Category Archives: Advanced Packaging

Yole Développement’s research has credited STMicroelectronics for capitalizing on the booming demand for MEMS in mobile devices by shipping 58% more MEMS units in 2012, to become the first company to reach $1 billion in MEMS sales. And that was in a year when the average prices of accelerometers and gyroscopes that are its core MEMS products dropped by 20%-30%.

“The company was there and ready with its 8-inch fab when the volume demand started, as well as a large portfolio of products and low prices,” said Laurent Robin, Activity Leader, Inertial MEMS Devices & Technologies at Yole Développement. “They could use a feed-the-fab-strategy to build volumes, and discounts for buyers of multiple devices to meet the price demands of the cell phone makers.”

“Even more than Yole Développement’s recognition of ST’s achieving the revenue milestone, we appreciate the endorsement from our customers, across a broad range of applications and segments, of our strategy of being a reliable one-stop MEMS partner,” said Benedetto Vigna, Executive Vice President and General Manager of STMicroelectronics Analog, MEMS and Sensors Group. “We remain fully committed to continuing to meet our customers’ expectations and to expanding the role of sensors in ways that augment all of our lives.”

The morphing of the MEMS industry into a high volume consumer smart phone business has played to the advantage of big IDMs with their ability to ramp volumes to price aggressively, and to offer customers a wide variety of products from a single source to simplify the supply chain. The inertial sensor business also drove healthy 14% MEMS growth at Robert Bosch, boosting that big IDM’s sales close to those of long time industry leader Texas Instruments in a further reshuffling of the top companies lineup. Yole Développement will release its complete listing of the Top 30 MEMS companies early in April.

ST is now churning out some 4 million MEMS devices a day, offering not only inertial sensors but also now consumer pressure sensors, microphones, and e-compasses. The fully-integrated supplier has been able to optimize all steps in the process to wring out costs, from its mature standard manufacturing process for all inertial sensors, to its inhouse ASIC design, to its long expertise in common LGA packaging across all products, to its high volume parallel testing developed on commercial equipment with SPEA, to its sales force that can sell and deal on the whole smart phone sensor line. The company has also pushed the manufacturing technology to bring down die size, replacing glass frit with narrower gold bonding frames and replacing big bond pads with smaller TSVs made by etching air gaps around polysilicon vias. And it turned to outside partnerships (microphone technology from Omron) and purchases (magnetometers from Honeywell) to get new products to market faster.

Connecting the (quantum) dots


February 26, 2013

Recent research offers a new spin on using nanoscale semiconductor structures to build faster computers and electronics. Literally.

University of Pittsburgh and Delft University of Technology researchers reveal in the Feb. 17 online issue of Nature Nanotechnology a new method that better preserves the units necessary to power lightning-fast electronics, known as qubits. Hole spins, rather than electron spins, can keep quantum bits in the same physical state up to 10 times longer than before, the report finds.

"Previously, our group and others have used electron spins, but the problem was that they interacted with spins of nuclei, and therefore it was difficult to preserve the alignment and control of electron spins," said Sergey Frolov, assistant professor in the Department of Physics and Astronomy within Pitt’s Kenneth P. Dietrich School of Arts and Sciences, who did the work as a postdoctoral fellow at Delft University of Technology in the Netherlands.

Whereas normal computing bits hold mathematical values of zero or one, quantum bits live in a hazy superposition of both states. It is this quality, said Frolov, which allows them to perform multiple calculations at once, offering exponential speed over classical computers. However, maintaining the qubit’s state long enough to perform computation remains a long-standing challenge for physicists.

"To create a viable quantum computer, the demonstration of long-lived quantum bits, or qubits, is necessary," said Frolov. "With our work, we have gotten one step closer."

The holes within hole spins, Frolov explained, are literally empty spaces left when electrons are taken out. Using extremely thin filaments called InSb (indium antimonide) nanowires, the researchers created a transistor-like device that could transform the electrons into holes. They then precisely placed one hole in a nanoscale box called "a quantum dot" and controlled the spin of that hole using electric fields. This approach— featuring nanoscale size and a higher density of devices on an electronic chip—is far more advantageous than magnetic control, which has been typically employed until now, said Frolov.

"Our research shows that holes, or empty spaces, can make better spin qubits than electrons for future quantum computers."

"Spins are the smallest magnets in our universe. Our vision for a quantum computer is to connect thousands of spins, and now we know how to control a single spin," said Frolov. "In the future, we’d like to scale up this concept to include multiple qubits."

advanced electronics packagingEngineered Material Systems, a global supplier of electronic materials for circuit assembly applications, debuts its DB-1568-1 low-temperature cure die attach adhesive for attaching semiconductor die in temperature-sensitive devices. Applications include smart cards, camera modules, flex circuits and more.

The DB-1568-1 is more than 90 percent cured after 30 minutes at 80°C, but has a dispensing work life greater than 48 hours (measured as a 25 percent increase in viscosity), while maintaining optimized rheology for stencil printing and excellent damp heat resistance and conductivity stability. DB-1568-1 features extreme flexibility that is ideal for flexible applications with high peel strength to withstand the stresses induced in flexible electronics and display applications. Also, this material can be fast cured at elevated temperatures (1 minute @ 180°C).

DB-1568-1 is the latest addition to Engineered Material Systems’ extensive line of electronic materials for semiconductor, circuit assembly, photovoltaic, printer head, camera module, disk drive and photonic applications.

Tech spending still going strongIT spending remained broadly strong throughout a difficult end to 2012, as business confidence waned in the shadow of the "fiscal cliff,” economic growth declined in much of Europe, and economies in Asia/Pacific struggled to cope with reduced exports, according to the latest International Data Corporation (IDC) Worldwide Black Book. In spite of these headwinds, worldwide IT spending recorded annual growth of 5.9% in 2012 in constant currency terms, keeping pace with the 5.8% growth recorded in 2011. Total IT spending on hardware, software and IT services reached $2 trillion, while ICT spending (including telecom services) increased by 4.8% to $3.6 trillion.

Last year was difficult for U.S.-based IT suppliers, however, which were adversely affected by the strength of the dollar throughout most of the year. In U.S.-dollar terms, worldwide IT spending grew by just 3.3%. This marked a significant slowdown from the U.S. dollar growth rate of 9.5% recorded in 2011. In 2013, IT spending is expected to increase by 5.5% as businesses and consumers continue to invest in mobile devices, storage, networks, and software applications.

While overall IT spending remained stable, 2012 was another difficult year for the PC industry, which recorded a 2% decline in annual revenues. Revenue declines were also recorded in servers, PC monitors, and feature phones as cannibalization from tablets and smartphones continued to reshape the IT industry landscape. For the first time, spending on smartphones in 2012 exceeded PCs, reaching almost $300 billion, while PC spending declined to $233 billion.

"Cannibalization is happening across the industry," said Stephen Minton, Vice President in IDC’s Global Technology & Industry Research Organization. "Smartphones have taken over from feature phones, tablet adoption is impacting PC spending, and the Cloud is affecting the traditional software, services and infrastructure markets. IT spending is still growing organically, but not at the same pace as prior to the financial crisis. Businesses are adopting IT solutions such as virtualization, automation, and SaaS as a means to reduce the annual increases in their overall IT spending at a time when economic uncertainty remains high."

The global economy has been volatile through the past 12 months, and this sense of uncertainty persisted into the first quarter of 2013. IDC expects the U.S. economy to stabilize in the second half of the year, driving IT spending growth of 5.5%. 2013 will be another tough year for Europe, however, where tech spending is expected to increase by just 2% as the Eurozone and UK struggle to shrug off the lingering debt crisis. Excluding mobile devices, growth in Europe will be less than 1%. Japan has meanwhile lost most of the post-reconstruction momentum that drove IT spending to increase by 4% in 2012, and will record IT growth of 0% this year.

"This will be another tough year for mature economies," added Minton. "Weakness in Europe, as governments continue to impose austerity measures with a direct and indirect impact on IT spending, has also damaged the export-dependent Japanese economy. The U.S. should perform better, as long as politicians continue to reach 11th-hour deals to avert an economic crisis, and the PC market in the U.S. will at least stabilize after two successive years of major declines."

Emerging markets have also been volatile in the past 12 months, with weaker economic growth in Brazil, India, and China, creating uncertainty for IT vendors. Economic projections for 2013 are generally positive, however, and IDC believes that the government in China has enough ammunition to ensure an improvement in overall growth. With penetration rates still relatively low in many segments and industrial sectors within the BRICs and other key emerging markets, a stable economic outlook will translate into improving IT spending trends.

"We’re more confident about China than we were in the middle of 2012, when PC shipments were slowing and there was a sense that the economy had slowed down more quickly than the government had planned," said Minton. "Underlying IT demand remained strong, despite the volatile capital spending patterns that mainly affected PCs, and total IT spending in China still increased by 16% last year, which was only slightly down compared to 17% growth in 2011. We expect more of the same in 2013, even in spite of the inevitable slowdown in some emerging technology adoption rates as those markets gradually mature."

Researchers at UCLA report that they have refined a method they previously developed for capturing and analyzing cancer cells that break away from patients’ tumors and circulate in the blood. With the improvements to their device, which uses a Velcro-like nanoscale technology, they can now detect and isolate single cancer cells from patient blood samples for analysis.

In recent years, a UCLA research team led by Hsian-Rong Tseng, an associate professor of molecular and medical pharmacology at the Crump Institute for Molecular Imaging and a member of both the California NanoSystems Institute at UCLA and UCLA’s Jonsson Comprehensive Cancer Center, has developed a "NanoVelcro" chip. When blood is passed through the chip, extremely small "hairs" — nanoscale wires or fibers coated with protein antibodies that match proteins on the surface of cancer cells — act like Velcro, traping CTCs and isolating them for analysis.

CTCs trapped by the chip also act as a "liquid biopsy" of the tumor, providing convenient access to tumor cells and earlier information about potentially fatal metastases.

Circulating tumor cells, or CTCs, play a crucial role in cancer metastasis, spreading from tumors to other parts of the body, where they form new tumors. When these cells are isolated from the blood early on, they can provide doctors with critical information about the type of cancer a patient has, the characteristics of the individual cancer and the potential progression of the disease. Doctors can also tell from these cells how to tailor a personalized treatment to a specific patient.

Histopathology — the study of the microscopic structure of biopsy samples — is currently considered the gold standard for determining tumor status, but in the early stages of metastasis, it is often difficult to identify a biopsy site. By being able to extract viable CTCs from the blood with the NanoVelcro chip, however, doctors can perform a detailed analysis of the cancer type and the various genetic characteristics of a patient’s specific cancer.

Improving the NanoVelcro device

Tseng’s team now reports that they have improved the NanoVelcro chip by replacing its original non-transparent silicon nanowire substrate inside with a new type of transparent polymer nanofiber-deposited substrate, allowing the device’s nanowires to better "grab" cancer cells as blood passes by them.

Tseng and his colleagues were able to pick single CTCs immobilized on the new transparent substrate by using a miniaturized laser beam knife, a technique called laser micro-dissection, or LMD.

The researchers’ paper on their improvement to the chip was published online Feb. 22 in the peer-reviewed journal Angewandte Chemie and is featured on the cover of the journal’s March 2013 print issue.

"This paper summarizes a major milestone in the continuous development of NanoVelcro assays pioneered by our research group," Tseng said. "We now can not only capture cancer cells from blood with high efficiency but also hand-pick single CTCs for in-depth characterization to provide crucial information that helps doctors make better decisions."

Testing the improvements on melanoma

Using the new assay on patients’ blood containing circulating melanoma cells (CMCs), Tseng’s team was able to isolate and preserve single CMCs. Melanoma is a deadly type of skin cancer that is prone to spreading quickly throughout the body. The ability to capture and preserve single CMCs allows doctors to analyze melanoma cells’ DNA structure, determine the genetic characteristics of the patient’s cancer and confirm that the circulating cells remain genetically similar to the tumor they came from.

The preservation of single captured CMCs in this proof-of-concept study also allowed researchers to conduct an analysis — called single-cell genotyping — to find within the cell a specific target (BRAF V600E) for a drug called vemurafenib. BRAF V600E is a mutation in the BRAF protein that appears in approximately 60 percent of melanoma cases. Drugs that inhibit BRAF are able to slow and often reverse the growth of melanoma tumors.

"With this technology, we are getting closer to the goal of a widely clinically applicable liquid biopsy, where we can sample cancer cells by a simple blood draw and understand the genes that allow them to grow," said Dr. Antoni Ribas, a professor of medicine in the division of hematology–oncology, a Jonsson Cancer Center member and one of Tseng’s key collaborators. "With the NanoVelcro chips, we will be able to better personalize treatments to patients by giving the right treatment to stop what makes that particular cancer grow."

Dr. Roger Lo, another key Tseng collaborator and an assistant professor in UCLA’s department of medicine, division of dermatology, and department of molecular and medical pharmacology, was also optimistic about the new method.

"This scientific advancement — being able to capture the melanoma cells in transit in the blood and then perform genetic analysis on them — will in principle allow us to track the genomic evolution of melanoma under BRAF-inhibitor therapy and understand better the development of drug resistance," said Lo, who is also a member of the Jonsson Cancer Center.

UCLA’s Jonsson Comprehensive Cancer Center has more than 240 researchers and clinicians engaged in disease research, prevention, detection, control, treatment and education.

Learn more about applications and markets of nanobiotechnology.

JEDEC Solid State Technology Association, a developer of standards for the microelectronics industry, announced today that its Board of Directors has appointed two new members: Mr. Jong H. Oh, Vice President, SK hynix and Mr. Hung Vuong, Qualcomm.  

Representing SK hynix, an active JEDEC member in multiple committees, Mr. Oh brings over 25 years of experience in the semiconductor memory industry ranging from circuit design to marketing and product planning.  He holds 49 US patents and a Bachelor of Science in Electrical Engineering from Seoul National University in Korea.

During Mr. Vuong’s tenure as Qualcomm’s lead representative to JEDEC, Qualcomm has increased its involvement and assumed several leadership positions in JEDEC committees. Mr. Vuong is currently Chairman of two JEDEC subcommittees and brings a wealth of experience in the mobile market to his new position on the Board, including high performance at low power.

“JEDEC is honored to welcome Mr. Oh and Mr. Vuong to its Board of Directors,” said Mian Quddus, JEDEC Board of Directors Chairman. He added, “This is a crucial time in the industry and within JEDEC for introducing new memory concepts and facilitating the rapid growth of the mobile market. I am very pleased by the depth and breadth of expertise both Mr. Oh and Mr. Vuong will bring to their new role as Board members.”

JEDEC is a developer of standards for the microelectronics industry.  Over 4,000 participants, appointed by nearly 300 companies, work together in 50 JEDEC committees to meet the needs of every segment of the industry, manufacturers and consumers alike.

Toshiba develops CMOS image sensorToshiba Corporation announced the development of a CMOS image sensor with a small area and low power pixel readout circuits. A sample sensor embedded with the readout circuits shows double the performance of a conventional one. Toshiba presented this development at ISSCC 2013 in San Francisco, CA on Feb. 20.

As demand for commodity mobile phones takes off in emerging markets, CMOS image sensor need to be smaller, consume less power and offer low noise performance. The pixel readout circuits of CMOS image sensors are largely noise reducing correlated double sampling (CDS) circuits, along with a programmable gain amplifier (PGA) and an analog to digital converter (ADC). Serial signal processing architecture is best suited for securing conventional CMOS image sensors with a small area and low power pixel readout circuits, because a PGA and ADC can be shared by many CDS circuits placed in each column area of the sensor. However, smaller size and lower power are still challenges, since noise reduction circuits occupy a large area in the readout circuits, and PGA and ADC have high power consumption.

Key key technologies to overcome these challenges:

1) Column CDS circuits primarily made up of aria-efficient PMOS capacitors. The area of the CDS circuits is reduced to about half that of conventional circuits.

2) In the readout circuits, a level shift function is simultaneously achieved by a capacitive coupling through the PMOS capacitors, allowing adjustment of the signal dynamic range between the column CDS circuits and the PGA and the ADC. This achieves low power and low voltage implementation of the PGA and ADC, reducing their power consumption by 40%.

3) Implementation of a low power switching procedure in the ADC suited to processing the pixel signals of CMOS image sensors. This reduces the switching power consumption of the ADC by 80%.

Toshiba has integrated the three technologies in a sample sensor and confirmed that they double the overall performance of the sensor core. The company now plans to apply CMOS image sensors with the readout circuits to low cost mobile phones and medical cameras in fiscal year 2013.

The Touch Panel Transparent Conductive Film, or TCF, market was reported $956 million in 2012. Markets are anticipated to reach $4.8 billion by 2019. Indium tin oxide (ITO) is an entrenched technology for displays manufacturing. ITO has been the transparent conductive film technology for touch screens, but ReportsNReports says newer technology will erode ITO and provide improved functionality at lower prices.

Transparent conductive film enables features of smart phones and electronics applications, devices which are evolving in response in part to the characteristics of the transparent conductive film that is used in the user interface.

The advantage of transparent conductive film is that a very thin layer of material as a coating on a surface can provide touch screen capability. Transparent conductive film supports electronic device usability, and factors that influence commercial success in the wireless device and services market relate to usability above all. Development of an integrated hardware, software and service platform to support multiple wireless network standards is an essential aspect of market participation.

ReportsNReports noted that the key players in the transparent conductive film markets are mainly leveraging the expanding market opportunities related to mobile communication and media devices of smart phones and tablets. Transparent conductive film provides the base for device navigation by recognizing the presence of a finger as it moves across a screen. That navigation supports transmission of digital data into and out of the smart phone. The transparent conductive film markets are highly competitive, and the competition is expected to intensify significantly as new technologies evolve.

The principal competitive factors of the transparent conductive film market include price, product features, relative price/performance, product quality and reliability, design innovation, marketing and distribution capability, service and support, and corporate reputation. Indium tin oxide (ITO) has been the prevailing transparent conductive film used in touch screen applications, and it requires an expensive and cumbersome sputtering deposition process. The price of indium is increasing rapidly and the film is rigid. As a result, there is demand for more flexible film in the market.

Photo by gletham GIS, Social, Mobile Tech via flickr

TESEC Corporation today announced the development and sales of the ULTRA MEMS handler, targeting Inertial (Accelerometer, Gyroscope and Magnetometer) MEMS devices. The ULTRA handler was designed jointly by TESEC and FocusTest, Inc. The ULTRA is a carrier based system with parallel test capabilities for 16, 32, 64 and 96 devices. The system will be available for demonstration and shipment mid-2013.

The overall MEMS market is the fastest growing portion of the semiconductor market, with 2012 revenues of $11.5B and an expected growth rate exceeding 10% for the next several years. According to TESEC’s Director of Sales, Keizo Yamaguchi, “the MEMS handling market is expanding rapidly and with the introduction of the ULTRA, TESEC intends to become a significant supplier to this segment.”

The ULTRA handler provides MEMS device suppliers with a significant throughput enhancement, as a significant portion of devices are being tested today on systems that provide only four to sixteen parallel processing. In addition to significantly higher parallel performance, the ULTRA offers a host of features aimed at higher performance and lower test time. With ±360 degree, 3 axis rotation the ULTRA is capable of providing stimulus for accelerometers and gyroscopes. A magnetic stimulus unit adds magnetometer test capability, making the ULTRA the industry’s first 9 degrees of freedom (DOF) capable system.

Future versions of the ULTRA are planned to expand coverage to address pressure sensor and high G MEMS devices.

“FocusTest brings 20 years of MEMS handling, stimulus and test experience to the ULTRA,” said Richard Chrusciel, ULTRA Product Development Manager, adding: “our partnership with TESEC brings over 40 years of experience and achievement in semiconductor handling, as well as a worldwide organization. The fusion of FocusTest and TESEC will bring world class automation to the MEMS handling market.”

The ULTRA handling and stimulus system is available in ambient and full tri-temperature configurations. Best of all, the unit is priced to avoid sticker shock, with base system configurations targeted to be of equal to or lower cost than current market products.

TESEC will provide world-wide sales/distribution, manufacturing and support for the ULTRA. FocusTest will provide MEMS and test cell specific engineering and applications.