound sources, including interior and exterior noise and echoes from surfaces in the room, etc. Isolating the source of a command, canceling echoes, and reducing background noise require sophisticated technology depending on multiple microphones, beamforming, echo cancellation, and noise suppression.
Renesas Electronics provides general-purpose MCUs enabling VUI integration without compromising performance and power consumption.
Requirements for Robust Voice Recognition
To make the experience compelling for the user, devices need to be equipped with several components to ensure robust voice recognition.
Command Recognition
One of the most significant features of a voice-enabled device is its ability to identify speech commands from an audio input. The speech command recognition system on the device is activated by the wake word, which then takes the input, interprets it, and transcribes it to text. This text ultimately serves the purpose of the input or command to perform the specific task.
Voice Activity Detection
Voice activity detection (VAD) is the process that distinguishes human speech from the audio signal and background noise. VAD is further utilized to improve the optimization of overall system power consumption otherwise; the system needs to be active all the time, resulting in unnecessary power consumption. The VAD algorithm can be subdivided into four stages (Figure 1):
Figure 1: The block diagram specifies the four stages of the VAD algorithm: noise minimization, segregation, classification, and response. (Source: Renesas Electronics)
The Renesas RA voice command solution built on the RA MCU family and partner-enabled voice recognition MW boasts a robust noise reduction technique that helps in ensuring high accuracy in VAD. In addition, Renesas can help to address some of the key voice command features outlined below:
Keyword Spotting
Keyword spotting systems (KWS) are one of the key features of any voice-enabled device. The KWS relies on speech recognition to identify the keywords and phrases. These words trigger and initiate the recognition process at the endpoint, allowing the audio to correspond to the rest of the query (Figure 2).
Figure 2: The diagram illustrates the keyword spotting process, which relies on speech recognition to identify the keywords and phrases, the identified keywords and phrases triggering and initiating the recognition process at the endpoint, and allowing the audio to correspond to the rest of the query. (Source: Renesas Electronics)
To contribute to a better hands-free user experience, the KWS is required to provide highly accurate real-time responses. This places an immense constraint on the KWS power budget. Therefore, Renesas provides partner-enabled high-performance optimized machine learning (ML) models capable of running on advanced 32-bit RA microcontrollers. They come with pre-trained DNN models, which help in achieving high accuracy when performing keyword spotting.
Speaker Identification
Speaker identification, as the name suggests, is the process of identifying which registered speaker has the given voice input (Figure 3). Speaker recognition can be classified as text dependent, text independent, and text prompted. To train the DNN for speaker identification, individual idiosyncrasies such as dialect, pronunciation, prosody (rhythmic patterns of speech), and phone usage are obtained.
Figure 3: Speaker identification system block diagram illustrates the process of training the DNN for speaker identification and individual speech idiosyncrasies. (Source: Renesas Electronics)
Voice/Sound Anti-Spoofing
Spoofing is a type of scam where the intruder attempts to gain unauthorized access to a system by pretending to be the target speaker. This can be countered by including anti-spoofing software to ensure the security of the system. The spoofing attacks are usually against Automatic Speaker Verification (ASV) systems (Figure 4). The spoofed speech samples can be generated using speech synthesis, voice conversion, or by just replaying recorded speech. These attacks can be classified as direct or indirect depending on how they interact with the ASV system.
Direct Attack: This can occur through the sensor at the microphone and transmission level and is also known as Physical Access.
Indirect Attack: This is an intrusion into the feature extraction, models, and the decision-making process of the ASV system software and is also known as Logical Access attack.
Figure 4: Block representation of an automatic speaker verification. (Source: Renesas Electronics)
Multi-Language/Accent Recognition and Understanding
Accent recognition in English-speaking countries is a much smoother process due to the availability of training data, hence accurate predictions. The downside for organizations operating in countries where English is not the first language is less precision with speech recognition due to the availability of a limited amount of data. An inadequate amount of training data makes building conversational models of high accuracy challenging.
To overcome the accent recognition issue, Renesas offers a VUI partner-enabled solutions that support more than 44 languages, making it a highly adaptable speech recognition solution that can be used by any organization worldwide.
In the quarter one of 2023, sales of battery powered electric cars increased by 32 percent YoY, but there is a sales decline of plug-in hybrid EVs by 13 percent YoY
A latest survey report has now mentioned that the growth in sales of electric vehicles in the European region has escalated by 13 percent YoY in Q1 of 2023. Now, when the entire sales of cars are taken into consideration, there are massive signs of growth and improvement in the region, although they are yet to meet the target like the pre-pandemic levels, claim experts. If the total EV sales are taken into account, Germany is spearheading the segment, which is then followed by the UK, France, Italy, Netherlands, and Norway. Speaking of sales of the passenger cars segment in EVs, the highest growth was observed in the Netherlands and Norway.
The point to be noted is that in the quarter one of 2023, sales of battery powered electric cars increased by 32 percent YoY, but there is a sales decline of plug-in hybrid EVs by 13 percent YoY. It was also observed that the EV market share of passenger vehicle sales reduced drastically in Q1 2023 as compared to that of Q1 2022. A counterpoint survey report has further highlighted that there has been a huge improvement and development in the EU region for hybrid EVs and mild-hybrid EVs. This provides a crystal clear picture that Europe has been busy in unleashing a lot of schemes and initiatives to capture the lower-end electric car market, while at the same time, it is developing the battery infrastructure and craving for a circular economy. These initiatives are already given high priority much before putting a solid emphasis on genuine EV sales.
Sohinder Gill, CEO at Hero Electric India said, “Currently, it is right to say that vehicles powered by batteries are leading the automotive market. Amid the coronavirus pandemic and the ongoing supply chain imbalances, the growth in EVs are still significant. The current impediments and augmenting production prices due to escalating raw material prices, electric cars sales are still moving at a rapid scale. Now, if the pace continues at the same level, then very soon this segment will wipe out the sales growth of conventional ICE vehicles. If you see the market in 2020, EV sales have increased by two folds in 2021 with an increasing rate of 108 percent. Ultimately, it has helped EVs sales to have 5 percent of international passenger car sales in 2021.”
In 2021, when strict lockdowns were imposed throughout the world, China still topped the list in highest number of EV sales, which is around five times more than Germany. There are a couple of imperative factors that have helped China to lead the EV sales that includes massive subsidies on EVs, a huge variety of mini electric cars, and more cost-effective varieties are appearing in the market. What’s interesting about China is that around 3.3 million electric cars were sold in China in 2021 and during the same year, the fleet of EVs in the country stood at 7.8 million. The stock of electric cars are actually double the volume in 2019 and during the same period around 2.7 million BEVs were sold, which accounts to 82 percent of the new electric car sales.
Europe’s EV market share reached 66 percent between 2020 and 2021, and the sales share of plug-in hybrid EVs witnessed the largest in the globe. The European EV market is driven by purchase incentives and schemes, a huge variety of models, and market evolution. The growth is expected to increase more in the coming years due to Eu nation’s strict adoption of Co2 emission standards and also magnetizing zero emission vehicle standards. Although the EV market is growing massively in the EU, it is still limited to a part of the region. Speaking of the overall EV sales competition, the US, China, and Europe account for 95 percent of the market, while the other parts of the world including India are still facing challenges to come close to it. The major challenges other countries witnessed are mostly lower subsidies by the government on manufacturing and purchase of EVs, lack of proper charging stations, and extremely high prices of the vehicles.
According to an exclusive report of the International Energy Agency, in 2021 EV sales augmented by more than 65 percent YoY, which is around 2.3 million. The sales remained solid in the region in spite of the fact that the global automobile market is yet to recuperate from the pandemic. The period of five years between 2016 until 2021, sales of the electric cars in the Eu region increased by a CAGR of 61 percent, which is larger than China 58 percent and the US 32 percent. The global automobile experts opine that the distribution is bumpy throughout the EU nations. Germany still holds the record of highest number of EVs sold in the region, which is around 25 percent. The highest market share for new electric car sales in 2021 in Europe are Norway (86%), Iceland (72%), Sweden (43%) and the Netherlands (30%), followed by France (19%), Italy (9%) and Spain (8%).
Now, speaking again of the EV sales in Q1 2023, the market is dominated by top five automobile firms such as Volkswagen, Tesla, Stellantis, Mercedes Benz, and Hyundai-Kia. All these companies accounted for nearly two-thirds of the market share. While speaking of genuine electric cars, Tesla grabs the second spot and is a bit behind Volkswagen. In terms of PHEV market, Volkswagen again tops the chart and is followed by Mercedes Benz and BMW. At this moment, the EV makers in China are facing a lot of challenges to perk-up their market in the EU region in this quarter. Nonetheless the chinese companies such as Aiways, NIO, BYD, Ora, and MG slightly managed to augment their share as compared to the preceding year. But, companies such as Xpeng, LYNK & Co, and Hongqi faced hurdles in the EU market. Experts anticipate that the Chinese EV manufacturers will be able to increase their sales share in the EU nations in the coming quarters by providing affordable vehicles with cutting-edge features and this because the EV market is speculated to perform better.
Highlighting the growth of EVs in the European market, senior automobile research analyst at Counterpoint Research Peter Richardson said, “In the current quarter, the overall penetration of electric cars in passenger vehicles sales slumped by 18.4 percent from the previous 27.6 percent in Q4 2022. This shift is considered to be notable compared to the earlier trend of continuous Quarter on Quarter growth. Now, other than France, all the major nations in the EU witnessed the growth slump.”
Richardson further added, “There are a couple of reasons that have boosted this revenue slump. The financial conditions were very unsteady and because of Norway’s removal of the EV subsidy scheme. In Europe, Germany has the biggest market share of EVs, which also witnessed a revenue decrease because of the ongoing recession and lesser consumer spending. But from April 2023, the market in the EU has started observing signs of growth and therefore, it is speculated that EV’s share will increase more than 25 percent towards the end of this year.”
The point to be noted is that throughout the four countries, the price factor is very important. This is because battery powered cars are so expensive which is why it failed to gain the desired traction among the European consumers. Around 60 percent of the citizens are still hesitant to opt for EVs and the number has massively escalated in Germany from 40 to 61 percent, and the Netherlands from 54 to 66 percent. Secondly, the possibility of not finding ample charging stations and the worry regarding the presence of low charging ports has also increased by 5 percent. Also, four out of 10 Europeans still think EVs take more time than conventional gasoline vehicles.
Rohit Pandit, managing director at Shuzlan Energy told CircuitDigest, “Currently, everything in the European countries now depends on the commitment made in the Paris agreement. Currently, in Europe, the market for EVs are now mandatory and compulsory. They are constantly making numerous efforts to meet the goal unlike India and this is why Eu is moving forward. The infrastructures are being built stupendously and the subsidies and incentives are also very high. In India, there are a lot of bottlenecks as we have started the initiative very late and we face immense challenges while working on the ground.”
In the past few years, various countries in Europe have been provided with fiscal incentives like taxation exemptions for the consumers who choose to purchase an electric car. The government of France also offers incentives of up to €5,000 to help people purchase electric vehicles, which are powered by hydrogen, electricity or the amalgamation of both. In the EU, the transport sector is the largest contributor of carbon emissions and hence, the commission in Europe barred selling of ICE vehicles by 2035.
The electric vehicle ecosystem has been growing in India tremendously over the past few years owing to various schemes and initiatives unleashed by the government. But, in our country, charging infrastructure is not growing upto the expectations. The lack of convenient and wide range of charging networks makes it very intricate for EV owners, especially for those living in apartments or without a proper parking area.
The limiting factors in automotive electrification today are the speed to charge the battery and the energy conversion efficiency to usable work, such as the EV range or thermal management of the passenger cabin. Extreme temperatures significantly negatively affect the vehicle's performance and battery durability. Energy harvesting can help the battery thermal management systems (BTMS) regulate the battery temperature in extreme ambients to optimize performance and range, increase the charging speed, or control the cabin temperature. For EVs to become truly mainstream, they must provide the performance drivers expect in all conditions, including extreme heat (100°F and above) and cold (20°F and below).
What is Energy Harvesting in EVs?
Energy harvesting, often called energy recovery in automotive applications, captures ambient energy, and converts it to electrical energy. This concept applies to all available ambient energy sources, including solar, wind, vibration, or thermal radiation. It can power ultra-low power MCUs to reduce small-load battery demand or MEMS sensors that monitor vehicle performance items.
For the larger-scale challenge of electric vehicles, the additional recovered energy augments the vehicle's primary energy load during operation, increasing its efficiency, and extending the range. Another benefit occurs during charging, where recovered waste energy from charging can warm the battery or preheat the cabin during extreme cold.
Harvesting three types of energy can supplement the thermal management system in extreme temperatures to protect the battery and enhance its performance: solar energy, thermal energy, and electrodynamic energy.
Solar Energy Harvesting
In the dead of winter in the northern US, temperatures can drop below zero degrees fahrenheit. One of the most significant benefits of internal combustion engines (ICEs) is that the combustion reaction creates an endless heat source to warm the engine and cabin. In EVs, this heat is unavailable, so engineers employed electric resistance heaters to warm the battery, which operates at peak efficiency between 25-35°C, and the cabin. The power for these heaters comes directly from the battery.
Recent developments have focused on automotive heat pumps, which output three units of usable heat for each unit of power consumed through a refrigerant with a boiling point below the ambient temperature. The sun still shines in winter, so adding photovoltaic arrays to the vehicle captures even more ambient solar energy. Researchers have demonstrated solar energy harvesting to improve range by nearly 23 percent. In addition, the approach reduced grid energy draw and charge time by about 10 percent and increased battery life by the same level. In addition, EVs are a natural fit for solar energy harvesting, as the battery provides the storage needed to smooth the power intermittency inherent in solar energy.
Thermal Energy Harvesting
Despite their challenges for EV thermal management, extreme temperatures provide the opportunity for a high-temperature differential to drive rapid heat transfer. In extremely hot weather, a thermoelectric generator converts the temperature differential to electricity, supplementing primary battery power and reducing the load.
This approach is most efficient at high ambient to battery/cabin temperature differentials but is only around 5-10 percent efficient in absolute terms due to the application's low-quality heat (100-150°F). Still, supplemental heat trims the peak power draws when first engaging the thermal management system.
Kinetic Energy Harvesting
While solar and thermal energy harvesting are robust enough to improve efficiency in extreme temperatures, they still depend on the quality of sunlight and ambient temperature conditions (respectively). That reality provides the opportunity for kinetic energy harvesting, which recovers waste energy from actions and characteristics every vehicle takes during operation.
An example of kinetic energy harvesting is regenerative braking, during which a portion of the braking force energy flows back to the battery for supplemental power through a Piezoelectric material. Like temperature differential in thermal harvesting, there is a direct correlation between the driving potential (brake force in this case) and the effectiveness magnitude of energy recovery available to reduce primary battery power draw. The efficiency of this process is much better than thermoelectric generators, however, achieving up to 70 percent of waste energy from braking.
Other applications of kinetic energy harvesting include shock absorbers and vibration sensors, each of which similarly captures higher energy recovery loads with increased mechanical force.
Conclusion
Extreme temperatures can present significant challenges for automotive OEMs, from battery durability to reduced driving range to passenger discomfort. Employing solar, thermal, and kinetic energy harvesting strategies can generate important secondary power sources to offset high loads when the thermal management system first engages.
The sensors described above enable technologies of extreme temperature EVs, as they convert the waste energy sources into usable power at the edges of the operating envelope. Finally, employing solar, thermal, and waste energy recovery dramatically improves the vehicle's sustainability profile.
Adam Kimmel has nearly 20 years as a practicing engineer, R&D manager, and engineering content writer. He creates white papers, website copy, case studies, and blog posts in vertical markets including automotive, industrial/manufacturing, technology, and electronics. Adam has degrees in chemical and mechanical engineering and is the founder and principal at ASK Consulting Solutions, LLC, an engineering and technology content writing firm.
After unleashing the much-awaited Production Linked Incentive (PLI) of Rs 76,000 crore in December 2021, the government has notified a week back that they are likely to approve another Rs 25,000 crore scheme for boosting chip manufacturing. Under the Modified Semicon India Program, the fresh new applications were being invited by the union government from Jun 1, 2023 onwards in an effort to grow the nation’s display and semiconductor fabs. The cabinet has most probably postponed the PM PRANAM scheme and another meeting is likely to happen soon. Various efforts are being undertaken to grow semiconductor manufacturing under the PLI scheme and last month, Finance Minister Nirmala Sitharama stressed that their priority is now to magnetize investments and incentivize in the country via PLI schemes, which has been expanded in 14 sectors including solar components and semiconductors.
India Semiconductor Mission (ISM) will receive the applications and is tasked with leading the nations’ $10 billion semiconductor manufacturing program. Earlier, the minister of state for Electronics and Information Technology of India, Rajeev Chandrashekhar tweeted that the application for the most costliest 28nm fabs was opened for more than 45 days and around 3 applications were received by the ISM and they are under evaluation. Now, the time has come to receive and encourage applications for 40nm fabs and also various emerging semiconductor companies are speculated to apply for numerous nodes depending on the type of technology they specialize in.
Now, this modified semicon program would provide an incentive of 50 percent of the venture costs to companies/ consortia/JVs for beginning any semiconductor fabs of any node. Also, the same incentive will be available for setting up display fabs of particular technologies as well. Under the Modified Semicon Scheme, the proposals for setting up Compound Semiconductors / Silicon Photonics/Sensors Fab/Discrete Semiconductors Fab and Semiconductor ATMP/OSAT units will be ended in December 2024, whereas the applications for DLI scheme will be terminated at the same time. Until now, around 26 applications have been received under DLI out of which five have been finalized.
Another point to be noted is that, the approval for beginning display and semiconductor fabs and OSAT units will be finalized by the union cabinet as per the press information bureau report. Earlier, the approval for the applications upto Rs 100 Crore was issued by the MeitY secretary and applications above Rs 100 Crore were evaluated by the union minister for Electronics and IT. As per MeitY’s recent notification, the amendments have been done and the union cabinet will have the authority to issue approval for applications under the PLI. The $10 billion semiconductor and display scheme was further modified in September 2022 in an effort to attract more international investments.
As per a previous report of CircuitDigest, industry association ELCINA expressed its strong support for the Government of India’s farsighted decision to reopen the window for filing applications under the Modified Semicon India Programme. “According to the association’s board members, the government's new decision will overcome the challenges faced by investors in the current Scheme garnering a larger number of applications across the semiconductor value chain. The India Semiconductor Mission (ISM) and Scheme for Promotion of Semiconductors announced in January 2022 has elicited significant interest among global and domestic companies in this sector. However, due to some on-ground issues these projects have been slow to take off and potential investors are looking for greater clarity and support. It appears to be a chicken and egg situation with each stakeholder looking at the other to take the first step. The window of opportunity was too short, and the product definition was narrow, not allowing investors flexibility.”
While discussing the matter in detail, Amrit Manwani, CMD of Sahasra Electronics told CircuitDigest exclusively, “Although I have mentioned the same things to ELCINA and media, but I would like to further clarify that in spite of the schemes and incentives, India is furnished with various hurdles to begin semiconductor manufacturing, but the new Govt. of India’s move is highly appreciated because they are very keen to develop the impeccable ecosystem by extending the application window until December 2024. In this way, entrepreneurship will escalate and that will make India self-dependent in semiconductor manufacturing.”
For instance, Sahasra Semiconductors, the subsidiary of Sahasra Group of Industries, is one of the early qualifiers of the PLI scheme is likely to kickstart India’s first semiconductor packaging unit in Rajasthan by the end of June 2023. A lot of investments have been proclaimed in semiconductor R&D engineering by a couple international firms. Industry leaders in India speculate that the nation’s first compound semiconductor factory could be set up in the coming quarter. With a sturdy manifesto for the actual semiconductor fab, India is now geared up for the next stage of transformation of the semiconductor manufacturing ecosystem.
Highlighting the importance of the new applications, Sanjay Agarwal, managing director at Globe Capacitors and President at ELCINA said, "This is a very positive scenario towards the growth of India’s display and semiconductor manufacturing and it defines the government’s dedication to transform the country into a international manufacturing powerhub and will help all kind of facilities including SMEs to develop the semiconductor value chain and support the growth of entire ecosystem. This collaboration and partnership will boost the industry in a large-scale manner. Industry leaders and associations assist these initiatives, which will encourage the growth of the semiconductor industry in India.”
Of late, when Prime Minister Narendra Modi visited the US, a huge development has been witnessed in India’s semiconductor industry. The US based global semiconductor manufacturer Micron Technology has finally agreed to set up its new unit in the state of Gujarat with an investment of around $2.7 billion. Therefore, experts have opined that this new plant is likely to reduce the prices of mobiles and laptops in the nation. Upon his visit in the US, PM Modi has met with Sanjay Mehrotra, the CEO of Micron and assured him to offer all kinds of assistance to begin the operations in India. For setting up the plant, Micron is anticipated to spend around Rs 82.5 crores, while rest of the project costs will be borne by the government, both central and state. The point to be noted is that in two phases the new unit will be constructed and is likely to begin by the end of this year.
The company spokesperson said that the new project would create 5000 employment and would sustain 15,000 jobs in the coming years. Under the government's “Modified Assembly, Testing, Marking and Packaging (ATMP) Scheme”, the company’s new initiative has been approved. When compared to semiconductor designing and manufacturing, the assembly, packaging & testing is below the semiconductor value chain because there is not much capital required and also does not need a huge volume of highly skilled workforce.
The much reported Vedanta-Foxconn JV for manufacturing 28-nanometer chips will not get any incentives by the government as they did not fulfill the criteria as per the rules. When media approached Vedanta for further details, CEO David Reed said, “We do have now access to a manufacturable grade, high volume technology. We have access to all the documentation and design IP, and it can support industrial and especially automotive. We can’t go into details – who it is. But we’ve already started the transfer process.”
Now, speaking of India’s future market growth in semiconductors, a joint survey report by Counterpoint Research and India Electronics & Semiconductor Association (IESA) added that towards the end of 2026, India’s semiconductor market would reach a value of $64 billion, which is three times more growth than the US$22.7 billion in 2019. Speaking of this growth, two-thirds of the market will be spearheaded by India’s industrial applications and telecom stack. Although no specific timeline or schedule was provided by the central government, an investment US$1.2 billion could be made to transform the 30 year old Semiconductor Laboratory (SCL) in Mohali in Punjab to create profitable assets and augment the volume of chip production. As of now, the unit can only manufacture 8-inch CMOS microchip wafers utilized in strategic areas like defense and space programs. Experts claim that this investment by the union government is viewed as the purpose to commercialize and revolutionize the facility.
In order to support the country’s semiconductor design startups, the government has set aside US$133.83 million-US$146 million. As per the official report of MeitY, the DLI scheme for semiconductors has so far approved 27 start-ups. Back in 2019, industry body IESA stated that although in 2019, the consumption of semiconductors worth US$21 billion, increasing at a pace of 15.1 percent, the nation is struggling to form semiconductor wafer fabrication (FAB) units. Embedded systems and electronic products created a revenue of US$2.6 billion when we talk of research and development in this industry. So, here the point to be noted is that FAB facilities need a huge volume of water for production, billions of investments, proper power supply, high operating costs, and most importantly, the requirement of upgradation of technology and equipment on time.
Of late, IIT Bombay and the Centre of Excellence in Nanoelectronics at Indian Institute of Science, Bangalore have collaborated and showcased the top-notch R&D capabilities in VLSI and also chipset design. The initiative for setting up commercial semiconductor wafer fab units and two consortia have already been undertaken with locations in Greater Noida and in Prantij in Gujarat. A couple of previous applications were already rejected and some are halted due to rumors of acquisition, but the fresh new applications started is proving to be very optimistic for the industry leaders in India and therefore, association memes such as IESA, ICEA, and ELCINA added that in the coming 8-10 years, India will establish itself as a semiconductor and electronics manufacturing hub.
Hello guys, In this project we will see about making a DIY water pump using a generic motor 775. It's a fun and useful DIY project that can be easily implemented with basic tools and materials. The project does not require any kind of higher expertise in the domain.
The water pump device can be used for various purposes such as creating projects like firefighter bots, hydropower generators, Rainwater harvesting, and much more. Its versatility opens up a wide range of possibilities for various projects.
This project involves designing a powerful water pump using 3D printing technology. We will provide the design files and step-by-step instructions to guide you through the process. We will learn more about assembling procedures, connections, and project requirements. Also, we will see the technical specifications of the components and the working functionality of the water pump.
Components Required for Water Pump
RS-775 DC motor(12v-24volt)
3D-Printed Structure Set (including impeller)
Bolts or Screws
12-volt Power Source
Rubber piece for insulation
Marker and compass
Casing Required for Water Pump
We are going to use 3D-printed casing for our DIY water pump. These are enough strong and durable to withstand the pressure of water and the vibration of the motor. The ability to create intricate and customized designs, coupled with the advantages of lightweight construction, enhanced durability, and improved heat dissipation, make 3D-printed casings an attractive option for efficient water flow systems.
We are here using two types of casing i.e., Removable and Non-removable(permanent).
The mechanism of working a water pump is all about the centrifugal force generated due to the torque applied by the motor, keeping all this mechanism in mind, the 3d designs were created. It will be easy for you to print the 3d designs by yourself, as I am sharing the 3D-created design files. You can download that file from the below links.
If you are well aware of the process of 3D printing and you have 3D printers, then it will be a cost-effective & easy task. Otherwise, you can get online 3D printing services at affordable prices just by sending the STL file of your design.
Removable Casing: It is a type of casing where we remove the motor whenever it is not needed because it uses the Nut-bolt mechanism, making assembling and de-assembling easy. Its biggest advantage is using the same motor for other projects. Also, any blockage inside the casing set can be easily cleaned.
The STL design file includes Outer Casing and Impeller designs which can be downloaded using the Link.
After 3d-printing, our structure is looking as below Image.
Non-removable Casing: In this type of casing, the outer part is completely glued using Araldite after the proper fitting of the impeller. It is a permanent solution; we can’t remove the motor at all.
After 3D Printing, our structure is looking as below Image.
Assembly & Functioning
A centrifugal water pump is a mechanical device that circulates and moves water through pipes by creating force in one direction.
A water pump required basic few necessary components for work. Let’s study the included components and their functioning:
775 Motor: This commonly available DC motor offers high torque and power output. It runs on a 12-volt to 24-volt power supply. The motor/engine provides the necessary energy to rotate the impeller and generate the required pressure to move the water.
Impeller: A fan-like component that will be attached to the motor shaft to create water movement. It consists of curved blades or vanes that are designed to push the water in a specific direction when the impeller spins.
Housing/Casing: The housing or casing is the outer shell of the water pump, usually made of durable materials. It encloses all the internal components and provides support and protection. The 3D casing has two ports—an inlet and an outlet. The inlet port allows water to enter the pump, while the outlet port is where the pressurized water exits the pump.
Suction Pipe: The suction pipe is connected to the inlet port and is responsible for drawing water into the pump.
Discharge Pipe: The discharge pipe is connected to the outlet port and carries the pressurized water away from the pump to the desired location.
Power Supply: A suitable DC power supply to operate the motor (e.g., a 12V battery or power adapter).
Screws, Nuts, and Bolts: For securing the motor, impeller, and other components.
Assembling and Connection of the Removable Water Pump
It is quite easy process & doesn’t take much time. Below Images give a brief Idea of the Required Components.
Let’s look at the step-by-step procedure:
Screwed the back fittings of the case to the motor using an M4-10mm bolt shown in the image below.
The “M” designation for metric screws indicates the outer diameter of the screw in millimeters, so for an M4 screw, the outer diameter is 4mm.
The head is a standard star head and the length of the screw is 12mm.
After the proper fitting, the case will look like this:
Take the impeller, whose center has a D-shaft hole to prevent slipping during high torque, and fix it to the motor shaft.
If your motor shaft is circled-shaped, then you can try to file the rotor shaft from the outer side to transform it into D-shape, or else if you can find it, you can directly purchase it. The motor 775 that I am using is also circled in shape, hence I used a Grinder machine to file its shaft.
After, the impeller fitting the structure will look like this:
Now, attached the front side of the casing using the M3-30mm bolt, as shown in the below image.
Outer Diameter is 3mm
Length is 30mm
After all the fitting, the complete structure will look like the below image.
Take the DC female connector Jack soldered it to the two output pins of the motor.
Note: Be careful about the right polarity to set the clockwise spinning direction of the motor because the wrong direction spinning will not generate the water flow with full efficiency.
Connect the 12-volt battery supply (or you can use up to 24-volt), and see how the pump is working. We capture an image to demonstrate the pump.
Assembling and connection of the Non-Removable water pump
The necessary Required component is shown in the Below image. Some of the components are the same as in the case of Removable water pump. Hence, some of the steps are the same as previous one.
The same M4-10mm bolt is also used here to Screw the back fittings of the casing to the same 775 motor. For more details about the screws, you can refer to that step.
After the fittings, the casing will look like this:
Take the D-shaft impeller, and gently pushed to fix its hole into the D-shaft of the motor.
Apply the Araldite Glue at the round edges and fix the front side casing. Make sure the glue is properly set without any air leak spaces.
Soldered the DC female jack at the input pins of the motor by carefully observing the anti-clockwise spinning direction.
We connected the 12-volt battery and test the spinning direction and functionality of the motor.
Demonstration & Testing
We have completed all pump fittings, remaining only the connection to a power source, and required some water-filled buckets.
As a power source, I am using a 12-volt Lithium-ion battery, you can also use a 12-volt adaptor, or else you can use up to a 24-volt power source.
Inlet/outlet suction Port sizes
For Removable Casing: The external diameter should be 18mm (as per the STL file) for both inlet and outlet ports.
For Non-Removable Casing: The inlet port should have an external diameter of 25mm whereas the outlet port has of diameter 20mm (as per the STL file).
The functioning of a water pump involves the following steps:
Priming: Before starting the pump, it needs to be primed to remove any air trapped inside the system. Priming involves filling the pump and suction pipe with water to create an airtight seal and ensure proper water flow.
Power Input: The motor or engine is started, providing the necessary rotational force to the driveshaft. We are using a 12-volt supply to power the motor.
Impeller Rotation: As the driveshaft rotates, it drives the impeller to spin rapidly inside the housing. The impeller's curved blades push the water outward from the center of rotation.
The rotation direction of the impeller is depending on the motor rotation direction. For, Removable pump it should be clockwise whereas for Non-removable it should be anticlockwise.
Water Intake: The rotating impeller creates a low-pressure zone at the inlet port, causing water to be drawn into the pump through the suction pipe. The water flows into the housing and towards the center of the impeller.
Impeller Action: The impeller blades propel the water radially outward with centrifugal force, increasing its pressure as it moves toward the outer edges of the impeller.
Water Discharge: The pressurized water exits the pump through the outlet port and flows into the discharge pipe. The pressure generated by the impeller's action allows the water to be transported to its intended destination.
Continuous Operation: The water pump continues to operate as long as the motor or engine is running, maintaining a steady flow of water and circulation throughout the system.
We learned the functioning and mechanism of the water pump and now it’s time to test and see the live working.
The Above GIF shows the live working of a Removable water pump whereas the below shows the working of a Non-removable pump.
The motor torque is enough to provide a sufficient water flow at a 12-volt power source but if You want to get high force torque, you can go with a 24-volt power source with a speed of up to 50-60 liters/min.
Hope you enjoyed the Project and learned something useful from it. If you have any questions, you can leave them in the comment section below.
The top-notch technology will provide a huge impetus to the R&D initiatives, but the major impediment is the lack of wafer fabrication at this level.
A recent survey report by Counterpoint Research highlighted that in 2022 the growth in revenue of international semiconductor wafer fabs augmented to 9 percent year-on-year, worth $120 billion. Experts added that this is staggering growth because for the past couple of years, there has been a massive imbalance in the logistics sector, massive shortages of components, currency undulation, and most importantly, macroeconomic slump. But, the situation proved to be very optimistic for the wafer fabs owing to the huge investments by the customers in the mature node devices across numerous segments such as 5G, AI, automotive, HPC, and IoT. Suppliers, which are at the top five, witnessed a huge profit of $95 billion in their services and systems.
While speaking of the revenue of the wafer fab equipment’s market, it is anticipated to reduce by 10 percent year-on-year to $108.45 billion after a continuous growth in the past three years. Although the market for WFE in 2023 does not look promising, the prospect of Extreme ultraviolet lithography (EUV) lithography looks quite promising due to continued deployment of EUV into logic and memory. Not only that, foundries all over the world are increasing manufacturing chips of 3-nm nodes by utilizing FinFET architectures and Gate-All-Around transistors along with escalated adoption of EUV technology.
Dale Gai who is the associate director at Counterpoint Research opined that over the last couple of months, TSMC has started working on innovative capacities in in 7/6nm and 5/4nm owing to the decreased demand in the market, but the capital and the investment on 3-nm process nodes remains almost same like it was planned in the first half 2023. The point to be noted is that during the time of COVID-19 pandemic, various segments of the semiconductor industry have witnessed soaring prices because of the huge disruption in the supply chain. On the other hand, the electric vehicle technology is gaining a huge momentum and therefore, the entire automobile industry has seen a surging growth.
Nonetheless, the unexpected increasing demand of semiconductors during the time of pandemic has caused prices to augment in the data center and industrial market. The slow growth has also happened due to the inflation, which has reduced the orders for consumer electronic goods, and mobile phones. The expansion of AI, start-ups, and other technologies are happening on a rapid scale, the requirement of microchips are also increasing throughout the world.
Recession is another major obstacle currently among various industries, which has forced semiconductor companies to take into consideration whether they should increase the output of wafer fabs or not. The current skills in manufacturing and end-to-end design are magnetizing the interests of various businesses across the globe. The top-notch technology will give a huge impetus to the R&D initiatives, but the major impediment is the lack of wafer fabrication at this level. Building a wafer fab requires huge investment and is very expensive and also needs gallons of water which is why there are not many fabs available currently. Here, government incentives and subsidies will play an imperative role and the Chinese government has already assured to invest around USD 73 billion as semiconductor subsidies, while Japan, US, and Europe failed to equate that amount.
In the past three quarters, no major investment unifications have been done and therefore every country is investing on their own without proper analysis and knowledge. As consumers now require more top-notch devices, the production must be increased to a larger extent, feel experts. There are about 150 300-mm fabs located, with 12 in Europe and Middle East, 33 in China, 42 in Taiwan, and 19 in the US. This is why the volume of supply as per the demand is still unnatural. The massive level of production and activity still happens at the 200-mm fab with demand being the same for various nodes starting from 90nm to 180nm processes. The total number of 200mm fabs all over the world is 230 with 49 in the Middle East and Europe and 51 in the US.
The question here appears to be why the WFE market increases every year. As per a previous report of CircuitDigest, various characteristics such as the escalating demand from the consumer and B2B electronics industry coupled with ever-increasing technological improvements in the semiconductor and telecom industry are speculated to spearhead the demand for the semiconductor wafer fab equipment market from 2019-2030. There are some additional factors like equipment and silicon wafer that would assist in analyzing the concerned market in the coming years. Most importantly, new-fangled innovation in wafer technology has crafted a denser packaging of devices like transistors and MEMS (micro-electro-mechanical system) are speculated to create a way for the foundation of innovative opportunities that can be leveraged by various global firms.
Now, speaking of the current wafer fab market globally, in 2021 the market was worth USD 62930 million and by 2030, the market is expected to reach at USD 97470 million at a CAGR of 5.6 percent between 2022-30, according to a report of capital market firm MarketWatch. But, another research firm Verified Market Research added that in 2021, the WFE market reached at USD 68,989.03 million and by 2030, it is expected to grow USD 164,669.67 Million at a CAGR of 8.04 percent between 2023-30. The technological developments over the past few years have spearheaded the growth of this sector. The growth in memory storage capacities and the augmenting compactness of numerous communication products in the telecom industry are responsible behind this growth.
Going by the detailed analysis, the WFE market is divided into Latin America, Europe, North America, and Asia Pacific. In 2021, the biggest market share in this segment was grabbed by the Asia Pacific region and is expected to increase at a CAGR of 8.53 percent in the forecasted period. The region is leading because of the fact that there are solid supply chains of semiconductor devices such as discrete devices, circuits, and logic circuits across nations like China, Taiwan, and Japan. As there is a huge growth in consumer electronics and automotive products, the demand for IC chips and SIC wafers are also expected to increase.
Other than that, there are huge volumes of suppliers in South Korea and in India, who are contributing to the huge growth of this market. In the same year, North America stood as the second biggest region and during that time it was predicted that this region is likely to contribute massive growth. But huge subsidies, and incentives offered by the government of the Asia Pacific region has helped them to lead the market. Increasing demand along with rising income, growth of advanced machinery and technology, and programs for spreading the importance of the requirement will help the WFE market to grow immensely over the years.
Counterpoint’s Senior Research Analyst Ashwath Rao said, “Considering the growth in terms of US dollar, the overall volume of WFE market slumped by around 8 percent in 2022 as it was negatively impacted by currency fluctuations, and especially reduction in value of euro and yen denominated sales ever since the starting of 2022. Ahead of the inflection in 2022, there is an escalation in R&D investment that has put the WFE market to outperform the semiconductor market for a long term.”
Highlighting the overall scenario of the market in 2023, Rao mentioned in a survey report, “Manufacturers are more skewed towards foundry-logic segments today unlike in 2019, and with overall backlog strength, increased visibility in terms of long-term agreements and subscription model will help limit the downside. The weakness in wafer fab equipment spending in 2023 will drive lead time and inventory normalization. The slowdown in memory-oriented investments will begin to recover gradually starting in the second half of 2023, and 2024 will be a big year for the equipment industry. Manufacturers are well positioned to take advantage of the opportunity."
In the vast world of digital electronics and logic circuits, The XOR gate stands as a fundamental building block that plays a crucial role in information processing. XOR, short for Exclusive OR. Is a logical operation that produces an output of high when the number of high inputs is odd, and low when the number of low inputs are even. This unique characteristic makes the XOR gate an essential component in various applications, ranging from simple binary arithmetic to complex data encryption algorithms.
In this article, we will explore the inner working of the XOR gate, including its truth table, logical symbol representation, circuit diagram, and practical construction using transistors.
The XOR gate is also called the exclusive OR gate. An electronic XOR gate performs the digital logic XOR function. This function is generally similar to the standard OR function with one critical difference. For both OR and XOR, the output is high when either of the two inputs are high, and when both inputs are low, the output is low.
However, when both inputs are set to a high state, the standard OR circuit will produce a high output signal, whereas the XOR circuit will generate a low output signal. This fundamental behavior is the reason behind it is called exclusive OR gate. In the simplest design of XOR gate only 5 transistors are needed.
XOR Gate Symbol
Truth table of XOR gate
Inputs
Output
A
B
Y
0
0
0
0
1
1
1
0
1
1
1
0
Boolean expression for this gate is
Y = (A ⊕ B)
Output
(A ⊕ B) = A.B + A.B
The truth table above shows clearly demonstrates that the output of an Exclusive-OR gate will only goes “HIGH” when both of its two input terminals are at different logic levels with respect to each other. If these two inputs, A and B are both at logic level “1” or both at logic level “0” the output is a “0”.
Logic Diagram of XOR Gate
As can be seen in the logic diagram above, the Ex-OR gate is built by combining three different types logic gates, the OR gate, the NAND gate and the AND gate to produce the desired result.
Components Needed for building XOR gate
So with just the few components, we can construct a XOR gate circuit.
2N2222 (NPN) transistors x5
10kΩ resistors x3
220Ω resistors x3
Push buttons x2
Breadboard x1
9V Battery x1
LEDs and Connecting wires
Circuit Diagram of XOR Gate using Transistors
The circuit diagram below illustrates the XOR gate using 5 NPN transistors. Here, I1 and I2 represent the two inputs, and O1 signifies the output.
The picture shows a simple XOR gate circuit that uses 5 transistors. In the layout inputs A and B are both connected to 9V supply. Different color connecting wires help to see the connections. If there is any ambiguity in the placement of wires the circuit diagram can be referenced.
The gate design is a NAND gate on the left two transistors, a switch for the middle transistors, and an OR gate for the last two transistors.
Upon examining the configuration shown in the photo, it becomes evident that the current generated by the far-right resistor is unable to reach the ground on the lest, resulting in the LED remaining off. The reason behind this lies in the fact that all the current generated by the first resistor on the left is directed towards the first ground. Consequently, the switch remains in the off position due to insufficient voltage entering the base of the third transistor.
In the event that one input is activated, the current gains ability to flow from the far-right transistor to the second ground. Finally, when both inputs are deactivated, the output remains off since the current fails to enter the base of the OR gate transistors. this configuration prevents the current from traveling from the far-right resistor to the second ground.
Applications
From the depth of cryptography to the realm of error detection, the XOR gate proves to be an indispensable ally. It possesses the power to perform bitwise operation, enabling binary addition and subtraction, ensuring data integrity, and even generating parity checks. This gate’s versatility and elegance have solidified its role in countless digital system, paving the way for technological advancements that shape our modern world.
Adam Kimmel has nearly 20 years as a practicing engineer, R&D manager, and engineering content writer. He creates white papers, website copy, case studies, and blog posts in vertical markets including automotive, industrial/manufacturing, technology, and electronics. Adam has degrees in chemical and mechanical engineering and is the founder and principal at ASK Consulting Solutions, LLC, an engineering and technology content writing firm.
