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As more and more companies are gearing up and demonstrating flexible display prototypes (LG, Nokia and earlier this year at CES 2013, Samsung’s Youm display are just a few of the latest examples), the need for protection of these new devices that are freed from the constraints of conventional rigid form factors is highlighted once more.

Samsung flexible display
 Fig 1. Samsung’s flexible display, demonstrated at CES 2013

 

Nokia kinetic display
 Fig 2. Nokia’s Kinetic display

IDTechEx Research, in its latest report on the topic of flexible encapsulation “Barrier Films for Flexible Electronics 2013-2023: Needs, Players, Opportunities,” is forecasting the market for flexible barrier films to conservatively grow to just over $34 million by 2016. Up until that point, over 95% of the market is accounted for from a slowly growing market for flexible photovoltaics based on CIGS and a-Si platforms.

breakdown of market

Fig 3. A percentage breakdown of the market by applications for flexible barrier films in 2013

Source: IDTechEx Research report “Barrier Films for Flexible Electronics 2013-2023: Needs, Players, Opportunities”

The really significant growth though, is expected to kick in once flexible display technologies move out of the prototyping stage and start becoming commercial products, changing the way consumers interact with their portable electronic devices. By 2023, the market for flexible barriers will already be over $240 million, with display technologies accounting for over a third of that value.                              

Applications: OLED displays and lighting

The realization of flexible OLED applications still requires further advances in thin film encapsulation technology due to OLED sensitivity to oxygen and moisture. Several barrier architectures are possible and each technology is characterized by different materials, manufacturing processes and final barrier properties. The widely quoted requirement for water vapor transmission rate (WVTR) for an OLED lifetime of >10,000 hours is 10−6 g/m2/day. Barriers of this level of performance are not widely available yet but several barrier technology developers already have manufacturing facilities for small volumes and samples available.

On the other hand, flexible electrophoretic displays (EPDs) are already being commercialized but that’s mainly due to the fact that EPDs are not sensitive to oxygen and moisture. In fact, IDTechEx Research shows that a small amount of moisture is actually beneficial for EPDs so the technology has little or no need for a high performing barrier layer that minimizes water vapour permeation.

flexible e-reader
 Fig 4. Flexible e-reader from Wexler.

 

Encapsulation Technologies

IDTechEx Research were the first to identify the need for a market report on flexible encapsulation of electronics and launched the first report back in 2008. The new report is being launched as IDTechEx Research has been following the developments and trends in this space over the past few years. One of the most important such trends is definitely the increasing interest in flexible glass encapsulation.

With the introduction of flexible glass from several companies in the past few years, the competition for encapsulation becomes more intense as, there is now a new option being commercialized that would allow for perfect protection from oxygen and moisture, without having to rely on plastic substrates with inorganic coating deposited on them. Flexible glass can inherently be very low cost; after all, it’s only glass, only thinner, which could translate to less material utilization hence, lower raw materials and total costs. Unfortunately things are not as simple, given the fact that handling issues with flexible glass make its development, transportation, usage, etc. a bit more complex. As cracks are initiated from the edges of the glass tabbing is utilized in order to protect fractures from occurring and propagating.

Corning Willow Glass

Fig 5. Corning’s Flexible glass with protective tabbing on the edges.

Source: Corning

What is expected in the next few years is increasing competition between the developers of different technologies. Initially, flexible glass has a handicap as it is dealing with its handling issues. On the plus side for flexible glass developers, they already have long standing relationships with major display and PV manufacturers worldwide through their rigid glass businesses, a position which allows them for direct access to potential customers for their new flexible offerings (e.g. Corning, Schott, NEG). Overall, we are expecting to start seeing penetration of glass solutions in the flexible electronics space a bit later than solutions based on polymers but from 2016 onwards glass solution providers are expected to start slowly increasing their market share.

SiTime Corporation, one of the fastest growing semiconductor companies, today introduced the SiT15xx family of 32 kHz MEMS oscillators that are intended to replace legacy quartz crystal resonators. This new family is targeted at mobile applications, such as smartphones and tablets, which require small size and low power. SiTime claims the new device will offer area savings of 85%, cut power by 50% and provide 15 times more reliability.

SiTime intends for the SiT153x family to replace quartz crystal resonators and operates from a 1.2V to 3.63V regulated power supply.The SiT154x family would also replace quartz crystal resonators and operates from a 2.7 to 4.5V unregulated Li-Ion battery.

"SiTime’s silicon MEMS and analog technology deliver innovative timing solutions that leapfrog decades of quartz industry development. Large infrastructure and consumer electronics companies have already adopted SiTime’s solutions and are profiting from our remarkable combination of highest performance, lowest cost and best reliability," said Rajesh Vashist, CEO of SiTime. "Now, we are bringing these exceptional benefits to the booming mobile market. Our focus, passion and execution has allowed us to get 80% share of the MEMS timing market and with the new SiT15xx family, we continue to extend our lead."

In addition to smartphones and tablets, the SiT15xx family is intended for devices that require small size and low power such as fitness monitoring and watch products, medical monitoring and wellness devices, sport camcorders, wireless keypads and mouse devices.

Aledia, a developer of LEDs-based on disruptive microwire GaN-on-Silicon technology, announced today that it has made its first LEDs on 8-inch (200mm) silicon wafers. The cost of Aledia’s LED 3D chips based on microwires is expected to be four times less than traditional planar (2D) LEDs. Additionally, Aledia announced its first-round financing totalling €10 million, or approximately $13M, with leading US and European investors, which was closed in 2012.

Aledia solves the important cost issue in the very large and growing LED market. The continued integration of LEDs into new applications, such as general lighting, depends on LEDs becoming available at substantially lower prices than today. Aledia’s microwire technology enables the steep cost reduction that is vital for the further transition to LED. The Aledia LED technology, made on large-size silicon wafers and with very low materials cost, represents a cost-disruptive solution to this problem. Furthermore the new LED technology is compatible with silicon CMOS technology and will be manufactured directly in existing high-volume silicon foundries.

“Since our financing last year, we have scaled up our microwire manufacturing process and transferred it to 8-inch (200mm) silicon wafers. We can now push forward to optimize the performance of these products and bring them to market,” indicated Giorgio Anania, Aledia co-founder, President and CEO.

Investors in Aledia’s first-round financing included Sofinnova Partners, a leading European venture capital fund and an active investor in energy; New-York based Braemar Energy Ventures, a leading US energy technology investor with various investments in the LED and illumination area; Demeter Partners, the largest France-based cleantech investor; and CEA Investissement, the venture capital arm of CEA, France’s Commissariat à l’Energie Atomique et aux Energies Alternatives.

“This is an innovative technology that can have a disruptive effect on the LED market,” said Jiong Ma, partner at Braemar Energy Ventures. “Braemar is committed to investing in companies like Aledia that have developed a breakthrough approach to LED lighting to accommodate a rapidly changing market. We are excited about the future opportunities this investment will bring and the expansion of Aledia’s market presence and product offerings.”

“We are proud to participate in the new venture of Giorgio Anania, a successful entrepreneur already well known to Sofinnova, and of an outstanding technical team, that could revolutionize the large and growing LED market, both in cost and performance,” added Alessio Beverina of Sofinnova Partners.

“We believe that the development of LED lighting is an important element of energy-efficiency in our economies – lighting representing approximately 20% of all electricity usage. A technology able to make a significant breakthrough in the cost-effectiveness of using LEDs and thereby accelerate their adoption will have a major environmental and financial impact,” concluded Sophie Paturle, partner at cleantech specialist Demeter Partners.

The 3D GaN-on-Silicon microwire technology was developed over a six year period at the LETI-CEA in Grenoble, France. As part of its spin-out from CEA, Aledia received exclusive worldwide rights to all present and future CEA patents on microwire technology as applied to the area of lighting. Several additional patents have already been filed directly by Aledia.

Despite facing five consecutive quarters of decline and a slowdown in consumption in smartphones and tablets, the global market for NAND flash memory pulled off a surprise growth spurt during the last three months of 2012, causing sales to reach a record high.

NAND industry revenue in the October to December period of 2012 amounted to $5.6 billion, up an impressive 17% from $4.8 billion in the third quarter, according to an IHS iSuppli Flash Dynamics Market Brief from information and analytics provider IHS. Samsung Electronics, with more than a third of total revenue, led the field. NAND flash revenue for the entire year of 2012 amounted to $20.2 billion.

NAND flash growth

 

“The NAND flash market’s expansion in the fourth quarter was significant in two ways,” said Ryan Chien, analyst for memory and storage at IHS. “Not only did the increase defy the recent trend of sales sliding during the last quarter of a year, the expansion also resulted in the period having the largest revenue results in industry history. Major contributors to NAND strength in the fourth quarter included smartphones and tablets, even though density growth is projected to slow in 2013 for each smartphone, and has been negative for tablets since 2010. For these markets, rising volumes trumped the trend of slower growth in memory usage in the fourth quarter.”

Also playing a notable role in driving NAND growth during the period were solid state drives, along with retail flash products like flash drives and flash cards that likewise continue to attract significant consumer attention.

Flash bang

The 17% sequential growth in the fourth quarter last year was in stark contrast to the average 6% drop in revenue that had occurred during fourth-quarter periods for the previous five years. This time, growth was the result of solid product demand relative to preceding periods of weakness, coupled with a return to health for flash manufacturers. An important factor also was strength in component pricing, which fueled similar vigor in product pricing, stock pricing and—ultimately—revenue.

Overall, the revitalized state of the industry is attracting many new entrants, even though their presence is small in what is especially a scale-intensive space.

Samsung and Toshiba remain biggest players

The market share picture in the fourth quarter was similar to what it was a year earlier, with Samsung Electronics and Toshiba as the top two suppliers of NAND flash memory for the industry.

Samsung had fourth-quarter NAND revenue of approximately $2.0 billion, ending the year with a total of $7.5 billion or 37 percent market share. Samsung’s quarterly revenue since 2009 has hovered between $1.7 and $2.1 billion, helped by integration with its booming mobile device business, particularly smartphones.

At ISSCC 2013, Holst Centre and imec have presented an innovative method for the power-management of piezoelectric energy harvesters. The proposed interface IC provides energy-aware supply voltage regulation from cold start with a power consumption of less than 140nW. A power efficiency of 90 to 94% is achieved in a wide power range of 1µW to 1mW. Key building block of the IC is a new active diode bridge rectifier with zero bias property.

Holst Centre and imec have developed an integrated piezoelectric energy interface IC with zero bias rectifier circuit and energy-aware supply regulator. The IC is suitable for regulating the voltage in battery-less smart sensors that are typically composed of a piezoelectric energy harvester, sensors, an energy storage system and wireless transceivers.  With a power consumption of less than 140nW and a power efficiency as high as 90 to 94% in a wide 1µW-to-1mW power range, the circuit outperforms existing implementations that typically suffer from high energy losses.

The IC regulates the AC power from the piezoelectric energy harvester and supplies an energy-aware DC voltage to the user. The rectified output voltage is connected to a capacitor which accumulates the harvested energy. When this output voltage reaches a target startup voltage, a power-OK signal is set and a timer oscillator with 8-bit counter is enabled. When the output voltage reaches the threshold voltage set by a shunt regulator, a USE signal is generated and the counter is stopped. The USE signal triggers the users to draw current from the capacitor until the USE signal is reset. The harvested power will charge the capacitor again and the cycle is repeated.

The proposed circuit has been fabricated in a commercial TSMC 0.25µm CMOS process with 0.25mm2 active area. The harvested power was generated by an aluminum nitride vacuum packaged MEMS piezoelectric harvester. Tests have demonstrated that the IC itself consumes only 40nA of quiescent current and that this new method of power management delivers optimal power matching for input AC-peak voltages up to 5V.

A comparison with state-of-the-art interfaces shows that this solution consumes less power than previous solutions (only 140nW) while at the same time providing full cold-start, high efficiency AC-DC conversion, output regulation and energy awareness.

MEMS pressure sensor is one of the very first MEMS components appearing in the microsystem world. The technologies are quite mature and the market is big and expected to grow from $1.9B in 2012 to $3B in 2018.

“MEMS pressure sensor for consumer applications, especially for smartphones and tablets, is following the model of accelerometers and gyroscopes. Adoption of this model will help the MEMS pressure sensor market to boom again! We believe, this huge opportunity will result in the global volume of the MEMS pressure sensor market hitting 2.8 billion units by 2018” said Wenbin Ding, technology and market analyst at Yole Développement.”Consumer pressure sensor will represent 1.7 billion units and will overtake automotive as the market leader in volume.”

Even though the consumer application has a much lower ASP than other applications, this promising segment will bring more than 8% CAGR to the global MEMS pressure sensor market.

In their report, Yole Développement provides a global overview of the current MEMS pressure sensor technologies, market and competitive landscape. The covered industries in the MEMS pressure sensor 2013 report are automotive, industrial, medical applications, consumer electronics and high-end (aeronautic, military, defense) applications.

Automotive applications are still dominating the MEMS pressure sensor market. TPMS, MAP and BAP will be the biggest sub applications in this field. Automotive, medical, industrial and high-end markets are growing 4% to 7% however the consumer market is growing 25% in value (38% in volume) because of new opportunities in smartphones and tablets.

MEMS pressure sensor finds new applications in each domain, for example: in-cylinder pressure sensing for consumer applications.

MEMS technologies are still gaining market share compared to other classic technologies

MEMS pressure sensors are showing advantages compared to other current technologies, such as ceramic thick-film, ceramic capacitive and thin-film technologies. Yole Développement has carried out an in-depth analysis of the applicable range of technologies and classified them based on the requirements of the major applications.

Technologies like thin-film are still needed for use in harsh environments, particularly with high temperatures and corrosive medias. MEMS pressure sensor manufacturers are also working on components which could be used in these environments. The status of SiC MEMS pressure sensor development is also described in the report.

Yole Développement analysis provides an overview of other existing pressure sensor technologies. Comparisons of different MEMS technologies are done in order to better understand the positioning of MEMS pressure sensors in the global market.

Fragmented market with more than 50 players involved

Since the MEMS pressure sensor market is huge, Yole Développement is not surprised to see a large number of players in this industry. It is one of the most fragmented markets.

More than 50 worldwide players are involved. The top 5 players (Bosch, Denso, Sensata, GE Sensing and Freescale) represent about 50% of the total market. Automotive, medical, industrial, and high-end markets already have their mature leaders and smaller companies following. The consumer electronics market is still emerging with some conventional MEMS sensor companies interested.

Yole’s report also includes a focus on the competition in the automotive market. Lots of companies are targeting this industry. Bosch has always dominated this sector. The supply chain of the automotive industry is complicated with different types of players: Car Manufacturers, Tier1 Automotive Part & Systems Suppliers (related to Pressure Sensors), Full Package Sensors Specialists and MEMS & Semiconductor Specialists. This section of the report includes a detailed description at each level of the value chain and gives an in-depth supply chain analysis for the automotive market.

With new opportunities appearing in consumer electronics, new comers from the USA and China are targeting this segment. Yole Développement also follows the activities of some new Chinese challengers. Local Chinese companies are making an effort to try and fulfill the huge domestic demand in automotive and consumer applications.

Solid State Technology is pleased to announce Subu Iyer, IBM Fellow, will be giving the keynote address at The ConFab 2013 in Las Vegas on Tuesday, June 25, 2013. Iyer will speak on orthogonal scaling to fill today’s fabs in the future.

“Semiconductor technology development is at an inflection point where the historical expectations for node-to-node productivity are difficult to maintain,” Iyer writes in his abstract. “This slowing down of classical scaling is an opportunity to explore alternatives ways of leveraging both our technology and existing fab infrastructure. This talk will ask some tough questions on what we can really expect from recent technological innovations such as Hi K gate dielectrics and FINFETs in the future and what some other constraints are. We will explore the addition of orthogonal features to existing technologies that will enhance them significantly. Fabs of the future will be more diverse, offer a variety of novel capabilities, be more intimately tied to their clients whether they are captive or not, and will have to be a bigger part of the overall systems’ supply chain.”

Subramanian S. Iyer is an IBM Fellow at the Systems and Technology Group, and is responsible for technology strategy and competitiveness, embedded memory and three-dimensional Integration. He obtained his B.Tech at IIT-Bombay, and Ph.D. at UCLA. His key technical contributions have been the development of the world’s first SiGe base HBT, electrical Fuses, eDRAM and 45nm technology used at IBM and IBM’s development partners. His current technical interests and work lie in the area of 3-dimensional integration for memory sub-systems and the semiconductor roadmap. He is a Distinguished Alumnus of IIT Bombay and received the IEEE Daniel Noble Medal for emerging technologies in 2012.

For more information on The ConFab 2013 or to register, visit The ConFab section of our website.

A new undergraduate program approved this week at the University of Central Florida (UCF) will help the U.S. stay competitive in global technology as well as broaden the path for students seeking rewarding careers in the important field of optics and photonics, say leaders of SPIE, the international society for optics and photonics.

UFC photonics undergrad program
Photo: UCF

The UCF Board of Trustees yesterday announced a new Bachelor of Science degree program in photonics science and engineering, in partnership between the College of Optics and Photonics (CREOL) and the College of Engineering and Computer Science, said CREOL Director Bahaa Saleh. Students will receive their degrees from both colleges. The first classes of the new program will be offered this fall.

The curriculum is designed to prepare students for a wide variety of jobs in optics and photonics and to satisfy the requirements of ABET accreditation based on the criterion established by SPIE and IEEE for degrees in the field recently, Saleh said. ABET is a nonprofit, non-governmental organization that accredits college and university programs in the disciplines of applied science, computing, engineering, and engineering technology.

“I am personally excited to see this announcement because it serves as another indicator that optical and photonics engineering is finally coming of age as a discipline, providing a distinct program choice and career path for students to follow,” said Barry Shoop, professor and head of the Department of Electrical Engineering and Computer Science at the U.S. Military Academy in West Point, New York. Shoop leads the SPIE/IEEE team to develop ABET program criteria for optical and photonics engineering.

Shoop said that establishment of the new program also is “further evidence of the growth, influence, and importance of optical and photonics engineering as a discipline. This program joins a growing number of optical engineering programs across the country that are attracting some of the best and brightest students to serve the growing needs of industry, government and academia.”

“The program will help ensure that the U.S. has a chance to participate at all levels in the coming growth in photonics,” said SPIE CEO Eugene Arthurs. “As ABET moves to accredit programs in optics and photonics, UCF, long a leader in technology transfer programs and photonics education, is again showing its innovative drive. This timely new undergraduate program reflects the growing awareness of a vital field that has already changed the world in multiple ways – the Internet, laser surgery, and 3D imaging, to name a few — and that will continue to change the world many times over.”

Students in the new UCF program will study geometrical optics, physical optics, optical materials, and photonics devices and systems, striking a balance between general engineering breadth and basic knowledge and practical skills for solving problems and designing and building working optical systems, Saleh said. Along with core courses, the program will provide hands-on training in laboratories and a capstone senior design project, and participation in a summer internship program with local industry will be encouraged.

As UCF faculty were instrumental in the development of the new ABET program criteria for optical, photonics and similarly named engineering programs, this new program is anticipated to become ABET accredited, which will directly serve the growing need for photonic engineers and further increase the visibility and recognition of optical and photonics engineering as a discipline.

What else should the U.S. be considering to stay technologically competitive? Tell us in the comment section below. Comments will won’t be posted to your social media accounts unless you select to share.

Analog Devices, Inc. introduced today a high performance MEMS microphone developed specifically for hearing aid applications. When compared to legacy solutions like electret condenser microphones (ECMs), the ADMP801 is not only smaller in size at only 7.3 cubic millimeters, but also offers greater performance stability over time, temperature, and environmental changes, produces very low equivalent input noise (EIN) at 27 dBA SPL (sound pressure level), and consumes only 17 µA at 1Vsupply — a fraction of the power consumed by traditional ECMs. The ADMP801 MEMS microphone is available in a tiny surface-mount package measuring only 3.35 mm x 2.50 mm x 0.98 mm that is reflow-solder-compatible with no sensitivity degradation.

 “Hearing aids represent an application ideally suited for the advantages MEMS microphones offer including small size, stability, and very low power consumption,” said Pat O’Doherty, vice president for the Healthcare Group, Analog Devices. “However, MEMS microphones have not offered the EIN performance levels that meet stringent hearing aid standards until now. The ADMP801 MEMS microphone offers noise performance, package size, and phase and gain stability that is very desirable for advanced hearing aids that incorporate beamforming to facilitate sound or voice localization.”

The ADMP801 is a high quality, ultralow power, analog output, bottom-ported, omnidirectional MEMS microphone designed specifically for hearing aid applications. It is fully pick-and-place and reflow compatible, offering an option to save on cost using a mechanized assembly process as compared to ECMs that require manual assembly processes. The device offers excellent environmental and temporal stability, and multiple ADMP801 MEMS microphones can be configured in an array to form a directional response, facilitating sound of voice localization.

ADMP801 Omnidirectional MEMS Microphone Key Specifications

  •     Microphone EIN: 27 dBA SPL
  •     Current consumption: 17 µA at 1 V
  •     Stable response over time and temperature
  •     Package volume: 7.3 cubic millimeters

Integrated Device Technology, Inc. yesterday announced the industry’s first differential MEMS oscillators with 100 femtosecond (fs) typical phase jitter performance and integrated frequency margining capability. The extremely low phase jitter and adaptable output frequency of IDT’s high-performance oscillators significantly reduce bit error rate (BER) in 10 gigabit Ethernet (10GbE) switches, routers, and other related networking equipment.

The IDT 4H performance MEMS oscillators feature a differential LVDS / LVPECL output and the lowest phase jitter in their product class (100 fs @ 1.875 – 20 MHz and sub-300 fs @ 12kHz – 20 MHz), satisfying the low-jitter chipset requirements of high-performance networking applications. Integrated frequency margining capability enables customers to fine-tune the oscillator frequency during operation in the application by up to ±1000 ppm, minimizing BER and facilitating margin testing. IDT’s 4H MEMS oscillators are available in multiple package sizes including the smaller 3225 (3.2 x 2.5 mm) to save board space and cost in densely populated applications. IDT is the only supplier to offer this combination of MEMS oscillator performance, features, and small package size.

“IDT’s latest series of MEMS oscillators build upon the standard 4M and enhanced 4E oscillator series’ to address the demanding performance requirements of 10GbE and networking applications,” said Christian Kermarrec, vice president and general manager of the Timing and Synchronization Division at IDT. “As the leader in timing solutions, we equip our customers with the highest performance parts and innovative features to facilitate the development of their next-generation products. We are pleased to see many OEMs choosing IDT over MEMS start-up suppliers for the experience and technical innovation that IDT provides.”

“Cloud computing and storage infrastructure is growing rapidly with almost 50% of servers and storage clusters shipping with 10GbE. High performance MEMS oscillators enable a lower bit error rate in enterprise computing and storage infrastructure and offer much better reliability at the same time,” said Jérémie Bouchaud, director and principal analyst for MEMS and sensors at IHS.

IDT’s integrated frequency margining capability enables customers to employ a technique known in the industry as ‘plus-PPM clocking’. This technique clocks systems at a slightly higher frequency, allowing OEMs to reduce BER and resulting packet losses in networking applications. Unlike competitive MEMS devices that only offer fixed frequencies, IDT’s device allows hundreds of offset frequencies that can be generated after the selection of any base frequency up to 625 MHz – even on final production systems. This empowers designers to expedite the development process and optimize system performance.

The 4H MEMS oscillators leverage IDT’s patented piezoelectric MEMS (pMEMS) resonator technology to provide a high-frequency source of unparalleled performance and reliability. IDT MEMS oscillators offer 40 times better reliability than quartz with no activity dips, no zero-time failures, higher jitter resistance to EMI, and excellent shock and vibration resistance, making them an ideal upgrade solution for traditional quartz-based oscillators.

The IDT 4H family expands upon the successful 4M and 4E series of MEMS oscillators. The 4M standard oscillators offer significant value as a drop-in replacement for differential quartz oscillators with less than 1 picosecond (ps) of phase jitter. The 4E enhanced oscillators integrate an LVDS or LVPECL output with a synchronous CMOS output into a single package, eliminating the need for an external crystal or secondary oscillator. In addition, the 4E oscillators feature four selectable output frequencies, allowing for the replacement of four components with a single device to reduce the bill-of-materials and consolidate inventory.

The IDT 4H MEMS oscillators are currently sampling to qualified customers and are available in standard 7.0 x 5.0 mm, 5.0 x 3.2 mm and 3.2 x 2.5 mm VFQFPN packages. Most standard frequencies are readily available. Custom frequencies can be configured by request.