quantum computing

Handel Jones, a well-known, longtime strategic analyst and commentator covering the semiconductor industry, authored the recently published book – When AI Rules The World: China, the U.S. and the Race to Control a Smart Planet. I spoke with Jones about the fascinating read.

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.

If you think the world is flooded with a mind-boggling volume of digital content, then you might be just a amazed to learn about the sheer wealth of information and business opportunities that will be uncovered at this year’s SEMICON Japan as the event goes full digital.To start, more than 160 companies will exhibit their semiconductor manufacturing gear and services on the virtual show floor of Japan’s premier event for the semiconductor manufacturing and design supply chain. Add to that over 80 presentations and panels that feature global industry executives, visionaries and experts offering insights into the latest microelectronics developments, trends and technologies, and it’s easy to see how SEMICON Japan 2020 Virtual is designed to help attendees grow their businesses and the industry drive the next wave of innovations that promise to address some of the world’s greatest challenges across healthcare, the environment, transportation and other industries.Best of all, it will all be available at your convenience from your office or home 24 hours a day, making it safe and easy for you and others from all over the world to attend. Following is what’s in store at SEMICON Japan 2020 Virtual to help lead you into the future.Leading Japanese Securities Analysts to Weigh in What’s Ahead for the Chip Equipment Sector in 2021 For the first time, SEMICON Japan will feature Bulls Bears as Japan’s’ five top securities analysts focus on the 2021 outlook for the global semiconductor equipment sector. The December 17th event will include discussions on the COVID-19 pandemic’s impact on the semiconductor industry, the continuing geopolitical tensions that are forcing the industry to reconfigure its supply chains, the fast-growing China market and cutting-edge applications that are powering industry growth. The perspectives from Japan’s investment community are sure to be compelling as the region supplies one-third of the global semiconductor industry’s chip manufacturing equipment.Moderated by Akira Minamikawa of OMDIA, the panel will include these experts:Three Visionaries to Explore the Digital TransformationPowered by semiconductors, the fourth industrial revolution is driving digitalization globally, remaking societies to bring more efficiencies and conveniences to our work and home lives and help more people prosper. But the flip side of those tremendous benefits is the risk that wealth will be concentrated in the hands of people in positions of power, companies and nations. Democratizing economic development remains a serious challenge worldwide.Addressing this pressing issue, the Opening Panel on December 11 will feature prominent visionaries from political, academic and industrial communities including the following:Sony’s Leading-Edge Electric Car and Nissan’s Driver Assistance System to Highlight Automotive InnovationsCars are becoming more like smartphones on wheels, rapidly filling with more and more semiconductor chips every year with electrification and electronic driver-assisted systems to key drivers of this growth. At the SMART Mobility 1 session on December 14, two pioneering companies – Sony and Nissan Motor – will focus on both areas of semiconductor innovation.Sony’s Vision-S concept car, exhibited at CES 2020, astonished many in the electronics ecosystem and the automotive industry. What is Sony’s vision behind the vehicle? Izumi Kawanishi, Senior Vice President, AI Robotics Business at Sony will share the latest on the initiative.Nissan, maker of the pioneering LEAF electric vehicle, is the first Japanese carmaker to equip a car – its new Skyline – with the ProPILOT 2.0 driver assistance system for hands-off highway driving. Nissan Executive Vice President Asako Hoshino will provide an update on the company’s driver assistance system strategy and plans.Quantum Computing Meets Chip Manufacturing for the First Time at SEMICON Japan In contrast with current computer systems that use bits (binary 0 or 1 state) for computing, quantum computers leverage quantum superposition (0 and 1 states exist at once) to quickly solve highly complex problems that might take traditional supercomputers hundreds or even thousands of years to tease out. American physicist Richard Feynman promoted quantum computer as early as 1982, but it wasn’t until nearly two decades later and long after his death that quantum bit circuits emerged for use in superconductive materials.With quantum circuits and devices requiring state-of-art semiconductor processing technology, The Era of Quantum session on December 15 at SEMICON Japan 2020 Virtual will discuss necessary advances in chip manufacturing technology to enable the next generation quantum computing. The session will be the first time SEMICON Japan connects the semiconductor manufacturing and quantum computing communities.The program will feature the following experts:Strategies for Sustainable Semiconductor Industry GrowthSemiconductors are giving rise to a hyper-connected world that is fueling demand for staggering volumes of chips, pressuring the electronics industry to uncover new ways to increase manufacturing efficiency while reducing power consumption in a bid to help combat climate change. The Grand Finale Panel composed of executives from Japan’s semiconductor supply chain and a supervising ministry will gather for the Grand Finale Panel on December 18 to discuss ways the industry can achieve sustainable growth through innovation with a focus on energy savings and an new process technologies such as extreme ultraviolet lithography (EUV), which promises to enable electronics devices that are more power powerful, cheaper and more energy-efficient.Panelists include the following:Register TodayThe SEMICON Japan 2020 Virtual All-In Pass provides online access to all 80 presentations and panels, which will be available on-demand for replay until January 15, 2021. What’s more, all eight keynote programs will feature English subtitles. For complete information of the exposition, programs and registration, visit the SEMICON Japan website.I look forward to seeing you virtually at the event!Jim Hamajima is president of SEMI Japan.

Companies around the world are increasingly turning to mergers and acquisitions, research and development, and corporate venture capital (CVC) investment to sustain growth. For many years, global semiconductor companies including Intel, Qualcomm and Samsung have been active CVC investors. However, the economic fallout from the COVID-19 pandemic has forced many venture capital (VC) and CVC investors to rethink their investment strategies as they look to an uncertain future. To help provide SEMI members with the latest market trend information, SEMI Taiwan held the webinar Challenges and Opportunities in Corporate Venturing during the Global Pandemic Crisis on April 28th. Featured speaker James Mawson, founder and editor in chief of Global Corporate Venturing, provided an analysis of the pandemic’s impact on deal flow, capital movement, sentiment and strategies among CVCs. CVC takes larger role in past decadeCorporations have been increasingly active direct and indirect venture investors over the past decade. From 2011-2019, more than US$1.3 trillion of venture capital was invested globally, with corporations accounting for more than half that total, according to data from Pitchbook/GCV Analytics.Semiconductor companies that have been active in corporate venturing include Intel, Samsung, Nvidia, ARM, AMD, SK Hynix, Broadcom and Qualcomm. Pure-play semiconductor and chip companies tend to make few investments in their start-up counterparts because sector saturation of powerful incumbents leaves little opportunity for growth, James said. “While it is hard to find entrepreneurs wanting to be engaged in pure play S C, once they do, they can be very valuable and often be able to bring disruptive forces to the whole ecosystem,” James said.S C corporate investors focus on chip applicationsSemiconductor companies looking beyond pure-play S C start-ups for investment opportunities often target applications or developers that require the additional data, processing power, and memory their chips provide. “There is lots of interest by the big chip companies such as Intel, Qualcomm, and Samsung in developing some of those chip applications, getting them used more and creating a whole ecosystem,” James said.For example, Intel Capital, based on its data-centric theme, has focused on areas like autonomous vehicles, data centers and artificial intelligence (AI) because of the sheer amount of data and processing power they require. In another notable trend, non-traditional S C players such as Apple and Alibaba are leveraging investments in start-ups to develop their own chips for competitive advantage, James said.March deal flow down 20% With COVID-19 slowing the global economy, James expects semiconductor and chip companies to scale back direct investments this year due to rising pressure on their balance sheets. Deal flow in March was down roughly 20% from February.James is hopeful corporates will focus on investing in innovation over the long term rather than target share buybacks to boost near-term earnings. James pointed out that investors can uncover opportunities by identifying future problems to be solved in areas such as quantum computing, biotech, energy, healthcare, communications and ICT. Still, in the near term, where there is a crisis, there is opportunity. While the pandemic hit some sectors hard, it benefits start-ups in industries including gaming, education and telemedicine. This time is different?James said corporates need to rethink the investment model they want to follow. One option is the approach taken by General Electric, which divested its investment team and sold all its portfolio companies last year. Another is to focus on the long term. For example, Intel Capital has been dedicated to investments in innovation for nearly 30 years and continues to invest during downturns.Compared with the internet bubble and global financial crisis, today there are more experienced and mature CVCs that better know how to negotiate a crisis. James also pointed out investors are interested in backing CVCs with sector investing experience. There are now more than 600 CVCs with a 10-year-plus track record.James expects a variety of funding models to emerge over the next decade as pressure on corporate balance sheets encourages corporate investors to consider models that allow third-party capital to effectively leverage their CVC units. Corporate investors are also open to other ways to efficiently deliver financial returns.For more information about the SEMI Taiwan Corporate Growth and Innovation Community, please contact Irene Lin at [email protected]. For GCV’s latest news and event, visit its website.Jo-Ann Su is senior director of the Corporate Growth and Innovation Community at SEMI Taiwan.

AI vs. energy. Quantum for everyone. Biofabrication of human organs on a mass scale. Slowing advancements from Moore’s law.In the midst of a market dip, optimism reigned as keynote and AI Design Forum speakers addressed both looming challenges and explosive market opportunities during July 9-10 presentations at SEMICON West 2019 in San Francisco. SEMICON West again proved to be a magnet for visionaries who laid out the path to electronics innovation over the coming years.“The current business environment demands that the industry looks ahead toward issues that need attention sooner, not later – especially since we are approaching a once-in-a-generation inflection point that has the potential to be a $10 trillion opportunity,” observed SEMI Americas president Dave Anderson.Market forecasts punctuate the point: The microelectronics supply chain is on the verge of what has the potential to be the longest-lived electronics era.“Inflection points like this are rare, but not unprecedented,” Anderson added, citing 2007 as the inflection of the growth curve from new technologies that led to last year’s historic high semiconductor sales.SEMICON West squarely focused on the future, with a number of industry leaders noting that chip, tool and materials makers need to look beyond their immediate suppliers and customers in developing strategic partnerships. Dr. Cliff Young, data scientist with the Google Brain Team, for one, invited semiconductor and equipment firms to explore chip codesigning opportunities with his Google.The recently formed Quantum Economic Development Consortium – and its 50 members including Boeing, Google and IBM – debuted roadmapping activities devoted to the pursuit of U.S. leadership in the rapidly emerging global quantum computing industry. IBM’s Jeff Welser showcased the IBM Q Computer model built upon decades of semiconductor industry advances. Markets that could see staggering leaps from a quantum computational capacity include automotive, medical, financial and energy. Today, anyone can dabble with the future quantum computing capabilities by connecting online with IBM’s 16-qubit quantum computer. Dr. Aart de Geus, chairman and co-CEO of Synopsys, suggested that software and other programming tends to develop more quickly if it is open sourced. He recommends an open source model that allows semiconductor and equipment companies to work together in the cloud to speed chip development.Nate Baxter, TEL development and production group general manager, advocated sharing big data with competitors in pre-competitive spaces to ensure data quality, improve measurement and solve problems faster. The key is security. “Yes, we can share data while protecting it,” he said. “We’re quickly seeing opportunities that we didn’t know existed.”Gary Dickerson, Applied Materials president and CEO, said that embedding artificial intelligence (AI) in chips will drive significant long-term industry growth by processing far more big data computations much faster than humans can.That is, if there is enough electricity. Almost invisibly, AI-enabled machines already are crunching massive amounts of data while gulping power in the process. As AI use rapidly expands, current power grids will be stressed as never before. Dickerson added that speed of innovation, societal acceptance, security and safety will guide how well and quickly AI is adopted. A potential hurdle, however, is sustainability. He warned power constraints could be “very high” and a “barrier to AI adoption if we don’t drive innovation” in substantially reducing the power draw of power-hungry AI chips.Of the five members of a venture capitalist panel, four agreed that Moore’s Law as we knew it is dead. The promising news is that the average age of a first-time mobile phone user is 10, more than 40 percent of the world population is now under 25 and about to wield considerable market influence, and 5G is on the cusp of helping connect trillions of devices. AMD CEO Lisa Su noted “there’s a tremendous amount of innovation yet to come” from microarchitectural advances, chiplets and die stacking, and heterogenous platforms.And there’s nothing more innovative – or intriguing – than regenerating human organs in mass volume. Legendary inventor Dean Kamen laid out his well-funded plans to biofabricate the viscera of human existence but warned of two crucial missing pieces – scale and talent. “I’m here at SEMICON West to beg for high-tech’s help in getting artificial human organs out of labs and ramped up for volume manufacturing and widespread distribution,” Kamen said during his keynote. “The basic science already exists, but researchers can’t bring it to scale like Silicon Valley can.”The talent Kamen needs to fulfill his dream will come from the pool of skilled workers the microelectronics industry is feverishly working to recruit to make good on its own ambitions. As if on cue, SEMI endorsed Kamen’s FIRST Global program, establishing a united effort to encourage young people worldwide to pursue engineering careers. “Together, we can better help provide a path to success for generations to come,” SEMI’s Anderson said.Scott Stevens, SEMI