Category Archives: Semiconductors

SiFive, the provider of commercial RISC-V processor IP, today announced it has been recognized as the 2018 Most Respected Private Semiconductor Company by the Global Semiconductor Alliance (GSA) at the GSA awards dinner on Dec. 6, 2018. This recognition caps a momentous year for the company, in which SiFive has experienced unprecedented growth.

“SiFive’s unique model makes it one of the most exciting and revolutionary emerging companies in the industry today and accordingly their peers have chosen them as the Most Respected Private Semiconductor Company,” said Jodi Shelton, GSA President. “The GSA is proud to honor them with this award which is a recognition of their leadership in the RISC-V ecosystem and its innovative cloud-based design platform.  We look forward to their continuous leadership in pushing open hardware to address the burgeoning global opportunities.”

The GSA Most Respected Private Semiconductor Company award honors companies that garner the most respect from the industry in terms of its products, vision and future opportunities. Since its founding in 2015, SiFive has grown its Core Series IP to seven distinct 32- and 64-bit product lines, suitable for use in real-time, embedded and high end, linux application use cases. At the RISC-V Summit earlier this month, more than 10 SiFive partners showcased a wide array of prototypes and demo devices. The company also has grown from its core founding employees to more than 300 people, and established a robust set of partnerships including TSMC, Cadence and Microsoft. In total, SiFive recently secured significant double-digit design wins across their Core IP 2, 3, 5, and 7 Series. Of those, over 10 design wins alone were for their highly successful E2 Core IP Series. SiFive will be announcing further details in the coming weeks.

“To be honored by the GSA as the most respected privately held company in the industry less than three years after our launch is quite rewarding,” said Naveed Sherwani, CEO, SiFive. “This industry recognition is a rewarding validation of SiFive’s mission to lead the paradigm shift under way in the silicon industry as it looks for the next wave of innovation. I am so proud of our team for their efforts to push the boundaries of what’s possible every day.”

IC Insights is in the process of revising its forecast and analysis of the IC industry and will present its new findings in The McClean Report 2019, which will be published in January 2019.  Among the revisions is a complete update of forecast growth rates of the 33 main product categories classified by the World Semiconductor Trade Statistics organization (WSTS) through the year 2023.

Topping the chart of fastest-growing products for 2018 is DRAM, which comes as no surprise given the strong rise of average selling prices in this segment over the past two years (Figure 1).  The 2018 DRAM market is expected to show an increase of 39%, a solid follow-up to the 77% growth in 2017. The number-one position is not unfamiliar territory for the DRAM market.  It was also the fastest-growing IC segment in 2013 and 2014.

Figure 1

Remarkably, DRAM has been at the top and near the bottom of this list over the past six years, demonstrating its very volatile and cyclical nature.  IC Insights forecasts that DRAM will rank nearly last in terms of market growth in 2019, with a 1% decrease in total sales.  After two strong years of growth, Samsung, SK Hynix, and Micron—the world’s three primary DRAM suppliers—have expanded their manufacturing capacity and are beginning to ramp up production, bringing some much needed relief to strained supplies, especially for high-performance DRAM devices. At the same time, shipments of large-scale datacenter servers, which were a primary catalyst for much of the recent DRAM market surge, have begun to ease as uncertain economic and trade conditions factor into decisions about continuing with the strong build out.

NAND flash joins DRAM as another memory segment that has enjoyed very strong growth over the past two years (Figure 2).  Solid-state computing, particularly, has been a key driver for high-density, high-performance NAND flash even as mobile applications continue to be a significant driver. Meanwhile, automotive and computing special purpose logic devices have also been strong performers the past two years.  The top five IC markets listed for 2018 are the only product categories that are expected to surpasses the 17% growth rate of the total IC market this year.

Figure 2

The full list of IC product rankings and forecasts for the 2019-2023 timeperiod is included in The McClean Report 2019, which will be released in January 2019.

IC designers are increasingly seeking ways to keep production costs down while implementing low power, high endurance embedded flash. Microchip Technology Inc. via its subsidiary Silicon Storage Technology (SST) has announced a strategic partnership with SK hynix system ic to expand the availability of SuperFlash® technology. The partnership will introduce SST’s embedded SuperFlash technology to SK hynix system ic’s 110 nanometer (nm) CMOS platform, providing designers a cost-effective and low-power embedded flash memory solution. 

SST’s embedded SuperFlash technology offers low power, high reliability, superior data retention and endurance for a range of applications, such as Internet of Things (IoT) devices, smart cards and microcontroller-based applications. The technology’s power efficiency and fast erase time are ideal for low-power applications such as remote IoT edge nodes and contactless payment devices. 

 “The combination of area-efficient, low-power SuperFlash technology and the highly cost-effective 110 nm process node opens up exciting new product opportunities, especially for IoT and microcontroller-based applications,” said Mark Reiten, vice president of SST, a wholly owned subsidiary of Microchip. “This partnership will enable customers who require low power, high endurance embedded flash to keep their production costs down by using the highly optimised 8-inch CMOS platform.”

SST’s SuperFlash technology complements SK hynix system ic’s embedded flash memory solutions with low power and high reliability IP. SK hynix system ic is a fully owned subsidiary spun off from SK hynix (000660: Korea SE) in July 2017. It is a pure 200 mm foundry specialised in Display Driver IC (DDI), CMOS Image Sensor (CIS), and Power IC with a process range of 500 nm to 57 nm. 

“We believe that the adoption of SST’s embedded SuperFlash will enable SK hynix system ic to expand our technology portfolio, and it will help to respond to customer requests for highly reliable and robust embedded non-volatile memory solutions,” said Dr. SB You, marketing vice president of SK hynix system ic. “Moreover, we will provide customers with a cost-effective embedded flash solution to support their competitiveness in the market. As the demand for embedded flash memory solutions increases, there will be many customers coming to us to use our 110nm CMOS technology-based embedded flash memory solution.” 

The process development commenced earlier this year and is expected to be completed in early 2019. Contact SST for more information on the company’s extensive custom library of off-the-shelf IP blocks optimised for smartcard System-on-Chips (SoCs). 

ClassOne Technology, global supplier of wet processing equipment for ≤200mm semiconductor manufacturing, announced the sale of three more tools to the Ferdinand-Braun-Institut, Leibniz-Institut für Höchstfrequenztechnik (FBH) in Berlin, Germany. In recent weeks, FBH ordered ClassOne’s high-performance 8-chamber Solstice® electroplating system. Now FBH is ordering three additional wet processing tools from ClassOne, including a refurbished Semitool®Spray Solvent Tool (SST), a Semitool Spray Acid Tool (SAT) and a Trident Spin Rinse Dryer (SRD). FBH is one of the world’s leading research institutes and a producer of III-V compound semiconductors, known for prototyping advanced microwave and optoelectronic devices for communications, energy, health, mobility, and more.

“We’ve put our trust in ClassOne for our entire wet processing line,” said Olaf Krüger, Head of FBH’s Process Technology Department. “They understand the special requirements of compound semiconductor manufacturers like us. ClassOne provides state-of-the-art automated processing tools for 100mm and smaller wafers that allow for high process reproducibility during R&D of novel compound semiconductor devices and ensure compatibility to industrial standards. Plus, they’ve put together a support operation right here in Europe to provide us with everything we need.”

“We see these follow-on orders from FBH as a real vote of confidence, and one that we value highly,” said ClassOne’s CEO Byron Exarcos. “Europe is an important market for us. Which is why we’ve invested heavily to build a world-class customer support structure here, including a strong, experienced process engineering team and a seasoned field service and support group that’s able to cover everything our customers might need, up to and including an extensive inventory of spare parts. So, it’s extremely gratifying to see our European customers really recognizing and making use of our local capabilities.”

“The investment is also paying off in terms of the market share gains we’re seeing,” said Roland Seitz, Director of ClassOne’s European Operations. “European customers continue to tell me ClassOne has moved into leading-supplier position for plating and wet processing equipment for 200mm wafers and below. It’s been the result of high-performance equipment combined with strong customer support and affordable prices. Going forward, the European sales of Solstice plating systems and associated tools are growing at a very rapid pace.”

Micron Technology, Inc., (Nasdaq: MU) a developer of memory and storage solutions, today announced that its monolithic 12Gb low-power double data rate 4X (LPDDR4X) DRAM has been validated for use in MediaTek’s new Helio P90 smartphone platform reference design. Micron’s LPDDR4X is capable of delivering up to 12GB1 of low-power DRAM (LPDRAM) in a single smartphone device. By stacking up to eight die in a single package, it offers double the memory capacity without increasing the footprint compared to the previous generation product.

Use of enhanced mobile applications has accelerated consumer demand for compute and data-intensive attributes in handheld devices. This increase in demand has generated the need for high-value memory solutions that are capable of delivering the full potential of user features in next-generation smartphones. As the industry’s highest-capacity monolithic mobile memory, Micron’s LPDDR4X enables manufacturers of smartphones to deliver the benefits of high-resolution imaging, use of artificial intelligence (AI) for image optimization and multimedia features through its industry-leading bandwidth, capacity and power efficiency.

“Micron is committed to advancing the compute and data processing capabilities of smartphones and other edge devices, working with chipset vendors like MediaTek,” said Dr. Raj Talluri, senior vice president and general manager of the Mobile Business Unit at Micron Technology. “Our 12Gb monolithic LPDDR4X will unleash exciting new mobile applications in artificial intelligence and multimedia that will be further boosted by the availability of 5G.”

MediaTek’s Helio P90 smartphone chipset comes with the company’s most powerful AI technology to date — APU 2.0 — an innovative fusion AI architecture designed for powerful AI and gaming user experiences.

“MediaTek’s new Helio P90 smartphone platform delivers industry-leading performance for AI and imaging applications while maintaining power efficiency,” said Martin Lin, deputy general manager of MediaTek’s wireless communications business. “With its LPDDR4X, Micron supports our commitment to developing advanced technologies for smartphone platforms that enable richer mobile experiences.”

Micron LPDDR4X memory enables MediaTek to deliver the industry’s fastest LPDDR4 clock speeds and key improvements in power consumption to advance performance within mobile devices for next-generation applications. By achieving data rate speeds up to 4266 megabits per second (Mb/s) and delivering high density within a thin package, LPDDR4X is capable of meeting future needs of edge-AI data processing. High data rate speeds helps reduce data transaction workloads by performing machine learning on the device while still contributing to AI training in the cloud. As 5G mobile technology nears deployment, these capabilities will further enable more immersive and seamless experiences for mobile device users by supporting higher data rates and real-time data processing.

The new MediaTek Helio P90 smartphone chipset with Micron LPDDR4X technology will be incorporated into mobile devices and is expected to enter mass production in summer 2019.

At Intel “Architecture Day,” top executives, architects and fellows revealed next-generation technologies and discussed progress on a strategy to power an expanding universe of data-intensive workloads for PCs and other smart consumer devices, high-speed networks, ubiquitous artificial intelligence (AI), specialized cloud data centers and autonomous vehicles.

Intel demonstrated a range of 10nm-based systems in development for PCs, data centers and networking, and previewed other technologies targeted at an expanded range of workloads.

The company also shared its technical strategy focused on six engineering segments where significant investments and innovation are being pursued to drive leaps forward in technology and user experience. They include: advanced manufacturing processes and packaging; new architectures to speed-up specialized tasks like AI and graphics; super-fast memory; interconnects; embedded security features; and common software to unify and simplify programming for developers across Intel’s compute roadmap.

Together these technologies lay the foundation for a more diverse era of computing in an expanded addressable market opportunity of more than $300 billion by 2022.

Intel Architecture Day Highlights:

Industry-First 3D Stacking of Logic Chips: Intel demonstrated a new 3D packaging technology, called “Foveros,” which for the first time brings the benefits of 3D stacking to enable logic-on-logic integration.

Foveros paves the way for devices and systems combining high-performance, high-density and low-power silicon process technologies. Foveros is expected to extend die stacking beyond traditional passive interposers and stacked memory to high-performance logic, such as CPU, graphics and AI processors for the first time.

The technology provides tremendous flexibility as designers seek to “mix and match” technology IP blocks with various memory and I/O elements in new device form factors. It will allow products to be broken up into smaller “chiplets,” where I/O, SRAM and power delivery circuits can be fabricated in a base die and high-performance logic chiplets are stacked on top.

Intel expects to launch a range of products using Foveros beginning in the second half of 2019. The first Foveros product will combine a high-performance 10nm compute-stacked chiplet with a low-power 22FFL base die. It will enable the combination of world-class performance and power efficiency in a small form factor.

Foveros is the next leap forward following Intel’s breakthrough Embedded Multi-die Interconnect Bridge (EMIB) 2D packaging technology, introduced in 2018.

New Sunny Cove CPU Architecture: Intel introduced Sunny Cove, Intel’s next-generation CPU microarchitecture designed to increase performance per clock and power efficiency for general purpose computing tasks, and includes new features to accelerate special purpose computing tasks like AI and cryptography. Sunny Cove will be the basis for Intel’s next-generation server (Intel® Xeon®) and client (Intel® Core™) processors later next year.

Sunny Cove enables reduced latency and high throughput, as well as offers much greater parallelism that is expected to improve experiences from gaming to media to data-centric applications.

Next-Generation Graphics: Intel unveiled new Gen11 integrated graphics with 64 enhanced execution units, more than double previous Intel Gen9 graphics (24 EUs), designed to break the 1 TFLOPS barrier. The new integrated graphics will be delivered in 10nm-based processors beginning in 2019.

The new integrated graphics architecture is expected to double the computing performance-per-clock compared to Intel Gen9 graphics. With >1 TFLOPS performance capability, this architecture is designed to increase game playability. At the event, Intel showed Gen11 graphics nearly doubling the performance of a popular photo recognition application when compared to Intel’s Gen9 graphics. Gen11 graphics is expected to also feature an advanced media encoder and decoder, supporting 4K video streams and 8K content creation in constrained power envelopes. Gen11 will also feature Intel® Adaptive Sync technology enabling smooth frame rates for gaming.

Intel also reaffirmed its plan to introduce a discrete graphics processor by 2020.

“One API” Software: Intel announced the “One API” project to simplify the programming of diverse computing engines across CPU, GPU, FPGA, AI and other accelerators. The project includes a comprehensive and unified portfolio of developer tools for mapping software to the hardware that can best accelerate the code. A public project release is expected to be available in 2019.

Memory and Storage: Intel discussed updates on Intel® Optane™ technology and the products based upon that technology. Intel® Optane™ DC persistent memory is a new product that converges memory-like performance with the data persistence and large capacity of storage. The revolutionary technology brings more data closer to the CPU for faster processing of bigger data sets like those used in AI and large databases. Its large capacity and data persistence reduces the need to make time-consuming trips to storage, which can improve workload performance. Intel Optane DC persistent memory delivers cache line (64B) reads to the CPU. On average, the average idle read latency with Optane persistent memory is expected to be about 350 nanoseconds when applications direct the read operation to Optane persistent memory, or when the requested data is not cached in DRAM. For scale, an Optane DC SSD has an average idle read latency of about 10,000 nanoseconds (10 microseconds), a remarkable improvement.2 In cases where requested data is in DRAM, either cached by the CPU’s memory controller or directed by the application, memory sub-system responsiveness is expected to be identical to DRAM (<100 nanoseconds).

The company also showed how SSDs based on Intel’s 1 Terabit QLC NAND die move more bulk data from HDDs to SSDs, allowing faster access to that data.

The combination of Intel Optane SSDs with QLC NAND SSDs will enable lower latency access to data used most frequently. Taken together, these platform and memory advances complete the memory and storage hierarchy providing the right set of choices for systems and applications.

Deep Learning Reference Stack: Intel is releasing the Deep Learning Reference Stack, an integrated, highly-performant open source stack optimized for Intel® Xeon® Scalable platforms. This open source community release is part of our effort to ensure AI developers have easy access to all of the features and functionality of the Intel platforms. The Deep Learning Reference Stack is highly-tuned and built for cloud native environments. With this release, Intel is enabling developers to quickly prototype by reducing the complexity associated with integrating multiple software components, while still giving users the flexibility to customize their solutions.

By Walt Custer

Global growth by electronic sector

Now that most companies in our sector analyses have reported their calendar third quarter 2018 financial results, we have final or 3Q’18/2Q’17 growth estimates for the world electronic supply chain (Chart 1). We estimate electronic equipment grew 6.7% on a U.S. dollar-denominated basis.

Source: Custer Consulting Group based on consolidated financial reports of public companies

Electronic equipment growth has peaked for this current business cycle (Chart 2), dropping from +11.1% in the second quarter to 6.7% in the third quarter. Most of the supply chain is responding to this slowing.

Semiconductors, SEMI equipment an Taiwan chip foundries

While the most recent growth rates in Charts 1 & 2 are for the third quarter, October and November growth is included in Chart 3.  Foundry growth was +4.6% in November, world semiconductor shipments eased to +12.7% in October and SEMI capital equipment slipped to +10% also in October. The days of the +30% growth rates are behind us for this current business cycle!

Sources: SIA; SEMI; financial reports of Taiwan listed foundry companies

Global semiconductor growth outlook for 2019

The World Semiconductor Trade Statistics Organization in conjunction with the SIA just updated the chip shipment forecasts for 2018 and 2019 (Chart 4). World semiconductor shipments were estimated to have climbed 15.9% (in U.S. dollars) in 2018 but are predicted to slow to a +2.6% rate in 2019.

Source: www.wsts.org, www.semiconductors.org

Looking forward

The Global Manufacturing PMI (Chart 5) leveled out in November but remained well below its December 2017 high.  This translates to a slower but still positive world expansion in the short term. By region (Chart 6), U.S. growth remains robust, Japan picked up, Europe continues to decelerate, China is near zero growth and Taiwan and South Korea are contracting.

Source: www.markiteconomics.com

ll eyes are on the global economy, Brexit, trade wars and bizarre political wrangling. 2019 could be a very volatile year!

Walt Custer of Custer Consulting Group is an analyst focused on the global electronics industry.

Releasing its Year-End Total Equipment Forecast at the annual SEMICON Japan exposition, SEMI, the global industry association representing the electronics manufacturing supply chain, today reported that worldwide sales of new semiconductor manufacturing equipment are projected to increase 9.7 percent to $62.1 billion in 2018, exceeding the historic high of $56.6 billion set last year. The equipment market is expected to contract 4.0 percent in 2019 but grow 20.7 percent to reach $71.9 billion, an all-time high.

The SEMI Year-end Forecast predicts wafer processing equipment will rise 10.2 percent in 2018 to $50.2 billion. The other front-end segment – consisting of fab facilities equipment, wafer manufacturing, and mask/reticle equipment – is expected to increase 0.9 percent to $2.5 billion this year. The assembly and packaging equipment segment is projected to grow 1.9 percent to $4.0 billion in 2018, while semiconductor test equipment is forecast to increase 15.6 percent to $5.4 billion this year.

In 2018, South Korea will remain the largest equipment market for the second year in a row. China will rise in the rankings to claim the second spot for the first time, dislodging Taiwan, which will fall to the third position. All regions tracked except Taiwan, North America, and Korea will experience growth. China will lead in growth with 55.7 percent, followed by Japan at 32.5 percent, Rest of World (primarily Southeast Asia) at 23.7 percent, and Europe at 14.2 percent.

For 2019, SEMI forecasts that South Korea, China, and Taiwan will remain the top three markets, with all three regions maintaining their relative rankings. Equipment sales in South Korea is forecast to reach $13.2 billion, in China $12.5 billion, and in Taiwan $11.81 billion. Japan, Taiwan and North America are the only regions expected to experience growth next year. The growth picture is much more optimistic in 2020, with all regional markets expected to increase in 2020, with the market increasing the most in Korea, followed by China, and Rest of World.

The following results are in terms of market size in billions of U.S. dollars:

The Equipment Market Data Subscription (EMDS) from SEMI provides comprehensive market data for the global semiconductor equipment market. A subscription includes three reports:

  • Monthly SEMI Billings Report, an early perspective of the trends in the equipment market
  • Monthly Worldwide Semiconductor Equipment Market Statistics (SEMS), a detailed report of semiconductor equipment bookings and billings for seven regions and over 22 market segments
  • SEMI Mid-Year Forecast, an outlook for the semiconductor equipment market

Lattice Semiconductor Corporation (NASDAQ: LSCC), a provider of customizable smart connectivity solutions, announced the appointment of Glenn O’Rourke as the Company’s Corporate Vice President, Global Operations, effective immediately. Mr. O’Rourke brings extensive business and technical experience, and expertise in supplier management, technology, product quality, and cost optimization to his new role. Prior to Lattice, Mr. O’Rourke was Corporate Vice President of Supplier Management, Technology & Product Cost Center at Xilinx, Inc.

Jim Anderson, President and Chief Executive Officer, said, “We are excited to welcome Glenn O’Rourke to Lattice’s leadership team, as we continue to attract key talent to our team. Glenn’s deep understanding of the FPGA industry and all facets from strategic planning through manufacturing and quality make him a perfect fit as we work to better optimize Lattice’s operations to support our strategic goals and customers’ multi-year product roadmaps.”

Mr. O’Rourke said, “I am excited to be part of Lattice’s leadership team. Having worked in the FPGA industry for many years I know the strength of the Company’s FPGA portfolio, global customer base and talented employees. I look forward to leveraging my expertise to help the Company enhance the capability, efficiency and profitability of its operations to enable exceptional growth.”

Glenn O’Rourke brings to the role 30 years of FPGA technology and semiconductor industry experience. Over the last 15 years, he has been responsible for Xilinx Inc.’s supplier strategy, management and sourcing; foundry, package, assembly and reliability engineering; and product cost center and gross margin. He most recently served as Corporate Vice President of Supplier Management, Technology and Product Cost Center at Xilinx, Inc. He was previously Vice President of Technology, Product Quality and Reliability for all Xilinx processes and products, after serving as Senior Director of Product Development Engineering. Earlier in his career Mr. O’Rourke was Senior Group Manager Product and Test Engineering at Lattice Semiconductor, and was a Product Development Manager / Program Manager at STMicroelectronics. He holds a Bachelor of Science in Electrical Engineering from Mississippi State University.

As the Silicon Valley in California and the West Coast continue to be the hub of the semiconductor manufacturing in the U.S., HEIDENHAIN has expanded its motion systems support by establishing an ETEL facility in Fremont, CA.  This new 2018 office will provide product, service and support of its ETEL motion systems designed specifically for that industry and others.

The Fremont office is an expansion of HEIDENHAIN’s San Jose, CA, office and provides warehouse space to keep multiple ETEL motion systems on site.  On display currently is an ETEL VULCANO stacked platform motion system, the METIS planar platform, and a demo bench showing ETEL single-axis solutions all operating using ETEL’s AccurET controls.

A cleanroom has been built at this ETEL facility to simulate the expected working environment of its operation, and multiple Service Engineers are on hand to provide real-time support.  A conference room space has also been established as a meeting area for visitors.

“The opening of this facility in 2018 has allowed HEIDENHAIN to meet the needs of the high-tech and fast-paced nature of Silicon Valley that often demands immediate response and is yet another example or HEIDENHAIN’s Customer First initiative,” said Daniel Wiseman, HEIDENHAIN Motion System Sales Engineer. “And actually, area customers of all kinds can now walk-in and see motion systems in person.  Plus, we can now provide on-site trouble-shooting more easily when required.”