IC’Alps Builds a Secure Infrastructure for Ultimate Protection of Customers’ Data

Meylan, FRANCE – June 08, 2021 – In wake of the recently announced partnership with Tiempo Secure for silicon implementation of CC (Common Criteria) EAL5+ grade Secure Element IP, IC’Alps has deployed an infrastructure that complies with the highest security standards.

IC’Alps is a French semiconductor company specializing in the design and supply of exclusive and custom-made ASIC solutions (Application Specific Integrated Circuits). As part of the improvements, the company has set up a secure access management system including premises complementary access control, dedicated and secure design room, and an isolated and secure IT network. This revamp increases the security in IC’Alps’ Head Office as demanded by security-sensitive customers or partners, requiring such a high level of data protection and associated traceability.

IC’Alps successfully passed CC audit of secure room and associated IT infrastructure commissioned by Tiempo Secure, audit performed by a security evaluation labs (ITSEF) licensed by the ANSSI. The audit states that the silicon physical implementation work entrusted by Tiempo Secure to IC’Alps passed the very strict requirements.

“Since the company was founded, IC’Alps has invested significant financial and human resources into IT. We are proud to pass this CC audit for this customer’s project. This is an independent recognition of our commitment to providing the highest level of quality, data security and customer service”, said Jean-Luc Triouleyre, CEO of IC’Alps.

In addition to ISO 13485 (medical) and EN 9100 (aeronautics) certifications, joining an elite group of companies providing a design environment complying with the highest security standards, will strengthen IC’Alps’ business opportunities for silicon implementation of custom chips and hard macros targeted for security-sensitive markets such as, but not limited to, banking, defence, government and implantable medical devices.
 
ABOUT IC’ALPS
IC’Alps is your one-stop-shop ASIC partner. The company provides customers with a complete offering for Application Specific Integrated Circuits (ASIC) and Systems on Chip (SoC) development from circuit specification, mastering design in-house, up to the management of the entire production supply chain. From its technical centre in France (Grenoble area), IC’Alps supports multiple projects in the demanding medical, industrial, transport, IoT, and mil/aero sectors. The highly qualified engineering teams cover every expertise needed and have a long experience of on-demand analog, mixed-signal and digital integrated circuits on technologies from 0.35 µm down to 16 nm. Moreover, IC’Alps has a proven track record of success with sensor/MEMS AFE interfaces, low power consumption designs, high-resolution converters, signal processing, multiprocessors architectures, hardware accelerators, to name a few. Being a partner of major semiconductor foundries, IP providers, as well as packaging and test houses, IC’Alps is well placed to support customers with full life-cycle solutions. We are proud to be Arm® approved Design Partner, a member of X-FAB’s design and supply chain partner network, as well as an Imec IC-link partner. These accreditations assure that we provide expert support and that we have the design expertise to create highly innovative ASIC designs. IC’Alps is ISO 9001, ISO 13485, EN 9100 certified, as well as Common Criteria ready. More information can be found at www.icalps.com

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An opportunity to boost development for Additive Manufacturing & Semicon industry.

Inventec Performance Chemicals, a global provider of Soldering, Cleaning & Coating solutions, acquired PUS (Pure Ultrasonic System) in April 2021. PUS’ main activities are the production of equipment (solder powder atomizers and sieving machines) and the production of solder powders, from its own process.

By acquiring PUS, Inventec saw an opportunity to create a synergy in the additive manufacturing industry. Inventec supplies the 3D market for high-tech application, with its cleaning, particle elimination & finishing products, while PUS provides sieving, recycling and depowdering, to provide a circular economy solution for this fast-developing market.

Furthermore, the addition of PUS will strengthen Inventec’s know-how in metallurgy, for the development of solder pastes, with ultrafine powders and specialty alloys for the semicon industry. Adapting to an evolving industry, this acquisition allows Inventec to innovate and meet worldwide customers’ needs.

ABOUT INVENTEC
INVENTEC PERFORMANCE CHEMICALS is a global provider of soldering, cleaning & coating materials for electronic, semiconductor and industrial applications.

For more than 50 years we have shown leadership in innovation by putting environment & health impact, sustainability and reliability at the core of our product development.

With iso 9001 & 14001 production sites in France, Switzerland, USA, Mexico, Malaysia and China we can guarantee a smooth and cost-effective supply chain. On top of this, all our production facilities are equipped with a cleaning application centre, where customers are invited to test our proposed cleaning solutions.

Inventec supplies to many industries and the excellent performance of our products in applications demanding high reliability, leads us to focus especially on the automotive, aerospace, semiconductor, automation & energy and medical industry.
For more information about Inventec Performance Chemicals, visit https://www.inventec.dehon.com/en/

ABOUT PUS
PURE ULTRASONIC SYSTEMS is a French expert for ultrasonic atomization and ultrasonic sieving. At its creation, PUS first specialized in atomization and sieving equipment, manufacturing devices for ultrasonic atomization of solder powder for electronic assembly. 10 years later, PUS is still innovating to develop new equipment and powders for the Additive Manufacturing Market.
For more information about PUS, visit https://www.pus-net.fr/en/

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ESPOO, Finland, 2nd of June 2021 – Picosun Group has pending patent rights for an ALD enabled corrosion protection solution against plasma etch that will bring benefits in semiconductor fabrication processes in terms of throughput, film uniformity and conformality. With PicoArmour(TM) the corrosion protection can be achieved more efficiently compared with the industry solutions commonly used today.

Wafer fabrication process flows include several steps where plasma etching is necessary. An inevitable consequence of using etching chemicals is that the tool itself will be etched. A common industrial solution for reducing the tool damage is applying a corrosion-resistant coating to the etch tool using for example PVD or spray coating with Y2O3. Compared to only using Y2O3, PicoArmour(TM) enables an up to five times faster and a more cost-effective way of producing the coating. Compared to Al2O3, the coating can be five times more durable.* Also, the maintenance interval of etch tools can be increased which also translates to significant reduction of manufacturing costs.

“Picosun’s approach with PicoArmour(TM) is to combine the highly-etch-resistant Y2O3 ALD process with more robust ALD processes. A high performance ALD corrosion barrier combining the speed and convenience of Al2O3 process with the durability of Y2O3 can be achieved by carefully controlling the film composition. With ALD, the protective effect can be achieved with thinner films, which in turn leads to material savings and a more environmentally friendly process”, states Juhana Kostamo, VP, Industrial Business Area of Picosun Group.

To learn more about PicoArmour(TM) and a study Picosun has done related to protective coatings against plasma damage, join Picosun talk at the virtual ALD 2021 conference on June 29 at 10:25 am EDT.
Register here: https://ald2021.avs.org/register/

*Values dependent on deposition and etch parameters

About Picosun
Picosun provides the most advanced AGILE ALD® (Atomic Layer Deposition) thin film coating solutions for global industries. Picosun’s ALD solutions enable technological leap into the future, with turn-key production processes and unmatched, pioneering expertise in the field – dating back to the invention of the technology itself. Today, PICOSUN® ALD equipment are in daily manufacturing use in numerous leading industries around the world. Picosun is based in Finland, with subsidiaries in Germany, USA, Singapore, Japan, South Korea, China mainland and Taiwan, offices in India and France, and a world-wide sales and support network. Visit www.picosun.com.

More information:
Juhana Kostamo
Vice President, Industrial Business Area, Picosun Group
Tel: +358 50 369 9565
Email: [email protected]
www.picosun.com

• Read more about Picosun’s PicoArmourTM reduces semiconductor manufacturing costs

YES (Yield Engineering Systems, Inc.), a leading manufacturer of process equipment for semiconductor advanced packaging, life sciences and “More-than-Moore” applications, today announced a strategic alliance with SPEC (Semiconductor Process Equipment Corporation) of Valencia, California. Under the terms of the agreement, YES will market, distribute and support SPEC’s cleaning, etching, stripping and plating equipment worldwide. Furthermore, YES plans to expand SPEC’s process expertise by investing in technologists and demo capabilities to help customers implement faster cycles of learning. In addition, YES and SPEC expect to develop a variety of new products drawing on each other’s core technical expertise.

The agreement leverages the strengths of both companies to meet the growing demands of emerging markets such as 5G, autonomous driving, augmented reality, and other computationally-intensive applications.

“In bringing together our two companies’ combined seven decades of engineering and process development expertise, YES will create new process technologies for a variety of semiconductor, life science and optical coating applications, and will offer broader, more complete integrated solutions to our customers,” said Rezwan Lateef, President of YES.

“We look forward to combining our knowledge base with YES’s large and ever-growing repository of process expertise to address customer needs,” said Kevin McGillivray, co- founder of SPEC. “In addition, YES’s established global sales and service network will enable more companies around the world to utilize SPEC’s cost-effective, production-proven automated wet-process solutions.”

About YES
YES (Yield Engineering Systems, Inc.) is a preferred provider of high-tech, cost-effective equipment for transforming surfaces, materials and interfaces. The company’s product lines include vacuum cure systems, chemical vapor deposition (CVD) systems, and plasma etching tools used for precise surface modification and thin-film coating of semiconductor wafers, semiconductor and MEMS devices, biosensors and medical substrates. With YES, customers ranging from startups to Fortune 100 companies can create and volume-produce products in a wide range of markets, including Advanced Packaging, MEMS, Augmented Reality/Virtual Reality and Life Sciences. YES is headquartered in Fremont, California, with a growing presence globally. For more information, please visit http://www.yieldengineering.com.

About SPEC
SPEC (Semiconductor Process Equipment Corporation) is a highly experienced supplier of surface conditioning wet process equipment. Since 1986, SPEC has designed and manufactured wafer-level and device-level wet process equipment for acid and solvent surface modification (cleaning, etching, stripping), electroplating, and electroless (chemical) plating for all industries requiring a high level of process cleanliness. SPEC’s products are used for polysilicon chip, chunk and ingot cleaning; crucible cleaning, cavity cleaning for particle accelerators, chemical mixing and delivery, hard drive component cleaning, and quartzware cleaning. SPEC systems are engineered to match the unique requirements of the end user. For more information, please visit http://www.team-spec.com.

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The IOSS WID120 Wafer ID Reader is the latest generation of advanced Wafer ID Readers. It was designed to close the gap between easy usability and highest flexibility. With up to 18 different light modes, the IOSS WID120 decodes OCR, Barcode, DataMatrix and QR-Code markings on any kind of wafer, regardless of the wafer material. Thanks to its fully automatic light control and intelligent configurations handling, the IOSS WID120 is able to tweak itself and improve your read rates drastically. The guided teaching process makes it very easy for everyone to setup the camera. Already known functions as master/slave functionality and database connection are still available with this new model. Picture export via FTP is now also possible.

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microCETI™ supports all laser processes in microLED display manufacturing with up to several orders of magnitude higher transfer rates; multiple system orders already received

Chemnitz, Germany, May 12, 2021—3D-Micromac AG, the industry leader in laser micromachining and roll-to-roll laser systems for the semiconductor, photovoltaic, medical device and electronics markets, today introduced microCETI™—the first laser micromachining platform that supports all laser processes in microLED display manufacturing with the high throughput and precision, and low cost of ownership, needed for volume production requirements.

The microCETI platform is available in three different configurations, enabling cost-effective transfer, lift-off and repair of microLED devices. Its high speed enables the transfer of hundreds of millions of microLEDs per hour without having to apply mechanical forces – up to several orders of magnitude faster than other approaches – while the on-the-fly square-beam laser enables transfer of nearly any shape and size of microLED. 3D-Micromac has already received multiple system orders for the microCETI platform from leading microLED chip manufacturers in North America and Asia for laser lift-off and transfer processing.

A Promising Display Technology Enabled By Laser Micromachining
MicroLEDs have the potential to revolutionize the display industry, promising a variety of advantages such as superior viewing angle, high dynamic range with perfect black luminance and high brightness, wide color gamut, fast refresh rates, long lifetime and low power consumption. However, the microLED fabrication process is vastly more complex than LCD and OLED manufacturing, and faces several technical challenges that must be overcome before microLEDs can be readily available in the mass market.

Among these challenges is detaching and transferring the processed microLED chips from the donor or growth (e.g., sapphire) substrate to an intermediate substrate for subsequent testing, allowing the expensive growth substrate to be repurposed for future use. Another challenge is to quickly and precisely transfer the chips to the final glass backplane, which for a typical 4K display involving tens of millions of microLED chips could take hundreds of hours using traditional pick-and-place transfer methods. Technologies are also needed that can detect and repair/replace defective microLEDs during the manufacturing process, since a pixel yield rate of 99.9999 percent is required to produce a full-HD desktop display. The microCETI platform from 3D-Micromac supports all laser processes in microLED display manufacturing, with the ability to address precisely these challenges.

According to Uwe Wagner, CEO of 3D-Micromac, “MicroLEDs have enormous potential for future displays across a wide range of applications and end devices, including indoor and outdoor signage, smart watches, augmented and virtual reality headsets, and automotive heads-up displays. As a leader in laser micromachining, 3D-Micromac has extensive experience applying innovative laser technology to new and emerging applications to support their volume-production requirements. Our new microCETI platform provides a high-throughput, versatile and cost-effective laser micromachining process that is ideally suited for the production of microLEDs. We look forward to working with microLED device and display manufacturers to accelerate the adoption of this exciting and promising display technology.”

The microCETI platform is available in one of three configurations:
• LIFT: unique laser transfer process for nearly every microLED material and shape
• LLO: on-the-fly laser lift-off suitable for customer related microLED material
• REPAIR: Single-die-repair process at every step of the microLED production route

The microCETI platform features a high-precision UV-wavelength laser with high repetition rate and an advanced positioning system for three stages (donor stage, substrate stage and mask stage) and up to 16 axes to transfer every microLED with sub-two-micron positioning accuracy and nanometer-scale repeatability. microCETI supports donor wafer sizes ranging from 50mm (2 inches) up to 200mm (8 inches) as well as intermediate/transfer wafers and backplane substrates up to 350mm x 350mm. In addition to microLEDs, the microCETI platform is also suitable for standard LED and miniLED processing.

Product Availability and Further Information
3D-Micromac is currently accepting orders for the microCETI platform. More information on microCETI, including our latest white paper “Laser technologies for microLED production,” can be found at https://3d-micromac.com/laser-induced-forward-transfer/microceti-lift/.

About 3D-Micromac
Founded in 2002, 3D-Micromac AG is the industry leader in laser micromachining, delivering powerful, user-friendly and leading-edge processes with superior production efficiency. We develop processes, machines and turnkey solutions at the highest technical and technological level. 3D-Micromac systems and services have been successfully implemented in various high-tech industries worldwide including photovoltaic, semiconductor, glass and display industries, micro diagnostics, and medical technology. For more information, visit the company’s website at http://www.3d-micromac.com.

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ESPOO, Finland, 19th of May 2021 – Picosun Group has further optimized its PICOSUN® Sprinter ALD system processes successfully for semiconductor, display and IoT component manufacturing lines.

PICOSUN® Sprinter ALD system Al2O3 process results showed excellent thickness uniformity even at low 90 °C deposition temperature. At 300 °C temperature the results were at record-breaking level (About Picosun
Picosun provides the most advanced AGILE ALD® (Atomic Layer Deposition) thin film coating solutions for global industries. Picosun’s ALD solutions enable technological leap into the future, with turn-key production processes and unmatched, pioneering expertise in the field – dating back to the invention of the technology itself. Today, PICOSUN® ALD equipment are in daily manufacturing use in numerous leading industries around the world. Picosun is based in Finland, with subsidiaries in Germany, USA, Singapore, Japan, South Korea, China mainland and Taiwan, offices in India and France, and a world-wide sales and support network. Visit www.picosun.com.

More information:
Juhana Kostamo
Vice President, Industrial Business Area, Picosun Group
Tel: +358 50 369 9565
Email: [email protected]
Web: www.picosun.com

• Read more about PICOSUN® Sprinter demonstrates record-breaking batch film quality

The new Beneq K.K. subsidiary is located in Yokohama and offers sales, marketing and customer support services across the country.

Yokohama, Japan – Beneq has opened a new wholly owned subsidiary in Japan. The local team consists of experienced sales, marketing and engineering professionals from semiconductor and other ALD customer markets. Beneq K.K. will act as the first point of contact for customers in Japan, and provide local field services, training, and other technical support.

In recent years Beneq saw rapidly increasingly demand for its Beneq TransformTM, C-series, and P-series equipment products and services in Japan. Manufacturers of power semiconductors, radio frequency (RF) devices, image sensors, and lithium-ion batteries find a growing number of applications using ALD. Beneq’s products are also used in coating large or complex shapes, such as semiconductor equipment parts and in optical coatings. With the addition of local presence, the company is in a stronger position than ever to serve customer needs and requirements.

“In today’s global business environment, Beneq wishes to be locally present in all key markets including Japan. Beneq understands our Japanese customers’ preference to work with companies that offer local presence and long-term commitment.” says Jukka Nieminen, President of Beneq. “After decades of business experience in Japan through representatives, Beneq is committed to staying in the Japanese market with its 100% owned subsidiary Beneq KK. The office is dedicated to serving Beneq ALD customers locally in Japan.”

About Beneq
Beneq is the home of ALD, offering a wide portfolio of equipment products and development services. Today Beneq leads the market with innovative solutions for advanced R&D (TFS 200, R2), flexible high-volume manufacturing (BENEQ TransformTM), ultra-fast high precision spatial ALD coatings (C2R), roll-to-roll thin film coating of continuous webs (Genesis ALD), and specialized batch production for thicker film stacks (P400, P800). Headquartered in Espoo, Finland Beneq is dedicated to making ALD technology accessible for researchers and enabling technology mega trends through engineered ALD materials solutions.

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