OTHER ELECTRONICS & NANOTECHNOLOGY
INDUSTRY UPDATE
June 2017
McIlvaine Company
TABLE OF
CONTENTS
AIM
Photonics TAP Facility Will be Located in Rochester
Kulicke &
Soffa Opens Latest Process and Applications Laboratory
Vishay
Intertechnology Expands Cleanroom Production in Selb
Research
Fab Microelectronics Launches in Germany
EV Group
Expands Production Capacity in Austria
University of Rhode Island Constructs Engineering Complex
The AIM Photonics TAP facility will be located in
Rochester, at a former facility of Eastman Kodak, now occupied by ON
Semiconductor.
The American Institute for Manufacturing Integrated
Photonics (AIM Photonics)—a major U.S. public-private partnership based in
Rochester, N.Y., working to foster advanced-manufacturing technology in
integrated photonics—has received the green light on a grant of US$81 million
from the state of New York. The funding, announced in late May, will support
equipment and operations for the project’s testing, assembly and packaging (TAP)
facility, a linchpin of AIM Photonics’ research mission. Stakeholders in the
project hailed the funding as both a milestone in the evolution of AIM Photonics
and a boon to the regional economy.
AIM Photonics’ origins trace to fall 2014. At that
time—after a significant information and support effort by the National
Photonics Initiative, OSA and other organizations—integrated photonics was
selected as the theme of a new Institute for Manufacturing Innovation (IMI)
under President Barack Obama’s National Network for Manufacturing Innovation
initiative. In the year that followed that announcement, several U.S. regional
consortia placed bids to host the IMI; in July 2015, the nod went to the AIM
Photonics group, a 75-partner consortium led by the Research Foundation for the
State University of New York. The initiative’s total pledged funding amounts to
a hefty US$600 million from academic, industry, federal and state government
sources, with the state of New York alone contributing US$250 million.
The TAP facility represents a key component in AIM
Photonics’ plan for boosting end-to-end advanced manufacturing technology in
photonic integrated circuits. The facility will include what the project bills
as the “first and only open-access” installation for testing photonic devices on
300-mm-diameter semiconductor wafers. Additionally, to further support
integrated-photonics R&D, the facility will house wafer fabrication and
multiple-project wafer assembly tools and equipment, and a TAP manufacturing
execution system, so that state-of-the-art photonic integrated circuits can be
produced in volume.
Six months before unveiling the new TAP funding, in
December 2016, AIM Photonics had announced that the TAP site would be located in
the 260,000-square-foot building that formerly housed the physics lab of the
iconic Rochester firm Eastman Kodak. Currently occupied by ON Semiconductor, the
site already holds a 20,000-square-foot cleanroom as well as various
semiconductor manufacturing facilities for both CCD and CMOS sensors.
The new round of TAP funding comes after two previous
funding tranches totaling US$106 million, which covered basic tooling, equipment
and licensing, as well as renovations of the ON Semiconductor facility. The new
US$81 million state grant will propel the project forward, according to AIM
Photonics, by supporting expenditures on key equipment and ongoing operating
costs.
Concurrent with the late-May funding announcement, AIM
Photonics hosted a meeting for potential respondents to the project’s third call
for proposals, which began in April and which expires on 19 June. More than 100
AIM Photonics members and partners attended the meeting. Tom Koch, an OSA Fellow
and the chairman of the AIM Photonics Technical Review Board, characterized
these developments as an “inflection point for AIM Photonics growth,” and
suggested that the projects that result from the latest proposal call could lead
to “new capabilities that will provide members with new integrated photonics
solutions and help drive institute sustainability.”
Political stakeholders in the region, meanwhile, stressed
the potential benefits of both AIM Photonics and its TAP facility the economy of
New York State’s Finger Lakes region, which includes Rochester. New York
Governor Andrew Cuomo, in introducing the latest funding, said the new
investment is “critical to the completion of AIM Photonics’ cutting-edge TAP
facility that will create new jobs and new opportunities for the community.” And
New York state senator Joseph Robach, whose constituents live in the region
surrounding Rochester, said that progress on the TAP plant “means jobs for
members of our community in the innovative fields of optics, photonics and
imaging.”
Kulicke & Soffa Industries, Inc. announced the opening of
its latest Process and Applications laboratory at the K&S Netherlands facility.
The 19,368 sq. ft. (180 square meter) laboratory adds to
the company’s existing base of global application facilities. The Netherlands
site uniquely houses a complete prototype assembly line of K&S Advanced
Packaging and Electronics Assembly equipment. The laboratory will facilitate
stronger collaboration with global customers and industry partners to develop
and refine next-generation of packaging solutions in direct response to the
industry’s emerging challenges and opportunities. It also serves as a platform
to accelerate internal development roadmaps and engineering competencies.
Bob Chylak, Kulicke & Soffa’s Vice President of Global
Process Engineering, said, “This new lab marks another significant milestone for
K&S and further enhances our capabilities to deploy the latest technology for
component mounting, with a specific focus on applications requiring
high-accuracy placement for passive components as well as active bare or
packaged die. We are excited to further collaborate strategically with customers
and industry partners to optimize and drive high-volume adoption of new advanced
packaging processes.”
Kulicke & Soffa is proud to welcome the Guest-of-Honor,
Mayor John Jorritsma, City of Eindhoven, for the Opening Ceremony. “We are very
pleased with the presence of K&S in Brainport Eindhoven. The company contributes
a lot to our added value chain, by creating new knowledge and employment. The
opening of the new process lab proves that K&S also believes in our economic
strength, which is great”, said Mayor John Jorritsma, City of Eindhoven.
In addition to the K&S Netherlands facility, Kulicke &
Soffa also operates application laboratories in Taiwan, Korea, China, Singapore
and the U.S.
Energy efficient, modular system with remote maintenance
capabilities offers 5,380 sq. ft. (500sqm) of electrical component production
space, built with the help of Schilling Engineering.
Vishay, an international manufacturer of electronic
components, is expanding its headquarters in Selb, Germany, and investing in
state-of-the-art cleanroom facilities.
For electrical components to perform perfect function, they
must be produced in a virtually particle-free area, i.e., under clean
conditions.
A specialist in cleanroom build and design, Schilling
Engineering from Baden-Wurttemberg, Germany, was commissioned to build the
facility.
With 22,000 employees worldwide, Vishay is one of the
largest manufacturers of discrete semiconductor elements and passive electronic
components.
The expansion includes investment in a 5,380 sq. ft.
(500m2) ISO Class 7 cleanroom facility for the production of high stability
resistors.
The Selb production site is a “vital pillar” of Vishay, say
the company, with more than 800 employees. The company says it invests a great
deal in training and technical equipment.
Schilling Engineering's CleanCell 4.0 cleanroom system
ensures that a constant cleanroom air quality of the cleanroom Class ISO 7.
Machines and workstations are accommodated for the production of the smallest
electronic resistors.
Three rooms divide different work areas. The areas are
connected to each other by means of mutually interlocked electric sliding or
swing doors. A 323 sq. ft. (30m2) staff lock provides enough space for the
changing rooms of the staff.
The changing room is actively flushed with pure air and
ensures a change of the zone and safe processes in a confined space. Material
pass-troughs ensure the safe input and output of the sensitive components.
The CleanCell 4.0 cleanroom system is equipped with
ULPA-class U15 high-performance filters. Directed air flows remove the smallest
airborne particles from the work environment.
An air recirculating and air return system within the
cleanroom walls ensures a precise cleanroom flushing and provides high energy
efficiency; the already filtered and cooled air is again fed into the
circulation of the air exchange.
The cleanroom-adapted LED lighting also helps to reduce
operating costs.
The CR Control system, which is accessible via a central
touchscreen, ensures safe control and monitoring of the cleanroom.
All important functions of the cleanroom, including the air
conditioning technology, are monitored and recorded and can be individually
controlled and regulated. Remote maintenance is also possible.
The cleanroom system is modular and connected with a
silicone-free sealing clip system. This guarantees an extremely high air
tightness of the cleanrooms, as well as low particle emissions and it offers the
advantage of flexible expansion possibilities.
Thirteen institutes have collaborated on a concept for a
cross-location research factory for microelectronics and nanoelectronics.
Eleven of the institutes are from the Fraunhofer Group for
Microelectronics, who support German industry with application-oriented research
and development for high-tech products.
They will combine their technology with two institutes from
the Leibniz Association for High Performance Microelectronics (IHP) into a
joint, cross-location technology pool: the Research Fab Microelectronics
Germany.
The institutes’ existing locations will be retained, while
expansion and operation will be
coordinated and organized in a shared business office.
The aim is to be able to offer customers from large
industry, small or medium enterprises and universities the entire value chain
for microelectronics and nanoelectronics from a single supplier.
Four Technology Parks
The focus of the cross-institute work will lie on four
future-relevant areas of technology:
Thematically and logistically connected processes and
infrastructures will be pooled and developed in four different “technology
parks”.
This will allow the member institutes to serve all areas of
technology essential to the research, development and manufacture of
microsystems and nanosystems – whether it is for information gathering and
processing, telecommunications, or power electronics.
The Microelectronic Fab for Research Germany will represent
a reorganization of more than 2000 scientists and the necessary equipment for
technological research and development under a single, virtual roof. In the
medium term, the measure is expected to create an additional 500 jobs for highly
qualified candidates.
The Research Fab Microelectronics Germany will engage in
research and development for contemporary topics such as FDSOI technology (Fully
Depleted Silicon on Insulator) and power electronics and future themes.
The latter includes creating the technological basis for
the industrial use of quantum technologies; integration of functional blocks at
the atomic level; developing systems for the THz range; continued reduction in
power requirements; and the storage and transmission of huge quantities of data.
EV Group (EVG), a supplier of wafer bonding and lithography
equipment for the MEMS, nanotechnology and semiconductor markets, announced that
it is expanding production capacity at its corporate headquarters in St. Florian
am Inn, Austria. Representing a 20 million Euro investment, the expansion will
include the construction of a new building that provides additional production
and test capacity for EVG equipment that meets the high cleanliness requirements
of the semiconductor industry, as well as that allows for a significant
expansion of warehouse space.
“With the new
building adjacent to our existing manufacturing facilities, we will first and
foremost create additional test rooms for the final assembly, software
installation and quality assurance of our equipment and the technical source
inspection by our customers,” stated Dr. Werner Thallner, executive operations
and financial director at EV Group. “This enables us to act on the significant
increase in demand for our solutions in both existing and new markets, and
pursue our mid- and long-term growth targets at the same time.”
The new building to expand production capacity is set to
open before the end of this calendar year.
The 190,000 sq. ft. facility will house vibration-proof
core laboratories and a cleanroom.
The University of Rhode Island (URI) has seen a ceremonial
groundbreaking to launch construction of its new US$125 million engineering
complex.
The project will result in a 190,000 sq. ft. facility
designed to foster interdisciplinary collaboration and innovation, and which can
evolve to meet the technology-driven changes in all segments of engineering.
This first phase of the build represents the largest
construction project in the University’s history, and it is due for completion
in summer 2019. The second phase of the project is a $25.5m upgrade and
expansion of Bliss Hall, the college’s historic home on the Quadrangle.
The new building will house seven of eight University
engineering programs: biomedical, chemical, civil, computer, electrical,
industrial and systems and mechanical engineering. Ocean engineering is based at
the Narragansett Bay Campus. Not only had the older buildings not undergone any
major improvements in more than 50 years, but they did not provide the open and
flexible teaching, learning and research spaces necessary to adequately prepare
engineering students and fully serve faculty members.
A key structural feature of the building is the truss
support system of the type used in bridge design and construction. The new
engineering facility will have three trusses, which eliminate the need for
interior support columns or posts and allow for large, open spaces.
The ground floor will also house vibration-proof core
laboratories available to all engineering faculty, and a cleanroom. Since much
of the testing involves measuring nanoparticles and vibrations, any outside
vibrations would interfere with the testing.
On the lower- or ground-level floor, there will be two,
72-seat active classrooms, and a 60-seat active learning classroom.
The first floor, called the Quad-level floor, will look out
to the new Engineering Quadrangle. It will have an exterior patio with seating
and a cafe made out of modern composite materials. A glassed-walled section will
allow observers to see into senior capstone project space for seven engineering
programs.
The first floor will also house the College’s first student
shop, from which students will be able to access equipment round the clock. It
will also be home to two computer labs and two electronic student centers.
The second floor is the home for four teaching and learning
labs and four research labs, in addition to two wings of offices.
The fourth-floor offers two labs for the college’s smart
cities disciplines and robotics.
Ballinger of Philadelphia, is the prime architect,
mechanical engineer, electrical engineer, and structural engineer on the
project. The associate architectural firm is DBVW of Providence. The associate
structural engineering firm is Odeh Engineers of North Providence. The owner’s
representative is Hill International, an international firm with an office in
Providence.
The construction management firm is Dimeo Construction Co.
of Providence.
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