Category Archives: Semiconductors

Palma Ceia SemiDesign (PCS), a fabless semiconductor company offering wireless chips, modules, systems and IP supporting emerging Machine-to-Machine (M2M) WiFi and cellular standards for the Internet of Things (IoT), today announced it has completed a Series B round of financing. Leading the round is Global Connective LP, a U.S. subsidiary fund of Inspiration China Ltd Pty, based in Adelaide, Australia. Inspiration China has extensive experience with China’s wireless and industrial sectors, key markets for Palma Ceia. Inspiration China’s business model is to assist international leading technology companies in accessing global markets, especially China’s booming market.

“Inspiration China’s investment enables us to accelerate Palma Ceia’s transition from an analog/RF IP company to a provider of connectivity solutions for the Internet of Things,” said Roy E. Jewell, co-founder and chief executive officer of Palma Ceia. “Palma Ceia will build on our heritage of delivering leading-edge wireless IP for SoC designers and expand into also providing chips for IoT module makers. We look forward to working with the Global Connective team to broaden our market footprint.”

Palma Ceia also announced it is establishing a wholly owned subsidiary in Tianjin, China. This facility will enable the company to accelerate expansion into the China market and to establish IC and software design and IoT application support teams in Tianjin and Shanghai.

“Since China’s Twelfth Five-Year Plan (2011-2015) in 2010 identified IoT as an ‘emerging strategic industry,’ Beijing has focused on its adoption and deployment as part of the ‘Made in China 2025’ initiative. My team identified the advanced connectivity solutions being developed by PCS as key to this effort,” said Rebecca Qiu, founder & chief executive officer of Inspiration China. “We have already begun working closely with PCS to establish strategic industrial and government partnerships in China.”

Palma Ceia today delivers analog and RF IP for mixed-signal SoCs

Applied Materials, Inc. has been recognized by Intel as a recipient of a 2017 Preferred Quality Supplier (PQS) award. The PQS award recognizes companies like Applied that Intel believes have relentlessly pursued excellence and conducted business with resolute professionalism.

“The dynamic nature of our business necessitates continuous improvement and an unrelenting focus on quality,” said Jacklyn Sturm, Vice President of Technology and Manufacturing Group and General Manager of Global Supply Management at Intel. “As Intel transitions to become a more data centric company, our award winning suppliers are embracing the most difficult challenges with rapid innovation and bold strategies.”

To qualify for PQS status, suppliers must exceed high expectations and uncompromising performance goals while scoring at least 80 percent on an integrated report card that assesses performance throughout the year. Suppliers must also achieve 80 percent or greater on a challenging continuous improvement plan and demonstrate solid quality and business systems.

Historically, the DRAM market has been the most volatile of the major IC product segments.  A good example of this was displayed over the past two years when the DRAM market declined 8% in 2016 only to surge by 77% in 2017! The March Update to the 2018 McClean Report (to be released later this month) will fully detail IC Insights’ latest forecast for the 2018 DRAM and total IC markets.

In the 34-year period from 1978-2012, the DRAM price-per-bit declined by an average annual rate of 33%. However, from 2012 through 2017, the average DRAM price-per-bit decline was only 3% per year! Moreover, the 47% full-year 2017 jump in the price-per-bit of DRAM was the largest annual increase since 1978, surpassing the previous high of 45% registered 30 years ago in 1988!

In 2017, DRAM bit volume growth was 20%, half the 40% rate of increase registered in 2016.  For 2018, each of the three major DRAM producers (e.g., Samsung, SK Hynix, and Micron) have stated that they expect DRAM bit volume growth to once again be about 20%.  However, as shown in Figure 1, monthly year-over-year DRAM bit volume growth averaged only 13% over the nine-month period of May 2017 through January 2018.

Figure 1 also plots the monthly price-per-Gb of DRAM from January of 2017 through January of 2018.  As shown, the DRAM price-per-Gb has been on a steep rise, with prices being 47% higher in January 2018 as compared to one year earlier in January 2017.  There is little doubt that electronic system manufacturers are currently scrambling to adjust and adapt to the skyrocketing cost of memory.

DRAM is usually considered a commodity like oil.  Like most commodities, there is elasticity of demand associated with the product.  For example, when oil prices are low, many consumers purchase big SUVs, with little concern for the vehicle’s miles-per-gallon efficiency.  However, when oil prices are high, consumers typically look toward smaller or alternative energy (e.g., hybrid or fully electric) options.

Figure 1

Figure 1

While difficult to precisely measure, it is IC Insights’ opinion that DRAM bit volume usage is also affected by elasticity, whereby increased costs inhibit demand and lower costs expand usage and open up new applications.  As shown in Figure 1, the correlation coefficient between the DRAM price-per-bit and the year-over-year bit volume increase from January 2017 through January 2018 was a strong -0.88 (a perfect correlation between two factors moving in the opposite direction would be -1.0).  Thus, while system manufacturers are not scaling back DRAM usage in systems currently shipping, there have been numerous rumors of some smartphone producers scaling back DRAM in next-generation models (i.e., incorporating 4GB of DRAM per smartphone instead of 5GB).

In 2018, IC Insights believes that the major DRAM suppliers will be walking a fine line between making their shareholders even happier than they are right now and further alienating their customer base.  If, and it is a BIG if, the startup Chinese DRAM producers can field a competitive product over the next couple of years, DRAM users could flock to these new suppliers in an attempt to get out from under the crushing price increases now being thrust upon them—with the “payback” to the current major DRAM suppliers being severe.

The Semiconductor Industry Association (SIA), representing U.S. leadership in semiconductor manufacturing, design, and research, today announced worldwide sales of semiconductors reached $37.6 billion for the month of January 2018, an increase of 22.7 percent compared to the January 2017 total of $30.6 billion. Global sales in January were 1.0 percent lower than the December 2017 total of $38.0 billion, reflecting normal seasonal market trends. All monthly sales numbers are compiled by the World Semiconductor Trade Statistics (WSTS) organization and represent a three-month moving average.

“After notching its highest-ever annual sales in 2017, the global semiconductor industry is off to a strong and promising start to 2018, posting its highest-ever January sales and 18th consecutive month of year-to-year sales increases,” said John Neuffer, president and CEO, Semiconductor Industry Association. “All major regional markets saw double-digit growth compared to last year, with the Americas leading the away with year-to-year growth of more than 40 percent. With year-to-year sales also up across all major semiconductor product categories, the global market is well-positioned for a strong start to 2018.”

Year-to-year sales increased substantially across all regions: the Americas (40.6 percent), Europe (19.9 percent), Asia Pacific/All Other (18.6 percent), China, (18.3 percent), and Japan (15.1 percent). Month-to-month sales increased slightly in Europe (0.9 percent), held flat in China, but fell somewhat in Asia Pacific/All Other (-0.6 percent), Japan (-1.0 percent), and the Americas (-3.6 percent).

To find out how to purchase the WSTS Subscription Package, which includes comprehensive monthly semiconductor sales data and detailed WSTS Forecasts, please visit http://www.semiconductors.org/industry_statistics/wsts_subscription_package/. For detailed data on the global and U.S. semiconductor industry and market, consider purchasing the 2017 SIA Databook: https://www.semiconductors.org/forms/sia_databook/.

Jan 2018

Billions

Month-to-Month Sales                              

Market

Last Month

Current Month

% Change

Americas

8.95

8.63

-3.6%

Europe

3.37

3.40

0.9%

Japan

3.24

3.21

-1.0%

China

12.01

12.01

0.0%

Asia Pacific/All Other

10.41

10.35

-0.6%

Total

37.99

37.59

-1.0%

Year-to-Year Sales                         

Market

Last Year

Current Month

% Change

Americas

6.14

8.63

40.6%

Europe

2.84

3.40

19.9%

Japan

2.79

3.21

15.1%

China

10.16

12.01

18.3%

Asia Pacific/All Other

8.73

10.35

18.6%

Total

30.64

37.59

22.7%

Three-Month-Moving Average Sales

Market

Aug/Sep/Oct

Nov/Dec/Jan

% Change

Americas

8.54

8.63

1.1%

Europe

3.36

3.40

1.1%

Japan

3.20

3.21

0.3%

China

11.65

12.01

3.1%

Asia Pacific/All Other

10.33

10.35

0.1%

Total

37.09

37.59

1.4%

Presto Engineering Inc., an outsourced operations provider to semiconductor and Internet of Things (IoT) device manufacturers, and Maja Systems, a designer of millimeter wave (mmWave) connectivity and sensing solutions, jointly announce their successful collaboration in comprehensive wafer-level ATE for the Maja AirData family of terabit connectivity and data transport solutions.

“Presto’s special expertise in high-volume mmWave RF test was essential in bringing terabit connectivity to the market efficiently,” said Joy Laskar, CTO and SVP of Maja Systems. “They were able to develop a solution that provides reliable testing at the speeds and costs we need, and in a time frame that let us hit our market window.”

“Scalable high-volume, high-frequency RF test solutions, like this one for Maja, will be critical for the industry to achieve the billion plus annual unit volumes projected for mmWave devices by 2020,” said Michel Villemain, CEO, Presto Engineering. “We have developed custom solutions that allow us to use existing ATE, that have already been proven at volumes exceeding millions of units per year and can scale to meet projected demand.”

The Maja AirData™ family of terabit connectivity solutions, based on the MW-6022 single-chip mmWave CMOS transceiver IC and the SPL-100 compact SMT mmWave antenna, solve the terabit wireless data transport problem, addressing data center, wireless, mmWave, and optical transport applications.

SUNY Polytechnic Institute (SUNY Poly) today announced that its advanced semiconductor-based research and development efforts at its Albany NanoTech Complex have successfully received ISO 9001:2015 certification from TÜV SÜD AMERICA INC. for its effective quality management system. This certification acknowledges that SUNY Poly’s Center for Semiconductor Research (CSR) consistently provides products and services meeting the stringent and ever-improving requirements of the internationally recognized ISO 9001 designation, especially as it relates to excellent customer focus, strong top management, and a process-driven approach for the fabrication of test structures on 300mm semiconductor wafers, the platform upon which computer chips are made.

“By earning the ISO 9001:2015 certification, SUNY Poly’s technological and process management capabilities are further validated. It demonstrates the strength of SUNY’s research and development facility and capacity that renders SUNY a reliable, world-class partner for high-tech industry and contributes to New York State’s thriving innovation ecosystem,” said SUNY Interim Provost and Vice Chancellor for Research and Economic Development Grace Wang.”

“This certification showcases not only what SUNY Poly’s advanced facilities and nano-focused know-how are capable of, it is also another indication of how our institution aims to constantly improve via the implementation of its quality management systems with an eye toward continual progress,” said SUNY Poly Interim President Dr. Bahgat Sammakia. “This is one more way in which our globally recognized partners and potential future partners will know that they can work with SUNY Poly on advanced projects with extreme confidence.”

There are more than one million companies and organizations in over 170 countries certified to ISO 9001, but it is relatively rare for a research and educational institution to obtain this certification, with SUNY Poly’s Albany NanoTech Complex sharing the high-level distinction with well-regarded facilities such as the MIT Lincoln Laboratory, for example.

SUNY Poly’s CSR is a 300mm silicon wafer fabrication facility which provides researchers and partners with an industry-compliant and state-of-the-art fully integrated research, development, and prototyping line where companies of all sizes, as well as universities, national laboratories, and other researchers are able to gain access to advanced tool sets. The ISO 9001:2015 quality management system certification will offer current and future research partners even greater assurance of SUNY Poly’s ability to consistently provide high quality products and services as SUNY Poly seeks continual improvement in this area.  In addition, it could help lead to the facilities being designated as a U.S. Department of Defense Trusted Foundry, allowing it to work with any other trusted foundry to develop next-generation semiconductor wafer technologies.

“This third-party certification and detailed audit process are a strong signal to SUNY Poly’s research partners that our facilities, our externally-focused production capacity, as well as our management of services related to the fabrication of test structures on 300mm wafers, follow the strictest, most reliable standards, and we look forward to refining and improving the processes we employ to continually increase SUNY Poly’s fabrication competencies,” said SUNY Poly VP for Research Dr. Michael Liehr.

SUNY Poly’s ISO 9001:2015 certification is also significant because it opens the doors to the potential to work with certain commercial organizations that require the use of the formal quality management system. While the certification primarily concerns SUNY Poly CSR’s test structures program, which uses advanced CMOS processing for commercial customers, research leaders anticipate expanding its scope to also cover highly advanced silicon carbide (SiC) power electronics-centered research capabilities and processes, as well as photonics efforts, such as those related to the American Institute for Manufacturing Integrated Photonics (AIM Photonics), an industry-driven public-private partnership spearheaded by the Department of Defense, SUNY Poly, and New York State with numerous top universities from around the nation and high-tech industry partners. SUNY Poly plans to seek annual recertification.

Enabling further advancements in metrology, HEIDENHAIN CORPORATION recently donated some equipment to UNC Charlotte’s Center for Precision Metrology (CPM), a world premier university metrology lab.

As part of the UNC Charlotte William States Lee College of Engineering, the Metrology Lab is central to the education and research efforts in the areas of precision engineering and metrology, and includes a wide variety of high-end measurement instruments. Providing measurement research support to the University community and local industry, and already equipped with a HEIDENHAIN KGM grid plate, the HEIDENHAIN donation of a new EIB interface box with cabling and ACCOM software is allowing important upgrades to be realized to the system.

“At UNC Charlotte, the HEIDENHAIN KGM grid encoder is used to demonstrate the measurement of dynamic machine tool errors to the graduate class in Machine Tool Metrology utilizing the ISO230 standard series,” explained CPM Chief Engineer Dr. Jimmie Miller. “As far as R&D with this equipment, other plans involve its utilization by directly connecting to research machine encoders to assess the machine multi-axis position and control. This will enable us to move the assessment metrology loop outside of the control loop for a faster non-interfering independent evaluation.

“The generous support of companies like HEIDENHAIN supporting education and R&D allows us to continue to maintain the CPM capabilities at the state-of-the-art level by utilizing today’s top technologies such as the donated HEIDENHAIN interface equipment and software,” stated Dr. Miller.

Interface electronics from HEIDENHAIN adapt the encoder signals to the interface of the subsequent electronics. They are used when the subsequent electronics cannot directly process the output signals from HEIDENHAIN encoders, or if additional interpolation of the signals is necessary.  Because of their high IP 65 degree of protection, interface electronics with a box design are well suited for a rough industrial environment, for example where machine tools operate. The inputs and outputs are equipped with robust M23 and M12 connecting elements. The stable cast-metal housing offers protection against physical damage as well as against electrical interference.

 

Silvaco today announced that it has acquired NanGate, a developer of Electronic Design Automation (EDA) software, that offers tools and services for creation, optimization, characterization and validation of physical library IP.

NanGate’s Library Creation Platform has been deployed by a large number of semiconductor companies creating standard cell libraries used in hundreds of SoC designs and have shipped in billions of units. NanGate’s technology is available and proven in a broad range of standard logic CMOS processes from 250nm down to 14nm nodes, available from multiple foundries. The acquisition extends Silvaco’s tools portfolio, complements Silvaco’s IC design flow and strengthens the methodology to achieve high performance, high yield standard cell libraries that meet today’s high-sigma requirements.

“We are happy for the NanGate team with their ability to deliver excellent solutions for library creation to top-tier Semiconductor companies,” said Dave Dutton, CEO of Silvaco. “Together with our leadership in variation aware design methodology with VarMan, SmartSpice, and our complete custom design flow including extraction, we are now able to deliver a complete solution for high performance standard cell libraries creation.”

“The synergy between Silvaco’s growth strategy and NanGates technology plus the combination of our talented teams will accelerate the delivery of tools and methodologies for a highly productive standard cell library and characterization flow,” said Ole Christian Andersen, President and CEO of NanGate. “We are excited to join Silvaco to further our original vision.”

Silvaco’s aggressive growth plan is designed to grow revenue by adding strategic technologies to offer the best solutions to our customers. This acquisition was led by Ron Sorisho and is the sixth acquisition for Silvaco’s business development team.

Each year, Solid State Technology turns to industry leaders to hear viewpoints on the technological and economic outlook for the upcoming year. Read through these expert opinions on what to expect in 2018.

Enabling the AI Era with Materials Engineering

Screen Shot 2018-03-05 at 12.24.49 PMPrabu Raja, Senior Vice President, Semiconductor Products Group, Applied Materials

A broad set of emerging market trends such as IoT, Big Data, Industry 4.0, VR/AR/MR, and autonomous vehicles is accelerating the transformative era of Artificial Intelligence (AI). AI, when employed in the cloud and in the edge, will usher in the age of “Smart Everything” from automobiles, to planes, factories, buildings, and our homes, bringing fundamental changes to the way we live

Semiconductors and semiconductor processing technol- ogies will play a key enabling role in the AI revolution. The increasing need for greater computing perfor- mance to handle Deep Learning/Machine Learning workloads requires new processor architectures beyond traditional CPUs, such as GPUs, FPGAs and TPUs, along with new packaging solutions that employ high-density DRAM for higher memory bandwidth and reduced latency. Edge AI computing will require processors that balance the performance and power equation given their dependency on battery life. The exploding demand for data storage is driving adoption of 3D NAND SSDs in cloud servers with the roadmap for continued storage density increase every year.

In 2018, we will see the volume ramp of 10nm/7nm devices in Logic/Foundry to address the higher performance needs. Interconnect and patterning areas present a myriad of challenges best addressed by new materials and materials engineering technologies. In Inter- connect, cobalt is being used as a copper replacement metal in the lower level wiring layers to address the ever growing resistance problem. The introduction of Cobalt constitutes the biggest material change in the back-end-of-line in the past 15 years. In addition to its role as the conductor metal, cobalt serves two other critical functions – as a metal capping film for electro- migration control and as a seed layer for enhancing gapfill inside the narrow vias and trenches.

In patterning, spacer-based double patterning and quad patterning approaches are enabling the continued shrink of device features. These schemes require advanced precision deposition and etch technologies for reduced variability and greater pattern fidelity. Besides conventional Etch, new selective materials removal technologies are being increasingly adopted for their unique capabilities to deliver damage- and residue-free extreme selective processing. New e-beam inspection and metrology capabilities are also needed to analyze the fine pitch patterned structures. Looking ahead to the 5nm and 3nm nodes, placement or layer-to-layer vertical alignment of features will become a major industry challenge that can be primarily solved through materials engineering and self-aligned structures. EUV lithography is on the horizon for industry adoption in 2019 and beyond, and we expect 20 percent of layers to make the migration to EUV while the remaining 80 percent will use spacer multi- patterning approaches. EUV patterning also requires new materials in hardmasks/underlayer films and new etch solutions for line-edge-roughness problems.

Packaging is a key enabler for AI performance and is poised for strong growth in the coming years. Stacking DRAM chips together in a 3D TSV scheme helps bring High Bandwidth Memory (HBM) to market; these chips are further packaged with the GPU in a 2.5D interposer design to bring compute and memory together for a big increase in performance.

In 2018, we expect DRAM chipmakers to continue their device scaling to the 1Xnm node for volume production. We also see adoption of higher perfor- mance logic technologies on the horizon for the periphery transistors to enable advanced perfor- mance at lower power.

3D NAND manufacturers continue to pursue multiple approaches for vertical scaling, including more pairs, multi-tiers or new schemes such as CMOS under array for increased storage density. The industry migration from 64 pairs to 96 pairs is expected in 2018. Etch (high aspect ratio), dielectric films (for gate stacks and hardmasks) along with integrated etch and CVD solutions (for high aspect ratio processing) will be critical enabling technologies.

In summary, we see incredible inflections in new processor architectures, next-generation devices, and packaging schemes to enable the AI era. New materials and materials engineering solutions are at the very heart of it and will play a critical role across all device segments.

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BY AJIT MANOCHA, President and CEO of SEMI

2017 was a terrific year for SEMI members. Chip revenues closed at nearly $440B, an impressive 22 percent year- over-year growth. The equipment industry surpassed revenue levels last reached in the year 2000. Semicon- ductor equipment posted sales of nearly $56B and semiconductor materials $48B in 2017. For semiconductor equipment, this was a giant 36 percent year-over-year growth. Samsung, alone, invested $26B in semiconductor CapEx in 2017 – an incredible single year spend in an incredible year.

MEMS and Sensors gained new growth in telecom and medical markets, adding to existing demand from automotive, industrial and consumer segments. MEMS is forecast to be a $19B industry in 2018. Flexible hybrid electronics (FHE) is also experiencing significant product design and functionality growth with increasing gains in widespread adoption.

No longer isa single monolithic demand driver propelling the electronics manufacturing supply chain. The rapidly expanding digital economy continues to foster innovation with new demand from the IoT, virtual and augmented reality (VR/AR), automobile infotainment and driver assistance, artificial intelligence (AI) and Big Data, among others. With the explosion in data usage, memory demand is nearly insatiable, holding memory device ASPs high and prompting continued heavy investment in new capacity.

2018 is forecast to be another terrific year. IC revenues are expected to increase another 8 percent and semiconductor equipment will grow 11 percent. With diverse digital economy demand continuing, additional manufacturing capacity is being added in China as fab projects come on line to develop and increase the indigenous semiconductor supply chain.

So, why worry?

The cracks starting to show are in the areas of talent, data management, and Environment, Health, and Safety (EH&S).

Can the industry sustain this growth? The electronics manufacturing supply chain has demonstrated it can generally scale and expedite production to meet the massive new investment projects. The cracks starting to show are in the areas of talent, data management, and Environment, Health, and Safety (EH&S).

Talent has become a pinch point. In Silicon Valley alone, SEMI member companies have thousands of open positions. Globally, there are more than 10,000 open jobs. Attracting new candidates and developing a global workforce are critical to sustaining the pace of innovation and growth.
Data management and effective data sharing are keys to solving problems faster and making practical novel but immature processes at the leading edge. It is ironic that other industries are ahead of semiconductor manufac- turing in harnessing manufacturing data and leveraging AI across their supply chains. Without collaborative Smart Data approaches, there is jeopardy of decreasing the cadence of Moore’s Law below the 10 nm node.

EH&S is critical for an industry that now uses the majority of the elements of the periodic table to make chips – at rates of more than 50,000 wafer starts per month (wspm) for a single fab. The industry came together strongly in the 1990s to develop SEMI Safety Standards and compliance methodologies. Since then, the number of EH&S profes- sionals engaged in our industry has declined while the number of new materials has exploded, new processing techniques have been developed, and manufacturing is expanding across China in areas with no prior semicon- ductor manufacturing experience.

HTU has been a very effective program with over 218 sessions run to date, over 7,000 students engaged, and over 70 percent of respondents pursuing careers in the STEM field.

To ensure we don’t slow growth, the industry will need to work together in 2018 in these three key areas:

Talent development needs to rapidly accelerate by expanding currently working programs and adding additional means to fill the talent funnel. The SEMI Foundation’s High Tech University (HTU) works globally with member companies to increase the number of high school students selecting Science, Technology, Engineering, and Math (STEM) fields – and provides orientation to the semiconductor manufacturing industry. HTU has been a very effective program with over 218 sessions run to date, over 7,000 students engaged, and over 70 percent of respondents pursuing careers in the STEM field. SEMI will increase the number of HTU sessions in 2018.

Plans have already been approved by SEMI’s Board of Directors to work together with SEMI’s membership to leverage existing, and pioneer new, workforce development programs to attract and develop qualified candidates from across the age and experience spectrum (high school through university, diversity, etc.). Additionally, an industry awareness campaign will be developed and launched to make more potential candidates attracted to our member companies as a great career choice. I’ll be providing you with updates on this initiative – and asking for your involvement
– throughout 2018.

Data management is a broad term. Big Data, machine learning, AI are terms that today mean different things to different people in our supply chain. What is clear is that to act together and take advantage of the unimaginable amounts of data being generating to produce materials and make semiconductor devices with the diverse equipment sets across our fabs, we need a common understanding of the data and potential use of the data.

In 2018, SEMI will launch a Smart Data vertical application platform to engage stakeholders along the supply chain to produce a common language, develop Standards, and align expectations for sharing data for mutual benefit. Bench- marking of other industries and pre-competitive pilot programs are being proposed to learn and, here too, we need the support and engagement of thought leaders throughout SEMI’s membership.

EH&S activity must intensify to maintain safe operations and to eliminate business interruptions from supply chain disruptions. There is potential for disruptions from material bans such as the Stockholm Convention action on PFOA and arising from the much wider range of chemicals and materials being used in advanced manufacturing. Being able to reliably identify these in time to guide and coordinate industry action will take a reinvigorated SEMI EH&S stewardship and membership engagement.

As China rapidly develops new fabs in many provinces – some with only limited prior experience and infrastructure – SEMI EH&S Standards orientation and training will accelerate the safe and sustainable operation of fabs, enabling them to keep pace with the ambitious growth trajectory our industry is delivering. In 2018, we’ll be looking for a renewed commitment to EH&S and sustainability for the budding challenges of new materials, methods, and emerging regions.

Remarkable results from a remarkable membership

Thank you all for a terrific 2017 and let’s work together on the key initiatives to ensure that our industry’s growth and prosperity will continue in 2018 and beyond.

In a quick review of 2017, I would like to thank SEMI’s members for their incredible results and new revenue records. Foundational to that, SEMI’s members have worked together with SEMI to connect, collaborate, and innovate to increase growth and prosperity for the industry. These founda- tional contributions have been in expositions, programs, Standards, market data, messaging (communications), and workforce development (with HTU).

The infographic below captures these foundational accom- plishments altogether. SEMI strives to speed the time to better business results for its members across the global electronics manufacturing supply chain. To do so, SEMI is dependent upon, and grateful for, the support and volunteer efforts of its membership. Thank you for a terrific 2017 and let’s work together on the key initiatives to ensure that our industry’s growth and prosperity will continue in 2018 and beyond.