Category Archives: Packaging

The Semiconductor Industry Association (SIA), representing U.S. leadership in semiconductor manufacturing, design, and research, today announced worldwide sales of semiconductors reached $122.7 billion during the third quarter of 2018, an increase of 4.1 percent over the previous quarter and 13.8 percent more than the third quarter of 2017. Global sales for the month of September 2018 reached $40.9 billion, an uptick of 2.0 percent over last month’s total and 13.8 percent more than sales from June 2017. All monthly sales numbers are compiled by the World Semiconductor Trade Statistics (WSTS) organization and represent a three-month moving average.

“Three-quarters of the way through 2018, the global semiconductor industry is on pace to post its highest-ever annual sales, comfortably topping last year’s record total of $412 billion,” said John Neuffer, president and CEO, Semiconductor Industry Association. “While year-to-year growth has tapered in recent months, September marked the global industry’s highest-ever monthly sales, and Q3 was its top-grossing quarter on record. Year-to-year sales in September were up across every major product category and regional market, with sales into China and the Americas continuing to lead the way.”

Regionally, sales increased compared to September 2017 in China (26.3 percent), the Americas (15.1 percent), Europe (8.8 percent), Japan (7.2 percent), and Asia Pacific/All Other (2.4 percent). Sales were up compared to last month in the Americas (6.0 percent), China (1.8 percent), and Europe (1.2 percent), but down slightly in Asia Pacific/All Other (-0.1 percent) and Japan (-0.6 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.

September 2018
Billions
Month-to-Month Sales
Market Last Month Current Month % Change
Americas 8.68 9.20 6.0%
Europe 3.53 3.57 1.2%
Japan 3.39 3.37 -0.6%
China 14.10 14.35 1.8%
Asia Pacific/All Other 10.43 10.42 -0.1%
Total 40.12 40.91 2.0%
Year-to-Year Sales
Market Last Year Current Month % Change
Americas 7.99 9.20 15.1%
Europe 3.28 3.57 8.8%
Japan 3.14 3.37 7.2%
China 11.36 14.35 26.3%
Asia Pacific/All Other 10.18 10.42 2.4%
Total 35.95 40.91 13.8%
Three-Month-Moving Average Sales
Market Apr/May/Jun Jul/Aug/Sept % Change
Americas 8.34 9.20 10.2%
Europe 3.67 3.57 -2.7%
Japan 3.39 3.37 -0.8%
China 13.59 14.35 5.6%
Asia Pacific/All Other 10.32 10.42 1.0%
Total 39.31 40.91 4.1%

By Emir Demircan

SEMI recently shared industry feedback with the European Commission on the roadmap for reviewing RoHS (the Directive on the restriction of the use of certain hazardous substances in electrical and electronic equipment). SEMI brought the following topics to the attention of the European Commission:

  • There exist serious inconsistencies between RoHS and REACH, e.g. different product information requirements, contradictory restrictions for certain substances, and inconsistent ways of calculating action threshold concentrations. In addition, it is not clear why certain material restrictions have been included in REACH but not in RoHS (e.g. PFOA). The requirement to ensure EEE compliance with both RoHS and REACH is damaging for manufacturers with complex and global supply chains.
  • RoHS-like laws in other countries are not realized with the same detailed requirements of RoHS. Exemptions by certain RoHS-like laws are not harmonized with RoHS, and as far as one can tell they do not expire. The basic facts about other laws in other countries should be considered by the EU in the hopes that more harmony could be built into RoHS.
  • Retaining LSSIT and LSFI exclusions in RoHS is critically important to the semiconductor industry. The justifications for their exclusion from the first two versions of RoHS are equally valid today. While some equipment categories are no longer excluded, retaining the LSSIT and LSFI exclusions allows most used equipment – vital to semiconductor manufacturing in Europe – to continue to be imported.
  • It is an economically beneficial and environmentally sound strategy to extend the useful life of semiconductor manufacturing equipment as long as possible by facilitating the acquisition of used equipment. Imported used equipment is a first placing on the EU market and carries an obligation to confirm the compliance of the equipment with RoHS. Yet, it is most likely that neither the importer nor the non-EU seller of the used equipment (who is not necessarily the OEM) can access component information necessary for compliance for the following reasons:
    • They have no access to OEM design information.
    • New research of most components cannot be done because components are not marked with complete origin information.
    • Component OEMs are non-responsive or no longer in business.

Thus, while RoHS does not currently support EU imports of used equipment, used equipment already on the EU market may be sold and resold without any RoHS burdens. Many businesses in Europe rely on imported used equipment. If adjustments are not made to RoHS, this will eventually hamper Europe’s competitiveness and jeopardize its industrial policy goals.

  • Although components themselves do not have to be CE marked for RoHS compliance, they must be RoHS-compliant for the sake of the equipment into which they are assembled. Requesting a RoHS compliance declaration for components is the most common way supply chains answer this requirement. However, RoHS compliance can depend on one or more exemptions, all of which eventually expire. A component in a warehouse that is compliant today might not be compliant next year. Actors in the supply chain have invented a variety of custom contract requirements to gather exemption-use information for components. The way forward with significant benefits is to require a RoHS declaration of compliance to exemptions relied upon to achieve RoHS compliance. This could standardize supply chain communications and reduce costs. Therefore, it is recommended that the RoHS Annex VI DoC criteria be amended to include an additional element to the effect of “Where applicable, references to the relevant exemptions given in Annex III and Annex IV on which conformity depends.”

If you have any questions on these issues, please contact Emir Demircan, senior manager, Advocacy and Public Policy,  SEMI Europe, [email protected], +32 (0) 2 609 53 18.

“2017 was an unprecedented year for semiconductor industry,” commented Santosh Kumar, Director of Packaging, Assembly and Substrates at Yole Korea, part of Yole Développement (Yole). “The market grow by 21.6% year-to-year to reach record of almost US$412 billion.”

Under this dynamic context, the advanced packaging industry is playing a key role, offering huge opportunities of innovation for the companies involved. According to Yole’s analyst, Santosh Kumar, the advanced packaging market should reach about US$ 39 billion in 2023.

The market research and strategy consulting company Yole, releases this month, its famous report, Status of the Advanced Packaging Industry. Santosh Kumar, with the help of the advanced packaging team at Yole, proposes today an impressive 2018 edition with key market trends, the description of technology evolution, a detailed analysis of the competitive landscape.

For the 1st time, this technology & market report includes a specific section dedicated to the advanced packaging technologies in the new semiconductor era. It offers a short term and long term outlook, with detailed roadmaps. It also details the impact of front-end scaling on advanced packaging. In addition Yole’s team points out the competitive landscape, with disruption and opportunities, detailed supply chain, production splits by manufacturers.

“This report is part of our key advanced packaging technology & market analyses,” asserts Emilie Jolivet, Director, Semiconductor & Software at Yole. “Thanks to this report, we built a strong reputation and became step by step one of the major consulting companies in this area.”

To highlight results of this new advanced packaging report, Yole combines the release of this report with the relevant interview of a key advanced packaging player, Amkor Technology. OSATs clearly play a significant role in the evolution of the industry and Ron Huemoeller, Corporate Vice President, Head of WWRD & Technology Strategy and Christopher A. Chaney, IRC, Vice President, Investor Relations, both at Amkor Technology agreed to share their vision with @Micronews readers: More.

Between 2017 and 2023, the total packaging market’s revenue will grow at 5.2% CAGR . In parallel, over the same period, the advanced packaging market will grow at 7% CAGR. On the other hand, the traditional packaging market will grow at a lower CAGR of 3.3%.

Of the different advanced packaging platforms, 3D TSV and fan-out will grow at rates of 29% and 15%, respectively. Flip-chip, which constitutes the majority of the advanced packaging market, will grow at CAGR of almost 7%. Meanwhile, fan-in WLP will grow at a 7% CAGR from 2017 – 2023, mainly led by mobile.

“Advanced packages will continue their important role of addressing high-end logic and memory in computing and telecom, with further penetration in analog and RF in high-end consumer/mobile segments,” analyses Santosh Kumar from Yole. All of this while eyeing opportunities in the growing automotive and industrial segments.

What’s happened in 2017? According to Yole, two advanced packaging roadmaps are foreseen:
•  Scaling: going to sub10 nm nodes
•  And functional: staying above 20nm nodes.

In parallel, the semiconductor industry is developing products on both of them. Under this favorable context, advanced semiconductor packaging is seen as a way to increase the value of a semiconductor product, adding functionality, maintaining/increasing performance while lowering cost.
Both roadmaps hold more multi-die heterogeneous integration including SiP and higher levels of package customization in the future. A variety of multi-die packaging is developing in both high and low end, for consumer, performance and specialized applications. Heterogeneous integration has created opportunities for both the substrate and WLP based SiP.

2017 also show the merger of 3 competitive areas that will continue to develop: PCB vs. substrate, substrate vs. Fan-Out and Fan-Out vs. 2.5D/3D.

It will be difficult to repeat 2017 performances and Yole’s Semiconductor & Software team went further in its investigation this year again, to propose you today a comprehensive analysis of this evolution. Lot of questions are still pending and the Status of the Advanced Packaging industry will give you a deep understanding of the megatrends impacting this industry, the related business opportunities and technical innovations. A detailed description of this report is available on i-micronews.com, advanced packaging reports section.

North America-based manufacturers of semiconductor equipment posted $2.09 billion in billings worldwide in September 2018 (three-month average basis), according to the September Equipment Market Data Subscription (EMDS) Billings Report published today by SEMI. The billings figure is 6.5 percent lower than the final August 2018 level of $2.37 billion, and is 1.8 percent higher than the September 2017 billings level of $2.05 billion.

“Quarterly global billings of North American equipment suppliers experienced their typical seasonal weakening in the most recent quarter,” said Ajit Manocha, president and CEO of SEMI. “Relative to the third quarter, we expect investment activity to improve for the remainder of the year.”

The SEMI Billings report uses three-month moving averages of worldwide billings for North American-based semiconductor equipment manufacturers. Billings figures are in millions of U.S. dollars.
Billings
(3-mo. avg.)
Year-Over-Year
April 2018
$2,689.9
25.9%
May 2018
$2,702.3
19.0%
June 2018
$2,484.3
8.0%
July 2018
$2,377.9
4.8%
August 2018 (final)
$2,236.8
2.5%
September 2018 (prelim)
$2,091.9
1.8%

Source: SEMI (www.semi.org), October 2018

SEMI publishes a monthly North American Billings report and issues the Worldwide Semiconductor Equipment Market Statistics (WWSEMS) report in collaboration with the Semiconductor Equipment Association of Japan (SEAJ).

Two leading French and Taiwanese research institutes today announced their new collaboration to facilitate a scientific and technological exchange between France and Taiwan.

Leti, a research institute of CEA Tech in Grenoble, France, and the Taiwanese National Applied Research Laboratories (NARLabs), two key nanotechnology research providers in their respective countries, will explore opportunities for joint research-and-development projects in high-performance computing and networks, photonics, bio-medical nanotechnologies and brain-computer interface. Their scientists will meet in a series of workshops to initiate joint R&D projects. This agreement also includes access to each other’s unique equipment and platforms, and will offer opportunities to researchers with a specific exchange program.

The agreement was signed by CEA-Leti CEO Emmanuel Sabonnadière and NARLabs President Yeong-Her Wang during the recent Leti Day Taiwan in Hsinchu.

“CEA-Leti and NARLabs have the same goals: to create differentiating technologies and transfer them to industry,” Sabonnadière said. “This cooperation agreement will be the starting point for a strategic research cooperation between our organizations that will strengthen R&D and inspire microelectronics innovation in both Taiwan and France.”

“The National Chip Implementation Center (CIC) and the National Nano Device Laboratories (NDL) of National Applied Research Laboratories (NARLabs) have fostered close ties with CEA-Leti since 2017,” said NARLabs Vice President Wu Kuang-Chong. “Around the Leti Day Taiwan, we held seminars together, and our researchers were able to meet and exchange ideas. Topics included silicon photonics, intelligent image sensors, RF technology, 3D IC+ and device fabrication technology, among others. We believe that with this memorandum of understanding, CEA-Leti and NARLabs will continue to collaborate together to complement and to enlighten each other to formulate innovative research projects.”

By Jay Chittooran

Last week, the Office of the U.S. Trade Representative (USTR), on instruction from President Trump, notified Congress that the administration intends to begin bilateral trade negotiations with Japan, the European Union (EU), and the United Kingdom.

SEMI stands strong for free trade and open markets, and roundly supports efforts to increase market access and tap into more foreign economies, especially economies like Japan and the EU, both of which are central to the semiconductor industry. The semiconductor industry, which enables the $2 trillion electronics market, is built on global commerce. SEMI members rely on a vast network of supply chains that span the globe, bringing together components and tools made all around the world and assembled into a single sub-system that is then integrated into a larger tool used in the chipmaking process.

These free trade agreements will reduce tariffs, which will result in cost savings and productivity gains, and allow SEMI members to expand and grow. But the benefits of modern free trade agreements extend well beyond tariff reduction. Indeed, these trade deals will establish and enhance global trade rules that enable companies to innovate and compete fairly on a level playing field. Trade agreements strengthen certainty and further business continuity.

While the exact nature and negotiation timelines for the talks remain unclear, SEMI will engage the administration, urging it to maintain high standards in these agreements, such as:

  • Maintain strong respect for intellectual property and trade secrets through robust safeguards and significant penalties for violators
  • Remove tariffs and non-tariff barriers on semiconductor products as well as products that depend on semiconductors
  • Simplify and harmonize the customs and trade facilitation processes
  • Combat any attempts of forced technology transfer
  • Prevent use of data localization measures and enable the free flow of cross-border data flows
  • End discriminatory and/or burdensome regulatory practices
  • Ensure standards in all forms are market-oriented
  • Create rules for state-owned enterprises to ensure fair and non-discriminatory treatment of all companies

According to Trade Promotion Authority (TPA), the U.S. law that guides trade votes in Congress, negotiations with each country can only begin 90 days after last week’s notification. During that period, there will be intensive consultation with Congress and stakeholders. This means, at the earliest, talks can start on January 14, 2019. (Bear in mind that discussions with the UK can only begin in earnest once the UK has formally left the European Union on March 29, 2019.)

The Trump administration’s announcement comes after the U.S. imposed or threatened tariffs on imports on all trading partners, including the EU and China. All told, the U.S. has imposed tariffs on more than $300 billion worth of goods. SEMI has weighed in on the detrimental nature of tariffs, arguing that tariffs on China will ultimately do nothing to address the concerns with China’s trade practices. This sledgehammer approach will introduce significant uncertainty, impose greater costs, and potentially lead to a trade war, ultimately undercutting the ability of semiconductor companies to sell overseas, stifling innovation and curbing U.S. technological leadership.

Elsewhere, the Comprehensive and Progressive Agreement for Trans-Pacific Partnership, the multilateral trade deal that links 11 Asia-Pacific economies, is well on its way to taking force. Canada will be taking its final steps to ratify the deal, joining Mexico, Japan and Singapore. The deal, formerly known as the Trans-Pacific Partnership, should take effect by the first half of 2019.

SEMI will continue tracking ongoing trade developments. Any SEMI members with questions should contact Jay Chittooran, Public Policy Manager at SEMI, at [email protected].

Silvaco welcomed Dr. Babak Taheri as CTO and Executive Vice President of Products. He brings three decades of engineering and leadership experience, with a track record of transforming and scaling global technology platforms. This new position at Silvaco is designed to drive innovation and project execution while increasing the synergy between Silvaco’s products and services across the company.

Dr. Taheri will be taking Silvaco’s advanced positions in FinFET and beyond nodes, novel materials, emerging memory and advanced display technologies, to the next level. He is also tasked with extending Silvaco’s market leadership in analog mixed signal, custom IC design and power devices. Furthermore, Dr. Taheri’s vast expertise in IP Products will accelerate Silvaco’s IP business growth.

Dr. Taheri said, “Silvaco has tremendous potential and I look forward leading Silvaco technologies as their CTO and EVP of products. My focus will be on TCAD, EDA, IP products, IP security, and related services. Silvaco has an impressive history of innovative solutions. I am excited about the opportunity to help bring the next level of innovation for products and services while deepening relationships with our customers and partners. Silvaco has a compelling combination of ground-breaking software solutions, global reach, and talented employees that form a strong foundation for industry leadership and success.”

Earlier in his career, Dr. Taheri has served as VP/GM of the Sensor Solutions Division at Freescale Semiconductor (now NXP). He also held VP/GM roles at Cypress Semiconductor and Invensense (now TDK), as well as key roles at SRI International and Apple.

David Dutton, CEO of Silvaco, welcomes Babak to the Team: “Babak Taheri is joining at the perfect time in Silvaco’s growth as a technology company in the demanding semiconductor industry,” said Dutton. “Babak understands our products and how to make them work together in a cohesive solution for the changing needs of our customers. I am looking forward to our partnership in growing Silvaco’s leadership in the industry.”

Babak has a Ph.D. in EECS and Neurosciences from UC Davis, a 30-year career spanning Engineering, R&D, Corporate IP Development/Management, MEMS/Sensors/Actuator Products, Memory Products and more, including 20 Published articles and 28 patents to his name. Silvaco welcomes Babak Taheri to its Executive Team to help drive Silvaco’s Vision, Mission and strategies.

Samsung Electronics Co., Ltd. today announced several groundbreaking additions to its comprehensive semiconductor ecosystem that encompass next-generation technologies in foundry as well as NAND flash, SSD (solid state drive) and DRAM. Together, these developments mark a giant step forward for Samsung’s semiconductor business.

Unveiled at its annual Samsung Tech Day include:

  • 7nm EUV process node from Samsung’s Foundry Business, providing significant strides forward in power, performance and area.
  • SmartSSD, a field programmable gate array (FPGA) SSD, that will offer accelerated data processing and the ability to bypass server CPU limits.
  • QLC-SSD for enterprise and datacenters that offer 33-percent more storage per cell than TLC-SSD, consolidating of storage footprints and improving total cost of ownership (TCO).
  • 256-gigabyte (GB) 3DS (3-dimensional stacking) RDIMM (registered dual in-line memory module), based on 10nm-class 16-gigabit (Gb) DDR4 DRAM that will double current maximum capacity to deliver higher performance and lower power consumption.

“Samsung’s technology leadership and product breadth are unparalleled,” said JS Choi, President, Samsung Semiconductor, Inc. “Bringing 7nm EUV into production is an incredible achievement. Also, the announcements of SmartSSD and 256GB 3DS RDIMM represent performance and capacity breakthroughs that will continue to push compute boundaries. Together, these additions to Samsung’s comprehensive technology ecosystem will power the next generation of datacenters, high-performance computing (HPC), enterprise, artificial intelligence (AI) and emerging applications.”

Advanced Foundry Technology

Initial wafer production of Samsung’s 7nm LPP (Low Power Plus) EUV process node represents a major milestone in semiconductor fabrication. The 7LPP EUV process technology provides great advances, including a respective maximum of 40-percent area reduction, 50-percent dynamic power reduction and 20-percent performance increase over 10nm processes. The 7LPP process represents a clear demonstration of the foundry business’ technology roadmap evolution, providing Samsung’s customers a direct path forward to 3nm.

Powering Server-less Computing

Samsung enables the most advanced providers of server-less computing through products including the new SmartSSD, quad-level cell (QLC)-SSD, 256GB 3DS RDIMM as well as High Bandwidth Memory (HBM) 2 Aquabolt. By accelerating data processing, bypassing server CPU limits and reducing power demands, these products will enable datacenter operators to continue to scale at faster speeds while containing costs.

Samsung’s industry-leading flash memory products for future datacenters will also include Key Value (KV)-SSD and Z-SSD. KV-SSD eliminates block storage inefficiency, reducing latency and allowing datacenter performance to scale evenly when CPU architectures max out. The company’s next-generation Z-SSD will be the fastest flash memory ever introduced, with dual port high availability, ultra-low latency and a U.2 form factor, designed to meet the emerging needs of enterprise clients. Z-SSD will also feature a PCIe Gen 4 interface with a blazing-fast 12-gigabytes-per-second (GB/s) sequential read, which is 20 times faster than today’s SATA SSD drives.

Accelerating Application Learning

A range of revolutionary Samsung solutions will enable the development of upcoming machine learning and AI technologies. The Tech Day AI display highlighted astounding data transfer speeds of 16Gb GDDR6 (64GB/s), ultra-low latency of Z-SSD and industry-leading performance of Aquabolt, which is the highest of any DRAM-based memory solution currently in the market. Together, these solutions help Samsung’s enterprise and datacenter clients open new doors to application learning and create the next wave of AI advancements.

Streamlining Data Flow

Samsung’s new solutions will enable not just faster speeds and higher performance but also improved efficiency for its enterprise clients. Enterprise products on display at Tech Day included D1Y 8Gb DDR4 Server DRAM, which incorporates the most advanced DRAM process, resulting in lower power usage. Samsung’s 256GB 3DS RDIMM also helps to improve enterprise performance and enables memory-intensive servers capable up to 16-terabytes (TB).

Additionally, Samsung’s dual-port x4 PCIe Gen 4 32TB SSD offers 10GB/s performance. Samsung’s 1Tb QLC-SSD presents a cutting-edge storage option for enterprise clients with competitive efficiency when compared to hard disk drives (HDD), while KV-SSD allows server performance to scale even as CPU architectures max out, also providing a competitive TCO, write amplification factor (WAF) improvement and scalability.

Breaking Performance Barriers

With their leading-edge specs, Samsung’s QLC-SSD, Z-SSD and 8GB Aquabolt help high-performance computing clients blast through performance barriers and reach new heights. The 8GB Aquabolt provides the fastest data transmission speed and highest performance of any DRAM-based memory solution on the market today at 307GB/s per HBM cube. QLC-SSD and Z-SSD, both powerful on their own, are also offered in a tiered storage solution that results in a 53-percent increase in overall system performance.

Enabling Future Innovation

Emerging tech requires the most innovative and flexible components. Samsung’s SmartSSD will increase speed and efficiency, and lower operating costs by pushing intelligence to where data lives. Movement of data for processing has traditionally caused increased latency and energy consumption while reducing efficiency. Samsung’s new SmartSSDs will overcome these issues by incorporating an FPGA accelerator into the SSD unit. This allows for faster data processing through bypassing server CPU limits. As a result, SmartSSDs will have higher processing performance, improved time-to-insight, more virtual machines (VM), scalable performance, better de-duplication and compression, lower power usage and fewer CPUs per system.

Unparalleled Product Ecosystem

Samsung’s comprehensive product portfolio with state-of-the-art solutions set new standards for data processing speed, capacity, bandwidth and energy conservation. By leveraging such solutions, data centers, enterprise companies, hyper-scalers and emerging tech platforms are able to configure product solutions based on their requirements and develop exciting new tech offerings such as 5G, AI, enterprise and hyperscale data centers, automotive, networking and beyond.

Samsung will continue to push boundaries in tomorrow’s semiconductor technologies through innovations such as its sixth-generation V-NAND built on a single structure, or with ‘1-stack technology,’ and sub-10nm DRAM with EUV for super-high density and performance.

Experts across the industry, including Apple co-founder, Steve Wozniak, were invited at Samsung Tech Day to address the advancements and challenges in today’s semiconductor market, and offer insights for the future of semiconductors. More than 400 customers, partners and industry influencers attended the event.

Gartner, Inc. today highlighted the top strategic technology trends that organizations need to explore in 2019. Analysts presented their findings during Gartner Symposium/ITxpo, which is taking place here through Thursday.

Gartner defines a strategic technology trend as one with substantial disruptive potential that is beginning to break out of an emerging state into broader impact and use, or which are rapidly growing trends with a high degree of volatility reaching tipping points over the next five years.

“The Intelligent Digital Mesh has been a consistent theme for the past two years and continues as a major driver through 2019. Trends under each of these three themes are a key ingredient in driving a continuous innovation process as part of a ContinuousNEXT strategy,” said David Cearley, vice president and Gartner Fellow. “For example, artificial intelligence (AI) in the form of automated things and augmented intelligence is being used together with IoT, edge computing and digital twins to deliver highly integrated smart spaces. This combinatorial effect of multiple trends coalescing to produce new opportunities and drive new disruption is a hallmark of the Gartner top 10 strategic technology trends for 2019.”

The top 10 strategic technology trends for 2019 are:

Autonomous Things

Autonomous things, such as robots, drones and autonomous vehicles, use AI to automate functions previously performed by humans. Their automation goes beyond the automation provided by rigid programing models and they exploit AI to deliver advanced behaviors that interact more naturally with their surroundings and with people.

“As autonomous things proliferate, we expect a shift from stand-alone intelligent things to a swarm of collaborative intelligent things, with multiple devices working together, either independently of people or with human input,” said Mr. Cearley. “For example, if a drone examined a large field and found that it was ready for harvesting, it could dispatch an “autonomous harvester.” Or in the delivery market, the most effective solution may be to use an autonomous vehicle to move packages to the target area. Robots and drones on board the vehicle could then ensure final delivery of the package.”

Augmented Analytics

Augmented analytics focuses on a specific area of augmented intelligence, using machine learning (ML) to transform how analytics content is developed, consumed and shared. Augmented analytics capabilities will advance rapidly to mainstream adoption, as a key feature of data preparation, data management, modern analytics, business process management, process mining and data science platforms. Automated insights from augmented analytics will also be embedded in enterprise applications — for example, those of the HR, finance, sales, marketing, customer service, procurement and asset management departments — to optimize the decisions and actions of all employees within their context, not just those of analysts and data scientists. Augmented analytics automates the process of data preparation, insight generation and insight visualization, eliminating the need for professional data scientists in many situations.

“This will lead to citizen data science, an emerging set of capabilities and practices that enables users whose main job is outside the field of statistics and analytics to extract predictive and prescriptive insights from data,” said Mr. Cearley. “Through 2020, the number of citizen data scientists will grow five times faster than the number of expert data scientists. Organizations can use citizen data scientists to fill the data science and machine learning talent gap caused by the shortage and high cost of data scientists.”

AI-Driven Development

The market is rapidly shifting from an approach in which professional data scientists must partner with application developers to create most AI-enhanced solutions to a model in which the professional developer can operate alone using predefined models delivered as a service. This provides the developer with an ecosystem of AI algorithms and models, as well as development tools tailored to integrating AI capabilities and models into a solution. Another level of opportunity for professional application development arises as AI is applied to the development process itself to automate various data science, application development and testing functions. By 2022, at least 40 percent of new application development projects will have AI co-developers on their team.

“Ultimately, highly advanced AI-powered development environments automating both functional and nonfunctional aspects of applications will give rise to a new age of the ‘citizen application developer’ where nonprofessionals will be able to use AI-driven tools to automatically generate new solutions. Tools that enable nonprofessionals to generate applications without coding are not new, but we expect that AI-powered systems will drive a new level of flexibility,” said Mr. Cearley.

Digital Twins

A digital twin refers to the digital representation of a real-world entity or system. By 2020, Gartner estimates there will be more than 20 billion connected sensors and endpoints and digital twins will exist for potentially billions of things. Organizations will implement digital twins simply at first. They will evolve them over time, improving their ability to collect and visualize the right data, apply the right analytics and rules, and respond effectively to business objectives.

“One aspect of the digital twin evolution that moves beyond IoT will be enterprises implementing digital twins of their organizations (DTOs). A DTO is a dynamic software model that relies on operational or other data to understand how an organization operationalizes its business model, connects with its current state, deploys resources and responds to changes to deliver expected customer value,” said Mr. Cearley. “DTOs help drive efficiencies in business processes, as well as create more flexible, dynamic and responsive processes that can potentially react to changing conditions automatically.”

Empowered Edge

The edge refers to endpoint devices used by people or embedded in the world around us. Edge computing describes a computing topology in which information processing, and content collection and delivery, are placed closer to these endpoints. It tries to keep the traffic and processing local, with the goal being to reduce traffic and latency.

In the near term, edge is being driven by IoT and the need keep the processing close to the end rather than on a centralized cloud server. However, rather than create a new architecture, cloud computing and edge computing will evolve as complementary models with cloud services being managed as a centralized service executing, not only on centralized servers, but in distributed servers on-premises and on the edge devices themselves.

Over the next five years, specialized AI chips, along with greater processing power, storage and other advanced capabilities, will be added to a wider array of edge devices. The extreme heterogeneity of this embedded IoT world and the long life cycles of assets such as industrial systems will create significant management challenges. Longer term, as 5G matures, the expanding edge computing environment will have more robust communication back to centralized services. 5G provides lower latency, higher bandwidth, and (very importantly for edge) a dramatic increase in the number of nodes (edge endoints) per square km.

Immersive Experience

Conversational platforms are changing the way in which people interact with the digital world. Virtual reality (VR), augmented reality (AR) and mixed reality (MR) are changing the way in which people perceive the digital world. This combined shift in perception and interaction models leads to the future immersive user experience.

“Over time, we will shift from thinking about individual devices and fragmented user interface (UI) technologies to a multichannel and multimodal experience. The multimodal experience will connect people with the digital world across hundreds of edge devices that surround them, including traditional computing devices, wearables, automobiles, environmental sensors and consumer appliances,” said Mr. Cearley. “The multichannel experience will use all human senses as well as advanced computer senses (such as heat, humidity and radar) across these multimodal devices. This multiexperience environment will create an ambient experience in which the spaces that surround us define “the computer” rather than the individual devices. In effect, the environment is the computer.”

Blockchain

Blockchain, a type of distributed ledger, promises to reshape industries by enabling trust, providing transparency and reducing friction across business ecosystems potentially lowering costs, reducing transaction settlement times and improving cash flow. Today, trust is placed in banks, clearinghouses, governments and many other institutions as central authorities with the “single version of the truth” maintained securely in their databases. The centralized trust model adds delays and friction costs (commissions, fees and the time value of money) to transactions. Blockchain provides an alternative trust mode and removes the need for central authorities in arbitrating transactions.

”Current blockchain technologies and concepts are immature, poorly understood and unproven in mission-critical, at-scale business operations. This is particularly so with the complex elements that support more sophisticated scenarios,” said Mr. Cearley. “Despite the challenges, the significant potential for disruption means CIOs and IT leaders should begin evaluating blockchain, even if they don’t aggressively adopt the technologies in the next few years.”

Many blockchain initiatives today do not implement all of the attributes of blockchain — for example, a highly distributed database. These blockchain-inspired solutions are positioned as a means to achieve operational efficiency by automating business processes, or by digitizing records. They have the potential to enhance sharing of information among known entities, as well as improving opportunities for tracking and tracing physical and digital assets. However, these approaches miss the value of true blockchain disruption and may increase vendor lock-in. Organizations choosing this option should understand the limitations and be prepared to move to complete blockchain solutions over time and that the same outcomes may be achieved with more efficient and tuned use of existing nonblockchain technologies.

Smart Spaces

A smart space is a physical or digital environment in which humans and technology-enabled systems interact in increasingly open, connected, coordinated and intelligent ecosystems. Multiple elements — including people, processes, services and things — come together in a smart space to create a more immersive, interactive and automated experience for a target set of people and industry scenarios.

“This trend has been coalescing for some time around elements such as smart cities, digital workplaces, smart homes and connected factories. We believe the market is entering a period of accelerated delivery of robust smart spaces with technology becoming an integral part of our daily lives, whether as employees, customers, consumers, community members or citizens,” said Mr. Cearley.

Digital Ethics and Privacy

Digital ethics and privacy is a growing concern for individuals, organizations and governments. People are increasingly concerned about how their personal information is being used by organizations in both the public and private sector, and the backlash will only increase for organizations that are not proactively addressing these concerns.

“Any discussion on privacy must be grounded in the broader topic of digital ethics and the trust of your customers, constituents and employees. While privacy and security are foundational components in building trust, trust is actually about more than just these components,” said Mr. Cearley. “Trust is the acceptance of the truth of a statement without evidence or investigation. Ultimately an organization’s position on privacy must be driven by its broader position on ethics and trust. Shifting from privacy to ethics moves the conversation beyond ‘are we compliant’ toward ‘are we doing the right thing.’”

Quantum Computing

Quantum computing (QC) is a type of nonclassical computing that operates on the quantum state of subatomic particles (for example, electrons and ions) that represent information as elements denoted as quantum bits (qubits). The parallel execution and exponential scalability of quantum computers means they excel with problems too complex for a traditional approach or where a traditional algorithms would take too long to find a solution. Industries such as automotive, financial, insurance, pharmaceuticals, military and research organizations have the most to gain from the advancements in QC. In the pharmaceutical industry, for example, QC could be used to model molecular interactions at atomic levels to accelerate time to market for new cancer-treating drugs or QC could accelerate and more accurately predict the interaction of proteins leading to new pharmaceutical methodologies.

“CIOs and IT leaders should start planning for QC by increasing understanding and how it can apply to real-world business problems. Learn while the technology is still in the emerging state. Identify real-world problems where QC has potential and consider the possible impact on security,” said Mr. Cearley. “But don’t believe the hype that it will revolutionize things in the next few years. Most organizations should learn about and monitor QC through 2022 and perhaps exploit it from 2023 or 2025.”

Gartner clients can learn more in the Gartner Special Report “Top 10 Strategic Technology Trends for 2019.” Additional detailed analysis on each tech trend can be found in the Gartner YouTube video “Gartner Top 10 Strategic Technology Trends 2019.”

MagnaChip Semiconductor Corporation (“MagnaChip”) (NYSE: MX), a designer and manufacturer of analog and mixed-signal semiconductor platform solutions, today announced the introduction of a new High-Voltage Super Junction MOSFET with a 900V breakdown voltage and low total gate charge (Qg) (“”90R1K4P”). The device with two package types, I-PAK and D-PAK, will sample to customers in November 2018 and will be manufactured in high volume in early first quarter of next year.

90R1K4P features the maximum peak voltage of 950V and a breakdown voltage as high as 900V, which enables enhanced system stability and reliability. It is well-suited for high-voltage applications such as:

  • an auxiliary power supply for industrial smart metering, which uses a three-phase input power to alternate current electric power generation, transmission, and distribution.
  • the lighting of flyback topology in both AC/DCand DC/DC high-speed switching converters.
  • a power supply for lighting equipment due to its characteristics of high stability that help prevent an unstable system condition that could lead to outages.

90R1K4P increases its switching speed due to its low total gate charge (Qg), which reduces heat generation in the system, keeps power loss down and improves energy efficiency. It also enables smaller form factors than the High-Voltage Planar MOSFET, since the die size of 90R1K4P is more than 50% smaller under the same condition of conduction loss.

To enable the use of 90R1K4P product in small form factors, MagnaChip will house the device in a small I-PAK package type under the code MMIS90R1K4P. As a result of the die size reduction and choice of packaging, this new MOSFET has the potential to be adopted in a wide range of applications.

Moreover, to ensure 90R1K4P product can be adopted for applications where space is at a premium, the company also can mount the Super Junction MOSFET into the slim SMD (Surface-Mount Devices) package type, D-PAK. It will be available under the code MMD90R1K4P.

“MagnaChip’s High-Voltage Super Junction MOSFET with a high breakdown voltage and a low total gate charge (Qg) will provide customers with high system reliability and energy efficiency,” said YJ Kim, CEO of MagnaChip. “We will continue to develop products based on the newly launched High-Voltage Super Junction MOSFET and extend our product portfolio with a diverse line of Super Junction MOSFETs with improved performance.”