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System Plus Consulting analyzed a BAW MEMS Filter manufactured by Avago Technologies, assessing its manufacturing process, costing results and breakdown. With more than 1 billion units produced per year and a market share of 65%, System Plus Consulting found that Avago Technologies clearly dominates the BAW filter market. Avago BAW filters are all-silicon MEMS devices manufactured with Avago’s FBAR and Microcap technologies.

 

Avago ACMD-7612 Duplexer

(Courtesy of System Plus Consulting)

 

The ACMD-7612 is targeted for handsets or data terminals operating in the UMTS Band I frequency range and features a Maximum RF Input Power to Tx Port of ±33 dBm.

Manufacturing process

Film Bulk Acoustic Resonator (FBAR) is a silicon-based MEMS technology which uses AlN piezoelectric material for resonating layers. It allows creating structures with higher Q than surface acoustic wave (SAW) structures for most cellular frequency bands.

Microcap corresponds to the wafer level packaging process of the FBAR filters. The microcap process uses gold plated Through Silicon Vias (TSV) in the cap to report electrical contacts (and thus reduce filter dies size) and gold-gold thermo-compression wafer bonding to ensure an hermetic sealing.

 

MEMS Filter Cross-section

(Courtesy of System Plus Consulting)

 

Costing results

Filter dies are manufactured on high resistivity 6-inch wafers in Avago’s Fort Collins wafer fab. With more than 20,000 potential good dies per wafer, the manufacturing cost of a filter die is estimated to be in the range of 5¢.

 

 

MEMS Filter Wafer cost breakdown

(Courtesy of System Plus Consulting)

 

The full reverse costing report combining technological analysis of the devices and detailed manufacturing cost is already available.

System Plus Consulting develops costing tools and performs on demand reverse costing studies of semiconductors – from integrated circuits to power devices, from single chip packages to MEMS and multi-chip modules – and of electronic boards and systems.

In the 1970s, the semiconductor industry was vertically integrated. Most companies were IDMs with manufacturing, design, intellectual property (IP) and marketing activities. During this period, manufacturing technology evolution was strong and required new fabs, which directly increased capital expenditures. Companies desired an attractive Return on Invested Capital (ROIC), and to obtain it they developed a new, lower-investment business model by including manufacturing services in their portfolio.

In the 1980’s, the first pure foundries emerged — and ten years later, the fabless business model was born. The rest, as they say, is history; according to GSA, in 2011 there were 1,800 fabless companies worldwide, covering a variety of sectors.

In the power electronics field, the fabless business model is not as common compared to the MEMS industry. For example, most power electronics players have their own capabilities/fabs dedicated mainly to silicon wafer manufacturing. According to Yole Développement, $4B was generated by MEMS fabless companies in 2012, against less than $300K in the power electronics area. Is power electronics a world apart?

“Less than 10 companies have been clearly identified in the Power Electronics industry. This trend is clearly linked to the introduction of new materials like GaN and SiC wafers in manufacturing technologies. New products already commercialized, for example photovoltaic inverters, use thesenew materials. Yole Développement is currently analyzing the Power Electronics industry in orderto understand what the next step will be,” explains Alexandre Avron, Power Electronics Technology & Market Analyst at Yole Développement.

Indeed, for a long time the power electronics field and its key players only considered silicon wafers. Today, however, the power semiconductor industry is entering a new era: for the first time, power electronics companies are developing new solutions based on “non-silicon” manufacturing technologies. This evolution is not without big investments, though, and in order to limit them, some companies have decided to become fabless and collaborate with large fabs to produce the necessary components.

The truth is that power electronics is not a world apart, and that the fabless business model has just become a reality in the field. It represents a real opportunity for power electronics companies to introduce new components and embrace the technology evolution.

For the second straight year, Yole Développement and Serma have joined forces to organize the Successful Semiconductor Fabless conference, a unique European event dedicated to the fabless business model. This event takes place in Paris, from April 10 to 12.

Hiden announced this week the integration of on-board timers for real-time pulsed plasma measurement, the fast gating fully controllable within the MASsoft operating program. Two timers provide “gate open/close” and “gate increment” periodicity with sub-microsecond gating resolution to just 100 nanoseconds, phasing data acquisition precisely with each individual plasma pulse.

Instruments enabled with these on-board timers include the ESPion Langmuir-style probe for measurement of plasma ion and electron densities and energies, as well as the Hiden PSM and EQP quadrupole mass spectrometers for characterization of both positive and negative plasma ion species. All are supported by a comprehensive range of accessories, with differential pumping options for processes operating up to 5 bar.

The ESPion probe is available in versions for operation in both RF and DC plasma, at elevated temperatures and in diverse lengths in excess of 1000mm. Compatible bellows-sealed ‘Z’-drives have up to 900mm translation. The EQP and compact PSM plasma monitors share similar software, the EQP system featuring a high-definition sector-field energy filter and energy range +/-1000eV. The integral electron bombardment ion source is used for neutrals/radicals measurement and for studies of electronegative species by electron attachment.

ALTIS Semiconductor, a global specialty foundry based in France, announced today the finalization of a foundry agreement with IBM Microelectronics. Under the terms of this agreement, ALTIS will be the foundry partner for the IBM 180nm SOI technology. ALTIS will deliver high volume products starting Q2 2013 and will secure capacity increase for 2014 and beyond to address the IBM forecasted demand.

This agreement allows the company to leverage its analog/mixed signal and RF expertise as well as its proven operational excellence and quality focus to serve a long term partner, who is well recognized within the industry for its technology leadership and innovation.

ALTIS has a long term relationship with IBM Microelectronics and has produced many product families for IBM over the past decades. This foundry agreement addresses the next generation of consumer products, including as an example, the RF/SOI chipsets used in the world most advanced mobile devices.

IBM’s 7RFSOI technology provides advantage by simultaneously enabling the required level of integration and performance for the large number of switches required in the modern smartphone for example cellular antenna switches, diversity antenna and WLAN.

“We are extremely pleased to expand our strategic relationship with IBM Microelectronics,” said Jean-Paul Beisson, CEO of ALTIS.

"It is another proof that ALTIS is able to provide a competitive solution to worldwide leading customers like IBM and we look forward to this continued collaboration with IBM for many years to come," said Yazid Sabeg, Chairman of ALTIS.

Altis Semiconductor is an independent and long-term innovative European based specialty foundry, servicing the growing demand for high quality end-to-end foundry services. The Altis process portfolio encompasses advanced CMOS based technologies for RF, low power, high performance analog mixed signal, non-volatile embedded memory, and high voltage requirements for a broad range of end market applications, including automotive.

Signetics Corporation today introduced their new MapBGA package to the industry. This alternative to standard PBGA packaging has improved reliability and design flexibility due to its unique assembly process. A one shot side gate map molding process is used to cover the entire substrate area, protecting the active traces and vias. This process allows for more efficient use of the substrate panels and strips with as much as 55% more units per panel verses a typical PBGA package. The process is very robust as it uses proven transfer molding equipment and the mold clamps only touch the non-active area of each strip. Also, the assembled devices are saw singulated, eliminating mechanical stress on the package from traditional punch methods of singulation. Finally, the map molding process allows the package to have a larger mold cap and in turn, accommodate a larger die.

"Mature packages such as the PBGA must continue to evolve to meet the changing demands of applications", stated YS Kim, vice president of engineering at Signetics. "The MapBGA package is able to provide that extra amount of design flexibility and reliability using proven assembly technologies and equipment to make it a cost effective alternative to standard PBGA," continued Kim.

 Signetics offers a broad range of ball grid array (BGA) packaging including flip chip, stacked die, multi-chip and thermally enhanced variations. Assembly partnerships with Tier 1 device manufacturers has helped drive Signetics to continue to develop these next generation BGA packages to create a dynamic portfolio of semiconductor assembly solutions.

OKI Engineering, provider of reliability evaluations and environmental conservation technologies for the OKI Group, recently delivered KGT-3MM-AP exhaust gas treatment equipment for atmospheric pressure CVD manufacturing equipment to semiconductor manufacturer ON Semiconductor’s European plants. The exhaust gas treatment equipment remove the special material gases used with atmospheric pressure CVD manufacturing equipment while controlling and maintaining constant exhaust pressure. Thus, it ensures reliability and consistency in the CVD thin film manufacturing line, ultimately helping to maintain the customer’s production environment.

In the manufacture of semiconductors such as Power FET and IGBT atmospheric pressure, CVD manufacturing equipment is vital at the stage of insulating film manufacture. However, this equipment uses harmful gases such as silane (SiH4), phosphine (PH3), and diborane (B2H6) and requires exhaust gas processing. OKI Engineering’s KGT-3MM-AP exhaust gas treatment equipment is a wet-type processor that effectively processes the special material gases and particulate matter used in CVD thin film manufacture. The treatment equipment contains a special stainless steel filter to improve scrubbing efficiency. The design minimizes filter clogging for extended maintenance-free use. A unique design intended to facilitate cleaning of the internal filter has won praise for ease of maintenance. The micromanometer used for pressure control was designed specifically for CVD gas use. Inverter control for the exhaust fan ensures the constant exhaust pressure essential for atmospheric pressure CVD thin film manufacture and extended operational reliability and consistency.

"Three years previously, OKI Engineering delivered the KGT-3MM-AP to ON Semiconductor as an exhaust gas processor for Amaya continuous atmospheric pressure CVD manufacturing equipment," says Yutaka Asai, President of OKI Engineering. "This latest order for ON Semiconductor’s European plants was prompted by ON semiconductor’s satisfaction with the processor’s pressure control configuration and exhaust gas scrubbing efficiency and by the benefits of consistent, trouble-free CVD thin film manufacture. Introduction of the treatment equipment ensures consistent film thickness distributions for CVD thin films, including NSG, PSG, and BPSG, at ON Semiconductor’s European plants. It also increases factory throughput while cutting exhaust gas processing costs."

OKI Engineering began manufacturing exhaust gas treatment equipment approximately 30 years ago. Since then, it has supplied treatment equipments to numerous semiconductor and solar cell mass production plants in Japan and Taiwan. This latest order expands its reach into Europe. OKI Engineering also plans to expand into new regions including Southeast Asia.

Intersil Corporation this week announced the appointment of Necip Sayiner, 47, as President and Chief Executive Officer of Intersil and a member of the Company’s board of directors effective March 14, 2013. Mr. Sayiner replaces James Diller, who served as interim CEO since December 2012 and will remain a member of Intersil’s board of directors.

Mr. Sayiner has a strong track record of developing profitable growth businesses. He was most recently the president and CEO of Silicon Labs, where he led the transformation of its business, improving product development execution and more than doubling the company’s revenue during his six year tenure. Prior to Silicon Labs, Mr. Sayiner held various leadership positions at Agere Systems, most recently as the vice president and general manager of the Enterprise and Networking division. He holds a bachelor’s degree in electrical engineering and physics from Bosphorus University in Turkey, a master’s degree in engineering from Southern Illinois University and a doctorate in electrical engineering from the University of Pennsylvania.

"Necip is a proven CEO who has already demonstrated his ability to successfully transform and lead in the semiconductor industry," said Don Macleod, Chairman of Intersil’s board of directors. "We look forward to him doing the same again for Intersil."

"I am pleased to have the opportunity to lead Intersil and look forward to working with the board of directors and the management team to position the company on a sustainable path to success," said Sayiner. "I believe the company has the right set of capabilities to regain leadership in its markets and deliver on the potential of its technology."

Intersil also announced that Jonathan Kennedy, Intersil’s Senior Vice President and Chief Financial Officer, will be leaving the company to pursue another opportunity outside of the semiconductor industry. Mr. Kennedy will remain CFO through March 31, 2013 and will remain with the Company in an advisory capacity through April 5, 2013.

"On behalf of the board of directors, I would like to thank Jonathan for his many contributions over the years and wish him the best of luck going forward," said James Diller.

Ms. Mercedes Johnson will join the management team as interim CFO, leading a strong and proven finance organization, while the company conducts a search for a permanent replacement, effective April 1, 2013. Ms. Johnson, an Intersil director since August 2005, was previously Senior Vice President and Chief Financial Officer of Avago Technologies from November 2005 until her retirement in August 2008. Prior to that, she worked for Lam Research Corporation, serving as its senior vice president of finance from June 2004 to January 2005 and its chief financial officer from April 1997 to May 2004. She has served as a member of the board of directors of Micron Technology, Inc. since June 2005 and has served as a member of the board of directors of Juniper Networks since May 2011. Ms. Johnson also served on the board of directors for Storage Technology Corporation from January 2004 to August 2005 when the company was sold to Sun Microsystems, Inc.

Cadence Design Systems, Inc. today announced plans to aquire Tensilica, Inc. for approximately $380 million in cash. Tensilica had approximately $30 million of cash as of December 31, 2012.

"With Tensilica, we will be able to provide designers with a more complete SoC solution that will speed the development of innovative and differentiated products, while reducing time to market," said Lip-Bu Tan, president and chief executive officer of Cadence. "We look forward to working with Tensilica’s dedicated employees as one team to bring even more value to our customers."

"Joining Cadence will provide a broader platform to expedite our product development strategy and customer engagement,” said Jack Guedj, president and CEO of Tensilica. “We will have the ability to accelerate IP subsystem development and integration while providing a more extensive support network to our customers."

Cadence intends to finance the transaction with available cash and an existing revolving credit facility. The transaction is expected to close in the second quarter of fiscal 2013, subject to customary closing conditions including regulatory approvals. Cadence expects the transaction to be slightly dilutive to its non-GAAP earnings per share in fiscal 2013 due to the impact of merger-related accounting and accretive to its non-GAAP earnings per share in fiscal 2014. The impact on GAAP earnings per share will be available after valuation and the completion of purchase accounting.

"The acquisition of Tensilica by Cadence will be a positive move for the industry," said Simon Segars, president of ARM Holdings plc. "We look forward to expanding our ongoing collaboration with Cadence to enable our customers to bring great products to market."

Tensilica customized DPUs augment traditional custom hardware design, offering both time-to-market and programmability advantages and can be optimized to achieve optimal power, performance and area efficiency. Tensilica IP provides application-optimized subsystems that work with industry-standard CPU architectures.

The flexible and printed electronics community reports encouraging progress in the materials and process ecosystem needed for commercial production — and an increasingly realistic focus on applications that best capitalize on the technology’s strengths. Best near-term prospects now look to be sturdy light-weight displays, smart sensor systems, and flexible and large area biomedical sensors and imagers.

Improving technology for everything from barrier films to roll-to-roll in-line testing may mean printed or flexible electronics will start to see some more significant commercial applications in the next few years. Judging from the reported status of sturdy lightweight displays, smart-enough sensor tags, and medical sensors and imagers at FlexTech Alliance’s annual conference last week in Phoenix, suppliers are increasingly targeting higher-value applications that can’t easily be made in other ways.

Light-weight, Rugged Displays

“This industry is starting to become reality,” asserted Plastic Logic CEO Indro Mukerjee, “We’ve moved from a science project to an industrial process, and have created a value chain with partners to make the business possible.”  He has moved the flexible display company away from marketing its own e-reader to supplying its electrophoretic display on flexible backplane module to a wide range of new users, now working with partners making outdoor signs, watches, automobiles, smart cards, and industrial indicators. He’s also promoting the company’s flexible TFT backplane for use in other markets, and aggressively pursuing LCD makers to transfer the production process for scaling. “The technology frontier business is not for the faint hearted,” he noted. “We’re going for it at Plastic Logic.” 

Growing into Major Markets: Will Take Time

Flexible and transparent displays will be the next big thing in displays, and will start to see real growth after 2015, to account for 19 percent of the display market by 2020, projected Sweta Dash, IHS senior director, Display Research and Strategy. She noted that Samsung and LG planned to start production, to some degree at least, of displays on unbreakable substrates this year for smart phones and tablets, targeting lighter weight and better durability.  IDTechEx senior technology analyst Harry Zervos figured only 1 percent of the large OLED display market would be either printed or flexible by 2018, but 12-14 percent would be so within ten years.  Though the same technologies will help the cost and performance of OLED lighting and organic PV, these applications, however, still seem a little further from significant commercial products. In five years, IDTechEx projects OLED lighting to reach a ~$120 million market, with flexible batteries, logic and memory, and solar all in the $50-$60 million range. 

Most of these flexible products still need better flexible barrier films to extend their useful lifetimes, and new transparent conductors to replace brittle ITO. Barrier films appear to remain problematic, but progressing. The sector has big hopes for lower cost ALD films, and Beneq Oy reported progress on cross flow technology for batch processing, with capacity to coat 35 2G-sized sheets with 50nm of Al2O3 in three minutes.  It has also scaled up a roll-to-roll (R2R) system, by separating the precursor gases by space instead of time, for coating several meters per minute. Best results for its 25nm Al2O3 barrier are 10-4g/m2/day. Vitriflex CEO and founder Ravi Prasad said its mixed-oxide thin-film stack with a novel top seal made by low-cost R2R sputtering on polymer film had been tested at independent labs at better than the industry target 10-5 g/m2/d. Sean Garner, Corning Inc. research associate, reported good results from initial runs of common material stacks on its rolls of 50-100nm flexible glass at pilot and research R2R printed electronics facilities. Wire grids and possibly silver nano wires appear to look like the best options for ITO replacement. 

Integrating Components into Flexible Systems

Beyond the display market, the major enabler for other printed applications is the ability to efficiently integrate various separate components into useful systems, and here Thin Film Electronics and its partners now target smart sensor tags, roll-to-roll printed in large volumes. The key market for printed electronics will not be large area devices that need very good yields, but instead simple devices in very large numbers, argued Thin Film CEO Davor Sutija. 

The company and its partners aim at  the ~$1.4 billion time and temperature sensor market, with tags potentially combining printed memory from Thin Film, organic logic from PARC, a printed thermistor from PST Sensors, and an electrochromic display from Acreo. Thin Film is also partnering with major packaging supplier Bemis to develop and market such smart packaging applications.  A more developed commercial product version of the current proof-of-concept demonstrator is targeted for 2014.

Shippers currently use simple color-changing tags to indicate if perishable shipments have gotten too hot or too cold in transit, but the information is limited and the color doesn’t last long. Simple printed systems of sensors plus memory and some 500-1,000 transistors of logic could be R2R printed at high volumes to record and display more usefully precise information than current alarm tags or data loggers, at lower cost than silicon. Similar simple tags for smart objects to store small amounts of actionable information could also be used for things like dynamic price displays, pharmaceuticals or logistics. Sutija optimistically projects smart sensor tags will be a 60 million unit market by 2014, and reach some 2 billion units by 2016, worth some $300 million — suggesting a ~$0.15 per tag price at those volumes. 

The company’s well established memory technology uses a ferroelectric polymer sandwiched between top and bottom electrodes that changes and maintains its state of capacitance when pulsed.  It has also developed much of the manufacturing infrastructure as well, including a  high-speed R2R step-and-go electrical test system based on a print web handling tool, and a hard scratch UV varnish coating to protect the memory, with a key flexible layer underneath to minimize the mechanical stress. 

Another approach to integrating components into flexible systems is to attach silicon chips to the flexible substrate, which could be easier if the chips were flexible. American Semiconductor and TowerJazz are currently qualifying a commercial foundry process for flexible silicon-on polymer CMOS, which will offer multi-project wafer runs to ease development. American Semiconductor CEO Doug Hackler said characterization of first wafers shows no shift in transistor performance of the flexible wafers, and that in fact removing the handle layer of the SOI wafer appeared to reduce parasitic capacitance and improve performance for RF devices.  It’s currently working on systems using the flexible chips in a smart conformable antenna with the Air Force Research Lab, and a flexible smart card with security card supplier ASI.

Flexible Medical Devices with Hybrid Approaches

Research efforts are targeting medical applications that require flexibility to comfortably wear on the body or wrap around it for measurement, such as MRI coils, or better collect data from inside it, via catheters or endoscopes or pills but that often need to be integrated with silicon-quality processing or communications.  FlexTech announced it was awarded a $5 million grant for a Nano-Bio Manufacturing Consortium, sponsored by the U.S. Air Force Research Lab, to bring together the diversity of players needed for cooperative R&D to develop a common manufacturing platform for microfluidics on flexible substrates for wearable sensors for monitoring human response, integrating wireless communication with hybrid electronics manufacturing.

MC10 is launching its first product, an impact monitoring device developed and marketed with Reebok, for inside a sports helmet to indicate when the wearer has had a high impact to the head, reported R&D VP Kevin Dowling. The company is also testing attaching its flexible sensors to catheter balloons, for interventional devices than can be inflated once inside the body. For example, these could be used to measure atrial fibrillation, to determine if an ablation treatment worked, or to send back a fuller map of electrical data from the beating heart than possible from one or two electrodes.  MC10’s approach is not to print the electronics, but to embed thinned silicon die with flexible wire connections in rugged polymer to make its flexible systems.  The chips are under-etched, released, and then transferred to the mold substrate, using transfer tools for the thinned die the company developed in house.

MC10, and a host of other researchers, with both hybrid systems and fully printed ones, are also working on measuring a wide range of vital signs with flexible skin patches or other units adhered to the skin, for condition monitoring, often sending the data to a smart phone for analysis. Ana Arias of the University of California at Berkeley showed good results with a flexible finger sensor to measure blood oxygenation with red and IR sources and detectors, and also printed MRI coils on flexible substrates that could wrap conformably around different sized people and body parts to get better images more quickly.  GE Global Research’s work on medical monitoring for the U.S. Army aims to print the sensors and conditioning electronics, but then use silicon for the high-speed communications. Electronic systems engineer and PI Jeff Ashe noted that a major challenge was how to efficiently assemble the silicon die with the printed the components, as assembly could account for almost half the total cost of the system. The solution: printing a magnetic layer on the chips and then shaking them over film with a patterned magnetic template underneath, so the chips quickly stick to the desired magnetic sites.

By far the most commercially advanced results were from Body Media, which is extending its sensor patch and armband, and sensor fusion and monitoring software, to more applications. Though the company puts its sensors in a flexible patch for trial purposes, and some need a flexible wire in flexible armbands, the core of the system is more conventional MEMS and other rigid sensors in a watch-like unit to measure activity, heart rate, galvanic skin response, and even ECG from the upper arm. The company has gotten good traction so far for weight loss, thanks in part to enthusiastic publicity from users on “The Biggest Loser” TV show, but CEO Ivo Stivoric sees opportunity in combining the rich activity and stress information from the system with other outside information on, say, glucose levels or cardiac data to aid in better managing other medical conditions. The company is looking for partners with the domain expertise to apply the sensor and software solution to other applications.  

Solution or Vapor Processing? On Flexible or Rigid Substrates? Printed Features or Attached Silicon Die?

All these systems have to navigate a complex system of tradeoffs between potentially disruptive and low-cost solution processing, flexible substrates, and organic materials— and the better performance possible with more established vacuum processes, rigid substrates, and conventional silicon devices.  IDTechEx’s Zervos predicted as much as a $20 billion market for “predominantly printed” electronics in a decade, but only a little over half of that would actually be made on flexible substrates, as developments in laser lift off, other peel-off technologies, and even thinned silicon wafers may allow more easily controlled processing on rigid substrates for making flexible products. 

Though OLED displays are now all vacuum coated on rigid substrates, producers are moving to solution printing the first, hole-side layer that is the thickest and uses expensive materials to save time and cost, and will likely gradually move to eventually printing more or even possibly all of the layers on rigid substrates, but area volumes will never be high enough for roll-to-roll printing on flexible substrate to make sense, argued NOVALED CSO Jan Blochwitz-Nimoth.  For large area OLED displays for TVs, the fine metal masking now used for depositing and patterning the red, green and blue OLED layers will be hard to scale up to 8G-sized substrates, so inkjet or nozzle printing could be the alternative. But that’s a big change to introduce on such a large scale, so producers are also looking at vapor processes like small mask scanning, laser induced thermal imaging, and using white OLED with a color filter instead. OLED lighting, on the other hand, could go to either R2R vacuum coating, or to adding some printed layers on rigid substrates to reduce costs in high-volume production. Blochwitz-Nimoth also noted that improved high deposition rates at low temperature from Aixtron’s new source could mean OLED lighting would not need solution processing after all.  OPV, in contrast, needs the high area volumes that only make sense to do with R2R, either all vacuum as NOVALED is starting pilot testing, or with printed hole-side layers. 

Supposedly low-cost printed electronics may often not actually be the lowest cost solution, argued David Miller from Arizona State University. He estimated that with appropriate performance, printing on flex in current low-volume R&D/pilot-type lines actually costs some $29/cm2, compared to ~$7/cm2 for CMOS and ~$0.05/cm2 for displays, though the comparison between research-level and production-level process costs is of course "apples to oranges." Still, for small die, it could make most sense to just attach a rigid or thinned silicon device to the flexible system. At moderate and high area volumes, however, printed TFTs should become significantly cheaper than silicon, so printed technologies may likely have the advantage for large area displays, and large area sensing arrays for things like optical imagers, x-rays and radiation detectors.  High-intensity computation and high-speed communication could then be added by conventional CMOS chips on the periphery.

SEMICON West has become a forum for the latest solutions and technologies for flexible electronics manufacturing of interest to the semiconductor/display world.  Now in its fifth year, the Printed and Plastic Electronics forum, organized by FlexTech, brings together manufacturers, developers, equipment and materials suppliers, and other solution providers.  FlexTech will also offer a workshop on transparent conductor technology developments.

Exhibiting Opportunities Available 

Companies are invited to exhibit at SEMICON West. If you have plastic and printed electronics technologies or solutions, exhibit in the Extreme Electronics zone. Close proximity to the presentation stage plus focused attendee marketing ensures high visibility with visitors focused on and interested in plastic electronics technologies. Great opportunities are still available — learn more about exhibiting at SEMICON West and Extreme Electronics! 

SEMICON West 2013 visitor registration opens March 18.

The steady increase in PC capabilities that has justified the upgrade cycle and fueled the long-term growth of the PC market is undergoing a historical deceleration, as evidenced by the slowing increase in dynamic random access memory (DRAM) content in notebooks and desktops since 2007.

Annual growth in the average DRAM usage per shipped PC has been slowing dramatically since peaking in 2007, according to an IHS iSuppli DRAM Dynamics Market Brief from information and analytics provider IHS. Following a 21.4% increase in 2012, the average growth of DRAM content per PC will decline to a record low of 17.4% this year, as presented in the attached figure. This compares to the high point of 56.1% in 2007, and 49.9% in 2008.

“For a generation, PCs have steadily improved their hardware performance and capabilities every year, with faster microprocessors, rising storage capacities and major increases in DRAM content,” said Clifford Leimbach, memory analyst at IHS. “These improvements—largely driven by rising performance demands of new operating system software—have justified the replacement cycle for PCs, compelling consumers and businesses to buy new machines to keep pace. However, on the DRAM front, the velocity of the increase has slackened. This slowdown reflects the maturity of the PC platform as well as a change in the nature of notebook computers as OEMs adjust to the rise of alternative systems—namely smartphones and media tablets.”

The growth in DRAM loading in PCs is expected remain in a low range in the coming years, rising by 21.3% in 2014 to and then continuing in the 20.0% range until at least 2016.

Notebooks slim down on DRAM

Notebooks increasingly are adopting ultrathin form factors and striving to increase battery life in order to become more competitive with popular media tablets. Because of this, DRAM chips must share limited space on the PC motherboard with other semiconductors that control the notebook’s other functions. Incorporating more DRAM bits can limit other notebook capabilities.

Notebook makers have shown a willingness to limit increase in DRAM on their systems, rather than sacrifice the thin form factor or eschew other features.

Desktops feel their age

For desktops, the slowing in DRAM bit growth reflects the maturity of PC hardware and operating system software.

DRAM has become less of a bottleneck in PC performance, tempering the need to increase DRAM bits in each system to ostensibly improve system speed.

Moreover, a change in PC operating system requirements has had the effect of limiting growth in DRAM loading. The latest version of Windows, in particular, has not required a step up in DRAM content, unlike previous Windows system versions where increased DRAM loading was explicitly required for desktops to avail of optimal performance that came with a new OS.

Post-PC era realities

“All told, PCs no longer need to add DRAM content as much as they did in the previous times, when failure to increase memory content in either desktops or laptops could have resulted in a direct impediment to performance,” Leimbach said. “The new normal now calls for a different state of affairs, in which DRAM PC loading won’t be growing at the same rates seen in past years.”

PCs historically have dominated DRAM consumption. However, starting in the second quarter of 2012, PCs accounted for less than half of all DRAM shipments—the first time in a generation that they didn’t consume 50 percent or more of the leading type of semiconductor memory. This is partly due to slowing shipment growth for PCs, combined with the deceleration in DRAM loading growth.

The development also illustrates the diminishing dominion of PCs in the electronics supply chain—and represented another sign of the post-PC era.

“The arrival of the post-PC era doesn’t mean that people will stop using personal computers, or even necessarily that the PC market will stop expanding,” Leimbach said. “What the post-PC era does mean is that personal computers are not at the center of the technology universe anymore—and are seeing their hegemony over the electronics supply chain erode. PCs are no longer generating the kind of growth and overwhelming market size that can single-handedly drive demand, pricing and technology trends in DRAM any many other major technology businesses.”