Category Archives: MEMS

The semiconductor IP market is expected to reach $7.01 billion USD by 2022 from USD 3.09 Billion in 2015, at a CAGR of 10.55% between 2016 and 2022, according to the newly released report “Semiconductor (Silicon) IP Market by Form Factor (Integrated Circuit IP, SOC IP), Design Architecture (Hard IP, Soft IP), Processor Type (Microprocessor, DSP), Application, Geography and Verification IP – Forecast & Analysis to 2022”, published by MarketsandMarkets.

The driving factors for the growth of this market include increasing demand for advanced SoCs in the consumer sector, increased funding from governments and investors, emerging IoT ecosystem, recovering automotive sector, and growing popularity of miniaturized devices.

SoC IP had the largest market in 2015

Increase in the demand of smarter and power-efficient electronic devices, demand for multi-core technologies and embedded graphics are the major driving factors for the SoC market. SoCs are being utilized by all smart devices currently, such as smart phones, communication equipment, next-gen automotive, and electrocardiogram (ECG) telemetry devices. The increasing demand for energy efficient devices has led to development of newer SoCs which are more compact in size, faster response time than their predecessors and even consumes much lesser power. Moreover, the increased demand for multi-core technologies and embedded graphics has led to development of advanced SoCs.

Embedded processor IP devices expected to led the semiconductor processor IP market during the forecast period

Increasing demand for pervasive M2M (machine-to-machine) connectivity and a rich user experience across industries has spurred new opportunities for growth in both traditional and emerging embedded processor market. Emerging multi-core processors such as quad-core and octa-core for enhanced real-time experience in smart consumer electronics such as smartphones and smart wearables is expected to drive the embedded processor IP market.

The mobile & tablets segment expected to dominate the semiconductor IP market during the forecast period

A Strong consumer demand for smartphones, tablets, and other mobile devices is fueling significant growth within the semiconductor industry, and the rush to develop differentiated and powerful mobile solutions is driving rapid change within the entire ecosystem. Mobile phones and tablets have become the necessity of every individual which has increased the demand for the same; this is expected to drive the semiconductor IP market. Key players in the market such as Synopsys (U.S.), ARM (U.K.), and Rambus (U.S.) design chips exclusively to cater this application sector because of its growth potential.

The market in APAC expected to grow at the highest CAGR during the forecast period 

APAC is expected to hold the largest share of the semiconductor IP market by 2022. The major reasons for this are the governments in China, Taiwan, and Japan are actively attempting to boost the domestic semiconductor market and assist local companies in expanding their business globally; Chinese consumers and companies are becoming increasingly important to the growth of the global semiconductor market; increased funding from both government and private sources, is leading to merger, acquisition, investment, and partnership opportunities worldwide.

Over 50,000 attendees are expected at SEMICON China 2016 which opens tomorrow at Shanghai New International Expo Centre. SEMICON China (March 15-17) offers the latest in technology and innovation for the electronics industry. FPD China and LED China are also co-located with SEMICON China, leveraging opportunities in these related and adjacent markets. Featuring more than 1,000 exhibitors occupying nearly 3,000 booths, SEMICON China is one of the largest expositions in the world.

In 2016, semiconductor fab equipment spending in China is expected to be US$5.8 billion, 16 percent above 2015 spending. In 2016, total spending on semiconductor materials in China is projected to be $6.3 billion, with China representing the highest growth rate at 4 percent of all the regions tracked by SEMI. The global industry is watching China’s bold industry investment policy closely, and looking for the implementation with its significant potential impact on the global semiconductor manufacturing supply chain.  The policies represent major opportunities both for China and global semiconductor supply chain companies who understand and have the ambition to play in the new ecosystem.

Highlights at SEMICON China include:

  • Keynotes: China Semiconductor Industry Association, SMIC, China National IC Industry Investment Fund, TSMC, Applied Materials, Amkor Technology, TEL, STATS ChipPAC (a JCET Company), and Lam Research
  • Tech Investment Forum – China: Speakers from Beijing Economic Technological Development Area, SINO IC Capital, Tsinghua University, Evercore, Beijing E-town, West Summit Capital, Summitview Capital, and TCL Capital
  • Technology Forums: Build China IC Manufacturing Ecosystem; SEMI-JEDEC Mobile and IOT Technology Forum; China Memory Strategic Forum; Technology Shape the Future-Sensor Hub Solution for Wearable and IOT; LED China Conference 2016; Power Semiconductor Forum 2016; and China Display Conference/ASID 2016
  • Networking Events: Industry Gala, IC Night and SEMI Golf Tournament
  • Theme Pavilions include: IC Manufacturing; LED and Sapphire; TSV; Semiconductor Materials;  MEMS; Secondary Equipment Applications; Service and Fab Productivity Solutions; Touch; and OLED
  • Programs on PV (March 15) and LEDs (March 16)

Organized by SEMI and IEEE-EDS, the China Semiconductor Technology International Conference (CSTIC) immediately precedes SEMICON China on March 13-14. CSTIC covers all aspects of semiconductor technology and manufacturing.

For more information on SEMICON China, visit www.semiconchina.org

Nanoelectronics research center imec has today announced the opening of its new 300mm cleanroom. With this 4000m2 new facility, imec’s semiconductor research cleanrooms now totals 12,000m2, one of the most advanced research facilities in the world dedicated to scaling IC technology beyond 7nm. This facility will enable imec to keep its global leading position as a nanoelectronics R&D center serving the entire semiconductor ecosystem.  Its global partners including foundries, IDMs, fabless and fablite companies, equipment and material suppliers, will benefit from topnotch semiconductor processing equipment (including alfa and beta tools) to develop innovative solutions for more powerful, high-performing, cheaper and energy-efficient ICs, which are crucial in the evolution of the Internet of Everything and a sustainable digital future.

Extending the existing cleanroom, the new facility complies with the newest standards in the semiconductor industry, and provides additional space for the most advanced tools that will lead innovations in new device and system concepts. Installations of the first tools began in January 2016. The new 300mm cleanroom complements imec’s other production facilities including its bio-nanolabs, neuroelectronics labs, imaging and wireless and electronics test labs, photovoltaic pilot lines, and GaN-on-Si, Silicon photonics and MEMS pilot lines.

“Since our founding in 1984, imec has become the world’s largest independent nanoelectronics research center with the highest industry commitment,” stated Luc Van den hove, president and CEO at imec. “This success is the result of the unique combination of our broad international partner network, including the major global players of the semiconductor industry, top scientific and engineering talent, and imec’s one of a kind infrastructure. The extension of our cleanroom provides our partners with the necessary resources for continued leading edge innovation and imec’s success in the future within the local and global high-tech industry.”

The cleanroom was constructed by M+W, an internationally renowned contractor of  large-scale high-tech infrastructure. The construction was completed in 20 months, and includes a  reflecting facade, from Architect Stéphane Beel, which is intended to integrate the building with the environment. The new cleanroom comprises a total investment (building and equipment) of more than 1 billion euro of which 100 million euro funding from the Flemish Government and more than 900 million euro investments from joint R&D with the leading players from the entire semiconductor industry, totaling more than 90 industrial partners.

new imec center

Scientists have created the world’s thinnest lens, one two-thousandth the thickness of a human hair, opening the door to flexible computer displays and a revolution in miniature cameras.

Lead researcher Dr Yuerui (Larry) Lu from The Australian National University (ANU) said the discovery hinged on the remarkable potential of the molybdenum disulphide crystal.

Larry Lu (left), and Jiong Yang with the lens shown on screen. Credit: Stuart Hay, ANU

Larry Lu (left), and Jiong Yang with the lens shown on screen. Credit: Stuart Hay, ANU

“This type of material is the perfect candidate for future flexible displays,” said Dr Lu, leader of Nano-Electro-Mechanical System (NEMS) Laboratory in the ANU Research School of Engineering.

“We will also be able to use arrays of micro lenses to mimic the compound eyes of insects.”

The 6.3-nanometre lens outshines previous ultra-thin flat lenses, made from 50-nanometre thick gold nano-bar arrays, known as a metamaterial.

“Molybdenum disulphide is an amazing crystal,” said Dr Lu. “It survives at high temperatures, is a lubricant, a good semiconductor and can emit photons too.

“The capability of manipulating the flow of light in atomic scale opens an exciting avenue towards unprecedented miniaturisation of optical components and the integration of advanced optical functionalities.”

Molybdenum disulphide is in a class of materials known as chalcogenide glasses that have flexible electronic characteristics that have made them popular for high-technology components.

Dr Lu’s team created their lens from a crystal 6.3-nanometres thick – 9 atomic layers – which they had peeled off a larger piece of molybdenum disulphide with sticky tape.

They then created a 10-micron radius lens, using a focussed ion beam to shave off the layers atom by atom, until they had the dome shape of the lens.

The team discovered that single layers of molybdenum disulphide, 0.7 nanometres thick, had remarkable optical properties, appearing to a light beam to be 50 times thicker, at 38 nanometres. This property, known as optical path length, determines the phase of the light and governs interference and diffraction of light as it propagates.

“At the beginning we couldn’t imagine why molybdenum disulphide had such surprising properties,” said Dr Lu.

Collaborator Assistant Professor Zongfu Yu at the University of Wisconsin, Madison, developed a simulation and showed that light was bouncing back and forth many times inside the high refractive index crystal layers before passing through.

Molybdenum disulphide crystal’s refractive index, the property that quantifies the strength of a material’s effect on light, has a high value of 5.5. For comparison, diamond, whose high refractive index causes its sparkle, is only 2.4, and water’s refractive index is 1.3.

This study is published in the Nature serial journal Light: Science and Applications.

The electronics and electrical appliances (E&E) industry in Thailand has long been an important sector to the nation, first as a manufacturer of white goods, then computers and parts, and now integrated circuits, hard disk drives, and printed circuit boards.

Constituting a nearly $100 billion USD industry, Thailand’s E&E sector has played a vital role in growing the country’s economy as a major export earner and positioning Thailand as one of the semiconductor leaders in the Southeast Asia region.

Taking note of this, SEMI, the global industry association serving the electronics manufacturing supply chains, will include discussions pertinent to Thailand’s semiconductor industry at the upcoming SEMICON Southeast Asia 2016 (SEMICON SEA 2016), the region’s premier showcase for microelectronics innovation.

According to Ng Kai Fai, President of SEMI Southeast Asia, “Forums and discussion sessions during SEMICON SEA 2016 will include topics that will interest semiconductor players from Thailand. This includes integrated circuit (IC) manufacturing, which is Thailand’s largest electronic imports and second largest electronics exports as well as automotive electronics, a sector which is booming in Thailand.”

“Thailand is in the list of the world’s fifteen automotive manufacturing countries and the most important growth area within automotive electronics is infotainment. According to recent news reports, the global automotive electronics market is expected to reach $280 billion USD by 2020. This provides a fertile ground for the semiconductor and electronics industry to strengthen the regional business collaborations between Thailand and Southeast Asia.”

Set to take place from 26-28 April 2016 at the Subterranean Penang International Convention and Exhibition Centre (SPICE) in Penang, Malaysia, SEMICON SEA 2016 will offer a complete platform for engaging customers, suppliers, engineers and decision-makers from across the industry. With the objective to champion regional collaboration, the showcase will open new business opportunities for customers and foster stronger cross-regional engagement.

“The inaugural SEMICON SEA was a success with audiences from not only Malaysia, but also around the Southeast Asia region. This year, we expect additional regional participation given the expanded content of the show as well as the ever increasing need for regional collaboration,” he added.

SEMICON SEA 2016 will focus on the key trends and solutions in semiconductor design and manufacturing, including emphasis on serving the needs of expanding applications markets many of which require development of specialised materials, packaging, and test technologies, as well as new architectures and processes.

To register for SEMICON SEA 2016 or to explore exhibiting opportunities, visit http://www.semiconsea.org/ or contact Ms. Shannen Koh at [email protected].

IoT Planet, a new European event dedicated to the Internet of Things (IoT), will co-locate this year with SEMICON Europa (25-27 October) in Grenoble, France.  IoT Planet provides a platform of networking and business to all IoT actors from software development, data management, IT infrastructures, system integration and “Connected Objects” applications.

For over 40 years, SEMI has organized SEMICON Europa, which has served as the premier annual European event for the electronics industry. In 2016, SEMICON Europa will connect the entire electronics supply chain: from materials and equipment, to manufacturing and technology, to advanced packaging and smart system integration – with a strong emphasis on application-driven markets, including Imaging, Power Electronics, Automotive, MedTech, and Flexible Hybrid Electronics.

IoT Planet, in its second year, will cover the full IoT domain with a unique format in mixing exhibition, Start-Up programs, crash tests, hackathon, forums, and debates, and many other events co-designed with the Partners. IoT Planet will connect professional visitors and high tech public across the domains of IoT applications, business, services, societal and private impact and talent management.

Together, the co-located events will offer visitors many learning and networking options along an extended supply chain. The events are expected to attract over 7,000 professional visitors and more than 600 exhibiting companies.

“Tomorrow’s applications will allow people to live smarter – healthier, safer, and more comfortable. The emerging opportunities are endless in smart electronic systems, but technology and system challenges must be overcome by connecting forces and by building on the strengths of different players in the value chain,” says Laith Altimime, president of SEMI Europe. “The co-location of these two events perfectly supports the SEMI 2020 strategy and will accelerate SEMI’s move towards covering the full electronics supply chain.”

“That initiative of co-location will contribute to our fast growth and strong differentiation, while providing a unique European opportunity to explore the full value chain from Silicon to Connected Object, in Grenoble, the European capital of Nanotechnologies and Connected Things,” says Alain Astier, president of IoT Planet UNIVERSAL.

For more information, please visit www.semiconeuropa.org and www.iot-planet.org.

CyberOptics, a developer and manufacturer of high precision sensing solutions, today announced an OEM supplier agreement with Nordson YESTECH to supply its proprietary 3D Multi-Reflection Suppression (MRS) sensors. Nordson will incorporate CyberOptics’ advanced 3D MRS technology that inhibits measurement distortions, into their new 3D FX-940 Ultra Automated Optical Inspection (AOI) systems launching at IPC APEX Expo on March 15-17th in Las Vegas.

“After extensive consideration, we determined the MRS sensor to be the best choice for our demanding product requirements,” said Joe Stockunas, Group Vice President, Nordson Electronics Systems. “This strategic partnership offers the best solution to our customers by combining the strengths of YESTECH’s FX-940 platform and industry-recognized inspection software with this advanced 3D sensor technology.”

“We are pleased to announce the extension of our OEM sensor business to include Nordson YESTECH, a leader in AOI solutions with a broad customer base and vast global reach. Having our award-winning MRS technology incorporated into Nordson’s AOI systems is yet another proof point that our differentiated 3D sensor technology platform is considered industry leading for 3D inspection,” said Dr. Subodh Kulkari, President and CEO, CyberOptics Corporation.

CyberOptics’ sensors are used in general purpose metrology and 3D scanning, surface mount technology (SMT)and semiconductor markets to significantly improve yields and productivity. By leveraging its leading edge technologies, the company has strategically established itself as a global leader in high precision 3D sensors, allowing CyberOptics to further increase its penetration of key vertical markets. Headquartered in Minneapolis, Minnesota, CyberOptics conducts worldwide operations through its facilities in North America, Asia and Europe.

Nordson YESTECH is a worldwide leader in the design, development and manufacture of advanced automated optical (AOI) inspection solutions for the PCBA and advanced semiconductor packaging industries.

Think small


March 9, 2016

A single human hair, barely visible to the naked eye, is about 100 microns in diameter.

That’s huge compared to the device components students build in the Microfabrication Laboratory course at the Harvard John A. Paulson School of Engineering and Applied Sciences (SEAS).Under the instruction of Evelyn Hu, Tarr-Coyne Professor of Applied Physics and of Electrical Engineering, and Peter Stark, Visiting Associate Professor in Engineering Sciences, students are learning the “tricks of the trade” that could enable them to eventually form structures 1,000 times smaller than a strand of hair.

Using a specially designed “teaching clean room” that opened in the SEAS Active Learning Labs last spring, students fabricate electronic and photonic devices, such as light-emitting diodes, by developing components that are so small they must be crafted and analyzed with the help of a microscope.

Nabiha Saklayen, a graduate student pursuing a Ph.D. in physics, completes a photolithography workshop in the SEAS teaching clean room. (Photo by Adam Zewe/SEAS Communications.)

Nabiha Saklayen, a graduate student pursuing a Ph.D. in physics, completes a photolithography workshop in the SEAS teaching clean room. (Photo by Adam Zewe/SEAS Communications.)

Microfabrication involves crafting electronic devices in an unusual way: by printing them onto a material, like silicon. The concept of printed integrated circuits led to a Nobel Prize in physics for electrical engineer Jack Kilby in 2000, and also gave rise to the sophistication and complexity of today’s microprocessors, which can contain more than a billion transistors.

“In order to get a billion transistors into an area that is only an inch or so on a side, obviously you can’t just put the pieces together with your hands,” Hu said. “That set of really intricate techniques is what this course is all about.”

As in printing, shrinking the “font size” allows a tremendously greater amount of information to be represented on the same size page. The economic consequences are enormous, although balanced by the challenges of creating ever-smaller components, Hu explained.

The SEAS teaching clean room provides a first introduction to these techniques, and experience working at larger dimensions with building-block processes and devices. During one afternoon session, students completed a workshop on photolithography, which is a method for transferring a pattern to a substrate. Working at the micron level, they utilized chemicals and UV light to create a metal structure in a grid pattern. They will use this structure in a subsequent lab to measure the flow of electrons.

The course also enables students to work in Harvard’s Center for Nanoscale Systems (CNS), a shared-used core facility that holds a world-class nanofabrication laboratory. Students benefit from the expertise of CNS staff and the guidance of teaching fellows Sarah Schlotter and Laura Adams.

“The students concentrate not only on the fabrication of small devices, which is the main goal of the course, but also how to extract fundamental physical properties from the devices that they fabricate,” said Adams. “Since the course attracts a wide range of concentrators, we like to engage the students at all levels and disciplines to have a really collaborative experimental class.”

For electrical engineering concentrator Samwell Emmanuel, S.B. ’17, it was fascinating to see the tiny pattern take shape.

“We’re used to working with things that we can manipulate with our hands,” he said. “How do you work with something that you can’t even see with the naked eye? That’s what makes this course so interesting to me.”

Nabiha Saklayen, a graduate student pursuing a Ph.D. in physics, enjoyed the opportunity to learn about the fundamental techniques involved in fabricating the kinds of devices she uses regularly for research.

“We usually buy the devices that we need, so these are techniques that we often don’t think about,” she said. “It is incredible how much goes into actually preparing all these different compounds.”

While Hu doesn’t expect students to leave the course with perfect microfabrication skills, she hopes they develop a deeper appreciation for the inevitable challenges of working at the micron-scale.

“That frustration, and the ability to gain insight and intuition from their failures, is a critical thing for the students in this course. I want them to use the imperfections in their devices as a source of feedback to better understand the process,” she said. “My goal is to open their eyes to a world whose features they can’t see. I hope they learn that these techniques are powerful and that they could give them the capability to solve a problem in a different way.”

Paul Lindner, executive technology director at EV Group, is the recipient of the 2015 European SEMI Award.  Since 1989, the European SEMI Award has been presented to the person or team that made significant contributions to the European semiconductor and related industries.  This award, an industry honor for Lindner, was presented at the SEMI Industry Strategy Symposium Europe 2016 conference held in Nice on 6–8 March.

Paul Lindner was nominated and selected by his peers within the international semiconductor community in recognition of his outstanding contributions in the field of wafer processing equipment.  Lindner led exceptional innovations in wafer bonding technologies at EV Group (EVG).  The process separation between wafer alignment and wafer bonding, developed in 1990, revolutionized wafer bonding technology and has since become an industry standard.  Lindner changed the way the industry builds semiconductors.  Lindner exemplifies EVG’s ongoing effort of “being the first” in exploring new techniques and serving next-generation applications of micro- and nano-fabrication technologies.

“We are very proud of SEMI Member EVG’s achievements in wafer bonding technologies and the contributions that Paul Lindner and his team have made to the semiconductor community,” says SEMI Europe president Laith Altimime.

Lindner heads the R&D, product and project management, quality management, business development and process technology departments at EVG Group. He joined EVG in 1988 as a mechanical design engineer and has since pioneered semiconductor and MEMS processing systems, which have set industry standards.

The European SEMI Award was established more than two decades ago to recognize individuals and teams who have made a significant contribution to the European semiconductor and related industries. Prior award recipients hailed from these companies: Infineon, Semilab, Deutsche Solar, STMicroelectronics, IMEC, Fraunhofer Institute, and more.

Use your computer without the need to start it up: a new type of magnetic memory makes it possible. This “MRAM” is faster, more efficient and robust than other kinds of data storage. However, switching bits still requires too much electrical power to make large-scale application practicable. Researchers at Eindhoven University of Technology (TU/e) have discovered a smart way of solving this problem by using a “bending current.” They publish their findings in the journal Nature Communications.

This image shows the experimental chip the researchers used for their measurements. Credit: Arno van den Brink / Eindhoven University of Technology

This image shows the experimental chip the researchers used for their measurements. Credit: Arno van den Brink / Eindhoven University of Technology

MRAM (Magnetic Random Access Memory) stores data by making smart use of the “spin” of electrons, a kind of internal compass of the particles. Since magnetism is used instead of an electrical charge, the memory is permanent, even when there is a power failure, and so the computer no longer has to be started up. These magnetic memories also use much less power, which means that mobile phones, for example, can run longer on a battery.

Flipover

In a MRAM bits are projected by the direction of the spin of the electrons in a piece of magnetic material: for example, upwards for a “1” and downwards for a “0”. The storage of data occurs by flipping the spin of the electrons over to the correct side. Normal practice is to send an electrical current which contains electrons with the required spin direction through the bit. The large quantity of electrical current needed to do this hindered a definitive breakthrough for MRAM, which appeared on the market for the first time in 2006.

Bending current

In Nature Communications a group of TU/e physicists, led by professor Henk Swagten, today publishes a revolutionary method to flip the magnetic bits faster and more energy-efficiently. A current pulse is sent under the bit, which bends the electrons at the correct spin upwards, so through the bit. “It’s a bit like a soccer ball that is kicked with a curve when the right effect is applied,” says Arno van den Brink, TU/e PhD student and the first author of the article.

Frozen

The new memory is really fast but it needs something extra to make the flipping reliable. Earlier attempts to do this required a magnetic field but that made the method expensive and inefficient. The researchers have solved this problem by applying a special anti-ferromagnetic material on top of the bits. This enables the requisite magnetic field to be frozen, as it were, energy-efficient and low cost. “This could be the decisive nudge in the right direction for superfast MRAM in the near future,” according to Van den Brink.