Category Archives: MEMS

Dr. Gary Patton, CTO and Head of Worldwide Research and Development, GLOBALFOUNDRIES

Solid State Technology today announced that Dr. Gary Patton has joined the Advisory Board for its annual conference and networking event, The ConFab. Dr. Patton is the CTO and Head of Worldwide Research and Development at GLOBALFOUNDRIES. As an advisory board member Dr. Patton will assist with defining the conference theme and inviting industry leaders to attend the event and take meetings with suppliers.

“It’s a great honor to have Gary on the Advisory Board,” said Pete Singer, Editor-in-Chief of Solid State Technology and conference chair for The ConFab. “Gary has tremendous insights into the next generation technology that will be required to move the semiconductor industry forward. He is also well versed in the economics of semiconductor manufacturing, which is the main focus of The ConFab.”

Dr. Patton, who delivered a keynote at The ConFab 2014 and returned as a VIP attendee in 2015, is responsible for the semiconductor technology R&D roadmap, operations, and execution at GLOBALFOUNDRIES. He was previously VP of IBM’s Semiconductor Research and Development Center in East Fishkill, New York.

The twelfth annual ConFab, which will take place June 12-15, 2016 at the Encore at the Wynn in Las Vegas, will focus on the economics of semiconductor manufacturing and design. Attendees will hear about:

  • The outlook for 2016 and 2017.
  • Technical challenges facing the industry, including next generation lithography, 3D integration, and advanced packaging and testing of increasingly complex chips.
  • Opportunities to maximize collaborative efforts between fabs, fabless/design companies, OSATs, and equipment and materials suppliers.
  • The opportunities of high growth markets

Now in its twelfth year, The ConFab is an executive-level conference and networking event for business leaders from the semiconductor manufacturing and design industry. The event featured a high-level conference program, networking events and strategic business meetings with purchasing decision makers and influencers. Learn more at www.theconfab.com.

Market revenues associated with network communications, sensing, and control functions in subsystems and objects attached to the Internet of Things (IoT) are forecast to grow 29 percent in 2015 to $62.4 billion after increasing 21 percent in 2014 to about $48.4 billion, according to data in IC Insights’ recently released Update to its 2015 IC Market Drivers Report.  Figure 1 provides a breakout of sales growth in five IoT market categories, based on IC Insights’ updated forecast.

wearable sensors IC

 

IC Insights raised its projection for IoT-related revenues in 2015 to show much stronger growth in wearable systems after the formal launch of Apple’s first smartwatches in April 2015.  The long-term fate of smartwatches continues to be debated.  Whether these wearable systems evolve into a major end-use market category or simply become a niche with a short lifecycle remains to be seen.  In the short-term, however, the launch of the Apple Watch—jam-packed with ICs, sensors, and other components—has provided a major boost to semiconductor unit shipments and sales to the wearable IoT category.

Total IoT-related revenues (excluding Internet servers, network infrastructure, and cloud-computing systems) are now expected to rise by a compound annual growth rate (CAGR) of 21.1 percent from 2013 to 2018, reaching $104.1 billion at the end of the forecast period.

Worldwide growth of “things” connected to the Internet continues to significantly outpace the addition of human users to the World Wide Web, according to the IC Market Drivers Update.  New connections to the “Internet of Things” (IoT) are forecast to increase 40 percent in 2015 with 574 million new Internet connections expected to be attached to embedded systems, sensors, instruments, vehicles, controllers, cameras, wearable electronics, and other objects.  IoT connections grew to 410 million in 2014, which was a 45 percent increase from 282 million in 2013 (Figure 2).  The total installed base of connected things on the IoT is forecast to reach 13.2 billion units worldwide in 2015 versus about 3.1 billion humans using computers, cellphones, and other system applications over the Internet this year, based on IC Insights’ updated projections.  By the end of this decade, more than 25 billion systems and objects are expected to be attached to the Internet versus about 4.4 billion human users.

wearable sensors IC fig 2

SEMI honored six industry leaders for their outstanding accomplishments in developing Standards for the microelectronics and related industries. The annual SEMI Standards awards were announced at the SEMI Standards reception held last night during SEMICON West 2015. 

2015 SEMI International Standards Excellence Award, inspired by Karel Urbanek

The SEMI International Standards Excellence Award, inspired by Karel Urbanek, is the most prestigious award in the SEMI Standards Program. The 2015 recipient is Dr. Jean-Marie Collard of Solvay Chemicals. The Award recognizes the leadership of the late Karel Urbanek, co-founder of Tencor Instruments and a past SEMI Board of Directors member who was a key figure in the successful globalization of the Standards Program.

Active in SEMI Standards development since 1997, Collard co-chaired the European Chapters of the Gases and Liquid Chemicals Committees since 2003. Under his leadership, the committees created numerous Standards for the semiconductor and solar manufacturing industries.  Collard has been instrumental in ensuring that the standards developed are relevant. He has actively recruited key players in the supply chain to contribute to development efforts, making certain that the published Standards reflect the true needs of the industry.  He also served as co-chair of the European Regional Standards Committee (ERSC) from 2009 to 2013, steering the ERSC through difficult economic times. As ERSC co-chair, Collard was also an International Standards Committee member, and provided valuable, practical input for new proposals, including the current effort to establish virtual meetings.

Collard earned his Master’s degree and Ph.D. in analytical chemistry from the University of Liege, Belgium. He joined Solvay in 1988 and has worked in Belgium, France, and the United States.

Merit Award

The Merit Award recognizes a Standards volunteer major contributions to the semiconductor industry through the SEMI Standards Program. Award winners typically take on a complex problem at the task force level, gain industry support, and drive the project to completion. Matt Milburn of UCT established the Surface Mount Sandwich Component Dimensions Task Force, within the North America Chapter of the Gases Committee, in April 2013 to develop standards for “sandwich” components (components located between substrate and another component). At the time of Task Force formation, these components did not have dimensional standards in place and varied by each manufacturer, resulting in interchangeability issues between manufacturers of functionally equivalent components.  Milburn addressed this problem by leading the successful development of ballot 5595, Specification for Dimensions of Sandwich Components for 1.125 Inch Type Surface Mount Gas Distribution Systems, which was recently approved by the Gases Committee and will be published as SEMI C88-0715.

Leadership Award

The Leadership Award recognizes volunteers who have demonstrated outstanding leadership in guiding the SEMI Standards Program. This Award is presented to individuals who have strengthened the Program through member training, mentoring, and new member recruitment. Frank Parker of ICL Performance Products and Frank Flowers of PeroxyChem have co-chaired the North America Chapter of the Liquid Chemicals Committee for over ten years. During this time, Parker and Flowers have overseen the development of new specifications and analytical test methods for liquid chemicals while keeping the extensive catalog of previously developed liquid chemical standards up-to-date with current industry needs. Their experience and patience has been critical in transforming new volunteers into productive committee contributors, effectively guiding them through the standardization process and minimizing wasted efforts.

Honor Award

The Honor Award is presented to an individual who has demonstrated long-standing dedication to the advancement of SEMI Standards. Dr. Jaydeep Sinha of KLA-Tencor has contributed to the Silicon Wafer Committee for over 15 years and has led the development of numerous metrology standards. In addition to leading the Advanced Wafer Geometry Task Force, Sinha organized several SEMI Standards workshops around the world, recruiting technologists from leading device makers, equipment suppliers, and consortia to educate local audiences on recent developments and future needs in wafer geometry. Sinha also actively works to keep the Silicon Wafer Committee familiar with oncoming industry trends, frequently inviting industry experts to speak at committee meetings on hot topics.

Corporate Device Member Award 

The Corporate Device Member Award recognizes the participation of the user community and is presented to individuals from device manufacturers. Dr. Jan Rothe of GLOBALFOUNDRIES is this year’s recipient. Rothe has been active in SEMI Standards since the mid-2000s, and has led the International E84 (Specification for Enhanced Carrier Handoff Parallel I/O Interface) Revision Task Force since 2007. Rothe’s consistent participation in the Physical Interfaces and Carriers Committee and feedback on ballot proposals has ensured that the customer perspective is reflected in all committee output.

Nano-electronics research center imec announced today at SEMICON West that it has demonstrated concept and feasibility for pore-sealing low-k dielectrics in advanced interconnects. The method, based on the self-assembly of an organic monolayer, paves the way to scaling interconnects beyond N5.

The need for ultra-porous low-k materials as interconnect dielectrics to meet the requirements dictated by the ITRS (International Technology Roadmap for Semiconductors) poses several challenges for successful IC integration. One of the most critical issues is the indiffusion of moisture, ALD/CVD metal barrier precursors and Cu atoms into the porous low-k materials during processing (low-k pore diameter larger than 3nm, up to 40% porosity). This leads to a dramatic increase of the material dielectric constant and leakage current, and to the reduction of the voltage for dielectric breakdown.

Imec has developed a method to seal the pores of the low-k material with a monomolecular organic film. The method not only prevents diffusion of moisture and metal precursors into the low-k material, it also might provide an effective barrier to confine copper within the copper wires and prevent copper diffusion into the low-k material.

Self-assembled monolayers (SAMs) derived from silane precursors, are deposited from vapor phase on 300mm wafers into low-k during chemical vapor or atomic layer deposition and subsequent Cu metallization. The dielectric constant (k) of the resulting sealing layer is 3.5 and a thickness lower than 1.5nm was achieved. This is key to limit the RC delay increase enabling beyond 5nm technology nodes. As a result, a ca. 30% capacitance reduction was observed after SAM pore-sealing was applied. Moreover, a clear positive impact on the low-k breakdown voltage is observed upon sealing.

imec

Imec’s research into advanced interconnects includes key partners as GLOBALFOUNDRIES, Intel, Micron, Panasonic, Samsung, SK Hynix, Sony, and TSMC.

SEMI today announced that Stephen S. Schwartz, CEO of Brooks Automation, and Toshikazu Umatate, senior vice president and general manager of the Semiconductor Lithography Business at Nikon Corporation, were elected as new directors to the SEMI International Board of Directors in accordance with the association’s by-laws.

Four current board members were re-elected for a two-year term: Bertrand Loy, president and CEO of Entegris; Dave Miller, president of DuPont Electronics & Communications; Kyu Dong Sung, CEO of EO Technics; and Xinchao Wang, chairman and CEO of JCET.

Additionally, the SEMI Executive Committee confirmed Yong Han Lee, chairman of Wonik as SEMI Executive Committee chairman, and Tetsuo Tsuneishi, chairman of the Board of Tokyo Electron, Ltd. as SEMI vice-chairman.

The leadership appointments and the elected board members’ tenure become effective at the annual SEMI membership meeting on July 15, during SEMICON West 2015 in San Francisco, California.

“These two distinguished industry leaders will be tremendous assets to the SEMI Board of Directors,” said Denny McGuirk, president and CEO of SEMI. “We also appreciate the continued service of those re-elected to the Board — their counsel and wisdom is valued as SEMI responds to new industry challenges, inflections, and opportunities.”

SEMI’s 19 voting directors and 11 emeritus directors represent companies from Europe, China, Japan, Korea, North America, and Taiwan, reflecting the global scope of the association’s activities. SEMI directors are elected by the general membership as voting members of the board and can serve a total of five two-year terms.

SEMI projects three consecutive years of growth in worldwide semiconductor equipment sales according to the mid-year edition of the SEMI Capital Equipment Forecast, released today at the SEMICON West exposition. SEMI forecasts that the total semiconductor equipment market will grow 7 percent in 2015 (reaching $40.2 billion) and expand another 4 percent in 2016 to reach $41.8 billion.

The following results are given in terms of market size in billions of U.S. dollars and percentage growth over the prior year:

SEMI® 2015 Mid-Year Equipment Forecast by Market Region

By Equipment Type

2014 Actual

2015 Forecast

 year-over-year

(% Change)

2016 Forecast

 year-over-year

(% Change)
Wafer Processing

29.26

32.13

9.8%

33.53

4.4%
Test

3.55

3.45

-2.8%

3.53

2.3%
Assembly & Packaging

3.06

2.80

-8.5%

2.84

1.4%
Other Front-End

1.63

1.77

8.6%

1.89

6.8%

Total (Equipment)

37.50

40.15

7.1%

41.79

4.1%
By Region

2014 Actual

2015 Forecast

 year-over-year

(% Change)

2016 Forecast

 year-over-year

(% Change)
China

4.37

4.66

6.6%

5.54

18.9%
Europe

2.38

2.71

13.9%

3.41

25.8%
Japan

4.18

4.73

13.2%

4.60

-2.7%
Korea

6.84

8.55

25.0%

9.23

7.9%
North America

8.16

6.45

-21.0%

6.70

3.9%
ROW

2.15

2.16

0.5%

2.31

6.9%
Taiwan

9.41

10.89

15.7%

10.00

-8.2%

Total (Regions)

37.50

40.15

7.1%

41.79

4.1%

Totals may not add due to rounding
Source: SEMI, July 2015; Equipment Market Data Subscription (EMDS)

Following strong growth of 18 percent in 2014, the equipment market is poised to continue to expand for the next two years. Key drivers for equipment spending are investments by memory and foundry fabs. Front-end wafer processing equipment is forecast to grow 10 percent in 2015 to $32.1 billion, up from $29.3 billion in 2014.  Test equipment, assembly and packaging equipment are forecast to contract this year, falling to $3.5 billion (-3 percent) and $2.8 billion (-9 percent), respectively.

“Memory and foundry device manufacturers are continuing to invest in leading-edge process technologies to enable mobility and interconnectivity,” said Denny McGuirk, president and CEO of SEMI. “We expect capital spending to post growth throughout the remainder of 2015 and into 2016.”

Taiwan is forecast to continue as the world’s largest spender with $10.9 billion estimated for 2015 and $10.0 billion for 2016. In 2015, South Korea is second at $8.6 billion, followed by North America at $6.5 billion. For 2016, these three regions are expected to maintain their relative rankings.

In 2015, year-over-year increases are expected to be largest for South Korea (25 percent), Taiwan (16 percent), Europe (14 percent), and Japan (13 percent). Projected year-over-year percentage increases for 2016 are largest for Europe (26 percent increase), China (19 percent), South Korea (8 percent), and Rest of World (7 percent).

Blood and tears at DAC


July 14, 2015

BY PETE SINGER, Editor-in-Chief

At this year’s Design Automation Conference (DAC) in San Francisco, Brian Otis, a Director at Google, talked about how hundreds of millions of people are at risk of diabetes – and how a smart contact lens that continuously monitors blood glucose levels and transmits the data to a smartphone might just be the ideal solution.

There is a good correlation between your glucose levels in tears and that in blood (although it’s a factor of magnitude lower), so a smart contact lens can measure glucose levels using a wireless chip and miniaturized glucose sensor. The devices are embedded between two layers of soft contact lens material.

Google announced the smart lens project in January of 2014, at which time multiple clinical studies had been completed. A partnership was subsequently announced with Novartis’s Alcon eye-care division in July of 2014.

Otis said that the universe of people who are either bona fide pre-diabetic or at risk is huge. “It’s hundreds of millions of people,” he said. “Our hypothesis is that if we are able to create more comfortable CGMs (continuous glucose monitors), this will significantly impact the diabetes management problem we’re facing. No one has solved this problem yet, but we really want to do this because it could improve people’s lives,” he said.

A smart contact lens could solve the problem because it’s a wearable device that many millions of people already wear on a daily basis. “If there is an option of wearing the device that many people wear, that’s comfortable and also corrects your vision and gives you this valuable information, you’re likely to do that over than, let’s say, pricking your finger,” Otis said.

Otis described smart contact lenses as not just another gadget. “It’s really part of an ecosystem that can form a new type of proactive healthcare. We’re going to work really hard on that,” he said.

What makes this all possible, of course, is the work that the semiconductor industry has done in minia- turization over the last several decades. Otis said more work is needed: “The chips, the passive components, the power supplies, the antennas: Everything needs to shrink,” he said.

Researchers at Chalmers University of Technology have developed a method for efficiently cooling electronics using graphene-based film. The film has a thermal conductivity capacity that is four times that of copper. Moreover, the graphene film is attachable to electronic components made of silicon, which favors the film’s performance compared to typical graphene characteristics shown in previous, similar experiments.

Electronic systems available today accumulate a great deal of heat, mostly due to the ever-increasing demand on functionality. Getting rid of excess heat in efficient ways is imperative to prolonging electronic lifespan, and would also lead to a considerable reduction in energy usage. According to an American study, approximately half the energy required to run computer servers, is used for cooling purposes alone.

A couple of years ago, a research team led by Johan Liu, professor at Chalmers University of Technology, were the first to show that graphene can have a cooling effect on silicon-based electronics. That was the starting point for researchers conducting research on the cooling of silicon-based electronics using graphene.

“But the methods that have been in place so far have presented the researchers with problems,” Johan Liu said. “It has become evident that those methods cannot be used to rid electronic devices off great amounts of heat, because they have consisted only of a few layers of thermal conductive atoms. When you try to add more layers of graphene, another problem arises, a problem with adhesiveness. After having increased the amount of layers, the graphene no longer will adhere to the surface, since the adhesion is held together only by weak van der Waals bonds.”

“We have now solved this problem by managing to create strong covalent bonds between the graphene film and the surface, which is an electronic component made of silicon,” he continues.

The stronger bonds result from so-called functionalization of the graphene, i.e. the addition of a property-altering molecule. Having tested several different additives, the Chalmers researchers concluded that an addition of (3-Aminopropyl) triethoxysilane (APTES) molecules has the most desired effect. When heated and put through hydrolysis, it creates so-called silane bonds between the graphene and the electronic component.

Moreover, functionalization using silane coupling doubles the thermal conductivity of the graphene. The researchers have shown that the in-plane thermal conductivity of the graphene-based film, with 20 micrometer thickness, can reach a thermal conductivity value of 1600 W/mK, which is four times that of copper.

“Increased thermal capacity could lead to several new applications for graphene,” says Johan Liu. “One example is the integration of graphene-based film into microelectronic devices and systems, such as highly efficient Light Emitting Diodes (LEDs), lasers and radio frequency components for cooling purposes. Graphene-based film could also pave the way for faster, smaller, more energy efficient, sustainable high power electronics.”

Leti_Jean-Eric_MichalletBy Jean-Eric Michallet, Leti Vice President of Sales and Marketing

Smart devices for the Internet of Things are among the top three growth drivers for the semiconductor industry, but the IoT is a highly fragmented market where multiple applications have varying energy requirements.

Speaking at a session on “Consumer & Energy Efficiency” at the LetiDays annual event in Grenoble, France, Edith Beigné, a senior scientist in the Architecture, ID Design, and Embedded Software Department at CEA-Leti, said the fragmentation presents challenges for technology providers, because it is difficult and expensive to design a single chip for one application or to provide a software or hardware platform to cover each archetype.

Leti’s new Internet of Things platform, L-IoT, is designed to overcome the challenges of fragmentation by providing a complete, flexible ultra-low power solution with adaptable analog and digital building blocks globally optimized for high energy efficiency and that “sleep” when energy-supply is low. All functionality, except the sensors, is integrated on a single chip.

L-IoT: a Flexible Platform

LetiDays 2-1

Adaptive Always-Responsive/On-Demand, according to energy levels

Known as “Elliot”, the platform includes both an “always-on” subsystem and “on-demand” subsystem. For applications such as video surveillance, secure communications, data fusion and tracking and monitoring, for example, the “on-demand” system can be woken up to provide additional data, as needed.

The application may have a variety of power sources for the “on-demand” tasks, but energy harvesting is the preferred choice, Beigné said.

Silicon Impulse

Leti also recently introduced Silicon Impulse, a comprehensive IC technology platform offering IC design, advanced intellectual property, emulator and test services and industrial multi-project wafer (MPW) shuttles. The eight-member consortium supporting the platform offers leading-edge, hardware-and-software solutions, including embedded software dedicated to geo-location and people location, for instance; subsystems such as 3D multi-core and low-power CPU modules, and a wide range of ICs: FD-SOI, RF, sensors, mixed-signal, MEMS and NEMS and 3D devices.

Caroline Arnaud, head of the Platform and Design Center Department at Leti, said the platform supports 28nm FD-SOI now, and Leti is in discussions with GLOBALFOUNDRIES for access to 22nm technology next year.

From sensor fusion to context awareness

Vivian Cattin, Leti project Manager, outlined future consumer applications that context-awareness technology can provide. She summarized Leti’s ongoing work with InvenSense, the world’s leading provider of MotionTracking sensor system-on-chip (SoC) and sound solutions for consumer electronic devices. In 2014, the company acquired the Leti spinout Movea, which was widely recognized for its advanced software for ultra-low-power location, activity tracking and context sensing.

The continuing collaboration is focused on improving context awareness by combining data from a variety of sensors, including accelerators and gyrometers, with other sources, such as WiFi beacons and the GPS systems from a person’s mobile device, to not only locate the person but estimate his or her direction or trajectory. The application also can estimate the travel time to the destination.

Cattin said a next step, called “user-adaptive processing”, would combine additional sensors, including wearable devices, software that supports machine learning, and the user’s own cloud-based information to support new uses such as personal wellness tips.

Less energy, more powerful applications for consumers

Jean-Michel Goiran, IoT business-development manager at Leti, highlighted Leti programs and projects that provide more powerful applications for consumers in the Internet of Things era, while using less power.

Connected sensor nodes typically reserve two-thirds of available power in standby mode for the microprocessor, while 13 percent is used by the sensor, 11 percent by the radio, and 10 percent by the active microprocessor. “We need an ultra-low standby-power solution for sustainable and long-living IoT devices deployment,” he said.

Non-volatile memory will be a big part of the solution for better standby-power management, because its content doesn’t require periodic refreshing. Super directivity, which refers to very small antennas directing their signals in only one direction, are another energy saver for IoT applications. Mutualizing functions on a single sensor, such as C02 detection, ventilation, presence detection and fire alarms, also can significantly lower power demand. “You need energy for sensors, so the fewer sensors the better,” Goiran said.

Wired houses for energy efficiency and security

Joël Mercelat, chief technical officer at Delta Dore, described a fully connected house that provides enhanced security and maintains residents’ preferred heating/cooling and lighting preferences, while cutting energy use. These functions are automated, but also can be controlled be hand-held devices.

Read more from CEA-Leti: 

What chipmakers will need to address growing complexity, cost of IC design and yield ramps

 

Large-screen smartphones, with displays of 5 inches or greater and often called “phablets” (for phone/tablet hybrids), are on track to surpass worldwide shipments of tablet computers this year, according to IC Insights’ new Update to the 2015 IC Market Drivers report.  The Update’s forecast shows the popularity of extra-large smartphones continuing to gain momentum in the first half of 2015 with unit shipments now expected to reach 252 million this year, which is a 66 percent increase from 152 million sold in 2014 (Figure 1).  Strong growth in large smartphones is having a major impact on tablet unit sales, which are forecast to increase just 2 percent in 2015 to 238 million units.

Figure 1

Figure 1

IC Insights believes strong sales of large-screen smartphones will continue in the next three years while the tablet market struggles with low single-digit percentage growth through 2018.  The revised forecast shows large-screen smartphone shipments climbing by a compound annual growth rate (CAGR) of 40 percent between 2014 and 2018, while tablet unit shipments are expected to rise by a CAGR of just 3 percent in this four-year period.  Large-screen smartphones are having the biggest impact on mini tablets, which saw a rise in popularity in the past few years.  Mini tablets have 7- to 8.9-inch displays and typically run the same software as smartphones.

The phablet segment is expected to account for 17 percent of total smartphone shipments in 2015, which are forecast to be about 1.5 billion handsets.  The Update report shows phablets representing 21 percent of the 1.7 billion smartphones that are forecast to be shipped in 2016.  Phablet sales are projected to reach 30 percent of the nearly 2 billion total smartphones shipped in 2018, according to the Update of the 2015 IC Market Drivers report.

Tablet unit sales have nearly stalled out because incremental improvements in new models have not been enough to convince owners of existing systems to buy replacements.  More consumers are opting to buy new large-screen phablets instead using both a smartphone and tablet.  Large smartphones have gained traction because more handsets are being used for video applications (including streaming of TV programs and movies) in addition to Internet web browsing, video gaming, GPS navigation, and looking at digital photos.

The market for large-screen smartphones received a boost from Apple’s highly successful iPhone 6 Plus handset, which started shipping in September 2014 and continued to gain momentum in the first half of 2015.  Apple joined the phablet movement somewhat belatedly, but its 5.5-inch display iPhone 6 Plus smartphone played a major role in the company shipping 61.2 million iPhone handsets in 1Q15, which was a 40 percent increase over the same quarter in 2014.