Consumer Electronic Products Research Articles

Analysis of material flow among multiple phases of cobalt industrial chain based on a complex network

In recent years, with the continuous growth of consumer electronic products and the vigorous development of the new energy vehicle industry, the demand for global cobalt resources has increased sharply. The increasing demand is putting enormous pressure on the sustainable development of cobalt resources and exposing them to the risk of supply shortages. At present, most of the researches on cobalt resources are limited to trade between countries or to resource flows within individual countries, and fail to consider the flow of cobalt resources from the international and domestic perspectives as a whole. To observe the cobalt resources in global flows and analyses cobalt resource dependence at the global and national levels, this article systematically combs the various cobalt element forms by using the concept of the industrial chain. Additionally, it constructs a trade-related global cobalt element material flow network model of each phase in the cobalt industrial chain, using the cobalt production data and products containing cobalt trade data in 2016, 2018 and 2020, based on complex network and material flow analysis. This article used network indicators to analyze the important trading countries (regions), and trading hubs for the cobalt. And then it used the Herfindahl-Hirschman Index to measure the concentration of importing and exporting markets in each phase of the cobalt industrial chain. For the important trading countries (regions), this article further calculated the degree of resource dependence between industrial chain phases within each country (region) and classified them accordingly. The results showed that the important trading countries (regions) of cobalt resources have been occupied by specific countries in recent years. Most of the important trade hub countries (regions) for cobalt are the countries (regions) experiencing rapid economic development. The export trade has a higher degree of monopoly than import trade in the cobalt industrial chain. According to the degree of dependence between the industrial chain phases, the important trading countries (regions) can be divided into four categories, the overall dependence of the industrial chain phases in countries (regions) with higher levels of economic development will be deeper. According to the results, some suggestions were put forward for the sustainable development of cobalt in different countries, including extending the industrial chain, establishing and improving national recovery systems.

Generation Y and Z Filipino Consumers’ Purchasing Behavior on Electronic Products in Shopee and Lazada

Consumer Electronic Products are deemed essential in the new normal. Even with the increasing popularity of online marketplaces in the country, Filipinos are meticulous or careless in choosing a product. This pandemic has changed consumer behavior factors over the long term for further research - that is why this study aims to describe and identify the most influential purchasing behaviors of electronic products on Shopee and Lazada. Further understanding how the generations differ from each other’s purchasing behavior; Knowing also the preferred online marketplace by Filipinos. The researchers conducted a quantitative descriptive-comparative study to achieve the objectives and gather data through an online survey. From the results, Filipino consumers’ most influential purchasing behavior is the Product-Related Details. Filipinos wanted to physically assess the electronic product but with the restrictions of buying the product online. It is hard to base on all the product information, reviews, and feedback from other buyers.

What Drives Internet Entrepreneurial Intention to Use Technology Products? An Investigation of Technology Product Imagination Disposition, Social Support, and Motivation.

Technological products such as computer, communication, and consumer electronic products, apps, smart wearables, and streaming services have become inseparable from people’s lives. In technological fields of practice, imagination, creativity, innovation, and entrepreneurship may influence one another. A vivid imagination can generate creativity and trigger the entrepreneurial intention to “bring new things to the market.” This study aims to understand the formation of internet entrepreneurial intention to use technology products. Drawing on social cognitive theory, this study explores and empirically tests how technology product imagination disposition and social support impact internet entrepreneurial intention to use technology products. Drawing from self-determination theory, this study proposes and examines the mediating role of intrinsic (challenge and enjoyment) and extrinsic motivation (compensation and outward motivation) in the relationship between technology product imagination disposition and internet entrepreneurial intention, as well as the relationship between social support and internet entrepreneurial intention. We conducted a survey of 568 adults in Taiwan and used partial least squares to test our hypotheses. The results show the following: (1) Technology product imagination disposition is positively associated with challenge, enjoyment, compensation, and outward motivation. (2) Social support is positively associated with challenge, enjoyment, compensation, and outward motivation. (3) Challenge, enjoyment, and outward motivation are positively associated with internet entrepreneurial intention to use technology products. (4) Technology product imagination disposition intensifies internet entrepreneurial intention to use technology products by strengthening challenge, enjoyment, and outward motivation. Social support intensifies internet entrepreneurial intention by increasing challenge, enjoyment, and outward motivation. The partial mediation model represents a significant improvement in the total effect over the direct effect. We discuss the implications of these results for research and internet entrepreneurship practices.

How Gas Generates in Pouch Cells and Affects Consumer Products

Most of today’s consumer electronic products such as cell phones, laptops, and tablets use pouch lithium-ion cells to make the most efficient use of space, compared to cylindrical and prismatic designs. However, eliminating the metal enclosure comes at a cost if the pouch cell swells due to gas generation and damages the product it is contained within. This paper presents various swollen battery examples in consumer products and how companies handle the issues, reviews the mechanisms of the gas generation, and offers solutions to prevent pouch cell swelling from affecting the devices.

Millennials’ Online Purchase Intention Towards Consumer Electronics : Empirical Evidence from India

Millennials are those born between 1980 and 2000. They are the first digital generation of the 21st century. Millennials’ ability to see the world through the eyes of the digital lens makes them a unique customer segment. Millennials have a higher purchase capacity compared to their older cohorts. Millennials have become an essential category of customers for marketers compared to other cohorts. The article examined the influence of perceived risk, e-service quality, subjective norms, and trust in the context of online shopping for consumer electronics products by millennials. The conceptual model was developed based on the previous studies to achieve these objectives. Data were collected from 474 digital shoppers from Surat, Ahmedabad, and Vadodara cities of Gujarat. The relationships among the constructs were analyzed by using structural equation modeling. The study results indicated that trust, e-service quality, and subjective norms influenced millennials’ online shopping intention for consumer electronics products. The findings provide significant implications for online retailers to develop millennials’ customer acquisition and retention strategies.

Circularity of consumer electronics within Life Cycle Gap Analysis

Life Cycle Gap Analysis (LCGA) interprets the LCA results of a product from a different perspective, focusing on circular economy thinking in order to identify potential for further improvement of the product life cycle’s environmental impacts. This study analyses and compares the LCA results of a smartphone and a notebook as two representative products for consumer electronics. Based on identified life cycle gaps of higher than 80 %, the study highlights the need to focus not only on the potential for improvement in manufacturing and use of consumer electronics, but also to shed light on end-of-life management and the effective closure of consumer electronics’ material and energy flows to foster circular economy and sustainability.

Reduce Wafer Remnants Through Pre-Assembly Process Optimization

Wafer fabrication technology has been seeing exponential growth in recent years. This development is driven by the demand for better reliability, superior performance, and lower cost of electronic consumer products. Generally, the standard soft-soldering wafer backside metallization multilayer stack is AuAs/Ag/Ni/Ag. The present backside metallization being developed is Ti/NiV/Ag as the cost of Ti is almost neglectable compared to Au. However, this new wafer backside metallization leads to increased remnants remaining on the dicing tape after die pickup. The reduced effective area of the die backside surface may cause adhesion issues in the subsequent die attach process. In realizing this essential phase, in pre-assembly process optimization has been carried out using some assessment on the process flow and data analysis through statistical analyses image and measurement of wafer skeleton remnants was taken showing a reduction from 70μm to 40μm in width. This method shows that skipping the baking process in the pre-assembly process will undoubtedly lessen the adhesion with the back metal with mounting tape. Without compromising the saw quality will indeed give a reduced wafer remnant. Henceforth, skipping baking in the pre-assembly process will significantly reduce wafer remnants and further improve die attach process.

Greenland and the geopolitics of critical minerals

Greenland and the geopolitics of critical minerals

Wafer scale synthesis of organic semiconductor nanosheets for van der Waals heterojunction devices

Organic semiconductors (OSC) are widely used for consumer electronic products owing to their attractive properties such as flexibility and low production cost. Atomically thin transition metal dichalcogenides (TMDs) are another class of emerging materials with superior electronic and optical properties. Integrating them into van der Waals (vdW) heterostructures provides an opportunity to harness the advantages of both material systems. However, building such heterojunctions by conventional physical vapor deposition (PVD) of OSCs is challenging, since the growth is disrupted due to limited diffusion of the molecules on the TMD surface. Here we report wafer-scale (3-inch) fabrication of transferable OSC nanosheets with thickness down to 15 nm, which enable the realization of heterojunction devices. By controlled dissolution of a poly(acrylic acid) film, on which the OSC films were grown by PVD, they can be released and transferred onto arbitrary substrates. OSC crystal quality and optical anisotropy are preserved during the transfer process. By transferring OSC nanosheets (p-type) onto prefabricated electrodes and TMD monolayers (n-type), we fabricate and characterize various electronic devices including unipolar, ambipolar and antiambipolar field-effect transistors. Such vdW p-n heterojunction devices open up a wide range of possible applications ranging from ultrafast photodetectors to conformal electronics.

The impact of a multilevel interactive nursing quality control and audit application on nursing quality management

BackgroundThis study aims to investigate the effects of a nursing quality control and audit application (app) on the autonomous learning of nursing staff and nursing quality management by nursing supervisors. A multilevel interactive app is developed to assist nursing staff in conducting online autonomous learning and nursing supervisors in identifying problems and creating nursing quality improvement plans. The app could also present the different evaluation results of wards in visual charts for supervisors to review.MethodsA single-group pre- and post-test design was applied. Data were collected from 131 nurses between October 2019 and October 2020 to analyze the differences between nursing staffs’ willingness to engage in autonomous learning and the integrity of nursing quality improvement plan writing before and after the intervention. The structured questionnaires included open-ended questions that cover aspects of nursing quality control, the audit app, and the information acceptance intention of nurses.ResultsThe participants’ age and job title are negatively correlated with the app’s usability, while the ability to use 3C (Computer, Communication, and Consumer Electronics products including mobile phones and laptops) equipment is positively correlated with the willingness to use the app. Nurses’ satisfaction with the convenience of the online autonomous learning method is 92%, which indicates that the app could improve their willingness to learn. Following the intervention of the app, nursing supervisors’ satisfaction with the integrity of nursing quality improvement plan writing increased from 41 to 88%.ConclusionsUsing information technology products to assist in nursing quality management in clinical practice has a significant effect on nurses’ load reduction and head nurses’ satisfaction. Multilevel interactive nursing quality control and audit apps can improve nursing staff’s willingness to learn independently, nursing quality, and the integrity of plan writing. Thus, nursing quality control and audit apps can be considered as suitable nursing quality control tools.

Thailand Consumer’s Response to Social Media Marketing of Chinese Consumer Electronics Products

This study is to explore the relationship between social media marketing and brand loyalty by the mediating variables of brand equity and product country image. Therefore, this paper is designed by the foundation of literature reviews to build a research framework of six hypotheses. Using SmartPLS for data analysis, and it is found that brand equity and product country image play a mediate role of the relationship between the social media marketing and brand loyalty. Based on the research results, managerial implications were proposed and future studies were suggested through this study.

Realizing an Excellent Cycle and Rate Performance of LiCoO2 at 4.55 V by Li Ionic Conductor Surface Modification

As the cathode material of commercial lithium-ion batteries (LIBs) with the highest volumetric energy density, LiCoO2 is still widely used in the field of consumer electronics products. Although Li...

An improved electrochemical‐based model to estimate battery equivalent circuit parameters for pulsed discharge scenarios

AbstractLithium‐ion batteries (LIBs) power almost all consumer electronics products these days. High‐energy density and low cost are some of the reasons behind LIBs being used to electrify all modes of transportation. Battery equivalent circuit models enable estimation of the state of battery energy and power. These models also assist in the capturing dynamic and transient operation of electric vehicles (EVs). Researchers have used lumped equivalent circuit models in the past which fail to capture the transient variation of battery capacity during pulsed charging scenarios. In this article, we approach the estimation of battery equivalent circuit parameters from an electrochemical model‐based approach. This is the first research work to employ the single particle model that considers the electrolyte behavior to derive battery equivalent circuit parameters. We evaluate this approach using three different batteries of varying cell capacities. This technique not only improves the accuracy of these models but enables a complete understanding of the transient load operation of these batteries.

Mass personalization strategy under Industrial Internet of Things: A case study on furniture production

The Industrial Internet of Things (IIoT) is characterized by digitalization, networking, and smartness, which opens a world of the interconnection of all things and makes mass personalization possible. As a result, traditional industrial firms are forced to change their operation mode from the manufacture-oriented one to the manufacture-and-service-oriented type. In particular, furniture production is a typical domain featured by mass personalization from networking, where order selection (service aspect) and board cutting (manufacture aspect) are mainly concerned. We formulate customized furniture production as a multi-objective optimization problem and propose two algorithms to solve it, i.e., an integrated algorithm and a two-stage decoupling algorithm. As a secondary, the robust mixed-integer linear optimization algorithm is proposed to deal with the uncertainty such as fluctuations in production capacity and raw materials cost. The numerical experiments using real industrial data demonstrate that the proposed algorithms effectively improve firms’ operational efficiency by achieving a balance between service and manufacture. Moreover, they present remarkable performance under various circumstances. The developed methods could apply to a wide range of mass personalization for related manufacturing scenarios of IIoT with digital servitization, including computer, communication, and consumer electronics products (3C products) machining, automobile accessory production, and chip manufacturing.

Pestilential impacts of battery industry discharged metal waste on human health

Lithium-ion and lithium-polymer batteries have become dominant in consumer electronic products because of their energy density and product longevity. Li dry-cell can give significantly to sustainable waste as well as potential pollutants that are harmful to human health due to their small size, high rates of removal from buy item here whatever we are previously owned, as well as a, require of the same rigid plan at inherent discarding. To assess hazard assessment, source reduction capability, and dangerous potential about lithium battery worn inside the digital telephone, we used standardized leaching monitoring, Lifecycle Impact Assessment (LCIA), and Hazardous Waste Classification. Diffuse Leon batteries are listed as dangerous by US federal regulations due to their main contents. However, due to high levels of cobalt, copper, and nickel, all lithium batteries tested in California are rated as hazardous. Leached amounts of chromium, lead, and thallium in some of Leon's batteries violated California regulations. However, due to high amounts of cobalt, copper, and nickel, all lithium batteries tested in California are rated as hazardous. Leached amounts of chromium, lead, and thallium in some of Leon's batteries violated California regulations materials.

Hand Gesture Recognition on a Resource-Limited Interactive Wristband.

Most of the reported hand gesture recognition algorithms require high computational resources, i.e., fast MCU frequency and significant memory, which are highly inapplicable to the cost-effectiveness of consumer electronics products. This paper proposes a hand gesture recognition algorithm running on an interactive wristband, with computational resource requirements as low as Flash < 5 KB, RAM < 1 KB. Firstly, we calculated the three-axis linear acceleration by fusing accelerometer and gyroscope data with a complementary filter. Then, by recording the order of acceleration vectors crossing axes in the world coordinate frame, we defined a new feature code named axis-crossing code. Finally, we set templates for eight hand gestures to recognize new samples. We compared this algorithm’s performance with the widely used dynamic time warping (DTW) algorithm and recurrent neural network (BiLSTM and GRU). The results show that the accuracies of the proposed algorithm and RNNs are higher than DTW and that the time cost of the proposed algorithm is much less than those of DTW and RNNs. The average recognition accuracy is 99.8% on the collected dataset and 97.1% in the actual user-independent case. In general, the proposed algorithm is suitable and competitive in consumer electronics. This work has been volume-produced and patent-granted.

After the Foxconn Suicides in China: A Roundtable on Labor, the State and Civil Society in Global Electronics

We seek to tackle myriad problems of a global production system in which China is the world’s largest producer and exporter of consumer electronics products. Dying for an iPhone simultaneously addresses the challenges facing Chinese workers while locating them within the global economy through an assessment of the relationship between Foxconn (the largest electronics manufacturer) and Apple (one of the richest corporations). Eight researchers from Asia, Europe and North America discuss two main questions: How do tech behemoths and the Chinese state shape labor relations in transnational manufacturing? What roles can workers, public sector buyers, non-governmental organizations and consumers play in holding multinational corporations and states accountable for human rights violations and assuring the protection of worker interests? We also reflect on the possibility that national governments, the electronics industry and civil society groups can collaborate to contribute to improved labor rights in China and the world.

Ordered assembly of MXene based composite films and their applications in energy storage and electromagnetic interference shielding

The increasing popularity of 5G electronic consumer products has brought convenience to people’s life, while there are some problems, such as high risk of electromagnetic interference (EMI) and high power consuming of 5G networks. To solve these problems, it is necessary to develop novel materials with high EMI shielding performance and high-capacity electrode materials. As a new two-dimensional (2D) material, transition metal carbides/nitrides (MXene) have excellent conductivity, low density, hydrophilic surface, 2D layer morphology and tunable surface chemistry, etc. MXene shows promising application prospects in EMI shielding and energy storage due to the facile operation for fabricating films. A lot of MXene-based composite films have been reported recently. Thus in this article, we introduced the preparation methods of MXene nanosheets and MXene-based composite films including their advantages and disadvantages. Secondly, we summarized the research progress of MXene in lithium battery, supercapacitor and EMI shielding fields, and concluded the current mainstream composite materials and the characteristics of MXene composite film in structure and performance. Finally, we proposed critical insights on these scientific challenges and potential solutions. Besides, a future perspective on this technology including other challenges was also described.

The Power of Words: Word Responses in Multimarket Competition

In the multimarket competition literature, the maintenance of mutual forbearance depends on how firms respond when the mutual forbearance is disturbed. While previous research highlights the importance of using action responses to force offenders to back down from aggression, we argue that such retaliation may risk escalating the rivalry into a multimarket war, thus creating incentives for the use of an alternative form of response that has been largely overlooked—word responses. Drawing from expectancy theory, we theorize that high multimarket contact (MMC) with an attacker increases a focal firm’s likelihood of using a word response when mutual forbearance between the two firms is upset. However, such a relationship will be moderated by the focal firm’s perceptions regarding the intent of the attacker. The clearer the attacker’s intent to disrupt the mutual forbearance, as evidenced by the importance of the market being attacked to the focal firm and the scope of the attack, the weaker the effect of MMC on the likelihood of word responses. Evidence from our sample of 20 global consumer electronics (CE) manufacturers between 2007 to 2014 supports our predictions.

PUF-Based Key Generation Scheme for Secure Group Communication Using MEMS

Consumer electronics manufacturers have been incorporating support for 4G/5G communication technologies into many electronic devices. Thus, highly capable Internet of Things (IoT)-ready versions of electronic devices are being purchased which will eventually replace traditional consumer electronics. With the goal of creating a smart environment, the IoT devices enable data sharing, sensing, awareness, increased control. Enabled by high-speed networks, the IoT devices function in a group setting thus compounding the attack surface leading to security and privacy concerns. This research is a study on the possibility of incorporating PUF as a basis for group key generation. The challenge here lies in identifying device features that are unique, stable, reproducible and unpredictable by an adversary. Each device generates its own identity leading to collaborative cryptographic key generation in a group setting. The research uses a comprehensive hardware testbed to demonstrate the viability of PUFs for the generation of a symmetric key through collaboration. Detailed analysis of the proposed setup and the symmetric key generation scheme has shown that the system is scalable and offers unrivalled advantages compared to conventional cryptographic implementations.