Category Archives: Packaging

Executives from the world’s leading microelectronics companies will meet with delegates representing Vietnamese government, academia, research, and industry to explore and discuss the key strategies and opportunities in the growing Vietnam semiconductor industry at the SEMI Vietnam Semiconductor Strategy Summit. The Summit will be held on September 9-10 at the InterContinental Asiana Hotel in Ho Chi Minh City. The event includes an optional tour of the Saigon Hi-Tech Park where Intel’s assembly and packaging plant is located, followed by a one-day executive conference and networking event.

Following Intel’s successful $1 billion in manufacturing investment in Ho Chi Minh City, and the government’s recent decision to invest in a 200mm/0.18 micron front-end fab, Vietnam will become an alternative design and production location for electronics and semiconductor manufacturers in Southeast Asia.  The executive event will bring together the key decision-makers shaping the future of the industry in Vietnam and help forge the connections and relationships that will drive further growth over the next decade and beyond.  A featured presentation will provide perspectives on infrastructure and technology requirements for the new 200mm fab presented by executives from M+W and FabMax.

While both the Vietnamese and Ho Chi Minh City governments have made investments in both front-end and back-end semiconductor manufacturing a priority, advancing the semiconductor industry in Vietnam will also require development of the local supply chain, allocation of water and energy resources, a growing skilled workforce, partnerships with established microelectronic markets, and other infrastructure needs.

The SEMI Vietnam Semiconductor Strategy Summit is organized by SEMI and co-organized by the Saigon Hi-Tech Park (SHTP) and the Ho Chi Minh City Semiconductor Industry Association (HSIA). Participation in the SEMI Vietnam Semiconductor Strategy Summit is available exclusively through corporate sponsorship or by invitation.

Current sponsors include Kulicke & Soffa, Millice, KLA-Tencor, Disco, Advantest, and FabMax.  Several sponsorship categories are provided that offer different levels exposure and benefits.  For additional information on corporate sponsorships and to inquire about an invitation, please contact [email protected] or visit www.semi.org/vietnam

With most of the top brands introducing new flagship models in the first half of 2013, smartphone buyers now have more choices than ever, a phenomenon that will contribute to an expected doubling in market shipments from 2012 to 2017.

Worldwide smartphone shipments will reach 1.5 billion units in 2017, up from 712 million in 2012, according to a new Mobile & Wireless Communications Report from information and analytics provider IHS Inc. Shipments this year are set to rise to 897 million units, up from 712 million in 2012, as shown in this figure.

In the years that follow, shipments of smartphones will expand at a compound annual growth rate (CAGR) of 15.8 percent, reaching 1.1 billion units in 2014, followed by 1.2 billion in 2015, and 1.4 billion in 2016.

“The volume of new flagship smartphone releases from top original equipment manufacturers (OEM) this year has been astounding,” said Wayne Lam, senior analyst for consumer and communications at IHS. “These include the new BlackBerry Z10, the aluminum uni-body HTC One, and an update to the Samsung Galaxy S4 featuring a Full HD 5-inch active matrix organic light emitting diode (AMOLED) display.”

On the other hand, Apple’s iPhone franchise appears to be stalling as first-quarter shipments of 37.4 million fell below expectations. With the next iPhone model not expected until the second half of the year, there is a real possibility that the full-year 2013 sales volume of the iPhone may be essentially flat at around 150 million units, compared to 134 million units in 2012.

“The possible slowing growth of the iPhone and the rapid pace of competitive smartphones releases speak to the ferocious nature of the handset business, especially now as the market continues to pivot from a market dominated by lower-end handsets known as feature phones to one that is increasingly smartphone-centric,” Lam said.

Outshipped

The trend of deeper smartphone penetration continued in the fourth quarter of 2012 and the first quarter this year, as smartphones outshipped feature phones in the overall branded cellphone market.

After a seasonally high fourth quarter, which saw total mobile handset shipments topping 400 million units for the first time, handset shipments in the first quarter of 2013 contracted by nearly 50 million units quarter-over-quarter, keeping with seasonal sales trends.

Samsung continued its strong growth in the first quarter with a sequential increase of 9 million units, while  brands such as Coolpad and Gionee outshipping the likes of HTC and Motorola in the first quarter.

Chinese smartphone OEMs were able to accomplish such growth on the back of a catalog of largely affordable smartphones, while Samsung rolled out a number of low-cost variants to its high-end flagship products.

These competitive forces, as well as changing consumer demand, will place pressures not only on Apple but also on other OEMs, IHS believes, forcing players to innovate and diversify smartphone offerings in order to continue growing.

Just innovate

Innovation in smartphone design is becoming a necessity for OEMs as consumers demand more immersive user experiences and visual content. Many smartphones, for instance, are moving to 5-inch or larger full HD displays to accommodate consumer desire for these experiences.

In parallel with an expanded display, the overall footprint of smartphones is likewise increasing because of larger batteries, which will then allow for more powerful processors, associated memory and sensors.

But these expanded features come at a cost to OEMs, driving up the dollar content of electronics and pushing the bill- of-materials (BOM) cost for the devices. Still, as variations in smartphone designs increase, opportunities to win design slots multiply as well for component suppliers—developments that bode well for the overall smartphone supply chain.

The latest trends, challenges and business opportunities in advanced materials for semiconductors, MEMs, power devices, storage, and other electronic devices will be addressed at the 2013 SEMI Strategic Materials Conference (SMC), to be held on October 16-17 at the Santa Clara Marriott in Silicon Valley, California. Electronic device manufacturers, materials suppliers, market analysts, and other industry experts will speak and participate in the only executive conference in the world dedicated to advanced electronic materials.  Last year’s conference sold out and attendees are encouraged to register early to ensure participation.

Organized by the Chemical and Gas Manufacturers Group (CGMG), a SEMI Special Interest Group comprised of leading manufacturers, producers, packagers and distributors of chemicals and gases used in the microelectronics industry, SMC offers presentations from leading market analysts, device manufacturers, industry consortiums, top suppliers and academic researchers, in combination with an innovative interactive format designed to facilitate business contacts and networking. SMC also provides valuable forecasting information, helps accelerate advanced materials markets, and serves as a forum for collaboration among all sectors of the advanced materials supply chain. Over 94 percent of the attendees at last year’s conference said SMC provided information useful to their jobs and provided valuable business contacts.

Featured topics for the two-day conference will include:

  • New materials and processes for next generation memory
  • Material metrology and characterization challenges at leading-edge nodes
  • Graphene and other carbon-based materials for semiconductor, storage, and industrial applications
  • Materials challenges for MEMS devices
  • Wafer processing and packaging materials outlook
  • The coming revolution in wide bandgap semiconductors
  • Latest advances in printed, large area and flexible electronics

The Strategic Materials Conference has provided valuable information and networking opportunities to materials and electronics industry professionals since 1995. Held this year at the Santa Clara Marriott in the heart of Silicon Valley, the event provides critical forecasting, emerging market, and materials trends for the microelectronics industry.

For more information and to register, visit www.semi.org/smc

 

Micron Technology, Inc., today announced that it is sampling next-generation, 16-nanometer (nm) process technology, enabling the industry’s smallest 128-gigabit (Gb) multi-level cell (MLC) NAND Flash memory devices. The 16nm node is not only the leading Flash process, but it is also the most advanced processing node for any sampling semiconductor device.

Micron’s 128Gb MLC NAND Flash memory devices are targeted at applications like consumer SSDs, removable storage (USB drives and Flash cards), tablets, ultrathin devices, mobile handsets and data center cloud storage. The new 128Gb NAND Flash memory provides the greatest number of bits per square millimeter and lowest cost of any MLC device in existence. In fact, the new technology could create nearly 6TB of storage on a single wafer.

“Micron’s dedicated team of engineers has worked tirelessly to introduce the world’s smallest and most advanced Flash manufacturing technology,” said Glen Hawk, vice president of Micron’s NAND Solutions Group." Our customers continually ask for higher capacities in smaller form factors, and this next-generation process node allows Micron to lead the market in meeting those demands.”

“Cost reductions will always be fundamental to the NAND industry and so companies who can continue to lead on the flash process technology will be poised for success, particularly in vertically integrated solutions,” according to Gartner.*

Micron is sampling the 16nm, 128Gb MLC NAND with select partners now and plans to be in full production in 4Q13. Micron is also developing a new line of solid-state drive (SSD) solutions based on these devices and expects to ship SSDs with 16nm Flash in 2014.

Micron NAND

Researchers sponsored by Semiconductor Research Corporation (SRC), the world’s leading university-research consortium for semiconductors and related technologies, today announced that they have developed a more efficient purge technique that reduces the consumption of ultra-high purity (UHP) purge gases by more than 20 percent during the production of semiconductors. The new process has been co-developed with Intel Corporation and can be applied to a wide range of manufacturing operations beyond the chip industry.

In response to industry demand, the research performed by the SRC Engineering Research Center (ERC) for Environmentally Benign Semiconductor Manufacturing has focused on minimizing the amount of UHP bulk gases used to purge and clean tools and gas distribution systems. The new technique—called Pressure Cyclic Purge (PCP)—can easily replace the industry’s standard steady-purge method while delivering welcomed energy and gas savings.

Currently, the widely used conventional steady-purge method for cleaning and drying highly sensitive equipment and gas distribution systems requires flowing large amounts of expensive gases through production equipment and distribution systems; this procedure results in higher cost and waste of consumables. As contamination continues to be a major concern in scaling devices to smaller feature size for enhanced density and performance, the inefficient use of expensive purge gases to eliminate contaminants is a key challenge to the productivity of future IC technologies.

“The widespread use of ultra-pure gas for purging purposes, which essentially all goes to waste, has been a significant environmental and efficiency issue for more than a decade,” said Farhang Shadman, lead researcher and the ERC Director at the University of Arizona for the SRC-funded research. “Reduction of both UHP gas usage as well as the resources used for purification processes are environmental gains in the fab, as well as in the production and supply of these gases.”

Through direct measurement and system simulations, the SRC-supported research has demonstrated that the unique flow and cyclic change in the new PCP technique utilizes substantially smaller amounts of purge gases and achieves the required cleanliness in a shorter period of time. For example, the new approach can accelerate the time for the industry’s standard gas distribution system ‘dry down’ process by greater than 30 percent for large, complex systems with the PCP technique.

“Continual increase in environmental quality and cost-effectiveness are on-going goals for our R&D and we have already demonstrated the benefits of this new approach at several sites,” said Carl Geisert, Senior Principal Engineer at Intel. “As we continue to push reduction of contaminant levels towards the parts per trillion level, collaboration between industry and the ERC is key to continued progress toward our goals.”

In addition to Intel, other SRC members have access to a simulator program that can be customized with the PCP technique for their needs. Tests with the new purge technique suggest that the simulator will be ready for commercialization by early 2014. The PCP technique is expected to be relatively easy to implement with minimal change in hardware or configurations for existing fabs and facilities.

In addition to semiconductor equipment and manufacturing companies, other industries that use ultra-clean gases for planar or patterned surfaces and small structures should also benefit from this technology. For example, makers of optics, optoelectronics and flat panel display are expected to show great interest in the tightly regulated semiconductor manufacturing processes such as the PCP technique. As this new purge technology moves quickly toward commercialization, development is underway for its integration into various process tools.

“This progress is reflective of the kinds of innovative approaches that simultaneously provide environmental gain, process improvement and cost reduction for semiconductor and other industries,” said Bob Havemann, Director of Nanomanufacturing Sciences at SRC. “That’s been the legacy and the mission of the SRC Engineering Research Center in the projects that we conduct jointly with industrial members for the purpose of enhancing the environmental sustainability of semiconductor manufacturing.”

SEMICON Taiwan is set to open in September amidst an improving global and regional outlook for 2013 and 2014 that sees Taiwan remaining the largest and strongest market for semiconductor manufacturing. SEMICON Taiwan 2013, to be held September 4-6 at the Taipei World Trade Center Nankang Exhibition Hall, will spotlight the latest developments in processes, equipment, materials, and emerging market opportunities in microelectronics manufacturing from more than 650 exhibiting companies and more than 110 speakers from the world’s leading technology companies and research organizations.

Bucking the global trend of contraction in semiconductor spending, Taiwan has continued to build its position as the leading market for semiconductor equipment through the first half of 2013. According to the Worldwide Semiconductor Market Statistics report published by SEMI and the Semiconductor Equipment Association of Japan (SEAJ), spending on semiconductor equipment in Taiwan in the first quarter of 2013 rose to US$ 2.8 billion, 31 percent above Q4 2012 and 60 percent higher than the first quarter of 2012. The latest SEMI Consensus Forecast projects the Taiwan equipment market will rise more than 9 percent in 2013 and another two percent in 2014 to reach $10.6 billion, maintaining Taiwan’s status as the world’s largest equipment market.

"While the global market is looking towards recovery in 2014, Taiwan is building its strength and growing now," said Terry Tsao, president of SEMI Taiwan. "New electronic products and technologies, including mobile devices and 3D printing, are creating entirely new opportunities for microelectronics and driving the need to push the limits of Moore’s Law to enable the next generation of innovations. The technologies, companies, and people that will get us there are the highlight of SEMICON Taiwan."

In addition to the company exhibits and product displays, SEMICON Taiwan 2013 will feature more than 50 hours of technical and business forums, including presentations from global and regional industry leaders ASE, GLOBALFOUNDRIES, IBM, Micron, STMicroelectronics, TSMC, and Qualcomm among others. Scheduled sessions include the SEMICON Taiwan Executive Summit, the IC Design Summit, Market Trends, Memory Executive Summit, CMP Forum, Lithography/Mask Symposium, Advanced Packaging Symposium, Green Manufacturing, and sessions on MEMS and LED manufacturing.

Complementing the technical and business programs at SEMICON Taiwan, the third SiP Global Summit, Taiwan’s leading conference focused on advanced packaging and test, will feature speakers and participation from leading companies including Amkor, SPIL, SPTS, Nanya, PCB, Unimicron, Teradyne, Qualcomm, Yole Développement, SUSS MicroTec, and Senju sharing their insights and solutions for accelerating volume 3D IC production. In addition to support from the SEMI Taiwan Packaging and Test Committee, the SiP Global Summit is also coordinated in conjunction with the Fraunhofer Institute, I-Shou University, and the Industrial Technology Research Institute (ITRI).

SurplusGLOBAL, Inc. participated in Semicon West 2013. SurplusGLOBAL CEO, Bruce Kim forecasted the increase in demand in the Asia Secondary Equipment Market.

Bruce Kim, CEO  of SurplusGLOBAL, has participated in Semicon West for the past 7 years and stated, “We are more optimistic about the growth in the Asian Secondary Semiconductor Equipment Market in the years to come.”

Secondary semiconductor equipment addresses both environmental and cost concerns within the industry. The secondary equipment market size has experienced continuous growth over the past three years. In 2012 the market size was estimated to be around 3 billion US dollars, with 200mm wafer capturing 90% of this market. In 2013, demand of 300mm wafer equipment is expected to capture an increased share of the demand.

With the growth in demand, distribution and services are becoming more critical every year. The number of Fab facilities in the United States and Europe continues to experience decline, while in Asia there has been continued investment in the China, Taiwan and South Korean markets. The Asian market accounts for approximately 80% of the semiconductor equipment market. The Asian secondary equipment market has been experiencing continued growth and global, financially stable traders such as SurplusGLOBAL are well positioned to lead the supply of this equipment.

The market has been very slow for last two years in Asia since the second half of 2011.  Most of the Asian players enjoyed the market recovery in Year 2010 and the 1st half of 2011.  After then, utilization rates at Foundries plummeted to levels, LED fabs suffered from slow demands and price pressures. The sales revenues of Asian dealers and refubishers have declined up to 70 percent.  These days we can see several ongoing expansion plans mainly from Taiwan and China Foundries as well as a few new Fab plans in China.  LED Fabs are resuming the purchase of tools.  Analog and Power device makers are adding bottleneck tools.  The demands of Fab tools from packaging companies are increasing.   

Bruce Kim commented “The major market drives are Foundries who want to expand their capacity or build new Fabs mainly in Taiwan and China. There are increasing demands of secondary equipment in mature technology including not only 8 inch silicon wafer, but also LED, packaging and MEMS."

To date, this demand has been driven by both 200mm FAB front and backend tools. We project starting growth of 300mm FABs in Asia. Powerchip sold hundreds of 300MM tools in the 1st Half to many Asian Fabs.  GLOBALFoundries acquired a thousand of Fab tools from Promos and sold many of them to China new fab recently. Bruce Kim mentioned,   “300mm Fabs have difficulty in purchasing secondary equipment because of insufficient support from equipment suppliers, so SurplusGLOBAL expects it will take considerable time for the  300mm secondary equipment market to take off.”

SurplusGLOBAL locates, sells and stocks thousands of systems annually and has established an extensive global network of end users, refurbishers and brokers. SurplusGLOBAL specializes in semiconductor manufacturing equipment acquired from the leading chip manufacturers in the United States, Europe and Asia covering Fab, ATE and PCB/SMT capital equipment segments.

Solid State Technology and SEMI announced the recipient of the 2013 “Best of West” Award — Mentor Graphics — for its Tessent TestKompress with Cell-Aware ATPG.  The award recognizes important product and technology developments in the microelectronics supply chain. Held in conjunction with SEMICON West, the largest and most influential microelectronics exposition in North America, the Best of West finalists were selected based on their financial impact on the industry, engineering or scientific achievement, and/or societal impact.

The Mentor Graphics Tessent TestKompress with Cell-Aware ATPG significantly improves on the standard process for testing digital integrated circuits and reduces failure escape rate by detecting defects at the transistor level that are missed by traditional automatic test pattern generation (ATPG) techniques. The Mentor Graphics booth is in the North Hall, Booth #6243. Their winning entry was entered in the “Silicon Test Solutions, Facilities & Software” category.

The Best of West Award winner was announced during SEMICON West on Wednesday, July 10, 2013 at 1:00pm.

Leaders of research consortia from around the world sat down to share updates and insights with SEMICON West attendees on Wednesday morning. In a panel led by SEMI President Karen Sevala, four executives from SEMATECH, CNSE, CEA-Leti and imec discussed their companies’ focus and progress on lithography, 3D stacking and ICs, memory and logic and more.

Lithography was a huge project and priority to three out of the four consortia represented and was the first topic brought to the panel by Sevala.

“Lithography is one of the highest priorities of our industry,” said Luc Van den hove, CEO of imec.

Van den hove said that he was very positive about EUV, confident that it was going to be available very soon. Daniel Armbrust of SEMATECH echoed Van den hove’s sentiments, reinforcing the importance of EUV’s availability for the continuation of Moore’s law.

“EUV must happen,” Armbrust emphasized to the crowd. SEMATECH’s EUV program, he said, has been focused on taking the manufacturing technology and making sure it’s ready for high volume production.

“The technology is in relatively decent shape,” Armbrust said. The challenge, he explained, is defect performance.

3D stacking and TSVs were also a hot topic. Michael Liehr of CNSE said, while important, 3D has been slower to take off than expected.

“The cost and implementation are still a lot more extensive than typical packaging solutions,” Liehr said. “We hope that this technology will lead to a leap in performance.”

Van den hove shared that imec believes that 3D stacking and ICs are very important technologies, and that the consortia started their programs about ten years ago.

“One of the biggest challenges with this technology is that we have two worlds that need to meet,” said Van den hove, in an effort to encourage industry collaboration.

Concerning memory and logic, Armbrust said that SEMATECH has been moving to 3D structures and focusing on the 7nm node, which has inevitably led to changes in device structure.

“The most promising candidate,” said Armbrust, “is replacing silicon with a material that provides III-V compounds.”

 

Battered by the nonstop onslaught of media tablets, the mobile PC market in 2013 delivered the worst second-quarter performance in 11 years, according to preliminary data provided by a PC Dynamics Market Brief from information and analytics provider IHS (NYSE: IHS).

Worldwide mobile PC shipments in the second quarter shrank a steep 6.9 percent compared to the first three months of the year, based on initial findings. This represented the first time the industry experienced a sequential decline since the second quarter of 2002. At that time, mobile PC shipments contracted 3.7 percent after the dot.com bust flattened global demand.

In the 10 years between those two low points, the mobile PC space had always strengthened in the second quarter as shipments recovered from a normally soft start to the year. Excluding 2002 and this year, growth for every second quarter during the intervening years had ranged from 0.5 percent to as much as 6.5 percent, as shown in the attached figure. Just last year, the industry enjoyed a 3.9 percent increase for the period.

The depressed results are not confined to the second quarter alone. When the overall first half is considered, 2013 has made history as having the poorest performance since 2003, posting a harsh 11.2 percent contraction compared to the same six-month period a year ago. How much the market has fallen can be seen by the magnitude of growth attained in the previous years. Only three years ago in 2010, mobile PC shipments surged by 41.7 percent in the first half.

“Representing devices such as traditional notebook PCs as well as the new thinner ultrathin/Ultrabook laptops, the mobile PC industry on the whole is struggling to find any momentum for growth as upheavals rock the market,” said Craig Stice, senior principal analyst for compute platforms at IHS. “In particular, more nimble devices like media tablets have taken over among consumers given their ease of use and unique form factor. Meanwhile, innovation in PCs has stagnated, and the recent influx of low-cost tablets has further eaten into an already decimated mobile PC space. With such dire numbers, many are wondering whether this signifies the start of more record declines for mobile PCs, or if the industry has hit rock-bottom.”

High hopes for low costs

An infusion of lower-cost PCs that deliver higher performance but consume less power than current laptops could save the market, IHS believes. Processors like Bay Trail from Intel Corp. and Temash from rival chipmaker Advanced Micro Devices Inc. can go beyond what traditional entry-level processors have been able to provide, and PC makers are contemplating a new class of performance PCs that would incorporate the new processors at affordable prices.

Hopes also remain alive within the industry on prospects for the much more expensive ultrathin and Ultrabook PC models, where growth could still be expected if their prices come down and if consumers can get used to the new Windows 8 operating system after a rocky launch.

The PC that refreshes

With everything considered, a PC refresh buying cycle is more than likely to occur, IHS believes.

‘Despite the broad appeal of media tablets, the devices won’t be able to fully replace PCs, and consumers will continue to need the computational power of personal computers,” Stice said. “If a new low-cost PC offering strong performance can become available on the market and meet consumer expectations, then PCs could be set for more growth—not like the glory days of the 2000s—but growth nonetheless.”

A year to forget

Despite this, 2013 is very likely a write-off at this point. Even with growth expected to occur in the second half, it’s too late given the depressed first-half results that any positive expansion could occur in both the mobile PC segment and the overall PC market.

A full downturn is projected for total PC shipments in 2013, which would make this the second consecutive year of decline, after the contraction of the market last year for the first time since 2001.