Category Archives: Metrology

The Semiconductor Industry Association (SIA), representing U.S. leadership in semiconductor manufacturing, design, and research, today announced worldwide sales of semiconductors reached $117.9 billion during the second quarter of 2018, an increase of 6.0 percent over the previous quarter and 20.5 percent more than the second quarter of 2017. Global sales for the month of June 2018 reached $39.3 billion, an uptick of 1.5 percent over last month’s total of $38.7 billion, and a surge of 20.5 percent compared to the June 2017 total of $32.6 billion. Cumulatively, year-to-date sales during the first half of 2018 were 20.4 percent higher than they were at the same point in 2017. All monthly sales numbers are compiled by the World Semiconductor Trade Statistics (WSTS) organization and represent a three-month moving average.

“Halfway through 2018, the global semiconductor industry continues to post impressive sales totals, notching its highest-ever quarterly sales in Q2 and record monthly sales in June,” said John Neuffer, president and CEO, Semiconductor Industry Association. “Global sales have increased year-to-year by more than 20 percent for 15 consecutive months, and sales of every major product category increased year-to-year in June. Sales into the Americas market continue to be strong, with year-to-date totals more than 30 percent higher than at the same point last year.”

Regionally, sales increased compared to June 2017 in China (30.7 percent), the Americas (26.7 percent), Europe (15.9 percent), Japan (14.0 percent), and Asia Pacific/All Other (8.6 percent). Sales also were up compared to last month in China (3.2 percent), Japan (1.3 percent), the Americas (1.2 percent), and Asia Pacific/All Other (0.5 percent), but down slightly in Europe (-0.8 percent).

For comprehensive monthly semiconductor sales data and detailed WSTS Forecasts, consider purchasing the WSTS Subscription Package. For detailed data on the global and U.S. semiconductor industry and market, consider purchasing the 2018 SIA Databook.

By Iris Tsou

The march to greater precision, efficiency and safety – the lifeblood of high-technology manufacturing facilities – has taken on a new urgency as emerging applications such artificial intelligence (AI), the Internet of Things (IoT) and Industry 4.0 give new meaning to smart factories. Facing fiercer competition and ever more sophisticated fabrication processes, semiconductor fabs are under intense pressure to keep pace with new technologies as they work to upgrade. Nowhere are the stakes higher than in Taiwan, where high-tech manufacturing contributes mightily to the region’s GDP growth.

To help Taiwan fabs confront the challenges and opportunities of designing smarter factories, SEMI and its High-Tech Facility Committee hosted the High-Tech Facility Workshop in June. SEMICON Taiwan 2018 High-Tech Facility Pavilion exhibitors gathered to explore how they can build smarter factories by deploying smart surveillance and disaster prevention technologies along with smart communications systems that better use manufacturing data to drive new safety and product quality efficiencies.

During the workshop, SEMI High-Tech Facility Committee representatives shared strides it has made upgrading overseas facilities and developing standards to help establish smart factories in Taiwan.

SEMICON Taiwan – 5-7 September at Taipei’s Nangang Exhibition Center – is also an important event for advancing smart manufacturing in Taiwan. Nearly 30 leading global manufacturers will exhibit at the SEMICON Taiwan High-Tech Facility Pavilion. The venue covers operational aspects of semiconductor manufacturing vital to becoming smarter including energy savings, nano-contamination control, facility information modeling, precision instrumentation and control, fire protection, mechatronics, and automation control. The pavilion will also feature a series of theme events offering a comprehensive overview of topics including the latest practices for integrating smart facility capabilities from the perspective of an advanced fab designer.

At the TechXPOT stage, High-Tech Facility Pavilion exhibitors will also demonstrate the latest technology breakthroughs and cutting-edge smart factor solutions.

The September 6th High-Tech Facility International Forum at SEMICON Taiwan will again gather factory experts and thought leaders from industry and academia to examine “Effective Ways to Make a Facility Smart.“ Experts from industry heavyweights in the fields of wafer foundry, LCD, memory and semiconductor packaging including TSMC, UMC, Innolux, ASE, Micron Taiwan, Winbond and VIS will offer insights into key areas of high-tech facilities including facility electricity, machinery, water management, vaporization and automation systems. On the same day as the forum, the High-Tech Facility Get-Together and High-Tech Facility VIP Dinner will bring together industry elites, academic professionals, and government officials to explore partnership opportunities.

SEMI Taiwan and the High-Tech Facility Committee share HTF market trends information, technology updates and standards with SEMI members and exhibitors.

Founded in 2013, the High-Tech Facility Committee now has 85 corporate members. Dedicated to accelerating industry collaboration through the integration of Taiwan industrial, government and academic resources, the committee each year holds several group meetings focusing on topics including energy savings, earthquake and fire protection, nano-contamination control, and precision instrumentation and control to advance critical technologies and facilitate standardization. The committee also aims to help the industry become more competitive faster by promoting technology standards that boost productivity and reduce production costs.

Please visit www.semi.org and www.semicontaiwan.org for more information about SEMI’s high-tech facility initiatives.

Iris Tsou is a marketing specialist at SEMI Taiwan. 

Originally published on the SEMI blog.

By Ajit Manocha

At a Glance

“Software is eating the world … and AI is eating software.” Amir Husain, author of The Sentient Machine, at SEMICON West 2018

We’re living in a digital world where semiconductors have been taken for granted. But, Artificial Intelligence (AI) is changing everything – and bringing semiconductors back into the deserved spotlight. AI’s potential market of hundreds of zettabytes and trillions of dollars relies on new semiconductor architectures and compute platforms. Making these AI semiconductor engines will require a wildly innovative range of new materials, equipment, and design methodologies.

Moore’s Law carried us the past 50-plus years and as we’re now stepping into the dawn of AI’s potential, we can see that the coming Cognitive Era will drive its own exponential growth curve. This is great for the world – virtually every industry will be transformed, and people’s lives will get better – and it’s fantastic for our industry. This truly is the very best time to be working in our industry. I’m excited to be at SEMI in this inflection period and at the center of the collaborative platforms that bring the electronics manufacturing supply chain together to Connect, Collaborate, and Innovate to realize the new Cognitive Era. I invite you to partner with SEMI in building the foundation for the Cognitive Era to increase the growth and prosperity of our industry.

The World Wakes Up

Our lives have become digital. An Amazon Echo wakes us up and answers questions about the weather and traffic. Google Maps tells us the best way to get to a meeting. Yelp finds the best nearby restaurant. A Tweet now even informs us of the latest change in government policy. It’s a digital world that we live in – and the world already takes it for granted.

We in the industry know that the digital world only works because of the semiconductors we make and because of our integrated electronics manufacturing supply chain. We make the materials and equipment that, in turn, make the chips that become the beating hearts of the digital economy.

But, semiconductors have been largely invisible – hidden away under and inside a smart speaker, locked deep within a phone, buried in data centers and out of view. Meanwhile, the internet companies like Google, Amazon, Alibaba, Tencent, and Facebook stole the meaning of “Tech” and were given most of the credit for our digital world.

But, finally, things are changing – it’s all coming back to semiconductors!

AI Changing Everything

Over $400B in semiconductors were sold in 2017 – those unseen chips like hearts beating away in Apple computers, in mobile phones for online shopping and social media, and in televisions showing Netflix. Now internet companies Alphabet, Alibaba, Amazon, Facebook, Microsoft and others are rushing to develop their own chips. Silicon is back in the Silicon Valley! Hardware is, once again, the place to be. Why? We are now entering the epoch of Artificial Intelligence (AI) – and semiconductors, and new compute architectures, are the key to AI. At this moment, hardware, not software, is the AI enabler to make leaps in performance and to usher in new architectures to become brain-like with neural networks.

Beyond major AI chip investments like Google’s (Alphabet) $300M+ program to develop its Tensor Processing Unit (TPU) chip, there’s been a surge in new chip startups and VC funding. Last year, VCs (with corporate investors) invested more than $1.5B in new AI chip startups – doubling the rate from the prior year.

After years of consolidation, there is, as some have described, a “Cambrian Explosion” of semiconductor startups with names like Cerebras, Graphcore, Wave Computing, Horizon Robotics, Cambricon Technologies, and DeePhi from the US, Europe, and China. Cambricon (China) has already become the first AI chip “Unicorn” (startup valued $1B+) with a valuation of more than $2.5B after their recent Round B financing. It’s a new silicon world and a new race, as Cade Metz (The New York Times, 1/14/2018) said, “… everyone is starting from the same place: the beginning of a new market.”

Winning at AI is very big business. John Kelly, SVP Cognitive Solutions and Research at IBM, in his SEMICON West keynote earlier this month, said, we’re in the era of Artificial Intelligence with more than a $2T opportunity for AI decision making support on top of the $1.5T IT business in 2025. McKinsey estimates deep learning could account for between $3.5T and $5.8T in annual value.

As John Kelly presented, AI will transform entire industries – not just our personal devices and lives. The $2T AI decision making support opportunity in 2025 is projected to transform the major economy industries as follows:

Moore’s Law describes the exponential increase in the number of transistors per area that has driven growth, and has been the engine for digital innovation, through first the computer era and then the mobility era and now into the dawn of the data era. While the Dennard scaling approach to Moore’s Law may be slowing, the data-centric era continues to drive demand and the industry continues to find new ways to pack more transistors into less volume. Chip sales are forecast to pass $0.5T in 2019 and I predict they will surpass $1T before 2030.

It turns out the Smart is not enough – we must reach “Beyond Smart.”

Beyond Smart – The Cognitive Era

As we move further into the data-centric age, we see it is more than Big Data and AI, it is, instead, the dawn of a wholly new cognitive era. SEMICON West’s 2018 theme was “Beyond Smart” because we are standing at the inflection from sensors triggering actions (smart) to systems that learn and make decisions (cognitive). Devices are moving “beyond smart” to being “cognitive or aware.” Gary Dickerson (CEO of Applied Materials) at SEMICON West said, “… we are in the beginning of the first inning of a major inflection.”

Even in the early dawn of the cognitive era, the volume of data is simply astonishing. In the last 24 months, we create more than 90% of all historic digital data. By 2025 we expect AI to generate 160 zettabytes – with 80% of that unstructured data. Moore’s Law is an exponential, but as John Kelly points out, AI’s deep learning is driving its own exponential with performance/watt increasing 2.5X each year.

AI was the focus of SEMICON West’s Day 1 keynotes – and a common theme through much of the events programming. There was a common language in the keynotes by John Kelly, Gary Dickerson, and William Dally (Chief Scientist and SVP of Research NVIDIA), and others. We heard how AI is based on data, algorithms, and compute. I was inspired by these talks and for the potential for AI and the cognitive era.

Looking ahead, I believe data + algorithms + compute + machine learning = knowledge and cognition. My vision is that this AI knowledge and cognition will be the catalyst to create new modes of systems transformations that will usher in the next Industrial Revolution. As the 4th Industrial Revolution becomes a reality, I look forward to working with others in SEMI Think Tanks to imagine the 5th Industrial Revolution – and its opportunities for our industry. I believe that it will make our lives better, healthier, more prosperous, and more fulfilled.

A sentiment shared by many speakers at SEMICON West was – this is the most exciting time to be in the semiconductor manufacturing industry. Many wished they were just now starting in the industry as this is the most interesting inflection and transformation ever. There is a flood of new architectures, new materials, new equipment, new processes – and a new system-based design approach to enable the Cognitive Era. We, in hardware manufacturing, are in the driver’s seat for this incredible ride.

SEMI is working to help its members speed their time to better business results – and to take full advantage of the Cognitive Era and AI opportunity. At SEMICON West 2018, SEMI provided a broad and deep slate of program education and spotlighted AI expertise across the electronics manufacturing supply. In case you missed it, SEMI also provided

  • Seven keynotes and dozens of expert panelists
  • Semiconductor venture funding program – problems and solutions for the ecosystem
  • SEMI Smart Workforce Pavilion with over 600 students registered to learn about the industry
  • Smart Pavilions including Smart Manufacturing and Smart Automotive

SEMI highlighted the five key vertical application platforms where our industry needs to collaborate across the full supply chain and streamline the supply chain for efficiency. The five are: IoT, Smart Transportation, Smart Manufacturing, Smart MedTech, and Smart Data. These verticals drive huge business potential and are just one of the reasons that SEMICON West has become the gathering place of the extended electronics manufacturing supply chain.

With SEMI, together we can realize the potential of the coming Cognitive Era. SEMI members can advance the industry with SEMI collective action in Workforce Development, Advocacy (public policy and regulatory), Standards to synchronize the industry, and in the many SEMI technology communities and special interest groups – to increase the global industry’s rate of growth and overall level of prosperity. For more information, please visit www.semi.org; to become a member, please visit http://www.semi.org/en/become-member-join-semi.

Ajit Manocha is President and CEO of SEMI

Originally published on the SEMI blog.

The Semiconductor Industry Association (SIA), representing U.S. leadership in semiconductor manufacturing, design, and research, today announced Dr. John L. Hennessy, chairman of Alphabet Inc., former president of Stanford University, and pioneer in electrical engineering, has been named the 2018 recipient of SIA’s highest honor, the Robert N. Noyce Award. SIA presents the Noyce Award annually in recognition of a leader who has made outstanding contributions to the semiconductor industry in technology or public policy. Hennessy will accept the award at the SIA Annual Award Dinner on Thursday, Nov. 29, 2018 in San Jose.

“Throughout his outstanding and influential career spanning more than four decades, John Hennessy has helped move the semiconductor industry forward, leading efforts to advance semiconductor technology and train future generations of electrical engineers,” said John Neuffer, president and CEO, Semiconductor Industry Association. “John literally wrote the book on computer architecture design and has spearheaded semiconductor research that has helped make our industry what it is today. On behalf of the SIA board of directors, it is an honor to announce John’s selection as the 2018 Robert N. Noyce Award recipient in recognition of his exceptional accomplishments.”

Hennessy joined Stanford University’s faculty in 1977 as an assistant professor of electrical engineering and rose through the academic ranks to become Stanford’s 10th president, serving in that role from 2000 until his retirement in 2016. In February 2018, Dr. Hennessy was appointed chairman of Alphabet Inc., parent company of Google.

In 1981, Hennessy drew together researchers to focus on a computer architecture known as RISC (Reduced Instruction Set Computer), a technology that has revolutionized the computer industry by increasing performance while reducing costs. Dr. Hennessy helped transfer this technology to industry. In 1984, he cofounded MIPS Computer Systems, which designed microprocessors. In more recent years, his research focused on the architecture of high-performance computers.

Hennessy has lectured and published widely and is the co-author of two internationally used

undergraduate and graduate textbooks on computer architecture design. He earned his bachelor’s degree in electrical engineering from Villanova University and his master’s and doctoral degrees in computer science from the State University of New York at Stony Brook.

“It is a true privilege to be selected for this award, joining a distinguished list of pioneers and icons who have previously received it,” said Hennessy. “Throughout my career, I have been fortunate to work with countless outstanding colleagues, mentors, and friends who have been instrumental in my work every step of the way. It is with them in mind that I gratefully accept this award, and I look forward to continuing to work alongside them to advance the forward march of innovation.”

The Noyce Award is named in honor of semiconductor industry pioneer Robert N. Noyce, co-founder of Fairchild Semiconductor and Intel.

SEMI today announced its support for calls on the Trump administration yesterday by nearly 50 members of Congress to remove tariffs on U.S. semiconductor products imported from China. In a bipartisan letterto Ambassador Robert Lighthizer, U.S. Trade Representative (USTR), the members of the House of Representatives – led by Reps. Pete Sessions (R-TX) and Zoe Lofgren (D-CA), the House co-chairs of the Congressional Semiconductor Caucus – stressed the importance of semiconductors in the modern economy and argued that the duties will do nothing to address concerns regarding China’s trade practices.

SEMI fully supports the Congressional recommendation and believes that the proposed tariffs will ultimately reduce semiconductor-related exports, limit technology innovation, introduce significant uncertainty in the semiconductor supply chain and cost U.S. companies an estimated more than $500 million annually. The tariffs also threaten to raise prices of semiconductor products and put thousands of high-paying and high skill jobs at risk. Last week, SEMI testified before a U.S. government interagency panel weighing the merits of the tariffs, urging the Trump administration to eliminate tariffs on semiconductor products.

Reaching their highest recorded quarterly level ever on robust demand, worldwide silicon wafer area shipments rose 2.5 percent in the second quarter of 2018 to 3,160 million square inches from 3,084 million square inches the previous quarter, according to the SEMI Silicon Manufacturers Group (SMG) in its quarterly analysis of the silicon wafer industry. New quarterly total area shipments are 6.1 percent higher than second quarter 2017 shipments.

“The second calendar quarter of the year typically enjoys a volume increase over the first quarter,” said Neil Weaver, chairman SEMI SMG and Director, Product Development and Applications Engineering of Shin Etsu Handotai America. “This quarter is no exception. Continued solid demand is driving record wafer volume shipments.”

Silicon* Area Shipment Trends

Millions of Square Inches
1Q2017
2Q2017
3Q2017
4Q2017
1Q2018
2Q2018
Total
2,858
2,978
2,997
2,977
3,084
3,160
*Semiconductor applications only
Source: SEMI, (www.semi.org), July

Silicon wafers are the fundamental building material for semiconductors, which in turn, are vital components of virtually all electronics goods, including computers, telecommunications products, and consumer electronics. The highly engineered thin round disks are produced in various diameters (from one inch to 12 inches) and serve as the substrate material on which most semiconductor devices, or chips, are fabricated.

All data cited in this release includes polished silicon wafers, including virgin test wafers and epitaxial silicon wafers, as well as non-polished silicon wafers shipped by the wafer manufacturers to end users.

By Jay Chittooran, Public Policy Manager, SEMI 

Two months after opposing $34 billion in U.S. trade tariffs on behalf of the U.S. semiconductor manufacturing industry, Jonathan Davis, global vice president of industry advocacy at SEMI, this week spoke out against an additional $16 billion duties on Chinese goods. Testifying before the same U.S. interagency panel mulling the merits of the tariffs, Davis called for the removal of 29 tariff lines covering items critical to semiconductor manufacturing including machines and spare parts used to make, wafers, flat panel displays and masks.

In his testimony to the panel, Davis stressed that while SEMI supports stronger protections against the theft of valuable intellectual property (IP), tariffs do little to address U.S. concerns over IP loss. Over the past month, SEMI has also submitted written comments and opposed the tariffs in public testimony. The panel includes representatives from the U.S. Trade Representative (USTR), Departments of Treasury, Commerce, State and Defense, and the Council of Economic Advisers.

Also testifying, Joe Pon, corporate vice president at Applied Materials, explained that the proposed tariffs will harm small and midsized companies and other U.S. business interests. Describing the tariffs as a tax on exports of high-value U.S. goods, Pon said the duties give non-U.S. firms an unfair competitive advantage.

In a parallel push to Davis’s testimony, SEMI, with more than 10 representatives from six member companies, met with 16 congressional offices this week to underscore the damage the tariffs would wreak on the U.S. semiconductor industry. The fallout would include higher operating costs, fewer exports and slower innovation. The tariffs would also curb industry growth and put thousands of high-paying, high-skill jobs at risk. SEMI pressed congressional leaders to reject the tariffs and support a push for congress to re-assert itself on trade policy.

Tariffs to cost U.S. SEMI members more than $500 million

SEMI estimates that the second list of proposed tariffs, covering about $16 billion in Chinese goods, will cost its 400 U.S. members more than $500 million annually in additional duties.

The tariffs on $34 billion in Chinese goods, which took effect July 6, impact products such as test and inspection equipment as well as spare parts that enter the U.S. from China. That round of tariffs will cost SEMI member companies and estimated tens of millions of dollars annually.

SEMI public policy team asks members to review tariff list

Looking ahead, SEMI encourages members to review the newly released $200 billion tariff list, determine any impact to their businesses and share their findings with SEMI’s public policy team.

The U.S. Trade Representative (USTR) has published the exclusion process for products subject to the China 301 tariffs. If your company’s products are subject to tariffs, you can request an exclusion.

In evaluating product exclusion requests, the USTR will consider whether a product is available from a source outside of China, whether the additional duties would cause severe economic harm to the requestor or other U.S. interests, and whether the product is strategically important or related to Chinese industrial programs (such as “Made in China 2025”).

The deadline for submitting product exclusion requests to USTR is October 9, 2018. Approved exclusions will be effective for one year upon approval and retroactive to July 6, 2018.

More information including the process for submitting the product exclusion request can be found here.

Any SEMI members with questions should contact Jay Chittooran, Public Policy Manager at SEMI, at [email protected].

In a key move to inspire the next generation of innovators, the School District of Osceola County (SDOC) today became the first school district to join the SEMI High Tech U (HTU) Certified Partner Program (CPP), a curriculum that prepares high-school students to pursue careers in STEM fields.

Under the program sponsored by the SEMI Foundation, SDOC will independently deliver HTU programs to local students at the Osceola Technical College Campus, in Kissimmee, Florida. SEMI Foundation awarded SDOC the certification today at a graduation ceremony for HTU students.

“SDOC’s partnership with the SEMI Foundation gives young people and families in our community exposure to high-tech career opportunities and the educational pathways to reach their goals,” said Debra Pace, superintendent of School District of Osceola County. “Our industry partners – including Mercury, University of Central Florida, BRIDG, Osceola Technical College, imec, Neo City and the Osceola County Education Foundation – have all made it possible for SDOC to offer this amazing opportunity to students.”

“We are delighted to partner with SDOC in our common goal to motivate the next generation of innovators,” said Leslie Tugman, executive director of the SEMI Foundation. “The School District of Osceola County is well-positioned to put college-bound high school students on a track that speeds the time from graduation to employment in high technology. SDOC’s certification is a tremendous benefit for it students, the community and employers in the fast-growing Central Florida tech corridor.”

To win the certification, SDOC delivered HTU over the past three years with guidance and instruction from SEMI. SDOC is only the second organization to receive the certification.

The nonprofit SEMI Foundation has been delivering its flagship program, SEMI High Tech U, at industry sites around the world since 2001 to emphasize the importance of STEM skills and inspire young people to pursue careers in high-technology fields. HTU students meet engineers and STEM volunteer instructors from industry for site tours and hands-on classroom activities such as etching wafers, making circuits, coding and training for professional interviews.

SEMI’s Certified Partner Program identifies organizations that provide quality training and can recruit and educate local high-school students in the value of careers in science, technology, engineering and math (STEM). Participating organizations are trained to deliver the unique SEMI curriculum with the support of volunteer instructors from the high-tech and STEM industries. SEMI High Tech U is the longest-running STEM career exploration program in the United States with documented student impact. Since inception, SEMI has reached over 8,000 high-school students in 12 states and nine countries with its award-winning program.

SEMI Foundation is a 501(c)(3) nonprofit charitable organization founded in 2001 to support education and career awareness in the electronics and high-tech fields through career exploration programs and scholarships. For more information, visit www.semifoundation.org.

Semiconductor Research Corporation (SRC), today announced the release of $26 million in added research funding for its New Science Team (NST) Joint University Microelectronics Program (JUMP). JUMP will fund 24 additional research projects spanning 14 unique U.S. universities. The new projects will be integrated into JUMP’s six existing research centers. NST will continue to distribute funds over its five-year plan, and industrial sponsors are welcome to join to further accentuate those plans.

The awards have been given to 27 faculty and will enhance the program’s expertise in technical areas such as atomic layer deposition (ALD), novel ferroelectric and spintronic materials and devices, 3D and heterogeneous integration, thermal management solutions, architectures for machine learning and statistical computing, memory abstractions, reconfigurable RF frontends, and mmWave to THz arrays and systems for communications and sensing.

“The goal of the NST project is not only to extend the viability of Moore’s Law economics through 2030, but to also change the research paradigm to one of co-optimization across the design hierarchy stack through multi-disciplinary teams,” said Ken Hansen, President and CEO of Semiconductor Research Corporation. “Our strategic partnerships with industry, academia, and government agencies foster the environment needed to realize the next wave of semiconductor technology innovations.”

“A new wave of fundamental research is required to unlock the ultimate potential of autonomous vehicles, smart cities, and Artificial Intelligence (AI),” said Dr. Michael Mayberry, Senior Vice President and Chief Technology Officer of Intel and the elected Chairman of the NST Governing Council. “Such advances will be fueled by novel and far-reaching improvements in the materials, devices, circuits, architectures, and systems used for computing and communications.”

The JUMP program, a consortium consisting of 11 industrial participants and the Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency (DARPA), is one of two complementary research programs for the NST project—a 5-year, greater than $300 million SRC initiative launched this January. JUMP and its six thematic centers will advance a new wave of fundamental research focused on the high-performance, energy-efficient microelectronics for communications, computing, and storage needs for 2025 and beyond.

The Semiconductor Industry Association (SIA), representing U.S. leadership in semiconductor manufacturing, design, and research, today welcomed newly announced research partnerships between the Defense Department’s Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency (DARPA) and research teams from industry and academia that aim to bolster long-term semiconductor research. The research partnerships, part of new programs within DARPA’s Electronics Resurgence Initiative (ERI), will target advances in semiconductor circuit design, materials, and systems architectures. The selected research teams were unveiled yesterday in San Francisco during the first annual DARPA ERI Summit, a three-day event bringing together hundreds of members of the microelectronics community.

“As the brains of modern electronics, semiconductors are central to America’s economy, national security, and global competitiveness,” said John Neuffer, president and CEO, Semiconductor Industry Association. “The DARPA research partnerships announced yesterday will help catalyze transformational advances in semiconductor technology and enhance semiconductors’ positive impacts on our country.”

The ERI is divided into three main research thrust areas – Design, Materials & Integration, and Architectures. Each thrust area will feature two new research programs. The Design research thrust area will include the Intelligent Design of Electronic Assets (IDEA) program and the Posh Open Source Hardware (POSH) program. The Materials & Integration research thrust area will include the Three-Dimensional Monolithic System-on-a-Chip (3DSoC) program and the Foundations Required for Novel Compute (FRANC) program. The ERI Architectures research thrust area will include the Software Defined Hardware (SDH) program and the Domain-specific System on Chip (DSSoC) program.

“The semiconductor industry plows about one-fifth of its revenues into R&D – among the highest shares of any sector – and has a long record of partnering with our government to advance early-stage research,” Neuffer said. “The new DARPA research partnerships mark a major commitment to furthering semiconductor technology and keeping America at the tip of the spear globally in semiconductor innovation.”

Neuffer also noted SIA’s longstanding support for basic scientific research funded through other federal agencies such as the National Science Foundation (NSF), the National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST), and the Department of Energy (DOE) Office of Science. He expressed the semiconductor industry’s eagerness to work with the Administration and Congress to advance research investments that will promote America’s economic and national security and technological leadership.

In total, the ERI will invest upwards of $1.5 billion over five years to jumpstart innovation in the electronics industry. In addition to fostering advancements in semiconductor technologies used for national security, the ripple effect from this research will be felt across the full range of semiconductor applications: communications, computing, health care, transportation, clean energy, and countless others. For more information about the Electronics Resurgence Initiative and the first annual ERI Summit, please visit http://www.eri-summit.com/.