Category Archives: Packaging

STATS ChipPAC Pte. Ltd. (“STATS ChipPAC” or the “Company”), a provider of advanced semiconductor packaging and test services, announced Friday that the Board of Directors of its holding company, Jiangsu Changjiang Electronics Technology Co., Ltd (‘JCET’) has appointed Dr. Lee Choon Heung as Chief Executive Officer (‘CEO’) for JCET Group, as well as Chief Executive Officer and Chairman for STATS ChipPAC.

Dr. Lee brings to JCET a wealth of expertise and veteran leadership with 20 years of extensive semiconductor packaging and test experience. Dr. Lee served in several senior management positions at Amkor Technology Inc. including head of their R&D centre, head of global procurement, group vice president, senior vice president and Chief Technology Officer. Dr. Lee, holds a Ph.D. in Theoretical Solid State Physics from Case Western Reserve University, currently holds 59 industry patents, and has published 19 academic papers around the world.

“We are excited about the opportunity to bring on board an industry leader of the calibre of Dr. Lee Choon Heung as our new JCET Group CEO,” stated JCET Chairman, Mr. Wang Xinchao. “We are confident in his ability to lead JCET as we continue our growth in both technology and scale moving forward,” continued Mr. Wang. Mr. Wang will continue in his role as Chairman of JCET Group.

The JCET Board of Directors and the management team also expressed their utmost gratitude and appreciation to Dr. Han Byung Joon and Mr. Lai Chih-Ming for their outstanding leadership and valuable contributions during their tenure at STATS ChipPAC. Dr. Han is resigning as chairman of the board of STATS ChipPAC. Mr. Lai will now serve in a new role as executive vice president of JCET Group.

Alpha and Omega Semiconductor Limited (AOS) (Nasdaq: AOSL), a designer, developer and global supplier of a broad range of power semiconductors and power ICs, today introduced the TO-Leadless (TOLL) package in combination with 40V Shield-Gate Technology (SGT) to provide the highest current capability in its voltage class. The TOLL package has the highest current capacity because of AOS’ innovative technology which utilizes a clip to achieve the 400A DC at 25°C capability. The TOLL packaging technology offers very low package resistance and inductance due to the clip technology in comparison to other TO-Leadless packages using standard wire-bonding technology which enables improved EMI performance.

The AOTL66401 (40V) has a 30% smaller footprint compared to a TO-263 (D2PAK) package, including having higher current carry capability that enables the designer to reduce the number of devices in parallel. This new device offers a higher power density in comparison to existing solutions, and is ideally suited for industrial BLDC motor applications and battery management to reduce the number of MOSFETs. The AOTL66401 has a 0.7mOhm max rating at 10Vgs with a maximum drain current of 400A at 25°C and 350A at 100°C case temperature. The pulsed current is rated at 1600A, which is limited by the maximum junction temperature of 175°C.

“With the significant performance improvement, the TOLL with clip technology is a robust package which enables low package parasitics reducing EMI. The AOTL66401 simplifies new designs with the higher current density to enable savings in overall system cost due to a reduced number of devices in parallel. AOS’ TOLL package is best suited for high power applications,” said Peter H. Wilson.

IC Insights’ September Update to The McClean Report shows that as a result of a 51% forecasted increase in the China pure-play foundry market this year (Figure 1), China’s total share of the 2018 pure-play foundry market is expected to jump by five percentage points to 19%, exceeding the share held by the rest of the Asia-Pacific region. Overall, China is forecast to be responsible for 90% of the $4.2 billion increase in the total pure-play foundry market in 2018.

Figure 1

With the recent rise of the fabless IC companies in China, the demand for foundry services has also risen in that country.  In total, pure-play foundry sales in China jumped by 26% last year to $7.5 billion, almost triple the 9% increase for the total pure-play foundry market.  Moreover, in 2018, pure-play foundry sales to China are forecast to surge by an amazing 51%, more than 6x the 8% increase expected for the total pure-play foundry market this year.

Although all of the major pure-play foundries are expected to register double-digit sales increases to China this year, the biggest increase by far is forecast to come from pure-play foundry giant TSMC.  Following a 44% jump in 2017, TSMC’s sales into China are forecast to surge by another 79% in 2018 to $6.7 billion. As a result, China is expected to be responsible for essentially all of TSMC’s sales increase this year with China’s share of the company’s sales more than doubling from 9% in 2016 to 19% in 2018.

As shown in Figure 2, much of TSMC’s sales surge into China has come over the past year, with 2Q18 sales into the country being almost double what they were in 3Q17.  A great deal of the company’s recent sales surge into China has been driven by increased demand for custom devices going into the cryptocurrency market.  It turns out that many of the large cryptocurrency fabless design firms are based in China and most of them have been turning to TSMC to produce their advanced chips for these applications.  It should be noted that TSMC includes its cryptocurrency business as part of its High-Performance Computing segment.

Figure 2

While TSMC has enjoyed a great ramp up in sales for its cryptocurrency business over the past year, the company has indicated that a slowdown is expected for this business in the second half of this year.  It appears that the demand for cryptocurrency devices is highly dependent upon the price for the various cryptocurrencies (the most popular of which is Bitcoin).  As a result, the recent plunge in the price for Bitcoins (going from over $15K per Bitcoin in January of this year to less than $7K in September), and other cryptocurrencies as well, is lowering the demand for these ICs.  Moreover, since TSMC realized from the beginning that the cryptocurrency market was going to be volatile, the company did not adjust its capacity plans based on the recent strong cryptocurrency demand and does not incorporate cryptocurrency business assumptions into its forecasts for future long-term growth.

WIN Semiconductors Corp. (TPEx:3105), the world’’s largest pure-play compound semiconductor foundry, is driving the development and deployment of 5G user equipment and network infrastructure in the sub-6GHz and mmWave frequency bands. Front-end semiconductor technology has a significant influence on battery life and total power consumption of mobile devices and active antenna arrays employed in mmWave network infrastructure. GaAs is the technology of choice for front-ends used in LTE mobile devices and satisfies stringent linearity and efficiency requirements providing high quality of service while maximizing battery life. 5G user equipment and MIMO access points will impose more difficult linearity/power consumption specifications than LTE, and WIN’s portfolio of high performance GaAs technologies is well positioned to meet these new requirements and provide best value front-end solutions.

The fundamental performance advantages of GaAs make it the dominant semiconductor technology for cellular and Wi-Fi RF front-ends used in mobile devices. The technical and manufacturing demands of these large and highly competitive markets have driven significant advances in GaAs technology, and now offers best-in-class front-end performance in all 5G bands and multifunction integration necessary for complex mmWave active antenna systems. WIN’s advanced GaAs platforms integrate best-in-class transmit and receive amplifier technologies with high performance switch, logic and ESD protection functions to realize compact high performance, single chip, front-ends for mobile devices and MIMO access points operating in the sub-6GHz and mmWave 5G bands.

WIN Semiconductors’ innovative GaAs technologies, such as PIH1-10, can now monolithically integrate a high efficiency Tx power amplifier (PA), ultra-low Fmin Rx low-noise amplifier (LNA) and low loss PIN switch in a single chip mmWave front-end. In addition, this highly integrated GaAs technology provides optional linear Schottky diodes for power detectors and mixers, low capacitance PIN diodes for ESD protection and optimized E/D transistors for logic interfaces. This suite of capabilities comes in a humidity-rugged back-end, available with a copper redistribution layer and copper pillar bumps to reduce die size and allow flip chip assembly, enabling GaAs front-ends to fit within 28 and 39 GHz antenna lattice spacing.

GLOBALFOUNDRIES announced this week at its annual Global Technology Conference (GTC), that the company’s mobile-optimized 8SW 300mm RF SOI technology platform has been qualified and is in production. Several clients are currently engaged for this RF SOI process, tailored to accommodate aggressive LTE and Sub-6 GHz standards for front-end module (FEM) applications, including 5G IoT, mobile device and wireless communications.

Leveraging the 300mm RF SOI process, 8SW delivers significant performance, integration and area advantages with up to 70 percent power reduction and 20 percent smaller overall die size compared to the previous generation. The technology enables superior LNAs (low-noise amplifiers) switches and tuners by supplying higher voltage handling and a best-in-class on-resistance (Ron) and off-capacitance (Coff) for reduced insertion loss with high isolation. The optimized RF FEM platform helps designers develop solutions that enable extremely fast downloads, higher quality connections and reliable data connectivity for today’s 4G/LTE Advanced operating frequencies and future sub-6GHz 5G mobile and wireless communication applications.

“GF has now delivered more than 40 billion RF SOI chips for the world’s smart devices, and this latest generation of RF SOI technology is another proof point that we’re poised to meet accelerating global demand for solutions that deliver seamless, reliable data connectivity everywhere,” said Christine Dunbar, vice president of RF business unit at GF. “The mobile market continues to favor RF SOI, and GF’s industry leading, 8SW process in 300 mm manufacturing is specifically designed to help our clients take advantage of more frequency bands that will deliver ultra-reliable communications across high-band LTE and future 5G applications.”

“We are proud to support GF’s new advanced and differentiated 8SW technology on 300mm RF SOI substrates and to continue our long-term strategic engineering and manufacturing collaboration enabling next-generation connectivity solutions,” said Dr. Bernard Aspar, EVP, Soitec. “We are ready to deliver the 300mm RF SOI substrates in high volumes to meet GF clients’ growing market demands.”

“SEH congratulates GF on their 8SW platform. SEH believes 300 mm RF SOI products are an important technology, whose time has come,” Nobuhiko Noto, General Manager of SOI Division at SEH. “SEH has been a long time partner on RF technology and looks forward to supporting GF for their future generations of RF technologies as well. We will continue to be a supplier to the 300 mm RF SOI market as it grows.”

GF’s manufacturing legacy and deep technical expertise in RF SOI process has resulted in more than 40 billion RF SOI chips shipped for next-generation RF-enabled devices.

8SW is manufactured on GF’s 300mm production line at Fab 10 in East Fishkill, N.Y., enabling clients to take advantage of advanced tooling and processes for faster time-to-market with industry-leading RF SOI. Qualified process design kits are available now.

By Jay Chittooran

U.S. Government Imposes Tariffs on $200 Billion of Goods and China Retaliates on $60 Billion of Goods

Earlier this week, the U.S. Trade Representative (USTR) released a 10 percent tariff on $200 billion in imports from China, including more than 90 tariff lines central to the semiconductor industry.

The 10 percent tariff will take effect on September 24, 2018, and rise to 25 percent on January 1. These tariff lines will cost SEMI’s 400 U.S. members tens of millions of dollars annually in additional duties. However, counting the products included in the previous rounds of tariffs, the total estimated impact exceeds $700 million annually. China has already announced that it will respond with tariffs on $60 billion worth of U.S. goods. In his notice, President Trump said the U.S. will impose tariffs on $267 billion worth of goods if China retaliates.

The U.S. government removed 279 total tariff lines, including three lines that impact our industry: silicon carbide, tungsten, and network hubs used in the manufacturing process.

As we’ve noted, intellectual property is critical to the semiconductor industry, and SEMI strongly supports efforts to better protect valuable IP. However, we believe that these tariffs 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. This undue harm will ultimately undercut our companies’ ability to sell overseas, which will only stifle innovation and curb U.S. technological leadership.

Product Exclusion Process – List 2

USTR formally published the details for the product exclusion process for products subject to the List 2 China 301 tariffs (the $16 billion tariff list). 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 request period ends on December 18, 2018, and approved exclusions will be effective for one year, applying retroactively to August 23, 2018. Because exclusions will be made on a product basis, a particular exclusion will apply to all imports of the product, regardless of whether the importer filed a request.

More information, including the process for submitting the product exclusion request and details what information should be included in your submission can be found here.

Please let me know if your company plans on filing an exclusion. SEMI has prepared a document that includes guidelines for your exclusion filing, an explainer on how to submit, and links to official government info. SEMI is glad to assist your companies file exclusion requests for your products.

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

As part of the company’s new focus on intensifying investment in differentiation, GLOBALFOUNDRIES announced today at its annual Global Technology Conference (GTC), plans to introduce a full set of new technology features to its 14/12nm FinFET offering. The features are designed to deliver better scalability and performance for applications in high-growth markets such as hyperscale datacenters and autonomous vehicles.

In today’s data-intensive world, there is an insatiable demand for high-performance chips to process and analyze the surge of information produced by connected devices. GF’s FinFET offering is an ideal platform for designing high-performance, power-efficient system-on-chips (SoCs) for the most demanding compute applications. The new platform features will improve power, performance and scalability by delivering transistor enhancements optimized for ultra-high performance and enhanced RF connectivity, as well as new high-speed, high-density memories for emerging enterprise and cloud security needs.

“We are committed to enhancing our differentiated offerings to help clients get more value out of their investments in each technology generation,” said Dr. Bami Bastani, senior vice president of business units at GF. “By introducing these new features to our FinFET offering we are delivering powerful technology enhancements that will enable clients to extend performance and create innovative products for the next generation of intelligent systems.”

GF’s 14/12nm FinFET platform provides advanced performance and power with significant cost advantages. The feature-rich enhancements being added to the platform include:

  • Ultra-high density: Delivers increased transistor density through continued improvements to the 12LP design library (7.5T), combined with SRAM and analog advances, delivering a smaller die area to support clients in core compute, connect and store applications, as well as mobility and consumer.
  • Performance boost: Increases performance through reducing SRAM Vmin by 100mV and standby leakage current by ~50 percent – to extend performance for both existing and emerging applications in machine learning and artificial intelligence.
  • RF/analog: Provides a full suite of passive devices, ultra-thick metal and LDMOS options for advanced RF performance with Ft/Fmax at 340GHz targeting <6GHz RF SoCs with high digital content.
  • Embedded memory: Offers ultra-high security, one-time programmable (OTP) and multi-time programmable (MTP) embedded non-volatile (eNVM) memory for emerging enterprise, cloud and communication applications. Using physically undetectable charge-trapping technology (CTT) enables security solutions including “physically unclonable device” capabilities and efficient non-volatile memories for higher levels of SoC integration. GF’s CTT solution requires no additional processing or masking steps and delivers up to twice the density of similar OTP solutions based on dielectric fuse technology.

The company’s 14LPP technology can provide up to 55 percent higher device performance and 60 percent lower total power compared to 28nm technologies, while its 12LP technology provides as much as a 15 percent improvement in circuit density and more than a 10 percent improvement in performance over 16/14nm FinFET solutions on the market today. GF’s leading-edge FinFET platform has been in high-volume production since early 2016, and is Automotive Grade 2 ready.

In its Mid-Year Update to the 2018 McClean Report, IC Insights updated its forecast of sales growth for each of the 33 major IC product categories defined by WSTS (Figure 1).  IC Insights now projects that seven product categories will exceed the 16% growth rate expected from the total IC market this year. For the second consecutive year, the DRAM market is forecast to top all IC product segments with 39% growth. Overall, 13 product categories are forecast to experience double-digit growth and 28 total IC product categories are expected to post positive growth this year, down slightly from 29 segments in 2017.

Rising average selling prices for DRAM continued to boost the DRAM market through the first half of the year and into August.  However, IC Insights believes the DRAM ASP (and subsequent market growth) is at or near its peak, as a big rise in DRAM capital expenditures for planned capacity upgrades and expansions is likely put the brakes on steep market growth beginning in 2019.

In second place with 29% growth is the Automotive—Special-Purpose Logic market, which is being lifted by the growing number of onboard electronic systems now found on new cars. Backup cameras, blind-spot (lane-departure) detectors, and other “intelligent” systems are mandated or are being added across all new vehicles—entry level to luxury—and are expected to contribute to the semiconductor content per new car growing to more than $540 per vehicle in 2018.

Wireless Comm—Application-Specific Analog is forecast to grow 23% in 2018, as the world becomes increasingly dependent on the Internet and demand for wireless connectivity continues to rise. Similarly, demand for medical/health electronics systems connectivity using the Internet will help the market for Industrial/Other Application-Specific Analog outpace total IC market growth in 2018.

Among the seven categories showing better than total IC market growth this year, three are forecast to be among the largest of all IC product categories in terms of dollar volume. DRAM (#1 with $101.6 billion in sales), NAND Flash (#2 with $62.6 billion), Computer and Peripherals—Special Purpose Logic (#4 with $27.6 billion) prove that big markets can still achieve exceptional percentage growth.

Figure 1

Keysight Technologies, Inc. (NYSE: KEYS), a technology company that helps enterprises, service providers, and governments accelerate innovation to connect and secure the world, today announced that the company’s 3D planar electromagnetic (EM) simulator, Momentum, has been certified for GLOBALFOUNDRIES (GF) 22FDX®, 22nm Fully-Depleted Silicon-On-Insulator (FD-SOI) technology.

Keysight’s Momentum is a 3D planar EM simulator used for passive circuit modeling and analysis. It accepts arbitrary design geometries (including multi-layer structures) and uses frequency-domain Method of Moments (MoM) technology to accurately simulate complex EM effects including coupling and parasitics.

As a result of the certification, designers can now perform accurate EM simulation with GF’s cutting-edge 22FDX technology, facilitating analysis of electromagnetic effect and behavior in today’s ever shrinking and complex designs. Momentum stack-up files are integrated with the latest 22FDX PDK available from GF.

“The certification of GF 22FDX for Keysight’s EM simulator is testimony to the continuous collaboration between GF and Keysight under Keysight’s Foundry Program,” said Punmark Ngangom, RFIC Foundry Program Manager for Keysight Technologies. “Our mutual customers will now be able to leverage Keysight’s GF certified Momentum stack-up files, which are available with GF’s standard 22FDX PDK package.”

Keysight’s Momentum has also been certified for RF/mmWave-optimized metal options with different inductors, attaining highly precise correlation with silicon measurements and circuit models up to 100 GHz per GF’s certification standards.

With Taiwan poised as a central player role in global renewable energy, the stage is set for the inaugural Energy Taiwan, Taiwan’s largest green energy technology exchange platform that aims to accelerate innovation of clean energy technologies. The three-day event at Taipei Nangang Exhibition Center, Hall 1, opens September 19 to spotlight the entire renewable energy supply chain.

Organized by SEMI, the global industry association representing the electronics manufacturing supply chain, and TAITRA, a non-profit government trade promotion organization in Taiwan, Energy Taiwan 2018 gathers the global renewable energy leaders for insights on the latest market trends and opportunities. The international exhibition and forum offers the latest renewable energy market information on topics ranging from solar energy, wind energy, smart energy and storage to hydrogen energy, fuel cells, and green finance and insurance.

Heralded as Taiwan’s International Smart Energy Week, Energy Taiwan 2018 focuses on four main themes – Energy Generation, Energy Storage, Energy Saving, and System Integration. The event’s four co-located exhibitions – PV Taiwan, Wind Energy Taiwan, HFC Taiwan, and Smart Storage Taiwan – showcase the latest clean energy technologies and solutions. Industry experts will share insights on the latest trends and technologies at forums including PV Market Deployment Forum, PV Executive Summit, Offshore Wind Energy Summit, HFC Technology Symposium, and Smart Storage and Energy Integration Forum.

With a complete solar energy supply chain, Taiwan brings together the technologies, research capabilities, operations, and cost competitiveness to drive renewable energy innovation and growth. The region also offers:

  • Taiwan’s geography offers unique opportunities for developing offshore wind energy.
  • Backed by the Taiwan government’s Nuclear-Free Homeland policy, Taiwan is starting to play a pivotal role in the global renewable energy market.
  • Taiwan made tremendous strides in solar and wind power generation in 2017, delivering record high volumes with 49 percent and 17 percent growth, respectively.

To highlight business opportunities and Taiwan’s competitive edge in green energy, Energy Taiwan 2018 features the Green Energy Industry Promotion Center Pavilion and Taiwan’s Premium Solar Power System Pavilion. The venues will highlight Taiwan’s current standing in green economics and its supply chain prowess. Energy Taiwan 2018 will also spotlight technology demonstrations at three national pavilions: German Trade Office Taipei, Flanders Investment and Trade (Belgium), and Netherlands Trade and Investment Office.

An estimated 17,000 domestic and overseas buyers are expected to attend Energy Taiwan Forum 2018.