Category Archives: Packaging Materials

The global gallium arsenide (GaAs) components market is expected to grow at a CAGR of over 4% during the forecast period, according to Technavio’s latest report.

In this report, Technavio covers the market outlook and growth prospects of the global GaAs components market for 2017-2021. By end-users, this market is divided into mobile devices and wireless communications segments.

The global GaAs components market is expected to grow to USD 9.13 billion by 2021, with over 54% of the revenue being generated from the mobile devices segment. The quickly developing 3G and 4G networks are enabling the quick growth of the market segment.

The rising adoption of smartphones and tablets is acting as a major driving factor for this market, with number of smartphone shipments expected to hit 2 billion by 2020. This growth in number of shipments will drive the demand for GaAs components used in mobile handsets, particularly GaAs power amplifiers.

Technavio’s research study segments the global GaAs components market into the following regions:

  • APAC
  • Americas
  • EMEA

APAC: largest GaAs component market segment

“APAC is the global leader in the market, accounting for almost 78% of the total market revenue in 2016. The market dominance is primarily because of the high demand for GaAs components from communication device manufacturers in the region. Also, increasing demand for power applications, along with high-growth economies, is a major driver of the GaAs components market in the region,” says Sunil Kumar Singh, one of the lead analysts at Technavio for embedded systems research.

The increasing smartphone penetration in developing countries and rapidly developing wireless infrastructure are driving the high adoption of GaAs components in the region. Companies such as Samsung, LG, HTC, and Sony are investing heavily to launch better smartphones, which is compatible with 3G/4G technologies. These new-generation mobile phones integrate three to four times more power amplifiers when compared to previous generation smartphones, which means increased demand for GaAs components.

Technavio’s sample reports are free of charge and contain multiple sections of the report including the market size and forecast, drivers, challenges, trends, and more.

Americas: expansion of 4G networks driving GaAs components market the region

Analysts at Technavio forecast the Americas to showcase a CAGR of 4.31% during the forecast period, of which most of the growth will be driven by the expansion of 4G networks in the region. North America is witnessing rapid expansion of its 4G network to make an easier transition to the upcoming 5G network. Apple and Skyworks Solutions are among the biggest consumers of GaAs components for their application in mobile power amplifiers.

GaAs components also find wide application in radar and defense systems. Currently, the US Department of Defense(DoD) is investing significantly in GaAs components to improve the efficiency of its current radar applications. Additionally, GaAs components are expected to attract demand from the military sector, thereby boosting the revenue contribution from the region.

EMEA: high demand from the automotive industry

“The GaAs components saw maximum adoption from the thriving automotive industry in the region. The region will also invest in the adoption of LEDs for the general lighting and automotive sectors, all of which consume GaAs components. In the defense sector, UMS, an MMIC solution provider from the UK, creates a significant demand for GaAs components,” says Sunil.

The different domains of defense – radar, communication, and smart ammunition are supplied with designs done by UMS or their customers and are based on the UMS technology platform. However, this region will grow at a slower rate when compared to the other two segments as most semiconductor foundries and manufacturing units are present in APAC and the Americas.

The top vendors in the global GaAs market highlighted in the report are:

  • Skyworks Solutions
  • Qorvo
  • Broadcom

Solar cells made with films mimicking the structure of the mineral perovskite are the focus of worldwide research. But only now have researchers at Case Western Reserve University directly shown the films bear a key property allowing them to efficiently convert sunlight into electricity.

Identifying that attribute could lead to more efficient solar panels.

Electrons generated when light strikes the film are unrestricted by grain boundaries — the edges of crystalline subunits within the film — and travel long distances without deteriorating, the researchers showed. That means electric charge carriers that become trapped and decay in other materials are instead available to be drawn off as current.

The scientists directly measured the distance traveled–called diffusion length — for the first time by using the technique called “spatially scanned photocurrent imaging microscopy.” Diffusion length within a well-oriented perovskite film measured up to 20 micrometers.

The findings, published in the journal Nano Letters, indicate that solar cells could be made thicker without harming their efficiency, said Xuan Gao, associate professor of physics and author of the paper.

“A thicker cell can absorb more light,” he said, “potentially yielding a better solar cell.”

Efficiency built in

Solar power researchers believe perovskite films hold great promise. In less than five years, films made with the crystalline structure have surpassed 20 percent efficiency in converting sunlight to electricity, a mark that took decades to reach with silicon-based solar cells used today.

In this research, Gao’s lab performed spatially scanned photocurrent image measurements on films made in the lab of Case Western Reserve chemistry professor Clemens Burda.

Perovskite minerals found in nature are oxides of certain metals, but Burda’s lab made organo-metallic films with the same crystalline structure using methyl ammonium lead tri-iodide (CH3NH3PBI3), a three-dimensional lead halide surrounded by small organic methyl ammonium molecules that hold the lattice structure together.

“The question has been, ‘How are these solar cells so efficient? If we would know, we could further improve perovskite solar cells” Burda said. “People thought it could be due to unusually long electron transport, and we directly measured it.”

Diffusion length is the distance an electron or its opposite, called a hole, travels from generation until it recombines or is extracted as electric current. The distance is the same as transport length when no electric field (which usually increases the distance traveled) is applied.

Measuring travel

The labs made repeated measurements by focusing a tiny laser spot on films 8 millimeters square by 300 nanometers thick. The films were made stable by coating the perovskite with a layer of the polymer parylene.

The light generates electrons and holes and the photocurrent, or stream of electrons, is recorded between the electrodes positioned about 120 microns away from each other while the film is scanned along two perpendicular directions. The scanning yields a two-dimensional spatial map of carrier diffusion and transport characteristics.

The measurements showed diffusion length averaged about 10 microns. In some cases, the length reached 20 microns, showing the functional area of the film is at least 20 microns long, the researchers said.

In some materials, grain boundaries decrease conductivity, but imaging showed that these interfaces between grains in the film exerted no influence on electron travel. Gao and Burda say this may be because grains in the film are well aligned, causing no impedance or other detrimental effects on electrons or holes.

Burda and Gao are now seeking federal funds to use the microscopy technique to determine whether different grain sizes, orientations, halide perovskite compositions, film thicknesses and more change the film’s properties, to further accelerate research in the field.

Air Products (NYSE:  APD) today announced it will increase nitrogen production to serve the growing demand of its existing customer in Pyeongtaek City, Gyeonggi Province, South Korea. It is Air Products’ second phase of capacity expansion to supply the semiconductor fab.

Air Products was awarded a major contract in 2015 for the supply of its industrial bulk gases and bulk specialty gas supply system. The company is undertaking a multi-phase expansion project involving multiple ultra high-purity nitrogen plants, hydrogen generators and a liquefier. In this phase, a second nitrogen plant will be built.

“We are pleased to bring additional nitrogen capacity to the semiconductor fab to support its  increasing demand,” said Kyo-Yung Kim, president of Air Products Korea. “Our latest expansion represents Air Products’ commitment to growing together with customers in the expanding region through continued investment. It will put us in an even stronger position to deliver our safe and reliable industrial gas solutions in a very cost-effective way.”

An integrated gases supplier for the global electronics industry, Air Products has more than 40 years of experience in the safe and reliable delivery of gases to a variety of markets, including some of the world’s biggest technology companies. Air Products is working with these industry leaders to develop the next generation of semiconductors and displays for tablets, computers and mobile devices.

In the past decade, two-dimensional, 2D, materials have captured the fascination of a steadily increasing number of scientists. These materials, whose defining feature is having a thickness of only one to very few atoms, can be made of a variety of different elements or combinations thereof. Scientists’ enchantment with 2D materials began with Andre Geim and Konstantin Novoselov’s Nobel Prize winning experiment: creating a 2D material using a lump of graphite and common adhesive tape. This ingeniously simple experiment yielded an incredible material: graphene. This ultra-light material is roughly 200 times stronger than steel and is a superb conductor. Once scientists discovered that graphene had more impressive properties than its bulk component graphite, they decided to investigate other 2D materials to see if this was a universal property.

Christopher Petoukhoff, a Rutgers University graduate student working in the Femtosecond Spectroscopy Unit at the Okinawa Institute of Science and Technology Graduate University (OIST), studies a 2D material, made of molybdenum disulfide (MoS2). His research focuses on the 2D material’s optoelectronic applications, or how the material can detect and absorb light. Optoelectronics are ubiquitous in today’s world, from the photodetectors in automatic doors and hand dryers, to solar cells, to LED lights, but as anyone who has stood in front of an automatic sink desperately waving their hands around to get it to work will tell you, there is plenty of room for improvement. The 2D MoS2 is particularly interesting for use in photodetectors because of its capability of absorbing the same amount of light as 50nm of the currently used silicon-based technologies, while being 70 times thinner.

Petoukhoff, under the supervision of Professor Keshav Dani, seeks to improve optoelectronic devices by adding a 2D layer of MoS2 to an organic semiconductor, which has similar absorption strengths as MoS2. The theory behind using both materials is that the interaction between the MoS2 layer and the organic semiconductor should lead to efficient charge transfer. Petoukhoff’s research, published in ACS Nano, demonstrates for the first time that charge transfer between these two layers occurs at an ultra-fast timescale, on the order of less than 100 femtoseconds, or one tenth of one millionth of one millionth of a second.

The thinness of these materials, however, becomes a limiting factor in their efficiency as photovoltaics, or light-energy conversion devices. Light absorbing devices, such as solar cells and photodetectors, require a certain amount of optical thickness in order to absorb photons, rather than allowing them to pass through. To overcome this, researchers from the Femtosecond Spectroscopy Unit added an array of silver nanoparticles, or a plasmonic metasurface, to the organic semiconductor-MoS2 hybrid to focus and localize the light in the device. The addition of the metasurface increases the optical thickness of the material while capitalizing on the unique properties of the ultra-thin active layer, which ultimately increase the total absorption.

While this research is still in its infancy, its implications for the future are huge. Combinations with 2D materials have the potential to revolutionize the marketability of optoelectronic devices. Conventional optoelectronic devices are expensive to manufacture and are often made from scarce or toxic elements, such as indium or arsenic. Organic semiconductors have low manufacturing costs, and are made of earth-abundant and non-toxic elements. This research can potentially improve the cost and efficiency of optoelectronics, leading to better products in the future.

A team of researchers at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign has advanced gallium nitride (GaN)-on-silicon transistor technology by optimizing the composition of the semiconductor layers that make up the device. Working with industry partners Veeco and IBM, the team created the high electron mobility transistor (HEMT) structure on a 200 mm silicon substrate with a process that will scale to larger industry-standard wafer sizes.

Can Bayram, an assistant professor of electrical and computer engineering (ECE), and his team have created the GaN HEMT structure on a silicon platform because it is compatible with existing CMOS manufacturing processes and is less expensive than other substrate options like sapphire and silicon carbide.

However, silicon does have its challenges. Namely, the lattice constant, or space between silicon atoms, doesn’t match up with the atomic structure of the GaN grown on top of it.

“When you grow the GaN on top, there’s a lot of strain between the layers, so we grew buffer layers [between the silicon and GaN] to help change the lattice constant into the proper size,” explained ECE undergraduate researcher Josh Perozek, lead author of the group’s paper, “Investigation of structural, optical, and electrical characteristics of an AlGaN/GaN high electron mobility transistor structure across a 200mm Si(1 1 1) substrate,” in the Journal of Physics D: Applied Physics.

Without these buffer layers, cracks or other defects will form in the GaN material, which would prevent the transistor from operating properly. Specifically, these defects — threading dislocations or holes where atoms should be–ruin the properties of the 2-dimensional electron gas channel in the device. This channel is critical to the HEMTs ability to conduct current and function at high frequencies.

“The single most important thing for these GaN [HEMT] devices is to have high 2D electron gas concentration,” said Bayram, about the accumulation of electrons in a channel at the interface between the silicon and the various GaN-based layers above it.

“The problem is you have to control the strain balance among all those layers–from substrate all the way up to the channel — so as to maximize the density of the of the conducting electrons in order to get the fastest transistor with the highest possible power density.”

After studying three different buffer layer configurations, Bayram’s team discovered that thicker buffer layers made of graded AlGaN reduce threading dislocation, and stacking those layers reduces stress. With this type of configuration, the team achieved an electron mobility of 1,800 cm2/V-sec.

“The less strain there is on the GaN layer, the higher the mobility will be, which ultimately corresponds to higher transistor operating frequencies,” said Hsuan-Ping Lee, an ECE graduate student researcher leading the scaling of these devices for 5G applications.

According to Bayram, the next step for his team is to fabricate fully functional high-frequency GaN HEMTs on a silicon platform for use in the 5G wireless data networks.

When it’s fully deployed, the 5G network will enable faster data rates for the world’s 8 billion mobile phones, and will provide better connectivity and performance for Internet of Things (IoT) devices and driverless cars.

Atomera Incorporated (NASDAQ: ATOM), a semiconductor materials and intellectual property licensing company focused on deploying its proprietary technology into the semiconductor industry, today announced a master R&D service agreement with TSI Semiconductors, a specialty foundry with ISO, Automotive and Industrial Class Certifications. Atomera will leverage its significant investments in Mears Silicon Technology™ (MST®), and the manufacturing capability of TSI to accelerate fab integration and shorten time to market for its More-than-Moore architectural and material innovation.

“As a developer of advanced semiconductor materials, Atomera is constantly seeking to provide better electronic performance by enhancing transistors with our quantum engineered material innovations,” said Scott Bibaud, Atomera President and CEO. “Our foundry agreement with TSI significantly cuts fab cycle times, allowing for faster product development, test, and integration, and should accelerate our time to market with both existing and new customers. I could not be more excited by the dramatic improvement in development time our relationship with TSI allows.”

“TSI’s Technology Development Services are a perfect fit for cutting edge semiconductor technology companies like Atomera,” said Bruce Gray, Chief Executive Officer at TSI. “Their strong IP portfolio of new semiconductor materials such as MST®, combined with our 200mm fabrication capabilities and our focus on custom solutions and commercialization services, forms a partnership that showcases our capabilities and fast tracks Atomera’s development.”

This partnership allows Atomera to execute cycles of learning 5 to 10 times faster as compared to the engineering evaluation process experienced at foundries or integrated device manufacturers currently testing MST®. As a result, adoption of Atomera’s technology in the industry can be significantly accelerated. With MST® technology, manufacturers can address their yield, power and performance challenges at a fraction of the cost of alternative approaches. Atomera breathes new life into semiconductor fabs by providing up to a full node of performance benefits to existing fab processes enabling significantly better performance in today’s electronics. Atomera’s patented material technology enables more efficient and better controlled current flow, leading to dramatic improvements in device performance and power efficiency.

Atomera will be holding meetings with customers, analysts, media and investors during the 2017 Consumer Electronics Show (“CES”) January 5-7, 2017 in Las Vegas at the Bellagio Hotel.

Germanium may not be a household name like silicon, its group-mate on the periodic table, but it has great potential for use in next-generation electronics and energy technology.

Of particular interest are forms of germanium that can be synthesized in the lab under extreme pressure conditions. However, one of the most-promising forms of germanium for practical applications, called ST12, has only been created in tiny sample sizes–too small to definitively confirm its properties.

“Attempts to experimentally or theoretically pin down ST12-germanium’s characteristics produced extremely varied results, especially in terms of its electrical conductivity,” said Carnegie’s Zhisheng Zhao, the first author on a new paper about this form of germanium.

The study’s research team, led by Carnegie’s Timothy Strobel, was able to create ST12-germanium in a large enough sample size to confirm its characteristics and useful properties. Their work is published by Nature Communications.

“This work will be of interest to a broad range of readers in the field of materials science, physics, chemistry, and engineering,” explained Carnegie’s Haidong Zhang, the co-leading author.

ST12-germanium has a tetragonal structure–the nameST12 means “simple tetragonal with 12 atoms.”(See illustration below.) It was created by putting germanium under about 138 times normal atmospheric pressure (14 gigapascals) and then decompressing it slowly at room temperature.

The millimeter-sized samples of ST12-germanium that the team created were large enough that they could be studied using a variety of spectroscopic techniques in order to confirm its long-debated characteristics.

Like the most common, diamond-cubic form of germanium, they found that ST12 is a semiconductor with a so-called indirect band gap. Metallic substances conduct electrical current easily, whereas insulating materials conduct no current at all. Semiconducting materials exhibit mid-range electrical conductivity. When semiconducting materials are subjected to an input of a specific energy, bound electrons can be moved to higher-energy, conducting states. The specific energy required to make this jump to the conducting state is defined as the “band gap.” While direct band gap materials can effectively absorb and emit light, indirect band gap materials cannot.

“Our team was able to quantify ST12’s optical band gap–where visible light energy can be absorbed by the material–as well as its electrical and thermal properties, which will help define its potential for practical applications,” Strobel said. “Our findings indicate that due to the size of its band gap, ST12-germanium may be a better material for infrared detection and imaging technology than the diamond-cubic form of the element already being used for these purposes.”

The Semiconductor Industry Association (SIA) today announced worldwide sales of semiconductors reached $31.0 billion for the month of November 2016, an increase of 7.4 percent compared to the November 2015 total of $28.9 billion and 2.0 percent more than the October 2016 total of 30.4 billion. November marked the market’s largest year-to-year growth since January 2015. All monthly sales numbers are compiled by the World Semiconductor Trade Statistics (WSTS) organization and represent a three-month moving average.

“Global semiconductor sales continued to pick up steam in November, increasing at the highest rate in almost two years and nearly pulling even with the year-to-date total from the same point in 2015,” said John Neuffer, president and CEO, Semiconductor Industry Association. “The Chinese market continues to stand out, growing nearly 16 percent year-to-year to lead all regional markets. As 2016 draws to a close, the global semiconductor market appears likely to roughly match annual sales from 2015 and is well-positioned for a solid start to 2017.”

Month-to-month sales increased modestly across all regions: the Americas (3.3 percent), China (2.7 percent), Europe (2.5 percent), Asia Pacific/All Other (0.7 percent), and Japan (0.4 percent). Year-to-year sales increased in China (15.8 percent), Japan (8.2 percent), Asia Pacific/All Other (4.8 percent), and the Americas (3.2 percent), but fell slightly in Europe (-1.6 percent).

From the ground-breaking research breakthroughs to the shifting supplier landscape, these are the stories the Solid State Technology audience read the most during 2016.

#1: Moore’s Law did indeed stop at 28nm

In this follow up, Zvi Or-Bach, president and CEO, MonolithIC 3D, Inc., writes: “As we have predicted two and a half years back, the industry is bifurcating, and just a few products pursue scaling to 7nm while the majority of designs stay on 28nm or older nodes.”

#2: Yield and cost challenges at 16nm and beyond

In February, KLA-Tencor’s Robert Cappel and Cathy Perry-Sullivan wrote of a new 5D solution which utilizes multiple types of metrology systems to identify and control fab-wide sources of pattern variation, with an intelligent analysis system to handle the data being generated.

#3: EUVL: Taking it down to 5nm

The semiconductor industry is nothing if not persistent — it’s been working away at developing extreme ultraviolet lithography (EUVL) for many years, SEMI’s Deb Vogler reported in May.

#4: IBM scientists achieve storage memory breakthrough

For the first time, scientists at IBM Research have demonstrated reliably storing 3 bits of data per cell using a relatively new memory technology known as phase-change memory (PCM).

#5: ams breaks ground on NY wafer fab

In April, ams AG took a step forward in its long-term strategy of increasing manufacturing capacity for its high-performance sensors and sensor solution integrated circuits (ICs), holding a groundbreaking event at the site of its new wafer fabrication plant in Utica, New York.

#6: Foundries takeover 200mm fab capacity by 2018

In January, Christian Dieseldorff of SEMI wrote that a recent Global Fab Outlook report reveals a change in the landscape for 200mm fab capacity.

#7: Equipment spending up: 19 new fabs and lines to start construction

While semiconductor fab equipment spending was off to a slow start in 2016, it was expected to gain momentum through the end of the year. For 2016, 1.5 percent growth over 2015 is expected while 13 percent growth is forecast in 2017.

#8: How finFETs ended the service contract of silicide process

Arabinda Daa, TechInsights, provided a look into how the silicide process has evolved over the years, trying to cope with the progress in scaling technology and why it could no longer be of service to finFET devices.

#9: Five suppliers to hold 41% of global semiconductor marketshare in 2016

In December, IC Insights reported that two years of busy M&A activity had boosted marketshare among top suppliers.

#10: Countdown to Node 5: Moving beyond FinFETs

A forum of industry experts at SEMICON West 2016 discussed the challenges associated with getting from node 10 — which seems set for HVM — to nodes 7 and 5.

BONUS: Most Watched Webcast of 2016: View On Demand Now

IoT Device Trends and Challenges

Presenters: Rajeev Rajan, GLOBALFOUNDRIES, and Uday Tennety, GE Digital

The age of the Internet of Things is upon us, with the expectation that tens of billions of devices will be connected to the internet by 2020. This explosion of devices will make our lives simpler, yet create an array of new challenges and opportunities in the semiconductor industry. At the sensor level, very small, inexpensive, low power devices will be gathering data and communicating with one another and the “cloud.” On the other hand, this will mean huge amounts of small, often unstructured data (such as video) will rippling through the network and the infrastructure. The need to convert that data into “information” will require a massive investment in data centers and leading edge semiconductor technology.

Also, manufacturers seek increased visibility and better insights into the performance of their equipment and assets to minimize failures and reduce downtime. They wish to both cut their costs as well as grow their profits for the organization while ensuring safety for employees, the general public and the environment.

The Industrial Internet is transforming the way people and machines interact by using data and analytics in new ways to drive efficiency gains, accelerate productivity and achieve overall operational excellence. The advent of networked machines with embedded sensors and advanced analytics tools has greatly influenced the industrial ecosystem.

Today, the Industrial Internet allows you to combine data from the equipment sensors, operational data , and analytics to deliver valuable new insights that were never before possible. The results of these powerful analytic insights can be revolutionary for your business by transforming your technological infrastructure, helping reduce unplanned downtime, improve performance and maximize profitability and efficiency.

While solar cell technology is currently being used by many industrial and government entities, it remains prohibitively expensive to many individuals who would like to utilize it. There is a need for cheaper, more efficient solar cells than the traditional silicon solar cells so that more people may have access to this technology. One of the current popular topics in photovoltaic technology research centers around the use of organic-inorganic halide perovskites as solar cells because of the high power conversion efficiency and the low-cost fabrication.

Perovskites are a type of crystalline material that can be formed using a wide variety of different chemical combinations. Of the many different perovskites formulations that can be used in solar cells, the methylammonium lead iodide perovskite (MAPbI3) has been the most widely studied. Solar cells made of this material have been able to reach efficiencies exceeding 20% and are cheaper to manufacture than silicon. However, their short lifespans have prevented them from becoming a viable silicon solar cell alternative. In order to help create better solar cells in the future, members of the Energy Materials and Surface Sciences Unit at the Okinawa Institute of Science and Technology Graduate University (OIST) have been investigating the cause of rapid degradation of these perovskite solar cells (PSCs).

Dr. Shenghao Wang, first author of the publication in Nature Energy, suggests that the degradation of MAPbI3 perovskites may not be a fixable issue. His research reveals that iodide-based perovskites will universally produce a gaseous form of iodine, I2, during operation, which in turn causes further degradation of perovskite. While many researchers have pointed to other sources, such as moisture, atmospheric oxygen and heat as the cause of MAPbI3 degradation, the fact that these solar cells continue to degrade even in the absence of these factors led Wang to believe that a property intrinsic to these PSCs was causing the breakdown of material.

“We found that these PSCs are self-exposed to I2 vapor at the onset of degradation, which led to accelerated decomposition of the MAPbI3 perovskite material into PbI2.” Wang explained, “Because of the relatively high vapor pressure of I2, it can quickly permeate the rest of the perovskite material causing damage of the whole PSC.

This research does not rule out the probability of using perovskites in solar cells, however. Professor Yabing Qi, leader of the Energy Materials and Surface Sciences Unit and corresponding author of this work, expounds “our experimental results strongly suggest that it is necessary to develop new materials with a reduced concentration of iodine or a reinforced structure that can suppress iodine-induced degradation, in addition to desirable photovoltaic properties”.

These researchers at OIST are continuing to investigate different types of perovskite materials in order to find more efficient, cost-effective, and long lifespan perovskite material suitable for use. Their ultimate goal is to make solar cells that are affordable, efficient and stable so that they will be more accessible to the general population. Hopefully, better, cheaper solar cells will entice more people to utilize this technology.