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Pixelligent Technologies, a nanocomposite advanced materials manufacturer, announced today that it has been awarded grant funding from the Department of Energy SBIR program and the Department of Defense STTR program, that totals a combined $2.15 million. This funding will be used to accelerate and further develop a diverse range of applications leveraging Pixelligent’s core PixClear® nanocomposite technology.

“The grants from the Dept. of Energy will help to extend our technology leadership in OLED lighting applications. These SBIR Phase I and Phase IIB grants will allow Pixelligent to further extend our OLED light extraction materials to enable next generation flexible OLED lighting applications. The STTR Phase II grant from the Dept. of Defense will support our continued collaboration with the University of Pennsylvania and Argonne National Laboratory to further the development of PixClear — enabled gear oils for improving the lifetime and energy-efficiency of gear boxes and drive trains,” said Gregory Cooper, PhD, CTO & Founder of Pixelligent.

“We are proud to have been selected for these three grant awards from the Department of Energy and Department of Defense. These are highly competitive programs and theses awards point to the broad applicability of our materials, which can deliver unparalleled efficiency gains in applications ranging from OLED technology to lubricant additives,” said Craig Bandes, President & CEO of Pixelligent.

Through grant awards and private funding, Pixelligent has emerged as one of the only companies that has developed a truly disruptive manufacturing and advanced material technology platform for commercializing the promise of nanotechnology. This was recently recognized by Frost & Sullivan who honored Pixelligent with the 2017 Manufacturer of the Year award for SMB under $1B in revenues.

Umicore’s business unit Precious Metals Chemistry today inaugurated its production unit for advanced metal organic precursor technologies used in the semiconductor and LED markets, respectively TMGa (Trimethylgallium) and TEGa (Triethylgallium). The event was attended by European and overseas customers as well as local and regional politicians. The guest of honor was Dr. Barbara Hendricks, Germany’s Federal Minister for the Environment, Nature Conservation, Building and Nuclear Safety.

Umicore’s TMGa manufacturing process is innovative and unique. It offers a more sustainable and ecological production method by minimizing hazardous side streams and material losses and optimizing yield to nearly 100%.

Dr. Lothar Mussmann, Vice-President of Umicore Precious Metals Chemistry said, “I am proud that this patented innovation has now become a world-class and industrial scale manufacturing plant. It will provide benefits for our customers and the environment and underlines Umicore’s position as a pioneer in sustainable technologies.”

Umicore Precious Metals Chemistry is the only European manufacturer of TMGa and TEGa and supplies customers across the world from its Hanau manufacturing base. Umicore Precious Metals Chemistry helps to reduce cost of ownership through its innovative approach to process chemistry and its collaborative approach with customers and end users.

About Trimethylgallium and Umicore’s manufacturing process

Trimethylgallium (TMGa) is a colorless liquid with very high vapor pressure, which boils at low temperatures. Umicore’s new production process increases the yield of TMGa in comparison with current production technologies. In this way, organic solvents can be completely dispensed with. The TMGa is prepared by chemically reacting gallium trichloride with a more efficient methylating agent in molten salt. This reduces the amount of waste per kilogram of TMGa by more than 50%, with the resulting intermediates being recycled in the process. The finished product is then used in the semiconductor industry, where it evaporates in closed systems onto a substrate. This creates, for example, environmentally friendly LED lamps.

Pixelligent Technologies, a developer of high-index advanced materials (PixClear) for displays, solid state lighting and optical components, announces that it has been named the 2017 Manufacturer of the Year by Frost & Sullivan. It won this award in the small/midsize company category for companies with revenues under $1B, for its PixClearProcess that is revolutionizing chemical composite technology. The winner for the large company 2017 Manufacturer of the Year was Dow Chemical.

Over the past five years, Pixelligent has invested over $20 million in designing and building its advanced product development and manufacturing platform, the PixClearProcess. This proprietary platform has enabled Pixelligent to scale from a manufacturing capacity of grams-per-year, to one of the most sophisticated and highly capital efficient manufacturing lines in the world, capable of mass production volumes in the tons.

“We are deeply honored to be named the 2017 Manufacturer of the Year by Frost & Sullivan. It’s especially gratifying as we competed against some of the most respected high-tech manufacturers in the world. This award is also a great recognition of what we are most proud of, namely the balanced approach we have executed in developing both one of the most innovative materials in the world alongside one of the most advanced manufacturing lines in the world,” remarked Craig Bandes, CEO, Pixelligent Technologies.

The Company’s breakthrough PixClearProcess allows its customers to more efficiently tune and magnify the desired optical, mechanical, and electrical properties of their formulations with unprecedented levels of precision. Depending on product performance requirements, incorporating PixClear can deliver the highest possible light extraction, near perfect transmission, increased mechanical strength, and dramatic improvements in overall operating efficiencies. We enable our customers to deliver unprecedented levels of performance for OLED and HD displays, LED and OLED lighting devices, and optical components.

By Paula Doe, SEMI

Fabs and tool makers are starting to pay a lot more attention to suppliers of components and subsystems– as defects in these materials start to impact yields at 14nm and below. Solving these emerging issues, though, will take a collaborative effort to determine what parameters matter, how to measure them, and how to trace them back across an extended supply chain, suggests Pawitter Mangat, GLOBALFOUNDRIES director of Global Incoming Quality, one of the speakers who’ll discuss these issues in the program on component impact on yields at advanced nodes, July 11, at SEMICON West 2017.

“As we move below 22nm, even the composition of the materials in the subcomponents become critical,” he says. “But currently there is no general agreement on what the important parameters are to control for particular applications, or on how to measure these parameters with the same methods for consistent results.” The issues are often with the industrial grade raw materials from which the subcomponents are made, and these industrial chemical suppliers may be reluctant to invest in controls as the semiconductor industry represents only a tiny percentage of their business. “This means we need to look beyond our immediate suppliers to a wider ecosystem of components and material suppliers, and to extend digital traceability through this wider ecosystem as well,” he notes. “If we have an issue, we need to be able to quickly trace it back to the cause.”

“The 7nm world tends to forget that all subcomponents, everything, has been developed for other industries, not the semiconductor industry, and the makers of all these basic pumps and valves and O-rings have no way of knowing what the important parameters are to prevent defects in the final semiconductor devices,” notes Dalia Vernikovsky, CEO, Applied Seals North America, and co-chair of the SEMI Semiconductor Components, Instruments, and SubSystems (SCIS) special interest group.

She suggests the major users and suppliers get together to come up with the basic parameters for things like metal contamination, surface cleanliness or outgassing for specific components for specific processes, and then agree on a common way to measure these parameters, to enable tracing and characterizing the defects in the final devices.   This is also the first step towards specifying and controlling the parameters of the raw materials used in the components and subsystems that also matter. “If I am going to push my supplier, I have to be able to show him what the end customers’ requirement is,” notes Vernikovsky.  “This is not about individual companies’ intellectual property. It’s the basic requirement of the IC industry that we all need to meet, and then we can compete on a higher level.”

Other speakers at the Semiconductor Components, Instruments and Subsystems (SCIS) session include Norm Armour, Micron Technology, Managing Director Worldwide Facilities and Corporate EHSS; Sanchali Bhattaharjee, Intel, Engineering Manager, Global Supply Chain Management; and a panel with the speakers moderated by Dan Hutcheson, VLSI Research, CEO and Chairman. The SEMI SCIS special interest group will also have an open meeting on their current collaborative efforts July 13 at the Marriott Marquis. See www.semiconwest.org/programs-catalog/enabling-hvm-advanced-process-nodes.

The Semiconductor Industry Association (SIA), representing U.S. leadership in semiconductor manufacturing, design, and research, today announced worldwide sales of semiconductors reached $31.3 billion for the month of April 2017, an increase of 20.9 percent from the April 2016 total of $25.9 billion and 1.3 percent more than last month’s total of $30.9 billion. April marked the global market’s largest year-to-year growth since September 2010. All monthly sales numbers are compiled by the World Semiconductor Trade Statistics (WSTS) organization and represent a three-month moving average. Additionally, a new WSTS industry forecast projects annual global market growth of 11.5 percent in 2017 and 2.7 percent in 2018, followed by a slight decrease of 0.2 percent in 2019.

GSR graph 2_med

 

“The global semiconductor market has grown at an impressive rate through the beginning of 2017, culminating with April’s year-to-year growth of 21 percent, the global market’s largest increase in nearly seven years,” said John Neuffer, president and CEO, Semiconductor Industry Association. “Although driven in part by tremendous growth in the memory market, sales of non-memory products also grew by double digits in April, and all major regional markets posted substantial year-to-year gains. The global market is projected to experience significant annual growth this year, with slower growth expected next year and roughly flat sales in 2019.”

Regionally, year-to-year sales increased in China (30.0 percent), the Americas (26.9 percent), Asia Pacific/All Other (14.1 percent), Europe (12.7 percent), and Japan (12.0 percent). Compared with last month, sales were up slightly across all regions: Asia Pacific/All Other (2.0 percent), the Americas (1.8 percent), Japan (1.4 percent), China (0.7 percent), and Europe (0.5 percent).

Additionally, SIA today endorsed the WSTS Spring 2017 global semiconductor sales forecast, which projects the industry’s worldwide sales will be $377.8 billion in 2017. This would mark the industry’s highest-ever annual sales, an 11.5 percent increase from the 2016 sales total. WSTS projects year-to-year increases across all regional markets for 2017: Asia Pacific (12.4 percent), the Americas (12.2 percent), Europe (8.7 percent), and Japan (6.6 percent). Beyond 2017, growth in the semiconductor market is expected to slow across all regions. WSTS tabulates its semi-annual industry forecast by convening an extensive group of global semiconductor companies that provide accurate and timely indicators of semiconductor trends.

By Paula Doe, SEMI

The future of contamination control in the next-generation supply chain for beyond 14nm-node semiconductor processes faces stringent challenges. While Moore’s Law is driving scale reduction, the industry is also facing ever-increasing process sensitivity, integration challenges of new materials and the need for unprecedented purity at process maturity.

“The supply chain needs a paradigm shift in thinking about defect control. What was just process variation for previous technology nodes can now be an excursion!” says Dr. Archita Sengupta, Intel senior GSM Technologist, leading the filtration and related supply chain contamination control program, who will discuss these challenges and possible solutions in the session on key materials issues at SEMICON West 2017 on July 11 in San Francisco at Moscone Center.

There are new materials being used for the first time, and even familiar materials need to be treated with new and different specifications. Even if the needed parameters are correctly specified, there may not be an accurate way to measure those parameters under HVM conditions, at least that most material suppliers can afford.  Chemicals, advanced filtration and purification, chemical delivery systems and equipment manufacturing can all be sources of wafer contamination. “The interaction between the tool and the chemicals is also increasingly important,” she notes. “All this is going to add more cost for the industry supply chain for quality control, but it will cost more in the end if we don’t proactively work together throughout the supply chain to figure out what matters to control and how!”

Stability is key

The most important thing material suppliers can do to meet customer quality demands is to maintain absolute stability of everything about their material and manufacturing process, suggests Jim Mulready, VP Global Quality Assurance, JSR Micro, who will also present at SEMICON West. “Traditional quality control, where the QC data at the end of my line only has to meet the customer’s specifications, doesn’t work,” he says, noting that the material supplier doesn’t have the same process tool, the same substrate, or the same process conditions as the customer, so the testing can’t duplicate the customer’s result. Moreover, the process sensitivity is getting tighter at every generation, with the tolerance of defects often being beyond the supplier’s ability to detect them. So, no specification can ever be precise enough to capture everything the customer really needs.  “Often tightening the specs doesn’t solve the problem,” he notes. “There are plenty of examples of material that was well within spec but didn’t function properly. The problem is not inadequate specs, it’s inadequate attention to other quality tools. The spec is necessary, but not sufficient.”

“The systematic (as opposed to technical) root cause of the material problems I faced as fab materials quality manager at Intel almost always came down to a problem in stability,” says Mulready, where there was a change to the material the supplier didn’t think was important, a change in the processing that they didn’t catch, or a change in the incoming raw material that they didn’t detect. “Material suppliers have to accept that the customers’ definition of quality becomes their definition of quality, and the main rule is to make sure that a material that’s working does not change at all. Consistency is the key for the end user, so it must be for us as well.  A spec alone will not measure or ensure that.  It takes robust change control, process control, and incoming raw material control.”

Semiconductor makers meanwhile, need to start paying attention not just to their immediate suppliers, but also to their suppliers’ supply chain; for example, not just the resist but also the resin and even the monomers used to make it. While the material suppliers need to qualify the incoming material, and serve as a kind of safety valve between the chemical industry and the IC makers, it can be difficult for them to control the supply quality when they are a very minor customer for the commodity chemical suppliers.  Those suppliers in turn may have no interest in investing in the tools needed to measure the particular properties of concern, and there may be a need for the IC customer to help inflict some pressure.

For more details on the SEMICON West 2017 Materials program, “Material Supply Challenges for Current and Future Leading-edge Devices,” organized by SEMI’s Chemical & Gas Manufacturers Group (CGMG), see www.semiconwest.org/programs-catalog/material-supply-leading-edge-devices. To see the full SEMICON West agenda, visit www.semiconwest.org/agenda-glance.

The latest update to the World Fab Forecast report, published on May 31, 2017 by SEMI, reveals record spending for fab construction and fab equipment. Korea, Taiwan, and China all see large investments, and spending in Europe will also increase significantly. In 2017, over US$49 billion will be spent on equipment alone, a record for the semiconductor industry.  Spending on new fab construction is projected to reach over $8 billion, the second largest year on record.  Records will shatter again in 2018, when equipment spending will pass $54 billion, and new fab construction spending is forecast at an all-time high of $10 billion. See Figure.

Figure 1

Figure 1

SEMI reports that these unprecedented high numbers are not only driven by a handful of well-known, established companies, but also by several new Chinese companies entering the scene with large budgets. An increase in overall fab spending (construction and equipment together) of 54 percent year-over-year (YoY) in China is expected.  Total spending rises from $3.5 billion in 2016 to $5.4 billion in 2017, and then to $8.6 billion in 2018, another 60 percent year-over-year (YoY).

Some of these China-based companies are well known, such as Hua Li Microelectronics or SMIC (top investors in 2017 and 2018), though newcomers in the arena, including Yangtze Memory Technology, Fujian Jin Hua Semiconductor, Tsinghua Unigroup, Tacoma Semiconductor, and Hefei Chang Xin Memory, add to the spending surge.

The SEMI World Fab Forecast breaks down fab equipment spending by region. Korea leads both years of our forecast period, with spending of $14.6 billion in 2017 and $15.1 billion in 2018.  In 2017, Taiwan is projected to be the second largest spending region on equipment, but China will take over second place in 2018 as it equips the many new fabs being built in 2016 and 2017.  Americas is in fourth place, projected to spend $5.2 billion in 2017 and $5.5 billion in 2018.  Japan will come in fifth, spending $5.1 billion in 2017 and $5.3 billion in 2018.  Although the Europe/Mideast region is in sixth place with relatively modest investments of $3.8 billion in 2017, this represents remarkable growth for the region, 71 percent more than in 2016; and the region will bump spending another 20 percent in 2018 (to $4.6 billion).

This exciting growth cycle could continue well beyond 2018.  Record fab construction spending of $10 billion for 2018 means new fabs will need to be equipped at least a year down the road, leading to high expectations for good business beyond the current two-year forecast period.

Since the last publication on February 28, the SEMI Industry Research & Statistics team has made 279 changes on 244 facilities/lines. In that time frame, 24 new facilities were added and 4 fab projects were closed.

For insight into semiconductor manufacturing in 2017 and 2018 with details about capex for construction projects, fab equipping, technology levels, and products, visit the SEMI Fab Database webpage and order the SEMI World Fab Forecast Report. The report, in Excel format, tracks spending and capacities for over 1,100 facilities including over 60 future facilities, across industry segments from Analog, Power, Logic, MPU, Memory, and Foundry to MEMS and LEDs facilities.

Today FlexTech, A SEMI Strategic Association Partner, announced the full agenda for the inaugural flexible hybrid electronics (FHE) conference coming up on May 31-June 1 in Seoul at COEX Exhibition Center.  The new conference, 2017FLEX Korea, focusing on the theme “A Practical Path to Flexible Hybrid Electronics,” is brought to action with a market-focused agenda and presentations on Displays, Wearables, Sensors, OLED, Quantum Dot, Micro LED, Head Up Display, Roll-to-Roll and 3D Printing by experts from both the industry and academia.

2017FLEX Korea features a technical conference, a Short Course, and networking opportunities. The two-day technical conference includes four sessions on critical areas for FHE success. The four sessions will feature 14 technology experts from Korea, America, Asia and Europe representing organizations active in the FHE area, including:

  • Display Applications: KIMM and UIN3D
  • Wearables and Sensors Applications: KT and KITECH
  • Emerging Markets Applications: EyeDis, KOPTI, and KITECH
  • Core Technology Applications: Coatema Coating Machinery GmbH, Daelim Chemical, Dankook University, DuPont, Kolon Industries, Nanosys, and Universal Display Corporation

Three keynotes will set the stage for all of the other topics, including:

  • LG Display: “Flexible Display Changes Your Life” by Joon Young Yang, head of OLED Advanced Research Division
  • FlexTech: “Emerging Product Opportunities and the Worldwide Ecosystem of FHE” by Melissa Grupen-Shemansky, Chief Technology Officer
  • Samsung Advanced Institute of Technology: “Quantum Dot Display” by Shinae Jun, research master

Combining traditional IC manufacturing with printed electronics, FHE is the leading technical approach to design and manufacture devices for fast-growth markets. Flexible and printed electronics applications have the potential to create business opportunities in growing market opportunities such as wearables, health care, flexible displays and other advanced applications. A 3-hour Short Course is intended for individuals and organizations seeking a comprehensive overview on the Printed Electronics industry.

“We are pleased to hold the 2017FLEX Korea conference,” said Hyun-Dae CHO, president of SEMI Korea. “We hope the conference will provide you with the insights into the FHE industry and you will also find networking opportunities at the event.”

Register by May 26 to reserve your spot with a discounted price: http://www.semi.org/ko/flex-korea-register

Orbotech Ltd., a provider of process innovation technologies, solutions and equipment that are enabling the transformation of the global electronics manufacturing industry, announced today that Tianma Micro-electronics Co. Ltd. (“Tianma”), a producer of display solutions with over three decades of experience in the Flat Panel Display (FPD) field, has selected Orbotech’s ArrayChecker and Automated Optical Inspection (AOI) solutions for its production line upgrade to flexible AMOLED technology.

Tianma has invested approximately $1.8 billion to extend its Gen 6 AMOLED fab in Wuhan, China. The Wuhan fab is designed for the production of flexible AMOLED display panels which are rapidly gaining popularity in consumer electronics devices.  When the new line ramps up to mass production during the second half of 2017, Tianma expects to achieve capacity of 30,000 panels per month, with an additional 30,000 per month capacity increase in 2018.

According to the IHS Display Long-Term Demand Forecast Tracker Q4 2016, “AMOLED’s share of overall FPD revenue will increase to almost 30% in 2023. Revenue from AMOLED displays is expected to grow from $15 billion in 2016 to $36 billion in 2023 for a CAGR of 17%.”

“We are delighted that Tianma has selected our solutions for their flex AMOLED fabrication line,” stated Mr. Edu Meytal, President of Orbotech Pacific Display.  “These solutions, which were designed to enable the new manufacturing processes required to produce flex AMOLED displays, will enable our customers to produce the most advanced FPD products available with high yields.  This deal builds upon past successful implementations of Orbotech’s inspection, testing and repair solutions.”

Entegris, Inc. (NASDAQ: ENTG), a provider of specialty chemicals and advanced materials solutions for the microelectronics industry, announced today that it acquired W. L. Gore & Associates’ water and chemical filtration product line for microelectronics applications in an asset purchase for approximately $20 million. Entegris expects the transaction to be accretive to earnings beginning in 2017.

Todd Edlund, Chief Operating Officer of Entegris, said: “We are excited to add these market-leading filtration solutions to our existing offerings for the microfiltration of high-purity water and bulk chemicals used in semiconductor, OLED and flat panel display manufacturing applications. The acquisition of these products complements our portfolio of advanced liquid filtration solutions. It also reflects our strategy to grow our served markets through the deployment of capital for strategic accretive acquisitions that augment our internal development initiatives.”