1/25/2018

Netflix 調漲服務價格

2011 年 Netflix 調漲服務價格曾引發一場大災難,但去(2017)年 10 月的無預警漲價卻似乎看不到任何負面影響,甚至在該季度還寫下淨增 836 萬戶的歷史新高,就連用戶基期已經相當高的美國市場,Netflix 也交出單季淨增 200 萬用戶的成績單。為什麼同樣是漲價,兩次的結果卻大不相同?... 
但要說 Netflix 去年第四季為什麼能在服務價格調漲約一成的情況下,不但沒有受到負面衝擊,反而還加速用戶數成長,海斯汀認為真正關鍵的原因是:「讓大製作更強大。」以《光靈》和《怪奇物語》這兩個熱門的 Netflix 原創大作來看,他們發現當愈來愈多用戶談論這兩個作品,隨著身邊朋友討論的聲量愈大,就更能拉動其中還不是 Netflix 用戶的人去訂閱 Netflix。在他看來,這才是推動用戶數持續增長最關鍵的加速器。 
海斯汀認為,去年第四季的結果證明Netflix的內容已經成功讓用戶將 Netflix 視為首要娛樂,同時這個現象也代表消費者對價格的容忍度會隨著內容的品質而提高。Netflix 內容長泰德.薩蘭多斯 (Ted Sarandos) 認為,使用者在評估 Netflix 的服務價值時,衡量標準其實是他們花了多少時間觀看 Netflix,以及他們有多愛這段時間。

China wants to make the chips that will add AI to any gadget

Yiting Sun,  China wants to make the chips that will add AI to any gadget, MIT Technology Review, January 24, 2018.
In an office at Tsinghua University in Beijing, a computer chip is crunching data from a nearby camera, looking for faces stored in a database. Seconds later, the same chip, called Thinker, is handling voice commands in Chinese. Thinker is designed to support neural networks. But what’s special is how little energy it uses—just eight AA batteries are enough to power it for a year. 
Thinker can dynamically tailor its computing and memory requirements to meet the needs of the software being run. This is important since many real-world AI applications—recognizing objects in images or understanding human speech—require a combination of different kinds of neural networks with different numbers of layers. 
In December 2017, a paper describing Thinker’s design was published in the IEEE Journal of Solid-State Circuits, a top journal in computer hardware design. For the Chinese research community, it was a crowning achievement. 
The chip is just one example of an important trend sweeping China’s tech sector. The country’s semiconductor industry sees a unique opportunity to establish itself amid the current wave of enthusiasm for hardware optimized for AI. Computer chips are key to the success of AI, so China needs to develop its own hardware industry to become a real force in the technology (see “China’s AI Awakening”). 
“Compared to how China responded to previous revolutions in information technology, the speed at which China is following the current [AI] trend is the fastest,” says Shouyi Yin, vice director of Tsinghua University’s Institute of Microelectronics and the lead author of the Thinker paper, referring to the effort to design neural-network processors in China.... 
For now, Chinese chip researchers have many problems to solve: how to commercialize their chip designs, how to scale up, and how to navigate a world of computing being transformed by AI. What’s not lacking, though, is ambition. “As chip researchers, we all have dreams,” says Yinhe Han of ICT. “We’ll see how far we can leap.”

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1/22/2018

台積電的供應鏈管理

談到台積電對供應鏈廠商嚴格的管理,提供台積電晶圓測試板的中華精測總經理黃水可說,台積電的競爭力指標是品質、價格、交期、服務,當然,不只是對客戶,台積電對供應商的要求,也是同樣標準。 
因為,若供應商的產品品質與支援,無法讓台積電的客戶產品準時量產,將會對台積電營收與獲利造成衝擊。 
所以,所有和客戶出貨有關的大小事,台積電全都會攬下來管理,包括封測、矽智財 (IP) 等供應商的管理。事實上,這些供應商的主要客戶並非台積電,而是台積電的客戶,如蘋果、高通、聯發科等。...
台積電封測下游矽品的歐洲業務/北美客服處資深處長鄭陽智舉例,晶圓凸塊的週期時間一般是六天,為了縮短客戶的上市時間,台積電就會在初期量產時,要求縮短成3天。常常要供應商和台積電一起完成這樣艱鉅的任務,為的就是要能滿足客戶在量與週期上的要求。 
因此,趕進度的時候,供應商幾乎天天都要和台積電開會,甚至有時候異常狀況多,怕趕不上出貨時間,連星期六、日都要去台積電新竹總部和負責的人員開會。甚至星期日晚上11點,接到台積電窗口的電話來確認進度,也不誇張。
為了讓客戶產品可以準時出貨,台積電對供應商的要求永遠都比客戶還要龜毛。「我們現在和台積電合作的案子,未來將用在蘋果的手機上。比方說今年蘋果產品要用的方案,台積電就會在兩年前驗證過,蘋果則是在一年前驗證過......」蘋果供應鏈廠商透露,台積電永遠會比客戶更提早確認產品出貨流程是否零失誤。 
台積電供應鏈廠商高層分析,台積電可以告訴客戶,「到我這,我已經確認過所有供應商品質了,所以我們整體良率可以很高,你去別的地方可能良率降5%,來我這邊即使價格貴3%,你還是賺2%。」台積電透過這樣的供應鏈管理,確保客戶產品的品質、良率、測試穩定,甚至出貨之後被退貨的機率大幅降低,將晶片毛利再往上提升。