Category Archives: LEDs

By Bettina Weiss, VP, Business Development, SEMI

The 2nd annual SEMI Vietnam Semiconductor Strategy Summit, co-organized with the Saigon Hi-Tech Park and with FabMax as the premier sponsor, was held September 16-17, 2014 in Ho Chi Minh City. This year’s conference drew over 160 attendees from Vietnam, Europe, U.S. and other Southeast Asian countries for a full day of presentations, panel discussions, networking opportunities and interactions with government, the Ho Chi Minh City Semiconductor Industry Association (HSIA) and the Saigon Hi-Tech Park (SHTP).

Fig 1

 

Building on the success of the inaugural Summit in September of 2013, attendees and speakers commented on the sense of progress and growing vitality of the emerging semiconductor manufacturing ecosystem in Vietnam. In his welcome remarks, Kai Fai Ng, president, SEMI Southeast Asia spoke to the importance of Vietnam in Southeast Asia, and SEMI’s plans to facilitate business interactions between Vietnamese and Southeast Asian companies, support efforts in workforce development and education, and continue to strengthen the relationship with key stakeholders in the country.

Of particular interest to the audience was the keynote presentation by Dr. Pham Ba Tuan, senior expert at CNS, the company tasked with executing the 200mm fab project in Saigon Hi-Tech Park that was announced last year. Tuan stressed the importance of domestically manufactured devices to satisfy a rapidly growing need in Vietnam thanks to the country’s young population and high university graduation rates. Tuan indicated that, depending on the product choice and the cost structure of the new wafer fab, at least 5,000 wafer starts per months would be needed. Fab capacity would be a function of product mix, so wafer starts need to be adjustable from 5,000 to 10,000 wafer starts per month. This would necessitate an investment of “a few million USD” to enable equipment purchases, fab construction and infrastructure readiness.

Source: Saigon Industry Corporation (CNS)

Source: Saigon Industry Corporation (CNS)

Tuan emphasized the fact that the choice of technology was a crucial factor for the wafer fab, since it influences investment volume, product portfolio, as well as the ability to develop a skilled workforce throughout the manufacturing process. The choice for the wafer fab in Saigon Hi-Tech Park is 180nm on 200mm wafers, a node and substrate size choice that will enable the production of a wide variety of products. According to CNS, revenue from all products made in technologies down to 180nm already account for US$1 billion.

Fig 3

The project timeline presented at the SEMI conference shows construction to begin in Q3 2015 and equipment move-in starting in Q2 2016.

Fig 4

The CNS presentation was followed by a brief company introduction to NXP delivered by Mr. Frederic Vincentini.

Kicking of the second session on Semiconductor Manufacturing in Vietnam, Ms. Sherry Boger, general manager, Intel Vietnam, provided an update on Intel’s plans to extend the production of flagship products to Vietnam — such as the Haswell microprocessor, which was recently announced. Intel’s Vietnam facility is the largest assembly and test facility in the global Intel network, employing over 3,000 Vietnamese employees when fully ramped.

Fab-Finder’s Todd Curtis shared his company’s learning experiences when they started doing business in Vietnam. He stated that the Fab-Finder management team brought over 100 years of semiconductor experience to the table — but 0 years in this country, making it imperative to rapidly get up to speed with respect to laws and taxes, cultural differences and sensitivities and different business practices. Mr. Curtis made a point of thanking his Vietnamese business partners, legal and tax advisors, HSIA and the Saigon Hi-Tech Park for the education they provided.

Prof. Cor Claeys of Imec presented Imec’s Open Innovation Model. Given the ever shrinking features, the complexity of new devices and applications and the rising cost in R&D, Claeys stressed the need for collaborative efforts in the semiconductor industry in order to keep up with the increasing need and speed of innovation.

Open Innovation

Source: Samsung

Source: Samsung

Contrasting Imec’s Open Innovation model with the traditional R&D approach – where most of the R&D is done in-house, no IP is shared and projects occur in silos –Claeys emphasized the need to share risk, cost, talent and IP among R&D partners in order to jointly reap the benefits of an accelerated, cost-effective RD activity.

This discussion provided a nice introduction into two presentations in the afternoon addressing technology transfers, IP creation and protection. Ms. Radhika Snirivasan, Ph.D., from IBM talked about the process by which technology transfers occur, and how opportunities and risks can be managed. Snirivasan described technology transfers as “quintessential” to any technology installation and shared IBM’s methodology, from preparation and training through installation and debug, qualification and yield learning to product qualification and ramp. She pointed to the added value when IP transfers are managed in highly customizable and flexible scenarios, providing protection and safeguards against risks such as the transfer infrastructure, adequacy of documentation and lack of technology readiness/maturity.

Fig 6

Dr. John Schmitz of NXP elaborated on the subject by presenting NXP’s view on the growing importance of Intellectual Property Rights (IPRs) since knowledge has become a critical driver in the economy. “IPRs are the economical manifestation of technical and business knowledge,” said Schmitz, stressing that IPRs provide a mechanism of protection against misuse. Speaking to current and future patent portfolios, he stated the requirement for future patents to be aligned with the overall company strategy, but stressed the inherent risk of having to look at least 5 years ahead — a mandate he contrasted with the product lifecycle of mobile phones, which is currently about 6 months.

The last formal presentation of the day was M+W Group’s “Integrated Approach for Semiconductor Wafer Fab Implementation,” presented by Mr. Andreas Authenrieth, M+W Group. His presentation focused on the prerequisites for a sustainable and cost-effective fab design, with particular emphasis on energy efficiency, environmental technology and the use of renewable energy. Authenrieth also included the use of secondary equipment in his presentation, explaining the importance of correlating tool specifications with technology requirements, paying close attention to consumables and spares and managing equipment testing and documentation. These considerations could be of particular importance for the CNS wafer fab project.

The 2nd annual SEMI Vietnam Semiconductor Strategy Summit concluded with two panel discussions: The first panel – investing and operating in the technology sector in Vietnam – was moderated by Eduard Hoeberichts, FabMax and included two presentations which addressed both the side of the operator and the side of the government. Johnny Choo of ON Semiconductor shared the experience as an operator of two back-end facilities in Vietnam and highlighted the very positive experience over the last several years as well as some of the areas for potential improvement.

This perspective was consistent with the observations that Sherry Boger of Intel made in the morning presentation. Dr. Le Hoai Quoc as president of Saigon High Tech Park presented the capabilities of the High Tech Park as well as the general government support in various areas for operators and new investors in Vietnam. The “two sides of the coin” perspective led to a lively discussion at the end of the panel session.

Fig 7

 

The second panel – Education and Workforce Development – was moderated by Ms. Bettina Weiss, SEMI, and included: Ms. Sherry Boger, Intel Vietnam; Dr. Carel von der Poel, Technical University Delft; Dr. Pham Ba Tuan, CNS; and Cao Nguyen, ON Semiconductor. The importance of developing a skilled talent pool in Vietnam was also a prominent topic in SEMI’s 2013 Vietnam Semiconductor Strategy Summit. Panelists engaged in a lively debate about the need to do more for women in high tech, partnerships with international universities and special programs like HEEAP (Higher Engineering Education Alliance Program) which Intel is very actively supporting, as well as the Technical University Delft/DIMES Center, which has been engaged with Vietnam’s Hanoi University of Technology, Hanoi University of Civil Engineering and the Ministry of Science and Technology in various programs. According to Dr. van der Poel, it would be fairly easy to extend these programs to the semiconductor space, as Vietnam starts focusing on workforce readiness in this sector.

At the networking reception, attendees and speakers alike commented on the sense of progress and excitement over the last 12 months. Local attendees in particular appreciated the rich presentations and perspectives from the conference speakers, and international companies, including our sponsors, left with a lot of new contacts and business opportunities in country — and the sense that Vietnam is very serious about becoming a stakeholder in the global semiconductor market.

SEMI is grateful for the support of the sponsoring companies who helped make this year’s Summit possible:  FabMax, CNS, M+W Group, Advantest, Fab-Finder, GES, Lam Research, NXP, QAM, and Surplus Global.

Even as the 2014 Nobel Prize in Physics has enshrined light emitting diodes (LEDs) as the single most significant and disruptive energy-efficient lighting solution of today, scientists around the world continue unabated to search for the even-better-bulbs of tomorrow.

Enter carbon electronics.

Electronics based on carbon, especially carbon nanotubes (CNTs), are emerging as successors to silicon for making semiconductor materials. And they may enable a new generation of brighter, low-power, low-cost lighting devices that could challenge the dominance of light-emitting diodes (LEDs) in the future and help meet society’s ever-escalating demand for greener bulbs.

Scientists from Tohoku University in Japan have developed a new type of energy-efficient flat light source based on carbon nanotubes with very low power consumption of around 0.1 Watt for every hour’s operation–about a hundred times lower than that of an LED.

In the journal Review of Scientific Instruments, from AIP publishing, the researchers detail the fabrication and optimization of the device, which is based on a phosphor screen and single-walled carbon nanotubes as electrodes in a diode structure. You can think of it as a field of tungsten filaments shrunk to microscopic proportions.

They assembled the device from a mixture liquid containing highly crystalline single-walled carbon nanotubes dispersed in an organic solvent mixed with a soap-like chemical known as a surfactant. Then, they “painted” the mixture onto the positive electrode or cathode, and scratched the surface with sandpaper to form a light panel capable of producing a large, stable and homogenous emission current with low energy consumption.

“Our simple ‘diode’ panel could obtain high brightness efficiency of 60 Lumen per Watt, which holds excellent potential for a lighting device with low power consumption,” said Norihiro Shimoi, the lead researcher and an associate professor of environmental studies at the Tohoku University.

Brightness efficiency tells people how much light is being produced by a lighting source when consuming a unit amount of electric power, which is an important index to compare the energy-efficiency of different lighting devices, Shimoi said. For instance, LEDs can produce 100s Lumen per Watt and OLEDs (organic LEDs) around 40.

Although the device has a diode-like structure, its light-emitting system is not based on a diode system, which are made from layers of semiconductors, materials that act like a cross between a conductor and an insulator, the electrical properties of which can be controlled with the addition of impurities called dopants.

The new devices have luminescence systems that function more like cathode ray tubes, with carbon nanotubes acting as cathodes, and a phosphor screen in a vacuum cavity acting as the anode. Under a strong electric field, the cathode emits tight, high-speed beams of electrons through its sharp nanotube tips — a phenomenon called field emission. The electrons then fly through the vacuum in the cavity, and hit the phosphor screen into glowing.

“We have found that a cathode with highly crystalline single-walled carbon nanotubes and an anode with the improved phosphor screen in our diode structure obtained no flicker field emission current and good brightness homogeneity,” Shimoi said.

Caption: This image shows a planar light source device from the front. Credit: N.Shimoi/Tohoku University

Caption: This image shows a planar light source device from the front. Credit: N.Shimoi/Tohoku University

Field emission electron sources catch scientists’ attention due to its ability to provide intense electron beams that are about a thousand times denser than conventional thermionic cathode (like filaments in an incandescent light bulb). That means field emission sources require much less power to operate and produce a much more directional and easily controllable stream of electrons.

In recent years, carbon nanotubes have emerged as a promising material of electron field emitters, owing to their nano-scale needle shape and extraordinary properties of chemical stability, thermal conductivity and mechanical strength.

Highly crystalline single-walled carbon nanotubes (HCSWCNT) have nearly zero defects in the carbon network on the surface, Shimoi explained. “The resistance of cathode electrode with highly crystalline single-walled carbon nanotube is very low. Thus, the new flat-panel device has smaller energy loss compared with other current lighting devices, which can be used to make energy-efficient cathodes that with low power consumption.”

“Many researchers have attempted to construct light sources with carbon nanotubes as field emitter,” Shimoi said. “But nobody has developed an equivalent and simpler lighting device.”

Considering the major step for device manufacture–the wet coating process is a low-cost but stable process to fabricate large-area and uniformly thin films, the flat-plane emission device has the potential to provide a new approach to lighting in people’s life style and reduce carbon dioxide emissions on the earth, Shimoi said.

Duke University researchers have made fluorescent molecules emit photons of light 1,000 times faster than normal — setting a speed record and making an important step toward realizing superfast light emitting diodes (LEDs) and quantum cryptography.

This year’s Nobel Prize in physics was awarded for the discovery of how to make blue LEDs, allowing everything from more efficient light bulbs to video screens. While the discovery has had an enormous impact on lighting and displays, the slow speed with which LEDs can be turned on and off has limited their use as a light source in light-based telecommunications.

In an LED, atoms can be forced to emit roughly 10 million photons in the blink of an eye. Modern telecommunications systems, however, operate nearly a thousand times faster. To make future light-based communications using LEDs practical, researchers must get photon-emitting materials up to speed.

In a new study, engineers from Duke increased the photon emission rate of fluorescent molecules to record levels by sandwiching them between metal nanocubes and a gold film.

This is an artist's representation of light trapped between a silver nanocube and a thin sheet of gold. When fluorescent molecules -- shown in red -- are trapped between the two, they emit photons up to 1,000 times faster than normal. Credit: Gleb Akselrod, Duke University

This is an artist’s representation of light trapped between a silver nanocube and a thin sheet of gold. When fluorescent molecules — shown in red — are trapped between the two, they emit photons up to 1,000 times faster than normal. Credit: Gleb Akselrod, Duke University

“One of the applications we’re targeting with this research is ultrafast LEDs,” said Maiken Mikkelsen, an assistant professor of electrical and computer engineering and physics at Duke. “While future devices might not use this exact approach, the underlying physics will be crucial.”

Mikkelsen specializes in plasmonics, which studies the interaction between electromagnetic fields and free electrons in metal. In the experiment, her group manufactured 75nm silver nanocubes and trapped light between them, greatly increasing the light’s intensity.

When fluorescent molecules are placed near intensified light, the molecules emit photons at a faster rate through an effect called Purcell enhancement. The researchers found they could achieve a significant speed improvement by placing fluorescent molecules in a gap between the nanocubes and a thin film of gold.

To attain the greatest effect, Mikkelsen’s team needed to tune the gap’s resonant frequency to match the color of light that the molecules respond to. With the help of co-author David R. Smith, the James B. Duke Professor and Chair of Electrical and Computer Engineering at Duke, they used computer simulations to determine the exact size of the gap needed between the nanocubes and gold film to optimize the setup.

That gap turned out to be just 20 atoms wide. But that wasn’t a problem for the researchers.

“We can select cubes with just the right size and make the gaps literally with nanometer precision,” said Gleb Akselrod, a postdoc in Mikkelsen’s lab and first author on the study. “When we have the cube size and gap perfectly calibrated to the molecule, that’s when we see the record 1,000-fold increase in fluorescence speed.”

Because the experiment used many randomly aligned molecules, the researchers believe they can do even better. They plan to design a system with individual fluorescent molecule placed precisely underneath a single nanocube. According to Akselrod, they can achieve even higher fluorescence rates by standing the molecules up on edge at the corners of the cube.

“If we can precisely place molecules like this, it could be used in many more applications than just fast LEDs,” said Akselrod. “We could also make fast sources of single photons that could be used for quantum cryptography. This technology would allow secure communication that could not be hacked — at least not without breaking the laws of physics.”

Wearable electronics are going from geek to chic, as new smartwatches from the likes of Apple and Samsung have set a new standard for technological bling.

At IFA 2014 in Berlin last month, the European consumer electronics show highlighted new smartwatches meant to entice consumers with more fashion-forward designs. Smartwatch makers hope to eventually legitimize wearable products as a category by improving their usability, and the secret sauce in this effort is an upgrade in design centered on the use of flexible displays. 

The display panel market for all types of wearable electronic items is forecast to enjoy very rapid growth in the years to come. From a projected $300 million this year, industry revenue will climb more than 80 percent annually for at least four more years as high resolution and color displays are increasingly adopted in devices. By 2023, the market will be worth some $22.7 billion, as shown in the attached figure.

In terms of shipments, the market will surge to 800 million units in 2023, up from 54 million in 2014.

Samsung, LG, Sony, Asus and Motorola were on hand at IFA to introduce proprietary offerings—ostensibly to get a head start on Apple, which unveiled its own smartwatches a few days later after the show, in which it does not participate. 

Samsung introduced the Gear S smart watch, which features a curved screen and a 2-inch super active-matrix organic light-emitting diode (AMOLED) flexible display that is large enough to accommodate a keyboard for the smartwatch.

For its part, LG introduced the G Watch R that flaunts a completely circular screen. With a 1.3-inch diameter, this round display has 57 percent more area than a square screen. The sleek P-AMOLED panel is less than 0.6mm thick and features 320 x 320 resolution, 100-percent color gamut, 300-nits peak luminance and unlimited contrast ratio, typical of an organic light-emitting diode (OLED) display.

LG Display recently started mass production of its revolutionary circular plastic P-OLED screen, made possible by the company’s development of a circular mask and new production processes that improve deposition efficiency and employ highly precise laser cutting. LG Display’s power-save mode, which enables the screen to retain its resolution without a power supply, has also contributed to longer battery life for the watch.

Like the G Watch R, Motorola’s Moto 360 also comes with an attractive round screen. Both the LG and Motorola models are powered by Android Wear as extensions of the Android smartwatch ecosystem. Meanwhile, the Samsung Gear S employs Samsung’s Tizen operating system.

After months of rumors, Apple finally introduced the Apple Watch—fashionably late but highly anticipated. Set to be available at the beginning of 2015 with a starting price of $349, Apple Watch will use a square display. Detailed specs about the display are still not available, but the wearable timepieces will employ a flexible Retina display. According to Apple, the display is “not just a display but the focal point of the whole experience.” Its advertised flexibility, high-energy efficiency and very-high contrast mean it likely will use an OLED display.

And just like the iPhone, Apple Watch will have the solid advantage of application support from its entrenched ecosystem fully behind the product. 

Imperatives for wearable displays

Developments in flexible displays have opened up new opportunities for wearable devices, enabling the kind of design innovations seen in the latest group of smartwatch products at IFA.

“Wearables are best viewed as functional fashion accessories rather than as electronic goods,” said Sweta Dash, senior director for research and display at IHS. But because the fashion accessory market is determined by design rather than by simple function, wearable products such as smartwatches must be adaptable to various forms including squares, circles or even ovals.”

Displays used in wearables need three essential elements, Dash noted. These include outdoor visibility, low power consumption and flexibility in form factor and design. New forms of display, such as stretchable panels that are expected to come in the near future, can meet even more demanding designs in wearables, creating possibilities for exotic shapes and forms.

Also of significance in future wearables will be efficient, low-power flexible displays with longer battery lives that enable increased functionality in smaller form factors. Expected to dominate the wearable display market with improved capability and reduced costs is OLED, a self-emissive display technology with no backlight, excellent flexibility, faster response time and great video quality.

Most of the next wave of wearable products will come from smartwatch computing, Dash remarked. This field of wearable technology will be diverse, ranging from gaming, to infotainment, to health monitoring.

On the downside, most current products—including smartwatches and smartglasses from Google and others—are not completely ready for mainstream consumer adoption. The smartwatch models shown at IFA and Apple’s offerings alike are all expensive and lack the kind of affordable pricing to make them universally appealing. Moreover, a clear value proposition is needed before consumers fully accept the design and available applications provided by these new timepieces to replace the trusty traditional watches of old.

Wearable devices will need to strike the correct combination of price, performance, form factor and usability to reach the consumer mainstream market, IHS believes. Until then, actual wearable products like smartwatches may take longer to gain traction before the market can take off. 

These findings can be found in the Displays research service of IHS Technology.

The 2014 Nobel Prize for physics awarded today to three physicists for their invention of blue light-emitting diodes (LED) led to a significant breakthrough and paved the way for the creation of white light—a cleaner, more energy-efficient and longer-lasting source of illumination that also has generated a multibillion-dollar market and the creation of hundreds of thousands of jobs, according to IHS Technology.

Following the invention of blue LEDs by Isamu Akasaki, Hiroshi Amano and Shuji Nakamura, white light could finally be achieved—either through a combination with previously invented red and green LEDs; or as more commonly seen today, by adding a yellow phosphor layer over the blue LED. Without blue diodes, white light could not be produced.

Since the trailblazing invention of blue LEDs in the early 1990s the LED component market has flourished, reaching an estimated $17.7 billion in 2013, as shown in the attached figure, and supporting more than 250,000 jobs in the industry. The overall market would be even bigger if it included all the LED downstream markets, such as lighting, displays, signage, consumer electronics and even Christmas lights.

2014-10-07_LEDs

William Rhodes, research manager for LEDs and lighting at IHS, said that the invention of Akasaki, Amano and Nakamura was a game-changer.

“Before the invention of blue LEDs, the market was mainly focused on indicator lights in toys, industrial and automotive applications,” Rhodes observed. “Since then the market has evolved with more than 90 percent of all displays sold this year backlit by LEDs, and LEDs will account for 32 percent of all bulb sales and revenue in 2014.”

The LED lighting market is poised for strong growth in the next five to 10 years with energy-hungry technologies being systematically banned across the world. In particular, consumers and business owners alike are increasingly looking for energy-efficient lighting for their homes and offices to replace energy hogs such as incandescent bulbs, which can use as much as six times the amount of electricity compared to LEDs.

All of this would not be possible without the ground-breaking work of this year’s Nobel Prize physics winners Akasaki, Amano and Nakamura, Rhodes said.

Seoul Semiconductor, a global LED manufacturer, announced the availability of Acrich MJT 3030 a new LED in the Acrich MJT product family which improves on performance and enables lower system costs. Using Seoul Semiconductor’s Acrich MJT technology, the MJT 3030 LED offers improved performance and high lm/$ in a mid-power package.

This new Acrich series has dimensions of 3.0mm x 3.0mm delivering a typical luminous flux of 103 lumens at 40mA at 22V, 25° C, 3000K and can be driven to a maximum current of 60mA delivering upto 155 lumens to address high-lumen applications that require low cost and high reliability solutions. To improve time-to-market, lighting manufacturers seeking ENERGY STAR qualification can take advantage of the completed 6,000 hours LM-80 data of the Acrich MJT 3030 LED.

Utilizing Seoul Semiconductor’s proven and reliable high voltage architecture, Acrich MJT “Multi-Junction chip Technology”, the Acrich LED eliminates the tradeoff between size and efficacy. The Acrich MJT 3030 can be operated in either AC or DC modes, depending on your configuration. AC mode, which uses the Acrich IC instead of an AC/DC converter, improves reliability and simplifies integration when making lighting fixtures. The 0.97 power factor and low THD of Acrich IC-based modules helps save energy and optimize designs. In the DC-mode, the low-current operation of the Acrich MJT 3030 can lower the number of components and reduce the cost of the power supply. The inherent flexibility of the Acrich MJT 3030 LED enables optimized performance in both AC and DC configurations.

Seoul Semiconductor Executive Vice President of Lighting sales, Jay Kim stated that, “The new Acrich MJT 3030 LED combines the improved performance and high lm/$ with the reliability of the MJT technology enabling lighting manufacturers to create new innovative solutions to address a wide range of lighting applications.”

Last month, Yole Développement  announced the update of its technology and market analysis, LED Packaging Technology & Market Trends. Under this new report, the research market and strategy consulting company highlights the impact of advanced packaging technologies in the LED industry.

“The combination of cost reduction and advanced packaging technologies such as Flip Chip and Chip Scale Package, is changing the LED industry landscape, especially its supply chain,” Yole announced.  For example, introduction of Chip Scale Package solution clearly reduces the number of manufacturing steps: today, some LED chip manufacturers, with Chip Scale Package technology already supply their products to the LED module makers directly.

LED packaging

Flip Chip technology has step by step attracted attention from the lighting, backlighting and flash markets, becoming one the most important developing items this year. Following the LED TV crisis and with the entry of Chinese players, positioning has been reshuffled in the LED industry. The product quality of Chinese LED manufacturers has increased to a level where they are now real competitors for all players. In such a highly competitive environment, three major challenges lie ahead for the LED industry regarding the General Lighting market: efficacy improvement, cost decrease and color consistency increase.

To answer these challenges, several players have now turned to Flip Chip (FC) LED, as these components present several advantages over traditional horizontal (MESA) and vertical LEDs: they are wire-bonding free, can be driven at higher current, and have a smaller size package (…).

And although the FC LED technology has been launched for quite a long time by Lumileds, it was restricted from “popularization” due to technical / technological barriers (low yield regarding bumping / eutectic process…). Additionally, the financial investment required for packaging equipment, represented a strong barrier in an industry that was still recovering.

At middle and long term, this technology [CSP] could make chip manufacturers supply directly to module manufacturers.

But the technology has gradually attracted attention from the lighting, backlighting and flash markets, becoming one the most important developing items this year.

“Whereas Flip Chip LED represented only 11 percent of overall high power LED packaging in 2013, we expect this component to represent 34 percent by 2020. Flip Chip LED will take market share from vertical LED that will represent 27 percent of overall high power LED packages by 2020,” said Pars Mukish, Senior Market & Technology Analyst, LED, Lighting Technologies, Compound Semiconductors and OLEDs.

In addition to offering an increased “performance / cost” ratio, Flip Chip LEDs are also a key enabling technology for the development of Chip Scale Package (CSP) that could allow for further cost reduction.

CSPs are novel to the LED industry but they are the mainstay of the semiconductor industry. Development of CSPs in the Silicon ICs was driven by miniaturization, improved thermal management, higher reliability, and simply the need to connect to an ever increasing pin-count on an ever shrinking die. Chip Scale packages also enabled a reduction in device parasitic and allowed for ease of integration into Level 2 packaging (e.g.: module packaging for LED). It is therefore a natural evolution for this packaging innovation to proliferate into other industries (such as the LED industry).
Basically, a CSP represents a single chip direct mountable package that is the same size as the chip. Regarding LED devices, CSPs are made of a blue FC LED die on which a phosphor layer is coated (the main application of such package being General Lighting). CSP presents several advantages such as: miniaturized size, better thermal contact to substrate. However, eliminating several process steps of traditional LED packaging, CSPs are also having an impact on the industry structure with some LED chip manufacturers supplying their products directly to LED module manufacturers. At middle and long term, this technology could make chip manufacturers supply directly to module manufacturers.

SEMI recently completed its annual silicon shipment forecast for the semiconductor industry. This forecast provides an outlook for the demand in silicon units for the period 2014-–2016. The results show polished and epitaxial silicon shipments totaling 9,410 million square inches in 2014; 9,840 million square inches in 2015; and 10,163 million square inches in 2016 (refer to table below). Total wafer shipments this year are expected to finally exceed the market high set in 2010 and are forecast to continue shipping at record levels in 2015 and 2016.

“Silicon shipment levels are robust this year,” said Denny McGuirk, president and CEO of SEMI.  “We expect silicon shipment volume to set a record high this year, followed by two consecutive years of growth.”

2014 Silicon Shipment Forecast

Total Electronic Grade Silicon Slices* – Does not Include Non-Polished

(Millions of Square Inches)

 

Actual

Forecast
 

2012

2013

2014F

2015F

2016F
MSI

8,814

8,834

9,410

9,840

10,163
Annual Growth

0%

0%

7%

5%

3%

*Shipments are for semiconductor applications only and do not include solar applications

Silicon wafers are the fundamental building material for semiconductors, which in turn, are vital components of virtually all electronics goods, including computers, telecommunications products, and consumer electronics. The highly-engineered thin round disks are produced in various diameters (from one inch to 12 inches) and serve as the substrate material on which most semiconductor devices or “chips” are fabricated.

All data cited in this release is inclusive of polished silicon wafers, including virgin test wafers and epitaxial silicon wafers shipped by the wafer manufacturers to the end-users. Data do not include non-polished or reclaimed wafers.

The Silicon Manufacturers Group acts as an independent special interest group within the SEMI structure and is open to SEMI members involved in manufacturing polycrystalline silicon, monocrystalline silicon or silicon wafers (e.g., as cut, polished, epi, etc.). The purpose of the group is to facilitate collective efforts on issues related to the silicon industry including the development of market information and statistics about the silicon industry and the semiconductor market.

Soraa, a developer of GaN on GaN LED technology, announced today that one of its founders, Dr. Shuji Nakamura, has been awarded the 2014 Nobel Prize in Physics. Recognizing that Nakamura’s invention, the blue light emitting diode (LED), represents a critical advancement in LED lighting, the Nobel committee explained the innovation “has enabled bright and energy-saving white light sources.”

“I am very honored to receive the Nobel Prize from The Royal Swedish Academy of Science for my invention of the blue LED,” said Nakamura. “It is very satisfying to see that my dream of LED lighting has become a reality. I hope that energy-efficient LED light bulbs will help reduce energy use and lower the cost of lighting worldwide, and that is why we founded Soraa.”

Shuji Nakamura - SoraaIn 2007, Dr. Shuji Nakamura, along with pioneering professors Dr. Steven DenBaars and Dr. James Speck, came together and made a bet on an LED technology platform completely different than current industry practice, a technology most industry experts at the time considered to be impossible to execute.

“We knew that our GaN on GaN LED technology would be the future of lighting and Soraa has made this a reality,” added Nakamura.

Soraa bet that GaN on GaN LEDs would produce more light per area of LED and be more cost-effective than technology based on other foreign substrates like sapphire or silicon carbide. This strategy ran against every trend in the LED industry. That bet paid off: today, Soraa’s LEDs emit more light per LED material than any other LED; handle more electric current per area than any other LED; and its GaN on GaN crystals are up to a thousand times purer than any other LED crystal.

“Shuji is simply brilliant and well deserving of this honor. Largely as a result of his work, Soraa has been able to push the boundaries of what is possible in high performance LED lighting,” said Jeff Parker, CEO of Soraa. “Soraa’s GaN on GaN LED lamps are now regarded as the best in the world, with quality of light that far surpasses any other LED product.”

The Semiconductor Industry Association (SIA), representing U.S. leadership in semiconductor manufacturing and design, today announced that worldwide sales of semiconductors reached $28.4 billion for the month of August 2014, an increase of 9.4 percent from the August 2013 total of $26 billion and an uptick of 1.3 percent over the July 2014 total of $28.1 billion. Year-to-date sales through August are 10.1 percent higher than they were at the same point in 2013. All monthly sales numbers are compiled by the World Semiconductor Trade Statistics (WSTS) organization and represent a three-month moving average.

“The global semiconductor market continued to demonstrate broad and sustained strength in August, and sales remain well ahead of last year’s pace,” said Brian Toohey, president and CEO, Semiconductor Industry Association. “Demand is strong across nearly all semiconductor product categories, and the industry has now posted sequential monthly growth for six consecutive months, thanks in part to continued strength in the Americas market.”

Toohey also noted that continued U.S. semiconductor industry strength bodes well for the overall U.S. economy. He cited an SIA whitepaper released this week that found that the U.S. semiconductor industry is one of the top contributors to U.S. economic growth of any domestic manufacturing industry. To learn more, read the SIA whitepaper here.

Regionally, year-to-year sales increased in Asia Pacific (12.3 percent), Europe (10.9 percent), and the Americas (7 percent), but decreased slightly in Japan (-1.7 percent). Sales were up compared to the previous month in the Americas (2.3 percent) and Asia Pacific (1.7 percent), held flat in Japan, and decreased slightly in Europe (-1.3 percent). Sales increased across all regions for the three-month period from June to August compared to the previous three-month period from March to May.

August 2014

Billions

Month-to-Month Sales

Market Last Month Current Month % Change
Americas

5.43

5.55

2.3%
Europe

3.27

3.23

-1.3%
Japan

2.99

2.99

0.0%
Asia Pacific

16.38

16.66

1.7%
Total

28.07

28.44

1.3%

Year-to-Year Sales

Market Last Year Current Month % Change
Americas

5.19

5.55

7.0%
Europe

2.91

3.23

10.9%
Japan

3.05

2.99

-1.7%
Asia Pacific

14.83

16.66

12.3%
Total

25.98

28.44

9.4%

Three-Month-Moving Average Sales

Market Mar/Apr/May June/July/August % Change
Americas

5.07

5.55

9.6%
Europe

3.13

3.23

3.4%
Japan

2.87

2.99

4.2%
Asia Pacific

15.71

16.66

6.0%
Total

26.78

28.44

6.2%