Category Archives: LED Packaging and Testing

Lumileds announced the appointment of Kevin Martin as Senior Vice President of Quality, effective March 1. Martin has over 30 years of experience in Quality, most recently serving as VP of Global Quality at Flextronics.

“We are thrilled to have Kevin join our organization to continue to strengthen how we deliver advanced lighting solutions at the highest quality level,” said Mark Adams, CEO of Lumileds.

During his time at Flextronics, Martin led the worldwide Quality team supporting global operations in North and South America, China, Europe and India. Prior to Flextronics, Kevin served as VP of Total Customer Satisfaction at Nissan Motor, where he was responsible for North and South America field quality and customer satisfaction for all Nissan and Infiniti vehicles. Prior to Nissan, Kevin was the General Manager of Customer Quality Engineering at Toyota. In addition to roles in Quality, Martin has held positions in production, manufacturing operations and engineering. Martin has a Bachelor’s Degree in Manufacturing Engineering from Western Carolina University.

“I am excited to join Lumileds and help further our commitment to quality across our growing customer base,” added Martin.

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 2018.

Enabling the AI Era with Materials Engineering

Screen Shot 2018-03-05 at 12.24.49 PMPrabu Raja, Senior Vice President, Semiconductor Products Group, Applied Materials

A broad set of emerging market trends such as IoT, Big Data, Industry 4.0, VR/AR/MR, and autonomous vehicles is accelerating the transformative era of Artificial Intelligence (AI). AI, when employed in the cloud and in the edge, will usher in the age of “Smart Everything” from automobiles, to planes, factories, buildings, and our homes, bringing fundamental changes to the way we live

Semiconductors and semiconductor processing technol- ogies will play a key enabling role in the AI revolution. The increasing need for greater computing perfor- mance to handle Deep Learning/Machine Learning workloads requires new processor architectures beyond traditional CPUs, such as GPUs, FPGAs and TPUs, along with new packaging solutions that employ high-density DRAM for higher memory bandwidth and reduced latency. Edge AI computing will require processors that balance the performance and power equation given their dependency on battery life. The exploding demand for data storage is driving adoption of 3D NAND SSDs in cloud servers with the roadmap for continued storage density increase every year.

In 2018, we will see the volume ramp of 10nm/7nm devices in Logic/Foundry to address the higher performance needs. Interconnect and patterning areas present a myriad of challenges best addressed by new materials and materials engineering technologies. In Inter- connect, cobalt is being used as a copper replacement metal in the lower level wiring layers to address the ever growing resistance problem. The introduction of Cobalt constitutes the biggest material change in the back-end-of-line in the past 15 years. In addition to its role as the conductor metal, cobalt serves two other critical functions – as a metal capping film for electro- migration control and as a seed layer for enhancing gapfill inside the narrow vias and trenches.

In patterning, spacer-based double patterning and quad patterning approaches are enabling the continued shrink of device features. These schemes require advanced precision deposition and etch technologies for reduced variability and greater pattern fidelity. Besides conventional Etch, new selective materials removal technologies are being increasingly adopted for their unique capabilities to deliver damage- and residue-free extreme selective processing. New e-beam inspection and metrology capabilities are also needed to analyze the fine pitch patterned structures. Looking ahead to the 5nm and 3nm nodes, placement or layer-to-layer vertical alignment of features will become a major industry challenge that can be primarily solved through materials engineering and self-aligned structures. EUV lithography is on the horizon for industry adoption in 2019 and beyond, and we expect 20 percent of layers to make the migration to EUV while the remaining 80 percent will use spacer multi- patterning approaches. EUV patterning also requires new materials in hardmasks/underlayer films and new etch solutions for line-edge-roughness problems.

Packaging is a key enabler for AI performance and is poised for strong growth in the coming years. Stacking DRAM chips together in a 3D TSV scheme helps bring High Bandwidth Memory (HBM) to market; these chips are further packaged with the GPU in a 2.5D interposer design to bring compute and memory together for a big increase in performance.

In 2018, we expect DRAM chipmakers to continue their device scaling to the 1Xnm node for volume production. We also see adoption of higher perfor- mance logic technologies on the horizon for the periphery transistors to enable advanced perfor- mance at lower power.

3D NAND manufacturers continue to pursue multiple approaches for vertical scaling, including more pairs, multi-tiers or new schemes such as CMOS under array for increased storage density. The industry migration from 64 pairs to 96 pairs is expected in 2018. Etch (high aspect ratio), dielectric films (for gate stacks and hardmasks) along with integrated etch and CVD solutions (for high aspect ratio processing) will be critical enabling technologies.

In summary, we see incredible inflections in new processor architectures, next-generation devices, and packaging schemes to enable the AI era. New materials and materials engineering solutions are at the very heart of it and will play a critical role across all device segments.

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Cree, Inc. (Nasdaq:CREE) announces that it signed a strategic long-term agreement to produce and supply its Wolfspeed silicon carbide (SiC) wafers to Infineon Technologies AG (FSE:IFX) (OTCQX:IFNNY). The agreement governs Cree’s supply of advanced 150 mm SiC wafers to Infineon, which will broaden Infineon’s product offering to address today’s high-growth markets, such as photovoltaic inverters and electro mobility.

“Infineon is a longstanding, valuable commercial partner with an excellent reputation,” said Gregg Lowe, CEO of Cree. “This agreement validates the quality of Cree’s SiC wafer technology and our capacity expansion, as well as the accelerated adoption of SiC-based solutions that are critical to enabling faster, smaller, lighter and more powerful electronic systems.”

“We have known Cree for a long time as a strong and reliable partner with an excellent industry reputation,” said Reinhard Ploss, CEO of Infineon. “Based on the secured long-term supply of SiC wafers, we strengthen our strategic growth areas in automotive and industrial power control. As a consequence, we will create additional value for our customers.”

Wolfspeed, A Cree Company, is a manufacturer of silicon carbide wafers and epitaxial wafers. The supply agreement, valued at well over $100 million, enables SiC applications in broad markets such as photovoltaic, electro mobility, robotics, charging infrastructure, industrial power supplies, traction and variable speed drives.

ReportsnReports.com adds Smart Lighting Market is forecast to reach $20.98 billion by 2023 from $7.93 billion in 2018 at a CAGR of 21.50% during (2018-2023) driven by the modernization and development of infrastructure to transform cities into smart cities, need for energy-efficient lighting systems, increasing adoption and decreasing cost of LEDs, increased demand for intelligent solutions for street lighting systems, and growing awareness about energy savings among consumers and governments worldwide.

Browse 68 Market Data Tables and 50 Figures spread through 169 Pages and in-depth TOC on “Smart Lighting Market by Offering (Hardware (Lights & Luminaires, Lighting Controls), Software, and Services), Communication Technology (Wired and Wireless), Installation Type, Application Type, and Geography – Global Forecast to 2023” http://www.reportsnreports.com/reports/226128-global-smart-lighting-market-2013-2018-by-component-sensors-controllers-chipsets-others-lighting-type-led-fl-cfl-hid-connectivity-wired-wireless-application-commercial-industrial-public-government-residential-geography.html .

The report profiles the top players in the smart lighting market along with providing their respective market ranking. Prominent players in the market include Philips Lighting (Netherlands), Hafele Group (Germany), Acuity Brands (US), OSRAM (Germany), Cree (US), Hubbell Lighting (US), Zumtobel Group (Austria), Honeywell (US), Legrand (France), Eaton (Ireland), Lutron Electronics (US), and General Electric (US).

The smart lighting market in APAC expected to grow at the highest CAGR between 2018 and 2023. The growth of the market in APAC is attributed to the rapid infrastructure building activities being undertaken in APAC, mainly China, India, and Japan, where smart lighting paves the way for the modernization of infrastructure. Further, the increasing investments from the government sector also enhance the infrastructure facility in the country. Moreover, rising government expenditure on public infrastructure and increasing adoption of energy-efficient lighting systems are the major driving factors for the growth of the smart lighting market in APAC.

Inquire for DISCOUNT on “Smart Lighting Market by Offering (Hardware (Lights & Luminaires, Lighting Controls), Software, and Services), Communication Technology (Wired and Wireless), Installation Type, Application Type, and Geography – Global Forecast to 2023″ research report at http://www.reportsnreports.com/contacts/discount.aspx?name=226128 .

The smart lighting market for wireless connectivity will grow at higher CAGR between 2018 and 2023. However, factors such as perception of higher costs of installation and limited awareness about payback periods, and security and privacy issues in smart lighting systems are restraining the growth of the smart lighting market. Exhaustive information about new products, untapped geographic regions, and recent developments in the overall smart lighting market

Wired technology is expected to hold a larger share of the Smart Lighting Market by 2023. Currently, the smart lightings based on wired technology are widely adopted for different types of structures as this technology offer reliable connectivity, with no limitation on long-distance data transfer. Wired communication technologies for smart lightings include Digital Addressable Lighting Interface (DALI), Power-Line Communication (PLC), and Power over Ethernet (PoE), and various wired hybrid protocols which include various company-specific proprietary protocols. Wired communication protocols are preferred in the applications where performance and reliability are crucial.

The smart lighting market for services will grow at highest CAGR between 2018 and 2023. From an insight perspective, this research report has focused on various levels of analysis – market ranking of top players; value chain analysis; company profiles that provide the basic views on the competitive landscape; emerging and high-growth segments of the market; high-growth regions; and market dynamics such as drivers, restraints, opportunities, and challenges.

Order a copy of “Smart Lighting Market by Offering (Hardware (Lights & Luminaires, Lighting Controls), Software, and Services), Communication Technology (Wired and Wireless), Installation Type, Application Type, and Geography – Global Forecast to 2023” research report at http://www.reportsnreports.com/purchase.aspx?name=226128 .

The smart lighting market based on offering covers hardware, software, and services. The smart lighting market based on communication technology has been segmented into wired and wireless technologies. The smart lighting market based on application type covers indoor and outdoor applications. The smart lighting market based on installation type includes new installations and retrofit installations. The geographic analysis has been conducted with regard to North America, Europe, APAC, and RoW.

In the process of determining and verifying the smart lighting market size for several segments obtained through secondary research, extensive primary interviews have been conducted with the key industry people. The break-up of the profile of primary participants has been given below.

  • By Company Type: Tier 1 – 20%, Tier 2 – 45%, and Tier 3 – 35%
  • By Designation: C-Level Executives – 35%, Directors – 25%, Others – 40%
  • By Region: Americas – 45%, Europe – 25%, APAC – 20%, and RoW – 10%

Another research titled Ambient Lighting Market Global Forecast to 2023 says, the ambient lighting market is expected to grow from $46.48 billion in 2016 to $96.09 billion by 2023, at a CAGR of 10.71% between 2017 and 2023. Hardware to hold a major share of the ambient lighting market in 2017. Ambient lighting market in APAC to grow at a high rate between 2017 and 2023. Companies such as Philips Lighting Holding B.V. (Netherlands), Cree Inc. (US), General Electric (US), Acuity Brands Inc. (US), OSRAM Licht AG (Germany) have been profiled in this 148 pages research report available at http://www.reportsnreports.com/purchase.aspx?name=1150242 .

Explore more reports on Semiconductor and Electronics Market at http://www.reportsnreports.com/market-research/semiconductor-and-electronics/ .

On February 2, 2018, Seoul Semiconductor Co., Ltd (“Seoul”) filed a patent infringement lawsuit in Italy in the Court of Milan against Mouser Electronics Inc. (“Mouser”), a global electronic components distributor, as well as its Italian subsidiary – for the sale of certain Everlight LED products.

According to the complaint, Seoul has asserted that Mouser is liable for selling such LED products that infringe Seoul’s patent rights. Based on the alleged infringement, Seoul has sought a permanent injunction, damages, withdrawal from the market, and destruction of such products.

Prior to this litigation, Seoul already filed two patent infringement lawsuits against Mouser in Germany in the District Court of Düsseldorf in 2017, accusing high-power and mid-power LED products manufactured by Everlight of infringement.

Despite such lawsuits, however, Mouser has continued to sell products accused of infringement in other countries. For that reason, Seoul launched its third patent infringement lawsuit against Mouser for the sale of Everlight LED products in Italy. Seoul is committed to pursuing enforcement against those that infringe its patent rights.

Seoul has invested 10% of its revenue, more than 100 million dollars per year, in research and development to develop innovative technology and strengthen its patent portfolio since its inception. Seoul has also made a significant commitment to protecting its intellectual property rights against suspected infringement since it successfully obtained a preliminary injunction order against Taiwan LED maker AOT in 2005. For example, in 2014, Seoul filed patent infringement lawsuits against two North American TV makers in 2014, resulting in a judgment based upon one maker’s admissions of infringement, and royalty-bearing licenses by both makers. In 2016, Seoul secured a willful infringement judgment for its LED lens patent against Japanese LED lens maker Enplas from the U.S. district court. In 2017, Seoul resolved a patent infringement litigation that it had against Kmart, and as part of the settlement, Kmart agreed to stop selling certain filament LED bulbs. Seoul also recently began an enforcement campaign for protecting its Acrich technology, and has filed a patent litigation against a U.S. lighting maker for infringement of 12 Acrich patents. Throughout this period, Seoul has continued to put other companies on notice that it suspects of patent infringement.

Seoul plans to continue and expand its patent enforcement against market participants involving suspected-infringement across the world – until they cease suspected-infringement and Seoul secures court remedies to address harm caused by the suspected-infringement.

An official of Seoul’s IP team explained, “In order to fundamentally block distribution of suspected-infringing products, we will have to expand our enforcement efforts to include direct manufacturers, secondary product manufacturers who have purchased or used suspected-infringing components, as well as their distributors.”

He added, “For young entrepreneurs and small businesses that try to realize their dreams with a creative idea, we believe that intellectual property should be respected.”

The Semiconductor Industry Association (SIA), representing U.S. leadership in semiconductor manufacturing, design, and research, today announced the global semiconductor industry posted sales totaling $412.2 billion in 2017, the industry’s highest-ever annual sales and an increase of 21.6 percent compared to the 2016 total. Global sales for the month of December 2017 reached $38.0 billion, an increase of 22.5 percent over the December 2016 total and 0.8 percent more than the previous month’s total. Fourth-quarter sales of $114.0 billion were 22.5 percent higher than the total from the fourth quarter of 2016 and 5.7 percent more than the third quarter of 2017. Global sales during the fourth quarter of 2017 and during December 2017 were the industry’s highest-ever quarterly and monthly sales, respectively. All monthly sales numbers are compiled by the World Semiconductor Trade Statistics (WSTS) organization and represent a three-month moving average.

Worldwide semiconductor revenues, year-to-year percent change

Worldwide semiconductor revenues, year-to-year percent change

“As semiconductors have become more heavily embedded in an ever-increasing number of products – from cars to coffee makers – and nascent technologies like artificial intelligence, virtual reality, and the Internet of Things have emerged, global demand for semiconductors has increased, leading to landmark sales in 2017 and a bright outlook for the long term,” said John Neuffer, SIA president and CEO. “The global market experienced across-the-board growth in 2017, with double-digit sales increases in every regional market and nearly all major product categories. We expect the market to grow more modestly in 2018.”

Several semiconductor product segments stood out in 2017. Memory was the largest semiconductor category by sales with $124.0 billion in 2017, and the fastest growing, with sales increasing 61.5 percent. Within the memory category, sales of DRAM products increased 76.8 percent and sales of NAND flash products increased 47.5 percent. Logic ($102.2 billion) and micro-ICs ($63.9 billion) – a category that includes microprocessors – rounded out the top three product categories in terms of total sales. Other fast-growing product categories in 2017 included rectifiers (18.3 percent), diodes (16.4 percent), and sensors and actuators (16.2 percent). Even without sales of memory products, sales of all other products combined increased by nearly 10 percent in 2017.

Annual sales increased substantially across all regions: the Americas (35.0 percent), China (22.2 percent), Europe (17.1 percent), Asia Pacific/All Other (16.4 percent), and Japan (13.3 percent). The Americas market also led the way in growth for the month of December 2017, with sales up 41.4 percent year-to-year and 2.1 percent month-to-month. Next were Europe (20.2 percent/-1.6 percent), China (18.1 percent/1.0 percent), Asia Pacific/All Other (17.4 percent/0.2 percent), and Japan (14.0 percent/0.9 percent).

“A strong semiconductor industry is foundational to America’s economic strength, national security, and global technology leadership,” said Neuffer. “We urge Congress and the Trump Administration to enact polices in 2018 that promote U.S. innovation and allow American businesses to compete on a more level playing field with our counterparts overseas. We look forward to working with policymakers in the year ahead to further strengthen the semiconductor industry, the broader tech sector, and our economy.”

A crystal method


January 31, 2018

From Mother Nature to our must-have devices, we’re surrounded by crystals. Those courtesy of the former, such as ice and snow, can form spontaneously and symmetrically. But the silicon-based or gallium nitride crystals found in LEDs and other electronics require a bit of coaxing to attain their ideal shapes and alignments.

At UC Santa Barbara, researchers have now unlocked another piece of the theoretical puzzle that governs the growth of crystals — a development that may save time and energy in the many processes that require crystal formation.

“The way most industrial processes are designed today is by doing an exhaustively large number of experiments to find out how crystals grow and at what rate they grow under different conditions,” said UCSB chemical engineer Michael Doherty, an author of a paper that appears in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences. Snowflakes, for instance, form differently as they fall, depending on variable conditions such as temperature and humidity, hence the widely held belief that no two are alike. After determining the optimal conditions for the growth of the crystal of choice, Doherty added equipment must be designed and calibrated to provide a consistent growing environment.

However, by pooling decades of expertise, Doherty, along with UCSB colleague Baron Peters and former graduate student Mark Joswiak (now at Dow Chemical) have developed a computational method to help predict growth rates for ionic crystals under different circumstances. Using a relatively simple crystal — sodium chloride (NaCl, more familiarly known as table salt) — in water, the researchers laid the groundwork for the analysis of more complex crystals.

Ionic crystals may appear to the naked eye — and even under some magnification — to consist of perfectly smooth and even faces. But look more closely and you’ll often find they actually contain surface features that influence their ability to grow, and the larger shapes that they take.

“There are dislocations and around the dislocations there are spirals, and around the spirals there are edges, and around the edges there are kinks,” Peters said, “and every level requires a theory to describe the number of those features and the rates at which they change.” At the smallest scale, ions in solution cannot readily attach to the growing crystal because water molecules that solvate (interact with) the ions are not readily dislodged, he said. With so many processes occurring at so many scales, it’s easy to see how difficult it can be to predict a crystal’s growth.

“The largest challenge was applying the various techniques and methods to a new problem — examining ion attachment and detachment at surface kink sites, where there is a lack of symmetry coupled with strong ion-water interactions,” Joswiak said. “However, as we encountered problems and found solutions, we gained additional insight on the processes, the role of water molecules and differences between sodium and chloride ions.”

Among their insights: Ion size matters. The researchers found that due to its size, the larger chloride ion (Cl-) prevents water from accessing kink sites during detachment, limiting the overall rate of sodium chloride dissolution in water.

“You have to find a special coordinate system that can reveal those special solvent rearrangements that create an opening for the ion to slip through the solvent cage and lock onto the kink site,” Peters said. “We demonstrated that at least for sodium chloride we can finally give a concrete answer.”

This proof-of-concept development is the result of the Doherty Group’s expertise with crystallization processes coupled with the Peters Group’s expertise in “rare events” — relatively infrequent and short-lived but highly significant phenomena (such as reactions) that fundamentally change the state of the system. Using a method called transition path sampling, the researchers were able to understand the events leading up to the transition state. The strategy and mechanistic insights from the work on sodium chloride provides a blueprint for predicting growth rates in materials synthesis, pharmaceuticals and biomineralization.

Seoul Semiconductor Co., Ltd. (KOSDAQ 046890), a developer of LED (light emitting diode) design and manufacturing, today announced 2017 fiscal year consolidated revenues of US$ 1.04 billion. The 16% rise in consolidated revenues far exceeds the industry average, which grew 2% during the same period. The growth of revenue is contributed to improvements in both general lighting sales and IT product related sales growing in the mid-teens as well as the automotive lighting business which grew more than 20%.

The rise in revenue for the general lighting segment was largely due to an increase in sales of 220V and 370V Acrich MJT products for household and industrial applications. Other notable revenue increases were reported for WICOP, an innovative product line of package-less LEDs, as well as for the Acrich NanoDriver, which incorporates step drive methods that achieve results greater than those of conventional SMPS technology. In addition to offering these differentiated technologies, Seoul expects its SunLike natural spectrum LED technology, which may offer health benefits for human eyes, to lead the future of LED lighting and become a large contributor to the future sales and profit for the company.

Researchers who won the Nobel Prize in 2017 were recognized for their new findings of the impact of light on circadian rhythm in humans. This has proven to be an important topic in our society and generated great attention for Dr. Charles Czeisler, the Harvard professor that has dedicated his research to this particular area. He is now conducting research study with NASA on how light affects the circadian rhythms of astronauts.

According to new research, myopia (near-sightedness) increased from 20% in the 1950s to 80% in 2010 among populations in Asia. Fluorescent lights and conventional LED light sources emit a strong blue light that is known to cause eye fatigue, which may later result in retinal damage. Seoul Semiconductor, together with Toshiba Materials of Japan, has jointly developed SunLike natural spectrum LED technology, which provides lighting conditions most similar to actual sun light and can be seen as a solution that helps to protect human eyes from this potential damage.

The company provided a revenue guidance of KrW 270 to 290 billion for the first quarter of 2018. This figure is in range of 5% to 13% on a year-over-year basis. Although first quarter is normally considered to be an off-season, the company is showing a positive outlook for growth from last year for this 2018 fiscal year.

Sangbum Kim, the company’s Chief Financial Officer, has stated that fiscal year 2017 sales were a result of the company’s relentless efforts to stay ahead of competition by continuously investing in R&D and strengthening global sales organizations. In order to further accelerate revenue growth into the double digit range for 2018, the company plans to further drive sales of differentiated products such as SunLike while also shifting more focus to its rapidly growing automotive lighting business.

Advanced Micro-Fabrication Equipment Inc. (AMEC) today announced that the Patent Re-examination Board (PRB) of the State Intellectual Property Office (SIPO) in China, ruled on Jan. 23 that all patent claims relating to patent number ZL 01822507.1 held by Veeco Instruments Inc. (Veeco U.S.), and titled “Susceptorless reactor for growing epitaxial layers on wafers by chemical vapor deposition”, are invalid. The court cited “lack of novelty and non-obviousness” for its decision.

The patent ruled invalid is the Chinese counterpart of the patents (U.S. 6506252 and U.S. 6726769) asserted by Veeco U.S. in an infringement action taken last year against AMEC’s wafer carrier supplier, and filed in the U.S. District Court for the Eastern District of New York.

AMEC thoroughly analyzed the patent when first developing its MOCVD technology. The company found that the technology covered by the patent was preceded by substantial prior art dating back to the 1960s. As such, the patent should be invalid. AMEC had earlier filed petitions to invalidate the counterpart patents in the Intellectual Property (IP) offices of China, South Korea and the U.S.

“We are pleased that based on our compelling evidence, the Chinese Patent Re-examination Board has ruled Veeco’s patent invalid,” said Dr. Zhiyou Du, senior vice president, COO & general manager of AMEC’s MOCVD product division. “We are confident that the same decision will be reached by the Patent Trial and Appeal Boards of the U.S. Patent & Trademark Office and the Korean IP office.”

Dr. Du continued: “To be enforceable, a patent must meet the requirements of patent law. It is intolerable to us that Veeco U.S. would attempt to stifle competition by leveraging an obviously invalid patent to file a lawsuit against AMEC’s wafer carrier supplier.”

In a separate development that occurred on Jan. 12, 2018, Chinese customs temporarily detained two EPIK700 MOCVD tools upon their arrival in China. The tools, shipped by Veeco Asia, are suspected of infringing AMEC’s patent (CN 202492576). The detention was consistent with Chinese law. AMEC is contemplating further legal action, which may include filing a patent infringement lawsuit with the Chinese court.

The enforcement action by Chinese customs on Jan. 12 followed a ruling last Dec. by the Fujian High Court in Chinawhen it granted AMEC’s motion for an injunction against Veeco Shanghai. The injunction prohibits Veeco Shanghai from importing, manufacturing, selling or offering for sale to any third party any MOCVD systems and wafer carriers used in the MOCVD systems that would infringe AMEC’s patent in China.

Dr. Gerald Yin, chairman and CEO of AMEC stated: “AMEC will never tolerate infringement of its IP rights. We will vigorously defend against violations and will always proactively protect our IP investment. Of course, we prefer to concentrate on innovating high-value products and providing quality services to customers instead of wasting time and resources on lawsuits.”

Dr. Yin concluded: “The Chinese LED industry should not be distracted or harmed by litigation involving Veeco U.S., our wafer carrier supplier, and AMEC. Therefore, we are open to reaching a solution that is beneficial for all three parties.”

By Jay Chittooran, Manager, Public Policy, SEMI

International trade is one of the best tools to spur growth and create high-skill and high-paying jobs. Over 40 million American jobs rely on trade, and this is particularly true in the semiconductor supply chain. Over the past three decades, the semiconductor industry has averaged nearly double-digit growth rates in revenue and, by 2030, the semiconductor supply chain is forecast to reach $1 trillion. Trade paves the way for this growth.

Unfortunately, despite its importance to the industry, trade has been transformed from an economic issue into a political one, raising many new trade challenges to companies throughout the semiconductor industry.

GHz-ChinaChina’s investments in the industry will continue to anchor the country as a major force in the semiconductor supply chain. China’s outsized spending has spawned concern among other countries about the implications of these investments. According to SEMI’s World Fab Forecast, 20 fabs are being built in China – and construction on 14 more is rumored to begin in the near term – compared to the 10 fabs under construction in the rest of the world. China is clearly outpacing the pack.

The Trump Administration has levied intense criticism of China, citing unfair trade practices, especially related to intellectual property issues. The U.S. Trade Representative has launched a Section 301 investigation into whether China’s practice of forced technology transfer has discriminated against U.S. consumers. Even as the probe unfolds, expectations are growing that the United States will take action against China, raising fears of not only possible retaliation in time but rising animosity between two trading partners that rely deeply on each other.

A number of other open investigations also cloud the future. The Administration launched two separate Section 232 investigations into steel and aluminum industry practices by China, claiming Chinese overproduction of both items are a threat to national security. The findings from these investigations will be submitted to the President, who, in the coming weeks, will decide an appropriate response, which could include imposing tariffs and quotas.

Another high priority area is Korea. While U.S. threats to withdraw from the U.S.-Korea Free Trade Agreement (KORUS) reached a fever pitch in August, rhetoric has since tempered. Informal discussions between the countries on how best to amend the trade deal are ongoing. The number of KORUS implementation issues aside, continued engagement with Korea – instead of scrapping a comprehensive, bilateral trade deal – will be critically important for the industry.

Lastly, negotiations to modernize the North American Free Trade Agreement (NAFTA) will continue this year. The United States wants to conclude talks by the end of March, but with the deadline fast approaching and the promise of resolution waning, tensions are running high. Notably, the outcome of the NAFTA talks will inform and set the tone for other trade action.

What’s more, a number of other actions on trade will take place this year. As we wrote recently, Congress has moved to reform the Committee on Foreign Investment in the United States (CFIUS), a government body designed to review sales and transfer of ownership of U.S. companies to foreign entities. Efforts have also started to revise the export control regime – a key component to improving global market access and making international trade more equitable.

SEMI will continue its work on behalf of its members around the globe to open up new markets and lessen the burden of regulations on cross-border trade and commerce. In addition, SEMI will continue to educate policymakers on the critical importance of unobstructed trade in continuing to push the rapid advance of semiconductors and the emerging technologies they enable into the future. If you are interested in more information on trade, or how to be involved in SEMI’s public policy program, please contact Jay Chittooran, Manager, Public Policy, at [email protected].