Category Archives: Packaging

Samsung announced today that it has begun mass producing the industry’s first three-dimensional (3D) Vertical NAND (V-NAND) flash memory, which breaks through the current scaling limit for existing NAND flash technology. Achieving gains in performance and area ratio, the new 3D V-NAND will be used for a wide range of consumer electronics and enterprise applications, including embedded NAND storage and solid state drives (SSDs).

Samsung 3D vertical NAND flash memory

Samsung’s new V-NAND offers a 128 gigabit (Gb) density in a single chip, utilizing the company’s proprietary vertical cell structure based on 3D Charge Trap Flash (CTF) technology and vertical interconnect process technology to link the 3D cell array. By applying both of these technologies, Samsung’s 3D V-NAND is able to provide over twice the scaling of 20nm-class planar NAND flash.

“The new 3D V-NAND flash technology is the result of our employees’ years of efforts to push beyond conventional ways of thinking and pursue much more innovative approaches in overcoming limitations in the design of memory semiconductor technology,” said Jeong-Hyuk Choi, senior vice president, flash product & technology, Samsung Electronics. “Following the world’s first mass production of 3D Vertical NAND, we will continue to introduce 3D V-NAND products with improved performance and higher density, which will contribute to further growth of the global memory industry.”

For the past 40 years, conventional flash memory has been based on planar structures that make use of floating gates. As manufacturing process technology has proceeded to the 10nm-class and beyond, concern for a scaling limit arose, due to the cell-to-cell interference that causes a trade-off in the reliability of NAND flash products. This also led to added development time and costs.

Samsung’s new V-NAND solves such technical challenges by achieving new levels of innovation in circuits, structure and the manufacturing process through which a vertical stacking of planar cell layers for a new 3D structure has been successfully developed. To do this, Samsung revamped its CTF architecture, which was first developed in 2006. In Samsung’s CTF-based NAND flash architecture, an electric charge is temporarily placed in a holding chamber of the non-conductive layer of flash that is composed of silicon nitride (SiN), instead of using a floating gate to prevent interference between neighboring cells.

By making this CTF layer three-dimensional, the reliability and speed of the NAND memory have improved sharply. The new 3D V-NAND shows not only an increase of a minimum of 2X to a maximum 10X higher reliability, but also twice the write performance over conventional 10nm-class floating gate NAND flash memory.

Also, one of the most important technological achievements of the new Samsung V-NAND is that the company’s proprietary vertical interconnect process technology can stack as many as 24 cell layers vertically, using special etching technology that connects the layers electronically by punching holes from the highest layer to the bottom. With the new vertical structure, Samsung can enable higher density NAND flash memory products by increasing the 3D cell layers without having to continue planar scaling, which has become incredibly difficult to achieve.

After nearly 10 years of research on 3D Vertical NAND, Samsung now has more than 300 patent-pending 3D memory technologies worldwide.

According to IHS iSuppli, the global NAND flash memory market is expected to reach approximately US $30.8 billion in revenues by the end of 2016, from approximately US $23.6 billion in 2013 with a CAGR of 11 percent, in leading growth of the entire memory industr

STI Certified Electronics announced the appointment of Jim Panfil as Vice President of Business Development. Panfil will report to Alex Woo, President and Chief Executive Officer.

In his role as Vice President of Business Development, Panfil is responsible for developing and executing the STI Certified Electronics strategy for franchised distribution product lines and strategic partnerships in the North American, Europe and Asia markets. He has over 20 years of strategic planning, sales and marketing experience in the semiconductor market and has worked for leading technology firms including assignments in the USA, Europe and Asia.

Panfil worked for Intel for the first 10 years of his career in a variety of sales and marketing assignments and has since defined and launched flash based microcontroller and system on-a-chip solutions at major semiconductor suppliers. Panfil launched Atmel Corporations Flash based microcontroller business. The company is credited with creating and establishing the technology that replaced masked ROM and one time programmable alternatives. Prior to Atmel he was Vice President of Marketing for LSI Logic and created and managed the system on a chip business which created the CPU for the Sony PlayStation video game system. He was also a Product Line Director for Conexant Systems, a supplier of IC’s for imaging and video surveillance applications. Mr. Panfil has a BS from Bradley University and an MBA from University of Utah.

“I am excited to have an executive of Jim’s caliber join the STI Certified Electronics management team,” said Alex Woo, STI Certified Electronics President and CEO. “He brings proven strategic planning expertise honed over a long and successful career in the semiconductor industry and will create and execute a roadmap to add innovative electronic solutions to our line-card.”

Ultratech, Inc., a supplier of lithography, laser-processing and inspection systems used to manufacture semiconductor devices and high-brightness LEDs (HB-LEDs), announced last week that it has moved Ultratech/Cambridge NanoTech to Waltham, Mass. The new facility will expand its operations for next-generation atomic layer deposition (ALD) equipment development and enable leading-edge scientific research. After acquiring the assets of Cambridge NanoTech last December, Ultratech invested in a new facility to enhance ALD development. With this new facility, Ultratech/Cambridge NanoTech now has greatly enhanced its capability to develop innovative process technology for ALD applications.

ALD is an enabling technology which provides coatings and material features with significant advantages compared to other existing techniques for depositing precise nanometer-thin films.  This technology is expected to be in high demand in volume manufacturing environments for integrated optics, micro-electro-mechanical systems (MEMs), implantable devices in the biomedical sector and batteries and fuel cells in the energy market.

Ultratech Chairman and Chief Executive Officer Arthur W. Zafiropoulo stated, "By creating a new facility and leveraging the valuable Cambridge NanoTech intellectual property, we have further enhanced our ability to advance the development of next-generation ALD solutions.  In addition, we have retained the same team that Cambridge NanoTech customers have worked with in the past.  The completion of the new facility marks our successful integration of the Cambridge NanoTech assets into Ultratech’s nanotechnology product group.  By investing in the expansion of these operations, we expect to generate increased revenue in new and existing markets.  Ultratech, and our ALD unit, Ultratech/Cambridge NanoTech, will continue to focus on technology solutions that support our global customers’ advanced product and technology roadmaps."

Ultratech/Cambridge NanoTech is located at:

130 Turner Street, Building 2

Waltham, Massachusetts   02453

SEMATECH today announced that Silvaco, Inc., a provider of Technology Computer Aided Design and Electronic Design Automation (EDA) software, has joined SEMATECH to collaboratively develop advanced modeling and simulation tools.

As the microelectronics industry develops emerging and future products, new and improved methods will be necessary to meet the associated manufacturing challenges. Through their collaboration, SEMATECH will use Silvaco’s TCAD and EDA software tools to perform advanced device simulations. Additionally, Silvaco will work with SEMATECH to develop new design, modeling, and simulation methods that will address thermal, mechanical, and reliability issues for next-generation technologies.

“As the industry considers numerous new materials, there is a need to develop new modeling infrastructure for those materials and structures,” said Paul Kirsch, director of SEMATECH’s Front End program. “SEMATECH is pleased to welcome Silvaco as a partner. We will work together to accelerate the investigation and verification of new materials modeling and optimization for silicon, non-silicon and beyond CMOS technologies.”

Silvaco’s TCAD and EDA tools provide research and development capabilities for process and device simulation, circuit simulation and design of analog, mixed-signal and RF integrated circuits. Such methodologies and technologies will be used to address scalability of materials, processes, equipment and subcomponents for next-generation wafers and devices.

“We are excited to join this industry-leading consortium in which Silvaco will provide simulation solutions that address mechanical stress and the reliability challenges for vertical chip integration, as well as meeting the simulation challenges presented by nanometer-scale FinFET devices,” said David Halliday, CEO of Silvaco. “We expect that this partnership will enable Silvaco to provide additional unique solutions to our customers requiring simulation tools for the next generation of wafers and devices.”

Research and Markets has announced the addition of the "The Global Market for Graphene to 2020" report to their offering.

Graphene has moved swiftly from the research laboratory to the marketplace, driven by demand from markets where advanced materials are required. These include the aerospace, automotive, coatings, electronics, energy storage, coatings and paints, communications, sensor, solar, oil, and lubricant sectors.

The exceptional electron and thermal transport, mechanical properties, barrier properties and high specific surface area of graphene and combinations thereof make it a potentially disruptive technology across a raft of industries. The European Union is funding a 10-year, 1.35 billion euro coordination action on graphene. South Korea is spending $350 million on commercialization initiatives and the United Kingdom is investing £50million in a commercialization hub. Applications are coming onto the market for polymer composites and EMI shielding coatings. Graphene-based conducting inks are also finding their way into smart cards and radio-frequency identification tags.

Many of the current and potential applications of carbon nanotubes may be taken by graphene as it displays enhanced properties but with greater ease of production and handling. In this regard, carbon nanotubes may be viewed as a stalking horse for commercial applications of graphene. However, in an interesting development, using carbon nanotubes and graphene in combination shows great promise, allowing for greater consistency and higher concentrations of these materials in the end product.

Most graphene producers currently produce graphene nanoplatelets and graphene oxide. Within the last year graphene producers have increased production capabilities considerably. XG Sciences, Angstron Materials and Vorbeck have increased, or are planning to increase, their production capacities twenty-fold.

Producers are generally small, start-up companies who have witnessed an explosion in demand for their materials from a variety of industries. Companies such as IBM and Samsung are pursuing applications for graphene in electronics and optics, which are likely only to be realized in the medium to long-term. Most near-term demand is for composites and coatings for application in the automotive, plastics, coatings, construction, metals, batteries, aerospace and energy markets.

Crossbar, Inc., a start-up company, unveiled a new Resistive RAM (RRAM) technology that will be capable of storing up to one terabyte (TB) of data on a single 200mm2 chip. A working memory was produced array at a commercial fab, and Crossbar is entering the first phase of productization. “We have achieved all the major technical milestones that prove our RRAM technology is easy to manufacture and ready for commercialization,” said George Minassian, chief executive officer, Crossbar, Inc. The company is backed by Artiman Ventures, Kleiner Perkins Caufield & Byers and Northern Light Venture Capital.

The technology, which was conceived by Professor Wei Lu of the University of Michigan, is based on a simple three-layer structure of silver, amorphous silicon and silicon (Fig. 1). The resistance switching mechanism is based on the formation of a filament in the switching material when a voltage is applied between the two electrodes. Minassian said the RRAM is very stable, capable of withstanding temperature swings up to 125°C, with up to 10,000 cycles, and a retention of 10 years. “The filaments are rock solid,” he said.

 

Crossbar has filed 100 unique patents, with 30 already issued, relating to the development, commercialization and manufacturing of RRAM technology.

After completing the technology transfer to Crossbar’s R&D fab and technology analysis and optimization, Crossbar has now successfully developed its demonstration product in a commercial fab.  This working silicon is a fully integrated monolithic CMOS controller and memory array chip. The company is currently completing the characterization and optimization of this device and plans to bring its first product to market in the embedded SOC market.

Sherry Garber, Founding Partner, Convergent Semiconductors, said: “RRAM is widely considered the obvious leader in the battle for a next generation memory and Crossbar is the company most advanced to show working demo that proves the manufacturability of RRAM.  This is a significant development in the industry, as it provides a clear path to commercialization of a new storage technology, capable of changing the future landscape of electronics innovation.”

Crossbar technology can be stacked in 3D, delivering multiple terabytes of storage on a single chip. Its simplicity, stackability and CMOS compatibility enables logic and memory to be integrated onto a single chip at the latest technology node.

Crossbar’s technology will deliver 20x faster write performance; 20x lower power consumption; and 10x the endurance at half the die size, compared to today’s best-in-class NAND Flash memory. Minassian said the biggest advantage of the technology is its simplicity. “That allowed us in three years time to get from technology understanding, characterization, cell array and put a device together,” he said.

Minassian said RRAM compares favorably with NAND, which is getting more complex and expensive. “In 3D NAND, you put all of these thing layers of top of each other – 32 layers, or 64 or 128 in some cases – then you have to etch them, you have to slice them all at once and the equipment required for that accuracy and that geometry is very expensive. This is one of the reasons that 3D has been very difficult for NAND to be introduced.” With the Crossbar approach, “you’re always dealing with three layers. It’s much easier to stack these and it gives you a huge density advantage,” Minassian said.

“The switching media is highly resistive,” explains Minassian. “If you try to read the resistance between top and bottom electrode without doing anything, it’s a high resistance. That’s the off state. To turn on the device, we apply a positive voltage to the top electrode. That ionizes the metal on the top layer and puts the metal ions into the switching media. The metal ions form a filament that connect the top and bottom electrode. The moment they hit the bottom electrode, you have a short, which means that the top and bottom electrode are connected which means they have a low resistance.” The low resistance state is the on state. He said that although silver is not commonly used in front-end CMOS processing, the RRAM memory formation process is a back-end process. “You produce all your CMOS and then right before the device exits the fab, you put the silver on top,” he said. The silver is deposited, encapsulated, etched and then packaged. “That equipment is available, you just have to isolate it at the end,” Minassian said.

The approach is also CMOS compatible, with processes used to fabricate the memory layers all running at less than 400°C.  “This allows you to not only be CMOS compatible, but it allows you to stack more and more of these memory layers on top of each other,” Minassian said. “You can put the logic, the controllers and microprocessors, next to the memory in the same die. That allows you to simplify packaging and increase performance.”

Another advantage compared to NAND is that the controllers used to address the cells can be less complicated. Minassian said that in conventional cells, 30 electrons are required to produce  1 Volt. “If you shrink that to a smaller node, the number of electrons is less. Fewer electrons are much harder to detect. You need a massive controller that does error recovery and complex coding so if the bits are changed, it can still provide you the right program to execute.” Also, because the Crossbar RRAM is capable of 10,000 write cycles, less complicated controllers are needed. Today’s NAND is capable of only 1000 write cycles. “If you write information 1000 times, that cell is destroyed. It will not contain or maintain the information. You have this complex controller that keeps track of how many cells have been written, how many times, to make sure all of them are aged equally,” Minassian said.  

Non-volatile memory, expected to grow to become a $60 billion market in 2013, is the most common storage technology used for both code storage (NOR) and data storage (NAND) in a wide range of electronics applications. Crossbar plans to bring to market standalone chip solutions, optimized for both code and data storage, used in place of traditional NOR and NAND Flash memory. Crossbar also plans to license its technology to SOC developers for integration into next-generation systems-on-chips (SOC).

Michael Yang, Senior Principal Analyst, Memory and Storage, HIS, said: “Ninety percent of the data we store today was created in the past two years.  The creation and instant access of data has become an integral part of the modern experience, continuing to drive dramatic growth for storage for the foreseeable future.  However, the current storage medium, planar NAND, is seeing challenges as it reaches the lower lithographies, pushing against physical and engineering limits.  The next generation non-volatile memory, such as Crossbar’s RRAM, would bypass those limits, and provide the performance and capacity necessary to become the replacement memory solution.”

The U.S. image sensors market was worth USD 2.0 billion in 2011 and is forecasted to reach USD 3.7 billion in 2017 at a CAGR of 11.1 percent from 2011 to 2017, according to a new market report published by Transparency Market Research “Image Sensors Market – The U.S. Industry Analysis Market Share, Trends and Forecast, 2011 – 2017.” The linear image sensors segment accounted for the largest share – i.e. 84.2 percent – of the U.S. image sensors market at USD 1.7 billion in 2011.

The X-ray image sensors market segment will have the fastest revenue growth at a CAGR of 18.8 percent during 2011 – 2017. The U.S. CMOS image sensor shipment reached 464.0 million units in 2011 registering a growth of 27.6 percent over 2010.

Image sensors are broadly categorized under CCD image sensors (area image sensor), linear image sensors and X-ray image sensors. Linear image sensors are further segmented into CMOS image sensors, NMOS image sensors and InGaAs image sensors. The linear image sensors command the largest share of shipment and revenue, largely due to CMOS image sensors, which accounts for more than 90 percent of the linear image sensor market.

Growing technological advancement and faster adoption of new generation of mobile technology has spurred the demand for high resolution imaging technology. With nationwide mobile penetration inching towards 100 percent, mobile phone manufacturers are introducing a new array of imaging-enabled products. Current differentiators for imaging in mobile technology are low cost, low power, high performance and small size. Increasing integration and low power operation has opened new application segments for image sensors.

CMOS (complementary metal-oxide semiconductor) image sensors facilitate large scale integration and can enable a single chip to accommodate all camera functions, which eliminates the need for additional support packaging and assembly; thus lowering cost. Market players are progressively providing higher levels of integration by incorporating DSPs (digital signal processing), as well as ISPs (integrated signal processing). Other ground-breaking features such as multiple color filters that allow JPEG images conversion on the sensor are also supporting the market growth.

The Semiconductor Industry Association (SIA) today announced that worldwide sales of semiconductors reached $74.65 billion during the second quarter of 2013, an increase of 6 percent from the first quarter when sales were $70.45 billion. This marks the largest quarterly increase in three years. Global sales for June 2013 hit $24.88 billion, an increase of 2.1 percent compared to June 2012 and 0.8 percent higher than the May 2013 total. Regionally, sales in the Americas jumped 8.6 percent in Q2 compared to Q1 and 10.6 percent in June 2013 compared to June 2012, marking the region’s largest year-over-year increase of 2013. All monthly sales numbers are compiled by the World Semiconductor Trade Statistics (WSTS) organization and represent a three-month moving average.

"There’s no question the global semiconductor industry has picked up steam through the first half of 2013, led largely by the Americas," said Brian Toohey, president and CEO, Semiconductor Industry Association. "We have now seen consistent growth on a monthly, quarterly, and year-to-year basis, and sales totals have exceeded the latest industry projection, with sales of memory products showing particular strength."

Quarterly sales outperformed the World Semiconductor Trade Statistics (WSTS) organization’s latest industry forecast, which projected quarter-over-quarter growth of 4.6 percent globally and 3.4 percent for the Americas (compared to the actual increases of 6 percent and 8.6 percent, respectively). Total year-to-dates sales of $145.1 billion also exceeded the WSTS projection of $144.1 billion. Actual year-to-date sales through June are 1.5 percent higher than they were at the same point in 2012.

Regionally, sales in June increased compared to May in the Americas (3.5 percent), Asia Pacific (0.4 percent), and Europe (0.1 percent), but declined slightly in Japan (-0.9 percent). Compared to the same month in 2012, sales in June increased substantially in the Americas (10.6 percent), moderately in Asia Pacific (5.4 percent), and slightly in Europe (0.8 percent), but dropped steeply in Japan (-20.8 percent), largely due to the devaluation of the Japanese yen.

"While we welcome this encouraging data, it is important to recognize the semiconductor workforce that drives innovation and growth in our industry," continued Toohey. "A key roadblock inhibiting our innovation potential is America’s outdated high-skilled immigration system, which limits semiconductor companies’ access to the world’s top talent. The House of Representatives should use the August recess to work out their political differences on this issue and return to Washington next month ready to approve meaningful immigration reform legislation."

Later this month, IC Insights’ August Update to the 2013 McClean Report will show a ranking of the top 25 semiconductor suppliers in 1H13.  A preview of the top 20 companies is listed in Figure 1.  The top 20 worldwide semiconductor (IC and O S D—optoelectronic, discrete, and sensor) sales leaders for 1H13 include eight suppliers headquartered in the U.S., four in Japan, three in Europe, three in Taiwan, and two in South Korea.

The top-20 ranking includes three pure-play foundries (TSMC, GlobalFoundries, and UMC) and four fabless companies.  IC foundries are included in the top-20 semiconductor supplier ranking because IC Insights has always viewed the ranking as a top supplier list, not as a marketshare ranking, and realizes that in some cases semiconductor sales are double counted.  With many of our clients being vendors to the semiconductor industry (supplying equipment, chemicals, gases, etc.), excluding large IC manufacturers like the foundries would leave significant “holes” in the list of top semiconductor suppliers.  Overall, the list shown in Figure 1 provides a guideline to identify which companies are the leading semiconductor suppliers, whether they are IDMs, fabless companies, or foundries.

There were numerous changes within the top-20 semiconductor ranking in 1H13 as compared to the top 20 ranking of 2012.  Some of the companies rising in the ranking included SK Hynix, which moved up three places and into the top 5; Broadcom, which edged into the top 10; Elpida, which was officially purchased by Micron on July 31, 2013, shot up seven places to 17th place; and MediaTek, which jumped up four positions to make it into the top 20 (now ranked 18th).  In contrast, Fujitsu dropped five places and fell out of the top 20 ranking, going from being ranked 17th in 2012 to 22nd in 1H13.  The other company to fall out of the top 20 ranking was fabless supplier Nvidia, which went from being ranked 18th in 2012 to 21st in 1H13, even though the company posted a two percent increase in year-over-year sales.  Another “casualty” in the top 20 ranking was Sony, which fell to 16th place in 1H13 from the 12th position in 2012.

Micron’s acquisition of Elpida was completed on July 31, 2013.  It is interesting to note that if Micron and Elpida’s 1H13 sales were combined, the “new” company would have had $6,699 million in total sales in 1H13 and would have been ranked as the fifth-largest semiconductor supplier worldwide.  Now that the two companies are officially combined, look for Micron to move up in the ranking of top suppliers over the remainder of 2013 and in 2014.

Figure 1

In total, the top 20 semiconductor companies’ sales increased by 4 percent in 1H13 as compared to 1H12, one point better than the total 1H13/1H12 worldwide semiconductor market increase of 3 percent.  It took semiconductor sales of just over $1.9 billion in 1H13 to make the top-20 ranking.

As shown in Figure 2, there was a 64-percentage-point range of growth rates among the worldwide top 20 semiconductor suppliers in 1H13 (from +38 percent for SK Hynix to -26 percent for Sony).  The continued success of the fabless/foundry business model is evident when examining the top 20 semiconductor suppliers ranked by growth rate.  As shown, the top 10 performers included three fabless companies (Qualcomm, MediaTek, and Broadcom) and three pure-play foundries (TSMC, GlobalFoundries, and UMC).

Figure 2

Figure 2 illustrates that two of the three top-20 ranked companies that registered a double-digit sales decline in 1H13 were headquartered in Japan (Renesas and Sony).  Japan-based Fujitsu also registered a double-digit decline (-19 percent) in 1H13 to drop out of the top 20 ranking.  However, it should be noted that the conversion of Japanese company semiconductor sales from yen to U.S. dollars, at 95.47 yen per dollar in 1H13 versus 79.70 yen per dollar in 1H12, had a significant impact on the sales figures for the Japanese companies.  Still, Sony would have logged a double-digit (12 percent) semiconductor sales decline even if its sales results were not converted to U.S. dollars while Renesas would have posted a two percent increase in semiconductor sales if the numbers were expressed in yen.

Unfortunately for AMD, it cannot attribute its extremely poor 1H13 sales performance (-25 percent) to currency conversion issues.  However, the company’s 3Q13/2Q13 guidance is for a 22 percent surge in sales, a significant rebound but one that still may not prevent the company from posting another full-year decline in sales in 2013 (AMD registered a steep 17 percent sales decline in 2012).

More details on the 1H13 top 25 semiconductor suppliers, including a look at the companies’ 3Q13 expectations and guidance, will be provided in the August Update to The McClean Report.

 

Spansion Inc., a developer of Flash memory-based embedded systems solutions, and XMC, China’s fastest growing 300mm semiconductor foundry, today announced an agreement for XMC to license Spansion’s floating gate NOR Flash technology. The agreement expands the companies’ 300mm manufacturing partnership of Spansion’s proprietary 65nm, 45nm and 32nm MirrorBit Flash memory technology.

"Spansion’s IP program allows valuable partners such as XMC to leverage our strong portfolio of nonvolatile memory technology to enhance their products and offer the technology and its benefits to their customers," Joe Rauschmayer, senior vice president of wafer fabrication, corporate quality and product engineering of Spansion. "We look forward to our continued partnership with XMC to drive innovation in the market."

"This agreement further strengthens the successful partnership we have had with Spansion, and adds significantly to our world class IP coverage enabling us to reliably and securely deliver high-value IP solutions to partners worldwide," said Walt Lange, senior vice president of sales and marketing at XMC. "We are well positioned to offer leading-edge 300mm-based manufacturing capacity based on the most advanced process nodes, down to 32nm.”

The Spansion and XMC collaboration began in 2008. XMC foundry services, along with Spansion’s flagship manufacturing facility in Austin, Texas, are central to Spansion’s fab lite manufacturing strategy. Spansion utilizes world-class flash memory fabs from both existing internal facilities as well as foundry partnerships to create a flexible, cost-efficient manufacturing network.