Category Archives: Displays

The Silicon Integration Initiative (Si2), a global semiconductor standards consortium, announced today that it has appointed John Ellis as vice president of Engineering and officer of Si2. He will be responsible for managing the technical strategy and direction for all semiconductor / EDA standardization projects created and managed at Si2. He will also directly manage Si2’s engineering staff to provide program management, training and documentation, software development, and infrastructure support.

John replaces Dr. Sumit DasGupta, who held the position since 2002 and retired on June 30th.

John has more than 25 years of experience leading diverse research and development programs spanning multiple industries. For over a decade, he served the semiconductor industry at SEMI, a global trade association for the semiconductor industry, where as VP of Technology he was responsible for semiconductor, photovoltaic, and flat-panel display manufacturing standards as well as coordination of industry initiatives such as e-Diagnostics and 450mm wafer size economic analyses. Prior to joining SEMI, John worked at Sandia National Labs on R&D projects for the Department of Energy, Department of Defense, National Institute of Standards and Technology, and other federal agencies. His broad experience includes nuclear weapons testing, missile guidance, air-borne and space-borne imaging systems, Internet and IC security, MEMS, and semiconductor manufacturing.

“John’s domain knowledge in semiconductor technology and software development, coupled with his extensive experience managing a large international staff to lead the development of important industry standards at SEMI, make him an excellent fit to lead engineering for Si2,” said Steve Schulz, President and CEO. “John received strong support from industry leaders on Si2’s Board of Directors, following many hours of rigorous interviewing and assessment. I look forward to John’s unique contributions in the months and years ahead that will further Si2’s mission and future success.”

Rolith, Inc., a developer of advanced nanostructured devices, yesterday announced the successful demonstration of Transparent Metal Grid Electrode technology based on its disruptive nanolithography method (Rolling Mask Lithography – RMLTM).

Read more: Researchers extend thermal nanolithography process

We see an explosive growth of touch screen displays in consumer electronics market. ITO (Indium Titanium Oxide) material is a standard solution for transparent electrodes so far. Apart from a considerable cost and limited supply of this material, it has additional problems: high reflectance of this materials reduces contrast ratio, optical properties degrade rapidly below 50 Ω/☐, which limits the size of display produced using ITO without degradation of performance.

The only viable alternative to ITO (and the only solution for large touchscreen displays) is a metal wire grid. The requirement for a metal wire grid to be invisible to human eye means that width of the wire should be < 2 micron. Moreover, narrow wires are helpful to fight Moiré effects, which caused by superposition of the metal wire grid and the pixel structure of a display.

Rolith, Inc. has used its proprietary nanolithography technology called Rolling Mask Lithography (RMLTM) for fabrication of transparent metal wire grid electrodes on large areas of substrate materials. RML is based on near-field continuous optical lithography, which is implemented using cylindrical phase masks.

Transparent metal electrodes on glass substrates were fabricated in the form of submicron width nanowires, lithographically placed in a regular 2-dimentional grid pattern with a period of tens of microns, and thickness of a few hundreds of nanometers. Such metal structure is evaluated as completely invisible to the human eye, highly transparent (>94 percent transmission) with a very low haze (~two percent), and low resistivity (<14 Ohm/☐). This set of parameters places Rolith technology above all major competition for ITO-alternative technologies.

Gen-2 RML tool capable of patterning substrates up to 1 m long and built earlier this year has been used to demonstrate this technology.

Read more: ITO film market undergoing a sea of changes

“Rolith has launched Transparent Metal Grid Electrodes application development just few months ago, and we are very excited with the extraordinary results already achieved. We believe RMLTM technology will enable high quality cost effective touch screen sensors for mobile devices and large format displays, monitors and TVs. Currently Rolith is negotiating partnerships with a few touch screen display manufacturers and hope to move fast with commercialization of our technology next year. Our roadmap also calls for expansion into OLED lighting and flexible substrates in 2014-2015,” said Dr Boris Kobrin, founder and CEO, Rolith.

 

Weak demand and rising production in China, combined with efforts by South Korean suppliers to cut manufacturing charges in order to stimulate demand, is resulting in pronounced price reductions in the third quarter for popular sizes of liquid-crystal display television (LCD TV) panels.

Read more: LCD TV panel inventory rises to excess levels, spurring price drops

Average pricing for 32- , 40- and 50-inch LCD TV open cell panels is set to decline in a range from 4.6 percent to 5.1 percent in September compared to June. Pricing for these panels for the previous period from March to June declined t a more moderate rate ranging from 2.0 percent to 3.4 percent.

Surprisingly, weakness is coming at a time when pricing and demand normally should be robust as the holiday season approaches.

“A number of factors are conspiring to cause weak pricing for LCD TV panels,” said Ricky Park, senior manager for large-area displays at IHS. “TV panel demand is tepid worldwide and particularly in China, where the end of a popular government incentive has led to a major sales slowdown. Meanwhile, Chinese panel manufacturers are adding new capacity—exacerbating the glut currently plaguing the industry. Finally, in an attempt to spur sales, some panel suppliers are offering attractive deals on certain panel sizes, causing pricing to fall.”

The 32-inch conundrum

The Chinese government’s move to discontinue its eco-subsidy program at the end of May had a broad impact on panel sales, but the biggest repercussion was in the 32-inch size. And because 32-inch is the most popular size in China, sales and pricing for this dimension plunged worldwide.

Meanwhile, production capacity for 32-inch panels still exceeds demand. The combination of weak demand and oversupply is expected to drive down the lowest price of 32-inch open cell panels to $90 in the first quarter of 2014, down from $96 during this year’s first quarter.

South Korea acts on 40-inch panels

Samsung’s aggressive stance on 40-inch panels also has impacted prices for similar-sized LCDs. As a result, prices for 39- and 42-inch panels are expected to decline by 5.2 percent and 4.2 percent, respectively, in the third quarter.

South Korean makers in general reportedly are planning to produce 48- and 49-inch panels in 2014, and both 46- and 47-inch panels will then be phased out. Anticipation of such developments caused a $4 to $5 price deduction in June for the 46- and 47-inch panel categories.

Taiwan cuts 50-inch prices

For their part, Taiwanese manufacturers cut prices for 50-inch panels to maintain a reasonable gap with 46- and 47-inch panels. And like the South Koreans, the Taiwanese are planning to offer panels in new 48- and 49-inch sizes. This is likely to further drive down pricing for 50-inch LCD TV panels.

Read more Displays News

Transistors in ultra-high definition displays (UHD) possess particularly fine structures. Only extremely pure sputtering targets are suitable for use as the input materials for the fine conductor paths. “UHD-ready” will be the motto when Plansee present their ultra-pure coating materials at Touch Taiwan.

Ultra-high definition is a digital video format that transmits images at widths of up to 4000 pixels. Display manufacturers are now supplying the necessary hardware in the form of UHD screens. The advent of UHD technology is bringing with it more stringent requirements with respect to the purity of the materials used, such as molybdenum.

Molybdenum is a key component of the layer system in a thin film transistor and helps to determine the color with which an LED is illuminated. There are several million of these transistors in a single UHD screen. Ulrich Lausecker, Head of the Coating Business Unit at Plansee explains: “Any foreign particle in the thin film material is huge in relation to the fine transistor structures. Even the slightest contamination of the molybdenum layer can cause whole pixels to fail.”

The company is one of the leading manufacturers of molybdenum sputtering targets. When processed, these targets form key layers in the transistor system. Plansee is the only manufacturer to supply molybdenum at a guaranteed purity of 99.97 percent. As a rule, the material is even purer than this. Which means that Plansee’s sputtering targets are ready for ultra-high definition technology.

In-house production guarantees the highest levels of material purity

This is made possible by the proprietary production process. At Plansee, this starts with molybdenum trioxide, in other words shortly after the ore has been processed. In-house reduction processes then allow to convert this to extremely pure molybdenum powder. And Plansee is also responsible for further downstream process steps such as pressing, sintering and forming sputtering targets. Before the sputtering targets are delivered to the customers, Plansee bond them in their own machine shops in Asia.

Because all the production steps are kept in house, Plansee is able to control the quality of the material right from the start in a way that no other target manufacturer can.

“Even the raw material itself comes from part of our family,” said Lausecker. “The Plansee Group has a 14 percent stake in the Chilean company Molymet, the largest molybdenum ore processor in the world.”

The Semiconductor Industry Association (SIA) today announced that worldwide sales of semiconductors reached $74.65 billion during the second quarter of 2013, an increase of 6 percent from the first quarter when sales were $70.45 billion. This marks the largest quarterly increase in three years. Global sales for June 2013 hit $24.88 billion, an increase of 2.1 percent compared to June 2012 and 0.8 percent higher than the May 2013 total. Regionally, sales in the Americas jumped 8.6 percent in Q2 compared to Q1 and 10.6 percent in June 2013 compared to June 2012, marking the region’s largest year-over-year increase of 2013. All monthly sales numbers are compiled by the World Semiconductor Trade Statistics (WSTS) organization and represent a three-month moving average.

"There’s no question the global semiconductor industry has picked up steam through the first half of 2013, led largely by the Americas," said Brian Toohey, president and CEO, Semiconductor Industry Association. "We have now seen consistent growth on a monthly, quarterly, and year-to-year basis, and sales totals have exceeded the latest industry projection, with sales of memory products showing particular strength."

Quarterly sales outperformed the World Semiconductor Trade Statistics (WSTS) organization’s latest industry forecast, which projected quarter-over-quarter growth of 4.6 percent globally and 3.4 percent for the Americas (compared to the actual increases of 6 percent and 8.6 percent, respectively). Total year-to-dates sales of $145.1 billion also exceeded the WSTS projection of $144.1 billion. Actual year-to-date sales through June are 1.5 percent higher than they were at the same point in 2012.

Regionally, sales in June increased compared to May in the Americas (3.5 percent), Asia Pacific (0.4 percent), and Europe (0.1 percent), but declined slightly in Japan (-0.9 percent). Compared to the same month in 2012, sales in June increased substantially in the Americas (10.6 percent), moderately in Asia Pacific (5.4 percent), and slightly in Europe (0.8 percent), but dropped steeply in Japan (-20.8 percent), largely due to the devaluation of the Japanese yen.

"While we welcome this encouraging data, it is important to recognize the semiconductor workforce that drives innovation and growth in our industry," continued Toohey. "A key roadblock inhibiting our innovation potential is America’s outdated high-skilled immigration system, which limits semiconductor companies’ access to the world’s top talent. The House of Representatives should use the August recess to work out their political differences on this issue and return to Washington next month ready to approve meaningful immigration reform legislation."

Later this month, IC Insights’ August Update to the 2013 McClean Report will show a ranking of the top 25 semiconductor suppliers in 1H13.  A preview of the top 20 companies is listed in Figure 1.  The top 20 worldwide semiconductor (IC and O S D—optoelectronic, discrete, and sensor) sales leaders for 1H13 include eight suppliers headquartered in the U.S., four in Japan, three in Europe, three in Taiwan, and two in South Korea.

The top-20 ranking includes three pure-play foundries (TSMC, GlobalFoundries, and UMC) and four fabless companies.  IC foundries are included in the top-20 semiconductor supplier ranking because IC Insights has always viewed the ranking as a top supplier list, not as a marketshare ranking, and realizes that in some cases semiconductor sales are double counted.  With many of our clients being vendors to the semiconductor industry (supplying equipment, chemicals, gases, etc.), excluding large IC manufacturers like the foundries would leave significant “holes” in the list of top semiconductor suppliers.  Overall, the list shown in Figure 1 provides a guideline to identify which companies are the leading semiconductor suppliers, whether they are IDMs, fabless companies, or foundries.

There were numerous changes within the top-20 semiconductor ranking in 1H13 as compared to the top 20 ranking of 2012.  Some of the companies rising in the ranking included SK Hynix, which moved up three places and into the top 5; Broadcom, which edged into the top 10; Elpida, which was officially purchased by Micron on July 31, 2013, shot up seven places to 17th place; and MediaTek, which jumped up four positions to make it into the top 20 (now ranked 18th).  In contrast, Fujitsu dropped five places and fell out of the top 20 ranking, going from being ranked 17th in 2012 to 22nd in 1H13.  The other company to fall out of the top 20 ranking was fabless supplier Nvidia, which went from being ranked 18th in 2012 to 21st in 1H13, even though the company posted a two percent increase in year-over-year sales.  Another “casualty” in the top 20 ranking was Sony, which fell to 16th place in 1H13 from the 12th position in 2012.

Micron’s acquisition of Elpida was completed on July 31, 2013.  It is interesting to note that if Micron and Elpida’s 1H13 sales were combined, the “new” company would have had $6,699 million in total sales in 1H13 and would have been ranked as the fifth-largest semiconductor supplier worldwide.  Now that the two companies are officially combined, look for Micron to move up in the ranking of top suppliers over the remainder of 2013 and in 2014.

Figure 1

In total, the top 20 semiconductor companies’ sales increased by 4 percent in 1H13 as compared to 1H12, one point better than the total 1H13/1H12 worldwide semiconductor market increase of 3 percent.  It took semiconductor sales of just over $1.9 billion in 1H13 to make the top-20 ranking.

As shown in Figure 2, there was a 64-percentage-point range of growth rates among the worldwide top 20 semiconductor suppliers in 1H13 (from +38 percent for SK Hynix to -26 percent for Sony).  The continued success of the fabless/foundry business model is evident when examining the top 20 semiconductor suppliers ranked by growth rate.  As shown, the top 10 performers included three fabless companies (Qualcomm, MediaTek, and Broadcom) and three pure-play foundries (TSMC, GlobalFoundries, and UMC).

Figure 2

Figure 2 illustrates that two of the three top-20 ranked companies that registered a double-digit sales decline in 1H13 were headquartered in Japan (Renesas and Sony).  Japan-based Fujitsu also registered a double-digit decline (-19 percent) in 1H13 to drop out of the top 20 ranking.  However, it should be noted that the conversion of Japanese company semiconductor sales from yen to U.S. dollars, at 95.47 yen per dollar in 1H13 versus 79.70 yen per dollar in 1H12, had a significant impact on the sales figures for the Japanese companies.  Still, Sony would have logged a double-digit (12 percent) semiconductor sales decline even if its sales results were not converted to U.S. dollars while Renesas would have posted a two percent increase in semiconductor sales if the numbers were expressed in yen.

Unfortunately for AMD, it cannot attribute its extremely poor 1H13 sales performance (-25 percent) to currency conversion issues.  However, the company’s 3Q13/2Q13 guidance is for a 22 percent surge in sales, a significant rebound but one that still may not prevent the company from posting another full-year decline in sales in 2013 (AMD registered a steep 17 percent sales decline in 2012).

More details on the 1H13 top 25 semiconductor suppliers, including a look at the companies’ 3Q13 expectations and guidance, will be provided in the August Update to The McClean Report.

 

CORRECTION: In a previous version of this article stated that Mike Splinter became president/CEO of Applied Materials in 2005. This is incorrect. Mike Splinter became president/CEO of Applied in 2003. The correction has been made to this article. Solid State Technology regrets the error.

Mike Splinter, chairman and chief executive officer of Applied Materials, was awarded the 2013 Robert N. Noyce Award, presented annually by the Semiconductor Industry Association, for outstanding achievement and leadership in support of the U.S. semiconductor industry. Splinter has been on the SEMI International Board of Directors since 2005.

The award is one of the industry’s highest honors and celebrates the memory of Robert Noyce, co-inventor of the integrated circuit and co-founder of Fairchild Semiconductor and Intel Corporation. The award will be presented at the annual SIA Award Dinner to be held on November 7, 2013.

"We applaud the SIA for recognizing Mike Splinter for his enormous contributions to the semiconductor industry,” said Denny McGuirk, president and CEO of SEMI.  “As the first recipient of the Robert N. Noyce Award from the SEMI Board of Directors, his selection underscores the critical contributions of equipment and materials suppliers to the continued health and progress of the semiconductor industry."

With a portfolio of more than 10,000 patents, Applied Materials is a key equipment and technologies supplier that helps build the advanced microchips and displays essential to today’s top-selling electronic devices. Mike Splinter was named president and chief executive officer of Applied Materials in 2003 and chairman of the board of directors in 2009. Splinter is a 40-year veteran of the semiconductor industry and has led Applied Materials to record revenue and profits during his tenure.

Prior to joining Applied Materials, Splinter was an executive at Intel Corporation where he held a number of positions in his 20 years at the company, including executive vice president and director of Sales and Marketing and executive vice president and general manager of the Technology and Manufacturing Group.

Splinter began his career at Rockwell International in the firm’s Electronics Research Center. During his tenure, he became manager of the company’s Semiconductor Fabrication Operations and was awarded two patents. Author of numerous papers and articles, Splinter earned both Bachelor of Science and Master of Science degrees in electrical engineering from the University of Wisconsin, Madison.

In a season when their sales should be rising sharply, suppliers of large-sized liquid-crystal (LCD) panels instead are encountering weak demand growth in the third quarter, exacerbating the glut already plaguing the market.

Measured in terms of square meters, supply of large-sized LCDs is expected to exceed demand by 15.9 percent during the period from July through September, according to the latest report entitled “Oversupply to Continue Due to Weak Economy” from information and analytics provider IHS. This is up nearly 3 percentage points from the previous forecast of a 13.2 percent oversupply, as presented in the figure below.

While the glut will decline compared to the second quarter—as is normal during the pre-holiday season—the surplus remains at elevated levels.

“This is the time of the year when LCD panel makers usually are ramping up production to meet holiday demand for televisions, notebook PCs, tablets and other consumer-oriented electronics,” said Ricky Park, senior manager for large-area displays at IHS. “However, the display industry is confronting the prospect of weak sales growth and a lack of visibility into future demand trends. With a combination of flagging economic conditions and the end of a popular television incentive plan in China, large-sized LCD panel supply is expected to overshoot demand by a higher margin than previously predicted.”

IHS defines large-sized LCDs as panels that have a diagonal dimension of 7 inches or greater used in devices such as televisions, notebook PCs and monitors.

Demand dearth

Global large-sized LCD panel demand in terms of square meters is expected to rise by a tepid 6 percent in the third quarter compared to the second. In most years, growth is typically larger because of seasonal factors. Expansion in 2012, for instance, was in double-digit territory at more than 10 percent.

Meanwhile, production capacity utilization among large-sized LCD makers is on the rise, increasing to 84 percent in the third quarter, up from 79 percent in the second.

The combination of the weaker-than-normal increase in demand and the significant expansion in utilization will combine to inflate the excess supply to higher levels.

China’s challenge

For their part, Chinese television makers are experiencing swelling inventories because of weaker-than-expected sales. The companies are likely to reduce their sales targets for 2013 and are trimming panel orders for the second half of the year.

Although China continues to enjoy the strongest economic growth among the major world economies, signs of weakness abound as export growth has declined sharply, due to a stagnant global economic recovery, a stronger yuan, and the Chinese government’s efforts to stem currency speculation. Given the deterioration of its export industry and the sluggish global economy, China can no longer depend on exports to fuel its overall economic growth.

Furthermore, the Chinese government has terminated its subsidy program for energy-saving TVs that had been driving sales earlier this year. This will further reduce panel demand.

Compound Photonics announced an agreement with RFMD whereby Compound Photonics will purchase Europe’s largest gallium arsenide (GaAs) manufacturing facility in Newton Aycliffe, County Durham, England.

"Compound Photonics will soon release projector products for mobile devices that are three times brighter and smaller than current state of the art.  To achieve these next generation levels of performance we need to vertically integrate the design and manufacture of the entire light engine.  This acquisition will bring in-house the manufacturing capabilities for the lasers required to power these engines," said Jonathan A. Sachs, Ph.D., president and CEO of Compound Photonics. "The skilled and experienced people, the fab with its toolset, supply chain, mature processes, and a track record of high volume production are ready made for our laser production."

Compound Photonics will use the 53 acre site with its 50,000-square-foot GaAs wafer fab to produce green, red and infrared lasers. The addition of the systems, fabrication equipment, and research and development capabilities as well as the manufacturing team with experience supplying high volume components to leading mobile phone manufacturers  expands Compound Photonics capacity and flexibility to meet its aggressive growth plans.

The powerful, high efficiency, wavelength stabilized laser diodes will be used as illumination sources in miniature high definition 1080p projectors for smartphones, tablets and other mobile devices, as well as ultra high definition 4K projectors and automotive head up displays. Wavelength stabilized infrared lasers for emerging gesture recognition applications will also be manufactured using wafer scale production methods in Newton Aycliffe.

The Newton Aycliffe facility complements Compound Photonics’ 40,000 square-foot semiconductor processing facility in Phoenix, Arizona where it manufactures liquid crystal on silicon displays and optics systems for its laser projection light engines.

Terms of the transaction were not disclosed.

CEA-Leti today announced that a group of European and Japanese companies, research institutes, universities and cities will work together in the ClouT project to deliver ways for cities to leverage the Internet of Things (IoT) and cloud computing – to become smart cities.

ClouT, which stands for “cloud of things,” will develop infrastructure, services, tools and applications for municipalities and their various stakeholders – including citizens, service developers and application integrators – to create, deploy and manage user-centric applications that capitalize on the latest advances in IoT and cloud computing.

The IoT allows users to connect “everything” (sensors, objects, actuators, mobile phones, servers, etc.) and gather and share information in real-time from the physical environment. Cloud computing lets users process, store and access information with virtually unlimited processing and storage capacity. ClouT will integrate the latest advances in these domains and, with its user-centric approach, allow end users in cities to create their own cloud services and share them with other citizens.

Target applications include enhanced public transportation, increased citizen participation through the use of mobile devices to photograph and record situations of interest to city administrators, safety management, city-event monitoring and emergency management. The project, which is coordinated in Europe by Leti, includes nine industrial and research partners and four cities: Santander, Spain; Genoa, Italy; Fujisawa, Japan and Mitaka, Japan. The applications will be validated in those cities via field trials with citizens.

By combining EU and Japanese resources, the three-year, nearly 4 million-euro project is designed to create an on-going synergy for smart-city initiatives between Europe and Japan.

ClouT is jointly funded by the 7th Framework Programme of the European Commission and by the National Institute of Information and Communications Technology (NICT) of Japan.