SEMICONDUCTOR INDUSTRY
UPDATE
July 2015
McIlvaine Company
TABLE OF
CONTENTS
Air
Products to Supply Industrial Gases to New Giga Fab Campus in Korea
TSMC,
Samsung Start A9 Chip Mass Production
IQE and
Cardiff University Establish Joint Venture
Plessey
Wins UK Grant for GaN-on-Silicon Production
STMicroelectronics and French Institute Set Up Joint Research Laboratory
Powerchip
to Build Fab in China
IBM
Plants Sale to GlobalFoundries
InVisage
Opens Sensor Manufacturing Site in Taiwan
Exagan
and Others to Produce High-efficiency Devices
Air Products, a U.S. Fortune 500 company and a leading
global industrial gases supplier, announced it has been awarded a major contract
to supply industrial bulk gases and bulk specialty gas supply system for a new
semiconductor fab in Pyeongtaek, Gyeonggi Province, South Korea.
Air Products will build multiple ultra-high-purity nitrogen
plants, hydrogen generators and a liquefier to support the facility.
"We are much honored to be selected to support this
milestone project," said Kyo-Yung Kim, president
of Air Products Korea. "Our investment in production capacity will further
strengthen our industrial gas supply position to serve the expanding northern
region. It is also testimony to Air Products' commitment and ability to
support the growth plans of our customers through safety, reliable supply,
efficiency and excellent service."
A leading integrated gases supplier for the global
electronics industry, Air Products has more than 40 years of experience in the
safe and reliable delivery of gases to a variety of markets, including some of
the world's biggest technology companies. Air Products is working with these
industry leaders to develop the next generation of semiconductors and displays
for tablets, computers and mobile devices.
TSMC and Samsung Foundry, which share orders for Apple's A9
application processors, have both started volume production of the chips,
according to industry sources.
Just before production kicked off, Apple requested
modifications to the mask patterns prompting both contract chipmakers to rework
wafers, said the sources. Nevertheless, the event should not interrupt the new
iPhone launch schedule, the sources noted.
TSMC, with its 16nm FinFET process technology, will enter mass
production of the A9 chips starting the fourth quarter of 2015, the sources
indicated.
TSMC will also manufacture fingerprint sensors and audio chips
on a contract basis for the upcoming iPhone devices at its 12-inch fabs, the
sources observed.
Previous reports suggested TSMC would use its 65nm fabrication
process to supply fingerprint sensors for the next-generation iPhones expected
in the fall of 2015. In addition, the foundry will reportedly manufacture iPhone
chips for Cirrus Logic using 45/55nm process technologies.
TSMC has responded saying the company does not talk about
customer engagements.
An estimated 80 million units of Apple's new iPhones will be
shipped by the end of 2015, the sources said.
Cardiff University has signed a deal with semiconductor wafer
company IQE to establish a center for compound semiconductor (CS) excellence in
Wales. The partners have formed a new joint venture company with the power to
turn the city into a global hub for CS research.
The venture - the first of its kind in the UK - will seek to
develop a cluster of expertise in the development and commercialization of CS
technologies.
Cardiff University Vice-Chancellor, Colin Riordan, said: "The
University's mission is to be consistently among the top 100 universities in the
world and the top 20 in the UK. Fundamental research is essential for sustaining
academic growth, and for improving the health, wealth and well-being of society.
Coupling IQE's infrastructure with Cardiff's existing strengths in expanding
areas of semiconductor devices and materials will create cutting-edge
opportunities that will put us ahead of our competitors."
Drew Nelson, chief executive of IQE, said: "This JV with
Cardiff University is a key step in creating the World's first Compound
Semiconductor Cluster, spanning the complete Technology Readiness Level (TRL)
scale from basic research to full scale production. Our goal is to build this
Cluster into one of Global significance and scale, leading to widespread
economic benefits for the region, and providing a broad range of CS Technologies
to support the rapid growth of the Key Enabling Technologies agendas, in Europe
and throughout the rest of the World. IQE look forward to working closely with
ICS and the JV to commercialize these exciting new technologies."
Welsh Government Minister for Economy and Science, Edwina Hart
said: "This new company will help create commercial opportunities from the
excellent compound semiconductor research work going on at Cardiff University.
Together with the appointment through our Sêr Cymru program of Diana Huffaker, a
world renowned expert in the field, Cardiff is now well placed to become a hub
for Compound Semiconductor research and exploitation."
The deal will capitalize on two recent announcements that have
strengthened Cardiff's position as a global center for CS research. In March, UK
Government announced a £17.3m award to underpin the foundation - the first of
its kind in the UK. And in May, Cardiff announced the appointment of Diana
Huffaker as Chair in Advanced Engineering and Materials through the Welsh
Government's £50m Sêr Cymru program. Huffaker, based at the University of
California, Los Angeles (UCLA), will lead a new CS research laboratory at
Cardiff University.
Plessey Semiconductors has announced that it will be leading a
£1.3 million UK government funded project in conjunction with Aixtron and Bruker
Nano Surfaces Division. This project will accelerate high volume manufacturing
of Plessey's innovative LEDs created with GaN-on-Silicon technology at its Devon
based manufacturing site.
The Advanced Manufacturing Supply Chain Initiative (AMSCI) is
a funding competition designed to improve the global competitiveness of UK
advanced manufacturing supply chains and encourage major new suppliers to locate
in the UK.
In accordance with a press release issued on 26th March 2015
from the UK's department for Business, Innovation and Skills, twenty supply
chain projects from across the country will benefit from a total of £67 million
of government investment. There is £109 million being invested in the same
projects by industry.
Keith Strickland, Plessey CTO, said: "This project supports
the work we have ongoing with Aixtron and Bruker to further increase the yield
of our GaN-on-Silicon process. These improvements are required as part of our
move to 200mm (8-inch) silicon substrates. A 200mm (8-inch) wafer has almost
twice the usable area of our existing 150mm (6-inch) wafers and therefore will
almost double the number of LEDs produced for the same relative cost."
Plessey's MaGIC (Manufactured on GaN-on-Silicon I/C) High
Brightness LED (HBLED) technology has won numerous awards for its innovation and
ability to cut the cost of LED lighting by using standard silicon manufacturing
techniques.
Building on years of close collaboration and numerous joint
research programs, STMicroelectronics, and the French Institute of Materials,
Microelectronics and Nanosciences in Provence (IM2NP – CNRS / Aix-Marseille
University / University of Toulon / ISEN engineering school), member of the
Carnot STAR (Science and Technology for Research Applications) Institute, have
announced the official launch of a new joint research laboratory to develop the
next generations of high-reliability, ultra-miniaturized electronic components.
The Radiation Effects and Electrical Reliability (REER) Joint
Laboratory is a multi-site research establishment that will bring together teams
from the IM2NP Institute, based in Marseille and Toulon, and specialist
engineers from the ST facility in Crolles, near Grenoble.
The REER Joint Laboratory’s science program will focus on two
main areas of research: the effect of radiation on digital nanometer-scale
circuits and the electrical reliability of nanometer-scale CMOS (complementary
metal-oxide semiconductor) technologies. These lines of research are crucially
important for ST and its ability to produce integrated circuits with extremely
high levels of reliability for a wide range of key sectors, such as the
automotive sector, networks, medical, space and security.
For these types of applications, the intrinsic constraints of
electronic components (electrical fields, mechanical stress, temperature, etc.)
and some environmental constraints (especially particle radiation from natural
or artificial sources) are becoming an increasingly critical issue for current
and future generations of integrated circuits.
Consequently, they need to be accurately characterized,
modeled and simulated in order to predict and mitigate their effects, which is
one of the key objectives of the new joint research facility.
In addition, a host of challenges and hurdles need to be
overcome in the development of future nanoelectronic technologies, and these
must be better understood at all stages of the integration process. The joint
laboratory’s research will range from the most fundamental aspects of phenomena
at the atomic level to systems, materials, and the physics of devices and the
design of robust circuits.
Its work will be conducted in a globally competitive
environment and will focus on the most advanced microelectronic technologies,
such as the 28-nanometer technology node and beyond, in particular the FD-SOI
(fully depleted silicon-on-insulator) industrial cluster developed by ST at its
Crolles site. This key process technology is enabling ST to spearhead
development of the most innovative world-class nanoelectronic circuits.
Recently opened, the joint laboratory is already involved in
numerous collaborative programs and projects at the national, European and
international level, in conjunction with the European CATRENE cluster, the ENIAC
initiative and support programs led by the French General Directorate for
Enterprises (DGE) and the French defense procurement agency (DGA). In the next
five years, the lab will offer placements for a number of high-level doctoral
students, mostly in the context of public-private partnership research supported
by the French government’s CIFRE scheme (industrial agreement for training
through research).
Its work will be conducted in a globally competitive
environment and will focus on the most advanced microelectronic technologies,
such as the 28-nanometer technology node and beyond, in particular the FD-SOI
(fully depleted silicon-on-insulator) industrial cluster developed by ST at its
Crolles site. This key process technology is enabling ST to spearhead
development of the most innovative world-class nanoelectronic circuits.
Powerchip Technology Corp., previously a DRAM vendor, now
foundry, is joining a trend towards supporting manufacturing in China. According
to local reports, the company plans to invest alongside the Chinese authorities
in Hefei City, Anhui province, in a joint venture to set up a 300mm wafer fab
there.
The fab will operate as a foundry running 0.15µm, 0.11µm and
90nm manufacturing processes, for logic ICs, LCD driver chips, CIS image sensor
chips, according to a CTimes report.
The support will come in the form of an investment with Hefei
Construction Investment and Holding Co. Ltd to create the Hefei Jinghe wafer
fab, the reports said. The total investment required is estimated at about $2.2
billion with the fab scheduled for completion in 2018-2019 and a manufacturing
capacity of 40,000 wafer starts per month.
Hefei is a manufacturing center of BOE, a major Chinese LCD
panel maker, and the building of a wafer fab there is being done to give the
company a local source of supply.
Powerchip was one of a group of Taiwan DRAM makers that failed
to remain competitive in DRAMs against leading manufacturers Samsung, SK Hynix
and Micron. In 2011 the company announced it would stop selling DRAMs under its
own brand to focus on the production of LCD drivers, CMOS image sensors, flash
memory and power management ICs.
Investments by Taiwan companies, often investments in kind in
terms of IP and know how, are increasing as the Chinese government has rolled
out a long-term initiative to foster domestic production of components.
In October 2014 United Microelectronics Corp. (Hsinchu,
Taiwan) announced a plan to invest in joint venture along with Xiamen Municipal
People's Government and FuJian Electronics & Information Group focused on 300mm
wafer foundry services. That joint venture, subsequently named as ChipLink
Semiconductor Co. Ltd, is set to be based in Xiamen, and in October 2014 UMC
said it was anticipating it would invest about $1.35 billion over the next five
years.
Two much-hyped wafer fabs that are supposedly to be
constructed in India are now in a state of uncertainty, and perhaps Cricket
Semiconductor will take the same route.
Tower Semi is in one consortium and STMicroelectronics in
another, both apparently selected to build wafer fabs on the sub-continent. The
plans are years old except that nothing seems to be moving as Indian
governmental committees form and reform, policy documents are produced, and
zoning and tax-exemption decisions are made.
Cricket was formed by former Texas Instruments executives with
a plan for an analogue/power fab with a realistic price tag of just $1 billion.
The name for the company demonstrates cultural alignment with a country whose
population is fanatical about the game.
However, a similar stasis seems to have overtaken that project
with a recent report throwing up uncertainty over where the fab will be located.
According to reports, Cricket has been in talks with state government of
Telangana to build and operate an analogue and power semiconductor wafer fab,
quoting the state's minister of IT and communications KT Rama Rao.
It may be a report that only represents wishful thinking on
behalf of the state of Telangana, but it still seems to typify a lack of
commitment that potentially springs from one unanswered question that applies to
all three fab projects: "Where is the money going to come from?"
It appears that in India fab building is a waiting game, and
the wait will likely last until the Indian authorities at both state and
national level acquire the political will to compete with China and offer cash
rather than rebates.
The existence of Cricket Semiconductor was first disclosed
from the Indian Electronics & Semiconductor Association (IESA) in February 2015,
which referenced the MoU signed with Madhya Pradesh. It also said that Madhya
Pradesh had approved the Analogue Semiconductor Fabrication [FAB] Investment
Policy, which covers support for any wafer fab investment in the state that
exceeded $500 million.
The measures include free land for the building, reimbursement
for the cost of building a factory shell and guaranteed water and electricity
supplies at internationally competitive prices for 10 years.
Rama Rao, the state’s minister of IT & Communications, said
Telangana was inviting companies from Taiwan and Korea to come to the state to
help build up an ecosystem and is also training people and has set up a
committee to rationalize taxes. "We are also offering tailor-made packages for
large industries. We have to go out of the way to help companies get a
competitive edge over China," the report quoted Rao.
An agreement last October for IBM to sell its semiconductor
manufacturing facilities in East Fishkill and Vermont to GlobalFoundries for
$1.5 billion is expected to close on July 1, sources familiar with the
negotiations said.
The closing would end months of required regulatory approvals
and likely move thousands of employees from IBM onto the GlobalFoundries'
payroll at IBM plants in East Fishkill, Dutchess County, and Essex Junction,
near Burlington, Vt.
GlobalFoundries, which has an expanding chip plant in Malta,
Saratoga County, announced last year that it would invest $10 billion over the
next year in its facilities, mainly in New York. The Malta plant has 3,000
employees and another 3,000 construction workers, along with plans to add 600
staff employees by year's end.
New York has about 14,000 IBM employees, and half are in
Dutchess County. IBM also has facilities in Endicott, Broome County, where it
was founded, with about 700 workers.
There was no immediate comment from IBM and GlobalFoundries
about the expected closing. In the past, the companies have said they
anticipated the deal would close sometime this year.
Local and state officials, along with the companies
themselves, have praised the sale as a way to preserve jobs and expand the
companies' high-tech research and development in New York.
IBM, which is based in Armonk, Westchester County, is planning
its own $3 billion investment in chip research — mainly at its research facility
in Yorktown, Westchester County, and at the SUNY Polytechnic Institute's
Colleges of Nanoscale Science and Engineering in Albany, where IBM is the major
investor in a $4 billion research consortium.
"I think up and down the Hudson Valley, from Yorktown, through
Fishkill, through Poughkeepsie, through Albany, up into Malta, this is great
news for employment in New York state," IBM vice president John Kelly told
reporters during a conference call when the deal was announced Oct. 20, 2014
The deal comes as IBM is rumored to be facing another round of
job cuts across the nation. But so far the IBM jobs in New York have largely
been saved from the company's downsizing, in large part because of contractual
obligations between the state and the company.
In January, GlobalFoundries confirmed that the company has
offered jobs to all the IBM workers that are part of the sale. It's been unclear
how many offers went out.
Assemblyman Kieran Michael Lalor, R-East Fishkill, said the
sale will be a positive step for local IBM workers, who have faced years of
downsizing.
In February 2014, IBM and Gov. Andrew Cuomo reached a deal to
maintain 3,100 high-tech jobs in the Hudson Valley and surrounding areas through
2016. The deal was part of IBM's expansion in Buffalo to create 500 jobs at a
$55 million high-tech hub.
InVisage Technologies Inc., a startup that manufactures
quantum-dot based light capture film for image sensors, is taking on the image
sensor market by opening its first sensor manufacturing facility QFAB3 in
Hsinchu Science Park, Taiwan. The company said QuantumFilm technology would be
introduced later this year and that it is joining forces with TSMC for wafer
manufacturing and with VisEra Technologies Co. Ltd for color filter deposition.
QuantumFilm is a light-sensitive layer of quantum dots that
replaces the conventional silicon photodiode in digital camera sensors and
provides improved dynamic range, greater performance in low light, and global
shutter capabilities. InVisage claimed that QFAB3 has process geometries down to
5nm, although this is likely a measurement of film thickness.
InVisage raised $32.5 million in a funding round announced in
December 2014. This took the amount raised by InVisage to more than $130
million. Investors in the round included China Oceanwide USA Holdings, as well
as GGV Capital, Nokia Growth Partners, RockPort Capital, InterWest Partners,
Intel Capital and OnPoint Technologies.
Product wafers are manufactured by TSMC and then transferred
to InVisage's facility for QuantumFilm deposition. The deposition itself is
performed by a single, custom tool that combines spin-coating and CVD deposition
technologies into one machine for the first time.
The main advantage of QuantumFilm is higher photonic
efficiency for turning light into electron motion than silicon. This means
greater dynamic range and the ability for fast and global shuttering. The
material is customizable to allow for dynamic adjustment of sensitivity and
resolution, and can be optimized for better performance at wavelengths ranging
from visible to infrared.
"We chose to establish our high-volume manufacturing in Taiwan
because of the vitality of the semiconductor ecosystem here, and in particular
because of our partnership with TSMC," said InVisage's CEO, Jess Lee. The
manufacturing facility is designed to support image sensors for a range of
products, from mobile phones to high-end cameras as well as for drones and other
IoT devices that require high performance cameras.
The investors include leading French venture funds with a
record of identifying and fostering promising, fast-growth, early-stage
technology companies:
Technocom2, managed by Innovacom, a pioneering
French venture capital firm
CM-CIC Innovation, the investment arm of the
large European bank group, Crédit Mutuel-CIC Group
IRDInov, a regional seed investor in emerging,
fast-growth companies
CEA investissement, a manager of funds
invested in technology companies, and which invested via the CEA
strategic fund.
Soitec, a world leader in providing
revolutionary semiconductor materials.
Following Exagan’s recent announcement of an agreement with
X-FAB to produce devices on 200mm wafers, the financing will help support its
mission of becoming Europe’s primary supplier of GaN-based power switches for
the solar, automotive, IT electronics and other markets. That mission includes
its strategic partnership with CEA-Leti, which is developing applications with
some of its industrial partners based on Exagan’s G-FETTM 650 V platform and its
unprecedented power-switching performance with extremely low conduction losses.
Exagan, based in Grenoble with a branch office in Toulouse,
was spun off by Leti and Soitec in 2014 and licenses materials and technology
from both organizations.
Power integration is key to meeting the growing demand for
less expensive and more efficient electrical converters that silicon power
devices cannot meet. The material properties of GaN devices, meanwhile, offer
promising power-integration and efficiency gains that deliver higher power
density and switching speed at the device level.
“This significant first round of financing validates our
efforts over the past five years with Leti and Soitec to commercialize GaN-on-silicon
technology and supports our commitment to provide customers with qualified GaN
devices in large volumes,” said Frédéric Dupont, Exagan CEO and co-founder. “We
are focused on offering our customers reliable, high-performance devices that
are developed with industrial partners already sourcing technologies or products
for the targeted markets.”
Vincent Deltrieu, a partner at Innovacom, said: “Exagan has
developed a G-FETTM product platform that offers major competitive advantages
for electrical-converter makers serving the power-electronics industry. By
leveraging the platform’s efficiency and power-saving features, Exagan is well
positioned to establish itself as a key technology provider in this high-growth
market that has the potential to exceed 1 billion euros in the coming years.”
Stéphane Simoncini, investment director at CM-CIC Innovation, said: “Frédéric
and Exagan COO and co-founder Fabrice Letertre are the ideal team to accomplish
Exagan’s business and technology goals. With their technical and business
vision, they are opening a huge market segment in power electronics, between
silicon and silicon carbide.”
Jean-Michel Petit, managing director of IRDInov, said:
“Based on our experience with the automotive and aerospace industries, we are
convinced of the potential markets for GaN power electronic devices. This is all
the more reason to further develop its presence in Toulouse, which has a
concentration of competencies in power-electronics applications and many
potential future clients.”
Soitec CEO Paul Boudre said: “Soitec is obviously excited
about this successful round of financing for Exagan. Their GAN-on-silicon
technology, which leverages our own materials expertise, opens very interesting
opportunities in promising markets such as electronics, automotive and energy.
Exagan is well positioned to drive innovation in power switching technology, due
to its location in Grenoble among the strong mix of innovative companies and
technology-integration clusters.”
Soitec and CEA Investissement also provided financial
support to Exagan prior to the first round of venture-fund backing.
Leti CEO Marie Semeria said Leti has invested many years in
developing GaN technologies because it believes they will drive innovation in
the power-electronics industry and accelerate development of sustainable-energy
technologies.
“We are very excited about the prospects for Exagan, a
European source of new GaN power switches for our key industrial partners in the
fields of transportation and energy, as well as broader markets,” she said.
“Through our partnership with Exagan, Leti will accelerate its investment in
this area to further develop our leading expertise in GaN technology and related
systems and applications.”
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