Category Archives: Advanced Packaging

Will the enabling and investment strategy of Intel Corp. lead to low-cost touch-screen-enabled notebooks that drive new demand for PCs and yield innovation in the global display market?

Find out at the IHS/SID 2013 Business Conference, held May 20 in Vancouver, Canada. At the event, Zane Ball, Intel vice president and general manager, Global Ecosystem Development, will deliver a keynote address discussing the company’s plan to empower the PC industry to produce low-cost notebooks incorporating touch technology.

“Intel is making major investments in the display supply chain to bring low-cost touch and high-resolution displays to the PC market,” Ball said. “We believe these investments will set the stage for PC makers to deliver notebooks with advanced features at reduced price points year over year.” 

Ball also will discuss Intel’s Ultrabook effort and its impact on the touch-screen market.

Intel’s keynote will provide a perfect starting point for the IHS/SID 2013 Business Conference, which this year is focusing on the theme of “Paths to a Healthier Display Industry.”

“From the keynote, to the presentations, to the panel sessions, the IHS/SID 2013Business Conference is completely focused on the products and strategies that can revive the health of the display business,” said Sweta Dash, senior director, display research and strategy, for IHS and also a speaker and organizer of the conference. “With the flat-panel TV replacement boom having concluded, the growth of the display business now must be driven by other product areas that companies can address through inventive form factors, features or pricing. This year’s conference will serve as a roadmap for suppliers and buyers who want to innovate their way to a healthier display business.”

Early-bird registration for the IHS/SID 2013 Business Conference, expiring May 2, is priced at $595; the standard fee is $650. Press registration is free. For more information, please visit the IHS/SID 2013 Business Conference registration page. The conference will be held at the Vancouver Convention Centre.

Spectra-Physics, a Newport Corporation brand, introduces Spirit ps 1040-10, an industrial-grade picosecond laser for precision micromachining applications. The new laser delivers high finesse with exceptional beam quality (M2< 1.2), high stability (<1% rms over 100 hours), and short pulse widths (13 ps). The laser is also highly flexible with user-adjustable repetition rates from single shot to 1 MHz and an integrated pulse picker for fast pulse selection and power control. With >10 W average power, the laser is ideal for precision picosecond micromachining applications such as semiconductor and LED manufacturing, flat panel display processing, thin film ablation, and nano structuring.

“The Spirit ps laser’s precise beam shape, pulse duration, and energy translate into high-precision application results,” says Herman Chui, senior director of product marketing for Spectra-Physics. “Combined with its flexibility in repetition rate and pulse energy, this rugged industrial laser is ideal for a wide range of critical picosecond micromachining applications.”

Spectra-Physics’ Spirit ps 1040-10 laser is based on the field-proven Spirit industrial ultrafast laser platform. With high quantities of deployed systems in demanding 24/7 applications, this rugged product platform has consistently demonstrated high reliability.

The new Spirit ps 1040-10 laser will be featured at LASER World of Photonics in Munich, Germany, May 13-16, 2013.

Newport Corporation is a global supplier of advanced-technology products and systems to customers in the scientific research, microelectronics manufacturing, aerospace and defense/security, life and health sciences and precision industrial manufacturing markets. 

Spirit picosecond industrial laser

In the world of optical defect inspection, finding on defect on a 300mm wafer can be like trying to find a single coin on the island of Taiwan. Now imagine being able to find that coin in just an hour, along with any other coins that look exactly like it. That’s exactly what NanoPoint will allow manufacturers to do.

KLA-Tencor’s NanoPoint is a new family of patented technologies for its 2900 series defect inspection system.

“[NanoPoint is] a new algorithm,” said Satya Kurada, product marketing manager at KLA-Tencor. “We now have the ability to generate care areas significantly smaller to inspect smaller areas, and remove noise from the pattern of interest. This will focus inspection resources on critical patterns.”

KLA-Tencor believes that NanoPoint represents an entirely new way to discover and monitor defects, at optical speed and on existing optical defect inspection equipment. By automatically generating millions of very tiny care areas based on user-defined patterns of interest, NanoPoint focuses the resources of the optical inspection system on critical patterns, as identified either by circuit designers or by known defect sites. During chip development, NanoPoint can reveal the need for mask re-design within hours, potentially accelerating the identification and resolution of design issues from months to days. During volume production, NanoPoint can selectively track defectivity within critical patterns—allowing process monitoring with sensitivity and speed far beyond the industry’s experience to date.

“This is a huge shift in the strategy of what customers could potentially do,” said Kurada. “This technology basically has our customer off-loading the e-beam, because of the sensitivity of which they could with this.”

Traditional e-beam approaches have worked very well, said Kurada, but e-beam optical inspection runs into challenges with wafer processing.

“Because we’re packing so much more tightly, defects that used to be non-nuisance are becoming yield killers,” said Kurada. “Traditional methods are having trouble finding these now. NanoPoint’s evolution is based on canceling out the noise to find the defects. Now it is using pattern-based inspection.”

Pattern-based optical inspection can identify all the weak points, said Kurada, because it identifies patterned noise maps. This allows for not only a cleaner inspection of tinier areas, but a faster completion time as well. What used to seven days, Kurada says will now only take one hour.

“Our customers are highly motivated to continue to extend optical inline defect inspection beyond the 20nm node,” said Keith Wells, vice president and general manager of the Wafer Inspection (WIN) Division at KLA-Tencor. “They want the speed and baseline preservation that only optical inspection can provide—and our challenge is to design equipment that can discover defects whose size is further and further below the inspection wavelength. In the past, we have offered various improvements to the light source, optics and other subsystems, but NanoPoint addresses the issue from a new angle. Based on customer feedback, I believe that NanoPoint is a breakthrough technology with the potential for applicability across a broad range of layers and process modules.”

Worldwide silicon wafer area shipments decreased during the first quarter 2013 when compared to fourth quarter 2012 area shipments, according to the SEMI Silicon Manufacturers Group (SMG) in its quarterly analysis of the silicon wafer industry.

Total silicon wafer area shipments were 2,128 million square inches during the most recent quarter, a 1.6 percent decrease from the 2,162 million square inches shipped during the previous quarter. New quarterly total area shipments are 4.8 percent higher than first quarter 2012 shipments.

"Total silicon shipment volumes experienced typical first quarter weakness, although volumes are up relative to the same quarter last year” said Byungseop (Brad) Hong, chairman of SEMI SMG and director of Global Marketing at LG Siltron. “Given current expectations for modest growth for the semiconductor industry this year, we are hopeful that the silicon industry will follow suit.”

Quarterly Silicon Area Shipment Trends

Semiconductor Silicon Shipments* – Millions of Square Inches

    Q1 2012    Q4 2012    Q1 2013 
  Total   2,033 2,162

2,128

*Shipments are for semiconductor applications only and do not include solar applications

Silicon wafers are the fundamental building material for semiconductors, which in turn, are vital components of virtually all electronics goods, including computers, telecommunications products, and consumer electronics. The highly-engineered thin round disks are produced in various diameters (from one inch to 12 inches) and serve as the substrate material on which most semiconductor devices or "chips" are fabricated.

All data cited in this release is inclusive of polished silicon wafers, including virgin test wafers, epitaxial silicon wafers, and non-polished silicon wafers shipped by the wafer manufacturers to the end-users.

The Silicon Manufacturers Group acts as an independent special interest group within the SEMI structure and is open to SEMI members involved in manufacturing polycrystalline silicon, monocrystalline silicon or silicon wafers (e.g., as cut, polished, epi, etc.). The purpose of the group is to facilitate collective efforts on issues related to the silicon industry including the development of market information and statistics about the silicon industry and the semiconductor market.

SEMI is the global industry association serving the nano- and microelectronics manufacturing supply chains. SEMI’s 1,900 member companies are the engine of the future, enabling smarter, faster and more economical products that improve our lives. SEMI maintains offices in Bangalore, Beijing, Berlin, Brussels, Grenoble, Hsinchu, Moscow, San Jose, Seoul, Shanghai, Singapore, Tokyo, and Washington, D.C.  For more information, visit www.semi.org.

Semiconductor Research Corporation (SRC) and the National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST) today announced the second phase of the Nanoelectronics Research Initiative (NRI). For this phase, SRC and NIST will provide a combined $5 million in annual funding for three multi-university research centers tasked with demonstrating non-conventional, low-energy technologies that outperform current technologies on critical applications in 10 years and beyond.

The second phase of NRI also features joint projects with the National Science Foundation (NSF) and the multi-university research network involves 34 universities in 17 states. The three research centers are:

  • the Institute for Nanoelectronics Discovery and Exploration (INDEX) at SUNY’s College of Nanoscale Science and Engineering (CNSE);
  • the Center for Nanoferroic Devices (CNFD) at the University of Nebraska-Lincoln; and
  • the South West Academy of Nanoelectronics (SWAN) 2.0 at the University of Texas at Austin.

“In 2012, the first phase of NRI culminated with a comprehensive assessment of the various NRI device concepts through performance benchmarking,” said Tom Theis, the new SRC program executive director. “NRI 2.0 will focus on key research opportunities identified in the benchmarking study and will explore the ultimate scalability of emerging digital device concepts and their functionality beyond digital logic. For example, researchers will explore magnetoelectric devices that promise improved energy efficiency and the ability to combine memory and logic.”

NIST will provide $2.6 million to the effort each year for up to five years, matched by $2.4 million each year from NRI. NRI is made up of participants from the semiconductor industry including GLOBALFOUNDRIES, IBM, Intel, Micron Technology and Texas Instruments.

“NIST collaborations with the NRI are one of the fastest ways to move pre-competitive technology forward,” said Under Secretary of Commerce for Standards and Technology and Director of NIST Patrick Gallagher. “We’re excited to see what innovative nanoelectronic devices and concepts the next phase of this partnership with SRC will produce.”

Additional universities involved in the NRI network include:

  • INDEX at SUNY’s College of Nanoscale Science and Engineering (CNSE): Purdue, Virginia, Cornell, Georgia Institute of Technology and Columbia.
  • CNFD at University of Nebraska-Lincoln: Wisconsin-Madison, Oakland, SUNY Buffalo, UC Irvine, Delaware.
  • SWAN 2.0 at University of Texas at Austin: UT Dallas, North Carolina State, Texas A&M, UC San Diego, Stanford and Harvard.

In collaboration with the National Science Foundation, NRI also supports Nanoscale Interdisciplinary Research Teams (NIRTs) as part of the National Nanotechnology Initiative’s Signature Initiative "Nanoelectronics for Beyond 2020.” Funding for these projects flows to many other leading U.S. universities.

NRI 2.0 is the successor to an earlier multi-year collaboration between NRI and NIST that focused on the long-term goal of “developing the next logic switch,” or the basic logic elements that serve as the building blocks of electronic devices. The NRI initiative was originally launched by the Semiconductor Industry Association (SIA) in 2005. The NRI and the collaboration with NIST are managed by the Nanoelectronics Research Corporation (NERC), a special purpose subsidiary of SRC, the world’s leading university-research consortium for semiconductors and related technologies.

The Nanoelectronics Research Initiative is one of three research program entities of SRC aimed at extending the frontiers of semiconductor electronics.

In order to stave off the onslaught of popular media tablets and smartphones, notebook PCs need to evolve, adopting touch technology that has proved so popular among consumers.

Speaking at the upcoming Society for Information Displays (SID) 2013 Conference, Duke Yi, senior manager for display components and materials research at IHS, will present his vision for the future of touch notebooks. Yi will deliver his presentation at the SID Touch Gesture Motion Focus Conference on Wednesday May 22, 2013, in Vancouver, Canada.

“Touch screens are the hottest feature driving the near-term growth in the notebook market,” Yi said. “It’s true that it is impossible to use all the applications of a notebook perfectly just through a touch function. However, consumers will gain a greater familiarity with the touch system, allowing them to comfortably access many other functions on a notebook. In essence, the touch function is more of an assistant than the actual main interface in notebook PCs.”

But the incorporation of touch into notebooks does not just benefit consumers, as manufacturers also will find that adding this technology will be an effective way to keep the average selling price (ASP) of their notebooks from plunging. For this reason, touch will likely establish a solid foothold in the notebook market, IHS believes.

Tablet threat

It has only been three years since the Apple iPad came to market. Nonetheless, in that short time, media tablets have become firmly established and are on a strong growth path. Not surprisingly, tablets have become a huge threat to other products—including notebook PCs.

“Both the PC and the tablet markets want a piece of each other’s pie,” Yi said. “Tablet suppliers want some of the market share that notebooks have—and vice versa. So, while there is a clear intersection between the two applications, we see manufacturers and brands offering at least one or two crossover products that span the functions of both PCs and tablets.”

Yi’s session, entitled “Touch Gesture Motion Industry Analysis,” also will include the IHS outlook and growth opportunities for touch and interactive devices, with additional analysis from Geoff Walker, senior touch technologist for Intel Corp.

Early-bird registration for the IHS/SID 2013 Business Conference, expiring May 2, is priced at $595; the standard fee is $650. Press registration is free. For more information, please visit the IHS/SID 2013 Touch Gesture Motion Conference registration page.

The conference will be held at the Vancouver Convention Centre.

Element Six last week announced, in collaboration with Delft University of Technology, the entanglement of electron spin qubits (quantum bits) in two synthetic diamonds separated in space. This breakthrough is a major step toward achieving a diamond-based quantum network, quantum repeaters and long-distance teleportation—changing the way information is processed and enabling new systems to efficiently tackle problems inaccessible by today’s information networks and computers.

The collaboration, used two synthetic diamonds of millimeter-size that were grown by Element Six through chemical vapor deposition (CVD). The synthetic diamonds were engineered to contain a particular defect that can be manipulated using light and microwaves. The defect consists of a single nitrogen atom adjacent to a missing carbon atom—known as a nitrogen vacancy (NV) defect. The light emitted from the NV defect allows the defect’s quantum properties to be “read-out” using a microscope. By forming small lenses around the NV defect and carefully tuning the light emitted through electric fields, the Delft team was able to make the two NV defects emit indistinguishable particles of light (photons). These photons contained the quantum information of the NV defect and further manipulation allowed the quantum mechanically entanglement of the two defects.

“Element Six’s synthetic diamond material has been at the heart of these important quantum mechanics developments, which promise to revolutionize information technologies,” said Ronald Hanson, professor at Delft University of Technology. “Building on three years of collaboration, our research partnership has been critical in overcoming one of the greatest challenges of our time—finding and controlling a physical system suitable for fulfilling the promises of quantum entanglement. This is an important achievement that will help us not only create a quantum network to process information, but ultimately a future quantum computer.”

The entanglement process, which Einstein called “spooky action at a distance,” is a process where the two NV defects become strongly connected such that they are always correlated irrespective of the distance between them. The findings, published in this week’s issue of “Nature,” are a major leap forward for quantum science and demonstrate Element Six’s ability to control a single atom-like defect in the diamond lattice at the parts per trillion level. It is the first time that qubits in two separated diamonds have been entangled and subsequently shown to behave as a single particle. This entangled state holds the potential for ensuring complete security in future information networks.

“The field of synthetic diamond science is moving very quickly, requiring us to develop CVD techniques that produce exceptionally pure synthetic diamond material at nano-engineering levels,” said Adrian Wilson, head of Element Six Technologies. “Additionally, by applying the invaluable knowledge gained in our research, we’re able to successfully develop and advance extreme performance solutions for our customers that capitalize on synthetic diamond’s unique combination of properties, which can subsequently be leveraged across a range of industries.” 

Element Six collaborates with a number of universities to develop cutting-edge synthetic diamond solutions, for application across multiple industries, such as semiconductors and optics. This latest breakthrough could enable new applications in quantum information science and quantum-based sensors, and future encryption-based networks for communications. DARPA (QuASAR) and European Union FP7 (DIAMANT) helped fund Element Six and Delft’s quantum network research. 

Element Six is a synthetic diamond supermaterials company. Element Six is a member of the De Beers Group of Companies, its majority shareholder. Element Six designs, develops and produces synthetic diamond supermaterials, and operates worldwide with its head office registered in Luxembourg, and primary manufacturing facilities in China, Germany, Ireland, Sweden, South Africa, U.S. and the U.K.

The 59th annual IEEE International Electron Devices Meeting (IEDM) has issued a Call for Papers seeking original work in microelectronics research and development. The paper submission deadline is Monday, June 24, 2013 at 23:59 p.m. Pacific Time.

Special Focus Sessions at the 2013 IEDM will include bioMEMS, analog devices and circuits, advanced semiconductor manufacturing, and terahertz devices. Overall, increased participation is sought this year in circuit and process technology interaction, energy harvesting, bio-sensors and bioMEMS, power devices, magnetics and spintronics.

The 2013 IEDM will take place at the Washington Hilton Hotel December 9-11, 2013, preceded by a full day of Short Courses on Sunday, Dec. 8 and 90-minute afternoon tutorial sessions on Saturday, Dec. 7. Also, building on the popularity of the inaugural Entrepreneurs Luncheon held at last year’s IEDM, the event will be held once again, on Wednesday, Dec. 11.

The world’s best scientists and engineers in the field of microelectronics from industry, academia and government will gather at the IEDM to enjoy a technical program of more than 220 presentations, along with panels, special sessions, Short Courses, IEEE/EDS award presentations and other events spotlighting more leading work in more areas of the field than any other conference. Papers in the following areas are encouraged:

  • Circuit and Device Interaction
  • Characterization, Reliability and Yield
  • Display and Imaging Systems
  • Memory Technology
  • Modeling and Simulation
  • Nano Device Technology
  • Process and Manufacturing Technology
  • Power and Compound Semiconductor Devices
  • Sensors, MEMS and BioMEMS

 For registration and other information, interested persons should visit the IEDM 2013 home page at www.ieee-iedm.org.

Intel Corporation announced that the board of directors has unanimously elected Brian Krzanich as its next chief executive officer (CEO), succeeding Paul Otellini. Krzanich will assume his new role at the company’s annual stockholders’ meeting on May 16. The board of directors also elected Renée James, 48, to be president of Intel. She will also assume her new role on May 16, joining Krzanich in Intel’s executive office.

Krzanich, Intel’s chief operating officer since January 2012, will become the sixth CEO in Intel’s history. As previously announced, Otellini will step down as CEO and from the board of directors on May 16.

“After a thorough and deliberate selection process, the board of directors is delighted that Krzanich will lead Intel as we define and invent the next generation of technology that will shape the future of computing,” said Andy Bryant, chairman of Intel.

“Brian is a strong leader with a passion for technology and deep understanding of the business,” Bryant added. “His track record of execution and strategic leadership, combined with his open-minded approach to problem solving has earned him the respect of employees, customers and partners worldwide. He has the right combination of knowledge, depth and experience to lead the company during this period of rapid technology and industry change.”

Krzanich, 52, has progressed through a series of technical and leadership roles since joining Intel in 1982.

As chief operating officer, Krzanich led an organization of more than 50,000 employees spanning Intel’s Technology and Manufacturing Group, Intel Custom Foundry, NAND Solutions group, Human Resources, Information Technology and Intel’s China strategy.

James, 48, has broad knowledge of the computing industry, spanning hardware, security, software and services, which she developed through leadership positions at Intel and as chairman of Intel’s software subsidiaries — Havok, McAfee and Wind River. She also currently serves on the board of directors of Vodafone Group Plc and VMware Inc. and was chief of staff for former Intel CEO Andy Grove.

Atmel Corporation, a developer of microcontroller and touch technology solutions, this week announced the maXTouch T Series, its next-generation family supporting touchscreens up to 23 inches for applications such as handsets, tablets, Ultrabooks, notebooks and all-in-one computers.

The first device in the family, the mXT2952T, is the world’s first ultra-low power single-chip device that supports Windows 8-certified touchscreens up to 15.6 inches and optimized to support touchscreen cover glass as thin as 0.4mm.

The new T Series delivers a revolutionary adaptive-sensing architecture featuring both mutual and self capacitance to optimize performance. The maXTouch T Series automatically selects the best sensing architecture, seamlessly switching to enable higher performance and lower power consumption. Mutual capacitance enables true multi-touch tracking while self capacitance offers benefits including idle power consumption, moisture immunity, glove tracking, and hover capability which detects a finger or an object not in contact with the screen. The new maXTouch T Series enhances noise immunity with an industry-first capacitive touch dual analog and digital filtering architecture to deliver the best signal-to-noise (SNR) ratio and power consumption. The new features in the maXTouch T Series deliver improved responsiveness and a more intuitive user interface with additions such as hover that allow users to pre-select icons, letters, links and other images without physically touching the screen.

With the increasing popularity of active stylus on touchscreens, the maXTouch T Series natively supports Atmel’s maXStylus, a solution that requires no additional sensor layer to enable thinner stack-ups and lower overall bill of materials (BOM). The award-winning maXStylus offers a Window 8-compatible solution with better touch performance, lower power consumption and lower overall system cost than other capacitive active stylus solutions on the market today.

"Flawless touch performance, longer battery life and thinner screens for mobile devices are key features for today’s touchscreen designs," said Jon Kiachian, Vice President of Touch Marketing, Atmel Corporation. "As a leader in touch technologies, the maXTouch T Series is Windows 8 compatible, Intel Ultrabook-ready, and supports both active stylus and sensor hub. We are a leader in this space, and excited to deliver the mXT2952T, the world’s first single-chip controller for Windows 8-certified touchscreens up to 15.6 inches."

To better support Ultrabook and notebook touch sensors, the mXT2952T has specific circuitry to take advantage of ITO (indium tin oxide) alternative sensor materials such as Atmel’s XSense flexible touch sensor. This allows system designers to build more innovative designs with faster operation, lower power, borderless and even flexible touchscreens.

The maXTouch T Series integrates Atmel’s proprietary maXFusion sensor hub management technology that enables designers to manage both the touch interface and all the sensor intelligence in a single chip. This technology enables lower bill of materials and higher performance.