Category Archives: Semiconductors

3D-IC: Two for one

September 25, 2013

Zvi Or-Bach, President & CEO of MonolithIC 3D Inc. blogs about upcoming events related to 3D ICs.

This coming October there are two IEEE Conferences discussing 3D IC, both are within an easy drive from Silicon Valley.

The first one is the IEEE International Conference on 3D System Integration (3D IC), October 2-4, 2013 in San Francisco, and just following in the second week of October is the S3S Conference on October 7-10 in Monterey. The IEEE S3S Conference was enhanced this year to include the 3D IC track and accordingly got the new name S3S (SOI-3D-Subthreshold). It does indicate the growing importance and interest in 3D IC technology.

This year is special in that both of these conferences will contain presentations on the two aspects of 3D IC technologies. The first one is 3D IC by the use of Through -Silicon-Via which some call -“parallel” 3D and the second one is the monolithic 3D-IC which some call “sequential.”

This is very important progress for the second type of 3D IC technology. I clearly remember back in early 2010 attending another local IEEE 3D IC Conference: 3D Interconnect: Shaping Future Technology. An IBM technologist started his presentation titled “Through Silicon Via (TSV) for 3D integration” with an apology for the redundancy in his presentation title, stating that if it 3D integration it must be TSV!

Yes, we have made quite a lot of progress since then. This year one of the major semiconductor research organization – CEA Leti – has placed monolithic 3D on its near term road-map, and was followed shortly after by a Samsung announcement of mass production of monolithic 3D non volatile memories – 3D NAND.

We are now learning to accept that 3D IC has two sides, which in fact complement each other. In hoping not to over-simplify- I would say that main function of the TSV type of 3D ICs is to overcome the limitation of PCB interconnect as well being manifest by the well known Hybrid Memory Cube consortium, bridging the gap between DRAM memories being built by the memory vendors and the processors being build by the processor vendors. At the recent VLSI Conference Dr. Jack Sun, CTO of TSMC present the 1000x gap which is been open between on chip interconnect and the off chip interconnect. This clearly explain why TSMC is putting so much effort on TSV technology – see following figure:

System level interconnect gaps

On the other hand, monolithic 3D’s function is to enable the continuation of Moore’s Law and to overcome the escalating on-chip interconnect gap. Quoting Robert Gilmore, Qualcomm VP of Engineering, from his invited paper at the recent VLSI conference: “As performance mismatch between devices and interconnects increases, designs have become interconnect limited. Monolithic 3D (M3D) is an emerging integration technology that is poised to reduce the gap significantly between device and interconnect delays to extend the semiconductor roadmap beyond the 2D scaling trajectory predicted by Moore’s Law…” In IITC11 (IEEE Interconnect Conference 2011) Dr. Kim presented a detailed work on the effect of the TSV size for 3D IC of 4 layers vs. 2D. The result showed that for TSV of 0.1µm – which is the case in monolithic 3D – the 3D device wire length (power and performance) were equivalent of scaling by two process nodes! The work also showed that for TSV of 5.0µm – resulted with no improvement at all (today conventional TSV are striving to reach the 5.0µm size) – see the following chart:

Cross comparison of various 2D and 3D technologies. Dashed lines are wirelengths of 2D ICs. #dies: 4.

So as monolithic 3D is becoming an important part of the 3D IC space, we are most honored to have a role in these coming IEEE conferences. It will start on October 2nd in SF when we will present a Tutorial that is open for all conference attendees. In this Monolithic 3DIC Tutorial we plan to present more than 10 powerful advantages being opened up by the new dimension for integrated circuits. Some of those are well known and some probably were not presented before. These new capabilities that are about to open up would very important in various market and applications.

In the following S3S conference we are scheduled on October 8, to provide the 3D Plenary Talk for the 3D IC track of the S3S conference. The Plenary Talk will present three independent paths for monolithic 3D using the same materials, fab equipment and well established semiconductor processes for monolithic 3D IC. These three paths could be used independently or be mixed providing multiple options for tailoring differently by different entities.

Clearly 3D IC technologies are growing in importance and this coming October brings golden opportunities to get a ‘two for one’ and catch up and learn the latest and greatest in TSV and monolithic 3D technologies — looking forward to see you there.

IDT president and CEO resigns

August 28, 2013

Integrated Device Technology, Inc., the analog and digital company delivering mixed-signal semiconductor solutions, announced that Dr. Ted Tewksbury has resigned as president, chief executive officer and board member, effective August 27, 2013. The Board of Directors has appointed board member Jeffrey McCreary as interim president and CEO.

Jeffrey McCreary has served on IDT’s Board since June of 2012. A former Texas Instruments senior vice president, McCreary brings thirty years of broad based semiconductor industry leadership and significant boardroom experience to the role. As interim president and CEO, McCreary will work closely with IDT’s current executive team and board of directors to oversee the company’s ongoing operations and strategic initiatives. The board has formed a search committee to identify and consider candidates for the permanent president and CEO role.

“On behalf of the board of directors, I want to thank Ted for his many contributions to IDT over the past five years,” said John Schofield, IDT’s Chairman of the Board. “Since joining the company, he has directed IDT’s transformation into a premier analog and mixed signal semiconductor company delivering system level solutions.”

Schofield continued, “As we begin the CEO search, we are fortunate to have Jeffrey McCreary available to serve in the interim role. Jeff possesses a proven track record as a semiconductor industry executive and has spent significant time making vital decisions in the boardroom as well. We are confident he will provide essential leadership for the Company for as long as required.”

“I am excited about the future for IDT and look forward to contributing to the team’s success,” said McCreary. “We are on a path to reach our previously stated financial targets and to continue leveraging our proven strengths in timing solutions, memory interface, RF, serial switching and power management with great new products.”

TowerJazz announces the creation and accreditation of Jazz Semiconductor Trusted Foundry

August 28, 2013

Jazz Semiconductor Inc., a fully owned U.S. subsidiary of Tower Semiconductor Ltd., has announced the accreditation for trusted status of Jazz Semiconductor Trusted Foundry (JSTF). JSTF has been accredited as a Category 1A Trusted Supplier by the United States Department of Defense as a provider of trusted semiconductors in critical defense applications. JSTF joins a small list of companies accredited by the DoD Trusted Foundry Program, established to ensure the integrity of the people and processes used to deliver national security critical microelectronic components, and administered by the DoD’s Defense Microelectronics Activity (DMEA).

TowerJazz said in its official release that the creation and accreditation of JSTF will help broaden existing business relationships previously disclosed with major defense contractors such as Raytheon, Northrop Grumman, BAE Systems, DRS, Alcatel-Lucent, and L-3 Communications.

“In the United States, there was no ‘pure play’ trusted foundry capability available,” TowerJazz CEO Russell Ellwanger said. “Our aerospace and defense customers asked that we would go this route to enable them greater freedom to serve their great country’s needs; a country that stands as a banner for democratic process throughout the world. Primarily for this purpose, we went beyond our initial commitment to the US State Department to continue support of our ITAR customers and engaged in rounds of discussion with the US Department of Defense toward participation in the Trusted program in our Newport Beach facility. And, as in all activities where one serves purposes of great principle, it is also good business."

“Jazz Semiconductor Trusted Foundry is proud to join the DoD Trusted Foundry Program to enable trusted access to a broad range of on-shore technologies and manufacturing capabilities,” said Scott Jordan, president, JSTF. “The accreditation process adds trust to the existing quality and security systems, improving our level of service to our military and defense customers.”

Entegris and imec collaborate on 3D wafer handling and shipping challenges

August 28, 2013

Entegris, Inc., a developer of contamination control and materials handling technologies for highly demanding advanced manufacturing environments, and imec, a research center in nanoelectronics, announced they are collaborating to advance the development and broaden the adoption of 3D integrated circuits.

3D IC technology, a process by which multiple semiconductor dies are stacked into a single device, is aimed at increasing the functionality and performance of next-generation integrated circuits while reducing footprint and power consumption. It is a key technology to enable the next generation of portable electronics such as smartphones and tablets that require smaller ICs which consume less power.

One of the key steps in 3D IC manufacturing process entails thinning semiconductor wafers while they are bonded to carrier substrates. Handling such thinned 3D IC wafers during the production process can result in wafer breakage, edge damage, and particle generation. A standardized, fully automated solution that supports the handling of multiple types of wafers would result in a significant cost reduction and pave the way toward further development and scaling of 3D IC technologies. Imec and Entegris are working on creating a solution to safely transfer and handle multiple kinds of 3D IC wafers without the risk of breakage and other damage that may occur during the 3D production process.

"We are excited to work with the imec team, which is a key research center leading technology innovation for the semiconductor industry," said Bertrand Loy, president and CEO of Entegris. "Our current collaboration is aimed at leveraging our wafer handling expertise and technology to reduce contamination and breakage by applying full automation to the handling of thin wafers during 3D wafer production. This project builds on our previously completed work with imec to develop dispense and filtration methods to reduce bubble and defect formation during the dispense of material that is used to temporarily bond 3D wafers to carrier substrates," said Loy.

"This collaboration with Entegris aims at developing a solution toward fully automated handling of multiple types of 3D IC wafers," stated Eric Beyne, director of imec’s 3D integration research program. "Such a general solution would imply a significant reduction of the development cost, which is key to the realization of a scalable and manufacturable 3D IC technology."

TSMC becomes the largest semiconductor supplier in the world in 2Q13

August 27, 2013

IC Insights’ recently released August Update to The McClean Report includes Part 1 of an in-depth analysis of the fast-growing IC foundry market. Part 2 of the IC foundry analysis will be presented in the September Update.

Figure 1

Figure 1 shows the reported IC foundry sales and “final market value” IC foundry sales as a percent of total IC industry sales from 2007-2017. The “final market value” figure is 2.22x the reported IC foundry sales number. The 2.22x multiplier estimates the IC sales amount (i.e., market value) that is eventually realized when an IC is ultimately sold to the final customer (i.e., the electronic system producer).

An example of how an IC foundry’s “final market value” sales level is determined can be made using Altera. Since a fabless company like Altera purchases PLDs from an IC foundry, and does not incorporate them into an electronic system, Altera is not considered the final end-user of these ICs. Eventually, Altera resells its IC foundry-fabricated PLDs to electronic system producers/final end-users such as Cisco or Nokia at a much higher price than it paid the IC foundry for the devices (i.e., gross margin). As a result, a 2.22x multiplier, which assumes a 55 percent industry-wide average gross margin for the IC foundry’s customer base, is applied to the IC foundry’s reported sales to arrive at the “final market value” sales figure.

As was shown in Figure 1, the total “final market value” sales figure for the IC foundries is expected to represent just over 36 percent of the worldwide $271 billion IC market forecast for 2013, and just over 45 percent of the $359 billion worldwide IC market forecast for 2017. The “final” IC foundry share in 2017 is forecast to be slightly more than double the 22.6 percent “final” marketshare the IC foundries held ten years earlier in 2007.

To further illustrate the increasingly important role that foundries play in the worldwide IC market, IC Insights applied the “final market value” sales multiplier to TSMC’s quarterly revenues and compared them to Intel’s quarterly IC sales from 1Q11 through 2Q13. Since TSMC’s sales are so heavily weighted toward leading-edge devices, IC Insights estimates that the gross margin for TSMC’s customer base averages 57 percent (a 57 percent gross margin equates to a 2.33x sales multiplier). Using the 2.33x multiplier, IC Insights believes that TSMC’s “final market value” IC sales surpassed Intel’s IC sales in 2Q13 (Figure 2), and that TSMC currently has more impact on total IC market revenue than any company in the world. Considering that Intel’s IC sales were 45 percent greater than TSMC’s “final market value” IC sales as recently as 1Q12, this was a dramatic change in a very short period of time.

Lone Japanese semiconductor supplier ranked among top 10 in 1H13

August 27, 2013

In its Research Bulletin dated August 2, 2013, IC Insights published its list of the top semiconductor sales leaders for the first half of 2013. The list showed the usual big-time players that we’ve come to expect like Intel, Samsung, and TSMC, leading the way in semiconductor sales through the first six months of the year. What stood out nearly as much, however, was that only one Japanese company—Toshiba—was present among the top 10 suppliers through the first half of 2013. Anyone who has been involved in the semiconductor industry for a reasonable amount of time realizes this is a major shift and a big departure for a country that once was feared and revered when it came to its semiconductor manufacturing presence on the global market.

Figure 1 traces the top 10 semiconductor companies dating back to 1985, when Japanese semiconductor manufacturers wielded their influence on the global stage. That year, there were five Japanese companies ranked among the top 10 semiconductor suppliers. Then, in 1990, six Japanese companies were counted among the top 10 semiconductor suppliers—a figure that has not been matched by any country or region since. The number of Japanese companies ranked in the top 10 in semiconductor sales slipped to four in 1995, then fell to three companies in 2000 and 2006, two companies in 2012, and then to only one company in the first half of 2013.

It is worth noting that Renesas (#11), Sony (#16), and Fujitsu (#22) were ranked among the top 25 semiconductor suppliers in 1H13, but Sony has been struggling to re-invent itself and Fujitsu has spent the first half of 2013 divesting most of its semiconductor operations.

Japan’s total presence and influence in the semiconductor marketplace has waned. Once-prominent Japanese names now gone from the top suppliers list include NEC, Hitachi, Mitsubishi, and Matsushita. Competitive pressures from South Korean IC suppliers—especially in the DRAM market—have certainly played a significant role in changing the look of the top 10. Samsung and SK Hynix emulated and perfected the Japanese manufacturing model over the years and cut deeply into sales and profits of Japanese semiconductor manufacturers, resulting in spin-offs, mergers, and acquisitions becoming more prevalent among Japanese suppliers.

1999 — Hitachi and NEC merged their DRAM businesses to create Elpida Memory.
2000 — Mitsubishi divested its DRAM business into Elpida Memory.
2003 — Hitachi merged its remaining Semiconductor & IC Division with Mitsubishi’s System LSI Division to create Renesas Technology.
2003 — Matsushita began emphasizing Panasonic as its main global brand name in 2003. Previously, hundreds of consolidated companies sold Matsushita products under the Panasonic, National, Quasar, Technics, and JVC brand names.
2007 — To reduce losses, Sony cut semiconductor capital spending and announced its move to an asset-lite strategy—a major change in direction for its semiconductor business.
2010 — NEC merged its remaining semiconductor operations with Renesas Technology to form Renesas Electronics.
2011 — Sanyo Semiconductor was acquired by ON Semiconductor.
2013 — Fujitsu and Panasonic agreed to consolidate the design and development functions of their system LSI businesses.
2013 — Fujitsu sold its MCU and analog IC business to Spansion.
2013 — Fujitsu sold its wireless semiconductor business to Intel.
2013 — Elpida Memory was formally acquired by Micron.
2013 — After failing to find a buyer, Renesas announced plans to close its 300mm and 125mm wafer-processing site in Tsuruoka, Japan, by the end of 2013. The facility makes system-LSI chips for Nintendo video game consoles and other consumer electronics.
2013 — Unless it finds a buyer, Fujitsu plans to close its 300mm wafer fab in Mie.

Besides consolidation, another reason for Japan’s reduced presence among leading global semiconductor suppliers is that the vertically integrated business model that served Japanese companies so well for so many years is not nearly as effective in Japan today. Due to the closed nature of the vertically integrated business model, when Japanese electronic systems manufacturers lost marketshare to global competitors, they took Japanese semiconductor divisions down with them. As a result, Japanese semiconductor suppliers missed out on some major design win opportunities for their chips in many of the best-selling consumer, computer, and communications systems that are now driving semiconductor sales.

It is probably too strong to suggest that in the land of the rising sun, the sun has set on semiconductor manufacturing. However, the global semiconductor landscape has changed dramatically from 25 years ago. For Japanese semiconductor companies that once prided themselves on their manufacturing might and discipline to practically disappear from the list of top semiconductor suppliers is evidence that competitive pressures are fierce and that as a country, perhaps Japan has not been as quick to adopt new methods to carry on and meet changing market needs.

Researchers offer explanation for strange magnetic behavior at semiconductor interfaces

August 26, 2013

They’re not exactly the peanut butter and jelly of semiconductors, but when you put them together, something magical happens.

Alone, neither lanthanum aluminate nor strontium titanate exhibit any particularly notable properties. But when they are layered together, they become not only conductive, but also magnetic.

In the current online edition of Nature Physics, researchers at The Ohio State University report the first-ever theoretical explanation to be offered for this phenomenon since it was discovered in 2004.

Understanding how these two semiconductors interact at their interface could someday lead to a different kind of material—one that provides a single platform for computation and data storage, said Mohit Randeria, co-author of the paper and professor of physics at Ohio State.

"The whole question is, how can you take two materials which do not conduct electricity and do not have magnetic properties, make a sandwich out of them and—lo and behold—at the interface tween them, charge begins to flow and interesting magnetic effects happen?" he said.

"It’s like taking two pieces of bread and putting them together and having the sandwich filling magically appear."

By making calculations and modeling the basic physical properties of both materials, Randeria’s team has hit upon an explanation for the behavior that seems ironic: the interface between two non-magnetic materials exhibits magnetism.

The team showed how the elemental units of magnetism, called "local moments," are formed at the interface of the two materials. They then showed how these moments interact with the conducting electrons to give rise to a magnetic state in which the moments are arranged in an unusual spiral pattern.

If the physicists’ explanation is correct, then perhaps someday, electronic devices could be constructed that exploit the interface between two oxides. Theoretically, such devices would combine the computational abilities of a silicon chip with the magnetic data storage abilities of permanent magnets like iron.

"If you had conduction and magnetism available in the same platform, it could be possible to integrate computer memory with data processing. Maybe different kinds of computation would be possible," Randeria said.

But those applications are a long way off. Right now, the physicists hope that their theoretical explanation for the strange magnetic behavior will enable other researchers to perform experiments and confirm it.

Randeria’s coauthors included Ohio State postdoctoral researcher Sumilan Banerjee and former doctoral student Onur Erten, who graduated this summer and is about to begin a postdoctoral fellowship at Rutgers, The State University of New Jersey.

MTPV Power Corp. receives top award at SEMICON Westâs Silicon Innovation Forum

August 23, 2013

MTPV received the Top Pitch award for its breakthrough technology for converting heat to electricity using semiconductor chips as judged by several industry professionals, strategic partners and investors at SEMICON West’s Silicon Innovation Summit held in July of this year. Following a selective application process, MTPV and several other companies were selected to present their innovative technologies at the Summit.

MTPV creates semiconductor chips that covert heat directly into electricity. Much like a solar panel will convert sunlight into electricity, MTPV chips are able to convert any source of heat into electricity with breakthrough efficiency and power.

MTPV’s previous awards include "Best Venture" from the U.S. Department of Energy’s National Renewable Energy Laboratory Industry Growth Forum, the Platinum award and top honors from the WBT Innovation Technology Forum, and a National Innovation award from the National Innovation Summit & Showcase and National SBIR conference.

MTPV has also been named a finalist by the Department of Energy’s ARPA-e division and was awarded a grant from the National Science Foundation.

"We are happy to see MTPV’s continued recognition for its outstanding technology," said Annie Theriault, Vice President at Northwater Capital one of MTPV’s investors. "We are excited about the promise of MTPV’s award-winning, patented technology and its ability to provide a significant return on our investment."

SEMICON West is the flagship annual event for the global microelectronics industry. It is the premier event for the display of new products and technologies for microelectronics design and manufacturing, featuring technologies from across the microelectronics supply chain – from electronic design automation, to device fabrication (wafer processing), to final manufacturing (assembly, packaging, and test).

Infinite Graphics expands medium area mask capability

August 23, 2013

Infinite Graphics (IGI), a supplier of service and software products for the Medium Area Mask (MAM) market, has added new capability in the form of new and upgraded equipment. IGI added a Heidelberg Volume Pattern Generator (VPG), a large area lithography system. The technology offers substrates up to 800 x 800mm, structures down to 0.8µm and an address grid down to 20nm. The company also upgraded two direct write laser imaging systems bringing the total to four imaging systems in Minneapolis and two in Singapore.

“To offer quicker turn with smaller features, smaller defects and cleaner masks, we also purchased two additional Automatic Optical Inspection (AOI) systems giving us a total of five inspection systems in Minneapolis and another semiconductor quality MAM cleaner,” said Clifford Stritch, Infinite Graphics Incorporated’s CEO. “These new systems will find sub-micron defects on masks to 14” and one micron defects on larger masks to 24” x 32”. The AOI can inspect to CAD data, compare die to die or inspect to design rules.”

Design and manufacturing solutions provided by IGI include precision imaging on film, glass and custom flat or curved substrates, 3D microstructures, industry renowned data clean-up, phototooling software and custom turnkey systems. IGI targets electronics, biological and MOEMs markets.

MACOM files patent infringement suit against GigOptix

August 23, 2013

M/A-COM Technology Solutions Holdings, Inc., a supplier of high performance RF, microwave, and millimeter wave products, today announced it has filed suit in the United States District Court for the Northern District of California against GigOptix, Inc. (NYSE MKT:GIG) for patent infringement.

The complaint alleges that GigOptix makes, uses, imports, offers to sell, and/or sells in the United States electro-optics polymers containing chromophores that infringe two MACOM patents, including certain GigOptix Mach-Zehnder modulator products that GigOptix markets or promotes as containing "Thin Film Polymer on Silicon (‘TFPS(TM)’)" technology. MACOM is seeking injunctive relief barring the infringement, as well as monetary damages, including treble damages based on allegedly willful infringement by GigOptix, attorney’s fees and costs of suit.

"MACOM has built a substantial patent portfolio through investment in innovation, and will defend that investment vigorously when required," said Ray Moroney, Optoelectronics Product Line Manager for MACOM. "We look forward to a just resolution of this matter through the legal process."