Category Archives: Displays

The capacitive touch controller IC market is predicted to reach about $2.8 billion in 2017, an increase of nearly 50 percent from $1.9 billion in 2013, according to a new report from IHS Technology.

The controller IC market used in capacitive touch panels is likely to grow at a compound annual growth rate (CAGR) of 10.6 percent from 2013 to 2017 as the application of touch functions are expanded to various products, the report says.

“The touch controller IC price is expected to drop as competition gets fierce in the market, but the capacitive touch controller IC market is likely to maintain its positive growth trend for now,” said Seung-kyu Richard Son, senior analyst at IHS Technology. “Touch solutions that can stimulate consumers’ emotions should emerge steadily in order for the market to continue to grow.”

The touch controller IC, a key component that determines the performance of touch panels, is a non-memory semiconductor that transforms analogue signals into digital signals. This occurs when a user touches the screen on a device.

Capacitive touch technology, the mainstream in today’s touch panel market, is leading the growth in the touch panel industry. Over the past eight years, it has steadily advanced in many areas, including structures, materials and processes.

The report noted that smartphones and tablet PCs have accounted for the majority of the capacitive touch-panel demand market. But towards the end of 2012, the application of touch panels have been expanded to other applications, including notebook PCs and monitors. Along with this, touch controller ICs have become more important.

Up until 2011, US companies — including Atmel, Synaptics, Cypress and Broadcom — had dominated the capacitive touch controller IC market. But as the demand for smartphones and tablet PCs soared, Asian companies, including Melfas from South Korea, and FocalTech, Goodix and Mstar from China and Taiwan, are actively entering the touch controller IC market with enhanced skills and price competitiveness, the report says.

More notably, touch controller IC companies from China and Taiwan are rapidly growing on account of their low-priced products as well as having better relations with local smartphone and tablet PC makers. Although there are clear technological gaps between leading Western companies and the Chinese-Taiwanese touch controller IC suppliers, the gap has narrowed as latecomers continue their investments in mergers and acquisitions and R&D.

“The growth in Chinese-Taiwanese companies has resulted in a fall in supply prices for touch controller ICs, which is having a positive impact on manufacturers,” Mr. Son said. However, an excessive drop in prices can lead to lower profits for some companies and, in the end, will curb new investments.”

These findings are available in the report, “Touch Controller IC Market & Development Trend Report,” from IHS Technology.

Touch_controller_IC_pic

Renesas Electronics America Inc., a supplier of advanced semiconductor solutions, today announced development of innovative new intellectual property (IP) that implements capacitive-touch sensing technology ideal for home appliances and healthcare equipment. The IP achieves high-touch sensitivity five times superior compared to that of Renesas’ R8C/3xT microcontrollers (MCUs), as well as high-noise immunity allowing the technology to pass strict noise tests. Furthermore, for the first time, Renesas IP supports the mutual-capacitance method which is more reliable and versatile than the conventional self-capacitance method.

In the human machine interface (HMI) field for electric and electronic equipment, touch-key manipulation interfaces are the subject of increasing attention. Capacitive-touch panels are being rapidly adopted because touch-key operation can easily improve reliability in product design and enhance the end-user experience. In fact, system manufacturers are now developing new touch panels with a curved surface, instead of the traditional planar surfaces that have been mainstream until now. Looking ahead, touch-panel technologies with even better sensitivity and noise resistance will become highly demanded for a wide range of applications.

Renesas helped to drive adoption of touch-key manipulation systems in October 2009 when it launched its R8C/3xT series of MCUs supporting capacitive-touch interfaces. Renesas expects strong growth in the market for touch-key systems and, by leveraging innovative technologies like its newest IP, the company intends to be a key player with technology and products supporting HMI applications.

A nanoparticle ink that can be used for printing electronics without high-temperature annealing presents a possible profitable approach for manufacturing flexible electronics.

Printing semiconductor devices are considered to provide low-cost high performance flexible electronics that outperform amorphous silicon thin film transistors currently limiting developments in display technology. However the nanoparticle inks developed so far have required annealing, which limits them to substrates that can withstand high temperatures, ruling out a lot of the flexible plastics that could otherwise be used. Researchers at the National Institute of Materials Science and Okayama University in Japan have now developed a nanoparticle ink that can be used with room-temperature printing procedures.

Developments in thin film transistors made from amorphous silicon have provided wider, thinner displays with higher resolution and lower energy consumption. However further progress in this field is now limited by the low response to applied electric fields, that is, the low field-effect mobility. Oxide semiconductors such as InGaZnO (IGZO) offer better performance characteristics but require complicated fabrication procedures.

Nanoparticle inks should allow simple low-cost manufacture but the nanoparticles usually used are surrounded in non-conductive ligands – molecules that are introduced during synthesis for stabilizing the particles. These ligands must be removed by annealing to make the ink conducting. Takeo Minari, Masayuki Kanehara and colleagues found a way around this difficulty by developing nanoparticles surrounded by planar aromatic molecules that allow charge transfer.

The gold nanoparticles had a resistivity of around 9 x 10-6 Ω cm – similar to pure gold. The researchers used the nanoparticle ink to print organic thin film transistors on a flexible polymer and a paper substrate at room temperature, producing devices with mobilities of 7.9 and 2.5 cm2 V-1 s-1 for polymer and paper respectively – figures comparable to IGZO devices.

As the researchers conclude in their report of the work, “This room temperature printing process is a promising method as a core technology for future semiconductor devices.”

By Jeff Dorsch

The worldwide semiconductor capital equipment market is forecast to increase 20.8 percent this year to $38.44 billion, compared with 2013’s $31.82 billion, and another 10.8 percent in 2015 to $42.6 billion, according to Semiconductor Equipment and Materials International.

Also on Monday, the Semiconductor Industry Association reported that global sales of semiconductors were $26.86 billion in May, an 8.8 percent increase from a year earlier and a 2 percent improvement from April of this year.

Jonathan Davis, SEMI’s global vice president of advocacy, said Monday that the semiconductor industry is seen growing 5 percent to 10 percent in 2014, and noted that all world regions posted growth in sales during May, a statistical factor not recorded since August 2010.

Discussing expenditures on capital equipment, Davis said, “The nature of the spending is changing.” The number of new wafer fabs has dwindled in recent years, and more spending is directed these days to upgrading existing fabs.

2015 promises to be the biggest year for semiconductor equipment spending since 2000, Davis said. While the equipment market is growing more than 20 percent this year, the semiconductor materials market will see more modest growth in 2014, at 6 percent, he added.

Karen Savala, the president of SEMI Americas, reviewed economic and technology trends in the equipment and materials business during Monday’s SEMI press conference. The industry has gone through “one of the largest consolidation periods in our history,” including the pending blockbuster merger between Applied Materials and Tokyo Electron Ltd. (TEL), she noted.

The longstanding economics of Moore’s Law is being challenged, she added. The Internet of Things is a tremendous opportunity for the chip-making business, yet it doesn’t involve leading-edge technology, Savala said. “Traditional node scaling seems to be slowing,” she observed. Scaling is apparently decelerating below the 32-nanometer process node, according to Savala, but it may be advanced with the introduction of new materials, new substrates, and 2.5D/3D packaging.

“The ecosystem is changing,” Savala said.

SEMI now forecasts that wafer processing equipment will grow 22.7 percent in 2014 to $31.12 billion, from $25.36 billion in 2013, and advance 11.9 percent more in 2015 to $34.81 billion. Test equipment is expected to see a 12.5 percent increase this year to $3.06 billion and pick up by 1.6 percent next year to $3.11 billion. Assembly and packaging equipment is forecast to reach $2.52 billion in 2014, an 8.6 percent improvement from last year, and growing 1.2% in 2015 to $2.55 billion. Other equipment categories will be up 22.5 percent this year to $1.74 billion and up 21.8 percent next year to $2.12 billion.

All global regions except one, the rest of the world, are forecast to post increased sales in 2014, according to SEMI. Taiwan will remain the largest region with $11.57 billion in equipment sales this year, up 11.57 percent from 2013, while higher growth rates will be seen in China, North America, South Korea, Japan, and Europe. All regions are expected to show growth in 2015, ranging from 1.6 percent in China up to 47.8 percent in Europe.

SEMI 2014 mid-year equipment forecast.

SEMI 2014 mid-year equipment forecast.

On Monday, Applied Materials announced two new systems, a Reflexion LK Prime CMP system and a Producer XP Precision CVD system, both aimed at complex devices with 3D architectures. The company has introduced six new products over the last three months, with a new VIISta ion implanter introduced in June, and an Endura Ventura PVD system, Endura Volta CVD Cobalt system and Vericell solar wafer inspection system introduced in May.

The transition from planar to 3D devices, such as finFETs and 3D NAND, creates a variety of new challenges for equipment and materials. CMP, for example, now directly determines gate dimensions. “In planar, it was basically about depth of focus, basically providing ability to build metal layers one on top of another,” explained Sid Huey. “Now, with 3D, CMP is at the gate. It’s really at the heart of the transistor and this controls the device performance. What this means is that the performance required now is really an order of magnitude more stringent than what it was in the past.” Huey, director, CMP product manager, CMP Division, Silicon Systems Group, Applied Materials.

In the past, advances in CMP were largely centered around new polishing pads and slurries (which provide the “mechanical” part of chemical-mechanical polishing) and low downforce polishing heads. Today, the focus is on multiple process steps which enables better process control. New device architectures can require additional polishing steps. Logic 3D FinFETs involve up to 10 more planarization steps; 3D NAND require up to 5 more.  The latter are especially long processes, making it harder to maintain a steady removal rate and achieve an ultra-uniform surface. Dividing them into several shorter steps yields superior results. The system controls FinFET gate height with nanometer-level uniformity for every die.

The new Reflexion features 14 processing stations for polishing and cleaning: six polishing stations and eight integrated cleaning stations. Some processes are done with the wafer held vertically. The system includes a pre-cleaning module to reduce defectivity, and real-time process control designed for the influx of new on-wafer materials. The increase in processing modules doubles wafer throughput for many applications, providing up to a 100 percent boost in productivity.

The 3D NAND industry inflection also requires enabling deposition technology for vertical gate formation and complex patterning applications. The Producer XP Precision CVD system supports the 3D NAND transition by delivering essential nanometer-level layer-to-layer film thickness control for excellent CD uniformity across the wafer. Key to this performance is the system’s capability to tune crucial parameters that include temperature, plasma, and gas flow. This engineering flexibility supports the alternate deposition of different high-quality, low-defect films.

The Producer CP Precision CVD system.

The Producer CP Precision CVD system.

Reflexion LK Prime CMP system

Reflexion LK Prime CMP system

Each year at SEMICON West, the largest and most influential microelectronics exposition in North America, the “Best of West” awards are presented by Solid State Technology and SEMI. The award was established to recognize contributors moving the industry forward with their technological developments in the microelectronics supply chain.

The 2014 Best of West Finalists are:

  • Microtronic: EAGLEview IV — EAGLEview IV is an automated macro defect wafer inspection system that provides industry leading throughput (3,000+ Wafers Per Day), defect detection accuracy, and wafer classification. EAGLEview IV resolves many of the problems of manual/micro wafer inspection by automating and standardizing wafer inspection. South Hall, Booth 729 (Category: Metrology and Test)
  • Nikon Corporation: NSR-S630D Immersion Scanner — The NSR-S630D ArF immersion scanner leverages the well-known Streamlign platform, incorporating further developments in stage, optics, and autofocus technology to deliver unprecedented mix-and-match overlay and focus control with sustained stability to enable the 10/7 nm node.  South Hall, Booth 1705 (Category: Wafer Processing Equipment)   
  • SPTS Technologies:  Rapier XE — Rapier XE is a new, 300mm, plasma etch module which can lower costs and increase yields for device manufacturers utilizing TSVs for 3D packaging.  Designed for via reveal applications, the new module offers blanket silicon etch rates typically 3-4x faster than competing systems. South Hall, Booth 1317 (Category: Wafer Processing Equipment)   

The Best of West Award winner will be announced during SEMICON West (www.semiconwest.org) on Wednesday, July 9, 2014.

By Jeff Dorsch

In wearable gadgets, flexible electronics may have met its dream application. And that’s no stretch of the imagination.

For example: The 711th Human Performance Wing of the U.S. Air Force is looking at sweat sensors that could be embedded in a printed electronic plaster and attached to the arms of pilots to monitor whether they need to drink more fluids or if taking amphetamines would be advised to maintain optimal alertness in flight.

IDTechEx has forecast that the worldwide market for flexible, printed, and organic electronics will increase from $16.04 billion last year to $76.79 billion in 2023. The overall market will continue to be dominated organic light-emitting diode displays this year and in 2015, the market research firm predicts. Conductive ink and photovoltaics represent large segments of the total market. “On the other hand, stretchable electronics, logic and memory, thin-film sensors are much smaller segments but with huge growth potential as they emerge from R&D,” IDTechEx states.

Printed and flexible sensors are a $6.3 billion market, according to IDTechEx, with much of that total representing biosensors – disposable blood-glucose test strips that diabetics use to check their blood-sugar levels.

Frost & Sullivan forecasts that the printed electronics market will enjoy a compound annual growth rate of 34 percent through 2021.

Semiconductor Equipment and Materials International has taken a large interest in flexible and printed electronics for several years, establishing the SEMI Plastic Electronics Special Interest Group. In cooperation with FlexTech Alliance, SEMI will present a SEMICON West workshop on Thursday, July 10, on “Flexible Hybrid Electronics for Wearable Applications – Challenges and Solutions,” commencing at 10 a.m. at the San Francisco Marriott Marquis Hotel.

SEMI also will stage the annual Plastic Electronics Conference and Exhibition on October 7-9 in Grenoble, France. The plastic electronics show will alternate between Grenoble and Dresden, Germany, in the years ahead.

Belgium-based imec has been working with thin-film materials in flexible electronics – not the generally inflexible silicon, but indium gallium zinc oxide (IGZO), according to Philip Pieters, imec’s business development director. It is a very thin, flexible, unbreakable material, and “almost invisible,” he says.

IGZO thin-film transistors were first developed more than a decade ago by the Tokyo Institute of Technology and the Japan Science and Technology Agency. The IGZO-TFT technology has been licensed to Samsung Electronics and Sharp Electronics.

“We could make microprocessors, AC/DC circuits, etc.,” with IGZO, Pieters says. “Our processes are compatible with large-format glass plates. It could be processed in a cost-effective way for large-scale manufacturing.” IGZO could prove to be cheaper than silicon-based electronics, he adds.

As a research and development organization, imec keeps its production of IGZO-based electronics on a small scale, but the process could be ported to large-scale plants “in the next year or so,” Pieters says.

Stretchable electronics that “could be put on skin” are one potential application in wearable devices, the imec executive adds.

Printed, flexible, and organic electronics are clearly a growing opportunity, one that is attracting an increasing number of manufacturers and suppliers.

IGZO

Berger Pierre-DamienBy Pierre-Damien Berger, VP Business Development & Communication; CEA-Leti

Whatever forecast one uses for the future of the Internet of Things in terms of connected objects or business opportunities, the IoT will be big. Citing industry sources during of “The Internet of Things: from sensors to zero power,” the recent LetiDays conference in Grenoble, France, speakers offered projections venturing up to 50 billion connected objects by 2020.

Jacques Husser, COO of SIGFOX, said the IoT is the next major technological revolution, and that connecting billions or trillions of devices and enabling them to communicate with each other and will require more than high bandwidth. While increasing bandwidth is a key focus for multi-media and voice data network operators, for IoT companies reducing energy consumption and costs are key to handling the continuous volume of small messages from all those things.

SIGFOX, whose network is dedicated to the IoT, provides power-efficient, two-way wireless connectivity for IoT and machine-to-machine communications. Husser said the company’s technology is compatible with existing chipsets from vendors such as Texas Instruments, STMicroelectronics, Silicon Labs, Atmel, NXP and Semtech. Husser said that while SIGFOX’s technology complements 2G, 3G and 4G systems, it does not require a SIM card. Devices’ IP addresses are established during manufacturing.

The company, which has networks operating or in rollout with partners in several countries and major cities, is enabling applications for building and vehicle security, indoor climate monitoring, pet tracking, smart-city apps for parking and lighting management, asset management including billboard monitoring, water utility metering, and health-care apps like fall detection, distress signaling and medicine dispensing. Many more are expected.

Leti’s RF design and antenna expertise were used to help connect SIGFOX’s cellular networks. In addition, Leti is working with other startups and SMEs to develop and connect smart functions in a variety of products that will use the IoT to communicate. Primo1D was spun out of Leti in 2013 to produce E-Thread®, an innovative microelectronic packaging technology that embeds LEDs, RFIDs or sensors in fabric and materials for integration in textiles and plastics using standard production tools.

Leti startup BeSpoon recently launched SpoonPhone, a smartphone equipped with the capability to locate tagged items within a few centimeters’ accuracy. The capability is enabled by an impulse radio ultra-wideband (IR-UWB) integrated circuit developed by Leti and BeSpoon. Leti and Cityzen Sciences, the award-winning designer and developer of smart-sensing products, have begun a project to take the company’s technology to the next level by integrating micro-sensors in textiles during the weaving stage.

Leti and CORIMA, a leading supplier of carbon-composite wheels and frames for track and road-racing cyclists, are developing an integrated sensor system to measure the power output of riders as they pedal.

Citing research by Morgan Stanley Research, Leti’s telecommunications department head Dominique Noguet noted that worldwide shipments of smartphones and tablets exceeded shipments of desktop and notebook PCs for the first time in 2011. This signaled that the web has gone mobile, a fact underscored by a Cisco forecast that M2M mobile data traffic will increase 24x from 24 petabytes per month in 2012 to 563 petabytes in 2017.

Noguet said the IoT growth will present scaling challenges and require new communication protocols for sporadic, asynchronous, decentralized, low-power traffic. In addition to harvesting, or scavenging, energy to assure continuous connectivity, there will be demand for technologies that enable spectrum scavenging in unlicensed spectra, for example, and that use new bands, such as millimeter wave, white spaces and even light.

Leti has numerous ways to support development of the IoT, ranging from embedding antennas in specific materials through characterization and design, to implementing full-blown custom radio technologies. The inclusion of UHF RFID tags for the tire industry was cited as a first example where read/write range performances were a challenge. Leti’s ultra-wideband localization technology is another example where competence in signal processing, real-time design, antenna technology and mixed RF/digital ASIC design was combined to provide a complete solution where no off-the-shelf approach was available.

Noguet also noted potential threats to IoT security, and cited Leti’s involvement in the Santander, Spain, smart city project, which includes experimental advanced research on IoT technologies. Leti and CEA-List were in charge of securing access to the SmartSantander infrastructure and communications over a wireless sensor network. This included ensuring the security of the transactions and protecting users’ privacy.

By David Holden

Cars that can get along without drivers are coming, down the road, but they are a small part of the changes that the global transportation industries will undertake as microelectronics and the Internet of Things prompt major changes in infrastructure and logistics, as well as all type of vehicles.

Speakers at the opening session of “The Internet of Things: from sensors to zero power,” a LetiDays conference in Grenoble, France, shared their near-term forecasts for transport and the multiple opportunities that will stem from these changes.

Vincent Roger, transport business development manager at CEA-Leti explained that Leti-designed autonomous sensors allow monitoring of wear and tear on roads and train tracks, which enables their owners to predict when maintenance will be required. An emerging, potentially disruptive result of the IoT and sensors that monitor activity is a pay-per-use business model, in which owners pay manufacturers for the actual use of equipment rather than purchasing it.

 

Even automakers may move toward a service-based business model, and away from just car manufacturing, said Matt Hatton, director at Machina Research.

 

Presenters agreed that privacy concerns, based on devices tracking movement and activity of consumers, may be a barrier to rapid adoption of IoT applications. But Gilles Le Calvez of Valeo said that as they increasingly understand the benefits of connectivity, consumers will accept it more. He also showed a video of a driverless Valeo automated vehicle equipped with sensors and other microelectronics that is able locate and pull into open parking spaces.

 

Roger explained a new Leti “morpho” technology, using piezoelectric elements, that can be used for IoT applications that provide structural-health monitoring (SHM) for railways, bridges and pipes or cables buried or hidden inside tunnels.

 

Leti’s MEMS-based SHM systems enable real-time and remote monitoring, including tracking the infrastructure response to storms and other events, and the changes over time. These SHM systems include sensors networks, embedded signal processing and optimization of power consumption.

Several speakers emphasized the importance of controlling power consumption of the billions of devices that are projected to be connected to the IoT in the next decade. Leti CEO Laurent Malier said the power, performance and cost advantages of Fully Depleted Silicon-on-Insulator (FD-SOI) devices are well suited to power IoT applications because of the technology’s high-performance and low power consumption features. Leti and STMicroelectronics recently demonstrated an ultra-wide-voltage range (UWVR) digital signal processor (DSP) that provides up to 50 percent lower power consumption than competing technologies.

David Holden is Cooperative Programs Manager at CEA-Leti

By Shannon Davis, Web Editor

The core element of the semiconductor industry’s roadmap has been scaling – but Gopal Rao believes that isn’t enough anymore.

“The roadmap has never taken into consideration what the consumers were asking for,” said Mr. Rao, on Wednesday’s closing session at The ConFab 2014.

The industry has enjoyed a stable, predictable industry for many years, as we made PCs and a lot of PCs. However, these are no longer the driving devices in the consumer market, and with different cost structures and more pressure to innovate than ever before, Mr. Rao stressed that the industry’s tendency to solely focus on scaling was no longer going to be enough to keep up with shifting consumer demands. Mr. Rao’s main charge: the industry needs to intercept consumer thought and demand and determine how it is going to impact the semiconductor industry and supply chain.

“We need to cater the roadmap to the technologies that are coming and the products that consumers want,” Mr. Rao said.

In order to adapt, Mr. Rao explained that it was imperative to integrate the entire supply chain into the roadmap if we really want to make significant strides in the manufacturability of these new products.

“We need to look at the roadmap as an ecosystem – not just materials, not just equipment, but the entire picture. We need to understand how to bring the supply chain into the picture,” Mr. Rao said.

To do this, Mr. Rao outlined the elements of effective problem solving and encouraged his audience to become masters of it. To be effective in the evolving technology landscape, Mr. Rao stressed the importance of understanding and analyzing every aspect of the supply chain, down to the smallest component, all of which contribute to defects and can no longer be ignored if quality is to be maintained.

“You need to understand to the smallest degree of your supply chain,” Mr. Rao charged ConFab’s attendees. “You need to analyze and trace the data. If you don’t do that, then the time to market and time to money are sacrificed.”

“We can’t follow Moore’s Law conveniently and forget about what’s two years down the road,” he concluded.

Gopal Rao presents at The ConFab 2014 on June 25, 2014.

Gopal Rao presents at The ConFab 2014 on June 25, 2014.