KLA

Once an unpopular career destination for university graduates in Korea, the semiconductor industry has been a plum target since the rise of Samsung Electronics and SK Hynix as global leaders and key growth engines for the Korean economy. The industry’s outsize role in innovation of cutting-edge technologies and applications such as artificial intelligence (AI), Internet of Things (IoT), 5G and autonomous driving has added to the appeal.The draw of a career in chip manufacturing is even stronger when new graduates from Korean universities consider the semiconductor industry’s rapid growth of 22.2% in 2017 and 15.5% in 2018, according to VLSI Research. Yet, even before earning their degrees, many students are unclear about steps they need to take to prepare for a career in the industry and the type of work available to them.These questions and concerns were on the top of the minds of 250 students who gathered at COEX in Seoul in mid-November for SEMI Campus Outreach, a half day of career insights from global chip companies including Lam Research, Applied Materials, Tokyo Electron, and KLA along with leading semiconductor companies in Korea such as SEMES, EO technics, JUSUNG ENGINEERING, DONGJIN SEMICHEM, PSK and Wonik IPS. Keynote - Inhak Harry Suh, CEO, Lam Research Korea 250 students gathered at Campus Outreach Campus Outreach keynote speaker Inhak Harry Suh, CEO of Lam Research Korea, stressed that talented new graduates hold the key to leading the semiconductor industry into the Industry 4.0 era and the next phase of growth. He urged the students to look for a company that treats its employees with respect and fairness and to enjoy their work. Joining the executives in inspiring the students, field and service engineers highlighted the semiconductor industry’s strong growth potential, described their job responsibilities and the skills students need to develop to thrive, and offered guidance on subjects to study in school to best prepare students for jobs in the industry. On the recruiting side, human resources representatives at the event provided overviews of their companies and skills they’re looking for as they court talent. Campus Outreach sponsors At SEMICON Korea 2020 – Feb. 5-7 at COEX in Seoul – SEMI will continue to cultivate industry talent at the Workforce Development Pavilion. To help the industry solve its critical talent shortage, the pavilion will offer university students interviews with industry experts and tutorials on semiconductor production as the students explore career paths and are mentored by engineers during the Meet the Experts program. And with a diverse workforce recognized as a competitive advantage, the Women-in-Technology session will gather leaders to discuss how the industry can improve diversity.Jaegwan Shim is a marketing specialist at SEMI Korea.

Famous for its warmth and hospitality, Japan always welcomes visitors from around the world with a gracious embrace. But when is the best season to visit? It depends on the interest of each visitor of course. For Instagrammers, the April cherry blossoms or November autumn leaves – a masterpiece of art with their rainbow gold, red and yellow hues – are ideal for snapping memorable pictures. For foodies, winter delights with tuna, toro sushi and other seafood at their tastiest. Wagyu peaks in richness, too, when the cold weather sets in. For anime and manga enthusiasts, August is definitely the time to visit. That’s when COMIKET, the world’s largest comic market – drawing more than a half million people – takes place in Tokyo. But for people in the electronics value chain, the perfect time to pack their bags and hop a flight to Tokyo is December, when SEMICON Japan – December 11-13 at Tokyo Big Sight – opens its doors with its own form of hospitality.Why should you attend? Here are the five top reasons.Reason 1: Japan is home to leading electronics industry suppliersAccording to VLSI Technology, seven of the top 15 semiconductor equipment suppliers in 2018 are headquartered in Japan, and many Japanese companies also lead backend equipment segments. For decades, Japanese companies have supplied about one third of the equipment for the global semiconductor equipment industry, according to SEMI and the Semiconductor Equipment Association of Japan (SEAJ). Most of these companies typically set up a booth on the SEMICON Japan show floor to welcome your visit.True, many Japanese suppliers also exhibit at SEMICON shows outside of Japan to meet with customers. But you will find many more engineers, managers and executives of equipment suppliers on their home ground at SEMICON Japan, where suppliers typically debut new equipment. Their booths are also ideal locations for visitors to meet with suppliers to ask questions, exchange opinions and negotiate new business deals.Japanese materials suppliers enjoy an even larger market share, providing about half the materials for the global semiconductor industry. These suppliers dominate in silicon wafers, photomasks, photoresists, sputtering targets, packaging substrates, bonding wires, leadframes, mold compounds and wafer level packaging dielectrics. Unlike equipment suppliers, not all materials companies exhibit. Instead, many participate as speakers and attend to connect with customers.Reason 2: Get ready for the next semiconductor industry upturnA year ago, in late 2018, we expected chip inventory to stabilize by mid-2019, yet the industry still struggles with high inventory overall and low average selling price for memory. The SEMI 2019 equipment billing forecast was lowered accordingly from -4.0 percent growth (2018 year-end forecast) to -18.4 percent (2019 mid-year forecast). However, the two forecasts still predict positive growth in 2020. As SEMICON Japan 2019 is underway, we should be at the beginning of the next upturn.The chart below shows that more wafer process fabs will start construction in 2020 than this year. (Please see article: Nearly $50 Billion in Fabs to Start Construction in 2020.) Custer Consulting Group also pointed to “a resumption in semiconductor chip and capital equipment growth in late 2019 or early 2020.” (Please see article: Semiconductor Industry Upturn by Early 2020?.)With better times ahead, SEMICON Japan 2019 will be an opportune time to exchange opinions with key players across the supply chain and start negotiations for the coming robust recovery of the equipment, components and materials markets.Reason 3: Glimpse the future at SuperTHEATERSEMICON Japan SuperTHEATER will feature industry and technology insights from global visionaries. Asako Eda, Japan’s chief representative officer of the World Economic Forum and the former president of Intel Japan, will open the SuperTHEATER with her keynote on how we live in an era where the fourth industrial revolution, climate change, disparity and geopolitical risks are affecting our lives and with the speed we have never experienced. She will explore the growing role of innovation and social responsibility and how the World Economic Forum is addressing associated challenges. The opening keynote session will also feature Nandan Nayampally, vice president and general manager of the Immersive Experience group at Arm.In all, the SuperTHEATER will host seven keynote forums over three days at SEMICON Japan including: Semiconductor Executive Forum – Terushi Shimizu, representative director and president of Sony Semiconductor Solutions, and Atsuyoshi Koike, president of Western Digital Japan, will discuss their business strategies and prospects. Manufacturing Innovation Summit – Executives from Applied Materials, KLA, Nikon and Tokyo Electron will discuss business and technology issues as well as innovations that will drive growth to 2030. All seven SuperTHEATER programs will be simultaneously translated to English for international audiences.Reason 4: Connect to application communitiesCollaboration across the value chain has never been more important to industry innovation and growth – the very reason SEMI has expanded its reach beyond the semiconductor manufacturing supply chain (equipment and materials) to include design, systems and products.The SEMICON Japan show and conferences will connect you to key application segments of the value chain. The SuperTHEATER will host two SMART transportation forums highlighting the latest developments in autonomous driving and sky transportation (flying cars). In the SMART Applications Zone on the show floor, you’ll find electronics products and technologies showcased for automotive and manufacturing automation as the autonomous driving pavilion highlights emerging technologies that are driving semiconductor innovation opportunities. Reason 5: Learn from disaster and recovery experiencesJapan has taken important disaster recovery lessons from devastating earthquakes over the past three decades, most notably the Kumamoto quake in 2016, the Tohoku temblor in 2011 and the Kobe rattler in 1995. So has the Japan electronics supply chain, including SEMI members. In the Business Continuity Plan (BCP) area at SEMICON Japan 2019, exhibitors including DISCO, Murata Machinery and THK will highlight technologies that can strengthen your preparedness for a disaster and aid in the recovery.On December 12 at the BCP seminar at Japan 2019, Sony Semiconductor Manufacturing, DISCO and Team Engineering Consulting will share their experiences and expertise in mitigating the disaster impacts. (Sony and Disco will present in Japanese.)To get the feel for the magnitude of a major earthquake and how seismic isolation protects against structural damage, be sure to take advantage of THK’s earthquake experience car. Seismic isolation installs isolators – rubber bearings, friction bearings, ball bearings, spring systems or other devices – beneath a building to buffer earthquake vibrations transmitted to structures.More reasons to attend SEMICON JapanAnd of course your visit to Tokyo for SEMICON Japan 2019 wouldn’t be complete without exploring Tokyo and other regions to experience Japan’s exotic culture, cityscapes and cuisine! Here are some resources to give you even more reasons to book a flight to Tokyo: Japan National Tourism Organization Go Tokyo Kyoto Tourism I look forward to seeing you at SEMICON Japan in December!Jim Hamajima is president of SEMI Japan.

Automotive original equipment manufacturers (OEMs) and their direct suppliers of parts and systems share a vision: Next-generation vehicles will be more electric, autonomous and connected. At a market size of more than $1 trillion, automotive is steadily becoming a high-tech market as cars morph into advanced technology platforms with partially or fully autonomous features. Call them semiconductors on wheels. Big players such as Google and many carmakers are investing heavily in chip advances to help drive increases in silicon content in automobiles.At SEMICON Europa, Pierrick Boulay, Solid State Lighting and Lighting Systems analyst at Yole Développement, will provide a market update on autonomous automobile trends including the state of sensors, radars, cameras and LiDARs as the industry works to increase the level of autonomy and electrification.Autonomous vehicle design can only thrive with the development of an industry standard for chip and device traceability across the supply chain. The importance of chip traceability to the automotive industry is reflected in its central role in driving a chip traceability standard.According to Heidi Hoffman, senior director of technology communities marketing at SEMI, “chip traceability is one of the next big things for the technology industry. The benefits are enormous, and the upsides – including yield enhancements, counterfeiting safeguards, and support for new applications – are plentiful. But the implementation challenges of chip traceability are also big and will require considerable effort to overcome. The biggest hurdle of all? We need to transcend industry fears by demonstrating that we can secure IP when it is shared across the hardware supply chain.” The Importance of Standards, Data Collection and Collaboration Across the Supply ChainThe automotive industry has long embraced tracing the sources of defects. Now, as the automotive and semiconductor supply chains increasingly overlap, traceability has taken on greater importance in the semiconductor industry. SEMI committees, task forces and events such as the Smart Transportation Forum at SEMICON Europa are ideal platforms for collaborating to develop new standards and best practices for the automotive industry.Earlier this year, German luxury automobile maker Audi AG became the first automotive original equipment manufacturer (OEM) to join SEMI as member, strengthening alignment across automotive supply-chain segments. At SEMICON Europa, the SMART Transportation Forum and Pavilion, staged by the SEMI Global Automotive Advisory Council (GAAC) and bolstered by the Electronic System Design Alliance, a SEMI Strategic Association Partner, will gather key stakeholders across the automotive value chain, from design and semiconductor equipment to materials and carmakers, to explore innovation opportunities in automotive electronics. SEMI Global Automotive Advisory Council (GAAC) “If the industry wants to reach the goal of zero defects, a new collaborative approach is necessary,” observed Antoine Amade, senior regional director EMEA at Entegris. At SEMICON Europa, Amade will present new ways to collaborate in reducing chip defectivity and meet other challenges in the automotive industry.More than half of semiconductor failures on the automotive assembly line today (so-called 0km failures) are traced to semiconductor fab defectivity. “The increasing semiconductor content in automobiles – driven by growth in ADAS, electrification and autonomy – has put a growing focus on the quality and reliability of these devices and their implications for consumer safety and satisfaction,” said Oreste Donzella, senior vice president and CMO at KLA.The smart manufacturing (Industry 4.0) revolution is already spurring higher performance and great efficiencies throughout the supply chain and will also be crucial to driving innovation in automotive. Smart manufacturing makes possible significant improvements in factory key performance indicators (KPI) for cycle time, on-time delivery, overall equipment effectiveness, cost and product quality.“These KPI gains are key to meeting quality levels the automotive industry must reach to support the deployment of autonomous driving vehicles,” said John R. Behnke, general manager of Final Phase Systems at INFICON. In his talk at SEMICON Europa, Behnke will provide an overview of existing, in-progress, and future smart manufacturing solutions for the semiconductor industry and their impact on the automotive supply chain. The SMART Transportation Forum, 13 November, 2019 (9:30-15:30 at ICM Munich, room 14c) at SEMICON Europa is the premier platform for key stakeholders to connect, collaborate and innovate across the automotive value chain. Automotive and semiconductor industry experts will offer insights into trends in design, semiconductor equipment and materials, and automotive innovation and the roadmap to 2030. The SMART Transportation Forum will also showcase innovations in imaging, sensing, artificial intelligence (AI), smart manufacturing and L5 mobility.Other SEMICON Europa highlights: Advanced Packaging Conference: Packaging and Test Challenges Towards High Reliability (12-13 November 2019) 23rd Fab Management Forum: Game Changers for Semiconductor Operations(11-12 November 2019) Strategic Materials Conference: Strategic Materials Enabling Industry Roadmaps(12-13 November 2019) SEMICON Europa registration is open for visitors and exhibitors. For more details, please visit the SEMICON Europa website and connect with SEMI Europe on Twitter or LinkedIn @SEMIEurope (use #SEMICONEuropa).Learn more about the SEMI chip traceability standard – SEMI T23 - Specification for Single Device Traceability for the Supply Chain – and SEMI Technology Communities.Serena Brischetto is a marketing and communications manager at SEMI Europe.

The future of the semiconductor industry began to blossom recently in Seoul, South Korea as young, innovative minds teased out secrets to electronics manufacturing and their path to enter the industry one day. Twenty-seven middle schoolers gathered in early August at Yonsei University for SEMI High Tech U (HTU), the worldwide SEMI program that introduces students to science, engineering, technology and math (STEM) careers over three days of hands-on activities and experiential learning. Since 2001, HTU has reached some 8,000 students in nine countries.Semiconductor giants including Applied Materials, KLA, Lam Research and Dongjin Semichem were key teachers as representatives from the companies gave theoretical and practical lectures to pique the students’ interest in STEM educations and careers. The speakers, all experts in microelectronics, surveyed microchips and solar cells, mathematical and scientific experimentation, engineering design and the inner workings of semiconductor manufacturing before the students broke off into teams for lessons largely of their own making. Fine-tuning a wooden contraption – a Statapult – to hurl a ball as far as possible might not sound like the stuff of microelectronics, but it drew on the type of problem-solving skills and creativity the students will need to thrive in the semiconductor industry. Student teams made adjustments to the levers of miniature catapults, then tested the throwing power of the devices. After the ball tosses, they reconvened as a class to share lessons in how they calibrated their catapults for a longer tossing distance and ways they could improve the devices’ performance. Students also took tours of two very different semiconductor manufacturing settings – one virtual and the other real. The young learners donned virtual reality headsets for a simulated walk-through of Applied Materials (the tour was sponsored by the company), then slipped on bunny suits for a tour of Yonsei University's BIT micro fab and a close-up look of how semiconductors are made.But it was the ever-popular Human Calculator game that inspired the greatest thrill as students dove deep into technology. During the exercise, they converted numbers into binary and then traced the digits through a series of gates in an electronic circuit, an exercise requiring careful team communication and concentration to generate the right outputs. The students surprised SEMI Korea employees and instructors, and themselves, by completing the exercise with record speed. Their time: less than two seconds.Human resources managers from sponsor companies were on hand to give the middle school students a head start in their careers with lessons in resume writing and career management. In mock interviews, the students honed their interviewing skills. And in meetings with SEMI High Tech U alumni they learned how their predecessors worked their way into semiconductor industry and their focus of study in college.To be sure, the day was rich in details about working in the microelectronics industry. But did it meet the students’ expectations? In a survey before the event, the more than two dozen students, on average, rated their knowledge of microelectronics at 4.5 on a scale of 1 to 10, a score that jumped to 7.7 after completing HTU. Their favorite module? No surprise: Engineering Design. In this exercise, the students designed a carrier for six 12-ounce beverage cans using only decidedly low-tech materials such as strings, rubber bands and wooden boards. Their innovations were studies in high creativity and ingenuity – just the type of imaginations the semiconductor industry needs. SEMI Korea has offered SEMI HTU since 2011. This year, various other career development programs such as semiconductor manufacturing tutorials and mentoring are planned as SEMI Korea continues to sow the seeds of the next generation of industry workers. Jaegwan Shim is a marketing specialist at SEMI Korea.

Would you buy your next hotdog in parts, from un-coordinated suppliers? For example: Get the bun from a baker, the sausage from a butcher, mustard and/or ketchup and veggies from the nearest supermarket? If yes, you may find the sausage being too small, the veggies too big for the bun, and, when you finally finished adding mustard/ketchup and start eating, you may “enjoy” a cold sausage on a soggy bun!This “hotdog example” is just a very simple way to highlight the advantages of a well-coordinated semiconductor supply chain. What may be a few dollars and cents wasted in this hotdog purchase, can become millions of dollars lost to delays and inefficiencies during the roll-out of a new electronic system.Complexity is Increasing the ChallengeThe very innovative semiconductor industry is continuing to develop more complete and complex building blocks for electronic system solutions, with the intent of making our customers’ lives easier. However, every new technology takes increasingly more time for technical and business interfaces to mature before all the semiconductor supply chain members can serve customers in a smooth, efficient and cost-effective manner. In particular, coordination between design and manufacturing has always turned out to be in the critical path.SEMI, the manufacturers’ trade organization, and the Electronic System Design (ESD) Alliance, representing electronic design automation (EDA) tools vendors, developers of intellectual property (IP = ready-made building blocks for ICs) and IC design service providers, both recognized these challenges. Late in 2018, these two industry organizations decided to jointly address this painful, costly and often a very frustrating, yet critical path and became Strategic Association Partners, The goal is to establish a well-coordinated semiconductor supply chain.To make the value propositions of this partnership highly visible and demonstrate the first joint accomplishments, SEMI’s well-known SEMICON West conference and, in its first year, ES Design West, will be conveniently co-located in San Francisco’s Moscone Center from July 9 to 11, 2019. The synchronized schedules and geographic proximity of these events not only outlines the multi-faceted interdependence of manufacturing and design but encourages and enables conference attendees to do, what previously would have been viewed as “forming cross-border relationships.” It’s a new word now — please join the path to success and expand your network!Navigating SEMICON West and ES Design WestJust in case you are not yet planning to come to San Francisco early July, please check the Agendas-at-a-Glance for SEMICON West and ES Design West, to see how broad and valuable these parallel conferences are for your business. In addition, every customer, partner and semiconductor industry supplier can, from July 9 –11, walk from one conference section to the other, arrange face-to-face meetings, in dedicated meeting rooms, with representatives from both camps and discuss, from the first project planning step to the final production ramp-up, the many topics that need to be coordinated across parts or the entire supply chain to minimize delays and/or cost over-runs.Who Will Lead the Discussions?Conference attendees can, in addition to meeting many important supply chain partners face-to-face, hear about the latest technologies and market trends from key executives in our industry. Featured speakers are: David Pellerin, Head of Global Business Development, Amazon Web Services Lisa Su, President, and CEO, AMD Gary Dickerson, President, and CEO, Applied Materials Laurent Le Faucheur, Principal Engineer, Digital Signal Processing and Machine Learning, Arm, Ltd. Renee St. Amant, Ph.D., Research Engineer in Emerging Technologies and US Innovator of the Year, ARM Dean Kamen, President DEKA Research Development, Founder First and First Global Jeffrey Welser, Ph.D., Vice President and Lab Director, IBM Research-Almaden Dean Drako, President and CEO, IC Manage, Inc. Oreste Donzella, Sr. VP Chief Marketing Officer, KLA Corporation Prakash Narain, President, and CEO, Real Intent, Inc. Aart de Geus, Chairman, and Co-CEO, Synopsys, Inc. Manish Pandy, Fellow, Synopsys, Inc. Nate Baxter, General Manager, Development and Production Group, TEL US Like in previous years, SEMICON West and ES Design West offer a range of special features, addressing Smart Manufacturing, Smart Transportation, Smart MedTech and Smart Workforce development in dedicated pavilions as well as an AI Design Forum. Also, the many exhibitors from both camps will give conference attendees convenient opportunities to get to know new supply chain partners and/or refresh long-term business relationships. Search for the exhibitors you want to meet early July here. Questions to Ask for a Well-Coordinated Semiconductor Supply ChainIf I may, I would like to ask my many friends in the manufacturing camp to spend some time in the ES Design West section and ask the exhibitors a few questions, like: What can you do to get me to profit faster? To reduce development and unit cost? To improve yield, product quality, and reliability? When can you visit my team to discuss how your company can contribute to our goals?Vice versa, I would like to encourage my friends in the design camp to spend time in the SEMICON West section and ask exhibitors what their companies offer. When talking to manufacturers of IC, passive components or circuit boards, assembly and test houses, please ask very specific questions like: How can we help you reduce iterations between you and your customers? How can we help to improve IC test programs? How can we increase the throughput of your manufacturing equipment? How can we apply machine learning (ML) and Artificial Intelligence (AI) to minimize equipment downtime, improve yields and/or shorten production ramp-up?I can assure you that you’ll not only win great friends “across the border” but will be very impressed by the expertise you’ll find in the other camp and the willingness for and benefits of cross-border cooperation.I look forward to meeting you at SEMICON West and ES Design West. Also, if your schedule allows, mark your calendars for the June 12 MEPTEC Luncheon at SEMI in Milpitas, June 18 for the GSA’s Silicon Summit in Santa Clara and June 25 to 27 for the IMAPS SiP Conference in Monterey, CA. Hope to see you at one or all of these important events!Article originally published in 3D InCites. Herb Reiter is president of eda 2 asic Consulting.