NXP and our partner Cohda Wireless, together with 12 leading car manufacturers including Audi and BMW, are delighted to announce the signing of a Memorandum of Understanding to bring intelligent transport systems and services to European roads by 2015.

1994 was a great year for innovation. For instance, the Channel Tunnel opened, the Java programming language was released, and the world’s first satellite digital television service was launched. 1994 also heralded the introduction of NXP’s MIFARE technology, which has become an essential element in more than 40 different applications especially for transport ticketing solutions, loyalty programmes and access management across the globe. In particular, it has gone on to revolutionize the ease and efficiency of public transport.

 Commuters old enough to remember the metro railways of yesteryear will recall the archaic ticketing systems that pre-dated contactless schemes. As if the morning rush wasn’t bad enough, chaotic scenes at both cash desks and ticket barriers would often greet bleary-eyed city-dwellers as they embarked on their daily commute. Whether it was struggling to find the right money or feeding paper tickets into uncooperative machines, travelling on the underground could be quite an ordeal.

 It’s safe to say that MIFARE has changed the lives of many commuters since those days. 

Now the leading application development platform for contactless solutions is used in more than 650 cities worldwide to improve their public transport systems. And not just on the metro-multi-modal contactless travel cards, such as the one recently announced by the Moscow Department of Transport, enable commuters to use a single secure smart card to ride on metros, trains, buses, trams and for further services like bike rental or road- tolling.

According to ABI Research, MIFARE solutions are accounted for more than 80% of all contactless ticketing credentials deployed which is based on a substantial product portfolio, multi-application solutions and trust. On the innovation side MIFARE is continuing to evolve. Imagine how convenient it is to simply pull out your NFC-enabled smartphone and – thanks to embedded MIFARE technology – use it as tickets, keys or cash like people in Bangkok or Dubai. Going even further, MIFARE4Mobile functionality will enable customers to purchase tickets through web-shops and transfer them to the secure element in the phone, accelerating the use of NFC smartphones with MIFARE functionality.

As we’ll celebrate the 20^th anniversary of MIFARE technology next year, we also look forward to a future where NXP will continue to set the agenda in contactless innovation. What over-the-air application would you like to see on your smart card or smart phone?

One of the interviews was with our very own Colin Maudry, so I thought it would be useful to expand on how NXP is using DITA and give some facts and figures.

As mentioned in the interview, we primarily use DITA as the source format for what we call our “value propositions”. This content is essentially the marketing narrative about our products and consists of a description, features and applications plus a few other optional bits and pieces. This content ends up in a few different outputs including: data sheets, product web pages and mobile apps as shown in the following diagram.

Each of the circled bits of content is a topic, which is a discrete content resource that can be re-used across multiple documents (or maps in DITA-speak). This is particularly useful for applications lists, for example, where many products share that same list of ‘standard’ applications. This pays dividends when translating as we do not end up translating the same content time and time again, which results in more consistent translated content and lower costs.

Here are a few of the reasons we have chosen DITA:

• Provides an ‘agnostic’ source format for multiple output formats
• Separates content structure (meaning) from style (look and feel)
• Topic-based approach enables content to be easily re-used across documents
• Offers native support for translation/localization
• As it’s XML based, can be integrated to existing XML publication processes
• It’s an open standard so better tool support and a broader user community

Of course we have not been using DITA since the dawn of time so we had to migrate the content from legacy formats into DITA. Luckily for us all of our legacy source formats were XML, so it was relatively simple to transform this to the DITA target format using XSLT. The migration took place in two main rounds. During the first round we ignored any potential re-use and migrated each document with it’s own set of topics, whereas during the second round we tried to de-duplicate any topics where the content was identical.

Roughly 50% of our new data sheets are still created using proprietary (SGML) EDDs in Adobe FrameMaker. For these we still have to (manually) extract the content into DITA following publication, but this is something we are seeking to automate in the near future with the longer-term goal to move to DITA as the source format for all natural language content. For the other 50% of data sheets the DITA value propositions are used when we generate the data sheet along with other topics generated on-the-fly from our product information database (more on that in another post).

Having all this content in DITA enabled us to easily translate large volumes of content to Chinese and Japanese (see figures below). We have set up a partially automated workflow to deal with the translation requests which natively supports DITA and required minimal setup to set a bridge between our content and our translation providers. Without using DITA and related technologies such as XLIFF, such large-scale translation simply would not have been feasible or cost-effective.

Finally here are some stats reflecting the status today:

• Number of DITA maps: 10,000+
• English (source): 6,281
• Chinese: 536
• Japanese: 2,991
• Other: 392
• Number of DITA topics: 40,000+
• On average a map is re-used for 2.27 products
• Maximum number of times a map is re-used is for 223 products!
• As of December 2012, our source DITA content contained 1,018,093 words including 489,705 repetitions

We are increasingly aware that the innovation process is enhanced when working collaboratively with consumers and taking our community’s considerations into account. In an environment underpinned by innovation, I believe that crowdsourcing will be the next big thing in the high-tech industry.

Crowdsourcing (Wikipedia), is the practice of obtaining needed services, ideas, or content by soliciting contributions from a large group of people, and especially from an online community, rather than from traditional employees or suppliers.

ID solutions are present in many aspects of our lives and often consumers will have the best ideas about these technologies and how they can be developed to improve our everyday lives.  As a semiconductor company, we see it an opportunity to ask the community about the next big innovation or killer application.

Yes, we want to hear from you!

For this, NXP has developed a digital marketing platform. The Idea Generation platform is an intuitive discussion and sharing tool which encourages people to come together to vote for and share the best identification ideas. So, take a tour of our virtual 3D city, which covers a wealth of trusted smart life solutions, demonstrating the influence of ID verification in almost everything we do, from checking our Facebook to paying with a credit card.

At our platform you can submit your idea(s), get inspired by solutions of others and discuss the next big thing in ID. Our community will then vote for their favorite ideas. The developer that comes up with the most popular solution will then be invited by NXP’s business developer to work together on a business case. So finally, your smart solution can become a reality!

The NXP Idea Generation Platform has been live for a few weeks now and we’ve already seen the power of crowdsourcing. There have been some great new ideas and my personal favorite is the smart fridge from Shakti Shenoy. With the smart fridge I’d never run out of the basics again!  

Shakti’s solution: A display in front of the fridge/storage place can list presence or absence of a product (e.g. milk/eggs/cookies) and the number of them present. When the items go below a threshold the system will raise a ‘purchase request’, which can be received on your smartphone.

Do you also see a smart innovation in ID-technology? We’d appreciate hearing your ideas! Check out our platform for inspiration, to upload your idea and most importantly, join the conversation!

So, what is GLONASS ? Basically, it’s the only alternative to GPS in terms of global coverage and comparable precision, and was originally developed by the Soviet Union in 1976. And according to Wikipedia, GLONASS is the Russian Federal Space Agency’s most expensive program, consuming a third of its budget in 2010.

GLONASS is becoming increasing popular as a sat nav standard in Russia (obviously), but also in markets such as India. Auto manufacturers looking to target these territories need to ensure they have on-board support for GLONASS if they want to truly appeal to local car buyers. This is particularly important in the Russian market, as it looks likely that, in the near future, a significant import tax will be levied on vehicles that do not support the GLONASS system.

It’s reassuring to see these types of automated alert systems now starting to be implemented all around the world.

GloTOP is another great solution that supports our Connected Car vision, where the traffic infrastructure and the vehicles that use it are linked together to improve the driving experience, make our roads safer, and help to reduce unnecessary carbon emissions. And by uniquely integrating GLONASS, GPS, GSM and NFC functionality into a single package, NXP is making it easier (and more cost-effective) for OEMs to produce vehicles that can get connected, whichever market they’re in.

GloTOP is part of our Smart Telematics range of solutions, which enable multiple applications such as emergency alert capability, congestion avoidance, on-board diagnostics, vehicle location tracking or fleet management. What other functionality could drivers benefit from as cars become more and more connected?

The EE Times and EDN ACE Awards, developed in 2005, are awarded each year to celebrate the individuals, companies and products that demonstrate innovation and leadership in electronics industry. NXP has been selected as a finalist across 3 (!) categories, with:

the TFA9887 Mobile Audio Design Team named as finalist for Design Team of the Year;

the DALI and DMX512 Development Platforms for Wired Lighting Control Networks named as finalist for Ultimate Products – Development Kits & Evaluation Boards;

and the CBTL05024 high-performance, low-power switch for Thunderbolt interface named as finalist for Ultimate Products – check the press release.

Winners will be announced on April 23 at an awards ceremony taking place during DESIGN West 2013 in San Jose.

The ACE Awards are judged by industry experts, comprised of the leading voices of academia and industry executives.  The 2013 Annual Creativity in Electronics Awards event is on April 23rd, 2013 at the Sainte Claire Hotel in San Jose. This event is co-located with DESIGN West and ESC Silicon Valley.  Stay tuned and read more here.

Integrated Circuits, or microchips, have been propelling massive technology innovations in the last decades. They appear in electronic equipment as well as in passports, banking cards, LEDs and light bulbs, toys, public transport tickets, first aid bandages, door locks, cars, books, pets, smart energy meters and running shoes. Just to name a few usages.

For B2B marketers, the marketing of these Integrated Circuits to the highly educated, demanding no-nonsense online savvy diverse target audience of Design Engineers is a marketing delicacy…

Internet of things
Semiconductors are rapidly changing the way we interact with objects. If you think of it, almost anything can be enhanced with chips. Objects can be linked to the internet (Internet of Things) to make them e.g. controllable over large distances, to optimize the energy consumption of devices, to recover stolen objects or missing car keys, to identify counterfeit of consumer goods, or to transfer data from one device to another. To get a grasp of various ideas of what applications can be enhanced by semiconductors, have a look at NXP’s recently launched Idea Generation Platform (you can even post or rank an idea yourself).

Engineers of innovation
Semiconductors are designed in products by Design Engineers. Without engineers there would be little innovation, and without innovation there would be little economic growth.  In that sense, Design Engineers can be seen as the key enablers of future economic growth; in the current economic climate, something to think about.

The marketing of semiconductors to Design Engineers requires delivering integrated digital marketing campaigns:

- with relevant and timely (most technical) content,
- that is available in the most convenient format(s)
- at the best moments and (online) places,
- with calls-to-action that directly add value to the daily job of the engineer.

Today’s successful B2B marketer should posses various integrated marketing tactics and digital marketing competencies. Gone are the days that ad hoc launches of online banner ad campaigns, the issuing in isolation of mass-media press releases or stand-alone adwords campaigns could do the marketing job. Generic marketing objectives such as raising awareness by x%, building brand preference by y% or raising the number of ‘Likes’ by z% are accompanied or replaced by marketing KPIs relating to conversion rates, lead generation and ROI. To make best use of every marketing dollar spent, conversion rates in various stages of the customer engagement cycle are continuously measured and closely monitored, and marketing tactics and media plans are selected based on their ability to drive traffic to a landing page and subsequently to generate conversion via compelling calls-to-action.

Engagement cycle
The metaphor of the sales funnel, or better: customer engagement cycle, is based on the fact that reaching out to customers at the right, decision-influencing moment is key for marketers.  A first step in this funnel/cycle-approach is to assure that products are considered for inclusion in the long-list of available options at the beginning of the decision journey and subsequently to understand:

- what customer,
- is at what moment,
- where in the cycle,
- and what kind of information or content does he or she need,
- in what desired format,
- to move to the next stage of the cycle?

Contradictio in terminis
A well-thought approach to Marketing Automation – not too long ago considered to be a contradictio-in-terminis – is of the essence to measure and monitor what works best and what works less, and to tailor and contextualize marketing efforts to the needs and desires of (potential) customers in various stages of the sales cycle. This goes especially for companies focusing on mass markets with online-savvy audiences. Marketing Automation however is not the Holy Grail; it’s not a goal, it’s a means. Marketing tools are useless without a clear understanding of the customer needs and wishes and a shared vision between marketing and sales on how contacts should be converted into leads. In that respect, nothing has changed.

An overview of various landing pages of NXP’s integrated marketing campaigns that are currently live can be found here. Some examples of recent marketing tactics used include (variations on) crowd sourcing for idea generation, content curation for thought leadership, content marketing for product introduction and video sharing and gamification for engagement.

Hans stated that global urbanization drives the innovation in smart mobility and smart energy, ultimately leading to a hyper-connected world. Many of these innovations are being enabled by wireless connectivity. Electronic devices are evolving from standalone to connected to cooperative, and there are even examples emerging of the next stage in this process: autonomous systems.

Take today’s car as an example. We’re moving from the vehicle as a standalone “device”, to cars that combine GPS with a mobile data connection, to cars that electronically cooperate with each other via wireless communication. Some cars are able to park fully automatically or even drive autonomously.

A similar evolution is happening in computer gaming: From standalone gaming devices, via connected consoles and ‘cloud gaming’, we are moving towards web-based games that operate autonomously on the player’s behalf.  

In homes and offices, we also see a trend towards all equipment and systems being connected to each other through the smart grid and internet, as a means of making our environments more connected and energy-efficient.

Altogether, the world is becoming increasingly interdependent, with great advances in access to information, anywhere and anytime. This raises issues with respect to connectivity capacity, speed and robustness, plus safety and security. Another effect of this boost in connectivity is the increase in interdependencies between different disciplines and players across multiple ecosystems, making effective partnering and collaboration a key success factor for all players in the chain.

We believe that connected devices are the prime volume drivers for the next growth phase in the semiconductor industry, and as the need for data security protection and connectivity reliability scales with system intelligence, the robustness of our solutions will determine the speed of market adoption. We’re also convinced that our vision of Smart Connected Systems can only be realized by collaborating with value chain partners in areas such as machine-to-machine semiconductors, infra & data management, and end-user applications.

Check out the full presentation by Hans Rijns, and let us know what you think of NXP’s vision.

Ultimately, what drives the attractiveness of a new radio standard is the availability of content. For example, one can take a look at the success of SiriusXM in the US, which has added a huge range of additional audio services. Now also in Europe additional radio stations increase the attractiveness of digital terrestrial radio reception. In the UK, and perhaps the leading market for DAB today, there are approximately 35 additional stations available in London. Germany is also making significant steps, where in Munich for example, the digital radio service count is now more than 50, surpassing the number of analog channels.

So where does the automotive industry stand? Many carmakers are indeed moving ahead and installing digital radios as standard in the UK, but not all and some appear to be considering it as an optional extra at this stage. In terms of implementation, globally speaking, there is a small bundle of digital broadcast standards that will need to be addressed by automakers for their car infotainment systems to support digital terrestrial radio, including: DAB/DAB+/T-DMB (Digital Audio Broadcast) for Europe; DRM (Digital Radio Mondiale) mainly for India, currently; and HD-Radio (IBOC – In-Band On-Channel) in the US. The good news for automotive-entertainment OEMs is that chipmakers, including NXP, are coming up with multi-standard and multi-tuner digital radio baseband processors based on SDR (Software Defined Radio) technology, such as NXP’s SAF3560HV and SAF3561HV, significantly speeding time-to market and also reducing complexity for developers. In fact, JVC Kenwood recently launched several nice automotive-aftermarket DAB radios, such as the KDC-BT73D, which use NXP’s SAF3561 DAB processor and feature seamless blending of DAB and FM.

Anyway, for me, the future has to be digital. I guess I’m thinking in particular about all those extra sports channels – particularly for cricket (but then I’m British, so you’ll forgive me please). In Germany, I’m reliably informed that there is an innovative digital service that broadcasts a series of football matches in parallel every Saturday. If that isn’t a good reason for digital radio, then I don’t know what is — although I accept that opinion could see sharp divisions on this point. Anyone out there have a view on the coming future for digital radio?

Earlier this year, we wrote that the car of the future was already coming down the road and that automotive was THE hot topic at CES 2013. We weren’t the only ones to think this: the BBC reported from the show that major car brands are already spending as much as a third of their budgets on in-car entertainment and technologies. They also highlighted the eCall project, a pan-European initiative – powered by NXP’s technology – designed to save lives by enabling emergency services to respond more quickly to traffic accidents.

The next big global tech event – Mobile World Congress 2013 – also saw a major focus on the Connected Car. The Wall Street Journal reported from the show that while there are currently 1.6 billion mobile-data connections in the world, the GSMA predicts that this could soon explode to 25 billion connections as cars and other machines start talking to each other.

Major auto manufacturers also chose MWC 2013 as the place to make announcements about the Connected Car. CNBC reported General Motors’ plans to put 4G LTE technology into millions of cars, trucks and SUVs from next year, while MSN noted that Ford actually debuted the European version of its connected EcoSport SUV at MWC ahead of its official launch at the Geneva Motor Show.

The announcements just keep coming. MSN again reported from last week’s automotiveIT Congress in Hanover that Audi is aiming to produce 1 million connected vehicles by 2015, while a major article in top tech site The Register quoted ABI Research’s prediction that some 50 million connected cars will be sold every year by 2017.

We’re delighted that the Connected Car is getting such great recognition across the international media. What do YOU think of their take on this wave of automotive innovation?