Category Archives: Packaging

Chip Memory Technology Inc. (CMT), a new embedded memory technology developer, has emerged from stealth mode to reveal company details and its latest product.

CMT’s LogicFlash boasts a unique solution for embedded NVM. Designed for implementation in industry standard CMOS logic processes, LogicFlash requires no extra foundry steps or extra mask layers. This radically reduces the expense and delay required to qualify and port chip designs that use LogicFlash to new foundries or new processes. CMT says Chrontel Inc., a provider of video ICs to the global computer and display markets, is currently incorporating LogicFlash into devices being produced in a 130nm standard logic process.

“Chrontel’s high-volume applications demand integrated NVM solutions that offer clear benefits in cost, yield and manufacturability,” explained Chrontel CEO and president Dr. David Soo. “LogicFlash offers us advantages that are not available with other embedded NVM technologies.”

Patented technology supports high densities

In development for several years, LogicFlash was designed to overcome the challenges facing embedded NVM production. Competing embedded NVM technologies require as many as 10 additional masks and 20 to 30 additional process steps when implemented on a standard logic process. By eliminating the requirement for extra masks and process steps, LogicFlash is highly portable and scalable, while supporting densities up to 4Mbit.

CMT holds four granted and two pending patents on its LogicFlash technology. Already qualified in five processes and three process nodes–at 180nm, 160nm and 130nm–multiple customers are currently in volume production with LogicFlash utilizing three different foundries.

“We are pleased to offer our latest technology to Chrontel, a company whose products are used in high-volume by computing and display manufacturers worldwide,” said CMT founder and CEO, Dr. Wingyu Leung. “By utilizing standard logic processes without modification, LogicFlash offers customers like Chrontel the ultimate in supply chain flexibility, scalability and low-cost.”

CMT was founded by several leading chip industry executives that collectively hold more than 150 patents. Dr. Leung, founder and CEO, has served as a senior technology executive, most recently as Executive Vice President, CTO and board member at MoSys.

CEA-Leti said today that Europe is strongly positioned to design and manufacture volume silicon photonics devices because of the success of the recently completed HELIOS program. The €8.5 million European Commission project developed a complete design and fabrication supply chain for integrating a photonic layer with a CMOS circuit, using microelectronics fabrication processes.

HELIOS, which was coordinated by Leti, also demonstrated a complete design flow, integrating both silicon photonics device design and electronic/photonic system design in an EDA-compatible framework.

“It is strategically important for Europe to maintain photonic chip-design and chip-integrating functions to compete with other countries and to encourage innovation by European microelectronics companies,” said Leti CEO Laurent Malier. “HELIOS’s success in creating the essential building blocks for integrating photonics with CMOS circuits and making the process available to a variety of users underscores the key role that broad European technological cooperation plays in a very competitive global business environment.”

Thomas Skordas, head of the EC’s photonics unit, said HELIOS has shown the large potential silicon photonics has in many different applications, such as data communications.

“The technology roadmap of silicon photonics becomes clearer now. Europe will have to move fast to become competitive in this new field,” Skordas said. “Strategies for the industrialisation of silicon photonics are currently being discussed in the context of Horizon 2020, the EU’s new framework program for research and innovation for 2014-2020."

Silicon photonics is seen as key to developing optical telecommunications or for optical interconnects in microelectronic circuits, because of the cost advantages of integrating photonic and electronic functions on the same chip. CMOS photonics may lead to low-cost solutions for a range of applications such as optical communications, optical interconnections between semiconductor chips and circuit boards, optical signal processing, optical sensing, and biological applications.

Launched by the European Commission in 2008, HELIOS focused on developing essential building blocks like efficient optical sources (silicon-based and heterogeneous integration of III-V on silicon), integrated lasers, high-speed modulators and photo-detectors. The project, which had 20 members, also combined and packaged these building blocks to demonstrate complex functions that address a variety of industrial needs.

These include a 10Gb/s modulator integrated with an electronic BiCMOS driver, a 16×10 Gb/s transceiver for WDM-PON applications, a photonic QAM-10Gb/s wireless transmission system and a mixed analog-and-digital transceiver module for multi-function antennas.

The building blocks also led to results exceeding the original specifications, positioning the partners at the leading edge in their fields:

  • High-performance passive devices were obtained and introduced in the demonstrators (rib/strip waveguides transitions with less than 0.2dB losses, grating couplers with 1.6dB losses, inverted taper couplers with 1dB losses, AWG and micro-ring based de-multiplexers).
  • The wafer-level integration of laser by III-V/Si bonding led to the demonstration of single-mode operation with 3dBm output power, 30dB SMSR, Ith < 35mA in CW.
  • 40G carrier depletion Si modulators were demonstrated in MZI, Ring, slow wave, interdigitated modulators configuration.
  • An integrated tunable laser–Mach-Zehnder modulator working at 10Gb/s.

The work of the HELIOS consortium led to more than 170 publications and communications in peer-review journals and international conferences.

 

Silex Microsystems, the world’s largest pure-play MEMS foundry, today announced that it has joined an international European Union-funded program aimed at developing a new MEMS manufacturing platform based on advanced inkjet-based printing technologies. The program, “Processes for MEMS by Inkjet Enhanced Technologies,” or PROMINENT, is leveraging the proven benefits of inkjet technologies to enable higher manufacturing efficiencies, increased product innovation, faster time-to-market, and lower costs throughout the entire MEMS manufacturing process. Silex’s contributions in this effort will include new low-cost technologies for through-wafer vias, hermetic high-vacuum seals for wafer-to-wafer bonding including advanced material deposition, advances in piezo-MEMS fabrication, and other functional materials processing.

As an innovation-driven industry, MEMS manufacturing depends on continuous innovation and exploitation of new technologies such as ink-jet processes. Ink-jet technology is one of the most mature MEMS technologies, having been in production since the late ‘70s and a mainstream of the digital printing industry since the early ‘80s. Similar to the impact that inkjet printing has had on the printing industry, the technology offers the promise of direct-to-wafer digitally-based patterning of wafer processing which can allow highly flexible prototyping and low-volume production for MEMS devices. In addition, advances in materials, electronics, and thin film compounds in recent years have opened up new avenues to apply ink-jet techniques to traditional manufacturing challenges such as metallization patterning using metallized inks. PROMINENT has been formed to exploit these new techniques and to advance the competitiveness of the European technology community.

“As a key partner in the PROMINENT project, Silex brings its extensive experience in metal TSVs and wafer bonding which will help end-users, partners in the consortium, and future customers advance the use of inkjet technologies for production purposes,” says Dr. Thorbjörn Ebefors, chief technologist at Silex Microsystems. “These new technologies have the potential to reduce costs and speed development time of new MEMS products, at no loss of performance for the customer.”

“Printed electronics have recently achieved considerable progress due to new printing technologies and the introduction of nanoparticle inks, paving the way towards integrating these capabilities within silicon-based nanoelectronics,” says Dr. Markku Tilli of Okmetic Oyj, PROMINENT project coordinator.  “The objective of the ENIAC JU project PROMINENT is to demonstrate significant cost reduction in MEMS manufacturing by using printing technologies to reduce materials, chemicals and energy consumption, waste water production, processing cycle time and capital investments.”

PROMINENT will develop novel low-cost, digitally controlled additive manufacturing methods that can radically change the manufacturing methods for MEMS and bring a substantial competitive edge to the European MEMS industry. The objective is not to replace the whole MEMS manufacturing process, but rather to introduce a new way of making its selected steps flow in a different, more flexible and cost-efficient way using methods developed in the printed electronics field.

By using maskless, digitally controlled, localized additive processes instead of the subtractive processes currently in use, selected steps in MEMS manufacturing can be done with a simplified process sequence. This will result in:

  • Lower initial investment costs for a MEMS line, making it easier for manufacturers to introduce new products.
  • New features in the MEMS devices, new application areas.
  • Greatly increased flexibility in production, allowing for smaller batches, mass customization and fast changes in the production process.
  • Increased flexibility, easier prototyping and shorter time-to-market for new MEMS devices.
  • Greatly reduced production costs and environmental impact.

Silex TSV and wafer-bonding

The eight leading suppliers of industrial electronics suffered revenue declines in 2012, reflecting weak conditions for the beleaguered market, according to an IHS iSuppli Industrial Electronics Market Tracker Report from information and analytics provider IHS.

The eight, along with two gainers in the Top 10, together accounted for revenue amounting to $12.19 billion, or 40.4 percent of the overall industrial electronics semiconductor space valued at $30.15 billion. The field was led by Texas Instruments, which managed to stay on top despite deteriorated revenue.

And just like TI, every other supplier occupying the second to the eighth spots in the Top 10 were similarly afflicted, suffering revenue reversals for the year, as shown in the attached table. Only two entities within the circle enjoyed revenue increases, as the markets they supplied were growth areas within the broader industry.

“The industrial electronics semiconductor industry as a whole contracted 5.4 percent in 2012 following a slowdown in worldwide markets where the chips are used, such as in security, test and measurement, motor drives, metering, medical electronics and renewable energies,” said Jacobo Carrasco-Heres, analyst for industrial electronics at IHS. “The anemic performance of these segments, in turn, dragged down the suppliers making the chips, resulting in 2012 revenue losses among the Top 8 that ranged from 0.7 percent to 20.4 percent.”

Texas Instruments remained at the pinnacle with $2.09 billion in revenue, even though it was down 6.6 percent for the year. TI did well in medical electronics and in the building and home control market, but was negatively affected by poor demand for motor drives and automation equipment. A bad year for wind and solar energy also pummeled TI in the energy distribution and generation segment.

French-Italian maker STMicroelectronics returned to the No. 2 spot last year after losing to Germany’s Infineon in 2011, which fell to third place again. STMicroelectronics had revenue of $1.47 billion, down 11.6 percent; compared to Infineon’s $1.46 billion, down a much larger 19.3 percent. Both companies saw their revenue retreat on various fronts, but each one saw growth in the lighting segment of the building and home control market.

In fourth place was Intel with $1.34 billion, followed at No. 5 by Analog Devices with $1.23 billion.

Both suffered reversals in the 7 to 8 percent range for the year.

The occupants of the sixth and seventh spots encountered the largest revenue fall within the group.

No. 7 Mitsubishi of Japan went down 20.4 percent to $944 million, while No. 6 Renesas Electronics of Japan did only slightly better with a 19.9 percent decrease to $1.15 billion. Contractions in the motor drive segment shrank the revenue of the two companies in the manufacturing and process automation market.

The final entity in the Top 10 not to post growth last year was No. 8 Maxim Integrated Products, flat at $865 million.

The two gainers in the Top 10 were Nichia and Panasonic, both from Japan. Nichia flew into the charmed circle all the way from No. 16, thanks to its involvement in light-emitting diodes (LED) for general lighting. Nichia’s revenue reached $822 million, up a mighty 24.4 percent. For its part, Panasonic came in after spending 2011 at No. 11, with growth last year of 9.8 percent to $821 million, on the back of high-performance segments such as security cameras and medical applications.

Among those that fell out of the Top 10 last year were NXP Semiconductors of the Netherlands, down from No. 9 in 2011; and Xilinx of the United States, down from No. 10.

Starting late in 2011, the power electronics downturn in 2012 was quite severe, exhibiting -20 percent negative growth. The market suffered from the global economic downturn combined with external factors like China controlling what happened in some selected markets (Wind turbine or Rail traction projects that have been stopped or postponed).

However, the SiC device market kept on growing with a +38 percent increase year to year.

SiC technology is now commonly accepted as a reliable and pertinent alternative to the silicon world. Most power module and power inverter manufacturers have already included it in their roadmap as an option or as a firm project. However time-to-market differs from application to application as a function of value proposals for cost, specifications, availability and so on.

Despite a quite depressed market last year, PV inverters have proven their appetite for SiC devices in 2012. They are the biggest consumer of SiC devices together with PFCs. In 2011 and 2012, SiC diode business was the most buoyancy due to micro-inverter applications; however, Yole Développement is confident that both JFET and MOSFET will quickly catch-up and become dominant in revenue by 2016. SiC device (bare-dies or packaged discretes) market reached about $75M in 2012 with a sharp domination by Infineon and CREE again; however, the competition is little by little grabbing market share with STMicroelectronics and Rohm closing the loop.

30 contenders, half-a-dozen of new entrants, 1 dead

There are now more than 30 companies worldwide which have established a dedicated SiC device manufacturing capability with related commercial and promotion activities. Virtually, all other existing silicon-based power device makers are also more or less active in the SiC market but at different stages. 2012 has seen the ramp-up of some companies, such as Rohm, MicroSemi, GeneSiC or STMicro, facing the two giants CREE and Infineon, prefiguring a new market shaping in the coming years. Four new companies – Raytheon, Ascatron, IBS and Fraunhofer IISB – have decided, almost simultaneously, to launch SiC foundry services or contract manufacturing services. This business model establishment addresses the demand of future SiC fabless and design houses that may look for specific manufacturing partners. It will also probably act as a possible second source for IDMs in cases of production overshoot.

In Asia, Panasonic and Toshiba are now clearly identified as credible contenders, along with Mitsubishi Electric, now developing SiC power modules. Fuji Electric’s new SiC line is now running within the Japanese national program. No Chinese device maker has emerged yet; however, according to the huge investment plan in R&D, Yole Développement’s analyst suspects new IDMs will soon enter the business.

In the US, Global Power Device and USCi have now exited stealth mode and have strongly affirmed their intentions to take market share. Ultimately, the unexpected closing down of SemiSouth in October 2012 has created chatter about the quite stable-until-then SiC business. Several reasons have been disclosed that explain this decision (over-sized company, market too long to take-off); however, we can’t ignore that it discredits to some extent the Noff JFET technology. Only the future will tell.

Reshaping from discretes to modules

Yole Développement now sees the SiC industry reshaping, starting from a discrete device business and now mutating into a power module business. Originally, this was initiated by Powerex, MicroSemi, Vincotech or GeneSiC with hybrid Si/SiC products, then other players such as Mitsubishi, GPE and more recently Rohm have reached the market with full-SiC modules.

This trend will become dominant in the coming years as integrators require power modules in most of their mid and high power systems (generally starting from >3kW).

Yole Développement does forecast that SiC-based power module demand could exceed $100M by 2015 and top ~$800M in 2020 depending on whether or not the auto industry will adopt SiC.

Next critical challenges: Cost reduction, packaging & multi-sourcing

SiC equals high frequency and high temperature operation. That said, capturing these two added-values remains an issue as no existing set of technologies can fully answer that request now. The path to success for SiC large implementation will necessarily go through new packaging solutions. Numerous bottlenecks need to be unlocked: chip bonding, metallic contact technique, gel filling, encapsulant, EMI, to name a few.

Power device integrators generally rely on two, or even three sources to lower supply-chain risks. In SiC, it is now easy operating multi-sourcing for diodes, though not yet for transistors.

MOSFET, JFET or BJT must be available from at least two companies with similar specifications. This Yole Développement’s report also proposes a cost reduction roadmap for SiC device manufacturing at different levels of the process steps.

Multitest, a designer and manufacturer of final test handlers, contactors and load boards used by integrated device manufacturers (IDMs) and final test subcontractors worldwide, announces that its ecoAmp high power Kelvin contactor successfully passed a challenging evaluation for an automotive application at a European based IDM. The patent pending ecoAmp is a solution for high-power applications of 1000+ amperes.

The ecoAmp specifically responds to the challenging requirements of high voltage/high current test. All typical packages and modules for power applications are covered by the ecoAmp, including MOSFETs, drivers, IGBTs, power modules, and power packages such as TO, SO and DIP.

In order to achieve equal current symmetry over I/Os within the contactor, the contacting resistance is held low and stable. Resistance stability is influenced by the contact spring itself AND the condition of the device pin. The ecoAmp is designed for an electrical performance of 500+ amperes with an inductance of 1.0 nH and below for 0.5 mm pitch.

The high power contactor allows for testing at the full temperature range from -60°up to 175°C, which is a standard requirement for automotive applications. The ecoAmp is able to stand the high thermal stress and support temperature stability during test. Thermal energy dissipation requires thermal management within the contactor.

“We received very positive feedback from this customer about the results of the evaluation in the HVM environment,” said Gerhard Gschwendtberger, business unit manager. “The ecoAmp leverages our long-term experience in the automotive market for the new requirements of high power applications for automotive as well as energy efficiency, energy harvesting and green energy applications.”

Multitest ecoAmp

Global shipments of solid state drives (SSD) in PCs are set to rise by a factor of seven by 2017, allowing them to claim more than one-third of the market for PC storage solutions by that time, according to an IHS iSuppli Storage Market Tracker Report from information and analytics provider IHS.

SSD shipments in PCs will rise to 227 million units in 2017, up more than 600 percent from 31 million in 2012, as presented in the figure below. Meanwhile, shipments of PC hard disk drives (HDD) will decline to 410 million in 2017, down 14 percent from 475 million in 2012.

SSDs and HDDs by 2017

The divergent outlook for the two products will allow SSDs to climb and claim 36 percent of the PC storage market in 2017, up from just 6 percent in 2012. At the same time, HDDs will see their long-term dominance in PCs erode, with their share falling to 64 percent in 2017, down from a commanding 94 percent in 2012.

The SSD space includes the cache SSD segment where NAND flash is used alongside a hard disk drive, as well as a separate segment in which NAND flash is embedded on top of an HDD in an integrated, hybrid form factor.

“For SSDs, the major factors driving growth this year will be Ultrabooks and other ultrathin notebook PCs, especially as Intel’s upcoming Haswell processors bring about a robust combination of performance and efficiency for the superthin computers,” said Fang Zhang, analyst for storage systems at IHS. “In the coming years, Ultrabooks and ultrathins—combined with appealing touch-screen displays and convertible form factors—are likely to become more compelling as the machines attempt to lure consumers away from smartphones and tablets, boosting demand for SSDs used in these systems. Meanwhile, SSDs will become more attractive to PC makers and buyers alike as costs decline for the NAND flash memory at the heart of the storage devices.”

Hard times for hard drives

PC HDD shipments in 2013 are forecast to decline to 436.9 million units, down 8 percent from 475.4 million last year. In comparison, SSD shipments in PCs will jump to 68.9 million units, up a resounding 122 percent from 31.1 million. From 2012 to 2017, the compound annual growth rate for PC HDD shipments will be in negative territory at -2.9 percent, while that for PC SSDs comes out to an enviable 48.0 percent.

“The HDD industry is suffering the multilayered effects of a depressed market, resulting from a weak global economy, upgrades not being made for desktop and notebook PCs alike as replacement cycles get extended, and cannibalization by flashier devices like mobile handsets and tablets,” Zhang observed.

PC HDD revenue is expected to decline to $26.4 billion in 2013, down from last year’s record of $30.6 billion that resulted mainly from higher average selling prices after the devastating floods in Thailand.

State of euphoria for solid-state drives

Meanwhile the SSD space has been extremely competitive, closing out last year on record-high revenue and with the vigorous enterprise SSD segment enjoying dramatic expansion. The fourth quarter last year was a particularly strong period for computer-related SSDs with shipments of 12 million units, boosting year-end revenue to $6.8 billion. By 2017, PC SSD industry revenue of $22.6 billion will come close to PC HDD revenue of $23.5 billion.

Silver linings

Despite the rapid adoption of SSDs, hard disk drives will continue to lead the overall storage market because of their cost advantage on higher densities and dollars-per-gigabyte pricing. HDD shipments also will gradually pick up in the second half this year as Windows 8 and Ultrabooks gain traction among consumers, after failing to perform as expected upon launch last year.

In the enterprise HDD segment, competition is set to heat up as archrivals Western Digital and Seagate Technology contend for leadership, and Western Digital is expected to launch a 5-terabyte HDD sporting the new helium technology for higher disk capacity and lower power consumption. Other new HDD technologies are on the horizon as well, including nearline and hybrid hard disk drives.

HDDs also will continue to play a major role in cloud storage, remaining the final destination for the majority of digital content.

ODDs are DOA

While HDDs retain dominance despite declining shipments and SSDs maintain impressive growth momentum, a third segment of the storage industry is mired in poor results and deteriorating prospects.

Optical disk drives (ODD), used for playing CDs and DVDs in PCs, continue to worsen on both shipment and revenue terms. ODD shipments this year will amount to 262.6 million units, down from 287.4 million in 2012; while revenue will slip to $7.4 billion from $8.6 billion. By 2017, ODD shipments will shrink a further 100,000 units compared to 2012 levels, and revenue will reduce by half.

Intel Corporation today took the wraps off its brand new, low-power, high-performance microarchitecture named Silvermont.

Intel low-power, high-performance Silvermont

The technology is aimed squarely at low-power requirements in market segments from smartphones to the data center. Silvermont will be the foundation for a range of innovative products beginning to come to market later this year, and will also be manufactured using the company’s leading-edge, 22nm Tri-Gate SoC manufacturing process, which brings significant performance increases and improved energy efficiency.

"Silvermont is a leap forward and an entirely new technology foundation for the future that will address a broad range of products and market segments," said Dadi Perlmutter, Intel executive vice president and chief product officer. "Early sampling of our 22nm SoCs, including "Bay Trail" and "Avoton" is already garnering positive feedback from our customers. Going forward, we will accelerate future generations of this low-power microarchitecture on a yearly cadence."

The Silvermont microarchitecture delivers industry-leading performance-per-watt efficiency. The highly balanced design brings increased support for a wider dynamic range and seamlessly scales up and down in performance and power efficiency. On a variety of standard metrics, Silvermont also enables ~3x peak performance or the same performance at ~5x lower power over the current-generation Intel Atom processor core.

Intel’s Silvermont microarchitecture was designed and co-optimized with Intel’s 22nm SoC process using revolutionary 3-D Tri-gate transistors. By taking advantage of this industry-leading technology, Intel is able to provide a significant performance increase and improved energy efficiency.

Additional highlights of the Silvermont microarchitecture include:

  • A new multi-core and system fabric architecture scalable up to eight cores and enabling greater performance for higher bandwidth, lower latency and more efficient out-of-order support for a more balanced and responsive system.
  • New IA instructions and technologies bringing enhanced performance, virtualization and security management capabilities to support a wide range of products. These instructions build on Intel’s existing support for 64-bit and the breadth of the IA software installed base.
  • Enhanced power management capabilities including a new intelligent burst technology, low- power C states and a wider dynamic range of operation taking advantage of Intel’s 3-D transistors. Intel Burst Technology 2.0 support for single- and multi-core offers great responsiveness scaled for power efficiency.

"Through our design and process technology co-optimization we exceeded our goals for Silvermont," said Belli Kuttanna, Intel Fellow and chief architect. "By taking advantage of our strengths in microarchitecture development and leading-edge process technology, we delivered a technology package that enables significantly improved performance and power efficiency – all while delivering higher frequencies. We’re proud of this accomplishment and believe that Silvermont will offer a strong and flexible foundation for a range of new, low-power Intel SoCs."

Architecting across a spectrum of computing

Silvermont will serve as the foundation for a breadth of 22nm products expected in market later this year. The performance-per-watt improvements with the new microarchitecture will enable a significant difference in performance and responsiveness for the compute devices built around these products.

Intel’s quad-core "Bay Trail" SoC is scheduled for holiday 2013 tablets and will more than double the compute performance capability of Intel’s current-generation tablet offering1. Due to the flexibility of Silvermont, variants of the "Bay Trail" platform will also be used in market segments including entry laptop and desktop computers in innovative form factors.

Intel’s "Merrifield" is scheduled to ship to customers by the end of this year. It will enable increased performance and battery life over current-generation products1 and brings support for context aware and personal services, ultra-fast connections for Web streaming, and increased data, device and privacy protection.

Intel’s "Avoton" will enable energy efficiency and performance-per-watt for microservers2, storage and scale out workloads in the data center. "Avoton" is Intel’s second-generation Intel Atom processor SoC to provide full server product capability that customers require including 64-bit, integrated fabric, error code correction, Intel virtualization technologies and software compatibility. "Rangeley" is aimed at the network and communication infrastructure, specifically for entry-level to mid-range routers, switches and security appliances. Both products are scheduled for the second half of this year.

Concurrently, Intel is delivering industry-leading advancements on its next-generation, 22nm Haswell microarchitecture for Intel Core processors to enable full-PC performance at lower power levels for innovative "2-in-1" form factors, and other mobile devices available later this year. Intel also plans to refresh its line of Intel Xeon processor families across the data center on 22nm technology, delivering better performance-per-watt and other features.

"By taking advantage of both the Silvermont and Haswell microarchitectures, Intel is well positioned to enable great products and experiences across the full spectrum of computing," Perlmutter said.

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.

Intel Corporation announced that the board of directors has unanimously elected Brian Krzanich as its next chief executive officer (CEO), succeeding Paul Otellini. Krzanich will assume his new role at the company’s annual stockholders’ meeting on May 16. The board of directors also elected Renée James, 48, to be president of Intel. She will also assume her new role on May 16, joining Krzanich in Intel’s executive office.

Krzanich, Intel’s chief operating officer since January 2012, will become the sixth CEO in Intel’s history. As previously announced, Otellini will step down as CEO and from the board of directors on May 16.

“After a thorough and deliberate selection process, the board of directors is delighted that Krzanich will lead Intel as we define and invent the next generation of technology that will shape the future of computing,” said Andy Bryant, chairman of Intel.

“Brian is a strong leader with a passion for technology and deep understanding of the business,” Bryant added. “His track record of execution and strategic leadership, combined with his open-minded approach to problem solving has earned him the respect of employees, customers and partners worldwide. He has the right combination of knowledge, depth and experience to lead the company during this period of rapid technology and industry change.”

Krzanich, 52, has progressed through a series of technical and leadership roles since joining Intel in 1982.

As chief operating officer, Krzanich led an organization of more than 50,000 employees spanning Intel’s Technology and Manufacturing Group, Intel Custom Foundry, NAND Solutions group, Human Resources, Information Technology and Intel’s China strategy.

James, 48, has broad knowledge of the computing industry, spanning hardware, security, software and services, which she developed through leadership positions at Intel and as chairman of Intel’s software subsidiaries — Havok, McAfee and Wind River. She also currently serves on the board of directors of Vodafone Group Plc and VMware Inc. and was chief of staff for former Intel CEO Andy Grove.