Fast Forward: Finding New Common Ground in Process Technology R&D

By Dan Armbrust, president and CEO, SEMATECH

The structural evolution our industry over the last decade has heightened the need for collaboration, and the semiconductor community has responded by developing new ways to work together on major transitions in device structures, patterning, materials, and manufacturing.  Projecting forward five years, as we push into the sub 14nm realm, how will our collaborations change, as we tackle difficult challenges such as heterogeneous packaging, 3D device structures, nanodefectivity, and 450mm?  As I outlined in my presentation at the recent International Trade Partners Conference, our industry will need to adopt new strategies for cooperation that forge new common ground – spanning more broadly across regions, extending more deeply into the supply chain, cutting across technology disciplines, and optimizing the use of shared industry R&D centers.

Collaboration: Driven by Economics

Collaboration is driven by economics. Confronted by rising costs, constrained resources, and a challenging technology roadmap, companies face difficult technology and investment choices.  To remain competitive, they must decrease time to market for new innovations while controlling escalating R&D and capital costs; a wrong bet can easily cost millions or even billions of dollars in lost time, resources, and market share.  The competitive landscape is further complicated by the structural changes that have occurred in our industry, as vertical integration has given way to increasing segmentation and specialization. Industry segmentation has solved many business issues, but it has also created new visibility, coordination, and affordability challenges. Success in new technology introduction now depends on a broader and deeper industrial collaboration, aligning key stakeholders across the industry ecosystem – including the systems, IDM, fabless, foundry, packaging and assembly, and equipment/material/EDA communities. In each of the major manufacturing technology transitions – in lithography, interconnect, wafer size, and devices – we have seen an historic trend toward increasing collaboration, as organizations come together to share resources, cost and risk.

The implications for collaborative technology development are evident in several novel approaches being taken today to address the transitions to extreme ultraviolet (EUV) lithography, 3D through silicon via (TSV) interconnects, and 450mm wafers. For example, collaborative programs such as SEMATECH’s EUV Mask Infrastructure (EMI) Partnership and 3D Enablement Center have been created to pool resources to achieve a timely, cost-effective technology introduction. The EMI effort has connected multiple segments of the EUV supply chain in a partnership to collectively fund the development of needed metrology tools by equipment suppliers, while the 3D Enablement Center has brought together companies from across the industry ecosystem to accelerate progress on 3D IC standards, specifications, and reference flows. Furthermore, the manufacturing and cost pressures of the transition to 450mm have created an industry-wide need for further pre-competitive collaboration between device makers, consortia, and equipment and materials manufacturers. Building on ISMI’s five-year 450mm infrastructure program, the recently announced industry-government-university partnership, called the Global 450mm Consortium, will provide new resources and funding to collaboratively work with suppliers to develop 450mm equipment.

Looking forward, the lessons we have learned from the collaborative approaches in EUV mask making, 3D interconnects, and the next wafer size will help us harness the power of cooperation in new ways over the next five years.  In 2016 and beyond, the opportunities and challenges of heterogeneous integration, 3D metrology, nanodefects, and the post-450mm era will require new innovations – not only in technology and manufacturing, but also in the business of collaboration. 

3D Heterogeneous Packaging Collaboration

As we envision the complexities of 3D heterogeneous packaging – the potential combination of memory, logic processor, analog, ASIC, MEMS, photonics and sensor components on a single platform – our collaborations will need to span industry disciplines and regions.  We will need several global collaborative programs, tightly connected and appropriately timed and resourced, to develop the requisite common platforms, prototyping facilities, standards and reference flows, and design enablement. Clearly, success will require a critical mass of participation from across the supply chain – including the platform and systems companies.

Common Enabler: 3D Metrology

Future 3D device structures will require a common enabler – 3D metrology – and 3D metrology will in turn depend on a collaborative approach that not only builds early industry consensus on technical requirements and roadmap gaps among leading-edge manufacturers, metrology providers and research institutions, but also leverages emerging capabilities in adjacent fields outside the traditional semiconductor ecosystem.  This wide-ranging collaboration to develop and deploy a critical industry enabler addresses the classic investment dilemma of unproven technology, uncertain timing, limited markets, and expensive upfront investment.

Lessons Learned from EUV Mask Making

As device sizes continue to shrink, lessons learned from EUV mask making will guide a new collaborative approach to eliminating nanodefects.  We will need to partner more deeply within the supply chain, since defect sources are increasingly found in equipment sub-components and materials, and finding those sources will require improved infrastructure to detect defects, identify their root causes, and verify solutions.  It is likely that characterization infrastructure and forensics will be common across a wide variety of subcomponents. Therefore, creating a defect competency center with a critical mass of process/forensic equipment and unique expertise in simulation and analytics may result in a new resource for the industry in investigating both generic and company-specific defectivity problems.

After 450mm Startup and Transition

Finally, the period following the 450mm startup and transition will most certainly stimulate more collaboration, as differentiation opportunities will be selected more carefully and companies will rely more on shared resources to keep things affordable. The industry will benefit from accessible and flexible “playgrounds” for both chipmakers and equipment and materials manufacturers, where clustered capabilities and activities will contribute to solving the technical challenges inherent in the 450mm generation nodes and reconnecting the supply chain in novel ways.

Today’s technology and business challenges are driving novel collaborative approaches.  If we fast forward ahead five years, the expected challenges will compel further innovations in how the industry works together.  The problems of 2016 and beyond can be solved, but not in the ways that will maintain our current comfort zones; our business models will continue to evolve as we push the envelope of creative collaboration and forge new common ground.

Dan Armbrust is president and CEO of SEMATECH. As a member-driven global consortium, SEMATECH’s role is to align roadmaps, R&D, and financial investments on behalf of its members, partners, and the industry. With a focus on both early development and manufacturability, it drives technical consensus, pull research into the industry mainstream, and lead major programs to address critical industry transitions.

SEMI
www.semi.org
December 6, 2011