Category Archives: MEMS

National Institutes of Health (NIH) researchers and their colleagues have developed a “placenta-on-a-chip” to study the inner workings of the human placenta and its role in pregnancy. The device was designed to imitate, on a micro-level, the structure and function of the placenta and model the transfer of nutrients from mother to fetus. This prototype is one of the latest in a series of organ-on-a-chip technologies developed to accelerate biomedical advances.

The study, published online in the Journal of Maternal-Fetal & Neonatal Medicine, was conducted by an interdisciplinary team of researchers from the NIH’s Eunice Kennedy Shriver National Institute of Child Health and Human Development (NICHD), the University of Pennsylvania, Wayne State University/Detroit Medical Center, Seoul National University and Asan Medical Center in South Korea.

“We believe that this technology may be used to address questions that are difficult to answer with current placenta model systems and help enable research on pregnancy and its complications,” said Roberto Romero, M.D., chief of the NICHD’s Perinatology Research Branch and one of the study authors.

The placenta is a temporary organ that develops in pregnancy and is the major interface between mother and fetus. Among its many functions is to serve as a “crossing guard” for substances traveling between mother and fetus. The placenta helps nutrients and oxygen move to the fetus and helps waste products move away. At the same time, the placenta tries to stop harmful environmental exposures, like bacteria, viruses and certain medications, from reaching the fetus. When the placenta doesn’t function correctly, the health of both mom and baby suffers.

Researchers are trying to learn how the placenta manages all this traffic, transporting some substances and blocking others. This knowledge may one day help clinicians better assess placental health and ultimately improve pregnancy outcomes.

However, studying the placenta in humans is challenging: it is time-consuming, subject to a great deal of variability and potentially risky for the fetus. For those reasons, previous studies on placental transport have relied largely on animal models and on laboratory-grown human cells. These methods have yielded helpful information, but are limited as to how well they can mimic physiological processes in humans.

The researchers created the placenta-on-a-chip technology to address these challenges, using human cells in a structure that more closely resembles the placenta’s maternal-fetal barrier. The device consists of a semi-permeable membrane between two tiny chambers, one filled with maternal cells derived from a delivered placenta and the other filled with fetal cells derived from an umbilical cord.

After designing the structure of the model, the researchers tested its function by evaluating the transfer of glucose (a substance made by the body when converting carbohydrates to energy) from the maternal compartment to the fetal compartment. The successful transfer of glucose in the device mirrored what occurs in the body.

“The chip may allow us to do experiments more efficiently and at a lower cost than animal studies,” said Dr. Romero. “With further improvements, we hope this technology may lead to better understanding of normal placental processes and placental disorders.”

Related news: 

New ‘lab-on-a-chip’ could revolutionize early diagnosis of cancer

Single chip device to provide real-time 3-D images from inside the heart and blood vessels

Researchers from North Carolina State University have created stretchable, transparent conductors that work because of the structures’ “nano-accordion” design. The conductors could be used in a wide variety of applications, such as flexible electronics, stretchable displays or wearable sensors.

“There are no conductive, transparent and stretchable materials in nature, so we had to create one,” says Abhijeet Bagal, a Ph.D. student in mechanical and aerospace engineering at NC State and lead author of a paper describing the work.

“Our technique uses geometry to stretch brittle materials, which is inspired by springs that we see in everyday life,” Bagal says. “The only thing different is that we made it much smaller.”

The researchers begin by creating a three-dimensional polymer template on a silicon substrate. The template is shaped like a series of identical, evenly spaced rectangles. The template is coated with a layer of aluminum-doped zinc oxide, which is the conducting material, and an elastic polymer is applied to the zinc oxide. The researchers then flip the whole thing over and remove the silicon and the template.

What’s left behind is a series of symmetrical, zinc oxide ridges on an elastic substrate. Because both zinc oxide and the polymer are clear, the structure is transparent. And it is stretchable because the ridges of zinc oxide allow the structure to expand and contract, like the bellows of an accordion.

“We can also control the thickness of the zinc oxide layer, and have done extensive testing with layers ranging from 30 to 70 nanometers thick,” says Erinn Dandley, a Ph.D. student in chemical and biomolecular engineering at NC State and co-author of the paper. “This is important because the thickness of the zinc oxide affects the structure’s optical, electrical and mechanical properties.”

The 3-D templates used in the process are precisely engineered, using nanolithography, because the dimensions of each ridge directly affect the structure’s stretchability. The taller each ridge is, the more stretchable the structure. This is because the structure stretches by having the two sides of a ridge bend away from each other at the base – like a person doing a split.

The structure can be stretched repeatedly without breaking. And while there is some loss of conductivity the first time the nano-accordion is stretched, additional stretching does not affect conductivity.

“The most interesting thing for us is that this approach combines engineering with a touch of surface chemistry to precisely control the nano-accordion’s geometry, composition and, ultimately, its overall material properties,” says Chih-Hao Chang, an assistant professor of mechanical and aerospace engineering at NC State and corresponding author of the paper. “We’re now working on ways to improve the conductivity of the nano-accordion structures. And at some point we want to find a way to scale up the process.”

The researchers are also experimenting with the technique using other conductive materials to determine their usefulness in creating non-transparent, elastic conductors.

Plasma-Therm recently presented an advanced plasma processing workshop at Xidian University in Xi’an, China that was attended by researchers, students and industry representatives and featured a day-long series of presentations about plasma processing.

Workshop participants represented a range of academic disciplines and industrial concerns, with interests spanning fundamental to applied research. Attendees are actively investigating research and development in devices and structures for which plasma processing technology is often a critical step, including MEMS, waveguides, dielectric deposition, nanostructures, and many others.

Dr. Ma Xiaohua, head of the State Key Discipline Laboratory of Wide Band Gap Semiconductor Technology and the workshop host, said, “I always believed that Plasma-Therm’s tools have good performance, and know that the company has deep experience in etching and deposition processes. I really appreciated Dr. Lishan’s presentations. Our professors and students who have studied plasma processing learned more about the technology from Dr. Lishan’s rich experience, and gained insights that will be useful in their research.

“I thought the workshop would be more of a product promotion in the beginning, but now want to say that it was not, and I highly recommend the workshop to researchers, professors, engineers, and students,” Dr. Xiaohua concluded.

Attendees commented that the workshop lectures and multimedia materials provided a thorough introduction to plasma fundamentals, as well as in-depth information about etch and deposition applications used for compound semiconductor devices such as high electron mobility transistors (HEMTs), MEMS devices, and photonic devices such as solid state lasers.

Dr. David Lishan, Principal Scientist and Director, Technical Marketing at Plasma-Therm, has presented in-depth plasma processing workshops at more than 20 institutions in the United States, Sweden, Israel, South Korea, Taiwan, Singapore, and other countries. This was the fourth workshop he has presented at institutions in China in recent months.

Dr. Lishan noted that students and industrial researchers throughout the world are eager for information about fundamental concepts as well as advanced techniques of plasma processing. “It is always interesting to see the enthusiasm for greater understanding of plasma processing across many fields of research.” He said. “Bringing researchers together to share experiences and foster collaboration through the workshop has been very rewarding.”

Fairchild, a supplier of high-performance semiconductor solutions, today launched the FIS1100 6-axis MEMS Inertial Measurement Unit (IMU), the company’s first MEMS product stemming from its strategic investments in MEMS and motion tracking. The FIS1100 IMU integrates a proprietary AttitudeEngine motion processor with best-in-class 9-axis sensor fusion algorithms to provide designers with an easy to implement, system-level solution for superior user experiences with up to ten times lower processing power consumption in a wide range of motion enabled, battery-powered applications.

Fairchild's FIS1100 Intelligent IMU is an easy-to-implement, system-level motion tracking solution that can reduce processor power consumption by as much as 10x. (Graphic: Business Wire)

Fairchild’s FIS1100 Intelligent IMU is an easy-to-implement, system-level motion tracking solution that can reduce processor power consumption by as much as 10x. (Graphic: Business Wire)

“The launch of Fairchild’s first MEMS product is a key milestone for the company as we take our unique design and manufacturing expertise and apply it towards system-level solutions that go beyond power,” said Fairchild Chairman & CEO Mark Thompson. “The advanced algorithms and deep applications know-how from the Xsens acquisition position us well in enabling our customers to develop advanced motion solutions in diverse, quickly growing segments within markets such as consumer, industrial, and health.”

The FIS1100 IMU, with its built in AttitudeEngine motion processor and XKF3 senor fusion, is a low power, highly accurate system solution that provides customers with the always-on sensor technology required for a range of application such as wearable sensors for sports, fitness, and health; pedestrian navigation; autonomous robots; and virtual and augmented reality.

“Motion tracking in consumer devices has expanded rapidly from game interfaces and smartphones into many new Internet of Moving Things applications,” said Jérémie Bouchaud, director and senior principal analyst, MEMS & Sensors, at IHS. “As designers look to differentiate their products with motion, the availability of an IMU with an integrated motion processor and a complete software solution, accelerates time to market while ensuring the best trade-off between competing goals such as small size, long battery life and motion tracking accuracy.”

The AttitudeEngine processes 6-axis inertial data at a high rate internally and outputs to the host processor at a lower rate matching the application needs, eliminating the necessity for high-frequency interrupts. This allows the system processor to remain in sleep-mode longer, providing consumers longer battery life without any compromises in functionality or accuracy. The bundled XKF3 high-performance 9-axis sensor fusion algorithms combine inertial sensor data from the on-chip gyroscopes and accelerometers and data from an external magnetometer. The sensor fusion also includes background auto calibration that enables excellent performance in terms of accuracy, consistency, and fluidity. When combined with the XKF3 sensor fusion algorithms, the FIS1100 is the world’s first complete consumer inertial measurement unit with orientation (quaternion) specifications, featuring pitch and roll accuracy of ±3° and yaw accuracy of ±5°.

The FIS1100 uses Fairchild’s proprietary MEMS process, designed specifically for inertial sensors. The process features several design elements for optimal performance, size and robustness. These include a 60µm device layer with high-aspect ratio, through silicon via (TSV) interconnects and vertical electrodes, as well as a single die gyroscope and accelerometer with a unique dual vacuum design.

Renesas Electronics, a supplier of advanced semiconductor solutions, today announced the Renesas Synergy Platform, a new, easy-to-use, qualified platform designed to accelerate time to market, reduce total cost of ownership and remove many of the obstacles engineers face as they develop products for the growing Internet of Things (IoT) and industrial markets. The Renesas Synergy Platform achieves this by using an approach to new product design that lets embedded systems engineers start product development at the API level, giving them more time to design innovative and differentiated features.

“Engineering teams used to spend valuable development time writing software ranging from low-level peripheral drivers to complex communication and specialty stacks. This resulted in months of engineering resources spent integrating, testing, and maintaining software that didn’t differentiate the end-product in the market,” said Ali Sebt, Senior Vice President, Renesas Electronics Corporation. “By enabling engineers to start design at the software API level and enjoy a real-time control system without the need to build any baseline functionality, the Renesas Synergy platform accelerates embedded development, inspires innovation and enables differentiation.”

“With Synergy, Renesas has created an embedded design platform that is unique to the industry,” said Vin D’Agostino, Vice President, General Purpose Products Unit, Renesas Electronics America, Inc. “This software-first approach will make developing devices for the IoT, industrial and other markets easier by taking care of the low-level embedded software, real-time event management, secure connectivity, power management, and the robust GUIs needed.”

The Renesas Synergy Platform

The Renesas Synergy Platform integrates qualified software with a new family of MCUs and an ecosystem of tools and support options into one scalable and secure platform. It includes all rights and benefits to enable rich software development for an unlimited number of end products. There is no need to purchase a third-party commercial RTOS, communication stacks (TCP/IP, USB), file systems, graphic user interfaces and their associated development tools – all are included in the Renesas Synergy platform. As the Renesas Synergy Platform is a fully integrated product and not a set of separately sourced software and hardware components, Renesas provides technical support and licensing for the platform. This reduces the cost and time overhead required to manage relationships with different hardware and software component manufacturers.

Key elements of Renesas Synergy Platform include:

Renesas Synergy Software Package

The Renesas Synergy Platform uses qualified embedded software, tested to commercial standards with ensured compatibility across all Renesas Synergy MCUs. The Renesas Synergy Software Package (SSP) includes Express Logic’s X-Ware. X-Ware includes the premier ThreadX real time operating system (RTOS) plus X-Ware middleware NetX and NetX DUO IPV4 and IPv4/IPV6 TCP/IP stacks respectively, USBX USB Host/Device/OTG protocol stack, FileX® MS-DOS compatible file system and GUIX graphics runtime library. These are bundled in the Renesas application framework that is completely optimized for use with Renesas Synergy MCUs and compliant to the IEC/ISO/IEEE-12207 Software Life Cycle Process standard. Sold, maintained, and directly supported by Renesas, the software is guaranteed by Renesas to operate as per a published specification.

Renesas Synergy Microcontrollers

Within the Renesas Synergy Platform, there is a new, scalable MCU family that spans a wide spectrum of performance, power usage, safety, security, cryptography, connectivity, and graphics capabilities. The family provides customers a variety of choices to meet their requirements for IoT designs ranging from low-end, battery-powered products to complex communication and user interface hubs.

Renesas Synergy Tools, Kits, Solutions

The Renesas Synergy Platform’s Eclipse-based integrated solution development environment (ISDE) is available with C compilers from GNU and IAR Systems. Also available are Express Logic’s Windows based GUIX Studio graphic user interface prototyping tool and TraceX real-time event graphical analysis tool. Customers can begin full development with the purchase of any one of many low-cost Development or Starter Kits available for each of the Synergy MCU series. Renesas will also offer a number of Renesas Synergy Product Example kits, each one an example of an actual commercial product. Customers can leverage this information to modify the Product Examples to fit the needs of their own similar end products.

Renesas Synergy Gallery

Renesas recognizes the widely varied needs of product developers in the IoT space and their desire for plug-and-play add-on software components to reduce development time. Renesas satisfies this need with the Renesas Synergy Gallery, an online selection of quality software products from third-party software vendors that augment the Renesas Synergy Software Package. Customers may browse and download Renesas Synergy Software Package-compliant software for functions and features such as specialized communication stacks, control algorithms, and security services.

Renesas Synergy Support

All components of the Renesas Synergy platform are supported directly by Renesas, giving customers a single point of contact for integrated support spanning software, Renesas Synergy MCUs and hardware solutions. This unified support structure eliminates the struggle customers often encounter when trying to get hardware and software vendors to take ownership of a technical problem. Customers will not need to purchase service or maintenance contracts. Renesas warrantees the specification, provides regular feature upgrades and addresses all product questions through our global sales support organization.

Phase change random access memory (PRAM) is one of the strongest candidates for next-generation nonvolatile memory for flexible and wearable electronics. In order to be used as a core memory for flexible devices, the most important issue is reducing high operating current. The effective solution is to decrease cell size in sub-micron region as in commercialized conventional PRAM. However, the scaling to nano-dimension on flexible substrates is extremely difficult due to soft nature and photolithographic limits on plastics, thus practical flexible PRAM has not been realized yet.

Low-power nonvolatile PRAM for flexible and wearable memories enabled by (a) self-assembled BCP silica nanostructures and (b) self-structured conductive filament nanoheater. CREDIT: KAIST

Low-power nonvolatile PRAM for flexible and wearable memories enabled by (a) self-assembled BCP silica nanostructures and (b) self-structured conductive filament nanoheater.
CREDIT: KAIST

Recently, a team led by Professors Keon Jae Lee and Yeon Sik Jung of the Department of Materials Science and Engineering at KAIST has developed the first flexible PRAM enabled by self-assembled block copolymer (BCP) silica nanostructures with an ultralow current operation (below one quarter of conventional PRAM without BCP) on plastic substrates. BCP is the mixture of two different polymer materials, which can easily create self-ordered arrays of sub-20nm features through simple spin-coating and plasma treatments. BCP silica nanostructures successfully lowered the contact area by localizing the volume change of phase-change materials and thus resulted in significant power reduction. Furthermore, the ultrathin silicon-based diodes were integrated with phase-change memories (PCM) to suppress the inter-cell interference, which demonstrated random access capability for flexible and wearable electronics. Their work was published in the March issue of ACS Nano: “Flexible One Diode-One Phase Change Memory Array Enabled by Block Copolymer Self-Assembly.”

Another way to achieve ultralow-powered PRAM is to utilize self-structured conductive filaments (CF) instead of the resistor-type conventional heater. The self-structured CF nanoheater originated from unipolar memristor can generate strong heat toward phase-change materials due to high current density through the nanofilament. This ground-breaking methodology shows that sub-10nm filament heater, without using expensive and non-compatible nanolithography, achieved nanoscale switching volume of phase change materials, resulted in the PCM writing current of below 20 uA, the lowest value among top-down PCM devices. This achievement was published in the June online issue of ACS Nano “Self-Structured Conductive Filament Nanoheater for Chalcogenide Phase Transition.” In addition, due to self-structured low-power technology compatible to plastics, the research team has recently succeeded in fabricating a flexible PRAM on wearable substrates.

Professor Lee said, “The demonstration of low power PRAM on plastics is one of the most important issues for next-generation wearable and flexible non-volatile memory. Our innovative and simple methodology represents the strong potential for commercializing flexible PRAM.”

In addition, he wrote a review paper regarding the nanotechnology-based electronic devices in the June online issue of Advanced Materials entitled “Performance Enhancement of Electronic and Energy Devices via Block Copolymer Self-Assembly.”

Led by Young Duck Kim, a postdoctoral research scientist in James Hone’s group at Columbia Engineering, a team of scientists from Columbia, Seoul National University (SNU), and Korea Research Institute of Standards and Science (KRISS) reported today that they have demonstrated — for the first time — an on-chip visible light source using graphene, an atomically thin and perfectly crystalline form of carbon, as a filament. They attached small strips of graphene to metal electrodes, suspended the strips above the substrate, and passed a current through the filaments to cause them to heat up. The study, “Bright visible light emission from graphene,” is published in the Advance Online Publication (AOP) on Nature Nanotechnology‘s website on June 15.

“We’ve created what is essentially the world’s thinnest light bulb,” says Hone, Wang Fon-Jen Professor of Mechanical Engineering at Columbia Engineering and co-author of the study. “This new type of ‘broadband’ light emitter can be integrated into chips and will pave the way towards the realization of atomically thin, flexible, and transparent displays, and graphene-based on-chip optical communications.”

Creating light in small structures on the surface of a chip is crucial for developing fully integrated “photonic” circuits that do with light what is now done with electric currents in semiconductor integrated circuits. Researchers have developed many approaches to do this, but have not yet been able to put the oldest and simplest artificial light source — the incandescent light bulb — onto a chip. This is primarily because light bulb filaments must be extremely hot — thousands of degrees Celsius — in order to glow in the visible range and micro-scale metal wires cannot withstand such temperatures. In addition, heat transfer from the hot filament to its surroundings is extremely efficient at the microscale, making such structures impractical and leading to damage of the surrounding chip.

By measuring the spectrum of the light emitted from the graphene, the team was able to show that the graphene was reaching temperatures of above 2500 degrees Celsius, hot enough to glow brightly.

“The visible light from atomically thin graphene is so intense that it is visible even to the naked eye, without any additional magnification,” explains Young Duck Kim, first and co-lead author on the paper and postdoctoral research scientist who works in Hone’s group at Columbia Engineering.

Interestingly, the spectrum of the emitted light showed peaks at specific wavelengths, which the team discovered was due to interference between the light emitted directly from the graphene and light reflecting off the silicon substrate and passing back through the graphene. Kim notes, “This is only possible because graphene is transparent, unlike any conventional filament, and allows us to tune the emission spectrum by changing the distance to the substrate.”

The ability of graphene to achieve such high temperatures without melting the substrate or the metal electrodes is due to another interesting property: as it heats up, graphene becomes a much poorer conductor of heat. This means that the high temperatures stay confined to a small ‘hot spot’ in the center.

“At the highest temperatures, the electron temperature is much higher than that of acoustic vibrational modes of the graphene lattice, so that less energy is needed to attain temperatures needed for visible light emission,” Myung-Ho Bae, a senior researcher at KRISS and co-lead author, observes. “These unique thermal properties allow us to heat the suspended graphene up to half of temperature of the sun, and improve efficiency 1000 times, as compared to graphene on a solid substrate.”

The team also demonstrated the scalability of their technique by realizing large-scale of arrays of chemical-vapor-deposited (CVD) graphene light emitters.

Yun Daniel Park, professor in the department of physics and astronomy at Seoul National University and co-lead author, notes that they are working with the same material that Thomas Edison used when he invented the incandescent light bulb: “Edison originally used carbon as a filament for his light bulb and here we are going back to the same element, but using it in its pure form — graphene — and at its ultimate size limit — one atom thick.”

The group is currently working to further characterize the performance of these devices — for example, how fast they can be turned on and off to create “bits” for optical communications — and to develop techniques for integrating them into flexible substrates.

Hone adds, “We are just starting to dream about other uses for these structures — for example, as micro-hotplates that can be heated to thousands of degrees in a fraction of a second to study high-temperature chemical reactions or catalysis.”

A simple way to turn carbon nanotubes into valuable graphene nanoribbons may be to grind them, according to research led by Rice University.

The trick, said Rice materials scientist Pulickel Ajayan, is to mix two types of chemically modified nanotubes. When they come into contact during grinding, they react and unzip, a process that until now has depended largely on reactions in harsh chemical solutions.

The research by Ajayan and his international collaborators appears in Nature Communications.

To be clear, Ajayan said, the new process is still a chemical reaction that depends on molecules purposely attached to the nanotubes, a process called functionalization. The most interesting part to the researchers is that a process as simple as grinding could deliver strong chemical coupling between solid nanostructures and produce novel forms of nanostructured products with specific properties.

“Chemical reactions can easily be done in solutions, but this work is entirely solid state,” he said. “Our question is this: If we can use nanotubes as templates, functionalize them and get reactions under the right conditions, what kinds of things can we make with a large number of possible nanostructures and chemical functional groups?”

The process should enable many new chemical reactions and products, said Mohamad Kabbani, a graduate student at Rice and lead author of the paper. “Using different functionalities in different nanoscale systems could revolutionize nanomaterials development,” he said.

Highly conductive graphene nanoribbons, thousands of times smaller than a human hair, are finding their way into the marketplace in composite materials. The nanoribbons boost the materials’ electronic properties and/or strength.

“Controlling such structures by mechano-chemical transformation will be the key to find new applications,” said co-author Thalappil Pradeep, a professor of chemistry at the Indian Institute of Technology Chennai. “Soft chemistry of this kind can happen in many conditions, contributing to better understanding of materials processing.”

In their tests, the researchers prepared two batches of multi-walled carbon nanotubes, one with carboxyl groups and the other with hydroxyl groups attached. When ground together for up to 20 minutes with a mortar and pestle, the chemical additives reacted with each other, triggering the nanotubes to unzip into nanoribbons, with water as a byproduct.

“That serendipitous observation will lead to further systematic studies of nanotubes reactions in solid state, including ab-initio theoretical models and simulations,” Ajayan said. “This is exciting.”

The experiments were duplicated by participating labs at Rice, at the Indian Institute of Technology and at the Lebanese American University in Beirut. They were performed in standard lab conditions as well as in a vacuum, outside in the open air and at variable humidity, temperatures, times and seasons.

The researchers who carried out the collaboration on three continents still don’t know precisely what’s happening at the nanoscale. “It is an exothermic reaction, so the energy’s enough to break up the nanotubes into ribbons, but the details of the dynamics are difficult to monitor,” Kabbani said. “There’s no way we can grind two nanotubes in a microscope and watch it happen. Not yet, anyway.”

But the results speak for themselves.

“I don’t know why people haven’t explored this idea, that you can control reactions by supporting the reactants on nanostructures,” Ajayan said. “What we’ve done is very crude, but it’s a beginning and a lot of work can follow along these lines.”

By Christian G. Dieseldorff, Industry Research & Statistics Group, SEMI

Semiconductor capital expenditures (without fabless and backend) are expected to slow in rate, but continue to grow by 5.8 percent in 2015 (over US$66 billion) and 2.5 percent in 2016 (over $68 billion), according to the May update of the SEMI World Fab Forecast report. A significant part of this capex is fab equipment spending.

Fab equipment spending is forecast to depart from the typical historic trend over the past 15 years of two years of spending growth followed by one year of decline.  Departing from the norm, equipment spending could grow every year for three years in a row: 2014, 2015, and 2016 (see Table 1).

Table 1: Fab Equipment Spending by Wafer Size

Table 1: Fab Equipment Spending by Wafer Size

At the end of May 2015, SEMI published its latest update to the World Fab Forecast report, reporting on more than 200 facilities with equipment spending in 2015, and more than 175 facilities projected to spend in 2016.

The report shows a large increase in spending for DRAM, more than 45 percent in 2015. Also, spending for 3D NAND is expected to increase by more than 60 percent in 2015 and more than 70 percent in 2016. The foundry sector is forecast to show 10 percent higher fab equipment spending in 2015, but may experience a decline in 2016.  Even with this slowdown, the foundry sector is expected to be the second largest in equipment spending, surpassed only by spending in the memory sector.

A weak first quarter of 2015 is dropping spending for the first half of 2015, but a stronger second half of 2015 is expected. Intel and TSMC reduced their capital expenditure plans for 2015, while other companies, especially memory, are expected to increase their spending.

The SEMI data details how this varies by company and fab.  For example, the report predicts increased fab equipment spending in 2015 by TSMC and Samsung. Samsung is the “wild card” on the table, with new fabs in Hwaseong, Line 17 and S3.  The World Fab Forecast report shows how Samsung is likely to ramp these fabs into 2016. In addition, Samsung is currently ramping a large fab in China for 3D NAND (VNAND) production.   Overall, the data show that Samsung is will likely spend a bit more for memory in 2015 and much more in 2016.  After two years of declining spending for System LSI, Samsung is forecast to show an increase in 2015, and especially for 2016.

Figure 1 depicts fab equipment spending by region for 2015.

Figure 1: Fab Equipment Spending in 2015 by Region; SEMI World Fab Forecast Report (May 2015).

Figure 1: Fab Equipment Spending in 2015 by Region; SEMI World Fab Forecast Report (May 2015).

In 2015, fab equipment spending by Taiwan and Korea together are expected to make up over 51 percent of worldwide spending, according to the SEMI report.  In 2011, Taiwan and Korea accounted for just 41 percent, and the highest spending region was the Americas, with 22 percent (now just 16 percent).  China’s fab spending is still dominated by non-Chinese companies such as SK Hynix and Samsung, but the impact of Samsung’s 3D NAND project in Xian is significant. China’s share for fab spending grew from 9 percent in 2011 to a projected 11 percent in 2015; because of Samsung’s fab in Xian, the share will grow to 13 percent in 2016.

Table 2 shows the share of the top two companies drive a region for fab equipment spending:

Table 2: Share of Fab Equipment Spending of Top Two Companies per Region

Table 2: Share of Fab Equipment Spending of Top Two Companies per Region

Over time, fab equipment spending has also shifted by technology node.  See Figure 2, where nodes have been grouped by size:

Figure 2: Fab Equipment Spending by Nodes (Grouped)

Figure 2: Fab Equipment Spending by Nodes (Grouped)

In 2011, most fab equipment spending was for nodes between 25nm to 49nm (accounting for $24 billion) while nodes with 24nm or smaller drove spending less than $7 billion. By 2015, spending flipped, with nodes equal or under 24nm accounting for $27 billion while spending on nodes between 25nm to 49nm dropped to $8 billion.  The SEMI World Fab data also predict more spending on nodes between 38nm to 79nm, due to increases in the 3DNAND sector in 2015 and accelerating in 2016 (not shown in the chart).

When is the next contraction?

As noted above, over the past 15 years the industry has never achieved three consecutive years of positive growth rates for spending.  2016 may be the year which deviates from this historic cycle pattern.  A developing hypothesis is that with more consolidation, fewer players compete for market positions, resulting in a more controlled spending environment with much lower volatility.

Learn more about the SEMI fab databases at: www.semi.org/MarketInfo/FabDatabase.

MEMSIC announced the launch of its latest addition, the INS380, to its portfolio of Inertial Systems enabled with SmartSensing technology targeted to a broad range of precision motion sensing applications. The portfolio offering consists of Inertial Measurement Units (IMU), Vertical Gyros (VG), Attitude and Heading Reference Systems (AHRS), Inertial Navigation Systems (INS) and Tilt measurement systems in a variety of packages suited for system designers to end equipment manufacturers.

The latest product from MEMSIC, the INS380SA, is a complete inertial navigation system with a built-in 48-channel GPS receiver. The SmartSensing technology enables a turnkey system with better than 0.01 m/s velocity measurement accuracy. The integrated 3-axis magnetometer allows for accurate operation when the GPS signal is lost or when the vehicle comes to a stop.

SmartSensing technology provides users with sensor fusion and performance in critical motion sensing applications. SmartSensing combines enhanced and patented Kalman-based algorithm with proprietary temperature, motion and alignment calibration for consistent and high accuracy performance over a wide range of extreme operating conditions. Applications include unmanned ground and aerial vehicles, platform stabilization, avionics, precision agriculture, construction, and more.

“With over 400 man-years of design and development experience and knowledge in designing IMUs and sophisticated MEMS sensor solutions,” said Masoud Beheshti, VP and General Manager of MEMSIC’s system division. “MEMSIC is in a very unique position in the industry to help enable designer’s unprecedented size, accuracy and cost, with our SmartSensing technology.”