SEMICONDUCTOR UPDATE
March 2010
McIlvaine Company
TABLE OF CONTENTS
Umicore Completes Construction of New Substrates Production Facility
Alchimer Opens 300mm Applications-and-Development Facility in Asia
FormFactor Opens Singapore Manufacturing Facility
Jenoptik Opens Laser Application Center in Korea
NXP Mulls Turning Wafer Fab to Solar Facility
CamSemi Sets Up Design Center in Korea
Cypress Sets Up PSoC Lab for Education
Lattice Inaugurates Asia Operations Center in Singapore
Materials technology company Umicore has completed the construction of its new germanium substrates production facility in Quapaw, Oklahoma, adjacent to the existing site.
The 40,000 square foot facility is now undergoing process start-up and qualification runs. The new substrate facility is located on the same campus as the Umicore germanium optics and high purity chemicals operation for the U.S. market and will be integrated in the existing IS014001, 2004 system in the course of 2010. This allows for a completely integrated supply chain operation, emphasizing prompt internal recycling thereby minimizing inventory stocking requirements of the valuable germanium metal.
The production operation itself is modeled on the Olen facility in Belgium which has successfully supplied millions of substrates for space and terrestrial photovoltaic applications. The new facility in Quapaw embodies proven state-of-the-art equipment and an advanced product tracking system.
“With Quapaw in addition to Olen, our total installed annual production capacity stands at 1 million germanium wafers (4-inch). With our two Ge wafer plants in Europe and the USA, we’re now in an excellent position to meet market demand for the foreseeable future,” says Carl Quaeyhaegens, General Manager of Umicore’s worldwide substrates business line.
Germanium wafers are a core component of triple junction (III-V) high-efficiency solar cells used on the vast majority of all satellites launched today. Triple junction (III-V) solar cells based on germanium wafers are also widely applied in terrestrial Concentrated PV systems (CPV), an emerging, highly promising, and ultimately lowest electricity cost technology of all PV technologies, for areas with high direct sunlight irradiation (DNI).
Alchimer S.A., a provider of nanometric deposition technology for semiconductor interconnects and through-silicon vias, said it has opened a new applications-and-development facility in Seoul, South Korea, for demonstration of its innovative processes on 300mm wafers. The facility will begin accepting customers' wafers in April.
On-site Alchimer personnel will be able to provide full-stack demonstrations of Alchimer's breakthrough technology, electrografting (eG™), which is an electrochemical process that enables the growth of extremely high quality polymer and metal thin films on both conducting and semiconducting surfaces. The company's deposition technology reduces overall cost of ownership for high aspect ratio TSV metallization by up to two-thirds compared to conventional dry processes and shortens time to market.
Electrografting technology is made available in several products and processes, all of which will be available for evaluation at the new facility. Alchimer's AquiVia and AquiVia XS combine wet deposition processes for multiple layers in TSV metallization. These unique full-stack approaches also utilize Alchimer's proprietary Chemicalgrafting (cG™) technology to create strong chemical bonds between each molecular layer. This results in highly conformal and uniform layers for TSVs with aspect ratios of 20:1 and beyond.
"This 300mm facility represents our commitment to accelerating adoption of our innovative deposition technology by chipmakers worldwide," said Alchimer CEO Steve Lerner. "The semiconductor community in Asia is clearly ahead of other regions in implementing new technologies for 3D TSVs and semiconductor interconnects, and we are pleased to be able to demonstrate these new, cost-effective options locally."
FormFactor, Inc. announced the official opening of its new wafer probe card manufacturing facility and global business center in Singapore. The new manufacturing capability is targeted to reduce product cycle times, and to diversify supply of the company's product components. FormFactor will also leverage the new site to support its global operations, and bolster its customer service and support infrastructure in the region. A celebration to mark the opening of the facility was held at the site on March 10, 2010.
To support the expansion, FormFactor expects to employ approximately 300 people in its first phase of growth over the next two years. Job growth will include design and manufacturing engineering, supply chain management, global finance positions, as well as other selected corporate and regional support functions. "With these new resources we take another step toward our goal to become a more local supplier," said FormFactor CEO, Mario Ruscev. "We see this expansion as an important milestone in our efforts to improve responsiveness in the region and to better serve all of our customers."
In addition to manufacturing and corporate functions, the company's system-on-a-chip (SOC) product business unit will also make its home in the new location.
About FormFactor Founded in 1993, FormFactor, Inc. is the leader in advanced wafer probe cards, which are used by semiconductor manufacturers to electrically test ICs. The company's wafer sort, burn-in and device performance testing products move IC testing upstream from post-packaging to the wafer level, enabling semiconductor manufacturers to lower their overall production costs, improve yields, and bring next-generation devices to market. FormFactor is headquartered in Livermore, California with operations in Europe, Asia and North America.
After starting construction last July and moving in last November, Germany’s Jenoptik Group has formally opened its new sales, application and service site in the southern Korean city of Pyeongtaek (Gyeonggi province, 70km south of Seoul) in the presence of about 100 invited guests from business and politics as well as customers and partners in Asia.
The new center is part of the expansion of Jenoptik Korea Corp Ltd, which was founded last July as a partnership between Jenoptik AG (66.6 percent) and Telstar-Hommel Corp (33.3 percent), a long-standing Jenoptik joint venture partner in the Industrial Metrology division. “Without the close and intensive collaboration, we would not have been able to build the laser application center so quickly,” said Jenoptik Group’s chairman of the executive board Dr Michael Mertin and chief financial officer Frank Einhellinger in thanking Telstar-Hommel’s president & CEO Buyng-Hoon Im.
A total of over 60 Jenoptik laser systems for various applications are currently in use in Asia, and 14 further systems have been commissioned and will be delivered or installed in the coming months. The firm says that Jenoptik Korea Corp Ltd achieved its first successes more quickly than expected and has received new orders worth about €5m in recent months.
Covering 500m2 (5,380 sq. ft.) including 80m2 (8,608 sq. ft.) of cleanroom) on a campus shared with Telstar-Hommel and costing $4.4m (€3.4m/Won 5.4bn), the new laser application center has initially been equipped with two laser systems for processes in the electronic as well as photovoltaics and flat-panel industries. The Jenoptik VOTAN Semi 300 is designed for machining wafers (Si, GaAs or SiC) and thus also for ultra-precise applications in cleanroom environments. The special separation process developed by Jenoptik —enables quick, efficient and damage-free separation of semiconductor wafers, says the firm. With the Jenoptik VOTAN Advanced laser system, the TLS process specifically addresses the photovoltaics and flat-panel industry for separating thin-film solar cells and display glass.
Customers and interested parties from across Asia in the areas of electronic, flat panel as well as photovoltaics and automotive can now test lasers and laser applications for their own production environments on site with their own materials. In addition to tests, together with Jenoptik engineers they can also develop individual processes on the systems, manufacture pilot runs and small batches, and commission feasibility studies. Also, in the coming months, Jenoptik plans to expand the application center with additional laser systems.
With eight staff, Jenoptik Korea Corp Ltd is also in charge of all after-sales service in Asia together with other Jenoptik firms, e.g. in Japan. The Jenoptik Group currently has a total of about 150 staff in its own or in joint venture firms in Asia since, in addition to Korea, it is also present in China and Japan.
“This moves our process of internationalization a major step forward,” said Mertin of the new center. “Direct market access and a trained service team are indispensable for complex systems,” he added. “With the new center, we have laid the foundation for further business activities of all divisions of the Jenoptik Group.”
According to preliminary figures, sales of the Jenoptik Group in Asia comprised just under 8 percent of the group’s overall sales of about €470m in 2009; just under 10 percent of overall sales in the Lasers & Optical Systems segment were in Asia. “We see more great potential for the overall group in Asia,” said Mertin. “With our direct local presence, we can now approach the market better and more intensively.”
NXP BV is in talks on the possibility of converting a 6-inch wafer fab at Nijmegen, The Netherlands, to solar cell manufacture. The company does not wish to make solar cells itself but is interested in bringing a partner onto its Nijmegen site, according to CEO Rick Clemmer.
NXP is active in power semiconductors and power management for solar power and lighting as part of its high-performance mixed-signal IC business strategy. The reuse of NXP wafer fabs for solar cell manufacture could be complementary, Clemmer told EE Times.
The company said in its fourth quarter financial results that it would close the 6-inch wafer fab at Nijmegen, known as ICN6, by early in 2011. Clemmer said that the "Redesign" program intended to achieve cost savings was ahead of schedule and would be expanded to include the closure ICN6.
The company had previously announced the plan to close ICH in Hamburg, which closed in January, and ICN5 in Nijmegen, which is due to close at the end of the second quarter as part of the Redesign project.
Clemmer agreed that the making of solar cells from silicon is a potential use of former IC wafer fabs. With regard to Nijmegen Clemmer said: "There are opportunities to look at other production technologies. It's not something we want to pursue ourselves but if someone else wanted to do it. We have discussions going on."
When asked if the rapidly increasing demand for LED lighting was a reason for NXP to consider LED manufacture in its older wafer fabs. Clemmer said that LED manufacture was not interesting to NXP which was focused on LED driver ICs amongst other products. He added that there are no discussions on LED manufacture, only on solar power.
NXP announced a development partnership with Tata BP Solar India Ltd, a joint venture of BP Solar and Tata Power in August 2009, under which Tata BP intends to use various electronic circuits for solar applications developed by NXP. These circuits have been developed by NXP to requirements provided by Tata BP.
The partnership was described as "long-term" and the two companies are expected to roll out electronic control products starting 2010.
CamSemi fortifies its commitment to the Korea market by opening a dedicated business development and application design centre in the Bundang-GU district of Gyungg-Do, Seoul.
The new office will be instrumental in growing the company's customer base and sales in Korea and houses meeting rooms and a development laboratory, as well as CamSemi's recently established local team of application engineers. The office is close to many major CamSemi customers and is being run by Seungjib Hong, who joins as Korea country manager.
Seungjib brings more than 26 years' semiconductor experience into CamSemi including senior sales and application engineering roles with STMicroelectronics, Power Integrations and iWatt, plus a seven-year period managing his own Korea sales rep company.
Cypress Semiconductor Corp. and DOEACC Centre Calicut have teamed up to set up a joint programmable system-on-chip (PSoC) laboratory at DOEACC. As part of the agreement, Cypress will provide hands-on training sessions for the faculty and students of DOEACC, in addition to free hardware and software tools. DOEACC will provide the facilities for the laboratory.
The laboratory will expose the students to the PSoC platform, a flexible family of devices with programmable analogue and digital blocks integrated with a microcontroller. With its unique architecture, PSoC provides an unrivalled learning platform for embedded design students.
DOEACC has incorporated PSoC in its curriculum for the PG Diploma in VLSI Design (VL500) and PG Diploma in Industrial Automation System Design (PC 100) programs. It is proposed to be included in the curriculum for M. Tech in embedded systems (on-going) and M. Tech in electronics design technology programs (to be launched). DOEACC is also considering adding academic and R&D projects in mixed signal embedded systems designs using PSoC.
"DOEACC Society is delighted to partner with Cypress, a world leader in programmable solutions, to set up this joint PSoC laboratory at our centre in Calicut," said G M Ajit, director, DOEACC centre Calicut. "Our centre has been teaching the application of PSOC technology to our PG Diploma students in VLSI Design, and recently our student Sriram V.S., secured the first prize in the prestigious PSoC Innovator Design Challenge under the guidance of our faculty member R Nandakumar. This partnership will enable us to expose more students to the PSoC platform, and encourage them to undertake research projects in this area. In short, this agreement strengthens our partnership; and our students and faculty will get additional support and opportunities for designing on the flexible and powerful PSoC platform"
"This agreement helps Cypress continue to build its presence with the growing, talented foundation of engineers in India," said Sunil Thamaran, director of engineering at Cypress. "This new lab will familiarize DOEACC students with the flexibility and integration delivered by the PSoC platform. We are confident that the ease-of-use and versatility of PSoC will lead many new designers to leverage the technology as customers."
Lattice Semiconductor Corporation announced the formal opening of Lattice SG Pte. Ltd., its new Asia Operations Center. The opening was marked by a formal ribbon cutting ceremony.
"We are pleased that Lattice Semiconductor Corporation is establishing its first Asian Operations Center in Singapore. This new center is testimony to Singapore's reputation as a preferred location for companies to orchestrate their pan-Asian operations, and where they innovate and create new value to grow their top line," said Mr. Damian Chan, Director, Electronics, Singapore Economic Development Board.
While the recent relocation of its warehousing and distribution facilities to Singapore is expected to save Lattice approximately 1 million USD each year in shipping costs, the primary reason for establishing the Asia Operations Center is to move Lattice closer to its customers and supply chain partners. Lattice's business in Asia has been growing steadily, and accounted for 70 percent of its revenue in the fourth quarter of 2009, compared to 35 percent just seven years ago. In addition, all of Lattice's Wafer Fabs and Assembly & Test partners are in Asia. The establishment of the Asia Operations Center will result in the operational alignment of Lattice's supply chain, improved efficiency in working with the supply chain and an improved focus on cost reduction.
"It just makes good business sense to move our Asia operations and warehouse closer to our critical supply chain activities and to our customers," said Mr. Bruno Guilmart, Lattice President and CEO. "The shorter we can make the distance between our products and our customers, the more responsively and efficiently we can serve them."
The 421 square meter (4,530 sq. ft.) Lattice Asia Operations Center is opening with 17 employees, and initially will manage production, packaging and test development, reliability and quality assurance for Lattice products throughout Asia. The Operations Center is expected to expand within two to three years to approximately 40 employees.
McIlvaine Company,
Northfield, IL 60093-2743
Tel: 847-784-0012; Fax: 847-784-0061;
E-mail: editor@mcilvainecompany.com;
Web site: www.mcilvainecompany.com