GaN Power Electronics

The microelectronics industry is entering the era of Cloud Engineering Simulation to slash the costs and risks of new technology development and speed time-to-market in spaces like semiconductors, MEMS sensors, RF front ends, biomedical and driverless cars. In the run-up to SEMICON Europa, 12-15 November, 2019, in Munich, Germany, SEMI spoke with Ian Campbell, CEO of OnScale, about the new paradigm of Cloud Engineering Simulation. Campbell shared his views ahead of the SMART Design Forum, 14 November, 2019, 14:30 to 17:00, in Hall B1, TechARENA 1 at SEMICON Europa. Registration is open. Join the forum to meet experts from OnScale and other key industry influencers. Attendance is free of charge for all SEMICON Europa visitors.SEMI: How did your adventure with OnScale start?Campbell: I’m an engineer. When I was still in high school, I took a night class at Nashville Tech to learn AutoCAD R14, and I’ve been designing and engineering things ever since. I was introduced to Desktop Simulation in my bachelors of mechanical engineering program and used many types of simulation tools for massive design studies at the Aerospace Systems Design Lab at Georgia Tech. I’m a simulation junkie.I started my first Silicon Valley high-tech company, NextInput, in 2012 with Dr. Ryan Diestelhorst (now VP of Strategy at OnScale), to commercialize new ForceTouch and 3D Touch technologies based on our patented MEMS force sensors. At NextInput, we bought hundreds of thousands of dollars of engineering software, but were always frustrated by slow, inaccurate engineering simulation results. We dreamed about running massive simulations on Cloud Supercomputers and creating true Digital Prototypes that could replace costly, time-consuming, and risky physical prototypes.When I got the chance to join the team that became OnScale in 2017, I jumped at the opportunity. At OnScale, we took engineering simulation solvers that had been developed for the U.S. military to run on U.S. Department of Defense and DARPA supercomputers and built a cloud supercomputer platform on Amazon Web Services to run the solvers. The net-net is the world’s first on-demand, infinitely scalable Cloud Engineering Simulation platform. Now, we routinely run massive multi-billion degree of freedom simulations for Fortune 100 companies, including many from the semiconductor and MEMS industries. Since our business model is to charge per core-hour for simulations, the incredible capability we built is cost-effective and available to small startups as well. SEMI: How is the semiconductor design ecosystem evolving? How is Cloud Engineering Simulation applied to semiconductor and design industries?Campbell: The entire industry is experiencing a massive acceleration in product launch cycles and increased competition. New markets like IoT and 5G are reducing semi/MEMS product cycles from years to months. That, in turn, puts enormous pressure on semiconductor and MEMS designers. Missing a key product introduction like a flagship smartphone launch can literally make or break a company.A reliance on traditional engineering methods – schematic capture and layout of a chip, taping out (physically prototyping the chip), performing engineering validation on an e-bench, qualifying the chip (or not qualifying it and going back to the drawing board), and finally launching mass production – is no longer sustainable from a competitive perspective.Instead, market-leading firms are turning to Cloud Engineering Simulation and Digital Prototypes to explore massive design spaces, find optimum designs that beat the competition in every KPI (size, power, performance), and digitally qualify designs before ever cutting silicon, ensuring that designs are robust over their intended operating environments and performance envelopes. Large thermal analysis of a chip on a circuit board executed quickly on the OnScale Cloud Simulation Platform SEMI: Can you give us an example? Campbell: A great example is thermal analysis. Thermal effects have always had huge impacts on MEMS device performance and, more recently, they are beginning to impact performance of next-gen semiconductors, especially GaN power electronics for electric vehicles (EVs).Conducting a full system-level thermal analysis of something like an EV power management system – a power IC in a package, on a board, in an enclosure, under various loading conditions – has been a challenge from a simulation complexity perspective (degrees of freedom) and from a parametric sweep perspective (running hundreds or thousands of simulations to optimize chip placement, routing, etc.). To run these sets of simulations using legacy desktop simulation would take weeks, perhaps even a month or more. To run these massive simulations in parallel on cloud supercomputers using OnScale takes days or even hours.Our customers routinely run very large simulation studies on OnScale Cloud for thermal simulations, RF filter simulations, MEMS simulations, packaging simulations (what we call Digital Qualification), and many more use cases.SEMI: What’s one of your strategic objectives for 2020? Campbell: For 2020, we’re doubling down on MEMS and semi simulation capabilities. We will be launching additional solver capabilities like EM that will be critical in our strategic markets like 5G. We will also be launching a Cloud API so that engineers can integrate OnScale directly into their existing engineering workflows (e.g. MATLAB or EDA/CAD tools) with just a few Python commands.SEMI: Can you share one prediction for the future of semiconductor design solutions? share?Campbell: I think we will continue to see MEMS and semi designers push the envelope and bring smaller, more performant, more cost-effective solutions to market. I’d like to see more highly cost-effective flexible semi/MEMS designs come to market to enable next-gen IoT and IIoT applications. I’d also like to see more biomedical applications – biomems, microfluidics, and labs on a chip for all sorts of life-enhancing applications.SEMI: What are your expectations regarding the SMART Design Forum at SEMICON Europa 2019 in Munich? Campbell: I’m looking forward to getting back to my roots in MEMS/semi design and chatting with other designers about the future of engineering and the future of semi! Ian Campbell is a twice venture-backed Silicon Valley CEO and expert in MEMS sensors, semiconductor technology, and engineering software. Most recently, Ian co-founded OnScale, a Cloud Engineering Simulation startup backed by Intel Capital and Google’s Gradient Ventures. OnScale is revolutionizing engineering by combining world-class multiphysics solvers with Cloud supercomputers, machine learning, and artificial intelligence. Prior to co-founding OnScale, Campbell served as founder and CEO of NextInput, where he led the startup through multiple rounds of funding – totaling $12 million and an additional $4 million in research contracts with government and industry partners – and built a world-class team of engineers and scientists who developed 3D Touch and ForceTouch technologies for smartphones, wearables, industrial, and automotive interface applications. He also secured the first major smartphone OEM design wins in Asia. Campbell earned his B.S. in mechanical engineering from Middle Tennessee State University, and his MSAE in aerospace engineering and MBA from Georgia Institute of Technology.Serena Brischetto is senior manager, marketing and communications, at SEMI Europe.

SEMI spoke with Dr. Mikko Söderlund, sales director for Beneq’s semiconductor business, about trends in Atomic Layer Deposition (ALD) applications. Söderlund shared his views ahead of his presentation at SEMI MEMS Imaging Sensors Summit, 25-27 September, 2019, at the WTC in Grenoble, France. Join us at the event to meet Beneq and other key industry influencers. Registration is open.SEMI: The Backside Illuminated (BSI) CMOS Image Sensors (CIS) market continues to experience steady growth. Which applications are currently driving market growth?Söderlund: BSI CMOS Image Sensor market continues to be driven by mobile, security, automotive and Internet of Things (IoT) applications – so there seems to be plenty of opportunities for BSI CIS market to grow further.SEMI: What is critical for advanced thin-film deposition methods to extract best electrical performance?Söderlund: It is critical to control the material properties of the deposited layer (such as charge density, resistivity or barrier property) and of course, film uniformity and conformality. Furthermore, controlling material interfaces is also important, especially for sensitive III-V materials. {% video_player "embed_player" overrideable=False, type='scriptV4', hide_playlist=True, viral_sharing=False, embed_button=False, width='350', height='197', player_id='12721134435', style='margin: 0px auto; display: block; float: right; margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; width: 350px;' %} Coatings and material features based on existing standard techniques can be very expensive, or not feasible at all. What does Atomic Layer Deposition (ALD), as a thin film coating method, offer in particular?Söderlund: ALD offers dense, highly conformal and pinhole-free best-in-class functional layers for dielectrics, passivation, encapsulation and much more. As a gentle and precise layer-by-layer method, ALD is extremely well-suited for deposition of such performance critical layers over large surface areas such as a cassette of wafers.SEMI: Please describe the Atomic Layer Deposition (ALD) coating process. Söderlund: ALD is based on a self-limiting surface reaction controlled thin film deposition. During coating, two or more chemical vapors or gaseous precursors react sequentially on the substrate surface, producing a solid thin film (see schematic below). Most ALD coating systems use a flow-through traveling wave setup, where an inert carrier gas flows through the system and precursors are injected as very short pulses into this carrier flow. The carrier gas flow takes the precursor pulses as sequential waves through the reaction chamber, followed by a pumping line, filtering systems and, eventually, a vacuum pump.SEMI: What are the two leading edge ALD applications?Söderlund: Today’s leading-edge ALD applications are in logic (high-k/metal gate, multiple patterning) and memory (DRAM capacitor, 3D NAND). Within the More-than-Moore (MtM) markets, CIS and MEMS (actuators and sensors, RF) have been early adopters of ALD, and we also see ALD being introduced in GaN Power and RF, as well as photonics.SEMI: Give us one prediction about the opportunities offered by advanced imaging applications.Söderlund: The large diversity of imaging applications will continue to drive growth and innovation. For example, machine vision is expected to transform the imaging landscape. We see this as a big opportunity for advanced thin-film deposition methods such as ALD, provided that the tools are versatile enough to address the diverse manufacturing requirements.SEMI: What are your expectations for SEMI MEMS Imaging Sensors Summit and why do you invite your peers to attend? Söderlund: The summit brings together all key RF stakeholders in the MEMS and imaging sensors industry, and we are looking forward to a great event. It’s a special event for us as we are officially launching a new ALD cluster tool product specifically engineered for the MtM applications – so this brings great excitement that we want to share with the attendees.Dr. Mikko Söderlund is Sales Director for Beneq’s semiconductor business. He has more than 20 years of experience in product development, product management, technical sales and business development across the photonics, OLED, and semiconductor industries. Mikko received his Ph.D. in Micro- and Nanotechnology from the Helsinki University of Technology. Serena Brischetto is a marketing and communications manager at SEMI Europe.

Shenyang is on an unwavering path to maturing its integrated circuit (IC) equipment manufacturing industry over the next few decades in response to the Made in China 2025 Strategy. Since the strategy’s introduction in 2015, the city, long a transportation and commercial hub of China's northeast, has built out a complete integrated circuit industrial chain integrating technical research and innovation, components and parts processing, and equipment manufacturing. Its ambition is to compete on the world stage.Shenyang has implemented policies and provided funding to support the development of its IC equipment and related industries to buttress the development of emerging industries. Speaking at the SEMI China Members Day 2019 in Shenyang, Zheng Guangwen, secretary-general of ICMTIA and Shenyang IC Equipment Industry Technology Innovation Strategic Alliance, said that the city, as a key IC equipment industry base in the upstream of China’s industrial chain, hopes to enter the international community in part by leveraging SEMI’s global platform. Zheng Guangwen, Secretary General, ICMTIA and Shenyang IC Equipment Industry Technology Innovation Strategic Alliance More than 150 representatives from member companies gathered at SEMI China Members Day 2019 to discuss China’s semiconductor industry investment and capital dynamics and semiconductor market trends. The event sought to promote stronger communication and interaction between the upstream and downstream of the semiconductor industry chain. The forum was co-sponsored by SEMI China and Shenyang Science and Technology Bureau and co-hosted by ICMTIA and Shenyang IC Equipment Industry Technology Innovation Strategic Alliance. Lung Chu, President of SEMI China Opening the event, Lung Chu, president of SEMI China, set stage for the discussion by noting that global semiconductor industry has been booming since 1957, reaching another record high of $470 billion in sales last year as it faced a critical juncture, with industry growth slowing in the first half of 2019. The slowdown was predictable and is temporary, a natural stage in the industry’s cyclicality. From a macro point of view, the development of advanced technology requires huge investment. There was an obvious gap in investment between enterprises, which often leads to the stronger become much stronger. Under these circumstances, it is very important for China to master key technologies and products during the process of catching up and surpassing. Each region should focus on its strengths.Enterprises should do their own business in a low-key way and keep a prudent and optimistic attitude. The number of SEMI China members has reached a new high. SEMI China is committed to becoming the best partner to realize China's semiconductor dreams. In promoting the development of global semiconductor industry and China's semiconductor industry, SEMI has continuously gathered strength and actively organized rich activities to promote the sustainable growth of Chinese semiconductor enterprises through international cooperation. Zhao Rigang, Director of SCTB, Shenyang Science and Technology Bureau Zhao Rigang, director of SCTB at Shenyang Science and Technology Bureau, pointed to the importance of SEMI’s pivotal role and global influence in cultivating cooperation between international and domestic industries including Shenyang’s IC sector. Speaking at the SEMI China Members Day 2019 in early June, Rigang said the growing importance of chips in China is a key catalyst for Shenyang’s rise as semiconductor sectors domestically and abroad invest heavily in a new generation of information technologies such as mobile Internet, cloud computing, big data, Internet of Things. Kang Jin, General Manager, SMIC Beijing For China’s semiconductor industry to flourish, the region must improve its IC supply capacity just as it has brought its PV industry to full maturation, said Kang Jin, general manager of SMIC Beijing. The key to developing China's integrated circuit industry, he said, lies in building a robust semiconductor supply chain. Zong Runfu, Chairman and General Manager, KINGSEMI Semiconductor Equipment Supply Chain DevelopmentLocalization has enabled KINGSEMI to optimize its technology design capabilities to produce high cost-performance equipment for greater competitive advantage, saidZong Runfu, chairman and general manager of KINGSEMI. While the localization rate of supply chain construction was over 50 percent, the localization rate for front-end equipment is still low. Zong Runfu said localization is imperative not only to lowering costs, but also to ameliorating the supply-guarantee rate, maintaining quality and shortening the delivery cycle. Russell Li, VP of Marketing and Business Development, WLCSP Packaging Solutions for 3D Active Sensing DevicesInternet of Things (IoT), artificial intelligence (AI), 5G and other technologies are starting to become a part of daily life as more sensors find their way into new retail stores and smartphones, a trend that will continue as autonomous transportation begins to take hold, said Russell Liu, VP of marketing and business development at WLCSP. The move to bring more human-like capabilities to technology is driving the implementation of perception function in devices, with passive sensors giving way to active sensors and machines translating the physical world into a 3D view through the eyes of a 3D camera. What’s more, the next generation of IoT devices will feature more integrated processors including signal processors, caches, sensors, photons, RF and MEMS, bringing the challenges of miniaturization to system integration. Liu said miniaturization will only be possible by developing advanced packaging technologies that enable highly integrated processors for mobile devices and intelligent automobiles. Wang Ronghua, VP of Technology, Dalian Xinguan Technology Getting Ready for GaN Power Electronics EraGaN offers excellent performance in optoelectronics, RF and power electronics and will coexist with and complement silicon devices for years to come, said Wang Ronghua, VP of Technology at Dalian Xinguan Technology. However, the industrialization of GaN power devices still faces technical challenges in application, reliability, packaging, epitaxy, device and process – all barriers to market adoption. To overcome these hurdles, GaN power devices must meet the reliability and cost-performance requirements of applications to which they are best suited.Ronghau said that GaN power devices, such as cascade and p-GaN enhanced devices, now support end products, proof that the era of gallium nitride has arrived. “Gallium nitride is quite different from silicon in epitaxy, device design and key technology, which requires close integration of upstream and downstream industry chains for effective promotion,” he said. Billy Feng, Executive Director, J.P. Morgan Is the Semiconductor Industry Still Cyclical? Since 2008, the semiconductor cycle has waned, disrupting the traditional thinking of investors, equipment suppliers and logistics channel providers as investors’ appetite for the chip industry investments has grown, said Billy Feng, executive director at J.P. Morgan. The long-term prospects for the semiconductor industry remain bright. But after reaching historic revenue highs in 2017 and 2018, the industry – and investor expectations – will enter a period of adjustment. Dr. Adam He, Executive Director, CGP Tech Fund The unique gene of the semiconductor industry consists of the blend of its lofty requirements for quality, reliability and consistency; cooperation between upstream and downstream sectors; internationalization; and a powerful ambition to innovate, said Dr. Adam He, Executive Director of CGP Tech Fund. He described Chinese chip enterprises he often encounters as falling into one of two entrepreneurial categories – IC experts and cross-border business people. Both want the answer to "how to make money and how to establish a solid competitive position?” He said. Adam believes that accessing the genes of the semiconductor industry is the answer to both questions and crucial to the maturation of China’s chip industry. The genes must be used to strengthen the Chinese manufacturing and materials sectors. Du Shanshan, Senior Analyst, SEMI China SEMI Market Outlook: Fab Investment, Equipment and Materials Market ForecastsEmerging technologies have sparked explosive semiconductor industry growth, said Du Shanshan, a senior analyst at SEMI China. While the industry will see a slight recession in 2019 due to memory market softness, trade wars and other factors, it is on stable footing for the long run. At the same time, China continues to optimize its IC industry chain, and semiconductor design and manufacturing companies have gradually grown in number. Over the next decade, the average growth rate of China's production capacity is expected to exceed 10 percent. Richard Feldman, VP of Global Expositions and Events, SEMI Richard Feldman, vice president of Global Expositions and Events of SEMI headquarters, presented the new SEMI Asia semiconductor business development plan to members and called on companies in mainland China, Taiwan and Malaysia to participate in SEMICON Europe to strengthen the influence of globalization.After the meeting, participants visited KINGSEMI Co., Ltd., Shenyang Piotech Co., Ltd, Shenyang SIASUN Robot and Automation Co., Ltd., Shenyang Fortune Precision Equipment Co., Ltd. and SKY Technology Development Co., Ltd. The event facilitated communications between upstream and downstream companies. SEMI China Member Day 2019 Group Photo Cherry Sun is a marketing manager at SEMI China.