Category Archives: Semiconductors

An international research team led by physicists at the Technical University of Munich (TUM) has developed molecules that can be switched between two structurally different states using an applied voltage. Such nanoswitches can serve as the basis for a pioneering class of devices that could replace silicon-based components with organic molecules.

A research team at the Technical University of Munich has developed molecular nanoswitches that can be toggled between two structurally different states using an applied voltage. They can serve as the basis for a pioneering class of devices that could replace silicon-based components with organic molecules. Credit: Yuxiang Gong / TUM / Journal of the American Chemical Society

The development of new electronic technologies drives the incessant reduction of functional component sizes. In the context of an international collaborative effort, a team of physicists at the Technical University of Munich has successfully deployed a single molecule as a switching element for light signals.

“Switching with just a single molecule brings future electronics one step closer to the ultimate limit of miniaturization,” says nanoscientist Joachim Reichert from the Physics Department of the Technical University of Munich.

Different structure – different optical properties

The team initially developed a method that allowed them to create precise electrical contacts with molecules in strong optical fields and to control them using an applied voltage. At a potential difference of around one volt, the molecule changes its structure: It becomes flat, conductive and scatters light.

This optical behavior, which differs depending on the structure of the molecule, is quite exciting for the researchers because the scattering activity – Raman scattering, in this case – can be both observed and, at the same time, switched on and off via an applied voltage.

Challenging technology

The researchers used molecules synthesized by teams based in Basel and Karlsruhe. The molecules can change their structure in specific ways when they are charged. They are arranged on a metal surface and contacted using the corner of a glass fragment with a very thin metal coating as a tip..

This serves as an electrical contact, light source and light collector, all in one. The researchers used the fragment to direct laser light to the molecule and measure tiny spectroscopic signals that vary with the applied voltage.

Contacting individual molecules electrically is extremely challenging from a technical point of view. The scientists have now successfully combined this procedure with single-molecule spectroscopy, allowing them to observe even the smallest structural changes in molecules with great precision.

Competition for silicon

One goal of molecular electronics is to develop novel devices that can replace traditional silicon-based components using integrated and directly controllable molecules.

Thanks to its tiny dimensions, this nanosystem is suitable for applications in optoelectronics, in which light needs to be switched using variations in electrical potential.

A new class of adsorbent materials offer high capacity storage and safe delivery of dopant gases

BY J. ARNÓ, O.K. FARHA, W. MORRIS, P. SIU, G.M. TOM, M.H. WESTON, and P.E. FULLER, NuMat Technologies, Skokie, USA J. MCCABE, M. S. AMEEN, Axcelis Technologies, Beverly, MA

Metal-Organic Framework (MOF) materials are a new class of crystalline adsorbents with broad applicability in electronics materials storage, delivery, purification, and abatement. The adsorbents have unprecedented surface areas and uniform pore sizes that can be precisely customized to the specific properties of electronic gases. ION-X® is a sub-atmospheric dopant gas delivery system designed for ion implantation, and the first commercial product that uses MOFs (ION-X® is commercially available through an agreement between NuMat Technologies and Versum Materials). The performance of ION-X deliv- ering arsine (AsH3), phosphine (PH3), and boron triflu- oride (BF3) was evaluated in high current implanters at the Axcelis Advanced Technology Center and compared to the incumbent delivery systems. In-process and on-wafer results of the MOF-based dopant gases compared positively to conventional source gases. Flow, pressure, and beam stability were undistinguishable from conven- tional gas sources throughout the lifetime of the cylinder. Beam and wafer contamination levels (both surface and energetic) were below specification limits, matching the performance of the reference qualified products.

Dopant gas safety challenges

The storage and delivery of hazardous gases creates signif- icant environmental, health, and safety challenges. Their usage requires implementation of stringent safety control systems to minimize the risks of exposure to humans and the environment. The dangers associated with handling toxic gases are the result of both the inherent chemical hazard of the molecule and the kinetic energy stored in the vessel in the form of compression. In essence, the lethality of a toxic release is magnified exponentially by the energetic force of the high-pressure storage. Historically, one way to mitigate these risks was to dilute the hazardous material with inert gases in an effort to attenuate the toxicity effects. Depending on the concentration, this solution provides a safety factor improvement of 10 or 100 by virtue of reducing the molecular density of the hazardous gas to 10% or 1% mixtures, respectively. This approach is commonly used in the electronics manufacturing industry for gases that are known to have extreme toxicity. Hydride gases (i.e. arsine, phosphine, germane, or diborane) are examples of such highly toxic gases used as source materials in a number of electronic manufacturing processes. While this dilution method is effective at reducing the toxicity levels, these mixtures are typically produced at cylinder pressures significantly higher than the pressures of the pure toxic gases. In a release event, this solution reduces the lethality of the dose at the expense of a higher release rate.

In 1993, ATMI (now an Entegris company) introduced a different approach to reduce the toxic gas storage hazards [1]. The technology involves using nano-porous adsor- bents to condense the gas molecules onto their surfaces. This process effectively reduces the kinetic energy of the gas, thus reducing the pressure in the gas cylinder. The large available surface areas within these materials result in gas storage capacities comparable to the high-pressure cylinders. The intrinsic safety advantages of adsorbed gas cylinders are derived from the reduction in pressure within the cylinder. Typically, these vessels are filled to sub-atmospheric pressures (measured at room temperature) in order to inhibit an outward gas release in the event of a leak.

The first sub-atmospheric dopant gas delivery systems used zeolites (SDS® 1) while the second and third genera- tions (SDS® 2 and SDS® 3) evolved to activated carbon adsorbent materials. These gas cylinders store and deliver dopant precursor gases (primarily arsine, phosphine, and boron trifuoride) predominantly for ion implantation processes. In its third generation, and in order to further improve gas storage capacities, SDS 3 evolved by creating a highly dense monolithic adsorbent that nearly eliminated void volumes in the cylinder.

In this paper, we describe a new sub-atmospheric gas delivery system (ION-X ®) that uses a novel ultra-high surface area class of materials called metal-organic frame- works (MOFs). In addition, the implant process perfor- mance using the new product delivering arsine, phosphine, and boron trifluoride was evaluated in a major ion implant OEM facility will be described.

MOF overview: The next generation in nano- porous adsorbents

MOF are three-dimensional crystalline structures assembled with metal-containing nodes connected by organic links (FIGURE 1). The resulting highly organized molecular structures generate nano-pores with record surface areas [2-4]. In addition, the large number of available metal nodes and organic linkers provide unpar- alleled molecular design flexibility to tailor the chemical and physical properties of the adsorbent material to fit the application. Since their discovery in the early 1990’s, MOFs have evolved from an academic curiosity to a widely recognized new class of materials with practical applications in energy, specialty chemicals, military, medical, pharmaceutical, and electronics industries. MOFs are one of the fastest growing classes of materials, with thousands of experimental structures now being reported.

For gas storage and delivery applications, MOFs’ design flexibility provides advantages over traditional adsorbents (FIGURE 2). Pore size, surface area, and chemical stability can be tailored to the specific properties of the adsorbed gases. Compared to zeolites and activated carbon adsorbents, MOFs have significantly larger surface areas (up to 7,000m2/g has been reported[5]. This property, combined with bulk density, is critical in gas storage applications where capacity is measured in terms of vessel volume rather than adsorbent mass. Pore size tunability is also an important parameter in efforts to match the dimensions of the MOF cavities to the molecular sizes of the target adsorbates. This parameter impacts adsorption capacities (how much gas can be loaded) and desorption characteristics (how much can be delivered as a function of pressure). Unlike the broad pore size distributions found in activated carbon adsorbents, MOFs’ crystallinity results in more “usable” pores. This pore size uniformity also results in higher gas quality, as impurities are selectively size excluded.

Preventing reactions between the adsorbent and the target gas is extremely important in electronics applications. Adsorbent/gas interactions will contribute to gas decomposition, leading to impurities and unwanted dopant gas composition changes that could affect the process. The molecular composition of zeolites and carbon adsor- bents are limited to a few elements (typically carbon, aluminum, and silicon) and their oxides. MOFs, on the other hand, can be synthetized from a large range of organic and inorganic constituents, offering more options for creating stable gas/ adsorbent interactions.

MOF-based gas delivery system for ion implant gases ION-X (FIGURE 3) is a sub-atmospheric dopant gas storage and delivery system designed for ion implantation [6]. ION-X uses individual MOF structures with tailored pore sizes to effectively and reversibly adsorb arsine, phosphine, and boron trifluoride gases. The pressure in filled ION-X cylinders is below one atmosphere, significantly reducing the health and environmental impact of an accidental gas release. Furthermore, MOFs’ ultra-high surface areas and uniform structures provide capacity and deliverable advantages compared to existing carbon adsorbent-based products (FIGURE 4). It is important to note that the first-generation ION-X cylinders utilize granulated MOFs with similar adsorbent bulk density to the first-generation carbon product: for the same mass of adsorbent, MOFs provide 40% to 55% higher gas delivery by virtue of their superior surface area and pose size uniformity. Analogous to the evolution of SDS®2, MOF densification inside the cylinder will further increase the gas capacity in next-generation ION-X products.

Implant performance characterization

The performances of ION-X dopant delivery systems were recently evaluated using a PurionH 300 mm high current ion implanter at Axcelis’ Advanced Technology Center (Beverly, MA, USA). The test plan included flow, mass spectral, and metal contamination analyses (both at the surface and at implanted depth). The experiments were repeated using commercially available and well-estab- lished sub-atmospheric dopant gas sources in order to provide a basis for comparison.

Cylinder installation and setup was seamless, requiring no modifications to the existing gas box hardware or software. Flow rate stability for all three gases (AsH3, PH3, and BF3) was demonstrated in the 3.5 to 8 sccm ranges down to cylinder pressures of 20 torr (spec limit). For arsine, the flow experiment continued through a full cylinder depletion, showing a stable flow rate down to cylinder pressure below 3 torr.

The beam energy, purity, and stability were evaluated by analyzing the mass spectra generated during the implantation processes. In all cases, the target dose was 5 x 1015 at/cm2 with beam energies of 40 keV, 20 keV and 15 keV for As+, P+, and BF¬2+ ion implants respectively. The stability and purity of the target doping ion beams were within specifications and very similar to the ones produced by the reference gas sources. Based on the mass spectra, ION-X did not generate any impurities derived from either gas or MOF decomposition.

Neutral and energetic metal contamination levels were thoroughly investigated in this study. All metal analyses were performed by sampling wafers produced using the recipes described in the previous paragraph. Vapor Phase Decomposition-inductively coupled Plasma-Mass Spectrometry (VPD-ICP-MS) was used to monitor the contamination from key trace metals at the wafer surface. Particular attention was placed on monitoring zinc and iron, metals used in the hydride and BF3 ION-X MOF adsorbents respectively. Results show that all metal levels were within specification limits and compared well to the levels detected in control wafers. In all cases, zinc and iron surface contamination levels were below their corresponding detection limits of 0.03 and 0.05 x 1010 atoms/cm2.

Energetic metal contamination is of special interest in ion implantation as even low levels of impurities could affect the performance of the electronic devices. The depth profile of the metals used in ION-X’s MOFs composition were measured using Secondary Ion Mass Spectrometry (SIMS). Wafers used for SIMs analyses were doped using both ION-X and incumbent gas sources using the same ion implant tool and previously stated recipes. The zinc and iron metal concentration profiles for the hydride and boron implants were well within specifications and show no discernable differences between the incumbent and the MOF-based gas sources (FIGURE 5). These results, combined with the previous surface contamination tests, conclusively establish the gas and ion purity of the dopant species extracted from ION-X adsorbents. Moreover, the results are consistent with extensive gas analyses performed at NuMat after subjecting the MOF adsorbent materials to accelerated aging, vibration, and cycle testing.

Summary

This article provides process and on-wafer performance of ION-X, a new MOF-based dopant gas delivery system. The adsorbents used in these cylinders have surface areas, stability, purity, and pore sizes ideal for the storage and delivery of ion implant dopant gases. In-process and on-wafer performance of boron trifluoride, arsine, and phosphine dopant sources compared positively to conven- tional source gas cylinders. The issue of contamination was investigated in detail, demonstrating that the new adsorbents do not contribute to surface or energetic metal impurities. The results published in this article provide independent evaluation of the new product, supporting the safe use of this product in mainstream ion implant applications. To that end, ION-X is already qualified and being used at an electronics manufacturing site with confirmed high stability and purity performance.

References

  1. Olander, K. and Avila, A., “Subatmospheric Has Storage and Delivery: Past, Present, and Future”, Solid State Technology, Volume 57 (2014), pp 27-302.
  2. Y. Cui, B. Li, H. He, W. Zhou, B. Chen, and G. Qian, “Metal–Organic Frameworks as Platforms for Functional Materials,” Accounts of Chemical Research, vol. 49, pp. 483-493, 2016/03/15 2016.
  3. H. Furukawa, K. E. Cordova, M. O’Keeffe, and O. M. Yaghi, “The Chemistry and Applications of Metal-Organic Frameworks,” Science, vol. 341, 2013.
  4. P. Silva, S. M. F. Vilela, J. P. C. Tome, and F. A. Almeida Paz, “Multifunc- tional metal-organic frameworks: from academia to industrial applications,” Chemical Society Reviews, vol. 44, pp. 6774-6803, 2015.
  5. Omar K Farha et al., “Metal-Organic Framework Materials with Ultrahigh Surface Areas: Is the Sky the Limit?” J. Am. Chem. Soc. (2012), Vol. 134, pp 15016−15021
  6. G. M. Tom et al., “Utilization of Metal-Organic Frameworks for the Management of Gases Used in Ion Implantation”, 2016 21st International Conference on Ion ImplantationTechnology (IIT),Tainan, 2016, pp. 1-4.

Veeco Instruments Inc. (Nasdaq: VECO) announced that Lumentum Holdings Inc. has ordered the Veeco K475i™Arsenide/Phosphide (As/P) Metal Organic Chemical Vapor Deposition (MOCVD) System for production of its advanced semiconductor components which address the 3D sensing, high-speed fiber-optic communications and laser-based materials processing end-markets. Lumentum, headquartered in Milpitas, Calif., is a manufacturer of innovative optical and photonics products.

“The global communications, industrial and consumer electronics markets that our proprietary semiconductor lasers address are growing rapidly,” said Susan Wang, vice president of manufacturing at Lumentum. “We chose Veeco’s K475i system with its high capacity/throughput, uniformity of quality, repeatability and exceptional performance to help expand our capacity and better address these growth opportunities. We have a longstanding relationship with Veeco and look forward to future collaboration together.”

The K475i system incorporates proprietary TurboDisc® and Uniform FlowFlange™ MOCVD technologies. These innovations allow Veeco customers to improve compositional uniformity and dopant control while reducing cost-per-wafer by up to 20 percent compared to alternative systems through higher productivity, best-in-class yields and lower operating expenses. Application areas include lighting, solar, laser diodes, vertical-cavity surface-emitting lasers (VCSELs), pseudomorphic high electron mobility transistors (pHEMTs) and heterojunction bipolar transistors (HBTs).

“A leading player in the optical communications and commercial laser markets, Lumentum is well positioned to capitalize on the growing demand for next-generation laser and optical devices using Veeco MOCVD technology,” said Peo Hansson, Ph.D., senior vice president and general manager of MOCVD Operations at Veeco. “As customers look for technologies that enable demanding new applications in increasingly competitive markets, many leading photonics, power electronics and LED device manufacturers continue to choose our proven MOCVD systems that deliver strong wafer uniformity and the lowest cost of ownership.”

SiFive, a provider of commercial RISC-V processor IP, today welcomed Brite Semiconductor, an ASIC service company invested by SMIC, to the growing DesignShare ecosystem.

The partnership enables Brite Semiconductor to offer DDR IP, which complies with DDR2/3/4 and LPDDR2/3/4, up to 2667MT/s. Brite Semiconductor’s DDR technology will make it easier for SiFive customers to speed data transfer rates on their RISC-V based SoCs within a reduced power envelope. Brite Semiconductor’s proven silicon will not only lower costs to designers, but also enable them to shorten production time.

“Brite is committed to promote innovation in ASIC business through collaboration and ecosystem development,” said Thomas Xu, CEO of Brite Semiconductor. “The demand for open-source hardware is increasing, and DesignShare offered by SiFive is a great platform to provide designers access to what they want.”

The availability of Brite Semiconductor’s DDR IP through the DesignShare program shortens the time to market and removes common barriers to entry that have historically blocked smaller companies from developing custom silicon. Companies like SiFive, Brite Semiconductor and other ecosystem partners provide low- or no-cost IP to emerging companies, reducing the upfront engineering costs required to bring a custom chip design to realization.

“Brite Semiconductor’s DDR IP makes it simpler for engineers to use RISC-V in their future designs.” said Shafy Eltoukhy, vice president of operations and head of DesignShare for SiFive. “We’re excited to see the innovations stemming from our DesignShare ecosystem.”

Since DesignShare launched in 2017, the program has grown to include a wide range of IP solutions, from debug and trace technology to embedded memory and reconfigurable FPGA. For more information on DesignShare and to see the complete list of technologies, visit www.sifive.com/designshare.

North America-based manufacturers of semiconductor equipment posted $2.69 billion in billings worldwide in April 2018 (three-month average basis), according to the April Equipment Market Data Subscription (EMDS) Billings Report published today by SEMI. The billings figure is 10.7 percent higher than the final March 2018 level of $2.43 billion, and is 26.0 percent higher than the April 2017 billings level of $2.13 billion.

“April 2018 monthly billings for North American equipment manufacturers surpassed the October 2000 record high of $2.6 billion,” said Ajit Manocha, president and CEO of SEMI. “Storage, artificial intelligence and big data are driving strong demand for semiconductors, offsetting smartphone sales that have lagged expectations this 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
November 2017
$2,052.3
27.2%
December 2017
$2,398.4
28.3%
January 2018
$2,370.1
27.5%
February 2018
$2,417.8
22.5%
March 2018 (final)
$2,431.8
16.9%
April 2018 (prelim)
$2,691.4
26.0%

Source: SEMI (www.semi.org), May 2018

GLOBALFOUNDRIES today announced that its 22nm FD-SOI (22FDX®) technology platform has been certified to AEC-Q100 Grade 2 for production. As the industry’s most advanced automotive-qualified FD-SOI process technology, GF’s 22FDX platform includes a comprehensive set of technology and design enablement capabilities tailored to improve the performance and power efficiency of automotive integrated circuits (ICs) while maintaining adherence to strict automotive safety and quality standards.

With the rapid proliferation of automotive electronics content and regulations on energy efficiency and safety, semiconductor device component quality and reliability are more critical than ever. As a part of the AEC-Q100 certification, devices must successfully withstand reliability stress tests for an extended period of time, over a wide temperature range in order to achieve Grade 2 certification. The qualification of GF’s 22FDX process exemplifies the company’s commitment to providing high-performance, high-quality technology solutions for the automotive industry.

“FD-SOI has advantages for companies who are looking for real-time trade-offs in power, performance and cost,” said Dan Hutcheson, CEO and Chairman of VLSI Research. “GF’s automotive-qualified 22FDX technology is exactly what automakers and suppliers need to enable the rapid integration of highly integrated automotive-grade ICs.”

“GLOBALFOUNDRIES has more than 10 years of providing automotive solutions to the industry. We have proven our commitment to semiconductor quality and reliability through a range of certifications and audits every year,” said Dr. Bami Bastani, senior vice president of business units at GF. “The automotive qualification of our 22FDX technology reaffirms our commitment to expanding our FD-SOI capabilities and portfolio to reach new markets and customers. We now have a proven ability to manufacture our 22FDX technology to meet the rigorous quality and performance requirements of the automotive market.”

As a part of the company’s AutoPro™ platform, 22FDX allows customers to easily migrate their automotive microcontrollers and ASSPs to a more advanced technology, while leveraging the significant area, performance and energy efficiency benefits over competing technologies. Moreover, the optimized platform offers high performance RF and mmWave capabilities for automotive radar applications and supports implementation of logic, Flash, non-volatile memory (NVM) in MCUs and high voltage devices to meet the unique requirements of in-vehicle ICs.

GF’s AutoPro platform consists of a broad portfolio of automotive AEC-Q100 qualified technology solutions, backed by robust services package that comply with rigorous ISO automotive quality standards across GF’s fabs in Singapore and, most recently, Fab 1 in Dresden, Germany that achieved ISO-9001/IATF-16949 certification and is now capable of meeting the stringent and evolving needs of the automotive industry.

The 22FDX PDK is available now along with a wide-range of silicon-proven IP. Customers can now start optimizing their chip designs to develop differentiated low power and high performance automotive solutions.

Cadence Design Systems, Inc. (NASDAQ: CDNS) and NI (NASDAQ: NATI) today announced a broad-ranging collaboration to improve the overall semiconductor development and test process of next-generation wireless, automotive and mobile integrated circuits (ICs) and modules. To meet customers’ needs for a streamlined and comprehensive solution, Cadence and NI have pursued projects that integrate key design tool technologies into a common user environment to improve the design, analysis and testing of analog, RF and digital ICs and system-in-package (SiP) modules spanning from pre-silicon design to volume production test. To further enhance RF development, Cadence has also launched the new Virtuoso® RF Solution, which enables RF engineers to design, implement and analyze entire RF modules and RFICs from within the Virtuoso custom IC design platform.

The New Cadence Virtuoso RF Solution and AXIEM 3D Planar EM Software Integration

Traditionally, each major stage in the IC development process has operated in isolation supported by a unique and dedicated set of design tools, models, languages and data formats, which can cause design failures due to the manual translation of data between numerous disjointed tools. To address this issue and streamline the RFIC and RF module design flow, Cadence delivered the following capabilities within the new Virtuoso RF solution:

  • RFIC and RF Module co-design: Provides a robust design environment enabling simultaneous editing of multiple ICs on a complex RF module while streamlining design to manufacturing tasks
  • Single “golden” schematic: Offers schematic-driven layout implementation, EM analysis and simulation and physical verification checks of RFIC and RF module design through a single schematic source, reducing design failures
  • Smart electromagnetic (EM) simulation interface: Includes an integration between the Cadence® Sigrity™ PowerSI® 3D EM Extraction Option and the Virtuoso RF Solution, which automates hours of manual work required to run critical passive component and interconnect EM simulations so users can run multiple in-design experiments

As part of the collaboration between the two companies, the Cadence interface has been extended to include an integration with the AXIEM 3D planar EM simulator, within the Cadence Virtuoso RF Solution design environment. The AXIEM software’s fast solver technology readily addresses passive structures, transmission lines, large planar antenna and patch array problems with more than 100,000 unknowns, providing the accuracy, capacity and speed engineers need to help them ensure design integrity upon the first attempt. It also incorporates NI’s proprietary full-wave planar Method of Moments (MoM) technology that enables discrete- and fast-frequency sweeps.

The integrated Cadence and NI EM solutions equip engineers with a variety of EM analysis methods for designing RFICs and RF modules.

Common Semiconductor Models

Compatible models are critical to ensuring correlated results across different simulation tools. Cadence and NI are jointly working to deliver common transistor models, ensuring consistent simulation behavior of gallium arsenide (GaAs), gallium nitride (GaN) and silicon transistor models between Microwave Office circuit design software and the Cadence Spectre® simulation platform.

“With customers beginning to design the next generation of RF products for 5G, autonomous vehicles and other vertical markets, we saw a need to deliver a comprehensive RF solution that creates more efficiencies and drives innovation,” said Tom Beckley, senior vice president and general manager in the Custom IC & PCB Group at Cadence. “Based on the trusted Virtuoso custom IC design platform, the new Cadence Virtuoso RF Solution streamlines design and analysis for RFIC and RF modules. The collaboration between Cadence and NI and the integration of our tools can enable customers to seamlessly analyze and simulate their chip and package, reducing design cycle time and improving quality of results.”

“Our customers are continuously seeking new approaches to accelerate their product development cycles,” said Kevin Ilcisin, vice president of strategy and corporate development at NI. “The collaboration with Cadence allows us to embed our AXIEM 3D Planar EM software directly into the Virtuoso RF Solution, enabling customers to easily design analog, mixed-signal, RFIC and RF modules.”

The new Virtuoso RF Solution with the integrated AXIEM 3D planar EM solver technology will be sold and supported exclusively by Cadence to leverage years of development and customer deployment expertise. For more information, please visit www.cadence.com/go/virtuosorfni.

The 64th annual IEEE International Electron Devices Meeting(IEDM), to be held at the Hilton San Francisco Union Square hotel December 1-5, 2018, has issued a Call for Papers seeking the world’s best original work in all areas of microelectronics research and development.

The paper submission deadline this year is Wednesday, August 1, 2018. Authors are asked to submit four-page camera-ready papers. Accepted papers will be published as-is in the proceedings. A limited number of late-news papers will be accepted. Authors are asked to submit late-news papers announcing only the most recent and noteworthy developments. The late-news submission deadline is September 10, 2018.

At IEDM each year, the world’s best scientists and engineers in the field of microelectronics gather to participate in a technical program consisting of more than 220 presentations, along with a variety of panels, special sessions, Short Courses, a supplier exhibit, IEEE/EDS award presentations and other events highlighting leading work in more areas of the field than any other conference.

This year, special emphasis is placed on the following topics:

  • Neuromorphic computing/AI
  • Quantum computing devices and links
  • Devices for RF, 5G, THz and mmWave
  • Advanced memory technologies
  • More-than-Moore devices and integrations
  • Technologies for advanced logic nodes
  • Non-charge-based devices and systems
  • Sensors and MEMS devices
  • Package-device level interactions
  • Electron device simulation and modeling
  • Advanced characterization, reliability and noise
  • Optoelectronics, displays and imaging systems

Overall, papers in the following areas of technology are encouraged:

  • Circuit and Device Interaction
  • Characterization, Reliability and Yield
  • Compound Semiconductor and High-Speed Devices
  • Memory Technology
  • Modeling and Simulation
  • Nano Device Technology
  • Optoelectronics, Displays and Imagers
  • Power Devices
  • Process and Manufacturing Technology
  • Sensors, MEMS and BioMEMS

Further information

For more information, interested persons should visit the IEDM 2018 home page at www.ieee-iedm.org.

BY DAVID W. JIMENEZ, CEO, Wright Williams & Kelly, Inc.

For 27 years Wright Williams & Kelly, Inc. (WWK) has developed strategies and operational products and services proven to produce significant results. Over the course of nearly three decades, WWK has saved its clients over $10 billion and led the way in cost modeling, capacity planning, and operational efficiency; however, sometimes a company gets ahead of its markets. It has been 15 years since WWK launched its first online subscription-based product…and 13 years since it stopped offering it. Today, WWK returns to the cloud.

The cloud is an innovation fueled by advanced chip technology, but it has also been a model the industry hesitated to embrace. Much of this had to do with limited data protection schemes. Intellectual property (IP) is at the core of a successful integrated circuit business and letting key information leave the confines of the organization has traditionally been a forbidden proposition.

Fast forward a decade and a half and cloud-based services are now the norm. Fears over IP theft remain, but the protections have greatly improved. Further, the offerings that add value to cloud-based solutions have also greatly expanded. The move to the cloud now has less to do with a reduction in paranoia and more to do with the advantages of cloud computing. IBM breaks down the advantages into three areas; flexibility; efficiency; and strategic value.

Flexibility allows the scaling of computing power to the task at hand regardless of the local machine used to connect. Efficiency is accessing the needed applications from anywhere in the world from any connected device. Strategic value comes from being able to move faster than competitors by not being tied to existing infrastructure and the hesitancy to obsolete major IT investments. Michael Wright and Walter Ferguson in their 2005 treatise “The New Business Normal” predicted strategic advantage would accrue to those who could access, collate, analyze, and act on information faster than the competition, anywhere in the world and at any time.

WWK has leveraged these advantages by moving its complete suite of manufacturing optimization applica- tions to the cloud. In addition to the advantages inherent in cloud computing, this move provides WWK’s clients substantial cost advantages by lowering up front licensing costs and shifting from capital budgeting to more flexible expense accounting.

Cloud-based solutions: Developed with DARPA/SEMATECH, TWO COOL® is a cost of ownership (COO) and overall equipment efficiency (OEE) modeling platform designed to help equipment and process engineers as well as suppliers understand process step level impacts of changes in operating parameters.

Initially developed by Sandia National Laboratories, Factory Commander® is a cost and resource analysis platform. It analyzes overall factory and individual product costs, manufacturing capacity, and return on investment.

Factory Explorer® is an integrated capacity, cost, and discrete-event simulation tool which predicts factory capacity and bottleneck resources, product cost and gross margins, and dynamic measures such as cycle time and work-in-process.

Advantages put into practice: One advantage in moving these applications to the cloud is users benefit from a state-of-the art computing system. Modeling and simulation apps are computing power intensive. Instead of each user requiring a high-end workstation, the cloud allows users to share a virtual machine(s) (VM). When needs increase, upgrading the VM is quick and low-cost. This keeps the total cost of ownership (TCO) for IT infrastructure at a minimum.
Another advantage is updates happen behind the scenes and for all users at the same time. Traditional software maintenance costs disappear. No more scenarios where users are operating on different revision levels nor lose data due to forgotten backups.

Remote computing has always been a better solution, but there were reasons behind the slow acceptance. Even before the term cloud computing came to the fore, WWK understood this. It offered a remote server-based product before anyone knew what the cloud was. WWK was early to market, but the understanding it gained pointed it in the right direction. Like most market windows you can be early but never late. The arrival of the breadth of solutions needed to offer cloud-based applications has enabled WWK to scrap client-side software licensing and provide a robust, low cost manufacturing optimization software suite with all the advantages it envisioned 15 years ago. I guess we are back to the future.

Memory devices employ a wide range of packaging technology from wire-bond leadframe and BGA to TSV.

BY SANTOSH KUMAR, Yole Développement, Lyon-Villeurbanne, France

The memory market is going through a strong growth phase. The total memory market grew by >50% YoY to more than US$125 billion in 2017 from US$79.4 billion in 2016. [1] RAM and NAND dominate the market, representing almost 95 % of standalone memory sales. There is a supply/demand mismatch in the market which is impacting on the ASP of memory devices, and as a result the large memory IDMs are reaping record profits. The memory industry has consolidated with the top five players – Samsung, SKHynix, Micron, Toshiba and Western Digital – accounting for 90% of the market.

The demand for memory is coming from all sectors but the mobile and computing (mainly servers) market is showing particularly strong growth. On average, the DRAM memory capacity per smartphone will rise more than threefold to reach around 6GB by 2022. DRAM cost per smartphone represents >10% of the bill of materials of the phone and is expected to increase further. The NAND capacity per smartphone will increase more than fivefold to reach >150GB by 2022. For servers, the DRAM capacity per unit will increase to a whopping 0.5TB by 2022, and the NAND capacity per SSD for the enterprise market will be in excess of 5TB by 2022. The growth in these markets is led by applications like deep learning, big-data, networking, AR/ VR, and autonomous driving. The automotive market, which traditionally used low density (low-MB) memory, will see the adoption of DRAM memory led by the emerging trend of autonomous driving and in-vehicle infotainment. The NOR flash memory market also saw a resurgence and is expected to grow at an impressive 16% CAGR to reach ~US$4.4 billion by 2022, due to its application in new areas such as AMOLED displays, touch display driver ICs and industrial IoTs.

On the supply side, the consolidation of players, the difficulty in migrating to advanced nodes due to technical challenges, and the need for higher investment to migrate from 2D to 3D NAND, has led to shortfall in both DRAM & NAND flash supply. DRAM players want to retain high ASPs (& high profitability) to justify the huge capex investment for advanced node migration and as such are not inclined to increase capacity. Entry of Chinese memory players will ease the supply side constraint, but it’ll not happen before 2020.

Memory device packaging

There are many variations of memory device packaging. This implies a wide range of packaging technology from the low pin count SOP package to the high pin-count TSV, all depending upon the specific product requirements such as density, performance, cost, etc. We have broadly identified five packaging platforms for memory devices: viz lead frame, wire-bond BGA, flip-chip BGA, WLCSP and TSV, even though in each platform there are many varia- tions and different nomenclature in industry.

The total memory package market is expected to grow at 4.6% CAGR2016-2022 to reach ~US$26 billion by 2022. [1] Wire-bond BGA accounted for more than 80% of the packaging market in dollar terms in 2016. Flip-chips, however, started making inroads in the DRAM memory packaging market and is expected to grow at ~20% CAGR in the next five years to account for more than 10% of the memorypackagingmarket.Currentlytheflip-chipmarket is only around 6% of the total memory packaging market. Flip-chip growth is led by its increased adoption in the DRAM PC/server segment fueled by a high bandwidth requirement.

Currently Samsung has already converted >90% of its DRAM packaging line. SK Hynix have started the conversion and other players will also adopt it in future. At Yole Développement (Yole), we believe that all DDR5 memory for PC/servers will move to flip-chip.

TSV is employed in high bandwidth memory devices requiring high bandwidth with low latency memory chips for high performance computing in various applications. In 2016 the TSV market was <1% of the total memory market. However, it is expected to grow by >30% CAGR to reach ~8% of memory packaging in dollar terms. WLSCP packaging is used in NOR flash and niche memory devices (EEPROMs/EPROM/ROM). It is expected to grow at >10% CAGR, but in terms of value will remain <1% of the market by 2022.

In mobile applications, memory packaging will mainly remain on the wire-bond BGA platform but will start to move into the multi-chip package (ePoP) for high end smartphones.

The main requirement of NAND flash devices is high storage density at low cost. NANDs are stacked using wire bonding to provide high density in a single package. The NAND packaging market is expected to reach ~ US$ 10 billion by 2022. NAND flash packaging will remain on the wire bond BGA platform and will not migrate to flip-chip. Toshiba, however, will start using TSV packaging in NAND devices to increase the data transfer rate for high end applications. Following Toshiba, we believe Samsung and SKHynix will also bring TSV packaged NAND devices into the market.

OSATs account for <20% of the memory packaging business

The total memory packaging market is estimated to have been ~US$20 billion in 2016. There are many OSATs involved in the memory packaging business, and >80% of the packaging (by value) is still done internally by OSATs. The majority of these are small OSATs and have only low-end packaging capability. Global memory IDMs have much experience in packaging, accumulated over years, and have their own internal large capacity. Therefore, there is limited opportunity for OSATs to make inroads into the packaging activity of IDMs. Many Chinese players, however, are entering the memory market with more than US$50 billion investment committed. [1] These new entrants do not have experience in memory assembly / packaging, unlike global IDMs, and they will outsource major packaging activities to OSATs. The flip-chip business for memory packaging will increase to 13% of the total market to reach US$3.5 billion in 2022. This is an opportunity for low-end memory OSATs to invest in flip-chip bumping and assembly capacity. Otherwise they will lose business to the big OSATs with advanced packaging capability.

Conclusion

The memory industry is going through a golden phase with strong demand coming from all sectors, particularly from the mobile and computing (mainly servers) markets.

Memory devices employ a wide range of packaging technology from wire-bond leadframe and BGA to TSV. Wire-bond BGA still accounts for the bulk of the memory packaging market. However, flip-chip technology will start making inroads in DRAM memory packaging and will grow at 20% CAGR (by revenue) over the next five years, accounting for ~13% of the total memory packaging market by 2022. The memory packaging market is mainly controlled by IDMs. OSATs have limited opportunity to impact IDM packaging activity. Many Chinese players, however, are entering the memory business and, unlike global IDMs, these new players lack experience in memory assembly/packaging and they outsource most of their packaging activity to OSATs.

SANTOSH KUMAR is a Senior Technology and Market Research Analyst at Yole Développement in France.

References

1. Memory Packaging Market and Technology Report 2017, Yole Développement