MCU

As group vice president of the Analog MEMS Group and general manager of the MEMS Sensor division at STMicroelectronics, Andrea Onetti brings nearly three decades of experience in MEMS, sensors and audio systems to his leadership role at one of the world’s most successful electronics and semiconductor manufacturers. During his keynote at FLEX and MEMS Sensors Technical Congress 2019, February 18-21 in Monterey, Calif., Onetti will address the criticality of sensor accuracy in advancing automotive, industrial and consumer applications. SEMI’s Maria Vetrano spoke with Onetti recently to give FLEX/MSTC attendees a preview of his presentation. SEMI: What are some promising advancements in sensors for autonomous cars? Onetti: The avionics industry is already successfully applying sensors for autonomous operationl. Inertial navigation systems (INS) support the operation of planes during flight, both after takeoff and before landing. Unfortunately, the technology in these navigation systems is expensive and not scalable, and they are hampered by reliability limitations in an automotive environment.Following the steady progress that we have made with MEMS inertial sensors in consumer applications, we are on the cusp of realizing greater accuracy in temperature and time – finally delivering the performance required for autonomous driving. Because we can scale in production – we’re now manufacturing more than a billion units a year – we can select the cream of this production crop for adoption in cars. Consequently, we should see Level 3 and Level 4 autonomous driving for consumers very soon.SEMI: How are companies using sensors to monitor and track their assets in industrial applications? Onetti: Predictive maintenance and asset tracking are the two main verticals in Smart Industry. The adoption of multiple sensors for condition monitoring is helping to detect the faulty operation of equipment and to detect early signs of issues that are otherwise difficult to capture. Ultrasonic microphones can detect leaks in a pipe at an early stage, accelerometers with high bandwidth can act as micrometers, and accurate temperature sensors can catch overheating. Similarly, in asset tracking, we use temperature monitoring in combination with inertial sensors to detect problems during the transport of goods. Shock sensors with extremely high full scale (up to 8000g) can tell whether a lightweight envelop has been dropped. Pressure sensors can switch off a radio system when a cargo plane takes off and can mute smart trackers in compliance with flight regulations. We really can do almost anything! A full slate of ST sensors and microcontroller units (MCUs) enable WEG’s small but powerful motor sensor, which listens to a motor, feels its pain, and shares that information with engineers, operators and others to diagnose problems before they happen. Image courtesy of STMicroelectronics. High-accuracy motion, environmental and proximity sensors are crucial to VR/AR. Image courtesy of STMicroelectronics. SEMI: How will sensors advance user experiences in consumer electronics, such as VR/AR systems?Onetti: Virtual reality (VR) and augmented reality (AR) are great examples of promising consumer technologies that will become pervasive as performance of inertial sensors improves. First, we need super accuracy in time and temperature to provide the right experience to users. To achieve this level of accuracy, we need a major step forward in performance, and that includes power consumption and miniaturization. Fortunately, we are constantly making progress in the high-accuracy motion, environmental and proximity sensors that are critical to these systems. While the scale is vastly different between VR/AR and automotive, the requirements for AR/VR systems are pretty similar to those that will enable autonomous cars. A growing variety of sensors (environmental, microphone, proximity, motion) – combined with a sensor hub in an MCU – are central to VR controllers (above) and VR head mounted displays (below). Images courtesy of STMicroelectronics. SEMI: We don’t hear much about the criticality of higher accuracy in sensors. Why is improving accuracy in sensors especially important – and what role do calibration routines play in achieving higher accuracy?Onetti: A sensor is more than just the performance of the relevant function. It is also the intrinsic accuracy that it brings. This accuracy is tuned by calibration, which is typically an expensive process done at the end of product manufacturing or – better still – during earlier stages of manufacturing.Today more applications require sensors with higher accuracy, which necessitates investing more time in calibration, leading to higher cost.MEMS technology can help by offering solutions with intrinsic higher accuracy, which reduces the cost of calibration for product manufacturers. This naturally delivers major benefits to OEMs and, ultimately, their customers.SEMI: What would you like FLEX and MSTC attendees to take away from your presentation?Onetti: As attendees explore the wide variety of available sensor solutions for their end products, I would ask them to prioritize the role of accuracy in sensor selection – because improved accuracy means higher quality data, and higher quality data means better decisions with reduced need for data processing.While designers understand the role of calibration routines in qualifying individual components for specific applications, it is the continuous evolution of MEMS technology that offers the best possibility of breakthrough reductions in time and cost of these calibration routines. This makes MEMS sensors more attractive and affordable than similar sensor components based on different technologies. Andrea Onetti will present Accuracy Enables MEMS Sensor Pervasion at FLEX/MSTC on Tuesday, February 19 at 11:00 am.Register today to connect with him at the event. To learn more about STMicroelectronics, click here. Maria Vetrano is a public relations consultant at SEMI.MSTC FLEX 2019 is organized by MEMS Sensors Industry Group (MSIG) and FlexTech.Maria Vetrano is a public relations consultant at SEMI.

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.