VDC Research: Embedded Microprocessor, Board & Systems Market Blog

Design West / ESC Show Highlights - Part 2

In this blog I will continue to explore some of the VDC Embedded Hardware team experience at the Design West ESC show. We saw a lot of great product demonstrations along with some excellent detailed briefings and meetings so it’s difficult to boil it all down to a reasonable size blog but here we go:

AMD: We saw a number of embedded computer products from multiple manufactures that featured AMD processors. Many of these would be great for scalable edge node applications. Heard a bit more about the latest Opteron 3200 series of processors which will likely find many cloud based applications. While at AMD we visited partner Xi3 they have some really nifty looking cube type computers that can be deployed in array like structures. The concept they were showing was a datacenter on wheels.

Atmel: Was showing some new products that seemed really great for embedded M2M type connectivity but, according to the press material I received, the details are embargoed for another week or two.

Digi-International: Digi was a company we covered in the Migrating to the Embedded Cloud report that published this week so we really wanted to stop by and see if there was anything new going on.  What we saw didn’t disappoint as there was a lot of evidence about the partnerships we talk about in the report. Digi and Wind River were announcing a collaboration to deliver M2M wireless connectivity solutions using Intel processors. This is on the heels of a similar partnership that Digi has with Freescale. We saw that Digi was using another company’s embedded computer hardware products as part of the cloud connectivity demonstration but, as that partnership is not announced; I can’t write more about that now.

Integrated Device Technology (IDT): In this booth there was a very impressive demonstration of  serial RapidIO technology being deployed in a number of different companies’ products. This is very important in cellular 3G and 4G deployments. Despite being handled by different protocols, hardware and connection methods the data travelled end-to-end efficiently and, most importantly without being corrupted.

Imagination Technologies:  We saw some really great examples of their IP used in mobile devices and applications. As people become more ingrained with mobile devices, high resolution videos, and larger screen sizes, it takes some pretty complex systems on chip to make it work. The difficult thing is getting the needed performance while not sucking the mobile equipments battery dry.

Inside Secure: As the market for M2M is growing there needs to be ways to ensure of the identity of the machines and people being connected. Inside Secure gave us a briefing on several of their security technologies that can be embedded into products to address these issues.

Lantronix: As an OEM is making design decisions on new products or looking to update older ones adding wired and/or wireless connectivity can be a problem. Lantronix briefed us on several of their products where the connective capability can be added to new designs or even old ones on an as needed basis. Almost as a proof of concept, Lantronix produced xPrintServer using technology they usually sell to OEMs to allow Apple devices to directly connect to existing legacy printers using a downloadable app.

Microchip: The VDC Embedded SW and HW teams had several meetings with Microchip and we were particularly happy to have an opportunity for a great discussion their President and CEO Steve Sanghi. As this blog looks to be running a little long, I will give the special focus to topics we covered with Mr. Sanghi in a blog next week. The hardware team learned a lot about some of the new Microchip MCUs that are adding analog circuitry such as ADCs, DACs, Op-Amps, and Comparators.  This puts more functionality into a single package while, at the same time often reduces device pin count.

Micron: I saw a detailed briefing on the latest about the Micron memory cube product. The through hole vias on the semiconductor dies that make this design possible are interesting in themselves.

National Instruments: This was another company that is covered in the Embedded Cloud report and, we saw that the Compact Rio product has some new, even more compact, product lines extensions. In the booth there was also a mock-up of a Siemens smart grid transmission line breaker module. The N/I Compact Rio was part of the design in that it could capture and transmit events that happened on the transmission lines. One of the neat things is Siemens/NI project is that the breaker can be reset remotely.

Netronome: If you ever want to see a place where powerful embedded processors are used in large quantities in high volume applications, a network flow processor is a good place to look. These impressive units we saw inspect packets and move internet traffic at extremely high rates.

Power.org: An interesting talk with one of the Directors at the IBM booth to learn more about this organization that unifies standards among its members around the Power Architecture technology with a goal of making sure that processors and communications products work efficiently as the scale of connectivity grow ever increasingly higher.

Silex: We saw some product briefings on their connectivity modules. With respect to M2M connectivity this is pretty interesting if for example you are a product designer supporting a legacy product that you want to add M2M services to or, in other cases, you are worried that a particular standard fall out of favor, and you want the product you are designing to be future proof.

SuperMicro: They have a very large line of products and the MicroCloud product was particularly interesting to us because of the embedded cloud report where we had profiled SuperMicro.  The MicroCloud product impressed us with its ability to scale up as a cloud service and/or the amount of machines being supported in an edge node application grows.

Texas Instruments: TI had a lot to show us with all types of embedded hardware products adding GPS and motion sensing as well as Wi-Fi and other connectivity. Anyone that has taken a portable device with GPS applications into a building, large city, or tunnel will realize that these types of products have a waiting market.  We also got briefings on some new process intensive DSP products that are becoming increasingly important to many markets. This is one of the topics I will expand on in the next installment of this blog series.

Next week, I’ll give a few last high level takeaways about things we saw and discussed at the show.

Connect with VDC Research Group at the Design West/Embedded Systems Conference 2012!

VDC Research Group will be joining the Design West/Embedded Systems Conference 2012 exhibition and conference.  During the conference, we will be presenting the coveted VDC Embeddy awards to a deserving product in each of the 2 software and hardware categories. To make sure your product is considered, please make sure that:

• The product is formally announced at the show or, has been announced as of January, 2012
• That the VDC Research team will be briefed on the details of the product by your show staff.

VDC’s Embedded Hardware Team will be arriving March 27th and will be at the conference through March 29th.  During that time, we welcome the opportunity to connect with attending vendors.  We look forward to explaining VDC’s research methodology, learning about your latest product releases, and discussing your market research and strategic needs.

If you would like to learn more about the show, please click here.

If you would like to schedule a meeting around Embedded Hardware, please contact:

David Laing, Senior Analyst, Embedded Hardware & Systems Practice, VDC Research Group at: dlaing@vdcresearch.com or 508.653.9000 x146.

Or

Chris Rommel, Vice President, Embedded Hardware & Systems Practice, VDC Research Group at: crommel@vdcresearch.com  or 508.653.9000 x123.

If you would like to schedule a meeting around Embedded Software, please contact:

Jared Weiner, Analyst, Embedded Software & Tools Practice, VDC Research Group at: jweiner@vdcresearch.com  or 508.653.9000 x143.

Quanta Case versus AMD Underscores Importance of Component/Assembly Testing - Part 2

In the last week’s blog we looked at the semiconductor manufacturing process and the various testing steps that happen as raw silicon is turned into finished devices. In this week's follow up we continue looking at the testing process on the product manufacturing side. Last week we noted that Quanta was manufacturing notebook computers. Because of this, I want to make two observations about the product designs and manufacturing process for notebook computers.

• Notebook computer suppliers are continually trying to make them as thin and lower cost as possible. This means that Quanta might not have been using sockets and could be mounting the AMD/ATI devices directly on the circuit board. This can be a potential problem in some cases where the device was exposed to humidity before being heated as part of the surface mounted device (SMD) process as it can cause device degradation that leads to future failures.

• SMD processes increases costs with respect to failures as repairing a SMD CPU or Graphic component on a computer motherboard with hundreds of densely packed conductors is time consuming, difficult, and the scrap rate of the entire unit can be high.

• As the issue cited in the lawsuit is thermal in nature, it is worth noting that a higher power device such as a CPU or graphics chip often require heat sinks/cooling features to avoid problems. This is another area where manufacturing problems could have been introduced as these devices need to have excellent heat transfer to the cooling feature. Thermal pastes and a process to ensure optimal surface contact between the device and heat sink are needed.

Now, we will look at a few key testing steps on the product manufacturing side.

1.) Incoming Test: This process is considered as being redundant to supplier testing before shipment. Product manufacturers used to commonly test incoming components but, due to cost reduction pressures, that practice is now very uncommon outside the Mil/Aero market. Although it is not likely relevant to the Quanta vs. AMD/ATI case, counterfeiting and other supply chain related cases where lesser specification devices are re-labeled make incoming test more relevant again even in consumer type product manufacture.

2.) Circuit Board/Module Test: The fully assembled circuit board or module is tested before it is embedded in the final product. Thermal transfer issues can be identified by the use of infrared, optical, and or sensors. Repairs are expensive for problems found here but, it is still far less costly than having the product failing downstream.

3.) Highly Accelerated Life Testing (HALT): This is one last type of testing process that might have mitigated AMD and Quanta’s issue at either the packaged device, module/circuit board or completely assembled product stage. The unit being tested is put through extreme levels of hot and cold cycles while also experiencing other stresses such as vibration and g-forces. In this way, a myriad of potential production issues can be detected before the product ends up in customer hands and/or is in a mission critical role that embedded computers are frequently placed in.

In closing, HALT testing is an almost de-facto step in Military products let alone ones that might be launched into space. In Quanta’s case, you would never do this with all of the units but certainly at least a sample of them. If Quanta did not do this, the brand owner should have.  It does seem like a mystery to me about why this case is happening. It should be interesting to find out where the process became broken or which steps were skipped. If something interesting does come to light in the future we will surely revisit this case.

Quanta Case versus AMD Underscores Importance of Component/Assembly Testing - Part 1

This week I read of the lawsuit filed by Quanta Computer Inc. against AMD and its ATI division. The lawsuit alleges that components that they sold Quanta turned out to have heat tolerance related issues that caused the laptops they were used in to fail. It seems a little strange to me that Quanta is the only company with the problem unless they are buying a unique product or batch of products from AMD/ATI. Even so, with a multi-layered testing process the type of problem claimed by Quanta should not happen. The facts of the case will no doubt be revealed if additional claimants come forward and/or the case goes to trial.

Quanta is a Taiwanese contract manufacturer of notebook computers. Since they are a contract manufacturer this means that most of the finished goods they produce are someone else’s brand. They compete on the basis of cost and reliability/quality to get business from the owner of that brand. The damages they are seeking would be from their production losses from needing to repair or scrap finished products and/or subsequent damage to the perception of their own corporate brand.

This case has great relevance to the embedded hardware markets we cover and underscores the importance of a multi-tiered testing process. Therefore, I thought I would share some insights from my 30 year experience in the automatic test industry. I can safely say that despite the perception that testing increases cost, the costs of failure go up significantly at each step of the process between wafer creation and when the finished consumer/industrial product is completed. As one might understand, the absolute worst case is when the manufacturing/design failure occurs in the finished product when it is in the hands of the end customer. How can this be avoided? In this blog, I will look at the manufacturing process for semiconductor devices and, in next week’s follow up, I will look at what happens on the product manufacturing side.

1.) Raw Silicon Wafer: Optical checks are used to look for impurities and surface imperfections before the wafer goes through the extensive chemical/photo process that creates the semiconductor product. This test is very fast and it can save you the cost of chemicals and lost production time.

2.) Wafer Test: The semiconductor devices are still on the round wafer. The wafer is tested by using a probe mechanism that makes temporary contact with all of its contact pads. The tester than makes fairly extensive tests to make sure that the device is worth packaging. Tests can be made at various temperatures as part of this test cycle. In some cases, higher temperatures are used to speed up testing.

3.) Package Device Tests:

• Quick continuity and resistance tests are made to make sure the wire bonding/connecting process between the individual semiconductor dies and the package were good and that the device does not have any major faults.
• More detailed tests are then made to ensure the device works perfectly. Several cycles may be involved with the devices being subjected to high or low heat and less than optimal input voltages. The ultimate goal is to subject to the device to similar conditions to what it will see when it is installed in the finished product.

If the device passes through all of these testing steps, it is then further packaged for safe transport and easy assembly into the circuit board by the company like Quanta.In next week's follow up, we will look at what happens on the product manufacturing side.

5 Keys to Winning and Holding Embedded Computer Share in the Semiconductor Test Market

With respect to Embedded Integrated Computer Systems (EICSs) the semiconductor test market has some unique attributes that may not be immediately obvious or logical to outsiders. The recent VDC report on EICSs used in the industrial automation market estimated 2010 revenues of ~$210 Million for semiconductor processing making it an attractive market to enter. Embedded computing suppliers that thrive here are likely to follow these 5 key rules.

Make it small: Floor space is at a premium in wafer fabrication/semiconductor test facilities. These facilities are often very carefully controlled for dust, static, electrical interference, vibration, temperature, and humidity and therefore represent some of the most expensive square footage in the industrial automation market with respect to operating costs. Computers that can be embedded inside or flexibly mounted to take advantage of available niches in test cells and or test equipment are well received.

Make it Fast: Reducing test times for a given device by even a few milliseconds or having the ability to test many devices in parallel are keys to winning the tester sale. EICSs in addition to deeply embedded Digital Signal Processing (DSP), Field Programmable Gate Arrays (FPGAs) and Application Specific Integrated Circuits (ASICs) are often used in high quantity to achieve this goal. It is important to remember that a semiconductor tester has to be faster than the state of the art devices it is testing. In this blog, I am focusing on EICSs but many of the 5 keys are applicable to deeply embedded computing components as well.

Make it easy/fast to service: Semiconductor testers are extremely expensive with it being quite easy for a well configured unit to cost several million dollars. Even so, the return on investment can be made in only a few weeks to the owner. Therefore, any downtime is very visible and Mean Time to Repair (MTTR) is expected to be in minutes, not hours. Suppliers should design EICSs to have very high reliability but also with easy to access mounts, enclosures, and internal components that allow them to be serviced while wearing a clean room suit and gloves.

Make a flexible configuration: The EICS that is required for a semiconductor tester varies depending on the role it is asked to perform. A production tester needs only a simple Human Machine Interface (HMI) but one that is used for test program development and debugging will need more memory depth and graphics capability to allow the engineer to see and manipulate test patterns as well as analyze the data that is captured while tests are run.

Make it exactly the same – for a long time: A semiconductor test platform will usually be actively sold for at least 5 years but often needs to be supported for at least 10 years and sometimes even longer. Once a tester platform is discontinued a market can develop for the used ones and, in some cases for them can be equal to or even exceeding their original factory price. This can happen when the demand for some legacy semiconductor devices becomes higher than expected. Once a test program has been written and specialized probe cards for wafers and/or interface boards for packaged device handlers have been designed it is extremely expensive process to move them to another tester platform.

Throughout the entire tester platform lifecycle, any changes in embedded computers can require that thousands of hours be spent to re-certify test programs and debug them if problems are seen. Faster computers will often be problematic if, for example, the programmer did not have enough settling time after an instrument was set up before making the measurement.
Changes to an EICS can also lead to increased inventory costs. Because of the MTTR concerns discussed earlier, caches of spare parts are stocked in globally dispersed warehouses and even right at customer sites to allow instant or very quick availability should a failure occur. Changes to an EICS can require multiple sets of slightly different inventory to be stocked.

In summary, a key to winning an embedded hardware product sale to a semiconductor tester company is being active in the design phase and then executing a commitment to provide a stable product through the entire tester product lifecycle. The surprise can be that a newer, faster, or cheaper EICS product will typically not unseat the incumbent unless the original supplier falters in one of the 5 key areas.

An Innovative Application for EICS in Petroleum Product Market Saves Transportation Costs

As part of a VDC project on level sensors I had a very interesting conversation with a UK based distributor of level sensing products. This distributor provides level sensors to oil/kerosene tank manufacturers. During the conversation he mentioning a trend away from from simple sight glass gauges to more expensive electronic level sensing units. Despite the higher price of the new technology it allows several benefits to the end users of petroleum products and the companies that sell and deliver them. By using an Embedded Integrated Computer Systems (EICS) in a telematic/networked monitoring application, a petroleum product delivery company could derive several benefits including lower transportation costs.  Let me provide a little background and explain how this connected process works:

Price Contracts: Small business and residential customers can be severely affected by rising prices. A small disruption like Iran’s activities in the Straits of Hormuz, political unrest in an oil producing country, or changes in weather patterns can cause prices to spike. On the other hand, government intervention, warmer weather and/or lower demand can cause prices to fall. As a result of this uncertainty home, small business, and farm owners will often contract with the local supply/delivery company on a fixed price basis.

Transportation/Delivery: Petroleum products like heating oil usually have to be delivered to these types of customers by truck. Often times these locations are outside urban areas and therefore the heating oil deliveries are more difficult to do efficiently because of distance and customers being less concentrated geographically. The most efficient and cost saving process is to load the truck to the exact level needed to correctly serve all the customers in a selected area and, upon doing so, return to the facility completely empty.

How the Process Works: On the end customer side the electronic level sensor connects to the delivery company’s EICS powered application via a phone or network connection and provides data on the current level of the product in the tank. By doing this the following benefits are seen:

 

• The delivery company can ensure the customer never runs out even if there is an unexpected surge in usage.
• The delivery company can efficiently set up truck loads for given sections in its service area.
• The delivery company can top off tanks when prices are low and let them run lower when prices are high - confident that they will not let customers run out.
• The customer can get a lower price particularly if they sign the contract.
• The delivery company can make sure that customers do not break an exclusive contract by taking deliveries from a lower priced competitor. If customers did this, the level sensor would inform the delivery company of an unexpected rise in level in their customer's tank.

And there you have it.  Networked tank level sensors and an EICS controlled application can actually decrease transportation and other costs for petroleum product delivery firms as well as their customers.

ESC Boston is Coming Soon - Schedule Time to Meet with VDC

The Embedded Systems Conference will be held this month (September 26^th-29^th) at the Hynes Convention Center in Boston.

VDC will be attending the conference once again this year and will be presenting our 7th annual Embeddy Awards for Best in Show live at the conference. The winners will be announced live ahead of Wednesday's morning keynote session.

So how can your company win the Embeddy award?

To be considered, you must schedule a meeting with VDC to discuss the announcement that you are making at the show. You can arrange a meeting time with VDC by doing one of the following:

Contact Stephen Balacco, Director, Embedded Software & Tools Practice, VDC Research Group by contacting Stephen at: sbalacco@vdcresearch.com or 508.653.9000 x 124.

Still need to register?

Online registration is still open and you can always register in person at the show as well.

We are looking forward to another great show.  See you all in Boston!

Has VME Learned From xTCA?

Despite VME guru Ray Alderman’s (in)famous comment that CompactPCI was a “dog” and ATCA a “dog with fleas,” it appears that VITA and the VME industry may be moving along a path first blazed by PICMG and xTCA.

Late in 2002, PICMG released the first version of the Advanced TeleCommunications Architecture (ATCA) standard. This defined the first true blade-based architecture, wherein all communication across the backplane was via a high-speed serial switch fabric, rather than over a shared, parallel, multidrop bus. This was followed by the Advanced Mezzanine Card (AMC) standard in 2005.

It didn’t take folks that long to realize that AMC cards could also be used as blades in smaller footprint systems. PICMG released the first version of the resultant MicroTCA standard in 2006. The advent of MicroTCA was seen as a positive development for the market, not only because of its technical capability and reduced footprint (vs. ATCA), but because it also expanded the potential market for AMC cards. These could be used either as mezzanine cards or as MicroTCA blades, yielding higher potential volumes and thus greater economies of manufacturing scale.

The VME industry was slower to adopt blade-based systems architectures, largely because military and aerospace defines the primary market for VME systems, and the military tends to take a more cautious approach to innovation than do civilian markets. In the latter, time-to-market is of overarching concern, whereas in military and aerospace, where mission criticality is the primary concern, far more emphasis is placed on reliability and ruggedness.

However, the evolution of VME through VME2eSST and VXS to VPX and OpenVPX has brought blade architectures, similar to ATCA, to the forefront of VME-based technology. It now appears that parallels to AMC and MicroTCA are also in the works.

Two new small form factor systems architectures are currently being investigated by VITA, with the objective of producing standards. These are “micro.VPX”and “NanoATR.” The former is the brainchild of PCI-Systems, Inc., and is the subject of working group VITA 73; it utilizes a small form factor VPX card. The latter, NanoATR, was developed by Themis Computer, targeted at ATR systems for aircraft, and utilizes an even smaller card. NanoATR is the subject of working group VITA 74. Both versions of the cards are being evaluated by the VITA 71 working group, which is developing a standard for a new rugged VME mezzanine architecture.

VDC believes that these developments will be highly beneficial to the VME-based ecosystem, and applauds the effort. Development of the MicroTCA standard was, however, fraught with confusion and delay because of differing views on an optimal configuration (cube vs. rack mount). We caution VITA’s working group(s) against falling into a similar trap, and to allow either configuration from the start.

Embedded Opportunities Emerging in 2011

We presented a webcast on December 9th discussing the embedded hardware and systems market through 2010 thus far, as well as highlighted key trends we're seeing on the horizon for 2011 and beyond.

This past year, the embedded markets have rebounded modestly, but we do expect the pace of growth to accelerate over the next 24-36 months as organizations across multiple verticals begin to make capital expenditures in new infrastructure and equipment.

Some of the leading opportunities within the embedded hardware market to be aware of in 2011 include:

• Embedded Processors: With their design flexibility and performance offerings, FPGAs and other embedded processors represent an attractive growth opportunity for the coming years.
• ATCA: The communications infrastructure and Military/Aerospace segments will continue to demand the superior performance offered by slot architectures for mission-critical communications applications.
• Scalable Edge Nodes (SEN): A new user/customer class—the IT end-user—will force embedded platform suppliers to develop new tools and channels in order to successfully deploy SEN.
• Systems Integration Services: Many embedded suppliers have expanded into systems integration services to help transform their businesses and to establish a differentiated strategy.

To learn more about our thoughts and expectations about the embedded hardware and systems market, we encourage you to listen to the webcast recording and scroll through the slides below. For a complete list on our prediction of 2011 trends in the embedded systems market, check out our latest press release, "Top 10 Trends for the Embedded Hardware & Systems Market in 2011."

Capitalizing on Embedded Board & System Trends in 2011

View more presentations from VDC Research Group.

The ISA Bus - How Long Can It Last?

First introduced in an 8-bit configuration in 1981 and upgraded to 16-bit in 1984, the venerable ISA bus has all but disappeared from mainstream computing. However, in the embedded space, this legacy architecture has, to date, maintained a viable position. How long can it continue to do so? And, should anyone even care?

Today, most new hardware utilizes far faster architectures. VME and PCI, in their most widely used forms, are both predominately 64-bit architectures. High-speed serial interconnects such as PCI Express and switch fabric architectures are clearly preferred for most computing applications, ranging from SOHO machines to supercomputers. Indeed, the ISA bus is far too slow for most of today's applications. Yet, it is still utilized in many legacy industrial automation applications where it is "good enough," and has also maintained a niche in those industrial and military applications that use expensive, highly specialized expansion cards that are not available in faster PCI, VME or switch fabric enabled configurations.

VDC has recently completed analyses of the markets for Slot Single Board Computers (used in passive backplane systems) and for Embedded Motherboards. The latter (motherboard) study shows that, in 2009, only 1% of Desktop Form Factor Class motherboards shipped actually included ISA expansion capability, and that even this is expected to disappear by 2012. ISA expansion is not even offered in most xITX and Embedded Class motherboards. ISA Slot Single Board Computer shipments comprised only 1% of SBC shipments in 2009 and are barely projected to maintain this share through 2012 - representing an actual 20% decline in shipments over the period.

One might therefore conclude this data trend sounds the death knell for ISA. However, the hybrid PCI-ISA configuration PICMG 1.0 not only represented 7% of total dollar volume SBC shipments in 2009, but is projected to continue to represent 6% of shipments in 2012. This implies a 3.6% real growth in shipments over the period. Edge-connected PCI SBCs (without the ISA capability) represented only 5% of total SBC shipments in 2009, a share which is expected to remain flat through 2012.

Why should the PICMG architecture, introduced in 1994, be able maintain such a position over the 2009-2012 time frame? Clearly, there can be only one reason - its provision of the ISA bus. Through the utilization of PICMG 1.0 architecture SBCs, users may take advantage of the increased compute capabilities of modern processors without being forced to abandon their investment in expensive specialized ISA expansion cards and their associated software.

VDC doubts that these specialized ISA boards will ever be ported to PCI. Rather, we suspect that if "new generations" of these ever appear, they will leapfrog right over PCI to PCI Express. In high volume markets such as desktop PCs, even the PCI bus is rapidly being supplanted by PCI Express. It's actually becoming somewhat difficult to buy a new SOHO computer that has even a single PCI slot. Of course, in order for this migration to PCI Express to occur, either PCI Express passive backplane systems would have to be made available, or users would have to forego the advantages of passive backplane systems and adopt active backplane systems for these applications.

It appears to us that the ISA bus still has "legs," and will be around for the next several years. As to the question of "should anyone care?" - that depends on who you are. If your applications rely on legacy ISA hardware, you clearly do care. In our opinion you may rest easy for at least a few more years.

VDC recently published industry-leading research on the 2009 - 2014 Global Markets for Slot Single Board Computers and Embedded Motherboards. A link to this research may be found here.

For more information about this research effort or about VDC's Embedded Hardware and Systems research practice please contact VDC's Cyril Bernard (cbernard@vdcresearch.com) or visit www.vdcresearch.com.