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SiFive, a provider of commercial RISC-V processor IP, today announced Brad Holtzinger as Vice President of Worldwide Sales, where he will work with the existing global portfolio of SiFive customers and onboard new clients seeking to take advantage of the company’s market-leading Core IP.  Holtzinger brings more than 30 years of embedded industry experience in sales, marketing and engineering.

“It is rare to see a company rapidly disrupting the silicon sector,” Holtzinger said. “I look forward to joining the SiFive team and supporting our customers and partners globally in adopting RISC-V and SiFive’s IP to move the industry forward.”

Previously, Holtzinger was the Vice President of Worldwide Sales for MIPS Technologies where he led licensing and sales of its global IP portfolio.  While at MIPS, Holtzinger drove the company to record sales and negotiated the sale and licensing of the MIPS patent portfolio to Bridge Crossing for $350 million and the sale of the remaining company to Imagination.

Prior to MIPS, he led the sales, operations and business development efforts as well as held the position of CEO for a number of privately funded and venture backed startups. He also founded the OEM Systems division of Force Computers, which was sold to Solectron for approximately $190 million.

Holtzinger started his career at Motorola as an embedded hardware and software design engineer, where he authored Motorola’s Technical Training class on Unix® System V and eventually was one of the founding members of Motorola’s Microcomputer Group, (MCG), that sold OEM systems and VME boards.  Holtzinger received his bachelor’s degree in electrical engineering from Purdue University and was an instructor at University of California, Berkeley.

“SiFive is excited to bring someone with Brad’s decades-long silicon sales leadership to the SiFive executive team,” said Naveed Sherwani, CEO of SiFive. “His experience leading a world-class sales organization and embedded hardware expertise will help continue to propel SiFive customer adoption.”

Applied Materials, Inc. today announced it has been awarded a contract by the Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency (DARPA) to develop a new type of electronic switch for artificial intelligence that mimics the way the human brain works to enable dramatic improvements in performance and power efficiency. The project is being supported by DARPA’s Electronics Resurgence Initiative, a multi-year research effort intended to achieve far-reaching improvements in electronics performance well beyond the limits of traditional Moore’s Law scaling.

Applied is working with Arm and Symetrix to develop a new neuromorphic switch based on CeRAM memory that can allow data to be stored and processed in the same material. The goal of the project is to enable a major improvement in artificial intelligence compute performance and power efficiency with the use of analog signal processing as compared to current digital approaches.

“This project is a perfect example of how new materials and architectures can be developed to enable new ways to accelerate artificial intelligence applications as classic Moore’s Law scaling slows,” said Steve Ghanayem, senior vice president of New Markets and Alliances at Applied Materials. “Applied has the industry’s broadest portfolio in materials engineering capabilities and is excited to be part of a team enabling breakthroughs for artificial intelligence.”

Today’s announcement was part of DARPA’s first annual ERI Summit in San Francisco. Applied Materials’ president and CEO, Gary Dickerson, delivered a keynote speech at the event highlighting the need for materials innovation in the AI era and calling for a new level of industry connectivity to speed progress across materials engineering, design and manufacturing.

Announced in September 2017, the ERI Materials & Integration programs seek to answer this question: Can we use the integration of unconventional electronics materials to enhance conventional silicon circuits and continue the progress in performance traditionally associated with scaling?

The Applied Materials team is part of the ERI Foundations Required for Novel Compute (FRANC) program, which seeks innovations that go beyond von Neumann compute architectures. Central is the design of circuits that leverage the properties of new materials and integration schemes to process data in ways that eliminate or minimize data movement. The novel compute topologies that come out of this effort could allow processing to happen where the data is stored with structures that are radically different from conventional digital logic processors, ultimately allowing for significant gains in compute performance.

Applied Materials, Inc. (Nasdaq:AMAT) is a developer of materials engineering solutions used to produce virtually every new chip and advanced display in the world.

By Yoichiro Ando

The Japan semiconductor manufacturing supply chain is a global semiconductor industry workhorse, producing about one third of world’s chip equipment and more than half of its semiconductor materials. In contributing the vast majority of these products, SEMI Japan member companies hold the high distinction of enabling continuous development of the worldwide semiconductor industry. Aptly, then, technology powerhouses IBM, Nissan Motors and Toshiba offered insights into the latest trends and innovations in computing and smart cars at the late-May SEMI Japan Members Days in Tokyo with 133 technologists from member companies in attendance.

As the audience discovered, chip innovation never sleeps and, as futuristic as it can be, invariably gives rise to possibilities beyond the human imagination. That was the message of kickoff presentation “Computing Reimagined – AI/Quantum/IoT” – by Dr. Shintaro Yamamichi, Senior Manager, Science & Technology at IBM Research-Tokyo. Dr. Yamamichi cited three examples of how semiconductors uncover new technology frontiers.

  • Computational materials discovery, a novel methodology, is the application of theory and computation to unearthing new materials and the key to enabling an ongoing stream of semiconductor innovation. In particular, using cognitive technology to mine huge volumes of literature reveal new insights into materials that uncover even more functionality such as greater conductivity and heat resistance. With new materials the oxygen of ever more advanced semiconductor chip manufacturing, the semiconductor industry will surely benefit from this methodology.
  • The opportunity to accelerate quantum computing innovation is now. Launched in May 2016, the IBM Quantum Experience gives students, researchers and general science enthusiasts hands-on access to IBM’s experimental cloud-enabled quantum computing platform. The online platform features a forum for discussing quantum computing topics, tutorials on how to program IBM Q devices, and other educational material about quantum computing. Dr. Yamamichi encouraged the audience to join the program.
  • The world’s tiniest computer, unveiled by IBM at the company’s Think 2018 conference in Las Vegas, packs several hundred thousand transistors and, IBM claims, the equivalent power of a 1990s x86 chip into a package smaller than a grain of salt. The computer’s small form factor (less than 1mm x 1mm) and low manufacturing cost means it can be embedded in product price tags and packages as an anti-fraud device using blockchain technology.

Vehicles need to be both electric and intelligent as countries become more populous and traffic density increases. More drivers extend average drive time, boost greenhouse emissions, devour precious energy resources and lead to more traffic congestion and accidents. Dr. Haruyoshi Kumura, fellow at Nissan Motor, highlighted these issues in stressing the importance of a new era of intelligent mobility. To mitigate these problems, Nissan is focusing on the electrification and intelligence of its vehicles:

  • Nissan’s electric vehicle, Leaf, reduces accidents with electric intelligence systems such as e-Pedal, which uses an accelerator pedal only for both acceleration and deceleration, and ProPILOT Park, a feature that automatically parks the car by using multiple cameras and ultrasonic sonars to detect pedestrians and other objects around the vehicle.

  • With more than 90 percent of traffic accidents caused by driver error, Nissan plans to introduce autonomous driving on multi-lane highways by the end of 2018 and on city streets by 2020. By 2022, the company plans to roll out full autonomous driving to reduce traffic accidents caused by inattentive drivers.
  • For full autonomous driving to materialize, sensor fusion technology must incorporate a combination of technologies – radar systems, light detection and ranging (LiDAR) systems and cameras – to identify the shapes and locations of nearby moving objects and measure their speed. Sensed information is then processed by a 3D graphic analyzer to make electric throttle, braking and steering decisions.

The outlook for automotive industry includes car sharing and more electrification – both insights from Yoshiki Hayakashi, general manager, automotive solution strategic planning division at Toshiba Electronic Devices & Storage, who offered his perspectives on trends in Japan’s automotive industry and beyond.

  • To meet the requirements of the COP21 Paris agreement, the global automotive industry is shifting to electrification. Toshiba estimates 60 percent of new cars will be electric vehicles by 2040 to meet the International Energy Agency’s global EV outlook.
  • In Japan, autonomous driving or advanced driver assistance systems (ADAS) will be offered in certain areas by 2020, the year of the Tokyo Olympic games. Growth of these advanced driving systems hinges on infrastructure development. Supporting data centers, intelligent transport systems, vehicle-to-everything connections, and smart city are all necessary components.
  • Car ownership will begin to cede ground to car sharing with technology elites such as Tesla, Apple and Google leading the way. To expand the car-sharing industry, new alliances will take shape between new and old-guard automotive companies and electronics manufacturing services (EMS) providers.
  • Autonomous driving requires precise 3D renderings of actual roadways using sensors for route mapping. While sensor fusion must be deployed for these capabilities, LiDAR offers better sensing range and space resolution precision than ultrasonic sonars, radars, and cameras.

The next SEMI Japan members day is scheduled for October 30 in Tokyo. SEMI holds similar events in most regions where SEMI and its members operate. For the members events in your region, contact the SEMI office nearest you.

Yoichiro Ando is a marketing director in SEMI Japan.

Originally published on the SEMI blog.

Silicon Labs (NASDAQ: SLAB), a provider of silicon, software and solutions for a smarter, more connected world, announces two new executive appointments. Daniel Cooley has been named Senior Vice President and Chief Strategy Officer. In this new role, Mr. Cooley will focus on Silicon Labs’ overall growth strategy, business development, new technologies and emerging markets. Matt Johnson, a semiconductor veteran with more than 15 years of industry experience, joins Silicon Labs as Senior Vice President and General Manager of IoT products. Both executives will report to Tyson Tuttle, CEO.

Mr. Cooley has led Silicon Labs’ IoT business for the past four years. Under his leadership, the company built an industry-leading portfolio of secure connectivity solutions, with IoT revenue now exceeding a $100 million per quarter run rate. Mr. Cooley joined Silicon Labs in 2005 as a chip design engineer developing broadcast audio products and short-range wireless devices. Over the years, he has served in various senior management, engineering and product management roles at the company’s Shenzhen, Singapore, Oslo and Austin sites. The new role leverages Mr. Cooley’s proven talents in strategy and business development.

Mr. Johnson will lead Silicon Labs’ IoT business including the development and market success of the company’s broad portfolio of wireless products, microcontrollers, sensors, development tools and wireless software. Mr. Johnson has a track record of growing revenue and leading large global teams, and he brings a deep understanding of analog, MCU and embedded software businesses to Silicon Labs. Previously, he served as Senior Vice President and General Manager of automotive processing products and software development at NXP Semiconductors/Freescale, as well as SVP and General Manager of mobile solutions at Fairchild Semiconductor.

“With these executive appointments, we are expanding our ability to execute on large and growing market opportunities in the IoT,” said Tyson Tuttle, CEO of Silicon Labs. “Together, these two talented leaders will help Silicon Labs scale the business to the next level and focus on future growth.”

Bruker Corporation today announced that it has acquired JPK Instruments AG (JPK), located in Berlin, Germany. In 2017, JPK Instruments had revenue of approximately 10 million Euro. JPK provides microscopy instrumentation for biomolecular and cellular imaging, as well as force measurements on single molecules, cells and tissues. JPK adds in-depth expertise in live-cell imaging, cellular mechanics, adhesion, and molecular force measurements, optical trapping, and biological stimulus-response characterization to Bruker. Financial details of the transaction were not disclosed.

Over the past five years, Bruker has developed a life science microscopy business that specializes in advanced technologies for neuroscience, live-cell imaging, and molecular imaging, which will be further augmented by JPK’s advanced technologies and applications. Bruker’s existing fluorescence microscopy techniques include performance-leading multiphoton microscopy, swept-field confocal microscopy, super-resolution microscopy, and single-plane illumination microscopy.

“We have been making a substantial investment in advanced technologies for life science imaging, and have built up a portfolio of fluorescence microscopy products that enable biologists in research areas that require deep, fast imaging at high resolution and at low phototoxicity,” commented Dr. Mark R. Munch, President of the Bruker NANO Group. “JPK’s products and applications capabilities nicely augment our current techniques.”

Anthony Finbow, Chairman at JPK, added: “The combination of these two businesses will enable further significant advances in life science imaging and drive the state of the industry. I am delighted that we have been able to achieve this result for JPK and for Bruker.”

“The business we have built aligns well with the new strategic direction of Bruker in life science microscopy, and we are very pleased to join them,” said Dr. Torsten Jaehnke, a JPK founder and CTO. “We plan to realize a number of valuable synergies going forward.”

JPK’s BioAFM and optical tweezer product families span a range of techniques, from imaging of biological samples to characterizing biomolecular and cellular force interactions. Its NanoWizard 4 BioScience AFM combines atomic force imaging with advanced optical fluorescence imaging and super-resolution microscopy for the ultimate combination in image resolution for molecules, membranes, and live cells. In addition, the ForceRobot enables single-molecule force spectroscopy for investigating receptor-ligand interactions or small molecule-protein binding interactions. The CellHesion product brings quantitative force measurement to live cells and tissues, enabling insights in cell-substrate and cell-cell interactions. Lastly, JPK’s NanoTracker optical tweezer provides an all-optical means for molecular and cellular force experiments.

JPK’s offerings and life science applications expertise are synergistic with Bruker’s existing portfolio of advanced fluorescence microscopy products. Bruker’s Ultima family of multiphoton microscopes features proprietary photoactivation and photostimulation capabilities and deeper penetration into biological tissues, enabling advanced brain slice and intra-vital studies. Bruker’s Opterra swept-field scanning confocal fluorescence microscope provides unique live-cell imaging capabilities with unsurpassed dynamic observation of fast cellular events. Additionally, the Vutara super-resolution single-molecule localization (SML) microscope utilizes patented Biplane Imaging technology to provide high-speed, 3D super resolution for multicolor live-cell imaging and visualization of chromosome conformation. With a leading series of single plane illumination products, such as the MuVi SPIM and InVi SPIM, Bruker offers unique performance and easiest-to-use light sheet instruments featuring the combination of low phototoxicity and high-speed imaging. The combined microscopy portfolio of the two companies will enable a unique range of correlative measurements for emerging life science applications.

The Mid-Year Update to the 2018 McClean Report revises IC Insights’ worldwide economic and IC industry forecasts through 2022 that were originally presented in The 2018 McClean Report issued in January.

The Figure shows that IC Insights forecasts that China-headquartered companies will spend $11.0 billion in semiconductor industry capex in 2018, which would represent 10.6% of the expected worldwide outlays of $103.5 billion.  Not only would this amount be 5x what the Chinese companies spent only three years earlier in 2015, but it would also exceed the combined semiconductor industry capital spending of Japan- and Europe-headquartered companies this year.

Since adopting the fab-lite business model, the three major European producers have represented a very small share of total semiconductor industry capital expenditures and are forecast to account for only 4% of global spending in 2018 after representing 8% of worldwide capex in 2005.  Although there may be an occasional spike in capital spending from European companies (e.g., the surge in spending from ST and AMS in 2017), IC Insights believes that Europe-headquartered companies will represent only 3% of worldwide semiconductor capital expenditures in 2022.

It should be noted that several Japanese semiconductor companies have also transitioned to a fab-lite business model (e.g., Renesas, Sony, etc.).  With strong competition reducing the number and strength of Japanese semiconductor manufacturers, the loss of its vertically integrated businesses and thus missing out on supplying devices for several high-volume end-use applications, and its collective shift toward fab-lite business models, Japanese companies have greatly reduced their investment in new wafer fabs and equipment. In fact, Japanese companies are forecast to represent only 6% of total semiconductor industry capital expenditures in 2018, a big decline from the 22% share they held in 2005 and an even more precipitous drop from the 51% share they held in 1990.

Although China-headquartered pure-play foundry SMIC has been part of the list of major semiconductor industry capital spenders for quite some time, there are four additional Chinese companies that are forecast to become significant semiconductor industry spenders this year and next—memory suppliers XMC/YMTC, Innotron, JHICC, and pure-play foundry Shanghai Huali.  Each of these companies is expected to spend a considerable amount of money equipping and ramping up their new fabs in 2018 and 2019.

Due to the increased spending by startup China-based memory manufacturers, IC Insights believes that the Asia-Pac/Others share of semiconductor industry capital spending will remain over 60% for at least the next couple of years.

By Pete Singer

The importance of data gathered and analysed in the subfab – the place where vacuum pumps, abatements systems and other supporting equipment operates – is growing. Increasingly, manufacturers are finding that these systems have a direct impact on yield, safety, cost-of-ownership and ultimately capacity and cycle time.

“The subfab is getting recognized evermore as a contributor to the overall fab effectiveness, particularly when the fab is looking to get last fractions of a percentage of performance efficiencies,” notes Alan Ifould, Global Market Sector Manager at Edwards.

There’s also keen interest in tying this data with process data from the fab, the MES (manufacturing execution software) system and ultimately the ERP (enterprise resource planning) system as part of today’s efforts to understand and control the entire data ecosystem.

Subfab data systems provide a volume of data related not only to vacuum and abatement equipment, but also upstream, to the foreline, gate valve and chamber. Of special interest is the monitoring of vacuum faults, which can negatively impact quality, cost and safety. “A vacuum fault is anything that results in a loss of a degradation in vacuum,” said Ifould.

Ideally, faults – and the overall quality of the vacuum system — are proactively managed. Potential faults are detected days or even weeks before they occur and addressed during regularly scheduled tool maintenance, for example. “We’re finding that our ability to detect vacuum faults in the wider vacuum system comes very much to the fore,” Ifould said.

Data seen at the pump or abatement can help determine the size and location of vacuum system leaks. Algorithms based around vacuum science and thermodynamics can lead engineers to problematic leaks that, over time, can have a significant impact on yield.

Often, the first reaction to a loss in chamber pressure is to blame the vaccum pump, Ifould said. Vacuum pumps can be swapped out in about 4 hours, but if the process tool goes down while in operation, it could be in excess of 48 hours to get everything back up and running. Even then, it might be something other than the pump that caused the initial problem, such as a leak in a gate valve or in the foreline. It’s essential to accurately diagnose the problem(s) at the onset, but that can be a challenge: “You only need a small leak in a gate valve, and you immediately have problems with maintaining the base pressure in the chamber. The pump may become overloaded because of the additional gas load caused by leaks,” he said.

Edwards has developed a verity of new data collection and analysis strategies aimed at improving such decision making. The SMA (Site Management Application) is latest addition to data analytics portfolio, focused on subfab. As shown in Figure, SMA is designed to provide insight into maintenance activities, equipment performance and fault resolution. It is implemented in parallel with the company’s VTPS (Vacuum Technique Production System), which drives standard work and behaviors based on LEAN principles and best known methods.

Edwards is also working on what it calls “sensorization” where, for example, the use of vibration analytics can detect anomalies otherwise missed by traditional monitoring techniques.

Ifould said the SMA and sensorization helps improve the stability of fab operations by bringing veracity to the data. “It’s one thing to have a volume of data, but the data itself is of little value unless it’s of good quality,” he said. “When we’re looking at equipment operations and the way you have operators involved, being able to bring discipline to the behaviors of those operators to the task that they perform brings discipline to the data and improves the veracity of the data,” he said.

He said Edwards has been using this approach to “great effect” over the last year. “We can help our customers see where some of their maintenance practices need to be improved to eliminate some of the sources of error that cause some of those vacuum faults,” he said.

More recently, Edwards is looking to move beyond a simple predictive maintenance model (PdM) to a model that include quality (PdMQ). The model includesnot only the condition of the subfab equipment, but of the quality of the vacuum it provides, and therefore the process it supports. “We’re not just considering the condition of the subfab equipment and being able to predict when that may fail, but considering the quality of the vacuum that system actually provides.”

Harnessing data from all parts of the fab ecosystem is essential, Ifould notes, but has its challenges, especially when it comes to IP. “In an ideal world, we would like to receive contextualized data which allows us to relate what’s happening in the vacuum pump into the process itself. That becomes challenging because of the IP sensitivity,” he said.

Site Management Application, the latest addition to Edwards’ data analytics portfolio, is designed to provide insight into maintenance activities, equipment performance and fault resolution.

BY PAUL VAN DER HEIDE, director of materials and components analysis, imec, Leuven, Belgium

To keep up with Moore’s Law, the semiconductor industry continues to push the envelope in developing new device architectures containing novel materials. This in turn pushes the need for new solid-state analytical capabilities, whether for materials characterization or inline metrology. Aside from basic R&D, these capabilities are established at critical points of the semiconductor device manufacturing line, to measure, for example, the thickness and composition of a thin film, dopant profiles of transistor’s source/drain regions, the nature of defects on a wafer’s surface, etc. This approach is used to reduce “time to data”. We cannot wait until the end of the manufacturing line to know if a device will be functional or not. Every process step costs money and a fully functional device can take months to fabricate. Recent advances in instrumentation and computational power have opened the door to many new, exciting analytical possibilities.

One example that comes to mind concerns the development of coherent sources. So far, coherent photon sources have been used for probing the atomic and electronic structure of materials, but only within large, dedicated synchrotron radiation facilities. Through recent developments, table top coherent photon sources have been introduced that could soon see demand in the semiconductor lab/fab environment.

The increased computational power now at our finger tips is also allowing us to make the most of these and other sources through imaging techniques such as ptychography. Ptychog- raphy allows for the complex patterns resulting from coherent electron or photon interaction with a sample to be processed into recognizable images to a resolution close to the sources wavelength without the requirement of lenses (lenses tend to introduce aberrations). Potential application areas extend from non-destructive imaging of surface and subsurface structures, to probing chemical reactions at sub femto-second timescales.

Detector developments are also benefiting many analytical techniques presently used. As an example, transmission electron microscopy (TEM) and scanning transmission electron microscopy (STEM) can now image, with atomic resolution, heavy as well as light elements. Combining this with increased computational power, allows for further devel- opment of imaging approaches such as tomography, holography, ptychography, differential phase contrast imaging, etc. All of which allow TEM/STEM to not only look at atoms in e.g. 2D materials such as MoS2 in far greater detail, but also opens the possibility to map electric fields and magnetic domains to unprecedented resolution.

The semiconductor industry is evolving at a very rapid pace. Since the beginning of the 21st century, we have seen numerous disruptive technologies emerge; technologies that need to serve is an increasingly fragmented applications space. It’s no longer solely about ‘the central processing unit (CPU)’. Other applications ranging from the internet of things, autonomous vehicles, wearable human-electronics interface, etc., are being pursued, each coming with unique requirements and analytical needs.

Looking ten to fifteen years ahead, we will witness a different landscape. Although I’m sure that existing techniques such as TEM/STEM will still be heavily used – probably more so than we realize now (we are already seeing TEM/STEM being extended into the fab). We will also see developments that will push the boundaries of what is possible. This would range from the increased use of hybrid metrology (combining results from multiple different analytical techniques and process steps) to the development of new innovative approaches.

To illustrate the latter, I take the example of secondary ion mass spectrometry (SIMS). With SIMS, an energetic ion beam is directed at the solid sample of interest, causing atoms in the near surface region to leave this surface. A small percentage of them are ionized, and pass through a mass spectrometer which separates the ions from one another according to their mass to charge ratio. When this is done in the dynamic-SIMS mode, a depth profile of the sample’s composition can be derived. Today, with this technique, we can’t focus the incoming energetic ion beam into a confined volume, i.e. onto a spot that approaches the size of a transistor. But at imec, novel concepts were intro- duced, resulting in what are called 1.5D SIMS and self-focusing SIMS (SF-SIMS). These approaches are based on the detection of constituents within repeatable array structures, giving averaged and statistically significant information. This way, the spatial resolution limit of SIMS was overcome.

And there are exciting developments occurring here at imec in other analytical fields such as atom probe tomography (APT), photoelectron spectroscopy (PES), Raman spectroscopy, Rutherford back scattering (RBS), scanning probe microscopy (SPM), etc. One important milestone has been the development of Fast Fourier Transform-SSRM (FFT-SSRM) at imec. This allows one to measure carrier distributions in FinFETs to unparalleled sensitivity.

Yet, probably the biggest challenge materials characterization and inline metrology face over the next ten to fifteen years will be how to keep costs down. Today, we make use of highly specialized techniques developed on mutually exclusive and costly platforms. But why not make use of micro-electro-mechanical systems (MEMS) that could simultaneously perform analysis in a highly parallel fashion, and perhaps even in situ? One can imagine scenarios in which an army of such units could scan an entire wafer in the fraction of the time it takes now, or alternatively, the incorporation of such units into wafer test structure regions.

SEMI today announced the re-election of 10 current members to the SEMI International Board of Directors in accordance with the association’s by-laws.

The 10 board members were re-elected for two-year terms:

  • Martin Anstice, CEO, Lam Research Corporation
  • Kevin Crofton, president, SPTS Technologies, and corp. V.P., Orbotech
  • Jon D. Kemp, vice president, DuPont
  • Mitsunobu Koshiba, president and representative director, JSR Corporation
  • Yong Han Lee, chairman, Wonik
  • Sue Lin, vice chairman, Hermes Epitek
  • Tadahiro Suhara, president, SCREEN Semiconductor Solutions Co., Ltd.
  • Tetsuo Tsuneishi, executive chairman of the board and representative director, TEL
  • Tien Wu, management director and chief operating officer, ASE Group
  • Guoming Zhang, senior V.P. and chief strategy officer, NAURA Technology Group Co., Ltd.

The SEMI Executive Committee confirmed Tetsuo Tsuneishi, chairman of the board of TEL, as chairman of the SEMI Executive Committee. SEMI also confirmed Bertrand Loy, president and CEO of Entegris, as vice-chairman.

The leadership appointments and the elected board members’ tenure become effective at the annual SEMI membership meeting on July 11, during SEMICON West 2018 in San Francisco, California.

“The SEMI Board of Directors is comprised of global business leaders who represent SEMI members and the industry, ensuring that SEMI develops and delivers member value in all regions,” said SEMI president and CEO Ajit Manocha. “We congratulate the re-elected members and greatly appreciate all of our board members’ contributions to the industry.”

SEMI’s 19 voting directors and 11 emeritus directors represent companies from Europe, China, Japan, Korea, North America, and Taiwan, reflecting the global scope of the association’s activities. SEMI directors are elected by the general membership as voting members of the board and can serve a total of five two-year terms.

BY PETE SINGER, Editor-in-Chief

Increasingly, the ability to stay on the path defined my Moore’s Law will depend on advanced packaging and heterogeneous integration, including photonics integration.

At The ConFab in May, Bill Bottoms, chair of the integrated photonics technical working group, and co-chair of the heterogeneous integration roadmap (HIR) spoke about the changing nature of the industry and specifically the needs of photonic integration.

Bottoms said the driving force behind photonics integration is pretty straightforward: “The technology we have today can’t keep up with the expanding generation of transport and storage of data,” he said. But doing so will be a challenge.

The integration of photonics, electronics and plasmonics at a system level is necessary.

“These require heteroge- neous integration by architecture, by device type, by materials and by manufacturing processes,” Bottoms said. “We’re changing the way we’re doing things.”
These kinds of changes are best thought of not as packaging but system level integration. “As we move the photons as close as to the transistors as possible, we’re going to be faced with integrating everything on a simple substrate,” he said.

There are a large number of devices that involve photons which share the common requirement of providing a photon path either into or out of the package or both. They include: Light emitting diodes (LEDs), laser diodes, plasmonic photon emitters, photonic Integrated circuits (PICs), MEMS optical switching devices, camera modules, optical modulators, active optical cables, E to O and O to E converters, optical sensors (photo diodes and other types), and WDM multiplexers and de‐multi- plexers. Many of these devices have unique thermal, electrical and mechanical characteristics that will require specialized materials and system integration (packaging) processes and equipment, Bottoms noted.

Of the biggest challenges might be thermal management: “We have things that make a lot of heat and things that can’t have their temperature change by more than a degree without losing their functionality,” Bottoms said.

The scope of the HIR Photonics Chapter includes defining difficult challenges and, where possible, potential solutions associated with: data systems and the global network, photonic components, integrating these components and subsystems into systems with the smallest size, lowest weight, smallest volume, lowest power and highest performance.

It will also address supply chain requirements, which may turn out to be the biggest challenge. “We will not beat the challenge of cost pressures unless we develop the supply chain that can justify high volume. It’s the only way we know how to bring down costs,” Bottoms said. Sounds like a great opportunity for today’s equipment and materials suppliers to me!