Category Archives: Online Magazines

STMicroelectronics has begun working with research partners to develop a pilot line for next-generation MEMS devices augmented with advanced technologies such as piezoelectric or magnetic materials and 3D packaging. The project was launched by the European Nanoelectronics Initiative Advisory Council (ENIAC) Joint Undertaking (JU), a public-private partnership in nanoelectronics. 

In coordinating the €28m, 30-month Lab4MEMS project, ST is working with universities, research institutions and technology businesses across nine European countries. The project benefits from ST’s MEMS facilities in France, Italy and Malta to establish a complete set of manufacturing competencies for next-generation devices, spanning design and fabrication to test and packaging.

With over 800 MEMS-related patents, more than three billion devices shipped and extensive in-house production capabilities currently producing more than 4 million MEMS devices per day, ST is ideally placed to lead the Lab4MEMS research into next-generation devices. The project will develop technologies such as Piezoelectric (PZT) thin films to enhance current pure-silicon MEMS, enabling improvements such as larger displacement, higher sensing functionality and greater energy density. These are needed to build smart sensors, actuators, micro pumps and energy harvesters meeting the demands of future data-storage, ink-jet, healthcare, automotive, industrial-control and smart-building applications, as well as consumer applications such as smartphones and navigation devices.

The project will also develop advanced packaging technologies and vertical interconnections using flip-chip, through-silicon vias and through-mold vias, enabling 3D-integrated devices for applications such as body area sensors and remote monitoring. A key target is to perfect a PZT deposition process compatible with mass production, and integrate it into complex MEMS processes to enable innovative actuators and sensors on System-On-Chip industrial products.

Lab4MEMS is one of the Key Enabling Technologies (KET) Pilot-Line projects contracted by the ENIAC JU to develop technologies and application areas with substantial societal impact.

“The ENIAC JU research agenda has synergies with ST’s commitment to improving quality of life through technology,” said Roberto Zafalon, European Programs Manager, R&D and Public Affairs, STMicroelectronics. “Lab4MEMS is an important project that will benefit consortium members and stakeholders, including ENIAC member states. Ultimately, we expect the results to translate into long-term prosperity and valuable knowledge-based employment opportunities.”

The ENIAC JU is a public-private partnership involving ENIAC member states, the European Union, and the Association for European Nanoelectronics Activities (AENEAS). It is currently contributing some €1.8bn towards the costs of R&D projects, which it selects through a competitive process assessing responses to its Calls for Proposals. The Lab4MEMS project, coordinated by ST, was selected in 2012 and work began in January 2013.

Machinery Production in China is forecast this year to rebound 11 percent to $426 billion after suffering from overcapacity in 2012 that limited industry growth, according to a new report from IMS Research, now part of IHS Inc.

The projected growth in 2013 is encouraging, given that revenue last year grew by less than 10 percent- the lowest rate in many years – following the severe impact of a weak export market and a shortage in investments. Prior to the slowdown, China’s machinery production had expanded by a robust 20 percent in 2011 to $379.8 billion. Economic performance was also strong in 2010 after the government’s deployment of a 4 trillion yuan ($643 billion) stimulus policy in 2009.

 Trouble began in the second half of 2011 because of high inflation and an overheating economy, and the central government stepped in by implementing tightening policies. Even so, other difficulties persisted, according to findings from the report entitled “The Machinery Production Yearbook – China – 2013.”

 “Many industries in China suffered from significant over capacity in 2012, including construction machinery production, paper and paperboard production, and photovoltaic manufacturing to name a few,” commented Jay Tang, author of the report and analyst for industrial automation at IHS. “The Chinese government will likely maintain a tightening policy in the first half of 2013, but this won’t continue in the second half because of a bad export situation and the slowdown in economic growth.”

 China’s machinery relies heavily on the export market, but the weakening demand of export markets in the U.S. and the European Union is making manufacturers pay more attention to the domestic market. Among machinery industries in China that experienced decreased activity in 2012 were those engaged in cranes, rubber and plastics, semiconductors, textiles, woodworking, and metalworking.

 A few industries grew during the same time, mostly in areas related to fulfilling domestic consumption. These included agricultural machinery, electronics and electronics assembly, food, beverage & tobacco machinery, packaging machinery and industrial robotics.

Signs emerged by year-end that the China economy was starting to recover after a generally tough 2012 for machine builders. Real estate was heating up, and investments in the railway system were continuing.

 Still, the Chinese government is expected to remain cautious this year with any stimulus policy as the economy improves, given concerns over excesses resulting from the massive stimulus during the 2009 global recession. China’s economy also will likely remain constrained by limited Eurozone demand and weakness in non-state investments, IHS believes.

The Temescal Division of Ferrotec Corporation, a global supplier of materials, components, and precision system solutions and a manufacturer of electron beam evaporation systems, today announced the Temescal UEFC-5700, a ultra-high efficiency electron beam metallization system for lift-off compound semiconductor applications. The UEFC-5700 is the first Temescal system to incorporate the Auratus Deposition Process Enhancement Methodology, offering near-perfect uniformity while delivering up to 40 percent increases in material collection efficiency, resulting in significant cost savings on process materials like gold and platinum compared to traditional box coaters.

The Temescal UEFC-5700 is designed for compound semiconductor production environments that use lift-off electron beam evaporation processes. The UEFC-5700 features a unique conical shaped vacuum chamber that reduces volume and surface area, significantly reducing pump-down time. The system also features a patent-pending High-Uniformity Lift-off Assembly (HULA) design that uses a dual-axis motion to optimize collection efficiency.

"With the UEFC-5700, we have significantly improved the throughput efficiency of traditional lift-off coating processes. From the unique chamber design to the HULA carrier system, the UEFC-5700 improves pumping and batch capacity with excellent uniformity across all evaporated materials, enabling the system to run more wafers and more batches per day than any conventional box coater," said Gregg Wallace, managing director of Ferrotec’s Temescal division. "The biggest benefit to users of this system is the improvement in uniformity and collection efficiency of all materials being evaporated. For IDMs and foundries, this equates to improved yields of better devices that cost much less to produce. "

The Temescal UEFC-5700 offers increased wafer production capacity, up to forty-two 150mm wafers in a batch, without a significant change in raw material or energy consumption. In terms of footprint and power consumption, the UEFC-5700 is virtually identical to the FC-4400 system, Temescal’s largest production system.

With its unique conical shaped load-locked chamber and 44,000 liters/second of installed cryogenic pumping capacity, the UEFC-5700 reaches process pressures significantly faster than most conventional box coaters. Systems have reached 5E-07 Torr in under 10 minutes, improving production cycle times and the number of batches that can be run per shift or day.

The system incorporates Temescal’s Auratus deposition process enhancement methodology. Auratus is a patent-pending proprietary optimization methodology for lift-off electron beam evaporative coating that incorporates patent pending technology to achieve unprecedented levels of uniformity, precision, and collection efficiency.

electron beam metallization system

Veeco Instruments Inc. announced today that CEA-Leti, a research lab based in Grenoble, France, has selected Veeco’s TurboDisc K465i Metal Organic Chemical Vapor Deposition (MOCVD) system for its program with Aledia, its nanowire-LED partner.

Aledia is a start-up company spun out of the CEA-Leti labs in 2011 and based at the CEA site. It counts among its three founders two former CEA researchers, Xavier Hugon and Philippe Gilet. Aledia’s goal is to manufacture 3D nanowire-based LEDs for solid-state lighting applications on thin silicon wafer substrates, of 8 inches or greater in diameter, at a cost significantly below that of conventional planar LEDs. Nanowires are thin crystalline structures that, when electrically charged, can emit a broader spectrum of light than conventional LEDs, and can be grown on industry-standard silicon substrates. Aledia’s nanowire technology was originally developed at CEA-Leti, and Aledia and CEA-Leti continue to develop nanowire technology in close cooperation.

“We are confident that Veeco’s MOCVD system is the right equipment to help make this technology successful,” said Fabrice Geiger, head of CEA-Leti’s Silicon Technology Division.

According to Giorgio Anania, Aledia’s President and Chief Executive Officer, “The TurboDisc reactor will be an important element of our strategy to take this potentially game-changing technology towards the commercialization phase. In partnership with CEA-Leti, we selected Veeco because our analysis indicated that at this time their MOCVD systems showed the best financial returns for 8 inch wafer production on the market.”

The second Cleanzone on October 22 and 23, 2013 in Frankfurt am Main is off to a promising start with a stronger profile. Last year, the trade fair and congress made a successful debut as the new international industry meeting point for cleanroom technology. It is targeted towards all companies and sectors in which industrial production is taking place under cleanroom conditions today and tomorrow.

2013 the trade fair will therefore be focusing even more precisely on visitors coming from two important industrial sectors: “Technology & Micro-Technology,” which is targeted towards the micro-electronics, micro-system technology, semi-conductors, aerospace technology, optical and laser technology, automotive, electronics and precision engineering markets. The other main focus comprises “Life Sciences,” with the markets of pharmaceuticals, cosmetics, sterile production of food, medical research, pharmacies and biotechnology. Overlaps can be found in the areas of medical technology and packaging solutions.

"With the stronger profile we are underlining the interdisciplinary character of Cleanzone. At the same time, we directly address those industries that are relatively new to this fascinating and future-oriented cross-sectional technology,” says Johannes Schmid-Wiedersheim, Director New Events at Messe Frankfurt Exhibition.

Cleanzone in Frankfurt

Cleanzone is the new international cross-sector meeting place for cleanroom technology. It is organized by Messe Frankfurt and supported by its marketing and content partner ReinraumAkademie Leipzig. Participants from 13 countries made their way to Frankfurt for the debut in October 2012, and both the trade fair and congress earned top marks: 89 percent of visitors and 84 percent of exhibitors were “satisfied” or “very satisfied” with the event’s debut, 46 percent of visitors were from top management, and 88 percent stated that they were able to influence purchasing and procurement decisions in their companies. Both the international scope and thematic range of the trade fair and congress are to be expanded in their second year.

Consumers increasingly want to use their media tablets and smartphones to stream high-definition video to displays in their cars, a phenomenon that will help to nearly double the size of the market for semiconductors used in automotive wired and wireless network applications from 2011 to 2018.

Revenue in 2018 for semiconductors used for in-vehicle connectivity and networking is forecast to reach $841.8 million, up from $438.8 million in 2011, according to an IHS Automotive Infotainment Market Tracker Report from information and analytics provider IHS. The market this year is expected to rise to $585.4 million, up from $545.1 million last year. The segment takes a big jump to $663.4 million next year, followed by two years of revenue in the $700 million range and then clearing the $800 million mark in 2017, as shown in the figure below.

mobile video streaming drives demand for semiconductors in cars

“The need for audio and video data streaming inside motor vehicles is real and represents a significant growth opportunity for semiconductor suppliers,” said Luca DeAmbroggi, senior analyst for automotive infotainment at IHS. “Consumers are expressing a greater desire to watch content from mobile gadgets like handsets and tablets on vehicle displays including DVD players, rear-seat entertainment panels and navigation units. Meanwhile, original equipment manufacturers (OEM) of both cars and vehicle infotainment systems also are promoting such functionality for pure entertainment as well as for safety purposes, such as when vehicle displays show traffic.”

Other driving forces for semiconductor in-vehicle connectivity and networking include Advanced Driver Assistance Systems (ADAS) and safety applications, as well as headunit and entertainment systems embedded in the vehicle.

Heavy traffic for car video systems

The amount of video that can be streamed to the car’s display units could be extensive, requiring careful design of the entire video interface architecture to allow seamless transmission. Moreover, several considerations could affect the video link requirements for bandwidth and security, including digital content protection, the quality of the video and audio streams, and the real-time video-processing capabilities of equipment. Whether wired or wireless technology is chosen for in-car connectivity will depend on cost, long-term semiconductor support from suppliers, readiness for integration within the vehicle, and issues related to performance and quality.

Getting on the wireless superhighway

Features like high-definition video, cloud streaming and content sharing among multiple devices already are available in industry segments like home entertainment. Because of this, the same requirements are expected to drive the integration of such features in vehicle infotainment systems.

Among the high-definition wireless technologies now available or under development for vehicle infotainment, 802.11ad (WiGig) appears to be the most suitable solution.

The 802.11ad technology claims a throughput of approximately 7 gigabytes per second compared to Wi-Fi speeds of 100 megabytes per second. It is free from license fees, and can transmit data directly over wireless HDMI, a commonly used interface for high definition.

Already, Japan’s Panasonic has plans to embed a WiGig module on an SD memory card for use in cars by the middle of this year. And while its coverage of 1 to 3 meters is considered by some to be short and tantamount to a physical drawback, that range is enough in most commercial vehicles for video and audio transmission between passengers in a car to their display unit of choice.

A variant of the 801.11ad technology also exists in the form of 801.11ac, which has a lower data transmission rate of 1 gigabyte per second. San Diego-based Qualcomm is among the semiconductor suppliers preparing such a solution for vehicle use, but the application is not expected before 2015.

Other wireless HD technologies for vehicle infotainment systems include WirelessHD, WHDI, WiDi/Miracast and Multistream Wi-Fi.

Wired technologies plug in to automotive market

Several indicators suggest that an automotive version of Ethernet might soon be available, backed by an increase in bandwidth and safety application requirements, and supported by many key auto players that believe Ethernet offers several benefits. Among wired technologies for in-car connectivity, Ethernet AVB can be adapted to fi t tough automotive wiring requirements, with BMW targeting its first pilot vehicles with Ethernet by 2013-14 and a complete Ethernet-cabled vehicle by 2020.

A second wired technology revolves around dedicated network architectures such as Media-Oriented Systems Transport (MOST) in order to achieve high data-rate throughput and reliable performance for multimedia applications. MOST can be found in high-end vehicle brands, but the MOST bus has limitations that could jeopardize its ability to deliver adequate performance for future content-transmission systems in vehicle infotainment devices.

Questions also exist about whether MOST and Ethernet can coexist, and in what time frame, or if Ethernet will instead be predominant in the midterm due to its superior cost position over MOST.

Other wired technologies expected to compete for a place in the vehicle are LVDS, APIX, HDMI and MHL. In particular, HDMI and MHL are expected to be present soon in cars of the future, following the momentum that both technologies currently enjoy in smartphones and other handheld consumer applications.

Wired or wireless?

Wireless technologies provide obvious ease of transfer for consumers by dispensing with physical wiring altogether, but drawbacks exist like error rates in higher-bit transmissions, as well as sensitivity to interference that might make wireless technologies unsuitable for safety-critical vehicle applications.

Meanwhile, wired technologies like Ethernet seem ready for deployment, but stringent automotive requirements that target high electromagnetic interference for long wiring solutions—possibly running along the entire vehicle—must also be taken into consideration.

The consensus seems to be that high-definition wireless deployment in automobiles may not be feasible in the short term due to limited supplier engagement, together with currently incomplete specifications and standards.

Overall, it will be up to the consumer electronics field and its influence on the automotive sector to make high-definition video streaming happen, further boosting passenger flexibility to interact with a vehicle’s infotainment system, IHS Automotive believes.

ProPlus Design Solutions, Inc. yesterday launched NanoSpice, the next-generation high-capacity, high-performance parallel SPICE simulator for giga-scale circuit simulation.

“New simulation technology is essential for deep nanometer technology designs where process variations significantly impact circuit yield and performance,” affirms Dr. Zhihong Liu, ProPlus’ executive chairman, who adds that designers cannot settle for capacity or performance and sacrifice accuracy. “Demand has never been greater for highly accurate, giga-scale simulations for large post-layout designs.”

The need for giga-scale simulations is being driven by complex designs and because of the large number of simulations required to design for variation effects. Traditional SPICE simulators lack capacity requirements even with parallelization. FastSPICE simulators that deliver capacity at the cost of accuracy are losing steam as an increasing number of designs require post-layout verification that weakens circuit hierarchy. FastSPICE’s table model approach, as well as its approximated matrix solutions, is prone to unreliable results and poor usability for complicated giga-scale designs with multiple operating modes and supply voltages.

Introducing NanoSpice, Giga-Scale Pure SPICE Circuit Simulator

NanoSpice is a pure SPICE circuit simulator matching the industry’s highest accuracy standard. Because it shares the same core SPICE engine with ProPlus’ BSIMProPlus, the device modeling software used by all leading foundries, it has built-in foundry-validated accuracy and compatibility. It has full SPICE analysis features and supports industry-standard inputs and outputs.

NanoSpice runs 10 to more than 100 times faster than traditional SPICE simulators. It is able to handle all circuit types, with an ability to simulate large-scale circuits of 50-million or more elements for generic circuit types, and 100-million or more elements for memory circuits.

It is ideally suited for applications such as memory, analog/mixed-signal, I/O, custom digital and standard cell design. NanoSpice handles challenging designs, including the characterization of large embedded SRAM blocks, post-layout analysis of analog circuits, sign-off simulation of full-chip power integrated circuit (IC) or wireless transceiver circuits, and accurate clock tree and critical path analysis.

For example, NanoSpice was used to simulate a multi-million element, post-layout analog/digital converter (ADC) circuit in less than two days with pure SPICE-comparable accuracy measured in signal-to-noise ratio (SNR). Other parallel SPICE simulators took several weeks to complete this task.

Developed to enable giga-scale simulation and for handling process variations from 3-sigma to high-sigma Monte Carlo simulations with full matrix solving and without approximations in model calculations, NanoSpice uses effective model-handling and high-performance parallelization technology with high memory efficiency. In a recent evaluation, NanoSpice ran sign-off simulation on a 576-million element, full-chip memory circuit in eight hours using eight threads with 15 gigabytes of memory consumption.

NanoSpice is tightly integrated with ProPlus’ DFY platform NanoYield for variation analysis with efficient process, voltage and temperature (PVT) corner sampling, fast Monte Carlo or silicon-proven, high-sigma sampling with technology licensed from IBM.

When a large number of simulations are required, NanoYield enables near-linear scaling over multiple CPUs on a server or distributed computer farm, delivered through a cost-effective parallelization license model. The tight integration between NanoSpice and NanoYield can accelerate variation analysis to achieve the optimum yield versus power, performance and area trade-off by more than 20 times over using NanoYield with an external simulator.

NanoSpice, tightly integrated with ProPlus’ design-for-yield (DFY) platform NanoYield,

can be used to perform variation analysis, as shown here.

Nitronex, a designer and manufacturer of gallium nitride (GaN) based RF solutions for high performance applications, has named David W. Runton as its new Vice President of Engineering. Runton has almost 20 years of RF power semiconductor experience with six years in GaN specific product development, including design, assembly, qualification and packaging.

“I’m looking forward to working with the engineering team to develop many new successful GaN products. Nitronex has very compelling technology that I feel has advantages for numerous market applications,” said Runton. “I am joining Nitronex at an exciting time with a new owner, management team, and significant growth plans for the future.”

Runton most recently served as director of High Power Engineering for RFMD, where he led an engineering product release team and developed long term product strategy. He has also held engineering leadership positions at Freescale and Motorola Semiconductor.

“David is an excellent addition to our management team and I’m confident he will help us leverage our core technology in the RF power market. He has an extensive background developing LDMOS and GaN power devices and a proven track record leading engineering teams to develop new products and technologies,” said Greg Baker, President and CEO.

Runton holds both a Bachelor Degree and a Master of Science degree in Electrical Engineering from the Georgia Institute of Technology as well as a Masters in Business Administration, High Technology Program from Arizona State University.

ARM and TSMC today announced the first tape-out of an ARM Cortex-A57 processor on FinFET process technology.  The Cortex-A57 processor is ARM’s highest performing processor, designed to further extend the capabilities of future mobile and enterprise computing, including compute intensive applications such as high-end computer, tablet and server products.  This is the first milestone in the collaboration between ARM and TSMC to jointly optimize the 64-bit ARMv8 processor series on TSMC FinFET process technologies.  The two companies cooperated in the implementation from RTL to tape-out in six months using ARM Artisan physical IP, TSMC memory macros, and EDA technologies enabled by TSMC’s Open Innovation Platform (OIP) design ecosystem.

ARM and TSMC’s collaboration produces optimized, power-efficient Cortex-A57 processors and libraries to support early customer implementations on 16nm FinFET for high-performance, ARM technology-based SoCs.

“This first ARM Cortex-A57 processor implementation paves the way for our mutual customers to leverage the performance and power efficiency of 16nm FinFET technology,” said Tom Cronk, executive vice president and general manager, Processor Division, ARM.  “The joint effort of ARM, TSMC, and TSMC’s OIP design ecosystem partners demonstrates the strong commitment to provide industry-leading technology for customer designs to benefit from our latest 64-bit ARMv8 architecture, big.LITTLE processing and ARM POP IP across a wide variety of market segments.”

“Our multi-year, multi-node collaboration with ARM continues to deliver advanced technologies to enable market-leading SoCs across mobile, server, and enterprise infrastructure applications,” said Dr. Cliff Hou, TSMC Vice President of R&D. “This achievement demonstrates that the next-generation ARMv8 processor is FinFET-ready for TSMC’s advanced technology.”

This announcement highlights the enhanced and intensified collaboration between ARM and TSMC. The test chip was implemented using a commercially available 16nm FinFET tool chain and design services provided by the OIP ecosystem and ARM Connected Community partners. This successful collaborative milestone is confirmation of the roles that TSMC’s OIP and ARM’s Connected Community play in promoting innovation for the semiconductor design industry.

India registered 221.6 million mobile handset shipments during 2012, according to CMR’s India Mobile Handsets Market Review, CY 2012, March 2013 release. During the same period, 15.2 million smartphones were shipped in the country.

A comparison of overall mobile handset shipments and featurephone shipments shows a direct correlation for the India mobile handsets market rankings. Market shares are somewhat similar for the top three players across the overall market and the featurephones segment, as shown in Table 2.

Commenting on the results, Faisal Kawoosa, lead analyst, CMR Telecoms Practice said, “Although we see a huge market ‘hype’ around smartphones, the fact remains that the India Mobile Handsets market is still dominated by shipments of featurephones. On the other hand smartphone shipments are growing fast. This indicates India is still a ‘new phone’ market, where featurephones contribute to the bulk of shipments compared to replacements or upgrades.

“This propensity on the part of Indian subscribers of mobile telephony services to purchase large numbers of featurephones has paved the way for the establishment of Indian brands, which are largely focused on this segment.”

India Smartphones Market

The India smartphones market during 2H 2012 saw a rise in shipments by 75.2 percent over and above the 1H 2012 number, taking the overall contribution of smartphones to 6.8% for the full year. In fact, during 2H 2012, smartphone shipments stood at 8.1 percent of the country’s total mobile handset shipments. While BlackBerry was at third spot during 1H 2012, Sony Mobiles displaced the former if we examine numbers for the full CY 2012.

Commenting on these results, Tarun Pathak, analyst, CMR Telecoms Practice said, “The India smartphones segment has very distinct characteristics vis-à-vis the overall market. We believe the struggle for leadership in the India smartphones market is going to intensify through 2013 as vendors bring new form factors to market.

“Players such as Samsung, HTC and Sony Mobiles will increasingly try to establish leadership through differentiated offerings and by promising a ‘seamless’ experience across the four consumer screens – smartphone, tablet, PC and TV. At the same time, home grown vendors such as Micromax, Karbonn and Lava will try to make a mark against their global competitors, by bringing to market powerful, yet attractively priced smartphones in an attempt to widen their appeal and grow the overall smartphone user base,” Tarun added.