Technology and Trends

As technology companies worldwide struggle to narrow the yawning gender parity gap, organizations in other industries ranging from insurance and food services to banking have emerged as guiding lights for how to boost the number of women in the workplace. MetLife, the 48,000-employee insurance giant, is among the standouts. In 2015, the New York-based company launched Developing Women’s Career Experience, a 14-month program designed to hone the business and strategic acumen of high-potential female workers. The goal was to increase the sense of urgency to promote women. The program bore fruit, expanding the representation of female managers and entry-level workers to 50 percent. Over the past five years, Sodexo, the French food services and facilities management company headquartered in Paris, has also upped female representation on its list of corporate priorities, expanding the ranks of women in entry and manager roles by 10 percent on average. More impressively, the number of women senior vice presidents has grown 20 percent and those in the C-suite have doubled.Sodexo drove the increases by developing a scorecard to hold managers accountable for diversity and inclusion and tying their performance to total compensation. Fully 10 percent of their bonuses were linked to strides in diversity and inclusion. Leaders at the 470,000-employee company scored points for hiring, promoting and retaining more women and underrepresented groups and could hike the total by taking other steps to improve the work culture by demonstrating inclusive leadership.“We do see companies taking bold actions and are seeing tremendous results,” said Audrey Bernardo, a partner at consultancy McKinsey Company, as she presented the case studies at Diversity – Women in Tech to kick off FLEX|MEMS Sensors Technical Congress (MSTC) 2020 last week in San Jose.And it turns out the payoffs matter not only for the bottom line but also a company’s ability to attract and retain the best talent. Citing research from the McKinsey Company and Lean In 2019 report Women in the Workplace as well as McKinsey’s 2018 Delivering through Diversity, Bernardo noted that gender-diverse companies are 24 percent more likely to financially outperform their less inclusive counterparts, while organizations with higher ethnic diversity are 33 percent more likely to outshine less diverse companies.Younger workers are particularly sensitive to diversity biases. The survey of more 250,000 employees at 600 companies found that employees under the age of 30 are almost two times more likely than older workers to raise the need for diversity and more likely to see bias in the workplace.“Diversity and inclusion has become a business imperative,” Bernardo said. Yet despite the urgency, gains among tech companies in cultivating a diverse workforce have been hard-won in part because of the challenge to better balance the proportions of male and female workers. And the headwinds start to gather when females are young. According to the report, 15-year-old females are vastly outnumbered by boys in their appetite to work in tech fields, with girls 65 percent to 84 percent less interested in pursuing tech careers than boys the same age.That dynamic extends to females in their college years. Despite earning more degrees than men overall, women account for the minority of tech degrees – ranging from as low as 13 percent representation in Chile and 15 percent in Brazil to as high as 45 percent and 36 percent, respectively, in India and Mexico. In the U.S., women account for just 23 percent of undergraduate degrees in tech.Bernardo praised the growing number of companies that are “reaching further down the age pipeline” to inspire young students to pursue STEM educations and careers in tech and cited the work of the SEMI Foundation – through High Tech U and other programs geared toward young students – to inspire the next generation of industry workers.The picture brightens once women have entered careers at technology hardware companies – they are promoted at only a slightly lower rate than men. Yet when it comes to outside hires, women are brought on board at a much lower rate than men. For example, women account for just 22 percent of the senior vice presidents hired at hardware companies, 17 percent of vice presidents, 22 percent of senior managers and directors, and 25 percent of managers.Part of the challenge for women in senior leadership positions is balancing careers with their home lives since they are two times more likely to be in dual-career households than their male counterparts.“We will never solve the women-in the-workplace problem until we solve the women-in-the-home problem,” Bernardo said.Indeed, giving women the leeway to work from home and take time off for family or personal reasons ranked among the power practices the study found most correlated to diversity and inclusion progress. Others include C-level executive participation in shaping a diversity and inclusion strategy, establishing numeric targets for tracking gender representation across the workforce as Sodexo has done, and unconscious bias training. “D I needs to be visible from the top,” Bernardo said.A shining example of executive support for diversity and inclusion initiatives is the work by Atlanta-based SunTrust Bank to encourage workers to embrace differences in people and build awareness of unconscious bias. In 2018, the 23,000-employee company held a daylong event that included workshops focused on candid conversations about gender, race, disability, LGPTQ identity, religion and military service.The Day of Understanding was sponsored by the SunTrust CEO. Within three years, the proportion of employees viewing the SunTrust workplace as inclusive grew to 80 percent, an 11 percent jump.Michael Hall is a marketing communications manager at SEMI.

As the body’s largest organ, skin is responsible for the transduction of a vast amount of information. This conformable, stretchable, self-healable and biodegradable material simultaneously collects signals from external stimuli, which translates into information such as pressure, pain and temperature. The development of electronic materials, inspired by the complexity of this organ, offers a tremendous unrealized materials’ challenge. Fortunately, the advent of organic-based electronic materials may offer a solution to this longstanding problem.Zhenan Bao, K.K. Lee Professor of Chemical Engineering, Stanford University, is one of the world’s leading researchers working on the design of organic electronic materials that mimic skin functions. SEMI’s Maria Vetrano interviewed professor Bao to preview her February 25 keynote, Skin-Inspired Electronics, at FLEX|MEMS Sensors Technical Congress (MSTC) 2020, February 24-27, 2020, at the DoubleTree by Hilton in San Jose, California.Join us at FLEX|MSTC to meet Professor Bao and other industry influencers furthering innovation in flexible hybrid electronics (FHE) and MEMS sensors. Register now to connect with her at FLEX|MSTC or visit her on LinkedIn.SEMI: Your pioneering work on the use of electronic materials to construct second skin is a major step forward in human-machine interfaces. Could you please describe second skin?Bao: Second skin is a new electronic-device platform encompassing electronic devices that have skin-like properties such as stretchability, self‐healing ability, biocompatibility and biodegradability. In essence, the second skin is an electronic system of fully integrated multifunctional components operating on the surface of or inside the body to enable smart healthcare for disease prevention and treatment and to enhance the functional capabilities of natural skin. The second skin could also serve as a module to connect our human body to the Internet, thereby allowing human integration with the Internet of Things (IoT) for next‐generation wireless communications. In this way, we can view the second skin as an artificial body part that can be used to improve our everyday lives.SEMI: How might second skin operate in the human body?Bao: It has many potential uses. It could be a prosthesis for people who have lost their sense of touch. It could be used to repair damaged skin as well as to provide enhanced functionality that’s not possible with biological human skin. It could, for example, connect us with our external environment, with other people, even with our cars.I can also envision second skin as an implantable device for both neurostimulation and for early detection of disease. Schematic illustration of structure of second skin composed of functional devices: sensor, integrated circuit, display and power supply. Source: Stanford University SEMI: How did you get started in this research? Bao: Sixteen years ago when I started at Stanford, I learned of a colleague in mechanical engineering who was working on robotic cockroaches. That’s when I understood the need for sensor functions in robotics.I considered the large number of people with prosthetics who do not have a sense of touch. With this audience in mind, I started by designing a simple flexible electronic device that could take the shape of skin, even conforming to a robot hand, thereby approximating the natural sense of human touch.Once we developed the first sensor, and realized that its touch sensitivity could eclipse that of human touch, I asked myself: what can we learn from second skin – in addition to its sensing functionality?Skin is not just flexible; it is biodegradable and stretchable. So we started to dream. We began by developing electronic materials, either conductors or semiconductors. We added new functionality, such as self-healing properties, biodegradability and stretchability. That opened the way to new materials’ development.SEMI: What discoveries have you made in new materials?Bao: Over the past decade, we’ve developed skin-like materials with electronic properties that are on par with the best conducting and semiconducting polymers. Some of our skin-like semiconducting polymers can perform even better than amorphous silicon. That means with suitable processing methods, we can make stretchable ICs, initially with tens of transistors that can perform analog or digital functions, and in a later stage, stretchable displays driven by active matrix arrays.SEMI: What would it take to put these materials into production?Bao: We need to develop methods to pattern the skin-like electronic materials into fine features. We have been leveraging similar processes used for flexible circuit boards. Some research groups are developing roll-to-roll fabrication and printing methods.SEMI: Which technologies/applications are you commercializing?Bao: C3Nano is a Bao Research Group spin-off startup that is commercializing nanomaterials that are promising for bendable and foldable electronics.Another spin-off that is licensing our technology, PyrAmes, is developing a continuously non-invasive blood-pressure monitor. It’s not a cuff so the patient doesn’t have to remember to put it on.In the shorter term, we’re looking at putting artificial skin on prosthetic limbs and robotic hands. Further down the road, we could put skin on wounded regions of the body, forging connections to nerves that would support realistic sensation.To realize these applications, we’ll need to conduct further R D on materials and applications. The manufacturing of these devices still needs much more development.Fortunately, we’re part of a fertile development ecosystem at Stanford. I started the Stanford Wearable Electronics Initiative (eWEAR) to forge collaborations across Stanford campus as well as with industry.SEMI: What would you like FLEX|MSTC attendees to take away from your presentation?Bao: I’d like them to realize that the future of electronics is changing. I imagine a future in which the functions of a smartphone will disappear into what we wear, what we attach to our skin and what we implant inside our body. I believe that skin-like electronics will help to facilitate this future, allowing us to connect with each other and our surroundings in ways that feel natural, yet that also enhance our quality of life. Zhenan Bao is K.K. Lee Professor of Chemical Engineering with courtesy appointments in Chemistry and Material Science and Engineering at Stanford University. She founded the Stanford Wearable Electronics Initiate (eWEAR) and serves as the faculty director. Prior to joining Stanford in 2004, she was a Distinguished Member of Technical Staff at Bell Labs, Lucent Technologies from 1995 to 2004.Bao has over 500 refereed publications and over 65 U.S. patents with a Google Scholar H-Index 155. In her recent work, she has developed skin-inspired organic electronic materials, which have resulted in unprecedented performance or functions in medical devices, energy storage and environmental applications. She has pioneered several important design concepts for organic electronic materials. Her work has enabled flexible electronic circuits and displays.For more information on professor Bao’s research, visit Bao Research Group. FLEX|MSTC is organized MEMS Sensors Industry Group (MSIG) and FlexTech, SEMI technology communities focused on the growth of MEMS sensors and the flexible electronics supply chain, respectively. Maria Vetrano is a public relations consultant at SEMI.

The chip design ecosystem finally has the book it’s been clamoring for: The Fourth Terminal - Benefits of Body-Biasing Techniques for FDSOI Circuits and Systems. [bctt tweet="The FD-SOI Chip Design Book: Yes, It’s Finally Here!" username="@soiconsortium"] The editors (who have also contributed chapters) are Andreia Cathelin, Sylvain Clerc and Thierry DiGilio, all world experts from STMicroelectronics. As Cathelin and Clerc note in the introduction: “The aim of this book is to introduce to the design community the straightforward design solutions in any modern FD-SOI planar CMOS technologies, by taking full advantage of body biasing techniques to efficiently modulate on the fly SoC solutions from high performance operation to energy efficiency mode. All design techniques are based on the classical pillar of regular planar CMOS devices. As the first fully industrial solution has been the 28nm FD-SOI CMOS technology from STMicroelectronics, all the design examples in this book have been demonstrated within this process integration frame.” [bctt tweet="The Fourth Terminal...taking full advantage of (FDSOI) body biasing techniques to efficiently modulate on the fly SoC solutions from high performance operation to energy efficiency mode" username="@soiconsortium"] The folks at ST were really the first to get into FD-SOI in a big way – in fact they’ve been at it for over two decades (!) so you’d be hard pressed to find experts at a company with deeper expertise. [caption id="attachment_29610" align="alignnone" width="535"] The Fourth Terminal team friends sporting Tour de Fourth Terminal t-shirts at ISSCC 2020. From left to right: MIT Prof. (and Series Editor for Springer's Integrated Circuits and Systems) Anantha Chandrakasan; Charles Glaser, Springer Editorial Director; Laurent Le Pailleur, ST; Andreia Cathelin, ST Fellow; Sylvain Clerc, ST; Stanford Prof. Boris Murmann (Photo courtesy Springer STMicroelectronics)[/caption] The Fourth Terminal is structured to cover three major areas: a technology overview (including body biasing for digital, analog and SRAM); a selection of circuits that illustrate body biasing in various fields; body bias deployment in mixed-signal and digital SoCs. The initial response has been tremendous. Editor Andreia Cathelin reports that posts she's made about it on LinkedIn were quickly viewed 10k times and more. Then came the book review by the eminent Stanford Professor Boris Murmann, who heralded its tour de force status in a clever turn of phrase: “With the help of a renowned international team of experts from industry and academia, the editors have distilled everything you need to know about FD-SOI circuit design into a 16-chapter "tour de fourth terminal". (Read his complete review here).[bctt tweet="Stanford Professor Boris Murmann calls this book a #Tour_de_Fourth_Terminal. #FDSOI #lowpower #chipdesign" username="@soiconsortium"] EETimes journalist Junko Yoshida blogged about it as Body Bias Gets Its Own Book (read that here), which generated lively discussions on LinkedIn (and underscored just how necessary this book is!). The Fourth Terminal - Benefits of Body-Biasing Techniques for FDSOI Circuits and Systems is part of the Springer Integrated Circuits Systems Series -- considered by many to be the most prestigious in the industry. Weighing in at 431 pages, The Fourth Terminal is available in both e-book and hardcover versions. See the Springer website to order this must-have addition to your library.

A multidisciplinary team of researchers is developing new methods to collect and analyze sweat for clues about how the body is functioning.Imagine if you could know the status of any molecule in your body without needing to get your blood drawn. Science fiction? Almost – but researchers at the University of Arizona are working on ways to do this by measuring molecules in sweat.When physicians take blood samples from patients, they send the samples to labs to be analyzed for biomarkers. These biological clues indicate everything from cholesterol levels to disease risks, and they can be used to monitor patient health or make diagnostic decisions. The same biomarkers also are found in sweat.Using $519,000 in funding from SEMI-NBMC (Nano-Bio Materials Consortium), Erin Ratcliff, University of Arizona materials science and engineering professor and head of the UArizona Laboratory for Interface Science of Printable Electronic Materials, is leading a project to develop new ways of collecting and analyzing the clues sweat has to offer. Ultimately, this work could allow physicians to use patient sweat samples in the same way they currently use blood samples, for a less invasive and more informative approach to establishing and monitoring patient health.“What’s unique about this is that we are combining biology and engineering expertise to develop a wearable device that will detect molecules in sweat, so you don’t have to get your blood drawn to know the health status of your immune system, your nervous system, indeed, any system in the body,” said co-investigator and sweat biomarker pioneer, Esther Sternberg, MD. “The goal, eventually, is to create a device that will provide physicians and health care providers the ability to monitor your health status continuously and in real-time without needing to draw blood.” Materials science and engineering professor Dr. Erin Ratcliff in her laboratory at the BIO5 Institute at the University of Arizona “We are pleased to sponsor and eager to complete this project with University of Arizona’s impressive team bridging the disciplines of engineering and life sciences,” notes Melissa Grupen-Shemansky, PhD, Chief Technology Officer and Executive Director of SEMI-NBMC. “A concerted interdisciplinary approach at the early stages of R D is relatively new and there is much learning on both sides. The UA team brings unique strengths in both areas and we are excited to be partnering and collaborating with them.”Ratcliff’s co-investigators are J. Ray Runyon, a research assistant professor in the Department of Environmental Science, and Sternberg, research director for the Andrew Weil Center for Integrative Medicine; director of the Institute on Place, Wellbeing, and Performance; and the Andrew Weil Inaugural Chair for Research in Integrative Medicine. Ratcliff and Sternberg are both members of the BIO5 Institute.Standardized Sample CollectionIn order to study sweat, researchers need to collect samples of it, and there are a number of ways to do so.“The obvious idea would be to make a patch that gets information from many pores at once, but the problem is that this creates a space between the patch and your skin, and you have to wait for it to fill up with sweat,” Ratcliff said. “We hypothesize that while you’re waiting, these molecules – the very molecules you’re trying to detect and analyze – are changing chemically.”The team’s first task is to develop new, continuous and hands-free collection devices that deliver high-quality, standardized sweat samples. This will allow health care professionals to gain a more holistic picture of a patient's bodily systems over an extended period, rather than the “snapshot” a blood draw can provide of a particular moment.Currently, sweat labs across the world are using different methods to collect samples, which limits researchers’ ability to compare data. Standardizing the collection method could provide researchers, including medical device developers, with a new degree of confidence in sweat sample data.“High-quality data, with respect to different target molecular biomarkers in sweat, requires that a high-quality sample be collected,” Runyon said. “This will be the first hands-free method that will truly take into account the interplay of the chemistry of sweat, the target biomarker and the device material.” University of Arizona student in classroom testing medtech devices Low-Level DetectionThe team is also developing methods for researchers to detect and analyze neuropeptides in the collected samples. Used by neurons to communicate with each other, these small molecules are involved in biological functions, including metabolism, reproduction and memory. Commercial wearable devices monitor metrics like heart rate, and some use sweat sensors to monitor dehydration level. Measuring neuropeptides, however, will allow researchers to zoom in millions of times closer to investigate stress and relaxation responses at the molecular level.“The idea is that your sweat is reflecting your nervous system – all of the neurotransmitters your body uses to signal between the brain and the rest of the body,” Ratcliff said. “Monitoring this biochemical response continually, over a 24-hour cycle, can inform us about the health of the wearer and also act as a diagnostic tool.”Meet Dr. Ratcliff and the University of Arizona team at FLEX in San Jose, Calif., February 23-26, 2020. Emily Dieckman is Editor at The University of Arizona. Republished with permission from the University of Arizona.

MEMS technology has changed human interaction with electronic devices. Introduced in the 1990s, the first mass-market MEMS devices were used for inkjet printheads and automotive airbag crash sensors. Today, MEMS are ubiquitous, with billions of the tiny devices adding intelligence and interactivity to smartphones, smart speakers, wearables, automobiles, biomedical devices, remote monitoring and event detection systems, and countless other applications. Integrating MEMS with Flexible Hybrid Electronics (FHE) is an important step in the evolution of this miniaturized intelligent sensing technology, paving the way for its use in new classes of flexible, conformal devices.The integration of the two technologies promises to breed new applications in small form factors but also presents challenges inherent to FHE design and fabrication processes. SEMI’s Nishita Rao caught up with Nathan Pretorius, prototyping and automation engineer, NextFlex, to discuss MEMS-FHE device integration challenges and opportunities ahead of his February 26 presentation, Integrating MEMS Devices in FHE, at FLEX|MEMS Sensors Technical Congress (MSTC) 2020, February 24-27, 2020, at the DoubleTree by Hilton in San Jose, California.Join us at FLEX|MSTC to meet Nathan and other industry influencers advancing innovation in FHE and MEMS sensors. Register now to connect with him at FLEX|MSTC or visit him on LinkedIn.SEMI: Why is integrating MEMS devices into FHE systems important? What new use cases might it enable?Pretorius: The main value proposition of integrating MEMS devices into FHE is that it allows MEMS devices to exist in a different form factor than was possible previously, giving us high-quality MEMS sensors on the flexible and conformable platform of FHE.Ease of application, flexibility, lower cost and rapid iteration on a design are just some of the benefits of FHE devices. And because there are few robust FHE sensors that overlap with MEMS’ capabilities, when you combine the two, you get a lot of compelling uses. That’s why NextFlex is working with agencies and companies to evaluate MEMS’ integration, including using bare MEMS die with microfluidics and promoting new ways of attaching and packaging MEMS die for use with FHE. SEMI: Why is FHE an ideal platform for integrating various types of sensors?Pretorius: MEMS integrated with FHE devices are ideal for rapid design and deployment of data-gathering sensor nodes — which we can iterate for specific applications. A few examples include on-body health monitoring devices for bio-fluids analysis, medical pressure sensors for monitoring blood pressure, and peel-and-stick sensors nodes for infrastructure monitoring. In terms of design and production, FHE devices support rapid prototyping, allowing for instantaneous design-iteration cycles. This speeds design-to-production over traditional rigid PCBs and copper flex because the feedback cycle time between design, manufacturing and testing is shorter, accelerating time to market. What’s exciting about FHE technology is that a variety of sensors or components, including MEMS, can be designed into the base system to easily customize it for a specific application. In addition, our experience shows that when compared to a traditional rigid PCB, an FHE board reduces manufacturing steps and device weight by two-thirds and, perhaps most importantly, converts the device to a thin, conformal shape that makes possible products in new form factors. SEMI: What are the primary challenges to integrating MEMS with FHE? What is NextFlex doing to help device manufacturers address these challenges? Pretorius: There are a few challenges, some of which are device-specific. Most recently, I’ve been focusing on inertial and timing devices, including accelerometers, gyroscopes and resonators. There are a few technical challenges involved in the process of getting the devices from the wafer to an FHE substrate. The wafer processing is very important, especially the dicing and thinning steps. After thinning and dicing, the die is placed onto the FHE substrate. The stresses caused by bonding to the substrate have to be understood and characterized. After placing the die, you then have a calibration step, which is normally performed after the device is packaged. With a MEMS die placed onto directly onto an FHE substrate, calibration then must be done.Finally, the device encapsulation is important, since on an FHE substrate the hard-to-soft material transition is very important to mitigate stresses to rigid component interfaces. We have also been looking at how to work with devices that have damping vents. Flexible encapsulants are inherently more permeable to gases and water vapor than hard encapsulants, so studying the encapsulation of MEMS devices on FHE is another area of interest. NextFlex has been working in a supporting role to evaluate best design practices and best attach and integration methods. In addition to our ongoing collaborative programs, NextFlex is developing the FHE manufacturing ecosystem to include system and component manufacturers and designers, product developers, and materials and equipment providers.SEMI: How do we facilitate closer collaboration between the FHE manufacturing ecosystem and MEMS suppliers such as MEMS device manufacturers, product developers, and materials and equipment providers?Pretorius: It’s important to include manufacturers early in the design process so we can identify challenges up front. That’s why NextFlex spearheads technology road-mapping efforts that include representatives from across the manufacturing ecosystem. We use the roadmaps to prioritize challenges that we can address effectively through collaboration, focusing the industry on solving problems through Project Calls that reveal integration challenges and results from real devices and that tell us how the materials and equipment actually perform with a real device.NextFlex keeps the information flowing, holding quarterly project update webinars to share results. As current devices are optimized for the process in which they will be used, we learn a lot from the project performers who make FHE system demonstrators — and we share that information with the member community. SEMI: Can you point to an example of a successful MEMS-FHE device integration?Pretorius: MEMS-FHE integration is still in the early stages, but we are working on several projects including a DARPA Seedling project for which we have integrated MEMS sensors into FHE systems for testing and evaluation. We plan to continue this work by integrating MEMS and FHE devices using methods that support mass production.SEMI: What would you like FLEX|MSTC attendees to take away from your presentation?Pretorius: We would like to see the FHE community work more closely with MEMS device manufacturers. For example, NextFlex often works with manufacturers to gain access to bare die, which is still a significant hurdle in making devices.The best way to speed things along is to get involved. We encourage FLEX|MSTC attendees to join NextFlex. As a prototyping and automation engineer at NextFlex, Nathan Pretorius explores new print methods for prototyping and automation using novel materials and processes. Pretorius currently focuses on how best to apply software scripting and machine learning to streamline FHE processes. Prior to joining NextFlex, he researched the strengths of roll to roll and screen printing on printed electronics designs, including capacitive touch interfaces, FHE passive component design, and antennas. Nathan holds a Bachelor of Science degree in Graphic Communications from Clemson University. FLEX|MSTC is organized MEMS Sensors Industry Group (MSIG) and FlexTech, SEMI technology communities focused on the growth of MEMS sensors and the flexible electronics supply chain, respectively.Nishita Rao is marketing manager for technology communities at SEMI.

The GAP9, GreenWaves Technologies latest IoT application processor -- which is being fabbed on GlobalFoundries 22FDX (FD-SOI) technology -- will be sampling in the first half of 2020, according to EETimes (read the whole article here). Mass production is slated for 2021. Greenwaves (which has been an SOI Consortium member for several years now) is a fabless semiconductor startup designing disruptive ultra-low power embedded solutions for AI processing in sensing devices at the very edge. GreenWaves marketing director Martin Croome told EETimes, “We are using the body biasing ability in FD-SOI to allow us to achieve even lower power consumption.” Compared to GreenWaves’ currently shipping product, GAP8 (which is on a 55nm bulk process), GAP9 reduces energy consumption by 5 times while enabling inference on neural networks 10 times larger. This is thanks to architectural enhancements and the move to GF's 22FDX semiconductor process. The new chip delivers a peak cluster memory bandwidth of 41.6 GB/sec and up to 50 GOPS combined compute power at an overall power consumption of 50mW. It enables customers to embed machine learning and signal processing capabilities into battery operated or energy harvesting devices such as IoT sensors in smart building, consumer and industrial markets and consumer and medical wearable devices. GAP9 was showcased at the last RISC-V Summit in San Jose (read the full press release here). [caption id="attachment_29061" align="alignnone" width="400"] GAP9 Block diagram (Courtesy: GreenWaves)[/caption] Some of the (many!) features include: 10 identical high performance, extended ISA, RISC-V ISA cores (cluster of 9 cores for compute-intensive tasks and a fabric controller core for control and communication) Dynamic voltage frequency scaling and automatic body biasing Multiple power states: deep sleep, deep sleep with retentive RAM, low activity, SOC on, SOC on cluster on Click here for a full GAP9 product brief.

VTT Technical Research Centre of Finland Ltd (VTT) has its sights set high. As a leading global research and development firm , VTT is out to produce bio-interfacing and biodegradable flexible hybrid electronics (FHE) devices that help tackle some of the world’s greatest challenges including environmental degradation and food scarcity.SEMI’s Maria Vetrano interviewed Antti Vasara, president and CEO of VTT Technical Research Centre of Finland, to preview his February 25 keynote, Beyond Flexible Hybrid Electronics: Biodegradable Electronics and Interfacing Bio+Electronics, at FLEX|MEMS Sensors Technical Congress (MSTC) 2020, February 24-27 at the DoubleTree by Hilton in San Jose, California. Join us at FLEX|MSTC to meet Antti and other industry influencers driving innovation in flexible hybrid electronics (FHE) and MEMS sensors. Register now to connect with him at FLEX|MSTC or visit him on LinkedIn.SEMI: What is body-interfacing electronics and what is your vision for bio-interfacing and biodegradable electronics?Vasara: Body-interfacing electronics have existed for decades. Developed in the 1970s, the wireless heart rate monitor is a good example. While continuous heart monitoring with a compact, inexpensive wearable device is widely accessible technology, other bodily parameters, such as cholesterol levels or biomarkers, are diagnosed every time we see a doctor. Establishing a baseline using multiple measurements — before symptoms develop is actually much more effective.That’s where bio-interfacing comes in. Bio-interfacing devices will continuously measure and analyze complex biogenic substances such as sweat, breath, blood and urine. A smart patch for continuous sweat monitoring, for example, would overcome several challenges: supporting electronics functionality in liquid environments, managing the transport of harvested samples to and from the sensor, managing potential contamination, and disposing of samples after measurement.While FHE in principle delivers the right building blocks and is an ideal form factor for a wearable sweat analytics patch, flexible circuits are not ready for out-of-the box interaction with biological matrices. Hence, our mission at VTT is to anticipate and develop the upscaling process know-how required for FHE devices that either interface with biological systems — or that must themselves biodegrade.We’re also focusing on biodegradable electronics because environmentally conscious end-users and manufacturing companies want biodegradable versions of energy-autonomous, label- or sticker-like Internet of Things (IoT) sensors. Typically used for packaging, logistics, environmental monitoring and medical diagnostics applications, these sensors — which have a lifetime of a few days, weeks or months — have become very popular. Unless they are biodegradable, however, they just add to landfill.SEMI: What approaches is VTT using to develop bio-interfacing and biodegradable electronics?Vasara: In our Business Finland-funded ECOtronics project, we are working with our partners to create recyclable and compostable electronics and optics that use renewable resources. For example, devices developed using substrate materials like paper, cardboard or VTT’s in-house-developed nanocellulose films and biopolymer films for environmental monitoring or skin patches can be easily recycled or even biodegrade naturally. Where possible, we use roll-to-roll printing to generate the device circuitry, and on a component level, we have optimized our assembly process towards bare-die component bonding to reduce the overall footprint of non-biodegradable waste per device.SEMI: What use cases do you find most promising and why?Vasara: A prominent example of a single-use test that generates a large amount of waste is the digital pregnancy test. When breaking it down into components, you will find a rigid circuit board with microprocessor, a couple of coin cell batteries, a liquid crystal display, a LED light source and photodiode, and a large chunk of plastic packaging around it. The materials and battery capacity of such a device would be sufficient to run hundreds of pregnancy tests – actually technical overkill.By using printed circuits on biodegradable substrates, bare-die assembled components (ASIC, LED light sources, photo diodes, thin film batteries as power sources) and device packaging composed of biodegradable plastics, we can completely redefine the environmental footprint of single-use tests. We are currently developing a toolbox for our customers to turn their existing conventional test into an ecotronic form factor.Another exciting use case is a sweat sensor that we developed collaboratively with Ali Javey, Ph.D., professor of Electrical Engineering and Computer Sciences, UC Berkeley, and the co-director of Berkeley Sensor and Actuator Center (BSAC). Together with his team, we created a wearable electrochemical sensor for continuous sweat analysis during exercise. With the UC Berkeley group providing the chemistry to monitor N+, K+ ion and hydration levels in sweat over the duration of several hours, VTT delivered the underlying sensor platform, featuring the printed sensor electrodes and sweat harvesting microfluidic channels for fluid management and transport. It’s exciting to see what we can achieve by combining techniques from different disciplines, in this case electrochemistry, printing, packaging and microelectronics.SEMI: How can industry enable the development/manufacture of flexible FHE devices? Where does VTT fit into the ecosystem?Vasara: As many FHE devices target large-volume markets, scalability of manufacturing is key: How can I get from one device (= working prototype) to a handful of devices (= feasibility study), to thousands (= pilot manufacturing), to a million (= mass manufacturing) without compromising the quality of the system’s performance and reliability?Access to upscaling infrastructure is essential for the development of novel FHE devices and methods, but infrastructure is expensive. That’s where our establishment of a roll-to-roll pilot printing line to bridge the gap between laboratory R D and mass manufacturing has proved invaluable. We can provide a unique worldwide upscaling infrastructure for advanced FHE devices, with a strong focus on large-area roll-to-roll processes and hybrid assembly. This service removes our customers’ burden of high infrastructure investment in early development stages and it allows us to guide customers along their development path, from prototype to mass production.Watch our video: VTT pilot manufacturing for diagnostics and wearablesSEMI: Is there anything else that device manufacturers need to know in order to succeed?Vasara: In my eyes, the success of FHE devices eventually depends on several factors: It requires a high degree of automation, well-optimized processes, reliable supply chains, and perhaps most importantly, clear standards and rules for designers to guarantee flawless interoperability of all the different elements on a flexible and hybrid circuit. Let us not forget – we are trying to marry electronics with printing, biology, packaging, microfluidics, injection molding and other fields of expertise.We recently finalized the compilation of a set of design rules for publication in our state-of-the-art overview of printed and hybrid electronics manufacturing methods. You can download the overview, PrintoCent Handbook, for free.SEMI: What would you like FLEX|MSTC attendees to take away from your presentation?Vasara: The latest technologies and innovations in microelectronics, MEMS, printing, materials, and biosensors provide us a toolbox for true innovation in the FHE space. Now we need cross-disciplinary thinking and daring steps to combine different manufacturing methods and skill-sets. The ideal cross-disciplinary team might include: The printing engineer who knows how to design contact pads for a bare-die IC assembly The biologist who knows about the thermal and mechanical stress in a printing environment to design processes for bio-functionalization of surfaces The electronics engineer who knows how to optimize a circuit powered with an enzymatic biofuel cell The number of sensors deployed on (or inside) our body, in our drinking water, in our cars, on our fields, in our pets, and everyday products will surely grow. Let us make sure they leave the smallest environmental footprint possible.Antti Vasara, Ph.D. has been the president and CEO of VTT Ltd since 2015. VTT is a visionary research, development and innovation partner with over 2000 people and a turnover exceeding 250M EURO. Vasara is president of EARTO (European Association of Research and Technology Organisations) and is chairman of the board of Palta (Finnish Service Sector Employers). In addition, he is a non-executive director of Elisa Oyj (largest communications operator in Finland) and a board member at EK (Finnish Confederation of Industries).He has served on several high-profile groups on industrial and innovation policy of the European Commission, in addition to several groups in Finland on artificial intelligence and research policy. Previously, Vasara spent close to 25 years in private industry, working at Nokia, Tieto, SmartTrust and McKinsey Company. Earlier in his career, he was a researcher in optical communications with 20+ peer-reviewed articles and one international patent. Vasara holds a Doctor of Science (Technology) degree from Aalto University in Finland.For more information about VTT’s work in bio-interfacing and biodegradable FHE devices, visit VTT Research. FLEX|MSTC is organized MEMS Sensors Industry Group (MSIG) and FlexTech, SEMI technology communities focused on the growth of MEMS sensors and the flexible electronics supply chain, respectively.Maria Vetrano is a public relations consultant at SEMI.

It should really be called SOI photonics – not just silicon photonics, quipped Soitec CTO Christophe Maleville at the SOI Consortium Japan event last fall. You’ve got to have SOI for the waveguides. There are megatrends driving significant growth in photonics – and they were all covered at the event. This is the final post in our coverage of the SOI Consortium’s Japan event (thank you for your patience!). It covers the photonics-related presentations by Soitec, Leti, Cisco/Luxtera, GlobalFoundries, Cadence and TowerJazz. Most of these presentations are now posted on the SOI Consortium website – you can access them if your organization is a member of the consortium. By way of reminder, the Japan SOI Symposium was a great success, with both days well attended. In case you missed our previous posts about the event, you’ll want to go back and read them, too. The first post covered the 5G/RF-SOI presentations by ST, Toshiba, Incize, GF, Silvaco and Sitri – you can read it here. The second post on the event covered eight very informative presentations on SOI in IoT and automotive by NXP, Dolphin Design, Leti, Silvaco, Arm, I-fuse and Secure-IC – you can read that here. Note that you can click on any of the illustrations to see enlarged versions. And now without further ado, here are the summaries of the photonics presentations. SOI Enabling Photonics – Ecosystem and Market Outlook – by Aziz Alami-Idrissi, GM Specialty SOI, Soitec. [caption id="attachment_28773" align="alignleft" width="233"] (Courtesy: Soitec SOI Consortium)[/caption] The megatrends in SOI photonics are: 5G (for more bandwidth, HPC, edge quantum computing), data centers (for high data rate transceivers and high-switch bandwidth), sensors (lidar, gas/chemical and gyroscopes) and biosensors (especially for medical). These are driving big changes: the 44% CAGR means the market is growing from a current TAM of about 500M$ to over 4B$ in 2025. One thing that’s really interesting is the expansion of the photonics market into these new fields in the next few years. While in 2019 90% of the photonics market served data center applications (the other 10% is for long haul), in 2025 optical I/O’s will account for over a third of the photonics market TAM. The other applications making an impact include AI, quantum, lidar (which will move into high-volume manufacturing in 2024) and medical sensors (hitting high-volume in 2023). For its part, Soitec is strengthening its portfolio with 8” and 12” large product coverage, new product sampling engaged, and extended features including newer engineered layers and RF immunity. Advanced Silicon Photonic Solutions Leverage SOI Technology – Eleonore Hardy, Business Development Manager, Silicon Photonics, CEA-Leti [caption id="attachment_28769" align="alignright" width="358"] (Courtesy: Leti SOI Consortium)[/caption] Leti helps companies make photonics products they can bring to volume foundries, explained Hardy. (btw, they’re presenting 21 (!) papers – including 5 invited – at PhotonicsWest 2020. Read about that here). You want to do integrated photonics to bring down costs, reduce power consumption, and scale (for higher volumes and reduced footprint). There are essentially three substrate choices: InP, SiN or SOI. SOI uses CMOS processes, so it’s low-cost and can be used in high-density photonic integrated circuits. What about the laser? Leti has developed III-V on silicon bonding, so you can have the laser on 4” III-V with a 300mm CMOS process (this is what Intel’s doing). They’re moving to 300mm wafers, 3D and advanced packaging. While communications is the big application realm, Leti is also applying photonics in automotive, medical, environment and computing. In the computing realm she gave the example of the European QuantERA SQUARE (Silicon Photonics for Quantum Fibre Networks) project for which Leti is doing the quantum emitter for absolute security and computing, wherein the transceiver/receiver for quantum cryptography integrates a hybrid III-V on silicon pump laser. Other examples of their work include miniature, low-cost and agile lidar for automotive and industrial applications (they’re working on a beam-steering emitter for an optical phased array). GlobalFoundries Silicon Photonics Solutions for Wired Infrastructure – Anthony Yu, VP, GF [caption id="attachment_28770" align="alignleft" width="684"] (Courtesy: GlobalFoundries SOI Consortium)[/caption] GF is giving their photonics business a big push. Optical interconnects are the future, said Yu, so they’re putting a lot of money into it. With data streaming multiplying by 3x/year and a current foundry TAM of $63 billion, the opportunity is huge. Fab 10 in Fishkill runs their 90WG process on 300mm wafers. A new process, 45CLO (also on 300mm) for O and C bands is going into the Malta fab. A big focus here are optical transceivers that convert RF signals to light. They see RF on SOI in a monolithic solution is needed to serve 100Gbs applications. They’re also moving to co-packaging optics: the packing technology will surround it with photonic chiplets. Customers have indicated that pulling the signals off the chips is limited by power, so they’ve worked hard on the fiber attach with MEMS and packaging technology for co-packaging. GF relies on substrate providers for high-quality SOI, and they have a world-class development team, he concluded. Integrated Electro-Photonics Design Platform – A multi-physics, multi-fabrics system design solution – Scott Li, Sr. AE Manager of Custom IC Platform, Cadence [caption id="attachment_28771" align="alignright" width="374"] (Courtesy: Cadence SOI Consortium)[/caption] This talk focused on photonics design challenges and solutions – including the CurvyCore™-based PDK for waveguide creation modal properties calculation that Cadence will soon be announcing. It’s a math-based engine that generates complex curvy shapes to support photonics. The first design challenges, said Li, are at the circuit level: how to do the schematics. The detailing tools, timesteps management and circuit simulation need to give the user the best performance. Cadence is working in close collaboration with a company called Lumericable on this. The next set of design challenges come at layout – especially generating curvilinear layout for any shape so that there are no gaps in connections. This is where CurvyCore comes in, fully automating layout and making it easy to modify. This includes place route, DRC and LVS for curvy shapes. The final challenge is at the system level. There is work to do here, but Cadence is collaborating closely on solutions with key partners. The ultimate goal is for photonics layout and editing to be available with all the features designers get in electronics editing. Silicon Photonics for High Volume and High Performance Optical Interconnects Applications – Thierry Pinguet, Technical Leader Engineering, Cisco /Luxtera [caption id="attachment_28772" align="alignleft" width="396"] (Courtesy: Cisco/Luxtera SOI Consortium)[/caption] Over the last decade there’s been steady growth in optical high speed interconnect solutions, mainly driven by HPC, enterprise, and especially the hyperscale datacenter. The largest volumes are for intra datacenter interconnect (between servers). Now mobile applications for backhaul are also driving volume for high speed optical interconnect for 5G network implementation. ASICs and photonics are getting closer as the industry moves to put them in the same package. But everybody does silicon photonics differently (even within Cisco). Luxtera tries to use the same infrastructure as electronics, but patterning is still a challenge: it’s not 90o “Manhattan” style. The wafers are no problem – they work with leading wafer suppliers like Soitec and SEH. They have explored a “double SOI” substrate (like a mirror), which showed large insertion loss improvements in grating couplers . For the electronics and the laser (MEMS), they do a micropackage, although at one point they also did monolithic integration. For better performance, they’re moving to TSVs. A hot topic is ASIC and photonics co-packaging. You can use optical tiles, but then the light is remote, like a power supply. No matter how you do it, though, the bottom line is that silicon photonics is the only way forward for the data center. PH18: World’s First Open Commercial Silicon Photonics Process and PDK from TowerJazz – Masanobu Kumazaki, Engineer, TowerJazz. This presentation was given in Japanese without translation into English, and is not available on the consortium website. But the slides showed at the event indicated that their PH18 is the world’s first open commercial silicon photonics offering. For optical transceiver components, silicon photonics provides another opportunity for a specialty foundry. It is a high-growth market. The TowerJazz offering is 220nm SOI, and uses standard EDA tools from Synopsys, Cadence and Mentor for design flow.

Today’s mobile devices are smaller, more power-efficient, and have more capability than we could have imagined just a decade ago. Offering ever-increasing levels of user functionality, mobile devices are now ubiquitous, and are rapidly becoming the primary mechanisms through which we interact with the digital world, our physical environment, and one another. An unintended side effect of our dependence on the current crop of mobile devices is that they are driving us to distraction.A major industry dynamic will shake things up for the better. Sensors are getting smaller and more efficient, and they’re offering attractive new functionality, giving us the ability to monitor our air and water quality, assess potential toxins in our food sources, and analyze personal health conditions, to name a few use cases. At the same time, the realization of flexible hybrid electronics (FHE) through new materials and production processes, better integration with other electronic components, more efficient energy production and consumption, and pervasive wireless connectivity are fueling the next generation of devices and experiences. What can we expect from tomorrow’s mobile devices — and how can we manage them, instead of having them manage us?SEMI’s Nishita Rao caught up with Mike Wiemer, Ph.D., VP of Engineering, CTO and co-founder, Mojo Vision, to preview his February 25 keynote, The Art of the Possible, at FLEX|MEMS Sensors Technical Congress (MSTC) 2020, February 24-27 at the DoubleTree by Hilton in San Jose, California.Join us at FLEX|MSTC to meet Mike and other industry influencers advancing innovation in FHE and MEMS sensors. Register now to connect with him at FLEX|MSTC or visit him on LinkedIn.SEMI: Mojo Vision has conducted its own research on human interaction with mobile devices. Why is this important?Wiemer: Our mobile devices have given us access to the information we need and want, improving many aspects of our lives. But our devices have also influenced our relationships and attention to our environment in negative ways. We believe that the next mobile computing platform must improve this situation. Instead of pulling us away from the moment, our devices need to embrace more human-centric engagement while still letting us access information that improves our quality of life. Mojo Vision has worked to understand this problem through our own studies and research so we can better develop an approach to address it. SEMI: How are key technical trends driving size, efficiency and capability advancements in mobile devices?Wiemer: Tiny low-power sensors are enabling ever-smaller feature-rich mobile devices that run longer on a battery charge. Smartwatches are a good example. Just a few years ago, smartwatches were not that much more than small screens on our wrists. Today, we have GPS, EKG/health monitoring, and cellular wireless interfaces all inside the same form factor.As this trend continues, we at Mojo Vision predict that our devices will continue to shrink and become even more personal: They’ll be more continuously worn and matched to our own needs and behaviors. This trend towards invisible personal devices is something we’re trying to accomplish with our solutions at Mojo Vision.SEMI: What is Mojo Vision’s concept of “Invisible Computing?” Wiemer: Our vision of Invisible Computing is based on the idea that our wearable devices should be invisible to those around us, encouraging more human interactions. These wearables should be invisible and unobtrusive to users themselves. Our Mojo Lens, which contains a full display and sensors housed inside a contact lens platform, exemplifies this vision. Using proprietary microelectronics and the world’s densest microdisplay to layer digital images and information seamlessly, Mojo Lens is redefining augmented reality. Our mobile devices today continue to increase the quantity and magnitude of interruptions. We think that shouldn’t happen. As a socially invisible device that delivers contextual, relevant content, the Mojo Lens lets us go about our daily lives, naturally interacting with other people while simultaneously enjoying the benefits of augmented reality. We think Invisible Computing can change our relationship with our devices, as well as seemingly give us superpowers. For more information, download the Mojo Vision report, Device Distraction: Understanding the Problem, Re-Thinking the Solution.SEMI: Can you tell us more about Mojo Lens?Wiemer: At its foundation, Mojo Lens is a nanoLED display, radio and sensor platform, integrated using flex technologies, and placed on your eye to provide important information. Mojo Lens can elevate or suppress this information to decrease reliance on your other devices.Unlike your smartwatch or smartphone, which react to you in a binary manner because they don’t have enough information to make autonomous decisions, Mojo Lens understands the context of your experience. That’s because it’s based on our Invisible Computing platform, which can understand your activity. Mojo Lens recognizes if you’re engaged in a conversation, driving or having a coffee, and it reacts with information accordingly.Mojo Lens could act like a real-time interpreter, for example. When someone speaks to me in a language I don’t understand, I should see “subtitles.” Or if I’m having a conversation with someone, Mojo Lens wouldn’t interrupt me with a notification at that moment. For the 92% of Americans who are interrupted by their devices during conversations every day, this prioritization can boost productivity. More importantly, it can improve the quality of our connections with the people around us.Mojo Vision’s microLED platform offers a world-record pixel pitch of over 14,000ppi and pixel density of over 200Mppi², making it the smallest, densest display for dynamic — or moving — content. SEMI: What would you like FLEX|MSTC attendees to take away from your presentation?Wiemer: It feels like the speed at which people are defining important problems and tackling them is increasing every year. And there are so many important problems to solve: space travel, autonomous driving, electric vehicles, alternative energy, quantum computing, lifespan extension, increased food production, brain-computer interfaces, AR/VR. All these problems seem impossible and “crazy,” until some group of people comes along to put a framework in place that can address them. Interestingly, these frameworks aren’t necessarily new. Rather, they build upon existing technologies and capabilities.MEMS sensors and FHE are good examples. From smart textiles, flexible displays and biological sensors to miniature radars, MEMS sensors and FHE technologies are essential building blocks. Many of the big problems we can imagine today will be solved by stacking today’s MEMs and FHE technologies in imaginative new ways. So what do we do next? I’d like to encourage FLEX|MSTC attendees to first define the problem to solve and then define the technology — rather than starting with the technology solution. Mike Weimer is a serial entrepreneur and proven science and technology leader in complex systems development and integration. Before co-founding Mojo Vision as CTO, Weimer co-founded and served as president at Solar Junction, a high-efficiency solar cell company (acquired) where he and his team set two world records for the highest-efficiency solar cells ever made by humans.After Solar Junction, Wiemer joined New Enterprise Associates (NEA) as an Entrepreneur in Residence where he sourced new investments and helped portfolio companies to develop their business and funding strategies. He is a board director at Stratio Corporation and an advisor at Stanford’s StartX Accelerator. He holds a B.S., M.S., and Ph.D. in Electrical Engineering from Stanford University.For more information, visit Mojo Vision.Interested in engaging with the MEMS sensors supply chain? MEMS Sensors Industry Group is a SEMI technology community that enables professionals in the MEMS and sensors industry to accelerate business results by addressing common challenges and opportunities.Nishita Rao is marketing manager for technology communities at SEMI.

Digitimes Research is predicting a doubling of the global SOI market between 2019 and 2024, "...thanks to significant expansion in applications to mobile devices, communication infrastructure, IoT devices and automotive electronics in the 5G era...". (Read the full article in Digitimes here.) Beyond the continued enormous success of SOI in front-end modules (FEMs) for RF (aka RF-SOI, which as we know is found in every smartphone on the planet), the report cites high growth specialty areas such as imaging chips for smartphones and photonics in data centers. They also predict that FD-SOI will be "massively applied" in 5G, with applications in base stations and data centers. And of course, low voltage and low power consumption will be the big drivers in IoT and wearables. All this is driving Soitec, the major SOI wafer manufacturer, to expand capacity at its facilities in France and Singapore in 2020, says the report. This is happening in strategic cooperation with Shanghai-based Simgui. As noted in ASN about a year ago, Soitec and China’s SOI wafer leader Simgui announced an enhanced partnership and increased production capacity of 200mm SOI wafers in China, securing future growth. At that time the two companies redefined their manufacturing and licensing relationship to better serve the growing global market for RF-SOI in mobile and Power-SOI in automotive and consumer electronics. Separately, Okmetic of Finland, which specializes in SOI wafers for MEMS, sensors and RF, is also doubling its capacity (we covered their 2019 Shanghai presentation here.) (Image courtesy: Soitec)