Category Archives: LEDs

Researchers from North Carolina State University and the U.S. Army Research Office have developed a way to integrate novel functional materials onto a computer chip, allowing the creation of new smart devices and systems.

The novel functional materials are oxides, including several types of materials that, until now, could not be integrated onto silicon chips: multiferroic materials, which have both ferroelectric and ferromagnetic properties; topological insulators, which act as insulators in bulk but have conductive properties on their surface; and novel ferroelectric materials. These materials are thought to hold promise for applications including sensors, non-volatile computer memory and microelectromechanical systems, which are better known as MEMS.

“These novel oxides are normally grown on materials that are not compatible with computing devices,” says Jay Narayan, the John C. Fan Distinguished Chair Professor of Materials Science and Engineering at NC State and co-author of a paper describing the work. “We are now able to integrate these materials onto a silicon chip, allowing us to incorporate their functions into electronic devices.”

The approach developed by the researchers allows them to integrate the materials onto two platforms, both of which are compatible with silicon: a titanium nitride platform, for use with nitride-based electronics; and yttria-stabilized zirconia, for use with oxide-based electronics.

Specifically, the researchers developed a suite of thin films that serve as a buffer, connecting the silicon chip to the relevant novel materials. The exact combination of thin films varies, depending on which novel materials are being used.

For example, if using multiferroic materials, researchers use a combination of four different thin films: titanium nitride, magnesium oxide, strontium oxide and lanthanum strontium manganese oxide. But for topological insulators, they would use a combination of only two thin films: magnesium oxide and titanium nitride.

These thin film buffers align with the planes of the crystalline structure in the novel oxide materials, as well as with the planes of the underlying substrate – effectively serving as a communicating layer between the materials.

This approach, called thin film epitaxy, is based on the concept of domain-matching epitaxy, and was first proposed by Narayan in a 2003 paper.

“Integrating these novel materials onto silicon chips makes many things possible,” Narayan says. “For example, this allows us to sense or collect data; to manipulate that data; and to calculate a response – all on one compact chip. This makes for faster, more efficient, lighter devices.”

Another possible application, Narayan says, is the creation of LEDs on silicon chips, to make “smart lights.” Currently, LEDs are made using sapphire substrates, which aren’t directly compatible with computing devices.

“We’ve already patented this integration technology, and are currently looking for industry partners to license it,” Narayan says.

The gallium nitride (GaN) substrates market is set to cross $4 billion USD by 2020, according to the market research report “Gallium Nitride (GaN) Substrates Market Analysis: By Type (GaN on sapphire, GaN on Si, GaN on SiC, GaN on GaN); By Products (Blu-ray Disc (BD), LEDs, UV LEDs) By Industry (Consumer Electronics, Telecom, Industrial, Power, Solar, Wind)-Forecast(2015-2020)”, published by IndustryARC.

Gallium Nitride (GaN) is a semiconductor compound material which has proved to be advantageous in comparison to the other conventional materials such as Silicon, Silicon Carbide, Aluminum, and so on. GaN substrates are essential materials which are deployed across blue-violet laser diodes in recorders or BD players and the power control elements. GaN materials are also used across optoelectronic products such as lasers, LEDs, Power Electronics and Radio Frequency amplifiers.

Optoelectronics are the key devices that employ GaN substrates, among which, LEDs account for over 70% share. Traditionally, these devices are grown on GaN on Sapphire, GaN on Si, and GaN on Sic substrates with GaN on Sapphire being the most utilized substrate. However, these substrates contain GaN layers grown by epitaxial methods leading to lattice mismatches and defects. In this context, the gallium nitride substrates are presented as the potential substitute for the foreign substrates. The GaN epitaxy if performed on the native substrates has several technical advantages and also improves the performance of the devices.

According to recent study by IndustryARC, the GaN substrates market is dominated by sapphire which is nearing maturity. The market for sapphire substrates was around $ 1.4 billion in 2014 and estimated to grow at 7% CAGR in 2015-2020. The market is estimated to showcase normal growth rates and grow predictably till 2020 and if any disrupting market developments are expected from the silicon and bulk GaN substrate areas. There is only company, Cree Inc. manufacturing GaN on SiC products and very few players adopting GaN on Si. Acquisitions and partnerships are going to be the key in these segments to showcase significant growth in the next five years.

Asia-Pacific is the key region for both substrates and devices market. LEDs, with demand in particular from automotive and lighting industry, are estimated to drive the GaN market in the period 2015-2020. In this, region, Japan, China, and Korea are the key regions where majority of the players are located and demand emerges. The less labor and production costs in these countries are aiding manufacturers to set up production facilities. In 2015, Panasonic Corporation has shifted its LED production to Japan from Indonesia to capitalize these advantages in the country and further grow its share in the LED market. Besides that, the substrate suppliers are also strongly distributed in the region. With these players significantly scaling up their global market position, the prices are estimated to be affected significantly. In countries such as China, the substrates are offered at cheaper prices which will not only attract LED producers significantly but also intensify demand for cheaper products.

The bulk GaN or GaN on GaN substrates hold lot of promise in the LED, Power Electronics, and RF products. Particularly in power electronics, the bulk gallium nitride substrates are proven to be very useful. There is significant research underway to realize the GaN material potential into these industries and very recently, MIT researchers have successfully enabled GaN power transistors at low cost. Due to huge power saving nature of the components made from them, the billion dollar markets such as internet of things and electric vehicles market are only ready to embrace bulk GaN substrates. Thus, with encouraging developments in the market and potential billion markets, bulk GaN is projected as the game changer. But, to realize the same, there are substantial obstacles in terms of production and capital. Therefore, even in 2020, the market is estimated to be dominated by foreign substrates where bulk GaN will account for smaller share.

Silicon Valley specialty semiconductor foundry Noel Technologies, a provider of process development and substrate fabrication for a variety of high-technology industries, celebrates its 20th anniversary this month. According to market data from the industry trade association SEMI, Noel Technologies is one of only two companies still offering foundry services in Silicon Valley, where there were once dozens of wafer-fabrication facilities.

Using industry-standard process flows and materials, Noel Technologies develops and perfects semiconductor-manufacturing recipes for customers in the IC, renewable energy, automotive electronics, LED lighting, optoelectronics, MEMS and other nanoelectronics industries. The foundry can work with traditional silicon wafers up to 450mm as well as non-standard substrates including III-V compound materials, glass and fused silica.

The company provides chip makers with a bridge from IC development work to volume production, a much-needed service in proving the viability of new devices and innovative manufacturing processes. The multi-billion-dollar cost of building today’s wafer fabs has led many semiconductor companies to adopt a “fabless” strategy by outsourcing chip manufacturing to a foundry, many of which are located in Asia.

“While other companies have moved their fabrication operations out of Silicon Valley – whether in pursuit of lower labor costs, tax holidays or other financial incentives – we are dedicated to working with local and far-off semiconductor companies on their prototyping, pilot manufacturing and production needs,” said Leon Pearce, founder and chief technical officer of Noel Technologies.

To deliver short cycle times and maximize the utility of its installed equipment base, Noel Technologies operates seven days a week, 20 hours per day. Projects vary in size from single wafers to thousands per month, depending upon each customer’s unique needs.

Pearce and his daughter Kristin Boyce, president of Noel Technologies, co-founded the company in 1996 with three employees. Through strategic technology additions, tool acquisitions and facility expansions, they have grown the staff to 50 personnel. Hill joined the company 12 years ago, leveraging her extensive semiconductor experience to expand Noel Technologies’ foundry services and better serve its broad customer base. Together, the three senior executives focus on customer needs, emerging market requirements and new applications.

The company continues to operate at its original location and has no corporate debt, both extreme rarities in the semiconductor industry. Noel Technologies owns and operates a Class 100 cleanroom facility equipped with tools that support its process-driven services model and run by a well-trained engineering department.

A collaboration of researchers from Kumamoto, Yamaguchi, and Osaka Universities in Japan have discovered a new method of drastically changing the color and fluorescence of a particular compound using only oxygen (O2) and hydrogen (H2) gases. The fully reversible reaction is environmentally friendly since it produces only water as a byproduct. Rather than using electrical or photo energy, the discovery uses energy from the gases themselves, which is expected to become a future trend, to switch the color and fluorescence properties. The technique could be used as a detection sensor for hydrogen or oxygen gases as well as for property controls of organic semiconductors and organic light emitting diodes (OLEDs).

An efficient chemical synthesis method for picene-13, 14-dione. Credit: Dr. Hayato Ishikawa

An efficient chemical synthesis method for picene-13, 14-dione. Credit: Dr. Hayato Ishikawa

Polyaromatic compounds (PACs) are widely used in fluorescent materials, semiconductor materials, organic EL devices, and organic solar-cell devices. The research performed at Kumamoto University focused on using energy from gases to trigger a molecular switch in a PAC. In particular, focus was placed on H2 as a reductant and O2 as an oxidant.

“We tried to determine the most attractive compounds that could freely and dramatically change the optical properties of the PAC with a redox reaction,” said Associate Professor Hayato Ishikawa from Kumamoto University. “Specifically, we introduced an orthoquinone moiety to the PAC that possessed the most ideal switching properties under a redox reaction with hydrogen and oxygen gases.”

To determine the candidates with the best switching properties, researchers screened several orthoquinone-containing aromatic compounds in a computational study. The ideal molecules clearly showed switching between fluorescence emission and quenching, and between a colored and colorless state.

Picene-13, 14-dione was nominated as the most promising candidate from the computational analysis. The researchers then developed an original protocol to efficiently synthesize the compound from commercially available petroleum raw materials. The key steps for the synthesis were the transition metal-catalyzed coupling reaction and the ring construction reaction by an organocatalyst. This synthetic methodology is also applicable to the synthesis of various other similar compounds or derivatives.

A palladium nanoparticle catalyst was added to the synthesized picene-13, 14-dione and then H2 gas was bubbled into the solution. As predicted by the computational study, a dramatic change in color and fluorescence of the solution was observed; its color and fluorescence changed from yellow to colorless, and from non-fluorescent to blue fluorescent respectively. The subsequent reverse oxidation proceeded smoothly when H2 gas was exchanged for O2 gas, and the solution reverted back to its original state.

“When we performed a detailed analysis, it was revealed that the resultant changes in color and fluorescence were caused by two different molecular states. The prediction of these states, and our ideas about this phenomenon, were strongly supported by both the computational analysis and the experimental results,” said Associate Professor Ishikawa. “This molecular switching technology of an aromatic compound using an orthoquinone moiety is a new insight that appears to have been reported first by our research team.”

An important advantage of this technology is that it is environmentally friendly since the byproduct of the reaction is simply water. Additionally, the synthetic PACs don’t experience very much damage after each reaction meaning that the molecular switch has excellent reusability.

“We have considered a wide range of future applications for this molecular technique,” said Associate Professor Masaki Matsuda, a research collaborator from Kumamoto University. “For example, we can put this molecular sheet into a package of food filled with an inert gas to check whether oxygen, which promotes the spoilage of food, has entered the package. All that would be required is a simple check under a UV light; the package wouldn’t even have to be opened. Organic semiconductors and OLEDs could also benefit from the ability to control optical properties using energy from gases. For example, organic semiconductors could be made to change their electrical properties, and OLEDs could show on/off switching characteristics by using the energy from gas that is supplied to it. The applications for this technology are numerous.”

The findings of this research were published in the Angewandte Chemie International Edition, online edition, on May 4th, 2016.

200mm fabs reawakening


July 13, 2016

By David Lammers, Contributing Editor

Buoyed by strong investments in China, 200mm wafer production is seeing a re-awakening, with overall 200mm capacity expected to match its previous 2006 peak level by 2019 (Figure 1).

Figure 1. By 2019, 200mm fab capacity should be close to the previous peak seen in 2006, according to SEMI. Several new 200mm fabs are expected to open in China. (Source: SEMICON West presentation by Christian Dieseldorff).

Figure 1. By 2019, 200mm fab capacity should be close to the previous peak seen in 2006, according to SEMI. Several new 200mm fabs are expected to open in China. (Source: SEMICON West presentation by Christian Dieseldorff).

Speaking at a SEMI/Gartner market symposium at SEMICON West, SEMI senior analyst Christian Dieseldorff said over the next few years “we don’t see 200mm fabs closing, in fact we see new ones beginning operation. To me, that is just amazing.”

The numbers back up the rebound. Excluding LEDs, the installed capacity of 200mm fabs will reach about 5.3 million wafers per month (wspm) in 2018, almost matching the 2007 peak of 5.6 million wspm. As shown in Figure 1, By 2019 as new 200mm fabs start up in China, 200mm wafer production will surge beyond the previous 2007 peak, a surprising achievement for a wafer generation that began more than 25 years ago. Figure 2 shows how capacity, which held steady for years, is now on the increase.

Figure 2. 200mm fab capacity, which remained relatively constant for years, is now increasing.

Figure 2. 200mm fab capacity, which remained relatively constant for years, is now increasing.

Case in point: On the opening day of Semicon West, Beijing Yangdong Micro announced a new OLED 200mm fab that will be opening in the second half of 2018 to make OLED drivers, according to Dieseldorff.

Over the past few years, Japan-based companies have closed 10 200mm fabs, mostly outdated logic facilities, while expanding production of discrete power and analog ICs on 200mm wafers. But with China opening several new 200mm fabs and the expansions of existing 200mm fabs worldwide, SEMI sees an additional 274,000 wafer starts per month of 200mm production over the 2015-2018 period, adding expansions and additional fabs, and subtracting closed facilities.

“One message from our research is that we believe the existing 200mm fabs are full. Companies have done what they can to expand and move tools around, and that is coming to an end,” he said. SEMI reckons that 19 new 200mm fabs have been built since 2010, at least six of them in China.

SEMI’s Christian Dieseldorff.

SEMI’s Christian Dieseldorff.

Dieseldorff touched on a vexing challenge to the 200mm expansion: the availability of 200mm equipment. “People have problems getting 200mm equipment, used and even new. The (200mm) market is not well understood by some companies,” he said. With a shortage of used 200mm equipment likely to continue, the major equipment companies are building new 200mm tools, part of what Dieseldorff described as an “awakening” of 200mm manufacturing.

 

China is serious

Sam Wang, a research vice president at Gartner who focuses on the foundry sector, voiced several concerns related to 200mm production at the SEMI/Gartner symposium. While SMIC (which has a mix of 200mm and 300mm fabs) has seen consistently healthy annual growth, the five second-tier Chinese foundries – — Shanghai Huahong Grace, CSMC, HuaLi, XMC, and ASMC — saw declining revenues year-over-year in 2015. Overall, China-based foundries accounted for just 7.8 percent of total foundry capacity last year, and the overall growth rate by Chinese foundries “is way below the expectations of the Chinese government,” Wang said.

The challenge, he said, is for China’s foundries which rely largely on legacy production to grow revenues in a competitive market. And things are not getting any easier. While production of has shown overall strength in units, Wang cautioned that price pressures are growing for many of the ICs made on 200mm wafers. Fingerprint sensor ICs, for example, have dropped in price by 30 percent recently. Moreover, “the installation of legacy nodes in 300mm fabs by large foundries has caused concern to foundries who depend solely on 200 mm.”

But Wang emphasized China’s determination to expand its semiconductor production. “China is really serious. Believe it,” he said.

New markets, new demand

The smart phone revolution has energized 200mm production, adding to a growing appetite for MEMS sensors, analog, and power ICs. Going forward, the Internet of Things, new medical devices, and flexible and wearable products may drive new demand, speakers said at the symposium.

Jason Marsh, director of technology for the government and industry-backed NextFlex R&D alliance based in San Jose, Calif., said many companies see “real potential” in making products which have “an unobtrusive form factor that doesn’t alter the physical environment.” He cited one application: a monitoring device worn by hospital patients that would reduce the occurrence of bed sores. These types of devices can be made with “comparatively yesteryear (semiconductor) technology” but require new packaging and system-level expertise.

Legacy devices made on 200mm wafers could get a boost from the increasing ability to combine several chips made with different technologies into fan out chip scale packages (FO CSPs). Bill Chen, a senior advisor at ASE Group, showed several examples of FO CSPs which combine legacy ICs with processors made on leading-edge nodes. “When we started this wafer-level development around 2000 we thought it would be a niche. But now about 30 percent of the ICs used in smart phones are in wafer-level CSPs. It just took a lot of time for the market forces to come along.”

More coverage from this year’s SEMICON West can be found here.

Ultratech, Inc., a supplier of lithography, laser­ processing and inspection systems used to manufacture semiconductor devices and high-brightness LEDs (HBLEDs), as well as atomic layer deposition (ALD) systems, today announced that it has received a multiple-system, follow-on order from a leading semiconductor manufacturer for its advanced packaging AP300 lithography systems. The AP300 systems will be utilized for high-volume, fan-out wafer-level packaging (FOWLP) applications used to manufacture leading-edge chips.  Ultratech will begin shipping the additional systems in the second quarter of this year to the customer’s facility in Asia.

Ultratech General Manager and Vice President of Lithography Products Rezwan Lateef stated, “Fan-out technologies continue to be regarded as the optimal solution for the highly-demanding mobile and wireless markets. While traditional 3D techniques, such as TSV, are still too expensive for industry-wide adoption, FOWLP is being leveraged as a cost-effective packaging solution that delivers excellent performance and a small form factor. Ultratech’s application-specific options for FOWLP lithography provide superior results to meet the challenges of fan-out wafer processing, such as die surface-to-mold non-planarity, die misalignment and wafer warpage. This follow-on order further confirms our technology leadership and the value proposition of our AP300 systems over full-field 1X scanners and reduction steppers. As we continue to build on our relationship with this valued customer, we look forward to supporting their aggressive technology roadmap which includes the utilization of interposers for high-end processors.”

Ultratech’s AP300 family of lithography steppers

The AP300 family of lithography systems is built on Ultratech’s customizable Unity Platform, delivering superior overlay, resolution and side wall profile performance and enabling highly-automated and cost-effective manufacturing. These systems are particularly well suited for copper pillar, fan-out, through-silicon via (TSV) and silicon interposer applications. In addition, the platform has numerous application-specific product features to enable next-generation packaging techniques, such as Ultratech’s award winning dual-side alignment (DSA) system, utilized around the world in volume production.

Today, SiC benefits are not a secret anymore and progressively lot of industries are considering the development of new products including SiC technologies.

”The SiC power business is concrete and real, with a promising outlook,” announced Yole Développement (Yole) in its latest compound semiconductor report, Power SiC 2016: Materials, Devices, Modules & Applications. The SiC power market, diode and transistor included is estimated to be more than $200 million in 2015 and forecasted to be more than $550 million in 2021, with a 2015 – 2021 CAGR of 19%. SiC diodes still dominate the overall SiC market with 85% market share. According to Yole, this leading position will not change for several years. In parallel, SiC transistors are more and more present and should reach 27% market share in 2021. SiC solutions are diffusing step by step into multiple application segments: “We are at the opening stage of the SiC industry for power electronics applications,” confirmed Yole’s analysts.

This SiC technology & market analysis is not the first edition for Yole. Therefore, the “More than Moore” market research and strategy consulting company has been working for fifteen years on SiC technologies, associated markets and more globally within the WBG area. This year, this report is probably the most successful achievement with a global comprehension of the market needs and technology challenges.

Yole’s analysis details a relevant description of the SiC power industry landscape and lists the key related market data. It also proposes a detailed review per market segment, a full analysis of the SiC supply chain including new entrants, mergers and acquisitions and a technology roadmap. A special section has been also performed by Yole’s analysts to understand the current issues in China and identify business opportunities. With this 2016 edition, Yole confirms its leadership within the analysis of the WBG industry, its technologies and market trends.

Not surprisingly, the PFC power supply market is still the leading application with almost 50% market share (in revenue), consuming a large volume of diodes in 2015. However this market share is expected to decrease little by little after 2016. So far behind, PV inverters are close behind. Indeed SiC diodes and MOSFETs are now used by various PV inverter manufacturers in their products. It has been confirmed that SiC implementation provides several performance benefits including increased efficiency, reduced size and weight. In addition, it allows to low cost at the system level in certain power range. “At Yole, we have received increasingly positive feedback from the market”, said Dr. Hong Ling, Technology & Market Analyst at Yole. “And we expect other manufacturers to follow in the footsteps of the early adopters, leading to a rapid expansion of the PV segment in the coming years.”

Other SiC applications include UPS , motor drive, wind, EV/HEV and rail, all with different levels of adoption. Within the rail sector, SiC penetration continues. For EV/HEV applications, OEMs and Ter1 are testing SiC devices but qualification time is long…

The benefits enabled by SiC, the continuous performance improvement, and the cost erosion of SiC power devices will clearly fuel the implementation of SiC in different applications. “Under this new SiC edition, we propose a deep understanding of SiC implementation in different segments”, comments Dr Ling at Yole. Indeed this analysis offers a comprehensive summary of SiC power device market data (split by application), including PFC/power supply, PV, EV/HEV, uninterruptible power supplies (UPS), motor drives, wind, and rail.

SiC power is creating many opportunities for many different types of suppliers. Indeed, attracted by the market’s potential, more and more players are entering at different levels of the value chain:
•  At the module packaging level, Starpower just showed their SiC module in May 2016.
•  At the device level, after investing in Monolith Semiconductors in 2015, Littlefuse released its SiC diode products in May this year, with the intention to develop a full product range. Yole has also identified other newcomers including Brückewell, YangJie Technology, Gengol, each with different backgrounds and different business models.
•  On the materials side, Aymont, the SiC growth furnace supplier, has started to supply SiC wafers.

Furthermore, existing players will expand their products. For example, Infineon Technologies just released its 1200V SiC MOSFET and plans to go into mass production in 2017. Also, Fuji’s full SiC module will be available. As more and more products reach the market, Yole expects an acceleration of SiC. This growing market is generating plenty of opportunities for different types of suppliers: passive components, materials suppliers, test equipment suppliers, and more.

Despite slower growth for the automotive industry and exchange rate fluctuations, the automotive semiconductor market grew at a modest 0.2 percent year over year, reaching $29 billion in 2015, according to IHS (NYSE: IHS), a global source of critical information and insight.

A flurry of mergers and acquisitions last year caused the competitive landscape to shift, including the merger of NXP and Freescale, which created the largest automotive semiconductor supplier in 2015 with a market share of 14.3 percent, IHS said. The acquisition of International Rectifier (IR) helped Infineon overtake Renesas to secure the second-ranked position, with a market share of 9.8 percent. Renesas slipped to third-ranked position in 2015, with a market share of 9.1 percent, followed by STMicroelectronics and Texas Instruments.

“The acquisition of Freescale by NXP created a powerhouse for the automotive market. NXP increased its strength in automotive infotainment systems, thanks to the robust double-digit growth of its i.MX processors,” said Ahad Buksh, automotive semiconductor analyst for IHS Technology. “NXP’s analog integrated circuits also grew by double digits, thanks to the increased penetration rate of keyless-entry systems and in-vehicle networking technologies.”

NXP will now target the machine vision and sensor fusion markets with the S32V family of processors for autonomous functions, according to the IHS Automotive Semiconductor Intelligence Service Even on the radar front, NXP now has a broad portfolio of long- and mid-range silicon-germanium (SiGe) radar chips, as well as short-range complementary metal-oxide semiconductor (CMOS) radar chips under development. “The fusion of magnetic sensors from NXP, with pressure and inertial sensors from Freescale, has created a significant sensor supplier,” Buksh said.

The inclusion of IR, and a strong presence in advanced driver assistance systems (ADAS), hybrid electric vehicles and other growing applications helped Infineon grow 5.5 percent in 2015. Infineon’s 77 gigahertz (GHz) radar system integrated circuit (RASIC) chip family strengthened its position in ADAS. Its 32-bit microcontroller (MCU) solutions, based on TriCore architectures, reinforced the company’s position in the powertrain and chassis and safety domains.

The dollar-to-yen exchange rate worked against the revenue ranking for Renesas for the third consecutive year. A major share of Renesas business is with Japanese customers, which is primarily conducted in yen. Even though Renesas’ automotive semiconductor revenue fell 12 percent, when measured in dollars, the revenue actually grew by about 1 percent in yen. Renesas’ strength continues to be its MCU solutions, where the company is still the leading supplier globally.

STMicroelectronics’ automotive revenue declined 2 percent year over year; however, a larger part of the decline can be attributed to the lower exchange rate of the Euro against the U.S. dollar in 2015, which dropped 20 percent last year. STMicroelectronics’ broad- based portfolio and its presence in every growing automotive domain of the market helped the company maintain its revenue as well as it did. Apart from securing multiple design wins with American and European automotive manufacturers, the company is also strengthening its relationships with Chinese auto manufacturers. Radio and navigation solutions from STMicroelectronics were installed in numerous new vehicle models in 2015.

Texas Instruments has thrived in the automotive semiconductor market for the fourth consecutive year. Year-over-year revenue increased by 16.6 percent in 2015. The company’s success story is not based on any one particular vehicle domain. In fact, while all domains have enjoyed double-digit increases, infotainment, ADAS and hybrid-electric vehicles were the primary drivers of growth.

IHS_Auto_Semis_Ranking_2015

Other suppliers making inroads in automotive

After the acquisition of CSR, Qualcomm rose from its 42nd ranking in year 2014, to become the 20th largest supplier of automotive semiconductors in 2015. Qualcomm has a strong presence in cellular baseband solutions, with its Snapdragon and Gobi processors; while CSR’s strength lies in wireless application ICs — especially for Bluetooth and Wi-Fi. Qualcomm is now the sixth largest supplier of semiconductors in the infotainment domain.

Moving from 83rd position in 2011 to 37th in 2015, nVidia has used its experience, and its valuable partnership with Audi, to gain momentum in the automotive market. The non-safety critical status of the infotainment domain was a logical stepping stone to carve out a position in the automotive market, but now the company is also moving toward ADAS and other safety applications. The company has had particular success with its Tegra processors.

Due to the consolidation of Freescale, Osram entered the top-10 ranking of automotive suppliers for the first time in 2015. Osram is the global leader in automotive lighting and has enjoyed double-digit growth over the past three years, thanks to the increasing penetration of light-emitting diodes (LEDs) in new vehicles.

Samsung Electronics Co., Ltd. announced today that it has introduced “Fx-CSP,” a line-up of LED packages which features chip-scale packaging and flexible circuit board technology, for use in automotive lighting applications.

New Samsung Fx-CSP automotive LED packages (Graphic: Business Wire)

New Samsung Fx-CSP automotive LED packages (Graphic: Business Wire)

“Our new Fx-CSP line-up will bring greater design flexibility and cost competitiveness to the automotive lighting industry,” said Jacob Tarn, executive vice president, LED Business Team, Samsung Electronics. He added that, “We will continue to introduce innovative LED products and technologies, such as multi-chip array technology, that can play a key role in the growth of the automotive LED lighting industry.”

Samsung’s new Fx-CSP provides an advanced combination of chip-scale packaging and flexible circuit board technology, which together enable more compact chip sizing and a higher degree of reliability. The use of a flexible circuit board also enables more heat to dissipate, which leads to lower resistance and brings about a greater degree of lumen-per-watt efficiency than using a ceramic board.

In addition, the new Samsung automotive LED line-up allows car designers to use a variety of chip arrangements such as a single chip, a 1 by 4, or a 2 by 6 multi-chip arrangement to suit different lighting configurations. The Fx-CSP line-up can be widely used in automotive lighting applications that include position lamps and daytime running lamps as well as headlamps that require higher luminous flux and reliability than other automotive lamps.

The Fx-CSP line-up consists of single packages, Fx1M and Fx1L, with 1-3 watts each, as well as packages with a 14W high voltage array, Fx4 and a 40W high voltage array, Fx2x6. The variation in wattage levels allows Samsung LED lighting packages to work well with a wide range of exterior automotive lighting.

By adding the new Fx-CSP line-up to its existing mid-power and high-power automotive LED component line-ups, Samsung now provides a highly competitive family of automotive lighting components.

Samsung’s new Fx-CSP LED line-up was recently selected for a compact car headlamp project from one of the major global automotive manufacturers.

Samsung plans to introduce more CSP technology-based LED components such as the new Fx-CSP line-up for automotive lighting, later this year.

Ultratech, Inc., a supplier of lithography, laser-processing and inspection systems used to manufacture semiconductor devices and high-brightness LEDs (HB-LEDs), as well as atomic layer deposition (ALD) systems, today announced a follow-on order from a major foundry in Asia for its LSA101 laser spike anneal system. Equipped with the dual-beam option, the system provides a second low-power laser that adds flexibility for annealing at low substrate temperatures. This capability is required for advanced applica­tions, such as gate stack formation, silicide or post-silicide anneal. The LSA101 tool will be used to support the foundry’s 28nm and 40nm production efforts, and Ultratech expects to ship the system in the third quarter of 2016.

Scott Zafiropoulo, General Manager of LSA and Senior Vice President of Marketing at Ultratech, said, “This follow-on order for our LSA101 system reinforces the growing opportunities that we are experiencing for advanced planar logic devices. Customers around the world are increasing their 28-nm capacity to take advantage of the optimal performance-to-cost ratio at this node. We will continue working closely with our global customers as we strive to continue to provide advanced annealing systems that deliver the most flexible, extendable and cost-effective performance.”

Ultratech LSA 101 Dual Beam Laser Spike Anneal System

Built on the customizable Unity Platform, LSA101 with the dual-beam option expands the process space by adding a second low-power laser beam that adds process flexibility and enables millisecond annealing with a low substrate temperature. Inserting a millisecond anneal step post-junction formation, such as gate stack formation, silicide or post-silicide anneal, has been shown to improve leakage and device reliability, while reducing contact resistance and improving both performance and yield. Compared to compet­ing millisecond annealing technologies, LSA with dual beam is designed to offer the lowest thermal budget millisecond anneal process along with superior within-die uniformity for different layouts. The LSA101 delivers high flexibility and extendibility for advanced annealing applications and is currently in high-volume production for advanced planar and FinFET devices.