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North America-based manufacturers of semiconductor equipment posted $2.24 billion in billings worldwide in August 2018 (three-month average basis), according to the August Equipment Market Data Subscription (EMDS) Billings Report published today by SEMI. The billings figure is 5.9 percent lower than the final July 2018 level of $2.38 billion, and is 2.5 percent higher than the August 2017 billings level of $2.18 billion.

“Global billings of North American equipment suppliers declined in August when compared to July, although they remain above August 2017 billings,” said Ajit Manocha, president and CEO of SEMI. “Industry spending remains solid and we expect equipment expenditures in North America, China, Japan, and Taiwan to increase over their respective levels relative to the first half of the year.”

The SEMI Billings report uses three-month moving averages of worldwide billings for North American-based semiconductor equipment manufacturers. Billings figures are in millions of U.S. dollars.
Billings
(3-mo. avg.)
Year-Over-Year
March 2018
$2,431.8
16.9%
April 2018
$2,689.9
25.9%
May 2018
$2,702.3
19.0%
June 2018
$2,484.3
8.0%
July 2018 (final)
$2,377.9
4.8%
August 2018 (prelim)
$2,236.6
2.5%

Source: SEMI (www.semi.org), September 2018

This premier international conference, sponsored by the IEEE Electronics Packaging Society (IEEE EPS), covers a wide spectrum of electronic packaging technology topics, including components, materials, assembly, interconnect design, device and system packaging, wafer level packaging, Si photonics, LED and IoT, optoelectronics, 2.5D and 3D integration technology, and reliability.

The ECTC Program Committee, with more than 200 experts from broad-ranging technical areas, is committed to creating an engaging technical program for all. ECTC typically attracts more than 1,400 attendees from over 25 countries. Last year’s 68th ECTC in San Diego, California, had 1,738 attendees, with 331 papers and interactive presentations featured in 41 sessions.

The 69th ECTC program will include six parallel technical sessions in the mornings and afternoons over three days, along with other special topic panel discussions to present high-level trends and best practices in the industry. Professional Development Courses (PDCs) will also be offered by world-class experts, enabling participants to broaden their technical knowledge base.

The technical program and PDCs will be supplemented by Technology Corner Exhibits, which provide an opportunity for leading companies in the electronic components, materials, and packaging fields to exhibit their latest technologies and products. Last year’s 68th ECTC matched our record number of 106 exhibitors.

Please submit an abstract between 250 and 750 words that describes the scope, content, and key points of your proposed technical paper at www.ectc.net. You are also welcome to submit proposals for PDCs. All abstracts and manuscripts must be original, free of commercial content, and non-confidential.

Deadlines to Remember:

  • 0.08.2018| Abstracts and PDC Proposals Due

12.10-2018| Authors Notified of Acceptance

01.02.2019| Advance Online Registration Opens

  • 02.23.2018| Manuscripts due for inclusion in the Conference Proceedings.

SEMI announced today the October 9 deadline for presenters to submit abstracts for the annual SEMI Advanced Semiconductor Manufacturing Conference(ASMC). ASMC, May 6-9, 2019, in Saratoga Springs, New York, will feature technical presentations of more than 90 peer-reviewed manuscripts covering critical process technologies and fab productivity.

ASMC 2019 will feature keynotes, a panel discussion, networking events, technical sessions on advanced semiconductor manufacturing, and tutorials. The conference will also feature a special student poster session to highlight student projects related to semiconductor manufacturing.

Selected speakers will present to IC manufacturers, equipment manufacturers, materials suppliers, chief technology officers, operations managers, process engineers, product managers and academia. All technical papers will be published by IEEE, and authors also may receive an invitation to publish their papers in a special section for ASMC 2019 to be featured in IEEE Transactions on Semiconductor Manufacturing. Technical abstracts are due October 9, 2018, and can be submitted here. 

ASMC 2019 will cover the following topics:

  • Advanced Equipment Processes and Materials
  • Advanced Metrology
  • Advanced Equipment Processes and Materials
  • Advanced Patterning / Design for Manufacturability
  • Advanced Process Control
  • Contamination Free Manufacturing
  • Big Data Management and Mining
  • Defect Inspection and Reduction
  • Discrete and Power Devices
  • Enabling Technologies and Innovative Devices
  • Equipment Reliability and Productivity Enhancements
  • Factory Automation
  • The Fabless Experience
  • Green Factory
  • Industrial Engineering
  • Lean Manufacturing
  • MOL and Junction Interfaces
  • Smart Manufacturing
  • Yield Enhancement/Learning
  • Yield Methodologies
  • 3D Packaging and Through Silicon Via

ASMC, in its 30th year, continues to fill a critical need for the industry, providing a venue for professionals to network, learn and share knowledge about semiconductor manufacturing best practices.

Details on how to upload abstracts can be found here. To learn more about the conference and the selection process, please contact Margaret Kindling at [email protected] or call 1.202.393.5552.   

Papers co-authored by device manufacturers, equipment or materials suppliers, and/or academic institutions that demonstrate innovative, practical solutions for advancing semiconductor manufacturing are highly encouraged.

ASMC is organized by SEMI Americas to connect more than 2,000 member companies and 1.3 million professionals worldwide to advance the technology and business of electronics manufacturing

SEMI and TechSearch International today announced a new edition of the Worldwide OSAT Manufacturing Sites Database – the only outsourced semiconductor assembly and testing (OSAT) supplier database available in the market. The report, an essential business tool for anyone interested in device packaging, tracks facilities that provide packaging and testing services to the semiconductor industry.

The new edition includes more than 80 updates spanning packaging technology offerings, product specialization, new facility announcements, as well as ownership/shareholder updates, bringing the total number of facilities tracked in the report to 320.

Combining the expertise of SEMI and TechSearch International, the Worldwide OSAT Manufacturing Sites Database update also features a new section listing the revenues of the world’s top 20 OSAT companies in 2016 and 2017 and captures changes in technology capabilities and service offerings at various facilities.

The Worldwide OSAT Manufacturing Sites Database is a comprehensive report offering insights into global OSAT facilities in China, Taiwan, Korea, Japan, Southeast Asia, Europe, and the Americas. The report highlights new and emerging packaging offerings by manufacturing location and by companies. Specific details tracked include:

  • Plant site location, technology, and capability: Packaging, Test, and other product specializations, such as sensor, automotive and power devices are highlighted.
  • Packaging assembly service offered: BGA, specific leadframe type such as QFP, QFN, SO, flip chip bumping, WLP, Modules/SIP, and sensors.
  • New manufacturing sites announced, planned or under construction.

Tracking advances in packaging technology, which directly affects chip performance, reliability and cost, requires understanding company offerings by location. Key features of the updated report include:

  • More than 120 companies and 300 facilities
  • Over 90 facilities offering leadframe CSP
  • Over 25 bumping facilities, including 20 with 300mm wafer bumping capacity
  • More than 45 facilities offering WLCSP technology
  • New facilities offering FOWLP and FOPLP
  • 92 facilities in China, 89 in Taiwan, 39 in Southeast Asia

The database findings are based on information gathered and compiled from over 120 companies globally. All information in the Worldwide OSAT Manufacturing Sites Database was gathered by SEMI and TechSearch International. Report licenses are available for single-user and multi-users. SEMI members save 16 percent or more depending on the type of license.

For more information about the Worldwide OSAT Manufacturing Sites Database and to order a sample copy, please click here. For pricing and ordering information, please click here.

Roger Carpenter, a Google hardware engineer with 30 years of experience in electronic design automation and chip design, has been elected to the Silicon Integration Initiative board of directors. Si2 is a research and development joint venture that provides standard interoperability solutions for integrated circuit design tools.

Before joining Google, Carpenter held executive roles at three EDA firms: Magma Design Automation, Javelin Design Automation and Envis. His design experience includes positions at Wave Computing, Broadcom, Chromatic Research and Xilinx. A holder of more than a dozen patents, Carpenter received a Bachelor’s and Master’s of Electrical Engineering and Computer Science from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology.

John Ellis, Si2 president and CEO, said that Google’s membership on the Si2 board reflects the increasing impact of vertical integration in the electronics industry.  “A recent Si2 industry survey showed that over 80 percent of our end users develop some specialized, internal design tools. This proprietary software meets their unique needs and performance requirements,” Ellis said.

“Directly accessing the Si2 OpenAccess data base by making use of our Application Programming Interface, designers and integrators have greater control over their bottom line by optimizing their design flow and, in turn, shortening product time-to-market. It’s critical that system houses like Google, along with their unique semiconductor design software needs, are now represented on the Si2 board.”

The twelve members of the Si2 board represent leading semiconductor manufacturers and foundries, fabless companies, and EDA software providers.

Soitec (Euronext Paris), a designer and manufacturer of semiconductor materials, and MBDA, announce the joint acquisition of Dolphin Integration.

Dolphin Integration is an industry recognized provider of semiconductor design, silicon IP and SoC (System-On-Chip) solutions for low power applications. Headquartered in Grenoble, Dolphin Integration was founded in 1985. It currently employs 155 people, including 130 design engineers. For the fiscal year ended March 31th, 2018, the company generated revenues of 17 million Euros.

The joint venture formed by Soitec and MBDA acquires Dolphin Integration, including all employees. The resulting ownership of the joint venture is as follows: Soitec at 60% and MBDA at 40%.

The transaction was authorized today by the Commercial Court of Grenoble. It comes as a prompt and positive outcome of Dolphin Integration insolvency proceedings. The company went into receivership on July 24, 2018.

Soitec and MBDA each provide complementary strategic support to Dolphin Integration.

Soitec brings its engineered substrates expertise and unique low-power design methodology (body biasing) to accelerate Dolphin Integration design activities in low-power electronic devices, where a growing number of critical chips are built on FD-SOI technology. In addition, Soitec will strengthen Dolphin Integration’s position within the entire semiconductor ecosystem, to develop and promote products and services in several strategic markets, including mobile devices and infrastructure, data centers, and space and industrial applications.

MBDA, a strategic customer of Dolphin Integration for defense applications since 2004, strengthens its existing industrial collaboration and long-term commercial pipeline for ASIC (Application Specific Integrated Circuit) and SoC (System on Chip) products. With the support of MBDA, Dolphin Integration will be able to advance its positions in aerospace and defense design.

Soitec and MBDA confident in Dolphin Integration profitable growth.

Soitec and MBDA together committed to a financial investment of around 6 million Euros including the acquisition of most of Dolphin Integration’s assets, the payment of certain liabilities and a significant cash injection to finance Dolphin Integration’s working capital requirements.

Soitec and MBDA are confident in their ability to turnaround the financial position of Dolphin Integration. Dolphin Integration is expected to be fully consolidated into Soitec’s financial statements as of September 2018.

“Dolphin Integration represents a strategic opportunity for Soitec to reinforce a full IP and service offering related to energy efficient solutions for chip design on FD-SOI. This is a major differentiating factor for FD-SOI and a key accelerator of FD-SOI adoption in major market segments,” highlighted Paul Boudre, CEO of Soitec.

“MBDA investment will strengthen the French defense industrial base since it will provide Dolphin Integration with a more stable flow of defense related revenues and a closer technological collaboration that will allow it to enhance the access of its specialized microelectronics offering to the entire French and European defense industry,” said Antoine Bouvier, CEO of MBDA.

SiFive, a provider of commercial RISC-V processor IP, today announced the first open-source RISC-V-based SoC platform for edge inference applications based on NVIDIA’s Deep Learning Accelerator (NVDLA) technology.

The demo will be shown this week at the Hot Chips conference and consists of NVDLA running on an FPGA connected via ChipLink to SiFive’s HiFive Unleashed board powered by the Freedom U540, the world’s first Linux-capable RISC-V processor. The complete SiFive implementation is well suited for intelligence at the edge, where high-performance with improved power and area profiles are crucial. SiFive’s silicon design capabilities and innovative business model enables a simplified path to building custom silicon on the RISC-V architecture with NVDLA.

NVIDIA open-sourced its leading deep learning accelerator over a year ago to spark the creation of more AI silicon solutions. Open-source architectures such as NVDLA and RISC-V are essential building blocks of innovation for Big Data and AI solutions.

“It is great to see open-source collaborations, where leading technologies such as NVDLA can make the way for more custom silicon to enhance the applications that require inference engines and accelerators,” said Yunsup Lee, co-founder and CTO, SiFive. “This is exactly how companies can extend the reach of their platforms.”

“NVIDIA open sourced its NVDLA architecture to drive the adoption of AI,” said Deepu Talla, vice president and general manager of Autonomous Machines at NVIDIA. “Our collaboration with SiFive enables customized AI silicon solutions for emerging applications and markets where the combination of RISC-V and NVDLA will be very attractive.”

SEMI today announced that all legal requirements have been met for the ESD (Electronic Systems Design) Alliance to become a SEMI Strategic Association Partner.

Full integration of the Redwood City, California-based association representing the semiconductor design ecosystem is expected to be complete by the end of 2018. The integration will extend ESD Alliance’s global reach in the electronics manufacturing supply chain and strengthen engagement and collaboration between the semiconductor design and manufacturing communities worldwide.

As a SEMI Strategic Association Partner, the ESD Alliance will retain its own governance and continue its mission to represent and support companies in the semiconductor design ecosystem.

The ESD Alliance will lead its strategic goals and objectives as part of SEMI, leveraging SEMI’s robust global resources including seven regional offices, expositions and conferences, technology communities and activities in areas such as advocacy, international standards, environment, health and safety (EH&S) and market statistics.

With the integration, SEMI adds the design segment to its electronics manufacturing supply chain scope, connecting the full ecosystem. The integration is a key step in streamlining SEMI members’ collaboration and connection with the electronic system design, IP and fabless communities. The Strategic Association Partnership will also enhance collaboration and innovation across the collective SEMI membership as ESD Alliance members bring key capabilities to SEMI’s vertical application platforms such as Smart Transportation, Smart Manufacturing and Smart Data as well as applications including AI and Machine Learning.

“The addition of ESD Alliance as a SEMI Strategic Association Partner is a milestone in our mission to drive new efficiencies across the full global electronics design and manufacturing supply chain for greater collaboration and innovation,” said Ajit Manocha, president and CEO of SEMI. “This partnership provides opportunities for all SEMI members for accelerated growth and new business opportunities in end-market applications. We welcome ESD Alliance members to the SEMI family.”

“Our members are excited about becoming part of SEMI’s broad community that spans the electronics manufacturing supply chain,” said Bob Smith, executive director of the ESD Alliance. “Global collaboration between design and manufacturing is a requirement for success with today’s complex electronic products. Our new role at SEMI will help develop and strengthen the connections between the design and manufacturing communities.”

All ESD Alliance member companies, including global leaders ARM, Cadence, Mentor, a Siemens business, and Synopsys, will join SEMI’s global membership of more than 2,000 companies while retaining ESD Alliance’s distinct self-governed community within SEMI.

TowerJazz, the global specialty foundry, announced details of its China Technical Global Symposium (TGS) event in Shanghai on August 22, 2018, focusing on the company’s analog technology offerings, advanced manufacturing solutions and commitment to customer partnerships.

In addition, TowerJazz has launched its official “WeChat” account, the most popular communication app in China, enabling the Company to support the growing activities in China while increasing interaction with Chinese users and sharing the latest TowerJazz technology information, news and events.

“China is a strong region for TowerJazz with on-going increased activities and we are answering the growing demand of Chinese players with our various advanced analog platforms, including Radio Frequency (RF) & High Performance Analog (HPA), power management, and CMOS image sensors (CIS), targeting fast growing markets such as automotive, sensors, the IoT, and 5G, among others,” said Qin Lei, TowerJazz China Country Manager. “In addition, we are pleased to launch our “WeChat” account to better reach and network with our existing and potential Chinese customers.”

Company executives and experts will provide technical sessions on TowerJazz’s leading specialty process technologies such as: RF SOI and SiGe for wireless handsets and the IoT, high performance SiGe for optical networking, 5G, mmWave and automotive applications, silicon photonics (SiPho) technology for optical networks, 65nm CMOS technology with embedded NVM solutions, 0.18um and 65nm BCD focusing on low voltage power products, and CMOS image sensors for face recognition and automotive.

TowerJazz will also present the latest design enablement tools and solutions jointly developed with its EDA partners, and its sponsors – Mentor, Empyrean, Silvaco and Xpeedic Technology –will share the latest design capabilities offered in collaboration with TowerJazz.

By Cherry Sun

Aiming to forge stronger ties between the two technology heavyweights as partners in semiconductor industry innovation, SEMI and CASPA (Chinese American Semiconductor Professional Association) in mid July signed a strategic cooperation agreement to promote industry innovation between Silicon Valley and China. Under the agreement, SEMI and CASPA will work to connect Silicon Valley and China industry resources and encourage greater collaboration.

The agreement, signed at the “SIIP China Innovation and Investment Forum: Innovation at Scale: from IoT, Cloud to AI & ADAS” in Silicon Valley, supports key SEMI principles including free trade, open markets, intellectual property protection, global cooperation and innovation, said SEMI China president Lung Chu.

Brandon Wang, president and chairman of CASPA, and Lung Chu, SEMI China president, sign strategic cooperation agreement.

Speaking at the event attended by more 200 industry executives and visionaries, Chu noted that with 2019 expected to be another record year for fab and equipment investment and the semiconductor on track to reach $500 billion by next year, the time is ripe for greater cooperation between Silicon Valley and China. China and South Korea (Samsung) are driving sharp growth in global semiconductor equipment sales.

The global artificial intelligence (AI) industry is taking shape with companies ranging from startups and multinationals to semiconductor and Internet providers investing in AI research and development as China and the United States make the heaviest AI investments of all regions. A plethora of AI applications enabled by 5G will spur even greater IC demand.

Opening the event, SEMI president and CEO Ajit Manocha noted that technologies such as AI, Internet of Things (IoT) will transform our lives and that semiconductor industry leaders must cultivate a new generation of innovators to ensure continued industry growth.

Mark Ding, CEO of Shanghai Industrial Technology Research Institute (SITRI), said China is well-positioned to help goose semiconductor industry growth with its ample capital, lower capital expenditures and strong local market. He also noted that three keys to innovation are platforms, talent and capital.

Dr. Naveed Shervani, CEO of SiFive, the first fabless semiconductor company to build customized silicon based on the free and open RISC-V instruction set architecture, proposed goals for future semiconductor industry growth including reducing IC and IP costs and cutting design time.

Stuart Ching, VP of KULR Technology, a provider of thermal management technologies, pointed to the importance of lithium batteries. Those with higher energy density and lower cost would promote a range of power applications for mobile electronic equipment and lead to the mass production of solid-state batteries between 2023 and 2025.

Originally published on the SEMI blog.