Category Archives: Semiconductors

ARM and TSMC today announced the first tape-out of an ARM Cortex-A57 processor on FinFET process technology.  The Cortex-A57 processor is ARM’s highest performing processor, designed to further extend the capabilities of future mobile and enterprise computing, including compute intensive applications such as high-end computer, tablet and server products.  This is the first milestone in the collaboration between ARM and TSMC to jointly optimize the 64-bit ARMv8 processor series on TSMC FinFET process technologies.  The two companies cooperated in the implementation from RTL to tape-out in six months using ARM Artisan physical IP, TSMC memory macros, and EDA technologies enabled by TSMC’s Open Innovation Platform (OIP) design ecosystem.

ARM and TSMC’s collaboration produces optimized, power-efficient Cortex-A57 processors and libraries to support early customer implementations on 16nm FinFET for high-performance, ARM technology-based SoCs.

“This first ARM Cortex-A57 processor implementation paves the way for our mutual customers to leverage the performance and power efficiency of 16nm FinFET technology,” said Tom Cronk, executive vice president and general manager, Processor Division, ARM.  “The joint effort of ARM, TSMC, and TSMC’s OIP design ecosystem partners demonstrates the strong commitment to provide industry-leading technology for customer designs to benefit from our latest 64-bit ARMv8 architecture, big.LITTLE processing and ARM POP IP across a wide variety of market segments.”

“Our multi-year, multi-node collaboration with ARM continues to deliver advanced technologies to enable market-leading SoCs across mobile, server, and enterprise infrastructure applications,” said Dr. Cliff Hou, TSMC Vice President of R&D. “This achievement demonstrates that the next-generation ARMv8 processor is FinFET-ready for TSMC’s advanced technology.”

This announcement highlights the enhanced and intensified collaboration between ARM and TSMC. The test chip was implemented using a commercially available 16nm FinFET tool chain and design services provided by the OIP ecosystem and ARM Connected Community partners. This successful collaborative milestone is confirmation of the roles that TSMC’s OIP and ARM’s Connected Community play in promoting innovation for the semiconductor design industry.

India registered 221.6 million mobile handset shipments during 2012, according to CMR’s India Mobile Handsets Market Review, CY 2012, March 2013 release. During the same period, 15.2 million smartphones were shipped in the country.

A comparison of overall mobile handset shipments and featurephone shipments shows a direct correlation for the India mobile handsets market rankings. Market shares are somewhat similar for the top three players across the overall market and the featurephones segment, as shown in Table 2.

Commenting on the results, Faisal Kawoosa, lead analyst, CMR Telecoms Practice said, “Although we see a huge market ‘hype’ around smartphones, the fact remains that the India Mobile Handsets market is still dominated by shipments of featurephones. On the other hand smartphone shipments are growing fast. This indicates India is still a ‘new phone’ market, where featurephones contribute to the bulk of shipments compared to replacements or upgrades.

“This propensity on the part of Indian subscribers of mobile telephony services to purchase large numbers of featurephones has paved the way for the establishment of Indian brands, which are largely focused on this segment.”

India Smartphones Market

The India smartphones market during 2H 2012 saw a rise in shipments by 75.2 percent over and above the 1H 2012 number, taking the overall contribution of smartphones to 6.8% for the full year. In fact, during 2H 2012, smartphone shipments stood at 8.1 percent of the country’s total mobile handset shipments. While BlackBerry was at third spot during 1H 2012, Sony Mobiles displaced the former if we examine numbers for the full CY 2012.

Commenting on these results, Tarun Pathak, analyst, CMR Telecoms Practice said, “The India smartphones segment has very distinct characteristics vis-à-vis the overall market. We believe the struggle for leadership in the India smartphones market is going to intensify through 2013 as vendors bring new form factors to market.

“Players such as Samsung, HTC and Sony Mobiles will increasingly try to establish leadership through differentiated offerings and by promising a ‘seamless’ experience across the four consumer screens – smartphone, tablet, PC and TV. At the same time, home grown vendors such as Micromax, Karbonn and Lava will try to make a mark against their global competitors, by bringing to market powerful, yet attractively priced smartphones in an attempt to widen their appeal and grow the overall smartphone user base,” Tarun added.

Swiss specialty chemicals group Clariant International AG acquired the nano-silver ink technology platform developed under the trademark Bayink from Bayer Group, Germany. The transaction comprises all patents, know-how and materials related to Bayer’s nano-silver ink technology. Clariant will continue to work closely with existing customers and cooperation partners to further develop nano-silver inks and its applications.

“The acquisition will strengthen our portfolio of new materials for the electronics and energy markets,” said Christian Kohlpaintner, member of the Executive Committee.

Nano silver inks are printable on various substrates like polymers, glas, or silicon. They are applicable in a wide variety of emerging applications for printed electronics, e.g., printed circuit boards, radio frequency identification devices (RFID) or photovoltaic panels. Nano-silver inks provide excellent conductivity by spending fewer amounts of precious metal using advanced printing technologies such as ink-jet or aerosol printing.

“Nano silver inks are an important step to develop a sustainable innovation platform for functional inks in addition to our product portfolio for printing inks which will provide unique solutions to our customers using our core competencies in surfactants and formulation technology”, said Frank Küber, Head of New Business Development at Clariant.

printed electronics
Nano-silver inks allow Clariant to enter the fast growing markets for printed electronics. (Photo: istockphoto)

The Semiconductor Industry Association (SIA), representing U.S. leadership in semiconductor manufacturing and design, today announced that worldwide sales of semiconductors reached $23.25 billion for the month of February 2013, an increase of 1.4 percent from February 2012 when sales were $22.93 billion. Global sales from February 2013 were 3.8 percent lower than the January 2013 total of $24.17 billion, reflecting seasonal trends, but year-to-date sales through February 2013 were 2 percent higher than at the same point last year. All monthly sales numbers represent a three-month moving average.   

“Despite persistent economic uncertainty, the global semiconductor industry is off to a promising start in 2013 – led by strength in memory sales – and is ahead of last year’s pace,” said Brian Toohey, president and CEO, Semiconductor Industry Association. “To help spur stronger growth, Congress and the Administration should invest in basic research to boost American innovation, reform the high-skilled immigration system to welcome the top scientific minds from around the world, and modify the tax system so businesses can expand, invest and hire new workers.”  

Regionally, year-over-year sales increased in Asia Pacific (6.7 percent) and the Americas (1.6 percent), but decreased in Europe (-1.5 percent) and Japan (-15.7 percent). Sales increased in Europe (1.4 percent) compared to the previous month, but decreased in Asia Pacific (-3.6 percent), Japan (-5 percent) and the Americas (-6.2 percent). 

Intermolecular, Inc. (Nasdaq:IMI) today announced that Dr. Raj Jammy has joined the company as senior vice president and general manager of the semiconductor group. Dr. Jammy will be responsible for Intermolecular’s semiconductor business and will play a central role in further developing Intermolecular’s products and capabilities for the semiconductor industry.

"We are extremely pleased to welcome Raj to Intermolecular," said Dave Lazovsky, president and CEO of Intermolecular. "Raj’s deep industry experience, proven technology development track record and wealth of relationships with our key customers make him an ideal candidate to lead our semiconductor business to an entirely new level in the coming years."

"I am very excited to be joining such an innovative and high-growth company,” Dr. Jammy commented. “Materials innovation in the semiconductor industry is an absolute prerequisite to achieving further cost reductions and performance improvements. Over the past 20 years, I have experienced firsthand the daunting challenge of trying to introduce new materials and processes into complex semiconductor devices. Intermolecular, with its proprietary High Productivity Combinatorial (HPC(TM)) development platform, top notch interdisciplinary technical team and a unique "win-win" business model, is extremely well positioned to play a critical role in shaping the future of the semiconductor industry."

Prior to joining Intermolecular, Dr. Jammy was vice president of materials and emerging technologies at SEMATECH. In that capacity he was responsible for leading the consortium’s efforts in front-end CMOS logic, novel memory technologies, 3D TSV interconnects and emerging beyond-CMOS technologies with disruptive scaling potential. Dr. Jammy had previously served three years as director of SEMATECH’s Front End Processes division.

Dr. Jammy began his career in the industry at IBM’s Semiconductor Research and Development Center in East Fishkill, N.Y., where he worked on front-end technologies for deep-trench DRAMs. He subsequently became manager of the Thermal Processes and Surface Preparation group in the DRAM development organization. In 2002, Dr. Jammy moved to the T. J. Watson Research Center in Yorktown Heights, N.Y., to manage IBM’s efforts in high-k gate dielectrics and metal gates. In 2005 he joined SEMATECH as Director of the Front End Processes division and an IBM assignee.

Dr. Jammy received a doctorate in electrical engineering from Northwestern University. He holds more than 50 patents and is an author/co-author of over 225 publications/presentations. He serves on a variety of conference and industry committees, including the IEEE VLSI Technology Symposium as technical program co-chair, the ITRS Front End International Technology Working Group, the IEEE VLSI TSA Conference as US Chair, and other industry and academic bodies.

Pixelligent Technologies, a manufacturer of nanocrystal additives for the electronics and semiconductor markets, last week announced the launch of its PixClear Zirconia nanocrystals. When incorporated into existing products, the nanoadditives can dramatically increase light output and readability of modern touch screens and displays. PixClear, Pixelligent officials say, also increases the light output of products for lighting applications such as HB-LEDs and OLEDs.

Prior to Pixelligent, nanocrystal dispersions suffered from aggregation and were cloudy, difficult to process, and unstable, which prevented their commercial adoption. But Pixelligent officials claim their PixClear dispersions are something new: they’re perfectly clear. These clear dispersions allow Pixelligent to deliver precise control over the target applications’ optical, chemical and mechanical properties.

“Pixelligent is at the forefront of developing nanotechnology innovations that will revolutionize light management in display and lighting applications,” said Craig Bandes, President and CEO of Pixelligent.  “The launch of PixClear is a great example of our ability to identify a need in the industry and then create a high-quality and scalable solution that will dramatically impact the performance of numerous end-products.”

Pixelligent’s PixClear nanocrystal dispersions have been tailored to be compatible with a wide variety of monomers and polymers. PixClear’s synthesis and surface modification technology produces high-quality dispersions that can be incorporated into many of the most widely used polymer systems. This enables highly transparent formulations with nanocrystal loadings in excess of 80 percent weight, while reaching a refractive index as high as 1.85, levels that are unmatched in the industry to date. Additionally, it provides great flexibility for index matching dissimilar materials and when using modern high-speed polymer film forming techniques.  

In their official release, Pixelligent claims the advantages of PixClear nanoadditives include a high refractive index, high transparency at visible wavelengths, low haze coating, improve scratch resistance, and an easy integration into existing manufacturing processes.

Many users of microwave ovens have had the frightening experience of leaving a fork, crumpled piece of aluminum foil or some other pointy metal item inside the cooking chamber. The sharp metal object acts as an antenna for the oven’s microwave radiation, causing strong local heating or sparking. Jing Hua Teng from the A*STAR Institute of Materials Research and Engineering (IMRE) and colleagues in Singapore and the UK have now observed a similar antenna effect, involving a different sort of electromagnetic radiation — known as terahertz (THz) radiation — in a microfabricated semiconductor structure. Their discovery could find application in areas ranging from bio-sensing to airport security scanners.

Teng and his co-workers developed tiny semiconductor structures made of the chemical elements indium and antimony. From this material, they produced disks of 20mm in diameter, which they arranged such that pairs just touched. The gap between contiguous disks was merely tens to hundreds of nanometers wide (see image). When the researchers exposed the structures to THz radiation, they found that the radiation intensity in the gap was enhanced by more than a hundred times.

Confining and enhancing THz radiation is significant for two reasons, according to Teng. First, electromagnetic waves in the THz range can be used in a broad range of applications, for example, to study the structure of large biomolecules. As this sort of radiation can penetrate textiles but is less energetic than X-rays — or microwaves — it is also well suited for use in body scanners at airports. The second reason as to why the new results are important is more fundamental.

“We have produced this particular touching-disk structure to test, in the THz regime, intriguing theoretical predictions made for optical radiation,” explains Teng. “Building a device such as ours for visible light is much more challenging, as it would involve even smaller structures.”

The now-verified theoretical predictions came from collaborators at Imperial College London in the UK.

“For the present work, IMRE is in charge of the materials growth and the structure fabrication, while Imperial College contributes structure design and characterization,” says Teng.

The A*STAR researchers are now focused on practical applications: they will further explore the unique properties of their semiconductor materials and try to develop devices for THz technology. The group has already succeeded in tuning the THz response of their structure2, meaning that they can conveniently adjust the frequency response of their device for different applications.

Gandharv Bhatara is the product marketing manager for OPC technologies at Mentor Graphics.

The long-expected demise of optical lithography for manufacturing ICs has been delayed again, even though the technology itself has reached a plateau with a numerical aperture of 1.35 and an exposure wavelength of 193nm. Immersion lithography is planned for the 20/22nm node, and with the continued delay of EUV, is now the plan of record for 14nm.

How is it possible to use 193nm wavelength light at 14nm? How can we provide the process window to pattern such tight pitches? The secret lies in computational lithography. For 20nm, the two key innovations in computational lithography involve enabling double patterning with concurrent OPC, and in improving difficult-to-print layouts with localized in-situ optimization and by using an inverse lithography technique.

For 14nm, computational lithography offers more tools for process window enhancement with better approaches to sub-resolution assist features (SRAFs). SRAFs have been used since the 130nm node for resolution enhancement, but for 14nm, SRAF placement has evolved considerably. SRAFs placement has traditionally been based on a set of defined rules, which has given excellent coverage for line-space layouts and moderately good coverage for complex 2D layouts, along with fast runtime. However, the final SRAF coverage is highly dependent on the OPC recipe that the user is able to tune. Setting up these highly tuned recipes for 2D layouts can be time consuming, and also inadequate on very complex 2D layouts, leading to catastrophic failures in certain locations. The complexity of developing a well-tuned SRAF rules recipe since the introduction of pixelated sources and the introduction of more sophisticated contact and via layouts has driven lithographers away from rules-based solutions and towards model-based approaches.

Two distinct model-based approaches have developed: inverse lithography (ILT)-assisted and model-based. In the ILT-assisted approach, you use inverse lithography analysis to create a golden reference for a rules-based SRAF placement. ILT provides the ultimate lithography entitlement, but may not be practical to deploy in manufacturing because of increased mask cost and runtime. So, you use ILT only to find the best rules, and then let a rules-based SRAF tool do the actual placement. This gives superior process window for critical blocks like SRAM where the rules are relatively easy to develop.

The second approach is a true model-based approach, where a model is used to determine which areas on mask would benefit most from SRAFS and also to perform the initial SRAF placement. The model-based SRAF optimization reduces dependence on rules generation and improves SRAF placement. Model-based SRAFs can provide a process window that is comparable to that provided by ILT tools, but with much lower mask cost and runtime. The model-based approach is particularly useful for random logic designs, where developing rules continues to be challenging. Figure 1 shows a wafer validation done by IMEC, which shows that the process window obtained using model-based SRAFs and dense OPC was the same as obtained by using an ILT tool.

Given that both the ILT-assisted, rule-based approach and the model-based methods are good, but for different design styles, what if you could combine them easily into a hybrid approach? A hybrid approach combining the best of both solutions provides a single, unified SRAF recipe for SRAM (rules-based) and random logic designs (model-based). This is one of the secrets to 14nm computational lithography: advanced SRAF solutions that provide flexibility, control runtime, and leverage both rules-based and model-based approaches for the most challenging layouts.

Process window with model based SRAFs and ILT
Figure 1. Similar process window with model based SRAFs and ILT

 

SRAF placement flow high lithography
Figure 2.  A novel hybrid SRAF placement flow guarantees high lithography entitlement and resolves the SRAF development challenge.

Aledia, a developer of LEDs-based on disruptive microwire GaN-on-Silicon technology, announced today that it has made its first LEDs on 8-inch (200mm) silicon wafers. The cost of Aledia’s LED 3D chips based on microwires is expected to be four times less than traditional planar (2D) LEDs. Additionally, Aledia announced its first-round financing totalling €10 million, or approximately $13M, with leading US and European investors, which was closed in 2012.

Aledia solves the important cost issue in the very large and growing LED market. The continued integration of LEDs into new applications, such as general lighting, depends on LEDs becoming available at substantially lower prices than today. Aledia’s microwire technology enables the steep cost reduction that is vital for the further transition to LED. The Aledia LED technology, made on large-size silicon wafers and with very low materials cost, represents a cost-disruptive solution to this problem. Furthermore the new LED technology is compatible with silicon CMOS technology and will be manufactured directly in existing high-volume silicon foundries.

“Since our financing last year, we have scaled up our microwire manufacturing process and transferred it to 8-inch (200mm) silicon wafers. We can now push forward to optimize the performance of these products and bring them to market,” indicated Giorgio Anania, Aledia co-founder, President and CEO.

Investors in Aledia’s first-round financing included Sofinnova Partners, a leading European venture capital fund and an active investor in energy; New-York based Braemar Energy Ventures, a leading US energy technology investor with various investments in the LED and illumination area; Demeter Partners, the largest France-based cleantech investor; and CEA Investissement, the venture capital arm of CEA, France’s Commissariat à l’Energie Atomique et aux Energies Alternatives.

“This is an innovative technology that can have a disruptive effect on the LED market,” said Jiong Ma, partner at Braemar Energy Ventures. “Braemar is committed to investing in companies like Aledia that have developed a breakthrough approach to LED lighting to accommodate a rapidly changing market. We are excited about the future opportunities this investment will bring and the expansion of Aledia’s market presence and product offerings.”

“We are proud to participate in the new venture of Giorgio Anania, a successful entrepreneur already well known to Sofinnova, and of an outstanding technical team, that could revolutionize the large and growing LED market, both in cost and performance,” added Alessio Beverina of Sofinnova Partners.

“We believe that the development of LED lighting is an important element of energy-efficiency in our economies – lighting representing approximately 20% of all electricity usage. A technology able to make a significant breakthrough in the cost-effectiveness of using LEDs and thereby accelerate their adoption will have a major environmental and financial impact,” concluded Sophie Paturle, partner at cleantech specialist Demeter Partners.

The 3D GaN-on-Silicon microwire technology was developed over a six year period at the LETI-CEA in Grenoble, France. As part of its spin-out from CEA, Aledia received exclusive worldwide rights to all present and future CEA patents on microwire technology as applied to the area of lighting. Several additional patents have already been filed directly by Aledia.

Despite facing five consecutive quarters of decline and a slowdown in consumption in smartphones and tablets, the global market for NAND flash memory pulled off a surprise growth spurt during the last three months of 2012, causing sales to reach a record high.

NAND industry revenue in the October to December period of 2012 amounted to $5.6 billion, up an impressive 17% from $4.8 billion in the third quarter, according to an IHS iSuppli Flash Dynamics Market Brief from information and analytics provider IHS. Samsung Electronics, with more than a third of total revenue, led the field. NAND flash revenue for the entire year of 2012 amounted to $20.2 billion.

NAND flash growth

 

“The NAND flash market’s expansion in the fourth quarter was significant in two ways,” said Ryan Chien, analyst for memory and storage at IHS. “Not only did the increase defy the recent trend of sales sliding during the last quarter of a year, the expansion also resulted in the period having the largest revenue results in industry history. Major contributors to NAND strength in the fourth quarter included smartphones and tablets, even though density growth is projected to slow in 2013 for each smartphone, and has been negative for tablets since 2010. For these markets, rising volumes trumped the trend of slower growth in memory usage in the fourth quarter.”

Also playing a notable role in driving NAND growth during the period were solid state drives, along with retail flash products like flash drives and flash cards that likewise continue to attract significant consumer attention.

Flash bang

The 17% sequential growth in the fourth quarter last year was in stark contrast to the average 6% drop in revenue that had occurred during fourth-quarter periods for the previous five years. This time, growth was the result of solid product demand relative to preceding periods of weakness, coupled with a return to health for flash manufacturers. An important factor also was strength in component pricing, which fueled similar vigor in product pricing, stock pricing and—ultimately—revenue.

Overall, the revitalized state of the industry is attracting many new entrants, even though their presence is small in what is especially a scale-intensive space.

Samsung and Toshiba remain biggest players

The market share picture in the fourth quarter was similar to what it was a year earlier, with Samsung Electronics and Toshiba as the top two suppliers of NAND flash memory for the industry.

Samsung had fourth-quarter NAND revenue of approximately $2.0 billion, ending the year with a total of $7.5 billion or 37 percent market share. Samsung’s quarterly revenue since 2009 has hovered between $1.7 and $2.1 billion, helped by integration with its booming mobile device business, particularly smartphones.