SEMICONDUCTOR INDUSTRY
UPDATE
March 2012
McIlvaine Company
TABLE OF CONTENTS
AIXTRON Opens MOCVD Training Center in China
SiC Semiconductor Maker SemiSouth Expands Capacity
A*STAR, Applied Materials Opens 3D Chip Packaging R&D Center
M+W Finishing Up at GlobalFoundries
Chip Substrate Factory Begins Producing Thermal-Control Substrates in Russia
Japanese Semiconductor Giant Falls
WACKER Opens Silicone R&D Center
Abu Dhabi Gets Full Ownership of Chip Manufacturer
Silicon Image Opens R&D Centre in Hyderabad
Imec Rolls 300mm Directed Self-Assembly Process Line
AIXTRON SE opened a training and demonstration center at SINANO - the Suzhou Institute for Nanotechnology and Nanobionics in China. The center will bring metal-organic chemical vapor deposition (MOCVD) knowledge to future semiconductor and light emitting diode (LED) manufacturing professionals. The center is located in the Suzhou Industrial Park.
AIXTRON plans to combine industrial and institutional research at the MOCVD center, offering high-quality training on the latest microelectronics manufacturing processes. Training courses will use AIXTRON's latest generation CRIUS II-XL and AIX G5 HT systems in a production cleanroom environment, laboratories, and classroom training facilities that occupy a total area of 350sq.m. The goal is better MOCVD system utilization times and higher yields through operational efficiency, maintenance routines, process optimization and fab management, said Dr. Nicolas Muesgens, director of the AIXTRON Training and Demonstration Center. The Suzhou center will also pay special attention to operational health and safety issues and to environmental protection, adhering to and promoting German, international, and Chinese product-safety and waste-management standards.
A cooperative agreement between AIXTRON and SINANO will facilitate the full process and characterization of LEDs. The goal is to improve the quality, efficiency, and cost of China's domestically produced LEDs, aligned with the government's goal of global LED leadership, said a spokesperson for SINANO. Chinese customers will gain deep process knowledge at the new center.
China is encouraging LED lighting at the national and regional level, noted AIXTRON president and CEO Paul Hyland. The center will bring the "very latest AIXTRON technologies" to customers in this field, along with high-quality training for LEDs and other nanotechnologies such as gallium nitride on silicon (GaN-on-Si) development, he said.
SemiSouth Laboratories Inc., high-voltage silicon-carbide (SiC) semiconductor device manufacturer, launched its second major capacity expansion within 18 months.
The company operates a 20,000 sq.ft. foundry at its Starkville, MS, headquarters, where it employs more than 115 people. The new expansion will enable a 50% increase in SiC product volumes for new and existing customers.
The expansion will support SiC fabrication growth, servicing customers of its diode and power transistor products. The expansion points to successes for SemiSouth SiC power JFET and power diode products in solar inverter and industrial power supply market segments, said Jeff Casady, president of SemiSouth.
SemiSouth makes silicon carbide (SiC) power devices and electronics, targeting applications such as: solar inverters; power conversion in computing and network power supplies; variable-speed drives for industrial motors and hybrid electric vehicles; and products used in high-power, harsh-environment military and aerospace environments.
Manufacturing solutions provider for the semiconductor, flat panel display and solar photovoltaic industries, Applied Materials Inc. and the Institute of Microelectronics (IME), a research institute under the Agency for Science, Technology and Research (A*STAR), has officially opened the Center of Excellence in Advanced Packaging at Singapore's Science Park II.
The opening ceremony was presided over by Singapore's Minister for Trade and Industry, Lim Hng Kiang.
The center was built through a combined investment of over $100 million from Applied Materials and IME. It boasts of world-class facilities featuring a 1,300m2 (13,988 sq. ft.) Class-10 cleanroom and is equipped with a fully-integrated line of 300mm manufacturing systems to support the research and development of 3D chip packaging, a critical growth area for the semiconductor industry.
"Today, we are not only opening the most advanced wafer level packaging lab of its kind in the world, but we are also opening a new product development capability for Applied Materials in Asia," said Mike Splinter, chairman and CEO of Applied Materials. "This center will strengthen our ability to advance new technologies and allow us to work more closely with our customers in Asia."
For Applied Materials, this is a significant addition of new capabilities in Singapore.
According to the IME and Applied Materials, the center will be the most advanced lab of its kind dedicated to wafer level packaging and will combine Applied Materials' leading-edge equipment and process technology with IME's leading research capability in 3D chip packaging.
The new facility positions Singapore as a global leader in semiconductor R&D and is expected to help accelerate the development and adoption of 3D packaging technology globally. Research activities are already underway with a team of over 50 personnel.
Traditionally, chips are connected to packages using wires attached to only their edges. This approach limits the possible number of connections from the chip and the long wire connections result in signal speed delays and power inefficiencies. With 3D chip packaging, multiple chips can be stacked on top of each other and connected with wiring that runs vertically through the stack called through-silicon vias (TSVs). When used to stack memory chips on logic chips, this technology is expected to reduce package size by 35 percent, decrease power consumption by 50 percent and increase data bandwidth by a factor of eight or more times.
Conceived to support research collaboration between Applied Materials and IME, the center will also allow both parties to pursue independent research initiatives including process engineering, integration and hardware development.
Lim Chuan Poh, chairman of A*STAR, said, "The combined efforts of Applied Materials and A*STAR's Institute of Microelectronics are a continuing testimony to A*STAR's spectrum of excellent and industry-relevant scientific capabilities. It reaffirms our strategy of leveraging a suite of capabilities to form meaningful and impactful public-private research alliances which catalyze the growth of private sector R&D activities in Singapore. This will create many high-value jobs locally and help to further anchor Singapore's semiconductor manufacturing base."
Dim-Lee Kwong, executive director of IME, added, "The Center of Excellence is a prime example of a strategic relationship fostered between two leading players in the global semiconductor value chain and will spur the development of innovative wafer-level packaging technologies to be implemented globally. This collaboration will enable the semiconductor industry to accelerate the adoption of 3D chip packaging."
The role of construction firm M+W U.S. at the GlobalFoundries Fab 8 site is winding down and will end by fall, a GlobalFoundries spokesman said.
The high-tech builder has been the construction coordinator for the $4.6 billion Fab 8 computer chip plant, employing as many as 2,000 workers at a time, through contractors and subcontractors.
M+W U.S. has been working on the project since 2007, when the company, then known as M+W Zander, was hired by AMD to do architectural design at the Luther Forest Technology Campus plant.
AMD later sold its manufacturing facilities to a newly formed subsidiary, GlobalFoundries.
After the design, M+W was hired to do basic construction of the 1.8-million-square-foot factory, starting in June 2009. That work is now done except for a handful of small details. GlobalFoundries hired a different contractor last year to build a second office building.
Under a separate contract, M+W was hired to install and hook up the expensive manufacturing tools in the factory, but that contract is now being phased out as newly hired GlobalFoundries employees take over the work, said GlobalFoundries spokesman Travis Bullard.
"It's part of a natural evolution of the contract," he said.
That's because when the hook-up contract was negotiated with M+W in 2010, GlobalFoundries hadn't yet hired a workforce and needed M+W's expertise and personnel.
"When we structured the hook-up contract two years ago, we really didn't have any personnel on the ground," Bullard said. "They were our boots on the ground."
Today GlobalFoundries has about 1,200 employees, many of them with microchip manufacturing experience.
"We now have more technicians and project managers and can do the work ourselves," Bullard said.
Tool installation began last summer and will continue through the end of the year.
Initial computer chip production has begun, with plans to ramp up commercial production in the second half of this year.
Bullard said the basic building and tool installation contracts together were worth about $900 million.
An M+W U.S. spokesman referred requests for comment to GlobalFoundries.
In December M+W, which does high-tech architecture and construction work around the world, completed a yearlong move that shifted its U.S. corporate headquarters from Plano, TX to the Watervliet Arsenal. About 100 people work there.
Locally, M+W is also heavily involved in the construction and tool installation work at the College of Nanoscale Sciences and Engineering at the University at Albany, where there are high-tech academic and corporate research facilities.
M+W U.S. is the North American subsidiary of M+W Group, which is owned by the Austrian Stumpf Group of Vienna.
MCLR's factory in Vladimir, Russia, will manufacture substrates and panels for light-emitting diodes (LEDs) requiring thermal management, as well as other electronic devices such as 3D ICs and micro electro mechanical systems (MEMS). The new plant is a collaboration between state-held RUSNANO and Micro Components Ltd. (MCL), an Israeli high-tech company, with direct input from Tamir Fishman CIG, a venture capital fund created by Russian Venture Company.
Total budget for the project is 868 million rubles. Of that sum, RUSNANO is cofinancing 120 million rubles. The substrate manufacturing project went from initial financing to commercial production in 14 months.
In phase 1, the Vladimir MCLR factory will produce 10,000 panels/month which can be manufactured into more than 1 million LED lamps. By 2015, MCLR expects the factory to run at its 70,000 panels/month capacity. The venture plans to earn 2.8 million rubles annually by this time, with 72% of that from substrates for assembly of electronic devices and 28% from LED module substrates.
The project is based on MCL’s proprietary ALOX substrate technology, with an aluminum or copper conducting layer and a dielectric material with nanopourous structure. ALOX technology lowers the temperature of the LED crystal with rapid heat sink, using selectively staged aluminum oxidation in which dielectric material is obtained on the surface of the metal and in its depths. Drilling and plating of perforations are not required with ALOX because the interconnections are made entirely of aluminum and the dielectric material is made of high-quality ceramic.
ALOX-built substrates demonstrate good thermal reliability, with improved heat conductivity, cost (20-30% below), and reliability (2x) over traditional products. The product can also be recycled, unlike glass textolite materials. ALOX can be used to package microwave electronics, system-in-package (SiP) devices, 3D memory chip stacks, MEMS devices, and power semiconductor modules and components.
MCLR reports that leading international players in the LED market are considering the nanostructured substrates.
Yan Ryazantsev, director of the Investment and Expertise Department and member of the Executive Committee, Russian Venture Company, called MCLR an example of successfully importing "the latest foreign technology" to establish "large-scale commercial manufacturing in Russia," with products that can be sold internationally. Also read: RUSNANO, Japan tighten nano ties
RUSNANO was founded in March 2011, through reorganization of state corporation Russian Corporation of Nanotechnologies, to develop the Russian nanotechnology industry. The Government of the Russian Federation owns 100% of the shares in RUSNANO. Russian Venture Company is a state fund of funds, an institute for development of the Russian Federation, and one of the government’s key instruments in its effort to build a national innovation system.
Infineon Adds to Semiconductor Manufacturing Complex in Malaysia
M+W Group, a global engineering and construction company, is reporting a major contract from Infineon Technologies for a new 100,000-sq.m (1,076,000 sq. ft.). semiconductor plant in Kulim/Malaysia. Infineon will use the space to further expand its production capacities for power semiconductors.
The turnkey project includes the design and construction of the multi-story production facility, central utilities building, gas farm, and other buildings. The new plant is being set up beside the existing Infineon factory.
M+W Group has worked with Infineon Technologies before as their preferred general contractor. M+W Group built the first semiconductor plant in Kulim, Malaysia for Infineon, and the Infineon plant in Dresden, Germany. M+W Zander constructed a new plant in Suzhou, China, for Infineon in 2004.
The new plant is being set up right beside the existing Infineon factory. It will enable Infineon to further expand its production capacities for the so-called power semiconductors, specially designed for the energy-efficient control of high, electric currents. They are used for instance to drive electric motors in cars, highspeed trains and other industrial environments.
Japan’s Elpida Memory has finally succumbed, ending the history of a semiconductor company that was once mighty enough to have its logo inscribed on seven of every ten-DRAM chips. Its bankruptcy is symbolic of the crash of the Japanese manufacturing industry, which has come in spite of concerted rescue efforts by the Japanese government and business through large capital infusions and other means. Japanese firms have crumbled under pressure from Samsung Electronics and Hynix. Now the two South Korean behemoths appear poised to dominate the global market where Elpida lost its footing.
Hynix Semiconductor stock prices jumped 6.8% and Samsung Electronics was up 1.2% at closing. Both rises reflected the stock market’s response to news that Elpida had applied for court receivership the previous day. It is evidence of the heated competition in the semiconductor market, where survival is only possible when others fall.
Chemicals supplier WACKER expanded and relocated its South Korea technical laboratories and offices, bringing together R&D operations, applications technology, and basic and advanced training in silicones and polymers applications.
The 3,600 m² (38,736 sq. ft.) site near Seoul also houses new offices for Wacker Chemicals Korea Inc., a wholly-owned subsidiary. The aim is to bundle sales forces, R&D labs, and applications technology under one roof for better teamwork. The new complex serves Korean as well as global customers.
The new silicone lab will research high-tech products for electronics industry applications. A technical center for polymeric binders will focus on construction industry uses. Both silicones and polymers will be included in the integrated WACKER ACADEMY training facility, open for WACKER customers, distribution partners and WACKER specialists.
The new Center of Excellence Electronics will research and develop silicone products for electronics applications, developing new products and custom high-tech products for regional electronics sector customers. Having the local center will make it easier to respond quickly to specific requirements and directly incorporate customers’ feedback, WACKER says.
WACKER SILICONES makes silicone fluids, emulsions, rubber and resins; silanes; pyrogenic silicas; and thermoplastic silicone elastomers. In 2011, Wacker began manufacturing silicones for semiconductor, LED, and related packages in cleanrooms at its Burghausen, Germany, site.
WACKER is seeing strong growth in Korea's electronics industry, said Dr. Wilhelm Sittenthaler, Executive Board member responsible for Asia at WACKER. The company has been supplying chemicals to Korea since the mid-1980s; Wacker Chemicals Korea was set up in 1996 as a local subsidiary.
The integrated training facility for polymer and silicone chemicals -- WACKER ACADEMY -- will engage in knowledge transfer with local customers and business partners. Its seminar program will address the particular needs of the markets in South Korea, and educate attendees about modern polymer and silicone chemistries and their applications.
WACKER is a global chemical company.
The Abu Dhabi government agreed to acquire full control of Advanced Micro Devices Inc.'s former microchip manufacturing unit, though AMD will remain a key customer.
AMD is giving up its minority stake in Milpitas, Calif.-based manufacturer GlobalFoundries as part of a revised supply agreement. The deal will give Abu Dhabi's Advanced Technology Investment Co. total ownership of GlobalFoundries, which was founded as a spin-off from AMD in 2009.
While AMD will remain one of GlobalFoundries' "strategic customers," it will now be better positioned to diversify its customer base, according to ATIC communications head Laurie Doyle Kelly.
"It can really pursue its strategy and mandate of being a fully independent foundry," she said in an interview.
A foundry does the work of manufacturing chips for microprocessor designers such as AMD that do not operate their own production plants. Sunnyvale, Calif.-based AMD is the world's number two maker of personal computer microprocessors — the "brains" of PCs — after Intel Corp.
GlobalFoundries has chip-making plants in Dresden, Germany and Singapore. It is starting production at a new plant in upstate New York, which it expects will be fully operational by the end of this year or early 2013, Kelly said.
Under the terms of their new wafer supply deal, AMD said GlobalFoundries agreed to waive a requirement that it buy a new type of chip for a set period and make quarterly payment obligations that were outlined in an earlier supply agreement.
In addition to giving up its less than 10 percent stake, AMD said it will pay GlobalFoundries $425 million as part of the deal. It expects to book a one-time charge of $703 million in the first quarter to cover the cash payment and other costs.
AMD spun off its chip-making operations into GlobalFoundries in 2009 in an effort to cut costs. ATIC took a majority stake in the newly created company at the outset.
ATIC was set up by the government of Abu Dhabi to drive the development of a technology industry in the oil-rich sheikdom, the capital of the United Arab Emirates. It bought Singapore's Chartered Semiconductor Manufacturing Ltd. for $1.8 billion in 2009 and combined those operations into GlobalFoundries' business.
U.S. chip manufacturer Intel is investing US$80mn in Costa Rica this year to improve its local facilities and start manufacturing a new chip, paper La Nacin reported.
Since it started operating in the country in 1997, Intel has invested US$800mn in its facility, located in Beln, Heredia province.
Intel will soon start to manufacture a new chip of 22 nanometers, which is more advanced than those available on the market, Intel's country manager, Mike Forrest, was quoted as saying.
"The biggest contribution that Intel makes to Costa Rica is in education," Forrest said. "We have a significant influence... with our teacher program and using digital media in the classroom with the classmate PCs, for example. We've trained over 50% of the teachers in Costa Rica on how to use digital techniques in the classroom."
The amount slated for this year also includes infrastructure investments for the site, according to the executive. No new buildings for the facility are being considered currently.
The company is optimistic about its future in the country, where the fiscal environment will provide Intel with the stability to continue investing and growing, Forrest added.
U.S.-based provider of wireless and wired high definition connectivity solutions, Silicon Image, has opened its research and development centre in Hyderabad, India.
The centre focuses on the design and development of semiconductor and IP core technologies for implementation in mobile, wireless and consumer electronics products from manufacturers across the globe.
The company's third R&D centre globally is working in close collaboration with Silicon Image's other two centers located in Sunnyvale, U.S. and Shanghai, China.
The Hyderabad centre currently has 80 employees. D.V.R. Murthy, managing director, Silicon Image India said, "We plan to double the headcount here in the next couple of years."
"The technology innovation and growth occurring in Hyderabad made the location a natural fit for Silicon Image's expanding R&D portfolio," said Rashid Osmani, vice president, worldwide engineering, Silicon Image, Inc. "The expertise of Silicon Image's worldwide engineering team has been strengthened by the addition of the talented engineers in Hyderabad, who we foresee becoming an integral part of new product development."
Commenting on the Indian market, Camillo Martino, CEO, Silicon Image Inc., added, "India is a large consumer market for TVs and mobile devices. The centre is expected to provide key insights into the end user's needs and requirements in this region."
In addition, Silicon Image is also planning to work closely with local universities and institutions to foster student research and internship programs. The company said it is working with Hyderabad-based institute Veda-IIT. However, the company didn't disclose much about this partnership.
Imec has developed what it touts as the world's first 300mm fab-compatible directed self-assembly (DSA) process line within its pilot fab. The research institute collaborated with the University of Wisconsin, AZ Electronic Materials and Tokyo Electron Ltd in this technology to improve optical and extreme ultraviolet (EUV) lithography.
DSA is an alternative patterning technology that enables frequency multiplication through the use of block copolymers. When used in conjunction with an appropriate pre-pattern that directs the orientation for patterning, DSA can reduce the pitch of the final printed structure. It can also be used to repair defects and repair uniformity in the original print. This repair feature is especially useful in combination with EUV lithography, which today is characterized by local variation in the critical dimension, especially in case of small contacts.
Imec boasts a coater/developer from Tokyo Electron and DSA materials together with pattern transfer and metrology system in the cleanroom ready for chipmakers. It also features the metrology toolkit including DSA defect inspection, and in-house pattern transfer capabilities in the same fab. With established 248nm, 193nm (dry and immersion) and EUV lithography tool, Imec aims at further developing the possibilities of DSA repair in combination with EUV lithography to scale it to production level.
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