Entegris

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Antoine Amade, VP of sales for the Microcontamination Control division at Entegris, discusses innovation opportunities for semiconductor technologies entering the automotive domain, views on design and process engineering, and collaboration between the semiconductor and automotive industries.

The pandemic unleashed by the coronavirus SARS-CoV-2 (which causes the disease COVID-19) has infected over 100 million and resulted in over 2.6 million deaths worldwide as of March 2021. It is well-established that this virus primarily spreads from person-to-person via respiratory droplets produced when an infected person coughs, sneezes or even breathes (see Ref. 1-3). Subsequently, the droplets meet the eyes, or enter nose or mouth of a nearby person, or transmit when a person touches an infected surface, then contacts their eyes, nose, or mouth. Since the virus is small, 0.06–0.14 microns in diameter, many copies can be contained in or attached to emitted respiratory droplets. Droplets as small as one micron can carry enough viral load to cause an infection. A particular concern is the interaction of droplets with ventilation systems, which potentially could enhance the propagation of pathogens. This has implications on situation-specific safe distancing and the design of building filtration systems, air distribution, heating, air-conditioning and decontamination systems. A particular instance of this is the semiconductor manufacturing cleanroom, where systems and protocols are specifically designed to minimize contamination. The $440 billion global semiconductor industry depends on these cleanrooms for integrated circuits (chips), and in turn, these chips form the lifeblood of the multi-trillion-dollar global electronic systems industry. Electronic systems are now critical for just about every aspect of human life, including health, work, finances, entertainment, transportation, power grids and many others. Thus, it is critical to understand how cleanrooms can operate more safely to ensure the health of workers while maintaining productivity levels to meet increasing global demand for semiconductors. In the work described here, we analyzed particle and droplet transport via modeling, simulation [Refs 1-3], and experimentation [Ref. 4] to help guide the industry. Modeling and Simulation In this part of the work, mathematical models were developed to simulate the progressive time-evolution of the distribution of locations of particles produced by a cough. Analytical and numerical studies were undertaken. The models ascertain the range, distribution and settling time of the particles under the influence of gravity and drag from the surrounding air. Beyond qualitative trends that illustrate that large particles travel far and settle quickly – versus small particles that do not travel far and settle slowly (yet can be carried far by ambient flow) – the models provide quantitative results for distances travelled and settling times, which are needed for constructing social distancing policies and workplace protocols. Figure 1 shows examples of the results of the modeling and simulation work. Figure 1: Model of particle spreading from a person coughing, with and without a mask. (Ref. 1) Following are key insights from the modeling and simulation work (Ref. 1): Large particles travel far (launched “ballistically”) and settle quickly, while small particles do not travel far and settle slowly (when there are no ambient externally-driven flow fields). Small particles do not settle even by the end of the simulation time (4 seconds in Ref. 1). Accordingly, the simulations were also run for extremely long periods to ascertain that the “mist” of small particles remained airborne for several minutes (as predicted by the theory). For strong opposing headwind, small particles move backwards, yet still remain airborne for extended periods of time. This is by far the most dangerous case since this will encounter other persons at the torso level. Ratio of the general drag to gravity indicates that at high velocities, the dynamics are dominated by drag. For general cough conditions, there can be cases where the change in the surrounding fluid’s behavior, due to the motion of the particles and cough, may be important. One major implication of this work is that the challenge of infection must be addressed both spatially and temporally. In other words, it is necessary to maintain social distancing based on how far the virus travels, but it is also important to account for how long the virus stays at the location because of specific air patterns. On the positive side, understanding these spatio-temporal patterns accurately will enable companies to design (or re-design) ventilation and decontamination systems precisely to improve worker safety. Other aspects of this analysis entail contact tracing (Ref. 2) and decontamination (Ref. 3). Further details, including simulations, are available at https://msol.berkeley.edu/publications/. Experimentation The major vector of coronavirus spread is through respiratory droplets expelled when coughing, speaking, and breathing; and the efficacy of any safety measures depends on accurate characterization of the dispersal of these droplets. The term particle describes objects that begin their journey as a solid. The term droplet is reserved specifically for objects that are initially liquid, albeit it is important to note that droplets can evaporate and effectively transform into solid particles composed of non-evaporative material. A purpose-built room, the Cal Covid Cube, C3, was set up and utilized for this research [Thatcher et al. 4]. The C3 is a parallelepiped room that is 232 centimeters tall, 376 centimeters long and 284 centimeters wide on the inside. For experimental results to be meaningful and repeatable for scientific and practical purposes, it is essential that the experimental setup be carefully controlled and calibrated. The following precautions were taken to ensure this: Charge-free: When solid particles are released, it is critical to eliminate (or thoroughly know) static charge effects for obtaining accurate deposition patterns. Static charge effects can manifest through particle-particle interactions (affecting particle motion in flight) or particle-surface interaction (affecting deposition pattern). Two methods for the elimination of charge effects on the deposition surface were found to be effective: (1) ionized non-conductive adhesive sampling strips, and (2) grounded aluminum backed carbon sampling strips. Isothermal: The room is a converted walk-in freezer with 10.5-13 centimeter thermal insulation and located in the middle of a building, at least 5 meters away from all building walls. Temperature uniformity was checked and the C3 room temperatures were found to be isothermal within uncertainty of measurements. Quiescent: It was ensured that the room did not create uncontrolled thermal convection due to isothermal nature. Quiescence was verified with both hot-wire measurements and with free-falling particle drift observations. Isopotential: The outer and inner surfaces, including the door of the C3 were conductive aluminum and stainless steel, and copper tape were used to ensure reliable electrical connection of door, interior and exterior panels. Electric fields were surveyed and found to be negligible within precision of instruments. Other design elements: All interior surfaces were coated with black matte paint to reduce scattered light and provide uniform background for imaging measurements. The facility was located on ground floor to limit vibrations. Repeatable Launch: To emulate the release from a true cough or sneeze, and to better understand droplet motion in a canonical turbulent jet versus a cough type release, we studied different layers of complexity for the release geometry: (i) Straight round pipe (ii) Smooth 90-degree curved pipe, with a changing radius along the length of the pipe (iii) Intubation trainer doll, with realistic airways and mouth/tongue structure Figure 2 shows the experimental setup with the intubation doll in C3, with the particle/droplet release being measured after deposition on the sampling strips that appear green. Figure 2: Experimental Setup in C3 with both charge neutralized (white appearing green) and conductive (black) sampling strips placed on a conductive and grounded alignment grid [Ref. 4] We utilized both liquid droplets and solid particles. For droplets, we explored and found promise in a method of deposition analysis based on fluorescence. For particles, we explored many ways in which the smallest of thermal gradients or electrostatic charge issues can affect the data and developed practical methods to address these issues. For accurate measurement free of static charge effects even in environments where high ambient flow velocities may cause a nonconductive surface to rapidly acquire charge (e.g., clean room environment), we developed carbon-tape-based sampling strips that are cleanroom-compatible, conductive, and grounded. For analysis, we developed a cost-effective method utilizing a commercial photo negative scanner followed by image enhancement by blind deconvolution. Figure 3 shows sample results for particle deposition location along our centerline for particles in the ballistic, intermediate and aerosol regime. Figure 3: Experimental Results [Thatcher et al. 4] Following are key insights from experimental work: Significance of both static charge effects and thermal gradients in rooms for validation tests are more than usually appreciated. For modelling, accounting for the non-uniform initial particle velocity matters for the ballistic particles. For all sizes of particles, simulating the transient versus steady state significantly impacts predicted particle spread. Thermal plumes alone from humans along particle flight path can transport 50 micron particles across the room. In some situations, this was observed up to ~6 meters. There is a significant effect of Relative Humidity (RH) and temperature on droplet evaporation. The practical consequence is that, in low RH, particles spread further, with all other things being equal. (The reason is that particles shrunk more and entered the aerosol regime.) In summary, a systematic analysis of particle and droplet transport was conducted by simulation, modeling, and experimentation. We were able to develop robust, rigorous, and repeatable methodologies and draw meaningful insights that will support safer operation and productivity of semiconductor cleanrooms globally. Further, these studies will help with the design (or re-design) of ventilation and de-contamination systems that help protect both the health of humans and the economy from current and future pandemics. This article provides a high-level overview of the work, and further details will be available through a series of scientific papers that are in various phases of publication. We gratefully acknowledge the following support: Gift of the Lam Research Corporation Gifts coordinated through SEMI and provided by Advanced Energy Industries, Applied Materials, ASM, Entegris, JSR, KLA, TEL, and Wonik The 2020 Seed Fund Award from the Center for Information Technology Research in the Interest of Society (CITRIS) and the Banatao Institute at the University of California Vision Research for providing a v2640 camera to help quantify the particle velocities Graduate students Eric Thacher and Tvetene Carlson who conducted the experiments in C3 Valuable discussions with Brett Singer, Thomas Kirchstetter, Michael Sohn, Chelsea Preble of Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory regarding droplet transport and COVID, and Keith Hansen on particle sampling and charge neutralization DOE Office of Science through the National Virtual Biotechnology Laboratory, a consortium of DOE national laboratories focused on response to COVID-19, with funding provided by the Coronavirus CARES Act Steven Ruzin and the Biological Imaging Facility for their assistance in obtaining the high-quality fluorescence microscopy scans to validate the particle counting methodology. References Zohdi, T.I. (2020) Modeling and simulation of the infection zone from a cough, Computational Mechanics. https://doi.org/10.1007/s00466-020-01875-5 Zohdi, T.I. (2020). An agent-based computational framework for simulation of global pandemic and social response on planet X, Computational Mechanics. https://doi.org/10.1007/s00466-020-01886-2 Zohdi, T.I. (2020) Rapid simulation of viral decontamination efficacy with UV irradiation. Computer Methods Appl. Mech. Eng. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.cma.2020.113216 Thatcher, E., Carlson, J., Castellini, J., Sohn, M.D., Variano, E. and Makiharju S.A. (2021) Droplet and Particle Methods to Investigate Turbulent Particle Laden Jets (in preparation) Authors Evan A. Variano, Professor, Environmental Engineering, UC Berkeley Simo Mäkiharju, Assistant Professor of Mechanical Engineering, UC Berkeley Tarek I. Zohdi, Will C. Hall Endowed Chair of the UCB Computational Data Science Engineering Program, Professor of Mechanical Engineering, UC Berkeley Pushkar P. Apte, Director of Strategic Initiatives, Center for Information Technology Research in the Interest of Society (CITRIS) and the Banatao Institute, UC Berkeley; and Strategic Technology Advisor, SEMI

Olivier Corvez, senior manager of Environment, Health, Safety and Sustainability at SEMI, sat down (virtually) with Todd Patterson, vice president of global EHS for Entegris Global Operations, to discuss how Entegris has responded to the global pandemic.Corvez manages and Patterson participates in the COVID-19 EHS Task Force currently meeting weekly to discuss industry response and share best practices. SEMI: Was Entegris prepared for the COVID-19 pandemic? How did the company respond?Patterson: Entegris has a strong risk management framework and a risk assessment team of senior leaders who meet at least once a quarter. This focus gives us early visibility into events that could destabilize our organization or threaten our operations. Such a framework helps ensure we have the information necessary to act as soon as possible when the need arises. However, our business continuity plans for a pandemic of this scale were far less than with other more commonly occurring catastrophic events such as earthquakes or hurricanes. The COVID-19 crisis was clearly unprecedented and as such, the necessary systems and procedures were not in place with the depth and detail needed. Our strong governance structure made it possible for us to hold steady even as the pandemic caused increasing uncertainty and disruption around the world. For example, despite major supply chain shutdowns across many industries, to date, our supply chain and manufacturing operations have only been modestly impacted by COVID-19. Our supply chain team was assessing daily the areas of risk with our suppliers and taking appropriate action as well as preemptive steps to ensure our critical supply lines remained open.Our sales team engaged in regular communications with our customers providing them updates about our Business Continuity Plans and our actions to mitigate the risk to any of their deliveries. In addition, we maintained current information about the continuity of our supply chain on the company’s intranet for the global sales team to access as they engaged with customers. Also, a proactive communication plan was implemented immediately to send weekly video messages from senior executives directly to employees’ emails. It was an effective way to communicate with our global teams, to keep them informed about the status of the company’s operations and maintain a common sense of purpose at a time when many colleagues worked from home. In these weekly messages, we also focused significant attention on the health and safety protocols established to protect our manufacturing and lab employees from the virus.Among the health and safety protocols we implemented immediately as the virus moved across different regions were those related to facility screenings, work-from-home policies, social distancing, self-quarantine requirements, contact tracing, increased disinfecting, and travel restrictions. With approximately 5,300 employees worldwide, we had teams in every region ready to implement these comprehensive protocols. We believe we were among the first companies to implement work-from-home policies and travel restrictions.Temperature screening stations at Entegris facilities in Jangan, Korea (left) and Kulim, Malaysia (right). In addition, our CEO led a COVID-19 Steering Committee comprised of senior executives and managers from operations, human resources and communications. The committee met several times a week during March and April to evaluate and formulate responses to the issues that emerged as the virus spread from region to region. The committee’s work created a strong partnership among senior executives and divisional and functional leaders, and the initial guidelines developed by the committee have formed the backbone of a global playbook to limit the spread of the virus to our other sites around the world.Recently, the committee has changed its focus to more strategic issues such as creating a framework for transitioning remote workers back into our office locations. Meanwhile, local leadership teams at each of our global sites have been empowered to address ongoing tactical issues consistent with our thoroughly documented health and safety protocols.Looking to the future, we are using our experience in responding to COVID-19 to develop a more comprehensive pandemic response plan. We have project teams working on better ways to: measure temperatures of personnel entering our sites facilitate social distancing in the workplace redesign common use areas to reduce the number of high touch points disinfect all spaces thoroughly and regularly, and manage emergency pandemic supplies. SEMI: From the SEMI EHS survey, we noted that all members had a Business Continuity Plan. How effective has it been for deploying resources and adapting quickly and minimizing the crisis? Why or why not? Patterson: Because we have operations in China, Entegris experienced the impact of the virus immediately. We quickly formed two task force teams for our two primary facilities in the region. These teams developed the means for communicating key information to employees and started working on prevention plans to protect employees and comply with local requirements for when operations resumed. They met the challenges head on and found quick solutions. An example was finding an effective way of communicating to the employees for each location. Group chats were established through social media. It was this work that led to their success in getting approvals from local authorities to resume operations. Those plans have laid the groundwork on which our other sites around the world could build their response plans.The effective management of our global supply chain also stands out as a key success of the company’s Business Continuity Plan. Entegris has a highly complex supply chain with approximately 6,500 suppliers and a $850 million annual spend, and we ship work-in-progress and finished goods from over 90 sites globally.As I mentioned earlier, despite the virus crippling supply chains across many industries, Entegris experienced very little disruption to its supply chain. The supply chain team was able to accomplish this despite a 90% reduction in global freight capacity. A key factor in keeping goods flowing to our factories was the intensive work the team had done earlier to develop an in-depth understanding of the company’s top suppliers and to mitigate sourcing risks. They had established alternate sources, balanced the sources geographically, and placed inventory across our supply chain to buffer risk.The team also had integrated statistical modeling into reporting tools, which made it possible to reset safety stocks and logistics lead times quickly as conditions changed. And a supply chain digitalization provided one aligned and integrated view via dashboards, giving the company the ability to respond rapidly and to communicate in real time with our suppliers. We essentially had a virtual war room where we monitored the daily impact of the spread of the virus and could address bottlenecks and other issues immediately.SEMI: What lessons have been learned, so far? How do you see changes in your company’s operations in the future?Patterson: Institutionalizing what we’ve learned has already begun. Whether the measures implemented during the pandemic are temporary or become permanent is still to be determined. Regardless, the learnings need to be documented and available as a playbook for if – or when – the next pandemic occurs.Entegris is already working on a more comprehensive pandemic plan that will be based on five levels of preparedness. Level 0 will cover annual training requirements and management of emergency inventory of pandemic supplies. Level 1 will include early recognition of an outbreak, and then Levels 2-4 will include requirements for when specific response measures are implemented. Entegris also has formed the “New Normal” task force, which consists of leaders representing a number of disciplines directing the project teams previously mentioned to create a more comprehensive pandemic response plan. One of the project teams is working on improving the facility screening process that performs temperature measurement for personnel entering Entegris sites. The team is looking at the best technology to scan body temperature. As to whether this technology is employed only while COVID-19 is still active or becomes a permanent way of doing business, this is still being discussed.SEMI: EHS is involved in both providing technical support to protect individuals but also in making organizational changes to favorize social distancing. Could you explain some of the successes and challenges while tackling these two fronts?Patterson: Very early in the pandemic, Entegris established a work-from-home policy for non-essential employees. This significantly reduced the number of personnel and the potential for contact at the Entegris locations. Significant facility changes also were required. These included the design of facility screening booths and modifications to common gathering areas such as canteens, meeting rooms, prayer rooms, and smoking points. Physical markings were used to designate 2 meters distancing, and the seating in canteens and meeting rooms was reduced and staggered to minimize the risk of exposure to the virus. Entegris also has a project team focused on developing design solutions for offices and workstations when space makes it difficult to maintain 2 meters social distancing. These changes turned out to be essential for some sites in meeting mandates by local authorities. Our sites in Hangzhou, China and Kulim, Malaysia both were allowed to resume partial operations after demonstrating to government authorities the effectiveness of the preventative measures put in place. One particular challenge we are facing is the range of personal differences and awareness levels within the workforce – including those that don’t understand the importance of the new guidelines. We are working closely in advising supervisory staff to be aware of the need for employees to follow all health and safety protocols we have put in place, including social distancing. That preventative measure is the most difficult to make part of our new behavior – it is unnatural and inconsistent with our human nature, but it is critical to preventing the further spread of the virus.SEMI: How do you envision the progressive steps in deescalating to bring back “normal” operations? Patterson: I don’t know whether Entegris will ever go back to the old “normal.” As previously mentioned, we are working on the “New Normal.” Our focus now is on bringing our work-from-home employees back to the workplace without adding risk of exposure to the virus. We are still exploring options, but we expect to do it in a phased approach so that we can adequately assess the preventive measures that are in place and determine whether adjustments need to be made to any of our health and safety protocols.We are starting to see a variety of different frameworks emerge for evaluating repopulation timing and procedures. We will assess them on an office-by-office, or site-by-site basis, utilizing consistent criteria to define the potential for exposure to the virus. This also applies to our field service workforce. However, I have not yet seen any governmental guidance that offers a recommended framework for returning employees to the workplace. I think this represents an opportunity for SEMI EHS and the Standards groups to work to establish that framework for our industry.SEMI: Anything else you would like to share that you have observed throughout this crisis?We have not discussed the challenges faced in procuring and acquiring pandemic supplies. Almost immediately after the outbreak occurred in Wuhan, it became increasingly difficult to find supplies. Even when confirmation was provided by suppliers and delivery dates confirmed, the majority of the dates were pushed out or canceled. We found that what worked best was to have purchasing teams at the local site work with their local contacts on obtaining smaller quantities while a corporate point person was also managing larger orders. In preparation for any future pandemics, Entegris will be maintaining an emergency inventory for masks, sanitizer, thermometers, and disinfectants.For 18 months, Todd Patterson has held the position of VP Global EHS for Entegris Global Operations. His experience with emergency management and BCP has become invaluable in the past three months. He is grateful to his global response teams around the world for coming together to support the Entegris team in this unprecedented situation. Todd is an active participant on the SEMI EHS COVID-19 response teams led by Olivier Corvez at SEMI. Olivier Corvez is senior manager of Environment, Health, Safety and Sustainability at SEMI.

In the future, electronics-related gear including advanced driver-assistance systems (ADAS) will account for a whopping 50 percent of automotive costs. More importantly, with more control of vehicles shifting to automation, the margin of error in component performance and reliability will become vanishingly small as zero defects become the new safety standard.SEMI spoke with Antoine Amade, Senior Regional Director EMEA, Entegris about zero defects as a new collaborative approach necessary to shape the car of the future and the automotive industry.SEMI: The next generation of automobiles will be more electric, autonomous and connected. What is the most pressing next step for automotive players to pursue this goal? Amade: The automotive ecosystem faces many challenges. For example, when cars become autonomous, their interaction with the cloud and the massive amount of data computed simultaneously could be vulnerable to cyberattacks capable of seizing control of the vehicle.Another example is the use of artificial intelligence (AI) as there is a big opportunity to explore and define the right architecture while also meeting automotive quality requirements. The quality challenge will be amplified by advanced nodes. Reliability is also critical since 90 percent of device failures are extrinsic, or unrelated to device design. Today, the top priority should be to eliminate latent defects, those that remain undetected until the product is in use. These latent defects may appear at some future point in the life of vehicle – 1 month, 1 year, 10 years, etc. This is the vital focus of the carmaker and the supply chain.SEMI: With in-line metrology tools reaching their detection limits, how will the industry reduce latent defects? Amade: Minimizing latent defects is now a top priority in semiconductor fabs. However, there is a gap between visible and non-visible defects. Although fabs can detect small defects, human intervention is still needed to manage them. We are witnessing a fundamental shift in the contamination control strategy in auto chip production, from contamination control for yield to contamination control for reliability. The shift is born of the recognition that all particles, regardless of size, and parts per trillion (ppt) concentration levels of contaminants matter, impact both defectivity and reliability. Contamination management will play a key role in enabling the industry to reach parts per billion (ppb) failure rates at the component level. SEMI: How will the industry reach the goal of zero defects? Amade: A sound contamination management strategy that follows three main axes of actions will be one key to reaching zero defects: the ambient air in the fab, the wafer’s environment over its lifetime, and the integrity of the materials in the clean chemical delivery pathway.Contamination management in each of these three areas presents opportunities to limit process variability. The first step in limiting variation is detecting it, which can be difficult when the contaminants causing the variation are hard to identify or caused by an unexpected event. When a contaminant signature can be detected, it leaves clues to its root cause. Careful scrutiny of these signatures can inform a contamination control strategy to eliminate the root cause and reduce overall defectivity.SEMI: What collaborative engagement model do you see as the best for reaching zero defects? Amade: Entegris sees the SEMI Global Advisory Automotive Council (GAAC) as the perfect collaboration platform for the entire automotive semiconductor ecosystem, from car manufacturers to material suppliers. Entegris is also a member of the Platform for Automotive Semiconductor Requirement Across the Supply Chain (PASRASC). Both forums help raise the visibility of key challenges and potential solutions.Collaboration starts with agreement on a definition of automotive based on existing standards and guidelines that must be communicated across the value chain. Another important element for collaboration is standardizing on how new materials such as SiC Semiconductors (silicon carbide) should be used. Entegris plays a leading role in contamination management for defectivity reduction through its New Collaborative Approach (NCA) platform, which brings a new level of knowledge sharing to all those involved in detecting and improving defectivity.SEMI: Can you explain the New Collaborative Approach in more detail?Amade: During the SEMI Smart Transportation Forum at SEMICON Europa, we presented the process and tools we have been developing in collaboration with car makers and are implementing with chipmakers as part of our New Collaborative Approach. Our data-driven tools compare current contamination solutions practices and identify optimization opportunities. A good indicator of the maturity of the ecosystem, the tools allow chipmakers to compare the contamination mitigation practices of peers with their own and identify hot topics for advancing contamination management strategies. Every year, during Entegris Technology Days, we share best known methods, case studies, and review fab processes in order to propose customized solutions. It is all about improving defectivity.Mr. Amade joined Entegris in 1995 as an Application Engineer in its semiconductor business. In his current role as EMEA/NA Sr. Director, Mr. Amade is focused primary on growing the semiconductor business in Europe and Middle East through market strategies, and the management of sales, customer service, and marketing teams. Mr. Amade held leadership positions at Entegris in functions including gas microcontamination market management, strategic account management, and regional sales management. Mr. Amade has a degree in Chemical Engineering from ENS Chimie Lille and is a member of the SEMI Electronic Materials Group and the Global Automotive Advisory Council for Europe (GAAC).Serena Brischetto is a marketing and communications manager at SEMI Europe.

The semiconductor industry is in the final throes of its most recent cyclical downturn, but clear demand drivers on the horizon, such as 5G and autonomous driving, have created a decidedly upbeat mood at SEMI’s Strategic Materials Conference, held this week in San Jose, California. Increased connectivity in daily lives will not only dramatically boost semiconductor volumes, but the physical challenges of improving chip performance have positioned materials as the key enabling technology of the fourth industrial revolution – creating opportunities for suppliers to capture significant value. Most speakers were quick to underscore the importance of materials innovation. According to Dave Anderson, president of SEMI Americas, “We are entering the era of the material scientist,” and the role of materials in semiconductor manufacturing “has never been more important.” Carlos Diaz, senior director, corporate research at foundry major TSMC, said that the future “belongs to new materials and processes,” while Bertrand Loy, president and CEO, Entegris, told attendees the world is on the brink of the fourth industrial revolution, where technology will be fusing “physical, digital, and biological worlds and transforming our collective lives.” Len Jelinek, senior director/semiconductor manufacturing, IHS Markit, noted that 2019 has been a challenging year for semiconductor revenue – expectations are for a 12.5% decline YOY – but said he is not forecasting “doom and gloom” because of positive consumer demand trends beyond 2019. These include the rollout of 5G networks, internet of things (IoT), artificial intelligence (AI), and autonomous vehicles. Jelinek emphasized the foundational impact of 5G in particular. “Don’t think of 5G’s impact only in terms of handsets. It’s an enabling technology that will have broad-based impact” and will be key to creating a sustainable recovery in semiconductor demand in the second half of 2020. The current semiconductor downturn – the industry’s 10th – was initiated by an imbalance in memory supply and demand, and the lack of resolution of trade issues between China and the US is threatening to amplify volatility. Smartphones, the number-one application for semiconductors, are currently challenged by extended replacement cycles, and total handset shipments are set for its second year of decline. “We, as consumers, are waiting for revolutionary features such as 5G speeds, biometrics, foldable handsets and AI capabilities,” Jelinek says. Recent iterations have been merely evolutionary, and premium handset costs have escalated, he adds. Automotive electronics, which account for about 10% of global semiconductor demand, will eke out slight growth in 2019, Jelinek says. “Long-term semi component revenue growth within the Auto segment will focus on increasing content within cars supporting advanced safety features.” During his session, Duncan Meldrum, chief economist and founder of Hilltop Economics, addressed recent threats of a recession. “Underlying economic fundamentals are strong, but we are at that point in the business cycle where it doesn’t take much to knock the economy into recession,” he says. “I am telling people to have a contingency plan in place.” Nevertheless, Meldrum laid out reasons for optimism. Most economies have plenty of jobs, and consumers have been confident despite negative headlines. “For the average person, a tariff trade war gets to be noise. If they don’t see immediate impact, they tend to eventually discount all the headline noise. The same goes for Washington politics or Brexit.” There are no serious signs of inflation pressures in the US or other major economies, he adds. Beyond the cycleLonger-term, explosive growth in connected devices will create a runway for semiconductor volume growth. According to SEMI, over 30 billion devices are currently connected and another 200 million are added daily. By 2020, the number of connected devices will reach 1 trillion. “The growth profile for industry will be very strong and a multiplicity of drivers will bring more stability to this industry,” Loy adds. “But before this future becomes a reality we have a lot of work to do.” Current chips need to be faster and cheaper. “Physical scaling is not going to get us there, we’ve hit those limits,” Loy adds. “We have to look at new architectures and materials.” Loy called on the materials sector to need to “up our game” and spend more on R D. “Customers want us to make our products in very tight process window and ship to control. They want extreme purity for everything. It’s a long list of to-dos and it’s going to cost us a lot,” he adds. Among the needed innovations are photoresist hard masks to hand high aspect ratio, new etch chemistries for better rates and higher selectivity, and new cleaning chemistries for high aspect ratio geometry with high selectivity.Loy also identified contamination control as a key challenge for material suppliers. “When you think about purity and contaminants, you need to think about size, concentration levels, and classes. To optimize yields and lower wafer defectivity, our customers expect materials to be very pure and exhibit low variability.” The payoff for customers is large; a 1% yield improvement can mean $150 million in annual net profit for a leading-edge logic fab, Loy says. For a 3D NAND fab, that figure can be around $110 million per year. But these requirements are getting exponentially tighter. From 28 to 7 nm, the metal impurity concentration limit became 1,000 times lower, Loy notes. Contamination control is even more vital when the potential impacts of latent defects – which are difficult to detect in a fab and during electrical testing – are considered, particularly in emerging applications like autonomous driving, Loy says. “The cost of yield loss is expensive, but failure in a critical optical sensor of a car could be significantly greater, in terms of recalls or even human loss of life.” To meet tightening purity requirements, Loy recommends throwing out traditional thinking about contamination control. “In the past, we could get away with simple filtrations,” he says. “That’s no longer going to work. We need to collectively, up and down the supply chain, migrate to better filtration and purification and also rethink chemical delivery systems and packaging solutions to preserve the integrity of our products.”Metrology will also be key, but analytical capability is lagging. “We all like to believe that we cannot control what we cannot see, but that is exactly what we have to do.” The need for innovation is also being felt at the wafer level. Kevin Light, director, Applications Technology Americas at Siltronic Corp., said that as semiconductor markets become more diversified, silicon suppliers must recognize the distinct challenges each segment faces. Better wafer properties are required for next-generation chips, he adds. “Excessive wafer geometry can cause errors during lithography, especially when printing even smaller linewidths,” he says. The end result can be defocus and placement errors. When dealing with “More than Moore” architectures, wafer requirements are driven by other factors than defects. “More than Moore applications do not benefit from scaling, but instead drive capabilities of separate silicon parameters,” Light says. “In some cases you need high doping, in others the doping needs to be precise.” Czochralski crystal growth is suitable for high dopant levels, but the concentrations vary at the top and bottom of the ingot. Float Zone crystals avoid oxygen incorporation and provide consistent doping. These variations make Czochralski process suitable for PowerMOS, and Float Zone appropriate for IGBT. Compound semiconductor layers, such as GaN-on-Si, offer potential advantages owing to higher switching speeds and critical breakdown fields, he adds. “Silicon wafer requirements are diversifying as the devices themselves find increasing use outside of traditional logic,” Light adds. “Moore’s law is alive and next-gen computing will continue to push the limits of flatness and cleanliness. Meanwhile, demands of energy efficiency, electrification, IoT, and 5G drive wafer requirements other than scaling, including extremely high doped or ultra-low oxygen growing techniques, high lifetimes, and substrates engineered for compounds semiconductors.” Driverless futureAutonomous driving was a frequent discussion topic at SMC. Although IHS Markit does not see it really rolling out until past 2025, the disruption to the auto industry’s status quo is very much being felt now. Dragos Maciuca, executive technical director, Palo Alto Research and Innovation Center at Ford Motor Company, says cars of the future will be autonomous, connected, electrified, and shared. “The biggest transformation will be the shift from mechanical hardware to software,” he says. “Currently [a car] is a mechanical thing that has some electronics. Going forward, it will be a software-driven system that happens to control some mechanical elements.” The transition is already way under way, so much so that autonomous technology developed for the automotive industry is already being spun off into other sectors, such as mining and agriculture, and the auto industry’s competitive landscape is already seeing changes. OEMs and carmakers are entering the market from the traditional auto industry side, while companies such as Google are participating from the software side. “Others, like Uber and Lyft, are coming in from the business plan point of view to eliminate drivers and improve margins,” Maciuca adds. Autonomous driving will require numerous innovations, many of which will require new electronic materials and production processes. “We need weight savings, space savings, and advanced architecture,” Maciuca says. “We also need customization to print circuits as the vehicle comes down the line.” The tech community is proving up to the task. For LIDAR, there were just two technologies available a few years ago, he adds. The impact on chipmakers is also already being felt. “The automotive industry used to buy older chips,” Maciuca says. “Now we are moving to a stage where we need the very first chips at the most advanced node. And we are using them for safety-critical operations. If an AI chip that is supposed to detect a human fails, the consequences can be very severe.”Rebecca Coons is a senior editor at Chemical Week. Republished with permission from Chemical Week.The SEMI Electronic Materials Group (SEMI EMG) is the backbone of the Strategic Materials Conference. EMG is a technology community representing SEMI member companies that provide substrates, polymers, metals, organic and inorganic materials, chemicals, and gases that are developed or in use for the manufacturing of electronics. The group is open to SEMI Members involved in materials manufacture, distribution, and services throughout the microelectronics industry. For more details, please visit the website.

Automotive original equipment manufacturers (OEMs) and their direct suppliers of parts and systems share a vision: Next-generation vehicles will be more electric, autonomous and connected. At a market size of more than $1 trillion, automotive is steadily becoming a high-tech market as cars morph into advanced technology platforms with partially or fully autonomous features. Call them semiconductors on wheels. Big players such as Google and many carmakers are investing heavily in chip advances to help drive increases in silicon content in automobiles.At SEMICON Europa, Pierrick Boulay, Solid State Lighting and Lighting Systems analyst at Yole Développement, will provide a market update on autonomous automobile trends including the state of sensors, radars, cameras and LiDARs as the industry works to increase the level of autonomy and electrification.Autonomous vehicle design can only thrive with the development of an industry standard for chip and device traceability across the supply chain. The importance of chip traceability to the automotive industry is reflected in its central role in driving a chip traceability standard.According to Heidi Hoffman, senior director of technology communities marketing at SEMI, “chip traceability is one of the next big things for the technology industry. The benefits are enormous, and the upsides – including yield enhancements, counterfeiting safeguards, and support for new applications – are plentiful. But the implementation challenges of chip traceability are also big and will require considerable effort to overcome. The biggest hurdle of all? We need to transcend industry fears by demonstrating that we can secure IP when it is shared across the hardware supply chain.” The Importance of Standards, Data Collection and Collaboration Across the Supply ChainThe automotive industry has long embraced tracing the sources of defects. Now, as the automotive and semiconductor supply chains increasingly overlap, traceability has taken on greater importance in the semiconductor industry. SEMI committees, task forces and events such as the Smart Transportation Forum at SEMICON Europa are ideal platforms for collaborating to develop new standards and best practices for the automotive industry.Earlier this year, German luxury automobile maker Audi AG became the first automotive original equipment manufacturer (OEM) to join SEMI as member, strengthening alignment across automotive supply-chain segments. At SEMICON Europa, the SMART Transportation Forum and Pavilion, staged by the SEMI Global Automotive Advisory Council (GAAC) and bolstered by the Electronic System Design Alliance, a SEMI Strategic Association Partner, will gather key stakeholders across the automotive value chain, from design and semiconductor equipment to materials and carmakers, to explore innovation opportunities in automotive electronics. SEMI Global Automotive Advisory Council (GAAC) “If the industry wants to reach the goal of zero defects, a new collaborative approach is necessary,” observed Antoine Amade, senior regional director EMEA at Entegris. At SEMICON Europa, Amade will present new ways to collaborate in reducing chip defectivity and meet other challenges in the automotive industry.More than half of semiconductor failures on the automotive assembly line today (so-called 0km failures) are traced to semiconductor fab defectivity. “The increasing semiconductor content in automobiles – driven by growth in ADAS, electrification and autonomy – has put a growing focus on the quality and reliability of these devices and their implications for consumer safety and satisfaction,” said Oreste Donzella, senior vice president and CMO at KLA.The smart manufacturing (Industry 4.0) revolution is already spurring higher performance and great efficiencies throughout the supply chain and will also be crucial to driving innovation in automotive. Smart manufacturing makes possible significant improvements in factory key performance indicators (KPI) for cycle time, on-time delivery, overall equipment effectiveness, cost and product quality.“These KPI gains are key to meeting quality levels the automotive industry must reach to support the deployment of autonomous driving vehicles,” said John R. Behnke, general manager of Final Phase Systems at INFICON. In his talk at SEMICON Europa, Behnke will provide an overview of existing, in-progress, and future smart manufacturing solutions for the semiconductor industry and their impact on the automotive supply chain. The SMART Transportation Forum, 13 November, 2019 (9:30-15:30 at ICM Munich, room 14c) at SEMICON Europa is the premier platform for key stakeholders to connect, collaborate and innovate across the automotive value chain. Automotive and semiconductor industry experts will offer insights into trends in design, semiconductor equipment and materials, and automotive innovation and the roadmap to 2030. The SMART Transportation Forum will also showcase innovations in imaging, sensing, artificial intelligence (AI), smart manufacturing and L5 mobility.Other SEMICON Europa highlights: Advanced Packaging Conference: Packaging and Test Challenges Towards High Reliability (12-13 November 2019) 23rd Fab Management Forum: Game Changers for Semiconductor Operations(11-12 November 2019) Strategic Materials Conference: Strategic Materials Enabling Industry Roadmaps(12-13 November 2019) SEMICON Europa registration is open for visitors and exhibitors. For more details, please visit the SEMICON Europa website and connect with SEMI Europe on Twitter or LinkedIn @SEMIEurope (use #SEMICONEuropa).Learn more about the SEMI chip traceability standard – SEMI T23 - Specification for Single Device Traceability for the Supply Chain – and SEMI Technology Communities.Serena Brischetto is a marketing and communications manager at SEMI Europe.

SEMI spoke with Antoine Amade, Regional Senior Director EMEA at Entegris, about the challenges set by the car industry, and the concept of “zero defect” and the need for a collaborative approach ahead of his presentation at the Strategic Materials Conference at SEMICON Europa 2018, 13-16, November 2018, in Munich, Germany. To register for the event, click here.SEMI: The automotive industry is setting new challenges. This is very exciting source of growth for the global supply chain, but what are in your opinion the automotive requirements of the future?Amade: By 2030, 50% of the car cost will be electronics related. With the autonomous cars, there will be no tolerance for any type of chip defects because it will have a direct impact on human safety. With that in mind, higher reliability, increased efficiency and control across the supply chain will be the main requirements of the automotive industry.SEMI: Is the New Collaborative Approach the solution to overcome the challenges related to the automotive requirements of the future such as defects and contamination? What can you tell us about this approach?Amade: The automotive industry presents a great challenge to all of us, reaching the ppb level in terms of defectivity. In other words, this zero defects objective requires a collective awareness and understanding: Within an aging and more complex manufacturing environment, we all need to challenge the status quo and go for a new collaborative approach.SEMI: What does Entegris propose?Amade: We trust that contamination control has a major role to play to reach the zero defects. We are now in the 3rd generation of contamination control. After the focus on the cleanroom environment and equipment, materials are now at the center of the attention. With Entegris offering the broadest portfolio in terms of advanced chemicals, filtration and purification, and materials handling, we’re uniquely positioned to address precision, purity, integrity, and safety challenges.SEMI: How could this support fab managers in their daily challenges and mid-term future objectives?Amade: The new collaborative approach is a journey. It is a consultative process to provide a fresh set of eyes and expertise on the key areas of concerns in the fabs. It is a multidisciplinary approach with zero defectivity as the main goal. It is focused on base line improvement, better process control, more uniformity and prevention of excursions.SEMI: What do you expect from SEMICON Europa Strategic Materials Conference?Amade: It's the perfect platform to deliver our message in front of the whole ecosystem. It obviously concerns the fabs, but also material suppliers, and even carmakers. We expect this new view of collaboration will create an engagement from all parties. It is not a coincidence that this is called New Collaborative Approach. Antoine Amade joined Entegris in 1995 as an application engineer in its semiconductor business. In his current role as EMEA Sr. Regional Director, Mr. Amade manages a sales, customer service and marketing team responsible for growing the semiconductor business in Europe and Middle East.Mr. Amade held leadership positions at Entegris including gas microcontamination market management, strategical account management and regional sales management. He has a degree in Chemical Engineering from ENS Chimie Lille and is a member of Semi Electronic Materials Group for Europe. Serena Brischetto is a marketing and communications manager at SEMI Europe.