Toshiba Starts Second Phase Construction of No. 5 Semiconductor Fabrication Facility

Posted on August 23, 2013 by

Toshiba Corporation today held a groundbreaking ceremony in readiness for the start of construction of Phase 2 of Fab 5, the company’s state-of-the-art fabrication facility (fab) at its Yokkaichi Operations memory production facility in Mie Prefecture.

Toshiba will expand Fab 5 to secure manufacturing space for NAND flash memories fabricated with next generation process technology and for 3D memories. Construction will be completed in summer next year, and decisions on equipment investments and production levels will reflect market trends. Read More

Semiconductor Industry Gets a Sharper Vision of the Future

Posted on June 28, 2013 by

Photo Credit: R&DThe world’s most advanced extreme-ultraviolet microscope is about to go online at the U.S. Dept. of Energy (DOE)’s Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory (Berkeley Lab), and the queue of semiconductor companies waiting to use it already stretches out the door.

The much-anticipated SHARP microscope (SEMATECH High-NA Actinic Recticle review Project) was conceived and built by scientists at Berkeley Lab’s Center for X-ray Optics (CXRO) and will provide semiconductor companies with the means to push their chip-making technology to new levels of miniaturization and complexity. The instrument is housed at the Advanced Light Source (ALS) at Berkeley Lab.

SHARP replaces an older tool, also located at the ALS, and has been many years in the making. Kenneth Goldberg, a researcher in Berkeley Lab’s Materials Sciences Div., and deputy directory of CXRO, runs the project.

“With the old tool we suffered greatly just to squeeze good results from it,” says Goldberg. “We always talked about what we’d do if we had the chance to do it right.”

Goldberg and his colleagues got that chance thanks to a partnership with SEMATECH, a consortium of semiconductor companies and chip-makers who recognized in CXRO the ideal combination of resources and expertise. Those companies are interested in developing EUV fabrication techniques in order to shrink circuit elements in their computer chips down to a few nanometers in size—five to ten times smaller than they are today.

In semiconductor fabrication, circuits of silicon are made via photolithography. READ MORE

Nanomaterials Go Beyond Post-Silicon to Post-Semiconductor

Posted on June 26, 2013 by

Yesterday, IEEE Spectrum published a feature “Changing the Transistor Channel” that chronicles the laborious migration from the ubiquitous silicon in transistors to new materials, primarily compound semiconductors known as III-Vs.

These efforts to replace the semiconducting silicon in the channels of transistors is being pursued by all the big chip manufacturers and international research labs.. Various nanomaterials from graphene to nanowires made from III-V materials are being experimented with to help achieve that aim.

As momentum builds in this field, researchers at Michigan Technological University (MTU) are looking ahead not only beyond silicon but also to when semiconductors will not even be needed for transistors.

Yoke Khin Yap, a physicist at MTU, and his colleagues, including those at Oak Ridge National Laboratory (ORNL), have developed a method by which they use an insulator—boron nitride nanotubes—coupled with quantum dots to create a path for electrons to travel between electrodes in a transistor. No semiconductor material is used in the design.

“The idea was to make a transistor using a nanoscale insulator with nanoscale metals on top,” Yap said in a press release. “In principle, you could get a piece of plastic and spread a handful of metal powders on top to make the devices, if you do it right. But we were trying to create it in nanoscale, so we chose a nanoscale insulator, boron nitride nanotubes, or BNNTs for the substrate.” READ MORE

Semiconductor Inventory Decline Suggests Strong PC and Mobile Sales on the Horizon

Posted on June 21, 2013 by

A recent development in the semiconductor market is leading analysts to foresee a big season ahead for mobile device and PC vendors.
Research firm IHS noted that inventory levels among semiconductor device manufacturers dropped in the early months of 2013. The company said that while revenues declined slightly following normal seasonal patterns, the number of devices on hand with the manufacturers who purchase semiconductors suggests that mobile handset, tablet and PC vendors are gearing up for a big sales push in the back to school and holiday shopping seasons.

Photo Credit: v3.co.ukAnalysts noted that the drop in semiconductor stockpiles combined with growing levels of inventory further down the supply chain indicate that more devices are being built and set to ship to retailers in the coming months.
Because semiconductor vendors directly supply the companies that build devices, trends in the market can serve as an early predictor for how the PC and mobile device markets will be faring in subsequent months.
Earlier this year, researchers warned that semiconductor vendors were seeing their inventories grow to worryingly high levels amidst weak interest. Through a combination of better supply management and an brighter economic outlook amidst vendors, chipmakers have been able to move their stock. READ MORE

Touchstone Semiconductor Introduces The Industry’s Only Ultra Low-Power, Load Independent, High-Efficiency Boost

Posted on May 16, 2013 by

Photo Credit: Semiconductor OnlineMilpitas, CA (PRWEB) – Touchstone Semiconductor, a leading developer of high-performance, low-power analog integrated circuit solutions, today announced the TS3300 boost regulator. The TS3300 uses only 3.5µA of supply current, and the TS3300’s efficiency performance is constant over a 100:1 span in output current. No other low power boost converter offers this level of performance.

The TS3300 is the industry’s first boost plus linear regulator that can operate from supply voltages as low as 0.6V up to 4.5V and can deliver at least 75mA of continuous output current. The TS3300 is ideally suited to be powered from a wide variety of power sources including single or multiple-cell alkaline or single Li-chemistry batteries. The boost regulator’s output voltage range can be user-set from 1.8V to 5.25V to power an entire range of low-power analog circuits, microcontrollers, and low-energy Bluetooth™ radios simultaneously. While configured to produce a 3V output from a 1.2V input source, the TS3300’s efficiency performance is constant over a 100:1 span in output current – no other low-power boost converter offers this level of performance. For powering low-energy radios, its internal, low-dropout linear regulator can deliver up to 100mA output current while reducing boost-converter-generated output voltage ripple by 3X. READ MORE

Mentor Graphics Pyxis Platform and PDK Automation Process Adopted by MagnaChip Semiconductor

Posted on May 15, 2013 by

Mentor Graphics Corp. (NASDAQ: MENT), a leader in electronic design automation, today announced that MagnaChip Semiconductor Corporation (“MagnaChip”) has adopted the Pyxis(R) custom IC design platform and the Mentor(R) process design kit (PDK) automation process. MagnaChip is a leading designer and manufacturer of analog and mixed-signal semiconductor products for high-volume consumer applications.

With significant growth in the customer base, MagnaChip added the Mentor Graphics(R) analog mixed-signal (AMS) design and verification solution that could handle a high level of mixed-signal complexity, different levels of design abstraction, and support multiple CAD tools in an integrated, unified environment. A key desired attribute was a reliable process for automating the creation of PDKs that could be easily inserted into their AMS design and verification flow.

“Pyxis expands our ability to work with multiple vendor tools with a proven process for automating the creation of PDKs, which is very important to our customers. With Mentor tools and their automated PDK creation process, MagnaChip is better positioned to serve broader customer base and expand businesses for both MagnaChip and Mentor Graphics,” said Taejong Lee, EVP and General Manager of MagnaChip’s Corporate Engineering Division.

The basic design components for analog mixed-signal IC design are delivered in the form of PDKs. Key components of the PDK are the fundamental building blocks for designing custom circuitry: transistors, resistors, capacitors, diodes, inductors, etc. PDKs have various models to represent these devices; functional verification models for use in simulation, symbols for use in schematics, parameterized and fixed geometries for use in layout and physical rules for use in physical verification.

“MagnaChip is a key partner of the deep submicron division of Mentor and one whose products have a growing importance in the marketplace,” said Robert Hum, vice president and general manager, DSM division, Mentor. “We are delighted that they have chosen the Pyxis custom IC design platform and our automated PDK tools and flow.”

About Pyxis

The Pyxis custom IC platform includes integrated solutions for design capture, floorplanning, custom routing, polygon editing, physical layout, schematic-driven layout, concurrent editing and chip assembly. To help companies jump-start their design cycles and cut time-to-market, Mentor and its foundry partners have developed design kits. These kits include all the foundry-specific devices and models for use with the Pyxis custom IC design and platform. The platform supports all common commercial design kit formats plus numerous customer proprietary formats. Mentor supports OpenPDK, iPDK and other industry standards. READ MORE

Compact 800-W Programmable Power Supply Features Digital Controls

Posted on May 9, 2013 by

TDK Corp. has announced the expansion of TDK-Lambda’s Z+ Series of programmable power supplies, which now includes the new 800-W models in addition to the previously released 200- and 400-W models. These high-density, high efficiency, 2U format, bench-top and rack-mountable power supplies are designed to meet the demands of a variety of ATE, laboratory, and OEM applications, including test and measurement, semiconductor burn-in, component test, and LED/laser test. They also serve RF-amplifier, electromagnetic, and electrochemical applications.

TDK-Lambda’s new Z+800 provide 800 W of output power with a selection of output voltage ranges that cover from 0 to 100 VDC with output currents up to 72 A. The Z+ 800-W units are 66% smaller and 67% lighter than previous generations and provide a 200% increase in power density. All Z+ standard models are 3.27” high by 2.76” wide, so up to six units can be installed in the optional 19” rack housing; blanking plates are available for unused slots.

The Z+ 200-W, 400-W, 600-W, and 800-W programmable power supplies have comprehensive front panel controls with individual rotary encoders for output current and voltage. The controls also let users access power-supply settings such as OVP level, start-up mode, and remote control and monitoring of parameters. Separate 4-digit voltage and current displays are provided along with function/status LEDs, pushbuttons for output preview, output on/off, fine/coarse adjustment, and other features. Options for front panel output-jacks and multiple-unit housings are available for bench-top applications.

All Z+ models include built-in arbitrary waveform generation and storage for up to four preprogrammed functions; making them suitable for test and simulation tasks in the automotive, solar-panel and LED/laser industries, to name a few. These power supplies feature fast command processing times, output sequencing, and two programmable output pins that, for example, can be used to control isolation relays. Up to 12 voltage or current values can be programmed using the waveform creator software provided, and four waveforms can be stored in the Z+ unit’s memory. More complex waveforms can be created using NI LabVIEW. These waveforms can be either repetitive or single-shot and injected into the system under test. The results can be analyzed confirming the proper or faulty operation of the powered device or system. READ MORE

Spectro-X Simultaneously Analyzes Four RF and Microwave Spectrum Capture Files

Posted on May 2, 2013 by

X-COM Systems LLC, a subsidiary of Bird Technologies Group, has introduced Version 4.0 of its Spectro-X RF and microwave signal-analysis software—a comprehensive toolkit designed to search for and analyze signals of interest within long-duration recordings of signal activity. The new version can simultaneously analyze up to four recorded RF and microwave spectrum files with precision file alignment to plus or minus one sample. It includes multidomain correlated markers and features that make the software more versatile and easier to use.

There are many applications for Spectro-X software, including development and analysis of ELINT, SIGINT, ECM, ESM, multichannel communications, and MIMO system performance. The software can also be used for testing radar systems. The software requires no programming skills and can reduce the time required to discover RF anomalies within a complex spectral environment or to evaluate signal characteristics over time.

Spectro-X operates on files of signal activity captured over the air using a COTS signal analyzer and X-COM’s new IQC5000A Series Spectrum Capture and Playback System or on custom spectrum files created in The Mathworks’ MATLAB or other software. It has four discrete search engines (carrier, wireless standard, arbitrary waveform, and pulse) that allow users to zoom in to specific sections of a file in frequency, time, or both, to find signals of interest. Results can be exported in a file format usable by vector signal analysis software for demodulation and detailed analysis. Pulsed waveforms can be characterized by their rise and fall times, pulse width, pulse repetition interval, peak and average power, and carrier frequency.

Multichannel Capabilities

Spectro-X 4.0 now allows up to four different files recorded at different times to be aligned in time in order to make comparisons between them. For example, in a typical “threat and response” scenario on a test range, an aircraft might make four passes through the measurement area, perform the same RF or microwave functions, and be subjected to the same jamming or radar pulses each time. The operator must interpret the data from each pass to determine how the aircraft’s threat protection systems performed. In addition, Spectro-X makes it easier to identify different levels of interference that occurred during each pass. The four files can also be offset in time and compared, placing marker measurements on all four plots. This is helpful when evaluating the performance of a radar system for example, to see if it performs exactly the same way during each scan. READ MORE