Category Archives: Semiconductors

A new device being developed by Washington State University physicist Yi Gu could one day turn the heat generated by a wide array of electronics into a usable fuel source.

The device is a multicomponent, multilayered composite material called a van der Waals Schottky diode. It converts heat into electricity up to three times more efficiently than silicon — a semiconductor material widely used in the electronics industry. While still in an early stage of development, the new diode could eventually provide an extra source of power for everything from smartphones to automobiles.

“The ability of our diode to convert heat into electricity is very large compared to other bulk materials currently used in electronics,” said Gu, an associate professor in WSU’s Department of Physics and Astronomy. “In the future, one layer could be attached to something hot like a car exhaust or a computer motor and another to a surface at room temperature. The diode would then use the heat differential between the two surfaces to create an electric current that could be stored in a battery and used when needed.”

Gu recently published a paper on the Schottky diode in The Journal of Physical Chemistry Letters.

A new kind of diode

In the world of electronics, Schottky diodes are used to guide electricity in a specific direction, similar to how a valve in a water main directs the flow of liquid going through it. They are made by attaching a conductor metal like aluminum to a semiconductor material like silicon.

Instead of combining a common metal like aluminum or copper with a conventional semiconductor material like silicon, Gu’s diode is made from a multilayer of microscopic, crystalline Indium Selenide. He and a team of graduate students used a simple heating process to modify one layer of the Indium Selenide to act as a metal and another layer to act as a semiconductor. The researchers then used a new kind of confocal microscope developed by Klar Scientific, a start-up company founded in part by WSU physicist Matthew McCluskey, to study their materials’ electronic properties.

Unlike its conventional counterparts, Gu’s diode has no impurities or defects at the interface where the metal and semiconductor materials are joined together. The smooth connection between the metal and semiconductor enables electricity to travel through the multilayered device with almost 100 percent efficiency.

“When you attach a metal to a semiconductor material like silicon to form a Schottky diode, there are always some defects that form at the interface,” said McCluskey, a co-author of the study. “These imperfections trap electrons, impeding the flow of electricity. Gu’s diode is unique in that its surface does not appear to have any of these defects. This lowers resistance to the flow of electricity, making the device much more energy efficient.”

Next steps

Gu and his collaborators are currently investigating new methods to increase the efficiency of their Indium Selenide crystals. They are also exploring ways to synthesize larger quantities of the material so that it can be developed into useful devices.

“While still in the preliminary stages, our work represents a big leap forward in the field of thermoelectrics,” Gu said. “It could play an important role in realizing a more energy-efficient society in the future.”

Following a substantial increase in semiconductor capital expenditures during the first half of this year, IC Insights raised its annual semiconductor capex forecast to a record high of $80.9 billion for 2017, a 20% increase from $67.3 billion in 2016. Previously, 2017 semiconductor capex was expected to grow 12% in 2017 to $75.6 billion.

A little over half of 2017 capex spending is forecast for wafer foundries (28%) and upgrades for NAND flash memory (24%), as shown in Figure 1. With a projected 53% increase in 2017, the DRAM/SRAM segment is expected to display the largest percentage growth in capital expenditures of the major product types this year. With DRAM prices surging since the third quarter of 2016, DRAM manufacturers are once again stepping up spending in this segment. Although the majority of this spending is going towards technology advancement, DRAM producer SK Hynix recently admitted that it can no longer keep up with demand by technology advancements alone and needs to begin adding wafer start capacity.

Figure 1

Figure 1

Even with a DRAM spending surge this year, capital spending for flash memory in 2017 ($19.0 billion) is still expected to be significantly higher than spending allocated to the DRAM/SRAM category ($13.0 billion). Overall, IC Insights believes that essentially all of the spending for flash memory in 2017 will be dedicated to 3D NAND process technology, including production of 3D NAND at Samsung’s giant new fab in Pyeongtaek, South Korea.

Overall, capital spending for the flash memory segment is forecast to register a 33% surge in 2017 after a strong 23% increase in 2016. However, historical precedent in the memory market shows that too much spending usually leads to overcapacity and subsequent pricing weakness. With Samsung, SK Hynix, Micron, Intel, Toshiba/Western Digital/SanDisk, and XMC/Yangtze River Storage Technology all planning to significantly ramp up 3D NAND flash capacity over the next couple of years (and new Chinese producers possibly entering the market), IC Insights believes that the future risk for overshooting 3D NAND flash market demand is high and growing.

Leti, a technology research institute of CEA Tech, and Mentor, a Siemens business, today announced Leti will provide access to the Mentor Veloce emulator to SMEs and startups and will introduce emulation technology to global companies beginning Q3 2017. The Veloce emulator is Mentor’s high-capacity, high-speed, multi-application tool for emulation of system-on chip (SoC) designs that was installed at Leti in 2013.

Emulation is a vital process for more efficient development of complex digital circuits that includes debugging the design at early stages and validating the upstream, onboard software operation.

The Veloce emulator accelerates block and full SoC register-transfer level (RTL) simulations during all phases of the design process, ending the long delay between starting simulations and getting results. It enables pre-silicon testing and debug, can use real-world data, while both hardware and software designs are still fluid.

“Veloce dramatically speeds up the design cycle, because it is 1,000 times faster than traditional RTL simulation tools,” said Thierry Colette, head of Leti’s Architecture, IC Design and Embedded Software division. “It is now possible to verify multi-processor circuits that have several billion transistors – a real competitive advantage that improves return on investment and speeds time to market. But because this powerful tool represents a major investment for microelectronics manufacturers or design houses, Leti is launching this special emulation service to provide our partners direct access to this technology and the benefits it offers.”

“Mentor’s cooperation with CEA-Leti spans a variety of research topics over multiple years,” says Eric Selosse, vice president and general manager of the Mentor Emulation Division. “The intent to proliferate state-of-the-art hardware emulation-based verification methodology to the high technology market is a very attractive goal and we’re proud to contribute to it with our Veloce solutions.”

The Leti offer, which targets European chipmakers, includes Leti’s expert support, such as taking control of device design, optimized implementation within the emulator, debug and analysis of results. Leti also will provide access and support to additional specific tools available in its Grenoble facility, as needed.

To ensure data security, this emulator offer will include:

  • a new chassis and cards representing an emulation capacity of 50 Mgates at this stage
    (could be upgrade on demand)
  • a dedicated and secure network for customers
  • servers dedicated to this offer, connected to a secure network to manage emulation with internal tools.

The network architecture is designed so that Leti partners in this program can remotely view emulation progress or retrieve results.

Silicon – the second most abundant element in the earth’s crust – shows great promise in Li-ion batteries, according to new research from the University of Eastern Finland. By replacing graphite anodes with silicon, it is possible to quadruple anode capacity.

In a climate-neutral society, renewable and emission-free sources of energy, such as wind and solar power, will become increasingly widespread. The supply of energy from these sources, however, is intermittent, and technological solutions are needed to safeguard the availability of energy also when it’s not sunny or windy. Furthermore, the transition to emission-free energy forms in transportation requires specific solutions for energy storage, and lithium-ion batteries are considered to have the best potential.

Researchers from the University of Eastern Finland introduced new technology to Li-ion batteries by replacing graphite used in anodes by silicon. The study analysed the suitability of electrochemically produced nanoporous silicon for Li-ion batteries. It is generally understood that in order for silicon to work in batteries, nanoparticles are required, and this brings its own challenges to the production, price and safety of the material. However, one of the main findings of the study was that particles sized between 10 and 20 micrometres and with the right porosity were in fact the most suitable ones to be used in batteries. The discovery is significant, as micrometre-sized particles are easier and safer to process than nanoparticles. This is also important from the viewpoint of battery material recyclability, among other things. The findings were published in Scientific Reports.

“In our research, we were able to combine the best of nano- and micro-technologies: nano-level functionality combined with micro-level processability, and all this without compromising performance,” Researcher Timo Ikonen from the University of Eastern Finland says. “Small amounts of silicon are already used in Tesla’s batteries to increase their energy density, but it’s very challenging to further increase the amount,” he continues.

Next, researchers will combine silicon with small amounts of carbon nanotubes in order to further enhance the electrical conductivity and mechanical durability of the material.

“We now have a good understanding of the material properties required in large-scale use of silicon in Li-ion batteries. However, the silicon we’ve been using is too expensive for commercial use, and that’s why we are now looking into the possibility of manufacturing a similar material from agricultural waste, for example from barley husk ash,” Professor Vesa-Pekka Lehto explains.

A discovery by two scientists at the Energy Department’s National Renewable Energy Laboratory (NREL) could aid the development of next-generation semiconductor devices.

The researchers, Kwangwook Park and Kirstin Alberi, experimented with integrating two dissimilar semiconductors into a heterostructure by using light to modify the interface between them. Typically, the semiconductor materials used in electronic devices are chosen based on such factors as having a similar crystal structure, lattice constant, and thermal expansion coefficients. The close match creates a flawless interface between layers and results in a high-performance device. The ability to use different classes of semiconductors could create additional possibilities for designing new, highly efficient devices, but only if the interfaces between them can be formed properly.

Park and Alberi determined that ultraviolet (UV) light applied directly to the semiconductor surface during heterostructure growth can modify the interface between two layers. Their paper, “Tailoring Heterovalent Interface Formation with Light,” appears in Scientific Reports.

“The real value of this work is that we now understand how light affects interface formation, which can guide researchers in integrating a variety of different semiconductors in the future,” Park said.

The researchers explored this approach in a model system consisting of a layer of zinc selenide (ZnSe) grown on top of a layer of gallium arsenide (GaAs). Using a 150-watt xenon lamp to illuminate the growth surface, they determined the mechanisms of light-stimulated interface formation by varying the light intensity and interface initiation conditions. Park and Alberi found the UV light altered the mixture of chemical bonds at the interface through photo-induced desorption of arsenic atoms on the GaAs surface, resulting in a greater percentage of bonds between gallium and selenium, which help to passivate the underlying GaAs layer. The illumination also allowed the ZnSe to be grown at lower temperatures to better regulate elemental intermixing at the interface. The NREL scientists suggested careful application of UV illumination may be used to improve the optical properties of both layers.

Over the last two years, Waterloo based Siborg Systems Inc. teamed up with Sensor Creations Inc. from Camarillo, California in development of a practical tool for simulation of the process flow and optical sensor performance.

The companies collaborated in both the semiconductor process and device simulation for optical sensor structures. They have large sizes and require many fabrication steps such as epitaxial growth, implantation, deposition, etching, annealing and oxidation. Due to the large size, use of conventional simulation tools lead to high CPU time. In contrast, MicroTec was able to run a typical process simulation within a few minutes on a regular PC.

Doping profile for 3-junction optical sensor simulated with MicroTec. For 100,000 required CPU time was about 2 minutes on regular PC. (PRNewsfoto/Siborg Systems Inc.)

Doping profile for 3-junction optical sensor simulated with MicroTec. For 100,000 required CPU time was about 2 minutes on regular PC. (PRNewsfoto/Siborg Systems Inc.)

MicroTec provides steady-state two-dimensional semiconductor device simulation that is not sufficient for capacitance extraction. A new method was developed allowing to calculate capacitance of a semiconductor structure by solving equation for the total current conservation. The method is equally applicable to 1D, 2D and 3D structures but limited to low frequencies and low-leakage conditions. The most straightforward method is solving the equation of the total current conservation, mutual capacitances may be calculated simply by the formula C=Idt/dV.

This formula could be improved by using a relation involving resistances as well as capacitances. In order to do that, one more data point is required. Although this expression is more accurate than the first one, it is still not equivalent to the actual compact model of the semiconductor structure because, strictly speaking, it is a set of interconnected transmission lines and therefore any simplification of the equivalent circuit results in a loss of accuracy. The current based method is not very accurate and requires simulation with a properly selected ramp speed. If it is too fast, voltage drop due to Ohm’s law distorts the capacitance, and if it is too slow, displacement current becomes too small and is swamped by the numerical noise. Practically this method has a limited application due to high sensitivity to the ramp time.

In contrast to the current method, the charge method provides charges affiliated with the contacts rather than the currents, thus eliminating the problem of result interpretation using equivalent R-C circuit. To calculate the charges we solve the same equation but instead of calculating currents, we use the response to the excitation applied to a contact as a weight function when integrating the charge in the structure. The charges are easily calculated by a convolution of the “affiliation” function with the carrier density. This method appeared very stable and accurate and was successfully used for capacitance calculation in optical sensors.

The picture below shows the capacitance calculated by the charge based method at various ramp speeds. Note that all 4 curves virtually coincide. The method applicability is questionable when significant minority charge is injected as in the case of forward biased junctions. The proposed method has a wider range of applicability but the extent of its accuracy still needs to be studied.

“We used Two-dimensional Semiconductor Process and Device Simulation Software MicroTec from Siborg intensively for the last couple of years. We found it very useful in our practical optical sensor prototype development. It significantly outperforms other available commercial tools by the speed, ease-of-use and robustness. Last, but not least, the license cost is significantly lower as well,” says Stefan Lauxtermann from Sensor Creations.

MicroTec is a TCAD tool that has been used by major semiconductor manufacturers such as Hitachi, Texas Instruments, Matasushita, etc. As an educational tool, MicroTec and three-dimensional SibLin are simple and easy to learn.

Littelfuse, Inc. (NASDAQ:LFUS) and IXYS Corporation (NASDAQ:IXYS) today announced that they have entered into a definitive agreement under which Littelfuse will acquire all of the outstanding shares of IXYS in a cash and stock transaction. The transaction represents an equity value of approximately $750 million and enterprise value of $655 million. Under the terms of the agreement, each IXYS stockholder will be entitled to elect to receive, per IXYS share, either $23.00 in cash or 0.1265 of a share of Littelfuse common stock, subject to proration. In total, 50% of IXYS stock will be converted into the cash election option and 50% into the stock election option.

IXYS is a global developer in the power semiconductor and integrated circuit markets with a focus on medium to high voltage power control semiconductors across the industrial, communications, consumer and medical markets. IXYS has a broad customer base, serving more than 3,500 customers through its direct salesforce and global distribution partners. IXYS reported revenues of $322 million in its fiscal 2017 with an adjusted EBITDA margin of approximately 13.5%.

The combined company is expected to have annual revenues of approximately $1.5 billion, with the following compelling strategic and financial benefits:

  • Broader technology platform and capability to expand growth into industrial and electronics markets
  • Increased long-term penetration of power control portfolio in automotive markets, expanding global content per vehicle
  • Heightened engineering expertise and intellectual property around high voltage and silicon carbide semiconductor technologies
  • Increased presence in the semiconductor industry, adding to our scale and volume
  • Strong relationships and complementary overlap in major global electronics distribution partnerships enabling cross-selling
  • Immediately accretive to adjusted EPS and free cash flow post transaction close(2)
  • Expect to generate more than $30 million in annualized cost savings; additional future value created from revenue synergies and tax rate reduction

“As the largest acquisition in our 90-year history, this is an exciting milestone for Littelfuse,” said Dave Heinzmann, President and Chief Executive Officer, Littelfuse. “IXYS’ extensive power semiconductor portfolio and technology expertise fit squarely within our strategy to accelerate our growth within power control and industrial OEM markets. The combination of Littelfuse and IXYS unites complementary capabilities, cultures and relationships.”

“IXYS will operate as the cornerstone of the combined companies’ power semiconductor business,” said Dr. Nathan Zommer, Chairman and Chief Executive Officer of IXYS. “Both Littelfuse and IXYS have long histories of innovation and customer-focused product development, and together, we will embrace the entrepreneurial spirit that has contributed to IXYS’ success in the power semiconductor and integrated circuits market.”

“The combination of IXYS and Littelfuse creates a stronger player in the power semiconductor industry, with the ability to leverage our collective resources and portfolio to create increased value for our customers,” added Uzi Sasson, President and Chief Executive Officer of IXYS. “We believe that being a part of a world-class organization like Littelfuse will provide a bright future for IXYS and the talented people at our respective companies.”

Transaction highlights

The transaction is expected to be immediately accretive to Littelfuse’s adjusted earnings per share and free cash flow in the first full year post transaction close, excluding any acquisition and integration related costs. Littelfuse expects to achieve more than $30 million of annualized cost savings within the first two years after closing the transaction. Longer term, the combination is also expected to create significant revenue synergy opportunities given the companies’ complementary offerings, as well as benefits from future tax rate reduction.

In conjunction with the definitive agreement, Dr. Nathan Zommer, IXYS founder and currently the company’s largest stockholder with approximately 21% ownership, has entered into a voting and support agreement. Subject to the agreement’s terms and conditions, he has agreed to vote his shares in favor of the transaction. After close of the transaction, Dr. Zommer is expected to join Littelfuse’s Board of Directors, subject to the board’s governance and approval process. His technical skills and extensive experience across the semiconductor industry will benefit the combined company with its integration efforts, innovation roadmap and revenue expansion.

The transaction is expected to close in the first calendar quarter of 2018 and is subject to the satisfaction of customary closing conditions, including regulatory approvals and approval by IXYS stockholders. Littelfuse expects to finance the cash portion of the transaction consideration through a combination of existing cash and additional debt.

Morgan Stanley & Co. LLC is serving as financial advisor and Wachtell, Lipton, Rosen & Katz is serving as legal counsel to Littelfuse. Needham & Company, LLC is serving as financial advisor and Latham & Watkins LLP is serving as legal counsel to IXYS.

The ConFab – an exclusive conference and networking event for semiconductor manufacturing and design executives from leading device makers, OEMs, OSATs, fabs, suppliers and fabless/design companies – announces the 2018 event will be held at THE COSMOPOLITAN of LAS VEGAS on May 20-23.

Pete Singer, Conference Chair of The ConFab and Editor-in-Chief of Solid State Technology had this to say, “The ConFab is a unique combination of business, technology and social interactions that make this industry gathering of influencers and leaders so valuable. In 2018, we will take a close look at the new applications driving the semiconductor industry, the technology that will be required at the device and process level to meet new demands, and – perhaps most importantly – the kind of strategic collaboration that will be required.” He also stated, “the key to continued business success for both guests and presenters will be the crucial insights that will be gained at the conference about critical market trends; and how to take advantage of emerging opportunities. Our goal is to “connect the dots” and how what’s going on in the end semiconductor application space (IoT, AI, 5G, VR, automotive, etc.) will ultimately impact semiconductor manufacturing and design.”

Keynotes, panel discussions and technical sessions on new technology needed in manufacturing will be a focal point of The ConFab 2018. Topics include: EUV, now entering volume production and ushering in a new era of patterning for the 7 and 5nm generations. And the many new materials being considered, transistors that are evolving from FinFETs to gate-all-around nanowires, on chip communication with silicon photonics emerging, and advanced packaging/heterogeneous integration as ever more critical. How semiconductors are playing an increasingly important role in the healthcare industry, will also be in the robust 2018 agenda.

The ConFab is a high-level, 3 1/2 day conference for decision-makers and influencers to connect, innovate and collaborate in multiple sessions, one-on-one private business meetings, and other daily networking activities. For more information, visit www.theconfab.com.

Two-dimensional materials are a sort of a rookie phenom in the scientific community. They are atomically thin and can exhibit radically different electronic and light-based properties than their thicker, more conventional forms, so researchers are flocking to this fledgling field to find ways to tap these exotic traits.

Applications for 2-D materials range from microchip components to superthin and flexible solar panels and display screens, among a growing list of possible uses. But because their fundamental structure is inherently tiny, they can be tricky to manufacture and measure, and to match with other materials. So while 2-D materials R&D is on the rise, there are still many unknowns about how to isolate, enhance, and manipulate their most desirable qualities.

Now, a science team at the Department of Energy’s Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory (Berkeley Lab) has precisely measured some previously obscured properties of moly sulfide, a 2-D semiconducting material also known as molybdenum disulfide or MoS2. The team also revealed a powerful tuning mechanism and an interrelationship between its electronic and optical, or light-related, properties.

To best incorporate such monolayer materials into electronic devices, engineers want to know the “band gap,” which is the minimum energy level it takes to jolt electrons away from the atoms they are coupled to, so that they flow freely through the material as electric current flows through a copper wire. Supplying sufficient energy to the electrons by absorbing light, for example, converts the material into an electrically conducting state.

As reported in the Aug. 25 issue of Physical Review Letters, researchers measured the band gap for a monolayer of moly sulfide, which has proved difficult to accurately predict theoretically, and found it to be about 30 percent higher than expected based on previous experiments. They also quantified how the band gap changes with electron density – a phenomenon known as “band gap renormalization.”

“The most critical significance of this work was in finding the band gap,” said Kaiyuan Yao, a graduate student researcher at Berkeley Lab and the University of California, Berkeley, who served as the lead author of the research paper.

“That provides very important guidance to all of the optoelectronic device engineers. They need to know what the band gap is” in orderly to properly connect the 2-D material with other materials and components in a device, Yao said.

Obtaining the direct band gap measurement is challenged by the so-called “exciton effect” in 2-D materials that is produced by a strong pairing between electrons and electron “holes” ¬- vacant positions around an atom where an electron can exist. The strength of this effect can mask measurements of the band gap.

Nicholas Borys, a project scientist at Berkeley Lab’s Molecular Foundry who also participated in the study, said the study also resolves how to tune optical and electronic properties in a 2-D material.

“The real power of our technique, and an important milestone for the physics community, is to discern between these optical and electronic properties,” Borys said.

The team used several tools at the Molecular Foundry, a facility that is open to the scientific community and specializes in the creation and exploration of nanoscale materials.

The Molecular Foundry technique that researchers adapted for use in studying monolayer moly sulfide, known as photoluminescence excitation (PLE) spectroscopy, promises to bring new applications for the material within reach, such as ultrasensitive biosensors and tinier transistors, and also shows promise for similarly pinpointing and manipulating properties in other 2-D materials, researchers said.

The research team measured both the exciton and band gap signals, and then detangled these separate signals. Scientists observed how light was absorbed by electrons in the moly sulfide sample as they adjusted the density of electrons crammed into the sample by changing the electrical voltage on a layer of charged silicon that sat below the moly sulfide monolayer.

Researchers noticed a slight “bump” in their measurements that they realized was a direct measurement of the band gap, and through a slew of other experiments used their discovery to study how the band gap was readily tunable by simply adjusting the density of electrons in the material.

“The large degree of tunability really opens people’s eyes,” said P. James Schuck, who was director of the Imaging and Manipulation of Nanostructures facility at the Molecular Foundry during this study.

“And because we could see both the band gap’s edge and the excitons simultaneously, we could understand each independently and also understand the relationship between them,” said Schuck, now at Columbia University. “It turns out all of these properties are dependent on one another.”

Moly sulfide, Schuck also noted, is “extremely sensitive to its local environment,” which makes it a prime candidate for use in a range of sensors. Because it is highly sensitive to both optical and electronic effects, it could translate incoming light into electronic signals and vice versa.

Schuck said the team hopes to use a suite of techniques at the Molecular Foundry to create other types of monolayer materials and samples of stacked 2-D layers, and to obtain definitive band gap measurements for these, too. “It turns out no one yet knows the band gaps for some of these other materials,” he said.

The team also has expertise in the use of a nanoscale probe to map the electronic behavior across a given sample.

Borys added, “We certainly hope this work seeds further studies on other 2-D semiconductor systems.”

The Molecular Foundry is a DOE Office of Science User Facility that provides free access to state-of-the-art equipment and multidisciplinary expertise in nanoscale science to visiting scientists.

Researchers from the Kavli Energy NanoSciences Institute at UC Berkeley and Berkeley Lab, and from Arizona State University also participated in this study, which was supported by the National Science Foundation.

SparkLabs Group, a network of accelerators and funds, is launching a $50 million early-stage fund (Series A & B) primarily focused on South Korea. The fund will be led by Brian Kang, who was a founding member of Samsung’s first venture capital arm and later led Korea Venture Fund, which was Korea’s first VC fund of funds. He has over 20 years of experience as an investment professional and several years as an entrepreneur and operator. He was CEO & Chairman of the Board at Gravity, a Softbank affliated gaming company, and then went on to launch his own gaming startup.

Brian is joined by Chris Koh, Co-founder of Coupang which is the leading ecommerce player in South Korea and received $1 billion investment from Softbank in 2015. Chris started Coupang with a classmate from Harvard Business School and their friend at Harvard Law. He was vice president of the company for five years focusing on operations and growth.

“We are grateful to SeAH who was one of the first investors in SparkLabs Global Ventures, our global seed fund, and now the anchor investor along with Korea Development Bank/Multi-Asset in our new Series A fund for South Korea. We believe we have assembled the best team to service entrepreneurs in Korea since all of us have built companies from the ground up in Korea and the U.S.,” stated HanJoo Lee, co-founder of SparkLabs.

SeAH is a top 50 business group in South Korea and Korea Development Bank/Multi-Asset is subsidiary of Mirae Asset, which is the largest asset manager in South Korea with over US$100 billion assets under management.

Brian Kang and Chris Koh are joined by Venture Partners (part-time partners) Rob Das, Co-founder and former Chief Architect of Splunk, and John Suh, CEO of Legalzoom. Splunk is a $8 billion market cap company that Rob helped grow from concept to its IPO in 2012. John has served as CEO since 2007 to help grow Legalzoom into the leading provider of online legal document services in the U.S. that has serviced almost 4 million customers.

“We are excited to launch this new early-stage fund to help Korea’s rapidly growing startup ecosystem. I believe the venture capital business must evolve as the startup environment is changing fast in Korea. Finding companies of global capacity, generating rich deal flow, adding real values post investment are becoming more and more critical to the success of venture investments. Chris and I look forward to working with other investors to help nurture the next generation of impact entrepreneurs in South Korea,” said Brian Kang, Co-founder and Managing Partner of SparkLabs Ventures.

SparkLabs Ventures is also supported by a heavy hitting advisory board that includes former Congressman Mike Honda, who served in the U.S. Congress from 2001 to 2017 (represented Silicon Valley in the 17th congressional district from 2013 to 2017); David Lee, Co-founder and Managing Partner of Refactor Capital; and Nadiem Makarim, Co-founder and CEO of Go-Jek, which recently raised $1.2 billion from Tencent and others.

The fund will focus primarily on South Korea startups at their Series A or B rounds, and will not be limited to graduates of SparkLabs accelerator in Seoul. The fund will focus its investments on companies that have potential to expand abroad to different markets and have the ability to take advantage of the global reach of the SparkLabs’ network. A secondary target region is SE Asia, so the fund will be open to startups within this region who have global ambitions.