Category Archives: Materials and Equipment

Mar. 18, 2008 – The market for transparent semiconductors used in display, photovoltaics, and lighting markets will surge to ~$9.4B by 2015, according to a study from analysis firm NanoMarkets. And a key element in the devices, indium tin oxide (ITO), will continue to be in heavy demand despite surging prices and other limitations.

ITO will continue to take a large share of the transparent conductor market over the next decade, and demand for the material will grow even if indium prices go up. by 2015, the firm says ITO-coated substrate sales will top $8.0B, while ITO inks and pastes achieve commercialization and surge to $600M in sales.

Many materials explored at ITO replacements — including other transparent conducting oxides such as AZO and IZO as well as organic conductors and materials using carbon nanotubes and other nanomaterials — fall short in terms of conductivity and transparency, the firm notes. But work continues to improve formulations utilizing nanotubes and other nanomaterials, and these nanoengineered transparent conductors could end up taking a bigger chunk of the market, possibly worth $750M by 2015.

The main application entry-point for ITO replacements will be in touch-screen displays, where transparency and conductivity are less important than long-term resilience, an area in which ITO substitutes such as PEDOT and carbon nanotube formulations fare well. NanoMarkets forecasts a $400M market by 2015 for such transparent conductors used in touch screen displays.

Two other emerging markets for ITO replacement technologies include OLED lighting and flexible displays, areas that are not well suited for classical ITO for various reasons, notably flexibility with resistance to high-temperature manufacturing approaches typically associated with conventional ITO deposition. The analysis firm reports the market for transparent conductors for OLED lighting alone will total $670 million in 2015, with 70% of that derived from alternatives to the classic ITO approach.

Mar. 18, 2008 – Elpida Memory and Taiwan’s United Microelectronics Corp. (UMC) are expanding their partnership to target Japanese foundry customers, whereby Elpida will provide 300mm fab capacity (including systems-on-chip), with UMC contributing IP and logic technologies. The deal gives UMC inroads into Japanese foundry customers, while Elpida gets to utilize excess DRAM production capacity.

Upgrades will be performed at Elpida’s facilities in Hiroshima for the foundry work, reusing some DRAM production equipment for logic semiconductors such as ASICs to achieve a lower-cost operation, notes the Nikkei daily. Production will start in about a year on 90nm-process lines with combined monthly output of ~20,000-25,000 WPM.

The expanded partnership comes as more Japanese IDMs retrench activities into a fab-lite model, curtailing and/or terminating in-house process technology development and capital-intensive manufacturing, the firms note in a statement. The two firms already were working together since last fall to develop a copper low-k backend process for both advanced DRAM and phase-change random access memory (PRAM).

More importantly, the deal gives UMC inroads into Japanese foundry customers, while Elpida gets to utilize excess DRAM production capacity, the Nikkei notes.

While Elpida will continue to focus on DRAM manufacturing, overall the DRAM business “is very volatile,” according to Yukio Sakamoto, president and CEO of Elpida, so the company is exploring other ways to grow the business with more stable profitability, and foundry activities will be “another axis of our business.”

Sakamoto noted that Elpida believes its foundry services benefit from close geographic proximity to Japanese IC companies targeted as prospective foundry customers, and also assures that Elpida is not competing in the same markets with them.

“Since last October when we announced our first joint collaboration plans with Elpida, our successful progress and mutual understanding have prompted us to extend the scope of our partnership,” stated UMC chairman/CEO Jackson Hu, adding that the partners’ joint work utilizing UMC’s advanced copper/low-k backend of line (BEOL) process has generated prototypes “that achieve significant performance advantages” for Elpida’s next-generation DRAM products.

This company’s latest versions of its assembly materials will include conductive and nonconductive adhesives for die attach and flip chip applications, heat conductive adhesives for thermal management, and dippable solder pastes for BGA packaging. Given the increasing complexity of BGA packages and the sensitivity of the polymer substrates to multiple thermal processes, the ball dippable (BD) paste series enables manufacturers to utilize SOP substrates while maintaining outstanding yields. Since the convex surface of the SOP substrate causes solder ball movement during reflow when using the traditional flux and drop process, the BD paste allows the balls to be dipped in solder before placement. This prevents ball movement and eliminates the need for printing of solder paste or flux, increasing yields and reducing the need for expensive rework. Other future applications for dippable pastes include package-on-package applications and copper (Cu) stud bumping. Heraeus Contact Materials Division, West Conshohocken, PA; www.heraeus.com.
Booth #457

March 13, 2008 — Unidym Inc., a majority-owned subsidiary of Arrowhead Research, has entered into a joint development agreement with Nippon Kayaku, a Japanese chemical company, to integrate Unidym’s printable transparent electrodes into Nippon Kayaku’s thin film solar cells.

According to Solarbuzz, an international solar energy research and consulting company, thin-film photovoltaic technologies hold great promise in the solar market and could contribute strongly to the industry’s expected growth from $10.6 billion in 2006 to $18.5 billion by 2011.

Thin film solar cells require a transparent electrode material for optimal efficiency, and Unidym’s carbon nanotube-based electrodes could offer substantial benefits over the materials currently in use, such as indium tin oxide (ITO).

“Unidym’s products provide several advantages over ITO for solar cell manufacturers, including compatibility with high-volume, roll-to-roll manufacturing techniques, lower materials cost, and enhanced flexibility,” claims Art Swift, Unidym’s CEO and president. “We expect our printable electrodes to significantly improve production economics for innovative solar companies like Nippon Kayaku and accelerate widespread adoption of solar power.”

In making the announcement, Dr. Koh, CEO, said, “Japan Koh Young Company Limited will support our SPI systems and semiconductor equipment for current and future customers in Japan, and will promote and distribute Koh Young products through its distributors. In opening this division, we’re investing in our future as well as moving closer to our customers in Japan so that we can better serve their needs.”

(March 12, 2008) Santa Clara, CA — Advanced Analogic Technologies Inc. (AnalogicTech), a developer of power management semiconductors for mobile consumer electronic devices, has made available chip scale packages (CSPs) for its AAT1149 and AAT1171 DC/DC converters. Bond wires are eliminated, offering a reduction in footprint. The new packaging option also reportedly reduces stray inductance, capacitance and resistance and therefore noise, compared to traditional packaging with bond wires.

The multiple machine order will be used to upgrade the customer’s existing installed base of advanced semiconductor packaging equipment. The machines are expected to ship in 2008, starting in the second quarter.

(March 12, 2008) San Jose, CA — Cadence Design Systems Inc. has acquired Chip Estimate Corp., a company that delivers IC planning and enterprise-level IP re-use management solutions. Founded in 2003, Chip Estimate products enable electronics design teams to predict the die size, yield, power consumption, performance, and cost of chips based on almost any design architecture, IP, and silicon process node options. Terms of the agreement were not disclosed.

The service, which is effective today, will target training, prototyping and innovation at universities and research labs.

(March 11, 2008) North Billerica, MA — BTU International, a supplier of advanced thermal processing equipment for the alternative energy and electronics manufacturing markets, today announced the receipt of a $3M multiple-machine order, the largest single Pyramax order in company history, from a leading semiconductor assembly and test subcontractor (SATS).

Mar. 4, 2008 – In a regulatory filing today, Applied Materials indicates it has signed a $1.9B contract to supply equipment and services (e.g. installation, support) to an unnamed privately held foreign customer for “multiple solar factories”. The deal, which will feature AMAT’s Sunfab thin-film tandem junction production equipment, will collectively produce an estimated annual output ~1GW of solar PV modules.

A spokesperson confirmed the sale to the San Jose Mercury News, suggesting the deal is the company’s biggest sales agreement, “and quite possibly in the history of the solar industry.”

SST’s Editors’ Take

This deal is eye-popping when cast against AMAT’s current fledgling PV business, which posted about $260M in orders in 1Q08. For perspective/scale, it’s worth noting that the newly announced Toshiba/Sandisk fab, which could cost a mammoth ~$7B to build/tool up/ramp, could easily result in >$1B in sales to AMAT over the multiyear period as the facility ramps.

Conventionally, SEC rules have stipulated that companies must report all customers by name which comprise more than 10% of revenue. With AMAT currently at ~$8B today, the annual revenue from this deal either must be less than $800M, or the company may not want say the name for another year until the revenue is actually recognized. Also, the $1.9B likely is tied to various clauses and criteria. And the contract almost certainly involves deliveries spanning more than a year, maybe even 2-5 years, so the revenue recognition in 2008 is probably far below the actual stated pricetag.

Some headline-sleuthing unearths two possible candidates for AMAT’s mystery PV customer:

– One month ago Indian firm Moser Baer said it had committed up to $1.5B in investments for nearly 600MW worth of thin-film photovoltaic equipment from an unidentified supplier. Moser also has been an AMAT customer since March 2007. The AMAT filing, though, says its new customer is privately held, and Moser is listed on several stock exchanges.

– Local reports in India suggest major moves by Reliance Industries, committing billions of dollars to domestic PV efforts over the past year. Another report by the Times of India quoted a local AMAT exec praising the opportunity for PV cells in India, in part due to abundant sunlight and incentives like a feed-in tariff policy.

It’s also entirely possible that there’s a new player in the market, with really deep pockets and a commitment to making a splash in solar (UAE/Dubai has made recent headlines about an interest in solar activities). J.M, E.K., D.V.

Mar. 4, 2008 – Fujitsu Labs says it has successfully created a nanoscale carbon composite with a self-organizing structure by combining carbon nanotubes and graphene, combining CNTs’ high thermal conductivity and high-current density tolerance with graphene’s high electron mobility. The composite is synthesized at 510°C, cooler than temperatures for conventional graphene that are too high for electronic device applications. Details of the technology are being disclosed at this week’s (March 3-5) 34th Fullerene Nanotubes General Symposium in Nagoya, Japan.

Research is underway to find technologies that can synthesize carbon nanotubes at temperatures as low as 400°C, which would enable use in devices vulnerable to heat. Graphene has been a popular choice as a channel material, but conventional methods for synthesizing it only work at >700°C, or involve stripping away graphite crystals, a time-consuming and unreliable process, the company explained in a statement.

In its work, Fujitsu Labs experimented with CVD, where feedstock gas is heat-cracked into a vacuum chamber to synthesize films or structures on a substrate. They managed to form aligned growth multiwalled carbon nanotubes with layers of graphene on top (from just a few layers to a few dozen) formed in a “self-organizing way,” creating a complex composite (See Fig. 1). It’s the first composite, they say, featuring both 1D and 2D elements based on graphene layers and nanotubes, perpendicularly connected.

Fig 1. (a) Cross-section electron microscopic image of the new nano-scale carbon composite. (b) Electron microscopic image of the graphene multi-layers.

Because the CNTs are linear 1D structures, in the 2D directions perpendicular to the tube axis they have nearly no thermal or electrical conductivity between tubes. But graphene does have these properties in 2D, so the new carbon nanostructure is expected to have electrical conduction and thermal dissipation in all directions.

Also, because these new nanotubes nearly all connect to the graphene with good uniformity at the endpoints, and since the graphene surface is planar (See Fig. 2), the researchers think the nanostructures will enable “excellent electrical and thermal conductivity.”

Fig 2. (Top) Schematic view of the new nano-scale carbon composite. (bottom) Diagram of anticipated structure.

Fujitsu Labs plans to keep exploring the research into how the complex carbon nanostructures form and their physical characteristics, and will pursue development of technologies to enable formation of high-quality carbon nanostructures at a lower temperature.

This is cooler than for conventional graphene formed at temperatures too high for electronic device applications, thereby paving the way for the feasible use of graphene as a material suitable for future practical use in electronic devices which are vulnerable to heat.

(March 3, 2008) San Jose, CA — Power Integrations today announced the availability of its TOPSwitch-HX series of AC-DC power conversion ICs in the new eSIP-7C eco-single-inline-package. This package exhibits the low thermal impedance of the traditional TO-220, yet stands less than 10mm above the PCB.