Yearly Archives: 2016

The global market for gallium nitride (GaN) semiconductor devices is largely consolidated, with the top four companies commanding a share of over 65% of the overall market in 2015, states Transparency Market Research (TMR) in a new report. The dominant company among these four top vendors, Efficient Power Conversion Corporation, accounted for a 19.2% share of the global market in the said year. The other three topmost companies of the global market, which collectively enjoyed a considerably large share in the overall global market in the said year, are NXP Semiconductors N.V., GaN Systems Inc., and Cree Inc.

Looking at the on-going research and development activities undertaken in the market, attempts made to eliminate issues related to reliability of GaN semiconductors is expected to be an important area of focus of key vendors in the near future. Transparency Market Research states that the global GaN semiconductor devices market will expand at a high 17.0% CAGR over the period between 2016 and 2024. With such exponential growth, the market, which had a valuation of $870.9 mn in 2015, is projected to rise to $3,438.4 mn by 2024. Of the key end-use industries utilizing GaN semiconductors, the aerospace and defense sector dominates, accounting for a share of over 42% of the global market in 2015.

Rising set of applications and focus on R&D to boost demand in North America and Europe

North America and Europe are presently the dominant regional markets for GaN semiconductor devices and are expected to retain dominance over the next few years as well. The rising focus of the Europe Space Agency (ESA) on the increased usage of GaN semiconductors across space projects and the use of GaN-based transistors in the military and defense sectors in North America will help the GaN semiconductor devices market gain traction.

In the past few years, GaN technology has witnessed rapid advancements and vast improvement in the ability of GaN semiconductors to work under operating environments featuring high frequency, power density, and temperature with improved linearity and efficiency. These advancements has boosted the usage of GaN semiconductor devices across an increased set of applications and have played an important role in the market’s overall growth lately.

Along with this factor, the increased usage of GaN semiconductor devices in the defense sector has also emerged as a key driver of the global GaN semiconductor devices market. The continuous rise in defense budgets of developing and developed countries as well as the demand for inclusion of the technologically most advanced products in the arsenal of national and international armies will propel the global GaN semiconductor devices market in the near future.

Relatively higher costs of GaN semiconductor devices to hinder market growth

GaN semiconductors are relatively expensive as compared to silicon-based semiconductors owing to the high production costs of gallium nitride as compared to silicon carbide. Further addition in the cost of GaN semiconductors is ensued due to the high cost of fabrication, packaging, and support electronics. Silicon-based semiconductors have witnessed a significant decline in their costs over the past few years, making high cost of GaN semiconductors a foremost challenge that could hinder their large-scale adoption.

The issue can be tackled by producing GaN in bulk. However, there is currently no widespread method that can be used for the purpose owing to the requisition of high operating pressure and temperature and limited scalability of the material.

Fujitsu Semiconductor Limited and Mie Fujitsu Semiconductor Limited today announced that they have reached an agreement with US-based Nantero, Inc. to license that company’s technology for NRAM, non-volatile RAM using carbon nanotubes, and to conduct joint development towards releasing a product based on 55nm process technology.

Three companies are aiming to develop a product using NRAM non-volatile RAM that achieves several 1000 times faster rewrites and many thousands of times more rewrite cycles than embedded flash memory, making it potentially capable of replacing DRAM with non-volatile memory. Fujitsu Semiconductor plans to develop an NRAM-embedded custom LSI product by the end of 2018, with the goal of expanding the product line-up into stand-alone NRAM product after that. Mie Fujitsu Semiconductor, which is a pure-play foundry, plans to offer NRAM-based technology to its foundry customers.

“Non-volatile memory using Nantero’s carbon-nanotube technology is a marked advance beyond conventional technology,” said Masato Matsumiya, System Memory VP, Fujitsu Semiconductor. “Fujitsu Semiconductor has been designing and producing FRAM, a type of non-volatile RAM, since the late 90s, and is one of the few companies to have integrated FRAM design and production capabilities. We will be able to build on our experience and skill in this field to develop and produce NRAM as well. The combination of Nantero’s technology with our design and production capabilities promises to meet the longstanding needs of our customers for non-volatile memory that is higher density, faster, more energy efficiency, and with a higher rewrite cycle.”

Applying an electric field to some materials causes their atoms to “switch” their electric polarization from one direction to another, making one side of the material positive and the other negative. This switching property of “ferroelectric” materials allows them to be used in a wide range of applications. For example, ferroelectric capacitors are used to store binary bits of data in memory devices.

The newly synthesized crystal is ferroelectric above room temperature (a-b, e-f) and turns into "plastic phase", meaning highly deformable, at higher temperature (a to c). The electric polarity of each molecule can be aligned in one direction by applying electric field as it cools (c to e). Credit: Harada J. et al., July 11, 2016, Nature Chemistry, DOI: 10.1038/NCHEM.2567

The newly synthesized crystal is ferroelectric above room temperature (a-b, e-f) and turns into “plastic phase”, meaning highly deformable, at higher temperature (a to c). The electric polarity of each molecule can be aligned in one direction by applying electric field as it cools (c to e). Credit: Harada J. et al., July 11, 2016, Nature Chemistry, DOI: 10.1038/NCHEM.2567

Researchers at Japan’s Hokkaido University have developed a novel ferroelectric plastic crystal that could accelerate the development of more flexible, cost-efficient and less toxic ferroelectrics than those currently in use.

The crystal is ferroelectric above room temperature, then turns into a plastic, more pliable phase at higher temperatures. At the higher temperatures, the molecules in the crystal have randomly different polarity axes, but they can be aligned in one direction by applying an electric field as the crystal cools, bringing it back to a ferroelectric state.

Being able to control the polarity in this manner addresses a major challenge previously faced by researchers working with organic compound-based ferroelectric crystals. These are less symmetric than inorganic crystals, and can thus be polarized only in one direction leading to a very weak overall polarization of randomly oriented crystals.

A distinct advantage of this particular crystal is its transition to a plastic state when heat is applied. This plasticity – as opposed to fracturing that occurs in regular organic and inorganic crystals when a mechanical stress is applied – makes it extremely advantageous for use as a thin ferroelectric film in devices, such as non-volatile ferroelectric random-access memory devices, which maintain memory when the power is turned off.

Exploring crystals composed of molecules similar to quinuclidine could lead to the discovery of more ferroelectric crystals, write the researchers in their paper published in the journal Nature Chemistry. Chemical modifications of the molecules’ constituent ions could also improve their performance, the researchers add.

FEI (NASDAQ: FEIC) today announced a milestone of the 1,000th Helios DualBeam system shipped since the product family was introduced in 2006. The 1,000th system was manufactured in FEI’s Brno plant and was shipped earlier this month to a semiconductor customer who is utilizing the system for advanced failure analysis on sub-20nm semiconductor devices.

The small DualBeam (SDB) platform combines a focused ion beam (FIB) and scanning electron microscope (SEM) to enable industry-leading three-dimensional (3D) characterization, analysis and image reconstruction, nano-prototyping (fabrication and testing), and high-quality transmission electron microscope (TEM) sample preparation for both research and industrial workflows. Originally developed for semiconductor manufacturing failure analysis, the Helios DualBeam has enabled many new applications and is now also widely used in the materials science, life sciences and oil & gas industries.

FEI CEO, Don Kania, states, “The Helios DualBeam family has been a very successful product. We have sold more Helios systems than any other product segment in our portfolio, and it has been adopted by a wide range of customers, with varying expertise levels, across all of our market segments.”

Throughout its history the Helios family has consistently led the field in performance and technological innovation. The most recent Helios platform is the 4th major revision in a decade — a remarkable record for a major instrumentation system. Each generation has offered substantial improvements over its predecessor and competitors, including higher resolution SEM columns, higher current and lower voltage FIB columns, and new gas chemistries to provide unprecedented levels of imaging quality and operational capability.

John Williams, vice president of marketing, FEI, adds, “We’ve pushed the envelope in the semiconductor industry to keep up with ever shrinking IC geometries. For example, in November of last year FEI’s Helios DualBeam was the first to market with a TEM sample preparation solution capable of making 7nm thick lamella, addressing the needs of our customers who are developing next-generation devices. This level of leadership has, in turn, catapulted the development of the DualBeam and our leadership in other industries. We introduced the DualBeam technology concept in the early 1990’s, and FEI has continued to lead its technological and application development ever since.”

FEI’s Brno manufacturing facility held an event on the 19th of August to celebrate the 1,000th shipment. To learn more about the Helios family, including model comparisons and its 10-year history of technological innovation, please visit: https://fei.com/helios-1000/.

Semiconductor Research Corporation (SRC), the university-research consortium for semiconductors and related technologies, today announced that NXP Semiconductors has signed an agreement to participate in multiple SRC research initiatives.

NXP is the fifth of the top 10 global semiconductor companies to become a member of SRC, and represents the third non-U.S.-headquartered SRC member company.

NXP has joined three specific SRC research thrusts including Trustworthy and Secure Semiconductors and Systems (T3S); Analog/Mixed-Signal Circuits, Systems and Devices (AMS-CSD); and Computer-Aided Design and Test (CADT).

“For SRC, the NXP membership continues and expands the durable relationship that we have enjoyed first with Motorola’s Semiconductor Products Sector that spun out to become Freescale Semiconductor, which late last year merged with NXP,” said Ken Hansen, President & CEO, SRC. “We’re excited to continue the relationship in these three areas that are critical to advancing semiconductor technology for the electronic devices of today and the future.”

“SRC is a vital element of our global university program, providing access to leading edge research at universities in the U.S. and around the world,” said Hans Dollee, Senior Director and Head of Technology Partnerships at NXP. “As the world leader in secure connectivity solutions for embedded applications, NXP is pleased to join with SRC, other member companies and partner universities to drive future technological breakthroughs and educate the next generation of innovators.”

The three SRC initiatives where NXP is participating are part of 11 research thrusts under SRC’s Global Research Collaboration (GRC) program, which funds university research focused on the constantly evolving challenges for the global semiconductor industry. For a description of each research thrust, visit https://www.src.org/program/grc.

Super cement’s secret


August 30, 2016

Simple cements are everywhere in construction, but researchers want to create novel construction materials to build smarter infrastructure. The cement known as mayenite is one smart material — it can be turned from an insulator to a transparent conductor and back. Other unique properties of this material make it suitable for industrial production of chemicals such as ammonia and for use as semiconductors in flat panel displays.

The secret behind mayenite’s magic is a tiny change in its chemical composition, but researchers hadn’t been sure why the change had such a big effect on the material, also known as C12A7. In new work, researchers show how C12A7 components called electron anions help to transform crystalline C12A7 into semiconducting glass.

The study, published Aug. 24 in Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, uses computer modeling that zooms in at the electron level along with lab experiments. They showed how the small change in composition results in dramatic changes of the glass properties and, potentially, allows for greater control of the glass formation process.

“We want to get rid of the indium and gallium currently used in most flat panel displays,” said materials scientist Peter Sushko of the Department of Energy’s Pacific Northwest National Laboratory. “This research is leading us toward replacing them with abundant non-toxic elements such as calcium and aluminum.”

Breaking the glass ceiling

More than a decade ago, materials scientist Hideo Hosono at the Tokyo Institute of Technology and colleagues plucked an oxygen atom from a crystal of C12A7 oxide, which turned the transparent insulating material into a transparent conductor. This switch is rare because the conducting material is transparent: Most conductors are not transparent (think metals) and most transparent materials are not conductive (think window glass).

Back in the crystal, C12A7 oxide’s departing oxygen leaves behind a couple electrons and creates a material known as an electride. This electride is remarkably stable in air, water, and ambient temperatures. Most electrides fall apart in these conditions. Because of this stability, materials scientists want to harness the structure and properties of C12A7 electride. Unfortunately, its crystalline nature is not suitable for large-scale industrial processes, so they needed to make a glass equivalent of C12A7 electride.

And several years ago, they did. Hosono and colleagues converted crystalline C12A7 electride into glass. The glass shares many properties of the crystalline electride, including the remarkable stability.

Crystals are neat and tidy, like apples and oranges arranged orderly in a box, but glasses are unordered and messy, like that same fruit in a plastic grocery bag. Researchers make glass by melting a crystal and cooling the liquid in such a way that the ordered crystal doesn’t reform. With C12A7, the electride forms a glass at a temperature about 200 degrees lower than the oxide does.

This temperature — when the atoms stop flowing as a liquid and freeze in place — is known as the glass transition temperature. Controlling the glass transition temperature allows researchers to control certain properties of the material. For example, how car tires wear down and perform in bad weather depends on the glass transition temperature of the rubber they’re made from.

Sushko, his PNNL colleague Lewis Johnson, Hosono and others at Tokyo Tech wanted to determine why the electride’s glass transition temperature was so much lower than the oxide’s. They suspected components of the electride known as electron anions were responsible. Electron anions are essentially freely moving electrons in place of the much-larger negatively charged oxygen atoms that urge the oxide to form a tidy crystal.

Moveable feat

The team simulated Hosono’s lab experiments using molecular dynamics software that could capture the movement of both the atoms and the electron anions in both the melted material and glass. The team found that that the negatively-charged electron anions paired up between positively charged aluminum or calcium atoms, replacing the negatively charged oxygen atoms that would typically be found between the metals.

The bonds that the electron anions formed between the metal atoms were weaker than bonds between metal and oxygen atoms. These weak links could also move rapidly through the material. This movement allowed a small number of electron anions to have a greater effect on the glass transition temperature than much larger quantities of minerals typically used as additives in glasses.

To rule out other factors as the impetus for the lower transition temperature — such as the electrical charge or change in oxygen atoms — the researchers simulated a material with the same composition as the C12A7 electride but with the electrons spread evenly through the material instead of packed in as electron anions. In this simulation, the glass transition temperature was no different than C12A7 oxide’s. This result confirmed that the network of weak links formed by the electron anions was responsible for changes to the glass transition temperature.

According to the scientists, electron anions form a new type of weak link that can affect the conditions under which a material can form a glass. They join the ranks of typical additives that disrupt the ability of the material to form long chains of atoms, such as fluoride, or form weak, randomly oriented bonds between atoms of opposite charge, such as sodium. The work suggests researchers might be able to control the transition temperature by changing the amount of electron anions they use.

“This work shows us not just how a glass forms,” said PNNL’s Johnson, “but also gives us a new tool for how to control it.”

Texas Instruments (TI) recently entered into an agreement with Silicon Catalyst, a Silicon Valley-based incubator, that will expand TI’s access to new technology innovations and potentially lead to engagements with semiconductor startups focused on creating chips and system solutions in analog and embedded processing.

“This agreement expands TI’s access to innovations in the semiconductor industry startup segment and facilitates our ability to engage with companies that are creating new technologies complementary to areas where TI is also innovating,” said Ralf Muenster, Director, CTO office at TI.

“TI is eager to collaborate with startups, early stage companies and entrepreneurs working on silicon solutions.  Silicon Catalyst’s exclusive focus on semiconductor startups provides another great way for TI to gain unique and early access to the silicon innovation happening in the startup and entrepreneurial world,” Muenster added.

“The strategic relationship with TI is both a tribute to their forward-thinking vision and a validation of our unique value proposition to both the semiconductor and startup communities,” said Silicon Catalyst CEO Rick Lazansky.  “This strategic relationship with Texas Instruments will afford our startup companies access to a truly world class organization.  Startup companies in our industry reap tremendous benefits from deep, long-term engagement with industry leaders, like Texas Instruments, including guidance and relationships with experts.”

In 2015, Silicon Catalyst received the 2015 ACE Award for Startup Company of the Year. In the past 15 months, Silicon Catalyst has screened nearly 100 startups from the U.S., Europe and Asia. The 10 startups admitted to the incubator are developing innovations in LED, energy, silicon photonics, memory technology, wireless communications and biomedical devices.

“These 10 startups are proof that the semiconductor startup ecosystem is thriving, and there is no lack of great ideas and inspiration,” added Lazansky.

SEMI today announced the appointment of Lung Chu as president of SEMI China effective September 1, 2016. With the recent broadening ambitions for China’s indigenous semiconductor supply chain, Lung Chu joins SEMI at a critical inflection in the China market. Chu will be instrumental in evolving and repositioning SEMI’s programs, committees, products and services in China to deliver the highest member value in the rapidly changing China semiconductor ecosystem.

With the announcement of “National Guideline for IC Industry Development” and “Made in China 2025” initiatives, the China government and industry are set to significantly improve self-sufficiency for integrated circuits (ICs) manufacturing in China by 2025. This stimulated recent China M&A activity across the semiconductor manufacturing supply chain (Spreadtrum, OmniVision, ISS, Mattson Technology, STATS ChipPAC), new investments by Chinese companies (SMIC, XMC, etc.), and investment in China factories by multinationals (Intel, Samsung, SK Hynix, TSMC, GlobalFoundries).

“With China’s rapidly changing industry, Lung Chu was chosen for his wide range of semiconductor supply chain and leadership experience to ensure SEMI China delivers the best platform and services to its members and overall industry with growth and prosperity. Lung’s personal relationships and track record with industry executives and China government officials related to the semiconductor manufacturing industry will benefit SEMI members in China and worldwide. I look forward to working with Lung to transform SEMI China into a local partner for China’s “Made in China 2025″ initiative,” said Denny McGuirk, president and CEO of SEMI.

With over 30 years of experience in semiconductor equipment, IC design, EDA/IP, semiconductor manufacturing, and system integration, Chu is uniquely suited to lead SEMI China’s growth harmonized with the SEMI 2020 Vision to connect and increase collaboration across the entire semiconductor manufacturing supply chain. Most recently, Chu spent seven years as corporate VP and president of China Operations for Global Unichip. Chu served as president of Asia Pacific at Cadence Design Systems, Magma Design Automation; and held executive management positions at KLA-Tencor, Apple Computer, and Philips Semiconductor (in Silicon Valley, California).

Chu served as president/chairman of the Chinese American Semiconductor Professional Organization (CASPA) and currently heads Shanghai and Hsinchu chapters. Chu holds a Bachelor’s degree in engineering from National Taiwan University and a Master’s degree in engineering from Case Western Reserve University. He also has MSEE and MBA degrees from California State University.

The IC industry’s original system-on-chip (SoC) product category—microcontrollers—is expected to steadily reach record-high annual revenues through the second half of this decade despite an overall slowdown in unit growth during the next five years. Microcontroller sales barely increased in 2015, rising less than a half percent, to set a new record high of slightly more than $15.9 billion, thanks to a 15% increase in MCU shipments that lifted worldwide unit volumes to an all-time peak of 22.1 billion last year (Figure 1). Strong unit growth—driven by smartcard MCUs and 32-bit designs—enabled the MCU market to overcome a 13% drop in the average selling price (ASP) of microcontrollers to a record-low $0.72 in 2015. Price erosion—especially in 32-bit MCUs—has weighed down MCU sales growth in three of the last four years, but ASPs are now expected to stabilize and increase slightly in the 2015-2020 forecast period, rising by a CAGR of 1.6% compared to a -7.7% annual rate of decline between 2010 and 2015.

Fig 1

Fig 1

While ASP erosion is expected to end, MCU unit shipments are forecast to rise at a much lower rate than in the first half of this decade, primarily because of a slowdown in the growth of smartcard microcontrollers and tighter reins on IC inventories for the “next big thing”—the Internet of Things (IoT). IC Insights’ forecasts MCU sales will rise in 2016 to nearly $16.6 billion, which is a 4% increase from $15.9 billion in 2015. MCU unit volumes are expected to grow by 2% in 2016 to 22.4 billion, and the ASP for total microcontrollers is forecast to rise 2% this year to $0.74. Between 2015 and 2020, microcontroller sales are projected to grow by a CAGR of 5.5% to nearly $20.9 billion in the final year of the forecast. Since the middle 1990s, worldwide MCU sales have grown by a CAGR of 2.9%.

As shown in Figure 1, no downturns are anticipated in MCU sales through 2020. Total MCU revenue growth is expected to gradually strengthen between 2016 and 2019 (when sales are forecast to grow 9%) before easing back to a 4% increase in 2020. MCU unit shipments are now projected to grow by a CAGR of 3.9%.

A major factor in slower MCU unit growth through 2020 is the maturing of the smartcard market, which in recent years has accounted for nearly half of microcontroller shipments and about 15-16% of total revenue. By 2020, smartcard MCUs are expected to represent 38% of total microcontroller unit shipments and about 12% of sales.

A research team led by Professor Keon Jae Lee from the Korea Advanced Institute of Science and Technology (KAIST) and by Dr. Jae-Hyun Kim from the Korea Institute of Machinery and Materials (KIMM) has jointly developed a continuous roll-processing technology that transfers and packages flexible large-scale integrated circuits (LSI), the key element in constructing the computer’s brain such as CPU, on plastics to realize flexible electronics (Advanced Materials, “Simultaneous Roll Transfer and Interconnection of Flexible Silicon NAND Flash Memory”).

This schematic image shows the flexible silicon NAND flash memory produced by the simultaneous roll-transfer and interconnection process. (Image: KAIST)

This schematic image shows the flexible silicon NAND flash memory produced by the simultaneous roll-transfer and interconnection process. (Image: KAIST)

Professor Lee previously demonstrated the silicon-based flexible LSIs using 0.18 CMOS (complementary metal-oxide semiconductor) process in 2013 (ACS Nano, “In Vivo Silicon-based Flexible Radio Frequency Integrated Circuits Monolithically Encapsulated with Biocompatible Liquid Crystal Polymers”) and presented the work in an invited talk of 2015 International Electron Device Meeting (IEDM), the world’s premier semiconductor forum.

Highly productive roll-processing is considered a core technology for accelerating the commercialization of wearable computers using flexible LSI. However, realizing it has been a difficult challenge not only from the roll-based manufacturing perspective but also for creating roll-based packaging for the interconnection of flexible LSI with flexible displays, batteries, and other peripheral devices.

To overcome these challenges, the research team started fabricating NAND flash memories on a silicon wafer using conventional semiconductor processes, and then removed a sacrificial wafer leaving a top hundreds-nanometer-thick circuit layer. Next, they simultaneously transferred and interconnected the ultrathin device on a flexible substrate through the continuous roll-packaging technology using anisotropic conductive film (ACF). The final silicon-based flexible NAND memory successfully demonstrated stable memory operations and interconnections even under severe bending conditions. This roll-based flexible LSI technology can be potentially utilized to produce flexible application processors (AP), high-density memories, and high-speed communication devices for mass manufacture.

Professor Lee said, “Highly productive roll-process was successfully applied to flexible LSIs to continuously transfer and interconnect them onto plastics. For example, we have confirmed the reliable operation of our flexible NAND memory at the circuit level by programming and reading letters in ASCII codes. Out results may open up new opportunities to integrate silicon-based flexible LSIs on plastics with the ACF packing for roll-based manufacturing.”

Dr. Kim added, “We employed the roll-to-plate ACF packaging, which showed outstanding bonding capability for continuous roll-based transfer and excellent flexibility of interconnecting core and peripheral devices. This can be a key process to the new era of flexible computers combining the already developed flexible displays and batteries.”