SEMICON West took place July 12-14 in San Francisco, with the co-located imec Technology Forum (ITF) held July 11. Luc Van den hove, president and CEO of imec, delivered an opening presentation focusing on IoT and “connected everything.” Subsequent speakers provided a deep dive into the semiconductor process technologies that will make the connected world possible.
In an opening keynote address, John Kern, senior vice president for supply-chain operations at Cisco, elaborated on the supply chain, which, he said, must be digitized, and Cisco can help.
During an evening workshop presented by Leti, Marie Semeria, CEO, said the organization sees opportunities in high-performance computing and IoT. The focus of the presentations was sensor and MEMS technologies, access to Leti’s 3S advanced silicon platform, and Leti’s collaborative ecosystem for accelerating tech startups.
Flexible hybrid electronics (for wearables and many other applications) was the subject of two full-day workshops at SEMICON West as well as two hours of exhibit-floor presentations and a panel discussion. For more information, see the flexible electronics article in this issue.
Atul Mahamuni, vice president for IoT at Oracle, delivered the final morning’s keynote address. He noted that only 27% of businesses have a coherent digital strategy. That will have to change, he said, for companies to take advantage of 80% growth in digital revenue by 2020.
ATE makers
Several ATE makers were represented on the exhibit floor. Advantest highlighted its new Wave Scale V93000 channel cards, which, according to Dieter Ohnesorge, product manager for RF solutions, deliver groundbreaking parallelism, scalability, and throughput for testing RF and mixed-signal ICs.
National Instruments highlighted the Semiconductor Test System (STS), which is available in three configurations: T1 with one 18-slot PXI chassis, T2 with two chassis, and T4 with up to four 18-slot PXI chassis internally. All STS models use NI’s TestStand test executive software. The company also showcased its next-generation vector signal transceiver.
Marvin Test Solutions exhibited its PXI-based TS-900 Series product line, which includes the TS-960 semiconductor test platform. Featuring the GX5296 PXI digital subsystem, the TS-960 offers subnanosecond edge placement, timing per pin, multiple time sets, and a PMU per pin—making the TS-960 suitable for both digital and mixed-signal test applications.
Roos Instruments displayed the Casini ATE test system with 40-, 60-, and 80-GHz instruments. With 16 instrument slots, the Casini 16 supports power-amplifier test requirements with four independent DC supplies, a 10-MHz to 20-GHz digitally modulated RF source in an auxiliary rack, an RF/microwave receiver with 50-MHz to 20-GHz time- and frequency-domain capture, a 4-GHz to 40.5-GHz power measure/multiport VNA, and a 0 to 20-GHz RF combiner for RF mixing in multitone tests.
Micro Control highlighted its burn-in and test products, such as the HPB-5C, which offers power dissipation per DUT to 150 W maximum and the test vector memory available per DUT to 32M. A total of 384 devices can be tested at temperatures up to 150°C with an 800-MHz clock rate.
Astronics Test Systems demonstrated its semiconductor test solutions. The company presents itself as offering an alternative to “one size fits all” test equipment. The company’s engineers work with customers to build a system that meets technical specs and achieves business goals of reducing test cost and improving yields.
Pickering Interfaces exhibited new products within its Series 40-760 50-Ω, 600-MHz PXI RF multiplexers. Available configurations include dual, quad, and octal SP4T; single, dual, and quad SP8T; single and dual SP16T; and single SP32T.
Optimal+ highlighted its data-mining software. The company reports that it enables a comprehensive, transparent view into manufacturing operations in support of real-time, data-driven decisions.
Inspection systems
Inspection-related companies also were on hand. KLA-Tencor highlighted six new wafer-defect inspection and review systems for leading-edge IC device manufacturing: the 3900 Series (previously referred to as Gen 5) and the 2930 Series broadband plasma optical inspectors, the Puma 9980 laser scanning inspector, the CIRCL5 all-surface inspection cluster, the Surfscan SP5XP unpatterned wafer inspector, and the eDR7280 e-beam review and classification tool. Mark Shirey, senior director of marketing, said the new systems help meet complex IC process inspection challenges relating to 3D devices, multiple patterning, new materials, scaling, and increased variability.
Rudolph Technologies touted its new patented Clearfind technology. Sonoscan highlighted its nondestructive acoustic microscopy technology. Ultratech reported a multiple-system follow-on order for its AP-300 lithography systems, which will be used for high-volume fanout wafer-level packaging applications. And TeraView introduced its EOTPR 5000 automated IC package system, which uses the company’s proprietary EOTPR terahertz technology to detect weak or marginal interconnect quality.
Handlers and asset management
Kevin Brennan, group vice president at Boston Semi Equipment, was present to highlight the company’s new quad-site gravity feed handler. The system, named Titan, will start shipment in late Q3 2016. Brennan said the handler addresses the industry’s need for a quad-site, high-performance handler at an attractive price point.
Michael Zunino, director, semiconductor, at EquipNet, was on hand to describe the company’s corporate asset-management program for the semiconductor industry. The company can help address challenges related to project management, procurement, global consignment, appraisals, and worldwide logistics.
Thermo Fisher Scientific highlighted its new temperature-control devices for semiconductor manufacturing applications. The company exhibited its ThermoFlex Series recirculating chillers, which offer cooling capacity to 24,000 W and temperature ranges to 90°C.
And finally, although Reno Sub-Systems did not exhibit at SEMICON West, sales and marketing senior vice president Christopher Davis was on hand to note that the company, incorporated in 2013, is emerging from stealth mode. The company offers RF power and gas-delivery systems aimed at solving critical roadblocks in extending Moore’s Law.
