Category Archives: Power Electronics

For the first time, SEMICON Europa 2014 will offer two new power-related technical forums — Power Electronics Conference (8-9 October) and Low Power Conference (7-8 October). The exhibition and conferences will offer an in-depth look at the cutting-edge energy technology delivering new levels of energy efficiency in electronics. Energy efficiency is a key challenge and advances in power microelectronics, batteries, mobility, and energy harvesting systems are making power management smarter to reduce energy consumption. SEMICON Europa’s two new Power Conferences focus on how innovators and their technologies are building energy-optimized applications.

The theme of the Low Power Conference is “Highly Energy Efficient Nanotechnologies and Applications.” The number of connected electronics devices is growing exponentially. According to Jean-Marc Chery, COO STMicroelectronics, to sustain this growth, the semiconductor industry needs a real breakthrough in energy efficiency — both for connected devices and for the communication infrastructure. At the same time, the traditional planar bulk CMOS technology is plateauing in power consumption and performance beyond 28nm, so breakthrough solutions for energy efficient systems are mandatory to continue the growth.

Sessions include: Market Analysis; Technology Energy Efficiency; Processors; Energy Efficient Design; Energy Efficient EDA Tools; and Applications.  Speaker highlights include:

  • STMicroelectronics: Jean-Marc Chery, COO
  • GLOBALFOUNDRIES: Manfred Horstmann, director, Products and Integration
  • Qualcomm Technologies: Mustafa Badaroglu, senior program manager
  • Cadence Design Systems, Inc.: Marcus Binning, senior AE manager
  • IBS, Inc.:  Handel Jones, CEO,
  • Hewlett-Packard: Rémi Barbarin, CTO
  • Schneider Electric: Gilles Chabanis, manager, Pervasive Sensing

The Power Electronics Conference  is themed “The Ultimate Path to CO2 Reduction.” Modern power semiconductors play an essential role in energy conservation and worldwide CO2 reduction. Philippe Roussel, business unit manager at Yole Developpement, will present the keynote on market and technology overview of the Power Electronics industry, including a look at the impact of Wide BandGap (WBG) Devices.    He believes that the emergence of new WBG technologies such as SiC and GaN will reshape the established power electronics industry, especially on the high-voltage side.  SiC and GaN offer benefits (higher frequency switching, power density, and more) that may dramatically help improve the power conversion efficiency. Yole believes that this could lead to lower CO2 emission if both SiC and GaN can emerge from labs to mass production. SiC transitioned a few years ago and GaN is starting the commercialization curve. By 2020, WBD devices are expected to generate more than $1 billion according to Yole.

The session highlights include:

  • Applications session — speakers from CEA/LETI, EpiGaN, European Center for Power Electronics e.V. (ECPE), Infineon, European Commission, Renault, and Supergrid Institute.
  • Technology and Materials session — presenters from Fairchild, Infineon Technologies AG, SiCrystal AG, Siltronic AG, Soitec, ST Catania, and Yole Developpement.

For more information on SEMICON Europa, visit www.semiconeuropa.org.

Renesas Electronics America, a leading supplier of advanced semiconductor solutions, today expands its portfolio of Simple Power Supply ICs, with innovative 16V input capable synchronous buck regulators that deliver up to 3A continuous current to loads at voltages as low as 0.8V. The new power supply ICs are ideal for systems requiring even lower power consumption in standby mode, and systems requiring backup power in case of power outage. The devices target applications in the industrial, office equipment, consumer, networking, smart grid, and other fields.

By reducing the power supply design workload, the new devices lower power consumption and improve the compactness of the overall system for improved power efficiency and lower BOM cost. The new Simple Power Supply ICs are available in four series with different DC/DC converter output counts and output voltages. Battery backup functionality is availability in the: RAA23012X series, RAA23013X series, RAA23022X series, and the RAA23023X series. Each series comprises three product versions, for a total of 12 new devices.

“Power semiconductor advancements have created a dynamic environment for energy saving innovations that boost the efficiency of existing applications, the electrification of more applications, and improve energy transmission,” said William Keeley, senior director product marketing at Renesas Electronics America. “Engineers and designers can confidently look to these types of power devices we are announcing today as a source of opportunity as they design their next generation energy efficient systems and products.”

As systems become more power efficient and compact in recent years, demand has grown for power supply blocks with improved power efficiency delivered in a compact form factor. One commonly used method of reducing power consumption is to incorporate a low-power mode in which only the functions needed in the microcontroller’s (MCU) standby state continues to operate. Unlike MCUs, however, such measures are rarely implemented within the power supply block itself. The common method of using a pair of diodes to implement a battery backup circuit for devices such as SRAM and MCUs, which require power even when the system is powered down, makes it difficult to maintain a compact system. What is more, in systems that require two or more voltages, the usual method is to employ multiple single-output power supply ICs or electronic components, which also presents a barrier to compactness.

Alpha and Omega Semiconductor Limited, a designer, developer and global supplier of a broad range of power semiconductors and power ICs, today announced that the Board of Directors of AOS has promoted Mr. Yifan Liang, the Interim Chief Financial Officer, to serve as the Chief Financial Officer of AOS, effective immediately.

“We are very pleased that Yifan was promoted to the position of Chief Financial Officer. Yifan has been serving as our Interim Chief Financial Officer since November 2013, and he has been an integral part of AOS’ accounting and finance operations since he joined the Company as Corporate Controller in 2004. As the Interim Chief Financial Officer, Yifan was instrumental in the successful implementation of our business plan to expand revenue growth and profitability. Given his in-depth knowledge of the Company and extensive experiences in accounting and financial matters, he is the ideal person to lead us financially as we continue to execute our business strategies,” said Dr. Mike Chang, the Chairman and Chief Executive Officer.

Prior to his appointment as the Chief Financial Officer, Mr. Liang has served as our Interim Chief Financial Officer and Corporate Secretary since November 2013, and he has served as our Chief Accounting Officer since October 2006 and our Assistant Corporate Secretary from November 2009 to November 2013. Mr. Liang joined our Company in August 2004 as our Corporate Controller. Prior to joining us, Mr. Liang held various positions at PricewaterhouseCoopers LLP, or PwC, from 1995 to 2004, including Audit Manager in PwC’s San Jose office. Mr. Liang received his B.S. in management information system from the People’s University of China and M.A. in finance and accounting from the University of Alabama.

A “valley of death” is well-known to entrepreneurs–the lull between government funding for research and industry support for prototypes and products. To confront this problem, in 2013 the National Science Foundation (NSF) created a new program called InTrans to extend the life of the most high-impact NSF-funded research and help great ideas transition from lab to practice.

Today, in partnership with Intel Corporation, NSF announced the first InTrans award of $3 million to a team of researchers who are designing customizable, domain-specific computing technologies for use in healthcare.

The work could lead to less exposure to dangerous radiation during x-rays by speeding up the computing side of medicine. It also could result in patient-specific cancer treatments.

Led by the University of California, Los Angeles, the research team includes experts in computer science and engineering, electrical engineering and medicine from Rice University and Oregon Health and Science University. The team comes mainly from the Center of Domain-Specific Computing (CDSC), which was supported by an NSF Expeditions in Computing Award in 2009.

Expeditions, consisting of five-year, $10 million awards, represent some of the largest investments currently made by NSF’s Computer, Information Science and Engineering (CISE) directorate.

Today’s InTrans grant extends research efforts funded by the Expedition program with the aim of bringing the new technology to the point where it can be produced at a microchip fabrication plant (or fab) for a mass market.

“We see the InTrans program as an innovative approach to public-private partnership and a way of enhancing research sustainability,” said Farnam Jahanian, head of NSF’s CISE Directorate. “We’re thrilled that Intel and NSF can partner to continue to support the development of domain-specific hardware and to transition this excellent fundamental research into real applications.”

In the project, the researchers looked beyond parallelization (the process of working on a problem with more than one processor at the same time) and instead focused on domain-specific customization, a disruptive technology with the potential to bring orders-of-magnitude improvements to important applications. Domain-specific computing systems work efficiently on specific problems–in this case, medical imaging and DNA sequencing of tumors–or a set of problems with similar features, reducing the time to solution and bringing down costs.

“We tried to create energy-efficient computers that are more like brains,” explained Jason Cong, the director of CDSC, a Chancellor’s Professor of computer science and electrical engineering at UCLA, and the lead on the project.

“We don’t really have a centralized central processing unit in there. If you look at the brain you have one region responsible for speech, another region for motor control, another region for vision. Those are specialized ‘accelerators.’ We want to develop a system architecture of that kind, where each accelerator can deliver a hundred to a thousand times better efficiency than the standard processors.”

The team plans to identify classes of applications that share similar computation kernels, thereby creating hardware that solves a range of common related problems with high efficiency and flexibility. This differs from specialized circuits that are designed to solve a single problem (such as those used in cell phones) or general-purpose processors designed to solve all problems.

“The group laid out a different way of presenting the problem of domain-specific computing, which is: How to determine the common features and support them efficiently?” said Sankar Basu, program officer at NSF. “They developed a framework for domain-specific hardware design that they believe can be applied in many other domains as well.”

The group selected medical imaging and patient specific cancer treatments–two important problems in healthcare–as the test applications upon which to create their design because of healthcare’s significant impact on the national economy and quality of life.

Medical imaging is now used diagnose a multitude of medical problems. However, diagnostic methods like x-ray CT (computed tomography) scanners can expose the body to cumulative radiation, which increases risk to the patient in the long term.

Scientists have developed new medical imaging algorithms that lead to less radiation exposure, but these have been constrained due to a lack of computing power.

Using their customizable heterogeneous platform, Cong and his team were able to make one of the leading CT image reconstruction algorithms a hundred times faster, thereby reducing a subject’s exposure to radiation significantly. They presented their results in May 2014 at the IEEE International Symposium on Field-Programmable Custom Computing Machines.

“The low-dose CT scan allows you to get a similar resolution to the standard CT, but the patient can get several times lower radiation,” said Alex Bui, a professor in the UCLA Radiological Sciences department and a co-lead of the project. “Anything we can do to lower that exposure will have a significant health impact.”

In theory, the technology also exists to determine the specific strain of cancer a patient has through DNA sequencing and to use that information to design a patient-specific treatment. However, it currently takes so long to sequence the DNA that once one determines a tumor’s strain, the cancer has already mutated. With domain-specific hardware, Cong believes rapid diagnoses and targeted treatments will be possible.

“Power- and cost-efficient high-performance computation in these domains will have a significant impact on healthcare in terms of preventive medicine, diagnostic procedures and therapeutic procedures,” said Cong.

“Cancer genomics, in particular, has been hobbled by the lack of open, scalable and efficient approaches to rapidly and accurately align and interpret genome sequence data,” said Paul Spellman, a professor at OHSU, who works on personalized cancer treatment and served as another co-lead on the project.

“The ability to use hardware approaches to dramatically improve these speeds will facilitate the rapid turnarounds in enormous datasets that will be necessary to deliver on precision medicine.”

Down the road, the team will work with Spellman and other physicians at OHSU to test the application of the hardware in a real-world environment.

“Intel excels in creating customizable computing platforms optimized for data-intensive computation,” said Michael C. Mayberry, corporate vice president of Intel’s Technology and Manufacturing Group and chair of Corporate Research Council. “These researchers are some of the leading lights in the field of domain-specific computing.

“This new effort enables us to maximize the benefits of Intel architecture. For example, we can ensure that Intel Xeon processor features are optimized, in connection with various accelerators, for a specific application domain and across all architectural layers,” Mayberry said. “Life science and healthcare research will undoubtedly benefit from the performance, flexibility, energy efficiency and affordability of this application.”

The InTrans program not only advances important fundamental research and integrates it into industry, it also benefits society by improving medical imaging technologies and cancer treatments, helping to extend lives.

“Not every research project will get to the stage where they’re ready to make a direct impact on industry and on society, but in our case, we’re quite close,” Cong said. “We’re thankful for NSF’s support and are excited about continuing our research under this unique private-public funding model.”

The Semiconductor Industry Association (SIA) today announced that worldwide sales of semiconductors reached $82.7 billion during the second quarter of 2014, an increase of 5.4 percent over the previous quarter and a jump of 10.8 percent compared to the second quarter of 2013. Global sales for the month of June 2014 reached $27.57 billion, marking the industry’s highest monthly sales ever. June’s sales were 10.8 percent higher than the June 2013 total of $24.88 billion and 2.6 percent more than last month’s total of $26.86 billion. Year-to-date sales during the first half of 2014 were 11.1 percent higher than they were at the same point in 2013, which was a record year for semiconductor revenues. All monthly sales numbers are compiled by the World Semiconductor Trade Statistics (WSTS) organization and represent a three-month moving average.

“Through the first half of 2014, the global semiconductor market has demonstrated consistent, across-the-board growth, with the Americas region continuing to show particular strength,” said Brian Toohey, president and CEO, Semiconductor Industry Association. “The industry posted its highest-ever second quarter sales and outperformed the latest World Semiconductor Trade Statistics (WSTS) sales forecast. Looking forward, macroeconomic indicators – including solid U.S. GDP growth announced last week – bode well for continued growth in the second half of 2014 and beyond.”

Regionally, sales were up compared to last month in the Americas (4.9 percent), Asia Pacific (2.1 percent), Japan (2.1 percent), and Europe (1.9 percent). Compared to June 2013, sales increased in the Americas (12.1 percent), Europe (12.1 percent), Asia Pacific (10.5 percent), and Japan (8.5 percent). All four regional markets have posted better year-to-date sales through the first half of 2014 than they did through the same point last year.

June 2014
Billions
Month-to-Month Sales
Market Last Month Current Month % Change
Americas 5.09 5.34 4.9%
Europe 3.13 3.19 1.9%
Japan 2.89 2.95 2.1%
Asia Pacific 15.76 16.09 2.1%
Total 26.86 27.57 2.6%
Year-to-Year Sales
Market Last Year Current Month % Change
Americas 4.76 5.34 12.1%
Europe 2.84 3.19 12.1%
Japan 2.72 2.95 8.5%
Asia Pacific 14.56 16.09 10.5%
Total 24.88 27.57 10.8%
Three-Month-Moving Average Sales
Market Jan/Feb/Mar Apr/May/June % Change
Americas 5.08 5.34 5.1%
Europe 3.08 3.19 3.5%
Japan 2.81 2.95 4.9%
Asia Pacific 15.18 16.09 6.0%
Total 26.15 27.57 5.4%

TriQuint Semiconductor, Inc., a RF solutions supplier and technology innovator, announced that it is the first gallium nitride (GaN) RF chip manufacturer to achieve Manufacturing Readiness Level (MRL) 9. This achievement means TriQuint’s GaN manufacturing processes have met full performance, cost and capacity goals, and that the company has the capability in place to support full rate production.

To benchmark MRL 9, TriQuint applied the U.S. Air Force Research Laboratory’s rigorous manufacturing readiness assessment tool and criteria to its high frequency, high power GaN production line. TriQuint’s ongoing development of GaN-based devices is leading to smaller, more efficient power amplifiers, typically used for military radar and electronic warfare programs as well as commercial wireless communications and infrastructure.

“TriQuint recently completed its Defense Production Act Title III GaN on silicon carbide (SiC) program and now we’ve proven that we provide the GaN maturity needed to support full-rate production programs,” said Vice President and General Manager James Klein, Infrastructure and Defense Products. “This has been a great team effort utilizing our partnerships across the industry including US DoD, domestic and international customers, and a great supply base.”

Key to the company’s assessment, TriQuint has shipped more than 170,000 0.25 um GaN power amplifier devices in support of an ongoing international radar production program. During phased array radar field testing, approximately 15,000 devices have accumulated more than 3.67 million device hours, with no reported device failures. TriQuint continues to demonstrate industry-leading reliability with a mean time to failure (MTTF) of greater than 70 million hours at 200 degrees Celsius, substantially greater than the industry standard of 1 million hours MTTF.

As an established GaN provider for domestic and international defense programs, TriQuint explored the potential of GaN beginning in 1999, and released its first GaN on silicon carbide (SiC) production process in 2008. Since that point, the company has continued to make significant investments towards maturing the technology. Today, GaN wafers are manufactured with yields that match our conventional GaAs technologies. TriQuint continues to provide record-setting GaN circuit reliability and compact, high efficiency products, paving the way for more robust performance, lower maintenance and longer operational lifetimes. TriQuint is also accredited by the Department of Defense as a Microelectronics Trusted Source (Category 1A) for its foundry; post-processing; packaging and assembly; and RF test services.

The Department of Defense’s Manufacturing Readiness Assessment (MRA) ensures that manufacturing, production and quality assurance can meet operational mission needs. This MRA tool assesses science and technology companies on criteria that provide guidance about the maturity and risk of a given technology – reviewing the industrial base readiness; technology development; and quality and manufacturing management. This process ensures that the product or system transitions successfully from the factory to the field, providing the best value for the customer. TriQuint demonstrated that its manufacturing processes met full performance, cost and capacity goals, with the capability in place to support full rate production.

BY BYRON EXARCOS, President, CLASSONE TECHNOLOGY

Historically, the major semiconductor capital equipment manufacturers have focused on supporting the bigger semiconductor companies at the expense of the smaller ones. The last decade’s round of consolidations in the manufacturing and equipment sectors has only exacerbated this trend. This approach may make good business sense for the large equipment companies, but it’s created a serious challenge for smaller IC manufacturers. Even worse, it now threatens to stifle the continuing innovation on which the high tech industry depends.

It’s hard to fault the big equipment players for their business model. It’s much more cost-effective and profitable to dedicate the bulk of your resources to those customers who want to buy multiple process tools featuring “bleeding edge” technology on highly automated, volume production platforms. In many cases, it’s simply not as profitable to engage with smaller customers.

So what choice do the manufacturers have for populating their fabs if they’re running 200mm or smaller wafers? One alternative is to buy refurbished tools, assuming they can find a tool that meets their needs, which is not always easy. Another is to buy a bigger tool with more performance capabilities than they need, which busts their equipment budget. There aren’t many other options.

Now, one could dismiss this issue by simply saying, that’s the way this market works. Continued growth in our industry has always depended on a certain path of continual innovation. “Smaller, faster, cheaper” — producing smaller, more powerful chips in ever greater volume on larger wafers was a highly successful means of turning computers and subsequent mobile computing and communication devices into household items. It’s hard to fault a business/technology model that has been successful for so many years.

On the other hand, every emerging market eventually matures. We’ve all experi- enced the boom-and-bust cycles that roil our industry and what happens when the “last big thing” plateaus or dries up. Today, the capital equipment market is at a cusp. We need to examine whether the traditional smaller-design-rules/bigger-wafers/faster-throughput approach is helping or hindering the introduction of new technologies.

Today’s emerging technologies include devices such as smart sensors, power and RF wireless devices. The fact is, many of these chips can be made quite well and quite profitably using larger design rules on 200mm or even smaller substrates. However, many of the companies developing these devices are not huge enterprises, and they’re hampered by the unavailability of tools delivering the appropriate levels of process technology, automation and throughput — at a price they can afford. Ironically, our industry is in a phase where the equipment companies that once drove significant innovations, such as the introduction of copper deposition and low-k dielectrics, have become so large and narrowly focused that they’re impeding the development of many other emerging technologies.

I have some understanding of the needs of smaller device manufacturers because one of our companies, ClassOne Equipment, has been selling refurbished equipment to them for over a decade. That is why we’ve now created a whole new company, ClassOne Technology, to provide new equipment at substantially lower prices specifically for 200mm and smaller substrates. We are introducing new electroplating systems, spin rinse dryers and spray solvent tools; and some of them are literally half the cost of high-end competitive units. We’re particularly interested in serving all those small- to mid-sized companies who are making MEMS, power devices, RF, LEDs, photonics, sensors, microfluidics and other emerging-technology devices.

However, no single company can solve the entire problem. There is a glaring need for equipment manufacturers to bring the price/performance ratio of their tools back in line with the needs of more of the equipment users, not just those at the bleeding edge. If the tool manufacturers persist in trying to only sell the equivalent of sports cars to customers who just need pickup trucks, America’s high tech industry may soon find itself trailing, rather than leading the innovation curve.

Harnessing big data


July 28, 2014

Addressing the analytics challenges in supply chain management. 

BY NORD SAMUELSON, CHRISTOPHER POCEK and CHRIS LANMAN, AlixPartners, San Francisco, CA 

A changing workforce and lack of convergence between information technology (IT) and business may be preventing many companies from joining the big-data revolution. Defined as very large sets of data but more commonly used in reference to the rapid increase in amounts of data in recent years, big data will divide companies into two groups in the next decade: those able to benefit from big data’s potential and those unable. Companies that create capabilities for capturing, processing, analyzing, and distributing data in order to make better decisions in real time will likely be able to outperform their competition and respond more quickly to their customers’ needs. The data avalanche is coming from a number of sources, such as enterprise resource planning, orders, shipments, Weblogs, GPS data, radio-frequency identification, mobile devices, and social channels; and there is value to be created in all areas of a business by adopting a data-driven culture.

However, in discussions about big data’s arrival, we sometimes forget to ask how effectively we’re converting the data into value. Too often, huge investments in IT infrastructure coupled with sophisticated analytical and reporting software have delivered little value. Why? We often find it’s because companies are understaffed, or they may lack the analytics talent who know how to build links between the data and the value drivers. There is also a gap between finding insights from data and then applying the insights to create value. That is where the levels of training and experience of a company’s analysts enter the equation.

One area of particular concern is supply chain management (SCM). A company’s SCM organization makes decisions about build plans, stocking locations, inventory levels, and so forth based on the conversion of raw data about demand, sales, and inventory on hand. And when there’s a shortage of analytics talent, SCM is typically one of the first areas affected. Traditionally, analytical innovation happens in two ways: either through an internal-pipeline process of developing junior analysts into senior analysts or by periodically bringing in external experts to seed knowledge. But big data is challenging both approaches.

The internal pipeline is challenged by a workforce marked by shorter tenures. Shorter tenures result
in more generalists in the workforce, often in place of the specialists needed for analytical innovation. For example, younger workers, such as millennials, are significantly less likely to settle into a long career at a company. According to a survey by Future Workplace, 91% of millennials (born in the 1980s and ’90s) expect to stay in a job for less than three years (Meister 2012), meaning that those in analytical roles are usually in the job only long enough to execute established analytics—and not long enough to develop a holistic understanding of how data can be applied to drive business value. As a result, those on the business side and those on the IT side don’t always learn to make the end-to-end connections between raw data and measurable value. The internal-pipeline approach is further challenged by companies themselves: frustrated by high turnover, companies are less likely to invest in developing their people— only to watch the people leave for higher-paying positions.

The second approach—that of periodically bringing in external experts to rebuild a process or implement the latest software package—is also starting to show wear. The evolution cycle of new analytical techniques is rapidly slowing down as big data brings opportunities to better integrate internal and external data sources. Traditionally, companies have been able to implement software solutions or bring in experts to install the latest offering and then profit from that investment for five or seven years. The initial cost was justified by the continued value for years to come. But now, the volume, variety, and velocity of the new data being generated are changing the business landscape by calling for a more rapid cycle of analytical-tool introduction. And that landscape itself usually changes every two or three years. So, as a result, the days of big-bang projects appear to be coming to an end.

What can be done? Companies should look across the entire supply chain—or across any function,
for that matter—and measure the amount of data being generated. Then they should weigh that measurement against the value actually realized. If data volumes are growing more rapidly than the corresponding increase in value, there may be an analytics talent challenge.

Three methods of creating value have proved effective in today’s rapidly changing market.

1. Outsourcing portions of analytic requirements

Companies can approach analytics outsourcing in a variety of ways, ranging from a data prep model—in which a company hires a third party to process raw data to the point where an analyst can consume it— all the way to a fully outsourced model, in which a third party processes and analyzes the data, poten- tially adds other proprietary data, and sends back fully actionable information. The data prep model enables a company to focus a limited pool of analysts on the critical knowledge-capture portion of the process and thereby free up time spent on non-value- added processes. The fully outsourced model enables companies to stay up-to-date on the latest technol- ogies and software without having to make up-front investments to purchase the latest software and technology.

2. Creating central analytics teams

Companies that rely heavily on converting data to knowledge can set up an analytic group focused solely on solving analytical issues across the company. Such companies have adopted analytics
as a core differentiator and encourage analysts to develop the holistic view that facilitates insight. Central analytics groups seem to perform better than embedded groups—and especially when they report through the business side. Of course, maintaining a group dedicated to analytics is an investment that some companies may hesitate to make, but there is tremendous value in having such in-house expertise.

3. Partnering with academic or not-for-profit institutions

Academic and nonprofit organizations are often-overlooked resources. For instance, the brand-new Center for Supply Chain Management at the University of Pittsburgh intends to provide student and faculty interactions with industry representatives who will promote experience-based learning activities within the university’s supply chain management courses. To improve the center’s effectiveness, the university plans to create a Supply Chain Management Industry Council composed of member companies dedicated to SCM. The council members, along with tenured faculty specializing in teaching SCM, will foster interest and excellence in SCM and analysis. Other institutions offer training, certifications, and conferences that encourage and enable analysts to further develop and share ideas. The Institute for Operations Research and the Management Sciences recently introduced the Certified Analytics Profes- sional certification to give companies an option for developing their people without having to make hefty investments in training organizations.

Big data is fundamentally transforming the way business operates. It is enabling management to track the previously untrackable, forecast the previ- ously unpredictable, and understand interactions between suppliers and customers—all of it with unprecedented clarity. And winning organizations will invest in the necessary infrastructure and people to harness the transformative power of data.

New approaches to start-ups can unlock mega-trend opportunities.

BY MIKE NOONEN, Silicon Catalyst, San Jose, CA; SCOTT JONES and NORD SAMUELSON, AlixPartners, San Francisco, CA

The semiconductor industry returned growth and reached record revenues in 2013, breaking $300 billion for the first time after the industry had contracted in 2011 and 2012 (FIGURE 1).

FIGURE 1. Worldwide semiconductor revenue. Source: World Semiconductor Trade Statistics, February 2014.

FIGURE 1. Worldwide semiconductor revenue. Source: World Semiconductor Trade Statistics, February 2014.

However, even with that return to growth, underlying trends in the semiconductor industry are disturbing: The semiconductor cycle continues its gyrations, but overall growth is slowing. And despite 5% year-on-year revenue growth in 2013 (the highest since 2010), the expectation is that semiconductor growth will likely continue to be at a rate below its long-term trend of 8 to 10% for the next three to five years (FIGURE 2). An AlixPartners 2014 publication , Cashing In with Chips, showed that semiconductor industry growth had slowed to roughly half of its long-term growth average since the 2010 recovery—with no expectation that it will return to historical growth until at least 2017. Other studies have also shownthat semiconductor growth has slowed not only relative to its previous performance but also versus growth in other industries. And a study conducted by New York University’s Stern School of Business[1] found that the semiconductor industry’s revenue growth lagged the average revenue growth of all industries and ranked 60th out of 94 industries surveyed. Surprisingly, the industry’s net income growth of semiconductor companies lagged even further behind—ranking 84th out of 94 companies surveyed—and had actually been negative during the previous five years.

FIGURE 2. Semiconductor revenue growth. Sources: Semiconductor Industry Association and AlixPartners research.

FIGURE 2. Semiconductor revenue growth. Sources: Semiconductor Industry Association and AlixPartners research.

In another study released by AlixPartners that looked at a broader picture of the semiconductor value chain, including areas such as equipment suppliers and packaging and test companies, the research showed that outside of the top 5 companies, the remainder of the 186 companies surveyed had declining earnings before interest, taxes, depreciation, and amortization (FIGURE 3).

FIGURE 3. Spotlight on the top five (fiscal year 2012). Source: AlixPartners Research.

FIGURE 3. Spotlight on the top five (fiscal year 2012). Source: AlixPartners Research.

As revenue growth slows, costs increase at a rapid rate

As semiconductor technology advances, the cost of developing a system on chip (SoC) has risen dramatically for leading-edge process technologies. Semico Research has estimated that the total cost of an SoC development, design, intellectual property (IP) procurement, software, testing has tripled from 40/45 nanometers (nm) to 20 nm and could exceed $250 million for future 10-nm designs(FIGURE 4) [2]. This does not bode well for an economic progression of Moore’s law, and it means that very few applications will have the volume and pricing power to afford such outlandish investment. If we assume that a 28nm SoC can achieve a 20% market share and 50% gross margins, the end market would have to be worth over $1 billion to recoup R&D costs of $100 million. By 10 nm, end markets would have to result in more than $2.5 billion to recoup projected development costs. With few end markets capable of supporting that high a level of development costs, the number of companies willing to invest in SoCs on the leading edge will likely decline significantly each generation.

FIGURE 4. Development Costs are Skyrocketing. Source: Semico Research Corp.

FIGURE 4. Development Costs are Skyrocketing. Source: Semico Research Corp.

What happened to semiconductor start- ups?

The history of the semiconductor industry has been shaped by the semiconductor start-up. Going back to Fairchild, the start-up has been the driving force for growth and innovation. Start-ups helped shape the industry, and they are now some of the largest and most successful companies in the industry. But the environment that lasted from the 1960s until the early 2000s—and that made the success of those companies possible—has changed dramatically. The number of venture capital investments in new semiconductor start-ups in the United States has fallen dramatically, from 50 per year to the low single digits (FIGURE 5). And even though that drop is not as dramatic in other countries — such as China and Israel — it is indicative of an overall lack of investment in semiconductors.

FIGURE 5. Number of seed/series a deals. Source: Global Semiconductor Alliance.

FIGURE 5. Number of seed/series a deals. Source: Global Semiconductor Alliance.

The main reason for the decline is the attractiveness of other businesses for the same investment. In the fourth quarter of 2013, nearly 400 software start-ups received almost $3 billion of funding, whereas only 25 semiconductor start-ups received just $178 million (representing all stages) (FIGURE 6). It seems that (1) the lower cost of starting a software company, (2) the relatively short time frame to realize revenue, and (3) attractive initial-public-offering and acquisition markets possibly make the software start-up segment more interesting than semiconductors.

FIGURE 6. Funding of software and semiconductor start- ups. Source: PwC, US Investments by Industry/Q4 2013.

FIGURE 6. Funding of software and semiconductor start- ups. Source: PwC, US Investments by Industry/Q4 2013.

This situation is unfortunate and has conspired to create a vicious and downward cycle (FIGURE 7).

  • Lack of investment limits start-ups
  • Lack of start-ups limits innovation
  • Lack of innovation and fewer start-ups limits the number of potential acquisition targets for established companies.
  • Reduced potential acquisition targets in turn limit returns for companies and returns for those who would have invested in start-ups.
  • Limited returns make future investments less likely and continue the cycle of less innovation and lower investment [3]. 
FIGURE 7. A vicious cycle limits innovation.

FIGURE 7. A vicious cycle limits innovation.

Therefore, it is reasonable to conclude that the demise of semiconductor start-ups is a contributing cause to the lackluster results of the overall semiconductor industry. And that demise and those lackluster results are further exacerbated by the rise of activist shareholders who demand a more rapid return on their investment, which possibly reduces the potential for innovation in an industry that has lengthy development cycles.

What about other industries?

It is tempting to think that the semiconductor industry is alone in this predicament, but other industries face similar challenges and have figured out accretive paths forward. For example, biotechnology has some of the same issues:

  • An industry that grows by bringing innovation to market 
  • Similarly lengthy development cycles 
  • Potentially capital intensive at the research and production stages

In addition, the biotech industry faces a challenge the semiconductor world does not — namely, the need for government regulatory approval before moving to production and then volume sales. Gaining that regulatory approval is a go-to-market hurdle that can add years and uncertainty to a product cycle.

However, in spite of its similarities to the semiconductor business and the added regulatory hurdles, the biotech industry enjoys a very healthy venture-funding and start-up environment. In fact, in the fourth quarter of 2013 in the United States, biotech was the second-largest business sector for venture funding in both dollars and total number of deals (FIGURE 8).

FIGURE 8. Funding of software and semiconductor start- ups. Source: PwC, US Investments by Industry/Q4 2013.

FIGURE 8. Funding of software and semiconductor start- ups. Source: PwC, US Investments by Industry/Q4 2013.

Why is this? What do biotech executives, entre- preneurs, and investors know that the semiconductor industry can take advantage of? There are several lessons to be learned.

  • Big biotech companies have made investing, cultivating, and acquiring start-ups key parts of their innovation and product development processes. 
  • Biotech and venture investors identify interesting problems to solve and then match the problems to skilled and passionate entrepreneurs to solve them.
  • Those entrepreneurs are motivated to create and develop solutions much faster and usually more frugally than if they were working inside a large company.
  • The entrepreneurs and investors are creating businesses to be acquired versus creating businesses that will rival major industry players.
  • The acquiring companies apply their manufacturing economies of scale and well-estab- lished sales and marketing strategies to rapidly— and profitably—bring the newly acquired solutions to market.

For several reasons, certain megatrends are driving the high-technology sector and the economy as a whole, and all of them are enabled by semiconductor innovation (FIGURE 9). Among the major trends:

  • Mobile computing will likely continue to merge functions and drive computing power.
  • Security concerns appear to be increasing at all levels: government, enterprise, and personal.
  • Cloud computing will possibly cause an upheaval in information technology.
  • Personalization through technology and logistics appears to be on the rise.
  • Energy efficiency is likely need for sustainability and lower cost of ownership.
  • Next generation wireless will likely be driven by insatiable coverage and bandwidth needs.
  • The Internet of things will likely lead to mobile processing at low power with ubiquitous radio frequency.
FIGURE 9. Global internet device installed base forecast. Sources: Gartner, IDC, Strategy Analytics, Machina Research, company filings, BII estimates.

FIGURE 9. Global internet device installed base forecast. Sources: Gartner, IDC, Strategy Analytics, Machina Research, company filings, BII estimates.

The Internet of Things megatrend alone will result in a tremendous amount of new semiconductor innovation that in turn will likely lead to volume markets. Cisco Systems CEO John Chambers has predicted a $19-trillion market by 2020 resulting from Internet of Things applications [4].

Does it really cost $100 million to start a semiconductor company?

The prevailing conventional wisdom is that it takes $100 million to start a new semiconductor company, and in some cases that covers only the cost of a silicon development. It is true that recently, several companies have spent eight- or nine-figure sums of money to develop their products, but those are very much exceptions. The reality is that most semiconductor development is not at the bleeding edge, nor is the development of billion-transistor SoCs.

The majority of design starts in 2013 were in .13 μm, and this year, 65, 55, 45, and 40nm are all growing (FIGURE 10). These technologies are becoming very affordable as they mature. And costs will likely continue to decrease as more capacity becomes available once new companies enter the foundry business and as former DRAM vendors in Taiwan and new fab in China come online.

FIGURE 10: .13um has the most design starts; 65nm and 45nm have yet to peak.

FIGURE 10: .13um has the most design starts; 65nm and 45nm have yet to peak.

Another thing to consider is whether a new company would sell solutions that use existing technology or platforms (i.e., a chipless start-up) or whether a company would choose to originate IP that enables functionality for incorporation into another integrated circuit.

A chipless start-up would add value to an existing architecture or platform. It could be an algorithm or an application-specific solution on, say, a field-programmable gate array, a microcontroller unit or an application-specific standard product. It could also be service based on an existing hardware platform.

A company developing innovative new functionality for inclusion into another SoC paves a path to getting to revenue quickly. Such IP solution providers would supply functionality for integration not only into a larger SoC but also into the emerging market for 2.5-D and 3-D applications.

In both situations (the chipless start-up and the IP provider), significant cost may be avoided by the use of existing technology or the absence of the need to build infrastructure or capabilities already provided by partners. In addition, those paths have much faster times to revenue as well as inherently lower burn rates, which are conducive to higher returns for investors.

Even for start-ups that intend to develop leading-edge multicore SoCs, a $100-million investment is not inevitable. Take, for example, Adapteva, an innovative start-up in Lexington, Massachusetts. Founded by Andreas Olofsson, Adapteva has developed a 64-core parallel processing solution in 28 nm. The processor is the highest gigaflops/watt solution available today, beating solutions from much larger and more-established companies. However, Adapteva has raised only about $5 million to date, a good portion of which funding was crowd sourced on the Kickstarter Web site. This just shows that even a leading-edge multicore SoC can be developed cost-effectively—and effectively—through the use of multiproject wafers and other frugal methods.

Several conclusions can be drawn at this point.

  • Even though the semiconductor industry is growing again, the underlying trends for profitability and growth are not encouraging. 
  • Cost development is increasingly rapid on leading-edge SoCs. 
  • Historically, start-ups have been engines of innovation of growth and innovation for semiconductors. 
  • In recent years, venture funding for new semiconductor companies has almost completely dried up. 
  • That lack of investment of semiconductor start-ups has contributed to a downward and vicious cycle that will further erode the economics of semiconductor companies. 
  • The biotechnology industry has many parallels to the semiconductor. Interestingly, biotechnology has a relatively thriving venture funding and start-up environment, and we can apply that industry’s successful approach to semiconductors. 
  • Despite the state of start-ups, it is now one of the most exciting times to be in semiconductors because most of the megatrends driving the economy are either enabled by or dependent on semiconductor innovation. 
  • It does not need to take $100 million to start the typical semiconductor company, because a great deal of innovation will use very affordable technologies, and come from chipless start-ups or IP providers that have much lower burn rates and ties to revenue.
  • Even leading-edge multicore SoCs can be developed frugally (for single-digit millions of dollars) and profitably. 

References

1. http://people.stern.nyu.edu/adamodar/New_Home_ Page/datafile/histgr.html

2. SoC Silicon and Software Design Cost Analysis: Costs for Higher Complexity Continue to Rise SC102-13 May 2013.

3. AlixPartners and Silicon Catalyst analysis and experi- ence.

4. Cisco Systems public statements.

OMRON and Holst Centre/imec have unveiled a prototype of an extremely compact vibrational energy harvesting DC power supply with worlds’ highest efficiency. The prototype will be demonstrated at the TECHNO-FRONTIER2014 exhibition in Tokyo from July 23rd till July 25th. Combining OMRON’s electret energy harvester with a Holst Centre/imec power management IC, it can convert and store energy from vibrations in the µW range with high efficiency to the driving voltage of general sensors. The prototype measures just 5 x 6 cm – with potential to shrink as small as 2 x 2 cm. Its small size, light weight (15.4 gram) and user-variable output voltage are ideal for a wide-range of autonomous wireless sensor node applications in the industrial and consumer domains, particularly in inaccessible locations.

Small, autonomous wireless sensors that can simply be installed and then left to collect and share data are attracting huge interest. They are the foundation of the emerging, Internet of Things. And they could enable new levels of automation and equipment monitoring in industrial applications. The ongoing miniaturization and reduction of power consumption of sensors and microelectronics make these devices possible. However, a key question has been how to power them.

“Energy harvesting – extracting unused or waste energy from the local environment – is perfect for autonomous sensor nodes. It does away with the need for cables and changing batteries, allowing true “fix-and-forget” systems. The combination of OMRON’s robust electrostatic vibration harvester and our efficient power management technology enables an extremely compact design that can be installed in even the most inaccessible places – whereas today’s vibrational harvester power supplies are too large and too heavy,” says René Elfrink, Senior Researcher Sensors & Energy Harvesters at Holst Centre/imec.

“The vibration in the environment of customers are various and volatile. Under such an environment, our harvester can produce energy even just a little. But so far, we could not use our harvester as a stable DC power supply. Before developing this compact vibrational harvesting power supply, we benchmarked power management technologies from many potential partners and found Holst Centre/imec’s offering to be the most mature. The resulting power supply meets all the requirements for small, low-power wireless sensors, particularly industrial applications such has equipment control and predictive maintenance systems,” adds Daido Uchida, General manager of Technology Produce & Start-up division of OMRON Corporation.

Working closely with OMRON, researchers from Holst Centre/imec integrated the electrostatic harvester and power management electronics into a power-optimized module just 5 cm x 6 cm. Initial feedback from potential customers suggests this is already small enough for industrial application. However, the module has potential for further miniaturization down to 2 cm x 2 cm.

The supply’s output can be set to anything between 1.5 V and 5 V, giving users complete flexibility to replace any kind of battery in existing designs or create brand new products. The module contains an ON/OFF signal for efficient duty cycling with low power sensor systems.

OMRON is currently putting the prototype through a number of field tests with customers to gather further input before entering volume production.

OMRON