Advantech, the manufacturer of industrial computers, aims to obtain a share of intelligent manufacturing as the manufacturer merges with professional partners in various fields while taking advantage of the business opportunities available from the industrial equipment upgrade. Tsai, Chi-Nan, the Deputy General Manager of Advantech for the Industrial IoT Business Group, pointed out that the trade war has encouraged 5G demands and the application of IoT in advance. Since PCB supply chain-related equipment would be subsequently upgraded, the update speed is expected to accelerate in the second half of 2019.

 

    Tsai, Chi-Nan further indicated that since the 5G developmental trends are being affected by the trade war, the United States, China, South Korea, and other countries have driven their developments for the 5G layouts, while prompting equipment updates and updates for the manufacturers' equipment. Having observed the demand trends from the industry, it is evident that the latest compact type, the Ether CAT (multi-function controller) launched by Advantech, has also been introduced into the production line. In the future, the product will continue its product development strategy in the blue sea market and strengthen its working relationship with the relevant trade expert system integrators to provide intelligent manufacturing solutions. 

 

    Last year, Advantech worked with Unimicron, PCBUT, and other PCB manufacturing plants to set up the national "A-Team" to help the industry achieve high-value transformation and prepare for intelligent manufacturing. As a result of the increase in the 5G demands, the upper-stream circuit manufacturing process and the component equipment of Taiwanese manufacturing plants must follow-up on their equipment upgrades. Moreover, the 5G business opportunities are expected to accelerate in the second half of 2019 and 2020, while the greatest demands will include updates from the mobile phone manufacturers. 

 

 

    Tsai, Chi-Nan also stated that 5G applications are ahead of schedule, which has consequently encouraged the demand for IoT applications. In terms of infrastructure, NB-IoT and LoRa are the two front-end communication standards, which should meet the requirements of "multi-point" and "mass data collection" that will be needed by digitally smart cities in the future. As a result, these industrial IoT demands will be actively promoted by Advantech in the future. (News source: Commercial Times).