Category Archives: Online Magazines

With Microsoft introducing Windows 8 operating system that provides the touch interface in the fourth quarter of 2012, notebook PCs with touch-screen panels were released. And this led to the opening of a new market, for projected capacitive touch panels of 10 inches or larger.

There have been issues with touch-screen notebooks in its initial market, and some may rush to call it a failure. But it’s been only less than a year since such laptops were released, and thus it is yet too early to make any decision. True. Looking at the business plans of major laptop makers for 2013, touch-screen notebooks should hold at least 10 percent of the total laptop shipments. In particular, brands from the great China region, including Lenovo, Acer and Asus, have set higher targets of achieving more than 20 percent. 

According to a research by Displaybank, acquired by IHS, total shipments of notebooks with touch screens were 4.57 million units in the first quarter of 2013, up 51.8 percent from a quarter earlier. The touch laptops made up almost 10 percent of the overall notebook market, whose shipments posted 46 million units. Considering that the market is at its initial stage, the penetration rate of touch-screen notebooks is quite high.

first quarter results of touch-screen notebook shipments
(Source: Displaybank, “Touch Panel Shipment Database – Notebook PC,” Q1-13)

With touch-screen notebooks released, manufacturing larger projected capacitive touch panels is accelerating and touch-screen panel related companies are trying hard to be the first to lead the market. Unfortunately, however, as there are no data on touch laptop market good enough to refer, it is not easy for the companies in the industry to set a business plan.

Displaybank published a quarterly “Touch Panel Shipment Database – Notebook PC” report to help them understanding the notebook-use projected capacitive touch panel industry quickly and accurately. The report provides quarterly shipments of touch-screen notebooks by unit/area/value; by inch; by brand; by form factor; by touch panel layer; by touch panel module and controller IC maker; and by cover window materials and bonding type, as well as top five models in terms of shipments.

Displaybank says the report should offer insight into the related market and industry to notebook set makers that are interested in notebook-use projected capacitive touch panels and companies related to touch panel modules, parts and raw materials.

Imec and Renesas Electronics Corporation, a supplier of advanced semiconductor solutions, announced today that they have entered into a new strategic research collaboration at Holst Centre. Together, the companies will collaborate to enhance ultra-low power (ULP) wireless technologies for short range communication, targeting sensor networks for automotive and industrial purposes.

As the newest member of imec’s ULP wireless systems program, Renesas will work to jointly develop multi-standard radio solutions for small battery-operated or harvested wireless handheld devices. By combining innovative architectures, advanced ULP design IP and efficient low power circuits, imec’s ULP radios achieve best-in-class performance and reduce power consumption by a factor of 3 to 10 lower than today’s radios. Additionally, imec’s ULP high-performance radios are compliant with state-of-the-art wireless standards, such as Bluetooth Low Energy (2.4GHz band) and ZigBee (2.4GHz band).

“Building on a proven track record of designs, our research program on ULP wireless systems offers great value to our industrial partners. Combining application, circuits and technology know-how, we provide a complete solution, shortening the time-to-market for our industrial partners,” said Harmke de Groot, program director ULP wireless technologies at imec/Holst Centre. “After five years of successful collaboration in our Green Radio program, we are pleased that a prominent semiconductor company as Renesas now joins our ULP wireless systems R&D. We look forward to developing enhanced ULP solutions contributing to the realization of the internet of things in mass market applications.”

"Various applications of sensor networks for a smart society need ultra-low power wireless communication technologies. So we develop innovative RF architectures and circuit technologies for them," said Koichi Yahagi, Senior Manager of 2nd Analog Core Development Department, Core Technology Business Division, 1st Solution Business Unit, Renesas Electronics Corporation. "We are pleased to join imec’s program to develop new ultra-low power technologies. By combining our Microcontroller units with ultra-low power wireless communication technologies led by this collaboration, we aim to supply solutions for a smart society."

Researchers from Renesas will reside at Holst Centre in Eindhoven, Netherlands, to closely collaborate with imec’s research team. Renesas will gain access to imec’s years of research in this space.

Noel Technologies, a Silicon Valley technology foundry offering process development and substrate fabrication, recently expanded its capabilities to include advanced lithography services. To push their technology roadmap to 0.15 micron, they have hired former director of application development at ASML, Keith Best, as director of photolithography.

Keith Best, Noel Technologies

The foundry will offer a host of capabilities in lithography for device manufacturers and researchers including engineering support for reticle layout and process development for DUV 248nm (0.15 micron), i-line (0.35 micron) and contact printing.

Noel Technologies said they also plan to offer R&D in lithography, lithography pilot production runs, litho cell backup, and resist spin coatings.

Best comes to Noel from Simax Lithography, an engineering services company that optimized lithography equipment, where he was vice president, applications. Prior to Simax, he spent 11 years at ASML, most recently as director of application development, and also worked for LSI Logic and KLA-Tencor. With both a fab and tool background, Best will be charged with supporting and expanding Noel’s existing lithography engineering services and setting a roadmap to take lithography resolution down to 0.15 microns.

"With last fall’s demise of SVTC," said Noel Technologies Founder and CTO Leon Pearce, "we realized the valley needed contract lithography services. By adding advanced lithography to our mix, it’s a declaration to our customers that we are a full service facility, able to supply everything from R&D to pilot and capacity runs."

Noel Technologies, Inc. is a Silicon Valley based foundry focused on process development, optimization, quality and delivery. An ISO 9001 registered facility, Noel Technologies offers process development and fabrication up to 300mm.

last power logoLAST POWER, the European Union-sponsored program aimed at developing a cost-effective and reliable technology for power electronics, today announced its three-year program achievements.

Launched in April 2010 by the European Nanoelectronics Initiative Advisory Council (ENIAC) Joint Undertaking (JU), a public-private partnership in nanoelectronics, LAST POWER links private companies, universities and public research centers working in the field of wide bandgap semiconductors (SiC and GaN). The consortium members are STMicroelectronics (Italy), project coordinator, LPE/ETC (Italy), Institute for Microelectronics and Microsystems of the National Research Council -IMM-CNR (Italy), Foundation for Research & Technology-Hellas – FORTH (Greece), NOVASiC (France), Consorzio Catania Ricerche – CCR (Italy), Institute of High Pressure Physics – Unipress (Poland), Università della Calabria (Italy), SiCrystal (Germany), SEPS Technologies (Sweden), SenSiC (Sweden), Acreo (Sweden), Aristotle University of Thessaloniki – AUTH (Greece).

The main achievements in SiC-related efforts were based on the demonstration by SiCrystal of large-area 4H-SiC substrates, 150mm in diameter, with a cut-off angle of 2°-off axis. The material quality, both in crystal structure and surface roughness, is comparable with the standard 100mm 4°-off material available at the beginning of the project. At LPE/ETC, these substrates have been used for epitaxial growth of moderately doped epi-layers suitable for the fabrication of 600-1200V JBS (Junction Barrier Schottky) diodes and MOSFETs, owing to the development of a novel CVD reactor for the growth on large-area (150mm) 4H-SiC.

The quality of the epitaxial layer enabled the fabrication of JBS (Junction Barrier Schottky) diodes in the industrial production line at STMicroelectronics. The characterization of the first lots showed electrical performance comparable with the state-of-the-art 4°-off material. In this context, the fundamental technological step was the chemical mechanical polishing (CMP) process — StepSiC  reclamation and planarization — implemented at NOVASiC, which is a key issue both for the preparation of the substrates before epitaxial growth and for the sub-nanometric control of the surface roughness of the device active layers. Within the project, the same company also developed epitaxial growth capability for both MOSFET and JFET devices.

Additional research activities in SiO2/SiC interfaces have been carried out in collaboration with ST and IMM-CNR to improve the channel mobility in 4H-SiC MOSFETs.

Finally, novel technological modules for high-temperature 4H-SiC JFETs and MOSFETs have been developed in collaboration between Acreo and FORTH, with the support of CCR for the study of molding compounds and "lead-free" die-attach materials for reliable packaging solutions.

The LAST POWER project also researched the use of GaN-based devices in power-electronics applications. In particular, ST successfully obtained the development of AlGaN/GaN HEMTs epitaxial structures grown on 150mm Si substrates, reaching a target of 3mm thickness and 200V breakdown. LAST POWER worked with IMM-CNR, Unipress, and ST to develop the technological steps for normally-off AlGaN/GaN HEMTs with a "gold-free" approach. The process modules are fully compatible with the device-fabrication flow-chart set in the ST production line and are being integrated for HEMTs fabrication. The fruitful interaction between the project partners working on material growth and device technology has enabled important steps towards monolithic integration of GaN-based and SiC-based devices, as both technologies have been successfully proven on 2°-off axis 4H-SiC substrates.

Yole Développement announced its 2.5D, 3DIC and TSV Interconnect Patent Investigation report. Yole Développement’s investigation aims at providing statistical analysis of existing IP to give a landscape overview together with an in-depth investigation on five player portfolios selected by the analyst.

2.5D, 3DIC and TSV patent landscape

A very young patent landscape dominated by 10 companies

For this analysis of 3D packaging technology patents, more than 1800 patent families were screened. Fifty-two percent of the families have been classified as relevant and further studied.

“The in-depth analysis quickly revealed that the overall patent landscape was pretty young with 82 percent of patents filed since 2006,” explained Lionel Cadix, technology and market analyst of the Advanced Packaging division at Yole Développement. “Actually about 260 players are involved in 3DIC technology while the top 10 assignees represents 48 percent of patents filed in the 3DIC domain.”

In this report, Yole Développement selected five companies from these 10 most active players to focus on and lead an accurate analysis of their patent portfolios.

Yole Développement also found main types of business models among the top 10 assignees involved in this mutating middle end area:

  • Foundries and IDM: IBM, Samsung, Intel
  • OSATs: STATS ChipPAC, Amkor
  • Memory IDM/Foundries: Micron, SK Hynix, Elpida
  • Research centers: ITRI

It is also interesting to notice that the USA is the early player increasingly involved in 3DIC since 1969. China and Korea are new players since 2005.

This complete description of the patent landscape is included in the first part of the report and provides all the background materials for the 3DIC patent landscape analysis. Yole Développement’s report provides a complete analysis of the patent landscape including geographical origins of the patents, companies or R&D organizations that have been granted the patents, historical data on when the companies that have applied for patents in the last 20 years, inventors of the patents, expiration status, R&D collaborations.

Understanding the patent portfolio of the top 10 3DIC assignees

The report also provides a deep dive into each of the patent portfolios of assignees selected by Yole Développement, including Intel, Samsung, Micron, IBM and TSMC.

For each of these companies, Yole’s report provides an in-depth analysis of its patent portfolio, highlighting the following points:

  • Company patent portfolio evolution
  • Countries of deposition and origin of the patents
  • Top inventors
  • Technical segmentation of each patent portfolio
  • Patent portfolio analysis for each manufacturing process steps and architecture
  • Main technical innovations

This analysis of each company provides an in-depth view of the strengths and weaknesses of the patent portfolio of each company and the developments that are now implemented by these companies.

Original equipment manufacturers (OEMs) are increasingly turning to electronics manufacturing service (EMS) providers to better handle the escalating volumes of electronic content in the medical industry. With opportunities for high-level product assembly and complete build projects expected to increase, the potential for EMS in the medical industry will progress gradually over the next few years

New analysis from Frost & Sullivan, “EMS Opportunities in the Medical Industry,” research finds that the market earned revenue of more than $16.43 billion in 2012 and estimates this to reach $34.38 billion in 2019.

 “The challenge in maintaining certified, state-of-the-art manufacturing facilities and complex supply chain operations is that it strains OEMs’ profit margins, compelling them to adopt EMS,” said Frost & Sullivan Electronics and Manufacturing Equipment Research Analyst Lavanya Rammohan. “EMS providers, with their exposure to various verticals, are the ideal solution to manage the electronics boom in healthcare brought about by the use of wireless communications, robotics and software.”

Rising demand for engineering support as well as improving EMS competencies in product introduction, manufacture design and value-add services will boost EMS growth in the medical industry.

However, despite EMS providers’ growing expertise, the risk of liabilities prevents OEMs from outsourcing several services. Stringent regulations place medical OEMs under huge scrutiny, thereby limiting their outsourcing to tactical operations, such as printed circuit board assembly and sub-system assembly.

Strict regulations also lengthen the outsourcing cycle, as OEMs are cautious in decision-making and favor EMS vendors with proven expertise. Manufacturers’ preference to retain intellectual property and strategic customer touch points reduces revenue possibilities for EMS dealers.

“EMS suppliers need to focus on developing strong relationships with original equipment manufacturers to build trust and capability, as OEM-EMS partnerships require long-term commitment in order for outsourcing to increase,” concluded Rammohan. “Service providers must be aware of industry trends, including financial models, long sales realization cycles, manufacturing challenges, supply chain complexities, certifications and audits, to offer all-round services.”

MEMS Industry Group (MIG), the industry organization advancing MEMS across global markets, today announced its conference and exposition line-up for the 2013 Sensors Expo and Conference, an event in North America for designing sensors and sensor-integrated systems. Joined by member-companies, MIG will examine MEMS sensor fusion through a pre-conference symposium. MIG speakers will also address MEMS in consumer, industrial and medical/healthcare markets through a MEMS conference track and MEMS Pavilion exhibition area on the show floor.

Pre-conference Symposium: MEMS Sensor Fusion

During the MEMS Pre-conference Symposium—“MEMS Sensor Fusion: Faster: Stronger. Smarter.” on June 4, MIG speakers will discuss how sensor fusion—the intelligent combination of data from several sensors for the purpose of improving application or system performance—is moving rapidly into the commercialization phase.

“MEMS sensor fusion offers the leading approach to meeting or exceeding power, performance and cost requirements in heterogeneous embedded systems—including mobile handsets and tablets,” said Karen Lightman, executive director, MEMS Industry Group. “And with MEMS sensors critical to the Internet of Things, embedded systems designers are increasingly hungry for information on sensor fusion tools and techniques. That is why, in our third consecutive year of playing a significant role at Sensors Expo, we decided to focus our symposium on this exciting topic.”

The MEMS Pre-conference Symposium will feature:

  • Introduction—Karen Lightman, executive director, MEMS Industry Group
  • MEMS Analyst Panel: Sensor Fusion Growth and Trends—Marwan Boustany, senior analyst MEMS + SENSORS, IHS iSuppli; Laurent Robin, market and technology analyst, Yole Développement; Tony Massimini, chief of technology, Semico Research
  • Simplifying Sensor Fusion—Marcellino Gemelli, senior marketing manager, Bosch Sensortec
  • How to Use Always-On Sensors for Context Awareness: Getting More Out of Mobile Devices—Kevin Shaw, CTO, Sensor Platforms
  • Architectures for “Always-On” Motion Sensor Fusion for Mobile Devices—Per Slycke, CTO and  founder, Xsens Technologies BV
  • Piezoelectric MEMS MicroPowerGenerators for Smart Wireless Sensor Networks—Kathleen Vaeth, vice president of engineering, MicroGen Systems
  • How the Micro-Amp Magnetic Gyro Opens up New Possibilities for Mobile Applications—John Chong, director, product engineering, Kionix
  • Android as a Platform for Sensor Fusion Education and Evaluation—Mike Stanley, systems engineer, Freescale Semiconductor
  • Sensor Modeling for MEMS Sensor Fusion—MaryAnn Maher, CEO and founder, SoftMEMS
  • MEMS Sensor Fusion Panel: A Dive into Standardization—David DiPaola, principal, DiPaola Consulting; Ken Foust, sensor technologist, Intel Corp.; Becky Oh, president and CEO, PNI Sensor Corporation; Satwant Singh, MIPI Alliance
  • Thinking Outside the (Mobile) Box: Other Important High-Value Applications for Sensor Fusion—Alissa Fitzgerald, founder and managing member, A.M. Fitzgerald & Associates

For more information on the MEMS conference track and more at the 2013 Sensor Expo and Conference, visit http://bit.ly/MIGse13.

MEMS Industry Group (MIG) is the trade association advancing MEMS across global markets. More than 140 companies and industry partners comprise MIG, including Analog Devices, Applied Materials, Bosch, Freescale Semiconductor, GE, Honeywell, HP, Intel, InvenSense, Murata Electronics Oy, OMRON Electronic Components, Qualcomm Technologies, Inc., STMicroelectronics and Texas Instruments.

carbon nanotube UCRThe atom-sized world of carbon nanotubes holds great promise for a future demanding smaller and faster electronic components. Nanotubes are stronger than steel and smaller than any element of silicon-based electronics—the ubiquitous component of today’s electrical devices—and have better conductivity, which means they can potentially process information faster while using less energy.

The challenge has been figuring out how to incorporate all those great properties into useful electronic devices. A new discovery by four scientists at the University of California, Riverside has brought us closer to the goal. They discovered that by adding ionic liquid—a kind of liquid salt—they can modify the optical transparency of single-walled carbon nanotube films in a controlled pattern.

“It was a discovery, not something we were looking for,” said Robert Haddon, director of UC Riverside’s Center for Nanoscale Science and Engineering. Scientists Feihu Wang, Mikhail Itkis and Elena Bekyarova were looking at ways to improve the electrical behavior of carbon nanotubes, and as part of their research they also looked at whether they could modulate the transparency of the films. An article about their findings was published online in April in Nature Photonics.

The scientists spent some time trying to affect the optical properties of carbon nanotube films with an electric field, with little success, said Itkis, a research scientist at the Center for Nanoscale Science and Engineering.

“But when we applied a thin layer of an ionic liquid on top of the nanotube film we noticed that the change of transparency is amplified 100 times and that the change in transparency occurs in the vicinity of one of the electrodes, so we started studying what causes these drastic changes and how to create transparency in controlled patterns,” Itkis said.

An ionic liquid contains negative and positive ions which can interact with the nanotubes, dramatically influencing their ability to store an electrical charge. That increases or decreases their transparency, similar to the way that glasses darken in sunlight. By learning how to manipulate the transparency, scientists may be able to start incorporating nanotube films into products that now rely on slower or heavier components, such as metal oxide.

For instance, using nanotube films meshed with a film of ionic liquid, scientists could create more cost effective Smart Windows, that darken when it’s hot outside and become lighter when it’s cold.

“Smart Windows are a new industry that has been shown to save 50 percent of your energy costs,” said Itkis. “On a very hot day you can shade your window just by turning a switch, so you don’t have to use as much air conditioning. And on a winter day, you can make a window more transparent to let in more light.”

The scientists still need to study the economic viability of using nanotube film, but Bekyarova said one possible advantage would be that carbon nanotubes are ultra thin—about 1,000 times smaller than a single strand of hair—so you would need very little to cover a large area, such as the windows of a large building.

Itkis said nanotube films also hold great promise in building lighter and more compact analytical instruments such as spectrometers, which are used to analyze the properties of light.

In this application, a nanotube film with an array of electrodes can be used as an electrically configurable diffraction grating for an infrared spectrometer, allowing the wavelength of light to be scanned without moving parts.

Furthermore, by using addressable electrodes, the spatial pattern of the induced transparency in the nanotube film can be modified in a controlled way and used as an electrically configurable optical media for storage and transfer of information via patterns of light.

Carbon nanotubes have great potential, but there is still plenty of work to be done to make them useful in electronics and optoelectronics, Haddon said.

“The challenge is to harness their outstanding properties,” he said.  “They won’t be available at Home Depot next week, but there is continuing progress in the field.”

The Semiconductor Industry Association (SIA), representing U.S. leadership in semiconductor manufacturing and design, announced that worldwide sales of semiconductors reached $23.48 billion for the month of March 2013, an increase of 1.1 percent from the previous month when sales were $23.23 billion. Global sales for March 2013 were 0.9 percent higher than the March 2012 total of $23.28 billion, and total sales through the first quarter of 2013 were 0.9 percent higher than sales from the first quarter of 2012. All monthly sales numbers represent a three-month moving average.  

“Through the first quarter of 2013, the global semiconductor industry has seen modest but consistent growth compared to last year,” said Brian Toohey, president and CEO, Semiconductor Industry Association. “Sales have increased across most end product categories, with memory showing the strongest growth. With recent indications that companies could be set to replenish inventories, we are hopeful that growth will continue in the months ahead. Regionally, the Americas slipped slightly in March after a strong start to the year, but Asia Pacific and Europe have seen impressive growth recently.” 

Year-over-year sales increased in Asia Pacific (6.9 percent) and Europe (0.7 percent), but decreased slightly in the Americas (-1.5 percent) and sharply in Japan (-18 percent), reflecting in part the devaluation of the Japanese yen. Sales in Europe increased by 5.7 percent compared to the previous month, the region’s largest sequential monthly increase since March 2010.  Sales also increased from the previous month in Asia Pacific (1.7 percent), but fell in Japan (-1.6 percent) and the Americas (-1.9 percent).

NeoPhotonics Corporation, a designer and manufacturer of photonic integrated circuit-based optoelectronic modules and subsystems, today announced the opening of a sales and R&D office in Moscow and servicing the Russian Federation and the broader eastern European market.

“We are pleased to make this commitment to our customers and technology partners in the region, and to build on the growing demand in the region for advanced telecommunications and enterprise data solutions,” said Tim Jenks, chairman and CEO of NeoPhotonics. “Together with our expanded sales force serving the region, this is the next step in our local business development activities including a greater research presence and the potential for production of advanced PIC-based solutions.”

As noted in last year’s announcement, NeoPhotonics completed a private placement investment with the Russian sovereign fund investor, RUSNANO.

NeoPhotonics is a designer and manufacturer of photonic integrated circuit, or PIC, based optoelectronic modules and subsystems for bandwidth-intensive, high-speed communications networks. NeoPhotonics maintains headquarters in San Jose, California and engineering and manufacturing facilities in Silicon Valley (USA), Japan and China.