May/June 2022 Volume 13 Issue 3 Section Officers: Chair: James Sipes Vice-Chair: Jeff Hardy Treasurer: Sarah Beckman Secretary: Santosh Veda Editor: Ernest Worthman

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Denver Communication Society (COMSOC) Chapter News

In June, the local Denver COMSOC chapter hosted a talk on the recent IEEE International Communications Conference (ICC 2022 - Seoul, KR) presented by Tim Weil, COMSOC officer and chair of the ICC 2024 (Denver) conference.   The talk was sponsored by the University of Denver (DU) EE Department and was well-attended by DU faculty and students, COMSOC chapter members and the planning committee for the ICC 2024 conference.  The talk highlighted advances in mobile wireless networks featuring topics in 5G/6G networks, AI/ML research and future state highspeed networks.

The ICC conference features the latest developments in telecommunications from a technical perspective. Subjects include Communications Theory, Wireless Communications, Wireless Networking, Optical Networking, Next Generation Networks for Universal Services, Multimedia Communication and Home Networking, Signal Processing for Communications, Communications QoS, Reliability and Performance Modeling.  Colorado was home for the early COMSOC flagship conferences including GLOBECOM (1965) and ICC (1993) which were hosted in Boulder.  The theme for the 2024 event promotes ‘Scaling the Peaks of Global Communication Networks’.

The IEEE Denver Section (and COMSOC Chapter) will be hosting the 2024 ICC conference in Denver and has a local organization committee that continues to welcome volunteers and local telecommunication industries and professionals to our program.  For more information Contact us at - Denver_Chapter@comsoc.org.

Message from Jim Sipes, Chair, IEEE Denver Section, Jim Sipes - jsipes@ieee.org 

Wow! 2022 is half over, already!

It seems we’re learning to live in a pandemic environment, or maybe we’re just all tired of it and trying to move on as best as we can. I’m hearing of several friends who have been going through Covid lately, but it seems much less severe than in the past, at least in those who are well-vaxed. Or maybe it has just mutated to a less dangerous state. In any event, seem like there is a light at the end of the tunnel.

I said last time that it didn’t appear that we had any Senior Member Upgrades with the April 23^rd committee review, but it turns out that we had two of them. Congratulations to David Anderson and Matthew White on their upgrades to Senior Member! That makes eleven completed so far in 2022. The third meeting of the review panel was held on June 25^th, so it will be a couple of weeks until we can update the results. Our Membership Development Committee is planning to have a face-to-face Senior Member Upgrade event in the fall, so that will be an excellent opportunity for the sixty or so section members who have started a draft upgrade application to complete the process.

ICYMI IEEE President Ray Liu held a live-streamed “Meet the 2023 IEEE President-Elect Candidates” session on June 24^th . A second session will be held on Friday, July 8^th. You can still register for the second session at https://engage.ieee.org/June-IEEE-PE-Panel-Sign-Up.html. I would encourage everyone to attend or review the recording.

The Denver Section continues to support community STEM activities. As I discussed last time, the Colorado Science and Engineering Fair (CSEF), held at the Colorado State University campus with in-person judging on April 7^th. There were 215 of the top projects, from the thirteen regional fairs, on display from students across Colorado in grades 6–12. Five senior division best-of-fair CSEF finalists and fifteen other 1^st place CSEF and regional fair winners traveled to Atlanta to compete in the Regeneron International Science and Engineering Fair in May. Ten of them won third and fourth place cash and scholarship awards. I’ve included a few pictures from the CSEF event below. The event was also filmed by a crew from National Geographic, who is creating a documentary that will be available next year.

The section also sponsored the Dakota Ridge High School FIRST Robotics Team for the 2021-2022 season, and the team provided a Sponsor’s Report at our Executive Committee’s May meeting. Below are a couple of pictures from their Denver Regional competition. A couple of pictures from that, below.

Activities at the Section’s Student Branches are returning to a more normal situation. New officers and faculty advisors are in place for the coming year for the CU-Boulder, DU, and the Colorado School of Mines student branches. The students are always looking for alums or others in the technical community to provide speakers for their meetings; if you have an interest in helping in this way, let me know or email our University Student Activities Chair at studentactivitieschair@ieee-denver.org and we can put you in touch with the students. This can also be a great recruiting tool for your company. We continue to work with Metro State and CU-Denver to reinvigorate these branches.

Conference activity continues to pick up in the Denver area. The Joint Antennas and Propagation/USNC-URSI Radio Science Meeting will be held July 10-15 in downtown Denver. The Power and Energy Systems General Meeting will be held July 17-21. These local conferences are always needing volunteers to help manage the conferences, so if interested, check the conference websites for more details and contact information.

As always, we continue to have many opportunities to contribute as a volunteer to the section, or to your chapter/group of choice. And all are welcome at the monthly ExCom meetings on the third Tuesday of the month (except July and December). For our June meeting we were again able to go face-to-face with online Webex attendance as well, so watch for the eNotice announcing the meeting to see the format. There is a listing of the current chapters and groups supported by the Denver Section on the Section’s website, https://ieee-denver.org, under the menu heading Denver Groups. Contacts for each of the chapters/groups are available on the individual chapter/group websites.

Until next time, stay safe.

Jim

chair@ieee-denver.org

From the Editor's Desk, Ernest Worthman - ernest_worthman@ieee.org

Headline: “The War in Ukraine Could Spur Another Global Chip Shortage.” Really?

Just when we were nearing a feeling that it seems to be safe to go back into semiconductor waters, along comes Putin and Bam! Another kick in the derriere for semiconductors. As if it was not enough that the last administration sent the U.S. economy to the bottom of the ocean with its moves against China, now the Ukraine situation has thrown salt on the wound.

And there is more. There is the fear that China is mulling over invading Taiwan. If that happens, we can kiss any semblance of a semiconductor “recovery” goodbye.

Most of us know TSMC produces the lion’s share of the world’s semiconductor. In fact, Taiwan controls more than 90 percent of the global output of one of the more advanced semiconductor technologies which are particularly necessary for advanced weaponry used by both China and the U.S. So, the issues here are not simply supply chain for commercial and consumer use, but also for national security.

If China invades Taiwan and takes over its chip manufacturing segment, this will be the third strike against the U.S. semiconductor industry (China, Russia (by interrupting the Ukraine’s production of core materials), and Taiwan).

The outlook for the U.S. to acquire semis becomes more and more bleak, regardless of what those lofty airheads in Congress want us to believe. First of all, it will be years before we can build even a semblance of a decent manufacturing capacity on U.S. soil. While getting them from our allies is certainly an option, they are also suffering from supply chain issues. They need them as bad as we do. After all, when they buckled under the pressure from the Trump administration to shut out China, that left them in the same boat as the U.S.

Our allies in the Pacific rim (Japan, South Korea, and Taiwan) supply nearly 70 percent of the global supply. TSMC makes up about 22 percent overall and Taiwan controls more than 90 percent of the global output of one of the more advanced semiconductor technologies, which are particularly necessary for advanced weaponry used by both China and the U.S. So, if they are gobbled up by China, Asia’s output will drop by about one third and, with Taiwan is in Chinese hands, we lose access to the critical technologies it supplies to our security sector while China will have access exclusively. And, the U.S. is not expected to ramp up production significantly until 2024, more likely 2025/2026.

The Ukraine situation (and it is looking more and more like a protracted war) puts certain raw materials–argon, krypton, xenon, and neon (70 percent neon comes from there) critical to semi manufacturing in Russia’s hands. And there is no excess supply of neon gas that anywhere in the Western world. As well, Russia produces 40 percent of mined palladium. These are just a few of the current challenges in the resource space. So, as one can see there are there are a number of challenges and uncertainties facing the chip segment.

Moving forward, finding new sourcing raw materials is easier said than done. Again, everybody is in the same boat. There is competition from the rest of the world for such product and chip makers, globally, are under intense pressure from the ramp-up of pandemic fallout demand.

If the scenario of Taiwan falling into Chinese hands comes about, that puts Russia and China in a power position unparalled in modern history. And if we cannot find a way to reconnect with China, which is already and will be even furth ahead in all kinds of semiconductor technology and its supply chain by the time the free world gets anywhere near back up to speed. One noted analyst said that by the time we are back in the semiconductor game, China will be 10 years ahead of us in technology.

Assuming the status quo, the best-case scenario will drag the semiconductor crunch out another year or two, after which many expect the supply to loosen up (however, I would not bet my retirement on that). A worst-case scenario will add two to four years to that with an extended technology catch up cycle. So, if Russia takes over the Ukraine’s resource and China takes over Taiwan’s the free world will be grubbing for semis for years to come. And the ripple effect of that is hard to predict but it will certainly have a significant, negative effect on the U.S. economy (on top of the rampant inflation).

The once secure and ostrich-minded semiconductor industry, which has plodded along for decades with little interruption or variance in its procurement and production model, is in for a rude awakening. They are used to the JIT model. However, that is history for the time being. They are now being dragged, kicking and screaming, into a tumultuous, fast-moving technological world where the supply is constantly challenged. Now, chip firms are having to manage the fill-levels of an array of materials buckets, each with changing dynamics, and each one of which on its own could lead to a chip shortage in a particular market segment.

As well, demand is not proving easy to get a handle on. Intense demand, combined with unexpected societal events affecting the market, can quickly ripple through the entire supply chain. That leads to a level of insecurity on the purchasing side. That, in turn, can lead to over purchasing and hoarding by the vendors and other chip users.

This makes it difficult to understand what the actual levels of demand are, leading to a see-saw cycle of under- and over-capacity.

They are learning, however. They are becoming more rational about how to deal with a changing marketplace and ecosystem and adopting a longer-term model. That translates into a supply chain devoid of buying cycles–no purchasing peaks followed by periods of lower demand during which the supply chain can focus on replenishment. Demand for more chips from more buyers from many more

What the “new” chip industry normal will look like

Given all of this, what does the crystal ball say for this segment? Mostly new transformation strategies.
The first of which is to be able to deal with disruption in planning. That means having a clear understanding of all the facts at play. Companies much have a bottoms-up understand what the different parts are doing because transformation has to address all the components simultaneously so any issues with one can be integrated with all.

Another is to widen the supply chain. Gone are the days when back-room deals are made that are a win-win for a few big players. Semiconductor companies will have to be open to new segments, partnerships, and new ways of building products, Vectors such a AI, edge computing, internet of anything and everything (IoX), autonomous vehicles, and more will all have to be understood and customers will be a much wider group of users.

Finally, while this has been evolving for some time but is about to hit light-speed. The standard mode for chip sales is one and done. Once the chip was out the door, it was out of the customer’s sight. New models of revenue, like subscription-based services, moving to software services especially, and partnering from the sale to the end product, will be opportunities to level the speed bumps of raw material, the one and done mentality. to help chip companies grow. 

The semiconductor industry has to look at this evolution as an opportunity rather than a challenge. The pandemic and geopolitical events have been a lightning rod for change. As we move forward, whatever momentum is built up on whichever directions must be capitalized on. The old adage of being able to pivot on a dime is what the semiconductor industry must embrace, going forward.

IEEE Annual Election - amendment to the IEEE Constitution, Article XIV

The IEEE Board of Directors voted to place an amendment to the IEEE Constitution, Article XIV – Amendments to be part of the 2022 IEEE annual election.  In advance of the election balloting that starts on 15 August, we invite you to join the member discussion forum in Collabratec and share your views about this proposal to amend the IEEE Constitution. The forum is moderated by the IEEE Election Oversight Committee (EOC). 

The discussion in the forum will end at 23:59 ET/04:00 UTC on 14 August 2022. The forum will be accessible to IEEE members in “read-only” starting on 15 August 2022 when balloting for the 2022 IEEE Annual Election starts

If the proposed amendment is approved, it will ensure any member-initiated petition proposal to amend the IEEE Constitution satisfies a minimal geographic diversity requirement to reflect IEEE’s growing global membership. Members have been sharing their perspectives on the proposed amendment using the IEEE Constitutional Amendment, Article XIV – Amendments Discussion Forum in Collabratec®. 

Two members agreed to serve as the lead advocates and have recently developed draft statements: one in favor and one in opposition to the proposed amendment. I encourage you to review the statements and add your comments. The advocates will refine their statements based on the feedback they receive. Once finalized, these two statements will accompany the proposed amendment that will be included on the IEEE Annual Election Ballot. Voting for the constitutional amendment and candidates will begin on 15 August 2022 and will end on 3 October 2022 (12:00 noon ET) for all eligible voting members on record as of 30 June 2022.

INVITATION to Second Session of the Meet the 2023 IEEE President-Elect Candidates Forum on 8 July 9:00 am – 10:30 am ET

The IEEE Board of Directors has authorized a new Pilot Campaign Program that applies to IEEE President-Elect candidates for the 2022 and 2023 elections. As part of this pilot program, the “Meet the 2023 IEEE President-Elect Candidates Forum” was initiated to provide members an opportunity to hear directly from the candidates.

The first session has just taken place. If you are interested in viewing the first session that occurred on 24 June, click here to watch it.

The second and final session of the “Meet the 2023 IEEE President-Elect Candidates Forum” will be held on Friday, 8 July 2022 from 9:00 am to 10:30 am ET. This virtual event will be livestreamed by IEEE.tv.

During the Forum, I will ask the four candidates, Thomas Coughlin, Maike Luiken, Kazuhiro Kosuge, and Kathleen Kramer, a new set of questions on issues important to our members and IEEE.

I encourage you to join this event to hear directly from the 2023 IEEE President-Elect Candidates ahead of the 2022 annual election.

Click here to register today for the 8 July event.

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