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Edwards Vacuum, a manufacturer of vacuum and abatement solutions for the semiconductor industry, will promote technology innovation and STEM education at SEMICON West this year. Industry professionals and students alike will be intrigued by the scientifically-accurate virtual reality (VR) game (featured at their space #628 on the show floor) that demonstrates the significant role the company’s products play in reducing the environmental impact of semiconductor manufacturing processes.

“The development of an electronic circuit or flat panel display involves a complex manufacturing process that uses a variety of global warming gases. CF4, a perfluorinated compound, is one of the worst offenders because it has an atmospheric lifetime of 50,000 years,” said Scott Balaguer, General Manager North America, Edwards. “The good news is that Edwards’ abatement solutions can minimize this impact significantly. Abatement is a very complex science that Edwards has over 30 years of experience in the making, backed by nearly 100 years of vacuum process technology development. We created the Molecule Blaster VR game as a fun approach to teaching the industry about the science of abatement; people enjoy saving the Earth from harmful greenhouse gases.”

Edwards, a sponsor of the SEMI High Tech U, will host high school students at the show as part of the company’s STEM outreach campaign. Students will experience the Molecule Blaster VR game and learn about chemistry.

“SEMICON West presents an opportunity for high school students to see science in action and have fun learning. We hope this experience will encourage them to consider careers in the semiconductor industry,” adds Balaguer.

SEMICON West 2018 will also feature:

  • Erik Collart, Global Product Manager, Edwards, will give a presentation in the Smart Manufacturing Pavilion on why sub-fab data management is critical to overall fab process and yield and optimization on Wednesday, July 11, from 1:30-4:30pm.
  • Mike Czerniak, Environmental Solutions Business Development Manager, Edwards, has co-authored the “Semiconductor Manufacturing Handbook” and will be available at the Edwards lounge for book signing on Tuesday, July 10, from 2:30-3:30pm.
  • Don’t miss happy hour – Edwards will be serving wine, beer and canapes in their lounge near the Smart Manufacturing Pavilion in the South Hall on Tuesday and Wednesday from 4pm-5pm.

SEMICON West takes place July 10-12, 2018 at the Moscone Center, San Francisco, Calif. SEMICON West 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. SEMICON West is celebrating its 47th year as the flagship event for the semiconductor industry. For more information visit: www.semiconwest.org

SEMICON West next week will host a White House-led discussion of the anticipated national leadership strategy for semiconductors, a multi-agency initiative led by top U.S. government national security and economic organizations.

On Wednesday, July 11, a panel of U.S. officials representing agencies involved in leading the strategy will address federal research and development (R&D), investment and acquisition priorities aimed at ensuring the U.S. remains the global leader in the semiconductor industry.

As global economic trends and technologies such as artificial intelligence evolve, and foreign governments increasingly lure microelectronics manufacturing investments overseas, the U.S. strategy for manufacturing advanced semiconductors and driving research and development (R&D) in technology innovation has become an economic priority.

The White House selected SEMICON West, organized by SEMI, as the site for the discussion and this urgent call to action because of the event’s central role in bringing together critical industries across the global electronics supply chain. The multi-agency panel will outline activities and new policies under development to ensure U.S. strategic leadership in microelectronics, including focused investment in innovations key to the next generation of devices for commercial and government use. The initiative also includes public-private partnerships to accelerate the capabilities of advanced semiconductors for critical applications such as artificial intelligence (AI), cyber, secure communications, the internet of things (IoT) and big data analytics.

PANEL:
National Strategy for Semiconductor and Microelectronic Innovation
TIME AND DATE:
10:30 to 11:30 a.m., Wednesday, July 11
LOCATION:
Yerba Buena Theater, 700 Howard St., San Francisco
MODERATOR:
Dr. Lloyd Whitman, Principal Assistant Director, Physical Sciences and Engineering, White House Office of Science and Technology Policy
PANELISTS:
Dr. Sankar Basu, Program Director, Computer and Information Science and Engineering, National Science Foundation
Dr. Eric W. Forsythe, Flexible Electronics Team Leader, U.S. Army Research Laboratory
Dr. Jeremy Muldavin, Deputy Director of Defense Software & Microelectronics Activities, Office of the Deputy Assistant Secretary of Defense for Systems Engineering
Dr. Robinson Pino, Acting Research Division Director, Advanced Scientific Computing Research, Office of Science, Department of Energy

 

SEMICON West 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. SEMICON West is celebrating its 47th year as the flagship event for the semiconductor industry. Find more at www.semiconwest.org.

Leti, a research institute at CEA Tech, Transdev, a global provider of mobility services, and IRT Nanoelec, an R&D center focused on information and communication technologies (ICT) using micro- and nanoelectronics, today announced a pilot program to characterize and assess LiDAR sensors to improve performance and safety of autonomous vehicles.

Transdev’s latest innovative transportation technologies already allow to operate fleets of autonomous vehicles for shared mobility. The perception of the environment through sensors is essential to offer the best client experience in terms of comfort and operation speed guaranteeing the required level of safety and security.  Evaluating sensor effectiveness and robustness is critical to develop the Transdev’s Autonomous Transport System that will allow the operation of autonomous vehicles fleets in a maximum of environmental conditions safely and securely.

In the pilot program, Leti teams will focus on perception requirements and challenges from a LiDAR system perspective and evaluate the sensors in real-world conditions. Vehicles will be exposed to objects with varying reflectivity, such as tires and street signs, as well as environmental conditions, such as weather, available light and fog. In addition to evaluating the sensors’ performance, the project will produce a list of criteria and objective parameters by which various commercial LiDAR systems could be evaluated.

“As an innovative supplier of autonomous transportation vehicles for smart cities, Transdev is leading the procession toward responsive, efficient and safe services with buses and shuttles,” said Leti CEO Emmanuel Sabonnadière. “This project will build on Leti’s sensor-fusion knowhow and sensor development expertise to strengthen Transdev’s testing and evaluation of sensors for its vehicles.”

Yann Leriche, Transdev’s CEO North America, said: “Providing the best client experience with the guarantee of safety, security and quality of service, will confirm Transdev as a pioneer in integrating autonomous transport systems into global mobility networks”.

As smart functionality makes its way into homes and businesses, two devices are gaining a foothold into broader ecosystems to maximize growth and revenue opportunities: smart speakers and smart meters. No longer simply intelligent appliances in the home, these devices are becoming key entry points into the massive Internet of Things (IoT) value chain. According to business information provider IHS Markit (Nasdaq: INFO), by the end of 2021, there will be an installed base of 328 million smart speakers and more than 1.13 billion smart electricity, water and gas meters.

“No matter the type of ‘smart’ device, device makers face the same challenge: keep costs down while increasing functionality,” said Paul Erickson, senior analyst for connected device research at IHS Markit. “The IoT is transformational for connected devices, and vendors large and small are vying to be part of the market. Many, like Google and Amazon, are selling their devices at or below margin because they understand the long-term opportunity lies in the applications and services these devices make possible.”

Smart speakers: growth, growth, growth ahead

Smart speakers, which enable voice-based media playback, smart home control, telephony, messaging, e-commerce and informational queries, use a range of connectivity options to leverage artificial intelligence (AI) and Cloud capabilities to enable an ever-increasing range of IoT devices.

By 2021, smart speaker revenue is expected to reach $11.2 billion, up from $6.3 billion in 2018, IHS Markit says. “While many options are available to device makers to enter the home ecosystem, the cost and convenience advantages of smart speakers will ensure that demand remains strong for years to come,” Erickson said.

“The smart speaker concept is most powerful when it leverages large, established ecosystems where there is broad app and development support across devices and platforms,” Erickson said. “These ecosystems allow the speakers to access diverse information and e-commerce resources and to receive support from other smart home devices.”

Smart meters: bridging the gap between utilities and their customers

Basic utility meters only monitor power usage, limiting the ability of utility companies to interact with end consumers. Smart meters expand the capabilities of utility companies by providing more regular and informative data, allowing better usage analysis, time-of-use rates and subsidies, leakage warnings and more.

“Smart meters are revolutionizing the way utilities and consumers interact, enhancing capabilities beyond the ‘meter to cash’ process,” said David Green, research manager for smart utilities infrastructure at IHS Markit. “Smart meters will be an increasingly critical entry point into utility ecosystems aiming to create more intelligent, efficient and cleaner electricity networks.”

Like smart speakers, smart meters are anticipated to enjoy considerable growth in the years ahead. Over 188 million smart meters will be shipped in 2023, generating $9.5 billion in hardware revenues, IHS Markit says. In 2023, the installation base of smart electricity, water and gas meters will exceed 1.35 billion. “Smart meters form the backbone of the data collection system for utilities, paving the way for entirely new categories of value-added revenue,” Green said.

By Paula Doe, SEMI

The fast-maturing infrastructure now enabling applications for big data and artificial intelligence means disruptive change not just at individual companies but also in data connections among companies across the microelectronics manufacturing value chain. SEMI expands its smart manufacturing program with a Smart Manufacturing Pavilion with displays and three full days of talks to address these industry-wide developments at SEMICON West, July 10-12 in San Francisco.

Autonomous autos’ demand for zero-defect systems and 100 percent traceability back to the manufacturing data for each die is driving a push to traceability across the chip sector. “Far more chips are being used by the automotive sector, and its very different requirements are driving demand for traceability,” says Tom Ho, president of BISTel America. “Our chipmaker customers are looking for traceability solutions and the trend is the same in backend packaging and assembly – automotive applications are driving the sector to traceability.”

Traceability is also driven by the growth of systems in a package as fabless chipmakers look to connect back to the packaging companies’ fault analysis labs and die interconnect history to diagnose and fix the cases where known-good die are failing in the system, adds Mike Plisinski, CEO of Rudolph Technologies. Plisinski adds that makers of consumer products like phones that can also see harsh conditions are demanding higher quality and traceability as well.

The EMS sector also must establish an architecture for traceability to collect critical manufacturing-related data and to interface with OSATs and semiconductor fabs. The reason is that EMS companies are adding traditional OSAT processes such as assembly of products with bare die and complex optics modules requiring clean rooms. “A unified sand-to-smart-phone smart manufacturing roadmap should be established,” says Dan Gamota, vice president of  Engineering and Technology Services at Jabil. “We need to identify protocols for manufacturing data communications that can be adopted across the supply chain.”

To enable smart manufacturing, vendors need to collaborate on getting their production equipment to interoperate and support factory analytics and data management systems. Source: SEMI

One big challenge, of course, is how to format this diverse data so it can be linked and used by  various supply chain stakeholders. “Smart data needs to be contextual and it needs data standards across the supply chain so it’s easy to link from the front end to the back end, follow common lot IDs front and back end, and have a way to map streaming data from sensors to a discrete lot ID,” notes Ho. New approaches to metrology, analysis and test that increasingly exploit machine learning on simulations will also be needed to help predict which die and connections that test well now may fail in the future as conditions change.

Another issue is how to securely share the needed data across companies without jeopardizing IP. “On the equipment side we collect data across customers on how the tool is running to improve the equipment,” notes Neal Callan, ASML VP Silicon Valley. “Next we need to integrate performance and reliability data that today is not as well shared.”

 

The other big hurdle is how to pay for data sharing. “The challenge is that the final manufacturers reap the benefit of traceability, but since they expect their suppliers to deliver good die, they don’t want to pay more for it,” notes Plisinski.  He suggests that over the next two to three years, traceability and predictive fault prevention will become the norm as the automotive sector is compelled to invest in it to assure safety. Meanwhile, fabless companies will face so much complexity in integrating different die from different suppliers in SiP that they will no longer be able to afford to simply use the cheapest supplier, potentially driving a fundamental shift in relations and division of labor among fabless chipmakers, OSATs and fabs.

Standards extend across supply chain

SEMI member committees are collaborating to build the infrastructure to enable these developments. Standards committees are updating standards for higher bandwidth data exchange and extending semiconductor-like vertical and two-way horizontal equipment communication standards to flow shops to enable assembly players to optimize and trace back results across players. The SMT/PCBA community is integrating its smart manufacturing work into SEMI standards, and the SEMI A1 standard was a key reference document in the development of the Japan Robotics Association’s Equipment Link Protocol.

Speakers addressing these issues at SEMICON West include Active Layer Parametrics, Applied  Materials, Applied Research & Photonics, ASML, Bosch Rexroth, Cimetrix, Coventor, ECI Technologies, Edwards Vacuum, Final Phase Systems, GE Digital,  Infineon, Jabil, Lam Research, Osaro, Otosense, PEER Group, Qualcomm, Rockwell Automation, Rudolph Technologies, Schneider Electric, Seagate, Siemens, Stanford University, TEL, TIBCO Software. See semiconwest.org

Edmund Optics®, a supplier of optical components, has ordered the  SPECTOR® Ion Beam Sputtering System from Veeco Instruments Inc. (Nasdaq: VECO). The new capability is in support of Edmund Optics’ expanding portfolio of high quality laser optics for infrared, visible, and ultraviolet systems. Edmund Optics’ growing presence in the laser optics landscape builds on the company’s long history as a supplier of high quality imaging and photonics components. The SPECTOR platform represents Edmund Optics’ most recent financial and technical commitment to advancing state-of-the-art optics fabrication, adding to the company’s existing expertise in aspheric design and manufacturing, advanced optical metrology, and production of optics designed for high laser fluence applications.

“The SPECTOR platform gives us two essential elements: the best tool available to support precision and custom optical coatings, and the best partner to support our technical needs,” said Joel Bagwell, director of engineering and manufacturing technology at Edmund Optics. “Veeco fit the bill perfectly on both counts. The SPECTOR’s ability to create extremely high quality, high performance films is especially important for our laser optics coatings, and will help expand our portfolio to encompass new and emerging applications. As a company that holds customer service as our highest priority, we were also impressed with Veeco’s demonstrated track record of successfully supporting customers with global reach— the kind of service we provide to our customers and we seek from our suppliers.”

The SPECTOR ion beam sputtering platform offers exceptional layer thickness control, enhanced process stability, and the lowest published optical losses in the industry. The platform is engineered to enhance key production parameters, such as target material utilization, optical endpoint control, and process time for cutting-edge optical coating applications. The SPECTOR platform, which is the preferred ion beam sputtering system in the industry, has been installed in more than 200 advanced manufacturing settings across the world. The system is consistently chosen by manufacturers for the qualitative advantages of ion beam sputtering technology—low scatter loss, high film purity, stable deposition rates, and film thickness control of less than 0.1nm.

“Edmund Optics is a premier provider of optical components, known for providing the highest quality products for the life sciences, biomedical, semiconductor, defense, and research and development markets,” said Adrian Devasahayam, Ph.D., vice president and general manager of advanced deposition and etch products at Veeco. “Their selection of Veeco’s SPECTOR ion beam sputtering system further demonstrates the platform’s flexibility to support a wide range of applications with unmatched control and precision.”

Optical coatings are valuable in a wide variety of commercial categories including telecom, defense, architecture, medical, solar, transportation, and industrial, as well as consumer categories including flat-screen TVs, computers, tablets, cell phones, and eyeglass coatings. According to BCC Research, the global market for optical coatings is expected to reach $14.2 billion in 2021, up from $9.5 billion in 2016. The commercial segment in particular is expected to grow from $5.4 billion in 2016 to $9.4 billion in 2021—demonstrating a five-year compound annual growth rate (CAGR) of 11.5 percent. Key drivers of this growth are emerging applications in commercial and consumer categories, as well as innovative coatings to improve existing applications.

Fujitsu Semiconductor Limited (Fujitsu Semiconductor) and United Microelectronics Corporation (NYSE:UMC; TWSE:2303) (“UMC”), a global semiconductor foundry, today announced that UMC will acquire all of the shares of Mie Fujitsu Semiconductor Limited (MIFS), a 300mm wafer foundry joint venture between both companies.

In addition to the 15.9% of MIFS shares currently owned by UMC, Fujitsu Semiconductor will transfer the remaining 84.1% of its shares in MIFS to UMC, making MIFS a wholly-owned subsidiary of the Taiwan-based foundry. The consideration of the transaction will be around ¥ JPN 57.6 billion. The transfer is planned for January 1, 2019, pending approval by the relevant governmental authorities.

In 2014, both companies concluded an agreement for UMC to acquire a 15.9% stake in MIFS through progressive phases. Since then, besides equity investment, Fujitsu Semiconductor and UMC have been furthering their partnership through licensing of UMC’s 40nm technology and establishment of a 40nm logic production line at MIFS. After several years of joint operations, both companies have agreed on the benefits of integrating MIFS into UMC, which has a strong business foundation as a world leading semiconductor foundry with a broad customer portfolio, enhanced manufacturing expertise and extensive technology offerings enabling MIFS to maximize its values it can deliver to all stakeholders, including its customers.

As a member of UMC, MIFS will continue to provide foundry services of an even higher quality to its customers. While the name of the company and details of distribution after the transaction will soon be determined, for the present, MIFS will maintain its existing distribution channels for customers.

Jason Wang, co-president of UMC said, “UMC is experiencing high demand from mature 12″ processes. With new applications in 5G, IoT, automotive and AI requiring these technologies, we anticipate the market conditions driving this demand to remain strong for the foreseeable future. The acquisition of a fully qualified, equipped, and volume production proven 12″ facility provides greater time and ROI advantages compared to building a fab from scratch, which would cost several billion dollars and several years to construct and equip. With existing 300mm fabs in Taiwan, China and Singapore, Japan-based MIFS will help customers further diversify their manufacturing risk with a robust production base to ensure business continuity, which is especially important for automotive chip makers who require a stable and uninterrupted source of supply. UMC will also be able to leverage its decades of world class IC production experience with Japan’s local talent and world-renowned quality standards to better serve Japanese and international customers. We are excited that the strong partnership between UMC and Fujitsu Semiconductor will enable us to achieve further growth and provide customers with higher value through the acquisition of MIFS.”

“With its strengths in technology, such as ultra-low power consumption process technology, non-volatile memory technology for embedded applications, and RF and mmWave technology, as well as its highly reliable production system, as accepted by automotive customers, and its outstanding and experienced workforce, MIFS has been providing its customers with high quality foundry services” said Kagemasa Magaribuchi, President and Representative Director of Fujitsu Semiconductor. “To sustain its growth in the future and deliver far greater values to its customers, Fujitsu Semiconductor and MIFS have determined that it is the best to further enhance its competitiveness as a pure-play foundry by becoming a member of the UMC Group, a leading global semiconductor foundry. I expect that, by fully leveraging the UMC Group’s strengths, including its expertise and its cost competitiveness driven both by capital investment backed by ample financial resources as well as its globally expanded businesses, MIFS will further grow as a global company. I believe that the further growth of MIFS will also contribute to maintaining and expanding a workforce and to the local economy in the regions MIFS resides.”

Gases and engineering company The Linde Group, a supplier of electronic materials, is investing in the expansion of existing products to improve business continuity planning (BCP), while adding new products with improved purity to meet the growing needs of sub-10nm semiconductor factories and advanced flat panel manufacturers.

Expanded capacity of fluorine/nitrogen mixtures
Linde has expanded capacity for fluorine/nitrogen mixtures at Medford, Oregon for etching and chamber cleaning applications.

  • This allows both low- and high-pressure fluorine and nitrogen mixture production.
  • On-site high-purity fluorine production minimizes third-party supply issues.
  • The product line is expanding to include fluorine/argon mixtures in place with tri-mix       capability(fluorine/argon/nitrogen) later in 2018.
  • This facility complements fluorine mixture production at the Linde Alpha, New Jersey facility.

New precursors to meet customer requirements
New elements of innovation continue to emerge in CVD, ALD, and ALE precursors such as high-volume supply capabilities, process solutions to deliver quality in our advanced precursors and an applications lab to support new materials development. Linde is developing deposition precursors and etch gases: silicon precursors, digermanium mixtures, high K and metal gate precursors, isotope gases and etch gases such as CF3I (trifluoroiodomethane) and custom fluorinated silane.

“Linde recognizes that our customers continue to make investments in new processes and technologies, and we are committed to investing with them for the materials they will require now and in the future,” states Matt Adams, Head of Sales and Marketing for Linde Electronics and Specialty Products.

Linde Electronics will be exhibiting at the SEMICON West tradeshow in San Francisco July 10-12. Its focus will be on the quality, expertise, commitment and environmental leadership that Linde Electronics brings to the semiconductor industry through such offerings as electronic specialty gases, on-site solutions, materials recycling and recovery and SPECTRA® nitrogen plants.

SEMICON West is the annual tradeshow for the micro-electronics manufacturing industry. All visitors are welcome to visit Linde in booth number 5644 in the North hall in the Moscone Center in San Francisco.

SEMI today announced the formation of the SEMI Electronic Materials Group (EMG), a new collaborative technology community that combines the former Chemical & Gas Manufacturers Group (CGMG), the Silicon Manufacturers Group (SMG) and other SEMI member segments to better serve the interests of the electronics materials industry. The group is open to SEMI Members involved in materials manufacture, distribution and services throughout the microelectronics industry.

“Materials companies are the linchpin of innovation – enabling advances in technology across the microelectronics value chain – from sand to smartphones,” said Bart Pitcock, vice president and general manager, North America for KMG Electronic Chemicals and chair of the EMG Americas Chapter. “We are pleased to build out this SEMI platform to drive program collaboration, information exchange, issues management and communication to materials industry stakeholders including customers and policymakers.”

Electronic materials have played an increasingly important role in technology innovation as electronics move from IT-centric to ubiquitous computing across consumer, industrial and data management markets. The market size for wafer fabrication materials (US$ 28 billion), semiconductor packaging materials (US$ 19 billion), and electronics assembly materials (US$ 20 billion) reflects the critical importance of materials to the growth and expansion of the worldwide electronic manufacturing ecosystem.

To help manage growing interdependencies across the microelectronics supply chain, the EMG now represents all materials makers, aligning with the SEMI mission to serve members across the microelectronics design and manufacturing industries.

As the first SEMI technology community, the Silicon Manufacturers’ Group was instrumental in the evolution of SEMI and the industry, defining standards for silicon wafers, the substrate on which semiconductors are built.

“Members of the former Silicon Manufacturers’ Group are pleased to join forces with other companies that provide the critical materials that enable the worldwide electronics manufacturing industries,” said Neil Weaver, director, Product Development and Applications Engineering of Shin-Etsu Handotai America. “We see great value and mutual purpose in working with others in the electronics materials community to advance our common interests.”

The EMG will continue its mission to facilitate collective efforts on issues related to the microelectronics materials industry that are more effectively addressed by an industry association than by individual companies.

“We are pleased with the unanimous affirmation of the new community by SEMI regions and member segments worldwide,” said Tom Salmon, vice president of Collaborative Technology Platforms at SEMI.

Entegris, Inc. (NASDAQ: ENTG), a developer of specialty chemicals and advanced materials solutions for the microelectronics industry, announced today that it acquired Flex Concepts, Inc., a technology company focused on bioprocessing single-use bags, and fluid transfer solutions for the life sciences industry. Flex Concepts’ quick-turn, custom-configured, single-use product technology is a complement to Entegris existing single-use bag product line. With this combination, Entegris is now able to provide customers with a comprehensive solution set to meet emerging bioprocessing requirements.

Regulatory-driven process and production changes to pharmaceutical products are bringing incredible advancements to this industry.  However, these advancements often require organizations to have highly-customized process solutions that can be delivered with speed to meet tight development timelines.  With the technology from Flex Concepts, Entegris is able to better equip its customers to deliver the next healthcare treatment or disease prevention tool with the speed and flexibility they need to succeed in the market.

“In the pharma development pipeline, the quicker a potential process is developed, the faster life-saving treatments can be made available to patients” says Eric Isberg director of Life Sciences, Entegris. “The addition of Flex Concepts capabilities will allow us to enrich our solutions set for fast growing single use bioprocessing applications.”

Neither the purchase price nor Flex Concepts financial results are material to Entegris overall financial statements.