Category Archives: 3D Integration

Without any doubt, the advanced packaging industry is on the move. Emerging applications are bringing many new challenges. Packaging experts from all over the world are deeply involved in the development of innovative solutions to answer to the market demand dominated by megatrends. “Megatrend will probably be the key word for the next 10-years within the advanced packaging industry, and more generally in the semiconductor industry”, comments Emilie Jolivet, Semiconductor & Software Division Director at Yole Développement (Yole).“AI , IoT , 5G, mobility, and more… all major applications of our century are today the new drivers of these industries.”

What exactly is the impact of the megatrends on the advanced packaging industry? Could we expect a strong move of the advanced packaging companies: from their traditional activities to innovative services/products to answer to the specificities of the mega market segments? How will the advanced packaging supply chain evolve?

NCAP China, part of JITRI, and Yole today invite you to discover the 4th Advanced Packaging & System Integration Technology Symposium. The 2018 edition takes place in Wuxi, China, on June 20&21. It is a 2-day conference to answer strategic questions and get the opportunity to meet the leaders in the advanced packaging industry. After the last four successful events, Yole Développement & NCAP have decided to continue and strengthen their collaboration to once again provide a powerful program including Panel Level, FO , SiP , advanced substrates, 3D technology. Megatrends will be at the heart of the conference hosted by NCAP CHINA. Advanced packaging is on the move. Don’t miss it!
• Click program & registration to see the schedule, list of speakers, abstracts, and much more.
• The 2018 symposium is sponsored by DIPSOL, ERS, Nordson, SPTS (An Orbotech Company), and SEMSYSCO.

First held in 2014, the Advanced Packaging & System Integration Technology Symposium attracts more than 180 worldwide executive attendees each year. The program, designed by both partners Yole and NCAP China, brings together numerous valuable discussions, short courses, meetings and business collaborations. The list of executive speakers is impressive (Full list of speakers). The 2018 program welcomes two keynotes, among the numerous presentations: 
• Impact of the industry trends on advanced packaging – Jean-Christophe Eloy, President, Yole Group of Companies. Yole Group of Companies includes Yole Développement, System Plus Consulting, KnowMade and PISEO. 
• The industrialization road of innovative Wafer Level Fan-Out technology: eSiFO – Dr. Daquan Yu, VP, Huatian Technology Electronic … And much more. The list of speakers, biographies and abstracts are available on i-micronews.com. To download the PDF version, click Program – Abstracts.

Amongst the numerous sessions of the Advanced Packaging & System Integration Technology, 2018 edition, FOWLP will be deeply covered by a significant list of speakers: Klemens Reitinger, CEO, ERS electronic, Stephen Hiebert, Sr Director of Marketing, KLA-Tencor and David Butler, EVP General Manager, SPTS Technologies. Currently FOWLP is the fastest growing packaging platform and is directly impacted by the megatrends. From mobile to automotive to medical, for both low-end (e.g. audio codecs) and high-end devices (e.g. APU), Yole analyzes daily the technology evolution and market drivers. “Today, cost is still a concern compared to other more mature packaging platforms”, assert Yole’s Sr Analyst, Santosh Kumar (1). Market trends and technical challenges will be detailed in a presentation proposed by Santosh Kumar in the dedicated session. Santosh also recently invited Albert Koller, Head of Advanced Packaging Business Unit at Evatec, to discuss its activities and present its vision of the advanced packaging industry. This interview is available on i-micronews.com, advanced packaging news section.

Dr Cao LiQiang, NCAP’s CEO asserts: “In recent years, many aspects of advanced packaging worldwide remained focused on FI, FO, TSV and WLP… As for China, we have identified major changes to FO technology development and commercialization in the next five years. Potential packaging houses will be established here, in China. NCAP is preparing FI & FO manufacturing mass production, together with our partners of several years…With Yole, NCAP is exploring possible collaborations with worldwide equipment and material suppliers. The symposium is a real opportunity to interact with OSAT and end-users as well. At NCAP, we believe the NCAP- Yole collaboration will positively influence the advanced packaging industry and encourage its development. During the symposium, we especially expect many debates on the numerous challenges facing the domestic packaging materials and equipment market, the 5G requirements, the development of innovative technologies by OSATs and much more.”

The symposium represents an exciting opportunity for advanced packaging companies to expand their activities in China and in all other countries. NCAP and Yole are very enthusiastic about this 2018 edition. Make sure you attend the symposium and book your place immediately on i-micronews.com or click: Registration.
To see the full schedule, please click here: Program.

TowerJazz, the global specialty foundry leader, and Gpixel, Inc., a fast-growing CMOS image sensor (CIS) provider focusing on professional applications, announced today that Gpixel’s GMAX0505, a new 25Mp global shutter sensor has been developed based on TowerJazz’s 2.5um global shutter pixel in a 1.1″ optical format with the highest resolution in C-mount optics. This type of lens mount is commonly found in closed-circuit television cameras, machine vision and scientific cameras. Gpixel’s new product is optimal for high resolution industrial, machine vision, intelligent transport systems (ITS) and surveillance applications. According to an IC Insights report, the industrial CMOS sensor market is growing at a CAGR of about 18% from $400M in 2015 to $910M in 2020.

TowerJazz’s new offering is the smallest in the world; the otherwise currently available smallest pixel for such high-end applications used in the market is 3.2um (65% larger) and demonstrates overall lower performances. TowerJazz’s 2.5um global shutter pixel is integrated with a unique light pipe technology, offers great angular response, more than 80dB shutter efficiency in spite of the extreme small size, and extremely low noise (one electron). Gpixel has started prototyping its GMAX0505 using TowerJazz’s state of the art, 65nm technology on a 300mm platform in its Uozu, Japan facility.

“TowerJazz has been an important and strategic fab partner of Gpixel for many years. We are very pleased with the support of great technology innovation from TowerJazz with our current global shutter sensor families, backside illuminated scientific CMOS sensor solutions and today, the next generation global shutter industrial sensor product family,” said Dr. Xinyang Wang, CEO of Gpixel, Inc. “The GMAX0505 is our second product after our first 2.8um pixel product that is already ramped up into production at TowerJazz’s Arai fab in Japan. We are very excited and looking forward to seeing more products using this pixel technology in the near future. The successful introduction of the new 25Mp product will bring our customers a unique advantage in the growing demand of machine vision applications.”

Dr. Avi Strum, TowerJazz Senior VP and General Manager of CMOS Image Sensor Business Unit, said, “We are very excited to be the first and only foundry in the world to offer this new technology – the smallest global shutter pixel available. Through our collaboration with Gpixel, we are able to create acompact package design which allows for miniature camera design. We are pleased with our long term relationship with Gpixel and with the way our technology combined with their excellent products allow us to target and gain market share in the growing high resolution industrial markets.”

Technavio’s latest market research report on the global substrate-like PCB market provides an analysis of the most important trends expected to impact the market outlook from 2018-2022. Technavio predicts an emerging trend as a major factor that has the potential to significantly impact the market and contribute to its growth or decline.

The global substrate-like PCB market will grow at a CAGR of over 7% during the forecast period, according to Technavio analysts. A key factor driving the market’s growth is the need for miniaturization and more efficient interconnect solutions. In the recent years, the size of electronic packages has decreased to reduce power consumption and increase the functionality and the number of embedded components. The size of mobile phone PCBs decreased by over 75% between 2004 and 2017, with the inclusion of a growing number of sensors and processors.

In this report, Technavio highlights the increasing outsourcing of activities in the semiconductor industry as one of the key emerging trends in the global substrate-like PCB market:

Increasing outsourcing of activities in the semiconductor industry

Previously, the semiconductor industry was characterized by the presence of companies that designed, fabricated, packaged, and tested ICs in-house. But, at present, most semiconductor companies are going fabless by only designing chips while outsourcing fabrication, packaging, and testing to other companies. An increasing number of semiconductor and electronics manufacturing companies are outsourcing their manufacturing processes to foundries and (semiconductor and testing services) SATS providers.

“Semiconductor vendors that do not own fabrication facilities outsource the expensive process of semiconductor manufacturing to dedicated third-party manufacturers that have large-scale manufacturing plants, thereby cutting down on capital investments, operational costs, and complexity,” says a senior analyst at Technavio for research on semiconductor equipment.

Global substrate-like PCB market segmentation

This market research report segments the global substrate-like PCB market into the following applications (communication and IoT) and key regions (the Americas, APAC, and EMEA).

The communication segment held the largest market share in 2017, accounting for more than 73% of the market. This application segment is expected to demonstrate steady growth during the forecast period.

APAC was the leading region for the global substrate-like PCB market in 2017, accounting for a market share of approximately 85%. The market share of this region is anticipated to increase significantly during the period 2018-2022.

Microsemi Corporation (Nasdaq: MSCC), a provider of semiconductor solutions differentiated by power, security, reliability and performance, today announced it will be expanding its Silicon Carbide (SiC) MOSFET and SiC diode product portfolios early next quarter, including samples of its next-generation 1200-volt (V), 25 mOhm and 80 mOhm SiC MOSFET devices; next-generation 700 V, 50 A Schottky barrier diode (SBD) and corresponding die. These SiC solutions, along with other recently announced devices in the SiC SBD/MOSFET product families, will be demonstrated June 5-7 in hall 6, booth 318 at PCIM Europe 2018, held at the Exhibition Centre in Nuremberg, Germany.

As Microsemi continues to expand development efforts for its SiC product family, it has become one of the few suppliers providing a range of Si/SiC power discrete and module solutions to the market. These next-generation SiC MOSFETs are ideally suited for a number of applications within the industrial and automotive markets, including hybrid electric vehicle (HEV)/EV charging, conductive/inductive onboard chargers (OBCs), DC-DC converters and EV powertrain/traction control. They can also be used for switch mode power supplies, photovoltaic (PV) inverters and motor control in medical, aerospace, defense and data center applications.

“Fast adoption of SiC solutions for applications such as EV charging, DC-DC converters, powertrain, medical and industrial equipment, and aviation actuation demand a high degree of efficiency, safety and reliability on components used in such systems,” said Leon Gross, vice president and business unit manager for Microsemi’s Power Discretes and Modules business unit. “Microsemi’s next-generation SiC MOSFET and SiC diode families will include AEC-Q101 qualifications, which will insure high reliability while ruggedness is demonstrated by high repetitive unclamped inductive switching (UIS) capability at rated current without degradation or failures.”

According to market research firm Technavio, the global SiC market for semiconductor applications is expected to reach nearly $540.5 million by 2021, growing at a compound annual growth rate (CAGR) of more than 18 percent. The firm also forecasts the global SiC market for automotive semiconductor applications at nearly 20 percent CAGR by 2021. Microsemi is well-positioned with these trends, with its SiC MOSFET and Schottky barrier diode devices avalanche-rated with a high short-circuit withstand rating for robust operation, and the capabilities necessary to enable these growing application trends.

Microsemi’s next-generation 1200 V, 25/40/80 mOhm SiC MOSFET devices and die as well as its next-generation 1200 V and 700 V SiC SBD devices offer customers attractive benefits in comparison to competing Si/SiC diode/MOSFET and IGBT solutions, including more efficient switching at higher switching frequencies as well as higher avalanche/UIS rating and higher short-circuit withstand rating for rugged and reliable operation. For example, SiC MOSFETs are developed with an ideal balance of specific on-resistance, low gate and thermal resistances, and low gate threshold voltage and capacitance for reliable operation. Designed for high yield processes and low parameter variation across temperature, they operate at higher efficiency (in comparison to Si and IGBT solutions) across high junction temperature (175 degrees Celsius) to extend battery systems like those in HEV/EV applications.

The newly sampling devices also offer excellent gate integrity and high gate yield as verified through high temperature reverse bias (HTRB) and time-dependent dielectric breakdown (TBBD) tests, which are part of its AEC-Q101 qualification in progress. Other key features include:

  • High UIS capability, offering 1.5x to 2x higher than competitive SiC MOSFETs and GaN devices for avalanche ruggedness;
  • High short-circuit rating ranging from 1.5x to 5x higher than competitor SiC MOSFET devices for more rugged operation;
  • Up to 10x lower failure-in-time (FIT) rate than comparable Si IGBTs at rated voltage for neutron susceptibility and with comparable performance against SiC competition pertaining to neutron irradiation; and
  • Higher SiC power density versus Si, enabling smaller magnetics/transformers/DC bus capacitors and less cooling elements for more compact form factor to lower overall system costs.

Veeco Instruments Inc. (Nasdaq: VECO) announced that Lumentum Holdings Inc. has ordered the Veeco K475i™Arsenide/Phosphide (As/P) Metal Organic Chemical Vapor Deposition (MOCVD) System for production of its advanced semiconductor components which address the 3D sensing, high-speed fiber-optic communications and laser-based materials processing end-markets. Lumentum, headquartered in Milpitas, Calif., is a manufacturer of innovative optical and photonics products.

“The global communications, industrial and consumer electronics markets that our proprietary semiconductor lasers address are growing rapidly,” said Susan Wang, vice president of manufacturing at Lumentum. “We chose Veeco’s K475i system with its high capacity/throughput, uniformity of quality, repeatability and exceptional performance to help expand our capacity and better address these growth opportunities. We have a longstanding relationship with Veeco and look forward to future collaboration together.”

The K475i system incorporates proprietary TurboDisc® and Uniform FlowFlange™ MOCVD technologies. These innovations allow Veeco customers to improve compositional uniformity and dopant control while reducing cost-per-wafer by up to 20 percent compared to alternative systems through higher productivity, best-in-class yields and lower operating expenses. Application areas include lighting, solar, laser diodes, vertical-cavity surface-emitting lasers (VCSELs), pseudomorphic high electron mobility transistors (pHEMTs) and heterojunction bipolar transistors (HBTs).

“A leading player in the optical communications and commercial laser markets, Lumentum is well positioned to capitalize on the growing demand for next-generation laser and optical devices using Veeco MOCVD technology,” said Peo Hansson, Ph.D., senior vice president and general manager of MOCVD Operations at Veeco. “As customers look for technologies that enable demanding new applications in increasingly competitive markets, many leading photonics, power electronics and LED device manufacturers continue to choose our proven MOCVD systems that deliver strong wafer uniformity and the lowest cost of ownership.”

Memory devices employ a wide range of packaging technology from wire-bond leadframe and BGA to TSV.

BY SANTOSH KUMAR, Yole Développement, Lyon-Villeurbanne, France

The memory market is going through a strong growth phase. The total memory market grew by >50% YoY to more than US$125 billion in 2017 from US$79.4 billion in 2016. [1] RAM and NAND dominate the market, representing almost 95 % of standalone memory sales. There is a supply/demand mismatch in the market which is impacting on the ASP of memory devices, and as a result the large memory IDMs are reaping record profits. The memory industry has consolidated with the top five players – Samsung, SKHynix, Micron, Toshiba and Western Digital – accounting for 90% of the market.

The demand for memory is coming from all sectors but the mobile and computing (mainly servers) market is showing particularly strong growth. On average, the DRAM memory capacity per smartphone will rise more than threefold to reach around 6GB by 2022. DRAM cost per smartphone represents >10% of the bill of materials of the phone and is expected to increase further. The NAND capacity per smartphone will increase more than fivefold to reach >150GB by 2022. For servers, the DRAM capacity per unit will increase to a whopping 0.5TB by 2022, and the NAND capacity per SSD for the enterprise market will be in excess of 5TB by 2022. The growth in these markets is led by applications like deep learning, big-data, networking, AR/ VR, and autonomous driving. The automotive market, which traditionally used low density (low-MB) memory, will see the adoption of DRAM memory led by the emerging trend of autonomous driving and in-vehicle infotainment. The NOR flash memory market also saw a resurgence and is expected to grow at an impressive 16% CAGR to reach ~US$4.4 billion by 2022, due to its application in new areas such as AMOLED displays, touch display driver ICs and industrial IoTs.

On the supply side, the consolidation of players, the difficulty in migrating to advanced nodes due to technical challenges, and the need for higher investment to migrate from 2D to 3D NAND, has led to shortfall in both DRAM & NAND flash supply. DRAM players want to retain high ASPs (& high profitability) to justify the huge capex investment for advanced node migration and as such are not inclined to increase capacity. Entry of Chinese memory players will ease the supply side constraint, but it’ll not happen before 2020.

Memory device packaging

There are many variations of memory device packaging. This implies a wide range of packaging technology from the low pin count SOP package to the high pin-count TSV, all depending upon the specific product requirements such as density, performance, cost, etc. We have broadly identified five packaging platforms for memory devices: viz lead frame, wire-bond BGA, flip-chip BGA, WLCSP and TSV, even though in each platform there are many varia- tions and different nomenclature in industry.

The total memory package market is expected to grow at 4.6% CAGR2016-2022 to reach ~US$26 billion by 2022. [1] Wire-bond BGA accounted for more than 80% of the packaging market in dollar terms in 2016. Flip-chips, however, started making inroads in the DRAM memory packaging market and is expected to grow at ~20% CAGR in the next five years to account for more than 10% of the memorypackagingmarket.Currentlytheflip-chipmarket is only around 6% of the total memory packaging market. Flip-chip growth is led by its increased adoption in the DRAM PC/server segment fueled by a high bandwidth requirement.

Currently Samsung has already converted >90% of its DRAM packaging line. SK Hynix have started the conversion and other players will also adopt it in future. At Yole Développement (Yole), we believe that all DDR5 memory for PC/servers will move to flip-chip.

TSV is employed in high bandwidth memory devices requiring high bandwidth with low latency memory chips for high performance computing in various applications. In 2016 the TSV market was <1% of the total memory market. However, it is expected to grow by >30% CAGR to reach ~8% of memory packaging in dollar terms. WLSCP packaging is used in NOR flash and niche memory devices (EEPROMs/EPROM/ROM). It is expected to grow at >10% CAGR, but in terms of value will remain <1% of the market by 2022.

In mobile applications, memory packaging will mainly remain on the wire-bond BGA platform but will start to move into the multi-chip package (ePoP) for high end smartphones.

The main requirement of NAND flash devices is high storage density at low cost. NANDs are stacked using wire bonding to provide high density in a single package. The NAND packaging market is expected to reach ~ US$ 10 billion by 2022. NAND flash packaging will remain on the wire bond BGA platform and will not migrate to flip-chip. Toshiba, however, will start using TSV packaging in NAND devices to increase the data transfer rate for high end applications. Following Toshiba, we believe Samsung and SKHynix will also bring TSV packaged NAND devices into the market.

OSATs account for <20% of the memory packaging business

The total memory packaging market is estimated to have been ~US$20 billion in 2016. There are many OSATs involved in the memory packaging business, and >80% of the packaging (by value) is still done internally by OSATs. The majority of these are small OSATs and have only low-end packaging capability. Global memory IDMs have much experience in packaging, accumulated over years, and have their own internal large capacity. Therefore, there is limited opportunity for OSATs to make inroads into the packaging activity of IDMs. Many Chinese players, however, are entering the memory market with more than US$50 billion investment committed. [1] These new entrants do not have experience in memory assembly / packaging, unlike global IDMs, and they will outsource major packaging activities to OSATs. The flip-chip business for memory packaging will increase to 13% of the total market to reach US$3.5 billion in 2022. This is an opportunity for low-end memory OSATs to invest in flip-chip bumping and assembly capacity. Otherwise they will lose business to the big OSATs with advanced packaging capability.

Conclusion

The memory industry is going through a golden phase with strong demand coming from all sectors, particularly from the mobile and computing (mainly servers) markets.

Memory devices employ a wide range of packaging technology from wire-bond leadframe and BGA to TSV. Wire-bond BGA still accounts for the bulk of the memory packaging market. However, flip-chip technology will start making inroads in DRAM memory packaging and will grow at 20% CAGR (by revenue) over the next five years, accounting for ~13% of the total memory packaging market by 2022. The memory packaging market is mainly controlled by IDMs. OSATs have limited opportunity to impact IDM packaging activity. Many Chinese players, however, are entering the memory business and, unlike global IDMs, these new players lack experience in memory assembly/packaging and they outsource most of their packaging activity to OSATs.

SANTOSH KUMAR is a Senior Technology and Market Research Analyst at Yole Développement in France.

References

1. Memory Packaging Market and Technology Report 2017, Yole Développement

Micron Technology, Inc. (Nasdaq:MU), and Intel Corporation today announced production and shipment of the industry’s first 4bits/cell 3D NAND technology. Leveraging a proven 64-layer structure, the new 4bits/cell NAND technology achieves 1 terabit (Tb) density per die, the world’s highest-density flash memory.

The companies also announced development progress on the third-generation 96-tier 3D NAND structure, providing a 50 percent increase in layers. These advancements in the cell structure continue the companies’ leadership in producing the world’s highest Gb/mm2 areal density.

Both NAND technology advancements—the 64-layer QLC and 96-layer TLC technologies —utilize CMOS under the array (CuA) technology to reduce die sizes and deliver improved performance when compared to competitive approaches. By leveraging four planes vs the competitors’ two planes, the new Intel and Micron NAND flash memory can write and read more cells in parallel, which delivers faster throughput and higher bandwidth at the system level.

The new 64-layer 4bits/cell NAND technology enables denser storage in a smaller space, bringing significant cost savings for read-intensive cloud workloads. It is also well-suited for consumer and client computing applications, providing cost-optimized storage solutions.

“With introduction of 64-layer 4bits/cell NAND technology, we are achieving 33 percent higher array density compared to TLC, which enables us to produce the first commercially available 1 terabit die in the history of semiconductors,” said Micron Executive Vice President, Technology Development, Scott DeBoer. “We’re continuing flash technology innovation with our 96-layer structure, condensing even more data into smaller spaces, unlocking the possibilities of workload capability and application construction.”

“Commercialization of 1Tb 4bits/cell is a big milestone in NVM history and is made possible by numerous innovations in technology and design that further extend the capability of our Floating Gate 3D NAND technology,” said RV Giridhar, Intel vice president, Non-Volatile Memory Technology Development. “The move to 4bits/cell enables compelling new operating points for density and cost in Datacenter and Client storage.”

By Walt Custer, Custer Consulting Group

Broad global & U.S. electronic supply chain growth

The first quarter of this year was very strong globally, with growth across the entire electronics supply chain. Although Chart 1 is based on preliminary data, every electronics sector expanded –  with many in double digits. The U.S. dollar-denominated growth estimates in Chart 1 have effectively been amplified by about 5 percent by exchange rates (as stronger non-dollar currencies were consolidated to weaker U.S. dollars), but the first quarter global rates are very impressive nonetheless.

Walt Custer Chart 1

U.S. growth was also good (Chart 2) with Quarter 1 2018 total electronics equipment shipments up 7.2 percent over the same period last year. Since all the Chart 2 values are based on domestic (US$) sales, there is no growth amplification due to exchange rates.

Walt Custer Chart 2

We expect continued growth in Quarter 2 but not at the robust pace as the first quarter.

Chip foundry growth resumes

Taiwan-listed companies report their monthly revenues on a timely basis – about 10 days after month end. We track a composite of 14 Taiwan Stock Exchange listed chip foundries to maintain a “pulse” of this industry (Chart 3).

Walt Custer Chart 3

Chip foundry sales have been a leading indicator for global semiconductor and semiconductor capital equipment shipments. After dropping to near zero in mid-2017, foundry growth is now rebounding.

Chart 4 compares 3/12 (3-month) growth rates of global semiconductor and semiconductor equipment sales to chip foundry sales. The foundry 3/12 has historically led semiconductors and SEMI equipment and is pointing to a coming cyclical upturn. It will be interesting to see how China’s semiconductor industry buildup impacts this historical foundry leading indicator’s performance.

Walt Custer Chart 4

Passive Component Shortages and Price Increases

Passive component availability and pricing are currently major issues. Per Chart 5, Quarter 1 2018 passive component revenues increased almost 25 percent over the same period last year. Inadequate component supplies are hampering many board assemblers with no short-term relief in sight.

Walt Custer Chart 5

Peeking into the Future

Looking forward, the global purchasing managers index (a broad leading indicator) has moderated but is still well in growth territory.

Walt Custer Chart 6

The world business outlook remains positive but requires continuous watching!

Walt Custer of Custer Consulting Group is an  analyst focused on the global electronics industry.

Originally published on the SEMI blog.

Molex, a global manufacturer of electronic solutions, announced today the acquisition of BittWare, Inc., a global provider of computing systems featuring field-programmable gate arrays (FPGAs) deployed in data center compute and network packet processing applications.

“Among the foremost FPGA computing platform developers, BittWare brings an impressive breadth of board-level computing technologies, integrated systems and software expertise,” said Tim Ruff, senior vice president of Molex.

According to Mark Gilliam, president of Interconnect Systems International, a Molex company, “The acquisition expands on the capabilities of Molex and its subsidiary Nallatech to address the rising demand for FPGA-based high-performance compute and network processing solutions.”

Headquartered in Concord, NH, BittWare provides solutions based on FPGA technology from Intel (formerly Altera) and Xilinx. Many of the world’s leading companies use BittWare FPGA solutions to provide the processing power for demanding applications in compute and data center, military and aerospace, government, instrumentation and test, financial services, broadcast and video.

“FPGA-based platforms have become a strategically important driver of machine learning, artificial intelligence, cybersecurity, network acceleration, IoT, and other megatrends. As a Molex subsidiary, now working with Nallatech, I believe we will have the critical mass to bring new resources, better processes, and economies of scale to our valued customers and this rapidly growing industry as a whole,” said Jeff Milrod, president and CEO of BittWare.

BittWare commercial products turn the latest FPGA device features into reliable board-level solutions, suitable for both development and deployment in integrated servers. The company serves original equipment manufacture (OEM) customers, who value the decades of engineering experience BittWare brings to designing custom solutions and manufacturing them at scale with partners such as Benchmark Electronics. BittWare products are supported with extensive tools, FPGA IP, and in-house technical support staff.

Philpott Ball & Werner, LLC acted as BittWare’s financial advisor. Financial terms of the transaction were not disclosed.

For more information about Molex BittWare FPGA solutions, please visit www.molex.com.

Presto Engineering Inc. today announced that it has joined GLOBALSOLUTIONS, GF’s ecosystem of partners that provides services from conception to production. As an ecosystem partner, Presto will provide its post-silicon engineering and production turnkey solutions based upon GF’s technologies and services for customers across the globe.

The partnership will focus on specialized testing and packaging, leveraging Presto’s extensive mixed signal, radio frequency (RF) and analog test expertise to deliver system-level differentiation in semiconductors for GF’s advanced process technologies. Presto’s services — including package development, test solutions implementation and production, qualification and supply chain management — allow customers to reduce development time and risks through customizing industry-standard capabilities, choosing from a number of design platforms at GF. For higher-volume applications, customers can work with Presto to develop and source fully custom system-on-chips (SoCs).

“We are very pleased to join GLOBALSOLUTIONS Ecosystem as a Worldwide ASIC Partner,” said Michel Villemain, CEO of Presto Engineering. “Together, we will provide an innovative, design-to-production implementation that will help customers deliver customized silicon solutions that satisfy increasing market needs for high performance and low power technologies. We believe that GF customers will benefit from our expertise in the test and development of solutions for IoT, analog, mixed signal, RF and secured applications.”

“Presto is a recognized expert in the industrialisation of ASIC solutions throughout the world,” said Jai Durgam, vice president of design enablement at GF. “Together, our customers will benefit from the combination of Presto’s test expertise and in-house resources and our proven silicon process technologies to enable a new level of user experience for next-generation chip designs for Internet of Things (IoT) and automotive applications.”

Martin Kingdon, Presto’s VP of Sales, added, “We are able to provide significant added value to our customers, not only through handling the technical support and sourcing of the wafers, but also by providing an end-to-end solution including testing, packaging and through to the logistics of warehousing and shipping the final parts. There are so many stages in the complex semiconductor supply chain that it is easy for a newcomer to miss vital steps, which can delay a product timeline and add to the costs. Our experience of doing this whole process so many times means that we know exactly how do the whole process efficiently and cost effectively.”

Launched more than five years, GF’s GLOBALSOLUTIONS provides chip designers with experienced design enablement and turnkey services from chip design, methodology, test and packaging that enable customers to bring today’s complex integrated circuits to market. The ecosystem combines the company’s internal resources with a broad spectrum of partners to efficiently enable the fastest time-to-volume for foundry customers.