OTHER ELECTRONICS & NANOTECHNOLOGY
INDUSTRY
UPDATE
March 2016
McIlvaine Company
TABLE OF
CONTENTS
Presto
Expands Turnkey IC Production Management Services in Asia
Xiaomi to
Build 2 Plants in India
Apple to
Build Facility in Hyderabad
Nanofabrication Lab Supports Multiple Disciplines
GlobalFoundries, SUNY Poly Open Advanced Patterning Centre
imec and
iMinds to Merge and Create High-Tech Research Center
Presto Engineering Inc. has announced that it has
significantly expanded its turnkey capabilities with the opening of two new
manufacturing hubs and a world-wide logistics center in Asia.
As an outcome of its
partnership with Inside Secure, announced April 2015, Presto Engineering is
taking on the facilities in Asia, adding footprint; significant expertise; and a
new, enhanced suite of services for Presto's customers. Presto Engineering now
offers a complete and comprehensive turn-key product engineering and production
management solution for integrated circuits (IC), from GDSII hand-off (design
output) to finished ICs shipped directly to end customers, targeted at the
latest in high-speed communication, Internet of Things (IoT) and secured
elements markets.
"This expansion provides the local production capacity and
hands-on expertise that we need in Asia to offer our customers a fast, secure,
cost-effective, and comprehensive production solution," states Michel Villemain,
CEO, Presto Engineering. "We now have fully-trained staff and substantial local
capacity with our own test equipment in place in Asia. This both strengthens and
complements our capabilities in the U.S. and Europe, enabling us to provide
responsive, on-site and in-region technical support for optimum visibility on
customer projects, where and when it counts."
Jon Lanson, Presto's Vice President of WW Sales & Marketing
adds, "There is no doubt that security is a major concern in the IoT market.
Building a hardware-based secure solution, like what's done in the payment
world, is one of the leading IoT security approaches. With Presto's new secure
capabilities in Europe and Asia, we are ready to address this manufacturing
issue now, by either assisting clients with developing their own specific
solution, or executing an existing turnkey process."
The new operations are located in Bangkok, Thailand;
Kaohsiung, Taiwan; and Hong-Kong, SAR. To Presto's existing capacity in the US
and Europe, they add 20+ probe test cells, advanced die prep capabilities, and
payment module manufacturing in secured (EAL5+/EAL6) floors, ready to support
large projects with unit volumes of 10 million or more.
Bin Lin, billionaire co-founder and president at Xiaomi,
announced plans on setting up two manufacturing plants in India, aiming to
launch more devices this year to ramp up its presence in the emerging market in
contrast to its home market, which is growing pale in comparison.
The India plan includes manufacturing of handset peripherals
and components, he said.
"We believe it (China) will be a flat market, if not, even
decline," said 48-year-old Lin, worth nearly ₹7,480 crore ($1.1 billion)
according to the Forbes list of billionaires.
Conversely, Lin expects India, already the world's fastest
growing smartphone market, to further gain steam, selling around 140 million
devices in 2016, compared with about a 100 million last year.
"Also, people buying smartphones from ecommerce are also going
to grow very rapidly, and we're a big part of that," said Lin, a former
Microsoft and Google executive.
He said the intense competition in the Indian market—mirroring
the cutthroat competition seen in China some years ago—wasn't sustainable. He
expects Xiaomi to be at the top of the list when market share is consolidated.
Meanwhile, Xiaomi India head Manu Jain said that single-brand
retail license was an exciting opportunity for the company, but didn't specify
if the smartphone maker had already applied for one. However, a company
spokesperson separately said that Xiaomi has applied for a license, joining
Apple as among the top foreign brands opting for a direct presence in India,
which eased foreign direct investment rules for single-brand retailing in
November.
Xiaomi entered India in July 2014, and started local
manufacturing just over a year later. It has partnered with the world's largest
contract manufacturer, Foxconn, which now makes 75 per cent of the company's
phones at its plant in Andhra Pradesh. Xiaomi sells well over 1 million phones a
quarter.
"We talked to Foxconn about opening two new factories, they're
in discussions with some of the provinces (states)," Lin said. Jain said the
company is pushing to get "at least one of them up and running within this
year".
The company will also take advantage of the Union Budget
recommendations, which made local manufacturing of batteries, chargers and other
mobile phone accessories cheaper. "We've already started working on bringing
some of those local sourcing suppliers to India," Lin said.
In India, Xiaomi will launch Mi 5—its latest flagship unveiled
at the recent Mobile World Congress in February in Barcelona—in April, and two
more devices this year—one next quarter and another in the second half. It also
plans to enter new product categories in 2016.
While the Mi 5 will not be made in India initially, Lin
indicated the price of the phones could be between ₹20,000 and ₹27,000, based on
China prices.
Besides investing in Indian start-ups, the company, last
valued at ₹3.02 lakh crore ($45 billion), is also actively talking to content
owners and makers to curate content for Indian buyers which will find its way
onto Mi devices sometime this year, Lin said.
The company's aggressive manufacturing based expansion comes
on the back of a weak 2015, when it dropped out of the top five, launching only
two devices of note. Lin said the company was beefing up local operations in
terms of R&D for India-specific products and after sales services. A direct
result of that was Redmi Note 3, with over 30,000 units, all sold within two
seconds.
Having beaten competition, including Samsung and Apple, in its
home market, Xiaomi now intends to repeat the feat in India, which Lin felt, was
passing through the same extreme competitive times as China a few years ago.
"There were 150 brands in China, now only 30 are left where
six of us control 60 per cent of the market. In India, there are 170 brands and
its going up... it will drop to 30 here too because it's not sustainable," he
said.
Although the battlefield lines are drawn, Lin is confident of
taking on rivals and eventually leading in India.
The company has thrived in open markets like China and India,
which together are the top two markets by unique number of smartphone users.
U.S. is third in this respect, but is still second largest after China in terms
of annual smartphone shipments.
"We've been competing with them head-to-head in China and we
have an upper hand already, so it's proof that our model is very powerful," Lin
said, adding that he will take several learnings from the India manufacturing
process to China for improving efficiency.
Its presence in carrier-led markets such as the U.S., France,
Germany and the UK will continue on an experimental basis—the company sells only
its accessories there. "The carrier share in the US is about 30-40 per cent...
for us to enter at least half the market should be open."
Apple is investing $25 million (Rs 170 crore) for a new
development center in Hyderabad—the third site for the tech giant outside the
U.S., apart from Brazil and Italy.
The 250,000-square-foot development center will be home for
over 150 employees when it opens in June, and will focus on developing Apple
Maps.
In an official statement, an Apple spokesperson said, "We've
been investing to expand our operations in India and are thrilled to have
passionate customers and a vibrant developer community across the country. The
office will also have space for many contractors who will support our ambitious
efforts locally."
Apple has already indicated that it will start taking the
Indian market more seriously. In the latest results announced by Apple, iPhone
sales were up 76 per cent in India for the quarter. Apple CEO Tim Cook said in
the earnings call that the company plans to invest in India for a long term.
With a 1.3 billion-strong population, Apple has projected
their investment to be a sound one, as the country is entering a technological
boom with smart devices and internet markets growing at a rapid pace.
"India is incredibly exciting. It is one of the fastest
growing economies, and is also the third largest smartphone market in the world,
after China and U.S. In India, the median age for the population is 27, in China
that's nearly 36 years. I see the demographics there being incredibly great for
a consumer brand, and for people that really want the best product," Cook had
said.
The Scifres Nanofabrication Laboratory was built with the
flexibility and capability to make new discoveries decades into the future.
Located in the Birck
Nanotechnology Center (BNC) at Purdue University, the 25,000 sq. ft. cleanroom
combines specialized tools with opportunities for student and faculty research,
as well as a process for training outside engineers and scientists to use the
facility.
Purdue University
celebrated a decade of research advancements in nanotechnology at an Oct. 30
event that marked the tenth anniversary of the opening of the $58 million Birck
Nanotechnology Center. The facility supports over 400 users, including both the
cleanroom and the laboratories.
The diverse user base of the BNC cleanroom, which serves all
the engineering and science departments from across campus, in addition to
pharmacy, has caused a unique blending of technologies and a broad range of
research groups.
“One thing we’re observing over time is a convergence of
science, engineering, and biological disciplines,” says Ali Shakouri, the Mary
Jo and Robert L. Kirk Director of Birck Nanotechnology Center and a professor of
electrical and computer engineering. “Our facility provides a key enabling
capability to support leading-edge research in any or all of these disciplines.”
Recently, while a mechanical engineering group was looking at
the properties of microscopic graphene, a biological group found that this new
material had extreme sensitivity to various biological activations. This
discovery is now leading to the development of new biological sensors for a
variety of human conditions, including the ability to sense sugar levels in
diabetic patients without the need for a blood sample.
“We build on our strengths and then make sure that those
strengths result in a significant impact both for the state of Indiana and
globally,” says Suresh Garimella, Executive VP for Research and Partnerships.
Assisting the
convergence of disciplines is the ability for researchers to access both the
particle-free environment needed for fabricating microscale and nanoscale
devices, as well as the biological-pharmaceutical-grade environment needed for
work with biological nanotechnology.
The BNC cleanroom was
one of the first to specially link these two cleanroom types. While they both
exist in the greater footprint of the cleanroom facility they each have their
own entrance, gowning room, and separate air-handling systems. Forty-five
percent of the floorspace of the larger cleanroom is Class 1 (ISO 3), 40 percent
of the floorspace is Class 10 (ISO 4), and 15 percent of the floorspace is Class
100 (ISO 5). The biocleanroom has an air cleanliness of Class 1,000 (ISO 6). The
BNC cleanroom is one of the largest and cleanest in the U.S. During
construction, special attention was paid to airborne and liquidborne
contamination control systems within the cleanroom. Air filtering is achieved
through an air recirculation system that continuously filters the cleanroom air
through Ultra Low Penetration Air filters in the ceiling panels of the cleanroom.
There is also an ultra-pure water system that removes virtually all contaminates
from the process water used for making micro- and nano-structures.
“This clean air and water is extremely important when we build
devices and materials at the nanoscale,” says BNC engineering manager Ron Reger.
“A dust particle in the air, or micro-organism in our process water, would have
a relative scale similar to the Rock of Gibraltar sitting on a small piece of
paper.”
The Scifres Nanofabrication Laboratory is named for Purdue
alumni Donald and Carol Scifres, who donated $10 million to the construction on
BNC. The 187,000-sq. ft. BNC, which opened to researchers in October 2005,
involved Purdue faculty, staff, post-docs, and students — graduate and
undergraduate — from 27 schools and departments.
The BNC is named for
the late Michael and Katherine (Kay) Birck, of Hinsdale, Ill. The Bircks
contributed $30 million for the building. A Purdue alumnus, Michael Birck was a
member of the Purdue board of trustees and co-founder and chairman of
Naperville, Ill.-based Tellabs Inc. Users of the BNC include students,
post-docs, and visiting scientists who perform research for over 150 Purdue
faculty.
Researchers have access to many traditional semiconductor
fabrication tools, including physical vapor deposition, chemical vapor
deposition, thermal processing, wet and dry etching, lithography, and numerous
metrology tools. In addition, specialized tools such as atomic layer deposition,
atomic force microscopes, and e-beam lithography truly make the cleanroom
capable of nanoscale fabrication and characterization. Types of fabrication
processes used in the cleanroom research include:
• Patterning — Creating nanoscale patterns on wafers with an
electron beam, or with specific wavelengths of light.
• Maskmaking — Creating photo masks, which are like
photographic negatives in patterning silicon wafers.
• Etching — The transfer of patterns generated with the
lithography process into three-dimensional structures.
• Deposition — Depositing films of various materials on
surfaces to use in the creation of structures
• Diffusion— Using temperatures of up to 1,200 C to alter the
electrical characteristics in specific areas of the silicon wafer.
Undergraduate students contribute to the diverse group of
researchers in the facility and are taught to use many of its tools.
Undergraduate research projects involve a variety of design, synthesis,
fabrication, characterization, and modeling activities. The training they
receive during these courses is directly relevant for careers in research and
development or production in a number of high-tech fields. In addition, students
have a chance to see the facilities used by leading research groups and to
interact with graduate students involved in multidisciplinary research projects.
The research group, led by ECE professor Peter Bermel, is also
researching high-performance and multi-junction cells in tandem with the Bay
Area Photovoltaic Consortium at Stanford University. The BNC is constantly being
updated to ensure that student, faculty, and visiting researchers have access to
the cutting edge equipment necessary for continued collaborating and forward
movement. The most recent update was completed in June when a section of the
laboratory was modified to create a roll-to-roll nanomanufacturing facility. The
initiative brings faculty from colleges of Agriculture and Pharmacy to work with
colleagues in engineering and sciences and develop next-generation smart
pharmaceutical pills, smart sensors for precision agriculture, and smart food
labels.
“It is very inspiring and motivating to work alongside the
outstanding faculty, students, and staff that develop new discoveries in
materials and devices that lead to new applications, devices, and a deeper
understanding of nature on the nanoscale,” says Reger. “With their attitudes of
curiosity and discovery, as well as the capabilities of the facility, we will
continue to do great things, make new discoveries, and develop new devices and
technologies for years to come.”
SUNY Polytechnic Institute (SUNY Poly) and GlobalFoundries
have set up the Advanced Patterning and Productivity Centre (APPC) that will be
located at the Colleges of Nanoscale Science and Engineering (CNSE) in Albany,
N.Y. In support of Gov. Andrew M. Cuomo's commitment to maintaining the state's
global leadership in nanotechnology research and development, the $500 million,
five-year programme will speed up the introduction of extreme ultraviolet (EUV)
lithography technologies into manufacturing.
The center is anchored by a network of international
chipmakers and material and equipment suppliers, including IBM and Tokyo
Electron, and will generate 100 jobs.
EUV lithography is a next-generation semiconductor
manufacturing technique that produces short wavelengths (14nm and below) of
light to create minuscule patterns on ICs. The technology is critical to achieve
the cost, performance and power improvements needed to meet the industry's
anticipated demands in cloud computing, Big Data, mobile devices and other
emerging technologies.
The APPC will tackle the challenges associated with
commercializing EUV lithography technology. A key component of the center will
be the installation of the ASML NXE: 3300 EUV scanner for the development and
manufacturing of semiconductor process technologies at 7nm and beyond. This
installation follows the installation of the IBM supported ASML NXE: 3300B EUV
scanner already in place at SUNY Poly.
The center aims to bring mask and materials suppliers together
to extend the capabilities of EUV lithography through exploring fundamental
aspects of the patterning process. Other projects will be focused on enhancing
productivity, in preparation for implementing EUV lithography in the
manufacturing of leading-edge products in GlobalFoundries' production facility
in Malta, NY.
Through the APPC, members will have access to SUNY Poly's
patterning infrastructure, which includes modern film deposition and etch
capability, leading-edge patterning systems, EUV mask infrastructure and EUV
imaging capabilities.
Nanoelectronics research center, imec, and digital research
and incubation center, iMinds, announced that its respective board of directors
have approved the intention to merge the research centers. Using the imec name,
the combined entities intend to create a high-tech research center for the
digital economy. The transaction is expected to be completed by the end of 2016,
with the united organization staged to bring added value to existing partners
while further strengthening Flanders’ authority as a technology epicenter and
region focused on creating a sustainable digital future.
iMinds will be integrated as an additional business unit
within imec, resulting in a new research center that will fuse the technology
and systems expertise of more than 2,500 imec researchers worldwide with the
digital competencies of some 1,000 iMinds researchers representing nearly 50
nationalities. The additions of iMinds’ flagship open innovation research model
-ICON- (in which academic researchers and industry partners jointly develop
solutions for specific market needs), iStart entrepreneurship program
(supporting start-up businesses), and Living Labs will strengthen the unique
capabilities and assets of imec as a research and development center.
Imec has been a global leader in the domain of nanoelectronics
for more than 30 years, and has innovated applications in smart systems for the
Internet of Things (IoT), Internet of Health, and Internet of Power. It has
built an extensive and worldwide partner network, as well as in Flanders, and
has generated successful spin-offs. iMinds’ activities span research domains
such as the IoT, digital privacy and security, and the conversion of raw data
into knowledge. Its software expertise is widely renowned and its
entrepreneurship activities in Flanders are first-rate.
“The proliferation of the Internet of Everything has created a
need for solutions that integrate both hardware and software. Such innovative
products that optimally serve tomorrow’s digital economy can only be developed
through intense interaction between both worlds. There are infinite
opportunities in domains such as sustainable healthcare, smart cities, smart
manufacturing, smart finances, smart mobility, smart grids, or in short, smart
everything. Research centers such as imec, with its widely acclaimed hardware
expertise, and iMinds, an expert in software and ICT applications, are uniquely
positioned to bring these concepts to life,” stated Luc Van den hove, president
and CEO of imec. “Furthermore, iMinds is widely recognized for its business
incubation programs and open access to SMEs, and, this merger provides us with a
unique opportunity to jointly reach out to the Flemish industry and further
elevate Smart Flanders on the global map.”
“Flanders faces the enormous challenge of realizing a
successful transition towards tomorrow’s digital society; a transition that must
happen quickly, considering the urgency to reinforce Flanders’ industrial
position,” commented Danny Goderis, CEO of iMinds. “The merger between imec and
iMinds is Flanders’ answer to this rapidly accelerating digitization trend. We
have a clear ambition to pair more than 3,500 top researchers across 70
countries with an ecosystem of Flemish companies and start-ups, thereby
significantly increasing our economic and societal impact. Together, we can help
Flanders boost its competitiveness and claim a strong international position.”
Now that the intention to merge has been approved, the merger
protocol will be developed and the integration process of imec and iMinds will
be initiated immediately. The current iMinds activities will constitute a third
pillar next to imec’s units. iMinds will remain headquartered in Ghent with its
researchers spread across the Flemish universities. The ambition is to operate
as one organization by the end of 2016.
Flemish Minister of Innovation Philippe Muyters welcomes the
fact that iMinds and imec join forces: “Thanks to their pioneering work in their
respective fields, they have put themselves on the world map. When they were
founded, the line between hardware and software was still very clear. Today, and
especially in the future, this line is increasingly blurring – with technology,
systems and applications being developed in close conjunction. The merger
anticipates this trend and creates a high-tech research center for the digital
economy that keeps Flanders on the world map. The gradual integration of both
research centers, and the agreement to preserve their respective strengths and
uniqueness, will make for a bright future.”
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