OTHER ELECTRONICS & NANOTECHNOLOGY

INDUSTRY UPDATE

August 2017

McIlvaine Company

TABLE OF CONTENTS

Siemens Builds Digitalization Hub in Singapore

The hub is planned to house 300 'digitalization' experts by 2022 who will be working on developing, testing, and commercializing innovations and future-ready digital solutions.

Siemens AG has set up a Digitalization Hub in Singapore where it plans to develop innovations for the Internet of Things (IoT) and Industry 4.0 collaboration with customers in Southeast Asia.

Together with Singapore's Economic Development Board (EDB), Siemen's Hub will focus on the country's efforts to become "smart nation," utilizing Siemen's IoT operating system MindSphere to drive digitalization.

The Hub inauguration was celebrated at parallel events in Singapore and at Siemens' headquarters in Munich. Singapore's Prime Minister Lee Hsien Loong and the President and CEO of Siemens AG, Joe Kaeser, unveiled a plaque in Munich to mark the Hub's opening. Singapore's Minister for Trade and Industry (Industry), S. Iswaran, opened the Hub in Singapore together with the CEO of Siemens Singapore, Armin Bruck.

EDB Chairman Dr. Beh Swan Gin said, "We are proud to partner with Siemens in its new Digitalization Hub which will support Singapore's move to become a Smart Nation. Leveraging Siemens' MindSphere operating system, this Hub will create new opportunities for businesses to tap onto the country's rich digital ecosystem to co-develop innovative digital solutions in the Industrial IoT space."

Starting with 60 specialists from a variety of disciplines, the Hub team is expected to grow to 300 by the year 2022. It will bring together data scientists, solution architects, software engineers, system experts and domain specialists from the urban infrastructure, industrial and healthcare sectors. They will develop, test and commercialize innovations and future-ready digital solutions.

To mark the launch of the Digitalization Hub, three collaboration agreements were signed with Singapore organizations.

Nanyang Technological University, Singapore (NTU Singapore) will partner with Siemens to create and showcase data-driven innovations for urban infrastructure, such as innovative mobility solutions based on self-driving vehicles, and advanced data analytics for optimizing the performance of green buildings.

SP Group, Singapore's sole transmission and distribution utility, will collaborate with Siemens to build an energy management software platform for SP's 24/7 control centers, to help with planning, surveillance and predictive maintenance of Singapore's electricity network. They will also create a multi-energy urban microgrid solution to help consumers save energy and cost.

Singapore Technologies Electronics Limited (ST Electronics) and Siemens signed a partnership agreement for co-creating and proactively marketing innovative digital use cases in the field of transportation, including roads, harbors, airports and mass transit. The focus is on applications and solutions for connectivity, cybersecurity, data convergence, analytics and contextualization. These applications will use MindSphere to enable expansion into further market segments.

With its Smart Nation initiative, the Singapore government aims to create a digitally networked environment throughout the country. Focused on five fields—transport, household and environment, productivity, healthcare and aging and the public services sector—the initiative is billed by the Singapore government as one of the most advanced urban development projects in the world.

Physik Instrumente Inaugurates New Technology Center

"Turning ideas into reality" – this is the motto of the new Technology Center at PI (Physik Instrumente) which was inaugurated in front of more than 100 guests at PI's headquarters in Karlsruhe, Germany.

"We want to develop the products of tomorrow in the new Technology Center so that not only, we but also our customers will be able to maintain market leadership in the future", emphasized Markus Spanner, Chief Finance Officer at PI.

The new building has a total area of 107,600 sq. ft. (10,000 square meters) and, in addition to 200 workplaces, also has application laboratories, measurement rooms, cleanrooms for vacuum, and cryo-chambers. All development departments have been amalgamated into the Technology Center. This proximity and the shared facilities are intended to promote interdisciplinary exchange as well as create an active and creative working environment.

"This is the only way to attract new customers, continue to inspire existing customers, develop new markets and applications, generate growth, and offer additional as well as protect existing jobs“, says Dr. Peter Schittenhelm, Managing Director of Operations.

The heart of the Technology Center is the Karl Spanner Auditorium with 200 seats for seminars and joint lectures with universities.

PI has invested 13 million euros from its own resources in the building of the Technology Center. It has taken more or less two years from the initial conception to the move into the Technology Center. "We operate in a high-tech sector that has a profound effect on the future. There are no modern high-performance microchips being manufactured that PI is not involved in. Motion, positioning, measuring, and controlling with the highest accuracy will continue to be our objective in the future and the main reason why we made the decision to build the Technology Center" explains Dr. Karl Spanner, company founder and President of PI.

Following the transfer of headquarters in 2001 to Karlsruhe and the building extension in 2012, the 3rd building phase underlines and renews PI's commitment to the company location in Karlsruhe. Dr. Frank Mentrup, Mayor of Karlsruhe emphasized the great importance of PI as an economic factor and figurehead for the technology region of Karlsruhe. Harsch Fertigbau, the building company that has worked together with PI on ten previous building projects and which took approximately eleven months to erect the four-story building.

McIlvaine Company

Northfield, IL 60093-2743

Tel:  847-784-0012; Fax:  847-784-0061

E-mail:  editor@mcilvainecompany.com

Web site:  www.mcilvainecompany.com