SALMAN ITB CYBERMOSQUE: HOW TO TURN JAMA´AH BECOME PROSUMER

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It is very rare that we can think that a house of worship can take active rule in promoting digital culture in term of producting and consuming its contents. All is possible by utilizing recent digital technology. In open culture the mosque should take part in sharing its messages and contributing to a creative and dynamic society.

For its contribution in society engagement, Salman mosque has won some international recognitions, including UNICEF (1986). Recently its disaster management corps has been invited to Japan to share the mosque-based disaster mitigation concept and its film maker division is also invited to France for an international short film festival in Clermont-Ferrand. Its online media Chief Editor, Yudha Sunandar, is invited by US Department of State to talk about mosque media and its role in promoting democracy at four US States in February 2013.

The Salman Mosque has a unique history as one of prominent campus mosque in Indonesia. It was founded in 1960s, in era where nobody in Indonesia thought that a state secular university can have a big mosque.

Salman Mosque is a mosque within ITB campus in Bandung. ITB is one of the best state technical university in Indonesia. It all began when some lecturers and students had difficulty to find a place that they can perform Friday prayer. Male Muslims are obliged to do Friday congregation prayer (Jum´ah) whenever it is possible, so they formed a committee for a campus mosque in 1960.

Somewhat miracolous in a high tense of ideological fightings in Indonesia at that time (the Nasakom era – in which President Sukarno coined an idea to unite the nationalists, the religious people, and the communists in one front and it gave the facto opportunity for the communists to launch some objections of any religious expressions in secular campus), the President himself supported the idea in May 1964 and even gave the name Salman. Salman was a Prophets´ companion who was an engineer in building defense trench outside beleaguered Madina city. So the plan was rolling and and in the end of 1964, Salman Mosque is already operational.

Today as a mosque within a technical university. Salman Mosque is equipped by Wireless Fidelity (Wi-fi) service provided by State-Owned telecommunication company, Telkom. It is a part of Telkom´s CSR and he users could expect a fast Speedy service connection up to 3 Mbps.

Budhiana Kartawijaya, the Chief Editor of the prestigious local newspaper Pikiran Rakyat, has volunteered as Head of Research and Publishing Division in the mosque. He has coined Salman Cybermosque concept in which the engagement of the users is emphasized. Wi-fi or computers are only hardware thing and it is only a part of the whole cybermosque concept. One important aspect is how to turn the users into prosumers (producer-consumer). The key is to give opportunities for the users not only to consume but also to produce the content. Salim Rusli, the Manager of the Division has held wide range topics of discussions -sometimes controversial topics are also discussed - from Marxism to hyper-reality and upload the discussion results to the online media. This www.salmanitb.com has many sections from news, opinion, the mosque´s agenda and calendar, religious consultation, and even some funny cartoons. There are approximately 1,000 visitors per month to the site. The Salman Film Maker has trained some young people to make their own films and as told in the beginning of this article, they will go to one of International Film Festival. They even once had online radio whose apps for Android can be downloaded in the internet. It is a eligion audio content provider featuring audio inspiration, motivation, education, and religion content including talk shows.

I think Salman Cybermosque can be an excellent example how to transform a traditional mosque into pro-active prosumer mosque in digital world.

Plantation Holding: A New Learning Giant?

Estananto (Researcher at PIKIR Institute, Jakarta. This is my personal view)

The State Minister for SOE Dahlan Iskan in many occasions has announced that Plantation Holding will be conducted in this year. The PTPN III has been appointed as holding company. Megananda, former Deputy of SOE Ministry for Primary Industry Business, has been appointed as President Director of PTPN III. The asset of newly founded holding company is approximately IDR 50 trillion; its book total revenue is prognosed to be IDR 45 trillion. It is seeking for bank loan and equity at least IDR 5 trillion in the first year for expansion within the holding (Bisnis Indonesia, March 2, 2012). It is poised to be a tough competitor for big regional plantations like Singapore’s Wilmar or Malaysia’s Sime Darby (Kontan Online, February 6, 2012).

The holding company of plantation was actually expected to be formed before the end of 2007. The plantation holding company would aim at value creation by improving capital structure and enhancing financial capacity through the synergy effect of a holding company. One issue was the lack of legal basis for the holding company (Wicaksono, 2008). There were heavy critics on this plan, for example economist Faisal Basri who argued that the plantation holding company would not be effective in improving PTPN’s competitiveness because the plantations are scattered across the archipelago (Basri, 2007).

SOE Holding Experiences

It seems that the appointment of PTPN III as operating holding company is following model of previous SOE’s holdingization process already took place since 1990s. It was a very long story involving many stakeholders. Cement producer holding model by placing Semen Gresik as holding company and fertilizer producer holding model with Pupuk Indonesia as holding company are good examples of this.

Irnanda Laksanawan, a deputy at Ministry of SOE said that the holding process is already ongoing. The first phase is that Semen Gresik is the Operating Holding and Semen Padang and Semen Tonasa are units under the holding. Now they run marketing activities together. The second phase is a Functional Holding, where marketing, procurement, and project activities of the companies are under one roof. The third phase is that the three companies are placed under a new holding company named Semen Indonesia (Fajar Online, October 5, 2011). The last issue concerning Semen Gresik holding plan was the local government of Padang wanted to be a shareholder of Semen Padang whose shares are owned 99.9% by PT. Semen Gresik, Tbk. The holding company said it is no problem as long as the intention is approved by its shareholders (Bisnis Indonesia, January 20, 2012). The holding currently occupies 43% Indonesian cement market.

The holding process of Pupuk Sriwidjaja (now Pupuk Indonesia) was also not without question; the South Sumatra provincial parliament had even asked the government to “delay” the holding process. They discussed local shares problem of the provincial government in Pusri. Some Pusri’s retirees even rejected the plan because by rooting out the holding, it will be taxed in Jakarta instead in Palembang (Republika Online, October 28, 2008).

Challenges and Prospects of Plantation Holding

The state-owned plantations roots could be traced back to 1958, when nationalization of Dutch plantations took place. Through some long reorganization processes they were becoming 14 state plantations in 1996. The potential is high. The total landbank size is very big, approximately one million hectares, the plantations have good know how and human resources, the future prospect is very good, and the domestic and international market is still developing. Study shows that the best holding form in this case would be Investment Holding, not Operational Holding, with one addition that marketing and procurement activities would also be performed by the holding company (Muluk et. al., 2007).

Goold (1995) warned that any misinterpretation on how synergy between units under parent should be done can backfire. Linkage influence is about creating value by fostering cooperation and synergy between the parent’s business units. For instance, a global consulting company can endorse a sharing back-office system such as client billing and data processing for its newly acquired consulting services, or a sharing brand name, or even client managers for a whole client activities in the group. However, the intention to make a synergy might result anergy, a term coined by Guy Jillings, Head of Strategic Planning of Shell International Petroleum. Anergy emerges when sharing effort backfires because, for instance, the sharing billing system becomes complicated because the needs of each business units are different. Such thing may force the managers to prefer to do business with outsiders rather than insiders to avoid parental intervention.

In term of the ongoing plantation holding, it is very important to learn extensively from Semen Gresik and Pupuk Indonesia’s experiences. Given the fact that the plantation locations scatter across archipelago and even each plantation has its own regional characteristics, there should be careful holding process in order not to even overcomplicate the linkage between units or overburden the budget. In era of regional autonomy in Indonesia, some local aspects should be also adhered; it is not only about Corporate Social Responsibility (CSR), but also about how to maintain the holding’s business sustainable. Sometimes numbers are not enough, but whatever underlying those numbers are the most important.

Telkom Sigma welcomes Big Data Era

Telkom Sigma, a subsidiary of state-owned Telkom Group, has provided Infrastructure-as-a-Service (IaaS) and Software-as-a-Service (SaaS) as new cloud service products. They offer mobile M-force which has gained 7,000 users and I-connet with 5,000 users. They also provide 50 BPR (Bank Perkreditan Rakyat - small and micro/rural banking sector) in 600 nodes. The service costs only Rp. 7.5 million per month.

Cloud service will slash down IT infrastructure costs in many businesses as well as much operational IT costs. The users can also be very flexible with changing business environment because the infrastructure and even in SaaS also software maintenance is not managed internally.

Telkom Sigma has occupied 33% cloud market in banking sector and their target is to raise the market share   within opportunities created by a Bank Indonesia regulation. Bank Indonesia is Indonesian Central Bank has endorsed that all banks should have their Data Center and Disaster Recovery Center in Indonesia. Telkom Sigma has targeted more revenues and in 2013 the target is 1 trillion rupiah. In 2012, they targeted to have 29% y-o-y more revenue than 2011, which is Rp. 578 billion.

To achieve those targets, Telkom Sigma has acquired 4,000 square meter IBM data center in Sentul. The data center is categorized as Tier-III-plus because it has two different power sources, guaranting redundant capacity components and 99.982% availability. In total, Telkom Sigma will invest Rp. 1 trillion for all new big data strategy.

Subsidized Petrol Consumption Limited in 2013?

According to Kompas daily, the Indonesian Oil and Gas Downstream Regulator Body (BPH Migas) says they will limit subsidized petrol consumption for private cars up to Rp. 100,000 a day starting 2013. Most likely they will use - in my opinion - a smart-card-like technology to control the car's daily consumption. If this is the case, it will be a big challenge for them since they should install reader machines in all petrol station in order to avoid possibility that somebody fills petrol in multiple tank stations. Given bad internet infrastructure in Indonesia, it is most unlikely that they will be able to use cable broadband to connect the stations with central server. If they want to use satellite connection it will be very expensive in operation costs.
I think the brilliant idea of the late Vice Minister for Energy Prof. Widjajono Partowidagdo should be endorsed again in form of an energy diversity program. It should consist gasoline conversion to gas program, incentives for gas converters, and also higher price of subsidized petrol in order to make gas competitive in price compared with gasoline. I don't agree if the government raise the price of the subsidized petrol without any plan of energy diversity program, because the national budget is not only numbers but an instrument of policy.

Allegedly Lawmaker's Sex Video Politically Motivated?

It seems that some of Indonesian lawmakers never learn one thing: beware of what you record in your gadget. After legislator Yahya Zaini (Golkar), Max Moein (PDIP), and Arifinto (PKS), now young beautiful lawmaker Karolin Margret Natasa (PDIP) is said to be recorded in a hot video released at a website since last week.
Yahya Zaini was recorded together with a dangdut singer Eva Maria in 2006 and it costs his seat in parliament. Max Moein naked pictures with his secretary were circulating in internet and lead to his dismissal from the House of Representatives in 2008. Arifinto was caught watching pornographic video in a plenary session of the House by a photo journalist and although he denied that he intended to watch the video and argued that he only opened email attachment, he resigned from the parliament.
Now some have talk about politically motivated video circulation of Karolin playing sex with an activist - some people said he was Elya Muskitta. Her father is West Kalimantan Governor and in this year he will run for the second term. Some others talk about business motives since Karolin and Elya run business together. The case is still under investigation.
But such cases show a new development that technology can be used as a weapon in politics. It can ease our life, but like two sharp edges of the sword: it can also mean danger for your job!

State-Owned INTI to manufacture cheap tablet?

Yes, according to Indonesian site inilah.com, PT. INTI will manufacture cheap 2G-wifi tablet. President Director Irfan Setiaputra told reporters that the (Indonesian) market demand is not on cheap ordinary mobile phones but rather on smartphones and tablets. It is reported that the chip will be powered by Marvell chip, a well-known prominent fabless design company although on the other hand he signalized also that INTI will work together with IMO, a Chinese manufacturer just as they did together in assembling 50,000 cheap mobile phones per month. I am not sure if IMO uses Marvell chip for this product.
INTI was founded in 1974 as State-Owned Telecommunication Product Manufacturer in city of Bandung, capital of West Java province, 140 km distance from capital Jakarta. In 2006 the company got net profit Rp. 8 billion, in 2007 it fell to one billion rupiah, and in 2008 it reported loss of some 40 billion rupiah. Irfan Setiaputra was "invited" by the then Minister for SOE Sofyan Djalil as part of professionals invited to turn around some ailing SOEs. He was Cisco Indonesia country manager. Soon after taking President Director position he and his team decided to concentrate on raising profits. In 2009 INTI again moved to profit by making two billion rupiah profit, followed by Rp. 4 billion rupiah profit in the next year, and in 2011 the profit skyrocketing to Rp. 10 billion.
Besides manufacturing, INTI is now system-solution based industry, focusing in telecomunnication and IT integration. Some of the projects are INTI Smart Exchange 3000, NMS (Network Management System), SLIMS (Subscriber Line Maintenance System), NGN server, VMS (Video Messaging System), GPA (SNMP-based), Interface Monitoring System for CDMA Network, Disaster Forecasting and Warning System, I-Perisalah, Kwh meter, and ISRA (Indonesia Surveilance Radar).

WiMAX Subscriber Station Made in Indonesia

Yesterday I visited the Microelectronic Research Center at Institut Teknologi Bandung (ITB), Indonesia. ITB is one of long-serving technical universities in Indonesia. It is founded in 1920 by the Dutch as Bandung Technische Hogeschool and refounded in 1959 by the Government of Indonesia as Institut Teknologi Bandung. Its Microelectronic Center has coined the idea about Bandung High-Tech Valley (BHTV), after Silicon Valley concept in California which connects Academia-Business-Government (ABG). In fact, many universities and technology enterprises are operating in Bandung and many talents both in hardware and software engineering can be found easily in Bandung.

Yesterday the head of the Center, Dr. Trio Adiono showed me a prototype of WiMAX 16d subscriber station. Not as many has predicted that any 16d SS is too big to be operational, it is relatively as small as normal modem. It is surprised me because it has been tested and operating from distance of 10 km with data streaming of 4 Mbps. I think once it can be produced in economical scale and the effective cost per unit is achieved, it will be a great success. By combining this and wifi - which also under research by the Center - it will be able to connect houses and offices in both rural and city areas.
The license of WiMAX in Indonesia is now released only for 16d by the Ministry of Communication and Information. There is no sign yet that the Ministry will offer also license for 16e nor LTE operation. The potential of (nomadic) WiMAX is actually very high actually, as 200 million inhabitants across archipelago are eager for fast yet cheap data communication.

Shale Gas to fill Supply-Demand Gap in Indonesia

Picture source: bbc.co.uk

The Government of the United States is interested in developing shale gas in Indonesia. The Assistant Secretary at the US Energy Department, David Sandalow, emphasized that it needs longer time and relative higher technology than conventional gas exploration and production.

He said that 5-6 years a go the potential has not been known in the US. But now shale gas has contributed 30 percent of US gas production and it would increase to 49 percent in 2035. This changed the US market gas price dramatically. Now the US average gas market is USD 3 per MBTU. This is of course price without any government subsidy.

According to Mr. Edy Hermantoro, Director of Upstream Oil and Gas Business Development in the Ministry of Energy and Mineral Resources, the increasing demand of oil and gas requires energy diversification effort, for instance, shale gas. Combined (conventional) gas production in South East Asia would not be sufficient to fulfill the rising demand and there will be a huge supply-demand gap in 2020. In Indonesia the shale gas potential is projected in many areas: Northern Sumatera, Southern Sumatera, Lampung, Central Java, East Java, Central Kalimantan, Eastern Kalimantan, and West Irian Jaya. It is even planned to have gas pipeline between Kalimantan and Java islands. To attract investors the Government has issued Government Regulation No. 79/2010, in which Cost Recovery is also taken into account. However, this regulation is currently under critic from the Indonesian Petroleum Association (IPA) because it contains negative list that even longer than previous regulation and even includes some non-recoverable items that were recognized by the Government before.

However, if above-mentioned US gas price is to be compared with Indonesian gas price, it should be very cheap. The 2011 gas price in Indonesia is USD 4.00-6.50 for fertilizer producers, 4.55-6.07 for electricity (practically the PLN - Perusahaan Listrik Negara), USD 4.20-5.40 for Gas Trader, and USD 8.12-13.23 for LNG export.

The late Deputy Minister of Energy and Mineral Resources, Prof. Widjajono Partowidagdo has ever talked that the Indonesian shale gas potential is 574 TSCF, far bigger than CBM which is 453 TCF and conventional natural gas which is 334 TCF. Pertamina even had a plan to import US shale gas.

e-Toll Discussion

In Jakarta, there is a big discussion concerning e-Toll. The Minister for SOE, Dahlan Iskan, insists that there should be no more than 5 cars in queueing entering the toll gate in the city and he assumed that this will be solved by implementing (you can read it: selling) more e-Toll card.

The e-Toll system is recently developed by State-Owned Bank Mandiri and its network is already extending to minimarkets. The question is: is it true that 5-cars-in-queue target solely the problem of PT. Jasa Marga (the state-owned toll operator) and is it true that by implementing e-Toll there will be no more long queues?

To answer first question, we should see statistics: in Greater Jakarta Area there are new 1.3 million cars and motorbikes per year rolling on the streets, and the growth is estimated 10-12% according to the Greater Jakarta Police. The growth of street development is less than 1% per year. Has the Minister read this numbers?

The second question is correlating closely with the first question: if you have cars streaming to your toll gate and if this "sophisticated" e-Toll card read time is 10 seconds, then you will have 4 minutes for the cars. But if you take into account that every car is approximately 4 meter long, then for 20 cars you have 80 meter distance from the gate to the last car. Just forget it.

Jasa Marga and Mandiri should have taken into account many complaints on existing e-Toll system. They said that even e-Toll read and validation time is not shorter or even longer than manual system by operator! So forget about that 10 seconds. Again, the Minister arguments are weak and even baseless. The Minister has even tried to sell the cards himself by some beautiful artists but it didn't show the expected result. Why? Because the customer knows. And that "heroic" effort by the Minister has even resulted contraproductive additional jam that day because he needs 5-10 minutes to talk with passing drivers.

Jasa Marga seemed to know that problem by offering on board unit installed in the car. With this technology cars passing by with 10 km/h could be detected automatically. However the price should be paid by the customer is Rp. 500.000 per unit (USD 56) and it seems that it would be long way to be implemented since it is very doubtful that the customers are ready for it. In my opinion, the Minister should have jumped into this device, not e-Toll card which has proven its lower-than-expection delivery.

The problem is not e-Toll. The problem is there is not enough good public transportation in Jakarta. Even buses of PPD - another State-Owned transportation company - are old and imported from dumped Japanese buses. The Minister should have known this - not just let PPD acquired by PT. Kereta Api - The State Railway - because they are different!

East Kalimantan has 105 TCF CBM

Coal Bed Methane (CBM) is a new alternative energy source, also in gas-rich Indonesia. According to Dr. Evita Legowo, Director-General Oil and Gas at Indonesian Ministry for Energy and Mineral Resources, the Indonesian government is now looking on implementing of further incentives for companies that develop CBM projects in the country, all in a drive to attract more investment into the sector. The incentive scheme being explored will include a tax facility system in which every oil and gas activity in the country is exempted from import duties for exploration equipments, and value-added tax.

In order to push CBM development, Dr. Legowo explained, the Government has prepared some incentives. Among such are by giving an interesting production sharing for investors, which is 55% for the Government and 45% for the investor. It is the biggest CBM production sharing compares with oil and gas. For petroleum, the production sharing composition is 85% for the Government and 15% for the investor. As for gas, the share is 70% for the Government and 30% for the investor. Evita said that besides production sharing, we are also discussing tax dispensation as another incentive.

Indonesia`s CBM potential is quite large (second worldś largest after China); around 453 TCF, spread in the areas, especially Southern Sumatera and East Kalimantan. For the details: North Sumatera for 52,50 TCF, Ombilin 0,50 TCF, South Sumatera 183 TCF, Bengkulu 3,60 TCF, Jatibarang 0,80 TCF, Kutei 80,40 TCF, Barito 101,60 TCF, Pasir dan Asem-Asem 3 TCF, Tarakan Utara 17,50 TCF, Berau 8,40 TCF and Sulawesi 2 TCF.

East Kalimantan in total has 105 TCF, according to Advanced Resources International (2003). CBM eploration has been done by the State-Owned Pertamina together with Ephindo Sangatta West in Sangatta. Vico should have been also doing eploration in Badak, East Kalimantan. Pertamina has been operational in CBM Sangatta 1, 2, 3, 4 and CBM Tarakan, Bunyu, and also CBM SImanggaris. Benua Etam has also attracted some investors.

In East Kalimantan, Dart Energy Ltd is a partner company of Pertamina. Dart owns 24% interest in Sangatta West CBM block, 50km north of the Bontang LNG facility. The company become joint operator with PT Ephindo (24%) through its JV, Sangatta West CBM Inc. The other 52% interest is held by Pertamina.

Pupuk Kaltim, one of the 5 state-owned fertilizer producers under Pupuk Sriwidjaja Holding has shown interests in CBM supply as well as Badak NGL. Both companies are in Bontang.

LG: 3% marketshare in Indonesian mobile market

According to detik.com, LG Electronics has penetrated 3% of Indonesian mobile phone market. "The share is small, but (at least) we are stable", said David Tjokro, Marketing Director of PT. LG Electronics Indonesia.
The market is very though although Indonesian market with more than 180 million potential mobile subscribers (of 230 million Indonesians) is seen very lucrative. Kim Weon Dae, President Director of PT. LG Electronics Indonesia had talked about 15% market share in 2012 according to pontianakpost.com. They will launch 30 new phones, one of them is the brand new Optimus 3D. This phone has 3D screen, which enable customer to enjoy 3D without any 3D googles. Kim claimed that it is still a unique product which other vendor doesn't have. This year LG ELectronics is targetting 6% share, a significant jump from 3% present market share.
Moreover LG Electronics is trying to "bundle" its mobile products with home appliances like its washing machine. The customer can "detect" her washing machine's problem herself, thanks to LG's Android mobile technology.
Last year LG has sold 22 million phones with sales value 23 trillion rupiahs (2.5 billion USD).

Indonesia's Nanotechnology Center

Indonesia will have a nanotechnology research center, said Dedy Mulyadi of the Ministry of Industry as quoted by detik.com. The ministry has setup a roadmap for 15 years research and development in nanotechnology.
Indonesia has abundant natural resources like silica sand. The research should improve Indonesian industrial performance.
The plan will be discussed after the presidential election.

ICR failed in Indonesian Election

An Indonesian news portal article criticized the decision to choose Intelligent Character Recognition (ICR) as a method to report the counts result from regional level to the central data center in Jakarta. It is reported that M. Shalahuddien of Indonesia Security Incident Responses Team on Internet Infrastructure (ID-SIRTII) mentioned some reason why this decision was already in the beginning criticized from many parties. With ICR the reports which are written by hand would be scanned and the characters would be recognized and stored automatically as digital data. However, given the fact that Indonesians have various style ofhand writings (even though the characters are Latin ones), the failure rate could be very high. Not yet accounted is that the power availability in many areas in Indonesia is not stable. It is said that 500 regional chapters of the Election Comittee were giving up already with their tired operators. As the result, the reporting is running very slow than expected.
This is the example how the clarity of the concept may influence the IT implementation.
The Election was held on April 9, in which 11,000 candidates fought for 550 seats in Indonesian parliament. Being voted also were regional representatives (similar with Senator in the US) and the provincial parliament legislatures.

Post-silicon era in sight?

In recent edition of Technology Review online magazine, a group of MIT researchers are reported to claim that they are succeeded in making and operating a new non-silicon transistor with only 60-nm gate length but with better performance than a 65-nm silicon transistor.
The transistor is made of indium-gallium-arsenide as substitute of silicon and indium-aluminium-arsenide as substitute of silicon-dioxide as gate material. Jesus del Alamo explained that wirh this compound material the Moore's law can be maintained in the future. Electrons can flow faster in the material than in silicon, provides a basis for better shrinking in smaller transistors.
The question is, how much is needed to convert the whole design and production lines which are currently used for silicon-based transistor?

Bali and Jepara IT-supported industry?

Everyone should have known Bali as it is the world's best island for many straight years. Everyone who is involved in high-class exotic furniture also should have known Jepara, which exports US$ 112 million valued products annually. But doesn't anybody think that both tourism and furniture industry need to modernize themselves with high technology approach?
To keep those industries running, nowadays IT is badly needed. Some good info websites are already available. In tourist area like Bali, a centralized hotel and travel booking system will help tourists and the Balinese themselves a lot. A good online Bali map which guides the tourists everywhere with GPS supported device will also be very helpful for tourists who want to conquer the island conveniently. And of course with a good data system, Indonesian security bodies can recognize as early as possible any unwanted threats.
For Jepara, a good IT system can help them to forecast quickly wood supplies and to collect number and specification of the orders enough time before the deadline. This will result better resources allocation and will avoid either overpricing or underpricing. Many ERP and CRM software products are available in Indonesian market, including some developed-in-Indonesia like ones produced by Zahir Accounting and Mitrais. The latter has even a development site in Bali. There are a lot potentials in developing high tech industry in Indonesia, also because the government has launched Indonesia, Go Open Source! (IGOS) program and in the same time also improves relationship with Microsoft :-)

Mobile phone market boom to be expected in Indonesia

According to Yahoo! News, Telkomsel, one of Indonesia's leading mobile service provider, is targetting to get 7 million new subscribers in 2007. Therefore it is expected that Telkomsel will have 41 million subscribers at the end of 2007, whereas in the end of 2006 it is projected that the subscriber number will reach 34 millions. It is roughly 50% Indonesian market. The market growth in 2007 is expected as much as 15 million subscribers. Having its 35% shares owned by SingTel, Telkomsel is ready to invest approximately US$ 326 millions within 3 years for building its 3G network, in which Siemens has won 70 million euros project.
Indonesia is the largest market in South East Asia, and also a huge mobil phone market. Nokia is planning to launch its new TV-mobile product N92 in Indonesia and Vietnam, probably in November. EMTEK will operate DVB-H network needed for N92 probably with TV programs from subsidiary SCTV. But I can imagine this can be a new trend in Indonesia - especially in the big cities where middle class people stay - as many people should work a whole day and it will be small entertainment for them to watch TV in the middle of traffic jam, for example.

Quad core from Intel

Just read this announcement: Intel proudly released two day ago its first quad core architecture, specially designed for servers, high-end gaming machines , and workstations. They boasted that this new architecture offering 50% faster performance than the current dual core architecture and four times than its single core Xeon. The quad core Xeon 5300 server processor series, which was codenamed Clovertown - has speeds in range of 1.6 GHz and 2.66 GHz, power consumption between 80 and 120 watts, and it is priced US$ 455 for 1,000 units order. The other one is designed for high-end client Core 2 Extreme QX 6700 costs US$ 999 and has speed up to 2.66 GHz with power consumption up to 130 watts, which is also approximately the same amount as single and dual core's needs in a chip. Dell, IBM , and HP are among the server makers who are ready with the new Intel release.
Intel has done restructuring last September with layoff of some 10,500 employees worldwide, aimed to save US$ 3 billions a year by 2008. This enables Intel to make a "great leapfrog" from single-core, dual-core, to quad-core architecture in a year.
Critics from AMD say that Intel's architecture with two dual-core chips onto a single piece of silicon "is less elegant" than AMD's "native" four-core design. That should have some impacts with performance and power efficiency. But as Intel is now ahead with the architecture, it has a better chance in the market as it is not likely that the user would wait until 2007 when AMD will release its quad-core chip.
Both designs from Intel and AMD are reported to be made up from 65 nm technology. Both also have a plan to move from 65 nm to 45 nm manufacturing process in the next one or two years. Smaller technology node promises more transistors in the same area of chips which means more functionalities can be built. The problems with smaller node are mainly power dissipation per unit area, signal integrity, and lithography limit.

GSM vs CDMA

"What? Why do you still ask who is the winner of the battle", you may ask. But it is not finished yet, even when the manufacturers are considering which standards would be implemented in their products.
After 2G technology fades away then comes 3G from both standards: GSM launches WCDMA (wide code division multiple access) and CDMA tops its CDMA2000. They still compete each other, even though GSM claimed that WCDMA occupies 48% market in Western market, which is traditionally CDMA's stronghold. But CDMA2000 is being implemented also in some traditional GSM providers like in Indonesia. Sometimes CDMA, CDMA2000, and WCDMA terms in Indonesia can be very confusing. But Indonesia is one example, how these standards are competing a huge market.
3G can not be claimed as the most advanced mobile technology. There is already 3.5G technology, popular as HSDPA (high speed downlink packet access), and even 4G technology has been waiting in the front of your door. The HSDPA has been launched last September in Indonesia, at least by the Excelcom (XL) provider, Indonesian provider owned 60% by Telekom Malaysia. This technology promises up to 2Mbit/s wireless data transfer. It is approximately as much as standard DSL connection in Germany (even though some German providers have offered some cheap high speed DSL - 16 Mbit/s).
Meanwhile Telkomsel, another Indonesian mobile phone operator, has awarded German Siemens to help building its 3G WCDMA infrastructure. Telkomsel has already also some contracts with Nokia and Ericsson made before, but now Siemens is getting this 70 million Euros project. Telkomsel is believed to have around 30 million costumers in Indonesia.

My old article about nanotechnology

It is dated March 5, 2005 in Indonesian newspaper Pikiran Rakyat.

Ini Era Semikonduktor Nanoteknologi

BANYAK orang merujuk pada hukum Moore, dengan jumlah transistor dalam suatu rangkaian terintegrasi (integrated circuit/IC) akan menjadi dua kali lipat dalam 18 bulan. Ramalan ini terbukti dalam produk-produk IC sehari-hari.

Dulu kita kenal prosesor Intel seri 4004, hingga 286, 386, 486, Pentium, dan hingga kini Pentium 4. Jumlah transistor pada Intel 4004 tahun 1971 "hanya" 2.300 transistor, sementara pada Pentium II tahun 1997 kita mendapati 7,5 juta transistor di dalamnya. Pentium 4 malah mengandung 55 juta transistor di dalamnya.

Jangan terkejut jika dalam waktu dekat akan ada mikroprosesor yang mengandung 1 miliar transistor. Tentu saja jumlah transistor sebesar itu menunjukkan, ukuran setiap transistor itu amat kecilnya. Kalau tahun 1970-an transistor berukuran lebih dari 1 mikrometer (1 mikrometer = satupersejuta meter), maka kini perusahaan-perusahaan semikonduktor berpacu di kisaran 100 nanometer (1nano meter = satupersemiliar meter), dengan kemampuan yang makin meningkat pula.

Jika kecepatan proses mikroprosesor di tahun 1970-an hanya 0,1 MHz, kini Pentium mampu bekerja di kisaran 1 GHz. Benar-benar luar biasa hasil rekayasa ini. Meningkatnya unjuk kerja itu amat berkaitan dengan berkurangnya ukuran transistor . Berkurangnya tegangan (voltase) yang dibutuhkan setiap transistor, dan saat yang sama mengurangi waktu tunda (delay time), yaitu beda waktu antara masukan dan keluaran dari sebuah rangkaian transistor, jelas memperbaiki kemampuan dalam bentuk frekuensi yang disebutkan di atas.

Aplikasi kompleks

Mengingat jumlah transistor yang makin banyak pula, dimungkinkan terwujudnya aplikasi-aplikasi kompleks. Telefon genggam yang dilengkapi dengan video adalah salah satu contoh yang tidak terbayangkan tahun 1970-an. Akan tetapi timbul masalah baru karena ukuran transistor yang di bawah 100 nanometer itu. Dengan jumlah transistor yang mencapai puluhan juta dalam ruang yang sempit (hanya beberapa sentimeter persegi), maka jumlah total daya yang dibutuhkan juga meningkat sangat tajam.

Sebagai gambaran, prosesor Intel Pentium membutuhkan daya 100 watt, padahal tahun 1970-an daya yang dibutuhkan sekira 0,1 watt. Diprediksikan dalam tahun-tahun mendatang sebuah mikroprosesor akan membutuhkan 500 watt, bahkan skenario paling buruk bisa menjadi 18 Kilowatt.

Kepadatan daya ini per sentimeter persegi bisa menyamai nosel roket atau reaktor nuklir. Untuk itu, dibutuhkan terobosan baru agar perkiraan itu tidak terjadi. Inilah salah satu tantangan industri semikonduktor modern, yaitu mengurangi disipasi energi transistor. Memang mengecilnya ukuran transistor berefek positif, yaitu meningkatnya arus dari sumber (source) ke penguras (drain) pada saat transistor menyala (on). Pada gilirannya mengakibatkan berkurangnya waktu tunda (delay) yang berbanding terbalik dengan frekuensi. Akibatnya frekuensi meningkat yang berarti unjuk kerja transistor, dan rangkaian terintegrasi secara keseluruhan meningkat. Akan tetapi, dengan makin tipisnya lapisan oksida pada gerbang (gate) transistor, arus “bocor” melalui gerbang bisa jadi meningkat. Hal ini masih ditambah dengan fenomena kapasitansi parasitik, yaitu rugi energi yang diakibatkan kapasitansi yang muncul sebagai parasit dalam rangkaian, baik pada transistor maupun pada kawat (wire) yang menghubungkan satu rangkaian transistor dengan transistor lainnya.

Ada beberapa cara untuk mengatasinya. Desain transistor SOI (silicon on Insulator) meletakkan insulator antara gerbang dan substrat, sehingga mencegah arus bocor. Atau, dengan menjadikan material yang berkonstanta dielektrik tinggi pada gerbang yang juga mencegah mengalirnya arus bocor gerbang yang dapat menjadikan kegagalan operasi transistor.

Desain FinFET, yang menambah permukaan kontak gerbang untuk mengontrol arus nyala (on). Atau, bisa juga dengan memperbaiki material silikon menjadi silikon renggang (strained silicon) sehingga memperkecil tahanan (resistance).

Tantangan lain muncul di bidang litografi. Akibat ukuran transistor yang akan dicetak berukuran di bawah 100 nanometer, maka dibutuhkan teknologi yang bisa mencetak dengan panjang gelombang sekira 100 nm. Ini adalah salah satu titik kritis pembuatan transistor berukuran nano, karena bisa berakibat pencetakan terjadi tidak sempurna.

Kini muncul berbagai teknologi baru seperti teknologi penenggelaman (immersion technology) 193 nm dengan sumber laser tertentu, dan teknik OPC (optical proximity correction). Tantangan-tantangan ini memunculkan harapan akan munculnya generasi transistor Terahertz (satu triliun Hertz). Tinggal kita harus memilih. Akan jadi penonton, pengguna, atau pemain?***

Estananto,
Alumni TF-ITB. Bekerja di perusahaan desain semikonduktor.

Indonesia was in the World Cup!

If somebody asks if the Indonesians were present in the Soccer World Cup, then the answer is yes. But they were not under red-and-white flag and Indonesia Raya national anthem, but under red-white-blue under the name "Dutch East Indies". It was in 1938, Indonesians were the first Asians playing in the World Cup.
After proclamation of independence, Indonesia still had a good soccer team. In 1958 qualification matches they beat the Chinese but then didn't proceed because Indonesia refused to play with Israeli team. After some political turmoil till now Indonesia never even qualifies itself to come to the first round of the World Cup.
Agusman Effendi, acting chairman of the PSSI (Indonesian Soccer Association) when answering when Indonesia is able to come in the World Cup said that the time is approximately around 2018. From now it is 12 years more to come. Is it not even too optimistic?
We need more investment in open spaces, in standard soccer fields, in talent training camps. Otherwise, let Indonesians dream when they wake up only to watch their television in the late night - to watch the World cup teams compete - which none is theirs.