These three new two-part high refractive index (HRI) silicone encapsulants serve the light-emitting diode (LED) market and offer increased light output, a range of hardnesses to suit a variety of applications, and reportedly superior resistance to heat, chemical and ultraviolet (UV) light exposure. These HRI encapsulants are available in three formulations, each optimized for different uses and manufacturing processes. The OE-6665 A and B offer maximum hardness along with low viscosity. The OE-6630 A and B offer a softer formulation with similarly low viscosity. The OE-6635 A and B also offer a softer composition, but with twice the viscosity. All three products are highly transparent, with a refractive index of 1.53, compared with 1.4 for other silicone encapsulants on the market. Dow Corning Corp., Midland, MI, www.dowcorning.com.
Category Archives: LEDs
Manufacturers of the MEMS (microelectromechanical systems) accelerometers at the heart of these radical interfaces, firms such as Analog Devices (Wii), STMicroelectronics (iPhone), and Freescale Semiconductor, are reaping the rewards as well.
(November 15, 2007) SAN JOSE, CA and SANTA CLARA, CA — Two companies have recently launched new LED packaging products. Philips Lumileds has launched its new cool-white LUXEON K2 with TFFC LED that is designed, binned and tested for standard operation at 1000 mA and can be driven at 1500 mA. In addition, LedEngin Inc. has announced its 10W, multiwavelength RGBA emitter, the LZ4-00MA10, which contains individually addressable dies in an 7mm square power LED package.
Philips Lumileds’ LUXEON K2 has thin film flip chip (TFFC) technology that contributes to overall light output improvement, excellent optical performance and improved thermal capability. New packaging advancements deliver a low thermal resistance 5.5° C/W. Light output performance from a LUXEON K2 with TFFC part binned and tested for 160 lumens minimum and 1A drive current can easily exceed 220 lumens at higher drive currents.
(November 16, 2007) SAN JOSE, CA — North American-based manufacturers of semiconductor equipment posted US$1.23B in orders in October 2007 (three-month average basis) and a book-to-bill ratio of 0.83, according to the October 2007 Book-to-Bill Report published by SEMI. A book-to-bill of 0.83 means that $83 worth of orders were received for every $100 of product billed for the month.
November 6, 2007 – TSMC and Hon Hai Group are reportedly teaming up in the LED industry, via a business deal involving two partners.
Vanguard International Semiconductor Corp., ~25% owned by TSMC, will make LED drivers on a foundry basis for Fitpower Integrated Technology Inc., according to the Taiwan Economic News. Hon Hai would not confirm the deal, only saying they started foundry production of LED drivers in 3Q07.
The report also cites “industry watchers” speculating that Hon Hai wants to expand its LED biz into epitaxy-wafer manufacturing but doesn’t want to invest in the production equipment nor long process learning and ramp-up — which plays well into VISC’s experience in chipmaking on silicon wafers.
By Raj Jammy, Director of Front End Processes, SEMATECH, and SST Editorial Advisory Board member
The technological revolution affecting all spheres of our lives over the past half-century is largely due to the advent and pervasive adoption of semiconductor technology. The success of semiconductor technology has been due to our choice of semiconductor material, typically silicon, and the ability to form high-quality insulating layers from silicon. The manufacturing methods we have used to exploit this ability are fundamental to the rapid progress our industry has witnessed over the past few decades.
Silicon dioxide, the most important dielectric
November 6, 2007 – A pair of industry firms have each secured at least $20M in continued VC funding, to support their respective development of memory and system-on-chip design technology.
Innovative Silicon Inc. (ISi) says it will use the $25M raised in a Series C round of funding, led by all existing investors and new participant Wellington Partners Venture Capital, to expand engineering and customer support for its ZRAM high-density memory IP.
ISi’s zero-capacitor floating-body “ZRAM” technology is based on a standard silicon-on-insulator (SOI) logic process with a similar one-transistor bit-cell, that the company says is faster and 1.5-2.0x denser than DRAM with similar power and requires no exotic process changes. For DRAMs, the smaller bitcells translate into smaller, cheaper die, and eliminate the need to form capacitors which translates to faster work integration and node migration, simplified manufacturing flow, and thus lower capital/manufacturing costs and reduced WIP and “at-risk” wafers.
ISi counts both AMD and Hynix as primary customers, the latter just weeks ago inking a reported “eight-figure” licensing deal, with royalties upon production.
Meanwhile, fabless firm VeriSilicon Holdings Co. Ltd. says it has raised $20M in Series D financing, bring its total fundings to date to $58M, led by the China Investment Fund, (an IBM-Lehman Brothers partnership), with VantagePoint Venture Partners and existing investors. Funds will be used to accelerate R&D of the company’s SoC platforms “using advanced semiconductor technology,” and expand its ASIC turnkey operations worldwide. VeriSilicon currently has two R&D centers each in the US and China, and support offices in the US, Asia, and Europe.
“The successful acquisition of ZSP division of LSI last year, together with the soft core license of ARM and PowerPC processors, facilitates our development of a variety of SoC platforms for consumer applications, such as multimedia, voice, and wireless communication,” said company chairman/president/CEO Wayne Dai, in a statement, adding that “application domain specific and star IP based SoC platforms are critical to making our business repeatable, scalable, and with high barrier of entry.”
In 1887, Heinrich Hertz first observed the photoelectric effect. Over the intervening years, that early observation gave rise to the optoelectronics industry. Far from being monolithic, there is a range of different, and even disparate, technologies included under the umbrella term “optoelectronics”. It may be that the technology is entering into a golden age, where its capabilities will be fully tapped in different areas of application.
Clearly, lighting and solar energy will become increasingly important, and data transmission will remain an area of high interest. The latter suffered heavily following the dot-com bust, but fortunately other areas have seen steady growth. Given the interest in lighting, it should come without surprise that, according to a recent report by the Optoelectronics Industry Development Association (OIDA), the biggest driver for growth is still full-color LCD displays, which have been enabling and enhancing a variety of consumer-based products ranging from TVs and flat panel marketing displays to mobile phones, personal digital assistants (PDAs), and personal entertainment systems. According to the ODIA, flat panel display revenues are expected to grow to $200 billion in the next decade for the full range of large-scale video displays.
Another area of interest and growth for optoelectronics is in lighting high-brightness white-light LEDs, which are expected to lead the growth of LED markets past $14 billion by the next decade. With the growth of consciousness regarding energy waste that accompanies incandescent and florescent lighting, the proven cost efficacy experience of LEDs in stop lights, and the continuing decline in the cost of LEDs, this area appears to have legitimate promise. In fact, the solid-state lighting market is forecasted to grow to over $60 billion over the next decade primarily in the form of high-brightness (HB) LEDs. On the other hand, OLEDs are expected to penetrate this market slowly due to their higher cost structure.
Solid-state diode lasers are ubiquitous as pointers at conferences, and the prices continue to drop even for the more exotic and coveted green lasers. That aside, the diode laser market has been projected by OIDA to reach $12 billion within the next ten years. That is double the current market size (obviously the market is much more diverse than simple pointers). Non-diode laser market value is expected to exceed the diode market in the next 5 years, driven by industrial and medical applications.
Growth in optical networking equipment is currently leading optical communications. Optoelectronic transceivers were a roughly $1 billion market in 2006. Optoelectronics transceivers continue to focus on ethernet and fiber channel 10 Gbps technology, however, a number of companies have shown that copper is quite capable of reaching these data rates at low power and low cost.
Data rates of up to 40 Gbps over a distance of one meter were demonstrated in copper more than 4 years ago1, but it is likely that optoelectronic transceivers will play a greater role to play in the future, due to improvements in cost and infrastructure maturation and support, along with its inherent ability to transmit in both directions in multiple wave lengths.
There are, of course, those who are bullish on the future of photons to do this and more. “Everything that was done with an electron in the last century will be done with photons in this century.” noted David Morse, Senior VP and director of corporate research, Corning, Inc. in his keynote at the OIDA Forum in San Jose on September 12, 2007. It is a bold claim, but boldness is important because it can rally participants to a cause.
Areas of interest for R&D now and in the future are broad, although efforts have been ongoing for a few decades. It has only been within the past several years that practical photonic ICs have emerged. They are being used in a range of product applications from tunable lasers with wide ranges, to single-chip transmitters and receivers, to single-chip chemical sensors. According to the experts, this type of photonic integration has long been sought after as the next big step toward low-cost, low-size, and low-power dissipation chips with increased capability.
In summary, optoelectronics and photonics are continuing their comeback in some areas and pressing well ahead in others. It is clear that optoelectronics is not a monolithic industry but one that is multifaceted, and will continue to provide industry and consumers alike with an expanding range of new and improved light-emitting, -converting, and -transmitting products.
References
1. http://www.eeproductcenter.com/showPressRelease.jhtml?articleID=126227
 |
Joseph Fjelstad, president, may be contacted at SilconPipe,Inc.,1030 El Camino #262, Sunnyvale, CA 94087; 408/836-2856; E-mail: [email protected].
October 29, 2007 – Worldwide semiconductor sales rose ~5% for the second consecutive month to a record $22.60 billion in Sept. 2007, riding demand for PCs and cell phones as seasonal patterns build to a head, according to data from the SIA.
A surge in consumer product demand (+35% in 3Q07 vs. 2Q07) drove chip sales, mainly in two familiar categories: PCs and cell phones, which helped push NAND flash sales by ~46% Q-Q/~59% Y-Y, while boosting ASPs by nearly 32% Q-Q, noted SIA president George Scalise, in a statement. The SIA cited recent data from Gartner projecting 14.4% PC unit sales in 3Q vs. 2Q, and consequently an 18.7% increase in microprocessor revenues. Cell phone unit sales from the top four vendors, meanwhile, rose about 11% in 3Q.
Preliminary chip sales (based on a three-month moving average) were up M-M across all regions, led for a change by the US (6.2%), ahead of the Asia-Pacific (5.2%). Year-on-year, though, the US continues to be the only region to show declines, though now mitigated somewhat to -2.2% — still that’s the ninth straight month of monthly Y-Y declines, counting every month so far in 2007. Asia-Pacific dominated Y-Y growth again with ~10%, followed by Japan (5.8%) and Europe (3.5%).
Preliminary totals for 3Q07 (actual chip sales, not an average) show chip sales of $6.78B, about 13.2% higher than 2Q, slightly bigger than a year ago but still indicative of a seasonal jump (0.4% in 2Q06 to 7.9% in 3Q06). Year-on-year, 3Q sales grew a bit slower than in 3Q06 (5.9%, vs. ~9%), following a pattern of the past few quarters.
Through the first three quarters of 2007, chip sales totaled $188.8B, roughly 3.5% ahead of the same pace a year ago, and slightly ahead of the SIA’s projections in June. Scalise noted that the specter of higher energy prices has not yet had an impact on the semiconductor industry, but “will bear watching” heading into the year-end retail selling season.
Worldwide semiconductor sales*, September 2007
(US $B)
Market……..Current month……..vs. prior month (%)…………….vs. year-ago (%)
Americas…………….3.81……………………3.58 (6.2%)……………………3.89 (-2.2%)
Europe………………..3.53……………………3.38 (4.6%)…………………..3.41 (3.5%)
Japan………………….4.26……………………4.10 (3.8%)……………………4.02 (5.8%)
Asia Pacific………..11.01…………………..10.47 (5.2%)…………………10.02 (9.9%)
TOTAL……………….22.60………………….21.53 (5.0%)…………………21.34 (5.9%)
Market…………….Jul/Aug/Sept……………Apr/May/Jun (%)
Americas……………………3.81……………………3.31 (15.0%)
Europe……………………….3.53……………………3.21 (10.2%)
Japan…………………………4.26……………………3.88 (9.8%)
Asia Pacific……………….11.01……………………9.57 (15.0%)
TOTAL……………………..22.60………………….19.97 (13.2%)
* Based on three-month average
Source: SIA
October 29, 2007 – After two years of legal battles, a district court in Hsinchu, Taiwan, has ruled that three former execs of foundry UMC broke no laws in their roles helping to set up Chinese chip company He Jian Technology (Suzhou) Co.
Taiwanese prosecutors had been pushing for jail time for former UMC chairman Robert Tsao for his company’s alleged illegal technology involvement with He Jian, even though a lower court this summer threw out fines levied against him.
The court ruled that there was insufficient evidence that UMC, led by Tsao and former vice-chairman John Hsuan, provided assistance to He Jian in establishing and operation, acquiring land, employees, technology, and developing a business strategy, and that there was no damage to UMC shareholder’s interest , citing a shareholder resolution supporting a proposed 15% stake in the Chinese company in “appreciation” for UMC’s help.
An Associated Press report noted that since UMC’s activities came under scrutiny, Taiwanese investments in China have surpassed $100 billion.
Prosecutors, who handed down the initial indictment in Jan. 2006, had sought up to 2 years jail time, and will appeal the verdict, according to Taiwan press reports. On July 19, the Taipei Administrative High Court invalidated a US ~$150,000 fine imposed on UMC, saying that UMC’s investment in He Jian can’t be classified as an investment since UMC only provided technical assistance, and that the government failed to sufficiently prove otherwise.
In their initial appeal, prosecutors claimed that an internal UMC document indicates Tsao and Hsuan intentionally committed “breach of trust” by offering UMC’s assets without charge — a different accusation that what the Ministry of Economic Affairs cited in its fines of the execs, according to the Taiwan Economic News, Taipei Times, and Digitimes.
After the court’s ruling, Tsao chided the prosecutor’s and MOEA’s Investment Commission’s “ridiculous and reckless” handling of the case (which they have vowed to appeal again), and is considering his own legal action against the Investment Commission.
October 16, 2007 — /ASHRAE News/ — ATLANTA, GA — An estimated annual energy savings of 13 percent relative to ASHRAE/IESNA Standard 90.1-2004 should result from a proposed addendum regarding air- and water-cooled chillers.
ANSI/ASHRAE/IESNA Standard 90.1, Energy Standard for Buildings Except Low-Rise Residential Buildings, provides minimum requirements for the energy-efficient design of buildings except low-rise residential buildings. Fourteen proposed addenda to the 2007 standard, due out for publication later this year, currently are open for public comment.
Among the addenda is proposed addendum m, which establishes effective Jan. 1, 2010, an additional path of compliance for water-cooled chillers as well as consolidation and new requirements for some of the existing categories. The proposed addendum was developed by a team of Standard 90.1 members, industry manufacturers and energy advocacy groups, including the American Council for an Energy Efficiency Economy and the Air-Conditioning and Refrigeration Institute (ARI) and was supported by ARI chiller manufacturers.
Product development for water-cooled chillers in recent years has focused on improving off-design and part-load performance where most of the operating hours occur, according to Drake Erbe, chair of the standard’s mechanical subcommittee. Variable speed drives (VSD) technology has advanced and is finding widespread application in water-cooled chillers. The use of VSDs has led to off-design and part load improvement of the chiller’s performance with efficiencies of up to 30 percent in integrated part-load value (IPLV).
Under the proposed addendum, an alternative set of efficiency levels, Path B, is established for water-cooled chillers intended for applications where significant time is expected at part load. All Path B chillers must be equipped with demand limiting controls. Under this proposal, compliance with Standard 90.1 can be achieved by either meeting the requirements of Path B or Path A (intended for applications where significant operating time is expected at full load conditions). However, both full-load and IPLV levels must be met to fulfill the requirements of Paths A or B, according to Erbe.
The proposed addendum also combines water-cooled positive displacement chillers into one category and adds a new size category for centrifugal chillers at or above 600 tons. The air-cooled chiller without condenser equipment type category has been eliminated. All air-cooled chillers without condensers must now be rated with matching condensers.
The minimum efficiencies of air-cooled chillers have also been updated, Erbe said. Efficiencies in the inch-pound version of Standard 90.1 are now expressed in energy efficiency ratio (EER) for air-cooled chillers, kW/ton for water-cooled chillers and coefficient of performance (COP) for absorption chillers to reflect industry practices. Tables 6.8.1 H through J listing minimum full load and non-standard part load value (NPLV) efficiencies of water-cooled centrifugal chillers at non-standard rating conditions have been eliminated and replaced by an algebraic equation. The tables will now be included in the User’s Manual.
This proposal is estimated to save 457.6 GWh of energy per year compared to the requirements of the 2004 version of Standard 90.1. This represents an annual chiller energy savings of 13.3 percent over Standard 90.1-2007, according to Erbe.
Proposed addend m to ASHRAE/IESNA Standard 90.1 is available during its public review period, which ends Oct. 29. To read the addendum or to comment, visit www.ashrae.org/publicreviews.
About ASHRAE
ASHRAE, founded in 1894, is an international organization of some 50,000 persons. ASHRAE fulfills its mission of advancing heating, ventilation, air conditioning, and refrigeration to serve humanity and promote a sustainable world through research, standards writing, publishing, and continuing education.