During the Tuesday morning sessions, ConFab attendees heard from speakers from Mentor Graphics, Intel, Infineon Technologies, Quantum Clean, and Edwards.
Dr. Wally Rhines of Mentor Graphics traced the longer term learning curve and the accelerated reduction in the cost per bit to provide a roadmap for new capabilities.
Gartner, Inc. said global smartphone sales will continue to slow and will no longer grow in double digits. Worldwide smartphone sales are expected to grow 7 percent in 2016 to reach 1.5 billion units. This is down from 14.4 percent growth in 2015. In 2020, smartphone sales are on pace to total 1.9 billion units.
“The smartphone market will no longer grow at the levels it has reached over the last seven years,” said Roberta Cozza, research director at Gartner. “Smartphone sales recorded their highest growth in 2010, reaching 73 percent.”
Slowing replacement of phones
Today, the smartphone market has reached 90 percent penetration in the mature markets of North America, Western Europe, Japan and Mature Asia/Pacific, slowing future growth. Furthermore, users in these regions are not replacing or upgrading their smartphone as often as in previous years.
“In the mature markets, premium phone users are extending life cycles to 2.5 years, which is not going to change drastically over the next five years,” said Ms. Cozza.
Communications service providers (CSPs) have moved away from subsidies providing a “free” smartphone every two years, which has led to more varied upgrade cycles. On the other hand, CSPs have introduced financing programs and vendors such as Apple now offer upgrade programs that provides users with new hardware after only 12 months. “These programs are not for everyone, as most users are happy to hold onto their phone for two years or longer than before. They do so especially as the technology updates have become incremental rather than exponential,” added Ms. Cozza.
In emerging markets, the average lifetime of premium phones is between 2.2 and 2.5 years, while basic phones have an average lifetime of three years and more. “2015 was the year when sales of smartphones overtook those of feature phones for the first time in Sub-Saharan Africa. This region represents an attractive market for vendors that can persuade users to migrate to their first smartphone,” said Ms. Cozza.
India is the main focus for growth opportunity
Since mature markets are saturated, the focus for many vendors is on India and China. “India has the highest growth potential,” said Annette Zimmermann, research director at Gartner. “Sales of feature phones totaled 167 million units in 2015, 61 percent of total mobile phone sales in India.”
Smartphones are expensive for users in India, but with the average selling prices (ASPs) of low-end models falling, Gartner estimates that 139 million smartphones will be sold in India in 2016, growing 29.5 percent year over year. ASPs of mobile phones in India remain under $70, and smartphones under $120 will continue to contribute around 50 percent of overall smartphone sales in 2016.
After recording growth of 16 percent in 2014, sales of smartphones in China were flat in 2015. “In this saturated yet highly competitive smartphone market, there is little growth expected in China in the next five years,” said Ms. Zimmermann. Sales of smartphones in China represented 95 percent of total mobile phone sales in 2015. Similar to India, falling ASPs for smartphones will make them more affordable for users.”
“The worldwide smartphone market remains complex and competitive for all mobile phone vendors, and we are not expecting the vendor landscape to get smaller,” said Ms. Zimmermann. “In such a fluid vendor landscape, some will exit the market while newcomers, including mobile manufacturers or internet service providers from China and India, could make their debut.”
Gartner forecasts that by 2018, at least one nontraditional phone maker will be among the top five smartphone brands in China. “Chinese internet companies are increasingly investing in mobile device hardware development, platforms and distribution as they aim to grow their user bases and increase user loyalty and engagement,” concluded Ms. Zimmermann.
Shipment area of wide color gamut (WCG) displays is expected to reach 32 million square meters in 2018, which represents 17 percent of total display shipment area, according to IHS Inc. (NYSE: IHS),the leading global source of critical information and insight. WCG displays include organic light-emitting diode (OLED) and quantum dot technologies.
“As competition in the display market intensifies, display and TV manufacturers are looking for new and emerging technologies to differentiate their offerings from competitors and to provide consumers with higher screen resolution,” said Richard Son, senior analyst, IHS Technology. “WCG technologies are therefore becoming more popular.”
There are two different kinds of quantum dot materials. One is cadmium-included quantum dot and the other is cadmium-free (Cd-free) quantum dot. Since cadmium is an unsafe and toxic element, the display industry developed Cd-free quantum dot technology to replace it. Cd-free quantum dot displays are forecast to comprise 80 percent of the total quantum dot display market in 2016. Quantum dot is just beginning to be used in TV displays to compete against OLED displays. Active-matrix-OLED (AMOLED), by comparison, is primarily used in smartphone displays.
OLED WCG display shipment area is forecast to reach 4.4 million square meters in 2016, growing to 9.2 million square meters in 2018. Quantum-dot WCG display shipment area will reach 13.4 million square meters in 2018, rising from 6.1 million square meters in 2016.
By Paula Doe, SEMI
The changing market for ICs means the end of business as usual for the greater semiconductor supply chain. Smarter use of data analytics looks like a key strategy to get new products more quickly into high yield production at improved margins.
Emerging IoT market drives change in manufacturing
The emerging IoT market for pervasive intelligence everywhere may be a volume driver for the industry, but it will also put tremendous pressure on prices that drive change in manufacturing. Pressure to keep ASPs of multichip connected devices below $1 to $5 for many IoT low-to-mid end applications, will drive more integration of the value chain, and more varied elements on the die. “The value chain must evolve to be more effective and efficient to meet the price and cost pressures for such IoT products and applications,” suggests Rajeev Rajan, VP of IoT, GLOBALFOUNDRIES, who will speak on the issue in a day-long forum on the future of smart manufacturing in the semiconductor supply chain at SEMICON West 2016 on July 14.
“It also means tighter and more complete integration of features on the die that enable differentiating capabilities at the semiconductor level, and also fewer, smaller devices that reduce the overall Bill of Materials (BOM), and result in more die per wafer.” He notes that at 22nm GLOBALFOUNDRIES is looking to enable an integrated connectivity solution instead of a separate die or external chip. Additional requirements for IoT are considerations for integrating security at the lower semiconductor/hardware layers, along with the typical higher layer middleware and software layers.
This drive for integration will also mean demand for new advanced packaging solutions that deliver smaller, thinner, and simpler form factors. The cost pressure also means than the next nodes will have to offer tangible power/performance/area/cost (PPAC) value, without being too disruptive a transition from the current reference flow. “Getting to volume yields faster will involve getting yield numbers earlier in the process, with increasing proof-points and planning iterations up front with customers, at times tied to specific use-cases and IoT market sub-segments,” he notes.
Rapid development of affordable data tools from other industries may help
Luckily, the wide deployment of affordable sensors and data analysis tools in other industries in other industries is developing solutions that may help the IC sector as well. “A key trend is the “democratization” – enabling users to do very meaningful learning on data, using statistical techniques, without requiring a Ph.D. in statistics or mathematics,” notes Bill Jacobs, director, Advanced Analytics Product Management, Microsoft Corporation, another speaker in the program. “Rapid growth of statistics-oriented languages like R across industries is making it easier for manufacturers and equipment suppliers to capture, visualize and learn from data, and then build those learnings into dashboards for rapid deployment, or build them directly into automated applications and in some cases, machines themselves.”
Intel has reported using commercially available systems such as Cloudera, Aquafold, and Revolution Analytics (now part of Microsoft) to combine, store, analyze and display results from a wide variety of structured and unstructured manufacturing data. The system has been put to work to determine ball grid placement accuracy from machine learning from automatic comparison of thousands of images to select the any that deviate from the known-good pattern, far more efficiently than human inspectors, and also to analyze tester parametrics to predict 90% of potential failures of the test interface unit before they happen.
“The IC industry may be ahead in the masses of data it gathers, but other industries are driving the methodology for easy management of the data,” he contends. “There’s a lot that can be leveraged from other industries to improve product quality, supply chain operations, and line up-time in the semiconductor industry.”
Demands for faster development of more complex devices require new approaches
As the cost of developing faster, smaller, lower power components gets ever higher, the dual sourcing strategies of automotive and other big IC users puts even more pressure on device makers to get the product right the first time. “There’s no longer time to learn with iterations to gradually improve the yield over time, now we need to figure out how to do this faster, as well as how to counter higher R&D costs on lower margins,” notes Sia Langrudi, Siemens VP Worldwide Strategy and Business Development, who will also speak in the program.
The first steps are to recognize the poor visibility and traceability from design to manufacturing, and to put organizational discipline into place to remove barriers between silos. Then a company needs good baseline data, to be able to see improvement when it happens. “It’s rather like being an alcoholic, the first step is to recognize you have a problem,” says Langrudi. “People tell me they already have a quality management system, but they don’t. They have lots of different information systems, and unless they are capturing the information all in one place, the opportunity to use it is not there.”
Other speakers discussing these issues in the Smart Manufacturing Forum at SEMICON West July 14 include Amkor SVP Package Products Robert Lanzone, Applied Materials VP New Markets & Services Chris Moran, Intel VP IoT/GM Industrial Anthony Neal Graves, NextNine US Sales Manager Don Harroll, Optimal+ VP WW Marketing David Park, Qualcomm SVP Engineering Michael Campbell, Rudolph Technologies VP/GM Software Thomas Sonderman, and Samsung Sr Director, Engineering Development, Austin, Ben Eynon.
The SEMI High Tech U learning program commenced April 20-22 in Hsinchu, Taiwan. Co-hosted by SEMI, KLA-Tencor Taiwan, and National Tsing Hua University, the three-day event offered 40 high school students an in-depth interactive learning experience in Science, Technology, Engineering, and Mathematics (STEM). Since SEMI High Tech U began in 2001, it has hosted 190 career exploration programs in eight different countries with over 6,000 high school students attending. The High Tech U programs have received a tremendous response globally.
This year, Taiwan was a host country for the first time. Terry Tsao, president of SEMI Taiwan, said, “The goal of High Tech U is to help young people gain knowledge and develop interests in STEM before choosing their future academic pursuit. Not only did Taiwanese high school students have the opportunity to attend this international STEM immersion program, but they also interacted with industry volunteers who serve in the high-tech industry.” Through group activities and firsthand experience, students thoroughly explored technology, adding to their ability to understand their future career directions.
“In the U.S., KLA-Tencor has collaborated with SEMI to hold seven SEMI HTU (High Tech U) programs. The first-ever Taiwan course design, instructor training, and the local operations planning, were tailored to inspire Taiwanese students to have better understanding of their direction and passion towards the semiconductor industry and their future goals,” said Tom Wang, CEO of KLA-Tencor Corporation Taiwan. Many employees at KLA-Tencor Taiwan volunteered to be course instructors and advisors to share their professional experience at SEMI High Tech U. In addition to providing guided tours at KLA-Tencor’s learning and training center cleanroom, the volunteers also held mock interviews with the students.
Nyan-Hwa Tai, dean of Academic Affairs at National Tsing Hua University, said “Courses at SEMI High Tech U are designed to gain practical experience through a non-conventional approach, which coincides with the values of innovative exploration at National Tsing Hua University.”
In three days, the students did practical exercises, learning individually and in groups. Tsao pointed out that “During the three-day program, students demonstrated a high level of enthusiasm, confidence, creativity, and team spirit, which is commendable. This event is just the beginning; SEMI will strive to expand the High Tech U program in Taiwan and allow more students to have the opportunity to participate.”
Learn more about the SEMI Foundation and High Tech U here: www.semi.org/en/semi-foundation. For more information about SEMI, visit www.semi.org and follow SEMI on LinkedIn and Twitter.
GC Asahi Glass (AGC) today announced it has developed a uniform amorphous thin film using a unique sputtering target material, and has started industrialization and commercial production of the material. Called C12A7 Electride, the material is essential to mass production of both the new thin film and large organic electroluminescent (EL) panels – also known as organic LEDs (OLEDs) – utilizing the film.
Asahi Glass Co. Electride Target
Currently, lithium fluoride (LiF) and alkali-doped organic materials are used as the electron injection material for an OLED display. However, these materials are unstable and are used in an unstable state, which contributes to manufacturing challenges associated with OLED. To address this problem, the AGC Group developed the more stable amorphous C12A7 Electride thin film.
C12A7 is a component of alumina cement. Its structure comprises interconnected “cages,” measuring about 0.4 nanometers (nm) in inner diameter, that contain oxygen ions. C12A7 Electride was developed at the Tokyo Institute of Technology by a research group under Professor Hideo Hosono, a material scientist known for the discovery of iron-based superconductors. All of the oxygen ions in the cages are replaced with electrons, enabling the material to conduct electric current like a metal, maintain chemical and thermal stability, and be easy to handle, while retaining the characteristic of readily emitting electrons.
The amorphous C12A7 Electride thin film, which can be formed through a sputtering process [1] at room temperature using the AGC Group-developed target material, has the following unique characteristics: it is transparent in the visible range; it can emit electrons as easily as metal lithium can; and it is chemically stable even in the atmosphere. By combining this with the TFT element, which uses a transparent amorphous oxide semiconductor (TAOS), the low-driving-voltage electron transport layer can be manufactured stably and with high production yields, even when used in an OLED display with an inverted structure.
Market research firm IDTechEx forecasts the market for OLED displays will reach nearly US$16 billion this year and will grow to US$57 billion in 2026. AGC Group’s Naomichi Miyakawa, Principal Manager, New Product R&D Center, Technology General Division, noted, “TAOS-TFT is suitable for driving a large OLED panel, but there was no available material that functions properly as both an electron injection layer and an electron transport layer – both of which are necessary to realize the inverted structure that makes the best of the panel’s performance. With the commercialization of our C12A7 Electride material, we expect to see substantially improved production of oxide TFT-driven OLED panels.”
AGC anticipates OLED panels integrating the new C12A7 Electride-based thin film to begin manufacture in the year of Tokyo Olympic Games, 2020 or earlier.
Despite unit-shipment declines, large thin-film transistor (TFT) liquid crystal display (LCD) shipment area is expected to grow 5 percent year over year, to reach 168 million square meters in 2016. Due to lower demand for both TV and IT panels, unit-shipment growth is expected to decline 5 percent to 656 million units in 2016, according to IHS Inc. (NYSE: IHS), a global source of critical information and insight. LG Display will lead large TFT LCD area shipment growth in 2016 with 25 percent market share, followed by Samsung Display with 20 percent share. IHS defines large displays are those that are nine inches and larger.
TV panel unit shipments are expected to fall nearly 7 percent in 2016, while shipment area is expected to grow 7 percent, as panel makers respond to slowing demand and migrate production to larger displays, according to the latest IHS Large Area Display Market Tracker. Unit shipments of PC displays are also expected to fall 7 percent.
“Falling prices are causing panel makers to focus on the most profitable products, including larger displays and those employing newer display technologies,” said Yoonsung Chung, director of large area display research for IHS Technology. “From the panel maker’s perspective, area shipment is more important than unit shipments, so panel makers are accelerating the migration to larger TV panel sizes and higher resolutions.”
Display manufacturers are targeting a 24 percent year-over-year growth rate for 48-inch-and-larger panel sizes, which are expected to reach 93 million units in 2016. 4K LCD TV panels are expected to grow 73 percent in 2016, reaching 66 million units.
Chinese panel makers buck the tide
Because of ongoing production-capacity expansion, China is the only country expected to experience positive unit-shipment growth in 2016 in the large display segment. Chinese panel makers will enjoy 37 percent shipment-area growth and 12 percent unit-shipment growth in 2016, compared to the previous year. Area-shipment growth in South Korea will rise 2 percent, year over year.
“China’s power in the large TFT-LCD market is growing,” Chung said. “This trend could accelerate the shift to AMOLED by tier-one panel makers quicker than expected.”
Large AMOLED displays on the rise
TV panels will drive growth in large active-matrix light-emitting diode (AMOLED) area shipments, growing 124 percent year over year to reach one million square meters in 2016. In fact, TV is expected to comprise 92 percent of total large AMOLED panel shipments by area in 2016. However, unit-shipment growth is expected to decline slightly, due to slower demand from the tablet PC category. Large AMOLED unit shipments are forecast to fall 5 percent, year over year, to reach 3.7 million in 2016.
The IHS Large Area Display Market Tracker explores the entire range of large display panels shipped worldwide and regionally, including monthly and quarterly revenues and shipments by display area, application, size and aspect ratio for each supplier.
A method to produce significant amounts of semiconducting nanoparticles for light-emitting displays, sensors, solar panels and biomedical applications has gained momentum with a demonstration by researchers at the Department of Energy’s Oak Ridge National Laboratory.
While zinc sulfide nanoparticles – a type of quantum dot that is a semiconductor – have many potential applications, high cost and limited availability have been obstacles to their widespread use. That could change, however, because of a scalable ORNL technique outlined in a paper published in Applied Microbiology and Biotechnology.
Unlike conventional inorganic approaches that use expensive precursors, toxic chemicals, high temperatures and high pressures, a team led by ORNL’s Ji-Won Moon used bacteria fed by inexpensive sugar at a temperature of 150 degrees Fahrenheit in 25- and 250-gallon reactors. Ultimately, the team produced about three-fourths of a pound of zinc sulfide nanoparticles – without process optimization, leaving room for even higher yields.
The ORNL biomanufacturing technique is based on a platform technology that can also produce nanometer-size semiconducting materials as well as magnetic, photovoltaic, catalytic and phosphor materials. Unlike most biological synthesis technologies that occur inside the cell, ORNL’s biomanufactured quantum dot synthesis occurs outside of the cells. As a result, the nanomaterials are produced as loose particles that are easy to separate through simple washing and centrifuging.
The results are encouraging, according to Moon, who also noted that the ORNL approach reduces production costs by approximately 90 percent compared to other methods.
“Since biomanufacturing can control the quantum dot diameter, it is possible to produce a wide range of specifically tuned semiconducting nanomaterials, making them attractive for a variety of applications that include electronics, displays, solar cells, computer memory, energy storage, printed electronics and bio-imaging,” Moon said.
Successful biomanufacturing of light-emitting or semiconducting nanoparticles requires the ability to control material synthesis at the nanometer scale with sufficiently high reliability, reproducibility and yield to be cost effective. With the ORNL approach, Moon said that goal has been achieved.
Researchers envision their quantum dots being used initially in buffer layers of photovoltaic cells and other thin film-based devices that can benefit from their electro-optical properties as light-emitting materials.
Co-authors of the paper, titled “Manufacturing demonstration of microbially mediated zinc sulfide nanoparticles in pilot-plant scale reactors,” were ORNL’s Tommy Phelps, Curtis Fitzgerald Jr., Randall Lind, James Elkins, Gyoung Gug Jang, Pooran Joshi, Michelle Kidder, Beth Armstrong, Thomas Watkins, Ilia Ivanov and David Graham. Funding for this research was provided by DOE’s Advanced Manufacturing Office and Office of Science. The paper is available at http://link.springer.com/article/10.1007/s00253-016-7556-y
UT-Battelle manages ORNL for the DOE’s Office of Science. The Office of Science is the single largest supporter of basic research in the physical sciences in the United States, and is working to address some of the most pressing challenges of our time. For more information, please visit http://science.energy.gov/.
Kateeva today announced that it has closed its Series E funding round with $88 million in new financing.
The Silicon Valley technology leader disrupted the flat panel display industry when it launched a breakthrough equipment solution to mass-produce flexible Organic Light Emitting Diodes (OLEDs). Flexible OLED technology gives limitless stretch to new product design innovation by liberating panel manufacturers from the constraints of glass substrates. It enables ultra-thin, feather-light displays that are bendable, roll-able, and even fold-able. Kateeva’s solution, known as the YIELDjet™ platform, leverages inkjet printing with novel innovations to perform critical steps in the OLED manufacturing process. Today, YIELDjet tools are helping to accelerate the adoption of OLED technology — a trend that’s taking the global display industry to exciting new heights.
The new Kateeva investors are: BOE, Cybernaut Venture, GP Capital Shanghai, Redview Capital, and TCL Capital, all located in China. They join existing investors that include: Samsung Venture Investment Corporation (SVIC), Sigma Partners, Spark Capital, Madrone Capital Partners, DBL Partners, New Science Ventures, and VEECO Instruments, Inc.
The company has raised $200 million since it was founded in 2008.
New Board seats will be filled by an executive from BOE, Redview Capital, and TCL Capital respectively.
The funds will accelerate new product development. The money will also help Kateeva expand manufacturing capacity at its Silicon Valley headquarters, where production systems are being built. In addition, the funds will strengthen Kateeva’s customer satisfaction infrastructure in Asia, and support continued R&D.
The round closes as demand for flexible OLED displays soars. This year, the market for plastic and flexible OLED displays will reach $2.1 billion, says Guillaume Chansin, Ph.D., Senior Technology Analyst at research firm IDTechEx. By 2020, it will surpass $18 billion. While mobile phones and wearables are currently the two main applications, Chansin expects that the technology will be found in tablets and automotive in the coming years.
The market trajectory is due to the confluence of two trends: first, voracious demand for flexible devices made possible by the enabling advantages of OLED technology; and second, the introduction of manufacturing tools like Kateeva’s YIELDjet platform that provided a pathway to cost-effective mass-production of flexible OLEDs for the first time.
Kateeva Chairman and CEO Alain Harrus, Ph.D. noted how OLED technology first transformed the viewing experience by giving spectacular color quality and brightness to rigid displays on mobile phones. “Now, it’s giving extraordinary new shape, lightness and thinness to those products and others that have yet to be invented,” he said. “Kateeva started enabling this “freedom from glass” display innovation in 2008 when our founders began pioneering a superior mass-production equipment solution for OLEDs. Today, Kateeva tools are positioned in top OLED manufacturing fabs. Our investors were stalwart partners along the way. We’re grateful for their support, and we welcome our new investors.”
Flexible OLED is the first major application for Kateeva’s YIELDjet platform, according to President and Co-Founder Conor Madigan, Ph.D. “Next up is OLED TV,” he said. “Having mastered the technical challenges of mass-producing Thin Film Encapsulation (TFE) — the layer that gives thinness and flexibility to the OLED device, we’re now applying YIELDjet technology to help display manufacturers mass-produce the OLED RGB layer, which enables OLED TVs. The new funds will accelerate new product development, and support ongoing R&D.”
Kateeva executives will be present at Display Week 2016. The premier international symposium for the display industry will be held May 22-27 at the Moscone Convention Center in San Francisco, Calif. President and Co-Founder Conor Madigan, Ph.D. will present on Kateeva’s technology on Monday, May 23. Chairman and CEO Alain Harrus, Ph.D. will speak at the Investors Conference on Tuesday, May 24.
The CEA (Atomic Energy Commission) and Intel are boosting their collaboration through a new R & D agreement signed in Paris on Thursday 12 May. This collaboration, extended to several key areas in digital technology, will enable the two sides to develop a shared R&D program and jointly submit research and innovation projects on a European scale, particularly as regards High Performance Computing (HPC), as part of the Horizon 2020 programme.
The new CEA-Intel agreement involves several strategic research programmes with the teams of the CEA’s Leti Institute in Grenoble, including the Internet of Things, high-speed wireless communication, security technologies and 3D displays. It also means that the two companies will work together to jointly submit projects to Europe’s biggest innovation and research programme, Horizon 2020.
This agreement, concluded for a minimum of five years, concerns the current development of digital technologies and the Internet of Things (IoT), including:
After the signature of the agreement in Paris, the director of the CEA’s Leti Institute, Marie-Noelle Semeria, said, “The CEA and Intel have a long history of shared technological development in high-performance computing. This collaboration marks the recognition of the CEA-Leti as one of Europe’s most innovative players in the IoT and the basic technologies of Cloud computing and Big Data. It also increases the attractiveness of the Grenoble Valley in terms of microelectronics.”
According to vice president of the Data Center Group and general manager of the Enterprise and HPC Platform Group Raj Hazra, said, “This announcement expands upon our long standing high performance computing relationship with CEA to drive leading edge innovation in IoT, wireless, and security in the European community. We look forward to the important innovations and discoveries to come from this collaboration.”