SEMICONDUCTOR INDUSTRY
UPDATE
June 2010
McIlvaine Company
TABLE OF CONTENTS
Intersil Donates Facilities to University of Central Florida
GE's Ultrapure Water System Installed at GLOBALFOUNDRIES' New Fab 8
Globalfoundries Expands Worldwide Manufacturing Capacity
APSU's New Chemical Engineering Facility Nears Completion
IMEC Opens Extended Facilities at Belgium Campus
National Semiconductor and GESOLAR Develop Smart Solar Panels
Freescale Boosts Chengdu Design Center Ops
Samsung to Invest in Austin Chip Plant
Oxford Instruments Receives Order from University of Waterloo
Intersil Corporation, a designer and manufacturer of high-performance analog and mixed-signal semiconductors will donate a high-technology semiconductor wafer fabrication facility and the land it occupies to the University of Central Florida. The gift consists of 100,494 sq. ft. of office space, manufacturing, and cleanroom facilities, plus a 5 acre property. In addition, Intersil will provide utilities and assist with operating expenses during the first three years of UCF's ownership, enabling a turnkey solution for the university.
GE announced that it has signed a contract to supply an ultrapure water system to GLOBALFOUNDRIES' new semiconductor manufacturing facility currently under construction at the Luther Forest Technology Campus in Saratoga County, N.Y. GE will design, supply and install an advanced ultrapure water system for the new $4.6 billion computer chip factory called "Fab 8." The new facility is the largest economic development project now underway in the United States and is expected to be the largest and most advanced semiconductor "fab" in the world upon completion in late 2012.
"Reliable, long-term production of ultrapure water will play a vital role in the successful operations of our new Fab 8 facility. We chose GE based on its extensive experience and ability to provide ongoing reliable technical and field support," said Norm Armour, vice president and general manager of Fab 8, GLOBALFOUNDRIES.
GE's ultrapure water system will filter millions of gallons of water per day to be used in the semiconductor manufacturing process. It will significantly reduce operating costs and increase efficiency.
Ultrapure water systems are often considered the lifeblood of a semiconductor wafer fabrication facility, or "fab." During the production cycle, a wafer comes into contact with ultrapure water more than 35 times and any disruption of service or "out-of-spec" water can compromise the wafers and even result in loss of product. In order to consistently manufacture superior semiconductor wafers, GLOBALFOUNDRIES requires the reliable production of ultrapure water 24 hours per day, 365 days per year.
"We are excited to support GLOBALFOUNDRIES' goals to make its Fab 8 chip fabrication plant as energy and water efficient as possible to help reduce the plant's operational costs, which will be crucial for the company to successfully compete in the global semiconductor industry," said Jeff Connelly, vice president, engineered systems--water and process technologies for GE Power & Water. "The project illustrates the demand for ultrapure water systems in the semiconductor industry, which has some of the manufacturing sector's most stringent quality requirements when it comes to industrial water usage."
Connelly also noted that GE's work with GLOBALFOUNDRIES on the Fab 8 project builds on GE's legacy of supporting energy technology innovation in the Capital Region of upstate New York, which also is home to GE's flagship Global Research Center; GE Energy's renewable energy headquarters and steam turbine-generator factory; GE Power & Water's global headquarters; and GE's planned advanced battery factory.
GE's ultrapure water system consists of a series of water treatment technologies, pumps, storage tanks, ultraviolet sterilizers, ozone generators, ion exchange, an ultrafiltration system and a gas transfer membrane system, as well as commissioning and operations and maintenance.
Globalfoundries announced plans to expand its global semiconductor manufacturing operations with a series of new projects across its 300mm operations designed to support expected increases in both near-term and long-term customer demand. These projects consist of two major new initiatives:
* The construction of an additional wafer manufacturing facility at Fab 1 in Dresden designed to add additional 45/40/28nm capacity and increase overall output to 80,000 wafers per month once fully ramped.
* Expanding the cleanroom shell currently under construction at Fab 8 in New York to provide the option to increase capacity at 28/22/20nm and bring overall site output up to 60,000 wafers per month once fully equipped.
By making additional investments in leading-edge capacity, Globalfoundries continues to take an aggressive long-term approach to driving sustained growth and technology leadership on advanced technologies. These new expansion projects are also expected to create hundreds of new jobs at the Fab 1 and Fab 8 campuses.
“Our 300mm fabs have been consistently ranked among the most advanced and efficient in the industry,” said Chia Song Hwee, chief operating officer, Globalfoundries. “Now we are taking our heritage of lean foundry manufacturing and world-class fab performance and making it available on a broader scale to meet the demands of the world's leading chip design companies.
“With this aggressive capacity build-out plan, we are well positioned to provide new and existing customers with the fastest option to get advanced products to market in the volumes they need to ensure success.”
At the company's leading-edge Dresden manufacturing campus, Fab 1, the expansion focus will be on adding new capacity to support additional growth opportunities for 45/40/28nm technologies as well as initial 22nm development.
This expansion will see a new facility constructed at Fab 1 that will add nearly 110,000 square feet of cleanroom space to enable the site to scale output up to 80,000 wafers per month over the next two years. The largest wafer fab in Europe, Fab 1's leading-edge wafer fabrication equipment will cover an area equivalent to approximately eight soccer fields.
The first output from this new expansion is expected in 2011 with construction work planned to start immediately. The start of this expansion project at Fab 1 is, however, still subject to the approval of a state aid package by the German authorities and the European Commission.
To support long-term growth at the 22/20nm generation, Globalfoundries plans to expand Fab 8, the company's new leading-edge fab currently under construction at the Luther Forest Technology Campus in Saratoga County, New York. The expansion will increase the size of the cleanroom shell by approximately 90,000 square feet, bringing the total available cleanroom space to approximately 300,000 square feet, equivalent to roughly six soccer fields of state-of-the-art wafer fabrication equipment.
The total facility, including cleanroom support infrastructure and office space, includes more than 1.3 million square feet of space and is expected to come online in 2012 with volume production targeted for early 2013. The larger cleanroom would allow for the future fit-up and equipment necessary to enable a total output of approximately 60,000 wafers per month once fully ramped.
In addition to the capacity expansion projects at Fab 1 and Fab 8, Globalfoundries majority shareholder, the Advanced Technology Investment Company (ATIC), announced initial plans for the creation of an advanced technology cluster in Abu Dhabi. The site, adjacent to Abu Dhabi International Airport and measuring three square kilometres in size, is ideally suited to house a future advanced technology cluster in the region with close proximity to regional transportation hubs and physical infrastructure.
Globalfoundries is committed to partnering with ATIC to share best practices and expertise in cluster creation in the near-term and putting a significant technology and manufacturing presence in the region long term. The goal for the site is to be the Middle Eastern hub of a global technology and manufacturing network to support the long-term deployment of capital for ATIC portfolio companies, in capital-intensive advanced technologies.
“The formation of the new Globalfoundries was predicated on creating a world-class technology and manufacturing company that had the scale and resources to compete for industry leadership in this capital intensive market,” said Ibrahim Ajami, chief executive officer, ATIC.
“For ATIC, this also represented the first step in Abu Dhabi's vision to become a leader in the semiconductor industry. Today we announce the next phase as we take our first steps in establishing a world-class advanced technology cluster over the coming years. We look forward to working with the Globalfoundries team to leverage the collective successes of Singapore, Dresden and New York as we create the industry's next innovation cluster in Abu Dhabi.”
In addition to new expansion initiatives in Dresden and New York, Globalfoundries is also continuing with its previously announced expansion at Fab 7 in Singapore to reach an output level of 50 000 wafers per month, an increase of nearly 50% from current levels. During the expansion, Fab 7 will continue to focus on manufacturing technologies ranging from the 65nm to 40nm technology nodes.
Globalfoundries
Globalfoundries is the world's first full-service semiconductor foundry with a truly global manufacturing and technology footprint. Launched in March 2009 through a partnership between AMD (NYSE:AMD) and the Advanced Technology Investment Company (ATIC), Globalfoundries provides a unique combination of advanced technology, manufacturing excellence and global operations. With the integration of Chartered in January 2010, Globalfoundries significantly expanded its capacity and ability to provide best-in-class foundry services from mainstream to the leading edge.
Globalfoundries is headquartered in Silicon Valley with manufacturing operations in Singapore, Germany, and a new leading-edge fab under construction in Saratoga County, New York. These sites are supported by a global network of R&D, design enablement, and customer support in Singapore, China, Taiwan, Japan, the US, Germany, and the UK.
ATIC
The Advanced Technology Investment Company (ATIC) was created in 2008. A technology investment company wholly owned by the Government of Abu Dhabi, ATIC is focused on making significant investments in the advanced technology sector, both locally and internationally. Its mandate is to generate returns that deliver long-term benefits to the Emirate of Abu Dhabi.
ATIC seeks to leverage the unique advantages it enjoys as an investor from the Emirate of Abu Dhabi to identify and realize long-term investment opportunities in the highly competitive and capital-intensive advanced technology sector. These advantages include significant and reliable capital, a patient investment philosophy, and a subsequently long-term investment horizon.
TSMC is still by far the largest foundry, with $9.2 billion in revenue last year, compared with $2.7 billion for Taiwan rival United Microelectronics Corp. and $2.5 billion for Globalfoundries.
Globalfoundries said it is targeting capital spending of $2.7 billion to $2.8 billion this year, almost four times the $700 million to $800 million it spent last year. That compares with the $4.8 billion TSMC has earmarked for spending this year.
At a news conference on the sidelines of the Computex trade show in Taipei, ATIC Chief Executive Ibrahim Ajami said the market is ready for as many as three big chip competitors.
"We are very bullish on the [chip] foundry business in 2010," Mr. Ajami said, adding that the company hasn't seen any impact on demand from Europe's debt crisis. "So far, our customers in Europe are still very positive and bullish."
He said personal-computer replacement and an "explosion" in demand for tablet PCs will drive orders for chips, while industry capacity remains tight.
Globalfoundries Chief Executive Doug Grose said at the news conference that the company's focus this year will be to integrate with Chartered Semiconductor, and that it doesn't have further acquisition plans for now.
But Mr. Ajami said ATIC is increasingly exploring various partnerships to attract other chip companies to Abu Dhabi.
Globalfoundries Inc. announced plans to spend an additional US$3 billion to increase its semiconductor manufacturing capacity, the latest move by the company to catch up to entrenched competitors such as Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Co.
Globalfoundries, founded in 2009 from a deal that spun off the former manufacturing operations of Advanced Micro Devices Inc., is the newest entrant in the market for build-to-order chip makers known as foundries. U.S.-based Globalfoundries said the additional spending, which follows previously announced plans to spend $6 billion on production capacity, will mainly be focused on two sites.
GlobalFoundries' spend will increase the size of the cleanroom in the wafer fab under construction in New York by about 40 percent and make GlobalFoundries Fab 1 into a gigafab by mid-2012. Globalfoundries is also spending in Singapore to increase capacity at what was Chartered Semiconductor.
The company, backed by the Abu Dhabi government through the Advanced Technology Investment Co., had previously planned to spend $2.5 billion on capex in 2010. A large portion of the additional spend is likely to come in 2011. Abu Dhabi has pledged to spend about $10 billion to build up GlobalFoundries as a world-class competitor in the foundry business.
GlobalFoundries said it plans to construct an additional wafer manufacturing facility at Fab 1 in Dresden, Germany, to increase the maximum manufacturing capacity to 80,000 wafers per month. At the same time GlobalFoundries is going to expand the clean room shell currently under construction at Fab 8 in New York to provide the option to take the site up to 60,000 wafers per month once it is fully equipped.
Fab 1 in Dresden, which is currently capable of about 30,000 wafer starts per month, had been on course to double capacity by mid-2012. Doug Grose, CEO of GlobalFoundries, said he expected the 80,000 wafer manufacturing capacity would arrive by mid- to late 2012. "The focus there is on 40-nm where we see huge demand. We're also producing on 32-nm and we will do a bit of 28-nm production. New York is intended to focus on 28-nm production and below."
Fab 8 is still under construction and is not expected to ship commercial wafers until the first half of 2012. As such the effect of expansion is unlikely to come into effect until late 2012 or 2013.
Austin Peay State University is getting closer to opening its newest instruction facility - the chemical engineering technology building.
"The facility is essentially is done with minor touchup work remaining. We have been very pleased at how quickly this project has progressed," said Mitch Robinson, vice president of finance and administration.
"It will be operational for classroom purposes at the beginning of this fall semester in August," Robinson added.
The 20,000 square-feet structure was put on the fast track when the state made the announcement in December 2008 about Hemlock Semiconductor LLC's decision to build a $1.2 billion manufacturing plant in Clarksville.
The new facility will be the hub for a brand new degree program that provides specialized training for students seeking jobs in the growing solar energy industry and other chemical engineering careers.
Construction was funded with a $6.4 million state grant with Hemlock Semiconductor contributing about $2 million in lab equipment. The state grant money covers construction of the facility and includes approximately $420,000 for classroom and office furniture, along with a computer lab.
"We should be ready to move furniture into the building within a couple of weeks," said Al Westerman, director of facilities and projects.
"The construction company, The Parent Corporation, has done a fantastic job. To start a project a month late and finish a month early is admirable," Robinson said.
Austin Peay has developed and implemented a work force training curriculum geared toward the chemical processing industry. Classes will be taught with input from Hemlock Semiconductor experts for specific manufacturing roles.
"Hemlock Semiconductor will also utilize the facility for pre-deployment training, specific training for our employees once they are hired as a chemical operator for our Clarksville facility. This is part of an extensive training program that all new operators must complete once they have joined our team," stated Liana M. Wallace, community relations director for the future Hemlock Semiconductor, LLC Clarksville site.
APSU students now have the opportunity to earn an associate's degree in chemical engineering technology. Achieving the degree does not guarantee employment with Hemlock Semiconductor, but Austin Peay officials stress the degree provides valuable training marketable in varied solar energy and chemical engineering facilities across the nation.
Robinson said a formal ribbon cutting ceremony is expected during August.
The nameless status of the new facility will end later this week. The APSU Board of Directors is expected to vote Friday on a name selection for the facility.
IMEC has added 18,000m˛ (193,680 sq. ft.) to its Leuven research campus in Belgium to include cleanroom, research lab and office space which makes it an 80,000m˛ (860,800 sq. ft.) campus thus expanding its high-tech ecosystem. The centre can stand comparison with any other high
tech research centre worldwide. As such, IMEC aims at playing an important role in the growth of the Flemish high-tech economy.
It has officially opened the extension of its cleanroom at this campus and kicked off the construction of a new office building.
IMEC's infrastructure, researchers, yearly grant of the Flemish government and collaboration with important industrial players, form the fundaments for its further growth. Several companies have already established research entities at IMEC including the Flanders ExaScience Lab focusing on supercomputing and Neurelectronics Research Flanders (NERF) aiming at unravelling the human brain.
The extended cleanroom not only offers space to new tools, but also makes the facilities 450mm-ready so to enable advanced research in chip process technology to continue. With an extra ultraclean processing area of 1,200m˛ (12,912 sq. ft.), IMEC's cleanroom now approaches 10,000m˛ 9(107,600 sq. ft.). The first equipment for the extension, an advanced coater/developer from Tokyo Electron Ltd, the CLEAN TRACK LITHIUS Pro, arrived in May. This clean track will interface with ASML's newest preproduction extreme ultraviolet scanner, the NXE:3100, to be delivered by the end of 2010.
In parallel with the building of the cleanroom, IMEC also started construction of new lab spaces to facilitate and extend its advanced research on silicon and organic solar cells and on biomedical electronics. These labs take up another 1,600m˛ (17,216 sq. ft.), including lab space for the recently launched NERF initiative. The NERF lab will be finalized by Q1 11. The solar cell research facilities are gradually being installed.
In Q4 2010, IMEC will start with the construction of a new office building. A jury, including Flanders' official building master, has selected the design of the Austrian architect's firm Baumschlager-Eberle. The tower building will have 16 floors to house up to 450 people, and will have space for an auditorium and labs with light equipment.
"The continuous growth of IMEC into a high-tech knowledge pole has only been possible thanks to the continuous support of the Flemish Government." said Luc Van den hove, president and CEO of IMEC. "I'm confident that the expansion of IMEC will play a crucial role in the further growth of the high-tech economy in Flanders.
National Semiconductor Corp. and Green Energy Solar (GESOLAR), a leading provider of solar energy products and services, have developed GESOLAR brand modules with embedded SolarMagic™ power optimization technology from National.
"We are excited to collaborate with the pioneer in power management electronics to develop the next generation of solar panels," said Stephen Tong, CEO of GESOLAR. "Our new line of GESOLAR modules is a cost-effective, high performance product that will expand the market for solar installations."
The award-winning SolarMagic product line combines National’s unique expertise in power electronics with advanced monitoring and management capabilities to maximize energy capture across a solar installation. GESOLAR’s high-efficiency polycrystalline photovoltaic (PV) modules incorporate SolarMagic power optimization to offer an affordable “smart panel” solution to the underperformance issues common with solar energy installations.
“National Semiconductor and GESOLAR share a commitment to bringing quality technologies to market and expanding the viability of clean energy around the world,” said Mike Polacek, Senior Vice President, National Semiconductor. “Together we developed ‘smart panels,’ high-performance solar modules that enable residential and commercial solar systems to cost-effectively produce significantly more energy than that produced by standard panels.”
“We are excited to collaborate with the pioneer in power management electronics to develop the next generation of solar panels,” said Stephen Tong, CEO of GESOLAR. “Our new line of GESOLAR modules is a cost-effective, high performance product that will expand the market for solar installations.”
In China, Freescale Semiconductor Inc. revealed plans to expand its efforts amid booming demand in the nation.
In its Chengdu design center, Freescale is bolstering its efforts, as the site has become "the front lines" in the development and customization in the networking-chip arena, said Joshua Leung, senior manager of software research and development in the networking and multimedia group in Asia-Pacific for Freescale.
Demand for its products is greater than the supply in China, Leung said during a briefing and tour of its facility in Chengdu. In recent years, China communications equipment companies like Huawei, ZTE and others have emerged. "A lot of design activity is happening in China," he said.
Freescale has five IC design centers in China, including Beijing, Chengdu, Shanghai, Suzhou and Tianjin. Each design center has a certain task or expertise. These centers work in conjunction with Freescale's other worldwide IC design centers to complete a select project.
Three years ago, Freescale set up its design and R&D center in Chengdu to capitalize on the local engineering talent in the region. It also serves as a sales and marketing base for Western China. Chengdu is the capital of the Sichuan province. Chengdu boasts a population of over 11 million people.
Within its Chengdu site, Freescale has two labs: One supports its efforts in networking chips, while the other involves its RF lines. Freescale did not disclose how many people work at the site.
Within the labs, there are four separate teams: RF, DSP, PowerQicc and QorIQ. In networking chips, Freescale's Chengdu design unit is expanding and focusing on its previously-announced QorIQ line, a family of 45nm, multicore embedded processors.
In the development of new versions of the chip, the Chengdu unit works in conjunction with other worldwide design centers at Freescale. But the Chengdu unit has also been given the charter to "customize" versions of the QorIQ line for customers, Leung said. "We are on the front lines for customer requirements," he said.
Last year, Freescale began sampling its QorIQ P4080 multicore processor—the flagship member of Freescale's QorIQ product family. The QorIQ P4080 provides concurrent handling of control-plane, data-plane and application layer processing tasks. It is ideal for applications such as switches, enterprise and service provider routers, access and media gateways, base station controllers, radio network controllers, and general-purpose embedded computing systems in the networking, telecom, industrial, military and aerospace markets.
The Chengdu site also supports its RF efforts. Freescale recently introduced two final-stage LDMOS RF power transistors, giving designers a choice between discrete and IC solutions. The new transistors are optimized for use in power amplifiers based on TD-SCDMA, a third-generation wireless standard that is being widely deployed throughout China.
Freescale's Chengdu design center is located at the Chengdu Tianfu Software Park, reportedly the largest software park in China. Chengdu Tianfu Software Park Co. Ltd, a subsidiary of Chengdu Hi-tech Investment Group, was founded under the leadership of the Administration Committee of Chengdu Hi-tech Zone in 2009 to operate Tianfu Software Park.
Tianfu Software Park has completed two phases, which consists of 11.8 million-square-feet (1.1 million sq. meters). Two other phases are on the drawing board. As one of the 11 national software bases in China, Chengdu is said to have up to 1.65 million technicians, and 130,000 software practitioners, according to the Chengdu Tianfu Software Park.
Chengdu, a transportation and communication hub in Western China, seeks to become the next major base for the development of ICs, information technology (IT) and other sectors in the nation.
Intel Corp. owns and operates a giant IC-packaging facility in Chengdu. Semiconductor International Manufacturing Corp. operates a 200mm fab in the area, but there are reports that Texas Instruments Inc. may soon take ownership of the facility.
Seeking to break out from the crowded IC-packaging pack, Malaysia's Unisem Berhad here outlined its ambitious growth strategy amid robust demand and shortages in the market. As part of the program, IC-packaging and test specialist Unisem plans to expand in Chengdu, develop an automotive expertise and look for acquisitions in the market.
Samsung Electronics Co., Asia’s biggest maker of semiconductors, will invest $3.6 billion to expand capacity at its 12-inch chip plant in Austin, Texas.
The new facilities will be used to make large scale integration, or LSI, chips, Bill Cryer, a Samsung spokesman said in an interview. The company also plans to add 500 jobs. The plant, run by the Samsung Austin Semiconductor LLC unit, will be in full operation by late 2011, he said.
Samsung on May 17 said it will more than double spending on the semiconductor business to about 11 trillion won ($8.7 billion) this year, from 4.5 trillion won in 2009. The company, based in Suwon, South Korea, and rivals including Tokyo-based Toshiba Corp. and Hynix Semiconductor Inc. of Ichon, South Korea, are raising chip production to meet demand for their use in smartphones, cameras and appliances.
The Samsung spending brings its total investment in Austin to more than $9 billion, according to a statement by the unit. The chipmaker first opened a plant in Austin in 1997, then built another in 2007, Cryer said. The facility has been used to produce NAND flash memory chips.
Net income rose almost sevenfold to 3.99 trillion won in the three months ended March 31 from 582.2 billion won a year earlier. Sales, including overseas affiliates, increased 21 percent to 34.6 trillion won.
Oxford Instruments Plasma Technology, leader in systems for etch, deposition and growth, has recently received a multi-system order from the University of Waterloo, Ontario, Canada for installation in their new cleanroom facility. The process tools ordered are OIPT's System100 ICP + System133 PECVD, and a FlexAL PECVD/ALD Cluster tool, with multi-wafer batch capability and the potential for providing a number of process applications.
OIPT tools offer powerful stand alone and clusterable process modules, enabling a wide range of applications, and the University of Waterloo will be implementing the systems for multiple process techniques. These include Bosch, Cryo silicon etch, Compound Semiconductor, Metal etch, PECVD. In addition, one of the tools will be clustered to offer ALD process capability, to deposit Al2O3 conformal coating.
The equipment will be housed in the cleanroom at the Mike and Ophelia Lazaridis Quantum-Nano Centre, a new state-of-the-art building now under construction at the heart of the University of Waterloo campus. The facility, slated for completion in 2011, will be shared between the Institute for Quantum Computing and the Waterloo Institute of Nanotechnology.
The purchase of equipment is made possible by the generous support IQC receives from the Canada Foundation for Innovation, the Ontario Research Fund, the University of Waterloo, and the namesakes of the new building, Mike and Ophelia Lazaridis.
Oxford Instruments pursues responsible development and deeper understanding of the world through science and technology, and this order for another new University research facility is testament to that commitment
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