Category Archives: MEMS

In its September Update to The 2018 McClean Report, IC Insights discloses that over the past two years, DRAM manufacturers have been operating their memory fabs at nearly full capacity, which has resulted in steadily increasing DRAM prices and sizable profits for suppliers along the way.  Figure 1 shows that the DRAM average selling price (ASP) reached $6.79 in August 2018, a 165% increase from two years earlier in August of 2016. Although the DRAM ASP growth rate has slowed this year compared to last, it has remained on a solid upward trajectory through the first eight months of 2018.

Figure 1

The DRAM market is known for being very cyclical and after experiencing strong gains for two years, historical precedence now strongly suggests that the DRAM ASP (and market) will soon begin trending downward.  One indicator suggesting that the DRAM ASP is on the verge of decline is back-to-back years of huge increases in DRAM capital spending to expand or add new fab capacity (Figure 2). DRAM capital spending jumped 81% to $16.3 billion in 2017 and is expected to climb another 40% to $22.9 billion this year. Capex spending at these levels would normally lead to an overwhelming flood of new capacity and a subsequent rapid decline in prices.

Figure 2

However, what is slightly different this time around is that big productivity gains normally associated with significant spending upgrades are much less at the sub-20nm process node now being used by the top DRAM suppliers as compared to the gains seen in previous generations.

At its Analyst Day event held earlier this year, Micron presented figures showing that manufacturing DRAM at the sub-20nm node required a 35% increase in the number of mask levels, a 110% increase in the number of non-lithography steps per critical mask level, and 80% more cleanroom space per wafer out since more equipment—each piece with a larger footprint than its previous generation—is required to fabricate ≤20nm devices. Bit volume increases that previously averaged around 50% following the transition to a smaller technology node, are a fraction of that amount at the ≤20nm node.  The net result is suppliers must invest much more money for a smaller increase in bit volume output.  So, the recent uptick in capital spending, while extraordinary, may not result in a similar amount of excess capacity, as has been the case in the past.

As seen in Figure 2, the DRAM ASP is forecast to rise 38% in 2018 to $6.65, but IC Insights forecasts that DRAM market growth will cool as additional capacity is brought online and supply constraints begin to ease. (It is worth mentioning that Samsung and SK Hynix in 3Q18 reportedly deferred some of their expansion plans in light of expected softening in customer demand.)

Of course, a wildcard in the DRAM market is the role and impact that the startup Chinese companies will have over the next few years.  It is estimated that China accounts for approximately 40% of the DRAM market and approximately 35% of the flash memory market.

At least two Chinese IC suppliers, Innotron and JHICC, are set to participate in this year’s DRAM market. Although China’s capacity and manufacturing processes will not initially rival those from Samsung, SK Hynix, or Micron, it will be interesting to see how well the country’s startup companies perform and whether they will exist to serve China’s national interests only or if they will expand to serve global needs.

 

The world is edging closer to a reality where smart devices are able to use their owners as an energy resource, say experts from the University of Surrey.

In a study published by the Advanced Energy Materials journal, scientists from Surrey’s Advanced Technology Institute (ATI) detail an innovative solution for powering the next generation of electronic devices by using Triboelectric Nanogenerators (TENGs). Along with human movements, TENGs can capture energy from common energy sources such as wind, wave, and machine vibration.

A TENG is an energy harvesting device that uses the contact between two or more (hybrid, organic or inorganic) materials to produce an electric current.

Researchers from the ATI have provided a step-by-step guide on how to construct the most efficient energy harvesters. The study introduces a “TENG power transfer equation” and “TENG impedance plots”, tools which can help improve the design for power output of TENGs.

Professor Ravi Silva, Director of the ATI, said: “A world where energy is free and renewable is a cause that we are extremely passionate about here at the ATI (and the University of Surrey) – TENGs could play a major role in making this dream a reality. TENGs are ideal for powering wearables, internet of things devices and self-powered electronic applications. This research puts the ATI in a world leading position for designing optimized energy harvesters.”

Ishara Dharmasena, PhD student and lead scientist on the project, said: “I am extremely excited with this new study which redefines the way we understand energy harvesting. The new tools developed here will help researchers all over the world to exploit the true potential of triboelectric nanogenerators, and to design optimised energy harvesting units for custom applications.”

It used to be known as the information superhighway – the fibre-optic infrastructure on which our gigabytes and petabytes of data whizz around the world at (nearly) the speed of light.

And like any highway system, increased traffic has created slowdowns, especially at the junctions where data jumps on or off the system.

Local and access networks especially, such as financial trading systems, city-wide mobile phone networks and cloud computing warehouses, are therefore not as fast as they could be.

This is because increasingly complex digital signal processing and laser-based ‘local oscillator’ systems are needed to unpack the photonic, or optical, information and transfer it into the electronic information that computers can process.

Now, scientists at the University of Sydney have for the first time developed a chip-based information recovery technique that eliminates the need for a separate laser-based local oscillator and complex digital signal processing system.

Dr Amol Choudhary (left) and Professor Ben Eggleton, Director of Sydney Nano, in one of the photonic laboratories at the Sydney Nanoscience Hub. Credit: Louise Cooper/University of Sydney

“Our technique uses the interaction of photons and acoustic waves to enable an increase in signal capacity and therefore speed,” said Dr Elias Giacoumidis, joint lead author of a new study. “This allows for the successful extraction and regeneration of the signal for electronic processing at very-high speed.”

The incoming photonic signal is processed in a filter on a chip made from a glass known as chalcogenide. This material has acoustic properties that allows a photonic pulse to ‘capture’ the incoming information and transport it on the chip to be processed into electronic information.

This removes the need for complicated laser oscillators and complex digital signal processing.

“This will increase processing speed by microseconds, reducing latency or what is referred to as ‘lag’ in the gaming community,” said Dr Amol Choudhary from the University of Sydney Nano Institute and School of Physics. “While this doesn’t sound a lot, it will make a huge difference in high-speed services, such as the financial sector and emerging e-health applications.”

The photonic-acoustic interaction harnesses what is known as stimulated Brillouin scattering, a effect used by the Sydney team to develop photonic chips for information processing.

“Our demonstration device using stimulated Brillouin scattering has produced a record-breaking narrowband of about 265 megahertz bandwidth for carrier signal extraction and regeneration. This narrow bandwidth increases the overall spectral efficiency and therefore overall capacity of the system,” Dr Choudhary said.

Group research leader and Director of Sydney Nano, Professor Ben Eggleton, said: “The fact that this system is lower in complexity and includes extraction speedup means it has huge potential benefit in a wide range of local and access systems such as metropolitan 5G networks, financial trading, cloud computing and the Internet-of-Things.”

The study is published today in Optica.

Dr Choudhary said the research team’s next steps will be to construct prototype receiver chips for further testing.

The study was a collaboration with Monash University and the Australian National University.

STMicroelectronics (NYSE: STM) revealed its highly integrated mobile-security solution, the ST54J, a system-on-chip (SoC) containing an NFC (Near-Field Communication) controller, Secure Element, and eSIM. The SoC delivers performance-boosting integration for mobile and IoT devices, with the added benefit of ST’s software-partner ecosystem for smoother user experiences in mobile payments and e-ticketing transactions, as well as more convenient, remote, mobile provisioning to support multiple operator subscriptions.

“As mobile devices require more security and connectivity in an ever-shrinking PCB footprint, the ST54J will help designers simplify assembly and reduce bill-of-material costs,” said Laurent Degauque, Marketing Director, Secure Microcontroller Division, STMicroelectronics. “ST’s established ecosystem of third-party software partners provides access to eSIM and eSE solutions that are not only EMVCo and GSMA-SAS certifiable, but also tested for interoperability and validated with numerous Mobile Network Operators (MNOs), custom profiles and application providers worldwide.”

Spearheading the fourth generation of ST’s proven embedded Secure Element family, the single-chip ST54J ensures faster contactless interaction than a discrete chipset by eliminating performance-limiting off-chip data exchanges between the Secure Element and NFC controller. In addition, a faster, state-of-the-art core for each function further accelerates contactless transactions with mobile terminals and enhances roaming by supporting secure-element cryptographic protocols used worldwide, including FeliCa® and MIFARE®.

Packaging and design flexibility comes from the space savings of integrating three key functions onto a single chip. In addition, ST used its NFC booster technology to enhance the performance of the NFC controller, allowing it to establish robust contactless connections with a small-size antenna, allowing designers even more generous freedom to manage space inside the device and minimize the thickness of new smartphone generations.

ST delivers the ST54J to customers with NFC firmware and the GlobalPlatform V2.3 secure element Operating System, which provides best-in-class cryptographic performance and optimum eSIM interoperability. The OS also allows flexible configurations to support eSE-only or combined functionality. In addition, as the first chip maker accredited by the GSMA to personalize eSIMs for mobiles and connected IoT devices onto WLCSP packages, ST can shrink the supply chain and accelerate delivery to manufacturers.

By Jay Chittooran

U.S. Government Imposes Tariffs on $200 Billion of Goods and China Retaliates on $60 Billion of Goods

Earlier this week, the U.S. Trade Representative (USTR) released a 10 percent tariff on $200 billion in imports from China, including more than 90 tariff lines central to the semiconductor industry.

The 10 percent tariff will take effect on September 24, 2018, and rise to 25 percent on January 1. These tariff lines will cost SEMI’s 400 U.S. members tens of millions of dollars annually in additional duties. However, counting the products included in the previous rounds of tariffs, the total estimated impact exceeds $700 million annually. China has already announced that it will respond with tariffs on $60 billion worth of U.S. goods. In his notice, President Trump said the U.S. will impose tariffs on $267 billion worth of goods if China retaliates.

The U.S. government removed 279 total tariff lines, including three lines that impact our industry: silicon carbide, tungsten, and network hubs used in the manufacturing process.

As we’ve noted, intellectual property is critical to the semiconductor industry, and SEMI strongly supports efforts to better protect valuable IP. However, we believe that these tariffs will ultimately do nothing to address the concerns with China’s trade practices. This sledgehammer approach will introduce significant uncertainty, impose greater costs, and potentially lead to a trade war. This undue harm will ultimately undercut our companies’ ability to sell overseas, which will only stifle innovation and curb U.S. technological leadership.

Product Exclusion Process – List 2

USTR formally published the details for the product exclusion process for products subject to the List 2 China 301 tariffs (the $16 billion tariff list). If your company’s products are subject to tariffs, you can request an exclusion.

In evaluating product exclusion requests, the USTR will consider whether a product is available from a source outside of China, whether the additional duties would cause severe economic harm to the requestor or other U.S. interests, and whether the product is strategically important or related to Chinese industrial programs (such as “Made in China 2025”)

The request period ends on December 18, 2018, and approved exclusions will be effective for one year, applying retroactively to August 23, 2018. Because exclusions will be made on a product basis, a particular exclusion will apply to all imports of the product, regardless of whether the importer filed a request.

More information, including the process for submitting the product exclusion request and details what information should be included in your submission can be found here.

Please let me know if your company plans on filing an exclusion. SEMI has prepared a document that includes guidelines for your exclusion filing, an explainer on how to submit, and links to official government info. SEMI is glad to assist your companies file exclusion requests for your products.

SEMI will continue tracking ongoing trade developments. Any SEMI members with questions should contact Jay Chittooran, Public Policy Manager at SEMI, at [email protected].

A research team comprising members from City University of Hong Kong (CityU), Harvard University and renowned information technologies laboratory has successfully fabricated a tiny on-chip lithium niobate modulator, an essential component for the optoelectronic industry. The modulator is smaller, more efficient with faster data transmission and costs less. The technology is set to revolutionise the industry.

The new tiny modulator drives data at higher speeds and lower costs. Illustration credit: Second Bay Studios/Harvard SEAS

The electro-optic modulator produced in this breakthrough research is only 1 to 2 cm long and its surface area is about 100 times smaller than traditional ones. It is also highly efficient – higher data transmission speed with data bandwidth tripling from 35 GHz to 100 GHz, but with less energy consumption and ultra-low optical losses. The invention will pave the way for future high-speed, low power and cost-effective communication networks as well as quantum photonic computation.

The research project is titled “Integrated lithium niobate electro-optic modulators operating at CMOS-compatible voltages” and was published in the latest issue of the highly prestigious journal Nature.

Electro-optic modulators are critical components in modern communications. They convert high-speed electronic signals in computational devices such as computers to optical signals before transmitting them through optical fibres. But the existing and commonly used lithium niobate modulators require a high drive voltage of 3 to 5V, which is significantly higher than 1V, a voltage provided by a typical CMOS (complementary metal-oxide-semiconductor) circuitry. Hence an electrical amplifier that makes the whole device bulky, expensive and high energy-consuming is needed.

Dr Wang Cheng, Assistant Professor in the Department of Electronic Engineering at CityU and co-first author of the paper, and the research teams at Harvard University and Nokia Bell Labs have developed a new way to fabricate lithium niobate modulator that can be operated at ultra-high electro-optic bandwidths with a voltage compatible with CMOS.

“In the future, we will be able to put the CMOS right next to the modulator, so they can be more integrated, with less power consumption. The electrical amplifier will no longer be needed,” said Dr Wang.

Thanks to the advanced nano fabrication approaches developed by the team, this modulator can be tiny in size while transmitting data at rates up to 210 Gbit/second, with about 10 times lower optical losses than existing modulators.

“The electrical and optical properties of lithium niobate make it the best material for modulator. But it is very difficult to fabricate in nanoscale, which limits the reduction of modulator size,” Dr Wang explains. “Since lithium niobate is chemically inert, conventional chemical etching does not work well with it. While people generally think physical etching cannot produce smooth surfaces, which is essential for optical transmission, we have proved otherwise with our novel nano fabrication techniques.”

With optical fibres becoming ever more common globally, the size, the performance, the power consumption and the costs of lithium niobate modulators are becoming a bigger factor to consider, especially at a time when the data centres in the information and communications technology (ICT) industry are forecast to be one of the largest electricity users in the world.

This revolutionary invention is now on its way to commercialisation. Dr Wang believes that those who look for modulators with the best performance to transmit data over long distances will be among the first to get in touch with this infrastructure for photonics.

Dr Wang began this research in 2013 when he joined Harvard University as a PhD student at Harvard’s John A. Paulson School of Engineering and Applied Sciences. He recently joined CityU and is looking into its application for the coming 5G communication together with the research team at the State Key Laboratory of Terahertz and Millimeter Waves at CityU.

“Millimetre wave will be used to transmit data in free space, but to and from and within base stations, for example, it can be done in optics, which will be less expensive and less lossy,” he explains. He believes the invention can enable applications in quantum photonics, too.

STMicroelectronics (NYSE: STM) and Leti, a research institute of CEA Tech, today announced their cooperation to industrialize GaN (Gallium Nitride)-on-Silicon technologies for power switching devices. This power GaN-on-Si technology will enable ST to address high-efficiency, high-power applications, including automotive on-board chargers for hybrid and electric vehicles, wireless charging, and servers.

The collaboration focuses on developing and qualifying advanced power GaN-on-Silicon diode and transistor architectures on 200mm wafers, a market that the research firm IHS Markit estimates to grow at a CAGR of more than 20 percent from 2019 to 2024[1]. Together, in the framework of IRT Nanoelec, ST and Leti are developing the process technology on Leti’s 200mm R&D line and expect to have validated engineering samples in 2019. In parallel, ST will set up a fully qualified manufacturing line, including GaN/Si hetero-epitaxy, for initial production running in ST’s front-end wafer fab in Tours, France, by 2020.

In addition, given the attractiveness of GaN-on-Si technology for power applications, Leti and ST are assessing advanced techniques to improve device packaging for the assembly of high power-density power modules.

“Recognizing the incredible value of wide-bandgap semiconductors, ST’s contributions in Power GaN-on-Si manufacturing and packaging technologies with CEA-Leti move to arm us with the industry’s most complete portfolio of GaN and SiC products and capabilities, on top of our proven competence to manufacture high-quality, reliable products in volume,” said Marco Monti, President Automotive and Discrete Group, STMicroelectronics.

“Leveraging Leti’s 200mm generic platform, Leti’s team is fully committed to supporting ST’s strategic GaN-on-Si power-electronics roadmap and is ready to transfer the technology onto ST’s dedicated GaN-on-Si manufacturing line in Tours. This co-development, involving teams from both sides, leverages the IRT Nanoelec framework program to broaden the required expertise and innovate from the start at device and system levels,” said Leti CEO Emmanuel Sabonnadiere.

Leti, a research institute of CEA Tech, today announced the launch of the REDFINCH consortium to develop the next generation of miniaturized, portable optical sensors for chemical detection in both gases and liquids. Initial target applications are in the petrochemical and dairy industries.

The consortium of eight European research institutes and companies will focus on developing novel, high-performance, cost-effective chemical sensors, based on mid-infrared photonic integrated circuits (MIR PICs). Silicon PICs — integrating optical circuits onto millimeter-size silicon chips — create extremely robust miniature systems, in which discrete components are replaced by on-chip equivalents. This makes them easier to use and reduces their cost dramatically, expected at least by a factor of 10.

To develop these chemical sensors, the consortium must overcome the significant challenge of implementing these capabilities in the important mid-infrared region (2-20 μm wavelength range), where many important chemical and biological species have strong absorption fingerprints. This allows both the detection and concentration measurement of a wide range of gases, liquids and biomolecules, which is crucial for applications such as health monitoring and diagnosis, detection of biological compounds and monitoring of toxic gases.

Initially, REDFINCH will focus on three specific applications:

  • Process gas analysis in refineries
  • Gas leak detection in petrochemical plants and pipelines
  • Protein analysis in liquids for the dairy industry.

Silicon photonics leverages the advantages of high-performance CMOS technology, providing low-cost mass manufacturing, high-fidelity reproduction of designs and access to high-refractive index contrasts that enable high-performance nanophotonics.

“Despite the mid-infrared wavelength region’s importance for a wide range of applications, current state-of-the-art sensing systems in the MIR tend to be large and delicate. This significantly limits their spreading in real-world applications,” said Jean-Guillaume Coutard, an instrumentation engineer at Leti, which is coordinating the project. “By harnessing the power of photonic integrated circuits, using hybrid and monolithic integration of III-V diode and interband cascade and quantum cascade materials with silicon, the consortium will create high-performance, cost-effective sensors for a number of industries.” 

In addition to Leti, whose expertise includes the design and manufacture of PICs on a 200mm pilot line and integrated photoacoustic cells on silicon, the consortium members and contributions include:

  • Cork Institute of Technology (Ireland) – PIC design & fabrication, hybrid integration
  • Université de Montpellier (France) – Laser growth on Si, photodetector growth
  • Technische Universität Wien (Austria) – Liquid spectroscopy, assembly/test of sensors
  • mirSense (France) – MIR sensor products, laser module integration
  • Argotech a.s. (Czech Republic) Assembly/packaging of PICs
  • Fraunhofer IPM (Germany) – Gas spectroscopy, instrument design/assembly
  • Endress+Hauser (Germany) Process gas analysis and expertise, testing validation.

SEMI announced today the September 18 deadline for presenters to submit abstracts for the annual SEMI Flexible Hybrid Electronics (FLEX) and MEMS and Sensors Technical Conference (MSTC). The co-located gathering, February 18-21, 2019, in Monterey, California, will feature technical presentations of more than 135 peer-reviewed manuscripts covering leading materials and methods that can enhance an expanding range of markets for microelectronics.

FLEX 2019 sessions will feature demonstrations of flexible hybrid and printed electronics products, equipment, and materials, as well as the unique electronics applications they enable.

MSTC 2019 sessions will address wearables, point of care medical devices, food delivery, and agriculture platforms, remote monitoring systems and other trending applications.

Both events will present opening day keynotes and a panel discussion, networking events, technical sessions on emerging and advanced electronics, tech courses and the annual FLEXI Awards Ceremony.  The conference will feature a special student poster session to highlight student projects related to either flexible electronics or MEMS and sensors and will conclude with an awards ceremony.

NextFlex, The Flex Group, Nano Bio Manufacturing Consortium and MEMS & Sensors Industry Group will hold several leadership meetings throughout the week in Monterey.

Selected FLEX and MSTC speakers will present to more than 700 executives, product marketing managers, business development professionals, researchers and engineers from the flexible, hybrid and printed electronics value chain, as well as the MEMS and Sensors industries; 400 companies, universities, R&D labs and government agencies; and, leading industry analysts and media from around the world. Technical abstracts are due September 28, 2018, and can be submitted here for FLEX and here for MSTC. Submissions are FREE and notifications of acceptance will be issued October 19.

FLEX 2019 will cover the following topics:

1. Application market segments and IOT for:

  • Agriculture
  • Consumer Electronics and Agriculture
  • Consumer Electronics: Appliances, Wearables & Textiles
  • Smart Infrastructure: Buildings, Surfaces & Lighting
  • Smart Manufacturing
  • Smart MedTech: Health and Wellness & Human Performance Monitoring
  • Smart Transportation: Automotive, Aircraft & Public Transit

2. Flexible electrical components for:

  • Advanced Packaging
  • Batteries & Energy Sources
  • Flexible Displays
  • Lighting
  • Other Hybrid Devices
  • Sensors
  • TFTs, Memory & Logic
  • User Interface

3. Materials for:

  • Barrier Films
  • Conductors, Insulators & Semiconductors
  • Electronic Fibers & Fabrics
  • Functional Inks
  • ITO & ITO Replacements
  • Substrates & Substrate Treatments

4. Processes and manufacturing for:

  • Equipment & Metrology
  • Failure & Lifetime Reliability
  • Hybrid Printing Processes
  • Integrated Manufacturing
  • Integration of Hybrid Devices
  • Multi-layer Additive Printing
  • Roll to Roll & Web Processing
  • System Interconnects
  • Testing

5. Standards for:

  • Design & Modeling File Format
  • Processes & Manufacturing
  • Reliability & Qualifications

MSTC 2019 will cover wearables, point-of-care medical devices, food delivery and agriculture platforms and remote monitoring systems such as environmental, weather, energy, industrial IoT and more. The conference will focus on the technical aspects of system-level solutions for these areas incorporating MEMS/Sensor and Actuators, Unique Applications and Innovative Technologies.

The co-location of FLEX and MSTC is organized by SEMI Americas to connect more than 2,000 member companies and 1.3 million professionals worldwide to advance the technology and business of flexible electronics and MEMS and Sensors.

Leti, a research institute of CEA Tech, and EFI Automotive, an international supplier of sensors, actuators and embedded smart modules for the automotive industry, today announced a project to dramatically improve reliability and response time of low-cost automotive components by equipping the devices with sophisticated model predictive control techniques.

Model predictive control (MPC) is an advanced method of process control that makes use of a model of the system to predict its behavior. The control law is based on an optimization technique that computes the system inputs, taking into account the reference that the system output has to follow, together with the effort (energy) that is applied on the system inputs and some constraints that may exist within the system, typically saturation of the system inputs.

MPC also allows electronics equipment to perform at levels that are not possible with standard control laws, e.g. proportional-integral-derivative (PID) controllers. But this sophisticated technique is rarely used on low-cost, low-capability computing units, because it requires solving optimization problems under constraints, which is a complex computational task.

Leti and EFI Automotive are evaluating the implementation of MPC on low-cost, low-computational-capability computing platforms, such as microcontrollers or low-cost digital signal processors (DSPs). The goal is to improve the dynamics of the systems considered, because automotive certification is easier when the control law is implemented on a DSP or a microcontroller. An example of EFI Automotive product, which will benefit from the MPC implementation, is the Air Loop Actuator (Figure 1).

Figure 1: EFI Air Loop Actuator Prototype (200ms response time). Numerical command and power stage integrated

“The control community, including academic researchers and process control experts in industry, is trying to make MPC available for these systems by resolving the underlying optimization problem on a low computational-capability computing platform,” said Marie-Sophie Masselot, business development manager, Leti. “This shortcoming usually leads to suboptimal performance for the controlled system. Our project with EFI Automotive will take into account specifics to offset the drop in performance, or response time, introduced when solving the model predictive control problem on this low computational-capability computing platform.”

In addition to transferring its expertise in MPC to EFI Automotive, Leti will develop software-automation tools dedicated to a given problem as a feasibility demonstration for the MPC project, and then make the tools easily expandable to similar control challenges.

For example, Leti and EFI will develop an MPC law for a given system and, with its increased expertise, EFI will expand this control technique to other systems.

“By combining Leti’s MPC expertise with our know-how in real-time processing on low-cost, low-computational capability computing units, we expect to dramatically improve the response time and reliability of our devices that are key to operating today’s complex vehicles,” said Vincent Liebart, innovation engineer at EFI Automotive.