Category Archives: Metrology

By Paula Doe, SEMI

The changing market for ICs means the end of business as usual for the greater semiconductor supply chain. Smarter use of data analytics looks like a key strategy to get new products more quickly into high yield production at improved margins.

Emerging IoT market drives change in manufacturing

The emerging IoT market for pervasive intelligence everywhere may be a volume driver for the industry, but it will also put tremendous pressure on prices that drive change in manufacturing. Pressure to keep ASPs of multichip connected devices below $1 to $5 for many IoT low-to-mid end applications, will drive more integration of the value chain, and more varied elements on the die. “The value chain must evolve to be more effective and efficient to meet the price and cost pressures for such IoT products and applications,” suggests Rajeev Rajan, VP of IoT, GLOBALFOUNDRIES, who will speak on the issue in a day-long forum on the future of smart manufacturing in the semiconductor supply chain at SEMICON West 2016 on July 14.

“It also means tighter and more complete integration of features on the die that enable differentiating capabilities at the semiconductor level, and also fewer, smaller devices that reduce the overall Bill of Materials (BOM), and result in more die per wafer.” He notes that at 22nm GLOBALFOUNDRIES is looking to enable an integrated connectivity solution instead of a separate die or external chip. Additional requirements for IoT are considerations for integrating security at the lower semiconductor/hardware layers, along with the typical higher layer middleware and software layers.

This drive for integration will also mean demand for new advanced packaging solutions that deliver smaller, thinner, and simpler form factors. The cost pressure also means than the next nodes will have to offer tangible power/performance/area/cost (PPAC) value, without being too disruptive a transition from the current reference flow. “Getting to volume yields faster will involve getting yield numbers earlier in the process, with increasing proof-points and planning iterations up front with customers, at times tied to specific use-cases and IoT market sub-segments,” he notes.

Rapid development of affordable data tools from other industries may help

Luckily, the wide deployment of affordable sensors and data analysis tools in other industries in other industries is developing solutions that may help the IC sector as well.  “A key trend is the “democratization” – enabling users to do very meaningful learning on data, using statistical techniques, without requiring a Ph.D. in statistics or mathematics,” notes Bill Jacobs, director, Advanced Analytics Product Management, Microsoft Corporation, another speaker in the program. “Rapid growth of statistics-oriented languages like R across industries is making it easier for manufacturers and equipment suppliers to capture, visualize and learn from data, and then build those learnings into dashboards for rapid deployment, or build them directly into automated applications and in some cases, machines themselves.”

Intel has reported using commercially available systems such as Cloudera, Aquafold, and Revolution Analytics (now part of Microsoft) to combine, store, analyze and display results from a wide variety of structured and unstructured manufacturing data. The system has been put to work to determine ball grid placement accuracy from machine learning from automatic comparison of thousands of images to select the any that deviate from the known-good pattern,  far more efficiently than human inspectors, and also to analyze tester parametrics to predict 90% of potential failures of the test interface unit before they happen.

“The IC industry may be ahead in the masses of data it gathers, but other industries are driving the methodology for easy management of the data,” he contends. “There’s a lot that can be leveraged from other industries to improve product quality, supply chain operations, and line up-time in the semiconductor industry.”

Demands for faster development of more complex devices require new approaches

As the cost of developing faster, smaller, lower power components gets ever higher, the dual sourcing strategies of automotive and other big IC users puts even more pressure on device makers to get the product right the first time. “There’s no longer time to learn with iterations to gradually improve the yield over time, now we need to figure out how to do this faster, as well as how to counter higher R&D costs on lower margins,” notes Sia Langrudi, Siemens VP Worldwide Strategy and Business Development,   who will also speak in the program.

The first steps are to recognize the poor visibility and traceability from design to manufacturing, and to put organizational discipline into place to remove barriers between silos. Then a company needs good baseline data, to be able to see improvement when it happens. “It’s rather like being an alcoholic, the first step is to recognize you have a problem,” says Langrudi. “People tell me they already have a quality management system, but they don’t. They have lots of different information systems, and unless they are capturing the information all in one place, the opportunity to use it is not there.”

Other speakers discussing these issues in the Smart Manufacturing Forum at SEMICON West July 14 include Amkor SVP Package Products Robert Lanzone, Applied Materials VP New Markets & Services Chris Moran, Intel VP IoT/GM Industrial Anthony Neal Graves, NextNine US Sales Manager Don Harroll, Optimal+ VP WW Marketing David Park, Qualcomm SVP Engineering Michael Campbell, Rudolph Technologies VP/GM Software Thomas Sonderman, and Samsung Sr Director, Engineering Development, Austin, Ben Eynon.

Learn more about the speakers at the SEMICON West 2016 session “Smart Manufacturing: The Key Opportunities and Challenges of the Next Generation of Manufacturing for the Electronics Value Chain.” To see all sessions in the Extended Supply Chain Forum, click here.

The Semiconductor Industry Association (SIA) this week announced worldwide sales of semiconductors reached $25.8 billion for the month of April 2016, a decrease of 1.0 percent from last month’s total of $26.1 billion and 6.2 percent lower than the April 2015 total of $27.6 billion. All monthly sales numbers are compiled by the World Semiconductor Trade Statistics (WSTS) organization and represent a three-month moving average. Additionally, a new WSTS industry forecast projects decreased annual semiconductor sales in 2016, followed by slight market growth in 2017 and 2018.

“Global semiconductor sales decreased marginally in April, continuing a recent trend of market sluggishness driven by soft demand and a range of macroeconomic headwinds,” said John Neuffer, president and CEO, Semiconductor Industry Association. “Despite a cumulative decrease across all product categories, year-to-year sales of microprocessors and analog products increased modestly, perhaps foreshadowing stronger sales ahead. The latest industry forecast suggests global sales may indeed rebound somewhat in the second half of 2016, but still fall short of last year’s total. The global market is projected to grow slightly in 2017 and 2018.”

Regionally, year-to-year sales increased in Japan (2.2 percent) and China (0.3 percent), but decreased in Asia Pacific/All Other (-8.2 percent), Europe (-8.6 percent), and the Americas (-14.8 percent). Compared with last month, sales were up slightly Japan(0.2 percent) and Asia Pacific/All Other (0.1 percent), but down in Europe (-0.8 percent), China (-1.8 percent), and the Americas (-2.2 percent).

Additionally, SIA today endorsed the WSTS Spring 2016 global semiconductor sales forecast, which projects the industry’s worldwide sales will be $327.2 billion in 2016, a 2.4 percent decrease from the 2015 sales total. WSTS projects year-to-year decreases across all regional markets for 2016: Europe (-0.1 percent), Asia Pacific (-1.2 percent), Japan (-1.7 percent), and the Americas (-7.3 percent). On the positive side, WSTS predicts growth in 2016 for several semiconductor product categories, including discretes, analog, and MCU products.

Beyond 2016, the semiconductor market is expected to grow at a modest pace across all regions. WSTS forecasts 2.0 percent growth globally for 2017 ($333.7 billion in total sales) and 2.2 percent growth for 2018 ($340.9 billion). WSTS tabulates its semi-annual industry forecast by convening an extensive group of global semiconductor companies that provide accurate and timely indicators of semiconductor trends.

April 2016

Billions

Month-to-Month Sales                               

Market

Last Month

Current Month

% Change

Americas

4.89

4.78

-2.2%

Europe

2.66

2.64

-0.8%

Japan

2.59

2.60

0.2%

China

7.93

7.79

-1.8%

Asia Pacific/All Other

8.02

8.03

0.1%

Total

26.09

25.84

-1.0%

Year-to-Year Sales                          

Market

Last Year

Current Month

% Change

Americas

5.61

4.78

-14.8%

Europe

2.89

2.64

-8.6%

Japan

2.54

2.60

2.2%

China

7.77

7.79

0.3%

Asia Pacific/All Other

8.74

8.03

-8.2%

Total

27.56

25.84

-6.2%

Three-Month-Moving Average Sales

Market

Nov/Dec/Jan

Feb/Mar/Apr

% Change

Americas

5.41

4.78

-11.7%

Europe

2.70

2.64

-2.4%

Japan

2.49

2.60

4.3%

China

8.42

7.79

-7.4%

Asia Pacific/All Other

7.87

8.03

2.0%

Total

26.89

25.84

-3.9%

Media Contact 

SEMI, the global industry association for companies that supply manufacturing technology and materials to the world’s chip makers, today reported that worldwide semiconductor manufacturing equipment billings reached US$8.3 billion in the first quarter of 2016. The billings figure is 3 percent higher than the fourth quarter of 2015 and 13 percent lower than the same quarter a year ago. The data is gathered jointly with the Semiconductor Equipment Association of Japan (SEAJ) from over 95 global equipment companies that provide data on a monthly basis.

Worldwide semiconductor equipment bookings were $9.4 billion in the first quarter of 2016. The figure is 2 percent lower than the same quarter a year ago and 5 percent higher than the bookings figure for the fourth quarter of 2015.

The quarterly billings data by region in billions of U.S. dollars, quarter-over-quarter growth and year-over-year rates by region are as follows:

 

1Q2016

4Q2015

1Q2015

1Q16 / 4Q15
(Qtr-over-Qtr)

1Q16 / 1Q15
(Year-over-Year)
Taiwan

1.89

2.64

1.81

-29%

4%
Korea

1.68

1.22

2.69

38%

-37%
China

1.60

1.00

1.16

60%

39%
Japan

1.24

1.40

1.26

-11%

-2%
North America

1.01

0.92

1.47

10%

-32%
Rest of World

0.51

0.43

0.43

17%

18%
Europe

0.35

0.39

0.69

-10%

-49%

Total

8.28

8.00

9.50

3%

-13%

Source: SEMI/SEAJ

NanoFocus AG, the developer and manufacturer of optical 3D surface measuring technology, introduces the new measuring system µsprint hp-opc 3000 for the optical inspection of probe cards within the framework of the 26th Annual SW Test Workshop in San Diego from 5th – 8th June 2016.

nanofocusµsprint hp-opc 3000 enables an innovative and future-oriented process step in wafer production. The process is specially designed for the requirements of wafer test locations with a variety of different probe cards as well as large-volume throughput. A pilot system is already installed at a renowned manufacturer of semiconductor elements.

Probe cards are special test devices that are used for standard function tests of wafers at the end of the so-called front-end process. This means, they are used after the functional structures of the electronic elements on a wafer are fully manufactured. The µsprint hp-opc 3000 system is responsible for ensuring that the wafers are in sound condition after testing, for reducing yield losses as well as for minimizing the time and number of complex maintenance cycles the probe cards are subjected to regularly.

As wafers already completed the most important part of value creation with the manufacturing of the functional structures, damage during testing represents a significant economic loss. Furthermore, faulty probe cards can cause damage during wafer testing. Although such faulty probe cards can lead to a correct result of the functional test, they can cause unnoticed damage to a wafer rendering it unusable. On the one hand, such incidents represent an economic loss due to recall actions, on the other hand, a minimized quality perception of the delivered products by the customer. Beyond that, using the µsprint hp-opc 3000 can shorten and/or specify repair cycles more clearly. This provides an important contribution to the reduction in operative costs when using probe cards.

µsprint hp-opc 3000 is a process-capable capacity tool. It can be integrated into process control systems via a SECS/GEM communication interface. The tool complies with all necessary and common standards required at front-end wafer test locations.

GLOBALFOUNDRIES today announced the signing of a memorandum of understanding to drive its next phase of growth in China. Through a joint venture with the government of Chongqing, the company plans to expand its global manufacturing footprint by establishing a 300mm fab in China. GLOBALFOUNDRIES is also investing in expanding design support capabilities to better serve customers across the country.

“China is the fastest growing semiconductor market, with more than half of the world’s semiconductor consumption and a growing ecosystem of fabless companies competing on a global scale,” said GLOBALFOUNDRIES CEO Sanjay Jha. “We are pleased to partner with the Chongqing leadership to expand our investment in support of our growing Chinese customer base.”

The initial plan of the project includes upgrading an existing semiconductor fab to accommodate the manufacturing of 300mm wafers using GLOBALFOUNDRIES’ production-proven technologies from its Singapore site. The proposed joint venture will provide immediate access to a state-of-the-art facility, accelerating time-to-market with production planned for 2017.

“In recent years, Chongqing has followed the cluster model to vigorously develop the electronic information industry, becoming one of China’s most important locations for intelligent end products manufacturing,” said Huang Qifan, Mayor of Chongqing. “During the period of China’s thirteenth five-year plan, Chongqing will continue to develop the intelligent IC and other strategic emerging industries, and promote sustained and healthy economic development in the region. GLOBALFOUNDRIES is a world-famous IC manufacturing company, and we welcome them to participate through cooperation to achieve mutual benefit and win-win. Cooperation between the two parties will help to enhance the production of intelligent IC technology in Chongqing, further improving the electronic information supply chain in Chongqing and the rest of China.”

GLOBALFOUNDRIES continues to strengthen its sales, support, and design services offerings in China, doubling over the past year with plans for continued growth. The company’s current presence is anchored by world-class design centers in Beijing and Shanghai, which have extensive expertise in custom designs supporting a robust ASIC platform, coupled with foundry design capabilities for a variety of technology nodes. These capabilities are complemented by key regional partners in its design and IP ecosystem.

North America-based manufacturers of semiconductor equipment posted $1.59 billion in orders worldwide in April 2016 (three-month average basis) and a book-to-bill ratio of 1.10, according to the April Equipment Market Data Subscription (EMDS) Book-to-Bill Report published today by SEMI.  A book-to-bill of 1.10 means that $110 worth of orders were received for every $100 of product billed for the month.

SEMI reports that the three-month average of worldwide bookings in April 2016 was $1.59 billion. The bookings figure is 15.6 percent higher than the final March 2016 level of $1.38 billion, and is 1.3 percent higher than the April 2015 order level of $1.57 billion.

The three-month average of worldwide billings in April 2016 was $1.46 billion. The billings figure is 21.5 percent higher than the final March 2016 level of $1.20 billion, and is 4.0 percent lower than the April 2015 billings level of $1.52 billion.

“Bookings reached their highest levels in eight months and billings levels also significantly improved in April,” said Denny McGuirk, president and CEO of SEMI. “The data reflect strong investments in 3D NAND and in China.”

The SEMI book-to-bill is a ratio of three-month moving averages of worldwide bookings and billings for North American-based semiconductor equipment manufacturers. Billings and bookings figures are in millions of U.S. dollars.

  Billings
(3-mo. avg)		 Bookings
(3-mo. avg)		 Book-to-Bill
November 2015 $1,288.3 $1,236.6 0.96
December 2015 $1,349.9

 

 $1,343.5 1.00
January 2016 $1,221.2 $1,310.9 1.07
February 2016 $1,204.4 $1,262.0 1.05
March 2016 (final) $1,197.6 $1,379.2 1.15
April 2016 (prelim) $1,455.0 $1,594.6 1.10

Source: SEMI (www.semi.org), May 2016

SEMI announced today that the first SEMI Strategic Materials Conference (SMC) was held in Korea COEX in Seoul on May 18. This deep technical conference program attracted 258 attendees from 81 companies. Advanced materials critical to scaling technology in semiconductor manufacturing industry bring challenges including innovation speed, cost effectiveness, performance, quality management and environmental issues.

With the theme “A Decade of Materials,” SEMI Korea organized the inaugural SMC Korea that brought the key semiconductor issues into focus and provided networking opportunities for this specialized community. The agenda included presentations on market outlook, new technology trends, challenges and opportunities of emerging new materials, chemical, quality management and collaboration by 14 speakers from Air Products, ASM Korea, Dow Chemical, Entegris, Samsung Electronics, SK Hynix, Tokyo Electron, Yole Développement and others.

The keynote at SMC Korea was presented by Kurt Ronse, director of Advanced Lithography Program of imec. He spoke on advanced lithography and patterning materials for the next decade. Ronse stated that Moore’s Law of continuing IC die area and cost reduction was becoming increasingly difficult – and advanced and strategic materials were key in enabling the physical scaling. He added that all advanced patterning techniques critically depend on increasingly stringent materials properties.

Two attorneys, Joo-Hyoung LEE and Tae-Hyun YOON from KIM & CHANG, the largest law firm in Korea, presented in the policy and regulation session. They presented an overview of K-REACH, a critical issue for chemical materials. They highlighted trends and companies’ challenges and responses in the industry in this increasingly critical area.

Hyunwoo KIM, vice president of Samsung Electronics, highlighted the importance of collaboration between customers and suppliers for the development of new materials and innovative technology. This message from one of the top global chipmakers underscored the importance of this forum working together in the area of semiconductor materials being enabling to the industry.

“We were pleased to hold the first Strategic Materials Conference, SMC Korea,” said Hyun-Dae Cho, president of SEMI Korea. “We hope the conference provided attendees with important insights into the semiconductor materials industry and also provided key networking opportunities.”

Official Sponsors of SMC Korea 2016 include Air Products, Merck, and SK Materials.

TriLumina today announced the appointment of Dan Squiller as Executive Chairman of its Board of Directors. Dan’s experience in the automotive market further strengthens the company’s focus on the high-growth automotive ADAS semiconductor sector.

Dan joins TriLumina with a wealth of experience having served in various senior executive and C-level positions at Scientific Atlanta, St. Bernard Software, Invensys plc, PowerGenix, GT Advanced Technologies, and Verengo Solar. Dan has a broad-base of functional expertise, that includes roles in engineering, operations, product management, sales, marketing, and business development. He has held CEO roles in venture backed early stage companies and co-founded St. Bernard Software, while he has also led billion-dollar, multi-divisional global enterprises. As CEO of PowerGenix, Dan led the shift to a new market segment and achieved technology qualification with Tier1 automotive suppliers in less than 5 years, proving his ability to bring products to the automotive industry effectively. Dan has served on, and chaired, various Boards of Directors and Advisory Boards for industrial companies, business groups, and nonprofits. He currently serves on the boards of Verengo Solar, PowerGenix, and now joins the board of TriLumina.

“I am very excited to join TriLumina, a pioneering start-up developing disruptive VCSEL laser technology that is a true game-changer for the automotive industry,” stated Dan Squiller. “Already sampling their solid-state, scanning laser devices to multiple automotive Tier1s, TriLumina is enabling ADAS solutions spanning from driver monitoring to LiDAR systems for autonomous vehicles.”

“We are pleased to announce the addition of Dan Squiller as Executive Chairman of our Board of Directors,” said Lee Rand, TriLumina Board Member, “The addition of Dan to the Board brings experience in the automotive industry as well as broad leadership skills strengthening the focus on TriLumina’s target markets and supporting our senior leadership team by providing guidance to ensure successful execution on our industry leading laser semiconductor products.”

TriLumina Corp., established in 2010 and headquartered in Albuquerque, New Mexico, is a fabless semiconductor laser technology company that develops, manufactures and integrates among the fastest and most powerful semiconductor laser solutions in the world. TriLumina’s near infrared (NIR) emitters are capable of high power illumination for LiDAR, depth sensing and smart illumination. The company is targeting LiDAR applications in Advance Driver Assistance Systems (ADAS) and Driver Monitoring Systems (DMS) for cockpit applications in the automotive market, as well as, depth sensing and gesture control for the industrial robotics, commercial and consumer electronics markets.

IC Insights will release its May Update to the 2016 McClean Report later this month.  This Update includes a discussion of the 1Q16 semiconductor industry market results, an update of the capital spending forecast by company, a review of the IC market by electronic system type, and a look at the top-25 1Q16 semiconductor suppliers (the top 20 1Q16 semiconductor suppliers are covered in this research bulletin).

The top-20 worldwide semiconductor (IC and O S D—optoelectronic, sensor, and discrete) sales ranking for 1Q16 is shown in Figure 1.  It includes eight suppliers headquartered in the U.S., three in Japan, three in Taiwan, three in Europe, two in South Korea, and one in Singapore, a relatively broad representation of geographic regions.

The top-20 ranking includes three pure-play foundries (TSMC, GlobalFoundries, and UMC) and six fabless companies. If the three pure-play foundries were excluded from the top-20 ranking, U.S.-based IDM ON Semiconductor ($817 million), China-based fabless supplier HiSilicon ($810 million), and Japan-based IDM Sharp ($800 million) would have been ranked in the 18th, 19th, and 20th positions, respectively.

IC Insights includes foundries in the top-20 semiconductor supplier ranking since it has always viewed the ranking as a top supplier list, not a marketshare ranking, and realizes that in some cases the semiconductor sales are double counted.  With many of our clients being vendors to the semiconductor industry (supplying equipment, chemicals, gases, etc.), excluding large IC manufacturers like the foundries would leave significant “holes” in the list of top semiconductor suppliers.  As shown in the listing, the foundries and fabless companies are identified.  In the April Update to The McClean Report, marketshare rankings of IC suppliers by product type were presented and foundries were excluded from these listings.

Overall, the top-20 list shown in Figure 1 is provided as a guideline to identify which companies are the leading semiconductor suppliers, whether they are IDMs, fabless companies, or foundries.

Figure 1

Figure 1

In total, the top-20 semiconductor companies’ sales declined by 6% in 1Q16/1Q15, one point less than the total worldwide semiconductor industry decline of 7%.  Although, in total, the top-20 1Q16 semiconductor companies registered a moderate 6% drop, there were seven companies that displayed a double-digit 1Q16/1Q15 decline and three that registered a ≥25% fall (with memory giants Micron and SK Hynix posting the worst results).  Half of the top-20 companies had sales of at least $2.0 billion in 1Q16.  As shown, it took $832 million in quarterly sales just to make it into the 1Q16 top-20 semiconductor supplier list.

There was one new entrant into the top-20 ranking in 1Q16—U.S.-based fabless supplier AMD.  AMD had a particularly rough 1Q16 and saw its sales drop 19% year-over-year to $832 million, which was about half the $1,589 million in sales the company logged just over two years ago in 4Q13.  Although AMD did not have a good 1Q16, Japan-based Sharp, the only company that fell from the top-20 ranking, faired even worse with its 1Q16/1Q15 sales plunging by 30%!

In order to allow for more useful year-over-year comparisons, acquired/merged semiconductor company sales results were combined for both 1Q15 and 1Q16, regardless of when the acquisition or merger occurred.  For example, although Intel’s acquisition of Altera did not close until late December of 2015, Altera’s 1Q15 sales ($435 million) were added to Intel’s 1Q15 sales ($11,632 million) to come up with the $12,067 million shown in Figure 1 for Intel’s 1Q15 sales.  The same method was used to calculate the 1Q15 sales for Broadcom Ltd. (Avago/Broadcom), NXP (NXP/Freescale), and GlobalFoundries (GlobalFoundries/IBM).

Apple is an anomaly in the top-20 ranking with regards to major semiconductor suppliers. The company designs and uses its processors only in its own products—there are no sales of the company’s MPUs to other system makers. Apple’s custom ARM-based SoC processors had a “sales value” of $1,390 million in 1Q16, up 10% from $1,260 million in 1Q15.  Apple’s MPUs have been used in 13 iPhone handset designs since 2007 and a dozen iPad tablet models since 2010 as well as in iPod portable media players, smartwatches, and Apple TV units.  Apple’s custom processors—such as the 64-bit A9 used in iPhone 6s and 6s Plus handsets introduced in September 2015 and the new iPhone 6SE launched in March 2016—are made by pure-play foundry TSMC and IDM foundry Samsung.

Intel remained firmly in control of the number one spot in 1Q16.  In fact, it increased its lead over Samsung’s semiconductor sales from 29% in 1Q15 to 40% in 1Q16.  The biggest moves in the ranking were made by the new Broadcom Ltd. (Avago/Broadcom) and Nvidia, each of which jumped up three positions in 1Q16 as compared to 1Q15.

As would be expected, given the possible acquisitions and mergers that could/will occur this year (e.g., Microchip/Atmel), as well as any new ones that may develop, the top-20 semiconductor ranking is likely to undergo a significant amount of upheaval over the next few years as the semiconductor industry continues along its path to maturity.