EngagingChina

The chip industry is going through a tough patch at the moment, but its good to see European chipmaker STMicroelectronics looking to the bright future and promoting the key role that its products can play in reducing power consumption in China.

The chipmaker was banging the green drum at the IIC-China trade conference in Shenzhen last month. More than 30 product demos showed how STMicroelectronics' advanced power management chips can help businesses in China reduce their environmental footprint.

STMicroelectronics is the world's leading supplier of power conversion semiconductors and its “Green Power” demo line-up at IIC-China includes applications for industrial, consumer and computer markets.

For example, using a cheap STMicroelectornics microcontroller, the compressor in home air-conditioning systems can be controlled in a much more “intelligent” fashion, so delivering a 30-40% decrease in energy consumption.

One particular solution has been developed specifically for the Chinese market by the STMicroelectonics Greater China Competence Centre. It is Solar LED street light solution, composed of two modules, an 85W solar charger and a 25W LED driver.

EngagingChina has long argued that it is hypocritical for critics in the west to bemoan China's new-found desire for air conditioners, LCD TVs, automobiles and all the other energy-hungry symbols of western consumerism. Like it or not, Chinese consumers want the same products that western counterparts have enjoyed for decades. So one small step toward a greener China is to help them more energy-efficient air conditioners.

More on STMicro's Green Power demos here.

As a sign of China's growing importance in the telecoms sector, Light Reading, an authoritative source on what's going on in the industry, has set up an office in Beijing and launched a website, Light Reading Asia, specifically for the region.

China telco media professional Sam Song has been named director of Light Reading's new China operation. He will be in charge of developing Light Reading events such as TelcoTV and Ethernet Expo into China, as well as other research and online products that will be tailored to the Chinese communications marketplace.

Previously, Song ran his own media and events company called World Sources, and has extensive prior telco journalism experience with Computerworld China and China Digital TV Magazine

In a former existence, EngagingChina used to be a telecoms hack and can testify to the success of Light Reading, which has rapidly eclipsed traditional paper-based media as the main source for business and technology news in the telecoms industry. Light Reading also has a heavyweight sister site called Heavy Reading, full of 200-page reports with titles like “The Rise of the Session-Aware Media Gateway” — indispensable bedside reading for some.

As well as Light Reading's journalists, analysts from Heavy Reading will contribute to the new Light Reading Asia site, while the team at Pyramid Research, a telecoms market research firm acquired by Light Reading last year, will provide cutting edge market-specific content. Pyramid's Asia team will write blogs and provide in depth reports, analysis, and commentary.

The death throws shaking Detroit and the problems facing other traditional automotive players leave the road clear for Chinese upstarts to move up and maybe one day overtake established carbuilders from Asia and the west.

But to get there, China is first going to have to brush up on its automotive design skills and build vehicles that buyers – both in China and elsewhere — actually take pleasure in owning.

Design innovation, so neglected in the recent past, is maturing fast in China. It is a key theme of next month's Auto Shanghai show which will hold a conference dedicated to design.

Among speakers at the event are design chiefs from leading OEMs such as Harmut Sinkwitz, head of interior design at Mercedes-Benz, Chery design director Li Chuan Qun, and VW China design boss Simon Loasby, together with leading influencers like former head of global design for Toyota Hideichi Misono, and Li-Chih Fu, former design director of Nanjing Auto.

Conference director Abel Sampson said:

The explosion in contemporary architecture, fashion and product design in cities like Shanghai has made Chinese consumers much more design literate. The challenge for carmakers is catering for this awareness by creating more contemporary and harmonious designs for the Chinese market.”

Even the most enthusiastic fan of Chinese cars would have to admit that home-grown models rarely stand out for original designs.

Remember the Roewe, which sounds suspiciously like Rover, the now-defunct UK marque? SAIC acquired the rights to use the engines and other components of Rover's models but did not get the right to use the name Rover.

So instead it is now making its own cars that, unsurprisingly, are heavily influenced by Rover. They bear strange design flourishes — such as weird body-lines and odd-shaped headlights — presumably to prove to sceptics that they are not just re-badged Rovers.

At least SAIC paid for the rights to the Rover designs. Many Chinese cars are visually derived from better-known models of Asian and western carmakers, which are often unaware that their designs have been copied until it is too late to do much about it. This propensity to “borrow”designs from other better-known brand manufacturers is pretty widespread in other areas of Chinese manufacturing, of course. Its not hard to see why.

The practice slashes product development costs and if, as is usually the case today, the copycat car is only going to be sold in China , the foreign company that has had its IPR infringed will probably not object too strongly.

Nevertheless, no manufacturer got to be a major force in the industry by copying other people's designs, so China needs to build much closer collaboration with established designers and also encourage more home-grown design talent.

Details of the Interior Motives China conference here

More on the Roewe here. More EngagingChina stories on automotive design here.

Technorati : Detroit, Rover, SAIC, US, automotive, china, design