Cadence

The Workforce Development Pavilion (WFD) returned to SEMICON West 2022 Hybrid with three days of programming and activities to address workforce development challenges and share opportunities for job seekers, students, recent graduates, talent recruiters and human resources professionals.

Emerging applications powered by 5G and artificial intelligence (AI) are expected to be a boon to the semiconductor industry, but only once chipmakers overcome a key challenge: Architecting chips that meet the exacting performance, power consumption, size and cost requirements of devices for mid- to high-end applications. One technology – heterogeneous integration – promises to meet these demands and help drive future leaps in semiconductor innovation in the post-Moore era. To help the industry better grasp the technology challenges and business opportunities associated with deploying highly integrated chip and packaging technologies, SEMI and AI on Chip Taiwan Alliance recently gathered industry leaders from organizations including ASE, Unimicron, Dialog Semiconductor, Cadence and AITA to discuss technology trends and the vital importance of building a cross-industry exchange platform to advance next-generation manufacturing processes critical to heterogeneous integration. Following are key takeaways from the forum, Heterogeneous Integration Enables 5G and AI. Overcoming Heterogeneous Integration Technology Challenges Key to Advances in Taiwan High-End Semiconductor Manufacturing The introduction of the Heterogeneous Integration Roadmap (HIR) by the International Technology Roadmap for Semiconductors team in 2016 was an important first step, Dr. C.P. Hung, Vice President of ASE Group, noted in his opening remarks. The HIR is designed to stimulate pre-competitive collaboration to advance heterogeneous integration technology development and accelerate electronics innovation. The roadmap provides a long-term vision for the electronics industry, identifying future technology requirements and potential solutions. Today, the HIR working group focuses on high-performance computing (HPC), 5G and other leading-edge technologies.Dr. Hung predicted that heterogenous integration will reshape traditional collaborations between the semiconductor ecosystem and supply chain in order to clear I/O bottlenecks that hamstring high-performance applications. The retooled industry connections will also need to enable high I/O pin counts, ultra-thin devices, and high-frequency signal shields. In an important step forward, the chip industry today is developing a platform that enhances wafer-level advanced packaging services and deepens cooperation with Oversea Assembly and Testing (OSAT) and substrate supply chain partners. Overcoming the current limits of IC substrates – the connection between IC chips the PCB – is one key for heterogeneous integration technology to flourish, said Dr. Yu-Hua Chen, Vice President, Carrier SBU, RD Division of Unimicron. He noted that the industry must tackle limits to PCB thickness, substrate density, fine pitch and automation to meet the needs of high-end packaging customers. Another barrier the industry must be surmounted is to make the currently inscrutable confidentiality requirements for patents of foreign materials – key to improving chip yields – easier to access and understand for substrate engineers. Chen said partnerships across the entire industry will be necessary to break through this and other technology breakthroughs. Supply Chain and Cross-Border Ecosystem to Strengthen Partnerships for Further DevelopmentTaiwan has long invested heavily in advancing semiconductor manufacturing and application engineering technologies to become a top global chipmaking hub and, in the process, has been behind significant leaps in optimizing chip functionality, said Leroy Liu, General Manager, Asia Headquarters, of Dialog Semiconductor (Germany). With its semiconductor manufacturing prowess, Taiwan can also play a central role in maturing advanced heterogeneous integration packaging technology while managing development costs by partnering with its international supply chain community to overcome technical challenges more effectively, Liu said. The region can also help forge partnerships, even among competitors, to build the ecosystem essential for heterogeneous integration technology to shine.EDA tools will be critical in understanding and resolving heterogeneous integration technical issues since IC substrate, packaging and chip design all pose interdisciplinary engineering challenges, said Julian Sun, Product Marketing Director at Cadence. To help the industry navigate these challenges, Cadence has launched intelligent system design products – solutions that address a wide range of design problems with semiconductor nanometers, micrometers on packaging and testing, and PCB level micro/millimeters to Pin/Pitch, I/O models, and thermals and electricity. By supporting various technical designs, Cadence helps customers shorten the design cycle to strengthen design quality and reduce costs.Sun also pointed to the vital importance of overcoming the significant challenge of designing silicon interposers for heterogeneous integration. Today’s EDA tools are capable of optimizing the design of complex structures including 5GAiP and HBM and are instrumental in aiding Taiwan’s semiconductor ecosystem players to quickly adapt to shifts in the evolving heterogeneous integration market.Heterogeneous Integration Enables 5G and AI speakers (L-R): Julian Sun, Product Marketing Director at Cadence, Dr. Yu-Hua Chen, Vice President, Carrier SBU, RD Division of Unimicron, Dr. C.P. Hung, Vice President of ASE Group, Leroy Liu, General Manager, Asia Headquarters, of Dialog Semiconductor (Germany), Dr. Shih-Chieh Chang, AITA Executive Secretary Designing AI chips is particularly difficult as semiconductor makers struggle with high costs and low yields, said Dr. Shih-Chieh Chang, AITA’s Executive Secretary. That’s why the chip industry now uses FPGAs for small-volume production of AI chips, which makes it easier to improve manufacturing yield through redundant design. For its part, AITA has formed a special interest group (SIG) to help form connections among the chip industry, academia and research institutes. The association’s goal is to build a platform for mass production of AI chips.To get involved in SEMI Taiwan Heterogeneous Integration related events, please contact Ula Huang, outreach senior specialist, at [email protected] Fang is a coordinator and Ashley Huang is a specialist in marketing and public relations at SEMI Taiwan.

SEMI’s mantra is: Connect, Collaborate, Innovate. This mantra has delivered industry-enabling value to our members since SEMI’s beginnings in 1970. It has been essential for SEMI members to grow and prosper locally, while being synchronized globally. As the electronics manufacturing business has become more complex and interdependent, SEMI’s mantra has increasingly been applied across the full span of electronics manufacturing.With the IC industry now worth over $400 billion in annual revenue, developing a single new chip can cost hundreds of millions of dollars. Consequently, industry players now connect, collaborate, and innovate in new, but more often, deeper ways. This is especially true with IC design – what’s possible in chip design is only possible if the manufacturing processes can be developed as projected. It makes sense, as complexity grows and the stakes get higher, that design and manufacturing are closely linked and apply the SEMI mantra together. Where Electronics Begin“Where Electronics Begin” is the tagline of the Electronics System Design Alliance, or the ESD Alliance. It aptly distills the fact that all IC manufacturing begins with design – and the design ecosystem. This week, SEMI announced it reached an agreement with the ESD Alliance to join SEMI as a SEMI Strategic Association Partner. The ESD Alliance will become part of the SEMI organization in 2018. With the ESD Alliance and its community joining SEMI, its membership will complete the full electronics design and manufacturing span.This is a momentous step forward. The ESD Alliance’s ecosystem is vital and thriving and includes the world’s leading EDA and IP companies. Within the ESD Alliance community, Aart de Geus (Synopsys), Wally Rhines (Mentor, a Siemens Company), Simon Segars (Arm), and Lip-Bu Tan (Cadence), among others, are already familiar figures, having brought their thought leadership to SEMI platforms in the past. Now they, and the rest of the ESD Alliance members, will be able to more directly work with semiconductor equipment manufacturers, devices makers, and the rest of SEMI’s membership.At events like SEMICON China, which recently concluded in March and attracted over 90,000 attendees, SEMI and the ESD Alliance members will be able to efficiently connect and engage the supply chain players and find new areas for collaboration. As SEMI’s membership looks out towards new applications and systems opportunities, having both ecosystems together will find possibilities faster and innovate approaches more practically. The ESD Alliance will maintain its distinct community identity and governance while having access to, and the ability to augment, SEMI’s global platforms including seven regional offices, programs and expositions (including SEMICONs), advocacy (including trade, tax, talent, and technology), industry research and statistics, and other SEMI Strategic Association Partner and technology communities.SEMI will gain direct access to the electronics design ecosystems to provide a deeper and wider value – to its combined membership – with SEMI’s mantra. SEMI and its more than 2,000 corporate members and more than 1.2 million stakeholders look forward to connecting, collaborating, and innovating with the ESD Alliance and its members. SEMI’s global reach and wide span of membership with ESD Alliance’s deep expertise in design and IP is truly the best of both worlds for all stakeholders.Connect: Design ManufacturingSEMI’s members have been reaching into the electronics design ecosystem and the ESD Alliance members have been reaching into SEMI’s ecosystem to optimize design and manufacturing process for lowest cost and highest yield. This week’s announcement is a step forward to directly and more intimately connect electronics design and manufacturing for the supply chain to work more closely together in full synchronization. Collaborate: From Beginning to End in Electronics ApplicationsWith the ESD Alliance joining SEMI as a Strategic Association Partner, SEMI members can better collaborate across the full supply chain. Gone are the days when it was enough to collaborate only with one’s direct customer. Today, for example, components and c-subs suppliers frequently collaborate not just with their OEM equipment manufacturer customers, but with device manufacturers – and even system integrators. To be successful, companies are striving for connection to their customers’ customers.The ESD Alliance, with its design ecosystem and linkage to the fabless community, will join three existing SEMI Strategic Association Partners: Fab Owners Alliance (FOA), MEMS Sensors Industry Group (MSIG), and FlexTech (the association representing the flexible hybrid electronics ecosystem). These relationships now cover the entire span of electronics manufacturing.To provide focused collaboration across the full supply chain, SEMI has developed five vertical application platforms: IoT, Smart Manufacturing, Smart Transportation, Smart MedTech, and Smart Data. These have been chosen because of unique and pressing needs to synchronize the supply chain and to engage and develop solutions collectively.Innovate: Faster FutureWith the confluence of emerging digital disruptions and new demand drivers, forecasts suggest the IC industry could grow to over $1 trillion in annual revenue by 2030. To deliver this growth, the supply chain must efficiently innovate together. SEMI’s value proposition is to speed the time to better business results for its members across the global electronics (design and) manufacturing supply chain. The addition of the ESD Alliance as a Strategic Association Partner is a key contributor to deliver this value proposition for the industry to grow and prosper now and in the future.