foundry

One of the surprising side effects that came out of the COVID-19 pandemic is the acceleration of the digital transformation of global economies, which has driven a structural shift and propelled the already mature semiconductor industry to record highs.

China’s semiconductor sector has exploded to become one of the largest in the world and match the region’s prominence as the biggest consumer of chips. From 2015 to 2020 alone, revenue of China’s integrated circuit (IC) industry expanded at a rapid clip of 20% CAGR (RMB) to $128 billion.

Spend any time with Ansys’ John Lee, Rich Goldman or Marc Swinnen and you’ll hear plenty of optimism about the semiconductor industry even though they tick off a long list of looming design challenges. The need for reliable and effective electronic systems, they emphasize, is great and runs through high tech, aerospace and defense, automotive, IoT and 5G with communications being a common denominator. The three are especially bullish these days on changing market dynamics brought on by systems companies building company-specific bespoke, or custom, silicon. These systems companies are building chips with a different perspective and a fresh look at silicon design, a move away from the more traditional segment-specific silicon due to much more complexity. Ansys, a member of the ESD Alliance, a SEMI Technology Community, is a 4,100-employee company with a comprehensive portfolio of multiphysics engineering simulation software for product design, testing and operation products and services. John, Rich, Marc and I focused on Ansys’ semiconductor and electronics segment for our conversation. Smith: When did you notice the move by systems companies to build their own chips? What drives this trend? Lee: The inflection point was about three years ago when hyperscale data center and system companies recognized they needed an enterprise system design platform. They are designing bespoke silicon, driven to do this for cost efficiencies and to avoid relying on outside suppliers. They also want differentiation based on their specific platform needs so they can optimize compute power to their specific needs. Smith: What is driving the trend for multiphysics experience to ensure effective and reliable electronic systems? Lee: The increasing need for multiphysics analysis is acute. The physics of 3D IC, for example, brings in mechanical engineering with the convergence of mechanical and electrical as 3D emerges at the intersection of IC and System. As a result, physics becomes a necessity to analyze the stability of the chip in the package. Goldman: As well, the move to stacked chips, 3D IC and wafer-on-wafer requires thermal, electromagnetic and mechanical analysis in addition to the traditional analysis for function, performance and power. They all need to be analyzed together, not serially. It becomes multiphysics, not multiple physics. Smith: Two distinctly different disciplines – multiple physics and multiphysics – are needed for semiconductor design. How are they different? Why the need now? Swinnen: Multiple physics refers to the sheer breadth of physics that is now needed to analyze from the IC up to the largest system whereas multiphysics refers to the capability to analyze several physical effects concurrently, accounting for their impact on the design and interactions between various physics. Multiphysics are necessary to analyze the full context of the system environment – from nanometers to kilometers – for multi-chip packaging, chip-to-package-to-silicon and systems with multi-domain guidance. Goldman: A self-driving car, as an illustration, includes AI systems-on-chip, solid-state sensors, infotainment systems and radar/lidar detectors that must all work in the rain, the heat and the bitter cold. Smith: Why are design groups being reorganized to include expertise in mechanical and electromagnetic issues? Swinnen: Complexity has exploded, driven by a long list of technical requirements and, perhaps, mischaracterization. Goldman: Just consider the system on chip, mischaracterized by the semiconductor industry. The chip is never a system by itself. Rather, it is a complex component in a larger system and must be analyzed in that context. 3D IC is where this comes together and forces a recognition of physics outside the traditional scope of SoC design. 3D IC chips are much closer together on the board and it takes multiphysics embedded into the workflow of semiconductor design, packaging, system design and 3D IC to ensure they work reliably and efficiently. Smith: What is the solution? Goldman: It’s clear a specialized digital thread is necessary to move disparate groups with expertise in systems, physics and silicon together. Today, these groups or disciplines might not exist in the same company, whether it be a foundry, fabless or outsourced semiconductor assembly and test (OSAT) company. Lee: In order to unify the entire system design environment, a cloud-based, open and extensible heterogenous enterprise compute platform is required. It is similar to the SaaS-based business model and known as Simulation-as-a-Service (also SaaS). While vertical integration of design groups is already taking place at leading system design houses, there have also been advances in electronic design tools. These are starting to offer more comprehensive multiphysics capabilities including thermal, fluid dynamics (CFD), mechanical stress and reliability analysis in a single analysis cockpit. Today’s system designers face two platform challenges: First, they need an environment that is open enough to accept analysis results from multiple sources so that they can be overlapped and cross-analyzed. Second, the design platform must have the capacity to handle the enormous amounts of data generated by the latest 3-nanometer chips and 3D IC systems, and this implies an intimate coupling to elastic cloud computing. The days of an engineer writing Perl scripts and handing it off to someone else are gone. We believe that the industry is responding to this challenge with a new generation of design platforms that a cloud-native, open and extensible to allow heterogenous enterprise design. We are definitely at an inflection point in electronic design today, but the electronic industry has faced these before an we are confident it will master these challenges as well. About Rich Goldman Rich Goldman is director of marketing for the Electronics and Semiconductor Business Unit of Ansys. He holds a Bachelor of Science degree from Syracuse University and an MBA and Master of Science degree in Engineering Management. Moscow Institute of Electronic Technology (MIET)’s first honorary professor, he is also the recipient of honorary PhD degrees from Russian-Armenian (Slavnoic) University and State Engineering University of Armenia for contributions to the advancement of Armenia’s high-tech education and economic ecosystem. Rich served on EDAC’s board of directors. About John Lee John Lee is general manager and vice president of the Ansys Electronics and Semiconductor Business Unit. Lee co-founded and served as CEO of Gear Design Solutions (now Ansys), developer of the first purpose-built big data platform for integrated circuit design. He cofounded two other startups (Mojave Design and Performance Signal Integrity), which successfully exited into companies now part of Synopsys. He holds undergraduate and graduate degrees from Carnegie Mellon University. About Marc Swinnen Marc Swinnen is director of product marketing for the Electronics and Semiconductor Division of Ansys. He holds Master degrees in Electronic Engineering and Industrial Management from KU Leuven, Belgium, as well as an MBA from San Jose State University. About Bob Smith Robert (Bob) Smith is executive director of the ESD Alliance, a SEMI Technology Community. He is responsible for the management and operations of the ESD Alliance, an international association of companies providing goods and services throughout the semiconductor design ecosystem.

The global semiconductor industry is on track to register a rare three consecutive years of record highs in fab equipment spending with a 16% increase in 2020 followed by forecast gains of 15.5% this year and 12% in 2022, SEMI highlighted in its quarterly World Fab Forecast report.

Back in 2012, China ranked fifth among seven regions worldwide in IC wafer capacity but surged past the Americas and Japan in 2018 and 2019 to claim the number three position (figure 1). That’s a big deal given that ICs account for the largest share of wafer capacity excluding discrete, opto, MEMS and sensors.China’s IC wafer capacity growth accelerated to tune of 14% in 2019 and 21% in 2020 and is expected to grow at least 17% this year, as we report in the latest update of the World Fab Forecast, published December 3rd by SEMI. Of all regions, Taiwan boasts the second strongest growth rate over the same period at 3% to 4%.Figure 1: Total IC installed wafer capacity for top five regions The report shows that from 2019 through the end of 2021 China will have increased wafer capacity for memory by 95%, foundry by 47% and analog by 29%. Foundry will represent the largest portion of those gains, reaching 2 million wpm (200mm equivalents). Memory will follow at about 1.5 million wpm and then analog at over 120,000 wpm.But Chinese companies aren’t pulling off this feat singlehandedly. Many international companies are contributing to the wafer capacity increases in China (figure 2). Figure 2: IC wafer capacity in China by company origin The share of capacity contributed by Chinese-owned companies and international companies has changed little since 2012, though Chinese-owned companies saw a slight dip in their slice of the pie from 60% to 57%From 2019 through 2021, Chinese-owned companies will add almost 60% capacity for foundries, the most of all sectors. Companies including SMIC, Hua Hong Semiconductor, Nexchip, XMC and Hua Li Microelectronics are driving the increases.During the same period, Chinese-owned companies will ramp up memory capacity from basically zero to 300,000 wpm. Companies such as Yangtze Memory Technology and ChangXin Memory Technologies (CXMT), also known as Innotron, are powering the quick rise with aggressive ramps of 3D NAND and DRAM capacity.Among international-owned companies, TSMC and UMC are driving the largest share of foundry growth, while Samsung, SK Hynix and Intel are powering gains in memory capacity.More information is available in the World Fab Forecast report. The report currently collects information for fab equipment and construction investment, capacities, technologies and product types for over 280 fabs and lines in China alone, including 40 facilities that either began operation in 2020 or will from 2021 through 2024.Christian G. Dieseldorff is senior principal analyst in the Industry Research and Analysis group at SEMI in Milpitas, California.

As a top semiconductor manufacturing hub, Korea is poised to lead the world in fab construction spending in 2019 and 2020, accounting for 27 percent of the total market. Little wonder that Korea’s prowess in the semiconductor industry has meant steady membership growth for SEMI Korea, with HD Cho, president of SEMI Korea, putting the average annual jump at about 7 percent.But HD Cho’s focus as he returned to COEX in Seoul, home to SEMICON Korea, in late August was not on membership growth over the years but the future. Cho hosted about 400 SEMI members gathered at SEMI Korea Members Day for insights into the state of the world economy, semiconductor industry outlooks, and perspectives on how South Korean and European microelectronics companies can form stronger ties. Setting the stage with look at macroeconomics, Byung-yeon Kim, team manager of NH Investment and Securities, predicted that, as the global economy continues to falter, 25 of the 58 major countries this year will cut interest rates in a bid to boost prospects for growth. Historically, the global composite leading indicator (CLI), a bellwether for turning points in the economy, has rebounded after 20 months of decline, he said. While the CLI downtrend is now past the 20-month mark, Kim struck a bullish note, predicting that the global economy will bounce back before long.Soo-kyoum Kim, vice president at IDC, referring to the semiconductor industry’s own soft patch, said that total revenue is expected to drop from $475 billion in 2018 to $440 billion this year but should rebound to a new high of $500 billion in 2023. The memory market will be especially hard-hit, dropping more than 29 percent in 2019 and another 14 percent next year before bottoming and then staging a recovery in the second half of 2020. The strength of the rebound will hinge on server market demand, he added.Next year will also see rebounds in semiconductor equipment and materials revenue, with growth of 12 percent and 3 percent, respectively, said Clark Tseng, director of Industry Research and Statistics at SEMI. The increases will follow a 2019 equipment market drop of 18 percent to $53 billion from the previous year while materials this year is expected to remain flat at $52 billion. The semiconductor industry will expand at a modest 2.4 percent this year, jumping to 7.6 percent in 2020, Tseng reported, citing the average growth rate based on data from Gartner, WSTC, IC Insights, VLSI Research and other industry analyst firms. Despite current weak market demand and the ongoing trade war, the long-term outlook for the semiconductor industry remains upbeat, he added.In Europe, semiconductor industry growth continues on the strength of the region’s high strategic importance in the global electronics supply chain, said Laith Altimime, president of SEMI Europe. Fab construction spending in Europe continued to grow in 2018, reaching $300 million, and is expected to hit $1.2 billion in 2019 and $1.6 billion in 2020, with equipment, parts and components driving the surges.To help build stronger ties between European and Korean chip industries, Altimime introduced the SEMI Korea members to SEMI Europe business platforms including SEMICON Europe, the 3D System Summit, ISS Europe, and the MEMS Imaging Sensor Summit. He also encouraged the formation of more business partnerships between companies in the two regions by familiarizing SEMI Korea members with European players in areas such as foundry, MEMS, sensors and wafer manufacturing.And it will be MEMS and sensors that help drive the 4th Industrial Revolution, said Sung-hyuk Kim, a team leader at LG Electronics' Sensor Solution Research Institute. In his presentation Architecting Sensor Solutions for the Next Revolution, he noted that sensors are finding their way into devices where they have never been used before. In household refrigerators, gas sensors help deodorize the inside while distance sensors detect the approach of people. Air conditioners equipped with a camera sensor can pinpoint the location of humans and steer the airflow in their direction. Of course, all these smarts will come in form of data-devouring artificial intelligence (AI), and that data will be generated in massive amounts by MEMS and sensors – placing them at the epicenter of the 4th Industrial Revolution.Jaegwan Shim is a marketing specialist at SEMI Korea.

This article is the fourth in a series highlighting the vital importance of SEMI Standards to commemorate the publication of the 1000th SEMI Standard in July 2019. Find the entire series here.Computer prices have plunged over the years even as desktop and laptop PC performance has skyrocketed thanks to the semiconductor industry, giving users much more bang for their buck. The chip industry stands in a stark contrast to healthcare and education with their exponentially rising costs.What distinguishes the semiconductor industry from healthcare and education in the capacity to deliver so much for so much less over time? After all, even in other parts of the technology sector that are heavily regulated, such as cable television, we have not witnessed the same price decreases as in microelectronics.Some pundits claim that the difference among sectors is tied to their degree of regulation. Does greater regulation somehow degrade product value? The reality is far more nuanced. But one thing is clear: Smart self-regulation (i.e. standards) in the semiconductor industry has contributed mightily to its success.The recipe for success has been simple. Standards have been rocket fuel for competition, which in turn has sparked innovation, driving down device prices while boosting performance. Computer prices fell dramatically between 1997-2015 while the cost of cable TV and internet services rose. Myth of unregulated competitionA semiconductor fab might actually be the most regulated place on earth. Fabs hew to a much higher standard of air quality and cleanliness than even uber-sterile hospital operating rooms. Manufacturing processes are voluntarily regulated not to millimeters, but to nanometers. While some standards are proprietary with limited reach, others span the supply chain. Regulation has worked so well in this sector that the semiconductor industry isn’t moving toward less standardization. It’s moving toward more. Secret is smart standards The gap between regulation and self-regulation is more like a chasm. We typically view regulation as a series of top-down directives that more often focus on the interests of the producer than the consumer. Healthcare regulation, for example, may improve quality of care, but it’s often insurers, big pharma and hospitals that benefit most from regulation, rather than consumers.The semiconductor industry, on the other hand, uses self-regulation to improve business operations and make better products for consumers. Falling prices and rising performance are natural byproducts.Semiconductor industry self-regulation is an ecosystem-wide effort, where input isn’t just top-down, but also bottom-up or even side-to-side. The first SEMI Standard, which specified wafer sizes, exemplifies this approach.The SEMI Standards Committee formed in 1973 to address silicon wafer dimensional specifications. At the time, wafer specifications proliferated. Numbering more than 2,000, the various specifications led to major inefficiencies just when the industry was just getting underway. Wafer suppliers banded together under SEMI to solve this problem and rapidly developed consensus specifications for 2- and 3-inch wafers. By the mid-1970s, over 80% of wafers conformed to these new standards.Standardized wafer sizes freed equipment companies to focus on innovations that reduced cost and increased performance. It also allowed manufacturers to focus on product differentiation without having to worry about device fabrication process and cost. Since that first SEMI Standard made possible the modern semiconductor equipment industry, original equipment manufacturers (OEMs) have competed to deliver amazing innovations. For example, lithography systems routinely use light to design chips with feature sizes smaller than the wavelength of light.SEMI’s 1000th standard on energetic materials demonstrates how smart standards are also pragmatic. This standard is not about banning materials or assigning blame when things go awry. It is about creating practical guidelines that companies will follow, enabling them to realize greater innovation. Guidelines that reduce accidents and risks will spur more, not less, energetic materials’ exploration. Industry suppliers will be the big winners.The 1st to the 1000th SEMI standard all represent examples of cooperation making more sense than competition.Standards for the real worldCreating a business-friendly standard that still gets the job done is a process. As SEMI Standards Task Force and Committee members, materials, equipment and manufacturing companies take part in defining best practice guidelines that support safe and practical use of materials and equipment. Task force and committee members assign particular responsibilities and associated costs to the most logical segments of the supply chain. They also develop information-sharing practices around competitive process recipes and purity standards.Andy McIntyre, CIH, a member of the energetic materials task force and an executive vice president and managing principal at BSI EHS Services and Solutions, summarized what makes SEMI standards smart.“SEMI standards are pragmatic,” said McIntyre. “They take into account the need for implementation in a real-world business environment. They embrace an engineering approach to problem-solving to create practical solutions, and they define specifications and performance goals in ways that allow engineers — in collaboration with EHS professionals — to identify practical solutions for reducing risk in R D, pilot line and manufacturing operations.“SEMI standards employ a holistic process that considers all the important points of view throughout the supply chain, from materials selection, installation, use, recycling and/or disposal,” said McIntyre. “The breadth of SEMI EHS Guidelines, for example, is also very comprehensive as the SEMI EHS Committee and task forces work to ensure that standards keep pace with dynamic technology developments. Energetic materials is a prime example where the industry recognized the need for a new safety guideline to document safe usage of pyrophoric, water-reactive and unstable reactive materials, which have become increasingly important in semiconductor and advanced materials R D and manufacturing.”This is the real secret to the success of the semiconductor industry. Smart self-regulation allows industry players to cooperate in the development and implementation of standards that are pragmatic, comprehensive and dynamic. Participants in SEMI Standards have a voice in the semiconductor industry because they are the voice of the semiconductor industry.While innovation in semiconductors may not always keep pace with Moore’s Law, we can depend on one truth: As long as collaboration and cooperation are the rule and not the exception, we will continue to advance technology in amazing and unprecedented ways. You, me and all other consumers will continue to reap the rewards of innovation. Use your voice to affect standardization in and around the semiconductor industry. Learn about SEMI Standards – and become part of the solution.Heidi Hoffman is senior director of technology communities marketing at SEMI. Hoffman and her team shine a spotlight on the work of the more than 20 technology communities under the SEMI electronics manufacturing supply chain collaboration platform. Actively engaging community members in marketing programs that showcase their unique value, Hoffman’s team helps companies to grow and prosper through the power of connection, collaboration and innovation.

This article is the third in a series highlighting the vital importance of SEMI Standards to commemorate the publication of the 1000th SEMI Standard in July 2019. Find the entire series here.SEMI Standards are the bedrock of the modern microelectronics industry. Without standards for wafer dimensions – which SEMI Standards first defined through a collaborative process involving semiconductor manufacturers and wafer suppliers in 1972 – the semiconductor equipment industry as we know it would not exist today. The late Robert Noyce of Intel noted in this 1992 video “being good at producing semiconductors will mean we have better, more consistent, better controlled equipment than we have in the past. Standards are going to play a vital role in that. Standards saves money and time for everyone.” Noyce also called standards a bellwether to surges of innovation in critical process technology. This is still true today as, for example, important standards-setting activity is afoot in panel-level packaging, electron microscopy and energetic materials. Will a surge of innovation follow?Panel-level packaging: a chicken-egg scenarioFrom advanced materials to more efficient production tools, one hallmark of the microelectronics industry is our fearless exploration of new technologies that will spawn change across the industry by improving performance and reducing cost. Advanced packaging techniques, such as panel-level packaging (PLP) – which moves semiconductor packaging to a larger-panel format – is one of those critical catalysts. Citing PLP’s potential to shrink costs by improving efficiency and economies of scale, research firm Yole Développement predicts a remarkable 63% CAGR for PLP from 2017-2023.[i]It’s no stretch to say that we are close to realizing a burst of innovation in packaging. With a just-published SEMI Standard (SEMI 3D20) specifying panel sizes, equipment companies will find it economically viable to invest more in developing the much-needed production tools that enable PLP. “It is really important to create standards so we come together and work much more efficiently. Creating those fundamentals allows you to be more productive in the long term,” said Christina Chu, ASM Semiconductors, and co-leader of the Panel Level Packaging Task Force, and one of five industry leaders recognized for their outstanding accomplishments in developing SEMI Standards for the electronics and related industries at the recent 1000 SEMI Standards reception during SEMICON West 2019. “This effort came up from the trenches,” said Richard Allen, NIST Quantum Measurement Division, and a co-leader of both SEMI’s 3D Packaging and Integration Committee and its Panel Level Packaging Task Force. “Equipment vendors told us that they wanted to serve the market, but they couldn’t do so without some standards. To respond to their request, our committee surveyed the market and discovered at least 15 different panel sizes in development.”“As no vendor is going to make over a dozen unique tools for the same process, we worked with the manufacturers and tool companies to write a specification that standardizes on two of the most widely accepted sizes,” Allen said. “For the first time, the industry will have a real market for panel-level packaging tools, and that will spur commercialization of new technologies that never would have seen the light of the day without standardization.”Allen pointed out that evolution of standards in microelectronics reflects the dynamism of the microelectronics industry itself. “Given the rate of technology advancement in microelectronics, SEMI Standards committee and task force members know that a newly-published standard is often just a starting point, and change will likely follow,” he said. “The Panel Level Packaging Task Force, for example, is currently determining how to best support this packaging technology, whether through possible enhancements to 3D20 or by creating new PLP standards.”Process automation is key for TEMTransmission electron microscopy (TEM) is another area where industry cooperation will fuel progress.“People throw around the phrase ‘exponential growth,’” said James Amano, senior director, International Standards at SEMI. “It’s usually a gross exaggeration, but not when it comes to TEM data. That’s because demand for more TEM data, which uniquely enables innovations around smaller feature sizes, has exploded. At the same time, TEM data is a bottleneck in the fab. Operators literally use tweezers to carry around electron microscope samples by hand, and that is untenable.” TEM sampling standards are currently being formulated under the SEMI Standards development process. “Applying a model that we have employed successfully time and time again through SEMI Standards, we are gearing up for process automation in TEM,” Amano said. “We’ll start by establishing a grid carrier standard for electron microscopy. Through ongoing standards efforts, we may realize a fully automated TEM process within just a few years. That achievement will enable exponential growth in shrinking design geometries.”Energetic materials gain safety standardAlong with wafer-level packaging and design shrinks, the push for safety in materials’ usage is a hotbed of innovation. This is especially true with energetic materials, the potentially hazardous process chemicals used increasingly in semiconductor manufacturing to spur advances in materials purity, integrity and quality.“When you’re working with energetic materials, if you don’t get it right, you may face serious yield and cost issues, and most important of all, safety risks,” said Paul Trio, senior manager of strategic initiatives at SEMI. “This isn’t a theoretical concern. Real problems occurring in fabs have made an energetic-materials standard a high priority for the industry.”“After years of collaborating with companies across the supply chain to address this significant challenge, we recently published our 1000th SEMI Standard around safe usage of energetic materials,” Trio said. “Now manufacturers can turn to a new standard – which will evolve dynamically in response to industry changes – as they employ energetic materials in their quest to achieve higher yields while controlling costs and managing safety risks.” Whether it’s packaging, design shrinks, materials or other key innovations, standards are essential to progress in microelectronics. From equipment and materials suppliers that provide the most advanced, efficient and safest tools, materials, and processes to device manufacturers that get products to market, all stakeholders in the microelectronics ecosystem benefit from SEMI Standards. Are you curious about the areas of process technology where innovations are likely to occur? Would you like to get involved in standards efforts that could have an impact on your business? Take a look at the activity of SEMI Standards Committees and Task Forces. Because that’s where innovation, pragmatism and a commitment to harness industry resources come together.Use your voice to affect standardization in and around the microelectronics industry. Learn about SEMI Standards – and become part of the solution. Heidi Hoffman is senior director of technology communities marketing at SEMI. Hoffman and her team shine a spotlight on the work of the more than 20 technology communities under the SEMI electronics manufacturing supply chain collaboration platform. Actively engaging community members in marketing programs that showcase their unique value, Hoffman’s team helps companies to grow and prosper through the power of connection, collaboration and innovation. [i] Status of Panel Level Packaging report, Yole Développement, 2018

This article is the first in a series highlighting the vital importance of SEMI Standards to commemorate the publication of the 1000th SEMI Standard in July 2019. Find the entire series here. More than 40 years after establishing the SEMI International Standards program, SEMI recently announced its 1000th SEMI Standard – a safety guideline for handling energetic materials. Creating a resource for unpredictable changes in materials is the type of challenge the SEMI International Standards program is often called upon to tackle – where the standard is merely the end of the beginning. The semiconductor industry has learned to expertly control its facilities, equipment and components. The next logical step is materials. It’s common knowledge that the industry drives innovation with new process materials and enabling safer material exploration is critical to the industry’s success. Classification Schema The 1000th SEMI Standard provides three classifications of energetic materials and byproducts based on three criteria: Hazardously exothermic (large amount of heat released following a trigger event such as heating or a physical shock) Pyrophoric (self-igniting upon air exposure) Water-reactive (releasing a large amount of energy or flammable gas upon contact with water) Unsafe handling of any of these byproducts can, to put it mildly, result in a bad day for a fab or lab. The leader of the Energetic Materials Task Force and an expert in process and equipment risk assessment at his company Safety Guru, Eric Sklar recounted one of the stranger incidents. A cleaning crew detached a pipe from a piece of equipment associated with a process recipe that used no energetic materials. The team set it in a sink, sprayed some water to begin cleaning it, and the pipe ignited in flames. Remarkably, although the initial materials weren’t energetic, the process created new byproducts that were very much so. Standardizing on Shifting Ground Energetic materials are new ground for standards and that ground is shifting, with much more material innovation to come. The upshot is that it is particularly important that the energetic materials standard is dynamic. By design, all SEMI Standards are malleable – continuously shaped by the demands they aim to meet. The release of this document is nowhere near the end of the work, as the standard will evolve to keep pace with continuing materials innovation. Creating a Robust Materials Supply Chain SEMI Standards create the conditions for a more robust materials supply chain and sustain the needs of business. If the standards safeguards are too burdensome, they will never be adopted. Conversely, without protections, people and equipment are unnecessarily put in harm’s way and innovation slows. SEMI’s Energetic Materials Task Force members realized early on that the industry needed a standard that would be practical to implement and flexible enough to be optimized over time. They understood that collaboration and compromise, while time-consuming, are also essential for standards’ creation. They determined roles and responsibilities across the supply chain, and they struck delicate balances between sharing no information about the intended uses of potentially dangerous materials and sharing everything about proprietary process recipes. The sheer scope of this standard necessitated a multi-year timeline. “The effort began with SEMATECH assembling its members’ views about energetic materials safety,” said Eric Sklar. “It then required years of effort from SEMI to bring the key industry participants together to create pragmatic guidelines that address the challenges around energetic materials in the supply chain.” Only Getting Started Despite all the work, one certainty is that the standard isn’t perfect for the present and can’t reflect future demands. This is why the energetic materials standard is not a static document, but a living process that is in its germinal stages. Key players continue to shape the standard, and that’s fundamental to enabling future materials innovation and ultimately reducing the number of unexpected energetic materials reactions in fabs. The variables in standards development are numerous and ever-changing. Energetic materials only magnifies the need for the broad collaboration that SEMI has facilitated for more than 40 years. While the risks posed by energetic materials are substantial, the criticality for continued innovation is undisputed. Now, with its adoption, the work of adapting and modifying this 1000th SEMI Standard is only about to begin. Use your voice to help drive standardization in and around the semiconductor industry. Learn about SEMI Standards – and become part of the solution. Register to receive Standards Watch, SEMI’s quarterly e-newsletter. Heidi Hoffman is senior director of technology communities marketing at SEMI. Hoffman and her team shine a spotlight on the work of the more than 20 technology communities under the SEMI electronics manufacturing supply chain collaboration platform. Actively engaging community members in marketing programs that showcase their unique value, Hoffman’s team helps companies grow and prosper through the power of connection, collaboration and innovation.

According to market research and strategy consulting firm Yole Développement (Yole), the total market size of MEMS, sensors and actuators will double from $48 billion in 2018 to $93 billion in 2024.[i] The consumer market will continue to drive volume, with applications such as smartphones making up for in volume what they lack in average selling price (ASP). Stronger demand in automotive, biomedical/health, industrial, and voice-first applications (such as smart speakers) will support this upward trajectory. With so much growth ahead of us, how will the design and manufacture of MEMS keep pace with industry demand for higher levels of innovation and integration, lower cost and lower power, smaller footprints, and faster design cycles — all while meeting acceptable price points?We turned to a handful of MEMS manufacturing experts from SEMI-MSIG who will join us at SEMICON West 2019, July 9-11 at the Moscone Center in San Francisco, to explore the complexities of keeping pace with market demand for MEMS over the next decade.Address the Design GapMentor GM, ICDS Division Greg Lebsack and SoftMEMS President Mary Ann Maher see tremendous progress in the manufacturing supply chain for MEMS. At the same time, they acknowledge the significant gap that still exists in design capability for creating the billions of interconnected sensors required for future applications. Greg and Mary Ann will dive into the standards, ecosystem requirements and collaborative design solutions that will allow the micro-sensors industry to meet demand for next-generation wearables, Internet of Things (IoT) products and medical devices.Get Collaborative with Greg and Mary Ann: Addressing the Design Gap to Enable Next Generation Sensor-Based Products, SEMICON West, TechTALKS South, Thursday, July 11, 2019, 10:35-11:00 a.m. Register today.Get to a Really Big NumberFrom thousands of sensors and actuators in a single airplane to hundreds in a single car or a piece of factory equipment to the twenty-plus that ship in each of the hundreds of millions of the world’s smartphones, we aren’t even close to reaching the saturation point for these intelligent devices. SPTS Technologies EVP GM David Butler isn’t living on the Spaceship Enterprise (or the Millenium Falcon, come to think of it) when he says that we are going to get to a trillion sensors. It is going to happen. The questions are: how and when?Connect with David: Enabling the Age of a Trillion Sensors, SEMICON West, TechTALKS South, Thursday, July 11, 2019, 11:00-11:25 a.m. Register today.Shift to Automotive-GradeDemand for optical sensing technologies such as LIDAR is shifting sensor manufacturing requirements from consumer- to automotive-grade, with its enhanced lifetimes, temperature cycling and higher performance specifications. To meet demand, manufacturers are turning to wafer-level processing, since it complies with the hermetic sealing and dew-point control required for the more rigorous automotive-grade applications. EV Group Business Development Director Thomas Uhrmann, Ph.D., will provide an overview of the steps for manufacturing optical elements, including integration with CMOS circuitry, as he offers a window into the future of automotive packaging for sensors.Tune in with Thomas: Future Manufacturing Requirements for Automotive and Photonics Sensing, SEMICON West, TechTALKS South, Thursday, July 11, 2019, 11:25-11:50 a.m. Register today. Measure Twice, Cut OnceFaster time-to-market, improved device yield, and greater productivity in high-volume manufacturing are increasingly critical requirements for MEMS manufacturers. When a single manufacturing error can cost hundreds of thousands if not a million or more dollars — as well as months of development time — designers can save both time and cost by employing an integrated approach to MEMS design. Lam Research Sr. Director of Strategic Marketing David Haynes will explain how simulation, verification and process modeling can address MEMS-specific engineering challenges such as multi-physics interactions, process variations, MEMS + IC integration, and MEMS + package interaction. Using the right tools before committing to actual fabrication can make or break a project.Get Conceptual (and Practical) with David: Enabling Better MEMS from Concept to High-Volume Production, SEMICON West, TechTALKS South, Thursday, July 11, 2019, 11:50 a.m.-12:15 p.m. Register today.Navigate a Dynamic Foundry LandscapeWe’re still living in a one product-one process world when it comes to MEMS manufacturing. This makes bringing a new device to market both time-consuming and expensive. These challenges aside, the functional capabilities of MEMS, combined with small-footprint and low-power options, have made MEMS increasingly popular. How are market dynamics in MEMS manufacturing evolving to accommodate both demand for high-volume, lower-cost products such as MEMS microphones as well as high-value, lower-volume products such as biomedical devices, IoT products and industrial sensors? Rogue Valley Microdevices Founder CEO Jessica Gomez will explain how foundry consolidation through acquisition, collaboration with other ecosystem players, and specialization in vertical markets such as biomedical or optical are some of the approaches that are transforming the MEMS foundry landscape.Join the Evolution with Jessica: Consolidation, Collaboration, Specialization: How Will MEMS Fabs Manage Changing Dynamics, TechTALKS Stage South, Thursday, July 11, 2019, 12:15-12:40 p.m. Register today.i“Status of the MEMS Industry report,” Yole Développement (Yole), 2019 Edition.Maria Vetrano is a public relations consultant at SEMI.