Articles

Data I/O, the leading global provider of advanced data programming and security provisioning solutions for flash-memory and microcontroller devices, emerged from 2021 stronger, more resilient and well-positioned to support growing demand driven in automotive electronics, security and the connected factory.

Throughout the pandemic, Data I/O focused on supporting our global customers and keeping our employees, their families and the factory safe. Over 90% of our employees are vaccinated without the need for a mandate. We developed innovative methods to support our global customers with modern tools that enable remote support and remote system installation.

In addition, we leveraged our manufacturing locations in Redmond, WA USA and Shanghai China to develop a resilient supply chain where we can build and ship product from either location. This strategy was critical to the company maintaining delivery times while we experienced an 85% Year-over-Year growth on bookings in the first half of 2021.

In 2021 the company continued to invest and release new programming solutions to address three major industry trends that impact programming requirements:

• Growth in Double-digit growth projected over the next ten years in automotive electronics content driven by electrification, enhanced safety and added capability to the dashboard and infotainment
• Security provisioning for industrial IoT and automotive applications and
• Connected factory for enhanced traceability, quality and analytics

Automotive

Over the next ten years, IHS predicts close to 12% CAGR growth in the automotive market. We are seeing increased Silicon Content in Advanced Driver Assist System (ADAS), also known as Active Safety. These systems are being widely deployed across all classes of cars and significantly increase silicon and programmable content. This includes sensors and very large amounts of FLASH memory.

File sizes in each device programmed are getting larger and more complex. This is especially true in the infotainment market, where hundreds of Gigabytes of NAND FLASH memory are used. To support this growth these applications are transitioning from eMMC Flash Memory to Universal Flash Storage (UFS).

Data I/O responded with the development of its UFS interface for the PSV programming systems. We are well ahead of the curve as eMMC, the incumbent interface, still dominates the landscape but UFS is the chosen next generation. Data I/O is the leading global supplier to the automotive market with support for 17 of the top 21 tier 1 automotive suppliers. With over 38 automotive wins for UFS, Data I/O ensures our customers programming systems are ready to program UFS with maximum throughput.

Security

Across the automotive and industrial space is the growing demand to protect supply chains and protect firmware intellectual property with strong hardware-based roots-of-trust. We are continuing to see additional security requirements come to us in the automotive and industrial markets.

In 2021 Data I/O launched the award winning SentriX Product Creator, an integrated tool suite designed to simplify the support for security use cases and streamline the transition into manufacturing. With the ability to upgrade over 370 exiting PSV family systems in the field, Data I/O customers can easily scale production to support security provisioning. We expect to see growth in the adoption of our SentriX Security Deployment Platform in 2022.

Powered by strong technical team with deep embedded and security engineering experience, long-standing partnerships throughout the ecosystem and patent-protected technology, Data I/O uniquely qualified to work with OEMs embedded design teams, silicon partners and their manufacturing locations to enable security provision from design through manufacturing.

Connected Factory / Industry 4.0

Data I/O is seeing increasing demand for connectivity of programming systems to factory MES control systems supporting the Industry 4.0 vision. Ten years ago, programming was a separate activity from the SMT lines, and was often a manual process. The next step was automation of the process using robotic handlers. Connecting automated programming systems into the factory to improve quality control, traceability, factory planning and analytics completes the Industry 4.0 vision.

In November 2021 Data I/O showcased the latest ConneX software. ConneX integrates inputs and outputs between Data I/O’s PSV programming system and connected electronics manufacturing facility to enable traceability, process analysis and two-way communication that improves factory efficiency and quality. ConneX enables inventory management with job and media validation, improve operator efficiency and quality with job commands sent between MES and a PSV system, device traceability, root-cause and post process analysis and security provisioning reporting.

In 2022, we will maintain our focus on safety and resiliency while we deliver the latest innovations in security, and automation for the global automotive and industrial markets.