Smart Bridge converts the analog dimming signal used for the inverter into a PWM signal for the LED driver. This powers the LED backlight driver without additional modifications. At Display Week this month in Boston, ERG’s Bill Abbott, corporate distribution manager, spoke with Solid State Technology about the industry need for conversion products. The move from CCFL to LED backlights is driven by RoHS legislation for many of ERG’s customers, he said. The transition adds about 10-15% to the backlight cost, but the real problem is re-qualifying a system-level design if you need to change all the supporting electronics. “LED backlights will be the standard soon,” Abbott noted. Even display makers that are exempt from RoHS will have trouble sourcing CCFLs.
A drop-in replacement to support the new backlights was important, Abbott said. Users remove the inverter, plug in the footprint-compatible Smart Bridge module, and connect the input cable from the existing power supply or controller to the Smart Bridge. The Smart Bridge module converts the Power · Ground · Enable · Control signals and mates directly to the LCD via a small harness, powering the new backlight driver correctly.
ERG currently offers three versions of the Smart Bridge module. The standard version (SBD4212F) is a Smart Bridge Pass-Through with Integrated PWM Dimming and operates from a typical 12V signal. The Smart Bridge DC-DC Converter with Integrated PWM Dimming (SBDCD4213F) is designed for applications requiring a step-up conversion from 5V to 12V. The third version is the Smart Bridge DC-DC Converter Without Dimming (SBDC4227F). The Smart Bridge modules are available in the footprint of most inverters, and custom footprints are available.
ERG also makes edge-light LED strips as drop-in replacement backlights. These meet or exceed the brightness of legacy CCFLs. Downtime to upgrade a display is minimal.
For more information, contact Endicott Research Group (ERG) Inc., www.ergpower.com.
June 12, 2012 — Electronics manufacturing and design services provider ESCATEC added package-on-package (PoP) capability at its Heerbrugg, Switzerland, facility, adding a dipping unit for ball grid array (BGA) packages on its Siplace assembly line.
Figure 1. PoP stack before soldering.
The dipping unit wets about 50% of each ball on the package with paste/flux. Before reflow, both BGA components are stacked on each other and then both are soldered in one process step. During the soldering, the upper device sinks down, eliminating any gap between the stacked packages in the final assembly.
Figure 2. PoP stack after flow soldering.
Verification of accurate bonding between the layers of the PoP stack is checked using X-Ray inspection. Darker balls in Figure 3 are from the upper BGA and lighter balls are from the lower BGA.
June 12, 2012 — Semiconductor sensor sales will grow 18% in 2012 to a record $5.7 billion, and continue double-digit growth rates and record-high revenues each year through 2016. The catalyst for growth is embedded features that let sensors automatically control and protect themselves, understand movement, detect changes around them, and support new user interfaces, shows IC Insights’ 2012 Optoelectronics, Sensors/Actuators, and Discretes (O-S-D) Report.
Annual sensors sales declined only once (2% in 2009) since the late 1990s, which was followed by a 53% surge in 2010 and 21% in 2011. Between 2011 and 2016, worldwide sensor sales will increase by a compound annual growth rate (CAGR) of 18%, to $10.9 billion in 2016.
Figure. Trajectory of sensor sales 2008-2016. SOURCE: IC Insights.
Within the sensor market segment, accelerometers and gyroscope devices (i.e., acceleration and yaw sensors) continue to be the largest and fastest-growing product category, with dollar volumes projected to increase by a 20% CAGR to $5.9 billion in 2016 compared to $2.4 billion in 2011. Sales of magnetic-field sensors, such as Hall-effect devices and electronic compass chips, will grow by a CAGR of 16% to $2.7 billion in 2016 from $1.3 billion in 2011, according to IC Insights’ new O-S-D Report. Pressure sensor sales are expected to rise by a 15% CAGR to $2.0 billion in 2016, from about $1.0 billion in 2011.
Accelerometers and gyroscope devices, along with most pressure sensors, use micro electro mechanical system (MEMS) structures to measure and detect changes around them. MEMS-based devices now account for about 70% of total sensor revenues compared to 54% in 2005. MEMS-based sensors sales will grow at a 19% CAGR 2011-2016, shows IC Insights.
Sensors are part of a broader semiconductor market segment that also includes actuators, such as micro-mirror devices, surface-acoustic wave (SAW) filters, microfluidic chips, inkjet nozzle components, and other MEMS-based products that initiate physical actions from electronic signals. Sensor sales accounted for 56% of this market’s overall sales in 2011, while actuators represented 44%, or $3.7 billion, last year. MEMS-based actuator sales are expected to grow by a CAGR of 15% to $7.5 billion in 2016, according to the new O-S-D Report’s five-year forecast.
The 2012 edition of the O-S-D Report provides detailed analysis of trends and growth rates in the optoelectronics, sensors/actuators, and discretes market segments. The seventh annual edition of the report contains a detailed forecast of sales, unit shipments, and selling prices for more than 30 individual product types and categories through 2016. Access IC Insights’ new and existing market research products and services please visit our website: www.icinsights.com.
June 8, 2012 — Semiconductor test tool maker Multitest has made its InCarrier Loader/Unloader available in a variety of configurations, e.g. for loading from tube, bowl, tray and for unloading into tube, bulk or metal mag in any combination. Additionally, partner solutions for loading from wafer ring or unloading into tape-and-reel are available.
The Multitest InCarrier is a test handling solution that combines elements of strip handling process and the standard test handling process. The concept of the InCarrier consists of a tray/carrier, into which singulated ICs are loaded to be tested in the InStrip, Multitest
June 8, 2012 — Specialty glass producer SCHOTT announced the market entry of its Xensation cover glass, an alumino-silicate glass offering improved resistance to breakage and scratches for touchscreen display panels. The company also debuted a special anti-glare effect capable of significantly reducing glare on high-resolution displays.
Xensation Cover glass from SCHOTT.
Xensation cover glass launched in late 2011 and underwent an extensive qualification process at all large consumer electronics brands. First models of touch screen devices using Xensation cover glass will appear on the market in Q3 2012, said Lutz Gruebel, head of global sales and marketing activities of the SCHOTT Xensation brand family.
Tests took place at SCHOTT and customer sites using industry-standard cover glass processing parameters. Xensation cover glass consistently reached compressive stress values greater than comparable materials’ results: up to 20% higher bending strength.
Xensation cover glass can be chemically strengthened in less time than competitor glass types, the company reports.
Xensation Cover AG (Anti-Glare) glass from SCHOTT.
High-resolution displays can become distorted by adverse viewing conditions, such as bright sunlight or high ambient lighting. Xensation cover floated alumino-silicate glass is subjected to a custom-designed etching process developed by glass surface modification specialist Berliner Glas, whereby ions are taken out of the glass surface during etching to make it diffuse. Uniform removal of material is a critical requirement for ensuring the glass surface is perceived as faultless by the human eye and Xensation cover’s unique glass structure, combined with Berliner Glas’ etching technology, offers a uniform, homogenous structure not previously possible with ultra-strong glass types. Xensation Cover AG (Anti-Glare) glass is an ultra-strong glass that can be reproducibly treated and etched in a continuous, industrial-scale production process.
SCHOTT is a high-technology company and specialty glass supplier for sectors like displays. More information at www.schott.com.
June 7, 2012 — Day 3 of the 15th IITC (International Interconnect Technology Conference) opened Wednesday, June 6 at the Doubletree Hotel in San Jose, CA under clear sunny skies and a pleasant breeze. The herd thinned a bit, down to ~150 hearty souls from the original 230 the prior two days.
Subramanian Iyer of IBM started the day with an invited talk on scaling in the 3rd dimension (not to be confused with The Adventures of Buckaroo Banzai Across the 8th Dimension) and prospects for silicon interposers and 3D integration. His retrospective introduction harkened back to IBM
June 6, 2012 — Ali Sebt, CEO of Renesas Electronics America, keynoted Day 2 of Solid State Technology’s The ConFab 2012, an invitation-only meeting of the semiconductor industry. Here, he discusses the role of inexpensive sensors and microcontrollers in energy savings with editor-in-chief Pete Singer.
We can no longer consider electronics and equipment “On/Off,” Sebt said. The demand for natural resources is skyrocketing, machines and equipment are being deployed at the individual level, and the global population is growing. To meet power consumption and intelligent environmental needs, we need sensors, Sebt said.
Sensors for humidity, sound, light, and more have become more affordable, and low-power semiconductors are supporting these sensors. Microcontrollers can modulate energy consumption based on sensor input.
Renesas is advocating for these low-cost microcontrollers to be used in new buildings and new equipment to start, avoiding higher retrofitting costs.
June 5, 2012 — Chip scaling will go on for the foreseeable future, enabling new product with more compute power, more memory, faster on-chip communication. That was one of the conclusions put forth by imec’s An Steegen, speaking on technology trends at The ConFab 2012. Steegen is Senior Vice President Process Technology Development at imec, where she has the responsibility for the technical leadership and execution of IMEC’s CORE Program activities in the areas of devices, process, lithography and design and CMORE activities such as MEMS, Power, Sensors and Photonics.
She began by outlining the requirements for future applications, noting that, at a very high level, people want everything. “You want high speed, you want to increase battery lifetime, more data storage, multi-functionality, all at a reduced cost,” she said. “You also want heterogeneous integration, and of course, it all needs to fit into a handheld device.”
She said designers today are using a lot of techniques such as parallelism and dynamic voltage switching to work within a battery lifetime constraint. “The challenge here is going to be the active leakage current. What this means for your future technology is that you basically have to put leakage as a constraint, which will automatically pin the performance,” Steegen said. She noted that this constraint is only for mobile devices, and isn’t a problem for wired devices such as servers. This means CMOS development will evolve in two directions, one for wireless and the other for wired.
Steegen said technology scaling is the key, and that’s still driven by Moore’s Law, which dictates that the number of transistors in an integrated circuit has to double every two years to offset the ever increasing R&D cost. “The technology knobs for system scaling are the famous four: power, performance, area and cost (PPAC),” she said.
Area is still very much lithography enabled, Steegen noted, presenting a chart showing the key dimensions of a transistor from 28nm technology down to a 10nm CMOS — the three key dimensions are the gate pitch, CPP, the metal 1 pitch and the finFET pitch. “What you need to scale the area for each technology from generation to generation is 50%, so each of these key dimensions will have to shrink by 0.7X. If today at 28nm, your gate pitch is 110nm, we will push that down to 40nm in the 10nm node. Another one to remember is the 42nm finFET pitch,” Steegen explained.
It’s not only the dimensions of the transistor that have been pushed over the last decade, it’s also the overlay, the layer-to-layer accuracy in device patterning. “If you look at the trends here, when the industry was working with 1 micron technology, a 300nm overlay spec was still doable. When you go into the more advanced nodes like 20nm, 5nm overlay is definitely what you need if not less,” she said.
In another graphic, she focused the audience’s attention on the red line, the logic scaling line, and need need for 43nm finFETs. That equates to a half pitch of 20-22nm. “That means you’re in this dark gray box which basically tells you which tool is going to be needed to print this technology. You’re clearly already in the area of EUV. If you don’t use EUV here, you come automatically back to the 193nm immersion tools where you multi patterning to print the layers for these technologies.”
Steegen said one of the key challenges we’re facing right now is EUV tool readiness for the 14nm node. “A lot of effort is being spent right now on EUV readiness and on the source power readiness,” she said. Showing a photo of ASML’s 3100 EUV pre-production tool at imec, she said “That tool is able to do great things. We were able to print 16nm half-pitch lines and spaces with a single exposure. Also, the overlay ability of this tool is very promising, with 3 sigma overlay specs below 2nm.”
June 4, 2012 — The ConFab’s sessions opened with “The Economic Outlook for the Semiconductor Industry,” featuring Jackie Sturm of Intel, Dan Hutcheson of VLSIresearch, and Jim Feldhan of Semico. The ConFab is an invitation-only meeting of the semiconductor industry, taking place this week in Las Vegas.
Jackie Sturm is VP of the Technology and Manufacturing Group and GM of Global Sourcing and Procurement at Intel Corporation. She focused on bright spots of growth in a mature semiconductor industry. She also urged attendees to consider factors outside of the semiconductor industry — gross domestic product (GDP) around the world, disposable income, etc. — when forecasting. Jim Feldhan, president of research and analysis firm Semico, shared Sturm’s view on macroeconomic factors, listing jobs growth, consumer spending as a percentage of GDP, and the inflation rate as factors impacting chip sales.
Intel’s Jackie Sturm presenting at The ConFab 2012 in Las Vegas.
Emerging markets like Brazil, India, China, etc. all present vastly different consumer habits and refresh cycles than mature markets like the US and Western Europe. They also have varying saturation of consumer goods like PCs and smartphones. Expect rapid adoption for these consumer electronics from Eastern Europe, Latin America, and China. Semico has lowered its 2012 world GDP growth forecast from 4.5% to 4.2%, considering drivers like emerging markets, US and European economies, and growth in China and India.
Exponential growth is expected in data server demand, Sturm noted, thanks to increased time spent, and available content, online. Photo and video up/downloads increase every year. New applications like tablets and music/video players are driving NAND Flash memory bit growth, pointed out Feldhan.
Semiconductor sales are on an upward trajectory for the remainder of 2012, Feldhan says, after a dip in late 2011/early 2012. Semiconductor revenues could be up by 9% this year.
Semico’s IPI shows semiconductor industry trajectory.
Growth applications include ultrabooks, tablets, and 4G phones. “Consumers still love electronics,” Feldhan said, and this means purchasing of HDTVs, set-top boxes, cameras, games etc. Unit sales are growing and aggregate IC ASPs are stabilizing. Feldhan said that the supply chain realized that inventories were too low, and this trend is reversing.
What does it take to capitalize on these areas of semiconductor demand? Sturm advises that companies drive price points by the consumer, remain agile to meet new needs, collaborate where possible, and invest in your company’s future. Be aware of the varying refresh rates for different consumer goods, as well as how these vary in different parts of the world. Collaborations with academia and government, as well as intra-industry collaborations with suppliers and customers, enable rapid work on device structures, designs, and processes.
Sturm’s advice: Work with customers to understand market needs. Work with suppliers to ensure the tools and materials are in place for you to meet those needs. And work with universities on R&D for future technology generations. Investing in research and new process and product development requires significant revenue. Sturm estimates $9-12 billion in annual semiconductor revenue is needed to support just 1 leading-edge fab. With this factor, it’s no surprise that the semiconductor arena is experiencing consolidation.
As an example of how electronics suppliers need to adapt to consumer behavior, Feldhan discussed the jolt of energy that PCs will get from the emerging ultrabook category, which will cannibalize other notebooks. Ultrabooks will be 15% of total notebook market in 2012, some ODMs think 20% Components from the battery to the CPU and GPU to the display will change as ultrabooks take market share. Right now, touchscreens are a limiting factor in ultrabook production, as is user confidence in the OS. Many ultrabook barriers will be worked out by 2013, and by 2015, ultrabooks will be outshipping notebooks.
Other end-use products? Tablets, despite phenomenal consumer adoption, do not threaten to eradicate the PC market, Feldhan noted. Smartphones saw higher-than-expected (29%) growth in 2011; expect 34% growth in 2012. New features and functions will be the key to success for smartphone designs.
MEMS are behind many new components that enable better sound quality, new device capabilities, and more. Keep an eye out for micro opto-electro mechanical systems (MOEMS), used to improve images and lower costs in new displays. MOEMS suppliers are a mix of industry heavyweights and newcomers — TI, Microvision , bTendo, Maradin, Mirrorcle, Qualcomm, and Unipixel. 2012 is the opening year of breakneck growth for MOEMS, 79.1% compound annual growth rate (CAGR) through 2016, fueled primarily by communications and computing applications.
2012 is also a jumping off year for MEMS oscillators, which are challenging the entrenched crystal quartz technology for timing ICs. Smartphones use as many as 7 timing devices per unit.
Video interview: Jim Feldhan speaks to Solid State Technology editor-in-chief Pete Singer
Read on for a discussion of silicon cycles and capex with input from session speakers Dan Hutcheson and Jim Feldhan in How to prevail over silicon cycles.
Today’s keynote address presented the "virtual IDM" concept, from John Chen of Nvidia. The next keynote address will take place Tuesday morning, with Ali Sebt, CEO of Renesas Electronics America, presenting “Smart Society, the Sensing Era and Signal Chain.”
