Category Archives: Device Architecture

Each year, Solid State Technology turns to industry leaders to hear viewpoints on the technological and economic outlook for the upcoming year. Read through these expert opinions on what to expect in 2017.

Driving the industry forward with materials engineering

Raja_Prabu_fullPrabu Raja, vice president and general manager, Patterning and Packaging Group, Applied Materials, Inc.

Over the past few years, the industry has made remarkable progress in bringing 3D chip architectures to volume production. In 2017, we will continue to see exciting technology innovations for scaling 3D NAND devices to 64 layers, ramping the 10nm process node into volume manufacturing and increasing the adoption of highly integrated chip packages.

With the transition to the 3D and sub-10nm era, the semiconductor world is changing from lithography-based scaling to materials-enabled scaling. This shift requires multiple new materials and capabilities in selective processing.

The magnitude and pace of these changes are truly disruptive. For example, with 3D NAND materials innovations for hard mask deposition and hard mask etch are essential. The challenge is to build high aspect ratio vertical structures with uniform profiles from the top to the bottom as more layers are added. Selective removal processes can remove targeted materials in vertical and horizontal structures without damage or residue throughout the stack.

For logic/foundry, the introduction of the 10nm process node in volume manufacturing brings significant growth in the number of patterning steps. This trend will increase even more for 7nm and below designs. Patterning these advanced nodes requires innovative etch capabilities to deliver feature-scale uniformity with low line edge roughness. Selective processes and alternative manufacturing schemes will also be needed as the industry seeks solutions for layer-to-layer vertical alignment. We expect this to result in a two-fold increase in the number of materials to be deposited and removed.

Finally, the industry will continue to adopt new and improved packaging schemes for enabling increased device performance, lower power consumption and to deliver desired form factors. In 2016, we saw the volume adoption of Fan-Out packaging in mobile devices and this trend is expected to grow further in 2017. The high performance computing segment will pursue 2.5D interposer and/or 3D TSV packaging schemes for higher memory bandwidth, lower latency and better power efficiency.

Applied Materials is focused on delivering game-changing selective process technologies and materials innovations to help solve the industry’s toughest challenges.

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North America-based manufacturers of semiconductor equipment posted $1.99 billion in orders worldwide in December 2016 (three-month average basis) and a book-to-bill ratio of 1.06, according to the December Equipment Market Data Subscription (EMDS) Book-to-Bill Report published today by SEMI.  A book-to-bill of 1.06 means that $106 worth of orders were received for every $100 of product billed for the month.

SEMI reports that the three-month average of worldwide bookings in December 2016 was $1.99 billion. The bookings figure is 28.3 percent higher than the final November 2016 level of $1.55 billion, and is 47.8 percent higher than the December 2015 order level of $1.34 billion.

The three-month average of worldwide billings in December 2016 was $1.87 billion. The billings figure is 15.7 percent higher than the final November 2016 level of $1.61 billion, and is 38.2 percent higher than the December 2015 billings level of $1.35 billion.

“2016 ended the year with bookings levels approaching $2 billion,” said Denny McGuirk, president and CEO of SEMI. “This combined with a significant increase in billings puts 2016 equipment sales of North American manufacturers well above 2015 levels and well positioned for 2017.”

The SEMI book-to-bill is a ratio of three-month moving averages of worldwide bookings and billings for North American-based semiconductor equipment manufacturers. Billings and bookings figures are in millions of U.S. dollars.

 

Billings
(3-mo. avg)

Bookings
(3-mo. avg)

Book-to-Bill
July 2016

$1,707.9

$1,795.4

1.05
August 2016

$1,709.0

$1,753.4

1.03
September 2016

$1,493.3

$1,567.2

1.05
October 2016

$1,630.4

$1,488.4

0.91
November 2016 (final)

$1,613.3

$1,547.5

0.96
December 2016 (prelim)

$1,865.8

$1,985.4

1.06

Source: SEMI (www.semi.org), January 2017

SEMI will cease publishing the monthly North America Book-to-Bill report this year. The December 2016 report and press release is the last publication.  The decision to discontinue the Book-to-Bill report is based on changes in reporting by some participants where the reporting of orders/bookings into the data collection program is no longer considered a necessary component of their industry analysis.

SEMI will continue to publish a monthly billings report and issue a press release Worldwide Semiconductor Equipment Market Statistics (WWSEMS) report that SEMI prepares in collaboration with the Semiconductor Equipment Association of Japan (SEAJ). The WWSEMS report currently reports billings and bookings data by 24 equipment segments and by seven end market regions. Beginning with the January 2017 WWSEMS, bookings information will only be available for the back-end equipment segments of the industry.

SEMI continues to track semiconductor industry fab investments in detail on a company-by-company and fab-by-fab basis in its World Fab Forecast and SEMI FabView databases. These powerful tools provide access to spending forecasts, capacity ramp, technology transitions, and other information for over 1,000 fabs worldwide.  For an overview of available SEMI market data, please visit www.semi.org/en/MarketInfo.

Following economic leaders meeting in Switzerland for the World Economic Forum, electronics manufacturing executives will attend Europe’s SEMI Industry Strategy Symposium (ISS Europe) in Munich, Germany on 5-7 March. Hosted by SEMI Europe, the Symposium brings together leading analysts, researchers, economists, and technologists for critical insights on the forces shaping the electronics manufacturing supply chain. ISS Europe 2017 is the three-day flagship business event that discusses how to cope with the rapid changes and growing challenges of the digital revolution.

“ISS Europe is the leading European strategic platform where industry thought leaders across the electronics manufacturing value chain share the latest analysis and outlooks.  The conference covers global industry trends and challenges and opportunities from innovation, materials, design, and manufacturing – with a focus on end-applications in automotive, health care and smart manufacturing,” said Laith Altimime, president, SEMI Europe.

Twenty industry leaders will present insights into the current market developments in automotive, smart manufacturing, and health, including:

  • TSMC Europe: Maria Marced, president, High Performance Applications to Drive Innovation and Collaboration
  • Mentor Graphics: Wally Rhines, CEO, Semiconductor Consolidation versus Specialization: What’s the Driving Force for Mergers?
  • AUDI AG: Berthold Hellenthal, Robust Design / Komponentenerprobung Elektronik, Cross-Industry Collaboration Networks Accelerate Innovations
  • Dresden University Hospital: Christopher Piorkowski, professor at the Heart Center, Digital Health in Cardiovascular Medicine: Patients, Sensors, and Clinical Care
  • Bosch: Birte Lübbert, senior VP, Smart Manufacturing by Bosch in Reutlingen Plant 2
  • Imec: Ann Stegen, executive VP, Transformation into a 7nm Logic Node Solution with Fundamental Advantages

Join Europe’s strategic thinkers and business drivers at ISS Europe 2017 in Munich (Germany) from March 5-7, 2017!  Register here. For more information visit: www.semi.org/eu/iss-europe-2017

More than two dozen acquisition agreements were announced by semiconductor companies worldwide in 2016 with a combined value of $98.5 billion compared to the record-high $103.3 billion in purchases struck in 2015, when over 30 deals were reached, according to a summary and analysis in IC Insights’ new 2017 McClean Report.  The dollar value of merger and acquisition agreements in 2015 and 2016 were both about eight times greater than the $12.6 billion annual average of M&A announcements in the five previous years (2010-2014), says the new report, which becomes available in January 2017. Nearly half of the 15 largest semiconductor acquisitions in history were announced in the 2015 2016 period, according to a ranking of M&A transactions over $2 billion in the 2017 McClean Report (Figure 1). A total of 27 semiconductor acquisition agreements have had dollar values of $2 billion or more since 1999.

Figure 1

Figure 1

IC Insights’ ranking and acquisition data cover semiconductor suppliers, wafer foundries, and businesses licensing intellectual property (IP) for integrated circuit designs, but excludes transactions for fab equipment and material companies, chip packaging and testing operations, and design automation firms. Overall, seven of the industry’s $2 billion-plus semiconductor acquisitions occurred in 2015 and five took place in 2016, with three each being announced in 2014, 2011, and 2006, two in 2012, and one each in 2013, 2009, 2000, and 1999.

Semiconductor M&A greatly accelerated in 2015 and continued to be high in 2016 as companies turned to acquisitions to offset slow growth in major end-use applications (such as smartphones, personal computers, and tablets). In the last two years, acquisitions have been driven by companies aiming to expand into huge new markets, especially the Internet of Things, wearable electronics, and highly intelligent embedded systems, such as automated driver-assist features in cars and autonomous vehicles in the future. China’s goal of boosting its domestic semiconductor industry has added fuel to the M&A movement.

While Chinese moves to buy foreign semiconductor suppliers and assets grabbed a great deal of attention and scrutiny by governments wanting to protect national security and industries, U.S. businesses acquiring other companies, product lines, technologies, and assets accounted for 52% of the 2015-2016 M&A value, or about $104.5 billion (Figure 2). Asia-Pacific companies were second among those making semiconductor acquisitions with 23% of the $201.5 billion two-year total, or $46.4 billion. Within the Asia-Pacific region, China represented 4% of the total, or $8.3 billion.

Figure 2

Figure 2

Figure 2 also shows a breakdown the 2015-2016 acquisition agreements by semiconductor business types with the purchase of IDMs or parts of those companies being nearly 39% of the two-year total and takeovers of fabless chip suppliers, their product lines, and/or assets representing 45%. Acquisitions of semiconductor-design intellectual property suppliers and IP assets accounted for nearly 16% of the 2015-2016 M&A value while purchase agreements for wafer-foundry businesses and assets represented just 0.2% of the total.

The global market for power semiconductors used in cars and light passenger vehicles will grow by more in $3 billion USD in the next six years, according to new analysis released today by IHS Markit(Nasdaq: INFO).

In the report, entitled “Power Semiconductors in Automotive – 2017”, forecasts the total market for power semiconductors (discretes, power modules and power ICs) to increase from $5.5 billion in 2016 to more than $8.5 billion in 2022.  Revenue will grow at an annual rate of 7.5 percent from 2015 to 2022, the report predicts.

“Increasing electrification in vehicles generally – and in hybrid and electric vehicles specifically – is energizing the market for power semiconductors in vehicles”, said Richard Eden, senior analyst, power semiconductors for IHS Markit. “Staying connected via smartphones and tablets is the modern way of life and to this end, today’s car drivers are opting for Bluetooth, cellular technologies and other telematics functions. All these features require power semiconductors to distribute and control power through vehicles.”

Also contributing to the rise of power semiconductors, the report notes, is the automotive industry’s mission to offer self-driving, ‘green’ and connected cars in the next decade. According to IHS Markit, intermediate safety milestones such as automatic emergency braking (AEB) and platooning are necessary to realize a road system that will accommodate self-driving cars. Other factors in the trend toward more power semiconductors: the need for more fuel-efficient systems, a higher proportion of electric vehicles, and more electronic content per vehicle as required for improved vehicle emission levels.

Powertrain category to lead the way

In studying the automotive electronics market, IHS Markit categorizes five domains on a vehicle: Body and Convenience, Chassis and Safety, Infotainment, Powertrain and Advanced Driver Assistance Systems (ADAS). Of these, Powertrain accounted for 47 percent of the total market for automotive power semiconductors in 2015, the report indicated.

Anticipated growth in sales of hybrid and electric vehicles in the next few years will spur power semiconductor sales to climb by CAGR 9.6 percent from 2015 to 2022 across all vehicles, taking Powertrain’s market share up to 54 percent of the total market, according to the report.  Discrete IGBT power transistors account for most of Powertrain power semiconductor revenue, but increased integration of discretes into modules will cause IGBT power module sales to increase at a much faster rate.

According to the IHS Markit report, the Chassis and Safety category represents the second most-valuable automotive domain for power semiconductors, accounting for 24 percent of the total market in 2015. In contrast with Powertrain, the use of power semiconductors in Chassis and Safety will only grow with CAGR of 3.1 percent from 2015 to 2022, the report says. The biggest user of power devices in this domain are applications such as electric power steering, anti-lock braking system and electronic stability control, airbags and tire pressure monitoring, which are already relatively well-established in vehicles.

The domains of Body and Convenience and Infotainment only accounted for 14 percent and 11 percent of the total automotive power semiconductor market in 2015, respectively. Both categories are expected to grow with a CAGR of around 4 to 5 percent from 2015 to 2022, the report predicts. At present, the smallest domain is ADAS, with only 5 percent of the total market in 2015. However, ADAS is forecast to see the fastest growth of all of the five domains, growing with a CAGR of 16 percent from 2015 to 2022. ADAS will see a rapid increase in the number of sensors, cameras and interconnectivity systems in cars, and all will need power semiconductors in their power control circuitry.

A closer look at value

Discrete power semiconductors, the report points out, provide the highest average value per car. This is not surprising as they have the lowest average sales price and are used in even the simplest, cheapest automotive electronic systems like engine, transmission control units, electrified oil pumps and power systems.

Power ICs provide slightly less average value per car. They are more expensive and newer, so are more prevalent in high-end vehicles and more modern car designs, which contain more features, like ADAS, for example. Power modules have the smallest average value per car because their use is restricted to larger, high-end vehicles and to hybrid and electric vehicles only.

Research by scientists at Swansea University is helping to meet the challenge of incorporating nanoscale structures into future semiconductor devices that will create new technologies and impact on all aspects of everyday life.

Dr Alex Lord and Professor Steve Wilks from the Centre for Nanohealth led the collaborative research published in Nano Letters. The research team looked at ways to engineer electrical contact technology on minute scales with simple and effective modifications to nanowires that can be used to develop enhanced devices based on the nanomaterials. Well-defined electrical contacts are essential for any electrical circuit and electronic device because they control the flow of electricity that is fundamental to the operational capability.

Specialist research equipment and reseach images. Credit: Scienta Omicron

Specialist research equipment and reseach images. Credit: Scienta Omicron

Everyday materials that are being scaled down to the size of nanometres (one million times smaller than a millimetre on a standard ruler) by scientists on a global scale are seen as the future of electronic devices. The scientific and engineering advances are leading to new technologies such as energy producing clothing to power our personal gadgets and sensors to monitor our health and the surrounding environment.

Over the coming years this will make a massive contribution to the explosion that is the Internet of Things connecting everything from our homes to our cars into a web of communication. All of these new technologies require similar advances in electrical circuits and especially electrical contacts that allow the devices to work correctly with electricity.

Professor Steve Wilks said: “Nanotechnology has delivered new materials and new technologies and the applications of nanotechnology will continue to expand over the coming decades with much of its usefulness stemming from effects that occur at the atomic- or nano-scale. With the advent of nanotechnology, new technologies have emerged such as chemical and biological sensors, quantum computing, energy harvesting, lasers, and environmental and photon-detectors, but there is a pressing need to develop new electrical contact preparation techniques to ensure these devices become an everyday reality.”

“Traditional methods of engineering electrical contacts have been applied to nanomaterials but often neglect the nanoscale effects that nanoscientists have worked so hard to uncover. Currently, there isn’t a design toolbox to make electrical contacts of chosen properties to nanomaterials and in some respects the research is lagging behind our potential application of the enhanced materials.”

The Swansea research team1 used specialist experimental equipment and collaborated with Professor Quentin Ramasse of the SuperSTEM Laboratory, Science and Facilities Technology Council. The scientists were able to physically interact with the nanostructures and measure how the nanoscale modifications affected the electrical performance.2

Their experiments found for the first time, that simple changes to the catalyst edge can turn-on or turn-off the dominant electrical conduction and most importantly reveal a powerful technique that will allow nanoengineers to select the properties of manufacturable nanowire devices.

Dr Lord said: “The experiments had a simple premise but were challenging to optimise and allow atomic-scale imaging of the interfaces. However, it was essential to this study and will allow many more materials to be investigated in a similar way.”

“This research now gives us an understanding of these new effects and will allow engineers in the future to reliably produce electrical contacts to these nanomaterials which is essential for the materials to be used in the technologies of tomorrow.

“In the near future this work can help enhance current nanotechnology devices such as biosensors and also lead to new technologies such as Transient Electronics that are devices that diminish and vanish without a trace which is an essential property when they are applied as diagnostic tools inside the human body.”

Fire, rain, and M&A 


January 19, 2017

By SEMI staff

The expert panel, “The Future of M&A in the Semiconductor Industry,” was a hot topic at SEMI’s Industry Strategy Symposium (ISS) conference on January 11.  So hot, it seems, that midway through the panel discussion, a fire alarm triggered and the whole group stepped outside for a quick breather.  Fortunately, this came at a break in the almost nonstop rain – that felt as though the Ritz Carlton might wash off the bluffs of Half Moon Bay.

fire rain

The rain couldn’t put a damper on the mood, though.  Forecasters throughout the conference revised upwards their 2016 results and 2017 forecasts (http://www.semi.org/en/semi-iss-2017-uncovers-new-growth-forecast-upgrades-1) and Diane Bryant, EVP and GM of Intel’s Data Center Group sparked the audience with an amazing keynote that made clear this is the best time ever to be in the semiconductor manufacturing supply chain.

But, how that industry might look in the future was the business of the M&A panel moderated by Robert Maire of Semiconductor Advisors with experts:

  • Patrick Ho, senior research analyst, Semiconductor Capital Equipment at Stifel Nicolaus
  • John Ippolito, VP Corporate Development at MKS Instruments
  • Israel Niv, former CEO of DCG Systems
  • Tom St. Dennis, chairman of the Board of FormFactor.

Will the huge deals of 2015 and 2016 continue?

Setting up the panel, Maire observed that 2015 and 2016 were huge in transaction size (over $100 billion announced in 2015), but while the values of the deals have jumped, the number of deals has remained fairly consistent over the past several years. Also, China has more significantly moved into the M&A market in 2015, in the range $4 to $5 billion.

It appears that M&A will continue, but not at the same pace as 2015 and 2016 due to increasing political, regulatory, and industry pushback.  In the equipment space, while big deals such as Advantest and Verigy were possible in 2011, the current climate has seen big deals falter including Applied Materials and Tokyo Electron; Lam Research and KLA-Tencor; and Aixtron and Fujian Grand Chip.

However, Maire observed that the motivations for M&A continue; for instance, Intel needs to offset a declining PC market and ramp IoT, VR, and Cloud activity and will likely consider M&A as part of its approach.  Similarly, opportunities for equipment companies to increase scale and size exist for process control companies and in the back-end segment where further consolidation appears necessary.

China becomes a player

China’s ambitions in M&A may have been complicated by recent events, but with a $150 billion investment fund there are likely more opportunities ahead.  China has stated the intent to move from producing just 10 percent of its IC consumption to 70 percent in ten years and catching up technologically by 2030.  While some see concerns given China’s investment and later pricing collapses in FPD, PV, and LED, others see China’s efforts to increase its indigenous production of ICs as similar to what has happened as the industry spread from U.S. and Europe to Japan, Taiwan, and Korea.

The panel responded to questions from Maire, questions submitted from the audience, and live audience questions.  Ho noted that big deals in semiconductor equipment appear, for the time being, to be difficult or over.  However, there is still low-hanging fruit and smaller deals.  There is a need to focus on scale and size because customers (IC manufacturers) are bigger and fewer.  For example, Form Factor’s combination with Cascade brought size and scale and enabled Form Factor to be more competitive.

The future for semiconductor equipment consolidation

Several questions revolved around where M&A would happen in the semiconductor equipment space.  There was general consensus that M&A of any of the “big five” (not named, but likely ASML, Applied Materials, Lam Research, Tokyo Electron, and KLA-Tencor) were off the table in the short term due to both regulatory pressure and industry pushback given fears of overly strong supplier power.  Niv thought there were opportunities for consolidation in the metrology and process control space.  Ippolito thought there might be further consolidation opportunities in motion control.  St. Dennis thought there were opportunities throughout the whole supply chain.  He pointed out that the benefits of acquiring a good company were significant, including great talent (difficult and time consuming to develop organically), synergies in not just SG&A, but in technology and field organizations.

The role of private equity was raised.  Ippolito noted that the private market and private equity have roles to play in consolidation opportunities, noting the success of Atlas Copco with Edwards Vacuum and Oerlikon Leybold as an example.

Several questions focused on China.  Niv pointed out the industry needs to think about China similar to how they thought about Japan when Japan was emerging as an IC manufacturing power.  Partnering with Japanese companies was an effective strategy for many and brought long-term success in that market.  Ippolito thought that very large China deals might be off the table for a while, but smaller deals would likely go through.  He noted that $150 billion (the China investment fund) is a lot of money and that tends to find a way forward.

Size matters

The panel seemed to agree size matters.  Niv observed that deals have to be the right size to be digestible with a deal of 10 percent size ratios being easier than other ratios.  Niv noted that one cannot realistically aspire to be acquired by Applied Materials at a revenue of only $20 to $30 million.  For this size, he advised that you are better off getting there by first being an aggregator.  Ho expanded on this by noting that small cap equipment companies can’t attract the attention of the “big five.”  $200 million of revenue only gives the “big five” about a penny of accretion.  For MKS Instruments, the deal with Newport was positive because it added almost $1 in accretion and is an example of a better match in size.

It was a testament to the keen interest in the M&A panel that after the fire alarm evacuation, virtually everyone returned and the audience was nearly immediately again fully engaged in trying to understand what stamp M&A will next leave upon future of the industry.  If we learned anything in 2016, it is that surprises will happen (so it seems, fire alarms will ring when you least expect them).  And, predicting rain, like predicting which deals will go through in a fundamentally new geopolitical environment, will be a guessing game.  However, there’s no doubt that M&A will continue and the opportunities ahead of us will rewrite our industry map.

For information on SEMI, visit www.semi.org and follow SEMI on LinkedIn and Twitter. For the SEMI event calendar, visit www.semi.org/en/events.

This week, Future Market Insights (FMI) releases its latest report on the semiconductor assembly and testing services market. The global market for semiconductor assembly and testing services (SATS) will continue to be primarily driven by the surging demand for high-end packaging solutions. The global semiconductor assembly and testing services market will possibly reach a value of US$ 24.72 Bn by 2016 end. The market will gain continued traction communication vertical. Asia Pacific will remain the most attractive market for semiconductor assembly and testing services.

Increased demand for outsourced SATS or OSAT services will be a remarkable trend favoring the growth of the global SATS market. With the rapidly thriving consumer electronics industry, the demand for connectivity and mobility is also on the rise, which is foreseen to be an important booster to the demand for connected devices, eventually fostering the semiconductor assembly and testing services market. Rising adoption of multimedia technology devices is identified to be another factor bolstering the demand for SATS. A number of SATS providers offer value added services, such as in-house testing and high-end packaging, which will remain an important driver to the market growth. Several integrated design manufacturers are increasingly prioritising semiconductor assembly and testing services as a time-efficient alternative.

Moreover, rising demand for automotive safety systems is expected to be a strong factor providing impetus to the SATS market. Due to higher costs associated with larger wafer fabrication factory, manufacturers are largely inclined toward outsourcing semiconductor assembly and testing services to third party providers. Leading fabless companies will continue to outsource everything, including testing, assembly, and packaging of semiconductor. This will favour the market growth. Rising adoption of automotive electronics and promising emergence of next-generation electronic vehicles are likely to boost the market growth further.

However, high capital costs related to high-end packaging solution provision, volatility of prices in the market, and uncertainty in exchange rates will continue to pose a negative impact on the global SATS market growth.

By service, assembly and packaging segment will continue to be dominant over the testing segment, prominently driven by the rising demand for consumer electronics and advanced packaging solutions.

On the basis of packaging solution, the copper wire and gold wire bonding segment is expected to retain the leading segment position with over 53% market value share, accounting for the revenues of around US$ 13.24 Bn in 2016. However, the growth of this segment is likely to witness sluggish growth post-2016. The flip chip segment is foreseen to exhibit a robust growth rate, contributing around 18% share to the entire market revenues in 2016. This segment will witness an impressive Y-o-Y growth of 8.6% in 2017 over 2016.

Based on application, communication segment is projected to remain dominant, whereas consumer electronics application segment is likely to register a stellar growth rate in terms of Y-o-Y.

By regional analysis, the global semiconductor assembly and testing services market is segmented into four key markets viz. North America, Europe, Asia Pacific, and Middle East and Africa. APAC will remain the dominant market with over 84% market value share in 2016 but is anticipated to witness a consistent Y-o-Y decline post-2016. On the other side, North America is likely to see a consistent gain in the Y-o-Y growth post-2016. This region will account for over 31% share of the market in 2016, in terms of revenues.

Some of the key companies operating in the global marketplace for semiconductor assembly and testing services (SATS), include Amkor Technologies Inc., ASE Group, Silicon Precision Industries Co. Ltd., STATS ChipPAC Ltd. (JCET), Psi Technologies Inc. (IMI), Powertech Technology Inc., Global Foundries, CORWIL Technology corporation, and Chipbond Technology Corporation.

Long-term Outlook: By 2021 end, the global semiconductor assembly and testing services (SATS) market is expected to account for US$ 39.05 Bn in terms of revenues.

IBM (NYSE: IBM) this week announced new, all-flash storage solutions designed for midrange and large enterprises, where high availability, continuous up-time, and performance are critical. These are built to provide the speed and reliability needed for workloads ranging from enterprise resource planning (ERP) and financial transactions to cognitive applications like machine learning and natural language processing. The solutions announced today are designed to support cognitive workloads which clients can use to uncover trends and patterns that help improve decision-making, customer service and ROI.

IBM continues to push the boundaries in the design of flash solutions developed with the performance to manage the most demanding workloads such as “six nines availability,” ensuring continuous operations 99.9999 percent of the time. Through deep integration between IBM Storage and IBM z Systems, co-developed software that provides data protection, remote replication and optimization for midrange and large enterprises, is embedded in these new solutions. This advanced microcode is ideal for cognitive workloads on z Systems and Power System requiring the highest availability and system reliability possible.

“The DS8880 All-Flash family is targeted at users that have experienced poor storage performance due to latency, low server utilization, high energy consumption, low system availability and high operating costs. These same users have been listening, learning and understand the data value proposition of being a cognitive business,” said Ed Walsh, general manager, IBM Storage and Software Defined Infrastructure. “In the coming year we expect an awakening by companies to the opportunity that cognitive applications, and hybrid cloud enablement, bring them in a data driven marketplace.”

Today’s IBM is announcing a new family of DS8880 all-flash systems designed to meet a wide variety of business applications, workloads, and use cases where microsecond response times and uncompromised availability are sought. The family includes:

· Business Class Storage – the IBM DS8884F has been designed for traditional applications such as ERP, order processing, database transactions, customer relationship management and human resources information systems. It offers the lowest entry cost for midrange enterprises with 256 GB Cache (DRAM) and between 6.4-154 TB of Flash Capacity.

· Enterprise Class Storage – the IBM DS8886F has been engineered for high speed transactional operations like high-performance online transaction processing, high-speed commercial data processing, high-performance data warehouse and data mining and critical financial transaction systems. It provides users 2 TB Cache (DRAM) and between 6.4-614.4 TB of Flash Capacity.

· Analytic Class Storage – the IBM DS8888F is ideal for cognitive and real-time analytics and decision making including predictive analytics, real time optimization, machine learning and cognitive systems, natural language speech and video processing. To support this it delivers 2 TB Cache (DRAM) and between 6.4 TB-1.22 PB of Flash Capacity providing superior performance and capacity able to address the most demanding business workload requirements.

Working through a network of offices, supported by a team of over 850, the Health Insurance Institute of Slovenia (Zavod za zdravstveno zavarovanje Slovenije), provides health insurance to approximately two million customers. In order to successfully manage its new customer-facing applications (e.g. electronic ordering processing and electronic receipts) its storage system required additional capacity and performance. After completing research of solutions capable of managing these applications – which included both Hitachi and EMC – the organization deployed the IBM DS8886 along with IBM DB2 for z System/OS data server software to provide an integrated data backup and restore system.

“As long-time users of IBM storage infrastructure and mainframes, our upgrade to the IBM DS8000 with IBM business partner Comparex was an easy choice. Since then, its high performance and reliability have led us to continually deploy newer DS8000 models as new features and functions have provided us new opportunities,” said Bojan Fele, CIO of Health Insurance Institute of Slovenia. “Our DS8000 implementation has improved our reporting capabilities by reducing time to actionable insights. Furthermore, it has increased employee productivity, ensuring we can better serve our clients.”

According to Scott Sinclair, a senior analyst at ESG, the announcement by IBM on its family of new all-flash DS8880 solutions is very impressive in regards to performance gains and the move to offer flash across the portfolio a great step. By moving data to another path IBM is at the next level of innovation in order to take advantage of next generation technologies. Further to this, the classification of the new family of DS8880 into business, enterprise, and analytic solutions makes a lot of sense.

The new family of DS8880 all-flash data systems will be available worldwide on January 20, 2017 from IBM and through IBM Business Partners.

Semiconductors, which are the very basic components of electronic devices, have improved our lives in many ways. They can be found in lighting, displays, solar modules and microprocessors that are installed in almost all modern day devices, from mobile phones, washing machines, and cars, to the emerging Internet of Things. To innovate devices with better functionality and energy efficiency, researchers are constantly looking for better ways to make them, in particular from earth-abundant materials using eco-friendly processes. Plastic or organic electronics, which is made from organic carbon-based semiconductors, is one such group of technologies that can potentially provide flexible, light-weight, large-area and additively-manufactured devices, which are attractive for some types of applications.

To make high-performance devices however, good ohmic contacts with low electrical resistances are required to allow the maximum current to flow both ways between the electrode and the semiconductor layers. Recently, a team of scientists from the National University of Singapore (NUS) has successfully developed conducting polymer films that can provide unprecedented ohmic contacts to give superior performance in plastic electronics, including organic light-emitting diodes, solar cells and transistors. The research findings have been recently published in the journal Nature.

Dr. Png Rui-Qi (left), Mervin Ang (middle) and Cindy Tang (right) working on conducting polymers that can provide unprecedented ohmic contacts for better performance in a wide range of organic semiconductor devices. Credit: Seah Zong Long

Dr. Png Rui-Qi (left), Mervin Ang (middle) and Cindy Tang (right) working on conducting polymers that can provide unprecedented ohmic contacts for better performance in a wide range of organic semiconductor devices. Credit: Seah Zong Long

The key these researchers discovered is to be able to design polymer films with the desired extreme work functions needed to generally make ohmic contacts. Work function is the minimum amount of energy needed to liberate an electron from the film surface into vacuum. The researchers showed that work functions as high as 5.8 electron-volts and as low as 3.0 electron-volts can now be attained for films that can be processed from solutions at low cost.

“To design such materials, we developed the concept of doped conducting polymers with bonded ionic groups, in which the doped mobile charges – electrons and holes – cannot dissipate away because their counter-balancing ions are chemically bonded,” explained Dr Png Rui-Qi, a senior research fellow from the Department of Physics at the NUS Faculty of Science, who led the device research team. “As a result, these conducting polymers can remain stable despite their extreme work functions and provide the desired ohmic contacts.”

This breakthrough is the result of a collaboration with the materials chemistry team led by Associate Professor Chua Lay-Lay from the Department of Chemistry at the NUS Faculty of Science, the physics team led by Associate Professor Peter Ho from the Department of Physics from the same faculty, and scientists from Cambridge Display Technology Ltd, a subsidiary of Sumitomo Chemical Co., Ltd.

“The lack of a general approach to make ohmic contacts has been a key bottleneck in flexible electronics. Our work overcomes this challenge to open a path to better performance in a wide range of organic semiconductor devices,” explained Dr Png Rui-Qi. “We are particularly thrilled about this Singapore-led innovation,” she added.

Commenting on the significance of the work, Assoc Prof Chua said, “The close partnership of the chemists and physicists has made this innovation possible. We are now working with our industrial partner to further develop this technology.”