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TSMC today announced the foundry segment’s first and most comprehensive ultra-low power technology platform aimed at a wide range of applications for the rapidly evolving Internet of Things (IoT) and wearable device markets that require a wide spectrum of technologies to best serve these diverse applications. In this platform, TSMC offers multiple processes to provide significant power reduction benefits for IoT and wearable products and a comprehensive design ecosystem to accelerate time-to-market for customers.

TSMC’s ultra-low power process lineup expands from the existing 0.18-micron extremely low leakage (0.18eLL) and 90nm ultra low leakage (90uLL) nodes, and 16nm FinFET technology, to new offerings of 55nm ultra-low power (55ULP), 40ULP and 28ULP, which support processing speeds of up to 1.2GHz. The wide spectrum of ultra-low power processes from 0.18-micron to 16nm FinFET is ideally suited for a variety of smart and power-efficient applications in the IoT and wearable device markets. Radio frequency and embedded Flash memory capabilities are also available in 0.18um to 40nm ultra-low power technologies, enabling system level integration for smaller form factors as well as facilitating wireless connections among IoT products.

Compared with their previous low power generations, TSMC’s ultra-low power processes can further reduce operating voltages by 20 percent to 30 percent to lower both active power and standby power consumption and enable significant increases in battery life — by 2X to 10X — when much smaller batteries are demanded in IoT/wearable applications.

“This is the first time in the industry that we offer a comprehensive platform to meet the demands and innovation for the versatile Internet of Things market where ultra-low power and ubiquitous connectivity are most critical,” said TSMC President and Co-CEO, Dr. Mark Liu. “Bringing such a wide spectrum of offerings to this emerging market demonstrates TSMC’s technology leadership and commitment to bring great value to our customers and enable design wins with competitive products.”

“TSMC’s new ultra-low power process technology not only reduces power for always-on devices, but enables the integration of radios and FLASH delivering a significant performance and efficiency gain for next-generation intelligent products,” said Dr. Dipesh Patel, executive vice president and general manager, physical design group, ARM. “Through a collaborative partnership that leverages the energy-efficient ARM Cortex-M and Cortex-A CPUs and  TSMC’s new process technology platform, we can collectively deliver the ingredients for innovation that will drive the next wave of IoT, wearable, and other connected technologies.”

“Low power is the number one priority for Internet-of-Things and battery-operated mobile devices,” said Martin Lund, Senior Vice President and General Manager of the IP Group at Cadence. “TSMC’s new ULP technology platform coupled with Cadence’s low-power mixed-signal design flow and extensive IP portfolio will better meet the unique always-on, low-power requirements of IoT and other power sensitive devices worldwide.”

“Silicon Labs welcomes TSMC’s ultra-low power initiative because it will enable a range of energy-friendly processing, sensing and connectivity technologies we are actively developing for the Internet of Things,” said Tyson Tuttle, Chief Executive Officer, Silicon Labs. “We look forward to continuing our successful collaboration with TSMC to bring our solutions to market.”

In the LED packaging world, a wind of change is blowing. A LED TV crisis, and new Chinese players have totally modified the LED industry and its supply chain. Under this context, with a high competitive environment, new challenges have been identified by Yole Développement (Yole) analysts: efficacy improvement, cost decrease. To answer to the LED market needs, companies have today to innovate their technologies and implement new solutions like Flip Chip for LED packaging.

highpowerled_breakdown_yole_sept.2014

“In 2013, LED based on Flip Chip technology represented 11 percent (in volume) of the overall high power LED market; such market share should reach 24 percent (in volume as well) by 2020”, explains Pars Mukish, Senior Market and Technology Analyst, LED, OLED & Compound Semiconductors, at Yole (Source: LED Packaging 2014 report, to be released end of September 2014).

At the end of September, the 4th International LED professional Symposium +Expo (LpS 2014) will take place for the second time. Located in Bregenz, Austria and targeting industrials and researchers involved in LED design and engineering, the symposium is a three-day event including conferences, workshops, networking and exhibition.

At LpS 2014, Yole will present its latest analysis, with a special focus on LED chip manufacturing and packaging. During his presentation, Pars Mukish from Yole, will highlight the recent developments dedicated to LED chip manufacturing and packaging. Yole’s analyst will detail main market trends, emerging technologies and technical challenges including packaging process steps and supply chain.

All these results are part of two technology & market reports, LED Front-End Manufacturing Trends (released in May 2014) and LED Packaging that will be released end of September 2014.

“At Yole, we are daily working with the key players of the LED industry, to understand and analyze recent developments on manufacturing process and packaging solutions. Our objective is to evaluate the impact of the LED penetration rate in the solid state lighting market,” explains Pars Mukish.

LpS 2014 is a 60-lecture program and welcomes 1,300 visitors.

SEMI announced that it has successfully appealed to the U.S. government to review the validity of current export controls on semiconductor etch equipment.  On September 8, 2014, the U.S. Department of Commerce published a notice in the Federal Register announcing the launch of the first Foreign Availability Assessment in more than 20 years. The assessment is in response to SEMI’s formal petition asserting that etch equipment comparable to the controlled specification is available from Chinese sources.

“SEMI is pleased to have facilitated a constructive dialog with international industry participants and the U.S. government in order to pursue updated and appropriate levels of export control,” said Jonathan Davis, SEMI global vice president of advocacy.  “The decontrol of semiconductor etch technology is a necessary recognition of modern commercial realities and will contribute to a level field of competition.”

Anistropic plasma dry etching equipment designed or optimized to produce critical dimensions of 65nm or less within specific uniformity capabilities is controlled by the Department of Commerce for national security reasons.  Considered a “dual-use” technology, advanced etch equipment can be used for both civil and military applications.  While the technology can be used to produce devices for military application, the vast majority of commercial etch technology is used by semiconductor manufacturers that produce integrated circuits (ICs) and other devices for common computing, communication and consumer electronics products.

“Compliance with licensing protocols can be time-consuming and expensive,” said Davis.  SEMI members’ global customers potentially view delays and unpredictability associated with licensing processes as a negative factor in purchasing decisions.”

Proving the existence of an indigenous manufacturing capability or source would render U.S. controls baseless and allow U.S. producers more equal access to foreign markets.  The process of invalidating a controlled item due to foreign availability is defined in the Export Administration Act of 1979 and amended Export Administration Regulations (EAR). The Bureau of Industry and Security (BIS) is tasked with conducting the assessment and providing a report to the Secretary of Commerce.  Having found sufficient merit in the SEMI claim, BIS is initiating the assessment and soliciting public comments.

The Commerce Department’s Bureau of Industry and Security (BIS) has 120 days after the formal notice to complete a review of foreign production capacity within China and deliver a report to the Secretary detailing their findings.

The full Federal Register notice is available for review here: https://federalregister.gov/a/2014-21211

SEMI is the global industry association serving the nano- and micro-electronic manufacturing supply chains. SEMI maintains offices in Bangalore, Beijing, Berlin, Brussels, Grenoble, Hsinchu, Moscow, San Jose, Seoul, Shanghai, Singapore, Tokyo, and Washington, D.C.

Move over, graphene. An atomically thin, two-dimensional, ultrasensitive semiconductor material for biosensing developed by researchers at UC Santa Barbara promises to push the boundaries of biosensing technology in many fields, from health care to environmental protection to forensic industries.

Based on molybdenum disulfide or molybdenite (MoS2), the biosensor material — used commonly as a dry lubricant — surpasses graphene’s already high sensitivity, offers better scalability and lends itself to high-volume manufacturing. Results of the researchers’ study have been published in ACS Nano.

Concept art of a molybdenum disulfide field-effect transistor based biosensor demonstrated by UCSB researchers with ability to detect ultra-low (femtomolar) concentrations with high sensitivity that is 74-fold higher than that of graphene FET biosensors. - Photo Credit: Peter Allen

Concept art of a molybdenum disulfide field-effect transistor based biosensor demonstrated by UCSB researchers with ability to detect ultra-low (femtomolar) concentrations with high sensitivity that is 74-fold higher than that of graphene FET biosensors. – Photo Credit: Peter Allen

“This invention has established the foundation for a new generation of ultrasensitive and low-cost biosensors that can eventually allow single-molecule detection — the holy grail of diagnostics and bioengineering research,” said Samir Mitragotri, co-author and professor of chemical engineering and director of the Center for Bioengineering at UCSB. “Detection and diagnostics are a key area of bioengineering research at UCSB and this study represents an excellent example of UCSB’s multifaceted competencies in this exciting field.”

The key, according to UCSB professor of electrical and computer engineering Kaustav Banerjee, who led this research, is MoS2’s band gap, the characteristic of a material that determines its electrical conductivity.

Semiconductor materials have a small but nonzero band gap and can be switched between conductive and insulated states controllably. The larger the band gap, the better its ability to switch states and to insulate leakage current in an insulated state. MoS2’s wide band gap allows current to travel but also prevents leakage and results in more sensitive and accurate readings.

The limitations of graphene

While graphene has attracted wide interest as a biosensor due to its two-dimensional nature that allows excellent electrostatic control of the transistor channel by the gate, and high surface-to-volume ratio, the sensitivity of a graphene field-effect transistor (FET) biosensor is fundamentally restricted by the zero band gap of graphene that results in increased leakage current, leading to reduced sensitivity, explained Banerjee, who is also the director of the Nanoelectronics Research Lab at UCSB.

Graphene has been used, among other things, to design FETs — devices that regulate the flow of electrons through a channel via a vertical electric field directed into the channel by a terminal called a “gate.” In digital electronics, these transistors control the flow of electricity throughout an integrated circuit and allow for amplification and switching.

In the realm of biosensing, the physical gate is removed, and the current in the channel is modulated by the binding between embedded receptor molecules and the charged target biomolecules to which they are exposed. Graphene has received wide interest in the biosensing field and has been used to line the channel and act as a sensing element whose surface potential (or conductivity) can be modulated by the interaction (known as conjugation) between the receptor and target molecules that results in net accumulation of charges over the gate region.

However, said the research team, despite graphene’s excellent characteristics, its performance is limited by its zero band gap. Electrons travel freely across a graphene FET — hence, it cannot be “switched off” — which in this case results in current leakages and higher potential for inaccuracies.

Much research in the graphene community has been devoted to compensating for this deficiency, either by patterning graphene to make nanoribbons or by introducing defects in the graphene layer — or using bilayer graphene stacked in a certain pattern that allows band gap opening upon application of a vertical electric field — for better control and detection of current.

Enter MoS2, a material already making waves in the semiconductor world for the similarities it shares with graphene, including its atomically thin hexagonal structure, and planar nature, as well as what it can do that graphene can’t: act like a semiconductor.

“Monolayer or few-layer MoS2 have a key advantage over graphene for designing an FET biosensor: They have a relatively large and uniform band gap (1.2-1.8 eV, depending on the number of layers) that significantly reduces the leakage current and increases the abruptness of the turn-on behavior of the FETs, thereby increasing the sensitivity of the biosensor,” said Banerjee.

‘The best of everything’

Additionally, according to Deblina Sarkar, a PhD student in Banerjee’s lab and the lead author of the article, two-dimensional MoS2 is relatively simple to manufacture.

“While one-dimensional materials such as carbon nanotubes and nanowires also allow excellent electrostatics and at the same time possess band gap, they are not suitable for low-cost mass production due to their process complexities,” she said. “Moreover, the channel length of MoS2 FET biosensor can be scaled down to the dimensions similar to those of small biomolecules such as DNA or small proteins, still maintaining good electrostatics, which can lead to high sensitivity even for detection of single quanta of these biomolecular species,” she added.

“In fact, atomically thin MoS2 provides the best of everything: great electrostatics due to their ultra-thin body, scalability (due to large band gap), as well as patternability due to their planar nature that is essential for high-volume manufacturing,” said Banerjee.

The MoS2 biosensors demonstrated by the UCSB team have already provided ultrasensitive and specific protein sensing with a sensitivity of 196 even at 100 femtomolar (a billionth of a millionth of a mole) concentrations. This protein concentration is similar to one drop of milk dissolved in a hundred tons of water. An MoS2-based pH sensor achieving sensitivity as high as 713 for a pH change by one unit along with efficient operation over a wide pH range (3-9) is also demonstrated in the same work.

“This transformative technology enables highly specific, low-power, high-throughput physiological sensing that can be multiplexed to detect a number of significant, disease-specific factors in real time,” commented Scott Hammond, executive director of UCSB’s Translational Medicine Research Laboratories.

Biosensors based on conventional FETs have been gaining momentum as a viable technology for the medical, forensic and security industries since they are cost-effective compared to optical detection procedures. Such biosensors allow for scalability and label-free detection of biomolecules — removing the step and expense of labeling target molecules with florescent dye. “In essence,” continued Hammond, “the promise of true evidence-based, personalized medicine is finally becoming reality.”

“This demonstration is quite remarkable,” said Andras Kis, professor at École Polytechnique Fédérale de Lausanne in Switzerland and a leading scientist in the field of 2D materials and devices.

“At present, the scientific community worldwide is actively seeking practical applications of 2D semiconductor materials such as MoS2 nanosheets. Professor Banerjee and his team have identified a breakthrough application of these nanomaterials and provided new impetus for the development of low-power and low-cost ultrasensitive biosensors,” continued Kis, who is not connected to the project.

Wei Liu and Xuejun Xie from UCSB’s Department of Electrical and Computer Engineering and Aaron Anselmo from the Department of Chemical Engineering also conducted research for this study. Research on this project was supported by the National Science Foundation, the California NanoSystems Institute at UCSB and the Materials Research Laboratory at UCSB, a National Science Foundation MRSEC.

Intel Corporation and Unity Technologies today announced a strategic collaboration to advance the development of Android-based applications on Intel architecture. The agreement accelerates Intel’s mobility push as millions of developers using the Unity development platform can now bring native Android games and other apps to Intel-based mobile devices. Unity adds support for Android across all of Intel’s current and future processors including both the Intel Core and Intel Atom processor families.

Unity will ensure Intel product enhancements, including both graphics and CPU performance improvements and features, will be seamlessly integrated into future releases of the Unity 4 and Unity 5 product lines. As Intel architecture continues to gain market segment share on mobile devices, these improvements will help ensure that the Unity developers’ games run natively as well as look great and perform beautifully on Intel platforms.

In addition, developers using Unity can now easily add support for Intel architecture in their applications or produce native applications for Intel architecture only with minimal extra effort.

“We’ve set a goal to ship 40 million Intel-based tablets this year and expect more than 100 Android tablet designs on Intel in the market by the end of this year,” said Doug Fisher, Intel corporate vice president and general manager of the Software and Services Group. “Our collaboration with Unity will give its nearly 3 million developers the necessary software tools and support to build amazing Android experiences on Intel architecture.”

“Unity is used by half of all mobile game developers, and many of them have been asking for increased support for Intel-based devices running Android,” said David Helgason, CEO, Unity Technologies. “We are proud to be working with Intel to ensure that Unity provides the smoothest and highest performing experience possible on Intel platforms.”

“As a mobile gaming company, Kabam relies on the Unity game engine and the compelling performance and efficiency it provides us to publish our mobile games for players around the world,” said Kent Wakeford, COO of Kabam. “We are very excited to bring Unity-authored content, such as our upcoming title, ‘Marvel Contest of Champions,’ to the rapidly growing installed base of Intel-powered Android devices.”

Worldwide silicon wafer area shipments increased during the second quarter 2014 when compared to first quarter area shipments according to the SEMI Silicon Manufacturers Group (SMG) in its quarterly analysis of the silicon wafer industry.

Total silicon wafer area shipments were 2,587 million square inches during the most recent quarter, a 9.5 percent increase from the 2,363 million square inches shipped during the previous quarter. New quarterly total area shipments are 8.2 percent higher than second quarter 2013 shipments.

“For two consecutive quarters, strong silicon shipment growth has been recorded by the Silicon Manufacturers Group,” said Hiroshi Sumiya, chairman of SEMI SMG and general manager of the Corporate Planning Department of Shin-Etsu Handotai Co., Ltd. “Silicon wafer shipments reached an all-time high in the second quarter, surpassing the previous peak of 2,489 million square inches shipped in the third quarter of 2010.”

Quarterly Silicon Area Shipment Trends

Millions Square Inches

Q2 2013

Q1 2014

Q2 2014
Total

2,390

2,363

2,587

Semiconductor Silicon Shipments* – Millions of Square Inches

Silicon wafers are the fundamental building material for semiconductors, which in turn, are vital components of virtually all electronics goods, including computers, telecommunications products, and consumer electronics. The highly engineered thin round disks are produced in various diameters (from one inch to 12 inches) and serve as the substrate material on which most semiconductor devices or “chips” are fabricated.

All data cited in this release is inclusive of polished silicon wafers, including virgin test wafers, epitaxial silicon wafers, and non-polished silicon wafers shipped by the wafer manufacturers to the end-users.

The Silicon Manufacturers Group acts as an independent special interest group within the SEMI structure and is open to SEMI members involved in manufacturing polycrystalline silicon, monocrystalline silicon or silicon wafers (e.g., as cut, polished, epi, etc.). The purpose of the group is to facilitate collective efforts on issues related to the silicon industry including the development of market information and statistics about the silicon industry and the semiconductor market.

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%

Solid State Technology and SEMI, today announced the recipient of the 2014 “Best of West” Award — Nikon Corporation — for its NSR-S630D Immersion Scanner. The award recognizes important product and technology developments in the microelectronics supply chain. The Best of West finalists were selected based on their financial impact on the industry, engineering or scientific achievement, and/or societal impact.

Nikon has clearly demonstrated leadership with ArF immersion tools, particularly in the area of 450mm. At SEMICON West, a collection of the first fully patterned 450mm wafers – using a Nikon immersion lithography tool — were on display at the newly merged SUNY CNSE/SUNYIT exhibit. The Nikon immersion scanner will join existing 450mm infrastructure at the Albany NanoTech Complex in April of 2015 in accordance with the project timeline. This critical milestone will enable G450C founding members and CNSE to perform 10nm and below, full wafer photolithography, while optimizing tool configuration and performance.

Award-winning NSR-S630D 300mm ArF immersion scanner

Award-winning NSR-S630D 300mm ArF immersion scanner

The Best of West award-winning NSR-S630D (300mm) ArF Immersion Scanner employs the well-known Streamlign platform, incorporating further developments in stage, optics, and autofocus technology to deliver unprecedented mix-and-match overlay and focus control with sustained stability to enable the 10/7nm node.

The semiconductor industry is moving to development and high volume manufacturing of sub-10nm generation process devices. Budgets are even tighter at these advanced nodes, making enhanced stability vital. The NSR-S630D leverages established immersion technology, while incorporating key innovations to deliver mix-and-match overlay (MMO) capabilities below 2.5 nm and throughput greater than 250 wafers per hour, in addition to critical overlay and focus with “optimal stability.”

The NSR-S630D builds upon the Streamlign platform, incorporating further technology, optics, and autofocus technology to deliver unprecedented performance with “sustained stability” to enable the 10/7nm node. Additionally, the S630D provides world-class throughput ≥ 250 WPH, and is compatible with advanced software solutions that ensure peak manufacturing performance. Significant technical, infrastructure, and business-related issues continue for EUVL, with unclear cost benefits. A 300mm process step and cost comparison for EUVL double patterning (DP) was 2x higher than ArF immersion multiple patterning, and EUV DP results were even less favorable under 450 mm conditions. From the overall cost perspective, new technologies are not always the best approach, and based on 10 years of success, it is believed that 193i immersion will remain the low cost solution moving forward.

The NSR-S630D utilizes newly designed optics that deliver multiple levels of active control, while Multipoint High Speed phase measurement interferometry enables adjustment of the lens at intervals to reduce aberrations. These enhanced tuning capabilities enable extremely low wavefront rms. Beyond imaging, overlay and focus control are the critical performance factors for the 10/7nm node.

Single nanometer distortion values have been achieved, which is a major factor in improving overlay/mix-and-match capabilities. In addition, the new NSR-S630D reticle stage uses an encoder servo system to increase accuracy while the wafer stage delivers improved temperature control, coupled with structural and water management innovations to enhance stability. The S630D has demonstrated single machine overlay (SMO) Avg.+3σ below 1.4nm across the lot, with across lot S622D/S630D mix-and-match overlay (MMO) below 2.5nm. Further, the S630D autofocus system employs a narrower sensor pitch and improved edge mapping for better focus uniformity, and minimizes sensor fluctuations and process sensitivities. Together these factors optimize yield and increase edge dies per wafer.

Autofocus performance was verified with uniformity data (3σ) below 7nm (including edge shots) and 5.9 nm for full field shots alone. Intrinsic CD uniformity results below 0.69 nm were also demonstrated for 41nm lines on a 90nm pitch.

At the most advanced nodes, tool stability and process robustness become increasingly critical. Additional calibrations help with this, but they must not compromise productivity. Therefore, long-term inherent tool stability and process robustness must be maintained. The S630D has demonstrated five lot SMO data below 1.7nm (Avg. + 3σ) across a ten-day period, and SMO performance (Avg. + 3σ) below 1.4nm across the lot for both hydrophobic and hydrophilic processes. Additionally, a two week focus stability range of only 5.3 nm max/min was achieved.

Nikon provides a number of “Masters” – automated software solutions that ensure the scanner is performing at its best. These include LNS (lens) Master, OPE Master, CDU Master, and OVL (overlay) Master. LNS Master enables reticle-specific thermal compensation on the scanner. OPE Master uses customer designs and scanner adjustments to provide illumination condition matching for aligning performance across a fleet of scanners and ensuring that one OPC solution works on all of them. CDU Master provides optimization capabilities that enable the scanner to correct for other process window detractors. Because overlay matching plays a central role in multiple patterning applications, OVL Master enables automated grid and distortion matching, as well as automated reticle expansion correction to maximize yield. The NSR-S630D works in tandem with the Masters software to deliver optimized scanner exposure parameters that enhance performance on product wafers. In addition to maximized yield and manufacturing flexibility, enhanced productivity is imperative in making these advanced multiple patterning processes cost effective for chipmakers, and the S630D delivers world-class throughput ≥ 250 wafers per hour (WPH).

Receiving the Best of West award: Holly Magoon, senior marketing manager, and Butch Berry, service order administration manager, Nikon Corporation.

Receiving the Best of West award: Holly Magoon, senior marketing manager, and Butch Berry, service order administration manager, Nikon Corporation.

By Jeff Dorsch

In wearable gadgets, flexible electronics may have met its dream application. And that’s no stretch of the imagination.

For example: The 711th Human Performance Wing of the U.S. Air Force is looking at sweat sensors that could be embedded in a printed electronic plaster and attached to the arms of pilots to monitor whether they need to drink more fluids or if taking amphetamines would be advised to maintain optimal alertness in flight.

IDTechEx has forecast that the worldwide market for flexible, printed, and organic electronics will increase from $16.04 billion last year to $76.79 billion in 2023. The overall market will continue to be dominated organic light-emitting diode displays this year and in 2015, the market research firm predicts. Conductive ink and photovoltaics represent large segments of the total market. “On the other hand, stretchable electronics, logic and memory, thin-film sensors are much smaller segments but with huge growth potential as they emerge from R&D,” IDTechEx states.

Printed and flexible sensors are a $6.3 billion market, according to IDTechEx, with much of that total representing biosensors – disposable blood-glucose test strips that diabetics use to check their blood-sugar levels.

Frost & Sullivan forecasts that the printed electronics market will enjoy a compound annual growth rate of 34 percent through 2021.

Semiconductor Equipment and Materials International has taken a large interest in flexible and printed electronics for several years, establishing the SEMI Plastic Electronics Special Interest Group. In cooperation with FlexTech Alliance, SEMI will present a SEMICON West workshop on Thursday, July 10, on “Flexible Hybrid Electronics for Wearable Applications – Challenges and Solutions,” commencing at 10 a.m. at the San Francisco Marriott Marquis Hotel.

SEMI also will stage the annual Plastic Electronics Conference and Exhibition on October 7-9 in Grenoble, France. The plastic electronics show will alternate between Grenoble and Dresden, Germany, in the years ahead.

Belgium-based imec has been working with thin-film materials in flexible electronics – not the generally inflexible silicon, but indium gallium zinc oxide (IGZO), according to Philip Pieters, imec’s business development director. It is a very thin, flexible, unbreakable material, and “almost invisible,” he says.

IGZO thin-film transistors were first developed more than a decade ago by the Tokyo Institute of Technology and the Japan Science and Technology Agency. The IGZO-TFT technology has been licensed to Samsung Electronics and Sharp Electronics.

“We could make microprocessors, AC/DC circuits, etc.,” with IGZO, Pieters says. “Our processes are compatible with large-format glass plates. It could be processed in a cost-effective way for large-scale manufacturing.” IGZO could prove to be cheaper than silicon-based electronics, he adds.

As a research and development organization, imec keeps its production of IGZO-based electronics on a small scale, but the process could be ported to large-scale plants “in the next year or so,” Pieters says.

Stretchable electronics that “could be put on skin” are one potential application in wearable devices, the imec executive adds.

Printed, flexible, and organic electronics are clearly a growing opportunity, one that is attracting an increasing number of manufacturers and suppliers.

IGZO

By Shannon Davis, Web Editor

The core element of the semiconductor industry’s roadmap has been scaling – but Gopal Rao believes that isn’t enough anymore.

“The roadmap has never taken into consideration what the consumers were asking for,” said Mr. Rao, on Wednesday’s closing session at The ConFab 2014.

The industry has enjoyed a stable, predictable industry for many years, as we made PCs and a lot of PCs. However, these are no longer the driving devices in the consumer market, and with different cost structures and more pressure to innovate than ever before, Mr. Rao stressed that the industry’s tendency to solely focus on scaling was no longer going to be enough to keep up with shifting consumer demands. Mr. Rao’s main charge: the industry needs to intercept consumer thought and demand and determine how it is going to impact the semiconductor industry and supply chain.

“We need to cater the roadmap to the technologies that are coming and the products that consumers want,” Mr. Rao said.

In order to adapt, Mr. Rao explained that it was imperative to integrate the entire supply chain into the roadmap if we really want to make significant strides in the manufacturability of these new products.

“We need to look at the roadmap as an ecosystem – not just materials, not just equipment, but the entire picture. We need to understand how to bring the supply chain into the picture,” Mr. Rao said.

To do this, Mr. Rao outlined the elements of effective problem solving and encouraged his audience to become masters of it. To be effective in the evolving technology landscape, Mr. Rao stressed the importance of understanding and analyzing every aspect of the supply chain, down to the smallest component, all of which contribute to defects and can no longer be ignored if quality is to be maintained.

“You need to understand to the smallest degree of your supply chain,” Mr. Rao charged ConFab’s attendees. “You need to analyze and trace the data. If you don’t do that, then the time to market and time to money are sacrificed.”

“We can’t follow Moore’s Law conveniently and forget about what’s two years down the road,” he concluded.

Gopal Rao presents at The ConFab 2014 on June 25, 2014.

Gopal Rao presents at The ConFab 2014 on June 25, 2014.