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Invensas Corporation, a wholly owned subsidiary of Tessera Holding Corporation (Nasdaq: TSRA), today announced that Teledyne DALSA, a Teledyne Technologies company, has signed a technology transfer and license agreement for Direct Bond Interconnect (DBI) technology. This agreement enables Teledyne DALSA to leverage Invensas’ revolutionary semiconductor wafer bonding and 3D interconnect technologies to deliver next-generation MEMS and image sensor solutions to customers in the automotive, IoT and consumer electronics markets. Teledyne DALSA is an international leader in high performance digital imaging and semiconductors and also one of the world’s foremost pure-play MEMS foundries.

“DBI technology is a key enabler for true 3D-integrated MEMS and image sensor solutions,” said Edwin Roks, president of Teledyne DALSA. “We are excited about the prospect of developing new products and providing new foundry services to our customers that utilize this technology. By working closely with Invensas, we will be able to move more quickly to deploy this capability efficiently and effectively.”

DBI technology is a low temperature hybrid wafer bonding solution that allows wafers to be bonded instantaneously with exceptionally fine pitch 3D electrical interconnect without requiring bond pressure. The technology is applicable to a wide range of semiconductor devices including MEMS, image sensors, RF Front Ends and stacked memory.

“We are pleased that Teledyne DALSA, a recognized leader in digital imaging products and MEMS solutions, has chosen our DBI technology to accelerate the development and commercialization of their next generation MEMS and image sensor products,” said Craig Mitchell, president of Invensas. “As device makers look for increasingly powerful semiconductor solutions in smaller packages, the need for cost-efficient, versatile 3D technologies is greater than ever before. We are confident that the superior performance and manufacturability of DBI technology will help Teledyne DALSA deliver tremendous value to their customers.”

GE Ventures and Samsung Electro-Mechanics (SEMCO) announced today a multi-year, worldwide patent license agreement. With this partnership, SEMCO will license GE microelectronics packaging patent portfolio, covering the fabrication of substrates embedded with electronic circuits.

Developed by GE Global Research and Imbera Electronics Oy (now GE Embedded Electronics Oy) as part of a major GE focus in power electronics research over the last decade, the patent portfolio is of particular value for high performance communication and mobility products.

“GE is extremely pleased that SEMCO has recognized the significance of GE’s IP in this space,” says Lawrence Davis, Vice President and MicroElectronics Packaging Program Director at GE Ventures. “As the demand for increased power efficiency and higher performance in mobility products continues to expand, GE is positioned to be a strong partner for embedded electronics technology in the power and consumer electronics space.”

GE Ventures accelerates innovation and growth for partners by providing access to GE technologies through licensing and joint development partnerships. This advanced microelectronics packaging technology is being licensed to leading global manufacturing partners to provide advanced solutions to businesses worldwide.

Worldwide semiconductor wafer foundry leader GLOBALFOUNDRIES published its global manufacturing business expansion plan today. The company will continue investing in its wafer plants in the United States and Germany, expand its capacity in Singapore, and construct a facility to produce 12–inch wafers in Chengdu, China in order to satisfy Chinese and global demands for the company’s 22FDX technology.

According to the cooperation plan of the two parties, the Chengdu plant will start production in Q4 of 2018, with fabrication of the advanced 22FDX to begin in Q4 of 2019.

CEO of GLOBALFOUNDRIES, Sanjay Jha, indicated that, “From the world-class RF-SOI platform used for wireless Internet devices, to the technical roadmaps of the state-of-the-art FD-SOI and FinFET, they all serve as evidence of the market’s tremendous demands for our main staple and progressive technologies. The construction of the 12–inch wafer plant in the High and New Technology Development Area of Chengdu will be conducive to accelerating our expansion in the Chinese market.”

The High and New Technology Development Area of Chengdu is home to one of China’s most prominent IT industry clusters, hosting a plethora of global IT giants including Intel, Texas Instrument, AMD, MediaTek, Dell, Lenovo and Foxconn, as well as 115 of the Fortune Global 500 companies. In 2016, the High and New Technology Development Area posted total trade amounting to USD 24.9 billion.

On the same day, GLOBALFOUNDRIES also unveiled its brand new trade name for the Chinese market: “Ge Xin“, and announced the establishment of a new joint venture — Gexin (Chengdu) Integrated Circuit Manufacturing Co., Ltd. In Chinese, the name “Ge Xin” shares the same pronunciation as the Chinese word for “innovation” and signifies rebirth, reinvigoration and reform.

Nexperia, the former Standard Products division of NXP, today announced the formal completion of its launch as a separate entity. Headquartered in Nijmegen, Netherlands and backed by a consortium of financial investors consisting of Beijing Jianguang Asset Management Co. Ltd and Wise Road Capital Ltd, Nexperia is a stand-alone, world-class leader in discretes, logic and MOSFETs, retaining all the expertise, manufacturing resources and key personnel of the former NXP division, while bringing a new focus and powerful commitment to these product areas.

Nexperia, which will produce around 85 billion devices a year and in 2016 had revenues exceeding US$1.1B, addresses three key trends: power efficiency; protection and filtering; and miniaturization. The Automotive sector is very strong for Nexperia and mostof its products are AECQ101 qualified. Other important markets include portable devices, industrial, communications infrastructure, consumer and computing. A significant portion of the company’s revenue is delivered through distribution channels.

Nexperia CEO Frans Scheper, formerly EVP and GM of NXP’s Standard Products Business Unit, comments: “Our history ensures that Nexperia is already regarded as a strong industry leader in discretes, logic and MOSFETs, which consistently delivers highly reliable and innovative products to our global customers. Under the new ownership and with a renewed sense of vigour we will invest in product development and best-in-class manufacturing practices and facilities to ensure that Nexperia becomes the byword for efficiency and quality. Together with our engaged and motivated employees this will enable us on a daily basis to exceed the needs and expectations of our customers.”

Nexperia has two front-end manufacturing facilities, in Manchester, UK and Hamburg, Germany, and three back-end packaging plants in Guangdong, China, Seremban, Malaysia and Cabuyao, Philippines. It currently employs about 11,000 personnel worldwide including an established and successful leadership team. Scheper continues: “Because Nexperia will continue to source its front end and back end production from its current manufacturing sites, there will be no disruption in our supply chain or other processes, so customers and partners can be fully assured that they will continue to receive excellent products and exceptional service.”

The company has an extensive IP portfolio and is certified to ISO9001, ISO/TS16949, ISO14001 and OHSAS18001.

Qualcomm Incorporated (NASDAQ:QCOM) and TDK Corporation (TOKYO:6762) today announced the completion of the previously announced joint venture under the name RF360 Holdings Singapore PTE. Ltd. (RF360 Holdings). The joint venture will enable Qualcomm’s RFFE Business Unit to deliver RF front-end (RFFE) modules and RF filters into fully integrated systems for mobile devices and fast-growing business segments, such as Internet of Things (IoT), automotive applications, connected computing, and more. The business being transferred constitutes a part of the TDK SAW Business Group activities.

“The ongoing expansion of mobile communication across multiple industries, and the unprecedented deployment of multi-carrier 4G technologies now reaching over sixty-five 3GPP frequency bands are driving manufacturers of wireless solutions to higher levels of miniaturization, integration and performance, especially for the RFFE in these devices,” said Cristiano Amon, executive vice president, Qualcomm Technologies, Inc., and president, QCT. “Further, 5G will increase the level of complexity even more. To that end, the ability to provide the ecosystem a truly complete solution is essential to enabling our customers to deliver mobile solutions at scale and on time.”

Together with RF360 Holdings, Qualcomm Technologies, Inc. (QTI) will be ideally positioned to design and supply products with end-to-end performance and global scale from the modem/transceiver all the way to the antenna in a fully integrated system.

RF360 Holdings will have a comprehensive set of filters and filter technologies, including surface acoustic wave (SAW), temperature-compensated surface acoustic wave (TC-SAW) and bulk acoustic wave (BAW), to support the wide range of frequency bands being deployed in networks across the globe. Moreover, RF360 Holdings will enable the delivery of RFFE modules from QTI that will include front-end components designed and developed by QTI. These components include CMOS, SOI and GaAs Power Amplifiers, a broad portfolio of Switches, Antenna Tuning, Low Noise Amplifiers (LNAs) and the industry’s leading Envelope Tracking solution.

Deepening collaboration between Qualcomm and TDK

In addition to operating the joint venture, Qualcomm and TDK will deepen their technological cooperation to cover a wide range of cutting-edge technologies for next-generation mobile communications, IoT and automotive applications.

“The deeper collaboration with Qualcomm fits perfectly into our growth strategy,” said Shigenao Ishiguro, President and CEO of TDK Corporation. “It is a further step that aims to open up new promising business opportunities for TDK, while strengthening the company’s innovativeness and thus competitiveness in such attractive future markets as sensors, MEMS, wireless charging and batteries. Our customers will clearly benefit from the resulting unique and comprehensive technologies and products portfolio.”

Micron Technology, Inc. today announced the upcoming retirement of its Chief Executive Officer, Mark Durcan. The Board of Directors has formed a special committee to oversee the succession process and has initiated a search, with the assistance of an executive search firm, to identify and vet candidates. The Board has not established a timeframe for this process and intends to conduct a deliberate review of candidates who can contribute to Micron’s future success. Mark Durcan will continue to lead Micron as CEO during this process and will assist the company with its search and subsequent leadership transition.

“Mark Durcan recently discussed with the Board his desire to retire from Micron when the time and conditions were right for the company,” said Robert E. Switz, Chairman of the Board and a member of the search committee. “As CEO, he has successfully guided Micron’s strategy and growth for the past five years and has allowed the company to initiate this transition from a position of strength. The Board is committed to thoughtful long-term succession planning and takes seriously its responsibility to maintain a high-caliber management team and to ensure successful executive leadership transition. We expect Mark to play an instrumental role in securing and transitioning his replacement.”

Micron Technology, Inc., is a global leader in advanced semiconductor systems. Micron’s broad portfolio of high-performance memory technologies—including DRAM, NAND and NOR Flash—is the basis for solid state drives, modules, multichip packages and other system solutions. Backed by more than 35 years of technology leadership, Micron’s memory solutions enable the world’s most innovative computing, consumer, enterprise storage, networking, mobile, embedded and automotive applications. Micron’s common stock is traded on the NASDAQ under the MU symbol. To learn more about Micron Technology, Inc., visit www.micron.com.

“We are the first in the world to present a logic circuit, in this case a transistor, that is controlled by a heat signal instead of an electrical signal,” states Professor Xavier Crispin of the Laboratory of Organic Electronics, Linköping University.

This is the heat driven transistor on Laboratory of organic electronics, Linköping University. Credit: Thor Balkhed

This is the heat driven transistor on Laboratory of organic electronics, Linköping University. Credit: Thor Balkhed

The heat-driven transistor opens the possibility of many new applications such as detecting small temperature differences, and using functional medical dressings in which the healing process can be monitored.

It is also possible to produce circuits controlled by the heat present in infrared light, for use in heat cameras and other applications. The high sensitivity to heat, 100 times greater than traditional thermoelectric materials, means that a single connector from the heat-sensitive electrolyte, which acts as sensor, to the transistor circuit is sufficient. One sensor can be combined with one transistor to create a “smart pixel”.

A matrix of smart pixels can then be used, for example, instead of the sensors that are currently used to detect infrared radiation in heat cameras. With more developments, the new technology can potentially enable a new heat camera in your mobile phone at a low cost, since the materials required are neither expensive, rare nor hazardous.

The heat-driven transistor builds on research that led to a supercapacitor being produced a year ago, charged by the sun’s rays. In the capacitor, heat is converted to electricity, which can then be stored in the capacitor until it is needed.

The researchers at the Laboratory of Organic Electronics had searched among conducting polymers and produced a liquid electrolyte with a 100 times greater ability to convert a temperature gradient to electric voltage than the electrolytes previously used. The liquid electrolyte consists of ions and conducting polymer molecules. The positively charged ions are small and move rapidly, while the negatively charged polymer molecules are large and heavy. When one side is heated, the small ions move rapidly towards the cold side and a voltage difference arises.

“When we had shown that the capacitor worked, we started to look for other applications of the new electrolyte,” says Xavier Crispin.

Dan Zhao, principal research engineer, and Simone Fabiano, senior lecturer, have shown, after many hours in the laboratory, that it is fully possible to build electronic circuits that are controlled by a heat signal.

FlexTech, a SEMI strategic association partner, today announced a contract with ITN Energy Systems of Littleton, CO to develop and produce a flexible, solid-state lithium battery reducing packaging bulk by integrating a thin, flexible ceramic substrate. The unique ceramic substrate material is produced by ENrG Inc. of Buffalo, NY and is technology licensed from Corning Incorporated. The project duration is 15 months with a total value of $1.5 million.

“This work will break new ground in flexible battery development and address the many challenges associated with this area,” notes Melissa Grupen-Shemansky, chief technology officer for FlexTech | SEMI.  “This technology is one of the most promising for multi-cell packages and infinitely-expandable battery components.”

“We look forward to working with FlexTech and the FlexTech Technical Council in developing this new approach to flexible power supplies which promises up to 10x the capacity with one-half the thickness of products currently in the market,” said Brian Berland, chief science officer for ITN Energy Systems. “Once completed, we believe that rapid market adoption of this product is highly likely, since power availability and management is a significant bottleneck to many innovative FHE products.”

This type of battery is widely sought by developers of flexible electronic printed devices, such as wearable and medical devices. Product goals include a size of no larger than 2″x 3″ x .01″ and up to a 500 mAh capacity.  This thin film approach to lithium batteries eliminates the liquid electrolytes which are part of the typical lithium-ion product, and has caused difficulties with heat dissipation and reliability of some products on the market. The benefits of placing these batteries on ceramic substrates include low water and oxygen transmission without adding packaging material, cost or thickness. An important part of the project is selecting a sealing material based on compatibility with the assembly process and the ultimate performance of the battery.

Technavio’s latest market research report on the global field-programmable gate array (FPGA) market provides an analysis of the most important trends expected to impact the market outlook from 2017-2021. Technavio defines an emerging trend as a factor that has the potential to significantly impact the market and contribute to its growth or decline.

Sunil Kumar Singh, a lead analyst from Technavio, specializing in research on semiconductor equipment sector says, “The global FPGA market is expected to grow at a CAGR of close to 9% during the forecast period. The market is witnessing growth due to increased adoption in flourishing end-user segments such as telecommunications and consumer electronics. Demand for optimization in big data analytics is also leading to increased use of FPGAs in networking and storage applications.”

The top three emerging trends driving the global FPGA market according to Technavio hardware and semiconductor research analysts are:

  • Increased proliferation of IoT
  • Automation in automobiles
  • Increasing number of embedded processors in FPGA design

Increased proliferation of IoT

IoT is the latest trend in the global technology arena. IoT connects all essential home devices to the internet. This includes car, TV, laptop, coffee maker, automated door locks, GPS-enabled pet trackers, wearable devices, and mobile phones, forming a network of connected devices.

IoT comprises a staggering list of applications ranging from smart consumer electronics to wearables and automobiles. Designers must tackle significant implementation challenges, to deal with interfaces that are incompatible to IoT configuration, and create future systems that can accommodate billions of more devices and their performance requirements and processes. An FPGA-based design approach will assist in addressing these challenges due to their key ability of reprogrammability and low power consumption.

Automation in automobiles

Leading manufacturers such as Toyota, Audi, and Mercedes have invested considerable resources dedicated to R&D of automobile automation. Next-generation automobiles are expected to include speech recognition and video and image compatibilities, to provide optimal driving experience.

FPGAs allow multi-threading, which enables them to perform different functions in parallel. For instance, in Park Assist app, pictures are captured by cameras and are sent to a data fusion module. The data fusion module processes the image to display the corners of a car on the screen.

“Image processing functions such as image warping, analytics and object classification, and high dynamic range could be implemented on one chip using an FPGA due to its multi-threading feature. This allows fast booting of videos, enabling FPGAs to be widely used for surround-view camera systems and night vision systems in automobiles,” says Sunil.

Increasing number of embedded processors in FPGA design

Since 2012, the global FPGA market is witnessing an increase in the number of embedded processors in FPGA designs, to support growing demand for multiple function capability of FPGAs. This demand is further driven by emerging technologies such as IoT and new age smart devices such as wearables and their demanding processor requirements. FPGA modules can reduce power consumption and at the same time, improve on performance to deliver optimum output in reduced time.

North America-based manufacturers of semiconductor equipment posted $1.99 billion in orders worldwide in December 2016 (three-month average basis) and a book-to-bill ratio of 1.06, according to the December Equipment Market Data Subscription (EMDS) Book-to-Bill Report published today by SEMI.  A book-to-bill of 1.06 means that $106 worth of orders were received for every $100 of product billed for the month.

SEMI reports that the three-month average of worldwide bookings in December 2016 was $1.99 billion. The bookings figure is 28.3 percent higher than the final November 2016 level of $1.55 billion, and is 47.8 percent higher than the December 2015 order level of $1.34 billion.

The three-month average of worldwide billings in December 2016 was $1.87 billion. The billings figure is 15.7 percent higher than the final November 2016 level of $1.61 billion, and is 38.2 percent higher than the December 2015 billings level of $1.35 billion.

“2016 ended the year with bookings levels approaching $2 billion,” said Denny McGuirk, president and CEO of SEMI. “This combined with a significant increase in billings puts 2016 equipment sales of North American manufacturers well above 2015 levels and well positioned for 2017.”

The SEMI book-to-bill is a ratio of three-month moving averages of worldwide bookings and billings for North American-based semiconductor equipment manufacturers. Billings and bookings figures are in millions of U.S. dollars.

 

Billings
(3-mo. avg)

Bookings
(3-mo. avg)

Book-to-Bill
July 2016

$1,707.9

$1,795.4

1.05
August 2016

$1,709.0

$1,753.4

1.03
September 2016

$1,493.3

$1,567.2

1.05
October 2016

$1,630.4

$1,488.4

0.91
November 2016 (final)

$1,613.3

$1,547.5

0.96
December 2016 (prelim)

$1,865.8

$1,985.4

1.06

Source: SEMI (www.semi.org), January 2017

SEMI will cease publishing the monthly North America Book-to-Bill report this year. The December 2016 report and press release is the last publication.  The decision to discontinue the Book-to-Bill report is based on changes in reporting by some participants where the reporting of orders/bookings into the data collection program is no longer considered a necessary component of their industry analysis.

SEMI will continue to publish a monthly billings report and issue a press release Worldwide Semiconductor Equipment Market Statistics (WWSEMS) report that SEMI prepares in collaboration with the Semiconductor Equipment Association of Japan (SEAJ). The WWSEMS report currently reports billings and bookings data by 24 equipment segments and by seven end market regions. Beginning with the January 2017 WWSEMS, bookings information will only be available for the back-end equipment segments of the industry.

SEMI continues to track semiconductor industry fab investments in detail on a company-by-company and fab-by-fab basis in its World Fab Forecast and SEMI FabView databases. These powerful tools provide access to spending forecasts, capacity ramp, technology transitions, and other information for over 1,000 fabs worldwide.  For an overview of available SEMI market data, please visit www.semi.org/en/MarketInfo.