The semiconductor industry struggles to control water use

Posted on June 15, 2012 by

Intel, the semiconductor manufacturer, recently released its 2011 sustainability report and the news, in terms of water, wasn’t good. They’ve failed to meet their water reduction goal: While water use per chip is down 6% from 2010, it’s up 12% from 2007, the baseline year. The new goal is to achieve 2010 per chip water use by 2020; they’ve given themselves a higher bar and double the time to reach it.

Further, total water use in 2011 was up 11% from 2007, from 7.5 to 8.3b gallons, a trend attributed to the ‘increasing complexity of manufacturing processes.’ And this is despite the fact that the company has spent over $100m since 1998 on water efficiency efforts.

Intel isn’t the only big company in the water intensive semiconductor industry to show disappointing water reduction results. IBM, renown for their impressive water efficiency work at their Burlington, VT plant, where advanced analytics and infrastructure upgrades reduced water use 27%, and their foray into the smart water business, reported that their total water use in 2010 was up 3% over 2009.

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Semiconductor Plants Show Dramatic Energy Reduction, Says Report

Posted on June 8, 2012 by

Semiconductor manufacturing plants dramatically reduced their average energy use from 1997 to 2011 according to research by the International Sematech Manufacturing Initiative.

In Worldwide Fab Energy Study, researchers from ISMI’s Environment, Safety and Health Center evaluated the annual energy use of each participating fabrication plant, or fab. They found that energy consumed by process equipment, which according to the latest survey accounts for more than 50 percent of a facility’s energy usage, has improved its efficiencies by half by 2011 and non-process equipment energy consumption has become one-fourth of the 1997 values.

The study, which was conducted at 300 mm and 200 mm semiconductor manufacturing facilities in Asia, North America and Europe, found that the next highest energy consumers, after process equipment, were central chiller plants and bulk gas production. Waste heat recovery and reuse practices were benchmarked for best in class performance.

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Global Semiconductor Sales Grow at Fastest Rate in Almost Two Years on Sequential Monthly Basis, Top $24 Billion for First Time in 2012

Posted on June 6, 2012 by

The Semiconductor Industry Association (SIA), representing U.S. leadership in semiconductor manufacturing and design, today announced that worldwide sales of semiconductors reached $24.1 billion for the month of April 2012, a 3.4 percent increase from the prior month when sales were $23.3 billion. This marks the largest month-over-month growth for the industry since May 2010. However, sales from April 2012 were 2.9 percent below the April 2011 total of $24.8 billion. Further, 2012 year-to-date sales totaled $93.7 billion, a decrease of 5.9 percent from the year-to-date figures at the same time last year ($99.5 billion). All monthly sales numbers represent a three-month moving average.

“The outlook for the global semiconductor industry continues to be one of cautious optimism,” said Brian Toohey, president & CEO, Semiconductor Industry Association. “We are beginning to see an encouraging trend of modest, sequential growth and we anticipate this trend will continue during the rest of this year, with stronger growth predicted for 2013 and beyond. But that optimism continues to be tempered by macroeconomic factors.”

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Read more here: http://www.sacbee.com/2012/06/05/4540505/global-semiconductor-sales-grow.html#storylink=cpy

Atmel For The Semiconductor Summer Buying Season

Posted on June 4, 2012 by

Looks like 2012 is shaping up like 2011 as we enter the semiconductor summer buying season. One stock to keep on your radar is Atmel (ATML). Atmel is a diversified semiconductor company that makes microcontrollers, non-volatile memories, RF and auto integrated circuits, and ASICS. After two quarters of negative revenue growth, the midpoint of Atmel’s revenue guidance for the June quarter is $372M up 4% sequentially, Non-GAAP gross margin guidance of 44%, Non-GAAP operating expense guidance of $123M, and a diluted Non-GAAP share count guidance of 450M shares.

Atmel is now the 4th largest microcontroller supplier in the market, excluding Smart Cards it’s 3rd according to Gartner. This is up from 8th place in 2008. Touch products generated $375M in revenue (1/3rd of microcontroller revenues) for Atmel in 2011. Its competitors in the touchscreen controller market are Cypress Semiconductor (CY) and Synaptics (SYNA). According to Atmel’s statement at a recent tech conference, excluding Apple products its market share has risen from less than 5% back in 2009 to over 40% in 2011.

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The Top 5 Semiconductor Stocks of 2012

Posted on May 30, 2012 by

With tech stocks seeing a strong start to 2012, you’d expect the cyclical semiconductor industry to contain some strong outperformers. With 82 out of the 150 companies in the industry with market caps greater than $500 million seeing gains this year, the general trend has been up.

Yet, May has definitely hit semiconductor stocks hard. The widely followed Philadelphia Semi Index is down 15.8% from highs reached just two months ago. Fears of a global slowdown have been stoked as all eyes turn to the eurozone. Such a situation could be brutal on a semiconductor industry that’s just recovering from a huge downturn in 2009.

Today, we’re looking at a group of semi companies that have been able to hold onto their gains, and we’ll see what’s led them to such strong results in the first five months of the year.

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Solantro Semiconductor Raises $10 Million for Solar PV Module Integrated Electronics

Posted on May 23, 2012 by

Solantro Semiconductor Corp. of Ontario, Canada today announced the completion of its Series A financing in the amount of $10 million (CAD). This funding was led by Black Coral Capital and included participation from Presidio Ventures (a Sumitomo Corporation company), Business Development Bank of Canada (BDC) and Export Development Canada (EDC).

Solantro designs, manufactures and markets semiconductor chipsets and reference designs for use within distributed solar photovoltaic (PV) power conversion equipment. Solantro’s chipset-based solutions redefine the economic model for PV module manufacturers while providing for higher energy yields and significantly reduced costs, time and complexity associated with PV system design and installation. Distributed, module-integrated, power conversion solutions accelerate the global deployment of solar PV by optimising the economics of PV installations.

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Reaction uses carbon dioxide to make carbon-based semiconductor

Posted on May 21, 2012 by

A materials scientist at Michigan Technological University has discovered a chemical reaction that not only eats up the greenhouse gas carbon dioxide, it also creates something useful. And, by the way, it releases energy.

Making carbon-based products from carbon dioxide is nothing new, but carbon dioxide molecules are so stable that those reactions usually take up a lot of energy. If that energy were to come from fossil fuels, over time the chemical reactions would ultimately result in more carbon dioxide entering the atmosphere—defeating the purpose of a process that could otherwise help mitigate climate change.

Professor Yun Hang Hu’s research team developed a heat-releasing reaction between carbon dioxide and Li₃N that forms two chemicals: amorphous carbon nitride, a semiconductor; and lithium cyanamide, a precursor to fertilizers.

“The reaction converts carbon dioxide to a solid material,” said Hu. “That would be good even if it weren’t useful, but it is.”

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Saratoga will host global semiconductor industry group

Posted on May 18, 2012 by

Executives of global semiconductor companies will be in Saratoga County on May 24-25 to make trade policy recommendations to their governments and set environmental goals.

The World Semiconductor Council is hosting its 16th annual meeting at the Saratoga Hilton at City Center, the Canfield Casino and TEC-SMART in Malta. It is expected to draw 100 attendees from the semiconductor industry.

The council is a coalition of semiconductor associations from the United States, China, Europe, Japan, Korea and Taiwan.

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Semiconductor ETF Experiences Big Inflow

Posted on May 16, 2012 by

Looking today at week-over-week shares outstanding changes among the universe of ETFs covered at ETF Channel, one standout is the Semiconductor ETF where we have detected an approximate $58.1 million dollar inflow — that’s a 19.7% increase week over week in outstanding units (from 9,370,937 to 11,220,937). Among the largest underlying components of SMH, in trading today Intel Corp is up about 0.6%, Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Co., Ltd. is off about 1%, and Texas Instruments Inc. is lower by about 0.8%.

Looking at the chart above, SMH’s low point in its 52 week range is $29.21 per share, with $36.17 as the 52 week high point — that compares with a last trade of $31.32. Comparing the most recent share price to the 200 day moving average can also be a useful technical analysis technique.

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New Industries To Bolster Local Semiconductor Segment

Posted on May 14, 2012 by

LED lighting, smart grids, new energy and LTE communication are expected to boost China’s semiconductor production value beginning this year.

Emerging industries will steer developments in China’s semiconductor industry beginning this year. For a start, makers are looking at a 4 percent increase in production value from LED lighting, smart grids, new energy and LTE communication. Smartphones and TVs, panel computers, cloud computing, electric vehicles and personal medical electronics are also expected to drive demand.

Suppliers expect to benefit from the spreading global adoption of diode-based illumination as the “green” replacement for traditional incandescent technology. They are counting on the legislative action in the US, Europe, Japan, Australia and even China to accelerate the shift.

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