Category Archives: Device Architecture

SEMI this week announced that Toshio Maruyama has been selected as the 2017 recipient of the SEMI Sales and Marketing Excellence Award, inspired by Bob Graham. He will be honored for outstanding achievement in semiconductor equipment and materials marketing during ceremonies at SEMICON Japan on December 14 in Tokyo.

Toshio Maruyama

Toshio Maruyama, senior executive advisor at Advantest, was selected to receive the 20th SEMI Sales and Marketing Excellence Award for his contributions and leadership in pioneering the marketing of reliability in semiconductor Automated Test Equipment (ATE), as a key product advantage. Maruyama faced entrenched highly regarded competition. However, he relentlessly pursued and marketed a more reliable (higher yield) ATE system.  This drove SEMI members to improve reliability, which has been crucial to the growth of the industry. By making ATE reliability a differentiator, he set a precedent. His contribution has benefited the semiconductor industry as a whole.

SEMI also recognizes Maruyama for the value of his long service in industry organizations such as IEEE, SEAJ and SEMI, in addition to his long-held goal to promote harmony in the semiconductor industry so customers and suppliers could focus on advancing technology without global trade and political disruption. Maruyama served on the SEMI Board of Directors from 2008 to 2016.

“Maruyama is recognized both for his innovative marketing leadership and his steadfast commitment to guiding industry associations. Today, SEMI and its membership recognize Maruyama-san for his contributions to the success of our industry,” said Denny McGuirk, president and CEO of SEMI.

The SEMI Sales and Marketing Excellence Award was inspired by the late Bob Graham, the distinguished semiconductor industry leader who was part of the founding team of Intel and who helped establish industry-leading companies such as Applied Materials and Novellus Systems. The Award was established to honor individuals for the creation and/or implementation of marketing programs that enhance customer satisfaction and further the growth of the semiconductor equipment and materials industry.

Eligible candidates are nominated by their industry peers and are selected after due diligence by an award committee. Previous recipients of this SEMI award include: Jim Bowen (2016), Terry (Tetsuro) Higashi (2015), Winfried Kaiser (2014), Joung Cho (JC) Kim (2013), G. Dan Hutcheson (2012), Franz Janker (2011), Martin van den Brink (2010), Peter Hanley (2009), Richard Hong (2008), Richard E. Dyck (2007), Aubrey (Bill) C. Tobey (2006), Archie Hwang (2005), Edward Braun (2004), Shigeru (Steve) Nakayama (2003), Jerry Hutcheson and Ed Segal (2002), Jim Healy and Barry Rapozo (2001), and Art Zafiropoulo (2000).

SEMI today announced the lineup for six forums at SEMICON China and FPD China held at the Shanghai New International Expo Centre on March 14-16, 2017. SEMICON China is the largest and most important gathering of the semiconductor supply chain in China.

SEMICON China will feature six forums, including a new forum:

  • NEW: Automotive Forum: From self-parking to anticipatory braking, semiconductors are critical for cars’ safety, communication, navigation, and entertainment. Increasingly adoption of ADAS applications and other driver assistance technologies will be discussed.
  • China IC Industry Forum: A four-day forum that includes: China Semiconductor Technology International Conference (CSTIC, March 12-13); China Memory Strategic Forum; Building China’s IC Ecosystem: Advanced Manufacturing, Assembly & Test (morning) and Equipment and Materials (afternoon).
  • Power and Compound Semiconductor Forum’s four sessions, including: LED & Optoelectronics, Wide Band Gap (WBG) Power Electronics, Compound Semiconductor in Communications, and Emerging Power Device Technology.
  • Tech Investment Forum: An international platform to explore investment, M&A, and China opportunities. Speakers include executives from: China’s National IC Fund and municipal IC funds, and the global leading investment institutions.
  • Emerging Display Forum: Co-organized by SEMI and SID and concurrent with FPD China 2017, the forum is an exchange of knowledge on emerging display technologies and future development of the display, including: Flexible Displays, Evolving Equipment and Materials, and OLED and “MicroLED.”
  • IoT Forum: MSIG Conference ─ Creating and Capturing Value in the MEMS and Sensors Ecosystem (Kerry Hotel Pudong, Shanghai): Presented by SEMI’s MEMS & Sensors Industry Group (MSIG), speakers will highlight areas of opportunity for products “on the cusp” of commercialization. The conference will also address the convergence of MEMS/sensors and semiconductors.

Further information on sessions and events at SEMICON and FPD China 2017, please visit www.semiconchina.org/en/54.

SEMICON China also features six exhibition floor theme pavilions: IC Manufacturing, LED and Sapphire, Semiconductor Materials, MEMS, Touch (Panel Display), and OLED.

Register now for SEMICON China 2017 (www.semiconchina.org/en).

Today, SEMI updated the World Fab Forecast report revealing that 62 new Front End facilities are expected to begin operation between 2017 and 2020. The report has been the industry’s trusted data source for 24 years ─ observing and analyzing spending, capacity, and technology changes for all front-end facilities worldwide.

The 62 facilities and lines range from R&D to high-volume fabs.  Most of the newly operating facilities will be volume fabs; only seven are R&Ds or Pilot facilities.

Between 2017 and 2020, 26 facilities and lines begin operation in China, about 42 percent of the worldwide total currently tracked by SEMI.  The Americas region follows with 10 facilities, and Taiwan with 9 facilities.

Fab-Dec-2016

By product type, 32 percent are foundries, 21 percent are Memory, 11 percent LED, then Power, MEMS, Logic, Analog, and Opto, in decreasing order.

Between 2017 and 2020, the World Fab Forecast indicates that five facilities are unconfirmed, 10 are planned, 11 are announced, 26 are in construction and 10 are equipping. These numbers include facilities and lines of all probabilities, including unconfirmed projects and projects which have been announced, but may have a low probability of completion.

The projects under construction, or soon to be under construction, will be key drivers in equipment spending for this industry over the next several years — with China expected to be the key spending market.

SEMI’s World Fab Forecast provides detailed information about each of these fab projects, such as milestone dates, spending, technology node, products, and capacity information. Since the last publication in August 2016, the research team has made 249 changes on 222 facilities/lines. The report, in Excel format, tracks spending and capacities for over 1,100 facilities, using a bottoms-up approach methodology, and provides high-level summaries and graphs, with in-depth analyses of capital expenditures, capacities, technology and products by fab. The SEMI World Fab Forecast and its related Fab Database reports track any equipment needed to ramp fabs, upgrade technology nodes, and expand or change wafer size, including new equipment, used equipment, or in-house equipment, while the SEMI Worldwide Semiconductor Equipment Market Subscription (WWSEMS) data tracks only new equipment for fabs and test and assembly and packaging houses; also check out the Opto/LED Fab Forecast. Learn more about the SEMI fab databases at: www.semi.org/en/MarketInfo/FabDatabase and www.youtube.com/user/SEMImktstats.

SiFive, the first fabless provider of customized, open-source enabled RISC-V semiconductors, has been named “Startup of the Year” at the UBM Annual Creativity in Electronics (ACE) Awards held in conjunction with the Embedded Systems Conference Silicon Valley in San Jose.

The ACE Awards showcase the best of the best in today’s electronics industry. The “Startup of the Year” category recognizes companies less than three years old with working prototypes or proof of concepts of innovative new electronics technologies. The award was judged by a panel comprising UBM editors and dignitaries from the electronics industry.

“This award caps a banner year for SiFive, one in which we not only brought to market the first ever commercial open-source RISC-V-based silicon but also sold out of our development kits in less than a week,” said Krste Asanovic, co-founder and chief architect, SiFive. “The momentum and excitement around RISC-V – and SiFive – was palpable during ESC, and we can’t wait to see what’s in store for 2017. We are proud to receive this recognition of the team’s efforts, and humbled to join the ranks of the other innovative companies who have received this distinction in the past.”

“The innovation and thought leadership introduced by this year’s ACE Awards finalists and winners is true a testament to their hard work and dedication to their craft,” said Nina Brown, VP Events, UBM Americas. “We’d like to thank each of this year’s participants for their incredible work in the electronics field and celebrate their accomplishments as they help to further the industry in new and exciting ways.”

SEMI, the global industry association representing more than 2,000 companies in the electronics manufacturing supply chain, today reported that worldwide sales of new semiconductor manufacturing equipment are projected to increase 8.7 percent to $39.7 billion in 2016, according to the SEMI Year-end Forecast, released today at the annual SEMICON Japan exposition.  In 2017, another 9.3 percent growth is expected, resulting in a global semiconductor equipment market totaling $43.4 billion.

The SEMI Year-end Forecast predicts that wafer processing equipment, the largest product segment by dollar value, is anticipated to increase 8.2 percent in 2016 to total $31.2 billion. The assembly and packaging equipment segment is projected to grow by 14.6 percent to $2.9 billion in 2016 while semiconductor test equipment is forecast to increase by 16.0 percent, to a total of $3.9 billion this year.

For 2016, Taiwan and South Korea are projected to remain the largest spending regions, with China joining the top three for the first time. Rest of World (essentially Southeast Asia), will lead in growth with 87.7 percent, followed by China at 36.6 percent and Taiwan at 16.8 percent.

SEMI forecasts that in 2017, equipment sales in Europe will climb the most, 51.7 percent, to a total of $2.8 billion, following a 10.0 percent contraction in 2016. In 2017, Taiwan, Korea and China are forecast to remain the top three markets, with Taiwan maintaining the top spot even with a 9.2 percent decline to total $10.2 billion. Equipment sales to Korea are forecast at $9.7 billion, while equipment sales to China are expected to reach $7.0 billion.

The following results are given in terms of market size in billions of U.S. dollars:

2016-year-end

SEMICON Japan 2016, the largest and most influential event for the electronics manufacturing supply chain in Japan, opens tomorrow at Tokyo Big Sight. The exposition and conference offers the latest in technology and innovations for the electronics industry, including emerging opportunities in the Internet of Things (IoT). This year is the 40th anniversary of SEMICON Japan (December 14-16) and registration is now open for both the exhibition and conference programs.

SEMICON Japan 2016 connects the players and companies across the electronics supply chain, and in a newly expanded “show-within-a-show”, to the World of IoT. Japan is uniquely positioned for the IoT revolution with its large 200mm fab capacity, diverse IC product mix and leadership in markets such as MCUs, automotive, power devices, MEMS, sensors and LEDs.

The SuperTHEATER at SEMICON Japan offers nine forums in three days:

  • Opening “Into the Future” Keynotes, with Dario Gil, IBM Research, “The Cognitive Era and the New Frontiers of Information Technology” and Yoichi Ochiai, University of Tsukuba, “The Age of Enchantment”
  • Semiconductor Executive Forum, “The Creation of New Business Opportunities,” with executives from Murata Manufacturing, Toshiba, and TSMC
  • SEMI Market Forum, “The Electronics Manufacturing Supply Chain,” with  presenters from Edwards Japan, IHS Markit, VLSI Research, and SEMI
  • Autonomous and Connected Car Forum, “Automated Driving and Safety Control,” with Advantest, Honda, NVIDIA, and Renesas Electronics
  • Industrial IoT Forum, “Competition in Manufacturing Industry Digitizes,” with speakers from FANUC, GE International, and Siemens Japan
  • IoT Innovation Forum, “Semiconductor Devices for IoT,” with Analog Devices, Infineon Technologies, and ASE Group Kaohsiung
  • Manufacturing Innovation Forum, “Breakthrough Technologies for the Future,” with Canon, Lam Research, Tokyo Electron, and VAT Group
  • Technology Trends Forum, “The Tokyo 2020 Olympics: Innovation for All,” with representatives from the Japanese Cabinet, Japan National Institute of Public Health, and Panasonic
  • U.S. Commercial Service IT Forum, “Cyber Security for the Manufacturing Industry,” with Cisco Systems, Darktrace Japan, Hitachi America, McAfee (Intel Security Group), and Palo Alto Networks

In addition, theme pavilions ─ including Sustainable Manufacturing Pavilion, providing solutions focused on sustainability for 200mm technologies, and the Manufacturing Innovation Pavilion, with exhibits on innovations for developing higher performing, faster and lower-cost semiconductor devices ─ are in East  Hall 1.

Showcasing start-up pitch presentations, exhibition booths, and meet-ups, 33 early-stage companies will convene at INNOVATION VILLAGE to connect with investors and prospective technology partners.

Register now for SEMICON Japan. For a detailed agenda, please see the “SEMICON Japan Schedule-at-a-Glance.”

The Global Semiconductor Alliance (GSA) is proud to announce the award recipients honored at the 2016 GSA Awards Dinner Celebration that took place in Santa Clara, California. Over the past 22 years the awards program has recognized the achievements of semiconductor companies in several categories ranging from outstanding leadership to financial accomplishments, as well as overall respect within the industry.

The GSA’s most prestigious award, the Dr. Morris Chang Exemplary Leadership Award, was presented to Mr. Lip-Bu Tan, President and CEO of Cadence Design Systems, Inc. and Founder and Chairman of Walden International.

GSA members identified the Most Respected Public Semiconductor Company Award winners by casting ballots for the industry’s most respected companies judging by their products, vision and future opportunities. Winners included the “Most Respected Emerging Public Semiconductor Company Achieving $100 Million to $500 Million in Annual Sales Award” presented to Nordic Semiconductor; “Most Respected Public Semiconductor Company Achieving $500 Million to $1 Billion in Annual Sales Award” awarded to Silicon Labs; “Most Respected Public Semiconductor Company Achieving $1 Billion to $5 Billion in Annual Sales Award” awarded to Analog Devices, Inc.; and “Most Respected Public Semiconductor Company Achieving Greater than $5 Billion in Annual Sales Award” received by NVIDIA Corporation.

The “Most Respected Private Company Award” was voted on by GSA membership and presented to Quantenna Communications, Inc. Other winners include “Best Financially Managed Company Achieving up to $1 Billion in Annual Sales Award” presented to Silicon Motion Technology Corporation (Silicon Motion, Inc.) and “Best Financially Managed Semiconductor Company Achieving Greater than $1 Billion in Annual Sales Award” earned by NVIDIA Corporation. Both companies were recognized based on their continued demonstration of the best overall financial performance according to specific financial metrics.

GSA’s Private Awards Committee, comprised of venture capitalists and select industry entrepreneurs, chose the “Start-Up to Watch Award” winner by identifying a company that has demonstrated the potential to positively change its market or the industry through the innovative use of semiconductor technology or a new application for semiconductor technology. This year’s winner is Innovium, Inc.

As a global organization, the GSA recognizes outstanding companies headquartered in the Europe/Middle East/Africa and Asia-Pacific regions. Chosen by the leadership council of each respective region, award winners are semiconductor companies that demonstrate the most strength when measuring products, vision, leadership and success in the marketplace. The recipient of this year’s “Outstanding Asia-Pacific Semiconductor Company Award” is MediaTek Inc. and the recipient of this year’s “Outstanding EMEA Semiconductor Company Award” is Movidius.

Semiconductor financial analyst Quinn Bolton from Needham & Company presented this year’s “Favorite Analyst Semiconductor Company Award” to Microsemi Corporation. The criteria used in selecting this year’s winner included historical, as well as projected data, such as stock price, earnings per share, revenue forecasts and product performance.

Mentor Graphics Corporation (NASDAQ:  MENT) today announced the winners of its second annual Don Miller Award for Excellence in System-Level Thermo-Fluid Design. The award is named after Don Miller, former research director for British Hydromechanics Research (now BHR Group) in the U.K., who served as one of the judges. Miller is also the author of Internal Flow Systems, the book which served as the foundation for Mentor Graphics FloMASTER software technology. Award submissions were received from around the world, including entrants from India, China, and Brazil.

The 2016 Don Miller Award winners were selected based on their demonstration of excellence for a range of thermo-fluid design applications, including automotive engine cooling, two-phased refrigeration processes, and rail transport passenger comfort. A team comprising Soujanya Chintalapudi, Sundaram Veeraraghavan, and Sampath Sathish Kumar from Chrysler India Automotive, Pvt. Ltd. received the first place award for their design featured in their SAE paper, Simulation of Split Engine Cooling System. Their design used a FloMASTER simulation model for a new method of developing a split engine cooling system.

Two runners up were selected by the panel of judges. Thiago Rubens Vieria Ebel from the Federal University of Santa Catarina, Department of Mechanical Engineering in Brazil received his award fora unique application of the FloMASTER tool used to understand the water hammer effects that can occur in a novel refrigeration system. The application was described in his thesis, Viability Analysis and Computational Simulation of a Hydraulic Circuit for a Magnetic Refrigeration System.

The second joint runner-up award went to the team of Yifei Zhu, Yugong Xu, and Xiangdong Chen from the School of Mechanical Electronic and Control Engineering, Beijing Jiao Tong University in Beijing, China. They investigated the interaction between the external environment and the internal air flow through the ventilation of a high-speed train during operation. They described it in their paper, Study On the One-Dimensional Carriage and Ventilation System of High-Speed Train,

“We congratulate this year’s winners of our annual Don Miller Award for excellence in thermo-fluid design applications, and we are impressed by the broad range of submissions from our FloMASTER customers worldwide,” stated Roland Feldhinkel, general manager of Mentor Graphics Mechanical Analysis Division. “We are proud of the innovations made possible by the use of our technology, and we look forward to reviewing next year’s FloMASTER award submissions.”

The Semiconductor Industry Association (SIA), representing U.S. leadership in semiconductor manufacturing, design, and research, today announced worldwide sales of semiconductors reached $30.5 billion for the month of October 2016, an increase of 3.4 percent from last month’s total of $29.5 billion and 5.1 percent higher than the October 2015 total of $29.0 billion. All monthly sales numbers are compiled by the World Semiconductor Trade Statistics (WSTS) organization and represent a three-month moving average. Additionally, a new WSTS industry forecast projects roughly flat annual semiconductor sales in 2016, followed by slight market growth in 2017 and 2018.

“The global semiconductor market has rebounded in recent months, with October marking the largest year-to-year sales increase since March 2015,” said John Neuffer, president and CEO, Semiconductor Industry Association. “Sales increased compared to last month across all regional markets and nearly every major semiconductor product category. Meanwhile, the latest industry forecast has been revised upward and now calls for flat annual sales in 2016 and small increases in 2017 and 2018. All told, the industry is well-positioned for a strong close to 2016.

Regionally, year-to-year sales increased in China (14.0 percent), Japan (7.2 percent), Asia Pacific/All Other (1.9 percent), and the Americas (0.1 percent), but decreased in Europe (-3.0 percent). Compared with last month, sales were up across all regional markets: the Americas (6.5 percent), China (3.2 percent), Japan (3.0 percent), Europe (2.2 percent), and Asia Pacific/All Other (2.0 percent).

Additionally, SIA today endorsed the WSTS Autumn 2016 global semiconductor sales forecast, which projects the industry’s worldwide sales will be $335.0 billion in 2016, a 0.1 percent decrease from the 2015 sales total. WSTS projects a year-to-year increase in Japan (3.2 percent) and Asia Pacific (2.5 percent), with decreases expected in Europe (-4.9 percent) and the Americas (-6.5 percent). Among major semiconductor product categories, WSTS forecasts growth in 2016 for sensors (22.6 percent), discretes (4.2 percent), analog (4.8 percent) and MOS micro ICs (2.3 percent), which include microprocessors and microcontrollers.

Beyond 2016, the semiconductor market is expected to grow at a modest pace across all regions. WSTS forecasts 3.3 percent growth globally for 2017 ($346.1 billion in total sales) and 2.3 percent growth for 2018 ($354.0 billion). WSTS tabulates its semi-annual industry forecast by convening an extensive group of global semiconductor companies that provide accurate and timely indicators of semiconductor trends.

Leti, an institute of CEA Tech, has developed a new light-sensing device that integrates photodiodes below the buried oxide (BOX) of FDSOI transistors, making the transistors very sensitive to visible light.

Presented today during IEDM 2016 in the paper, “Extending the Functionality of FDSOI N- and P-FETs to Light Sensing,” the innovative device architecture uses capacitive coupling, which doesn’t necessarily require an electrical connection between the transistor and the diode. Leti said preliminary results show that sensitivity in the visible spectrum is already better than 0.1pW/µm2, with a wide dynamic range (seven orders of magnitude, i.e. similar to most advanced CMOS image sensors).

“FDSOI is a very versatile technology that already has been shown to be ‘faster, cooler, and simpler’ than FinFET, and which also may become smarter for More than Moore applications such as imaging,” said Lina Kadura, who presented the paper. “In fact, it may be smarter for sensing generally, because FDSOI transistors can be considered as very small footprint probes that are sensitive to the electric potential below the BOX.”

In addition to embedding more light-sensing functionality in circuits, potential future applications include leveraging pixel size in image sensors.

In other results of the study, Leti demonstrated for the first time that SRAM cell characteristics can be controlled by light illumination. Leti also said that with capacitive coupling, light absorption in the diode integrated below the BOX leads to light-induced voltage-threshold (VT) shift of the transistor above the BOX, which means that forward optical back-biasing and reverse optical back-biasing are possible, depending on the diode polarity. In addition, the response of the system is logarithmic with light illumination, similar to the response of human vision.