Category Archives: Semiconductors

The intelliFLEX Innovation Alliance announced today that Mark Majewski, a 30-year veteran of the Canadian technology industry and former geographic director at a major semiconductor company, has succeeded Peter Kallai as CEO.

Mr. Majewski has extensive experience in the electronics and technology industries in Canada, having overseen the generation of hundreds of millions of dollars at STMicroelectronics while running its East Central U.S. and Canada regions. He’s also been a key leader at several startups, volunteers as a mentor at the RIC Centre and Haltech, and most recently was the technology lead for business development at Ontario Centres of Excellence (OCE).

Mr. Majewski’s goal as CEO is to unite the growing critical mass of Canadian printable, flexible and hybrid electronics (FHE) companies and research with the country’s electronics and semiconductor industries. With his decades of technology experience, Mr. Majewski has the breadth of contacts, experience, and knowledge to successfully position intelliFLEX and its members alongside this massive industry.

“I’m honoured to have been named the next intelliFLEX CEO. I’ve taken this role because I believe in FHE and its future,” says Mr. Majewski. “All electronics players in Canada who want to expand their capabilities should be looking at this technology as it goes mainstream. Not only does FHE open the doors to new products and applications, it also has incredible value in augmenting and improving everyday electronics products that already exist.”

Indeed, as microelectronics and semiconductor companies hit the limits of Moore’s Law for integrated circuits, mainstream companies are searching for new ways to produce electronic components more efficiently for new and existing applications.

That’s where printable, flexible and hybrid electronics come in: FHE, which represents a $31.6B global market opportunity, uses next-generation additive and manufacturing electronics technologies that can help all electronics players in Canada. This strategy has already been embraced in the U.S. where a cross-pollination of mainstream electronics, FHE, and semiconductors is occurring.

“I’ve cherished the opportunity to work with intelliFLEX,” said outgoing CEO Peter Kallai, who founded intelliFLEX and will remain involved by supporting Mr. Majewski during the transition period and sitting on the board of directors. “However, what we need to do is move the organization into the mainstream electronics industry and be the rising tide of the ecosystem that lets all our members sail further, faster and easier.

“We needed a professional from that industry, with the right background, to do that. And I strongly believe Mark will take intelliFLEX to the next level.”

At the same time, intelliFLEX will also move its head office from Ottawa to the Greater Toronto Area. This will help the organization be physically closer to the heart of Canada’s electronics industry, of which the majority is located in Toronto. Seventy-five per cent of intelliFLEX members are in either Ontario or Quebec.

KLA Corporation (NASDAQ: KLAC) today announced the appointment of Victor Peng to its board of directors.

Mr. Peng is president and chief executive officer of Xilinx, where he also serves as a member of the board of directors. Peng has over 30 years of experience leading technology transformation, defining and bringing to market FPGAs, SoCs, GPUs, high performance microprocessors and chip sets, and microprocessor IP products.

“We’re excited to have Victor Peng join the KLA board,” commented Edward W. (Ned) Barnholt, chairman of the board of KLA Corporation. “Victor is an accomplished semiconductor industry leader who brings significant business knowledge, technical expertise, and operational experience that will be invaluable to KLA as we execute our strategies for growth and market leadership.”

Peng joined Xilinx in 2008 and was named president and CEO of the company in January of 2018. Previously he was Xilinx’s chief operating officer, with responsibility for global sales, global operations and quality, product development, and product and vertical marketing. Prior to that, he served as the company’s executive vice president and general manager of Products, a position he held since July 2014. Mr. Peng previously held executive roles at AMD, ATI, and MIPS Technologies.

Peng serves on the board of the Semiconductor Industry Association. He earned a Bachelor of Science, Electrical Engineering from Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute and a Master of Engineering, Electrical Engineering from Cornell University. He holds four U.S. patents.

Today, Mobile Semiconductor announced a new 55nm HD (High Density) memory compiler targeted at the cost sensitive IoT market. The new memory compiler boasts one of the highest density footprints in the industry dramatically reducing the die area and reducing customer product costs for sensors, smart locks, trackers and smart light bulbs.

Cameron Fisher, CEO and Founder of Mobile Semiconductor, said, “We believe that our success in the current 55nm Memory Compilers sets us apart from competitive offerings.  This new high-density product is well positioned to support our customer’s IoT products as they grow in features and capabilities. Our goal is to ensure that our customers can meet and exceed their silicon area goals and therefore reduce their costs.”

Key features include:

  • 15% to 33% smaller than previous 55nm compilers
  • At least 11% smaller than competitive solutions
  • Built on Mobile Semi’s volume designs at 55nm and 65nm
  • Available off the shelf today

Fisher continued, “Mobile Semiconductor remains the leader in providing memory compliers that target the needs of specific industries. We are proud of the fact that repeat customer purchases are close to 100%.  This includes customers moving to the next smaller node or building new products on the same node. Reducing the memory size offered by this new 55nm memory compiler gives our customers a compelling reason to choose Mobile Semiconductor for their cost sensitive IoT products.”

The 55nm HD memory compiler takes advantage of industry standard Bitcells provided by the top foundries.  All Mobile Semiconductor memory compilers are supported by a wide range of industry leading licensing options.

The Semiconductor Industry Association (SIA), representing U.S. leadership in semiconductor manufacturing, design, and research, today announced the addition of Broadcom Inc. (NASDAQ: AVGO) as an SIA member. Broadcom Chief Legal Officer Mark Brazeal is expected to be elected to the SIA board of directors at the association’s next board meeting on April 4.

“We are thrilled to welcome Broadcom, a leading player and valued voice in our industry, into the SIA tent,” said John Neuffer, SIA President and CEO. “The semiconductor industry is foundational to America’s economic and innovation base. Broadcom, headquartered in San Jose, California with over 11,000 employees in the U.S., will greatly strengthen SIA’s work to advance government policies that promote growth and innovation.  We are excited about the knowledge and experience Mark Brazeal will bring to the SIA board.”

In his current role at Broadcom, Brazeal is responsible for the legal, governance, and compliance functions across the company. Previously, he served as the Chief Legal Officer and Senior Vice President, IP Licensing for SanDisk Corporation through 2016. Before joining SanDisk, Brazeal spent 15 years at Broadcom Corporation, most recently as the Senior Vice President and Senior Deputy General Counsel.

“Semiconductors are at the heart of the greatest technological breakthroughs of our time,” said Brazeal. “I look forward to representing Broadcom on the SIA board and collaborating with my colleagues to promote smart government policies that will help us maintain the blistering pace of semiconductor innovation and move our great industry forward.”

Intel names Robert Swan CEO


January 31, 2019

Intel Corporation (NASDAQ: INTC) today announced that its board of directors has named Robert (Bob) Swan as chief executive officer. Swan, 58, who has been serving as Intel’s interim CEO for seven months and as chief financial officer since 2016, is the seventh CEO in Intel’s 50-year history. Swan has also been elected to Intel’s board of directors.

Intel Corporation has named Robert Swan as its chief executive officer. His promotion was announced Jan. 31, 2019. Swan, who previously served as the company’s chief financial officer and interim CEO, is the seventh CEO to lead the company based in Santa Clara, Calif. (Credit: Intel Corporation)

Todd Underwood, vice president of Finance and director of Intel’s Corporate Planning and Reporting, will assume the role of interim chief financial officer as the company undertakes an internal and external search for a permanent CFO.

“As Intel continues to transform its business to capture more of a large and expanding opportunity that includes the data center, artificial intelligence and autonomous driving, while continuing to get value from the PC business, the board concluded after a thorough search that Bob is the right leader to drive Intel into its next era of growth,” said Chairman Andy Bryant. “The search committee conducted a comprehensive evaluation of a wide range of internal and external candidates to identify the right leader at this critical juncture in Intel’s evolution. We considered many outstanding executives and we concluded the best choice is Bob. Important in the board’s decision was the outstanding job Bob did as interim CEO for the past seven months, as reflected in Intel’s outstanding results in 2018. Bob’s performance, his knowledge of the business, his command of our growth strategy, and the respect he has earned from our customers, our owners, and his colleagues confirmed he is the right executive to lead Intel.”

“In my role as interim CEO, I’ve developed an even deeper understanding of Intel’s opportunities and challenges, our people and our customers,” Swan said. “When I was first named interim CEO, I was immediately focused on running the company and working with our customers. When the board approached me to take on the role permanently, I jumped at the chance to lead this special company. This is an exciting time for Intel: 2018 was an outstanding year and we are in the midst of transforming the company to pursue our biggest market opportunity ever. I’m honored to have the chance to continue working alongside our board, our leadership team, and our more than 107,000 superb employees as we take the company forward.”

Swan is a proven leader with a strong track record of success both within and outside Intel. As interim CEO, Swan has managed the company’s operations in close collaboration with Intel’s senior leadership team. Swan has been Intel’s CFO since October 2016. In this role, he led the global finance, mergers and acquisitions, investor relations, IT and corporate strategy organizations. Prior to joining Intel, Swan served as an operating partner at General Atlantic LLC and served on Applied Materials’ board of directors. He previously spent nine years as CFO of eBay Inc., where he is currently a director. Earlier in his career, he was CFO of Electronic Data Systems Corp. and TRW Inc. He also served as CFO, COO and CEO of Webvan Group Inc., and began his career at General Electric, serving for 15 years in several senior finance roles.

Water molecules distort the electrical resistance of graphene, but a team of European researchers has discovered that when this two-dimensional material is integrated with the metal of a circuit, contact resistance is not impaired by humidity. This finding will help to develop new sensors -the interface between circuits and the real world- with a significant cost reduction.

The many applications of graphene, an atomically-thin sheet of carbon atoms with extraordinary conductivity and mechanical properties, include the manufacture of sensors. These transform environmental parameters into electrical signals that can be processed and measured with a computer.

Due to their two-dimensional structure, graphene-based sensors are extremely sensitive and promise good performance at low manufacturing cost in the next years.

To achieve this, graphene needs to make efficient electrical contacts when integrated with a conventional electronic circuit. Such proper contacts are crucial in any sensor and significantly affect its performance.

But a problem arises: graphene is sensitive to humidity, to the water molecules in the surrounding air that are adsorbed onto its surface. H2O molecules change the electrical resistance of this carbon material, which introduces a false signal into the sensor.

However, Swedish scientists have found that when graphene binds to the metal of electronic circuits, the contact resistance (the part of a material’s total resistance due to imperfect contact at the interface) is not affected by moisture.

“This will make life easier for sensor designers, since they won’t have to worry about humidity influencing the contacts, just the influence on the graphene itself,” explains Arne Quellmalz, a PhD student at KTH Royal Institute of Technology (Sweden) and the main researcher of the research.

The study, published in the journal ACS Applied Materials & Interfaces, has been carried out experimentally using graphene together with gold metallization and silica substrates in transmission line model test structures, as well as computer simulations.

“By combining graphene with conventional electronics, you can take advantage of both the unique properties of graphene and the low cost of conventional integrated circuits.” says Quellmalz, “One way of combining these two technologies is to place the graphene on top of finished electronics, rather than depositing the metal on top the graphene sheet.”

As part of the European CO2-DETECT project, the authors are applying this new approach to create the first prototypes of graphene-based sensors. More specifically, the purpose is to measure carbon dioxide (CO2), the main greenhouse gas, by means of optical detection of mid-infrared light and at lower costs than with other technologies.

In addition to the KTH Royal Institute of Technology, the companies SenseAir AB from Sweden and Amo GmbH from Germany are likewise participants in the CO2-DETECT project, as is the Catalan Institute of Nanotechnology (ICN) from Barcelona.

Organic semiconductors enable the fabrication of large-scale printed and mechanically flexible electronic applications, and have already successfully established themselves on the market for displays in the form of organic light-emitting diodes (OLEDs). In order to break into further market segments, however, improvements in performance are still needed. Doping is the answer. In semiconductor technology, doping refers to the targeted introduction of impurities (also called dopants) into the semiconductor material of an integrated circuit. These dopants function as intentional “disturbances” in the semiconductor that can be used to specifically control the behaviour of the charge carriers and thus the electrical conductivity of the original material. Even the smallest amounts of these can have a very strong influence on electrical conductivity. Molecular doping is an integral part of the majority of commercial organic electronics applications. Until now, however, an insufficient fundamental physical understanding of the transport mechanisms of charges in doped organic semiconductors has prevented a further increase in conductivity to match the best inorganic semiconductors such as silicon.

Researchers from the Dresden Integrated Center for Applied Physics and Photonic Materials (IAPP) and the Center for Advancing Electronics Dresden (cfaed) at TU Dresden, in cooperation with Stanford University and the Institute for Molecular Science in Okazaki, have now identified key parameters that influence electrical conductivity in doped organic conductors. The combination of experimental investigations and simulations has revealed that introducing dopant molecules into organic semiconductors creates complexes of two oppositely charged molecules. The properties of these complexes like the Coulomb attraction and the density of the complexes significantly determine the energy barriers for the transport of charge carriers and thus the level of electrical conductivity. The identification of important molecular parameters constitutes an important foundation for the development of new materials with even higher conductivity.

The results of this study have just been published in the renowned journal Nature Materials. While the experimental work and a part of the simulations were conducted at the IAPP, the Computational Nanoelectronics Group at the cfaed under the leadership of Dr. Frank Ortmann verified the theoretical explanations for the observations by means of simulations at the molecular level. In doing so, a comprehensive foundation for new applications for organic semiconductor technology has been created.

Vanguard International Semiconductor Corporation (VIS) and GLOBALFOUNDRIES (GF) today announced that VIS will acquire GF’s Fab 3E in Tampines, Singapore. The transaction includes buildings, facilities, and equipment, as well as IP associated with GF’s MEMS business. GF will continue to operate the facility through the end of 2019, providing a transition period to facilitate technology transfers for VIS and existing GF customers. Fab 3E currently manages a monthly capacity of approximately 35,000 8-inch wafers. The transaction amounts to $236 million USD and the transfer of ownership is set to be completed on December 31st, 2019.

VIS and GF have already reached consensus on the transfer of Fab 3E’s employees and customers. Both companies believe that employees are the most important assets of a company, so their interests should be put as the first priority during the transition; while ensuring no disruption to customers whose products are in production at the fab. Under this premise, VIS will extend employment offers to all employees currently working at Fab 3E, as well as continuously provide existing customers at Fab 3E with its foundry service, including MEMS customers.

“I appreciate the support of GF’s board and management team for this transaction, giving VIS an opportunity to continue expanding its capacity and reinforce momentum for future growth,” said Mr. Leuh Fang, Chairman of VIS. “Since its foundation, VIS has already had three separate experiences of successfully transforming a DRAM fab into a foundry fab. We believe this transaction is a win-win for both VIS and GF; and to VIS, it is also a decision that benefits all of our customers, employees, and shareholders. VIS will uphold its philosophy and principles to continue satisfying customers’ demands in capacity and technology, sustaining profitability and growth, and rewarding our shareholders.”

“This transaction is part of our strategy to streamline our global manufacturing footprint and increase our focus in Singapore on technologies where we have clear differentiation such as RF, embedded memory and advanced analog features,” said GF CEO Tom Caulfield. “Consolidating our 200mm operations in Singapore into one campus will also help reduce our operating costs by leveraging the scale of our gigafab facility in Woodlands. VIS is the right partner to leverage the Fab 3E asset going forward.”

VIS’s capacity has been fully utilized since 2018, and it is in the interests of its customers that VIS expands capacity to meet growing demands. The new fab is expected to contribute more than 400,000 8-inch wafers per year. This acquisition demonstrates the determination and commitment of VIS to accelerate capacity expansion.

Worldwide silicon wafer area shipments in 2018 increased 8 percent year-over-year to a record high, while 2018 worldwide silicon revenue jumped 31 percent during the same period, topping the $10 billion mark for the first time since 2008, reported the SEMI Silicon Manufacturers Group (SMG) in its year-end analysis of the silicon wafer industry.

Silicon wafer area shipments in 2018 totaled 12,732 million square inches (MSI), up from the previous market high of 11,810 million square inches shipped during 2017. Revenues totaled $11.38 billion, compared to the $8.71 billion posted in 2017.

“For the fifth year in a row, annual semiconductor silicon volume shipments reached record levels,” said Neil Weaver, chairman of SEMI SMG, and Director, Product Development and Applications Engineering, at Shin-Etsu Handotai America. “Despite strong demand and the impressive gain in revenues last year, the market still remains below the market high set in 2007.”

Annual Silicon* Industry Trends
2007
2008
2009
2010
2011
2012
2013
2014
2015
2016
2017
2018
Area Shipments (MSI)
8,661
8,137
6,707
9,370
9,043
9,031
9,067
10,098
10,434
10,738
11,810
12,732
Revenues ($B)
12.1
11.4
6.7
9.7
9.9
8.7
7.5
7.6
7.2
7.2
8.7
11.4

Source: SEMI (www.semi.org), January 2019

*Total Electronic Grade Silicon Slices Excluding Non-Polished Wafers. Shipments are for semiconductor applications only and do not include solar applications.

*Shipments are for semiconductor applications only and do not include solar applications

All data cited in this release includes polished silicon wafers, such as virgin test wafers and epitaxial silicon wafers, as well as non-polished silicon wafers shipped to end users.

Silicon wafers are the fundamental building material for semiconductors, which, in turn, are vital components of virtually all electronics goods, including computers, telecommunications products, and consumer electronics. The highly engineered thin, round disks are produced in various diameters – from one inch to 12 inches – and serve as the substrate material on which most semiconductor devices, or chips, are fabricated.

The Silicon Manufacturing Group (SMG) is a sub-committee of the SEMI Electronic Materials Group (EMG) and is open to SEMI members involved in manufacturing polycrystalline silicon, monocrystalline silicon or silicon wafers (e.g., as cut, polished, epi, etc.). The purpose of the group is to facilitate collective efforts on issues related to the silicon industry including the development of market information and statistics about the silicon industry and the semiconductor market.

Fabless power semiconductor company Helix Semiconductors today announced that Rudi De Winter has joined its board of directors. De Winter is the CEO of Helix Semiconductors’ fab partner X-FAB, as well as a managing partner at Xtrion N.V., a financial company with large holdings in X-FAB and other significant fabless chip companies. The addition of De Winter to the Helix Semiconductors’ board signals that the company is ramping up its resources as it moves into the next stage: preparing its paradigm-shifting transformerless chipsets for mass production.

Helix Semiconductors uses leading-edge X-FAB 0.18um high-voltage CMOS processes to develop its innovative power conversion products, which enable the replacement of bulky, inefficient transformers. As CEO of X-FAB, De Winter is responsible for guiding the company’s research and development, marketing, sales, and quality efforts worldwide. De Winter has more than 30 years of experience in the electronics and semiconductor industries, having previously served as CEO of Melexis N.V. for 15 years. Melexis is a world leader in automotive semiconductor sensors and integrated circuits for motor driving and car networking. Additionally, De Winter has been a director of Xtrion since 1990. De Winter holds a master’s degree in electronic engineering from Ghent University in Belgium.

In his role as a Helix Semiconductors board member, De Winter will represent one of the company’s most significant shareholders and will be called upon to lend his expertise to topics such as industry trends, patterns, behaviors, and norms. De Winter is uniquely qualified as an expert source in areas that are critical to the continuing success of Helix Semiconductors – including source of supply and market strategy.

“The addition of Rudi De Winter to our board of directors is a critical step toward mass production and the achievement of our ultimate goal: fundamentally changing the way that products are powered,” noted Harold A. Blomquist, president and CEO of Helix Semiconductors. “In fact, it’s quite a remarkable feat for an early-stage company like ours to have such an accredited, high-level professional sit on our board. With his depth of directly relevant influence and breadth of experience in the semiconductor industry, Rudi is a strong addition to our board of directors’ existing skill set.”