SEMICON Japan

The SEMI International Standards program is operated in all major electronics manufacturing regions including the Americas, Europe, Japan, Korea, Taiwan and China to increase the manufacturing efficiency and interoperability. More than 5,000 volunteers representing over 2,000 companies work in 20 global technical committees and over 200 task forces to find solutions to common technology challenges.At SEMICON Japan 2019 – December 12-14 at Tokyo Big Sight, Tokyo – SEMI recognized two industry veterans active in the Japan chapter for their longtime contributions to the SEMI International Standards program. The award ceremony took place on December 13 with 56 Standards committee members and SEMI executives including Ajit Manocha, president and CEO of SEMI, and Jim Hamajima, president of SEMI Japan, in attendance. Hiromichi Enami of Hitachi High-Technologies Corporation and Isao Suzuki of MKS Japan Receive SEMI Japan Honor Award. Left to right: Jim Hamajima (SEMI), Ajit Manocha (SEMI), Hiromichi Enami (Hitachi High-Technologies), Isao Suzuki, James Amano (SEMI) and Mike Ciesinski (SEMI) Contributing to SEMI Standards for more than 20 years, Mr. Hiromichi Enami of Hitachi High-Technologies Corporation has been dedicated to committee management by acting as co-chair of the Gases Technical Committee and the Facilities Technical Committee. In addition, as chairman of the division, he has strived for harmonization with other committees and regions. (The current SEMI International Standards program has no division structure).Mr. Isao Suzuki, formerly of MKS Japan, is also a long-time contributor to the SEMI standards activities, having demonstrated his commitment to the management of the Gases Technical Committee and as a co-chair of the Facilities Technical Committee. He has also made significant efforts towards cooperation with Information Control Committee activities related to sensor bus activities.The SEMI Japan Honor Award is given to members who has contributed to the SEMI International Standards program as a member of Japan Regional Standards Committee or as a Global Technical Committee Japan Chapter co-chair for more than four years.By Junko Collins, director of Standards and EHS, SEMI Japan

Artificial intelligence (AI) is on the verge of transforming entire industries as it gears up to power semiconductor industry innovation and growth, thrusting the technology to front and center at SEMICON Japan 2019, December 12-14 at the Tokyo Big Sight (Tokyo International Exhibition Center).The SMART Technology Forum at SEMICON Japan will highlight the latest AI developments and trends. Supported by U.S. Commercial Service in Japan, the forum will feature Yutaka Matsuo of the University of Tokyo. An authority on AI, Matuso will give an overview of both AI business and technology. His presentation will be followed by an AI outlook from Microsoft Japan, Amazon Web Services and DefinedCrowd.A number of Japanese startups are on leading edge of AI innovation in machine and deep learning. One is Preferred Networks Inc., a company that applies cutting-edge deep learning technology to Internet of Things (IoT) applications across transportation, manufacturing and healthcare.In his opening day keynote at SEMICON Japan, Toru Nishikawa, president and CEO of Preferred Networks, Inc., will highlight the latest developments and promise of using deep learning for industrial applications. Nishikawa will unpack how AI companies jockeying for competitive advantage will win by harnessing technologies to process massive amounts of data efficiently and quickly.Following is look at Preferred Networks, Inc. and five other Japanese startups that are driving AI innovation. Within Japan's world of AI, machine learning, and deep dearning, Preferred Networks is likely the most well-known Japanese company. The parent company, Preferred Infrastructure, was founded in March 2006 by Toru Nishikawa and Daisuke Okanohara, who focused on search engine development before turning to machine learning and establishing Preferred Networks to commercialize the technology.Preferred Networks established itself as one of the world’s top providers of machine learning technology with the development of Chainer – an open source deep learning framework that has been offered free of charge since June 2015 and was released before TensorFlow, Google’s renowned Deep Learning framework. Established in 2012, ABEJA is thought to be Japan’s first venture company to specialize in deep learning. ABEJA's core technology is its AI platform ABEJA Platform. Based on this platform, the company offers various solutions to more than 100 client companies. ABEJA also offers ABEJA Insight, a specialized package service for the retail and distribution, manufacturing, and infrastructure industries. Data analytics provider BrainPad Inc. was the first Japanese AI venture listed on the Tokyo Stock Exchange. Established in 2004, before the advent of big data, BrainPad Inc. cultivated a vision of analyzing vast amounts of data in increase the competitiveness of Japanese companies. LeapMind Inc. aims to offer deep learning technology that uses fewer computing resources and draws less power. Both are important capabilities since deep learning requires considerable computing resources to perform image and speech recognition. The company’s answer to this deep learning challenge is a small form factor FPGA with low power consumption.In April 2018, LeapMind started offering the tool DeLTA-Lite to support model construction for Deep Learning. The tool simplifies the development of deep learning design models, eliminating the need for model design, hardware, and software expertise. Hacarus Inc.’s HACARUS-X AI technology, which combines sparse modeling and machine learning technology, features low power consumption and small devices such as FPGAs. In collaboration with semiconductor trading company PALTEK, Hacarus is integrating HACARUS-X algorithms with Xilinx's FPGA Zynq UltraScale + MPSoC. Both companies area also implementing HACARUS-X algorithms in a box computer.Sparse modeling is gaining attention as a modeling method by which humans can understand the judgment process of AI by extracting features from a small amount of learning data. With expertise in life science fields such as medical and biology and image processing technology, LPixel, Inc. develops image analysis systems with original algorithms and machine learning techniques. It has developed a cloud-based AI image analysis platform and an AI medical image diagnosis support technology that streamlines the review of large amounts of research data and detects image fraud in research papers and other documents for the medical and biology fields, freeing researchers to devote more time to their core work. Yoichiro Ando is a marketing director at SEMI Japan.

On June 1st, 2018, Toshiba sold Toshiba Memory, Toshiba’s memory business, to an investment group led by Bain Capital. Toshiba Memory was then owned by a consortium of American, Japanese and Korean companies.After the long and tough negotiations, Toshiba Memory moved forward at full throttle, holding a groundbreaking ceremony for its new 3D NAND fab (100,000 WPM) in Kitakami in July and, in September, celebrating the opening of Fab 6 Phase 1 (50,000 WPM). To be sure, NAND memory is a key feature of Japan’s semiconductor industry. But the sector’s reach extends well beyond memory with its rich and versatile product portfolio nourished by active investment.Born in the early 1950s, Japan’s semiconductor industry today boasts more than 30 companies with fabs. Many feature 200mm and smaller wafer lines with legacy technologies, form factors that account for the bulk of the world’s semiconductors and are the oxygen of Japan’s chip industry. Clearly, the world is not built only with the state-of-art 7nm processed chips on the latest generation 300mm lines. Japanese chipmakers are flourishing.Automotive SemiconductorsRenesas Electronics remains a giant in microcontrollers (MCU) and system on chip (SoC) devices for automotive applications. According to IHS Markit, Renesas automotive semiconductor revenue in 2017 reached $3.6 billion while Inineon Technologies and NXP Semiconductors revenues were $3.4 billion and $3.7 billion, respectively. The three companies dominate the global automotive MCU global market. The company recently acquired Integrated Device Technology (IDT), a U.S. fabless company specializing in analog/mixed signal chips, to strengthen its automotive semiconductor portfolio. Renesas operates four volume production fabs, according to the latest World Fab Forecast from SEMI. Renesas’s microcontrollers for automotive applications (Source: Renesas Electronics) Power SemiconductorsWith power semiconductors the chips of choice for boosting the efficiency and performance of motors and batteries used in equipment, demand for the devices is rapidly growing, especially for automotive applications. Power semiconductor companies in Japan are legion and include Denso, Fuji Electric, Fujitsu Semiconductor, Hitachi, Kyocera, Mitsubishi Electric, New Japan Radio, Origin Electric, Phenitec Semiconductor, Renesas, Rohm, Sanken Electric, Sansha Electric Manufacturing, Seiko NPC, Shindengen Electric Manufacturing, Sumitomo Electric Device Innovations, Toshiba and Toyota Industries. The companies account for 26% of global power semiconductor capacity and will spend $317 million for construction and equipping in 2018.CMOS SensorsSony dominates the CMOS image sensors market with 42% share in 2016, according to Yole Développment. To meet growing demand for high-end CMOS image sensors, Sony has acquired several legacy 300mm wafer fabs and retooled them for CMOS sensor manufacturing. What’s more, Sony’s May announcement of its mid-term corporate strategy includes a 1 trillion Japanese yen investment in CMOS image sensors targeted to automotive applications by March 2021.Sony’s 7.42 effective megapixel stacked CMOS image sensor for automotive cameras (Source: Sony Corporation) MEMSMEMS is perhaps the most wide-ranging device market: Every application requires different capabilities and functions. The latest World Fab Forecast report lists 17 MEMS companies in Japan, though three makers of fast-growing RF MEMS, typically known as surface acoustic wave (SAW) or bulk acoustic wave (BAW) filters, are coming to the attention of semiconductor manufacturers. All are familiar passive electronic components suppliers – Murata Manufacturing, Taiyo Yuden and TDK – and all acquired legacy semiconductor fabs to manufacture RF MEMS.Their high-performance radio wave filters make mobile phones usable around the world. Research companies like Yole expect the introduction of 5G cellular mobile communication systems to fuel another wave of growth of the RF MEMS market. Murata Manufacturing’s SAW filters for smart phones (source Murata Manufacturing) Japanese Supply Chain Meets All Different NeedsJapan’s semiconductor supply chain provides one third of the world’s semiconductor manufacturing equipment and more than half of the industry’s materials. But Japanese suppliers also work with small and midsize makers of highly versatile chips critical to enabling the explosion of smart applications.Meet these versatile Japanese suppliers at SEMICON Japan to find solutions to your unique needs and help the world get smarter. Themed “Dreams Start Here,” SEMICON Japan 2018 reflects the promise of AI (artificial intelligence), Internet of Things (IoT) and Smart technologies. Featuring more than 750 exhibitors from around the world, the event is the gathering place to connect the people, technologies and business across the electronics manufacturing supply chain, from semiconductor manufacturing to autonomous cars, robotics and other smart applications. For more information about SEMICON Japan, visit www.semiconjapan.org.Yoichiro Ando is a marketing director at SEMI Japan.