Foundry chipmaker Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Co. Ltd. has said that demand for its wafers will “moderate” in the third quarter after it reported record sales and profits for 2Q13. Third-quarter sales are set to be up between 3.3 and 5.2 percent from Q2, TSMC announced along with its financial result for 2Q13.
TSMC made a record-breaking net income of NT$51.81 billion (about US$1.73 billion) on record consolidated revenue of NT$155.89 billion (about $5.2 billion) in the second quarter of 2013.
Year-over-year the quarterly revenue was up 21.6 percent while it was up 17.4 percent compared with 1Q13. This is an exceptionally large increase for Q2 sequential growth at TSMC but was expected, being just above the mid-point of previous forecast. In US dollar terms the Q2 revenue increased 15.9 percent from the previous quarter and increased 20.7 percent year-over-year. Read More
Photo Credit: Phys.orgIn 2006, when Tomás Palacios completed his PhD in electrical and computer engineering at the University of California at Santa Barbara, he was torn between taking a job in academia or industry.
“I wanted to make sure that the new ideas that we were generating could find a path toward society,” says Palacios, the newly tenured Emmanuel E. Landsman Associate Professor of Electrical Engineering and Computer Science at MIT. “In industry, I was sure that would happen; I was not sure how it would work in academia.”
“What I found when I came here,” he says, “is that MIT is really an amazing place to get all these new ideas out and to collaborate with industry to make sure that the new concepts and new ideas coming out of the university environment find their place in real products and applications.”
According to Palacios, his research group focuses on the application of what he likes to call “extreme materials” to electronics. The 25 graduate students, postdocs and research scientists in the group are split between two major research projects: One focuses on applications of an exotic material called gallium nitride; the other on applications of graphene—a form of carbon—and other “two-dimensional materials” that consist of crystals just a few atoms thick. READ MORE
Process variation has been a major concern of IC manufacturers for many nodes now. As the industry goes below 20nm in concert with new transistor architectures and new materials for transistor channels, extending optical lithography and/or using EUVL, transitioning to 450mm wafers, more advanced wafer cleaning technologies, and so on — these multiple assaults on process variability will need to be addressed. Dr. Randhir Thakur, Executive VP and General Manager of the Silicon Systems Group at Applied Materials, discusses a three-pronged approach.
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
Photo Credit: ETF TrendsApple, Google and a few other sexier, “new tech” companies are the names that usually captivate investors’ attention when it comes to technology stocks and ETFs. However, a familiar sub-sector has helped lead tech’s recent resurgence. In the past three months, the PowerShares QQQ is up almost 8%. Over the same time, shares of Intel have surged 19.5% and it almost feels like that is the quietest almost 20% gain the span of 90 days that has come along in quite a while. Quiet or not, Intel and chip stocks are helping drive a resurgence in semiconductor ETFs. [Semiconductor ETF Bouncing Back] So sturdy have been semiconductor ETFs that opting for any of the three of the group’s largest funds has treated investors to significant out-performance over QQQ. Since March 19, the three dominant chip ETFs have returned an average of 11.6%. [ETF Spotlight: Semiconductors] The leader of the pack over that time has been the iShares PHLX SOX Semiconductor Sector Index Fund (NasdaqGM: SOXX). Almost 12 years old, SOXX holds 31 stocks with the ETF’s top-10 holdings combing for almost 61.6% of the ETF’s weight. Before getting too excited about chip stocks, it is worth noting there have been some tepid performances over the past three months, including a slight loss for SOXX top-10 holding Broadcom (NasdaqGS: BRCM). However, Intel and Applied Materials (NasdaqGS: AMAT) are the ETF’s two largest holdings, combing for 17% of the fund’s weight. Applied Materials has surged 22% over the past 90 days, teaming with Intel to drive SOXX higher. READ MORE
Texas Instruments has said it plans to spend up to $1.69 billion expanding its wafer fab in Chengdu, China and adding an assembly and test operation there. The spending is earmarked to be spread over 15 years and could include the acquisition of land, the creation of facilities, and the purchase of manufacturing equipment, TI (Dallas, Texas) said.
The government of Chengdu has promised to give comprehensive support to the expansion plan, TI added saying that it announced the plan alongside officials from the Chengdu Hi-Tech Zone at a conference there last week.
TI purchased the fully-equipped 200-mm facility in the Chengdu High-tech Zone from Cension Semiconductor Manufacturing Co.in 2010. The Chengdu fab was previously operated by Semiconductor Manufacturing International Corp. on behalf of Cension and TI took on 700 former SMIC and Cension employees that worked at the site and began production of analog ICs. The purchase price of the Chengdu fab was not disclosed at the time. READ MORE
MySemiconDailyTV interviewed Dan Armbrust, President & CEO of SEMATECH in advance of SEMICON West 2013, where he will be a presenter at the R&D Panel: “A conversation on the future of semiconductor manufacturing” (Wednesday July 10 from 10:00AM-11:00AM). Because the semiconductor industry faces a growing chorus of competing interests and economic realities, i.e., near parallel introductions of new transistor architectures, new channel materials, optical lithography extensions and EUV lithography, 450mm wafers, and stacked 3D ICs, it has to find more efficient ways to accomplish R&D. “It would certainly be convenient if we could narrow our focus to fewer of the things we need to do,” Armbrust told MSDTV. “Unfortunately, we need to do them all.” The necessity, he explains, is driven by customer expectations for continued advancements in power, performance, and lower cost. “As an industry, if we’re going to stay on the growth curve we’ve been on and remain vital, we’re going to have to solve all of the problems.”
The challenges facing the industry have a common denominator — they are difficult, complex, and have a fair amount of uncertainty, both technical and economic. “We need to respond to that uncertainty challenge by coordinating better across the entire industry,” said Armbrust. “And that means, wherever possible, reducing redundancies and eliminating waste.” He also pointed out that the timing has to be correct, i.e., when each challenge is addressed, how solutions are introduced, and getting to volume manufacturing much faster than in the past.
With the price points of consumer electronics — especially mobile devices — continuing to be under pressure, semiconductor manufacturers will continue to be challenged with leveraging their participation in R&D consortia ever more efficiently. And consortia will have to adapt accordingly. What doesn’t change is that, as usual, consortia will be working to bring the industry to a consensus and prioritizing actions, as well as identifying infrastructure gaps and addressing them. “The entire supply chain is under pressure to continuously adapt – and to prepare the technology with much more significant up front investment,” said Armbrust. The “why” gets back to uncertainty he pointed out. “If you look at the device roadmap — there’s significant questions about what happens — what’s the next big step as we get closer to the end of scaling as we’re used to it. Similarly, when each new technology will be introduced has a fair amount of uncertainty around it and a lot of people in the industry are talking about how the changes should be sequenced, and the interaction between them.” The degree of technical uncertainty is compounded by the economic uncertainty, i.e., can the changes be introduced while continuing to drive down costs.
To help deal with the uncertainty, Armbrust suggests the industry can get some inspiration from its roots. After all, in the beginning, the semiconductor industry was a bunch of start-ups that had restrictions on resources and were under constant time pressure. SEMATECH has been looking at what start-ups are doing today and applying the lessons learned to the dynamic semiconductor industry environment. “If we’re quick on our feet, we’ll be able to pick the right problems, and work on them when they matter, and pull the industry together in a way that makes sense…quickness and speed will matter.”
The semiconductor industry is bringing to the fore new transistor architectures and new channel materials, along with the transition to EUV lithography (EUVL) and thin-wafer handling capability to enable 3D integration. The topic of new materials below 20nm, therefore, is prescient. MySemiconDailyTV asked Dr. Terry Brewer, founder, President & CEO of Brewer Science, to comment on the issues facing the industry in this Skype video interview:
Perhaps the more difficult topic to get updated now is that of EUV resists—that’s because this sector has reached the competitive stage in the industry as pilot line activity gets closer to reality. “The model of the resist and multilayer structures have come to a point where they are now executable into the early stages of manufacturing,” said Brewer. “It’s come a long way and the model is usable for a little while. There are still technical issues to solve and economic challenges, however.” Though many industry experts concede that directed self-assembly (DSA) will be used as a complement to EUVL, some can see a role for the technology aside from EUV.
Brewer Science presented a paper at the SPIE Advanced Lithography conference on the topic of a multifunctional hard mask neutral layer for DSA and in his interview, Dr. Brewer noted that end users are very excited about DSA. “The technology and processes are moving along very quickly and it looks like it will be available as a complement to EUV, but also as a pathway on its own to achieve smaller and smaller lithography,” said Brewer. “I think what we’re seeing in general, even past DSA, is that the tool chest for materials is broadening very rapidly and can carry lithography down much further than it is now, with a particular tool set or with a variety of tool sets. I think we can accomplish the next several nodes utilizing that technology. It’s very exciting.”
Wrapping up the interview, Dr. Brewer covers the topic of thin wafer handling. He explained that for materials suppliers, the main challenge is that the process is continually evolving. “The customer is evolving it as they understand the needs better and the opportunities for the technology, and the equipment companies are evolving as they understand and better relate to the customer’s needs,” said Brewer. “And the materials suppliers—we’re kind of at the long end of the branch, so as the customer wiggles the branch a little bit, we see a lot of wiggle and change and a lot of movement from those requirements. So we are caught between uncertainty and chaos with a constantly moving target.” Brewer noted that development work is moving into more of the process technology needs, particularly for thin wafer handling where it’s gone from materials technology, to bonding technology, to the sophistication of process to handle thin wafers. “And that’s where we are right now, and at every stage, we have to give the customer an enabling or useful technology that will allow them to apply their development or products at that stage of improvement.”
The biggest challenge of all, however, will be providing solutions at a cost and throughput that matches the requirements of the industry. Finally, Dr. Brewer comments on progress at the company’s recently installed scaleup reactor at its Carbon Electronics Center to support expansion of electronics-grade carbon nanotube materials for CNT-based memory devices. Within the last year or so, customers have been moving from the testing regime to pilot production — hence the need for the new reactor. By about 3Q13, the company expects to be producing about 10x more volume than previously generated.
The European Commission has launched a campaign of public investment in micro- and nanoelectronics with the aim of doubling chip production on the continent to around 20 percent of global production.
The plan is to channel more than 5 billion euro (about $6.4 billion) of public authority money into research, development and innovation over the next seven years to match a similar amount of investment from the companies supported by the plan. However, the spending is likely to be spread across the whole semiconductor supply chain and cannot be used to simply lower the cost of capital or buy production equipment due to anti-subsidy commitments.
European Commission vice president Neelie Kroes said: “Others are aggressively investing in computer chips and Europe cannot be left behind. We have to reinforce and connect our existing strongholds and develop new strengths. A rapid and strong coordination of public investment at EU, member state and regional level is needed to ensure that transformation.”
Kroes, who is responsible for digital economy and services delivery in Europe, has argued for several years that nanoelectronics is strategic to European wealth creation as a least 10 percent of GDP depends on electronic products and services.
Kroes said that the public authorities across Europe, at the Commission, member state and regional level should be able to channel more than 5 billion euro (about $6.4 billion) into research, development an innovation over the next seven years. “This is what will attract not only a similar amount of investment in research and innovation by industry but also the 100 billion euro that industry has committed to invest in Europe if we are able to get our act together,” Kroes said in the text of a speech to launch the initiative. READ MORE
Microchips play an important role in industrial and household electronics. Their miniaturized circuits must not only function faultlessly but also consume as little energy as possible. Researchers are now working on making the tiny devices even more efficient.
Microchips play an important role in industrial and household electronics. Their miniaturized circuits must not only function faultlessly but also consume as little energy as possible. Researchers are now working on making the tiny devices even more efficient.
Microchips play an important role in industrial and household electronics. Their miniaturized circuits must not only function faultlessly but also consume as little energy as possible. Researchers are now working on making the tiny devices even more efficient.
Taiwan will remain among the world’s leading semiconductor markets this year in terms of equipment and material spending, a global industry association said Tuesday.
The Semiconductor Equipment and Materials International (SEMI) has forecast stable growth in the global integrated circuit (IC) industry, where equipment spending is predicted to grow 2.6 percent to US$42.4 billion this year and to US$46.7 billion next year.
Material consumption in 2011 totaled US$47.9 billion and the figure is set to rise to US$49.2 billion this year, according to the association.
Over the past few years, Taiwan’s foundry operators have spent more on equipment and materials than vendors anywhere else in the world, establishing the island as the world’s most important IC market, said Clark Tseng, a senior manager of SEMI Taiwan.
“The global equipment and materials markets were robust in 2011 and 2012,” he told a pre-show press conference prior to SEMICON Taiwan, a global semiconductor trade show slated for Sept. 5-7 in Taipei.
“Taiwan meanwhile is expected to spend over US$9 billion on equipment in both 2012 and 2013, underscoring the island’s leadership status in the global IC market,” the Hsinchu-based analyst said. Read More
Foundry chipmaker Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Co. Ltd. has said that demand for its wafers will “moderate” in the third quarter after it reported record sales and profits for 2Q13. Third-quarter sales are set to be up between 3.3 and 5.2 percent from Q2, TSMC announced along with its financial result for 2Q13.
