What do you do when much of the U.S. is under lockdown and university students want insights into career opportunities in the microelectronics industry including how to secure jobs?Go virtual.More than 100 students from 30 universities hopped online recently to attend Find Your Future in Microelectronics, the SEMI Foundation’s first webinar. The students learned about the industry’s impact on the future of tech and available career paths and discovered how to take advantage of the Foundation’s university programs. They also submitted their resumes as part of joining SEMI’s student fellow network in hopes of engaging with employers and exploring available job opportunities.And if the students’ questions were a telling sign of their engagement, the event showed that they were fully tuned in. Tim Brosnihan, executive director of the MEMS Sensors Industry Group (MSIG), Erika Hansen, an Applied Materials process engineer, and Cristina Sandoval, the event coordinator and moderator, fielded a whopping 65 questions, many of them about job opportunities, career paths and suggested courses of study. A sample of the questions asked: Q: Is the industry still hiring during these uncertain times?A: Yes! The microelectronics industry is growing and will continue to grow over the next 10 years. There are many job opportunities to be had in the industry and many of our member companies are hiring.Q: What kind of degrees does the microelectronics industry look for?A: Generally, the industry primarily hires graduates with STEM degrees. Chemical, electrical, nano, mechanical, and materials engineering are some of the top majors the industry hires from along with chemistry, physics, and mathematic degrees. That being said, the industry needs talent from all majors. That includes business, finance, human resources and marketing.Q: How can I get connected to the opportunities provided by SEMI?A: You can sign up to connect to our employers and opportunities at www.semi.org/join-edu. Once you submit your information, you will be kept up to date on the latest events and opportunities offered by SEMI and our member companies.Q: Any advice on what to do if your offer has been rescinded?A: Don’t limit yourself when it comes to opportunities. If your offer has been rescinded, don’t give up! Share your situation with your LinkedIn network, an invaluable resource full of contacts that can help you learn about job opportunities. You never know what you will love once you enter the workforce, so keep yourself open and don’t limit the positions or fields that you interview for. Rescinding an offer is always a very difficult decision for an organization, so make sure that you exit the relationship positively. You never know who you will cross paths in the future.Erika delved into the day in the life of an engineer and advised students on ways to find jobs in our industry. Students interacted with Erika, eager to learn how she balanced customer needs with working in the lab. She said she enjoys that duality because it continues to challenge her, allowing her to grow her abilities as a professional.When it comes to breaking into the industry, working in college or through internships and direct-hire opportunities after graduating are good ways to do so. And the students can get their feet in the door with degrees at various levels and across a wide range of disciplines. There is no set formula for success. Learners, she said, will find a place in the industry.With workforce development a key industry initiative, the SEMI Foundation will be rolling out more virtual programs and events to help keep university students and the microelectronics industry connected. Look for details on a virtual job fair we’re planning.We look forward to seeing you online!Shari Liss is executive director of the SEMI Foundation. Shari can be reached at [email protected].

Cameron Burks, head of Global Security, Enterprise Business Resiliency and Health, Environment Safety with Adobe Systems, and a member of the White House Task Force for COVID-19 response, briefed members of SEMI’s IT Leadership (ITL) and Environment, Health Safety (EHS) groups on April 20, 2020, on enterprise resiliency principals specific to the current COVID-19 crisis. Burks has spent over 20 years in the global security, crisis management and business continuity fields for public and private global companies. In the meeting, he noted, “This is all new. No one has had to respond to a crisis of this magnitude and impact. Ever.” On top of all of the learning and responding that teams are doing in real-time, it is helpful to have a strong business continuity plan (BCP). The following is a recap of insights that Burks shared on best practices for business continuity with examples from Adobe’s BCP.The Long-Term Picture: How to Plan for Business ContinuityBurks emphasized that the first step in any crisis is identifying risks and ensuring the safety of all human life. Once human safety is assured, the next part of the plan must form a strong foundation for escalation, operation evaluation and response. A solid foundation also creates the business factors to restart operations efficiently. The foundation of the Adobe pandemic plan was laid during the summer of 2019 while the global team was updating their infectious disease plan and rehearsing with headquarters and regional offices. That plan includes six main sections:1. Crisis Management Plans – escalation, roles and responsibilities, team operations2. Crisis Communication Plans – internal and external stakeholder communications3. Incident Management Plans – site or regional management response4. Emergency Response Plans – immediate local response to events5. Business Recovery Plans – business and facility recovery6. Disaster Recovery Plans – IT and technology recoveryThis format has worked and scaled well over the past few months, and the company is now in the stage of evaluating how to help offices recover and repopulate. Response Team Structure – Global and LocalAlthough it is critical to have plans and leadership coming from headquarters when it comes to a crisis, LOCAL teams are on the front lines since most crises start and evolve quickly. In the planning process, the local teams need to know and be trained on plans for a wide range of incidents and events including: People- and product-related Security – both external and internal Operational (e.g. cyberattacks) Natural disasters Health-related, such as this pandemic The severity of the event will determine the corporate impact and activation of appropriate plans. Low-impact events include those where stability is quickly reached and response plans have effectively contained the incident. High-level events will cause severe disruption for employees and customers and require an efficient and coordinated response. Regardless of the severity level of the event, all response teams need to be prepared to quickly activate and then to thoroughly coordinate on crisis management and communications. It is critical to have established actions to implement based on the severity level of an event. Table 1 provides an example of Key Trigger Levels for implementing specific actions depending on the severity of an event. Table 1 – Key Trigger Levels X = phase to consider first implementing controls The team needs to understand what the staff requires to maintain business continuity. Burks recommended aligning with ISO 22301, the Business Continuity standard. The standard will lead a company to understand what redundancies need to be in place to keep essential operations running. In Adobe’s case, this includes keeping data centers running and providing essential gear to the 90+ members of the response and global security teams. Adobe tests the plans every month and addresses the bugs – every time.Repopulating Business Facilities During COVID-19 While COVID-19 infection and death rates are currently flattening in many locations, there remain a significant number of new infections, limiting the ability to repopulate business facilities without threatening the health of the workforce and their families. Adobe is using multiple indicators to calculate when the virus is contained, the threat is reduced, and employees can return to workplaces. For now, Burks recommended maintaining social distancing as much as possible while keeping operations running. He believes summer may see some abatement due to weather. However, most experts expect to stay hyper-aware and responsive well into 2021.Although Adobe tries to provide actual dates for return to their employees – and did early on with best estimates – they have had to change to a “until further notice” statement. Repopulating is going to be much more complicated than the original decisions to work from home. The Adobe operations team is providing much larger conference rooms, enhanced cleaning regimens, and new norms of interacting at the workplace for everyone. The goal is to bring people back in small groups on a site-by-site basis. The first group will be only 7-10% of the workforce. That group includes the cleaning and facilities crews to support the professional staff, who would return to reap the benefits of a collaborative environment. Many people want to come back to the office. They are suffering in isolation, and productivity is dropping in those cases.Adobe is planning to create a manual on interacting at the workplace and will require training and adherence to new social constructs. Security officers will be “ambassadors,” helping the workforce remember and adhere to the new rules. The company will use footprint stickers to provide visual clues to employees on walking single file and avoiding groups. Stickers will designate desks that can and cannot be used. To provide a more open office plan, they will remove desks and arrange movable white boards to accommodate the collaboration employees want.The situation is complex and dynamic and requires decision-making based on a definitive set of criteria. The following is a summary of information that Burks shared on Adobe’s criteria for returning to work after COVID-19: Indication of health and safety assurance utilizing risk assessment criteria – locally assessed and qualified for a minimum of six weeks. Travel prohibitions and local/external meeting guidelines to be modeled separately utilizing case-by-case risk assessment criteria. Assessment of the case fatality rate, infection peak and downside projections – curve must be flat. Management team decision on how much risk to assume, as this disease is durable Assessment of infection vector and prevalence vis-à-vis relaxation of nonpharmaceutical interventions; assessment of local healthcare capacity Government shelter-in-place restrictions fully (or partially) lifted; declarations by public leaders that the virus has been contained at some level (city, state, country) Assessment of facilities to physically distance employees and/or staggered shift schedule; assessment of security capability/resource availability Assessment of public transportation and infrastructure, including parking garage Assessment of school closures, childcare and/or adult-care Assessment of nonpharmaceutical intervention awareness campaign, medical surveillance program, and/or onsite medical or clinical support No visitor program until approved by global security staff when office repopulation program begins. Create exceptions list. Emergency plans formally in place Site capacity identified; Emergency Response Team (ERT) skeleton crew part of the repopulation Full plan in place to close offices for a period of no less than three weeks if one employee or vendor tested positive for COVID-19 during repopulation exercise; plan includes informing workforce within “return population” of circumstance and having the facilities team execute a deep clean. The plan would then activate communications for the crisis management remediation phase, which includes full workforce transparency via town halls, webinars, emails, etc. Burks noted that contact tracing has moved from an unthinkable invasion of privacy to a likelihood for most workplaces, taking into consideration privacy laws predominant in Europe and U.S. If anyone falls ill or tests positive for the virus, they will automatically be sent home and everyone who has been in contact with them will need to enter a 14-day quarantine before returning. Burks’ presentation, and his thoughtful approach to planning and the current situation with COVID-19, allowed the attendees to consider their positions and paths for bringing their workers back to the offices and facilities. A lively question and answer session enabled members to further clarify points and get immediate feedback on their plans and strategies. Burks finished with a request to industry members to continue the dialogue and send industry data for him to report back to the White House Task Force. For additional resources from SEMI, visit our COVID-19 response website, which provides best practices and the opportunity to submit company stories.About the AuthorHeidi Hoffman is Senior Director of Corporate Marketing for SEMI. She is currently serving on the SEMI COVID-19 Response Team, coordinating multiple inputs from across the industry to assist all SEMI members in responding to the crisis. To submit your company response story, visit our COVID-19 News and Blogs webpage and scroll down to the green submit bar below the news.

All countries and regions have seen a sharp manufacturing slowdown. China, hit hard in February, recovered in March and then dipped in slightly but the balance of the world saw manufacturing plunge in April as COVID-19 forced factory closures. Unemployment skyrocketed and GDPs plunged.

In much of post-lockdown China, urban life is humming. The streets of Beijing and Shanghai are bustling with traffic, smog again shrouds city skylines with the resurgence of economic activity, property sales are bouncing back and a revival in consumer confidence is taking hold. Emerging from monthslong shelter-in-place orders, the nation has seized a large measure of control in containing COVID-19 as it breaks fertile new ground in pandemic response and recovery. In Wuhan, Hubei, the fountainhead of the novel coronavirus, one company offers a striking example of China’s muscular COVID-19 containment efforts, carefully continuing to operate through January and February as the virus set root, said Karel Eloot, a Shenzhen-based senior partner and Asia leader of Transformation and Operations practices at McKinsey Company, speaking at a recent webinar presented with SEMI. Soon, COVID-19 spread to eight other provinces that suffered serious outbreaks and forced the nationwide lockdown that sent China’s GDP plunging 7 percent, its first contraction in 28 years. An impressive array of safety protocols, many designed to reduce people density as a bulwark against the virus, animates China’s fight against COVID-19, a return-to-work movement that is laying a path forward for companies around the world. It is these measures, Eloot said, that have kept the Wuhan company afloat and helped other businesses across China restore operations with unusual speed. Community and Social Distancing – The Heart of China’s COVID-19 Response In establishing safeguards, many companies started by assessing staffing requirements, identifying workers essential to sustaining on-site operations while allowing others, such as white-collar staff, to work from home, though some have since returned to their offices. Seen as non-essential, some factory maintenance workers have been instructed to stay home. To fill staffing gaps, business have turned to multi-skilling practices, such as having on-site supervisors and engineers step out of their daily roles to handle lower-level operations activities. Much of the focus has been on community distancing, with businesses quickly identifying workers suffering even minor COVID-19 symptoms and using contact tracing to prevent sick or vulnerable employees from entering offices and factories and turning them into hot zones for community spread, Eloot said. Manufacturing facilities are staggering work shifts to reduce people density, closely monitoring workers’ body temperatures with an eye toward other symptoms, and following up with medical tests and quarantines as needs dictates. QR codes, long a staple of e-commerce, have been a particularly effective weapon in combatting COVID-19. Companies are deployed the scanning technology to identify workers by color code – green, yellow or red – and assign various levels of site access depending on who they’ve been in contact with. Some factory workstations are now walled off by transparent plastic sheeting to prevent COVID-19 infection through aerosol drift. In business meetings and lunchrooms, staffers sit spaced a safe distance apart and facing the same direction to avoid crosscurrents of the microscopic respiratory droplets that can carry the virus. Others eat in isolation. Meeting room windows are opened, weather permitting, to admit fresh air. And elevators – perfect petri dishes for contagion – are shuttered to ward off human clusters, shifting all floor-to-floor movement to staircases. Companies united by the common goal to keep goods flowing through supply chains are providing masks and other personal protective devices to smaller players most vulnerable to the economic shock of COVID-19. The aim: Shield the companies from the potentially crippling effects of the virus to avoid supply chain breakdowns that can undercut the performance of the whole. Even competitors have formed unexpected alliances, sharing parts and components that are in short supply. “Some sectors have maintained steady production throughout the crisis” thanks to these practices, Eloot said. “China has been able to create safe communities where people can operate as normal.” Executive Uncertainty Reigns, Hope Springs Eternal with Innovation The objective of China’s fast, forceful response to the COVID-19 outbreak is economic: A V-shaped rebound after the 7 percent wallop to its GDP in the first quarter of the year. The trajectory is among nine economic recovery scenarios McKinsey Company presented to more than 2,000 executives worldwide in a recent survey seeking their views on the likelihood of each. The business leaders coalesced around two – a full restoration of global GDP growth that could materialize this year or extend into next, or a two- to three-year recovery following the initial economic tsunami, Sven Smit, an Amsterdam-based senior partner with McKinsey and global leader of the McKinsey Global Institute and global COVID-19 response team, said at the webinar. The executives see the multi-year recovery as the most likely. The shorter rebound ranked second on a scale of probabilities. Notably, the business leaders found the V-shaped bounceback China is attempting – returning to GDP growth in one quarter – the least likely outcome. But the biggest surprise from the survey, Smit said, was executives’ view that of the two major global interventions for restoring GDP growth – viral and economic – one will be ineffective, reflecting their deep uncertainty about what lies ahead. A growing body of knowledge about COVID-19 tempers that doubt. It’s established fact that the virus is highly contagious, more lethal than the flu, and spread by means including aerosols and touching contaminated surfaces. But only recently has more insight emerged about human immunity. Broad-based blood testing in the Netherlands has discovered that only 3 percent to 4 percent of the people screened are immune to the coronavirus, leaving the vast majority of the population without natural biological protection – a sweeping vulnerability evident in Asian countries hit early by the virus only to see fresh flare-ups after initial containment. Smit warned of the pandemic’s potential resurgence. Testing has revealed that coronavirus cases are underreported by a staggering 10- to 15-fold, a clarion call that countries “need to be very careful about how they re-open economies.” That means in order to keep COVID-19 at bay until a vaccine is developed, the best defenses will remain temperature monitoring, contact tracing, quarantining, social distancing, mask wearing, frequent hand-washing and other proven protective measures. And while the relative contribution of each safeguard to slowing COVID-19’s spread is unknown, Japan, Korea, China, Taiwan and other Asian countries have shown that “if you apply them all, you are likely to keep this virus under control,” Smit said. It remains to be seen whether protections the U.S. and European countries have put in place will stave off the virus as effectively as the rigorous measures implemented by Asian countries and, if the Western regions deploy a different cocktail of safety protocols, how well they will work. The re-opening of their economies promises to reveal the answers – and the McKinsey recovery scenario they’ll face. These and other open questions help explain the uncertainty of the executives McKinsey polled. Pandemic Supercharges, Adds New Urgency to Long-Term Trends What is known is that, far from upending the way all organizations operate, COVID-19 is supercharging secular trends and showing that people can react with dizzying velocity when confronting global mortal threats. That speed, Smit said, “is not determined by the potential of technology, but by events." For decades, doctors and technologists have teamed to develop ways to examine and treat people from afar, yet telemedicine managed to eke out only small, incremental gains in adoption. Since the COVID-19 outbreak, patients have flocked online, with virtual doctor’s visits accounting for more than 70 percent of all physician-patient interactions. “People like it, and we can reach many more patients as a result. It happened in a few weeks,” Smit said. Similarly, teachers and unions have only inched toward digital communications for years, fearing job losses in education at the hands of technology. When schools closed recently under shelter-in-place orders, teachers quickly switched to online lessons. The transition, Smit said, took one weekend. Meanwhile, as office workers holed up at home, usage of teleconferencing applications skyrocketed. “We’re collectively learning at unprecedented speed,” Smit said. “We’re sharing. We’re learning about supply chains. We’re learning about collaboration. We’re learning about masks. We’re learning about contact tracing. We’re learning how to work more efficiently. We’re learning from real-time data about the behavior of people. And we’re investing collectively enormous sums in finding cures and treatments and expanding hospital capacity.” While the coronavirus’s blistering spread caught many countries off-guard, Smit expects scientists to spare no effort to innovate. Expressing hope that new medical interventions will be available by summer, Smit said the world needs to buttress its key lines of defense against the coronavirus until a vaccine is developed – a shield that will quicken the global economic recovery. “The race is on," he said. Related blog COVID-19: Economic and Microelectronics Industry Impacts – Insights from McKinsey Company For McKinsey’s latest insights on the coronavirus pandemic, visit its website, which is updated daily. For the latest COVID-19 information and SEMI event updates SEMI is providing members, visit Coronavirus Resources. Michael Hall is a marketing communications manager at SEMI.

During the COVID-19 pandemic, the SEMI Global Advocacy team has been working tirelessly to ensure the microelectronics manufacturing and design supply chain is classified as an “essential business” in the United States and for similar designations in several other countries so that SEMI member companies can maintain operations. Their efforts have included direct lobbying and letters to the governors of 16 states in the U.S., 23 European countries and several European Union officials across the continent, as well as government officials in Japan, Mexico and Malaysia. The bedrock of these efforts, and the reason they have been highly effective, is that our industry enables both modern digital infrastructure and technology critical in the fight against the virus.SEMI takes immense pride in highlighting the role of our industry in providing the building blocks for innovations that improve social and economic prosperity the world over. It is never more apparent that necessity is the mother of invention than during a crisis, and the pandemic has created a diverse range of demands for technological advancements to address the myriad of challenges it presents. Our SEMI Tech Spotlight blog series highlights some of the many ways that our industry and member companies are enabling technology employed on the front lines of this fight – and that we strongly believe will ultimately help to win it. Our first piece in this series focuses on platforms enabled by big data and artificial intelligence.Fighting the Pandemic with Big Data-AI Enabled PlatformsThe COVID-19 pandemic is testing humanity in unprecedented ways, but it is also uniting us to fight this crisis with the best weapons we have. Big data and Artificial Intelligence (AI) technologies – built with microelectronic chips and systems that generate, transmit, store and analyze data – are making a profound contribution to our arsenal for this protracted war. Big data-AI technologies are enabling platforms such as data analytics, robotics, augmented/virtual reality (AR/VR), 3D printing, and others that are already being applied to address many facets of this crisis.Big Data and Analytics Inform Policy In the fight against COVID-19, data analytics platforms are being used first and foremost to slow the rapid spread and to inform policy decisions. This requires analysis of massive amounts of data about public health and travel, often using AI algorithms. The state of California, for example, is partnering with companies such as BlueDot, Esri and Facebook to build a software platform that uses smartphones and location intelligence to track people’s movement and predict hospital needs. Taiwan owes its considerable success in limiting the spread of the virus to the extensive use of big data analytics for identifying and tracking carriers. Google and Apple are driving a joint effort that connects Bluetooth with their popular iOS and Android platforms to trace contacts of infected people. India has developed Aarogya Setu, a mobile app based on Bluetooth and location-mapping platforms, designed to alert citizens if they have crossed paths with another app user who has tested positive for the virus. This app was launched in 11 languages, and despite being entirely voluntary, it was downloaded by 50 million people in 13 days, making it the world’s fastest-ever to reach that number. Such contact-tracing apps, now being rolled out in at least 26 countries, carry inherent privacy and security challenges due to the sensitive data they access. While mitigation strategies like strict data anonymity and opt-in protocols are being implemented, these will need to be refined over time.Robotics Protect Frontline SoldiersToday’s robust robotics platforms are enabled by huge amounts of data from sensors and guidance from predictive AI algorithms. These robots can learn on the job, adapt to the environment, and work safely with humans. In this pandemic, they are perfect for minimizing human interaction with infectious environments. Companies around the world such as Boston Dynamics, Akara Robotics, UBTECH Robotics and CloudMinds have already deployed robots on the front lines of this war to assess patient health, disinfect hospital surfaces, and help health workers with Personal Protective Equipment (PPE).Robot drones are also delivering blood and other lab samples. For example, WakeMed hospitals in North Carolina launched the first drone delivery program approved by the U.S. Federal Aviation Administration with Matternet drones operated by UPS; while Terra Drone from Japan executed similar tasks in the hard-hit Wuhan province of China.3D Printing Speeds ManufacturingBig data-AI technologies enable 3D printing platforms by providing accurate 3D models for optimized designs and defect-free manufacturing. Low-cost, fast-cycle-time 3D printing has helped to alleviate at least some of the medical equipment shortages. For example, the U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA) has approved the first 3D-printed “Stopgap Face Mask” for liquid barrier protection from the SARS-CoV-2 coronavirus for healthcare workers. The U.S. Veterans Health Administration has developed this in collaboration with America Makes using an open-source database – the 3D Print Exchange from the National Institutes of Health. In another example, Formlabs worked with Northwell Health, New York’s largest healthcare provider, and University of South Florida (USF) Health to develop and test a nasal swab prototype over just one weekend, and it is now producing up to 150,000 test swabs daily. Prisma Health in South Carolina received emergency FDA authorization for VESper, a 3D printed device that allows a single ventilator to support two patients, and possibly up to four.Telehealth Becomes a “New Normal”Telehealth is not a new concept but is much enhanced by today’s microelectronics platforms that can collect and transmit rich datasets with very low latency. Further, rapid data analysis is increasingly supported by AI systems. The requirement for social distancing makes telehealth a perfect solution for many healthcare consultations. U.S. government data indicates that the daily average of telehealth claims from private insurance for upper respiratory infections increased nearly 12 times over the previous month from March 14 to April 1. Similarly, Teladoc Health coordinated 100,000 patient “televisits” in the week of March 8 – a 50 percent spike over the previous week, taking pressure off the healthcare system. The next generation of telehealth is likely to use AR/VR platforms, which use even richer datasets and AI to improve the accuracy and predictive capability of their underlying models. Consequently, these platforms can provide more realistic experiences and improved outcomes. At least 11 states in the U.S. are already working with AR/VR companies such as XRHealth and AppliedVR for primary care and many medical specialties. Accelerating the Search for a Vaccine or TreatmentThe way out of this pandemic depends on swiftly finding a vaccine and a treatment, ideally by fast-tracking the traditionally slow drug development process. Big data-AI technologies are at the forefront of such efforts globally, often using the most powerful supercomputers available. For example, researchers at the University of California, San Diego (UCSD) are using the Frontera supercomputer to build a complete model of the SARS-CoV-2 coronavirus envelope – a formidable task, requiring analysis of data from 200 million atoms and interactions between them. Researchers at Argonne National Laboratory are combining AI with physics-based models to search for a molecule that might disrupt the activity of the virus, a precursor to finding a treatment. Also, several companies around the globe such as BenevolentAI (UK), Gero (Singapore), Innoplexus (Germany-India), and Insilico Medicine (US-Hong Kong) are using AI platforms to accelerate the search for a solution. ConclusionUltimately, the success of technology is not measured by the number of bits and bytes or by the speed of algorithms. It is measured by every janitor who did not have to clean a hazardous surface because a robot did, by every doctor and nurse protected by a 3D-printed mask, and by every person whose life may be saved by the accelerated discovery of a vaccine or treatment. Big data-AI technologies, and the platforms they enable, are just coming of age – they give us hope that as they evolve in the future, we can use them to build a more resilient society and economy.Note/Disclaimer: The examples cited above are purely for illustration – they are neither comprehensive, nor intended to endorse any particular product or solution.The SEMI Smart Data AI initiative helps members realize full value in the intelligent future enabled by Big Data and Artificial Intelligence – including the large revenue upside, and the transformational potential for operational and supply-chain efficiency. For more information on the initiative, contact Pushkar Apte at [email protected] Manocha is President and CEO of SEMI. Pushkar P. Apte, Ph.D., is the Strategic Technology Advisor for the Smart Data AI Initiative at SEMI.

With the CAGR for switches in cell-phone RF front-end modules running at 9% for the next five years, new players want to get in on the action, and established players want to up the ante. The specialists at Incize help wafer suppliers, foundries and fabless companies maximize switch performance starting at the substrate level. CEO Mostafa Emam explains how.SOI News (SN): Can you tell us about the role Incize plays in the RF-SOI ecosystem? [caption id="attachment_32519" align="alignright" width="140"] Incize CEO Mostafa Emam. (Photo courtesy: Incize)[/caption] Mostafa Emam (ME): Our clients are wafer suppliers, foundries and fabless companies. The services we offer are testing and modeling of substrates, with the vision of what will happen in the value chain. Based on what the customer will do with the substrates, we do testing and modeling to improve the technology and tune their processes. Although the big players have teams devoted to this, we can add a layer of characterization that they have no expertise in. Some of our customers are foundries that have been using bulk silicon, but now see opportunities in RF-SOI. But they’re starting from scratch and we help them to adopt the technology. We help them understand the physics behind the technology so they can migrate from bulk to SOI. We help them develop test structures and evaluate their technology. Then we create models for both fully-depleted and partially-depleted SOI with PD-SOI 130 nm or 60 nm technology dominating the RF front-end module market. We believe RF is an art and you need to see the whole picture. SN: Can you tell us a bit about the history of Incize? ME: The RF-SOI story started in the 1990s. Then came trap-rich RF-SOI wafers from Jean-Pierre Raskin’s team at UC Louvain, industrialized by Soitec. Our lab at UC Louvain became known for our expertise in RF-SOI, and in 2011 we created Incize as a spin-off. [Editor's note: for more background, see this SOI Consortium article about the birth of trap-rich substrates and the company’s founding.] At first our characterization services were very diverse, but by 2014 we focused mostly on RF-SOI because of the big demand. In 2015 we started doing radiation hardness tests for space applications and a new business unit was created. In 2016 we started our modeling and PDK activity, followed the next year by work on GaN on Si. In 2018, we started offering full support to RF-SOI newcomers, who were starting from scratch, usually smaller players in the RF market. It takes about two years to fully train the engineers, support the technology enhancements, design test vehicles, measure them and finally do the modeling and PDK. So some of these players are now fully established in the RF-SOI market and have contracts in place with big customers. SN: In your presentations, you often say there is room for all. What do you mean by that? ME: There is a big market for RF-SOI in the coming years. It can offer the low-power, the low-cost and the high performance. RF-SOI is the only mature technology that combines all of this today. It successfully competes with traditional III-V technology. More foundries want to employ RF-SOI. We show to them that it’s not black magic – you just need to know how it works. [bctt tweet="There is a big market for RF-SOI in the coming years. More foundries want to employ #RFSOI. We show them that it’s not black magic – you just need to know how it works. - Incize CEO Mostafa Emam #5G #semiconductors" username="@soiconsortium"] On our side, we have the knowledge and the infrastructure. Our added value is that we can do advanced tests the customers can’t do. So the foundry says there’s opportunities in switches, we’ll do this and develop it all with optimization for specific Ron and Coff [the figure of merit for RF switches]. The foundry develops an RF switch and aiming at certain performance (RonCoff). We help our customers during this development phase. Once the performance target is reached we start developing a model and a PDK. There is enough demand for RF-SOI, as even entry-level cell phones have SOI chips. Some opt for a fast and low-cost solution. Many target “good enough”, although some target to compete against the big players – it’s a question of their business strategy. And this is where our added value comes in. SN: Can you provide some more insight into how you see the RF market? ME: The Front End Module (FEM) is a fast growing market, with increasing demand in terms of volume and performance. This includes antenna switches, LNAs, tuners, filters, etc. Historically, III-V materials have been used for their high performance and high power handling. However, RF-SOI has become the material of choice, and the biggest driver is integration of the RF switch and LNAs in one chip. It’s not easy to integrate the power amplifiers (PAs) on the same chip (still being on III-V substrates). But as it decreases footprint and cost, there are those who’ll do it. There is no viable competition for SOI – nothing will replace it in the short term. There are other technologies, but they are long term. It’s a stable market with high demand. SN: For those of us who are not RF experts, can you help us understand the technology? ME: The switch is sort of the traffic light of the FEM, receiving and transmitting. The simplest RF switch can be composed of only four transistors. Transistors leak power so you need to determine your Ron Coff performance. [Editor's note: Resistance on vs. Capacitance off, the RF switch figure of merit, is measured in femtoseconds and should be as low as possible. Psemi has a good video explaining it.] When the Coff capacitance is small, the switch is really off. When the On resistance Ron is small, it means low losses, and the switch is turned On. Ron and Coff is a compromise. And as there are many frequency bands and antennas, the FEM becomes very complex. Another issue is power handling, since the switch is the first stage behind the antenna. And finally, there is the question of switch linearity. Trap rich SOI wafers suppress harmonics so you have less distortion originating in the substrate. You have to model this – the designer needs to know. In addition to single tone harmonics you also get intermodulation, where, two or more high power signals at two different frequencies create distortion at other frequencies. The danger is that these parasitic signals can be so close that the filter can’t reject them and the useful signals get distorted. This was a killer for the switch created on the bulk substrate. Trap-rich RF-SOI fixed this. So now 100% of switches are on trap-rich SOI substrates. While it’s still a niche market, there is demand from customers for increasing the number of bands – that’s driving this market. SN: And what happens as we move to 5G? ME: There’s more and more pressure on the specs. It’s an art when anything changes. Moving from 3G to 4G required complete upgrade of the [foundry’s] models. With 4G, the specs are severe and the FEM must be built on trap-rich substrates. But 5G is not well defined, so the RF industry is taking their best shot. What is clear: the performance requirements get more challenging. Once the technology is understood, it can be implemented. But the foundries and the fabless need our help to do it fast and do it well. We create more value working together. SN: How do you see things evolving? ME: The number of foundries today doing switches on RF-SOI is increasing, and this will continue for the next few years. We saw this opportunity and invested in it. Our company is just ten people, and we are self-funded. We are swimming in business, but we have fun. And we’re getting recognition. Any company with CMOS in place could adopt RF-SOI. But it’s a different mindset. We help with the transition. ~ ~ ~Click here to read more feature articles in SOI News.

Part 2 of 2Read Part 1.While companies navigate the ongoing COVID-19 crisis, corporate leaders should be evaluating a number of key business continuity issues as well as steps they can take to not only react to business disruptions but also reshape their business and recovery plans.We spoke with Dan Steele, Senior Director and the APAC Head of Environmental, Health, Safety, and Security (EHS S) at GLOBALFOUNDRIES (GF) Singapore, via teleconference for insights into the best practices he and his team have implemented from their Business Continuity Plan (BCP) to guide them through the health crisis.SEMI: How can SMEs (small and medium-sized enterprises) afford BCP, as they are often quite costly?Steele: BCP is not something you afford. Rather, it is essential to good management. Every business is about managing risks and every manager’s responsibilities include risk mitigation. Regardless of their size, companies often pay a higher price for survival in a crisis because they are ill-prepared. All companies owe it to themselves, their employees and other stakeholders to conduct ongoing business continuity planning. No one knows what or when the next crisis will be, and no plan is perfect in mitigating crisis impacts.However, it is critical to plan for potentials, institutionalize EHS and security best practices, ensure the supply chain has both redundancy and robustness, train employees to adopt additional skills, and work with customers in advance. Companies that continue to ask themselves what if are the ones that will be the best prepared. And, if BCP is done right, businesses can avoid huge losses. Dwight Eisenhower said, "Planning is everything, the plan is nothing." I think too many companies spend far too much time creating exacting plans when instead they should be planning. Since planning the survival of the company is every manager’s daily responsibility, BCP should not be purely looked upon as a cost, but also as an expected deliverable from the management team.SEMI: Companies have rolled out mandatory work-from-home (WFH) policies and it has become a new normal for many of us. What other measures can GF take should this WFH period be extended?Steele: Our work-from-home policy seems to be working quite well at this point. However, WFH will only be effective if the right tools are provided to employees – we give our employees access to our system so they can work remotely. WFH also offers opportunities to drive new and innovative ways of working, and accelerates some of our automation efforts such as Augmented Reality (AR).At the same time, mental health is just as important and we conduct weekly check-ins with employees to assess their anxiety levels by asking two basic questions: How is the team’s morale and has it impacted productivity in our operations? For us at GF, WFH is not a disintegration of the team. It is important to our operations to continue the social aspects of working as ONEGF. That means online meetings should require face-to-face interactions. It is important for people to connect. Additionally, we maintain the same quality expectations for remote work as we do when employees are on-site. If this WFH period is extended, we need supervisors and managers to reach out and ensure that we stay connected with our employees.SEMI: What BCP lessons have you learned during the outbreak and will the learnings change any of your business or operations strategies when normalcy returns?Steele: I am not sure we learned anything new about BCP. As stated, our approach to BCP is to spend less time on exact plans and more time on planning, asking ourselves what if and mentally walking our way through potential solutions. This crisis reinforces the premise that we must be prepared. We did not have a plan on our shelf for working-from-home, but we had visualized it, knew what we would have to enact and now have employees managing highly sophisticated, technical and skilled manufacturing operations from home, and some of them reside in Malaysia. BCP must be a conscientious, concerted effort even when normalcy returns – it helps us better prepare. Additionally, BCP is not the responsibility of a single person or department. Just like our daily business, BCP is an integrated effort across many functions. Good and great ideas come from anywhere in a time of crisis. Listening is extremely important.SEMI: If there is one takeaway from this unusual and uncalled experience, what will it be?Steele: What we walk away with is the fact that we are dealing with a pandemic that is highly unpredictable, and that we need all types of employees with diverse backgrounds, experiences and perspectives. This inclusion has made us successful all along, and that is what is helping us ride through this crisis today and into tomorrow. We are glad that we have a diverse and proactive BCCM team that is able to quickly adapt and respond to the many challenges of a crisis. SEMI: What advice would you offer to stay productive while WFH?Steele: We acknowledged that it is difficult for the WFH policy to be effective in the manufacturing sector. Although we do not see any productivity loss thanks to automation, we’ve seen a slowdown in our engineering activities.My advice: First stay healthy, monitor your health, and follow the government’s hygiene advice for yourself, your families and the communities you live in. If you socialized before, there is no reason to stop. Stay connected with your co-workers and team. Personally, I don’t believe WFH now means you are always on. Just as you did when working on-site, you still need your personal time. You have to strike the balance that works best for you.Dan Steele has over 25 years of experience in environmental, health, safety and security operations. He has also held other leadership roles in facilities engineering, quality, reliability and assurance, and risk management.Bee Bee Ng is president of SEMI Southeast Asia.

The COVID-19 pandemic (caused by SARS-CoV-2) has disrupted lives around the world more than any other catastrophic event in living memory. Those of us fortunate enough to work from home are cheering on the people who care for our health, transport our packages, work in grocery stores and pharmacies, clean public streets and buildings, and keep utilities up and running — as well as everyone else on the front lines of battling this pandemic. Working from home also gives us time to reflect and ask: How does the world return to normal and how can we help?Crises like the COVID-19 pandemic accelerate social and technology trends because the need for new solutions grows urgent. Looking at epidemiological models can reduce complex disease progression to a series of simple numbers, the most important of which is R nought (R0) value. R0 is simply how many other people a sick person infects. If each sick person infects less than one person, R0 1, the spread of disease will end. But if each sick person infects more than one other person, the disease spreads and may become a pandemic. According to the journal Emerging Infections Diseases, SARS-CoV-2 has an R0 of 5.7, making it far more infectious than the influenza pandemic of 1918.Given the severity of the current pandemic, society has taken huge efforts to reduce R0: mask-wearing, social distancing, avoiding face touching, frequent handwashing and quarantines are all ways to reduce R0.Scientists and engineers are working hard to develop new solutions and evaluate existing technologies that could have a big impact on R0. One of these is the mass deployment of touchless technologies. We’re now aware that every time we touch a surface, we potentially spread disease. I have personally started using touchless Apple Pay at retail checkouts whenever possible and even seek out and remember which stores have enabled Apple Pay. Each time I need to touch an elevator button, security keypad or walk signal button at an intersection, I contort my arms to touch them with an elbow.Since I’m in the electronics industry, I find myself considering which devices have the greatest potential for reducing the number of touchpoints in our daily lives. Motion and ultrasound sensors are definitely promising, but the mainstream adoption of the voice interface makes it the most interesting and scalable touchless technology.New voice technologies are more reliable and secure than ever. The success of cloud-based voice assistants such as Amazon Alexa, Apple Siri and Ok Google has familiarized consumers with the ease and convenience of voice, but these high-powered AI assistants generally require high power and a reliable internet connection. The next wave of voice technology will be much lower in power, fast, private and require no internet connection. This edge-powered voice interface will not play music or tell you the weather, but it will perform many other useful and simple functions, such as operating an elevator, opening a door or changing the volume on your TV. One great example of this local voice command is the Simple Human trash can that can open and close in response to your voice. Opening and closing a garbage may be simple, but a voice-activated model enhances convenience and safety with total privacy.The requirements for deploying voice technology to support more touchless applications include: Low power — to run for months or years between battery changes Robust and reliable— to last over a decade indoors or out Locally processed data — to ensure security and privacy without an internet connection Consumer adoption of touchless and voice technologies has been growing for years, but the COVID-19 crisis highlights the critical benefit of these technologies in reducing the spread of disease. Making high touchpoints voice-powered would eliminate a disease vector and reduce R0 during pandemics as well as during normal cold and flu seasons. Any technology that helps reduce R0 should be deployed as quickly as possible to give us one more way to thwart the virus that is changing life as we know it.As the only supplier of piezoelectric MEMS microphones – which are natively immune to environmental contaminants such as water, humidity, salt, dust, dirt and oil — Vesper is uniquely able to provide outdoor-hardened microphones that are durable enough to support voice-interfaces in hot, wet, dusty or dirty conditions. In fact, we’ve earned the highest waterproof rating for any MEMS microphone – IP57 – which makes me hope that one day soon I’ll use just my voice to tell a crosswalk signal that I need to cross the street.Vesper has also developed a proprietary technology called ZeroPower Listening, which makes it possible to embed always-listening voice interfaces in battery-powered devices with battery life measured in months or years. And that’s just the beginning of how we’ll use voice interfaces in high-touch applications. From voice-controlled parking kiosks and elevator buttons to the treadmill at the gym, the less we touch hard surfaces, the safer we’ll be from picking up SARS-CoV-2, influenza viruses or other pathogens as we go about our daily lives.Learn how Vesper’s low-power and rugged MEMS microphone technology can help designers create seamless voice interfaces for a wide range of indoor and outdoor applications at Smart Home, Smart Office, IoT and Automotive/Industrial.Matt Crowley is CEO of Vesper Technologies, developer of the world’s first piezoelectric MEMS microphone. With five rapid product rollouts in just five years and tens of millions of units shipping to tier one clients across the globe, Matt has grown Vesper from a research-oriented startup to a bonafide commercial business.Under his leadership, Vesper has earned an impressive collection of awards including a 2019 Best of Sensors Award, Innovation Award nods at CES 2018 and 2019, and two Annual Creativity in Electronics (ACE) Awards.Before Vesper, Matt held leadership positions at piezoelectric MEMS pioneer Sand 9, the Boston University Office of Technology Development, and Mars Co strategy consulting, where he advised Fortune 500 companies on operational and strategic issues.Matt received an interdisciplinary degree in Physics and the Philosophy of Science from Princeton University. He is proficient in Japanese, having lived in Japan.Vesper is a member of MEMS Sensors Industry Group (MSIG), a SEMI technology community, that enables the MEMS and sensor industry to address common challenges, innovate and accelerate business results.

Part 1 of 2Read Part 2. While companies navigate the ongoing COVID-19 crisis, corporate leaders should be evaluating a number of key business continuity issues as well as steps they can take to not only react to business disruptions but also reshape their business and recovery plans.We spoke with Dan Steele, Senior Director and the APAC Head of Environmental, Health, Safety, and Security (EHS S) at GLOBALFOUNDRIES (GF) Singapore, via teleconference for insights into the best practices he and his team have implemented from their Business Continuity Plan (BCP) to guide them through the health crisis.SEMI: How did GLOBALFOUNDRIES Singapore first respond when the country reported its first COVID-19 case?Steele: Since the early days of our company, we have had a Business Continuity / Crisis Management (BCCM) team in place that is responsible for business continuity planning for the site. At the beginning of this journey with the coronavirus, we believed in two truths: maintaining the safety and well-being of our employees and consistently communicating precautionary measures the company has taken to protect them and our business. These actions are critical to keeping our employees safe, while keeping the anxiety level low. By informing and updating employees in a timely manner, we ensure that they are well-educated about the crisis as it unfolds and the foreseeable circumstances that could be ahead of us. Once the world was well into the coronavirus outbreak, our CEO declared in a message to all employees that “we entered this pandemic crisis together, and we will exit it together.”We have also established links to pertinent government websites and made them conveniently available to ensure employees have access to the latest available information for their personal lives.SEMI: What actions has GF Singapore taken in response to the crisis so far?Steele: On January 29, our BCCM team activated the first line of defense by initiating temperature checks at all building entrances for every individual including employees, contractors, visitors, and customers who come into our facilities. We asked each to declare their state of health and travel history and issued a temperature card to every employee and resident contractor. They are all required to record their temperature twice daily – once before coming to work and again at midday – and they present the temperature log to security upon their arrival.The following week, our teams split into an A/B work arrangement to ensure continuity of our operations. We proactively pared down our teams to the staff essential for our on-site operations, while enabling the rest to work from home. We also advised our most vulnerable employees with impaired immune systems or who are pregnant to work from home. Concurrently, we moved all meetings of 10 or more people to virtual communications and only allowed meetings with fewer than 10 to be held in rooms with participants sitting at least one meter apart. We informed our customers of our efforts and moved all planned on-site visits to online visits.In line with Singapore’s efforts to curb the spread of COVID-19 within the community, GF restricted site access of people who had recently traveled to countries with sustained community transmission and regularly updated the restriction list. To conduct contact tracing, we created our two degrees of separation list that we used to track employees with families and close associates who were linked to a COVID-19 case. Employees provided the information voluntarily. On our campus, we enforced strict safe distancing measures by limiting access to meeting rooms, marking off-limits tables and removing chairs in the cafeteria, limiting the number of elevator riders to no more than four, and placing boxes or other spacing indicators at smoking zones, bus stops and temperature-taking lines. We also initiated a daily log of employees taking the company buses tagged to the bus number, time, and employee identification numbers in anticipation of the need for contact tracing.Most recently, when the Singapore-Malaysia border closed, we activated the next phase of our BCP that was already in place – housing over 450 Malaysian employees in Singapore hotels.Throughout this crisis, we continuously monitor and evaluate possible impacts to our supply chain to ensure the continuity of our business. This is a standard element of our ongoing business continuity management system.Most importantly, we frequently communicate with our employees and tell them everything the company is doing and why we are doing it. We encouraged employees to monitor their health, stay home if they are unwell, and seek immediate medical treatment if necessary at one of our panel clinics or other medical facilities.SEMI: What are your top concerns amidst this health crisis?Steele: At GF, we are managing through the crisis with an unwavering focus on two guiding principles: the safety and well-being of our worldwide team, their families and communities; and delivering on our commitments to our clients. As the world’s leading specialty foundry, GF has a unique role in the global supply chain. Our semiconductor technology is vital to a range of industries including health care, communications, infrastructure and security. With these priorities in mind, the company undertook unprecedented steps and has adapted to the crisis by dynamically adjusting its protocols, health and safety measures, and business processes to protect its teams while maintaining manufacturing excellence.We are committed to safeguarding the well-being of our employees while supporting and sustaining our on-site operations and protecting customers’ products. A major concern is the impact on our employees. We understand that COVID-19 can be infectious even if an individual is asymptomatic – we are always concerned that temperature screening alone is not sufficient. This is the reason that from day one we have encouraged our employees to monitor their health, follow all government advice for proper hygiene and seek medical attention if unwell as early as possible, and not come to work.Dan Steele has over 25 years of experience in environmental, health and safety, and security operations. He has also held other leadership roles in facilities engineering, quality, reliability and assurance, and risk management.Bee Bee Ng is president of SEMI Southeast Asia.

On April 16, Japan prime minister Shinzo Abe expanded the state of emergency beyond Tokyo, Osaka and five other prefectures to all 47 prefectures nationwide in an effort to curb the spread of COVID-19.As I reported two weeks ago, SEMI Japan initiated communications with all prefectural governments on April 10. Since then, the government’s concerns over the virus’s impact on the semiconductor supply chain have heightened. Prefectural Governments Plan No Restrictions on the Semiconductor Supply ChainOf the 47 prefectural governors I contacted, urging them to classify the semiconductor industry as an essential business, 40 confirmed in follow-up calls through April 20 that they have no plans to restrict operations of the semiconductor industry and supply chain companies in their jurisdictions. Those prefectures include Aichi, Akita, Aomori, Chiba, Ehime, Fukui, Fukuoka, Fukushima, Gifu, Gunma, Hiroshima, Hyogo, Ishikawa, Iwate, Kagawa, Kagoshima, Kanagawa, Kochi, Kumamoto, Kyoto, Miyagi, Miyazaki, Nagano, Nagasaki, Nara, Niigata, Oita, Okayama, Okinawa, Saga, Saitama, Shiga, Shimane, Shizuoka, Tochigi, Tokushima, Toyama, Wakayama, Yamagata and Yamanashi.However, the Aichi, Iwate, Kumamoto, Nagasaki, Oita and Saga governors cautioned they will reconsider restrictions on the semiconductor and other industries if COVID-19 transmissions worsen.The seven other prefectures including Tokyo and Osaka are not planning to respond to our request until they have COVID-19 transmission mitigation plans in place. In the meantime, SEMI Japan will continue to encourage prefectural governments to allow semiconductor supply chain companies to continue to operate unrestricted, a move consistent with current national policy for novel coronavirus disease control.Japan’s Economic Stimulus PackageOn April 6, a day before prime minister Shinzo Abe declared the emergency state for seven prefectures, he announced an unprecedented 108 trillion yen ($989 billion) stimulus package[1]. The package, equivalent to about 20% of the Japan’s economic output, dwarfs the 56 trillion yen in aid passed in the wake of the 2008 financial crisis.The first phase of the relief package seeks to halt job losses and bankruptcies, while the second will support a V-shaped economic recovery. For businesses, phase-one aid includes: Subsidies for firms that keep workers on the payroll. Large companies keeping at least half of their workers on the payroll and small and medium sized businesses that continue to pay at least two-thirds of their employees are eligible for the payouts. One-year deferment of income and regional tax payments for companies hit by the virus Property tax reductions of 50% in fiscal year 2020 for small and medium sized companies with sales that have fallen by at least 30%, and property tax exemptions for those with sales suffering contractions of at least 50%. Interest-free loans requiring no collateral for small and medium sized companies Low-interest loans available to medium sized and large companies through the Development Bank of Japan and Shoko Chukin Bank The second phase of the package, still under development, could include incentives to recharge consumer spending and tourism and subsidies for regional economies once the coronavirus has been contained.Japan COVID-19 Stimulus and Support ResourcesThe economic support measures planned by the Japan Ministry of Economy, Trade and Industry (METI) are summarized at https://www.meti.go.jp/english/covid-19/index.html#10.Prefectural and municipal stimulus and support information is summarized in Japanese at https://j-net21.smrj.go.jp/support/tsdlje00000085bc.html.SEMI Supports Members with COVID-19 ResourcesSEMI international headquarters and regional offices are here to help you, our members. For more information on our webinars, surveys, best practices and other information designed to help you meet the challenges of the pandemic, please visit the SEMI Coronavirus Updates Resources page.[1] The government increased the stimulus package to ¥117.1 trillion after a sudden policy shift to provide cash handouts of ¥100,000 for every individual in Japan. Originally, the plans were to give ¥300,000 to each household that has seen a sharp fall in income due to the virus outbreak.Jim Hamajima is president of SEMI Japan.