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Silvaco, an EDA and IP provider of software tools, announced today that it has moved into new corporate headquarters at 2811 Mission College Boulevard on the sixth floor of one of the towers of the Mission Corporate Center in the heart of Silicon Valley in Santa Clara.

After 34 years, Silvaco moved from its company-owned Patrick Henry campus, where it occupied 5 buildings to a state of the art facility with workspace for all employees under one roof.

“This is an exciting time for Silvaco and marks a huge milestone for the company, aligned with our progress in our leadership for Advanced Nodes, Power and Display. The new layout allows for a modern-style collaborative working environment to help accelerate our pace of innovation,” said Dave Dutton, CEO of Silvaco. “I am confident that this move will allow us to accommodate our future growths plans.

Silvaco, Inc. is a leading EDA and IP provider of software tools used for process and device development and for analog/mixed-signal, power IC, and memory design. Silvaco delivers a full TDAD-to-sign-off flow for vertical markets including displays, power electronics, optical devices, radiation and soft error reliability, and advanced CMOS process and IP development

Air Liquide Advanced Materials, Inc. (ALAM) has been chosen by the New Jersey chapter of the Association for Corporate Growth as an honoree for the 2018 Corporate Growth Awards.

The ACG NJ Corporate Growth Awards were established in 2015 and honor companies that exemplify sustained innovation, excellence and corporate growth. ALAM has been a strong presence in the New Jersey business community since 2013 when it acquired Voltaix, a Branchburg, NJ-based electronics materials company founded in 1986. As the leading manufacturer of speciality chemicals in the semiconductor industry, ALAM is committed to continued long-term growth and engagement with the communities in which it operates.

ALAM is one of five New Jersey companies to receive the distinction at the ACG NJ Corporate Growth Conference and Awards on May 8, 2018 at The Palace at Somerset Park, NJ for a half-day event including a CEO panel discussion and awards ceremony.

Paul Burlingame, Air Liquide Advanced Materials, Inc. President & CEO said, “We are proud to receive the 2018 ACG NJ Corporate Growth Award in recognition of the innovation, operational agility, and customer focus exhibited by Air Liquide Advanced Materials employees every day. As a result of these efforts Air Liquide Advanced Materials remains committed to continued growth fueled by new products, collaborations and markets.”

Cohu, Inc. (NASDAQ:COHU) and Xcerra Corporation (NASDAQ:XCRA) today announced they have entered into a definitive merger agreement pursuant to which Cohu will acquire Xcerra for a combination of cash and stock. The acquisition is expected to make Cohu a global leader in semiconductor test, with combined sales for Cohu and Xcerra in excess of $800 million for the last twelve months.

Upon the closing of the transaction, Xcerra shareholders will be entitled to receive $9.00 in cash and 0.2109 of a share of Cohu common stock, subject to the terms of the definitive agreement. Based on the closing price of Cohu common stock as of May 7, 2018, the transaction values Xcerra at $13.92 per share, or approximately $796 million in equity value, with a total enterprise value of approximately $627 million, after excluding Xcerra’s cash and marketable securities net of the debt on its balance sheet as of January 31, 2018. The transaction value represents a premium of 8.4% to Xcerra’s closing price on May 7, 2018, and a premium of 15.4% to Xcerra’s 30-day average closing price.

“This proposed acquisition is a powerful combination of two complementary companies that will accelerate our strategy to diversify our product offerings and strengthen Cohu’s position as a global leader in back-end semiconductor equipment. The depth and breadth of the combined product portfolios, engineering and product development resources, as well as the global customer support platforms will enable us to deliver comprehensive semiconductor back-end solutions that better meet the future needs of our customers,” commented Luis Müller, Cohu’s President and CEO.

Mr. Müller continued, “The acquisition of Xcerra increases our addressable market to approximately $5 billion across handlers, contactors, test and inspection, further strengthening our ability to fully capitalize on the secular growth opportunities in the automotive, IoT, industrial and mobility markets. We are excited to welcome the Xcerra team to Cohu and look forward to an efficient completion of the transaction, with a focus on delivering long-term value to our customers, employees and shareholders.”

Commenting on the proposed acquisition, David Tacelli, Xcerra’s President and CEO, stated, “We are very pleased to be joining forces with Cohu to create a global leader in back-end semiconductor test. Together, we will be an even stronger and more competitive company with far reaching long-term benefits to our customers and employees. I am extremely proud of what the Xcerra team has accomplished over the past several years and look forward to the exciting possibilities we can achieve together with Cohu.”

The transaction is expected to be immediately accretive to non-GAAP earnings per share and generate over $20 million of annual run-rate cost synergies within 2 years of closing, excluding stock-based compensation and other charges.

 

UnitySC, a developer of advanced inspection and metrology solutions, today announced the opening of its Asia subsidiary, Unity Semiconductor Limited Company (UnitySC Asia). The entity was established to deliver enhanced customer support for UnitySC’s growing installed base of inspection and metrology tools throughout the region. UnitySC Asia is headquartered at Tai-Yuan Hi-Tech Industrial Park, Jubei City, Hsinchu, Taiwan, and has field offices in Singapore, Korea, and Shanghai, as well as a presence in Japan.

“Asia is experiencing very strong growth in the semiconductor industry,” said Kamel Ait-Mahiout, CEO, UnitySC. “We’re seeing customers ramp up new advanced packaging technologies in their factories to meet the demands of multiple market drivers. It is evident that being local is quickly becoming a requirement, so that we can provide application development along with our existing customer support capabilities. UnitySC Asia is a key piece of our growth strategy, following the recent acquisition of HSEB GmbH, which broadened our process control portfolio.”

Seventy percent of UnitySC’s global customer installed base is located in Asia. The region’s rapid growth is driven by expanding markets: wireless and connectivity, as well as automotive, which includes electric vehicles and autonomous driving. These trends are fueling increased demand for advanced packaging, power devices and sensors.

“While UnitySC has long maintained a customer service presence in Asia, growth in the region calls for a local sales force as well as experienced application engineers who can respond to complex process questions quickly,” said Patrick Desjardins, general manager, UnitySC Asia. “Moreover, as our installed base of tools grows in the region, we will be able to provide the high-quality support our customers have come to expect directly from our local offices.”

UnitySC is growing in the Asia Pacific region and is staffed to support all areas of service. The local team includes engineers, experienced application engineers and customer service personnel, and also offers on-site customer support and assistance.

 

By Heidi Hoffman, Sr. Director of FHE, MEMS and Sensors Marketing, SEMI

Peel-and-stick simplicity isn’t just for adhesive bandages any more. IoT and flexible hybrid electronics (FHE) are bound to change hardware business models. And flexible displays will breathe life into any surface.

These were among the insights foreshadowing the future of the FHE, electronic textiles, IoT, MEMS and sensors industries at the FLEX Japan and MEMS & Sensors Forum Japan 2018. At the April event, organized by SEMI-FlexTech-MSIG, nearly 200 attendees shared their observations and lessons learned in the development of processes, products and applications. Presentations and discussions revealed these five takeaways.

1. Expect the unexpected with FHE development

Flexible Hybrid Electronics (FHE) continues to shrink the size and weight of products, enabling new markets and concepts. “FHE takes printed electronics and adds ICs for getting performance out of the PE structure,” said Wilfried Bair of NextFlex, adding that “peel- and-stick electronic products are one example of unexpected new markets enabled by FHE capabilities.” One potential application is large peel-and-stick safety sensors adhered to buildings to warn of structural dangers.

2018FLEX Japan

 

Another surprising turn: With new insights into OLED technology originally developed for flexible displays, Cambridge Display Technology (CDT) has devised an innovative medical diagnostic tool for markets such as biomedical and agricultural monitoring. The tool features an atmosphere-processable OLED component with a simplified OLED structure encapsulated in aluminum foil.

2. IoT and FHE devices should change hardware business models

This is the standard business model for many new FHE products: develop a product, manufacture it, find customers and sell. FHE and IOT device developers were encouraged by Jam Kahn of Gemalto to consider flipping the script: During FHE product development, explore building an after-market revenue stream by controlling and mining the data for trends it reveals. Because of its data harvesting potential, IoT is an excellent emerging technology for this strategy.

The “Experience Economy” could create 200 connectable items per person, generating strong revenue streams from the collection and analysis of massive amounts of sensor-generated data. The key is for the data to be actionable. That means hardware suppliers must extend their focus to software development. “A recent study of California investors found that by 2025, 60 percent of global business profits will be from data,“ noted Harri Koopla of VTT, who advised hardware producers to examine business models that produce continuous value by leveraging software. “With FHE, we are creating the path to digitization for non-digital industries, and these industries need complete solutions,” he said.

Xenoma smartshirt features

 

Hardware provider Xenoma, for example, sells an electronic shirt with sensors for measuring muscle movements, heart rate and other health-related data. Xenoma’s Ichiro Amimori said the company offers its open-source software development kit for free under one condition: The developer must share the collection data with Xenoma. The idea is that the more data collected, the greater Xenoma’s ability to improve human health over the long term and achieve its long-term vision of alleviating disease.

3. Roll-to-roll and sheet-to-sheet manufacturing will meet in the middle

One of the big advantages of flexible and printed electronics was its promise to enable the manufacturing of electronics on a roll-to-roll (R2R) process in atmospheric (or close) conditions, like newspaper, rather than one sheet at a time, as with displays or wafers. But as development of inks and interconnects progressed, along with the placement of discrete and thinned-die components and basic flexible substrates on a moving web, most research and development (R&D) and limited-production runs moved to sheet-fed systems to control material costs for experiments and low-volume production. R&D on printing electronics processes split into two camps: the simple printed components camp on R2R, and the camp backing more flexible hybrid electronics development on a sheet-by-sheet basis. But progress didn’t stop.

R2R functional testing

 

Harri Koopla of VTT highlighted new R2R inspection and test capabilities in the VTT pilot line in Finland. R2R processing advances incorporate ideas from biology, chemistry, optics, optoelectronics, advanced inspection and test capability, illustrating the multidisciplinary nature of FHE. While accurate, high-speed, pick and place of thinned, bare die remains the domain of sheet-to-sheet manufacturing, look for more improvements in accuracy and speed.

Another new manufacturing concept that turns business models on their heads – “minimal fabs” – focuses on creating limited-run equipment and processes that use 3D printing and do not require cleanrooms. With a relatively low cost of entry, the approach enables electronics to be produced affordably anywhere.

4. Powering the IoT is a grand challenge

The requirement for edge devices to function without intervention for long periods raises hard questions about how to power the devices. Using organic photovoltaics (OPV) in textiles to harvest energy from light could be one solution, according to Kasimaesttro Sugino of the Suminoe Textile Technical Center.  

ULVAC’s answer to the IoT power issue are requirements for edge device micro-batteries to be environmentally benign, safe, flexible and compatible with semiconductor processing less than .1 mm in height. The micro-batteries must also feature a long life and support continuous power output, high power density, low self-discharge (over 10 years) and mass production, said Shunsuke Sasaki of ULVAC. The batteries are being built on silicon, glass and stainless steel with dry, thin-film vacuum processing.

5. Flexible displays bring any surface to life

With their durability, flexibility, low-cost processing and programmability, flexible displays can transform any surface into a content-rich display with messages that make lives healthier, simpler and safer.

FlexEnable

 

One example is FlexEnable’s organic thin-film transistor (OTFT), a device made possible not only by recent advances such as the ability to build organic material transistors on plastic and the increasing clarity of new film materials but by continuous manufacturing process improvements. These advances are improving switching times and the color and video capabilities of thin-film transistors while retaining their flexibility, low power consumption and communication capabilities. Simon Jone of FlexEnable gave the examples of wrapping a display around the blind spots of automobiles or replacing side-view mirrors with interior monitors showing feeds from an external camera, approaches that would improve safety while reducing wind drag and increasing fuel efficiency.

E Ink’s reflective technology and flexible products are coming to market with a wider color spectrum. The company’s Michael McCreary said its designers are specifying the panels for innovative projects such as the exterior walls of the San Diego International Airport parking garage. Used to communicate with airport visitors, the installation is weather-proof, programmable and self-powered.

Originally published on the SEMI blog.

Semtech Corporation (Nasdaq:SMTC), a supplier of high performance analog, mixed-signal semiconductors and advanced algorithms, today announced it has acquired substantially all the assets of IC Interconnect, Inc. (“ICI”), a privately-held, U.S.-based company that provides contract wafer bumping and related services to the electronics industry. The acquisition is expected to add 42 employees located in Colorado Springs, Colo.

Under the terms of the purchase agreement, Semtech acquired ICI assets for a cash purchase price of approximately $7 million and assumed certain obligations going forward. Semtech funded the purchase price using its current cash assets. The Company does not expect the deal to have any material impact to its earnings.

Next-generation Protection platforms require advanced technological capabilities to deliver the right combination of the highest performance and smallest footprint. Semtech and ICI have demonstrated their ability to produce market leading solutions such as the Semtech Z-Pak™ platform with more than 25 billion Z-Pak-based devices shipped into high-end consumer applications such as smartphones, wearables and tablets.

“The addition of ICI is aimed at further enhancing our U.S. R&D capabilities by developing and ramping our next-generation Z-Pak platform – the Z-UltraTM platform,” stated Mark Costello, Vice President and General Manager of Semtech’s Protection Products Group. “The “Z-Ultra” platform will significantly enhance Semtech’s ability to address new challenges created by further shrinking of silicon geometries and will drive quantum improvements in system-level performance over our current platform.”

“ICI has combined manufacturing process innovation and operational excellence to deliver cost-effective wafer level packages to Semtech since 2001 and we are now excited to become part of the Company,” stated Curt Erickson, President of ICI.

Analog Devices, Inc. awarded Bob Reay, Leonard Shtargot, Jesper Steensgaard, and Sam Zhang the title of Analog Devices Fellow, a distinguished technical position given to engineers who contribute significantly to the company’s success through exceptional innovation, leadership and an unparalleled ability to unite and mentor others.

“These Fellows exemplify Analog Devices’ unwavering commitment to technological innovation,” said Ray Stata, cofounder and chairman of the board, Analog Devices. “Bob and Leonard hold numerous patents and have mentored many budding innovators. Jesper has a diverse skill set that makes him not only an exceptional engineer, but a passionate teacher and leader. Sam, through his incredible work on inertial MEMS (microelectromechanical systems) sensors, has helped Analog Devices introduce groundbreaking sensors used in a wide range of applications and industries.”

Bob Reay
Bob is an innovator, technologist, teacher and historian who earned both his B.S. and M.S. degrees in Electrical Engineering from Stanford University. During his 30 years at Linear Technology Corp. (LTC), which is now part of Analog Devices, Bob was granted 22 patents. He is credited with helping to build LTC’s CMOS Interface business, opening the company’s first remote design center in Singapore, and serving as the first vice president and general manager of LTC’s Mixed-Signal business unit. Bob’s thoughtful and well-reasoned approach to problem solving has led people to seek his advice for technical and strategic challenges alike.

Leonard Shtargot
Leonard joined Linear Technology in 2001 as a design engineer with a B.S. EECS from the University of California at Berkeley. Leonard has contributed innovations in power conversion technology and designed several families of high-performance DC/DC switching regulators focusing on new circuits, high-voltage silicon process improvements, advanced flip-chip package designs, and test techniques. These products have been widely adopted by the automotive and industrial technology sectors. Leonard is also a hands-on teacher who mentors other engineers and often can be found in the lab or test floor helping his colleagues solve technical problems.

Jesper Steensgaard
Jesper is another alumnus of Linear Technology and earned his Ph.D. from the Technical University of Denmark in 1999. With 22 U.S. patents, Jesper has contributed to the release of 79 high-performance, successive-approximation-register A/D converters since 2007 and spearheaded the development of a new line of “intrinsically-linear” SAR A/D converters with performance levels that are now the best in the industry. He excels at both detailed circuit design and system-level concepts. Jesper was the founder of his own company, Esion LLC, and has held academic positions at Columbia University and Oregon State University.

Sam Zhang
Sam joined Analog Devices in 2001 after earning a B.S. degree in Electrical Engineering from Tsinghua University and a M.S. degree in Mechanical Engineering from the George Washington University. He has been awarded 21 U.S. patents with another five pending. For more than a decade, Sam has been the principal designer of ADI’s low-G inertial MEMS products, including the company’s first 3-axis accelerometer and MEMS microphone products. He also led the design of several generations of high-performance 3-axis accelerometer products and created a design methodology that accurately predicts inertial sensor offset. His latest groundbreaking contributions have been in the areas of ultra-low noise accelerometers and condition-based monitoring sensors that are re-shaping the way machine health is being addressed.

 The 2018 Critical Materials Council (CMC) Conference—held April 26-27 at the Hilton Chandler in Arizona— was a great gathering with presentations from Everspin, Intel, GlobalFoundries, and NXP discussing current fab challenges, and the relationships to near-term materials solutions. Held immediately following private CMC face-to-face meeting, this public event enabled targeted discussions on problems, opportunities, and issues in the present and future materials market.

Session 1 presentations from Keller&Heckman, KPMG, Semico, VLSI Research, and the United States’ Environmental Protection Agency reminded attendees of the many environmental, financial, and political factors impacting global fab supply-chains. Jeff Morris, the US EPA’s Director of the Office of Pollution Prevention and Toxics, reviewed the status of enforcement of the Toxic Substances Control Act (TSCA) with a focus on N-Methylpyrrolidone (NMP), per- and poly-fluorinated Substances (PFAS, PFOS, PFOA), and Photo-Acid Generators (PAG) used in semiconductor manufacturing.

Session 2 covering materials issues in fabs today explored the evolving specifications needed in silicon wafers, ion-implantation, noble gases, and metal depositions including atomic-layer (ALD) chemical-vapor (CVD) physical-vapor (PVD) and electro-chemical (ECD). The Figure shows 200mm-diameter silicon wafer global supply and manufacturing demand from 2015 to 2020, as modeled by TECHCET President and CEO Lita Shon-Roy in her presentation on materials markets. TECHCET expects that this year will see a balancing and then an excess of supply in this wafer size used for manufacturing Opto-electronics, Sensors, and Discretes (OSD) along with Radio Frequency (RF) communications chips.

The presentations on cobalt processing from Air Liquide, Applied Materials, Fraunhofer, and Fujimi—mostly in Session 3—provided fantastic perspectives on solutions to inherent integration challenges with this metal. Cobalt has been used as a barrier or a liner for on-chip copper interconnect lines for many years, but the material is now being integrated as the entire interconnect material for the smallest metal lines in the most aggressively scaled IC structures. Nicolas Blasco of Air Liquide discussed the complex path to discovering novel ALD precursors, while Michelle Garza of Fujimi discussed ways to manage the complexity of developing new Chemical-Mechanical Planarization (CMP) slurries for application-specific cobalt integration.

Senior Analyst with TECHCET Ed Korczynski presented an update on the latest lithography materials to enable patterning the smallest possible commercial IC devices, including recently disclosed Self-Aligned Multi-Patterning (SAMP) technology options to improve IC yields. Cost models for different multi-patterning process flows were recently presented at the 2018 SPIE Advanced Lithography conference showing how Extreme Ultra-Violet (EUV) lithography can be cost-effective despite double the tool costs. Key to cost-effective use of EUV will be control of stochastic yield losses which are colloquially termed “Black Swans”.

The Wednesday night reception and the Thursday night break-out roundtable discussions gave everyone time to make new connections and have discrete discussions on metrology, specifications, and technology integration. Block your calendar in 2019 for the 4th annual CMC Conference, tentatively scheduled for April 25-26 in the US. www.cmcfabs.org www.techcet.com

ABOUT CMC: The Critical Materials Council (CMC) of Semiconductor Fabricators (CMCFabs.org) is a membership-based organization that works to anticipate and solve critical materials issues in a pre-competitive environment. The CMC is a unit of TECHCET.

ABOUT TECHCET: TECHCET CA LLC is an advisory service firm focused on process materials supply chains, electronic materials technology, and materials market analysis for the semiconductor, display, solar/PV, and LED industries. Since 2000, the company has been responsible for producing the SEMATECH Critical Material Reports, covering silicon wafers, semiconductor gases, wet chemicals, CMP consumables, Photoresists, and ALD/CVD Precursors. For additional information about these reports or about CMC Fabs membership or associate-membership for suppliers please contact Diane Scott at [email protected]  +1-480-332-8336, or go to www.techcet.com or www.cmcfabs.org.

Osram has added to its expertise in semiconductor-based optical security technology by acquiring US-based Vixar Inc. Already a technology leader in infrared LEDs and infrared laser diodes, Osram will have a unique breadth of technological expertise and an expanded product portfolio after bringing on board Vixar’s specialist capabilities in the field of VCSEL. While currently known primarily for identification applications in mobile devices, VCSEL also can be used to recognize gestures and measure distances in medical, industrial and automotive applications. Vixar was founded by pioneers in the VCSEL industry, having first brought VCSEL to the data communication market in the late 1990s, and more recently by founding Vixar in 2005 to pursue sensing applications. Approximately 20 employees of the company, which is based in Plymouth, Minnesota, will transfer to Osram as a result of the acquisition. Vixar is profitable both on an operational and net results level. The parties to the deal have agreed not to disclose financial details. Closing of the transaction is expected in summer.

“The acquisition of Vixar is adding to our expertise, particularly in the fast-growing market for security technologies,” said Olaf Berlien, CEO of OSRAM Licht AG. Osram is a technology leader in infrared optical semiconductors and has already succeeded in bringing to market light sources for fingerprint sensors, iris scanners, and 2D facial recognition. The acquired capabilities will pave the way for further security technologies, including ultra-compact 3D facial recognition. In addition to unlocking smartphones and other consumer electronics devices, such technologies also can be used for high-security access controls in industry.

The way in which VCSEL technology captures 3D environmental data has applications in everything from gesture recognition, augmented reality, robotics and proximity sensors to autonomous driving. VCSEL stands for vertical cavity surface emitting laser and is a special type of laser diode in which the light is emitted perpendicular to the surface of the semiconductor chip. Vixar is a fabless semiconductor company, and has developed a robust volume supply chain consisting of merchant foundries serving the optoelectronic market. Osram’s depth and breadth of semiconductor experience will further strengthen the manufacturing capabilities for the rapidly growing VCSEL market.

Leti, a research institute at CEA Tech, and Cellmic LLC, a company dedicated to improving patient healthcare with smartphones and biophotonics, today announced that they joined forces to accelerate the market adoption of lens-free imaging and sensing techniques by growing Leti’s patent portfolio with a core patent from Cellmic.

Pioneered by Aydogan Ozcan, UCLA’s chancellor’s professor, and his research group, this patented computational lens-free imaging approach reconstructs detailed images of specimens from their holographic shadows that contain unique 3D information of samples, such as tissue sections, blood smears and cell cultures. Cellmic LLC, a UCLA spin-off, holds some of the core patents of this important computational imaging technique.

Lens-free microscopy has emerged as a powerful imaging and sensing platform that replaces bulky and expensive optical components that are found in standard optical microscopy systems with dedicated algorithms. Leti developed a lens-free microscope in 2012. Today the technology offers an ultra-wide field-of-view, tracking more than 10,000 biological, microscopic objects at a time per image, providing lab techs with a cost-effective, highly compact and robust solution. The Cellmic patent complements Leti’s IP portfolio and accelerates its ongoing valorization of its lens-free technology for diagnostics, biomedical sensing and related applications.

“Lens-free, on-chip imaging offers a very unique opportunity to bring advanced microscopy and sensing tools into your pocket with a fraction of the cost of existing technologies,” said Ozcan, who is also a co-founder of Cellmic LLC. “We are proud to have made fundamental contributions to establish this technique, which has been benefiting researchers in both academia and industry at a global scale.”

“Our partnership with Leti will help this powerful imaging and sensing technology to reach different markets through Leti’s powerful collaborations with other companies in various industries,” added Neven Karlovac, the CEO and co-founder of Cellmic LLC.

“Ozcan’s research lab and Cellmic have done ground-breaking work in developing lens-free imaging techniques,” said Jean-Marc Dinten, Leti Imaging department manager and international expert. “This core patent complements our lens-free technology development, such as point-of-care diagnosis for spinal meningitis.”