Category Archives: Wafer Processing

Toshiba Memory Corporation and Western Digital Corporation (NASDAQ:WDC) yesterday celebrated the opening of a new semiconductor fabrication facility, Fab 6, and the Memory R&D Center, at Yokkaichi operations in Mie Prefecture, Japan.

Fab 6 and Memory R&D Center, Yokkaichi Operations (Photo: Business Wire)

Toshiba Memory started construction of Fab 6, a dedicated 3D flash memory fabrication facility, in February 2017. Toshiba Memory and Western Digital have installed cutting-edge manufacturing equipment for key production processes including deposition and etching. Mass production of 96-layer 3D flash memory utilizing the new fab began earlier this month.

Demand for 3D flash memory is growing for enterprise servers, data centers and smartphones, and is expected to continue to expand in the years ahead. Further investments to expand its production will be made in line with market trends.

The Memory R&D Center, located adjacent to Fab 6, began operations in March of this year, and will explore and promote advances in the development of 3D flash memory.

Toshiba Memory and Western Digital will continue to cultivate and extend their leadership in the memory business by actively developing initiatives aimed at strengthening competitiveness, advancing joint development of 3D flash memory, and making capital investments according to market trends.

Dr. Yasuo Naruke, President and CEO of Toshiba Memory said, “We are excited about opportunities to expand the market for our latest generation of 3D flash memory. Fab 6 and Memory R&D Center enable us to maintain our position as a leading player in the 3D flash memory market. We are confident that our joint venture with Western Digital will allow us to continue producing leading edge memories at Yokkaichi.”

“We are pleased to be opening Fab 6 and the Memory R&D Center with our valued partner Toshiba Memory. For nearly two decades, the successful collaboration between our companies has fostered growth and innovation of NAND flash technology,” said Steve Milligan, Chief Executive Officer, Western Digital. “We are ramping production of 96-layer 3D NAND to address the full range of end market opportunities from consumer and mobile applications to cloud data centers. Fab 6 is a cutting-edge facility that will enable us to further our technology and cost leadership position in the industry.”

In its Mid-Year Update to the 2018 McClean Report, IC Insights updated its forecast of sales growth for each of the 33 major IC product categories defined by WSTS (Figure 1).  IC Insights now projects that seven product categories will exceed the 16% growth rate expected from the total IC market this year. For the second consecutive year, the DRAM market is forecast to top all IC product segments with 39% growth. Overall, 13 product categories are forecast to experience double-digit growth and 28 total IC product categories are expected to post positive growth this year, down slightly from 29 segments in 2017.

Rising average selling prices for DRAM continued to boost the DRAM market through the first half of the year and into August.  However, IC Insights believes the DRAM ASP (and subsequent market growth) is at or near its peak, as a big rise in DRAM capital expenditures for planned capacity upgrades and expansions is likely put the brakes on steep market growth beginning in 2019.

In second place with 29% growth is the Automotive—Special-Purpose Logic market, which is being lifted by the growing number of onboard electronic systems now found on new cars. Backup cameras, blind-spot (lane-departure) detectors, and other “intelligent” systems are mandated or are being added across all new vehicles—entry level to luxury—and are expected to contribute to the semiconductor content per new car growing to more than $540 per vehicle in 2018.

Wireless Comm—Application-Specific Analog is forecast to grow 23% in 2018, as the world becomes increasingly dependent on the Internet and demand for wireless connectivity continues to rise. Similarly, demand for medical/health electronics systems connectivity using the Internet will help the market for Industrial/Other Application-Specific Analog outpace total IC market growth in 2018.

Among the seven categories showing better than total IC market growth this year, three are forecast to be among the largest of all IC product categories in terms of dollar volume. DRAM (#1 with $101.6 billion in sales), NAND Flash (#2 with $62.6 billion), Computer and Peripherals—Special Purpose Logic (#4 with $27.6 billion) prove that big markets can still achieve exceptional percentage growth.

Figure 1

TowerJazz, the global specialty foundry, today provided further details on its 13th annual U.S. Technical Global Symposium (TGS) to be held on November 7, 2018 at the Hilton Santa Clara, CA. During TGS, the company will share its vision on industry megatrends: “Wireless Everything, Smart Everything, Green Everything” – and the means by which its analog specialty portfolio helps customers to differentiate their technology solutions.

The event will commence with TowerJazz CEO, Russell Ellwanger, who will share plans with respect to the Company’s focus on “full circle value creation,” including strategic growth, technology leadership, and capacity expansion. TowerJazz executives will then share the latest technology roadmap developments of the Company’s RF/high performance analog, CMOS image sensors, power management, and aerospace & defense offerings, in addition to its industry-leading design enablement capabilities.

To view the agenda, focus areas for the technical sessions, and/or register for the event, please visit here.

Global fab equipment spending will increase 14 percent this year to US$62.8 billion and is expected to rise 7.5 percent, to US$67.5 billion, in 2019, marking the fourth consecutive year of spending growth and the highest investment year for fab equipment in the history of the industry, according to the latest World Fab Forecast Report published today by SEMI. Investments in new fab construction are also nearing a record with a fourth consecutive year of growth predicted and capital outlays next year approaching US$17 billion.

Investments for fab technology and product upgrades, as well as for additional capacity, will grow as the emergence of numerous new fabs significantly increases equipment demand, the forecast shows. The World Fab Forecast Report currently tracks 78 new fabs and lines that have or will start construction between 2017 to 2020 (with various probabilities) and will eventually require more US$220 billion in fab equipment (Figure 1). Construction spending for these fabs and lines is expected to reach US$53 billion during this period.

Figure 1: Shows the investment potential of new fabs and lines starting construction between 2017 and 2020.

Korea is projected to lead other regions in fab equipment investments with US$63 billion, US$1 billion more than second-place China. Taiwan is expected to claim the third spot at US$40 billon, followed by Japan at US$22 billion and the Americas at US$15 billion. Europe and Southeast Asia will share sixth place, with investments totaling US$8 billion each. Fully 60 percent of these fabs will serve the Memory sector (the lion’s share will be 3D NAND), and a third will go to Foundry.

Of the 78 fab construction projects starting construction between 2017 and 2020, 59 began construction in the first two years (2017 and 2018), while 19 are expected to begin in the last two years (2019 and 2020) of the tracking period.

Equipping a new fab typically takes one to one and a half years, though some fabs take two years and others longer, depending on various factors as such the company, fab size, product type and region. Approximately half of the projected US$220 billion will be spent from 2017 and 2020, with less than 10 percent invested in 2017 and 2018, nearly 40 percent in 2019 and 2020, and the rest after 2020.

While the US$220 billion estimate is based on current insights of known and announced fab plans, total spending could exceed this level as many companies continue to announce plans for new fabs. Since the last quarterly publication of the report published last quarter, 18 new records – all new fabs – have been added to the forecast. Up-to-date and detailed analysis, with a bottoms-up approach, is available by subscribing to SEMI’s World Fab Forecast Report.

Since its June 1 publication, more than 340 updates have been made to the World Fab Forecast. The report now includes more than 1,200 records of current and future front-end semiconductor facilities from high-volume production to research and development. The report covers data and predictions through 2019, including milestones, detailed investments by quarter, product types, technology nodes and capacities down to fab and project level.

Learn more about the SEMI fab databases at www.semi.org/en/MarketInfo/FabDatabase and www.youtube.com/user/SEMImktstats.

Adesto® Technologies (NASDAQ: IOTS), a provider of innovative application-specific semiconductors and systems for the IoT era, announced the successful completion of its previously announced acquisition of Echelon Corporation (NASDAQ: ELON). Echelon® is a developer of open-standard networking platforms for connecting, monitoring and controlling devices in commercial and industrial applications.

The definitive agreement was initially announced on June 29, 2018, and Echelon shareholders approved the transaction at a Special Meeting of Shareholders held on September 13, 2018. The transaction closed and became effective today, with each share of Echelon being converted into the right to receive $8.50 in cash, without interest. The cash transaction represents a total equity value of approximately $45 million, and a total enterprise value of about $30 million. Echelon’s trailing 12-month revenue as of the second quarter ended June 30, 2018 was approximately $31.6 million. As a result of the transaction’s close, the common stock of Echelon will no longer be listed for trading on the NASDAQ stock exchange, effective immediately.

Adesto expects to realize cost synergies of approximately $6 million to $8 million in the first 12 months, with more than half to be realized in the fourth quarter of 2018. The Company also expects the acquisition to be accretive to EBITDA and non-GAAP EPS within the first 12 months.

“This acquisition marks a pivotal step for Adesto as we continue to expand our innovative solutions to help customers unlock the true potential of the IoT,” said Narbeh Derhacobian, CEO of Adesto. “We now provide not only semiconductors, but also open-standard networking platforms and tools for connecting, monitoring and controlling devices in commercial and industrial IoT deployments. We have significantly expanded our served available market, while also increasing our revenue and potential for margin expansion. Together with our differentiated non-volatile memory products and our mixed-signal and RF ASICs and IP, we’re able to deliver the essential building blocks that allow seamless access to data, and control of things, in an increasingly connected world.”

The Echelon group will now become Adesto’s Embedded Systems Division, led by Chris Jodoin, former SVP of operations and planning at Echelon.

According to Jodoin, “As part of Adesto, we will continue to support, promote and expand on Echelon’s 30-year heritage, which has become synonymous with intelligent Industrial IoT products and solutions. Our increased scale will enable us to embark on new product initiatives and provide enhanced customer support and access. We look forward to building on our base of an estimated 140 million installed LON-powered devices, and to enabling our customers to achieve success across their applications in smart buildings, smart manufacturing and other industrial segments.”

Over the last several years, Echelon has made significant progress with its Lighting Solutions business. Adesto is currently exploring several strategic alternatives for this product line in order to better align the core Echelon business with Adesto’s long-term focus.

Adesto will provide updates on the Echelon integration as part of its upcoming earnings conference call to be held in early November. Details regarding the date and time of the conference call will be provided at a later date.

Axcelis Technologies, Inc. (NASDAQ: ACLS), a supplier of enabling ion implantation solutions for the semiconductor industry, announced that it has appointed John Kulungian as vice president of quality. In this role, Mr. Kulungian will be responsible for developing and executing programs to enhance customer satisfaction, as well as increase operational efficiencies.

“I am very pleased that John has joined the Axcelis team and look forward to his leadership as we take our quality systems to a new level,” said Mary Puma, president and CEO of Axcelis Technologies. “Customer satisfaction underpins everything we do at Axcelis Technologies, and John’s insight and expertise in driving quality improvements will be a great asset to the Company as we design and deliver new, market-leading solutions for our customers.”

Mr. Kulungian joins Axcelis Technologies with 20 years of senior leadership experience in the manufacturing sector, and a proven track record within the aerospace, defense, energy, and capital equipment industries. Most recently, Mr. Kulungian held the position of vice president of quality and continuous improvement at Sonnax Industries, LLC.  Previously he was vice president global quality at Ogin Energy Inc., and earlier served as the director of quality at Raytheon.

Mr. Kulungian holds a Bachelor of Science degree in Industrial Technology-Manufacturing from Central Connecticut State University and a Master of Science in General Management from Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute. Additionally he has earned professional certifications in Lean Manufacturing, Six Sigma and is a Certified Manager of Quality.

Mentor, a Siemens business, today announced LightSuite™ Photonic Compiler – the industry’s first integrated photonic automated layout system. This new tool enables companies designing integrated photonic layouts to describe designs in the Python language, from which the tool then automatically generates designs ready for fabrication. The resulting design is “Correct by Calibre” – with the implementation precisely guided by Mentor’s Calibre® RealTime Custom verification tool. LightSuite Photonic Compiler enables designers to generate as well as update large photonic layouts in minutes versus weeks.

With this breakthrough technology, companies can dramatically speed the development of integrated photonic designs that will bring speed-of-light communications directly into high-speed networking and high-performance computing (HPC) systems. It also speeds the development of more cost-effective LiDAR technology, which is seen as essential to enabling the mass deployment of autonomous vehicles.

“Mentor’s LightSuite Photonic Compiler represents a quantum leap in automating what has up to now been a highly manual, full-custom process that required deep knowledge of photonics as well as electronics,” said Joe Sawicki, vice president and general manager of the Design-to-Silicon Division at Mentor, a Siemens business. “With the new LightSuite Photonic Compiler, Mentor is enabling more companies to push the envelope in creating integrated photonic designs.”

“LightSuite Photonic Compiler fixes the biggest roadblocks preventing industry-wide adoption of electro-optical design and simulation of photonic chips,” said M. Ashkan Seyedi, Ph.D., senior research scientist, Hewlett Packard Enterprise. “Photonic chips promise amazing performance, but designing circuits today is just too difficult and requires specialized knowledge. LightSuite Photonic Compiler circumvents those challenges and enables scalability. I’m thrilled to have worked with Mentor to develop this tool to make it possible for anyone to design and build photonic circuits as easily as designing electronic circuits.”

Until now, photonic designers have been forced to use analog, full-custom IC tools to create photonic designs. In this flow, designers manually place components from a process design kit (PDK) and then interconnect those components manually. Photonic components must be interconnected with curved waveguides. After they have manually placed and interconnected the components, they typically perform a full Calibre physical verification run to check for design rule violations, as Calibre DRC can find violations even in photonic designs.

Mentor designed the new LightSuite Photonic Compiler specifically for photonic layout so that engineers have complete control of their layouts and can use the tool to automatically perform the placement and interconnecting of both photonic and electrical components. The designers create a Python script that is used to drive the LightSuite Photonic Compiler. Initial placement can also be defined in Python, or come from a pre-placed OpenAccess design. Next, the tool interconnects photonics components with curved wave guides. As some of the components might contain built-in electrical elements, the tool will route these electrical connections simultaneously along with the curved waveguides.

LightSuite Photonic Compiler uses Calibre RealTime Custom during the inner placement and routing loop, resulting in a layout that is design-rule correct. The tool enables designers to perform “what-if” design exploration for photonics designs, which was prohibitively time consuming with manual layout. With this new level of automation, designers can generate a new layout in minutes versus weeks for large designs.

Mentor will demonstrate LightSuite Photonic Compiler at ECOC in Rome, September 24 – 26 at Stand 436. LightSuite Photonic Compiler will be available on October 1.

By Walt Custer

Global economy

Manufacturing activity continues to expand – but at a slowing pace (Chart 1). The Global PMI was 52.5 in August, down from 52.8 in July and its recent high of 54.5 in December. PMI values >50 indicate an expansion.

World manufacturing growth has slowed but its growth rate varies significantly by region. Chart 2 compares the PMI values over time for the World, USA, Europe and China. Recently China and Europe have registered slower growth but U.S. growth is expanding (based on the Institute for Supply Management’s PMI). How long U.S. manufacturing will continue to accelerate remains to be seen. Geopolitical issues abound.

Semiconductor industry

In the semiconductor industry both semiconductors and SEMI capital equipment continued to register double-digit growth in July (Chart 3), but these growth rates are now moderating. In July, World semiconductor shipments were up 17.4 percent and SEMI capital equipment sales rose 13.9 percent on a 3-month growth basis.

However, SEMI equipment growth rates also vary widely by region. Per Chart 4, China growth is accelerating, Taiwan and South Korea are contracting, and Europe and the USA are still expanding but at slower rates.

Timely World and regional industry information is key to understanding present and future business conditions and this data requires careful watching in these fast-changing times.

Walt Custer of Custer Consulting Group is an analyst focused on the global electronics industry.

Originally published on the SEMI blog.

Japan is at the heart of the semiconductor industry as the era of artificial intelligence (AI) dawns. SEMICON Japan 2018 will highlight AI and SMART technologies in Japan’s industry-leading event. Registration is now open for SEMICON Japan, Japan’s largest global electronics supply chain event, December 12-14 at Tokyo Big Sight in Tokyo.

Themed “Dreams Start Here,” SEMICON Japan 2018 reflects the promise of AI, Internet of Things (IoT) and other SMART technologies that are shaping the future. Japan is positioned to help power a semiconductor industry expansion that is enabling this new path ahead, supplying one-third of the world’s semiconductor equipment and half of its chip IC materials.

According to VLSI Research, seven of the world’s top 15 semiconductor equipment manufacturers in 2017 are headquartered in Japan. In the semiconductor materials market, Japanese companies dominate silicon wafers, photoresists, sputtering targets, bonding wires, lead frames, mold compounds and more. For SEMICON Japan visitors, the event is the ideal platform for connecting with Japan’s leading suppliers.

The SMART Application Zone at SEMICON Japan will once again connect SMART industries with the semiconductor supply chain to foster collaboration across the electronics ecosystem.

SEMICON Japan Keynotes

SEMICON Japan opening keynotes will feature two young leaders of Japan’s information and communications technology (ICT) industry sharing their vision for the industry:

Motoi Ishibashi, CTO of Rhizomatiks, will discuss the latest virtual and mixed reality technologies. Rhizomatiks, a Japanese media art company that staged the Rio Olympic Games closing ceremony, will orchestrate the opening performance at SEMICON Japan 2018. The company is dedicated to creating large-scale commercial projects combining technology with the arts.

Toru Nishikawa, president and CEO at Preferred Networks, will explore computer requirements for enabling deep learning applications. Preferred Networks, a deep-learning research startup, is conducting collaborative research with technology giants including Toyota Motors, Fanuc, NVIDIA, Intel and Microsoft.

Registration

For more information and to register for SEMICON Japan, visit www.semiconjapan.org/en/. Registration for the opening keynotes and other programs will open October 1.

Air Products (NYSE : APD ) today announced it has been awarded by Samsung Electronics additional gaseous nitrogen and hydrogen supply to its semiconductor fab in Giheung, South Korea.

Air Products, who has been supplying industrial gases to Samsung Electronics’ Giheung site since 1998, will invest in building a new air separation unit, multiple hydrogen plants, and pipelines, which are scheduled to be operational in 2020 to supply the customer’s increased demand.

“We are proud to expand our longstanding relationship with Samsung Electronics and have their continued confidence in our ability to support their technological development and growth plans,” said Kyo-Yung Kim, president of Air Products Korea. “Our latest investment once again reinforces Air Products’ commitment to serving our strategic customer, as well as the broader semiconductor and electronics industries, with our safety, reliability, efficiency and excellent service.”

Air Products supplies many of Samsung’s operations worldwide, including its semiconductor cluster in the north region of South Korea spanning Giheung, Hwaseong and Pyeongtaek. In Pyeongtaek, the company has been undertaking a multi-phase expansion project to support Samsung Electronics’ multibillion dollar fab.

A leading integrated gases supplier, Air Products has been serving the global electronics industry for more than 40 years, supplying industrial gases safely and reliably to most of the world’s largest technology companies. Air Products is working with these industry leaders to develop the next generation of semiconductors and displays for tablets, computers and mobile devices.