SEMICONDUCTOR INDUSTRY
UPDATE
September 2010
McIlvaine Company
TABLE OF CONTENTS
Austin Peay's Hemlock Building Opens
STATS ChipPAC Opens 300mm Manufacturing Fab
Air Products Will Double Existing Gas Capacity to Support Samsung Expansion
Outdated Intel Factory Faces Possible Closure
ON Semi Wafer Fabs Get Expansions
Arima Optoelectronics to Set Up Wafer Plant in Wujiang
Micron Technology to Take Over SMIC Fab
TI Completes Acquisition of Spansion
University of Warwick Opens Science City Cleanroom
TSMC Fab 15 Grounding Breaking
Skyworth to Tap Semiconductor Industry
A year after breaking ground, Austin Peay State University, Clarksville, Tenn., celebrated the grand opening of its Hemlock Semiconductor building.
The facility is the home of the new chemical engineering technology associate degree program.
Classes in the building will provide specialized training for those seeking jobs at the Hemlock Semiconductor facility.
Hemlock makes a type of silicon used in solar electric panels and computer chips.
"If we continue to expand the application of solar energy within the U.S. and around the world, we will truly have on our hands, Tennessee hands, the means to revolutionize the quality of life on this planet," said Rick Doorbos, president of Hemlock Semiconductor Group.
Austin Peay had previously been given more than $6 million in grant money from the state of Tennessee to develop this degree program.
Hemlock gave the school $2 million to buy laboratory equipment in the building.
In June 2010, the Tennessee Board of Regents approved President Tim Hall's recommendation to name the facility in honor of Michigan-based Hemlock Semiconductor Group for its $2 million gift to APSU for the purchase of laboratory equipment for the building. The contribution was one of the largest monetary gifts ever given to APSU.
Approximately 500 jobs will be created at the Hemlock Semiconductor facility, some of which will require specialized education and training from a program such as APSU's. Hemlock Semiconductor is a leading provider of polycrystalline silicon and other silicon-based products used in the manufacturing of semiconductor devices and solar cells and modules.
APSU was previously awarded a $6.4 million grant from the state of Tennessee to develop the CET degree program, following the December 2008 announcement that Hemlock Semiconductor would build a new production facility in Clarksville.
STATS ChipPAC Ltd. celebrated the grand opening of its new 300mm embedded Wafer-Level Ball Grid Array (eWLB) manufacturing facility. The official inauguration was held at STATS ChipPAC's Yishun facility in Singapore with more than 150 local dignitaries, customer representatives, business partners and management participating.
In April 2010, STATS ChipPAC implemented 300mm eWLB wafer manufacturing capabilities. STATS ChipPAC's robust, automated eWLB manufacturing process includes wafer reconstitution, wafer level molding, redistribution using thin film technology, solder ball mount, package simulation and testing. STATSChP has over 35 million eWLB units shipped to date.
The transition from 200mm to 300mm eWLB wafer manufacturing provides STATS ChipPAC cost and productivity benefits such as higher efficiency and economies of scale as compared to the existing 200mm eWLB reconstituted wafer format. STATS ChipPAC's initial investment in eWLB technology totals more than US$100 million. The transition to 300mm eWLB manufacturing coincides with the company's focus on increasing productivity per worker by more than two fold.
Earlier, Freescale announced a 300mm technology partnership for its wafer-level packaging (WLP) technology, RCP.
"We believe eWLB technology is quickly becoming the new advanced packaging solution that more customers are choosing to satisfy the relentless consumer market demand for complex and power efficient semiconductor devices in mobile phones and other handheld electronic products. Our goal is to deliver innovative, cost effective manufacturing technology to customers and help them rapidly ramp to volume production," said Tan Lay Koon, president and CEO, STATS ChipPAC.
STATS ChipPAC expects to continue to invest to further expand its eWLB capacity and capabilities over the next three years as the market demand continues to grow for small form factor, small footprint solutions with an increasing number of interconnects. Advanced fab technology nodes drive smaller silicon die sizes with finer interconnect pitches. The eWLB design advantage is that the package size is larger than the silicon die in order to provide sufficient area for the interconnection of the package to the application board. As a result, eWLB has the potential to realize a higher number of interconnects with standard pitches at multiple wafer technology nodes, according to the company's statement.
STATS ChipPAC Ltd. is a leading service provider of semiconductor packaging design, assembly, test and distribution solutions in diverse end market applications including communications, digital consumer and computing.
Air Products announced it has been awarded two major contracts in support of Samsung Austin Semiconductor’s expansion of its 300 mm semiconductor manufacturing facility in Austin, Tex.
As part of the expansion, Air Products will double its existing capacity of on-site, high-purity, oxygen and nitrogen. In addition to bulk gas supply, Air Products will also provide a significant amount of specialty gas and chemical delivery equipment for the expansion.
The new fab expansion will produce “systems on a chip” (SoC) that will provide processing as well as peripheral functions such as memory and microcontrollers. These low power, multi-functional SoC are crucial for next-generation mobile devices such as cell phones, tablet computers and other devices.
“Air Products is pleased to be selected to supply Samsung’s Austin expansion,” said Corning Painter, vice president and general manager of Electronics for Air Products. “Our breadth of products and services for the global electronics industry continues to make us the supplier of choice for semiconductor, display and photovoltaic manufacturers.”
Up to 500 jobs are at risk at Intel Ireland, as the company considers closing one of its factories at Leixlip in Co Kildare.
The jobs at risk are in the oldest part of the US chip maker's Irish operation, known as Fab 10. The factory makes chips based on relatively old technology, and is understood to be operating at a very low capacity.
Unless the company can attract new orders in the near future, Fab 10 faces closure early next year, according to informed sources. A spokesman for Intel Ireland confirmed that the company was looking for a new business model for the factory, which employs hundreds of people, including highly-skilled technicians.
''Fab 10 is constantly under review, and no decision has been made about its future," the spokesman said. Fab 10 and another factory, Fab 14, previously formed Intel's Ireland Fab Operations (IFO), which employed about 2,000 people at its peak.
However, staff numbers have fallen sharply and the firm closed Fab 14 last year, making more than 500 people redundant. That factory has been stripped back to a shell. Irish management hope it might be refitted to manufacture new technologies, if Intel management in the US give the go-ahead for new investment in Ireland.
''Fab 14 is a newer facility that could be upgraded, should that be required," the Intel spokesman said.
The company's other Irish factories, Fab 24 and Fab 24.2, make newer technologies and are understood to be performing well.
However, Ireland has lost out to other Intel factories for the last two rounds of large capital investment by Intel. Industry sources said it was crucial that Ireland won some investment when the firm decided where to make its next generation of chips.
That decision is expected late this year or early next year. A source close to the company said ''things are at a very delicate stage'', and that no decisions had yet been made.
However, the future of Fab 10 and the possible restart of work at Fab 14 are dependent on winning new orders and investment.
If Fab 14 was to become a new processor technology base, it is understood staff from Fab 10 would transfer there, ahead of the wind-down of that facility. However, the source warned that, despite two quarters of good results for Intel, it had downgraded its outlook in recent few weeks amid uncertainty about the world economy.
''The PC market has fallen off a cliff, and there is talk out there about a double dip recession," said the source.
''When that is the scenario, no one makes decisions about the future."
Microsemi Corporation, a leading manufacturer of high performance analog mixed signal integrated circuits, high reliability semiconductors, and radio frequency (RF) subsystems, announced that it has acquired all of the assets of VT Silicon.
VT Silicon, located in Atlanta, GA, designs and manufactures multi-band radio frequency integrated circuit (RFIC) solutions for the mobile wireless broadband market. VT Silicon's products leverage linearization and efficiency-enhancement technologies to enable highly efficient, low-cost and small-footprint intelligent Front-End RFIC solutions.
"We are pleased to extend our industry leading RF product offering to next generation WLAN and WiMax markets with the acquisition of VT Silicon," said James J. Peterson, President and Chief Executive Officer of Microsemi Corporation. "As the first supplier in the world to develop a monolithic front end RFIC in Silicon Germanium (SiGe), VT's technology caliber is designed to enable Microsemi to deliver innovative, highly-integrated front-end modules to our customers. The acquisition of VT Silicon extends Microsemi's technology leadership in the RF business and reflects our continuing commitment to this important market."
According to a recent report, the worldwide installed base of consumer wireless devices will exceed 2.6 billion by 2014. This high volume global growth market, which necessitates technology differentiation, typifies the kind of commercial business Microsemi targets for leadership. Microsemi's balanced business model blends high-volume commercial market opportunities with the growth and content opportunities of its Aerospace, Defense and Security end markets. Microsemi intends to discuss this acquisition during its fiscal year-end earnings conference call to be scheduled in November.
ON Semiconductor, supplier of high performance, energy efficient silicon solutions for green electronics, plans to expand production capacity at its 6" (150mm) wafer manufacturing facility in Oudenaarde, Belgium, by approximately 40%. Total equipment investment in 2010 reaches EUR12.3 million (USD15.6 million). The Belgium factory specializes in the manufacture of application specific high-voltage technologies for the automotive and industrial industry, and in integrated and discrete standard products for a wide range of market segments.
The 12.3 million EUR being invested in additional manufacturing equipment at the Belgium facility is part of the company’s overall plan to maximize its in-house manufacturing operations. Equipment installation efforts are underway, and are expected to increase production at the Belgium wafer fab by 40 by early 2011. The company expects to locally hire additional blue collar and white collar labor in support of the expansion.
“We have seen quarter-on-quarter demand increases during the previous four consecutive quarters and the forecast continues to show strong growth. Here in Belgium, the majority of the expansion funds are aimed at the most complex products produced in this facility,” said Brent Wilson vice president of European manufacturing operations for ON Semiconductor.
ON Semiconductor’s Oudenaarde, Belgium, site employs approximately 500 people. In addition to the manufacturing teams, there are local teams focused on product research and development, IC design, sales and marking for the company’s Automotive, Industrial and Foundry business units, as well as business and support staffs. ON Semiconductor also operates a site in Vilvoorde, Belgium, where an additional 50 automotive business unity employees work.
ON Semiconductor has a portfolio of power and signal management, logic, discrete and custom devices for automotive, communications, computing, consumer, industrial, LED lighting, medical, military/aerospace and power applications.
Taiwan-based LED epitaxial wafer and chip maker Arima Optoelectronics has signed an agreement with the government of Wujiang of China's Jiangsu Province to build an epitaxial wafer plant in the region with a capital outlay of within US$30 million. The company plans to install 15 MOCVD machines at the plant by year-end 2010 and ramp up to 30 sets in 2011. In five years total MOCVD equipment should reach up to 150 set.
The new facility will be wholly-owned by Arima Optoelectronics, although the regional government has promised to provide 10 million yuan (US$1.47 million) in subsidies for each installed MOCVD machine. The new plant will be established at an existing factory of parent company Arima, which should significantly shorten the construction schedule.
Arima Optoelectronics shifted its focus to blue light LEDs recently to seek opportunities in the LED-backlit LCD TV market in China, driven by consumers replacing their older CCFL models.
Micron Technology is in talks to take over the operations of Semiconductor Manufacturing International's 300-mm fab in Wuhan, Hubei province, according to a report. The fab, dubbed Wuhan Xinxin Semiconductor Manufacturing, is owned by the Wuhan government. SMIC manages the fab. For some time, silicon foundry vendor SMIC has been in talks with Texas Instruments about taking over the operation of a separate 200-mm fab in Chengdu, Sichuan province, according to sources.
Texas Instruments Incorporated has completed its acquisition of two wafer fabs and equipment in Aizu-Wakamatsu, Japan, cost-effectively increasing the company's production capacity. The facility was previously operated by Spansion Japan Limited and was acquired under a court-approved plan of reorganization.
The 200mm wafer fab in Aizu is capable of expanding TI's analog revenue by more than $1 billion annually. The second, non-operating wafer fab is capable of either 200mm or 300mm production and will be preserved for future capacity expansion. TI offered employment to all of the SJL employees in Aizu.
The acquisition also included numerous 300mm production tools, many of which are being shipped to Richardson, Texas, to help complete Phase II of RFAB, the industry's first 300mm analog wafer fab.
In addition, TI will provide foundry services for FLASH products and sort services to Spansion LLC through June 2012.
This acquisition is the most recent in a series of manufacturing expansions announced by TI over the past 24 months, which collectively will add capacity for more than $3.5 billion of additional Analog revenue per year when fully operational.
The facility is part of a £10.6 million project funded by Advantage West Midlands (AWM) and the European Regional Development Fund (ERDF) as part of the Birmingham Science City Energy Efficiency & Demand project. The University of Warwick is leading the project in collaboration with the University of Birmingham as part of the Science City Research Alliance program. Some £9.5m has been invested in leading-edge equipment which will be accessible to any interested users from both local industry and academia.
The University of Warwick’s Professor Phil Mawby will head the new facility. He will mark the event by presenting the first semiconductor wafer to be processed by the new facility to Professor Chris Snowden, President of the Institution of Engineering and Technology, who will give the keynote address at the opening of the new lab.
Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Company held a groundbreaking ceremony in Taichung’s Central Taiwan Science Park for Fab 15, TSMC’s third 12-inch (300mm) Gigafab™ and an important milestone in the company’s pledge to expand investment in Taiwan.
Fab 15 will be TSMC’s third Gigafab™, or fab with capacity of more than 100,000 12-inch wafers per month, and will also be TSMC’s second Gigafab™ equipped for 28nm technology. Construction will be divided into four phases, and total investment over the next several years is expected to exceed NT$300 billion. TSMC is scheduled to begin equipment move-in for the Phase 1 facility in June 2011, with volume production of 40nm and 28nm technology products for customers in the first quarter of 2012. More advanced process nodes will be introduced as TSMC’s technology development continues to advance.
Fab 15 will be TSMC’s next “green fab” following Fab 12 and Fab 14, incorporating green concepts in energy conservation and pollution control in its design, including a process water conservation rate of 85%, reclamation of rainwater, recirculation and reuse of general exhaust heat, and development of solar power generation and LED lighting applications. TSMC’s goal is to reach zero emissions of greenhouse gases.
Skyworth Group, the parent company of Skyworth Digital Holdings Ltd, on Aug. 24 started construction on a semiconductor project in Shenzhen, Guangdong Province to tap the semiconductor sector with an investment totaling RMB 900 million. The project, which has a land area of 17,000 square meters, (182,920 sq. ft.) will be principally engaged in chip development, technical application, research and development of LED and OLED. The group has also teamed up with several partners, including PowerLayer Microsystems Holding Inc and South China University of Technology to jointly develop the project, said Skyworth Group. Zhang Xuebin, president of Skyworth Group, said that the company will have a double-digit growth in sales revenue in 2010 due to large global demands on flat-panel TVs. In July, Skyworth Digital Holdings sold 490,000 TVs, an amount 22% less than in the same month of last year, but its flat-panel TV sales surged 13% year on year to 404,000 units.
New High-Productivity Combinatorial (HPC) R&D Center will support more Collaborative Development Programs and include dedicated Clean Energy Lab
Responding to rapid growth over the past three years and increasing demand for R&D programs in the semiconductor and clean energy sectors, Intermolecular Inc. will relocate to a larger headquarters facility in San Jose in early 2011.
The new facility located at 3011 N. First Street provides more than 140,000 square feet of office and lab space, offering a 300% increase in cleanroom space to house a state-of-the-art High Productivity Combinatorial (HPC) Research and Development Center. The HPC R&D Center will incorporate Intermolecular’s proprietary combinatorial processing equipment, metrology and characterization tools, electrical test equipment, various semiconductor high-volume manufacturing tools and other infrastructure.
The move is being driven by rapidly increasing demand for Collaborative Development Programs (CDPs), in which Intermolecular team members work with customer teams to accelerate R&D efforts using Intermolecular’s unique toolset, and data management and analysis software. This customer-specific approach to collaborative technology development has been proven to bring new materials, processes and devices from initial discovery to high-volume production with unprecedented speed and much lower costs than traditional R&D methods.
“After doubling in size over the last three years, and with many new projects on the horizon, we simply need more space to meet market demand and to further expand our development infrastructure,” commented David Lazovsky, Intermolecular president and CEO. “We’re experiencing accelerating growth with semiconductor companies in the Flash memory, DRAM and foundry sectors, as well as with materials and equipment suppliers serving the semiconductor industry.”
Activity within Intermolecular’s clean energy technologies group is also ramping, as evidenced by the recent signing of a strategic CDP and technology licensing agreement with Guardian Industries Corp. of Auburn Hills, Mich. to jointly develop advanced glass coatings for energy and other applications. The new facility will include a dedicated Energy Lab to facilitate the accelerated development of various photovoltaic and energy-related technologies.
Lazovsky added, “We are pleased to be able to expand here in San Jose, the heart of Silicon Valley, where we’re in close proximity to several of our customers and partners, and have access to some of the world’s best engineers and technologists.
Intermolecular will transition operations to the new facility over the next several months and expects to complete the relocation in early 2011.
About Intermolecular
Intermolecular, Inc. delivers High Productivity Combinatorial™ (HPC) technology products and services that enable customers to maximize semiconductor R&D ROI. The company’s Tempus™ HPC™ Platform offers chipmakers, materials suppliers and equipment manufacturers integrated processing, characterization and informatics systems that exponentially accelerate learning in materials discovery, process development and IC device integration.
Customers apply Intermolecular’s technologies in their R&D projects through Collaborative Development Programs (CDPs) with Intermolecular’s multidisciplinary team, or through purchase of Tempus systems, or by licensing of IP developed and qualified by Intermolecular. By leveraging HPC technologies to quickly develop, integrate and electrically test multiple alternative solutions, at minimum cost and risk, customers obtain unique IP and time-to-market advantage.
Founded in 2004, Intermolecular is based in San Jose, California.
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