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

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

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

KLA-Tencor Corporation (NASDAQ: KLAC) announced its SpectraShape 9000 optical critical dimension (CD) metrology system and BDR300 backside defect inspection and review module at the SPIE Advanced Lithography conference this week. The SpectraShape 9000 is a new metrology system capable of monitoring the shapes of three-dimensional transistors, memory cells and other key structures that enable high-performance memory and microprocessor chips. The BDR300 inspects and reviews the back side of the wafer for defects that can cause patterning problems on the wafer’s front side. The two new systems are designed to enable volume production of integrated circuits at sub-20nm design rules.

“In this era of highly extended 193nm immersion lithography, our customers are innovating on several fronts to deal with process tolerances in lithography and etch that have become remarkably tight,” said Brian Trafas, Ph.D., chief marketing officer at KLA-Tencor. “The two products we have launched today tackle two key process control issues in this area: scanner focus-related defects and failure or underperformance of finFETs, vertically stacked NANDs, and other three-dimensional structures, caused by small deviations in shape. The BDR300 and SpectraShape 9000 are designed to help our customers navigate the monumental challenges they are facing today in lithography and etch.”

The new SpectraShape 9000 introduces a laser-driven plasma light source and several other significant advances that enable dimensional metrology capability for a broad range of materials and structures. The SpectraShape 9000 features higher sensitivity and throughput than its predecessor in order to accommodate the industry’s need for tighter process control at sub-20nm nodes—a need to measure more sites per wafer on an increasing number of layers. It also supports innovative metrology targets designed for multiple-patterning lithography.

The new BDR300 back-side inspection and review module for the CIRCL cluster tool features a dramatic improvement in defect sensitivity over that of its predecessor, allowing fabs to find and classify sub-micron back-side defects, which can agglomerate and affect yield at advanced nodes. The CIRCL cluster is now available as a stand-alone back-side inspection and review system, a configuration designed to support an increasing industry requirement to inspect the back sides of wafers before wafers enter the scanner. Clean wafer back sides reduce the probability of contaminating the scanner chuck and affecting subsequent product.

Multiple SpectraShape 9000 shape metrology systems have been installed at leading logic and memory chip manufacturers, where they are replacing existing CD/shape metrology tools for new technology development and ramp or fulfilling requirements for additional metrology capacity. The first CIRCL tools containing the BDR300 module have also been installed and are being used for proactive scanner monitoring as well as traditional after-develop defect inspection. To maintain the high performance and productivity demanded by leading-edge production, the SpectraShape and CIRCL tools are backed by KLA-Tencor’s global, comprehensive service network.

Molecular Imprints, Inc. (MII), a developer of advanced semiconductor lithography, has announced the delivery of an advanced lithography platform which uses Xaar 1001 inkjet printheads to pattern 450mm silicon wafer substrates.

The first patterned 450mm wafers produced using the Imprio 450 were showcased by Intel Corporation at the SEMI Industry Strategy Symposium (ISS) in January. This represents a major step in semiconductor manufacturing and accelerates the industry’s transition to 450mm wafers by two years or more.

The advanced design of the Xaar 1001 with its patented TF Technology recirculates the resist fluid directly past the back of the nozzle, effectively managing temperature, keeping particles in suspension and evacuating any bubbles from inside the printhead. This is ideal for applying functional fluids where high performance, productivity and reliability are essential. This application demonstrates the increasing adoption of inkjet within advanced manufacturing processes and underscores Xaar’s efforts to extend its inkjet technology into new markets. 

“While the development period has been extensive, the results are impressive and show that Xaar technology has the potential to deliver ultra-precise results within a highly demanding manufacturing application,” says Mark Alexander, director of marketing at Xaar.

Xaar, an independent supplier of industrial inkjet printheads, has worked closely with MII on the application of their Jet and Flash Imprint Lithography (J-FIL) technology. The MII Imprio 450 tool uses a special version of the Xaar 1001 printhead to print tiny droplets of resist fluid to the precise patterning requirements of the J-FIL technology.

SEMATECH announced today that Dr. Bryan J. Rice, on assignment from Intel Corporation as SEMATECH’s director of Strategic Initiatives, was inducted as a 2013 Fellow by SPIE, the international society for optics and photonics, during its annual SPIE Advanced Lithography conferences in San Francisco, CA.

Each year, SPIE Fellows are elected based on their significant scientific and technical contributions in optics, photonics, and imaging. Rice received recognition for his achievements in technical and strategic leadership in the development of lithography. He was one of 69 Fellows elected to the Society this year.

“SPIE’s election of Bryan to Fellow demonstrates the significance of his achievements and is a testament to his leadership in the lithography community,” said Dan Armbrust, SEMATECH president and CEO.

Before being named SEMATECH’s director of Strategic Initiatives in 2011, Rice served as director of SEMATECH’s Lithography program for three years. Under his leadership, SEMATECH partnered with the College of Nanoscale Science and Engineering (CNSE) to launch the Resist and Materials Development Center, an EUV imaging resource, and the EUV Mask Infrastructure (EMI) Partnership which focuses on critical EUV tool development activities.

Rice also led SEMATECH’s high-index immersion research in the search for high-refractive index lens and immersion fluid materials, and helped form the group’s double-exposure program, which focused on the exploration of novel materials for the litho-litho etch patterning approach.

Prior to his assignment at SEMATECH, Rice worked with lithography tool manufacturers and EUV source suppliers in Intel’s Components Research Division, to remove roadblocks to the development of EUV lithography technology.

Rice holds a doctorate in nuclear physics from Duke University as well as a bachelor’s degree in physics and a master’s degree in computer science from the Georgia Institute of Technology. He holds 16 U.S. patents and is the author of numerous publications on lithography and metrology. 

As an active member of SPIE, Rice has authored and co-authored more than 30 papers, presented numerous papers and posters on current lithography issues, and contributed to selected chapters of books published by SPIE Press.

SPIE is dedicated to advancing scientific research and engineering applications of optical, photonic, imaging and optoelectronic technologies through its meetings, education programs and publications.

LEDs are projected to grow more than six-fold to nearly $100 billion and power conversion electronics to $15 billion over the next decade as the desire for energy efficiency drives adoption, says Lux Research. While the market opportunity is clear, the winning positions are still very much up for grabs, so making wise partnership and investment choices is critical.  

“A slew of developers are working on innovative materials and system architectures, targeting the primary challenges of cost reduction and manufacturability,” said Pallavi Madakasira, Lux Research Analyst and the lead author of the report titled, Winning the Jump Ball: Sorting Winners from Losers in LEDs and Power Electronics. “Many leading lights of the electronics industry are strong in these markets, but start-ups with novel technologies are looking to grab a share for themselves.  

Lux Research positioned the key developers of LEDs and power electronics materials, devices, and systems on the Lux Innovation Grid based on their technical Vvalue and business execution – companies that are strong on both axes reach the “dominant” quadrant. They also assessed each company’s maturity, and provided an overall Lux Take. Among their findings:

  • SiC players are dominant in power electronics. The “dominant” power electronics players wager mostly on SiC. Cree is a fully vertically integrated SiC device manufacturer, while other top leaders are experienced players from silicon power electronics like Infineon, Rohm Semiconductor and ST Microelectronics.
  • Cree, II-VI Wide Bandgap lead materials space. Cree is also “dominant” in materials, based on its development of SiC substrates. The only other company with a “dominant” rank is II-VI Wide Bandgap Group, an SiC wafer supplier with established relationships with power electronics and RF device manufacturers.
  • Six vie for dominance in LED. Cree is the leader in LEDs as well, the only firm that has successfully commercialized SiC-substrate-based LEDs at scale. Among other “dominant” firms, Nichia holds the most IP, while Samsung, Philips, and Osram Opto Semiconductors have all demonstrated GaN-on-silicon LEDs. GE Lighting does not have its own chip technology but its integration further down the value chain and its recent acquisition of fixture manufacturer Albeo make it a force to reckon with.

The report, titled Winning the Jump Ball: Sorting Winners from Losers in LEDs and Power Electronics, is part of the Lux Research Energy Electronics Intelligence service.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

The competitive landscape of the cellphone core integrated circuit (IC) business has completely transformed over the past five years, with Qualcomm Inc. and Samsung capitalizing on the rise of smartphones and 4G.

In the market for application-specific mobile handset core ICs like baseband and radio-frequency semiconductors, Qualcomm in 2012 reigned supreme with 31 percent market revenue share, according to the IHS iSuppli Wireless Competitive Landscape Tool from information and analytics provider IHS (NYSE: IHS).

The San Diego-based chip maker has held the top position since 2007 and even enlarged its lead by 8 percentage points during the period. South Korea’s Samsung Electronics was the No. 2 vendor after Qualcomm, with a 21 percent share, after not even ranking in in the Top 10 in 2007, as presented in the attached figure.

Together the two companies accounted for more than half of the total market, with the next eight vendors in the Top 10 accounting for another 34 percentage points of share. The other vendors among the leaders were, in descending order, MediaTek, Intel, Skyworks, Texas Instruments, ST-Ericsson, Renesas, Spreadtrum and Broadcom. The Top 10 enjoyed a collective 86 percent share of the market.

“As smartphones and the next-generation wireless standard known as 4G Long Term Evolution (LTE) have gained popularity, the corresponding influences from both forces have created paradigm shifts that transformed competition in the mobile handset core IC market,” said Brad Shaffer, analyst for consumer & communications at IHS. “The arrival of Apple Inc.’s iPhone five years ago changed the game and paved the way for the current market rankings. This change is dramatically illustrated by looking at the major differences in the cellphone core IC rankings from 2007 to 2012. The companies that benefited from the shift in market orientation rose to domination while others that were caught between changing market environments were left in limbo.”

Getting to the core

The cellphone core IC space encompasses semiconductors that provide mobile handsets with wireless wide-area-networking (WWAN) communication and application-processing capabilities.

The market segments here include handset core ICs for analog baseband, digital baseband, power amplifiers, radio and intermediate frequencies, high-level operating systems and software processors, and other multimedia or graphics coprocessors.

Changes sweep the industry

Of the companies that did not even rank back in 2007, Samsung has climbed the quickest, landing in the runner-up spot, driven by its presence in the applications processor space. Also among those making the jump from outside the Top 10 is Intel, in fourth position at the end of last year after acquiring Infineon’s wireless division. It remains to be seen how successful Intel will be in utilizing the acquisition, finalized in 2011, in order to increase the breadth of its mobile product offering and increase the likelihood of winning design slots for those mobile products. Intel is also starting to see some signs of life with the Atom processor and its inclusion in handsets from Motorola along with other original equipment manufacturers.

Two other vendors also broke into the ranks of the Top 10 in 2012.

In ninth place, Spreadtrum expanded its digital baseband IC revenue by more than 370 percent within the five-year period. Broadcom likewise expanded revenue by a similar dizzying magnitude to land at No. 10—thanks to baseband IC revenue finally gaining traction by ramping design wins since 2011 at Samsung.

Everything’s smaller for Texas Instruments

While Qualcomm increased its lead at the top from 2007 to 2012, Texas Instruments fell from second to sixth place—down from a 20 percent share to 4 percent. TI’s proprietary OMAP product line of chips for portable and mobile multimedia applications has not taken off as quickly as expected, and the company as a result could not offset its planned exit from baseband products.

Another vendor near the top in 2007 that experienced a decrease in market share was ST-Ericsson, shrinking 2 percent to a 4 percent market share.

More changes ahead

The structure of the mobile handset core IC market will continue to shift, particularly as LTE becomes more widespread.

Baseband chips, already accounting for more than half the revenue of the total handset core IC space, will maintain their pre-eminence in determining the market-share gains and losses of industry vendors moving forward, IHS believes. Nonetheless, the future will also be driven by the ability of any given IC supplier to provide platform solutions that optimize the system-level design of all of the ICs, making up the handset’s core chip architecture.

Attribution: By gillyberlin (Flickr: Motorola Milestone Test) [CC-BY-2.0 (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/2.0)], via Wikimedia Commons

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

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

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

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

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

Improving the NanoVelcro device

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

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

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

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

Testing the improvements on melanoma

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

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

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

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

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

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

Learn more about applications and markets of nanobiotechnology.

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

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

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

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

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