Category Archives: Wafer Level Packaging

Synopsys, Inc. (Nasdaq:  SNPS) has completed its acquisitions of Cigital, a privately held provider of software security managed and professional services, and Codiscope, a 2015 spinoff of Cigital and provider of complementary security tools. Cigital is a large, global application security firm specializing in professional and managed services for identifying, remediating and preventing vulnerabilities in software applications. Codiscope has transformed the tools and intellectual property created by Cigital into a suite of accessible and streamlined products for a broad population of developers.

The security of software code throughout the software supply chain is a critical concern for companies across a broad range of industries, from financial services and medical devices to industrial controls and automotive. As the cyber security landscape becomes increasingly complex, many organizations are struggling to determine the right solution in the context of a multitude of point tool offerings and varying vendor strategies, as well as their own IT challenges and priorities. The acquisition of Cigital and Codiscope adds complementary products, services, and a highly skilled workforce to the Synopsys portfolio, enabling Synopsys to offer a comprehensive software security signoff solution.

The terms of the deal are not being disclosed.

SEMI, the global industry association representing more than 2,000 companies in the electronics manufacturing supply chain, today announced the hire of David Anderson as president of the SEMI Americas region.  Reporting to SEMI‘s president and CEO, the president of SEMI Americas has P&L responsibility as well as ownership of all Americas region programs and events, including SEMICON West.

David Anderson will be responsible for SEMI Americas activities in establishing industry Standards, advocacy, community development, expositions, and programs.  With broad experience in the semiconductor device industry, and leadership positions in associations, consortia, and on boards of directors, Anderson brings the diverse skills necessary to lead SEMI’s Americas region.

Anderson has past experience at Fairchild Semiconductor, National Semiconductor, the Semiconductor Industry Suppliers Association, and SEMATECH.  At SEMATECH, in addition to other industry-advancing achievements, he helped launch the global ISMI (International SEMATECH Manufacturing Initiative) effort to improve the productivity and cost performance of semiconductor manufacturing equipment and operations.

Most recently, Anderson was CEO and chairman of Novati Technologies, a specialty manufacturing fab and provider of semiconductor and related process technology development and commercialization services.  Novati’s solutions included semiconductor, MEMS, sensors, microfluidics, silicon-photonics, and novel materials. Prior to that, he held executive leadership positions for development foundries ATDF and SVTC Technologies.

“Dave’s vast experience in semiconductor equipment, as well as in a wide range of silicon devices, provides a practical understanding of the full electronics manufacturing supply chain,” said Denny McGuirk, president and CEO of SEMI.  “He has built global organizations and communities both at SEMI member companies and in SEMI partner consortia.  This will enable Dave to hit the ground running at SEMI.  Dave already has solid relationships with many of SEMI’s members in both the Americas and worldwide.  As I head toward my announced retirement, I’m confident that Dave will strengthen SEMI’s Global Executive Team and will lead the Americas organization to success in our SEMI 2020 initiative.”

Siemens and Mentor Graphics (NASDAQ: MENT) today announced that they have entered into a merger agreement under which Siemens will acquire Mentor for an enterprise value of $4.5 billion. Mentor’s Board of Directors approved and declared advisable the merger agreement, and Mentor’s Board of Directors recommends the approval and adoption of the merger agreement by the holders of shares of Mentor common stock.

“Siemens is acquiring Mentor as part of its Vision 2020 concept to be the Benchmark for the New Industrial Age. It’s a perfect portfolio fit to further expand our digital leadership and set the pace in the industry,” said Joe Kaeser, President and CEO of Siemens AG.

“With Mentor, we’re acquiring an established technology leader with a talented employee base that will allow us to supplement our world-class industrial software portfolio. It will complement our strong offering in mechanics and software with design, test and simulation of electrical and electronic systems,” said Klaus Helmrich, member of the Managing Board of Siemens.

Mentor is headquartered in Wilsonville, Oregon, U.S., and has employees in 32 countries worldwide. In its fiscal year ended January 31, 2016, Mentor had over 5,700 employees and generated revenue of approximately $1.2 billion with an adjusted operating margin of 20.2%. Siemens expects these attractive margins to continue in the future and contribute significantly to the Product Lifecycle Management (PLM) software business of Siemens Digital Factory (DF) Division, which Mentor will join. Mentor serves a large, diverse customer base of marquee systems companies and IC/semiconductors companies with over 14,000 global accounts across communications, computer, consumer electronics, semiconductor, networking, aerospace, multimedia, and transportation industries. Mentor is viewed as a global leader in strategic industry segments including IC design, test and manufacturing; electronic systems design and analysis; and emerging markets including automotive electronics.

“Combining Mentor’s technology leadership and deep customer relationships with Siemens’ global scale and resources will better enable us to serve the growing needs of our customers, and unlock additional significant opportunities for our employees,” said Walden C. Rhines, chairman and CEO of Mentor. “Siemens is an ideal partner with financial depth and stability, and their resources and additional investment will allow us to innovate even faster and accelerate our vision of creating top-to-bottom automated design solutions for electronic systems. We are excited to join the Siemens family, as it is clear they share the same values and focus on customer success, and are pleased that this transaction provides immediate and certain value to our stockholders.”

Siemens expects to achieve synergies through a combination of revenue growth and anticipated margin expansion, with a total EBIT impact of over €100 million within 4 years from closing the transaction. Additionally, the transaction is expected to be EPS accretive within three years from closing. Closing of the transaction is subject to customary closing conditions and is expected in Q2 of calendar 2017. Mentor will be part of the PLM software business of Siemens’ DF Division. DF is the industry leader in automation technology and a leading provider of PLM software.

“By adding Mentor’s electronic design automation solutions and talented experts to our team, we’re greatly enhancing our core competencies for product design that creates a very precise digital twin of any smart product and production line,” noted Helmrich.

Shares in Mentor Graphics jumped 18.5 percent to $36.37 in early U.S. trading, while Siemens was 1.1 percent higher by 1435 GMT.

The deal will boost its software revenue by about a third from 3.3 billion euros, to around 6 percent of group revenue.

Deutsche Bank and JP Morgan advised Siemens on the transaction, which is expected to close in the second quarter of 2017. Bank of America advised Mentor Graphics.

According to the latest market study released by Technavio, the global fan-in wafer-level packaging (WLP) market is expected to reach USD 4.75 billion by 2020, growing at a CAGR of almost 10%.

This research report titled ‘Global Fan-In WLP Market 2016-2020’ provides an in-depth analysis of the market in terms of revenue and emerging market trends. The report also presents a corresponding detailed analysis of the major vendors manufacturing fan-in wafer-level packages in North America, APAC, and Europe.

The increasing number of fabs globally has pushed the demand for IC packaging solutions. The vendors are setting up new fabs in different countries to produce memory devices like dynamic random access memory (DRAM) and not AND (NAND). The transition of semiconductor industry such as miniaturized semiconductor electronics, because of emerging technology such as the Internet of Things (IoT), is also driving the global fan-in WLP market.

The surging demand for compact electronic devices in sectors such as telecommunications, automotive, industrial manufacturing, and healthcare has generated the need for miniaturized semiconductor ICs. With the emergence of products such as 3D ICs and MEMS devices, the electronic equipment is becoming compact and user-friendly, which involves changes in IC designing such as finer patterning.

Technavio’s sample reports are free of charge and contain multiple sections of the report including the market size and forecast, drivers, challenges, trends, and more.

Technavio’s hardware and semiconductor analysts categorize the global fan-in WLP market into five major segments by application. They are:

  •    CMOS image sensor
  •    Wireless connectivity
  •    Logic and memory IC
  •    MEMS and sensor
  •    Analog and mixed IC

The top three segments by application for the fan-in WLP market are:

Analog and mixed ICs

The global analog and mixed IC shipments amounted to 27.57 billion units in 2015 and will reach 40.93 billion units by 2020, growing at a CAGR of 8.22% during the forecast period.

The demand for analog ICs from different segments (such as consumer electronics, communications, and automotive) is gradual but significant. The rising demand for smartphones, phablets, and tablets worldwide is driving their demand in the communications segment. The increasing pace of new product development, the declining cost per function of ICs, and the reduced product replacement cycle have contributed to the high demand for semiconductor ICs and, therefore, analog ICs. The rapid technological developments in the semiconductor industry and the development of efficient analog ICs (which deliver optimized performance) have also increased the proliferation of analog ICs in the global market space.

Wireless connectivity

The global shipments in the wireless connectivity segment amounted to 2.71 billion units in 2015 and will reach 4.79 billion units by 2020, growing at a CAGR of 12.07% during the forecast period.

The wireless connectivity segment includes the demand for fan-in WLP solutions from technologies such as Wi-Fi, RF transceivers, Bluetooth, DC/DC converters, audio/video codecs, RF filters, gyroscopes, and accelerometers, which assist in providing optimum wireless connectivity. Wi-Fi technology is adapting to new protocol versions such as Wi-Fi Direct, 802.11ac, and 801.11ad. With continuous evolution of new technologies and continuous integration of Wi-Fi capability into mobile devices, the demand for wireless connectivity solutions will increase during the forecast period.

According to Sunil Kumar Singh, a lead semiconductor equipment analyst from Technavio, “The global Wi-Fi chipset market is experiencing the transition to 5th Wi-Fi generation, the 802.11ac with MIMO. An increasing number of customers are likely to adopt the technology due to an improvement in speed by up to 1.3 GHz over a long distance.”

Logic and memory ICs

The global shipments in the logic and memory IC segment amounted to 3.51 billion units in 2015 and will reach 4.79 billion units by 2020, growing at a CAGR of 6.42% during the forecast period.

Technological development has led to the introduction of better electronic devices across sectors, such as high-powered smartphones, performance-packed automobiles, automated machinery in the industrial sector, and electronic devices in the healthcare sector for better monitoring of patients. This has increased the demand for better processing to ensure efficient background operations.

The demand for high-powered processors has increased the demand for logic ICs, especially for automation purposes. This will trigger the demand for fan-in WLP solutions in the logic IC segment as they constitute an integral part of IC packaging at the manufacturing level.

The top vendors highlighted by Technavio’s research analysts in this report are:

  •    STATS ChipPAC
  •    STMicroelectronics
  •    TSMC
  •    Texas Instruments

About Technavio

Technavio is a leading global technology research and advisory company. The company develops over 2000 pieces of research every year, covering more than 500 technologies across 80 countries. Technavio has about 300 analysts globally who specialize in customized consulting and business research assignments across the latest leading edge technologies.

IC Insights will release the 2017 edition of its IC Market Drivers Report later this month.  The newly updated report reviews many of the end-use system applications that are presently impacting the IC market and are forecast to help propel it through 2020.

Total smartphone shipments are forecast to grow by 4% in 2016 to 1,490 million units after jumping by 13% to 1,430 million in 2015.  Moreover, smartphone shipments are forecast to grow by 5% in 2017, reaching 1,565 million units.  Overall, smartphone unit shipments are now forecast to grow at single-digit annual rates through 2020.

Smartphones accounted for over 50% of total quarterly cellphone shipments for the first time ever in 1Q13 (Figure 1).  Smartphone shipments fell to 340 million units in 1Q16 yet still represented 80% of total cellphones shipped that quarter, the same penetration as in 4Q15.  In 4Q16, it is expected that smartphone shipments will surge to a new record high of 437 million and represent 84% of all cellphones shipped that quarter.  On an annual basis, smartphones first surpassed the 50% penetration level in 2013 (54%) and are forecast to represent 97% of total cellphone shipments in 2020.

In contrast to smartphones, total cellphone handset shipments are forecast to decline by 2% in 2016 and are expected to drop by 1% in 2017 (Figure 2).  As shown, non-smartphone cellphone sales dropped by 30% in 2015 and are forecast to fall by another 22% this year.  Moreover, IC Insights expects the 2017 non-smartphone cellphone unit shipment decline to be steeper than 2016’s drop with a decline of 26%.

Figure 1

Figure 1

Figure 2

Figure 2

Datacenters with few other emerging applications will become a multibillion dollar market for silicon photonics by 2025. Transporting high level of data with existing technologies will soon reach its limit and photons will continue replacing step by step electrons throughout networks. Growing investments made by VCs have been identified by Yole Développements’ analysts and few startups have been created in this sector. All these indicators confirm the trend: silicon photonic technologies have reached the tipping point that precedes massive growth.

silicon photonics illustration

Yole Développement (Yole), the “More than Moore” market research and strategy consulting company releases this month the technology & market analysis titled Silicon Photonics for datacenters and other applications. Both experts Dr Eric Mounier, Sr Technnology & Market Analyst at Yole and Jean-Louis Malinge, former CEO of Kotura, now at ARCH Venture Partners combined their knowledge of the silicon photonic industry to perform a deep added-value analysis. Under this report, they examine the current status and future challenges for silicon photonics and data centers application. They detail for all applications, silicon photonic benefits as well as a comprehensive analysis of the industrial supply chain with player’s status.

What is the status of silicon photonic technologies? Could we already speak about commercial solutions? What is the market size today? What about tomorrow? How high are the current investments? Yole’s analysts offer you a snapshot of the story.

The silicon photonics market is still modest with estimated sales below US$40 million in 2015 and very few companies actually shipping products in the open market: Mellanox, Cisco, Luxtera, Intel, STMicroelectronics, Acacia and Molex are part of these leading players.

Silicon photonics has been under development for years. However now, this technology is being pushed hard by large webcom companies like Facebook and Microsoft. “Silicon photonics has reached the tipping point that precedes massive growth,” comments Dr Eric Mounier from Yole. “Indeed we estimate, the packaged silicon photonics transceiver market will be worth US$6 billion in 10 years.”

Silicon photonics is an exciting technology mixing optics, CMOS technology and advanced packaging. This combination benefits from semiconductor wafer manufacturing scalability to reduce costs.

“Silicon photonics offers silicon technology advantages including higher integration, more functionalities embedded with lower power consumption and better reliability compared to legacy optics”, analyzes Jean-Louis Malinge.

In 2020 and more, silicon photonic chips will far exceed copper cabling capabilities. Such solutions will be so deployed in high-speed signal transmission systems. In 2025 and more, the technology will be more and more used in processing such as interconnecting multiple cores with processor chips. Indeed, according to Yole’s analysts, the chip market value should score US$1,5 billion in 2025 at chip level (Estimated to be less than US$40 million in 2015). Step by step photons get closer to the chips!

Data centers are clearly the best opportunity for silicon photonics technology today. And there are also many other applications that silicon photonics can enable. These include high performance computers, telecommunications, sensors, life science, quantum computers and other high-end applications.

Two applications are particularly interesting as silicon photonics can push the integration of optical functions and miniaturization further to achieve successful products. Those applications are lidars for autonomous cars and biochemical and chemical sensors.

Lidars are costly and bulky instruments which make their integration in a car challenging. Within a promising ADAS market expected to reach US$3,9 billion in 2017 silicon photonic-based lidar will play a key role. Indeed silicon photonics allow lidar without moving elements, which can experience issues in a harsh car environment. Last august, MIT’s Photonic Microsystems Group announced a successful DARPA project using silicon photonics for lidar-on-a-chip with steerable transmitting and receiving phased arrays and on-chip Ge photodetectors.

Biochemical and gas sensors are not new, and several applications have existed for a while. Day by day, the interest in gas sensing is gaining importance due to the emergence of promising new large volume portable applications. Integration of biochemical or gas sensors into smartphones or wearables is currently on the roadmap of many companies but size, cost and sensitivity are still issues. To push optical gas sensor miniaturization further, some companies are already considering silicon photonics as an integration platform for their devices.

These non-data center applications will be about US$300 million in 2025, detail Yole’s analysts in the silicon photonics report.

Semiconductor Manufacturing International Corporation (“SMIC”; NYSE:  SMI; SEHK: 981), the largest and most advanced foundry in Mainland China, announces the official launch of a 12-inch integrated circuit (IC) production line at SMIC’s Shenzhen facility. It will be the very first 12-inch fab in South China.

In order to meet the large demand for IC chips in the IoT era, SMIC Shenzhen is building the new 12-inch IC production line in an existing building. The new line will manufacture mainstream mature technology. Construction is planned to start by the end of 2016. Some second-hand equipment for the new line has already been secured. The early production is expected to begin by the end of 2017.The total designed capacity is 40,000 12-inch wafers per month; capacity ramp will be based on customer needs.

Located in Pingshan New District, Shenzhen, SMIC Shenzhen opened the first 8-inch IC production line in South China in December 2014. Its capacity is currently 30,000 wafers per month, and it will continue to expand based on market demand.

The Chairman of SMIC, Dr. Zixue Zhou, said, “Shenzhen has the largest electronic information industrial base in China, comprising hundreds of IC design, system and equipment companies. Thanks to the attention given to the IC industry from the Shenzhen Municipal Government, SMIC Shenzhen steadily operates an 8-inch production line. By launching the new 12-inch production line, SMIC will further improve our capacity, better serve our customers, and facilitate the development of Shenzhen’s IC ecosystem.”

In 2015, more than US$1 billion was invested in China’s advanced packaging ecosystem, announces Yole Développement (Yole) in its report Status and Prospects for the Advanced Packaging Industry. And right now, more than 100 companies are involved in assembly & packaging activities in China. Almost all key global IDMs and OSATs have a packaging facility in China to take advantage of low costs.

But what are the strategies of these companies? How do they ensure their market positioning and their development in the Chinese advanced packaging industry? Is there a specific approach according to their business model?

advanced packaging china

“Global OSATs are working on their strategies to thwart challenges and exploit opportunities in China’s advanced packaging market,” details for example, Santosh Kumar, Senior, Technology & Market Analyst, Advanced Packaging & Semiconductor Manufacturing at Yole. And in parallel, Chinese players may acquire or invest in others with complimentary packaging technology/services/customers.

Status and Prospects for the Advanced Packaging Industry in China report presents the Chinese semiconductor market outlook as well as the advanced packaging ecosystem in China. This analysis details the global and local players as well as the Chinese backend equipment & materials suppliers. It also covers supply chain evolution, OSAT strategy and business opportunities for local and global players in China’s advanced packaging space. Some results will be presented by Santosh Kumar at the China International Semiconductor Executive Summit taking place from November 1 to 2, 2016 in Shanghai, China.

The advanced packaging market in China is reaching about US$2.5 billion in 2016. And Yole’s analysts expect an impressive 16% CAGR between 2016 and 2020, scoring US$4.6 billion at the end of this period. Under this imposing growth, advanced packaging companies are deploying complex strategies to ensure their business and develop their activities. For example, some companies collaborate with local IC design & foundries and invest in R&D and manufacturing capacity in China. Others invest in Chinese capital.

Technical innovation is also a priority for all China-based companies. Companies are investing a lot to secure important R&D activities and develop disruptive technologies. In parallel, advanced packaging players protect their IP and company’s core value. From a human resources point of view, they reserve key employees through incentives and educate employees to not release confidential information.

China’s advanced packaging industry took a giant leap when JCET acquired STATSChipPAC in 2015 for US$780 million. This deal propelled JCET into 4th place amongst OSAT companies. “JCET-STATS ChipPAC is clearly the game changer in China AP ecosystem,” comments Santosh Kumar from Yole. And he adds: “JCET-STATS ChipPAC results in operational, revenue & capex synergy”.
Other notable acquisitions are:

•  Huatian acquiring FCI
•  Nantong Fujitsu acquiring AMD backend facilities in China and Malaysia.

While Chinese OSATs and foundries are rapidly acquiring advanced packaging capabilities, the local equipment and materials supply chains are still far behind compared to global players, who still dominate the advanced packaging equipment and materials space.

Will this remain true over the next five years? Do global suppliers see China’s advanced packaging market as an opportunity or a threat from local supplier)? In Yole’s report’s equipment/materials section, the advanced packaging team addresses these questions as well as other issues.

Samsung Austin Semiconductor LLC (SAS) announced plans to invest more than $1 billion by the first half of 2017. Investments in its facilities will enhance current System LSI production to meet the growing demands in the industry for advanced system-on-chip (SoC) products especially for mobile and other electronic devices.

“Samsung is a bellwether for Austin. As a company that the community and state partnered with to relocate here several years ago, they have far exceeded expectations,” said Mike Rollins, President, Austin Chamber of Commerce. “Samsung remains a shining example of what happens when we create a business friendly environment. The result is a win that enhances and sustains our community’s ability to create a broad range of new jobs and economic opportunities for Austinites and their families.”

According to an Impact Data Source Economic Impact Study, SAS added $3.6 billion into the regional economy of central Texas in 2015. During that same time, SAS supported 10,755 jobs in the area and $498 million in annual salaries. Since its establishment in 1997, Samsung has invested more than $16 billion for the expansion and maintenance of its Austin facility.

“I was glad to discuss this with Samsung when our trade delegation visited Korea, and I’m thrilled that this plan is coming to fruition,” said Austin Mayor Steve Adler. “Samsung is so often a source of good news in Austin whether it’s about jobs, education, workforce development, housing or helping the homeless. Samsung is a great partner for Austin’s present, and this announcement tells us that they’ll be an even bigger part of our future.”

“We are committed to Austin and our contributions to the community,” said Catherine Morse, General Counsel and Senior Director of Public Affairs at SAS. “This is our home, and we want to ensure our community is healthy and prospering. These investments will support this, while also ensuring our customers’ growing needs are met.”

CMOS image sensor update


October 30, 2016

BY DR. PHIL GARROU, Contributing Editor

Toshiba was the first to commercially implement CMOS image sensors with backside TSV last technologies in 2007. Many of us stated in 2007 that further advances could be obtained by removing the CMOS circuitry to a separate layer and forming a true 3D chip stack, but the technology imple- mentation had to wait while the industry first converted to back side imaging technology.

With a conventional front-illumination structure, the metal wiring above the sensor’s photo-diodes impede photon gathering. A back-illuminated structure increases the amount of light that enters each pixel due to the lack of obstacles such as metal wiring and transistors that have been moved to the reverse of the silicon substrate.

The next generation, as expected, combined both BSI and stacking. Conventional CMOS image sensor technology creates the pixel function and analog logic circuitry on the same chip. The motivations for stacked chip CIS include: optimization of each function in the stack, adding function- ality to the stack and decreasing form factor.

Since the pixel section and circuit section are formed as independent chips, each function can be separately optimized, enabling the pixel section to deliver higher image quality while the circuit section can be specialized for higher functionality. In addition, faster signal processing and lower power consumption can also be achieved through the use of leading process for the chip containing the circuits.

The 2014 image sensor market was estimated by Techno Systems Research with Sony as the top seller of image sensors with 40.2% market share, followed by OmniVision (15.7%), Samsung (15.2%) and others with 28.9%.

Sony is clearly leading in commercializing the latest CIS packaging technologies. Some of the biggest names in tech use Sony sensors: The iPhone 6 camera has a Sony sensor, as does the Samsung Galaxy S6, Motorola phones, Nikon DSLRs, and Olympus mirrorless cameras.
Earlier in 2016 it was reported that there are two versions of the Samsung Galaxy S7. One has a Samsung stacked ISOCELL sensor (S5K2L1) and the other a special Sony stacked sensor (IMX260).

The recent Chipworks teardown of the Samsung Galaxy S7 with a Sony IMX 260 revealed BSI stacked technology. Furthermore, it revealed the first reported use of the Ziptronix (now Tessera) Direct Bond interconnect (DBI) technology rather than prior oxide –oxide bonding with subsequent TSVs connecting through the oxide interface. This BSI-stacked DBI technology is possibly the next step in the CIS roadmap.

The Chipworks cross-section reveals a 5 metal (Cu) CMOS image sensor (CIS) die and a 7 metal (6 Cu + 1 Al) image signal processor (ISP) die. The Cu-Cu vias are 3.0 μm wide and have a 14 μm pitch in the peripheral regions. In the active pixel array they are also 3.0 μm wide, but have a pitch of 6.0 μm.
Omnivision was the first to sample BSI in 2007 but costs were too high and adoption was thus very low. In 2015 Omnivision announced their OV 16880 a 16-megapixel image sensor built on OmniVision’s PureCel-STM stacked die technology.

Samsung’s first entrant into stacked technology with TSV was also at 16MP with the Samsung S5K3P3SX in late 2014. The CIS die is face-to-face bonded to a 65nm Samsung image signal processor die and connected with W based TSV. The CIS die is fabricated on a 65nm CMOS process with 5 levels of interconnect.

In early 2015 On Semiconductor (Aptina) introduced its first stacked CMOS sensor the AR 1335 with 1.1μm pixels. It resulted in a smaller die footprint, higher pixel performance and better power consumption compared to their traditional monolithic non-stacked designs. They announced that it would be introduced in commercial products in late 2015.

In late 2015, Olympus announced the OL 20150702-1 a new 3D stacked 16MP CMOS image sensor.