Category Archives: Packaging

UPDATE: Intel has been revealed as the purchaser of the GNSS business unit of ST-Ericsson. The deal extends Intel’s position in the mobile chip business, an area that it is eager to penetrate.

PREVIOUSLY: ST-Ericsson, a joint venture of STMicroelectronics and Ericsson, today announced the signature of a definitive agreement to sell the assets and intellectual property rights associated with its mobile connectivity Global Navigation Satellite System (GNSS) business to a semiconductor company. At the time of release, ST had not released the name of the purchasing company.

The sale of these assets represents another step in the execution of Ericsson’s and ST’s announcement of March 18, 2013. In addition to the assets and IPR associated with this business, a team of 130 industry veterans located in Daventry (UK), Bangalore (India) and Singapore are anticipated to join the buyer at closing of the transaction.

The closing of the transaction is subject to regulatory approvals and standard conditions and is expected to be completed in August 2013. ST-Ericsson estimates the proceeds from the sale, combined with the avoidance of employee restructuring charges and other related restructuring costs, will reduce the joint venture’s cash needs by approximately $90 million.

"Today’s transaction validates the leading innovation developed by ST-Ericsson in mobile navigation systems and marks a further important step towards the execution of our shareholders’ decision to exit from ST-Ericsson" commented Carlo Ferro, president and CEO of ST-Ericsson. "I am pleased that this organization will continue to develop leading-edge technologies and delighted that the team found a new home at a leading player in the semiconductor industry."

ATIC logoThe Advanced Technology Investment Company (ATIC) and the Semiconductor Research Corporation (SRC) today launched the ATIC-SRC Center of Excellence for Energy Efficient Electronic Systems (ACE4S), to be hosted jointly in Abu Dhabi by Khalifa University of Science, Technology and Research, and Masdar Institute of Science and Technology. ATIC will dedicate over AED 17.5 million to the project over the next three years, which will be matched collectively by Masdar Institute and Khalifa University for a total budget of more than AED 35 million. This funding will drive innovation in next-generation electronic systems ranging in applications from smart phones and medical devices to the Internet of Things.

“This center is a significant research milestone for Abu Dhabi, the UAE and the region,” said Sami Issa, Executive Director at ATIC. “ACE4S is a critical building block of our ecosystem strategy to help enable the development of homegrown talent in key areas of science and technology. Such talent development is essential as Abu Dhabi transitions into an innovation-based society as per the 2030 vision.”

SRC logo“Over the past 30 years, SRC has successfully helped establish numerous university research centers and distributed more than $2 billion dollars in research funds in the United States; ACE4S role as our first international center reflects significantly on the quality of research we pursue,” said SRC President Larry Sumney. “The ACE4S Center has been established with valuable industry guidance from companies such as GLOBALFOUNDRIES, AMD, Applied Materials, Freescale, IBM, Intel, Mentor Graphics, Texas Instruments and Tokyo Electron (TEL) and will build on SRC-sponsored university research supporting 15 individual researchers in the UAE. Top semiconductor industry experts will oversee and serve as liaisons for each research task, and SRC will productively guide the overall research while also promoting strong student engagement—enabling us to identify areas of greatest need and foster the move of innovations from lab to market.”

The center will be overseen by a steering committee of high-level ATIC, SRC, Khalifa University and Masdar Institute representatives and will be directed jointly by Professors Mohammed Ismail of Khalifa University, and Ibrahim Elfadel of Masdar Institute. The directors will oversee research across five targeted areas and work closely with a Technology Advisory Board (TAB) of representatives from industry-leading companies.

GLOBALFOUNDRIES will serve a special role on the TAB, assigning Mohamed Lakehal as an Abu Dhabi-based industrial liaison to oversee design tape-outs to fabrication in GLOBALFOUNDRIES’ facilities worldwide. The liaison will also support design enablement, deploying design-for-manufacture tools and raising the level of local semiconductor expertise.

“As a research-oriented institution, we are proud to be part of the ACE4S leadership and offer our expertise and research capabilities,” said Dr. Fred Moavenzadeh, President, Masdar Institute. “Our faculty will aim to develop microelectronic technologies with healthcare applications individually and in collaboration with their peers within the initial period of the center’s operation. These innovative products will include biosensor applications, wearable devices and self-powered wireless body area networks (WBAN). We believe these applications will have a wide impact because of their energy efficiency and novel designs.”

“This partnership will transform the way we conduct research in nano-scale energy efficient systems-on-chips as it will help us educate and train a highly skilled workforce with relevant skills. This is a key element in driving innovation and entrepreneurship in the UAE’s semiconductor sector in line with the Abu Dhabi 2030 vision,” said Dr. Tod A. Larsen, President of Khalifa University. “The involvement of the SRC and its member companies in center development will help create a world-leading institution with a sustainable university/industry collaborative research environment conducive to high-tech job creation and direct local and foreign investment.”

The center will focus on energy efficient devices with research in energy harvesting, power management, sensor technologies and wireless communications networks. The research will be conducted primarily at Khalifa University and Masdar Institute but with important involvement from UAE University, American University of Sharjah and New York University, Abu Dhabi.  Within the first three years, ACE4S will seek to produce integrated prototypes with healthcare applications as well as knowledge and research relevant to safety and security, aerospace, water quality and the environment.

Supporting the transition of innovations to market, the center will develop an aggressive Intellectual Property Management Plan (IPMP). The IPMP will include early identification of interconnected families of innovation arising from technical themes, placing special emphasis on the integrated systems selected for demonstration at the end of year three.

ACE4S is a continuation of ATIC’s broader focus on cultivating a technology research ecosystem within Abu Dhabi. Additional programs supported in this vein include: the Twin-Labs research center, a collaboration between Masdar Institute and Technical University of Dresden with support from the State of Saxony, ATIC and GLOBALFOUNDRIES; the ATIC professorship chairs at UAEU and Khalifa University;  the Masters in Microsystems degree in collaboration with Masdar Institute; and ongoing MEES research grants in collaboration with the SRC.

Mentor Graphics Corp. today announced significant achievements in its continued collaboration with TSMC on 20nm physical verification kit optimizations. This joint effort has reduced Calibre nmDRC 20nm signoff runtimes by at least a factor of 3X and memory requirements by 60 percent compared to initial design kits released last year. In addition, Calibre PERC N20 design kits are now available to TSMC customers as part of the companies’ ongoing collaboration for IC reliability improvement. The collaboration will continue as mutual customer’s ramp their releases of N20 production designs, with the goal of maintaining rapid turnaround on full-chip signoff runs for the largest SoC designs in the industry.

The Calibre PERC kit for N20 includes new checks for latch-up prevention and IO-ESD protection, and a number of multiple power domain checks, which represent a significant step forward in automating procedures that previously had to be done manually. Moreover, by using both the Calibre PERC and Calibre nmDRC kits, customers are able to quickly identify and correct voltage-aware DRC violations, which is critical for today’s multi-voltage advanced process designs.

Other ongoing collaboration between TSMC and Mentor is focusing on optimizing the Calibre DFM product family, which incorporates TSMC’s unified DFM (UDFM) engine. Improvements are expected to result in runtime reduction in TSMC’s latest DDK release, and customers who use any DFM tools compliant with TSMC UDFM engine will benefit.

“Our work with TSMC demonstrates the advantage of close collaboration among the foundry, EDA vendor and lead customers to bring new process nodes to market more efficiently,” said Michael Buehler-Garcia, senior director of Calibre Design Solutions Marketing at Mentor Graphics. “Our efforts don’t stop when tools are qualified. We continue to work with TSMC to optimize the design kits as the process matures, resulting in overall shorter design cycle times.”

“The close working relationship between TSMC and Mentor has existed for many years and continues to result in new solutions and rapid performance optimization,” said Suk Lee, TSMC senior director, Design Infrastructure Marketing Division. “With N20 we have taken our efforts to the next level to deliver optimized Calibre DRC decks, which include multi-patterning, on an even faster timetable than for prior nodes. Building on this success we have already extended performance improvements to the first-release Calibre N16 decks.”

TSMC and Mentor will speak about their recent optimization efforts in a session titled “Best Practices for Verification at Advanced 20nm Process Nodes” at the Design Automation Conference (DAC), Austin, Texas, June 2-5.

Signetics Corporation today announced that it has again approved capex plans that will further expand their capacity for flip chip package assembly at their factory in Paju, South Korea. The new Flip Chip expansion will be ready for volume production in July 2013 and will increase assembly capacity by more than twenty percent. This line is capable of handling boat type flip chip ball grid arrays (FCBGA) including Signetics’ new high density Super Wide Boat, as well as flip chip fine pitch BGAs (FCFBGA) with substrates as wide as 95mm.

"In the first half of this year, we have continued to see an increase in the forecasts for Flip Chip packaging from our established tier 1 and high growth customers," stated JI Kim, CEO and president of Signetics. "The growth in flip chip continues to be driven by applications such as Smart TVs, SSD and WiFi", continued Kim.

Signetics offers a range of flip chip packaging options that use industry standard bumping technologies as well as the finer pitch copper pillar bumping technology.  Substrates used for flip chip packaging at Signetics include both PBGA and FBGA as well as leadframe technologies such as QFN.  Flip chip assembly is offered in multi die or system-in-package configurations and hybrid configurations with both wirebond and flip chip connectivity for today’s new applications that require more and more system integration in a single package.

ams AG, a provider of high performance analog ICs and sensors, today introduced the AS3721, a power management IC (PMIC) with an innovative remote-feedback circuit that helps reduce the thermal stress of applications processors in smartphones and tablets.

When paired with new AS3729 point-of-load regulators from ams, the highly-integrated AS3721 provides a complete power management system that offers a fast response to load transients for reliable processor performance, high efficiency, and flexible board layout.

The AS3721 and AS3729 are optimized for use with Tegra applications processors from Nvidia.

The AS3721 PMIC enables a compact remote feedback path from the processor to the IC’s integrated DC-DC controllers. Thanks to a patent-pending design innovation by ams, the feedback interface to the AS3721 only requires two wires (one control signal, one temperature signal) instead of the four or five wires typically required by other PMICs.

With fewer traces connecting the PMIC to the point-of-load power stages, the two devices can be placed far apart in the board layouts of space-constrained devices such as smartphones, tablets and notebooks. This dramatically reduces the size and intensity of the hotspot around the processor compared to conventional power architectures in which the processor and PMIC, both handling high currents simultaneously, must be located side-by-side.

The feedback loop carried over the AS3721’s two-wire interface also operates extremely fast, maintaining the processor it supports within its safe operating voltage even when supplying extremely fast-changing loads. Using an output capacitor of just 40µF and at an output voltage of 1.0V, the system’s voltage drop during a step up from 0.5A to 5A in burst mode is just 32mV (typical).

The AS3729 5A point-of-load power stages complement the AS3721 PMIC. The AS3729 contains NMOS and PMOS FETs for each of two phases, which can be controlled separately and can handle an output current of 2.5A. The PMIC can combine up to four devices in an eight-phase configuration that supplies a 20A maximum output. By choosing single- or multi-phase configurations, device manufacturers can optimize their design either for cost and board footprint (using fewer, larger inductors) or for low profile (using more, smaller inductors).

The AS3721 PMIC features four DC-DC step-down regulators supplying 4A, 2A and 1.5A; three DC-DC step-down controllers rated for 5A, 10A and 20A; 12 digital LDOs; a real-time clock; a supervisor circuit; GPIOs; a general-purpose ADC; and a one-time programmable boot sequence. The device’s 8mm x 8mm BGA package has a pitch of just 0.5mm.

The AS3729 power stage is in a chip-scale package measuring just 1.6mm x 1.6mm and with a 0.4mm pitch.

“Our patent-pending feedback interface technique provides for a huge improvement in the board layout of smartphones and tablets, and will allow device manufacturers to dramatically reduce the thermal stress on the processor and associated components,” Kambiz Dawoodi, vice-president and general manager of the power and wireless business unit at ams, said.

Photonics societies across the United States today announced the launch of the National Photonics Initiative. These societies, comprised of the IEEE Photonics Society, the Laser Institute of America, Optical Society of America, SPIE and the American Physical Society, intend for this initiative to be a collaborative alliance that will unite industry, academia and government experts to identify and advance areas of photonics critical to maintaining US competitiveness and national security.

“Life without photonics is almost unimaginable. From the moment you wake up to the alarm on your smartphone, to swiping your credit card to pay for coffee, to logging into your computer and connecting with the world through the Internet, photonics makes it possible,” said OSA CEO Elizabeth Rogan. “The NPI will work to advance photonics in the areas that are most critical to the US, like improving the economy, creating jobs, saving lives and sparking innovation for future generations.”

Photonics generates, controls and detects light to advance manufacturing, robotics, medical imaging, next-generation displays, defense technologies, biometric security, image processing, communications, astronomy and much more. Photonics forms the backbone of the Internet, guides energy exploration and keeps men and women in uniform safe with night vision and physiological feedback on the battlefield.

In 1998, the National Research Council released a report, “Harnessing Light,” which presented a comprehensive overview of the potential impact of photonics on major industry sectors. In response, several worldwide economies moved to advance their already strong photonics industries. The United States, however, did not develop a cohesive strategy. As a result, the US lost its competitive advantage in a number of cutting-edge technologies as well as thousands of US jobs and companies to overseas markets.

“The EU, Germany, Korea, Taiwan and China all recognize the importance of photonics, and have taken action,” said SPIE CEO Eugene Arthurs. “The US Department of Defense, for example, has long supported photonics, but more photonics research is needed to maintain our national security in the face of non-traditional threats. The time is now for the US to make the right investments in the crucial capabilities of the future.”

In 2012, the National Research Council released “Optics and Photonics: Essential Technologies for our Nation” that called for a national photonics initiative to regain US leadership in key photonic-driven fields. In response to that call, the NPI was established to raise awareness about photonics and the impact of photonics on our everyday lives; increase collaboration and coordination among US industry, government and academia to advance photonics-driven fields; and drive US funding and investment in areas of photonics critical to maintaining US competitiveness and national security.

“The NPI offers an opportunity for us to show how critical it is for federally funded research to flourish in this country,” said Kate Kirby, executive officer of APS. “So many of the technologies that we use have come from the results of basic research funded by the federal government.”

As part of the NPI effort, more than 100 experts from industry, academia and government collaborated to draft a white paper detailing recommendations to guide funding and investment in five key photonics-driven fields: advanced manufacturing, communications and information technology, defense and national security, health and medicine and energy. New opportunities in these fields such as 3-D printing, more efficient solar power, improved nuclear threat identification, more accurate cancer detection and the growth of Internet speeds and capacity, offer the potential for even greater societal impact in the next few decades.

“There are thousands of companies that have sprung up in the last decade or so that produce the photonics devices and systems that we all depend on now, but there’s plenty of room for growth,” said Richard Linke, executive director of the IEEE Photonics Society.

In order to capitalize on new opportunities and regain global leadership and economic prosperity, the white paper also provides key recommendations to the United States government that apply across all five of the fields:

  • Drive funding and investment in areas of photonics critical to maintaining US competitiveness and national security—advanced manufacturing, defense, energy, health and medicine, information technology and communications; 
  • Develop federal programs that encourage greater collaboration between US industry and academia to better support the research and development of next-generation photonics technologies;
  • Increase investment in education and job training programs to reduce the shortage of technically skilled workers needed to fill the growing number of photonics-based positions;
  • Expand federal investments supporting university and industry collaborative research to develop new manufacturing methods that incorporate photonics such as additive manufacturing and ultra-short-pulse laser material processing; and
  • Collaborate with US industry to review international trade practices impeding free trade, and the current US criteria restricting the sale of certain photonic technologies overseas.

The NPI maintains that fulfillment of these recommendations will position the United States as a global leader in photonics research and development, and will grow the US economy and add jobs at home.

“Our objective is to direct funding intelligently to research, implementation and education and training, with the ultimate goal of restoring US competitiveness, thereby improving our security, our economy and our quality of life,” said LIA Executive Director Peter Baker.

CORRECTION: In a previous version of this article, the Optoelectronics Industry Development Association was listed in the first paragraph among the societies launching this initiative. This information was incorrect. Solid State Technology apologizes for the error.

Invensas Corporation, a subsidiary of Tessera Technologies, Inc., will showcase its latest mobility solution, an ultra-high bandwidth Bond Via Array (BVATM) Package-on-Package (PoP) product, at the upcoming IEEE Electronic Components & Technology Conference (ECTC) in Las Vegas, NV on May 28 – 31, 2013. The solution was brought to high volume market readiness in collaboration with Kulicke & Soffa Industries, Inc. (K&S), Universal Instruments Corporation, and Celestica Inc.

“The BVA platform provides smartphone and tablet makers with a roadmap to much higher bandwidth and lower power consumption, enabling high definition mobile gaming, multi-channel video, and a host of new data-rich applications on next generation mobile devices,” said Simon McElrea, president of Invensas Corporation. “With greater than 1,000 interconnects, twice that of the current competition, in a tiny 14x14mm package-on-package form factor, BVA is by far the mobile industry’s highest bandwidth solution.”

The technology, which relies on conventional manufacturing infrastructure, enables the interconnection of System on Chip (SOC), Central Processing Unit (CPU), and Graphics Processing Unit (GPU) chips with their associated memory chips. It accommodates Double Data Rate 3/4 (DDR3/4 ) DRAM, Low Power Double Data Rate (LPDDR) and “Wide-IO” DRAM, as well as Flash and Multi Chip Package (MCP) memory. 512 bit memory bus width is supported which, at 800MHz operation, delivers an unprecedented 100GB/s bandwidth.

Invensas will display the technology at the 2013 ECTC in the Cosmopolitan Hotel, Las Vegas, NV, on May 28 – 31, 2013. In addition, Invensas will present a white paper “Package-on-Package with Very Fine Pitch Interconnects for High Bandwidth” on Thursday May 30, 2013 at 4:45pm PT.

Worldwide semiconductor revenues decreased by 2.2 percent year over year to $295 billion in 2012, according to the latest version of the International Data Corporation (IDC) Semiconductor Application Forecaster (SAF). The industry witnessed a slowdown during the second half of 2012 on weak consumer spending across PCs, mobile phones, and digital televisions (DTV), as well as in the industrial and other market segments. The European economic crises and a slowdown in China also had an impact on global demand while the lackluster launch of Windows 8 failed to stimulate PC sales and turn the tide. Meanwhile, competitive suppliers from China continued to pressure average selling prices, dragging down overall revenue growth. IDC expects the semiconductor market to return to growth in 2013 with revenues forecast to increase by 3.5 percent this year.

IDC’s SAF tracks more than 120 semiconductor companies. Most companies saw their revenues decline during the year, including eight of the top ten companies. Only 17 companies, with revenues of a billion or more, grew at a rate above 5 percent last year. Among the 25 largest companies covered in the SAF, only seven had positive top-line growth, including: Qualcomm, Broadcom, NXP, NVIDIA, MediaTek, Apple, and Sharp Electronics. AllWinner, a tablet application processor supplier, was the fastest growing company in 2012.

The largest semiconductor company, Intel, saw its revenues decline to $50.0 billion in 2012, down 3 percent from 2011 largely due to weak PC demand, and minimal traction in tablets and smartphones. Samsung Electronics, the second largest supplier, saw revenues drop 6 percent on weak DTV demand, loss of market share at Apple, and volatile memory prices. Meanwhile, Qualcomm, the largest fabless semiconductor supplier, ranked third last year as revenues grew 34 percent to $13.2 billion due to its leadership in modem technology and success of its Snapdragon application processor in smartphones. Texas instruments, the number four supplier, saw revenues decline by 6 percent due to falling analog, DSP, and MPU revenues and the company’s exit from its wireless business. Rounding out the top 5, Toshiba revenues were off by 13 percent from the previous year due to declining revenues for its analog, ASSP, and memory products. Renesas, Hynix, Broadcom, STMicroelectronics, and Micron filled out the top 10 spots. From this group of companies, only Broadcom saw revenues grow last year. Combined, the top 10 vendors represented 52 percent of worldwide semiconductor revenues, declining 3 percent when compared to 2011. The top 25 semiconductor firms brought in $206 billion, declining 3 percent year over year.

Within the semiconductor device types, performance was mixed. Sensors and actuators grew the fastest at 11 percent year over year, but with 2012 revenues of $7 billion the segment only accounted for 2 percent of industry revenues. ASSPs, the largest category of semiconductors with 32 percent of the overall opportunity, grew by 4 percent for the year on strength in media, graphics, and application processors and RF and mixed-signal ASSPs. Finally, optoelectronics, with 6 percent of total semiconductor revenues, grew 5 percent, mostly from image sensors and LEDs. Revenues for microcomponents declined by 5 percent, driven by lower revenues for MPUs and MCUs. Memory, representing 17 percent of the industry, saw its revenues decline by 10 percent. Finally, Analog, which accounted for 7 percent of revenues last year, declined by 7 percent.

"Beyond the slowdown in end-market demand, the challenge for semiconductor companies is to zero in on their key value propositions. Whether that is in modem or connectivity technologies, sensors, mixed-signal processing, or power management, there are areas of the market showing strong potential. However, competing in crowded segments with little differentiation has contributed to the slowdown in semiconductor revenues," said Michael J. Palma, research manager, Semiconductors at IDC, who led the study and compiled the SAF results. "Large vendors have been going through a process of narrowing their product portfolios to focus resources on profitable lines where their IP and experience provide an edge in the market."

"As we mentioned in our Top 10 Predictions for the 2013 worldwide semiconductor market, investment in R&D and capital in the semiconductor industry remains very high and focused on innovation and addressing the competitive dynamics of a diverse set of industries that semiconductors support. In fact, the overall market landscape and reach of semiconductors continues to expand with the rise of Intelligent Systems and will play a critical role in the overall health and growth of the market," said Mario Morales, program vice president for enabling technologies and semiconductors.

IDC’s Semiconductor and Enabling Technologies research team manages the Worldwide Semiconductor Applications Forecaster database, which is a focal point for IDC’s semiconductor research efforts. This database contains revenue data collected from more than 120 semiconductor companies and forecasts the markets to 2017. Revenue for over twelve semiconductor device areas, four geographic regions, six major vertical markets, and over 90 system devices markets are also part of the SAF coverage.

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

Leaders of the National Science Foundation (NSF) and the Semiconductor Research Corporation (SRC) today announced 18 new projects funded through a joint initiative to address research challenges in the design of failure-resistant circuits and systems.

failture resistant systems
Failure Resistant Systems

Credit: Subhasish Mitra, Stanford University

The three-year, $6 million collaborative program will support research being conducted by 29 faculty members at 18 U.S. universities. Their work focuses on a variety of aspects of resilient circuit and system design for future computing applications.

Miniaturized electronics form parts of today’s pervasive and increasingly efficient and complex electronic systems. Common examples include communication devices such as cell-phones and personal digital assistants (so-called PDAs), aircraft flight controls, autonomous vehicles, sophisticated weapon systems and tiny medical devices inside or outside of the human body, such as pacemakers and heart monitors.

The accurate functioning of these systems is often a matter of life and death. A small malfunction in a pacemaker could threaten the life of a patient; unexpected failures in flight control circuitry or in an autonomous vehicle may result in a crash.

A host of reasons could cause highly sensitive, automated mechanical devices to deviate from desired behavior or functionalities. These include design imperfections, faults resulting from uncontrolled physical phenomena, manufacturing variations, aging over time and other external disturbances, which even may include tampering or malicious design.

By funding fundamental research in the design of electronic chips, this joint NSF/SRC program on Failure Resistant Systems aims to ensure that at the outset systems are designed in such a way that they are self-corrective or self-healing with minimal or no external intervention during the entire life of its operation.

"As devices become smaller and approach fundamental limits, new design methodologies will be required to account for the wide variability which arises in the fabrication process" said Pramod Khargonekar, head of NSF’s Directorate for Engineering. "This joint program with SRC will allow our academic researchers to address pressing problems faced by our semiconductor industry."

"New fundamental design techniques have the potential to yield major advances in the reliability of electronic systems," said Farnam Jahanian, head of NSF’s Directorate for Computer and Information Science and Engineering. "This program builds on more than a decade of successful partnerships with SRC and provides the academic research community a new opportunity to do ground-breaking, long-term, basic research."

"This partnership of government, industry and academia helps our universities address critical computing challenges," said Steve Hillenius, SRC executive vice president. "This effort in resilient systems will have an effect on multiple industries and boost their competitiveness on a global scale, helping to transform market segments and translate research results into practice. Cooperative programs with NSF also help SRC deliver value to its industrial members’ capabilities, while allowing universities to continue to improve their understanding of the needs of the semiconductor industry."

Funding will support researchers at the following universities: the University of Texas (Austin, Dallas), the University of California (Riverside, Santa Barbara), the University of Southern California, Carnegie Mellon University, the University of Connecticut, the University of Utah, Texas A&M University, the University of Illinois, Stanford University, the University of Michigan, the University of Minnesota, the University of Rochester, Colorado State University, North Carolina State University, the University of Virginia and West Virginia University.