Category Archives: MEMS

Leti, a research institute of CEA Tech, and VSORA, which specializes in multi-core digital signal processor (DSP) design, today announced they have demonstrated the implementation of 5G New Radio (5G NR) Release 15 on a new DSP architecture that can dramatically reduce time to market of digital modems.

Defined by the 3rd Generation Partnership Project (3GPP), 5G NR is the air interface, or wireless communication link, for the next generation of cellular networks. It is expected to significantly improve connectivity experiences in 5G cellular networks. 3GPP Release 15 of the 5G system architecture, finalized in June 2018, provides the set of features and functionality needed for deploying a commercially operational 5G system.

This first implementation of 5G NR Release 15 physical layer on VSORA’s multi-core DSP demonstrates that it can address timely and complex systems like 5G NR, while providing a highly flexible software-defined development flow. The demonstration has shown that VSORA’s development suite provided an optimized DSP architecture, able to support the concurrent reception of representative 5G quality-of-service regimes covering extreme broadband, narrowband Internet of Things and ultra-low latency systems.

“This new DSP development flow allows signal-processing engineers to evaluate different implementations of their algorithms for cost, processing power, arithmetic precision and power consumption, well before the physical implementation,” said VSORA CEO Khaled Maalej. “The same development flow lets algorithm engineers and software engineers share the same environment and source code, dramatically accelerating time-to-market for Release 15 architectures.”

“VSORA’s innovations simplify the design flow, which eliminates the need to develop HDL-based co-processors,” said Benoit Miscopein, head of Leti’s wireless broadband systems lab. “Our demonstration also shows their product can support a system as hungry in terms of computational resources as the 5G NR modem.”

“VSORA’s added value is the very high flexibility that the company offers in terms of testing various implementation architectural trade-offs,” Miscopein added. “This speeds time-to-market by reducing the time required to converge towards a suitable DSP architecture. The approach proposed by VSORA is also flexible in the sense that the DSP can fulfill the requirements of the standard evolution, e.g. Releases 16 and 17, without redesigning a complete architecture.”

“With the coming 5G mobile standard, traditional DSP technology will run out of steam on multiple levels,” added Maalej. “Our aim is to become the reference point for state-of-the-art DSP applications. VSORA’s technology has the potential to revolutionize DSP architectures, transform the design and implementation processes, and ultimately enhance go-to-market strategies.”

Semiconductor industry growth drivers artificial intelligence (AI), Internet of Things (IoT) and automotive take center stage as more than 45,000 visitors gather at SEMICON Taiwan starting today. Showcasing the latest developments and innovations in the microelectronics supply chain, SEMICON Taiwan – September 5-7, at the Taipei Nanang Convention Center – is the largest semiconductor supply chain event in Taiwan. The event opens with Taiwan’s semiconductor industry revenue poised to grow 6 percent to $84.76 billion U.S. dollars ($2.6 trillion NT dollars) in 2018.

Taiwan leads the world in semiconductor foundry, package and test services and is second in chip design. SEMICON Taiwan features more than 2,000 booths and 680 exhibitors from around the world.

SEMICON Taiwan 2018’s IC 60 – Master Forum, a special event co-organized by SEMI and the Ministry of Science and Technology (MOST), celebrates the 60th anniversary of the birth of the integrated circuit. With their sights set on emerging opportunities, Taiwan semiconductor industry luminaries will highlight the pioneering spirit and tenacious pursuit of smaller, faster, lower-power devices that gave rise to today’s ICs and are the heart of the digital economy.

Premier of Executive Yuan, Ching-de Lai will speak at today’s opening ceremony to highlight the administration’s support for the sustainable growth of Taiwan’s semiconductor industry. Semiconductor heavyweights, academic professionals, and other officials – all key players in Taiwan’s semiconductor industry – are also expected at the ceremony.

With semiconductor processes ramping to the 5nm technology and below and novel techniques such as heterogeneous integration ushering in improvements to chip functionality, SEMICON Taiwan is the ideal platform for connecting, collaborating and innovating to take advantage of future opportunities.

New show floor features at SEMICON Taiwan include the Smart Manufacturing Journey to highlight future trends and opportunities in smart semiconductor manufacturing and the Smart Workforce Pavilion, which promotes the development of the semiconductor industry talent pipeline. In addition, 22 theme and regional pavilions and a series of forums and networking events spotlight market trends and cutting-edge technologies and open opportunities for cross-field and cross-region collaboration.

“Semiconductors are the backbone of the Taiwan’s economic growth and its leadership position in the global semiconductor industry,” said Terry Tsao, president of SEMI Taiwan. “As critical partners, Taiwan policy makers continue to work closely with the industry and will propose a series of reforms across tax, trade, talent, and technology to enrich the region’s investment climate and encourage industry upgrades.”

“Taiwan is in a strong position to help power future semiconductor industry growth with its highly specialized, fully integrated supply chains and years of management experience,” Tsao said. “Taiwan will long remain a key strategic player in the global semiconductor industry.”

For more event information, please visit SEMICON Taiwan. For a SEMICON Taiwan 2018 overview including featured speakers and the list of international forums, please click here.

NXP acquires OmniPHY


September 4, 2018

NXP Semiconductors N.V. (NASDAQ: NXPI), the world’s largest supplier of automotive semiconductors, has acquired OmniPHY, a provider of automotive Ethernet subsystem technology. The company’s expertise includes automotive Ethernet, a technology that enables the rapid data transfer required for autonomous driving. OmniPHY’s advanced high-speed technology, combined with NXP’s leading portfolio and heritage in vehicle networks, uniquely positions NXP to deliver the next-generation of data transfer solutions to carmakers. Financial terms of the transaction are not disclosed.

An automotive networking revolution is underway, driven by the need for higher data capacity and speed to meet the requirements of increasingly autonomous and connected vehicles. New advanced autonomous driving systems will require gigabit data speeds and beyond. Current plans for next-generation vehicles call for eight or more cameras, high definition radar, lidar and V2X capability, all of which generate steep data challenges for current car networks. These requirements, combined with the modern vehicle’s need to offload data to enable the new business opportunities of the connected car, will soon make terabyte levels of data processing commonplace.

“One of the vexing questions of the Autonomous Age is how to move data around the car as fast as possible,” said Ian Riches, executive director in the Strategy Analytics Global Automotive Practice. “Cameras and displays will ramp the number of high-speed links in the car to 150 million by 2020 and by 2030 autonomous car systems will aggressively drive that number to 1.1 billion high-speed links.”

As the self-driving ecosystem works to deliver on emerging automotive data requirements, many have turned to enterprise networking solutions as a stopgap measure for testing. Yet long-term solutions will need to be automotive grade and of a size and weight that make their implementation feasible. NXP’s acquisition of OmniPHY, which has already begun to translate 1000BASE-T1 Ethernet for the automotive space, will give NXP a significant position in this rapidly evolving area.

“Our heritage in vehicle networks is rich and with our leadership positions in CAN, LIN, and FlexRay, we hold a unique viewpoint on automotive networks,” said Alexander E. Tan, vice president and general manager of Automotive Ethernet Solutions, NXP. “The team and technology from OmniPHY give us the missing piece in an extensive high-bandwidth networking portfolio.”

OmniPHY is a pioneer in high-speed automotive Ethernet IP and automotive qualified IP for 100BASE-T1 and 1000BASE-T1 standards. Over its six-year history, it has worked with some of the largest consumer companies in the world and has developed competitive 1st-silicon-right solutions for emerging markets like automotive and industrial Ethernet. OmniPHY interface IP and communication technology along with NXP’s automotive portfolio will form a “one-stop shop” for automotive Ethernet. The companies’ technology synergies will center on 1.25-28Gbps PHY designs and 10-, 100- and 1000BASE-T1 Ethernet in advanced processes.

“We are very excited to join NXP – a leader in automotive electronics, for a front-row seat to the autonomous driving revolution, one that will deliver profound change to the way people live,” said Ritesh Saraf, CEO of OmniPHY. “The combination of our teams and technology will accelerate and advance the delivery of automotive Ethernet solutions providing our customers with high quality and world-class automotive Ethernet innovation.”

Myeloperoxidase – an enzyme naturally found in our lungs – can biodegrade pristine graphene, according to the latest discovery of Graphene Flagship partners in CNRS, University of Strasbourg (France), Karolinska Institute (Sweden) and University of Castilla-La Mancha (Spain). Among other projects, the Graphene Flagship designs flexible biomedical electronic devices that will interface with the human body. Such applications require graphene to be biodegradable, so it can be expelled from the body.

To test how graphene behaves within the body, researchers analysed how it was broken down with the addition of a common human enzyme – myeloperoxidase or MPO. If a foreign body or bacteria is detected, neutrophils surround it and secrete MPO, thereby destroying the threat. Previous work by Graphene Flagship partners found that MPO could successfully biodegrade graphene oxide.

However, the structure of non-functionalized graphene was thought to be more resistant to degradation. To test this, the team looked at the effects of MPO ex vivo on two graphene forms; single- and few-layer.

Alberto Bianco, researcher at Graphene Flagship Partner CNRS, explains: “We used two forms of graphene, single- and few-layer, prepared by two different methods in water. They were then taken and put in contact with myeloperoxidase in the presence of hydrogen peroxide. This peroxidase was able to degrade and oxidise them. This was really unexpected, because we thought that non-functionalized graphene was more resistant than graphene oxide.”

Rajendra Kurapati, first author on the study and researcher at Graphene Flagship Partner CNRS, remarks how “the results emphasize that highly dispersible graphene could be degraded in the body by the action of neutrophils. This would open the new avenue for developing graphene-based materials.”

With successful ex-vivo testing, in-vivo testing is the next stage. Bengt Fadeel, professor at Graphene Flagship Partner Karolinska Institute believes that “understanding whether graphene is biodegradable or not is important for biomedical and other applications of this material. The fact that cells of the immune system are capable of handling graphene is very promising.”

Prof. Maurizio Prato, the Graphene Flagship leader for its Health and Environment Work Package said that “the enzymatic degradation of graphene is a very important topic, because in principle, graphene dispersed in the atmosphere could produce some harm. Instead, if there are microorganisms able to degrade graphene and related materials, the persistence of these materials in our environment will be strongly decreased. These types of studies are needed.” “What is also needed is to investigate the nature of degradation products,” adds Prato. “Once graphene is digested by enzymes, it could produce harmful derivatives. We need to know the structure of these derivatives and study their impact on health and environment,” he concludes.

Prof. Andrea C. Ferrari, Science and Technology Officer of the Graphene Flagship, and chair of its management panel added: “The report of a successful avenue for graphene biodegradation is a very important step forward to ensure the safe use of this material in applications. The Graphene Flagship has put the investigation of the health and environment effects of graphene at the centre of its programme since the start. These results strengthen our innovation and technology roadmap.”

The 35 must-watch technologies represented on the Gartner Inc. Hype Cycle for Emerging Technologies, 2018 revealed five distinct emerging technology trends that will blur the lines between humans and machines. Emerging technologies, such as artificial intelligence (AI), play a critical role in enabling companies to be ubiquitous, always available, and connected to business ecosystems to survive in the near future.

“Business and technology leaders will continue to face rapidly accelerating technology innovation that will profoundly impact the way they engage with their workforce, collaborate with their partners, and create products and services for their customers,” said Mike J. Walker, research vice president at Gartner. “CIOs and technology leaders should always be scanning the market along with assessing and piloting emerging technologies to identify new business opportunities with high impact potential and strategic relevance for their business.”

The Hype Cycle for Emerging Technologies report is the longest-running annual Gartner Hype Cycle, providing a cross-industry perspective on the technologies and trends that business strategists, chief innovation officers, R&D leaders, entrepreneurs, global market developers and emerging-technology teams should consider in developing emerging-technology portfolios.

The Hype Cycle for Emerging Technologies is unique among most Gartner Hype Cycles because it garners insights from more than 2,000 technologies into a succinct set of 35 emerging technologies and trends. This Hype Cycle specifically focuses on the set of technologies that is showing promise in delivering a high degree of competitive advantage over the next five to 10 years (see Figure 1).

Source: Gartner (August 2018)

Five Emerging Technology Trends

Democratized AI

AI technologies will be virtually everywhere over the next 10 years. While these technologies enable early adopters to adapt to new situations and solve problems that have not been encountered previously, these technologies will become available to the masses — democratized. Movements and trends like cloud computing, the “maker” community and open source will eventually propel AI into everyone’s hands.

This trend is enabled by the following technologies: AI Platform as a Service (PaaS), Artificial General Intelligence, Autonomous Driving (Levels 4 and 5), Autonomous Mobile Robots, Conversational AI Platform, Deep Neural Nets, Flying Autonomous Vehicles, Smart Robots, and Virtual Assistants.

“Technologies representing democratized AI populate three out of five sections on the Hype Cycle, and some of them, such as deep neural nets and virtual assistants, will reach mainstream adoption in the next two to five years,” said Mr. Walker. “Other emerging technologies of that category, such as smart robots or AI PaaS, are also moving rapidly through the Hype Cycle approaching the peak and will soon have crossed it.”

Digitalized Ecosystems

Emerging technologies require revolutionizing the enabling foundations that provide the volume of data needed, advanced compute power and ubiquity-enabling ecosystems. The shift from compartmentalized technical infrastructure to ecosystem-enabling platforms is laying the foundations for entirely new business models that are forming the bridge between humans and technology.

This trend is enabled by the following technologies: Blockchain, Blockchain for Data Security, Digital Twin, IoT Platform and Knowledge Graphs.

“Digitalized ecosystem technologies are making their way to the Hype Cycle fast,” said Walker. “Blockchain and IoT platforms have crossed the peak by now, and we believe that they will reach maturity in the next five to 10 years, with digital twins and knowledge graphs on their heels.”

Do-It-Yourself Biohacking

Over the next decade, humanity will begin its “transhuman” era: Biology can then be hacked, depending on lifestyle, interests and health needs. Biohacking falls into four categories: technology augmentation, nutrigenomics, experimental biology and grinder biohacking. However, questions remain about how far society is prepared to accept these kinds of applications and what ethical issues they create.

This trend is enabled by the following technologies: Biochips, Biotech — Cultured or Artificial Tissue, Brain-Computer Interface, Augmented Reality, Mixed Reality and Smart Fabrics.

Emerging technologies in do-it-yourself biohacking are moving rapidly through the Hype Cycle. Mixed reality is making its way to the Trough of Disillusionment, and augmented reality almost reached the bottom. Those pioneers will be followed by biochips, which have just reached the peak and will have moved on to the plateau in five to 10 years.

Transparently Immersive Experiences

Technology will continue to become more human-centric to the point where it will introduce transparency between people, businesses and things. These technologies extend and enable smarter living, work, and other spaces we encounter.

This trend is enabled by the following technologies: 4D Printing, Connected Home, Edge AI, Self-Healing System Technology, Silicon Anode Batteries, Smart Dust, Smart Workspace and Volumetric Displays.

“Emerging technologies representing transparently immersive experiences are mostly on their way to the peak or — in the case of silicon anode batteries — just crossed it,” said Mr. Walker. “The smart workspace has moved along quite a bit and is about to peak in the near future.”

Ubiquitous Infrastructure

Infrastructure is no longer in the way of obtaining an organization’s goals. The advent and mass popularity of cloud computing and its many variations have enabled an always-on, available and limitless infrastructure compute environment.

This trend is enabled by the following technologies: 5G, Carbon Nanotube, Deep Neural Network ASICs, Neuromorphic Hardware and Quantum Computing.

Technologies supporting ubiquitous infrastructure are on track to reach the peak and move fast along the Hype Cycle. 5G and deep neural network ASICs, in particular, are expected to reach the plateau in the next two to five years.

Gartner clients can read more in the report “Hype Cycle for Emerging Technologies, 2018.” This research is part of the Gartner Trend Insight Report, “2018 Hype Cycles: Riding the Innovation Wave”. With profiles of technologies, services and disciplines spanning over 100 Hype Cycles, this Trend Insight Report is designed to help CIOs and IT leaders respond to the opportunities and threats affecting their businesses, take the lead in technology-enabled business innovations and help their organizations define an effective digital business strategy.

Additional analysis on emerging technologies will be presented during Gartner Symposium/ITxpo, the world’s most important gathering of CIOs and other senior IT executives. IT executives rely on these events to gain insight into how their organizations can use IT to overcome business challenges and improve operational efficiency. Follow news and updates from the events on Twitter using #GartnerSYM.

Upcoming dates and locations for Gartner Symposium/ITxpo include:

17-20 September 2018: Cape Town, South Africa

14-18 October 2018: Orlando, Florida

22-25 October 2018: Sao Paulo, Brazil

29 October-1 November 2018: Gold Coast, Australia

4-8 November 2018: Barcelona, Spain

12-14 November 2018: Tokyo, Japan

13-16 November 2018: Goa, India

4-6 March 2019: Dubai, UAE

3-6 June 2019: Toronto, Canada

Samsung Electronics Co., Ltd., a world leader in advanced semiconductor technology, today announced its new narrowband (NB) Internet-of-Things (IoT) solution, Exynos i S111.

The new NB-IoT solution offers extremely wide coverage, low-power operation, accurate location feedback and strong security, optimized for today’s real-time tracking applications such as safety wearables or smart meters. The solution includes a modem, processor, memory and Global Navigation Satellite System (GNSS) into a single chip design to enhance efficiency and flexibility for connected device manufacturers.

“IoT will be able to evolve to offer new features beyond the conventional household space with IoT-dedicated solutions that present a broad range of opportunities,” said Ben Hur, vice president of System LSI marketing at Samsung Electronics. “Exynos i S111’s highly secure and efficient communication capabilities will bring more exciting NB-IoT applications to life.”

As IoT grows to be a part of our everyday lives, some connected devices share useful information instantly in high volumes, but some transmit data in small nuggets over a long period of time. Popular radio connectivity systems such as Bluetooth and ZigBee are suitable for short-range scenarios within confined spaces such as in the home or a building, and broadband communications are commonly used for mobile devices that demand high data rates. On the other hand, NB-IoT supports applications that require reliable low-power communication and wide-range coverage for small-sized data.

To cover long distances with high reliability, as a standard, NB-IoT adopts a data retransmission mechanism that continuously transmits data until a successful transfer, or up to a set number of retransmits. With a high number of these retransmit sessions, the S111 is able to cover the distance of 10-kilometers (km) or more.

Exynos i S111 incorporates a modem capable of LTE Rel. 14 support that can transmit data at 127-kilobits-per-second (kbps) for downlink and 158kbps uplink, and can operate in standalone, in-band and guard-band deployments.

For long standby periods, the S111 utilizes power saving mode (PSM) and expanded discontinuous reception (eDRX), which keeps the device dormant for long periods of time of 10 years and more, depending on application and use-cases. Exynos i S111 also has an integrated Global Navigation Satellite System (GNSS) and supports Observed Time Difference of Arrival (OTDOA), a positioning technique using cellular towers, for highly accurate and seamless real-time tracking.

Transmitted data are kept secure and private with the S111, as the solution utilizes a separate Security Sub-System (SSS) hardware block along with a Physical Unclonable Function (PUF) that creates a unique identity for each chipset.

Following the successful launch of the company’s first IoT solution, Exynos i T200, in 2017, Samsung plans to continue expanding the ‘Exynos i’ lineup with offerings specially tailored for narrowband networks.

Global semiconductor industry revenue grew 4.4 percent, quarter over quarter, in the second quarter of 2018, reaching a record $120.8 billion. Semiconductor growth occurred in all application markets and world regions, according to IHS Markit (Nasdaq: INFO).

“The explosive growth in enterprise and storage drove the market to new heights in the second quarter,” said Ron Ellwanger, senior analyst and component landscape tool manager, IHS Markit. “This growth contributed to record application revenue in data processing and wired communication markets as well as in the microcomponent and memory categories.”

Due to the ongoing growth in the enterprise and storage markets, sequential microcomponent sales grew 6.5 percent in the second quarter, while memory semiconductor revenue increased 6.4 percent. “Broadcom Limited experienced exceptional growth in its wired communication division, due to increased cloud and data-center demand,” Ellwanger said.

Memory component revenue continued to rise in the second quarter, compared to the previous quarter, reaching $42.0 billion dollars. “This is the ninth consecutive quarter of rising revenue from memory components, and growth in the second quarter of 2018 was driven by higher density in enterprise and storage,” Ellwanger said. “This latest uptick comes at a time of softening prices for NAND flash memory. However, more attractive pricing for NAND memory is pushing SSD demand and revenue higher.”

Semiconductor market share

Samsung Electronics continued to lead the overall semiconductor industry in the second quarter with 15.9 percent of the market, followed by Intel at 13.9 percent and SK Hynix at 7.9 percent. Quarter-over-quarter market shares were relatively flat, with no change in the top-three ranking. SK Hynix achieved the highest growth rate and record quarterly sales among the top three companies, recording 16.4 percent growth in the second quarter.

Semtech Corporation (Nasdaq: SMTC), a supplier of high performance analog and mixed-signal semiconductors and advanced algorithms, announced that EasyLinkin, a high-tech enterprise specializing in the research and development of low power wide area network (LPWAN) technologies, has incorporated Semtech’s LoRa® devices and wireless radio frequency technology (LoRa Technology) into its IoT smart metering solutions to improve facility management.

LoRa-enabled smart meters from EasyLinkin monitor utility usage rates in real-time to provide facilities more visibility to reduce operating costs. EasyLinkin’s LoRa-based products are easy to install on existing meters and are currently being deployed across China in both public and private LoRaWAN™ networks. Utility companies are able to monitor utility usage in real-time to reduce operational costs and conserve natural resources.

“Our customers are able to analyze their usage through real-time data collected by our smart metering solutions to reduce operational costs,” said Kun Xu, Co-Founder & Executive President at EasyLinkin. “This was enabled and would not be possible without Semtech’s LoRa Technology, which provides the ideal IoT solution for utility monitoring and management. The easy deployment and flexibility of LoRa Technology enables consistent data transmission in either a private or public network.”

“With an increased emphasis on sustainability, there’s an absolute need for IoT solutions, like Semtech’s LoRa Technology, to solve real-world environmental challenges,” said Vivek Mohan, Director of IoT, Semtech’s Wireless and Sensing Products Group. “Integrating LoRa Technology into EasyLinkin’s metering devices provides an IoT solution that reduces operational costs like maintenance and allows an inside look into utility consumption, letting consumers change their usage accordingly.”

About Semtech’s LoRa® Devices and Wireless RF Technology

Semtech’s LoRa devices and wireless radio frequency technology is a widely adopted long-range, low-power solution for IoT that gives telecom companies, IoT application makers and system integrators the feature set necessary to deploy low-cost, interoperable IoT networks, gateways, sensors, module products, and IoT services worldwide. IoT networks based on the LoRaWAN™ specification have been deployed in over 100 countries and Semtech is a founding member of the LoRa Alliance™, the fastest growing IoT Alliance for Low Power Wide Area Network applications. To learn more about how LoRa enables IoT, visit Semtech’s LoRa site and join the LoRa Community to access free training as well as an online industry catalog showcasing the products you need for building your ideal IoT application.

A team of researchers led by the University of Minnesota has developed a new material that could potentially improve the efficiency of computer processing and memory. The researchers have filed a patent on the material with support from the Semiconductor Research Corporation, and people in the semiconductor industry have already requested samples of the material.

The findings are published in Nature Materials, a peer-reviewed scientific journal published by Nature Publishing Group.

This cross-sectional transmission electron microscope image shows a sample used for the charge-to-spin conversion experiment. The nano-sized grains of less than 6 nanometers in the sputtered topological insulator layer created new physical properties for the material that changed the behavior of the electrons in the material. Credit: Wang Group, University of Minnesota

“We used a quantum material that has attracted a lot of attention by the semiconductor industry in the past few years, but created it in unique way that resulted in a material with new physical and spin-electronic properties that could greatly improve computing and memory efficiency,” said lead researcher Jian-Ping Wang, a University of Minnesota Distinguished McKnight Professor and Robert F. Hartmann Chair in electrical engineering.

The new material is in a class of materials called “topological insulators,” which have been studied recently by physics and materials research communities and the semiconductor industry because of their unique spin-electronic transport and magnetic properties. Topological insulators are usually created using a single crystal growth process. Another common fabrication technique uses a process called Molecular Beam Epitaxy in which crystals are grown in a thin film. Both of these techniques cannot be easily scaled up for use in the semiconductor industry.

In this study, researchers started with bismuth selenide (Bi2Se3), a compound of bismuth and selenium. They then used a thin film deposition technique called “sputtering,” which is driven by the momentum exchange between the ions and atoms in the target materials due to collisions. While the sputtering technique is common in the semiconductor industry, this is the first time it has been used to create a topological insulator material that could be scaled up for semiconductor and magnetic industry applications.

However, the fact that the sputtering technique worked was not the most surprising part of the experiment. The nano-sized grains of less than 6 nanometers in the sputtered topological insulator layer created new physical properties for the material that changed the behavior of the electrons in the material. After testing the new material, the researchers found it to be 18 times more efficient in computing processing and memory compared to current materials.

“As the size of the grains decreased, we experienced what we call ‘quantum confinement’ in which the electrons in the material act differently giving us more control over the electron behavior,” said study co-author Tony Low, a University of Minnesota assistant professor of electrical and computer engineering.

Researchers studied the material using the University of Minnesota’s unique high-resolution transmission electron microscopy (TEM), a microscopy technique in which a beam of electrons is transmitted through a specimen to form an image.

“Using our advanced aberration-corrected scanning TEM we managed to identify those nano-sized grains and their interfaces in the film,” said Andre Mkhoyan, a University of Minnesota associate professor of chemical engineering and materials science and electron microscopy expert.

Researchers say this is only the beginning and that this discovery could open the door to more advances in the semiconductor industry as well as related industries, such as magnetic random access memory (MRAM) technology.

“With the new physics of these materials could come many new applications,” said Mahendra DC (Dangi Chhetri), first author of the paper and a physics Ph.D. student in Professor Wang’s lab.

Wang agrees that this cutting-edge research could make a big impact.

“Using the sputtering process to fabricate a quantum material like a bismuth-selenide-based topological insulator is against the intuitive instincts of all researchers in the field and actually is not supported by any existing theory,” Wang said. “Four years ago, with a strong support from Semiconductor Research Corporation and the Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency, we started with a big idea to search for a practical pathway to grow and apply the topological insulator material for future computing and memory devices. Our surprising experimental discovery led to a new theory for topological insulator materials.

“Research is all about being patient and collaborating with team members. This time there was a big pay off,” Wang said.

Murata, a manufacturer of electronic components, is significantly increasing global production capacity, including most recently its factory located in Finland. After having recently purchased the previously leased buildings, the company will construct a new building of approximately 16,000 square meters. The new facility is scheduled to be completed by the end of 2019.

The total value of the investment is five billion yen and is underpinned by the growing worldwide demand for MEMS sensors used in the automotive industry and various health and industrial applications.

“The market for advanced driver-assistance systems, self-directed cars, healthcare, and other emerging technologies are expected to be significant growth drivers. MEMS sensors are critical solutions for these applications and deliver proven measurement accuracy and stability in a variety of conditions,” said Yuichiro Hayata, Managing Director for Murata Electronics Oy.

“With the construction of this new production building, we will significantly increase our MEMS sensors production capacity. Moreover, by responding to the strong demand of gyro sensors, accelerometers, and combo sensors in the automotive, industry and healthcare fields, this will strengthen our business base in the automotive market, industrial equipment and medical devices market, while contributing to the economy and employment of Finland,” stated Makoto Kawashima, Director of Sensor Product Division in Murata Manufacturing.

Developing operations with long-term perspective

With the factory expansion in Finland, Murata will strengthen both R&D and manufacturing operations with a long-term perspective for increasing utilization of this facility. The company currently employs 1,000 people in Finland and estimates to create 150–200 new jobs in 2018–2019.

Murata acquired the Finnish company VTI Technologies – today known as Murata Electronics Oy – in 2012. It is the only factory of Murata which manufactures MEMS sensors outside of Japan, and has experienced tremendous growth over the last 10 years. This site in Finland also hosts R&D space and one of the biggest clean room facilities in the country.

Murata Electronics Oy

Murata Electronics Oy is part of the Japanese Murata Group. The company is located in Vantaa and specializes in the development and manufacture of 3D MEMS (micro electro mechanical systems) sensors mainly for safety critical applications in automotive, as well as in healthcare and industrial applications. The company employs 1000 people in Finland.