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SEMI, with its Strategic Association partner MEMS & Sensors Industry Group (MSIG), today announced its shortlist of competitors for the Technology Showcase, which will take place on September 21 at the SEMI European MEMS & Sensors Summit 2017 in Grenoble. Selected by a committee of industry experts, five finalist companies will demonstrate advancements in MEMS and sensors for markets that span Internet of Things (IoT), consumer electronics, robotics and biomedical. The audience will vote for a winner, which will be announced at the Summit’s conclusion.

“We congratulate the finalists of the Technology Showcase, an event where attendees experience some of the newest and most fascinating MEMS and sensors technology in an interactive setting,” said Laith Altimime, president, SEMI Europe. “While this is SEMI’s first Technology Showcase at our European MEMS & Sensors Summit, this excellent group of contenders should make it an audience favorite.”

Technology Showcase finalists include:

Bosch Sensortec GmbH: BML050 — a high-precision MEMS scanner for interactive laser projection applications, which offers a virtual user interface solution for IoT applications such as home appliances, tablets and social robots.

Fraunhofer Institute for Photonic Microsystems: Integrated Capacitive Micromachined Ultrasonic Transducers (CMUTs) — provides miniaturized, highly sensitive, low-power, and customer-specific sensors and sensor nodes for applications in liquid and gases. Applications include human-machine interaction, robotics, biomedical, and smart consumer systems.

Hap2U: Ultrasonic Piezoelectric Actuators for Smart Touchscreen Applications — gives users the sensation of feeling sliders, knobs and buttons while touching their display. Hap2U’s new approach to haptic feedback drastically reduces applied power and power consumption.

Philips Innovation Services: CMUTs for Ultrasound and Non-Ultrasound Devices — complements conventional technology with advantages such as large bandwidth, easy fabrication of large arrays, and monolithic integration of ASIC functionality. Through Philips MEMS Foundry, CMUTs are available for medium- and high-volume manufacturing.

Si-Ware Systems: NeoSpectra MEMS Spectral Sensors —features an FT-IR spectrometer on MEMS die. NeoSpectra MEMS Spectral Sensors enable tiny low-cost spectral sensors that are highly integrated, scalable and reliable, making them ideal for in-field and inline applications in various industries, including consumer electronics.

The Technology Showcase at SEMI European MEMS & Sensors Summit (September 20-22, 2017) will take place from 11:00 am-12:00 pm on September 21 at the MINATEC innovation campus at 3 parvis Louis Néel, Grenoble, France.

SparkLabs Group, a network of accelerators and funds, is launching a $50 million early-stage fund (Series A & B) primarily focused on South Korea. The fund will be led by Brian Kang, who was a founding member of Samsung’s first venture capital arm and later led Korea Venture Fund, which was Korea’s first VC fund of funds. He has over 20 years of experience as an investment professional and several years as an entrepreneur and operator. He was CEO & Chairman of the Board at Gravity, a Softbank affliated gaming company, and then went on to launch his own gaming startup.

Brian is joined by Chris Koh, Co-founder of Coupang which is the leading ecommerce player in South Korea and received $1 billion investment from Softbank in 2015. Chris started Coupang with a classmate from Harvard Business School and their friend at Harvard Law. He was vice president of the company for five years focusing on operations and growth.

“We are grateful to SeAH who was one of the first investors in SparkLabs Global Ventures, our global seed fund, and now the anchor investor along with Korea Development Bank/Multi-Asset in our new Series A fund for South Korea. We believe we have assembled the best team to service entrepreneurs in Korea since all of us have built companies from the ground up in Korea and the U.S.,” stated HanJoo Lee, co-founder of SparkLabs.

SeAH is a top 50 business group in South Korea and Korea Development Bank/Multi-Asset is subsidiary of Mirae Asset, which is the largest asset manager in South Korea with over US$100 billion assets under management.

Brian Kang and Chris Koh are joined by Venture Partners (part-time partners) Rob Das, Co-founder and former Chief Architect of Splunk, and John Suh, CEO of Legalzoom. Splunk is a $8 billion market cap company that Rob helped grow from concept to its IPO in 2012. John has served as CEO since 2007 to help grow Legalzoom into the leading provider of online legal document services in the U.S. that has serviced almost 4 million customers.

“We are excited to launch this new early-stage fund to help Korea’s rapidly growing startup ecosystem. I believe the venture capital business must evolve as the startup environment is changing fast in Korea. Finding companies of global capacity, generating rich deal flow, adding real values post investment are becoming more and more critical to the success of venture investments. Chris and I look forward to working with other investors to help nurture the next generation of impact entrepreneurs in South Korea,” said Brian Kang, Co-founder and Managing Partner of SparkLabs Ventures.

SparkLabs Ventures is also supported by a heavy hitting advisory board that includes former Congressman Mike Honda, who served in the U.S. Congress from 2001 to 2017 (represented Silicon Valley in the 17th congressional district from 2013 to 2017); David Lee, Co-founder and Managing Partner of Refactor Capital; and Nadiem Makarim, Co-founder and CEO of Go-Jek, which recently raised $1.2 billion from Tencent and others.

The fund will focus primarily on South Korea startups at their Series A or B rounds, and will not be limited to graduates of SparkLabs accelerator in Seoul. The fund will focus its investments on companies that have potential to expand abroad to different markets and have the ability to take advantage of the global reach of the SparkLabs’ network. A secondary target region is SE Asia, so the fund will be open to startups within this region who have global ambitions.

Silego Technology today announced shipping three billion units since its introduction of the pioneering Configurable Mixed-signal ICs (CMICs). In addition, Silego announced it shipped more than one hundred million units in the month of July.

Silego created not only the world’s first family of Configurable Mixed-signal ICs but also enabled a paradigm shift for designers. Reaching these dual milestones are further validation of the Configurable Mixed-signal IC category and how enthusiastically customers have embraced this novel approach to Mixed-signal design for volume applications.

John Teegen, Silego’s CEO, remarked, “Reaching these milestones was made possible by the innovative Silego team and our dedicated manufacturing and channel partners. It also demonstrates the trust our customers have put in Silego’s world-class operations team to get them to market quickly with quality and volume.”

Mike Noonen, Silego’s VP of WW Sales and Business Development added, “Over the past year, we have grown our business with existing customers and introduced CMICs to many new customers. These customers have discovered Silego’s clever combination of analog, digital, Non-Volatile Memory and software tools and are benefiting from a better way to design, prototype and go to production.”

Silego’s CMICs use Non-Volatile Memory to configure each device and integrate analog, digital logic, and power functions, which allows design engineers to eliminate traditional standard linear, passive and discrete components from their system. CMICs enable original equipment manufacturers, or OEMs, in high-volume applications to cost-effectively deliver their products to market faster and with greater design flexibility.

Since the introduction of the CMIC, Silego has developed five generations of CMIC silicon and design tools.

Recently Silego announced the new SLG46580, further expanding the GreenPAK™ (GPAK) family of Configurable Mixed-signal Integrated Circuits (CMICs). This newest GPAK is targeted to support power systems in wearable and handheld market segments. This device is both highly integrated and highly flexible, and can provide a rich set of features, including voltage monitoring, power sequencing, reset functions and low drop-out regulators (LDOs), that are configurable in settings and interconnect. This device is the second in the series of parts designed to create “Flexible Power Islands” (FPI).

 

 

 

By Lara Chamness, SEMI

This is an exciting year to be in the semiconductor industry as Ajit Manocha, president and CEO of SEMI highlighted at SEMICON West; semiconductor-related companies are trading at all-time highs, and record device shipments and revenues as well as equipment revenues are expected (see Figure 1). This growth is primarily fueled by demand drivers such as Automotive Electronics, Medical Electronics, Mobile Phones, and Industrial Electronics. With this recent growth spurt and the proliferation of end-market applications that consume ever increasing numbers of semiconductors, it is tempting to conclude that the industry has seen the end of cycles.

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At the annual SEMI/Gartner, Bulls & Bears Industry Outlook symposium, Stifel’s Patrick Ho, asserted that “Gone are the days of your grandfather’s cycles.” Robert Marie of Semiconductor Advisors, maintained that “Cycle shape has changed due to demand drivers, consolidation, maturation and other factors.”

However, Gartner’s Bob Johnson was quick to assert, “Whenever people say that cycles are over and that the industry is going to grow forever ─ the industry is at a peak.” He noted that Gartner expects semiconductor revenues to surpass $400 billion this year, increase two percent next year, but  decline in 2019. He indicated that Memory is driving this year’s market expansion but will drag down market growth next year as pricing gains achieved will be lost beginning in the fourth quarter of this year. The softness in 2018 is expected to have a detrimental impact on the industry’s spending plans. Gartner predicts that capital spending will shrink to just under one percent next year and contract 7 percent in 2019.

In addition to softer memory pricing in the near term, Gartner does not anticipate that China will invest significant amounts until 2020/2021. SEMI on the other hand is currently modeling an increase of 9 percent in fab equipment expenditures in 2018, which is largely driven by China. China is expected to have an even greater impact on global fab capital expenditures, claiming the top position in 2019, according to SEMI.

Looking at demand drivers, more specifically the “Internet of Things”, it is clear that the explosion of connected “things” is fundamentally reshaping our industry. The fragmented nature of these markets require niche applications and device architectures with the majority of these devices being commoditized MEMS and other solid-state sensors. Growing market revenue does not necessarily translate into industry profitability as the declining average selling price in Figure 2 shows.

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So how can the industry benefit from all of this connectivity? Dr. Sam Wang from Gartner discussed how the Internet of Things has made AI practical, and how artificial intelligence brings out the value of IoT. He noted that AI:

  • Drives the demand for advanced wafer process technologies
  • Encourages the adoption of HMC, HBM, eDRAM, ReRAM, PCM, STT-MRAM, memristors processing in memory
  • Incorporates ADC within sensors and computing in sensors
  • Increases the use of 2.5D, 3D, TSV and SiP technologies
  • Enables chip design flow optimization in EDA
  • Fuels the need of new ATE testers for testing complex AI chips
  • Prompts more start-ups and M&A opportunities

The overwhelming majority of semiconductor devices used in IoT are commodities, creating a renaissance for smaller wafer diameter fabs (200mm and smaller; see related 200mm article). The value of the IoT will come from the ecosystem that supports it, such as data centers and networks that enable connectivity. There are also opportunities for the adoption of new processor technologies, as Gartner’s Werner Goertz pointed out. He stated that the current processors used in IoT processing were designed for very different use cases, and that conditions are now ripe for a disruptive processor supply chain to optimize edge-based AI.

2017 is indeed going to be a great year for the semiconductor industry: device average selling prices have improved dramatically, device manufacturers are investing in new capacity, while stock prices of suppliers throughout the supply chain are trading at elevated levels. 2018 is anticipated by many industry pundits to be another growth year, albeit at more conservative growth levels. Although the Internet of Things literally offers the industry billions of applications, its full impact on the industry remains to be seen. And we’ll definitely keep a close eye on developments in China.

NanoString Technologies, Inc. (Nasdaq:NSTG), a provider of life science tools for translational research and molecular diagnostic products, and Lam Research Corporation (Nasdaq:LRCX), a global supplier of wafer fabrication equipment and services to the semiconductor industry, today announced a strategic collaboration to develop NanoString’s proprietary Hyb & Seq next-generation sequencing platform.

This collaboration brings together NanoString’s proprietary sequencing chemistry and Lam’s expertise in advanced systems engineering to enable nanoscale manufacturing, with the goal of building a clinical sequencer with the simplest workflow in the industry. The objectives of the collaboration are to complete the development of the Hyb & Seq single molecule sequencing chemistry, design and engineer a clinical sequencing instrument, develop clinical assay panels, and secure the necessary regulatory approvals.  In addition, the companies intend to explore methods for coupling the sequencing chemistry with advanced semiconductor fabrication processes to optimize the performance of molecular profiling platforms.

Under the terms of the collaboration, Lam will provide up to $50 million of funding intended to cover the costs of development and regulatory approval over a development period expected to last approximately three years, as well as advanced engineering and technical support. Lam will receive a warrant to purchase one million shares of NanoString common stock at $16.75 per share, as well as a royalty on all products developed under the collaboration. NanoString retains all rights to commercialize the resulting Hyb & Seq products, and the parties will share ownership rights in jointly developed intellectual property.

“We are excited to collaborate with Lam Research, in a partnership that brings together leading innovators in our respective fields,” said Brad Gray, NanoString’s President and Chief Executive Officer. “By combining our Hyb & Seq technology with Lam’s advanced engineering expertise, we intend to fully resource the development of the industry’s simplest clinical sequencer, and enable open-ended innovation at the intersection of semiconductors and genomics.”

“Our vision is to create value from natural technology extensions, including nanoscale applications enablement, chemistry, plasma, fluidics, and advanced systems engineering,” stated Martin Anstice, Lam Research’s President and Chief Executive Officer. “We are excited to collaborate with NanoString to advance the development of their novel Hyb & Seq system and chemistry to meet the challenge of increasing our understanding of human genetics, and we envision a number of strategic benefits by aligning our complementary respective strengths. This is a compelling opportunity for the whole to be significantly greater than the sum of its parts; it is an accelerator of enablement and value for both companies.”

Intel Corporation (NASDAQ:INTC) and Mobileye N.V. (NYSE:MBLY) today announced the completion of Intel’s tender offer for outstanding ordinary shares of Mobileye. The acquisition is expected to accelerate innovation for the automotive industry and positions Intel as a technology provider in the fast-growing market for highly and fully autonomous vehicles.

The combination of Intel and Mobileye will allow Mobileye’scomputer vision expertise (the “eyes”) to complement Intel’s high-performance computing and connectivity expertise (the “brains”) to create automated driving solutions from cloud to car. Intel estimates the vehicle systems, data and services market opportunity to be up to $70 billion by 2030.

“With Mobileye, Intel emerges as a leader in creating the technology foundation that the automotive industry needs for an autonomous future,” said Intel CEO Brian Krzanich. “It’s an exciting engineering challenge and a huge growth opportunity for Intel. Even more exciting is the potential for autonomous cars to transform industries, improve society and save millions of lives.”

Intel’s Automated Driving Group (ADG) will combine its operations with Mobileye, an Intel Company. The combined Mobileye organization will lead Intel’s autonomous driving efforts, and will have the full support of Intel resources and technology to define and deliver cloud-to-car solutions for the automotive market segment. Mobileye will remain headquartered in Israel and led by Prof. Amnon Shashua who will serve as Intel senior vice president and Mobileye CEO and chief technology officer. In addition, Ziv Aviram, Mobileye co-founder, president and CEO, is retiring from the company, effective immediately.

“Leading in autonomous driving technology requires a combination of innovative proprietary software products and versatile open-system hardware platforms that enable customers and partners to customize solutions,” said Prof. Amnon Shashua. “For the first time, the auto industry has a single partner with deep expertise and a cultural legacy in both areas. Mobileye is very excited to begin this new chapter.”

Mobileye will support and build on both companies’ existing technology and customer relationships with automakers, tier-1 suppliers and semiconductor partners to develop advanced driving assist, highly autonomous and fully autonomous driving programs.

Knowles Corporation (NYSE: KN) today announced the appointment of Dr. Cheryl Shavers to the Board of Directors. Her appointment is effective August 1, 2017 and expands the Board to 9 directors, 8 of whom are independent.

Dr. Cheryl Shavers currently serves as Chief Executive Officer of Global Smarts, Inc. an advisory services and strategy firm which she founded in 2001. In this role, she consults small and established businesses as well as government agencies on managing growth opportunities and the innovative process. Between 1999 and 2001, Dr. Shavers served as the Undersecretary of Commerce for Technology at the U.S. Department of Commerce, where she oversaw the Office of Technology Policy and the Technology Administration, the focal point for partnerships between the US government and the private sector pertaining to commercial and industrial innovation, productivity and economic growth. She also oversaw the National Institute of Standards and Technology, the National Technical Information Service and the Office of Space Commercialization. Dr. Shavers was one of the highest-ranking technologists in the Clinton Administration at the time. Prior to joining the Clinton administration, she held a variety of roles at Intel Corporation and Hewlett-Packard, including director of Emerging Technologies and sector manager of the Microprocessor Products Group for Intel. Dr. Shavers also is a director of Rockwell Collins.

Dr. Shavers holds a doctorate in Solid State Chemistry and a bachelor’s degree in Chemistry from Arizona State University.

“I am excited to have Dr. Shavers as a member of the Board of Directors. She has a remarkable strategic mind and brings extensive experience with technology development, innovation and management of growth opportunities to the Board, which will be invaluable to the Company,” stated Jean-Pierre Ergas, Knowles’ Chairman.

Dr. Shavers has been appointed to serve on the Audit Committee and the Governance and Nominating Committee.

 

Analog Devices, Inc. (ADI) today announced that it has become an affiliate member of Mcity at the University of Michigan. Mcity is a public-private partnership led by the University of Michigan to advance connected and automated vehicles. Among Mcity’s key initiatives is operating the Mcity Test Facility, which is the first purpose-built proving ground for testing connected and automated vehicles and technologies in simulated urban and suburban driving environments. Analog Devices will use the facility to test and refine future products in its Drive360 suite of technologies, including 28nm CMOS RADAR, solid state LIDAR, and high performance inertial measurement units for automated and autonomous driving applications.

By joining Mcity, ADI is committing to support the autonomous driving ecosystem as a premier semiconductor solutions provider and will use Mcity to understand market requirements through collaboration across the automotive design chain to bring connected and automated vehicle technologies to the commercial market.

ADI joins ranks with Mcity’s more than 65 industry members, which all play a role in creating a viable ecosystem to support connected and automated vehicles, including auto manufacturers and major parts suppliers, as well as vehicle communications, traffic infrastructure, and insurance companies, among others.

“Organizations like Mcity provide an important stage for testing products in real-world scenarios and for gathering real-time feedback from our customers and other key players in the autonomous driving ecosystem,” said Chris Jacobs, vice president, Autonomous Transportation and Safety, Analog Devices. “Working with the initiative will help shape our product and technology strategy by creating an open line of communication with customers and other industry leaders. This powerful connection will allow us to directly identify and address the toughest challenges to enable autonomous transportation.”

Three leading U.S. universities are the latest recipients of funding from the Nano-Bio Manufacturing Consortium (NBMC), operated by SEMI.  NBMC’s mission is to further the development of human performance monitoring (HPM), thereby broadening the use of advanced electronics in this highly anticipated application space. Among other applications, HPMs are expanding the fast growing wearable electronics markets. According to Research and Markets, “The global market for wearable electronic devices was valued at around USD $20 billion in 2016 and is expected to reach USD $97.8 billion, growing at a CAGR of around 24.1 percent from 2017 to 2023.”

The new awards announced today total more than $870,000 and include:

  • University of Arizona: To meet the needs of NBMC industry members, the University of Arizona will focus on determining which HPM sweat patch configuration is best suited to meeting performance requirements. The initial investigation will include a “lab-in-a-bandage” that collects and analyzes biomarkers within one minute from sweat secretion.  The follow-on project will determine the feasibility of using organic semiconductor sensor technology (compatible with flexible substrates and manufacturing techniques) for sweat biomarker detection sensitivity and selectivity with sweat sample volumes in the nano- and pico-liter range.
  • University of California at Los Angeles: UCLA will partner with i3 Electronics of Binghamton, NY to investigate the use of Fan-Out Wafer Level Packaging (FOWLP) methods as a new way to build versatile, biocompatible physically-flexible heterogeneous electronic systems. FOWLP is a relatively new packaging process that gaining widespread use in portable devices such as smart phones. It offers the advantages of true heterogeneous integration of different dies, including high performance electronics, tight pitch interconnects, and components (such as low profile passives) with a short turn-around, scalable, manufacturing process.
  • University of Massachusetts at Amherst: U Mass Amherst will conduct a detailed systematic assessment of microfluidic subsystem architecture and operational approaches for sweat-based biomarker detection.  The study will address issues associated with accurate, time-stamped sweat sample collection and delivery, effluent control and removal for continuous operation, and dynamic performance design aspects to address sample handling under conditions of high and low sweat rates.

“The NBMC program continues to push technology limits in ways that integrate leading edge microelectronics,” said Dr. Melissa Grupen-Shemansky, SEMI’s CTO for flexible electronics and advanced packaging.  “Consequently, SEMI is helping to identify new equipment, materials and process opportunities for our members and their customers.”

The NBMC program is funded through a cooperative agreement with the Air Force Research Laboratory in Dayton, Ohio.

Dow Corning, a developer of silicones, silicon-based technology and innovation and a wholly owned subsidiary of The Dow Chemical Company (NYSE: DOW), today announced that it received the prestigious Global Supplier Award from The Bosch Group, a worldwide supplier of technology and engineering services. Issued every two years, Bosch’s coveted awards recognize companies that have demonstrated outstanding performance in the manufacture and supply of products or services to Bosch – especially in terms of quality, pricing, reliability, technology, and continuous improvement. Bosch recognized 44 companies from 11 countries this year.

“We are delighted and very proud that Bosch has recognized Dow Corning’s commitment to its success with this prestigious award,” said Jörg Kersten, Dow Corning’s global key customer manager for The Bosch Group. “Like Bosch, we believe that long-term partnerships and close collaboration are the key to mutual success. It continues to be our privilege to work alongside their industry-leading team of innovators, and support their mission to be a top global engineer of automotive and electronic components.”

Karl Nowak, president of Corporate Sector Purchasing and Logistics at Bosch, informed Dow Corning via a letter that it had received the honor. Nowak’s letter read, in part: “Success in an increasingly connected and digitalized world requires strong and reliable partnerships. Your company’s outstanding performance and exemplary teamwork in 2015-16 contributed to Bosch’s success. To demonstrate our appreciation to you and your employees, we would like to honor you with the Bosch Global Supplier Award.”

Bosch officially bestowed its awards at a gala award ceremony held on July 12 in Stuttgart, Germany, and hosted by Robert Bosch GmbH’s executives and board members. Patrick McLeod, global business director, Dow Performance Silicones, and Wiltrud Treffenfeldt, chief technology officer, EMEAI at Dow, attended to accept the award on behalf of Dow Corning.