Category Archives: Semiconductors

Finding ways to improve the drug development process – which is currently costly, time-consuming and has an astronomically high failure rate – could have far-reaching benefits for health care and the economy. Researchers from the Georgia Institute of Technology have designed a cellular interfacing array using low-cost electronics that measures multiple cellular properties and responses in real time. This could enable many more potential drugs to be comprehensively tested for efficacy and toxic effects much faster. That’s why Hua Wang, associate professor in the School of Electrical and Computer Engineering at Georgia Tech, describes it as “helping us find the golden needle in the haystack.”

Built on standard complementary metal oxide semiconductor (CMOS) technologies, the cellular sensing array chip uses a standard 35 mm cell culture dish with the bottom removed to host the cells and expose them to the sensing surface.

Pharmaceutical companies use cell-based assays, a combination of living cells and sensor electronics, to measure physiological changes in the cells. That data is used for high-throughput screening (HTS) during drug discovery. In this early phase of drug development, the goal is to identify target pathways and promising chemical compounds that could be developed further – and to eliminate those that are ineffective or toxic – by measuring the physiological responses of the cells to each compound.

Phenotypic testing of thousands of candidate compounds, with the majority “failing early,” allows only the most promising ones to be further developed into drugs and maybe eventually to undergo clinical trials, where drug failure is much more costly. But most existing cell-based assays use electronic sensors that can only measure one physiological property at a time and cannot obtain holistic cellular responses.

That’s where the new cellular sensing platform comes in. “The innovation of our technology is that we are able to leverage the advance of nano-electronic technologies to create cellular interfacing platforms with massively parallel pixels,” said Wang. “And within each pixel we can detect multiple physiological parameters from the same group of cells at the same time.” The experimental quad-modality chip features extracellular or intracellular potential recording, optical detection, cellular impedance measurement, and biphasic current stimulation.

Wang said the new technology offers four advantages over existing platforms:

Multimodal sensing: The chip’s ability to record multiple parameters on the same cellular sample gives researchers the ability to comprehensively monitor complex cellular responses, uncover the correlations among those parameters and investigate how they may respond together when exposed to drugs. “Living cells are small but highly complex systems. Drug administration often results in multiple physiological changes, but this cannot be detected using conventional single-modal sensing,” said Wang.

Large field of view: The platform allows researchers to examine the behavior of cells in a large aggregate to see how they respond collectively at the tissue level.

Small spatial resolution: Not only can researchers look at cells at the tissue level, they could also examine them at single-cell or even sub-cellular resolution.

Low-cost platform: The new array platform is built on standard complementary metal oxide semiconductor (CMOS) technologies, which is also used to build computer chips, and can be easily scaled up for mass production.

Wang’s team worked closely with Hee Cheol Cho, associate professor and the Urowsky-Sahr Scholar in Pediatric Bioengineering, whose Heart Regeneration lab is part of the Wallace Coulter Department of Biomedical Engineering at Georgia Tech and Emory University. They used neonatal rat ventricular myocytes and cardiac fibroblasts to illustrate the multi-parametric cell profiling ability of the array for drug screening. The recent results were published in the Royal Society of Chemistry’s journal Lab on a Chip on August 31, 2018.

Monitoring cellular responses in multi-physical domains and holistic multi-parametric cellular profiling should also prove beneficial in screening out chemical compounds that could have harmful effects on certain organs, said Jong Seok Park, a post-doctoral fellow in Wang’s lab and a leading author of the study. Many drugs have been withdrawn from the market after discoveries that they had toxic effects on the heart or liver, for example. This platform should enable researchers to comprehensively test for organ toxicity and other side effects at the initial phases of drug discovery.

The experimental chip may be useful for other applications, including personalized medicine – for example, testing cancer cells from a particular patient. “Patient to patient variation is huge, even with the same type of drug,” said Wang. The cellular interface array could be used to see which combination of existing drugs would give the best response and to find the optimum dose that is most effective with minimum toxicity to healthy cells.

The chip is capable of actuation as well as sensing. In the future, Wang said that cellular data from the chip could be uploaded and processed, and based on that, commands for new actuation or data acquisition could be sent to the chip automatically and wirelessly. He envisions rooms and rooms containing culture chambers with millions of such chips in fully automated facilities, “just automatically doing new drug selection for us,” he said.

Beyond these applications, Wang noted the scientific value of the research itself. Integrated circuits and nanoelectronics are some of the most sophisticated technology platforms created by humans. Living cells, on the other hand, are complex products produced through billions of years of natural selection and evolution.

“The central theme of our research is how we can leverage the best platform created by nature with the best platform created by humans,” he said. “Can we let them work together to create hybrid systems that achieve capabilities beyond biology only or electronics only systems? The fundamental scientific question we are addressing is how we can let inorganic electronics better interface with organic living cells.”

By Emir Demircan

SEMI Europe today confirmed its support for the joint call to future Members of the European Parliament to put industry at the core of the European Union’s future. The joint call is as follows:

Industry Matters for Europe and Its Citizens

European industry is everywhere in our daily life: from the houses we build, the furniture we buy, the clothes we wear, the food we eat, the healthcare we receive, the energy and means of transport we use to the objects and products ever-present in our lives. With its skilled workforce and its global reputation for quality and sustainability, industry is vital for Europe and its prosperity. Today, 52 million people and their families throughout Europe benefit directly and indirectly from employment in industrial sectors. Our supply chains, made up of hundreds of thousands of innovative SMEs and larger suppliers, are thriving and exporting European industrial excellence all over the world.

Industry Needs You!

Following the 2008 financial crisis, millions of manufacturing jobs were lost in Europe, each time bringing dramatic human and social consequences. Even now, we are still far from the employment levels seen before the crisis and jobs are vulnerable to worrying international trends, including increasing protectionism. The European Union now needs an ambitious industrial strategy to help compete with other global regions – such as China, India and the USA – that have already put industry at the very top of their political agenda.

Therefore we, industrial sectors from all branches, call on you – future Members of the European Parliament – to commit today to:

  • Put industry at the top of the political agenda of the European Parliament during the next institutional cycle (2019-2024)
  • Urge the next European Commission to shortlist industry as a top priority of its 5-year Work Programme and appoint a dedicated Vice-President for Industry
  • Uphold the next European Commission to swiftly present an ambitious long-term EU industrial strategy which shall include clear indicators and governance

We, the Signatories of this Manifesto, count on your support to make sure that Europe remains a hub for a leading, smart, innovative and sustainable industry, that benefits all Europeans and future generations. Europe can be proud of its industry. Together we must put it at the core of the EU’s future!

The joint call and the list of supporting associations can be reached here.

Emir Demircan is senior manager, Advocacy and Public Policy, at SEMI Europe. He can be reached at [email protected]. 

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.

Solar cells are a cost-effective, alternate source of energy. A subtype of these, organic solar cells make use of organic polymers inside the cell. Using these polymers makes the cells light-weight and increases their flexibility. Organic solar cells are produced by two different chemical methods: dry processing and wet processing, with the latter being a faster method. There are several parameters used to assess the efficiency of solar cells with absorption of light and transportation of charge being widely used.

A prevailing problem with the structure of organic cells is that molecules in the active organic layer responsible for light absorption and charge transport tend to face both towards the edges of cells, as well as towards the light absorbing substrate. Maximizing the number of molecules facing the substrate, however, is the key to maximising absorption and conductivity of the cell. Scientists have modified the dry processing method to achieve such an orientation, but it has not been possible with the wet method. The research team led by Tetsuya Taima at Kanazawa University, is the first to successfully do so.

The premise of their method is the introduction of a copper iodide (CuI) layer between the active molecules and the substrate. In their study, the researchers used a film of active molecules called DRCN5T and coated them onto either CuI/PEDOT: PSS (30 nm)/indium tin oxide (ITO) mixed substrates, or substrates without the CuI layer. The ratio of substrate facing to edge facing DRCN5T molecules was then compared between both. Subsequent high-resolution imaging revealed that the CuI containing cells had active molecules with a ten times higher substrate facing orientation, along with enhanced light absorption. The researchers attributed this altered orientation of the molecules to strong chemical interactions between the DRCN5T and CuI atoms. To further confirm this, DRCN5T molecules with bulky side chains that do not interact with CuI were used, and a higher substrate facing ratio was not seen.

This is the first study that effectively demonstrates a method of producing such efficient organic solar cells using the wet processing method. Besides saving time, the wet method also results in larger film areas. “This technique is expected to greatly contribute to the development of organic thin film solar cells fabricated by wet processing in the future”, conclude the authors. Their approach paves the way for producing high-performance solar cells faster.

KLA-Tencor Corporation (NASDAQ: KLAC) has announced plans to establish a research-and-development (R&D) center in Ann Arbor, Michigan. The development is expected to include a total capital investment of more than $70 million and create up to 500 new high-tech jobs in the region over the next five years.

“Among the reasons for building a major R&D hub in the Ann Arbor and Detroit metropolitan area are the region’s attractive talent pool, relative low cost of living and proximity to Detroit Metropolitan Airport,” said Bobby Bell, chief strategy officer. “Our plan is to develop innovative solutions that will have an impact across a broad spectrum of semiconductor and electronics applications, including data storage, cloud computing, machine learning and automotive.”

“We’re confident that we can continue to create and deliver impactful technologies that ultimately help enrich the human experience. Our expansion into Michigan will help us realize our vision,” said Rick Wallace, chief executive officer. “This location also allows the company to strengthen our long-term partnership with the University of Michigan, including engaging in collaborative research.”

Semiconductor manufacturing to support the growing automotive electronics industry requires improved device reliability and defect control. In addition, the expanding applications of artificial intelligence (AI) and machine learning are driving strong demand for compute power and memory. Semiconductor manufacturers serving these diverse needs are turning to KLA-Tencor’s advanced process control solutions and services to help address their complex challenges.

KLA-Tencor’s decision to build a new location is founded upon a need to serve growing demand from its global customer base, while expanding the company’s footprint in North America.

The project was conceived in partnership with Michigan Economic Development Corporation and approved by the Michigan Strategic Fund.

With tight supplies of widely used power transistors and diodes driving up prices and new optical-imaging applications moving into more systems, the diverse marketplace for optoelectronics, sensors and actuators, and discrete semiconductors (O-S-D) is on pace to grow by 11% for the second year in a row in 2018 and set a ninth consecutive record-high level in combine annual revenues worldwide.  An update to IC Insights’ O-S-D forecast shows total sales across the three market segments reaching $83.2 billion this year, followed by 9% growth in 2019, when revenues are expected to hit an all-time high of $90.6 billion (Figure 1).

Figure 1

In 2017, O-S-D revenues grew 11% with total unit shipments also rising 11%, but in 2018, combined sales of optoelectronics, sensors/actuators, and discretes are expected to increase by about 11% with overall unit volumes rising 9% and average selling prices (ASPs) for products in the three market segments being nearly 1.5% higher this year.  Shortages of power transistors, diodes, and other widely used commodity parts in 2018 are expected to drive up total discrete ASPs by nearly 8% this year and result in a strong 12% increase in sales to a record-high $27.6 billion from the current peak of $24.6 billion set in 2017.

Optoelectronics sales are forecast to rise nearly 11% in 2018 to reach an all-time high of $40.9 billion, with unit shipments climbing 18% this year, but the ASP in this market is expected to decline by about 6% because of falling prices for some image sensors, infrared products, lasers, optocouplers, and lamp devices, which are mostly light-emitting diodes (LEDs).  Optoelectronics sales are getting a tremendous boost from sharply higher demand for light sensors, which are used in automatic controls of displays in smartphones and other systems, heart rate monitoring, proximity detection, and color sensing.  Light sensors along with infrared and laser transmitters are also seeing strong growth in new three-dimensional depth scanning systems and time-of-flight (ToF) cameras, which use reflected light to sense distances and are appearing in more smartphones and other applications for face recognition, 3D imaging, and virtual/augmented reality applications.

Following strong growth of 16% in both 2016 and 2017, total revenues for non-optical sensors and actuators are expected to rise 7% in 2018 to a record-high $14.8 billion with unit volume being up just 5%—the lowest rate of increase in 10 years—because of inventory adjustments in several product categories, low smartphone growth, and some production constraints.  Strong automotive sensor demand has propped up total sensors/actuator sales growth and helped lift ASPs by 2%—the first rise since 2010.

By Wilfried Vogel, NETA

Downsizing and thinning all the electronic parts has always been a trend in our modern era. However, the nanoscience and nanotechnologies were still science fiction in the 60’s and the word nanotechnology was used for the first time in 1974. At the same time, the first atomic force microscopes (AFM) and scanning acoustic microscopes (SAM) were developed. Today nanotechnologies represent huge investments –  even from governments – and a global market of several thousand of billions of euros.

Non-destructive testing at the nanometric scale is the purpose here. Ultrasounds are widely used in the aeronautics industry or during medical echography. The spatial resolution reached in that case is around the millimeter which is a million time too large when we speak of nanotechnologies.

SAM systems benefit from a higher definition thanks to MHz/GHz ultrasounds, the smallest axial resolution found on the market is below the micron.

The nanometric world requires another 2 to 3 orders of magnitude below and it can only be reached thanks to THz ultrasounds. These frequencies cannot be generated with standard transductors, that’s why the ASynchronous OPtical Sampling (ASOPS) systems are equipped with ultrafast lasers.

This complex technology is now available on the market in a compact instrument. The JAX is the first industrial imaging ASOPS system (Fig. 1).

When the laser hits the surface, the most part of the energy is absorbed by the first layers of atoms and converted into heat without damaging the sample (Fig. 2), leading to transient thermoelastic expansion and ultrasound emission.

The choice of the probe is also important to keep the temporal and the spatial resolution as low as possible, that’s why another ultrafast laser is used as a probe (Fig 3.).

The ultrasound is propagating a few nanometers per picosecond through the thin film and at some point will bounce back partially or completely to come back to the surface when meeting a different medium.

The probe laser is focused at the surface, when the ultrasound hits back the surface, the reflectivity fluctuates locally over time.

The variation of reflectivity is detected and stored into the computer as a raw data.

The technique is often called picosecond ultrasonics, it has been developed at Brown University in the USA by Humphrey Maris in the mid 80’s.

The ASOPS is not the only kind of technology able to perform picosecond ultrasonics, but it’s the latest evolution and the fastest to perform a full measurement. The trick here is to slightly shift the frequency of the probe laser compared to the pump’s one (Fig. 4). Both lasers are synchronized by a separate electronical unit. The probe arrives slightly after the pump and this delay is extending with time until the whole sampling is over.

The elastic answer of the thin film to a pump excitation is too fast to be measured in real time. You have to artificially extend time and reconstruct the signal of the probe.

The measure described above is for one single point. With a more standard instrument able to perform picosecond ultrasonics, it would take several minutes. Here with the ASOPS, the measure takes less than a second. It means that by simply scanning point by point all over the surface (Fig. 5), you will get a full map of the studied mechanical parameter in minutes.

Thickness measurement

For instance if your interest is in the thickness of a thin film, you can easily retrieve an accurate value by measuring the time between two echoes of the ultrasound at the surface of the sample (Fig. 6).

Until recently, the kind of setup required to make these measurement was found in a optical lab with a large honeycomb table full of mirrors and lenses. Even though the results are respectable, the time to install and repeatability are often the main issue.

Hopefully the technology is now accessible for non-specialists who just want to focus on measuring the mechanical properties of their samples and not to take care of all the optical part. The industrialization of such an innovative and complex device is giving an easy access to new information.

Since a punctual measurement takes a few milliseconds, it is easily feasible to measure all over the surface of the sample and get a full mapping of the thickness.

In the examplebelow (Fig. 7), the sample consists of a 500 µm silicon substrate and 255 nm sputtered tungsten single layer. The scanned surface is approximately 1.6 mm x 1.6 mm and the lateral resolution in X-Y is 50 µm, 999 points in total.

A large scratch is being highlighted at the surface but the average thickness remains in the range of 250 nm. The total time of measurement is less than 10 minutes, which is comparable to a single point measurement with one laser and a mechanical delay line (homodyne system).

Until now, the industry offer for production management was only homodyne instruments performing picosecond ultrasonics measurements, reducing the full scan of the surface to a very few points checked only over a full wafer.

We just saw that single layer thin film thickness measurement is pretty straight forward. If you are dealing with more than one layer the raw data is much more complex to read. However, it is possible to model the sample and to compare the simulated signal to the actual measure with an incredible fit.

Multiphysics

When you chat with several experts of thin films, they will all agree to tell you that:

  • Thickness is a key parameter
  • Adhesion is always a problem
  • Non-destructive measurement is a fine improvement
  • Faster is better
  • Imaging is awesome

In the industry, thickness and adhesion are the main concern at all steps of the manufacturing process, whether you are working in the display or the semiconductor field. The picosecond ultrasonics technique is already used in-line for wafer inspection, which shows its maturity and yet confidentiality.

The standard procedures for adhesion measurement are applicable only on flat and large samples, and they are destructive. When it comes to 3D samples and if you want to check the adhesion on a very small surface, the laser is the only solution. Adhesion can now be verified inline all over the sample during every step of the manufacturing process.

Now the academic world has different concerns and goes deeper and deeper in the understanding of the material behavior at the atomic scale.

The ASOPS system can go beyond the picosecond ultrasonics – which is already a great source of information if we stick to thickness and adhesion –  and get even more from the raw data such as thermal information or critical mechanical parameters.

Thermal conductivity

Thermal conductivity is the parameter representing the heat conducting capability of a material.

Thin films, superlattices, graphene, and all related materials are of broad technological interest for applications including transistors, memory, optoelectronic devices, MEMS, photovoltaics  and more. Thermal performance is a key consideration in many of these applications, motivating efforts to measure the thermal conductivity of these films. The thermal conductivity of thin film materials is usually smaller than that of their bulk counterparts, sometimes dramatically so.

Compared to bulk single crystals, many thin film have more impurities which tend to reduce the thermal conductivity. Besides even an atomically perfect thin film is expected to have reduced thermal conductivity due to phonon leakage or related interactions.

Using pulsed lasers is one of the many possibilities to measure the thermal conductivity of a thin material. The time-domain thermoreflectance (TDTR) is a method by which the thermal properties of a material can be measured. It is even more suitable for thin films materials, which have properties that vary greatly when compared to the same materials in bulk.

The temperature increase due to the laser can be written as follows:

∆T(z)=(1-R) Q/(C(ζA)) exp⁡(-z/ζ)

where R is the sample reflectivity,
Q is the optical pulse energy,
C is the specific heat per unit volume,
A is the optical spot area,
ζ is the optical absorption length,
z is the distance into the sample

The voltage measured by the photodetector is proportional to the variation of R, it is possible then to deduce the thermal conductivity.

In some configuration, it can be useful to shoot the probe on the bottom of the sample (Fig. 7) or vice versa in order to get more accurate signal from one side or the other of the sample.

Surface acoustic wave

When the pump laser hits the surface, the ultrasound generated is actually made of two distinct waves modes, one propagating in the bulk, which is called longitudinal (see Fig. 1), one traveling along the surface, it’s called the Rayleigh mode.

In the industry the detection of surface acoustic wave (SAW) is used to detect and characterize cracks.

The surface wave is very sensitive to the presence and characteristics of the surface coatings, even when they are much thinner than the penetration depth of the wave. Young Modulus can be determined by measuring the velocity of the surface waves.

The propagation velocity of the surface waves, c, in a homogeneous isotropic medium is related to:

– the Young’s modulus E,
– the Poisson’s ratio ν,
– the density ρ

by the following approximate relation c=(0.87+1.12ν)/(1+ν) √(E/(2ρ(1+ν)))

When using an industrial ASOPS system to measure and image the SAW, the pump laser is fixed (Fig. 8) and always hitting the same spot.

The probe is measuring its signal around the pump laser thanks to a scanner installed in the instrument.

Future challenges

We had a quick overview of some applications and parameters that can be measured with an industrial  ASOPS imaging system. Of course it was not exhaustive, we could think for instance of adding Brillouin scattering detection in transparent material and more.

Today, ASOPS technology is moving from the margin to the mainstream. The academic community already recognizes this non-destructive technology as truly operational and able to deliver reliable and accurate measurements. For industrial applications, ASOPS systems will most certainly begin to replace standard systems in the short term and to fill the gap of ultrasonic inspection at nanometric scale.

Besides it is easily nestable in the production line while some other instruments are meant to remain research devices because they require much more care, vacuum pumps, complex settings etc.

However, the industry is far from done exploiting the full range of capabilities offered by ASOPS systems, this versatile technology also continues to be developed and validated for a broad range of other critical applications. Indeed, ASOPS systems has already shown a great potential on biological cell research. We can expect new developments to be done in the future and see instruments help the early disease detection within the next few years.

Cadence Design Systems, Inc. (NASDAQ: CDNS) today announced that its custom and analog/mixed-signal (AMS) IC design tools have achieved certification for Samsung Foundry’s 7nm Low Power Plus (7LPP) process technology. This certification ensures Cadence and Samsung Foundry mutual customers of a highly automated circuit design, layout, signoff and verification flow with full extreme ultraviolet lithography (EUV) support. This certification complements the earlier announced certification of the Cadence® full-flow digital and signoff tools on Samsung 7LPP process technology.

The Cadence custom and AMS flow includes the Virtuoso® Analog Design Environment (ADE), Virtuoso Schematic Editor, Virtuoso Layout Suite with its Advanced-Node Platform, Virtuoso Space-Based Router, Spectre® Circuit Simulator, Voltus™-Fi Custom Power Integrity Solution, Quantus™ Extraction Solution, Physical Verification System, Litho Physical Analyzer, Cadence CMP Predictor and LDE Electrical Analyzer. These tools can be used throughout the complete custom AMS flow, including:

  • Custom layout design: An advanced, electro-migration and parasitic-aware environment that includes device and module generation, automated placement and routing, layout editing, and dynamic DRC checking with Virtuoso Integrated PVS DRC, interactive PVS metal fill, in-design DFM flows for LDE, process hotspot repair (PHR), pattern analysis and optimization, and chemical mechanical polishing (CMP) check, as well as support for correct-by-design multiple patterning flow.
  • Post-layout parasitic simulation and IR drop (IREM) analysis and integrated signoff: Including parasitic extraction, design rule checks, layout versus schematic checks, dummy metal fill and programmable electrical rule checks (PERC).
  • AMS design: Digital standard cell placement, pin optimization and automated space-based routing.

“In close collaboration with Samsung, we have delivered a certified, integrated flow for custom and AMS design at 7LPP technology based on our industry-leading Virtuoso and Spectre platforms,” said Wilbur Luo, Cadence vice president, product management, analog/custom marketing. “Samsung customers can now take advantage of the most advanced features for circuit design, performance and reliability verification, and automated layout, block and chip integration for custom and digitally controlled analog designs.”

“By working closely with Cadence, we can provide our customers the most advanced FinFET performance for their custom and AMS chip designs,” said Ryan Lee, vice president of Foundry Marketing at Samsung Electronics. “Cadence helps us offer our customers the best power, performance and area for their leading-edge designs.”

ClassOne Technology, a supplier of new wet process tools to the 200mm and below semiconductor manufacturing industry, today announced the sale of its flagship Solstice® S8 wet process tool to the Ferdinand-Braun-Institute (FBH) in Berlin, Germany. As a leading research institute in the fabrication of III-V compound semiconductors, FBH specializes in prototyping leading-edge microwave and optoelectronic devices for a diverse range of industries, including communications, energy, health, and mobility.

“Solstice is a perfect fit for the III-V compound semiconductor processes that FBH specializes in,” explains Olaf Krüger, Head of FBH’s Process Technology Department. “The exceptional flexibility of the Solstice platform will allow FBH to efficiently automate a number of distinct processes on a single tool. We expect to retain the fine-grained control needed in our research environment with the added production benefits of complete cassette-to-cassette automation.“

FBH is the latest example of a growing trend in the compound semiconductor industry—the need for integrated plating-related processes as part of a comprehensive plating solution. ClassOne’s eight-chamber Solstice S8 will provide FBH with sophisticated electroplating and wet processing capabilities for a range of processes. In particular, gold plating will be performed by a pair of ClassOne’s class-leading GoldPro™ chambers, and a new high-pressure spray solvent chamber will process highly-efficient Metal Lift-off. ClassOne has dubbed the wide range of plating-related wet processing capabilities on the Solstice platform as Plating-PlusTM.

“The configuration flexibility of Plating-PlusTM and the exceptional quality of our plating chambers are why ClassOne has become the supplier of choice for the compound semiconductor industry,” says Roland Seitz, Director of ClassOne’s European Operations. “Solstice is perfectly suited to the complex processing requirements of compound semiconductors. By placing several related processes on a single tool, FBH will enjoy processing efficiencies and device quality that simply cannot be achieved by any other supplier.”

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).