Category Archives: Semiconductors

Many military radio frequency (RF) systems, like radar and communication systems, use a class of power amplifiers (PAs) called monolithic microwave integrated circuits (MIMIC). MMIC PAs using gallium nitride (GaN) transistors hold great promise for enhanced RF performance, but operational characteristics are strongly affected by thermal resistance. Much of this resistance comes at the thermal junction where the substrate material of the circuit connects to the GaN transistor. If the junction and substrate have poor thermal properties, temperature will rise and performance will decrease.

DARPA’s Near Junction Thermal Transport (NJTT) effort recently demonstrated the first-ever GaN-on-diamond high electron mobility transistor (HEMT). In early tests, the GaN-on-diamond transistor displayed substantially lower junction temperatures than comparable commercially available devices. The resulting transistor has dramatically improved thermal properties, which may lead to better performance for RF systems.

"These GaN-on-diamond HEMTs could enable a new generation of RF PAs that are three times smaller than the current state-of-the-art GaN amplifiers," said Avram Bar-Cohen, DARPA program manager. "Smaller amplifiers would lead to RF systems with better size, weight and power characteristics. Alternatively, PAs like these would be able to generate three times as much output power, leading to a stronger signal for communication systems or longer range radar. Almost any RF system could benefit from the combination of higher power, higher efficiency, and reduced size enabled by GaN-on-diamond amplifiers."

In MMIC PAs, the steepest temperature rise occurs in the first few microns below the junction and is directly related to the thermal conductivity of the entire wafer, explained Bar-Cohen. "Providing a high conductivity substrate in intimate contact with the GaN gets us unsurpassed heat tolerance and dissipation capability. We expect this advance will substantially improve the thermally-limited high power RF systems of today."

By using a new epitaxial transfer method, performers at TriQuint Semiconductor were able to remove the GaN from its growth substrate and place it in intimate contact with a synthetically grown and specially prepared diamond substrate. Synthetic diamond has the highest known thermal conductivity of any manmade material, more than 10 times higher than the common semiconductor material, silicon.

NJTT, an effort of DARPA’s Thermal Management Technologies (TMT) program, focuses on reducing the thermal resistance of the near-junction region of compound semiconductor devices. Performers in NJTT, which began in 2011, are exploring epitaxial transfer of GaN from silicon and silicon carbide (SiC) to diamond substrates and direct growth of diamond in thermal vias etched in SiC. The goal of TMT is to explore and optimize new nanostructured materials and other recent advances for use in thermal management systems.

Semiconductor Research Corporation (SRC) recently joined the National Science Foundation (NSF) as a partner in an ongoing NSF project to further develop compact models of emerging nanoelectronic devices such as might be used in next-generation consumer electronics.

The project focuses on nano-engineered electronic device simulation (NEEDS). NEEDS is a node of a larger National Nanotechnology Initiative project called the Network for Computational Nanotechnology (NCN). NCN offers researchers tools to explore nanoscale phenomena through theory, modeling and simulation, while also developing enhancements to science and engineering education.

The existing $3.5 million award from NSF, now bolstered by joint support from NSF and SRC of $2.5 million, supports a five-year program that is the largest of its kind dedicated to realizing the promise of nanoscience in innovative circuits and systems applications

By enabling the simulation of circuits and systems, compact models connect nanomaterials and devices to potential circuit applications that are simulated with SPICE (Simulation Program with Integrated Circuit Emphasis). NEEDS is charged with creating a complete compact model development environment (NEEDS-SPICE) that supports the creation of high-quality models and provides industrial and academic designers with robust models that run in both commercial and open source SPICE-compatible simulation platforms.

NEEDS will support this platform with a set of best practices and processes and a suite of research and educational resources. During the course of this work, NEEDS will produce an open source platform, open source compact models and open content educational resources, which will be available on nanoHUB.org.

“Moving from devices to systems is the next phase of the National Nanotechnology Initiative, and compact models are the critical link between the two,” said Lynn Preston, NCN program team leader at NSF. “Supported by NSF since its inception in 2002, the nanoHUB has become the flagship science and engineering gateway for nanotechnology. It provides the ideal platform for disseminating the work of the NEEDS Node and for engaging a global community in developing compact models for nanodevices and systems.”

“Predictive compact models are vital for circuit designers to explore their novel ideas to take full advantage of these emerging nano-enabled devices and systems, and an organized effort like the NEEDS initiative is both timely and essential,” said Kwok Ng, Senior Director of Device Sciences at SRC.

Led by Purdue University Engineering Professor Mark Lundstrom, this NSF/SRC partnership expands the NSF base support to the core NEEDS team at Purdue, MIT and the University of California, Berkeley and adds faculty from Stanford University to the team. Additionally, the NEEDS team will interact with SRC Global Research Collaboration industry representatives in the device, circuits/systems and CAD areas.

The NEEDS Node was initiated in September 2012 and the NSF/SRC partnership in support of the expanded Node officially begins work today. NEEDS anticipates delivering initial results in December.

The National Science Foundation (NSF) is an independent federal agency that supports fundamental research and education across all fields of science and engineering. In fiscal year (FY) 2012, its budget was $7.0 billion. NSF funds reach all 50 states through grants to nearly 2,000 colleges, universities and other institutions. Each year, NSF receives about 50,000 competitive requests for funding and makes about 11,500 new funding awards. NSF also awards about $593 million in professional and service contracts yearly.

Scientists from IBM today unveiled the world’s smallest movie, made with one of the tiniest elements in the universe: atoms. Named "A Boy and His Atom," the Guinness World Records -verified movie used thousands of precisely placed atoms to create nearly 250 frames of stop-motion action.

world's smallest movie

"A Boy and His Atom" depicts a character named Atom who befriends a single atom and goes on a playful journey that includes dancing, playing catch and bouncing on a trampoline. Set to a playful musical track, the movie represents a unique way to convey science outside the research community.

Today, it takes roughly one million atoms to store a single bit of data on a computer or electronic device. A bit is the basic unit of information in computing that can have only one of two values, one or zero. Eight bits form a byte. In 2012, IBM Research announced it can now store that same bit of information in just 12 atoms with the creation of the world’s smallest magnetic memory bit. The movie starts with 12 atoms to celebrate the breakthrough by IBM scientists of successfully using 12 atoms to store one bit of data — in our current technology, it takes 1,000,000 atoms to store one bit of data. This breakthrough could transform computing by providing the world with devices that have access to unprecedented levels of data storage, potentially making our computers and devices smaller and more powerful.

But even nanophysicists need to have a little fun. In that spirit, the scientists moved atoms by using their scanning tunneling microscope to make their movie. The ability to move single atoms, one of the smallest particles of any element in the universe, is crucial to IBM’s research in the field of atomic-scale memory.

For now, the 12-atom bit memory lives in a lab. How to make such small bits commercially viable is the big question in the field of nanotechnology. This technology is probably 10 to 30 years in the future, IBM officials say.

The world’s smallest movie set

The scanning tunneling microscope (STM):
One way to look at the STM is as a needle that drags atoms across a surface using magnetism. But behind that needle is a room full of equipment, all there to control the environment to a spectacular degree. The development of the STM by IBM researchers Gerd Binnig and Heinrich Rohrer won the Nobel Prize in Physics in 1986.

Copper plate:
The scientists used copper 111 as the surface of the animation — the same material they used 10 years ago when they built the first computer that performed digital computation operations.

Carbon monoxide (CO):
The scientists chose carbon monoxide atoms to move around the plate. Carbon monoxide has one carbon atom and one oxygen atom, stacked on top of each other,

Viewers may notice little ripples around the atoms as they watch the movie. Those waves are a disturbance in the electron density in the copper atoms on a copper plate. When a carbon monoxide molecule comes close to the plate, the electrons in the copper atoms are displaced. Because they can’t escape the surface of the copper, they protrude (similar to the way water ripples — but doesn’t break the surface — when you throw a rock into a lake). The scientists used copper because that element, in combination with carbon monoxide, produced the most stable atoms for moving.

Amkor Technology, Inc. today announced that Stephen D. Kelley has been appointed to serve as president and chief executive officer and as a director of the company, effective May 8, 2013. Kelley succeeds Ken Joyce, who previously announced his intention to retire. Kelley’s appointment follows a comprehensive, six month search process conducted by the Board of Directors with the professional assistance of a global executive recruiting firm.

 “We have been investing significant resources in the key packaging and test technologies that support the rapidly growing market for smartphones and tablets, and today we are well-positioned to take advantage of significant growth opportunities in mobile communications and our other end markets,” said James J. Kim, Amkor’s executive chairman of the board of directors. “Steve Kelley has a wealth of experience helping major global semiconductor companies grow revenues and increase profitability. With his strong record of success, deep customer knowledge and great drive, Steve is the ideal CEO to lead Amkor.”

Most recently, Kelley served as chief executive officer of Scio Diamond Technology Corporation, an industrial diamond technology company, and as a senior advisor to Advanced Technology Investment Company, the Abu Dhabi-sponsored investment company that owns GLOBALFOUNDRIES, a full service semiconductor foundry. Kelley, 50, has more than 25 years of experience in the global semiconductor industry, including as executive vice president and chief operating officer of Cree, Inc. from 2008 to 2011, as vice president/general manager of display, standard logic, linear and military businesses at Texas Instruments, Inc. from 2003 to 2008, in various positions with Philips Semiconductors from 1993 to 2003 including senior vice president and general manager, and in various positions with National Semiconductor Corporation and Motorola Semiconductor. Kelley holds a B.S. in chemical engineering from Massachusetts Institute of Technology and a J.D. from Santa Clara University.

“I’m very excited to join the Amkor team,” said Kelley. “Throughout its history, Amkor has been a pioneer and technology leader, and I look forward to the opportunity to build on that success.”

Kim also commented on the retirement of Joyce.

“Ken has had a remarkable career, including over 15 years of service to Amkor,” he said. “Today, Amkor is well-positioned for success with industry-leading technology in our key end markets, and the entire Board of Directors joins me in thanking Ken for helping to lead us here. We are fortunate that Ken has agreed to be available to work with Steve over the coming months to ensure a smooth transition.”

Amkor is a leading provider of semiconductor packaging and test services to semiconductor companies and electronics OEMs.

It can be very time-consuming for engineers to measure the various features of an X-SEM image of a semiconductor device. These manual measurements of trenches, pillars, lines and spaces can also be inaccurate and there is frequently inconsistency between how engineers do the manual measurements. The collection of data is often very time-consuming as well.

With the new PCI-AM (Automated Measurement) module engineers simply click inside the feature and the measurement is done automatically with increased accuracy and consistency among all engineers. The measurement results are displayed on the image and in a spreadsheet grid. The data in the grid can be easily exported into a CSV file suitable for importation into other software such as Microsoft Excel. The images and data can also be easily included in standard Quartz PCI reports with just a few clicks.

Quartz Imaging has worked closely with semiconductor companies since it was founded in 1993, including the development of the Failure Analysis LIMS system (FA-LIMS) and is in the process of developing a LIMS system for semiconductor Reliability Labs (REL-LIMS). Quartz Imaging has more than 2,000 customers in 38 countries utilizing our industry leading solutions for Digital Image Acquisition and Processing (for most image producing instruments including SEMs, TEMs, STEMs, Tabletop SEMs, Cameras, PC Based Instruments, Scanners); 21 CFR Part 11 Compliance; Laboratory Information Management Systems (LIMS); Instrument Access Control; Instrument Remote Control; Automated Inspection Systems for Nanotechnology; X-ray Microanalysis (EDX/EDS) Systems and more.

 

The most popular storage medium this year for superthin Ultrabooks and similarly built laptops won’t be the pricey solid state drives (SSD) that initially created a buzz for their astonishing speeds. Instead, they will be the so-called cache SSD storage consisting of NAND flash memory running outside a hard disk drive (HDD) that will be more economically priced for users, according to an IHS iSuppli Storage Space brief from information and analytics provider IHS.

Shipments this year of cache SSD solutions for Ultrabooks and ultrathins are projected to amount to 23.8 million units, up nearly 360 percent from just 5.2 million units in 2012. This year, cache SSD shipments for the first time jump over pure SSD storage, expected to ship 18.7 million units for Ultrabooks and ultrathins.

Overall, cache SSD shipments will represent 53 percent of the storage solution for Ultrabook/ultrathins, versus 42 percent for pure-SSD types. The remaining 5 percent will come from shipments of a third solution more commonly known as hybrid HDD—one that employs embedded NAND flash inside a hard disk drive in an integrated form factor.

Cache SSD solutions will continue to maintain their lead in the Ultrabook/ultrathin market until at least 2017. By that time, cache SSD shipments will reach 49.2 million units, compared to 44.6 million pure-SSD shipment units for Ultrabooks and ultrathins. Markets also exist for cache SSD and pure SSD solutions to non-Ultrabooks and non-ultrathins, but shipments here are smaller than for counterpart solutions to the superthin laptops.

The use of solid state drives or a component of it—either as cache SSD or as embedded NAND in hybrids—is an important weapon being deployed by Ultrabooks and ultrathins to revitalize the PC space as a whole. PCs have suffered badly ever since consumers started gravitating toward more nimble and fashionable mobile devices with PC-like functions, such as media tablets and smartphones.

The PC market dipped last year for the first time in 10 years, and sales of mobile PCs including Ultrabooks and ultrathins are likely to see flat growth or even a slight decline this year, even though superthins are projected to take off in the second half of 2013. In their fight against tablets and smartphones, Ultrabooks and ultrathins could marshal their storage solutions as one factor that could help sway consumers to reconsider the laptops in a new light. Flash memories help PCs hasten boot-up times, delivering greatly improved speeds over their rotating-head HDD rivals.

While both standalone SSD and cache SSD solutions will deliver fast performance, cache SSDs will enjoy more rapid adoption in Ultrabooks and ultrathins because of their lower cost. The consistently high price of solid state drives will prove no match for the lower-density NAND flash used in cache SSDs, combined with already economically priced hard disk drives. In turn, the savings obtained by laptop brands from such a solution can be passed on to consumers, with cache SSD mechanisms driving total Ultrabook and ultrathin costs down to about $700 this year, compared to a thousand-dollar price tag for pure-SSD-fueled notebooks.

Meanwhile, hybrid HDD solutions will grow more than fiftyfold in the next four years even though they possess a much smaller market at present than either cache SSD or pure SSD solutions. Shipments of hybrid HDD storage will surge from 2.6 million units this year to 20.5 million units by 2017.

Hybrid solutions to take off this year too

While hybrid HDD solutions have the smallest market share at present compared to the two other storage solutions for Ultrabooks and ultrathins, all three hard drive manufacturers have announced new hybrid HDD solutions for the super-thin laptop market.

In March, Seagate Technology said it will begin shipping its third-generation solid state hybrid, or SSHD, products at 7-millimeter and 9.5-mm. thickness. The new SSHD drives contain 8 gigabytes of flash memory with either a 500-gigabyte or 1-terabyte hard drive. The 500-GB version costs $79 while the 1-TB version costs $99—approximately $20 to $25 more than a conventional 500-GB or 1-TB hard disk drive. The markup on price could be much more, however, once PC brands and original equipment manufacturers put the drives into computers and once those computers get sold in retail.

Seagate archrival Western Digital is also working on a hybrid HDD in 7- and 5-mm. versions, with the 7-mm. version expected to ship in the second half this year. Western Digital is currently working with Taiwanese makers Acer and Asus, and California-based SanDisk is believed to be one of its flash memory providers.

Toshiba, the third manufacturer, announced a 9.5-mm. hybrid drive in January, but adoption by the market is not expected because of its overly large size. Toshiba, however, could make a 7-mm. version available by the second half this year to compete with similar offerings from Seagate and Western Digital.

Ultrabooks and ultrathins will continue to deepen their penetration of the PC market, IHS believes, despite a slower-than-expected uptake last year that appears to be continuing to some extent in 2013. But going forward, two out of three notebooks will be a super-thin PC by 2017, and two out of three of Ultrabooks and ultrathins will sport either cache SSD or a hybrid HDD storage solution. As such, both SSD and HDD industries stand to reap substantial benefits for providing the appropriate storage solutions.

What would happen if half of all global production for dynamic random access memory (DRAM), two-thirds of NAND flash manufacturing and 70 percent of the world’s tablet display supply suddenly disappeared from the market?

The answer would be chaos, with the worldwide electronics supply chain grinding to a halt and stopping major market product segments in their tracks, including smartphones, media tablets and PCs.

For high-tech companies, this could be the outcome if current tensions escalate to the point of war on the Korean peninsula, resulting in the disruption of South Korea’s technology manufacturing base. While IHS regards such a major conflagration and disruption as unlikely, forward-thinking technology firms are planning for such a contingency, just as they are preparing for other natural and man-made disasters that could impact their businesses in the future.

“However, South Korea now plays a more important role than ever in the global electronics business. And with the supply chain having become more entwined and connected, a significant disruption in any region will impact the entire world. Because of this, it is important for companies to understand the magnitude of South Korea’s role in the global electronics market—and to prepare for any contingencies,” said Mike Howard, senior principal analyst for DRAM and memory at IHS.

Leading technology firms Samsung and SK Hynix are headquartered close to Seoul, the capital of South Korea, which lies only about 30 miles from the border with North Korea. Both companies have major manufacturing operations in the area as well.

“Any type of manufacturing disruption of six months would prevent the shipment of hundreds of millions of mobile phones and tens of millions of PCs and media tablets,” Howard warned.

Memory loss

Fully 66 percent of industry revenue for the dynamic random access memory (DRAM) market, as well as 48 percent of total NAND flash revenue, belonged in 2012 to the two South Korean memory titans Samsung and SK Hynix. While their combined share of both in the NAND market has remained fairly level for the last three years, the collective portion in DRAM of the two entities has been steadily rising.

Such a high proportion of global production could not be easily or quickly replaced by manufacturers in other regions.

The Icheon facility of SK Hynix is located approximately 30 miles southwest of Seoul, while Samsung’s massive manufacturing complex at Hwaseong is within 24 miles of the capital.

DRAM plays an essential role in products including PCs, media tablets and smartphones.

While some gadgets could have their amount of memory reduced—a smartphone with 32 gigabytes (GB) of NAND could be downsized to 8GB, or an 8GB laptop reduced to 4GB—other devices must have the memory for which they were originally designed, especially where DRAM is involved.

“A server with only half its intended DRAM is essentially half a server—and a smartphone cannot have its DRAM quantity changed, as it needs the original amount for which it was designed,” Howard noted.

Display disaster

An equally bad situation could occur in the large-sized display market, which is heavily dependent on South Korean suppliers, especially in the media tablet market.

LG Display and Samsung Display of South Korea together held a 49.6 percent share of unit shipments of large-sized liquid crystal display (LCD) panels in the fourth quarter of 2012. Large-sized panels are defined as those that are 10-inches or larger in the diagonal dimension and are used in products including televisions, notebook PCs and desktop monitors. Also included in the category are and 7-inch and larger displays used in media tablets.

South Korea accounts for 70 percent of global supply of tablet display unit shipments, as presented in the figure attached.

“Inventory and production capacity for media tablet displays currently are at a high level,” said Sweta Dash, senior director, display research & strategy, for IHS. “Because of this, a short-term disruption of South Korean production would have a minimal impact. However, a long-term stoppage or reduction of production would have a major effect and dramatically reduce global tablet supply.”

Media Tablet Display Production by Country in Q4 2012

(Share of Global Unit Shipments

global tablet display makers

Phone hangup

Samsung at present is the global leader in smartphones as well as in total handsets, while fellow South Korean manufacturer LG Electronics ranks No. 6 in both categories. Together, the two companies account for more than a 30 percent market share for cellphones and smartphones.

University of Manchester researchers reported to Nature Communications that they have developed the first graphene-based transistor with bistable characteristics, which means that the device can spontaneously switch between two electronic states. Such devices are in great demand as emitters of electromagnetic waves in the high-frequency range between radar and infrared, relevant for applications such as security systems and medical imaging.

Bistability is a common phenomenon – a seesaw-like system has two equivalent states and small perturbations can trigger spontaneous switching between them. The way in which charge-carrying electrons in graphene transistors move makes this switching incredibly fast – trillions of switches per second.

Wonder material graphene is the world’s thinnest, strongest and most conductive material, and has the potential to revolutionize a huge number of diverse applications; from smartphones and ultrafast broadband to drug delivery and computer chips. It was first isolated at The University of Manchester in 2004.

The device consists of two layers of graphene separated by an insulating layer of boron nitride just a few atomic layers thick. The electron clouds in each graphene layer can be tuned by applying a small voltage. This can induce the electrons into a state where they move spontaneously at high speed between the layers.

Because the insulating layer separating the two graphene sheets is ultra-thin, electrons are able to move through this barrier by ‘quantum tunneling’. This process induces a rapid motion of electrical charge which can lead to the emission of high-frequency electromagnetic waves.

These new transistors exhibit the essential signature of a quantum seesaw, called negative differential conductance, whereby the same electrical current flows at two different applied voltages. The next step for researchers is to learn how to optimize the transistor as a detector and emitter.

One of the researchers, Professor Laurence Eaves, said: "In addition to its potential in medical imaging and security screening, the graphene devices could also be integrated on a chip with conventional, or other graphene-based, electronic components to provide new architectures and functionality.

"For more than 40 years, technology has led to ever-smaller transistors; a tour de force of engineering that has provided us with today’s state-of-the-art silicon chips which contain billions of transistors. Scientists are searching for an alternative to silicon-based technology, which is likely to hit the buffers in a few years’ time, and graphene may be an answer."

"Graphene research is relatively mature but multi-layered devices made of different atomically-thin materials such as graphene were first reported only a year ago. This architecture can bring many more surprises", adds Dr Liam Britnell, University of Manchester, the first author of the paper.

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Axcelis Technologies, Inc. today announced the introduction of the Purion XE next generation single wafer high energy implanter, the second tool in its expanding family of Purion ion implanters.  The Purion XE is an evolution of the industry leading Optima XEx, combining the process and productivity advantages of the Optima XEx linear accelerator and beamline technology with the reliability, precision, process flexibility, and performance options that define the Purion platform. The Axcelis single wafer LINAC technology is the industry benchmark for high energy productivity and lowest cost of ownership, while providing customers remarkable manufacturing flexibility with true medium current capability. Each member of the Purion family shares a common, powerful 500+ wafers per hour end station, industry leading source technology and an innovative and productive ultra-pure beam line.

"The Purion platform redefines what chipmakers have come to expect from an ion implanter,” Bill Bintz, senior vice president of marketing said.  “It represents the most significant advance in next generation ion implanter platform design, and we’re excited to expand the Purion into the high energy segment. We developed the Purion platform in response to customer requirements for absolute beam purity and the most precise dopant placement possible, while ensuring the highest levels of productivity and capital efficiency.  Each product in the platform is designed to be the leader in its segment, in every measurable way, and together provide a powerful solution to chip manufacturers’ challenges in the sub 16nm era and beyond."

The Purion Platform enables high yield manufacture of sub 16nm planar and 3-D devices.  All Purion implanters incorporate industry leading advanced filtration systems, for unsurpassed beam purity, so even the most sensitive devices are implanted for optimized device performance.  The platform’s industry leading angle control system and constant focal length scanning deliver the most precise and repeatable dopant placement available today.  The scanned spot beam architecture designed into the platform enables control of damage engineering as well as other advanced process enabling implants using materials modification techniques required in leading edge device processes.

The common elements of the Purion platform were designed to drive manufacturing flexibility and lower the total cost of fab operations.  Common platform architecture and system options enable ease of process transfer between systems, simplified maintenance, and improved reliability.

Axcelis Purion high energy implanter

Spansion Inc., a developer of Flash memory solutions, and Fujitsu Semiconductor Limited today announced they have executed a definitive agreement for Spansion to acquire the Microcontroller and Analog Business of Fujitsu Semiconductor for approximately $110 million, plus approximately $65 million for inventory. The net impact is expected to be accretive for Spansion in 2013.

"This acquisition provides incremental revenue and aligns with our strategy to expand into system-on-chip solutions that require leadership in embedded Flash technology," said John Kispert, president and CEO of Spansion. "We will gain valuable people and intellectual property as well as microcontroller and analog products that will enable us to expand our customer base, addressing complete embedded systems requirements in automotive, industrial and consumer markets. We have been strategic partners with Fujitsu Semiconductor for decades and share many of the same customers. We expect a seamless transition for all of the employees and customers."

"In our pursuit of maximized corporate value, together with Fujitsu Semiconductor Limited, we have executed a management decision based on the restructuring initiatives we are taking in our semiconductor business," said Masami Yamamoto, president of Fujitsu Limited. "We are confident that our customers will benefit from the enormous synergies anticipated. Our employees will also benefit by being a part of Spansion, which has a complementary and differentiated product portfolio based on its world-leading nonvolatile memory technologies."

Embedded nonvolatile memory has become one of the most important differentiators within the microcontroller market and addresses customers’ needs for faster and more intelligent devices for a range of embedded applications. Spansion’s Flash technology along with the acquired microcontroller and analog products and talent accelerates a portfolio of high-performance system-on-chip solutions for use in the development of faster, more intelligent and energy-efficient products as well as next generation of the "Internet of everything" in automotive, industrial and consumer applications.

The acquisition is subject to various customary closing conditions and is expected to be complete between July and September of 2013. 

Fujitsu Limited reported consolidated revenues of 4.4 trillion yen (US$47 billion) for the fiscal year ended March 31, 2013.