Category Archives: LEDs

North America-based manufacturers of semiconductor equipment posted $1.17 billion in orders worldwide in April 2013 (three-month average basis) and a book-to-bill ratio of 1.08, according to the April EMDS Book-to-Bill Report published today by SEMI.   A book-to-bill of 1.08 means that $108 worth of orders were received for every $100 of product billed for the month.

The three-month average of worldwide bookings in April 2013 was $1.17 billion. The bookings figure is 6.4 percent higher than the final March 2013 level of $1.10 billion, and is 26.8 percent lower than the April 2012 order level of $1.60 billion.

The three-month average of worldwide billings in April 2013 was $1.08 billion. The billings figure is 9.3 percent higher than the final March 2013 level of $991.0 million, and is 25.7 percent lower than the April 2012 billings level of $1.46 billion.

“Both bookings and billings trends have been improving over the last four months, with the book-to-bill ratio remaining above parity over the same period," said Denny McGuirk, president and CEO of SEMI.  “While orders remain well below last year’s numbers, the current order and spending activity is aligned with 2012 capex plans.”

The SEMI book-to-bill is a ratio of three-month moving averages of worldwide bookings and billings for North American-based semiconductor equipment manufacturers. Billings and bookings figures are in millions of U.S. dollars.

  Billings
(3-mo. avg)		 Bookings
(3-mo. avg)		 Book-to-Bill
November 2012 910.1 718.6 0.79
December 2012 1,006.1 927.4 0.92
January 2013 968.0 1,076.0 1.11
February 2013 974.7 1,073.5 1.10
March 2013 (final) 991.0 1,103.3 1.11
April 2013 (prelim) 1,083.2 1,173.4 1.08

GT Advanced Technologies logoGT Advanced Technologies today announced that it has acquired substantially all of the business of Thermal Technology LLC for purchase consideration, consisting of approximately 3.4 million shares of GTAT common stock and an earn out. Located in Santa Rosa, CA, Thermal Technology develops and sells a wide range of high temperature thermal and vacuum products used in the fabrication of advanced materials that are deployed across multiple industries including smartphones and touch screens, LED, medical devices, oil and gas and automotive to name a few. Thermal Technology has delivered over 3,000 products to customers in over 40 countries since it was founded 60 years ago.

GT has acquired several key products and technologies that will allow GT to address new markets with a range of production equipment options. This includes annealing technology that the company believes will be important in the manufacturing of sapphire cover screens; crystal growth technology based on the Kyropoulous (KY) growth method and edge defined film growth (EFG) technology for large surface area sapphire. The company has also acquired Spark Plasma Sintering (SPS) technology, which allows dense ceramics to be obtained under uniform heating at relatively low temperatures and in short processing times. The SPS technology is expected to have a wide range of applications including with medical applications, sputtering targets, space applications and thermoelectric convertors for hybrid electric cars.

"The acquisition of the Thermal Technology business adds a number of innovative and important products and technologies to our rapidly diversifying portfolio that will, we believe, allow us to accelerate our entrance into new markets," said Tom Gutierrez, GT’s president and CEO. "The acquisition expands our served markets and complements several of our current product lines. In areas such as sapphire crystal growth, we can now offer customers a wider range of product options best suited to their specific production environments. This will enable us to compete for incremental business in areas where we would have previously been unable to offer a product."

"This is an exciting moment for the company, our employees and our customers," said Matt Mede, president and CEO of Thermal Technology. "The acquisition will open new opportunities for growth for our products and technology as we integrate them into GT’s business operations. Leveraging GT’s leadership in engineering and product development and their strengths in low-cost global supply chain management will accelerate the time-to-market of our technology to drive market adoption in several promising markets as we go forward. Customers will also benefit through GT’s global service and support capabilities."

GT does not expect the acquisition to materially impact its CY13 revenue or earnings guidance range. The anticipated revenue contribution from the Thermal Technology business in the balance of FY13 is approximately $9 to $14 million. GT expects minimal impact on earnings per share as expenses and the increase in share count will limit the contribution during the initial year of integration.

Quantum dots are tiny nanocrystals with extraordinary optical and electrical properties with possible uses in dye production, bioimaging, and solar energy production. Researchers at the University of Illinois at Chicago have developed a way to introduce precisely four copper ions into each and every quantum dot.

The introduction of these "guest" ions, called doping, opens up possibilities for fine-tuning the optical properties of the quantum dots and producing spectacular colors.

"When the crystallinity is perfect, the quantum dots do something that no one expected–they become very emissive and end up being the world’s best dye," says Preston Snee, assistant professor of chemistry at UIC and principal investigator on the study.

The results are reported in the journal ACS Nano, available online in advance of print publication. Incorporating guest ions into the crystal lattice can be very challenging, says UIC graduate student Ali Jawaid, first author of the paper.

Controlling the number of ions in each quantum dot is tricky. Merely targeting an average number of guest ions will not produce quantum dots with optimal electrical and optical properties.

Jawaid developed a procedure that reliably produces perfect quantum dots, each doped with exactly four copper ions. Snee believes the method will enable them to substitute other guest ions with the same consistent results.

"This opens up the opportunity to study a wide array of doped quantum dot systems," he said.

Donald Wink and Leah Page of UIC and Soma Chattopadhyay of Argonne National Laboratory also contributed to the study.

Support for the research came from UIC and the UIC Chancellor’s Discovery Fund and the American Chemical Society Petroleum Research Fund. The Materials Research Collaborative Access Team, a consortium for building and operating x-ray beamlines at Argonne’s Advanced Photon Source, is supported by the U.S. Department of Energy and the MRCAT member institutions. The use of the Advanced Photon Source was supported by the DOE Office of Basic Energy Sciences under contract DE-QC02-06CH11357.

UIC ranks among the nation’s leading research universities and is Chicago’s largest university with 27,500 students, 12,000 faculty and staff, 15 colleges and the state’s major public medical center. A hallmark of the campus is the Great Cities Commitment, through which UIC faculty, students and staff engage with community, corporate, foundation and government partners in hundreds of programs to improve the quality of life in metropolitan areas around the world.

Spectra-Physics, a Newport Corporation brand, introduces Spirit ps 1040-10, an industrial-grade picosecond laser for precision micromachining applications. The new laser delivers high finesse with exceptional beam quality (M2< 1.2), high stability (<1% rms over 100 hours), and short pulse widths (13 ps). The laser is also highly flexible with user-adjustable repetition rates from single shot to 1 MHz and an integrated pulse picker for fast pulse selection and power control. With >10 W average power, the laser is ideal for precision picosecond micromachining applications such as semiconductor and LED manufacturing, flat panel display processing, thin film ablation, and nano structuring.

“The Spirit ps laser’s precise beam shape, pulse duration, and energy translate into high-precision application results,” says Herman Chui, senior director of product marketing for Spectra-Physics. “Combined with its flexibility in repetition rate and pulse energy, this rugged industrial laser is ideal for a wide range of critical picosecond micromachining applications.”

Spectra-Physics’ Spirit ps 1040-10 laser is based on the field-proven Spirit industrial ultrafast laser platform. With high quantities of deployed systems in demanding 24/7 applications, this rugged product platform has consistently demonstrated high reliability.

The new Spirit ps 1040-10 laser will be featured at LASER World of Photonics in Munich, Germany, May 13-16, 2013.

Newport Corporation is a global supplier of advanced-technology products and systems to customers in the scientific research, microelectronics manufacturing, aerospace and defense/security, life and health sciences and precision industrial manufacturing markets. 

Spirit picosecond industrial laser

Worldwide silicon wafer area shipments decreased during the first quarter 2013 when compared to fourth quarter 2012 area shipments, according to the SEMI Silicon Manufacturers Group (SMG) in its quarterly analysis of the silicon wafer industry.

Total silicon wafer area shipments were 2,128 million square inches during the most recent quarter, a 1.6 percent decrease from the 2,162 million square inches shipped during the previous quarter. New quarterly total area shipments are 4.8 percent higher than first quarter 2012 shipments.

"Total silicon shipment volumes experienced typical first quarter weakness, although volumes are up relative to the same quarter last year” said Byungseop (Brad) Hong, chairman of SEMI SMG and director of Global Marketing at LG Siltron. “Given current expectations for modest growth for the semiconductor industry this year, we are hopeful that the silicon industry will follow suit.”

Quarterly Silicon Area Shipment Trends

Semiconductor Silicon Shipments* – Millions of Square Inches

    Q1 2012    Q4 2012    Q1 2013 
  Total   2,033 2,162

2,128

*Shipments are for semiconductor applications only and do not include solar applications

Silicon wafers are the fundamental building material for semiconductors, which in turn, are vital components of virtually all electronics goods, including computers, telecommunications products, and consumer electronics. The highly-engineered thin round disks are produced in various diameters (from one inch to 12 inches) and serve as the substrate material on which most semiconductor devices or "chips" are fabricated.

All data cited in this release is inclusive of polished silicon wafers, including virgin test wafers, epitaxial silicon wafers, and non-polished silicon wafers shipped by the wafer manufacturers to the end-users.

The Silicon Manufacturers Group acts as an independent special interest group within the SEMI structure and is open to SEMI members involved in manufacturing polycrystalline silicon, monocrystalline silicon or silicon wafers (e.g., as cut, polished, epi, etc.). The purpose of the group is to facilitate collective efforts on issues related to the silicon industry including the development of market information and statistics about the silicon industry and the semiconductor market.

SEMI is the global industry association serving the nano- and microelectronics manufacturing supply chains. SEMI’s 1,900 member companies are the engine of the future, enabling smarter, faster and more economical products that improve our lives. SEMI maintains offices in Bangalore, Beijing, Berlin, Brussels, Grenoble, Hsinchu, Moscow, San Jose, Seoul, Shanghai, Singapore, Tokyo, and Washington, D.C.  For more information, visit www.semi.org.

The LED industry gained a foothold for growth in the parts and materials industry after LED technology was applied to the TV backlight unit (BLU). The industry is now about to advance again with the development of the LED lighting, an end product industry. Accordingly, LED-related companies are in intense competition to cut costs, improve yield rate, and develop core technology to survive.

The ingot and substrate industry, the front-end in the LED supply chain, experienced soaring prices and oligopolistic market from the growth of the LED industry and a supply shortage in 2010. But revenues declined rapidly in 2011 when an LED industry slump caused prices to plunge and inventory to build up. According to this report, the LED ingot market is expected to recover after 2012 and increase to $324 million by 2015. 

“LED Ingot and Substrate Industry Analysis and Forecast,” by Displaybank, recently acquired by IHS Inc. (NYSE:IHS), analyzes overall status and outlook of the sapphire ingot industry through the analyses of manufacturing technology and processing of the sapphire ingot widely used as LED ingots; status of major ingot makers; trend of start-up companies; manufacturers’ capacities; and market price and demand forecasts.

This report will be of great help to the LED ingot and substrate makers; Epi—wafer and chip-related companies; package firms; companies interested in lighting and new businesses applying LED technology; and manufacturers in LED components and materials industry. In particular, this report is expected to provide the related companies with useful information as it contains in-depth analysis and forecasts of the 6-inch ingot market and price.

The 59th annual IEEE International Electron Devices Meeting (IEDM) has issued a Call for Papers seeking original work in microelectronics research and development. The paper submission deadline is Monday, June 24, 2013 at 23:59 p.m. Pacific Time.

Special Focus Sessions at the 2013 IEDM will include bioMEMS, analog devices and circuits, advanced semiconductor manufacturing, and terahertz devices. Overall, increased participation is sought this year in circuit and process technology interaction, energy harvesting, bio-sensors and bioMEMS, power devices, magnetics and spintronics.

The 2013 IEDM will take place at the Washington Hilton Hotel December 9-11, 2013, preceded by a full day of Short Courses on Sunday, Dec. 8 and 90-minute afternoon tutorial sessions on Saturday, Dec. 7. Also, building on the popularity of the inaugural Entrepreneurs Luncheon held at last year’s IEDM, the event will be held once again, on Wednesday, Dec. 11.

The world’s best scientists and engineers in the field of microelectronics from industry, academia and government will gather at the IEDM to enjoy a technical program of more than 220 presentations, along with panels, special sessions, Short Courses, IEEE/EDS award presentations and other events spotlighting more leading work in more areas of the field than any other conference. Papers in the following areas are encouraged:

  • Circuit and Device Interaction
  • Characterization, Reliability and Yield
  • Display and Imaging Systems
  • Memory Technology
  • Modeling and Simulation
  • Nano Device Technology
  • Process and Manufacturing Technology
  • Power and Compound Semiconductor Devices
  • Sensors, MEMS and BioMEMS

 For registration and other information, interested persons should visit the IEDM 2013 home page at www.ieee-iedm.org.

Engineered Material Systems, a global supplier of electronic materials for circuit assembly applications, debuts its CA-105 Low-Cost Conductive LED Die Attach Adhesive for attaching LEDs and other small semiconductor die to silver and copper lead frames.

EMS CA-105 is approximately half the cost of a pure silver filled die attach adhesive, has a high glass transition temperature (Tg) to facilitate wire bonding small die, has low extractable ionics and high adhesion to silver and copper lead frames. CA-105 has a dispensing open time (pin transfer) greater than 24 hours (measured as a 25 percent increase in viscosity), while maintaining optimized rheology for pin transfer or needle dispensing.

CA-105 is the latest addition to Engineered Material Systems’ line of electronic materials for semiconductor, circuit assembly, photovoltaic, printer head, camera module, disk drive and photonic applications.

Engineered Materials Systems, Inc. (EMS) technology focus is on electronic materials for semiconductor, circuit assembly, photovoltaic, printer head, camera module, disk drive and photonics assembly product lines.

LED die attach adhesive

Hitachi Cable, Ltd. announced today that it has developed a new mass-production technology for GaN-templates, in which a high-quality gallium nitride (GaN) single-crystal thin film is grown on a sapphire substrate.

Using this product as a base substrate for an epitaxial wafer for white LEDs makes it possible to drastically improve productivity of white LED epiwafers and the LED properties. Hitachi intends for this product to become an effective solution to improve the position of white LED manufacturers in the industry, where there is severe competition.

The demand for white LEDs is rapidly expanding, and they have come to be used in backlight unit in liquid crystal displays (LCDs) and ordinary lighting devices in recent years, thanks to their energy efficiency and long service life. The structure of an white LED epiwafer consists of a thin, active layer and a p-type GaN layer with a total thickness of about 1μm over an n-type GaN layer with a thickness of about 10μm, grown on a sapphire substrate. Hitachi said all of these crystal layers are produced by the MOVPE method in ordinary manufacturing processes. The MOVPE method is suitable for growing active layers which require atomic-level control of the film thickness. Meanwhile, a disadvantage of this method is that it takes a long time to grow a high-quality and thick n-type GaN layer. White LED epiwafers can be grown about once or twice a day at the most, and thus there is a need for a high-efficiency production method.

To solve this problem, Hitachi Cable developed a GaN-template used as a base substrate for growth in the MOVPE method.

The GaN template consists of an n-type GaN layer grown on a sapphire substrate. Using a GaN-template means LED manufacturers do not need to grow an n-type GaN buffer layer and this reduces the time required for growth by about half compared with conventional methods. The GaN-templates of Hitachi Cable are also suitable for high-output LEDs which require large currents because they allow both low resistance and high crystal formation.

Hitachi Cable has developed single-crystal free-standing GaN substrates used for blue-violet lasers and developed unique HVPE-growth technology and machines for mass-production of GaN substrates. Based on this technology, Hitachi Cable developed new high-efficiency production technology and machines for mass-production of high-quality GaN-templates.

Main characteristics of GaN-template include:

  • High crystal quality and high surface quality based on growth technology established in the development of free-standing GaN substrates
  • Low resistance n-type GaN buffer which is suitable for high-output wafers and bonding-type LEDs
  • Templates on flat-surface sapphire substrates and various types of PSS (Note 4) are available
  • Wafers with 2 to 6 inches in diameters are available (8-inch version is now planned for development)

With this new GaN-template added to the lineup of GaN substrates and GaN epiwafers that it has been selling, Hitachi Cable plans to strengthen and expand its GaN product group and offer compound semiconductor products.

The critical processes and technologies necessary to continue Moore’s Law are currently more uncertain than ever before in the history of advanced semiconductor manufacturing. To assess these uncertainties and provide the latest information on EUV lithography, 3D transistors, 450mm wafer processing, and other challenges to preserving the pace of Moore’s Law, the leading authorities on these crucial issues will provide their insights, perspectives and predictions at SEMICON West (www.semiconwest.org), held from July 9-11 in San Francisco, Calif.  Free Registration for SEMICON West 2013 ends on  May 10 — register now: www.semiconwest.org/registration.

Although progress to take EUV lithography into the realm of high-volume manufacturing continues to be made, the readiness of source technologies, mask infrastructure and resist performance are still not known with a high degree of certainty. Until EUV Lithography is ready for high-volume manufacturing, the industry will continue to rely on double-patterning and even multiple-patterning lithography schemes using 193 immersion technology to take it beyond 22nm. How the industry will address these barriers, uncertainties and alternatives will be the focus the lithography session at SEMICON West.

The mobile market is driving the move to novel transistor architectures that offer greater performance and power benefits than traditional planar architectures. Memory and logic manufacturers are pursuing different strategies including leveraging innovations in design rules, new channel materials and processes (e.g., MOCVD) and inspection and metrology challenges.

While materials, architecture and processing technologies are undergoing revolutionary change, wafer processing platforms are also being radically transformed with a planned transition to 450mm wafers. For chip manufacturers and suppliers, this will involve increased levels of collaboration, further advancements in tool prototypes, and increased visibility into related supply chain implications.  The SEMICON West 450 Transition Forum will provide the latest updates on the status of 450 R&D, as well as a review of key technology considerations and a discussion of implications and opportunities for the supply chain.

Each of these programs will take place in the TechXPOT conference sessions on the exhibit floor.  Other TechXPOT programs include sessions on 2.5D and 3D IC Packaging, Productivity Innovation at Existing 200mm/300mm Fabs, Silicon Photonics, Lab-to-Fab Solutions, MEMS, LED Manufacturing, and Printed and Flexible Electronics.  SEMICON West will features over 50 hours of free technical, applications and business programs with the critical, need-to-know information presented by industry leaders.  .

SEMI is the global industry association serving the nano- and microelectronics manufacturing supply chains. SEMI maintains offices in Bangalore, Beijing, Berlin, Brussels, Grenoble, Hsinchu, Moscow, San Jose, Seoul, Shanghai, Singapore, Tokyo, and Washington, D.C.