Global business conditions continued to improve through October although the rate of improvement slowed a bit as pandemic concerns increased (Chart 1).Electronic Equipment Shipments RecoveringThird-quarter world electronic equipment shipment growth showed a big improvement over the second quarter but was still down an estimated 1.4% compared to the same quarter in 2019 (Chart 2).Based on regional electronic equipment shipment data, October 2020 sales were up 3.5% versus October 2019 and up 6.1% sequentially versus September 2020 (Chart 3). As the traditional autumn busy season winds down, the key impediment to a strong recovery is the rising COVID-19 infection rates, especially in the United States and Europe. The world awaits the deployment of a much-needed vaccine.Semiconductor Growth May be EbbingSemiconductor chip shipments continue to increase but their global rate of growth has leveled off to mid-single digits (Chart 4). Wafer foundry sales growth also appears to be peaking (Chart 5), pointing to slower chip growth in coming months.SEMI Equipment ShinesSemiconductor capital equipment shipments continue to outshine both electronic equipment and semiconductors. Third-quarter 2020 SEMI global sales were up a whopping 31% compared to the same quarter in 2019 and up 16% versus the second quarter of 2020 (Chart 6). SEMI equipment shipments are definitely outpacing semiconductors on a 3/12 growth basis (Chart 7).SEMI Outpaces Electronic Supply ChainGlobal electronic supply chain growth is improving but the semiconductor sector is clearly the winner this autumn (Chart 8).Looking Forward, Pandemic Spread is Biggest WorryBusiness conditions definitely look brighter. Even stronger growth is likely if we can get COVID-19 under control.Walt Custer of Custer Consulting Group is an analyst focused on the global electronics [email protected].

COVID-19 has had an impact on the entire healthcare market. During the peak of the first wave, companies from the industrial and automotive sectors worked on repurposing their sensors and production lines to provide pressure sensors for respirators and temperature sensors for thermometers. At the same time, companies making sensors for wearables and other mobile devices used for remote monitoring of patients experienced saw increased demand, caused in part by the surge in telemedicine worldwide. In addition, strong demand for COVID-19 tests pushed diagnostic players to repurpose existing systems to detect the SARS-CoV-2 virus or associated antibodies. Over the past six months in particular, numerous microfluidic technologies have enabled either rapid point-of-care tests or high-throughput solutions for central labs. The demand for these tests is incredibly high (millions of tests per month are needed), which has contributed to boosting the revenue of many companies in the respiratory-testing area.These respiratory-testing companies have placed many testing machines at existing and new customer sites, and have sold an impressive number of test kits resulting in an initial revenue spike in Q1 2020, and even higher spikes in Q2 and Q3. This growth seems on track to last into early 2021 and beyond as the pandemic continues, the flu season arrives, and health organizations test increasingly higher numbers of people than they were several months ago. The winners in respiratory testing include Abbott, bioMérieux, Cepheid, GenMark and Luminex, among many others. In this context, Yole expects the point-of-care segment of the microfluidic product market to enjoy an impressive jump from US$4.5 billion in 2019 to US$6.3 billion in 2020, growing at 15.1% CAGR between 2019 and 2025 to reach $10.4 billion in 2025. This represents 40% of the total microfluidic product market in 2019.In its research on microfluidics, Yole tracks a wide range of COVID-19 tests from different companies. The tests are used to meet different needs. Evolution of COVID-19 TestingNo doubt this increased production of tests will be especially useful for the upcoming flu season. But what will happen next year, if (we hope) reliable COVID-19 vaccines are validated and marketed, and the new coronavirus eventually disappears? Will diagnostic companies’ sales fall to pre-pandemic levels, and all these investments in production lines be wasted? Don’t worry. This is not a one-shot deal: Once the pandemic is over, most testing machines will remain in place, and customers will use them to run other tests the companies offer – usually for other kind of infectious diseases – driving sales of single-use disposables in coming years. The pandemic has shown us that more efficient diagnostic tools are required. Rapid, inexpensive, widely accessible testing for infectious diseases is crucial if we are to face such challenging situations. The real struggle for diagnostic companies, especially in the field of microfluidics where recent platforms have a small assay menu, is placing instruments (i.e., the test machines that run the disposable cartridges and read the results) at customers’ locations, from hospital settings and urgent care to field testing sites, and this has now been achieved. This will drive consumables sales in the future, even beyond the pandemic, and take the microfluidic-based point-of-care testing market to the next level. Rapid point-of-care testing is driving growth in microfluidics and will continue to do so for years to come. In the meantime, new significant opportunities are opening for point-of-care diagnostic test-makers, and rapid, miniaturized microfluidic technologies may be the winners here. Rapid passenger screening in airports, and rapid employee or visitor screening at the workplace will become essential for preventing the virus’ spread. In total, this could represent billions of rapid tests needed per year. COVID-19 has slowed down business growth in many areas but has really helped microfluidic-based point-of-care diagnostics take it to the next level, and this is only the beginning.For more information on Yole’s microfluidics activities, please view Yole’s reports, Point of Need 2020 – Including PCR-Based Testing or Status of Microfluidics Industry 2020 or visit i-Micronews.comYole Développement is a member of SEMI and the MEMS Sensors Industry Group (MSIG), a SEMI technology community that connects the MEMS and sensors supply network in established and emerging markets enabling members to grow and prosper. Visit us today. Sébastien Clerc is a technology and market analyst in Microfluidics, Sensing Actuating at Yole Développement (Yole). As part of the Photonics Sensing team, Clerc has authored a collection of market and technology reports dedicated to microfluidics and other micro-devices for major market segments: medical (including diagnostics, pharmaceutical, biotechnology, drug delivery, medical devices) and industrial (including environment, agro-food). At the same time, he is involved in custom projects such as strategic marketing, technology scouting, and technology evaluation to help academic and industrial players in their innovation processes. Thanks to his technology and market expertise, Clerc has spoken in more than 20 industry conferences worldwide over the last four years. Clerc holds a master’s degree in Biomedical Technologies and a master’s degree in Innovation and Technology Management, both from Grenoble Institute of Technology (Grenoble INP - Grenoble, France).

PNI Sensor, a member of the SEMI-MSIG Positioning, Navigation and Timing (PNT) Technical Advisory Council, is developing advanced tracking systems that promise to increase industrial worker safety.The availability of low-cost GPS jamming and spoofing technologies renders GPS-only solutions for location and navigation an increasingly dangerous and ineffective choice for the dismounted soldier in a battlefield environment. This threat to armed forces has spurred development of new self-contained location and navigation technologies for defense applications — an innovation that offers significant advantages for commercial applications.Though not as complex and mission-critical as in defense, self-contained location technology is also essential in commercially available industrial applications. That’s particularly true for workers in industrial sectors such as utilities, mining, and construction, and in environments with lone or remote workers, such as first responders. While jamming and spoofing are not a threat in the industrial sector, determining the precise location of workers in GPS-denied environments is fundamental to ensuring their safety. This makes it a priority to adapt any self-contained, non-infrastructure-based location technology — which was first developed for the modern dismounted soldier — to industrial applications.Bodies in MotionInertial solutions are very difficult to implement properly, even without the challenges uniquely created by human motion dynamics. On a construction site, for example, workers tend to cover a wide range of disciplines: supervisors, electricians, iron workers and equipment operators, among others. While performing their jobs, construction workers change locations, both indoors and outdoors, and perform dynamic motion such as crawling, ducking and climbing. These are all motions that are very difficult to model using traditional adaptive filtering techniques, which are typically applied in vehicular inertial navigation platforms, such as aircraft, ships and tanks. Even if existing inertial navigation systems could be made size, weight, power and cost (SWaP-C)-compatible to be body-worn, their performance accuracy would still need to satisfy the application’s requirements. To properly determine a worker’s precise location to ensure safety on job sites and in remote locations, we must tackle the combined challenges of SWaP-c and human dynamic motion. That’s the most effective approach for creating a complementary positioning technology that augments GPS or other infrastructure-based location systems.To address these challenges, we need to build a high-performance inertial measurement solution using commercially available MEMS inertial sensors. The issues of bias drift error and low sensitivity have traditionally made such sensors practically useless for any meaningful inertial tracking. Fortunately, this is no longer the case. We now have sensors that already conform to the necessary SWaP-C requirements for the application, and have the additional advantage of high dynamic range of measurements without saturation errors, which helps to reduce high-force and rapid movement-induced errors, promoting greater accuracy.Thus, a path forward is emerging. The current generation of high-performance MEMS gyros can now inertially track workers’ locations to step-level resolution very well for up to 30 minutes — without significant location errors due to bias or scale errors. That’s an order of magnitude better than previous generations. With the new MEMS gyros, errors typically remain less than 2% of distance travelled over that time period. Strategically applying algorithm improvements with higher levels of magnetic corrections has the potential to bring that accuracy down even lower, to less than 0.5% of distance traveled for durations of one hour or more. What’s more, the improved gyro and accelerometer bias, gain, and signal-to-noise (SNR) performance allows for better magnetic anomaly rejection. This enables finer and more sustained gyro bias corrections in the fused solution, which creates a system greater than the sum of its parts. We believe that these newer systems will promote greater worker safety at a truly affordable price.PNI Sensor, a member of the SEMI-MSIG PNT Technical Advisory Council (TAC), is developing a tracking system that combines the best elements of the newest-generation MEMS devices with an electronic compass that uses advanced magnetic anomaly detection and rejection algorithms. Based on PNI’s latest attitude and heading reference system (AHRS), the novel PNT system employs a unique Kalman algorithm that intelligently fuses its reference magnetic sensors with gyros and accelerometers. In conjunction with this work, PNI Sensor has developed advanced pedometry functionality for use in its tracking system for very high dead-reckoning tracking performance used in defense industry applications. PNI is initially designing that system to track dismounted soldiers and special forces operating in GPS-denied or contested environments.For more information about PNI Sensor’s advanced location and navigation technology, please visit PNI Sensor. To learn more about the SEMI-MSIG PNT TAC, please contact Carmelo Sansone, director, MEMS Sensors Industry Group.George Hsu is a founder and CTO of PNI Sensor. He has focused his career on the sensor industry, having invented several magnetic sensor breakthroughs, including the magneto-inductive technology, the core of today’s electronic compassing in the automotive, consumer, scientific and military markets. Hsu is a graduate of Stanford University School of Engineering, holds several patents, and is a much-published author of technical articles on sensor theory, design and applications. He is an active member of the MEMS Sensors Industry Group PNT TAC.About the SEMI-MSIG Positioning, Navigation and Timing ProjectMEMS Sensors Industry Group (MSIG) created a member-based PNT TAC to identify and pursue PNT system innovations for GPS-denied environments. To that end, MSIG solicited proposals from its membership for the SEMI-MSIG PNT Project, a U.S. Army Research Laboratory-funded R D project. PNT committee members that have secured funding are pursuing R D platforms that improve accuracy and performance. Platforms may include software, hardware, and advanced packaging requirements of optical and MEMS-based positioning and timing systems.

Not long after STMicroelectronics opened its first semiconductor plant in Singapore more than 50 years ago, a facility chiefly focused on chip assembly and packaging, the company realized that it had constructed the site in an area with a blossoming chip ecosystem with a bright future. Before long, the company became the first to start a wafer fab facility in the so-called Little Red Dot. Today, our STMicroelectronics Singapore campus sports several buildings that dwarf the original site in the sprawling Ang Mo Kio Industrial Park 2. The facilities feature advanced 200mm manufacturing lines but still produce huge volumes of chips with more than 1,000 pieces of 150mm manufacturing equipment.Much of the wafer equipment dates back to the past century so is no longer supported by the manufacturers, if they’re still even in existence. Yet decades later the chipmaking gear continues to operate with a surprising reliability that far surpasses the longevity called for in its manufacturing specifications thanks to replacement parts and frequent upgrades with more sophisticated handling robots and chucks. Now, as smart manufacturing begins to establish a foothold in the semiconductor industry, Industry 4.0 technology is breathing new life into these aging workhorses.Despite its age, all of the equipment adheres to industry manufacturing standards. The gear is remotely controlled using the SECS/GEM interface protocol that was either originally integrated with the equipment controller or custom-made. We’ve also maximized its usage through advanced recipe management, advanced alarm and event handling, and secured lot identification.Crucially, we decided to systematically deploy a real-time fault detection and classification (FDC) solution using a third-party product based on what today is known as an edge computing architecture. Every piece of critical processing equipment is progressively paired with its dedicated FDC instance running on a virtual machine in the wafer fab data center, and the FDC solution monitors vital equipment parameters at high frequency – depending on the SECS/GEM capabilities of the equipment – and analyzes incoming manufacturing data in real time using classic SPC (statistical process control) algorithms and even AI-class protocols.Our use of the FDC edge solution as a sensor signal aggregator has given our equipment a second life. The solution processes real-time signals from sensors connected through a typical TCP-IP. Sensors have been the old equipment’s saving grace with their ability to de-multiply equipment capabilities and overcome fundamental shortcomings and design weaknesses. The STMicroelectronics Singapore plant first used off-the-shelf sensor nodes with built-in power amplifier and analog input nodes. While very practical and easy to implement, deploying the nodes can be costly. After developing more expertise in sensor integration using FDC, our wafer fab equipment experts decided to design an in-house solution based on the famed STM32 microcontroller. Leveraging Arduino – an open-source electronics platform with easy-to-use hardware and software – the equipment teams can now design and program a variety of in-house sensors for measurements including temperature, humidity, waterflow and pressure. The sensors are integrated with process equipment using the FDC solution. Integrating the sensors with the FDC engine on the edge computer extends the capabilities of old equipment without jeopardizing the integrity of the machines themselves. While the integration can be quick, it must be robust to ensure the reliability of the new measurements. Similarly, ever-increasing connectivity requirements present clear cybersecurity risks that must be managed upfront and each solution must be hardened to minimize security vulnerabilities. Even so, the challenges and risks pale in comparison to the benefits! Jean-Marc PHILIPPE is DIT Director at STMicroelectronics Pte Ltd. He oversees the deployment and support of Digital Solutions to enable STMicroelectronics front-end operations in Singapore and manages manufacturing productivity and automation programs at site level.

As the world combats climate change, the chip industry continues to build momentum in becoming a better steward of the environment. In July, Taiwan chip giant TSMC became the world’s first semiconductor company to join RE100, the global initiative to move away from a widespread reliance on fossil fuels and toward 100% renewable electricity. Applied Materials soon followed with a commitment to expand its renewable energy capacity. For the past four years, ASE Group, the largest outsourced semiconductor assembly and test (OSAT) provider, was named an industry leader in the Dow Jones Sustainability Indices (DJSI), making clear its commitment to protecting the environment. For its part, TEL was selected to be part of the FTSE4Good, a series of ethical investment stock market indices, and FTSE Blossom Japan, an index that gauges the performance of Japanese companies demonstrating strong Environmental, Social and Governance (ESG) practices.SEMI bolsters commitment to green energySEMI has also strengthened its commitment to promoting renewable energy in the semiconductor industry by adding the Green Power Pavilion at this year’s SEMICON Taiwan and continues to support the green energy movement as a co-organizer of Energy Taiwan. The largest renewable energy event in Taiwan, Energy Taiwan features international exhibitions, forums, policy initiatives and business matching events. This year the event attracted more than 12,000 visitors from 50 countries to highlight renewable energy breakthroughs and new products. The SEMI events complement RE100, which works across a wide range of industries that include financial services and retail. The initiative connects more than 260 members that count among them the world’s most influential businesses such as Apple, Google and Facebook and their suppliers through educational events.In many respects, TSMC is becoming a beacon of green energy in the chip industry. In July, the company committed to 20-year agreement to buy offshore wind power gear made by energy firm Ørsted in Taiwan, the global leader in the wind power industry. According to the purchase agreement, TSMC will offtake full production from 920-megawatt wind farms off the coast of Changhua County in western Taiwan expected to start operations in 2025 or 2026. The agreement will by far mark the world’s largest corporate green energy order in the semiconductor manufacturing and renewable energy industries and demonstrates TSMC’s long-term commitment to environmental sustainability.In addition to sourcing renewable energy, TSMC has been working closely with its downstream and upstream suppliers to help drive supply chain improvements geared toward a greener industry by offering on-site coaching, energy audits and educational resources. But the company's focus on energy efficiency is nothing new. For years, its Supply Chain Management forum has promoted industry sustainability and corporate responsibility. Moreover, TSMC worked with SEMI at this year’s SEMICON Taiwan to generate greater awareness of the importance of green energy to the industry and encourage SEMI members to become more involved in the movement.Supply chains expand eco-friendly practicesThe drive toward greener semiconductor manufacturing is also expanding to encompass entire supply chains. One notable initiative is Green Supply Chain Management (GrSCM), an effort to integrate environmental thinking into every level of the supply chain, from product concept to distribution. GrSCM involves the retooling of product design, materials sourcing, manufacturing and processes to reduce the ecological footprint of factories. So far, the results are encouraging. More companies are factoring environmental sustainability into their purchasing decisions to urge suppliers to better manage their power usage and join the green energy movement – an important step in curbing the unavoidable consequences of climate change. Terry Tsao is Global Chief Marketing Officer at SEMI and President of SEMI Taiwan.

Semiconductor process development is no easy task, with each generation of devices more difficult and expensive to create. Traditional cycles of build-and-test development are becoming obsolete, since they are too expensive and time-consuming for the most advanced processes.The High Cost of Process DevelopmentMost chip designers developing new products rely on existing manufacturing processes, but someone had to create those processes to make the designs possible. The goal of process development is to create new semiconductor manufacturing processes that provide high yield while achieving the required device performance. In contrast to new chip design, however, it requires an entirely different set of engineers and skills.The traditional approach to process development involves building multiple test wafers to determine the ideal process for a given device. After one set of wafers is fabricated and analyzed, insights from the previous round help to refine process steps for another round of fabrication. Due to smaller feature sizes, each new process generation is more sensitive to variation. This adds even more complexity because smaller feature sizes and parasitic effects require more measurements and testing as well as additional fabrication. The cycle is repeated many times before the entire process flow can be finalized, making it time- and cost-intensive, especially for the most advanced technology nodes.Testing Virtual Wafers Instead of Real WafersToday, there is an alternative to this slow, expensive way of doing things. Virtual fabrication lets computers simulate all of the processing that occurs when real wafers are built. These virtual models allow semiconductor process engineers to test manufacturing equipment settings with far greater variation than is possible in a physical fab. Designers can simulate the entire process flow, running the equivalent of thousands of wafers in days instead of months. Designers can quickly see graphical animations to visualize process steps, modify process recipes and device geometries, and measure how these changes affect electrical behavior.Improving Yield Using Statistics in Virtual Wafer FabricationBecause of the high volume of data generated, designers are turning to statistical analysis to provide greater confidence in their choice of process settings. Defects and random variations can be modeled in a virtual fab in a way that’s not possible in a real fab, letting developers test the sensitivity of the device structures against the unpredictable aspects of processing.There’s more than one approach to optimizing the process settings used in a new memory or logic fabrication sequence. The simplest one involves taking a single variable and exploring its effects. Critical dimensions (CDs), for example, establish those feature sizes of a device that ensure desired electrical performance. A particular dimension can be swept from low to high values – developers can then measure the effects of that range on device behaviors such as threshold voltage. This allows developers to ensure that the electrical behavior of their device design addresses the range of expected feature sizes and variability. The interactions with intersecting process steps can also be tested for further validation, since these interactions can lead to unanticipated device performance.But, in reality, this approach isn’t sufficient for studying the complex web of interactions between process steps and the resulting structures.A second approach leverages Monte Carlo analysis, randomly varying a wide range of process and device parameters and calculating the resulting device geometry and performance. This data can be used to automatically identify the process and design settings needed to achieve yield and performance goals. It’s an area where simulation shines, providing a useful way to test the interactions between many different processes.Statistical experiments using virtual fabrication illustrate step-by-step methodology to optimize process and design settingsVirtual Fabrication PlatformSEMulator3D is a virtual fabrication platform created by Coventor, a Lam Research company. It allows the definition of all process steps, the modeling of devices, the collection of metrics, electrical and device analysis, the statistical analysis of results, and the visualization of process steps through graphical animation. Today, semiconductor companies use it for both optimizing and scaling leading process nodes and for developing advanced new technologies like GAA (Gate-All-Around) transistors.The ability to do this work virtually is the future of semiconductor process development. Virtual fabrication accelerates new process time-to-market by months, opening up market opportunities worth hundreds of millions of dollars for semiconductor companies.Visualization of process steps of a Gate-All-Around transistor shows 3D construction in SEMulator3D. To learn more about virtual fabrication and how it’s changing the future of semiconductor technology development, download our whitepaper Speeding Up Process Optimization with Virtual Fabrication.Lam Research is a longtime member of MEMS Sensors Industry Group®, (MSIG), a SEMI technology community that connects the MEMS and sensors supply network in established and emerging markets, enabling members to grow and prosper. Visit us today.David M. Fried, Ph.D., is vice president of Computational Products at Lam Research, where he is responsible for the company’s strategic direction and implementation of virtual process solutions, including the Coventor SEMulator3D virtual fabrication 3D process modeling solution. Fried leads the execution of technology strategy for technology platforms, partnerships, and external relationships. His expertise touches upon such areas as Silicon-on-Insulator (SOI), FinFETs, memory scaling, strained silicon, and process variability.Fried is a well-respected technologist in the semiconductor industry, with 60 patents to his credit and a notable 14-year career with IBM, where he was involved in successive process generations from 65-nanometer and lower. His most recent position was 22nm chief technologist for IBM’s Systems and Technology Group. He holds bachelor’s, master’s and doctoral degrees in Electrical Engineering from Cornell University.Republished with permission from Lam Research.

SEMI is pleased to welcome Singapore-based UTAC Holdings Ltd., formed nearly 50 years ago, as a new member. UTAC is a leading independent provider of assembly and test services for a broad range of semiconductor chips, offering a full range of semiconductor assembly and test services across analog, mixed-signal and logic, and memory. Its customers are primarily fabless companies, integrated device manufacturers and wafer foundries. The company has production facilities in Singapore, Thailand, China, Indonesia and Malaysia as well as sales offices in five regions: the United States, Japan, China, Taiwan, the rest of Asia and Europe.I recently spoke with Dr. Nathapong Suthiwongsunthorn, Vice President and General Manager of UTAC Thailand, about UTAC’s smart manufacturing advances, the company’s role in the semiconductor industry’s transformation, and the industry outlook for Thailand over the next year.Ng: How does UTAC Thailand complement your other facilities?Dr. Nathapong: As one of the world’s largest producers of quad-flat-no-leads (QFN), UTAC Thailand has significant capability in assembly and test of advanced leadframe products including power products such as Cu Clip packages as well as MEMS products. We also serve top global IDMs and have the largest share of assembly and test for the automotive market among all UTAC operations. UTAC’s other facilities have expertise in wafer-level packages and system-in-a-package and serves the communication and consumer market not only for IDMs but also for the fabless and foundry companies. The Thailand factory nicely complements the other UTAC facilities both from the standpoint of operational and marketing diversity. Ng: UTAC Holdings Ltd. announced in August this year that it has completed its sale to Wise Road Capital, a global private equity firm. Will this in any way change the operation and business strategy of UTAC Thailand?Dr. Nathapong: I don’t believe it will change the way we operate. However, the acquisition is very positive for us from a financial perspective. With the benefit of significantly reduced debt and interest expenses, we will be able to expand our business to grow with and hopefully beyond the semiconductor market. Ng: To what extent has UTAC adopted smart manufacturing?Dr. Nathapong: UTAC Thailand is leading the way in terms of automation, smart manufacturing and Industry 4.0 with our in-house automation team and unique expertise. For example, we have built our own inspection equipment that is much faster and cheaper than what is commercially available. We also working on many programs such as mobile robot, AGV, auto inspection and office automation to help drive greater production efficiency. We are replicating our manufacturing advances and fanning them out to other UTAC facilities.UTAC Thailand Ng: What are some of the challenges you face in pushing for the industrial transformation in Thailand?Dr. Nathapong: I think the key challenge is to find skilled engineers who can perform hardware- and software-related tasks critical to the industrial transformation. But frankly, we have done a good job in managing this challenge by hiring very smart people, providing them with the required in-house training, and using outside training for new recruits as necessary. We have developed partnerships with capable vendors in this regard as well.Ng: What are the key differentiating elements (e.g. talent, tax, technology, trade, EHS) in Thailand that have been instrumental in supporting the E E ecosystem?Dr. Nathapong: There are two key differentiating elements for us. Firstly, UTAC has been around for over 47 years and is very well-established in Thailand with a positive reputation as an employer. This makes hiring talented people relatively easy. Secondly, and perhaps more importantly, the nature of the Thai people and also the benefits the company provides make it relatively painless to retain key employees. I also believe that we have a significant number of engineers available in Thailand. Finally, labour costs in Thailand are still very reasonable and stable. So we are able to acquire talent at a very competitive rate compared to other countries. Ng: What is the industry outlook for E E industry in Thailand over the next year?Dr. Nathapong: Surprisingly, the current sad predicament of COVID-19 has shown no negative impact for the global semiconductor industry – people seem to be buying more electronics with the lockdown. Our outlook for the Thailand’s E E industry is similarly very positive. Most semiconductor companies including UTAC see significant growth this year and I hope it will continue.Ng: With the recent semiconductor geopolitical and trade tensions, are more customers moving their business to Thailand?Dr. Nathapong: I believe so. We do see some of our key customers move manufacturing out of China and into Thailand. The relocations help them offset or avoid any potential fallout from current geopolitical tensions.Ng: In what areas do you think SEMI Southeast Asia can play a role to help our members companies in Thailand like UTAC?Dr. Nathapong: The semiconductor industry has been in Thailand for a long time. In fact, UTAC Thailand is 47 years old this year! However, I feel that Thailand never really worked with a strong establishment organization like SEMI that can connect various companies together to help drive innovation. I think SEMI Southeast Asia can truly help Thailand to move up to the next level of providing semiconductor solutions globally. We welcome SEMI Southeast Asia’s help in this regard.About Dr. Nathapong SuthiwongsunthornDr. Nathapong Suthiwongsunthorn joined UTAC in 2009 and is currently General Manager of UTAC Thailand, UTAC’s largest operation site. Before taking over the management of Thailand operations, he was Vice President of Research and Development, running UTAC’s global R D group. Dr. Nathapong has more than 20 years of experience in the semiconductor industry. He holds more than 40 international patents and publications in wafer-level and advanced packaging.Prior to joining UTAC, Dr. Nathapong held several key leadership positions in research and development at Schott, STATS ChipPAC and Infineon. Dr. Nathapong has a Ph.D. in Electronics Engineering from Oxford Brookes University, England.Bee Bee Ng is president of SEMI Southeast Asia.

Incize has been active in characterization for RF-SOI since its creation in 2014, what are your insights on the RF-SOI industry and 5G technology today?Today, the number of foundries developing switches on RF-SOI is increasing, and this trend will continue for the next few years. We saw this opportunity a while back and invested in it. There is no current viable competition for RF-SOI – nothing will replace it in the short term. There are other technologies, but to replace RF-SOI, this is something only imaginable on the long term. It is a stable market with high demand. Other components of the Front-End-Module (FEM) are also moving to engineered substrates (SOI), and Incize enables its customers to develop these technologies. For the foundries wishing to introduce new engineered substrate (SOI), we help understand the physics behind the technology so that they can migrate to SOI. We help develop test structures and evaluate the technology. From conception to product launch, Incize is the partner of technology enablement. Concerning the 5G market, we see other engineered substrates that will surely appear on the market in the long term, this is why we also highly invest in R D to uncover the next generation engineered substrates and be ready to help our clients with this integration. What is Incize’s added value for customers? Starting as a spin-off from ‘Université Catholique de Louvain’, and established in 2014, Incize’s debut focused on characterization of SOI technology. Today, Incize has enlarged its service portfolio and can be characterized as a technology enabler and partner for engineered substrates and RF technologies. We believe RF is an art and we help you to see the whole picture. Incize customers are wafer suppliers, foundries and fabless companies. The services we offer are testing and modeling of materials and devices used for Radio Frequency (RF) applications. Depending on the use of the substrates, we realize tailored testing and modeling to improve the technology and tune processes. Although big players have teams devoted to this, thanks to our expertise built up over the years our added value is to undertake advanced tests and modeling that customers can not do; with RF SOI being one of our specialties. Incize has seen a steady year-on-year growth and today is built up of a team of 10 full time employees dedicated to finding the solutions to our customer’s problems. 3. Could you please tell us more about Incize's R D capability and state-of-the-art technologies in getting ready for 5G? Incize is also very active in research and development in order to continuously stay ahead of the game and provide innovative and state-of-the-art solutions to our clients. 5G is at the verge of tomorrow, although still not well defined (especially for the mmWave band), requirements are getting more challenging. Once the technology is well understood it can be implemented. Foundries and fabless need our help to do it fast and do it well. It is by working together that we will create great value. Currently we have 7 ongoing research projects. Our research projects address new materials as well as new challenges in design and characterization for 5G communications systems/technologies and beyond. New materials required to fulfill the stringent requirements imposed by the 5G standards are being investigated. Phase changing materials, piezoelectric materials, porous silicon and III-V materials will be incorporated in the new generations of front-end-modules which will be part of the mainstream RF electronic industry on the long run. Our projects are tailored to investigate the performance of these materials as part of the next generation of substrates and to develop appropriate characterization techniques to benchmark state-of-the-art 5G devices. Porous Silicon has been largely studied at Incize and we now offer our customers a complete solution from idea to prototype. For our clients we realize feasibility studies, R D, characterization, modeling and prototyping. We carry out various customizable process in a R D technological platform dedicated to microfabrication. Whether you wish to integrate porous silicon before or after the fabrication of devices, Incize is your dedicated partner. We have also been actively researching piezoelectric materials such as quartz, LiNbO3, LiTaO3, ZnO and more in order to fully understand their properties. We have been actively studying new characterization techniques for this fast-growing market. Whether you want to characterize or simulate piezoelectric materials Incize can help you in this trajectory. One of our research projects is specifically centered on RF-MEMS (Radio Frequency-Micro ElectroMechanical Systems), it aims to increase the skills of Incize in the fields of experimental characterization of these devices. Given the heterogeneous nature of MEMS, the test system must be as complete as possible in order to be able to monitor and collect amaximum of data on the various parameters of the component. RF-MEMS technology can be portrayed as an enabling solution to realise the high-performance and highly-reconfigurable passive components that future 5G communication standards will demand for. Incize will develop not only a RF-MEMS component test service, but also commercial test solutions for manufacturers of MEMS-RF components in order to speed up qualification on production lines. Incize is ready to embark on the road ahead to 5G technologies and beyond.

Call it a wild guess, but I suspect I am not the only follower of the automotive industry who is tired of reading articles that lament the impact of Covid-19 and speculate, to varying degrees of accuracy, what kind of recovery is in store for major automotive markets around the world.I’m much more interested in what solutions and creative approaches people, companies, and countries have come up with to make cars smarter and safer despite the pandemic or even because of it.A friend of mine who works at a major European vehicle OEM told me that “innovation cannot, must not stop – despite current difficulties.” This sentiment echoes through the automotive supply chain, particularly in the resilience of the semiconductor industry during these challenging times.The recent publication of the AspenCore Guide to Sensors in Automotive – Making Cars See and Think Ahead is a refreshingly positive and inspiring collection of articles, interviews, technology deep dives and business news, all carefully curated and edited by AspenCore Global Editor-in-Chief Junko Yoshida.One article I particularly enjoyed was her “6 Trends on ‘Perception’ for ADAS/AV.” The insights she was able to gather from experts attending the AutoSens show in Brussels are fascinating, even if consensus on what, exactly, will be the winning “robust perception” solution appears to be far off. This is only fitting with so many companies elbowing for that prime spot!Another feature article that stood out was Nitin Dahad’s “Level 5 AVs Unlikely Before 2035” article. It wasn’t so much the longer ramp to full autonomy that caught my eye but the daunting challenge the automotive industry and AVs have to tackle: “…all possible unusual driving situations under all driving conditions and in all environments.” This is truly a mind-boggling undertaking. The author argues that the road to Level 5 “is likely to be paved gradually, as more advanced driver-assistance features come to market.” Sounds reasonable.Both these articles point to the need for collaboration across the automotive electronics supply chain in order to not only sustain the pace of innovation, but accelerate it, as we face our current challenges. This made me think about the SEMI Smart Mobility initiative and how the great minds supporting it might be able to help. The initiative is designed to bring together automotive OEMs, Tier 1s, device makers, design houses, equipment and materials companies as well as R D institutes to address shared challenges and opportunities.SEMI used to stand for Semiconductor Equipment and Materials International, but over the past several years – and driven by the advent of IoT, AI, and everything “smart” – we now represent the entire electronics manufacturing and design ecosystem, with more than 2,400 member companies on our global roster. We created the Smart Mobility initiative in late 2017 with the initial goal of connecting a substantial number of members to new business opportunities involving rapidly rising silicon content in automotive. IHS Markit projects automotive semiconductor revenue to continue to grow at a 6% CAGR to 2026.Over the past 2 ½ years, the initiative has quickly evolved into a global platform connecting the semiconductor, sensor and automotive electronics ecosystem under one roof – the Global Automotive Advisory Council or GAAC. While “silicon content” is still the operative word for many of our core members, the Council’s mission is to address opportunities and challenges that impact more than one segment of the value chain. For example, the challenge of getting to zero defects involves just about every stakeholder – from contamination control in wafer carriers to ensuring device reliability and robustness to packaging and, ultimately, system integration in the car.SEMI also encompasses a number of Technology Communities that provide deep technical expertise in support of the GAAC’s mission. Member companies in our MEMS Sensors Industry Group (MSIG) are directly engaged in and contributing to the GAAC work. GAAC Europe Chapter - Participating Companies“Sensorizing” – making things smarter through the application of sensors – has created solutions for the automotive and mobility space that bring innovation, safety, security and comfort to driver and passenger and that benefit the environment around the car.This makes the AspenCore Guide to Sensors in Automotive a great resource for our members and SEMI staff as we collaborate to accelerate the drive toward Level 5 autonomy.If you are interested in learning more about SEMI’s Smart Mobility and the GAAC, please contact Bettina Weiss, Chief of Staff and Global Smart Mobility Lead at [email protected] with permission from EE Times.