Category Archives: Advanced Packaging

Kateeva  announced that it has closed its Series D round with $38 million in financing. The newest participant is Samsung Venture Investment Corporation (SVIC). Existing investors also contributed. They include: Sigma Partners, Spark Capital, Madrone Capital Partners, DBL Investors, New Science Ventures, and VEECO Instruments, Inc.

The company has raised more than $110 million since it was founded in 2008.

Kateeva makes the YIELDjet™ platform — a precision deposition platform that leverages inkjet printing to mass produce flexible and large-size OLED panels. The new funds will be used to support the company’s manufacturing strategy and expand its global sales and support infrastructure. Production systems are currently being built at the company’s facility in Menlo Park, Calif. to fulfill early orders.

The funding news coincides with the 2014 OLEDs World Summit taking place this week in Berkeley, Calif.

“Kateeva is a technology leader and has built a significant business in the OLED space,” said Michael Pachos, Senior Investment Manager at SVIC. “The company has demonstrated both a technical and business vision in driving adoption of OLED displays and lighting, and we look forward to contributing to its progress.”

“We believe that OLEDs on flexible substrates play a major role in the insatiable quest for ultra-durable, high-performance, and unbreakable mobile displays, and Kateeva has proven to hold the keys to a critical industry problem,” said Fahri Diner, Managing Director of Sigma Partners and a member of the Board of Directors of Kateeva. “Moreover, we are very excited about Kateeva’s impressive innovations that are poised to make large-panel OLED televisions finally an affordable reality — perhaps the Holy Grail of the display world. In partnership with SVIC, we’re delighted to offer continued support to Kateeva as they rapidly scale operations to support accelerating demand for OLED manufacturing solutions,” Diner continued.

Kateeva Chief Executive Officer Alain Harrus said: “SVIC’s investment speaks volumes about our technology’s enabling value to world-class OLED producers. It will reinforce our leading position and help serve all our customers better. Also, we appreciate our existing investors for their enduring commitment and trusted guidance. Thanks to their confidence in our technology and execution, mass producing OLEDs will be much smoother for leading display manufacturers.”

IC Insights traced the sales of the top 10 semiconductor companies dating back to 1985, in its Research Bulletin dated August 27, 2013.  In 1990, six Japanese companies were counted among the top 10 leaders in semiconductor sales.  In that year—in many ways, the peak of its semiconductor manufacturing and market strength—Japanese companies accounted for 51 percent of total semiconductor capital spending (Figure 1).

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North American companies accounted for 31 percent of semiconductor capex in 1990 and the Asia-Pacific region captured 10 percent share, slightly ahead of the eight percent held by European companies.  For perspective, Japan’s share of semi capex in 1990 was 20 points more than North America, 41 points more than Asia-Pacific, and 43 points more than Europe.

After reaching its highest-ever share of capital spending in 1990, Japan relinquished 20 points of marketshare and in five years trailed North America in semiconductor capital spending.  Economic malaise forced many of Japan’s strongest semiconductor companies to trim capex budgets and re-evaluate long-term strategic business plans.  At the same time, Japan was also feeling competitive pressure from South Korea, which had developed a strong memory manufacturing presence of its own; and from Taiwan, where the foundry business model was beginning to prosper.  In 1998, Japan trailed not only the North America region in semiconductor capital spending, but the Asia-Pacific region as well.  Fast-forward to 2010 and Japan and Asia-Pacific had essentially swapped places in terms of semiconductor capex marketshare.  In 1H13, Japan’s share of total semiconductor capital spending had dwindled to seven percent.

Japanese suppliers that are no longer in the semiconductor business include NEC, Hitachi, and Matsushita.  Other Japanese semiconductor companies that have greatly curtailed semiconductor operations include Sanyo, which was acquired by ON Semiconductor; Sony, which cut semiconductor capital spending and announced its move to an asset-lite strategy for ICs; Fujitsu, which sold its wireless group to Intel, sold its MCU and analog IC business to Spansion, and is consolidating its system LSI business with Panasonic’s; and Mitsubishi.

Meanwhile, from 2000-1H13, China joined semiconductor companies in South Korea, Taiwan, and Singapore by investing heavily in wafer fabs and advanced process technology.  These investments by Asia-Pacific companies were used primarily to produce DRAM and flash memory, microcontrollers, and to bolster wafer foundry operations.  Asia-Pacific accounted for 53 percent of capex marketshare in 1H13, down slightly from its 55 percent peak in 2010.

Mostly on account of spending by Intel, GlobalFoundries, Micron, and SanDisk, North America accounted for 37 percent of capital spending in 1H13, a few points higher than the steady 29 percent-33 percent share it has held since 1990.

There are three large European semiconductor suppliers and each now operates using a fab-lite or asset-lite strategy, which is why semiconductor capital spending from European companies accounted for only three percent of total capex in 1H13.  IC Insights forecasts capex spending by Europe-based ST, Infineon, and NXP and all other European semiconductor suppliers combined will amount to less than $1.5 billion in 2013.  Led by Samsung, Intel, and TSMC, there are nine semiconductor suppliers that are forecast to spend more money on their own than Europe will spend collectively in 2013.  In IC Insights’ opinion, IC manufacturers that are currently spending less than $1.0 billion a year on capital outlays will find it just about impossible to continue being able to manufacture using leading-edge digital processing technology, which is why European suppliers now outsource their most critical processing to foundries.

Jazz Semiconductor Inc., a fully owned U.S. subsidiary of Tower Semiconductor Ltd., has announced the accreditation for trusted status of Jazz Semiconductor Trusted Foundry (JSTF). JSTF has been accredited as a Category 1A Trusted Supplier by the United States Department of Defense as a provider of trusted semiconductors in critical defense applications. JSTF joins a small list of companies accredited by the DoD Trusted Foundry Program, established to ensure the integrity of the people and processes used to deliver national security critical microelectronic components, and administered by the DoD’s Defense Microelectronics Activity (DMEA).

TowerJazz said in its official release that the creation and accreditation of JSTF will help broaden existing business relationships previously disclosed with major defense contractors such as Raytheon, Northrop Grumman, BAE Systems, DRS, Alcatel-Lucent, and L-3 Communications.

“In the United States, there was no ‘pure play’ trusted foundry capability available,” TowerJazz CEO Russell Ellwanger said. “Our aerospace and defense customers asked that we would go this route to enable them greater freedom to serve their great country’s needs; a country that stands as a banner for democratic process throughout the world. Primarily for this purpose, we went beyond our initial commitment to the US State Department to continue support of our ITAR customers and engaged in rounds of discussion with the US Department of Defense toward participation in the Trusted program in our Newport Beach facility. And, as in all activities where one serves purposes of great principle, it is also good business."

“Jazz Semiconductor Trusted Foundry is proud to join the DoD Trusted Foundry Program to enable trusted access to a broad range of on-shore technologies and manufacturing capabilities,” said Scott Jordan, president, JSTF. “The accreditation process adds trust to the existing quality and security systems, improving our level of service to our military and defense customers.”

After experiencing runaway growth in recent years, the OLED display market is gearing up to make another big leap. Flexible OLED technology is expected to bring about an unprecedented change in flat displays which have ruled the display market for the last 20 years since the emergence of a liquid crystal display. Flexible OLED technology has already been introduced in a series of exhibitions and conferences for the last few years, and it is expected to make an innovative change in the conventional display industry structure once commercialized.

Unlike the conventional rigid OLED screen, the flexible OLED panel refers to the OLED display with flexibility. It is a very attractive product concept in that flexible OLED technology enables consumer goods manufacturers to develop applications in a variety of shapes to maximize its usability. For panel makers, the technology can cut manufacturing costs and simplify manufacturing processes by minimizing the use of glass substrates.

More Flexible Displays news

In order to produce a flexible OLED display, alternative substrate materials and encapsulation process to a conventional glass substrate are required. Until before 2010, most prototypes had used a metal foil substrate. But the trend recently shifted to a flexible OLED panel using a plastic substrate because the metal foil substrate has a rough surface and lacks flexibility. A wide range of methods are also being studied to develop alternative encapsulation techniques encompassing the use of plastic film and thin-film deposition technologies.

Read more: Flexible substrate market to top $500 million in 2020

Still, technological approaches vary depending on panel makers. Performance of a flexible OLED display, productivity and costs change significantly depending on flexible materials and manufacturing techniques which could also determine the marketability of flexible OLED displays. Therefore, there is a big difference in the time frames under which each panel maker plans to enter the flexible OLED market.

At this point of time, the “Flexible OLED Competitiveness and Market Forecasts” report from Displaybank, now part of IHS Inc., analyzes strategies taken by each panel maker for a flexible OLED display to take root in the display panel market, as well as various relevant technological issues. It discusses the growth potential of flexible OLED panels in the existing display market at the current point in time. This report is expected to help panel makers set a plan on how to approach the flexible OLED market in terms of technologies and come up with appropriate strategies to make a successful foray into the conventional display market with flexible OLED technology.

In its Research Bulletin dated August 2, 2013, IC Insights published its list of the top semiconductor sales leaders for the first half of 2013. The list showed the usual big-time players that we’ve come to expect like Intel, Samsung, and TSMC, leading the way in semiconductor sales through the first six months of the year. What stood out nearly as much, however, was that only one Japanese company—Toshiba—was present among the top 10 suppliers through the first half of 2013.  Anyone who has been involved in the semiconductor industry for a reasonable amount of time realizes this is a major shift and a big departure for a country that once was feared and revered when it came to its semiconductor manufacturing presence on the global market.

Figure 1 traces the top 10 semiconductor companies dating back to 1985, when Japanese semiconductor manufacturers wielded their influence on the global stage.  That year, there were five Japanese companies ranked among the top 10 semiconductor suppliers.  Then, in 1990, six Japanese companies were counted among the top 10 semiconductor suppliers—a figure that has not been matched by any country or region since.  The number of Japanese companies ranked in the top 10 in semiconductor sales slipped to four in 1995, then fell to three companies in 2000 and 2006, two companies in 2012, and then to only one company in the first half of 2013.

Read more: First half of 2013 shows big changes to the top 20 semiconductor supplier ranking

It is worth noting that Renesas (#11), Sony (#16), and Fujitsu (#22) were ranked among the top 25 semiconductor suppliers in 1H13, but Sony has been struggling to re-invent itself and Fujitsu has spent the first half of 2013 divesting most of its semiconductor operations.

Japan’s total presence and influence in the semiconductor marketplace has waned.  Once-prominent Japanese names now gone from the top suppliers list include NEC, Hitachi, Mitsubishi, and Matsushita. Competitive pressures from South Korean IC suppliers—especially in the DRAM market—have certainly played a significant role in changing the look of the top 10.  Samsung and SK Hynix emulated and perfected the Japanese manufacturing model over the years and cut deeply into sales and profits of Japanese semiconductor manufacturers, resulting in spin-offs, mergers, and acquisitions becoming more prevalent among Japanese suppliers.

  • 1999 — Hitachi and NEC merged their DRAM businesses to create Elpida Memory.
  • 2000 — Mitsubishi divested its DRAM business into Elpida Memory.
  • 2003 — Hitachi merged its remaining Semiconductor & IC Division with Mitsubishi’s System LSI Division to create Renesas Technology.
  • 2003 — Matsushita began emphasizing Panasonic as its main global brand name in 2003.  Previously, hundreds of consolidated companies sold Matsushita products under the Panasonic, National, Quasar, Technics, and JVC brand names.
  • 2007 — To reduce losses, Sony cut semiconductor capital spending and announced its move to an asset-lite strategy—a major change in direction for its semiconductor business.
  • 2010 — NEC merged its remaining semiconductor operations with Renesas Technology to form Renesas Electronics.
  • 2011 — Sanyo Semiconductor was acquired by ON Semiconductor.
  • 2013 — Fujitsu and Panasonic agreed to consolidate the design and development functions of their system LSI businesses.
  • 2013 — Fujitsu sold its MCU and analog IC business to Spansion.
  • 2013 — Fujitsu sold its wireless semiconductor business to Intel.
  • 2013 — Elpida Memory was formally acquired by Micron.
  • 2013 — After failing to find a buyer, Renesas announced plans to close its 300mm and 125mm wafer-processing site in Tsuruoka, Japan, by the end of 2013.  The facility makes system-LSI chips for Nintendo video game consoles and other consumer electronics.
  • 2013 — Unless it finds a buyer, Fujitsu plans to close its 300mm wafer fab in Mie.

Besides consolidation, another reason for Japan’s reduced presence among leading global semiconductor suppliers is that the vertically integrated business model that served Japanese companies so well for so many years is not nearly as effective in Japan today.  Due to the closed nature of the vertically integrated business model, when Japanese electronic systems manufacturers lost marketshare to global competitors, they took Japanese semiconductor divisions down with them.  As a result, Japanese semiconductor suppliers missed out on some major design win opportunities for their chips in many of the best-selling consumer, computer, and communications systems that are now driving semiconductor sales.

It is probably too strong to suggest that in the land of the rising sun, the sun has set on semiconductor manufacturing.  However, the global semiconductor landscape has changed dramatically from 25 years ago. For Japanese semiconductor companies that once prided themselves on their manufacturing might and discipline to practically disappear from the list of top semiconductor suppliers is evidence that competitive pressures are fierce and that as a country, perhaps Japan has not been as quick to adopt new methods to carry on and meet changing market needs.

Anapass, Inc, a display SoC solution provider, today announced that it has successfully completed development of a leading-edge panel controller system on chip “SoC” for UHD TV applications and has recently started mass production. As a result of the successful commercialization of a competitive panel controller SoC for UHD TV, Anapass will be well positioned as a leading panel controller provider for the rapidly growing next generation world-wide TV market, UHD TV.

According to a market research report produced by SNE Research in May 2013, the number of worldwide TV shipments forecasted for this year is 235.1M, 2.6M units of which are expected to be UHD TVs. This year is the first to show significant emergence of UHD TVs as the next generation TV. According to the report, between this year and 2016, the UHD TV market is expected to rapidly grow with 191 percent of CAGR, therefore nearly doubling every year.

The rapid growth of the UHD TV market is reflecting the recent market situation in which the world’s leading flat panel TV makers are aggressively expanding their UHD TV line up from premium high-end TVs down to high volume, smaller panel size TVs ranging from 50 to 60 inch. As such, the UHD TV market is expected to have very aggressive growth. In addition, the swift evolution of the UHD (3840 x 2160) video content eco-system, which provides four times higher resolution than FHD (1920×1080) is strongly supporting the emergence of the UHD TV market era.

Anapass said it intends to leverage its technical know-how and experience in developing and launching panel controller products for flat panel TVs for leading the commercialization of next generation panel controller products optimized for the rapidly growing UHD TV market. Anapass said it is expecting that this will significantly contribute to continuous growth of its core panel controller business.

M/A-COM Technology Solutions Holdings, Inc., a supplier of high performance RF, microwave, and millimeter wave products, today announced it has filed suit in the United States District Court for the Northern District of California against GigOptix, Inc. (NYSE MKT:GIG) for patent infringement.

The complaint alleges that GigOptix makes, uses, imports, offers to sell, and/or sells in the United States electro-optics polymers containing chromophores that infringe two MACOM patents, including certain GigOptix Mach-Zehnder modulator products that GigOptix markets or promotes as containing "Thin Film Polymer on Silicon (‘TFPS(TM)’)" technology. MACOM is seeking injunctive relief barring the infringement, as well as monetary damages, including treble damages based on allegedly willful infringement by GigOptix, attorney’s fees and costs of suit.

"MACOM has built a substantial patent portfolio through investment in innovation, and will defend that investment vigorously when required," said Ray Moroney, Optoelectronics Product Line Manager for MACOM. "We look forward to a just resolution of this matter through the legal process."

One of the most promising types of solar cells has a few drawbacks. A scientist at Michigan Technological University may have overcome one of them.

Dye-sensitized solar cells are thin, flexible, easy to make and very good at turning sunshine into electricity. However, a key ingredient is one of the most expensive metals on the planet: platinum. While only small amounts are needed, at $1,500 an ounce, the cost of the silvery metal is still significant.

Yun Hang Hu, the Charles and Carroll McArthur Professor of Materials Science and Engineering, has developed a new, inexpensive material that could replace the platinum in solar cells without degrading their efficiency: 3D graphene.

Read more: Graphene nanoscrolls are formed by decoration of magnetic nanoparticles

Regular graphene is a famously two-dimensional form of carbon just a molecule or so thick. Hu and his team invented a novel approach to synthesize a unique 3D version with a honeycomb-like structure. To do so, they combined lithium oxide with carbon monoxide in a chemical reaction that forms lithium carbonate (Li2CO3) and the honeycomb graphene. The Li2CO3 helps shape the graphene sheets and isolates them from each other, preventing the formation of garden-variety graphite.  Furthermore, the Li2CO3 particles can be easily removed from 3D honeycomb-structured graphene by an acid.

The researchers determined that the 3D honeycomb graphene had excellent conductivity and high catalytic activity, raising the possibility that it could be used for energy storage and conversion. So they replaced the platinum counter electrode in a dye-sensitized solar cell with one made of the 3D honeycomb graphene. Then they put the solar cell in the sunshine and measured its output.

The cell with the 3D graphene counter electrode converted 7.8 percent of the sun’s energy into electricity, nearly as much as the conventional solar cell using costly platinum (8 percent).

Synthesizing the 3D honeycomb graphene is neither expensive nor difficult, said Hu, and making it into a counter electrode posed no special challenges.

The research has been funded by the American Chemical Society Petroleum Research Fund (PRF-51799-ND10) and the National Science Foundation (NSF-CBET-0931587). The article describing the work, “3D Honeycomb-Like Structured Graphene and Its High Efficiency as a Counter-Electrode Catalyst for Dye-Sensitized Solar Cells,” coauthored by Hu, Michigan Tech graduate student Hui Wang, Franklin Tao of the University of Notre Dame, Dario J. Stacchiola of Brookhaven National Laboratory and Kai Sun of the University of Michigan, was published online July 29 in the journal Angewandte Chemie, International Edition.

Printed electronics refers to a process in which printing technology is used to produce various kinds of electronics goods, such as electronic circuits, sensors and devices. Printed electronics is emerging as a technology that will replace traditional photolithography, which requires costly materials, complex processes and expensive equipment, for the production of simple circuits or electronics components. In addition, printing technology allows patterning a desired substance on a specific location without complex processes. 

According to the “Emerging Displays Report – Printed Electronics Technology – 2013” report, published by IHS, the applied market for printed electronics is forecast to gradually grow after 2015. The total applied market created by printed electronics technology is expected to grow at a compound annual growth rate (CAGR) of 47 percent to $24.3 billion by 2020 from $3.3 billion in 2013.

The global printed electronics market is expected to grow in sync with the opening of the flexible display market. Currently, the technology is commercially applied to touch panel sensors and FPCBs, which have relatively low entry barriers. With partial application to RFIDs, smart tags, LCDs and OLEDs, the technology will gradually expand its application to the fabrication of flexible displays and thin film photovoltaics.

Whereas the current display industry has developed its technology and products centered on scaling-up to large sizes and realizing high-resolution images, the future industry development direction is expected to focus on flexible displays. Compared to the conventional glass substrate, flexible displays are thinner, lighter, and less prone to break. With such properties, it is expected that flexible electronic devices will be able to replace the existing market as well as create new ones.

The flexible (thin glass, metal thin film, plastic) substrate is gaining importance as a key component that determines the processability, performance, reliability, and price of flexible displays. To this end, IHS Electronics & Media publishes a Flexible Display Substrate Technology report to analyze the technology development, industrial conditions, and R&D trends of flexible substrates.

According to the report, the flexible substrate market is forecast to grow to $506.7 million by 2020 from a $2.5 million in 2013. The OLED display, another market that can be created by applying the flexible substrate technology, is expected to make up 91 percent of the overall market.