Category Archives: Wafer Processing

WIN Semiconductors Corp (TPEx:3105), the world’’s largest pure-play compound semiconductor foundry, has completed phase 2 expansion at its newest wafer fab, Fab C. This operation is now fitted with clean rooms, efficient process lines and advanced equipment for GaAs MMIC production, epitaxial growth of compound semiconductors, as well as fabrication and test of optical devices. Continued build-out of the new manufacturing facility further validates the pure-play foundry model in the compound semiconductor industry.

Serving customers in mobile PA, WiFi, wireless infrastructure and optical markets, WIN Semiconductors provides a broad portfolio of Hetero-junction Bipolar Transistor (HBT), Pseudomorphic High Electron Mobility Transistor (pHEMT), integrated BiHEMT technology solutions and optical devices. WIN Semiconductors’ manufacturing services can support most any application from 50MHz to 150GHz and through light-wave.

“In response to increasing demand across all market segments, we continue to add manufacturing capacity at our third wafer fab located in Guishan, Toayuan City, Taiwan. Known as Fab C, the facility now supports mass production of a wide range of compound semiconductor technologies. When fully built out, the 706,000ft2 facility will more than double our capacity,” said Kyle Chen, Senior Vice President and Chief Operating Officer of WIN Semiconductors.

Win Semi Fb C PR image

Semiconductor Manufacturing International Corporation (“SMIC”; NYSE:  SMI; SEHK: 0981.HK), China’s largest and most advanced semiconductor foundry, today announces the appointment of Dr. Haijun Zhao as CEO replacing Dr. Tzu-Yin Chiu, who will continue to serve as Vice Chairman and Non-Executive Director of the Board and guide the Company’s future strategic direction. In addition, Dr. Chiu will serve as a full-time advisor until June 30, 2017, working closely with Dr. Zhao to ensure a seamless transition of leadership responsibilities.

Dr. Zhao joined SMIC in October 2010 and has moved quickly through the company’s ranks. In April, 2013, he became Executive Vice President, Chief Operating Officer. In July, 2013, he also assumed the role of General Manager of SMNC, SMIC’s joint venture in Beijing. Dr. Zhao received his B.S. and Ph.D. in Electronics Engineering from Tsinghua University, Beijing, and an MBA from the University of Chicago. He has more than 25 years of experience in semiconductor operations and technology development.

Dr. Zhou Zixue, Chairman of the Board said, “We are pleased to have Dr. Zhao, as nominated by Dr. Chiu, as the Company’s new CEO, to lead the Company forward. Also, I want to express my sincere appreciation to Dr. Chiu for his invaluable contributions to the Company. Dr. Chiu, in the past six years, has done an incredible job of turning around the Company, regaining the confidence of our stakeholders, and repositioning the Company as a leading player in the global foundry industry.  Due to personal family reasons, he has decided to step down at this time. SMIC will remain a global, professional and independent company. With the solid management team which Dr. Chiu has already put in place at SMIC, I am fully confident of the Company’s future prospects.”

“It has been an honor to lead the team to transform SMIC over these past years,” said Dr. Tzu-Yin Chiu. “The Board and I are confident that now is the right time to transition leadership responsibility, and Haijun is the right leader for SMIC’s next chapter of growth. Since joining SMIC seven years ago, Haijun has been an invaluable leader and was a part of the executive team which brought about the transformation in these past few years. SMIC benefits from an outstanding management team with a diverse range of experienced leaders and thousands of dedicated employees. I would like to thank the Board and my SMIC colleagues for their support. I will continue to serve the Company as Vice-Chairman and Non-Executive Director on the Board and contribute to its continued growth and success.”

Dr. Haijun Zhao, SMIC CEO said, “I am greatly honored to have the opportunity to lead the SMIC team at this exciting moment in our history. I would like to thank Dr. Chiu for his guidance and mentorship, as well as the Board for their trust. I look forward to working with the Board and the management team as we continue to enhance our competitive position in the foundry markets.  As a global and independent foundry player, we are committed to deliver results benefitting our shareholders, customers and employees.”

IC Insights will release its May Update to the 2017 McClean Report later this month.  This Update includes a discussion of the 1Q17 semiconductor industry market results, an update of the capital spending forecast by company, a review of the IC market by electronic system type, and a look at the top-25 1Q17 semiconductor suppliers (the top-10 1Q17 semiconductor suppliers are covered in this research bulletin).

The top-10 worldwide semiconductor (IC and O S D—optoelectronic, sensor, and discrete) sales ranking for 1Q17 is shown in Figure 1.  It includes four suppliers headquartered in the U.S., two in Europe, two in South Korea, and one each in Singapore and Japan.  In total, the top-10 semiconductor suppliers represented 56% of the 1Q17 worldwide semiconductor market of $99.6 billion (2Q17 is forecast to be the first ever quarterly semiconductor market to exceed $100 billion).

Figure 1

Figure 1

Intel held a slim 4% lead over Samsung for the number one position in 1Q17.  However, as reported in an earlier IC Insights’ Research Bulletin, Samsung is on pace to displace Intel as the world’s largest semiconductor supplier in 2Q17. Memory giants SK Hynix and Micron made the biggest moves in the 1Q17 ranking as compared to the full-year 2016 ranking.  Spurred by the recent surge in the DRAM and NAND flash markets, each company moved up two spots in the top-10 ranking with SK Hynix now occupying the third position and Micron moving up to fourth.

There was one new entrant into the top-10 ranking in 1Q17—Germany-headquartered Infineon.  The company’s 1Q17/1Q16 sales increase was 6%.  Infineon replaced fabless supplier MediaTek, whose 1Q17/1Q16 sales were up by 7% to $1.8 billion but the company suffered a sequential 1Q17/4Q16 sales decline of 17%.  Half of the top-10 companies had sales of at least $4.0 billion in 1Q17.  As shown, it took $1.9 billion in quarterly sales just to make it into the 1Q17 top-10 semiconductor supplier list.

As would be expected, given the possible acquisitions and mergers that could/will occur this year (e.g., Qualcomm/NXP), as well as any new ones that may develop, the top-10 semiconductor ranking is likely to undergo some significant changes over the next few years as the semiconductor industry continues along its path to maturity.

No more error-prone evaporation deposition, drop casting or printing: Scientists at Ludwig-Maximilians-Universitaet (LMU) in Munich and FSU Jena have developed organic semiconductor nanosheets, which can easily be removed from a growth substrate and placed on other substrates.

Today’s computer processors are composed of billions of transistors. These electronic components normally consist of semiconductor material, insulator, substrate, and electrode. A dream of many scientists is to have each of these elements available as transferable sheets, which would allow them to design new electronic devices simply by stacking.

This has now become a reality for the organic semiconductor material pentacene: Dr. Bert Nickel, a physicist at LMU Munich, and Professor Andrey Turchanin (Friedrich Schiller University Jena), together with their teams, have, for the first time, managed to create mechanically stable pentacene nanosheets.

The researchers describe their method in the journal Advanced Materials. They first cover a small silicon wafer with a thin layer of a water-soluble organic film and deposit pentacene molecules upon it until a layer roughly 50 nanometers thick has formed. The next step is crucial: by irradiation with low-energy electrons, the topmost three to four levels of pentacene molecular layers are crosslinked, forming a “skin” that is only about five nanometers thick. This crosslinked layer stabilizes the entire pentacene film so well that it can be removed as a sheet from a silicon wafer in water and transferred to another surface using ordinary tweezers.

Apart from the ability to transfer them, the new semiconductor nanosheets have other advantages. The new method does not require any potentially interfering solvents, for example. In addition, after deposition, the nanosheet sticks firmly to the electrical contacts by van der Waals forces, resulting in a low contact resistance of the final electronic devices. Last but not least, organic semiconductor nanosheets can now be deposited onto significantly more technologically relevant substrates than hitherto.

Of particular interest is the extremely high mechanical stability of the newly developed pentacene nanosheets, which enables them to be applied as free-standing nanomembranes to perforated substrates with dimensions of tens of micrometers. That is equivalent to spanning a 25-meter pool with plastic wrap. “These virtually freely suspended semiconductors have great potential,” explains Nickel. “They can be accessed from two sides and could be connected through an electrolyte, which would make them ideal as biosensors, for example”. “Another promising application is their implementation in flexible electronics for manufacturing of devices for vital data acquisition or production of displays and solar cells,” Turchanin says.

The Semiconductor Industry Association (SIA), representing U.S. leadership in semiconductor manufacturing, design, and research, today announced worldwide sales of semiconductors reached $30.9 billion for the month of March 2017, an increase of 18.1 percent compared to the March 2016 total of $26.2 billion and 1.6 percent more than the February 2017 total of $30.4 billion. Sales from the first quarter of 2017 were $92.6 billion, up 18.1 percent compared to the first quarter of 2016 but down 0.4 percent compared to the last quarter of 2016. All monthly sales numbers are compiled by the World Semiconductor Trade Statistics (WSTS) organization and represent a three-month moving average.

“Global semiconductor sales saw solid sales growth in March, increasing sharply compared to last year and more modestly compared to last month,” said John Neuffer, president and CEO, Semiconductor Industry Association. “Global sales are up 18 percent compared to last year, the largest increase since October 2010, with all major regional markets posting double-digit year-to-year growth. All major semiconductor product categories also experienced year-to-year growth, with memory products continuing to lead the way.”

Year-to-year sales increased across all regions: China (26.7 percent), the Americas (21.9 percent), Asia Pacific/All Other (11.9 percent), Europe (11.1 percent), and Japan (10.7 percent). Month-to-month sales increased in Europe (5.0 percent), Japan (3.6 percent), Asia Pacific/All Other (2.9 percent), and China (0.2 percent), but decreased slightly in the Americas (-0.5 percent).

March 2017

Billions

Month-to-Month Sales                               

Market

Last Month

Current Month

% Change

Americas

5.99

5.96

-0.5%

Europe

2.82

2.96

5.0%

Japan

2.77

2.87

3.6%

China

10.05

10.07

0.2%

Asia Pacific/All Other

8.77

9.02

2.9%

Total

30.39

30.88

1.6%

Year-to-Year Sales                          

Market

Last Year

Current Month

% Change

Americas

4.89

5.96

21.9%

Europe

2.67

2.96

11.1%

Japan

2.59

2.87

10.7%

China

7.95

10.07

26.7%

Asia Pacific/All Other

8.05

9.02

11.9%

Total

26.15

30.88

18.1%

Three-Month-Moving Average Sales

Market

Oct/Nov/Dec

Jan/Feb/Mar

% Change

Americas

6.33

5.96

-5.8%

Europe

2.80

2.96

5.6%

Japan

2.84

2.87

0.9%

China

10.17

10.07

-0.9%

Asia Pacific/All Other

8.86

9.02

1.7%

Total

31.01

30.88

-0.4%

After nearly a quarter of a century, the semiconductor industry could see a new #1 supplier in 2Q17. If memory market prices continue to hold or increase through 2Q17 and the balance of this year, Samsung could charge into the top spot and displace Intel, which has held the #1 ranking since 1993. Using the mid range sales guidance set by Intel for 2Q17, and a modest, yet typical, 2Q sales increase of 7.5% for Samsung, the South Korean supplier would unseat Intel as the world’s leading semiconductor supplier in 2Q17 (Figure 1).  If achieved, this would mark a milestone achievement not only for Samsung, specifically, but for all other competing semiconductor producers who have tried for years to supplant Intel as the world’s largest supplier.  In 1Q16, Intel’s sales were 40% greater than Samsung’s, but in just over a year’s time, that lead may be erased and Intel may find itself trailing in quarterly sales.

samsung 1

Samsung’s big increase in sales has been driven by an amazing rise in DRAM and NAND flash average selling prices (Figure 2).  IC Insights expects that the tremendous gains in DRAM and NAND flash pricing experienced through 2016 and into the first quarter of 2017 will begin to cool in the second half of the year, but there remains solid upside potential to IC Insights’ current forecast of 39% growth for the 2017 DRAM market and 25% growth in the NAND flash market.

samsung 2

As shown in Figure 3, Intel has been locked in as the world’s top semiconductor manufacturer since 1993 when it introduced its x486 processor and soon thereafter, its revolutionary Pentium processor, which sent sales of personal computers soaring to new heights.

samsung 3

Over the past 24 years, some companies have narrowed the sales gap between themselves and Intel, but never have they surpassed the MPU giant.  If memory prices don’t tank in the second half of this year, it’s quite possible that Samsung could displace Intel in full-year semiconductor sales results as well.  Presently, both companies are headed for about $60.0 billion in 2017 semiconductor sales.

In the world of semiconductor physics, the goal is to devise more efficient and microscopic ways to control and keep track of 0 and 1, the binary codes that all information storage and logic functions in computers are based on.

A new field of physics seeking such advancements is called valleytronics, which exploits the electron’s “valley degree of freedom” for data storage and logic applications. Simply put, valleys are maxima and minima of electron energies in a crystalline solid. A method to control electrons in different valleys could yield new, super-efficient computer chips.

A University at Buffalo team, led by Hao Zeng, PhD, professor in the Department of Physics, worked with scientists around the world to discover a new way to split the energy levels between the valleys in a two-dimensional semiconductor.

The work is described in a study published online today (May 1, 2017) in the journal Nature Nanotechnology.

The key to Zeng’s discovery is the use of a ferromagnetic compound to pull the valleys apart and keep them at different energy levels. This leads to an increase in the separation of valley energies by a factor of 10 more than the one obtained by applying an external magnetic field.

“Normally there are two valleys in these atomically thin semiconductors with exactly the same energy. These are called ‘degenerate energy levels’ in quantum mechanics terms. This limits our ability to control individual valleys. An external magnetic field can be used to break this degeneracy. However, the splitting is so small that you would have to go to the National High Magnetic Field Laboratories to measure a sizable energy difference. Our new approach makes the valleys more accessible and easier to control, and this could allow valleys to be useful for future information storage and processing,” Zeng said.

The simplest way to understand how valleys could be used in processing data may be to think of two valleys side by side. When one valley is occupied by electrons, the switch is “on.” When the other valley is occupied, the switch is “off.” Zeng’s work shows that the valleys can be positioned in such a way that a device can be turned “on” and “off,” with a tiny amount of electricity.

Microscopic ingredients

Zeng and his colleagues created a two-layered heterostructure, with a 10 nanometer thick film of magnetic EuS (europium sulfide) on the bottom and a single layer (less than 1 nanometer) of the transition metal dichalcogenide WSe2 (tungsten diselenide) on top. The magnetic field of the bottom layer forced the energy separation of the valleys in the WSe2.

Previous attempts to separate the valleys involved the application of very large magnetic fields from outside. Zeng’s experiment is believed to be the first time a ferromagnetic material has been used in conjunction with an atomically thin semiconductor material to split its valley energy levels.

“As long as we have the magnetic material there, the valleys will stay apart,” he said. “This makes it valuable for nonvolatile memory applications.”

Athos Petrou, a UB Distinguished Professor in the Department of Physics, measured the energy difference between the separated valleys by bouncing light off the material and measuring the energy of reflected light.

“We typically get this type of results only once every five or 10 years,” Petrou said.

Extending Moore’s law

The experiment was conducted at 7 degrees Kelvin (-447 Fahrenheit), so any everyday use of the process is far in the future. However, proving it possible is a first step.

“The reason people are really excited about this, is that Moore’s law [which says the number of transistors in an integrated circuit doubles every two years] is predicted to end soon. It no longer works because it has hit its fundamental limit,” Zeng said.

“Current computer chips rely on the movement of electrical charges, and that generates an enormous amount of heat as computers get more powerful. Our work has really pushed valleytronics a step closer in getting over that challenge.”

Entegris, Inc. (NASDAQ: ENTG), a provider of specialty chemicals and advanced materials solutions for the microelectronics industry, announced today that it acquired W. L. Gore & Associates’ water and chemical filtration product line for microelectronics applications in an asset purchase for approximately $20 million. Entegris expects the transaction to be accretive to earnings beginning in 2017.

Todd Edlund, Chief Operating Officer of Entegris, said: “We are excited to add these market-leading filtration solutions to our existing offerings for the microfiltration of high-purity water and bulk chemicals used in semiconductor, OLED and flat panel display manufacturing applications. The acquisition of these products complements our portfolio of advanced liquid filtration solutions. It also reflects our strategy to grow our served markets through the deployment of capital for strategic accretive acquisitions that augment our internal development initiatives.”

SPTS Technologies, an Orbotech company and a supplier of advanced wafer processing solutions for the global semiconductor and related industries, announced today that it has been awarded the coveted Queen’s Award for Enterprise in International Trade 2017. The award recognizes SPTS’s substantial year-on-year growth in overseas earnings and commercial successes in its global business. In addition to judging outstanding achievement in international trade, the judging panel also assessed SPTS’s on its corporate responsibility, which included employee affairs, customers and suppliers relationships, and its impact on the environment and society.

“We are extremely proud to be recognized with the Queen’s Award for Enterprise in International Trade for the second time,” stated Kevin Crofton, President of SPTS Technologies and Corporate Vice President at Orbotech. “We have a global organization of dedicated employees that makes our international business possible. This award belongs to the entire organization – from those involved in the development and manufacture of our industry leading wafer processing solutions to our team outside the UK who sell, install and support our products and customers. Our customers are many of the leading device manufacturers in the microelectronics industry, who rely on us day in and day out to perform and help them be successful. Our growth is a testament to the quality and competitiveness of UK developed technologies and products in the global markets.”

Economy Secretary, Ken Skates said: “Huge congratulations to SPTS Technologies on their second Queen’s Award for Enterprise. They are a prominent global business that makes an important contribution to our economy which is why we have awarded them Anchor status.”

“I am so pleased SPTS’s growth in overseas earnings and its continuing commercial success have been recognized once again by this prestigious award. A focus on exporting is more important now than ever before as we transition out of the EU, and success stories such as this show that companies in Wales can more than step up to the challenge.”

The Queen’s Awards for Enterprise are the UK’s most prestigious business awards, given only to companies or individuals who are outstanding in their field. Previously known as the Queen’s Awards to Industry, the first Awards were given in 1966.

Headquartered in Newport, Wales, SPTS Technologies exports more than 95% of its products manufactured in the UK and has surpassed its £1 Billion in export sales milestone. SPTS has manufacturing facilities in Newport (UK), Allentown (USA, Pennsylvania), San Jose (USA, California), and operates across 19 countries in Europe, North America and Asia-Pacific.

Conax Technologies announced the acquisition of Quartz Engineering, a manufacturer of quartz sheaths for temperature sensors headquartered in Tempe, AZ. S. K. Choi, former President of Quartz engineering, will stay on and help with the integration of Quartz Engineering and Conax. Choi has 40 years of experience in the semiconductor segment of the quartz industry and 20 years of experience in the fabrication of the specific type of sheaths primarily used by Conax.

This acquisition represents a commitment to improving the company’s responsiveness and the quality of products the company can provide to customers in the semiconductor industry.

Conax Business Unit Manager Michael Ferraro stated, “We’re expanding our focus in the growing Semiconductor industry. Many of the temperature sensors used inside process chambers need a semiconductor-grade quartz sheath to protect them from the chemicals and temperatures present. With the acquisition of Quartz Engineering, we now have in-house capabilities to design and manufacture quartz sheaths for temperature sensors.”

Ferraro explained, “By producing the sheaths in-house, we maintain greater control over quality and supply; and we can provide our customers with the solutions they need faster.”

Manufacturing operations will remain at the Tempe, AZ facility. Headquartered in Buffalo, NY, Conax Technologies is a designer and manufacturer of standard and custom engineered temperature sensors, compression seal fittings and feedthroughs, probes, sensors, wires, electrodes and fiber optic cables. The company has locations on the US west coast, as well as in Canada, Europe and Asia.