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Monthly Archives: November 2014

Semiconductor Materials: Growth, Opportunities and Challenges

Don’t miss this week’s webcast on Thursday at 1:00 pm Eastern, 10:00am Pacific.

We have two great speakers lined up. First, Lita Shon‐Roy, President/CEO of Techcet, will provide an overview of chip level materials markets, focusing on growth and opportunities. Next, SRC’s Jon Candelaria, Director, GRC Interconnect and Packaging Sciences, will describe how today’s researchers are exploring materials challenges beyond Moore’s Law.

Click here to register.

Here are some more details:

Lita will talk about how current 3-dimensional structures present new challenges relating to uniformity, lithographic resolution, high aspect ratio etching and fills, and planarization while addressing continuing need to stay at or below current technology node scaling.  What do these challenges really mean in terms of changing material requirements and materials growth opportunities?  In her presentation, Lita will highlight those processes that must have better, alternative process materials, and provide market forecasts on these materials opportunities.

In his presentation, Jon will focus on how the electronics industry is facing a growing crisis in being able to continue providing cost-effective processes and designs to support the continuation of what’s been referred to as ‘Moore’s Law.’ This ‘Law’, or more accurately ‘observation of the economics involved in scaling integrated circuits,’ has been a very useful guideline for several decades, but as with any similar types of projections, has been expected to some day run its course. While the exact timeframe is still uncertain, that ‘day’ is now within sight, and yet there are still no clear paths forward beyond that point. This presentation will provide a brief glimpse of some of the key materials-related challenges that exist within the frontend (devices), lithography, and backend-of-line (chip level interconnects). It will also include just a few of the research concepts that offer some potential paths forward, which the Semiconductor Research Corporation and its member companies are exploring alongside the university researchers they are supporting.

And speaker bios:

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Lita Shon‐Roy, President/CEO of Techcet, has worked in the electronics materials industry in business development and technical marketing for more than 25 years. Her work experience spans from business development, marketing and sales of IC’s, equipment, and materials to process development of flat panel displays (TFTs). She has developed new business opportunities for companies such as RASIRC/Matheson Gases and IPEC/Speedfam and helped establish marketing and sales proficiency in companies such as Air Products/Schumacher, Brooktree/Rockwell, and Hughes Aircraft. Lita helped build IPEC as a leader in CMP equipment as Director of International Sales. In 1998, Lita cofounded Techcet Group, LLC. She has authored and co‐authored various articles and texts focused on the semiconductor processing, industry forecasting, and the world economy and is now a recognized expert in electronic materials marketing and business development. Lita holds a Master’s Degree in Electrical Engineering, with a specialty in Solid State Physics from USC and a Bachelor’s Degree in Chemical Engineering from UCSD. She is currently completing her MBA at California State University, Dominguez Hills.

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Jon Candelaria, Director, GRC Interconnect and Packaging Sciences

Jon Candelaria has over 35 years of experience in the electronics industry in a wide variety of engineering and managerial roles. He was most recently a Distinguished Member of the Technical Staff at Motorola’s Applied Research & Technology Center before joining the SRC in September, 2010 as the Director for Interconnect and Packaging Sciences. He has over a dozen issued patents and published technical articles, and received the Motorola Patent of the Year Award for an invention which contributed over $1B to Motorola over the course of its lifetime. He served as Technical Program Chair and General Chair of the IEEE Electron Devices Society’s flagship conference, the IEDM. Jon was the V.P. of Conferences for the IEEE’s Electron Devices Society (EDS), the EDS representative on a joint United Nations-IEEE Humanitarian Challenge advisory committee, and was Chair of both the IEEE Computer Society and Laser and Electro Optics Society Phoenix Chapters. He is currently the Treasurer and Technical Program Committee member for the International Interconnect Technology Conference (IITC), and is a member of the Editorial Panel for Future Fabs International.