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SEMI honored four industry leaders for their outstanding accomplishments in developing Standards for the electronics and related industries. The SEMI Standards awards were announced at the SEMI International Standards reception held during SEMICON West 2017.

The SEMI International Standards Excellence Award, inspired by Karel Urbanek, is the most prestigious award in the SEMI International Standards Program. The 2017 recipient is Bert Planting (ASML) who has been active in SEMI Standards for more than a decade, without interruption, in numerous international safety standardization projects, including:

  • S10 (Safety Guideline for Risk Assessment and Risk Evaluation Process) since 2005
  • S27 (Safety Guideline for the Contents of Environmental, Safety, and Health (ESH) Evaluation Reports) since 2010
  • S2 (Environmental, Health, and Safety Guideline for Semiconductor Manufacturing Equipment)
  • S25 (Safety Guideline for Hydrogen Peroxide Storage and Handling Systems) since 2012

Planting has co-chaired the North American (NA) chapter of the EHS Technical Committee since 2013, and also currently leads the S10 Revision Task Force and the S2 Interlock Reliability Task Force. As leader of the S10 Revision Task Force, he significantly improved S10’s usefulness and practicality. Under his strong direction, the risk assessment methodology of S10 (and by reference, S2) is now more objective, easier to implement, and better harmonized with major international Standards for safety risk assessment. As co-chair of the European EHS Technical Committee from 2005–2013, he successfully led a major S10 revision as well as development of a new Safety Guideline.

The North American SEMI International Standards Merit Award recognizes major contributions to the SEMI International Standards Program.  Award winners typically take on a very complex problem at the task force level, gain industry support, and drive the project to completion. This year two people received the award:

  • Yanli “Joyce” Chen (UCT) reactivated the Pressure Measurements Task Force during the SEMICON West 2014 Standards Meetings. This task force was chartered to develop a series of standardized performance definitions and test methods related to pressure measurement devices used in the semiconductor industry. Previous attempts to develop a standard test method for pressure transducers in gas delivery systems were not successful, but Chen reenergized the Task Force, putting tremendous effort into test apparatus development, test procedure optimization, data collection, and test results analysis, and conducting an extensive pressure transducer side-by-side evaluation project. This provided a solid base for the development of the new Standard, and SEMI F113, Test Method for Pressure Transducers Used in Gas Delivery Systems was approved and published. Chen has also been instrumental in updating several test methods for mass flow controllers and other components with benefits to the entire semiconductor industry.
  • John Visty (Salus Engineering International) has been the leader of the S2 Chemical Exposure Task Force since 2008; he is also the Task Force leader for the S2 Non-ionization and the S6 (Exhaust Ventilation) Revision. Leading these Task Forces resulted in revisions of SEMI S2, the most recognizable SEMI standard. The industrial hygiene section (regarding chemical exposure) in SEMI S2 was in need of clarification to ensure consistent technical interpretation by equipment suppliers, end-users and third-party evaluators.  Visty drove development through multiple ballot attempts, incorporating feedback from unfavorable ballots to reach industry consensus. In March 2017, revisions to SEMI S2 related to chemical exposure were approved and incorporated into SEMI S2. This clarification benefits the semiconductor industry by providing consistent chemical conformance criteria.

The North American SEMI International Standards Leadership Award recognizes outstanding leadership in guiding the SEMI International Standards Program. Brian Rubow (Cimetrix) has been an important contributor to SEMI Standards for many years and has demonstrated ongoing and increasing leadership.  Rubow became leader of the North American Diagnostic Data Acquisition (DDA) Task Force in 2008, leader of the NA GEM300 Task Force in 2010, co-chair of the NA Chapter of the Information and Control Committee in 2013, and vice-chair of the NA Regional Standards Committee in 2014. He continues to serve in all four of these positions. Among other accomplishments, Rubow drove the development of two important advances to bring semiconductor factory automation into the world of modern networks:

  • SEMI E172, SECS Equipment Data Dictionary (SEDD), which allows factory automation systems to adapt to the individual capabilities of each equipment type
  • SEMI E173, SECS Message Notation (SMN), which allows the content of factory messages to be specified in modern XML notation.

Rubow’s technical knowledge of factory connectivity solutions and outstanding leadership skills make a major contribution to the SEMI International Standards program.

For more information about SEMI International Standards, visit www.semi.org/en/Standards.

SEMI today announced that Mike Allison, president of the Semiconductor Division at Edwards, and Daisuke Murata, president and CEO of Murata Machinery, were elected as new directors to the SEMI International Board of Directors in accordance with the association’s by-laws.

Four current board members were re-elected for two-year terms: Bertrand Loy, president and CEO of Entegris; Stephen Schwartz, president and CEO of Brooks Automation; Kyu Dong (KD) Sung, CEO of EO Technics; and Xinchao Wang, chairman of JCET.

Additionally, the SEMI Executive Committee confirmed Tetsuo Tsuneishi, chairman of the Board of Tokyo Electron, Ltd., 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 12, during SEMICON West 2017 in San Francisco, Calif.

“The SEMI Board of Directors is comprised of recognized 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, welcome Mike Allison and Murata-san to the Board, and are greatly appreciative for 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 Jamie Liao, SEMI Taiwan

Market demand is driving development of 5G network standards, and commercial applications are expected to be introduced by 2020. As applications for next-generation communications are evolving, mobile devices need to promise better performance and higher resistance to heat, high power, voltage and radiation. For existing technologies, compound semiconductors like SiC and GaN are no doubt the best solutions because they perform better in terms of energy band gaps, saturation velocities, heat conductivity and breakdown field strength. In order to facilitate development of the industry, SEMI Taiwan worked with the National Chung-Shan Institute of Science and Technology (NCSIST) and the Taiwan Institute of Economic Research (TIER) to organize the Compound Semiconductor Seminar ─ Enabling Next Generation of Communications. ASE Group, Airoha Technology Corp., eLaser and WIN Semiconductors Corp. joined with SEMI Taiwan to explore the materials and technology trends of compound semiconductors.

Compound Semiconductor Technologies Continue to Advance

Speaking on upcoming 5G network with the theme “Highly Efficient 5G PA Design,” Dr. Jerry Lin, CTO of Airoha Technology Corp., said that while 5G networks perform better than existing standards in data speed and capacity, power consumption may not increase simultaneously. In order to achieve that, interior design of communications devices also need to evolve. As power amplifier (PA) is normally the most power-consuming component in traditional cellular networks, developers should start with PA if they want to address the challenge.

Dr. Lin added that in addition to optimizing circuit design, developers should also consider connectivity, modem chips, PA structure and PA devices. So which process will prevail in the area of 5G PA? Is it CMOS? Or GaAs/GaN? Dr. Lin presented a table and pointed out that GaAs/GaN has more advantage in “breakdown voltage,” “power handling,” “through wafer via” and “substrate loss,” while CMOS is doing better in self-testing, complex bias circuit design, signal processing, integration, configuration flexibility and low power voltage. Therefore, Dr. Lin believed that GaAa/GaN will continue to exist as performance is the main concern for the design of base stations used in 5G, 6G or even millimeter-wave networks. Meanwhile, CMOS will have a bigger chance with price-sensitive IoT equipments because it is energy efficient and cheap. As for hand-held devices, sub-6GHz equipments may still adopt hybrid structures like GaAs/GaN or CMOS+GaAs. CMOS is likely to dominate in the millimeter-wave market.

Dr. Kun Chuan Lin, General Manager of eLaser’s branch in the Hsinchu Science and Industrial Park, shared insight on the development of GaN epitaxial wafer process with a speech entitled “GaN on Si Epitaxy Technology Innovation.” He said that when electronics product design requires better heat resistance, breakdown voltage, electron saturation velocity and current density, semiconductor devices made with the GaN process can deliver high-power output in high-frequency environment. Therefore, the technology will have great potential in next-generation applications like automotive electronics, power management systems, industrial lighting, portable electronics devices, communications equipment, and consumer electronics products.

Dr. Lin said when GaN epi-wafer was adopted in LED devices, one 150mm wafer would contain tens of thousands, or even hundreds of thousands LED units so the yield loss caused by thousands of particles would be minor. But in the case of large-sized GaN power devices made of epi-wafers, each 150mm wafer has only 1,000 to thousands of chips and the number of particles pretty much decides the yield of power devices on epi-wafers. In comparison, the epitaxy technology of GaN-on-Si is more important because of its low particle counts, and innovative technologies will be needed in this area of epi-wafer manufacturing.

Next-generation Communications Frameworks Emerge: From Modules to Packaging and Testing

Dr. W.K. Wang, Technical Director of WIN Semiconductors Corp., discussed GaAs solutions for millimeter-wave front-end modules with a speech entitled “Advanced GaAs Solution for mmw FEM.” According to Dr. Wang, the GaAs pHEMT process has been long adopted in the area of wireless communications, such as peer-to-peer RF transmission and very small aperture terminal (VSAT.) Now, Win Semiconductors’ pHEMT and PIN diode technology platforms are already capable of providing solutions to performance and circuit requirements. He said GaAs technologies have been rapidly evolving in recent years so wafer package and multi-function devices can now be integrated into GaAs wafer fabrication. In addition, the technology to integrate pHEMT and PIN diode into PINHEMT will also enjoy great potential in the area of millimeter-wave front-end modules.

Dr. Wang also pointed out that 0.1um pHEMT can now be used to run E-band and D-band amplifiers, while Ka-Band Doherty amplifiers and low-noise amplifiers have been made possible through 0.15um pHEMT. As KA-band switches can be demonstrated in a GaAs PIN diode process, it proves that GaAs pHEMT/PIN is a suitable verification solution in millimeter-wave communications.

In a speech entitled “Next Wave RF & Photonics Packaging Solution,” Dr. Vincent Lin, Technical Director of ASE Group shared his insight on the challenge that Moore’s Law has slowed down. He said while volumes of data from existing mobile devices and cloud computing services are increasing, all chip technologies in the semiconductor industry have advanced in a slower manner. Therefore, cross-system integration will be the solution to bandwidth issues.

Dr. Lin said that mobile devices’ RF modules and silicon photonics in data centers are the key devices in cloud computing platforms now. Both of them need various materials, including compound semiconductors, silicon, passive devices, special crystals or multi-material high-speed connecting chips — with impedance matching and low insertion loss being the two key indicators to performance. Dr. Lin also demonstrated a new packaging platform of RF modules and silicon photonics modules that can serve as the best solution for the local industry.

In addition to these keynote speeches on latest trends and technologies in the market, the seminar also offered an opportunity for participants to interact and expand connections. Terry Tsao, president of SEMI Taiwan, said to promote development of Taiwan’s compound semiconductor industry, SEMI will continue to organize events where people in the industry can exchange opinions. SEMICON Taiwan 2017 will establish a Compound Semiconductor Pavilion for the first time, where international forums and get together to be held for industry insiders to share insight on future trends and technologies to help promote exchanges, collaboration and opportunities in the market.

By James Amano, International Standards, SEMI

At its recent Spring 2017 meeting, the North American Regional Standards Committee (NARSC) approved formation of a Taiwan chapter of the global SEMI Standards Automation Technology Committee. Taiwan joins existing Automation Technology chapters active in Japan and Europe. The Taiwan chapter will be led by K.C. Chou (ASE), C.S. Wu (MIRDC), Jen-Hui Tsai (Mechanical & Mechatronics Systems Research Laboratories, ITRI), and Gwo-Sheng Peng (Center for Measurement Standards, ITRI).

Co-Chair Chou explains the need for the Taiwan chapter:  “SEMI has a strong reputation for successful standardization, which is why the Taiwan PCB industry has selected the global SEMI Standards platform to develop consensus on equipment communication and other manufacturing areas where standards are needed to drive down cost.”

The initial focus of the Taiwan chapter will be to develop a guide for PCB equipment communication interfaces. The guide will be based on SEMI E4: SEMI Equipment Communications Standard 1 Message Transfer (SECS-I), SEMI E5: SEMI Equipment Communications Standard 2 Message Content (SECS-II), E37: High-Speed SECS Message Services (HSMS) Generic Services, E37.1: High-Speed SECS Message Services (HSMS) Generic Services, and E30: Generic Model for Communications and Control of Manufacturing Equipment (GEM).

David Lai of the Taiwan Printed Circuit Association comments: “Without automation standards, it will be difficult for the PCB industry to achieve its ambitious performance targets. In order to fulfill the goal of PCB automation, the standard will simplify the implementation of data collection & analytics, M2M communication and datamation step by step. Therefore, I am pleased that activities in the Taiwan SEMI Standards Automation Technology TC Chapter are underway.”

While the initial chapters of the Automation Technology Committee are located in Europe, Japan, and Taiwan, all interested parties, regardless of location, are invited to join in the global effort. To get involved, please contact your local SEMI Standards staff or visit: www.semi.org/standards.

 

Presto Engineering, Inc., an outsourced operations provider to semiconductor and Internet of Things (IoT) device manufacturers, announces a management expansion: Cedric Mayor has been named Chief Operating Officer (COO) and Martin Kingdon has been appointed VP Sales.

“We have experienced growing demand for IoT and related turnkey production & operations outsourcing,” said Michel Villemain, CEO, Presto Engineering. “Our expanded management team will complement our talented employee base to help meet this market demand and advance Presto Engineering into the next phase of innovation and growth.”

Mayor was previously the Chief Technology Officer for Presto Engineering. In his new role as COO, he will work with Presto’s Europe and Asia-based facilities to take customers’ new product releases from prototype to high-volume production, and through wafer procurement to finished goods. He has been with the company for more than seven years and has over a decade of experience in semiconductor design and manufacturing. A graduate of Ecole Centrale Marseille, France, Mayor has a Master’s degree in Physics and Electrical Engineering and holds several patents in chip design.

Kingdon has more than 20 years of experience in sales and marketing of semiconductor devices, IP, and test & manufacturing. Prior to joining Presto as VP Sales, Kingdon served as European sales director for the test and manufacturing services division of TT Electronics plc. Kingdon graduated from the University of York, UK, and holds a Master’s degree in Electronic Systems Engineering.

BY PETE SINGER, Editor-in-Chief

What if the automotive industry had achieved the incredible pace of innovation as the semiconductor industry during the last 52 years? A Rolls Royce would cost only $40, go around the world eight times on a gallon of gas, and have a top speed of 2.4 million miles per hour.

That point was made by Subi Kengeri speaking at The ConFab in May. Kengeri is vice president, CMOS Business Unit, at GlobalFoundries. He also noted that if one of today’s high performance graphics chips were produced using 1960 vs state-of-the-art “it would be the size of a football field.”

Clearly, no other industry can match the pace of innovation of the semiconductor industry. “The transistor count per square inch in 1965 was roughly 100. In 52 years, if you follow Moore’s Law of 2 years per innovation cycle, that gives 26 innovation cycles. That’s 100 millionX improvement (2X26),” Kengeri noted.

Of course, there has been plenty of innovation in the automotive industry. Interestingly, most of the exciting new innovations such as backup cameras, collision avoidance, navigation/ infotainment, self-parking, and anti-lock brakes are only possible because of semiconductor technology.

Kengeri said that Moore’s Law scaling will continue – “there’s no question about it,” he said – but there’s a growing need for new innovation to address the increasingly diverse array of semicon- ductor applications. These are driven by growth in mobile computing, development in IoT computing, the emergence of intelligent computing and augmented/virtual reality.

“Leading edge innovation will continue and all the leading manufacturers continue to invest, whether it is litho scaling in terms of EUV, or device archicture,” Kengeri said. “What is really important is how do we continue to innovate, how do we continue to get the value at competitive costs? Trying to get the scaling at any cost is not what is needed in the majority of the markets. It’s still okay at the very high end, for CPUs and servers, but in all markets, managing cost is really critical.”

“On top of all of that, we have to continue to deliver on time. Because of the complexity, things aren’t getting slower. We’re doing everything we can do continue to keep the same pace as we used to,” he added.

Kengeri said continued advances mean changing the way we think about innovation. It will require continued technical Innovation (materials and processes, device architecture and design-technology co-optimization), but – perhaps more importantly – business model innovation. This includes new thinking about long-term R&D focus/ investment, shared investments/learning/reuse, and consolidation and collaboration.

ULVAC Technologies, Inc. (www.ulvac.com), a supplier of production systems, instrumentation and vacuum pumps for technology industries, has opened an office in Santa Clara, California. The Silicon Valley office location gives ULVAC West Coast customers easier access to the company’s sales and service operations. It also locates company operations closer to the Japanese headquarters and various Asian markets. The new location will include a vacuum pump and leak detector repair center to serve the regional customer base.

A new product line for ULVAC Technologies, Inc. is vacuum cooling systems for use in large-scale farms to extend the product shelf life of fresh agricultural products, flowers and meats. These systems are also used in the processed foods industry as well, to extend the life of products such as airplane meals. Local demonstration capability of the new Vacuum Cooling System is planned for the Santa Clara location. “Much of the vacuum cooling market is located in California, and the new Santa Clara office puts us in close proximity to major customers,” said Wayne Anderson, President/CEO of ULVAC Technologies, Inc.

In summary, “The Santa Clara office will serve as a business development hub within a technology-rich region, enabling us to expand our market share in semiconductor, MEMS and other high-technology industries”, he added.

North America-based manufacturers of semiconductor equipment posted $2.27 billion in billings worldwide in May 2017 (three-month average basis), according to the May Equipment Market Data Subscription (EMDS) Billings Report published today by SEMI.

SEMI reports that the three-month average of worldwide billings of North American equipment manufacturers in May 2017 was $2.27 billion. The billings figure is 6.4 percent higher than the final April 2017 level of $2.14 billion, and is 41.9 percent higher than the May 2016 billings level of $1.60 billion.

“Semiconductor equipment billings for North American headquartered equipment manufacturers increased for the fourth month in a row and are 42 percent higher than the same month last year,” said Ajit Manocha, president and CEO of SEMI.  “The strength of this cycle continues to be driven by Memory and Foundry manufacturers as the industry invests in 3D NAND and other leading-edge technologies.”

The SEMI Billings report uses three-month moving averages of worldwide billings for North American-based semiconductor equipment manufacturers. Billings figures are in millions of U.S. dollars.

Billings
(3-mo. avg)
Year-Over-Year
December 2016
$1,869.8
38.5%
January 2017
$1,859.4
52.3%
February 2017
$1,974.0
63.9%
March 2017
$2,079.7
73.7%
April 2017 (final)
$2,136.4
46.3%
May 2017 (prelim)
$2,273.0
41.9%

Source: SEMI (www.semi.org), June 2017

SEMI ceased publishing the monthly North America Book-to-Bill report in January 2017. SEMI will continue publish a monthly North American Billings report and issue the Worldwide Semiconductor Equipment Market Statistics (WWSEMS) report in collaboration with the Semiconductor Equipment Association of Japan (SEAJ).

UMC (NYSE: UMC; TWSE: 2303), a global semiconductor foundry, today announced that its board of directors has appointed senior vice presidents SC Chien and Jason Wang as co-presidents of the company, following Po-Wen Yen’s retirement as UMC CEO. The co-presidents are collectively accountable for the overall performance of UMC, and will report to Chairman Stan Hung directly. The transition will become effective immediately.

“Co-presidents Chien and Wang bring complimentary experience and capabilities to enable UMC to have the best minds committed to our most critical decisions and execution ability,” said Chairman Hung. “With their respective roles clearly defined, I anticipate a very smooth transition as we enter the next stage of UMC’s growth. Our priorities going forward will include a high degree of customer focus, consistent operational excellence, clear investment strategy, and maximizing shareholder value.”

Chairman Hung continued, “We would like to extend our sincere appreciation to CEO Yen for his 30+ years of dedicated service. Under his leadership, UMC has established a solid foundation and legacy for our co-presidents to build upon, and we wish him all the best on his retirement as he continues to provide his knowledge, experience, and service to our community and society.”

CEO Yen commented, “It has been a rewarding opportunity to have helped UMC evolve during my five years as the company’s CEO. I am honored to have worked with an exceptionally dedicated and skilled team of executives and managers to bring benefits to UMC and its customers, and firmly believe in the company’s positive direction going forward. I have worked closely with Mr. Chien and Mr. Wang for many years, and am convinced in their ability to lead UMC to new heights as co-presidents. Meanwhile, after my retirement, I look forward to further increasing my involvement in social and charitable activities in order to bring heightened awareness to the importance of mutual prosperity with our surrounding environment and society.”

The responsibilities of the co-presidents will be structured as follows:

  • SC Chien will focus on the core manufacturing and technology aspects of UMC including R&D and operations. Mr. Chien possesses more than 30 years of semiconductor R&D experience. He joined UMC in 1989, and throughout his 28 years at UMC, he has led multiple functions within the company, including ATD (advanced technology development), STD (specialty technology development), CE (customer engineering), TTD (technology transfer and development), IPDS (IP & design support) and CM (Corporate marketing).
  • Jason Wang will focus on the business aspects of UMC, including corporate strategy & planning, sales & marketing, and customer engineering. Mr. Wang joined UMC as vice president of Corporate Marketing in 2008. From 2009 to 2014, he served as president of UMC-USA responsible for UMC North American business. Most recently, he was senior vice president in charge of Worldwide Sales and Corporate Marketing.

GLOBALFOUNDRIES this week announced the availability of its 7nm Leading-Performance (7LP) FinFET semiconductor technology, delivering a 40 percent generational performance boost to meet the needs of applications such as premium mobile processors, cloud servers and networking infrastructure. Design kits are available now, and the first customer products based on 7LP are expected to launch in the first half of 2018, with volume production ramping in the second half of 2018.

In September 2016, GF announced plans to develop its own 7nm FinFET technology leveraging the company’s unmatched heritage of manufacturing high-performance chips. Thanks to additional improvements at both the transistor and process levels, the 7LP technology is exceeding initial performance targets and expected to deliver greater than 40 percent more processing power and twice the area scaling than the previous 14nm FinFET technology. The technology is now ready for customer designs at the company’s leading-edge Fab 8 facility in Saratoga County, N.Y.

“Our 7nm FinFET technology development is on track and we are seeing strong customer traction, with multiple product tapeouts planned in 2018,” said Gregg Bartlett, senior vice president of the CMOS Business Unit at GF. “And, while driving to commercialize 7nm, we are actively developing next-generation technologies at 5nm and beyond to ensure our customers have access to a world-class roadmap at the leading edge.”

GF also continues to invest in research and development for next-generation technology nodes. In close collaboration with its partners IBM and Samsung, the company announced a 7nm test chip in 2015, followed by the recent announcement of the industry’s first demonstration of a functioning 5nm chip using silicon nanosheet transistors. GF is exploring a range of new transistor architectures to enable its customers to deliver the next era of connected intelligence.

GF’s 7nm FinFET technology leverages the company’s volume manufacturing experience with its 14nm FinFET technology, which began production in early 2016 at Fab 8. Since then, the company has delivered “first-time-right” designs for a broad range of customers.

To accelerate the 7LP production ramp, GF is investing in new process equipment capabilities, including the addition of the first two EUV lithography tools in the second half of this year. The initial production ramp of 7LP will be based on an optical lithography approach, with migration to EUV lithography when the technology is ready for volume manufacturing.