Analog Devices: Accelerating the Journey to Industry 4.0

Moderator: The first speech in the afternoon was about ADI accelerating its move toward Industry 4.0. In particular, not long ago this year, it launched a series of overall acceleration strategies to accelerate Industry 4.0, clarified five intelligent application scenarios, and regarded them as areas with great potential that can be proposed to the industry, including the future-oriented industrial Ethernet, which needs to narrow the gap in standards. In addition, software-configurable IO, how to deal with the flexibility of products and how to match the flexibility of systems. There are also smarter edge technologies, which everyone knows. The edge was also mentioned this morning. AI is also data that has been specially processed. There are also security issues, including system security issues. In addition, it was mentioned this morning that many semiconductor manufacturers proposed to expand cooperation with the industry through the construction of an ecosystem, which is also a very important aspect of accelerating Industry 4.0 in the future. So they believe that Industry 4.0 is not only a series of operational upgrades, but also a business revolution, which is enabled not only by its increasingly powerful network, but also by the underlying physical technology.

The first speaker of the afternoon is Mr. Changtao Yu from ADI. He is currently the Marketing Manager of Industrial Automation Industry in Asia Pacific Region of ADI. He joined ADI in 2010 and is currently responsible for motion control and robotics solutions, market and business promotion in the Asia Pacific region, and support for key customers. Please welcome Mr. Changtao Yu to start the first speech of the afternoon!

Yu Changtao: Good afternoon, everyone. I am honored to be here. Industry 4.0 is a hot topic that everyone is talking about now. When we talk about Industry 4.0, we will talk about the fourth industrial revolution. I will also start with this. There are still many disputes about this. Some people say that China is only at 2.5 and there is no need to talk about 4.0. Some people say that we want to overtake others. But no matter how far Industry 4.0 goes, we do see some opportunities, such as ecosystems and partnerships, the Internet of Things and big data, machine learning, artificial intelligence, more advanced robots and collaborative robots, augmented reality, network security, wearable devices, autonomous vehicles, etc. This also brings some additional growth to ADI. For potential opportunities in the medium and long term, today we mainly focus on Industry 4.0 and industrial automation-related product solutions. As for ADI itself, we definitely have more than just products and solutions in this area.

At the same time, along with some good opportunities we have seen, many and more and more end customers have also recognized or acknowledged that in the overall environment of Industry 4.0, it can bring about improvements in production efficiency, safety performance, very large and increasingly powerful data analysis capabilities, and flexibility in the entire production. Some advantages have also been recognized and accepted by more and more people. But everything should be divided into two parts, and we have also heard some voices of concerns. For example, it is often said that everyone in China is talking about industrial automation and 4.0, but many Chinese companies are more concerned about the problem of survival, not the problem of development. In the process of survival, they face homogeneous competition and have to find some ways out to make our products somewhat differentiated. At the same time, Industry 4.0 has certainly improved flexibility and production efficiency, but it is also accompanied by huge investments. Is it a good time to make these investments? Such concerns are endless, which is also a problem directly related to how and when Industry 4.0 will be implemented.

From the perspective of ADI as a semiconductor supplier, especially a leading analog device supplier, how do we view ADI? The entire macro is out of control, and it is abnormal if it does not change. Among all the changes, ADI has personally realized that no matter when and how it is implemented, there is one very important or worth considering thing for our ADI customers, that is, we must have a very good technical partner. This technical partner not only has existing products that can match our company's current development very well, but also has a technical route that is consistent with our company's future development. At the same time, the partners have some in-depth research in each field, and these companies will also maintain strong R&D investment, so as to keep a very consistent pace with the development of our company.

If we can find such a partner, we can find finished products or nearly semi-finished products that have been tested, which can greatly speed up the time to market and greatly reduce R&D investment. Many basic solutions or basic functional verifications have been completed in advance by such good partners. For example, from the cooperation between ADI and Japanese or European customers, we are increasingly exposed to customized requirements for each of the major customers. These customers have their own unique insights, and we will combine their needs with our own product capabilities. Similarly, for domestic customers, we are also very open to expanding in this area with everyone, and are willing to customize products and solutions together based on the unique needs of the country.

Speaking of technology partners, you can trust ADI. ADI is the type of technology partner I just mentioned. Why? ADI has a history of decades and has been working in the entire analog device industry for a long time. It has customers in more than 20 countries and has more than 40,000 products. We have also been working in the industrial sector for a long time, especially in areas that have considerable requirements for technology, products, and quality. Not only that, if you look at the entire product series and so-called range that ADI can provide, from front-end detection, various sensors, to back-end measurement, technology, reference, ADC, and data analysis, it can be based on some microprocessors or DSPs, and do some work related to edge computing in some specific areas. At the same time, since we merged with the world's most famous power supply company, we are the number one in the power supply field. Then there is connectivity, whether it is wired or wireless. In the past few years, we cooperated with Xuntai Microwave to cover all product needs. The year before last, there was a product called software-defined wireless solution, which was what everyone called a breakthrough product at the time. It was very unique. Including wired, industrial Ethernet, which is increasingly used in industry, etc., we are also looking at or developing next-generation technologies, and the topic that everyone is discussing is physical technology. Security is also a very big concept, and we have also done some research in this regard.

Back to our so-called Industry 4.0 or engineering automation itself, because I come from a technical background, I prefer to spend time on the technology itself. Why do I think ADI can be your technical partner, especially in the industrial automation part? Although today I only introduce our more distinctive, advantageous and unique solutions, we are far more than that. Here I use a more typical picture, which should be very familiar to friends in this industry. In the entire factory, first, there are robots, second, there must be a control system, third, there must be a number of instruments and sensors on site, and fourth, there must be a stable transmission communication network to connect the networks together. Industrial networks value wired methods, and wireless is a supplement, which is not so popular. 5G is a topic, but how to implement it in factories is still controversial. Today, we will focus on wired communication solutions. Factories also include machine structure equipment, and we are more inclined to the electronic design part.

Regarding factory automation or actual factory application scenarios, ADI's solutions or some of our more unique solutions should have covered all aspects. Let's start with the entire robot. As we all know, traditional robots are divided into low, medium and high-end, each with its own differences, and also divided into different applications in different industries, especially in China. With Made in China 2025 and the increase in China's labor costs, we have found more additional opportunities. Why do you say that? In the past, for traditional robot arms, our core was to make the robot arm move. It must have a control system, corresponding hardware and software design, and basic safety functions, so that it will not hurt people or tip over. However, with the integration of intelligence, flexibility, or the concepts of the Internet of Things and artificial intelligence, some more elements are added. These elements are more reflected in the sensor itself. For example, for each joint, we must detect its current angle. We need to see the shaking of the arm itself under heavy load. At the same time, the robot must not hurt people when working, especially some collaborative robots, when they need to work closely with the staff. This involves several sensor technologies. At the same time, as a part of the factory, the robot also needs to upload parameters to the cloud, which gives rise to communication opportunities. So in our opinion, thanks to some new industries such as Industry 4.0 or Made in China 2025, ADI's opportunities have more than doubled, because of the existence of new demands and new technology orientations.

To be more specific, what exactly are the topics we just discussed? The first is that we have developed some functionally complete solutions for traditional control technology, combining the products of various links of ADI, as well as the so-called new generation of technology products based on the AMR technology that has been released, and the solutions for the so-called angle or encoder in the development process. At the same time, we have many sensor opportunities for the posture of the entire robot arm. In addition, in order to detect vibration, we have the opportunity of acceleration, and for safety considerations, such as solutions for other products, there are many opportunities here.