Category Archives: Wafer Processing

Each year at SEMICON West, the “Best of West” awards are presented by Solid State Technology and SEMI. More than 26,000 professionals from the electronics manufacturing supply chain attend SEMICON West and the co-located Intersolar. The “Best of West” award was established to recognize new products moving the industry forward with technological developments in the electronics supply chain.

Selected from over 600 exhibitors, SEMI announced today that the following Best of West 2018 Finalists will be displaying their products on the show floor at Moscone Center from July 10-12:

  • Advantest: T5503HS2 Memory Tester— The T5503HS2 memory tester is the industry’s most productive test solution for the fastest memory devices available today as well as next-generation, super-high-speed DRAMs.  The new system’s flexibility extends the capabilities of the T5503 product family in the current “super cycle,” in which global demand for memories is skyrocketing. (South Hall Booth #1105)
  • BISTel: Dynamic Fault Detection (DFD®) – The DFD system offers full trace data coverage and eliminating the need for timely and costly modeling and set up. DFD® is also a bridge to smart factory manufacturing because it integrates seamlessly to legacy FDC systems meaning customers can access the most comprehensive, and accurate fault detection system on the market. (South Hall Booth 1811)
  • Rudolph Technologies: Dragonfly System with Truebump Technology– Rudolph’s Dragonfly System with Truebump Technology was designed to provide a complete solution for “total bump process control.” Using a unique approach, Truebump Technology combines 2D inspection and measurement information from image-based techniques with 3D data from separate high-precision and high-throughput laser-based techniques to deliver accurate and complete characterization at production-capable throughputs. (North Hall Booth #6170)

Congratulations to each of the Finalists. The Best of West Award winner will be announced during SEMICON West (www.semiconwest.org) on Wednesday, July 11, 2018.

About SEMI

SEMI® connects over 2,000 member companies and 1.3 million professionals worldwide to advance the technology and business of electronics manufacturing. SEMI members are responsible for the innovations in materials, design, equipment, software, devices, and services that enable smarter, faster, more powerful, and more affordable electronic products. FlexTech, the Fab Owners Alliance (FOA) and the MEMS & Sensors Industry Group (MSIG) are SEMI Strategic Association Partners, defined communities within SEMI focused on specific technologies. Since 1970, SEMI has built connections that have helped its members prosper, create new markets, and address common industry challenges together. SEMI maintains offices in Bangalore, Berlin, Brussels, Grenoble, Hsinchu, Seoul, Shanghai, Silicon Valley (Milpitas, Calif.), Singapore, Tokyo, and Washington, D.C.  For more information, visit www.semi.org and follow SEMI on LinkedIn and Twitter.

About Extension Media

Extension Media is a publisher of over 20 business-to-business magazines (including Solid State Technology), resource catalogs, newsletters and web sites that address high-technology industry platforms and emerging technologies such as chip design, embedded systems, software and infrastructure, intellectual property, architectures, operating systems and industry standards. Extension Media publications serve several markets including Electronics, Software/IT and Mobile/Wireless. Extension Media is a privately held company based in San Francisco, Calif. For more information, visit www.extensionmedia.com

IC Insights will release its 200+ page Mid-Year Update to the 2018 McClean Report next month.  The Mid-Year Update will revise IC Insights’ worldwide economic and IC industry forecasts through 2022 that were originally presented in the 2018 McClean Report issued in January of this year.

Figure 1 shows that IC Insights forecasts that China-headquartered companies will spend $11.0 billion in semiconductor industry capex in 2018, which would represent 10.6% of the expected worldwide outlays of $103.5 billion.  Not only would this amount be 5x what the Chinese companies spent only three years earlier in 2015, but it would also exceed the combined semiconductor industry capital spending of Japan- and Europe-headquartered companies this year.

Since adopting the fab-lite business model, the three major European producers have represented a very small share of total semiconductor industry capital expenditures and are forecast to account for only 4% of global spending in 2018 after representing 8% of worldwide capex in 2005.  Although there may be an occasional spike in capital spending from European companies (e.g., the surge in spending from ST and AMS in 2017), IC Insights believes that Europe-headquartered companies will represent only 3% of worldwide semiconductor capital expenditures in 2022.

It should be noted that several Japanese semiconductor companies have also transitioned to a fab-lite business model (e.g., Renesas, Sony, etc.).  With strong competition reducing the number and strength of Japanese semiconductor manufacturers, the loss of its vertically integrated businesses and thus missing out on supplying devices for several high-volume end-use applications, and its collective shift toward fab-lite business models, Japanese companies have greatly reduced their investment in new wafer fabs and equipment.  In fact, Japanese companies are forecast to represent only 6% of total semiconductor industry capital expenditures in 2018, a big decline from the 22% share they held in 2005 and an even more precipitous drop from the 51% share they held in 1990.

Figure 1

Although China-headquartered pure-play foundry SMIC has been part of the list of major semiconductor industry capital spenders for quite some time, there are four additional Chinese companies that are forecast to become significant semiconductor industry spenders this year and next—memory suppliers XMC/YMTC, Innotron, JHICC, and pure-play foundry Shanghai Huali.  Each of these companies is expected to spend a considerable amount of money equipping and ramping up their new fabs in 2018 and 2019.

Due to the increased spending by startup China-based memory manufacturers, IC Insights believes that the Asia-Pac/Others share of semiconductor industry capital spending will remain over 60% for at least the next couple of years.

TowerJazz, the global specialty foundry, today announced details on its 13th annual Technical Global Symposium (TGS) being held in China, Japan, and the United States. This year, TowerJazz TGS will focus on the Company’s leading analog technology offerings, advanced manufacturing solutions and commitment to customer partnerships. All TGS events will commence with a keynote from TowerJazz CEO, Mr. Russell Ellwanger focusing on the Company’s performance, business strategy and industry leadership through alignment with customer roadmaps, innovative and superior technology, and worldwide manufacturing capabilities.

During TGS, speakers will discuss market directions and the latest TowerJazz plans, developments and activities for strategic growth in its specialty process technologies such as Radio Frequency (RF) & High Performance Analog (HPA), power management, and CMOS image sensors (CIS), as well as its process transfer offering (TOPS) for the rising markets of automotive, sensors, the IoT, and 5G, among others. In addition, TowerJazz will present the latest design enablement tools and solutions jointly developed with its EDA partners as well as the Company’s expanded manufacturing capacity and multi-sourcing capabilities.

The global TGS events facilitate customer and partner interaction with TowerJazz team members and industry executives to exchange information on the latest unique and advanced solutions for next-generation analog ICs. TowerJazz focuses on strong roadmap alignment and long-term partnerships with its customers to meet their current and future needs with the most innovative process platforms, addressing the requirements of the fastest growing markets.

As the leading analog pure play foundry, TowerJazz continues to be committed and passionate toward creating value for its customers. The Company offers the most advanced analog technology and best-in-class design enablement while providing global capacity assurance and flexibility to enable customers with competitive advantage and fast time to market.

This year, TowerJazz TGS events will be hosted in the following locations:

Sponsors at TowerJazz TGS events include the industry’s leading EDA vendors and tool providers who will share the latest design capabilities offered in collaboration with TowerJazz: Cadence, HES, Integra Tech, Keysight Technologies, Magwel, Mentor, PacTech, Photronics, Presto, Silvaco, Synkom and Synopsis.

For more information about TowerJazz TGS and registration please visit:
http://www.towerjazz.com/events.html#tgs

Synopsys, Inc. (Nasdaq: SNPS) today announced that Samsung Electronics Co., Ltd. has certified the Synopsys Custom Design Platform for Samsung Foundry’s 7-nanometer (nm) Low Power Plus (LPP) process Samsung Foundry’s 7LPP is its first semiconductor process technology to use extreme ultraviolet (EUV) lithography, a process technology that greatly reduces complexity and offers significantly better yield and fast turnaround time when compared to its 10-nanometer (10nm) FinFET predecessors. Synopsys custom design tools have been updated to support Samsung Foundry’s 7LPP requirements. In addition, a Synopsys-ready process design kit (PDK) and custom design reference flow are available from Samsung Foundry.

The Synopsys Custom Design Platform has been certified for Samsung Foundry’s 7LPP process technology. The platform is centered around the Custom Compiler custom design and layout environment, and includes HSPICE, FineSim SPICE and CustomSim FastSPICE circuit simulation, StarRC parasitic extraction, and IC Validator physical verification. To support efficient 7LPP custom design, Synopsys and Samsung Foundry have collaborated to develop a reference flow that includes a set of tutorials illustrating key requirements of 7-nm design and layout. These tutorials include sample design data and step-by-step instructions for performing typical design and layout tasks. Topics covered include electrical rule checking, circuit simulation, mixed-signal simulation, Monte Carlo analysis, layout, parasitic analysis, and electromigration.

To achieve certification from Samsung Foundry, Synopsys tools have been optimized to support the demanding requirements of 7-nm design, including:

  • Accurate FinFET device modeling with device aging effect
  • Advanced Monte Carlo simulation features to enable efficient analysis
  • High-performance transient noise simulation for analog and RF designs
  • High-performance post-layout simulation to enable parasitic-aware design and simulation
  • Dynamic circuit ERC for device voltage checks
  • High-performance transistor-level EM/IR analysis to minimize over-design
  • Efficient symbolic editing of FinFET device arrays
  • EUV support
  • Coverage-based via resistance extraction

“Our custom design collaboration with Synopsys has expanded substantially over the past two years,” said Ryan Sanghyun Lee, vice president of Foundry Marketing Team at Samsung Electronics. “With this latest effort, we have added Synopsys Custom Design Platform support for our 7LPP process, including a custom design reference flow based on Synopsys tools.”

“We’ve been collaborating closely with Samsung Foundry to simplify custom design using FinFET process technology,” said Bijan Kiani, vice president of product marketing at Synopsys. “Together we have delivered certified tools, a reference flow, a PDK, simulation models, and runsets to enable Samsung customers to achieve robust custom designs on the 7LPP process.”

ON Semiconductor (Nasdaq: ON) plans to invest $51 million to support expansion of the Luzerne County facility. The ON Semiconductor Mountain Top location specializes in the manufacturing of semiconductor discrete devices used in power management applications across a wide variety of industries, including automotive, industrial, communication and computing.

Today, ON Semiconductor occupies 437,000 square feet of space on 84 acres in the Crestwood Industrial Park. The Mountain Top site is a high-tech location with a highly skilled workforce, benefits, clean work environment and open communication environment. The investment is planned to increase production and in turn create over 70 new jobs, including production staff, technicians, engineers and other support staff.

“We have an outstanding team of highly motivated employees combining our technical capabilities and expansive space capacity to meet exploding business growth in critical markets for ON Semiconductor,” said Heather Carreiro, general manager at ON Semiconductor’s Mountain Top facility. “The initial phase of expansion is currently underway. I’m very proud of our accomplishments and excited about the future of our operation here in Mountain Top.”

With its acquisition of Fairchild’s product portfolio of medium and high voltage products in late 2016, complementing ON Semiconductor’s specialization in low power, the company now has a complete suite of power conversion and power management technologies. This makes ON Semiconductor uniquely positioned to support customers across multiple sectors in working purposefully toward realizing the degree of energy efficiency desired by their customers and increasingly required by regulations.

ON Semiconductor is headquartered in Phoenix, Arizona, and offers a portfolio of over 80,000 energy efficient power management, analog, sensors, logic, timing, connectivity, discrete, SoC and custom devices utilized in, computing, consumer, industrial, medical and military/aerospace applications. The company operates a network of manufacturing facilities, sales offices and design centers which are located in key markets throughout North America, Europe, and in the Asia Pacific region.

The Semiconductor Industry Association (SIA), representing U.S. leadership in semiconductor manufacturing, design, and research, this week released the following statement regarding the Trump Administration’s announcement on tariffs on products imported from China.

“While the U.S. semiconductor industry shares the Trump Administration’s concerns about China’s forced technology transfer and intellectual property (IP) practices, the proposed imposition of tariffs on semiconductors from China, most of which are actually researched, designed, and manufactured in the U.S., is counterproductive and fails to address the serious IP and industrial policy issues in China. We look forward to working with the Administration to explain why imposing tariffs on our products would be harmful to our competitiveness and does not address our challenges with China.”

SIA seeks to strengthen U.S. leadership of semiconductor manufacturing, design, and research by working with Congress, the Administration and other key industry stakeholders to encourage policies and regulations that fuel innovation, propel business and drive international competition. Learn more at www.semiconductors.org.

North America-based manufacturers of semiconductor equipment posted $2.70 billion in billings worldwide in May 2018 (three-month average basis), according to the May Equipment Market Data Subscription (EMDS) Billings Report published today by SEMI. The billings figure is 0.6 percent higher than the final April 2018 level of $2.69 billion, and is 19.2 percent higher than the May 2017 billings level of $2.27 billion.

“May 2018 monthly global billings of North American equipment manufacturers exceeded last month’s level to set yet another record,” said Ajit Manocha, president and CEO of SEMI. “Demand for semiconductor equipment remains strong on the back of smart, data-centric applications such as artificial intelligence (AI), Internet of Things (IoT), big data, and edge computing.”

The SEMI Billings report uses three-month moving averages of worldwide billings for North American-based semiconductor equipment manufacturers. Billings figures are in millions of U.S. dollars.
Billings
(3-mo. avg)
Year-Over-Year
December 2017
$2,398.4
28.3%
January 2018
$2,370.1
27.5%
February 2018
$2,417.8
22.5%
March 2018
$2,431.8
16.9%
April 2018 (final)
$2,689.9
25.9%
May 2018 (prelim)
$2,705.8
19.2%

Source: SEMI (www.semi.org), June 2018

FormFactor, Inc. (NASDAQ:FORM), an electrical test and measurement supplier to the semiconductor industry, announced today the company has deployed an integrated CM300xi probing solution for wafer-level testing of silicon photonics (SiPh) devices. Teams from GLOBALFOUNDRIES, FormFactor and Keysight worked together to ensure the system is flexible to meet engineering needs and to deliver high throughput in volume production.

Silicon photonics can enable the transfer of enormous amounts of data at high speeds using optical signals instead of electrical signals. The silicon photonics market is gaining momentum for data center, automotive, and other applications because it allows optical devices to be made cost effectively –reducing power and size — using silicon semiconductor fabrication techniques. The global silicon photonics market is expected to grow at a CAGR of 22.3% between 2017 and 2025, according to Inkwood Research.

The Cascade CM300xi from FormFactor, combined with Keysight Technologies’ Photonics Application Suite measurement software, provides industry-first capabilities of automated alignment and simultaneous optical-optical and optical-electrical device tests.  Key features of the system include:

  • Six-axis automated optical fiber positioning for precision alignment
  • Two-stage solution for both coarse and fine alignment
  • Optical alignment algorithms integrated with high-speed hardware control to shorten test times
  • FormFactor’s SiPh software to simplify integration with Keysight’s Photonics Applications Suite and optical instrumentation
  • Customized scripting and test programs to optimize the system for fast, accurate measurements
  • Keysight’s high speed, single sweep polarization-dependent-loss (PDL) test that enables high accuracy and repeatability testing without prior polarization alignment.

“GF’s silicon photonics leverages standard silicon manufacturing techniques to improve production efficiency and reduce cost for customers deploying optical interconnect systems,” said Jeffrey Lam, Vice President of product, test and failure analysis, at GF. “We’re excited to be at the forefront in deploying new test capabilities, including wafer level solutions to ramp this important technology.”

“With our long history of working with FormFactor to deliver wafer measurement solutions and decades of experience in photonic testing we are pleased to further equip the silicon photonics industry,” said Joachim Peerlings, Vice President and General Manager Networks & Data Centers, Keysight Technologies. “With Keysight’s Photonics Application Suite and instrumentation, we’ve built a proven, integrated measurement system that enables customers to quickly develop test routines that provide deep insight into photonics devices during R&D and design validation and has the flexibility and scalability for cost effective high-volume production.”

“Emerging technologies like silicon photonics offer FormFactor the opportunity to develop fully integrated probe systems. GF is a forward-thinking company in their adoption of these new test technologies,” said Mike Slessor, President and CEO of FormFactor. “Our collaboration with both Keysight and GF Singapore delivers a solution that truly addresses the unique test and measurement challenges of silicon photonics devices.”

Qualcomm Incorporated (NASDAQ: QCOM) today announced that Qualcomm River Holdings B.V., an indirect wholly owned subsidiary of Qualcomm, has extended the offering period of its previously announced cash tender offer to purchase all of the outstanding common shares of NXP Semiconductors N.V. (NASDAQ: NXPI). The tender offer is being made pursuant to the Purchase Agreement, dated as of October 27, 2016, by and between Qualcomm River Holdings B.V. and NXP, as amended (the “Purchase Agreement”). The tender offer is now scheduled to expire at 5:00 p.m., New York City time, on June 22, 2018, unless extended or earlier terminated, in either case pursuant to the terms of the Purchase Agreement.

American Stock Transfer & Trust Company, LLC, the depositary for the tender offer, has advised Qualcomm River Holdings B.V. that as of 5:00 p.m., New York City time, on June 14, 2018, the last business day prior to the announcement of the extension of the offer, 16,319,317 NXP common shares (excluding 21,739 shares tendered pursuant to guaranteed delivery procedures that have not yet been delivered in settlement or satisfaction of such guarantee), representing approximately 4.7% of the outstanding NXP common shares, have been validly tendered pursuant to the tender offer and not properly withdrawn. Shareholders who have already tendered their common shares of NXP do not have to re-tender their shares or take any other action as a result of the extension of the expiration date of the tender offer.

Completion of the tender offer remains subject to additional conditions described in the tender offer statement on Schedule TO filed by Qualcomm River Holdings B.V. with the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission on November 18, 2016, as amended (the “Schedule TO”). The tender offer will continue to be extended until all conditions are satisfied or waived, or until the tender offer is terminated, in either case pursuant to the terms of the Purchase Agreement by and between Qualcomm River Holdings B.V. and NXP and as described in the Schedule TO.

FormFactor, Inc. (NASDAQ:FORM), a electrical test and measurement supplier to the semiconductor industry, has extended its Contact Intelligence technology. With Contact Intelligence, FormFactor’s advanced probe systems automatically and autonomously adapt in real time to changes in the testing environment, enabling customers to collect large amounts of RF data faster. As the race to bring 5G devices to market heats up, this addresses the need for higher productivity, to reduce time to market.

FormFactor’s Contact Intelligence technology combines smart hardware design and innovative software algorithms to provide accurate probe-to-pad alignment and electronic recalibrations in engineering labs and many production applications. With the introduction of its new RF solution, FormFactor now has specialized Contact Intelligence applications for RF, DC and Silicon Photonics (SiPh) testing.

FormFactor is best known for it’s probe card business, but with its acquisition of Cascade Microtech in 2016, it became more involved in the design and characterization side of chip-making, including RF and silicon photonic devices (probe cards are primarily used at the end of wafer manufacturing, testing the devices before they are packaged).

Mike Slessor, CEO of FormFactor, said with upcoming infrastructure changes — such as 5G, more mobile communications and IoT — RF is an important place to be. “The Cascade Microtech acquisition gave us an engineering systems business. These are pieces of customized capital equipment that help people very early on in their development and R&D — even early pathfinding — to figure out how their next device is going to perform, to characterize it and to improve its yield,” he said. That systems business grew saw a double digit growth rate last year.

Slessor said the new Contact Intelligence technology is designed to help customers in the systems business get a lot of data faster. He said the push to improve yield, along with new materials and new devices, is driving a tremendous amount of data collection. “What Contact Intelligence really is positioned to do is to help people easily and efficiently collect that data. You can think of it as bringing almost production automation to the engineering lab. We’re helping people do it autonomously over wide ranges of temperatures,” he said. He said it enables engineering tools to be upgraded. Customers can “set it up, push a button and walk away for 48 hours, 96 hours even more and come back and have a hundreds of thousands of individual characterization data points.”

New high frequency ICs, such as 5G (with multiple high frequency bands from sub-6 to more than 70 GHz) and automotive communication devices, need the highest quality process design kits (PDK’s) to ensure working devices at first iteration.

Traditional systems and methods require engineers to invest significant time for recalibration when the system invariably drifts, or to reposition probes with intentional changes in test temperatures. At higher frequencies, calibrations and measurements are more sensitive to probe placement errors and there is more calibration drift, so recalibration is required more often.Over time and temperature, Contact Intelligence automatically makes these adjustments with no operator intervention, resulting in more devices tested in less time, for more accurate PDK’s and faster time to market.

Slessor says the push to 5G brings many design and test challenges due to the significant increase in carrier frequencies – 10 times higher than 4G. “Although there are different bands and the carriers and the countries are still ironing out where they’re going to operate, there are bands as high as 72 gigahertz,” Slessor said. “Electrical signal propagation gets much, much more challenging as you go up in frequency. All kinds of new engineering and physics challenges emerge because you’ve got things that are radiating a good deal of power and there’s a whole bunch of cross talk on the chip. There are all kinds of interesting phenomena that appear that make the designers and the test engineer’s job much more difficult just because of these higher frequencies.”

In an RF front end, instead of modems or radios communicating, a wide variety of a BAW and SAW  filters are used to do the frequency band management and make sure that only the individual bands that are supposed to be used or being effectively used.

In addition to RF, Contact Intelligence is also designed for use in autonomous DC testing and for silicon phototonics.

In DC applications, Contact Intelligence automatically senses preset temperatures, and responds by waiting the correct amount of time until the system is stabilized. This allows lengthy test routines to be conducted over multiple temperatures without an operator present. Contact Intelligence also provides dynamic probe-to-pad alignment, even on pads as small as 25 µm, employing a combination of smart software, probe tip recognition algorithms and advanced programmable positioners.

FormFactor’s integrated SiPh solution allows sub-micron manipulation of optical fibers positioned above the wafer, automatically optimizing fiber coupling position.  Contact Intelligence uses machine vision technology to automate Theta X, Y and Z axis calibrations and alignments enabling measurements out of the box, reducing what used to take days or weeks to a matter of minutes.When combined with autonomous DC and RF, measurement options expand from Optical-Optical to include Photo-Diodes, Optical Modulators and more.

For more information, visit http://www.formfactor.com/contactintelligence.