SEMI News

Spotlight on SEMI Women is excited to recognize Q4 2018 honoree Ellie Yieh from Applied Materials!Spotlight on SEMI Women recognizes and celebrates accomplished women working in the global microelectronics industry. Nominees include women who are beacons of knowledge, leaders of organizations and initiatives, hidden heroes and innovators in our industry. They are volunteers, protectors, intellectual disruptors and activists. SEMI’s Diversity Inclusion Board works with our member companies to shine a spotlight on these amazing women. Learn how you can nominate a woman for Spotlight on SEMI Women.Ellie Yieh has been a trailblazer at Applied Materials since she began her career with Applied in 1989 as a process engineer in the Chemical Vapor Deposition group. Ellie’s contributions have made a lasting impact on the business and she continues her path of innovation as corporate vice president for Advanced Product Technology Development. Ellie is responsible for the company’s state-of-the-art Maydan Technology Center and works closely with customers and business units to drive advanced product development and technology roadmaps. In addition, Ellie leads R D for developing new memory and logic innovations that will drive future business opportunities for Applied. In 2018 she was named an Applied Materials Fellow, the company’s highest honor for outstanding technical achievement. She is also a board member of Applied Ventures, LLC, the company’s venture capital arm.During her 30 years at Applied, she has led the development of several successful products and enabled her teams to deliver growth in profitability and market share, while building strong customer relationships and developing innovative technologies. Of note is Ellie’s leadership in developing industry-leading Gapfill technologies to address the increasingly important shallow trench isolation and inter-layer dielectric applications for denser pitches. Further, Ellie spearheaded the adoption of Applied’s low-k Producer® Black Diamond® system, helping to develop and introduce a robust, low-k film that could withstand both the newly adopted copper back end-of-line and packaging integration challenges.st honor for outstanding technical achievement. She is also a board member of Applied Ventures, LLC, the company’s venture capital arm.Ellie’s journey in technology began when she immigrated to the U.S. from Taiwan at the age of 15 with her family. She quickly stood out due to her stellar academic performance in math and science. Her academic excellence landed her at UC Berkeley’s College of Chemistry. Ellie’s adaptability as an Asian female became crucial as she navigated a field dominated by male engineers. She received a B.S. in chemical engineering from UC Berkeley and now holds more than 100 semiconductor engineering patents. In 2016 she was inducted into the Women in Technology International (WITI) Hall of Fame for outstanding contributions to the scientific and technological communities. She was also named one of the 2015 “Top 50 Most Powerful Women in Technology” by the National Diversity Council.Ellie has also been spending time championing for woman engineers. She is a member of the advisory boards for UC Berkeley’s College of Chemistry and the Silicon Valley Women in Engineering group at San Jose State University.Ellie finds working in the semiconductor industry rewarding because “the technical challenges come like clockwork so we are always on our toes working on the next problem and the next solution. I enjoy each of the challenges to put the puzzle together. It’s a team sport; we are all dependent on each other to win and when we look at a problem I am just another engineer on the team trying to solve the problem. But I am also responsible for setting higher level direction for priorities, objectives and vision. It has been very fun for me and I love what I do.”Cristina Sandoval is manager of Workforce Development at SEMI.

From measurement equipment and components to medical devices, SEMI will showcase SMART technologies at its Smart Starts Here Pavilion, booth 40761, in the Smart Home section at CES, the world’s largest consumer electronics event. Do you want to discuss new technology directions and the latest developments in sensors, displays and electronics manufacturing? Hear about the new SEMI program that promotes “cool” careers in semiconductor manufacturing? Get the outlook for the manufacturing supply chain in 2019 and beyond?Stop by our booth or connect with any of our co-exhibitors in the Smart Starts Here Pavilion at booth 40731 in the Sands Expo Hall A. Co-exhibitors include:Advantest – A world-class technology company, Advantest is a premier manufacturer of measuring instruments used in the design and production of electronic instruments and systems. The company also focuses on research and development (R D) for emerging markets that benefit from advancements in nanotech and terahertz technologies and has introduced multi-vision metrology scanning electron microscopes essential to photomask manufacturing, as well as a groundbreaking 3D imaging and analysis tool.Altergy – Alertgy’s Glucose Monitor is a biosensor-based wristband device that provides non-invasive, real-time blood glucose monitoring for diabetics. The device gives both patients and healthcare professionals on-demand access to blood glucose levels via a smartphone application. C2MI – C2MI is the largest microelectronic innovation centre in Canada. Offering state-of-the-art equipment dedicated mainly to advanced packaging and microelectromechanical systems (MEMS), the centre hosts more than 250 R D scientists. Collaboration and synergy among our partners promote rapid commercialization of advanced prototypes.CHASM – CHASM Advanced Materials is a leading developer and manufacturer of printed electronics materials and battery materials based on proprietary carbon nanotube and ink/coating technologies.Kent Displays – Kent Displays is a global leader in unique eWriter display technology, with expertise in research, development, roll-to-roll manufacturing, and consumer packaged goods design and assembly using the eWriter technology. Kent displays also commercializes and sells the eWriter technology under its brand Boogie Board in a number of global retail markets. mCube – mCube makes the smallest motion sensors in the world. As a technology leader, mCube aspires to be the enabler for the Internet of Moving Things by putting a MEMS motion sensor on anything that moves. With over 500M units shipped, mCube continues to provide the world’s most advanced inertial sensors.Mitsui Chemical – Mitsui Chemical provides chemicals and gases for solutions in energy, agri-system, medical, IoT, and related fields. Mitsui specializes in advanced materials for automotive, ophthalmic lenses, dental, nonwovens, agrochemicals, and packaging. N5 Sensors – N5 Sensors manufactures chip-scale gas sensors that provides reliable gas detection in small-footprint packages. N5’s patented gas sensor technology represents a new era in low-power, microscale gas and chemical sensing that aims to replace conventional gas sensors. N5 is currently offering sensors and modules for integration. Its platform technology enables development of sensors for different gases ranging from toxics such as chlorine, nitrogen dioxide, to explosives such as hydrogen and methane, to environmental gases such as carbon dioxide.OMRON – OMRON Corporation is a global leader in the field of automation based on its core technology of "Sensing Control + Think." OMRON's business fields cover a broad spectrum, ranging from industrial automation and electronic components to automotive electronic components, social infrastructure systems, healthcare, and environmental solutions. Established in 1933, OMRON has over 36,000 employees worldwide providing products and services in 117 countries. In the field of industrial automation, OMRON supports manufacturing innovation by providing advanced automation technologies and products, as well as through extensive customer support, to help create a better society. PlayNitride – PlayNitride’s PixeLEDTM display can be used in addition to traditional displays. Focused on GaN-based MicroLEDs, PlayNitride, a fabless company, offers an innovative mass transfer process and SMAR.TechTM pixel repair technology. PlayNitride also provides a broad range of products and services including research and development in the field of compound semiconductors.Si-Ware - Si-Ware Systems' NeoSpectra specializes in the design and manufacturing of Microelectromechanical Systems (MEMS) powered miniature Fourier Transform InfraRed (FT-IR) spectrometers, or spectral sensors. Its sensors are affordable, robust, and easily adapted for a diverse range of industries.TEL - A leading global provider of semiconductor and flat panel display (FPD) production equipment, Tokyo Electron Limited (TEL) develops, manufactures and sales a wide range of products. All of TEL's semiconductor and FPD production equipment product lines maintain high market shares in their respective global segments. TEL provides outstanding products and services to customers through a global network of approximately 75 locations in 16 countries in the U.S., Europe, and Asia.ULVAC - ULVAC is a leading supplier of production equipment for the semiconductor, FPD and solar cell industries. Semiconductor products include MEMS release equipment, the ENTRON metallization system with PVD/CVD/ALD capability, etching systems for various applications including solutions for LED, power device and non-volatile memory. The systems and components are designed with innovative production technology for cost-effective device fabrication.Uneo - UneoTM offers high-quality sensor manufacturing services and product module design and consultation support to shorten product design cycles.Heidi Hoffman is senior director of Technology Communities Marketing at SEMI.

The SEMI International Standards program is operated in all major electronics manufacturing regions including the Americas, Europe, Japan, Korea, Taiwan and China to increase the manufacturing efficiency and interoperability. More than 5,000 volunteers representing over 2,000 companies work in 20 global technical committees and over 200 task forces to find solutions to common technology challenges.At SEMICON Japan 2019 – December 12-14 at Tokyo Big Sight, Tokyo – SEMI recognized two industry veterans active in the Japan chapter for their longtime contributions to the SEMI International Standards program. The award ceremony took place on December 13 with 56 Standards committee members and SEMI executives including Ajit Manocha, president and CEO of SEMI, and Jim Hamajima, president of SEMI Japan, in attendance. Hiromichi Enami of Hitachi High-Technologies Corporation and Isao Suzuki of MKS Japan Receive SEMI Japan Honor Award. Left to right: Jim Hamajima (SEMI), Ajit Manocha (SEMI), Hiromichi Enami (Hitachi High-Technologies), Isao Suzuki, James Amano (SEMI) and Mike Ciesinski (SEMI) Contributing to SEMI Standards for more than 20 years, Mr. Hiromichi Enami of Hitachi High-Technologies Corporation has been dedicated to committee management by acting as co-chair of the Gases Technical Committee and the Facilities Technical Committee. In addition, as chairman of the division, he has strived for harmonization with other committees and regions. (The current SEMI International Standards program has no division structure).Mr. Isao Suzuki, formerly of MKS Japan, is also a long-time contributor to the SEMI standards activities, having demonstrated his commitment to the management of the Gases Technical Committee and as a co-chair of the Facilities Technical Committee. He has also made significant efforts towards cooperation with Information Control Committee activities related to sensor bus activities.The SEMI Japan Honor Award is given to members who has contributed to the SEMI International Standards program as a member of Japan Regional Standards Committee or as a Global Technical Committee Japan Chapter co-chair for more than four years.By Junko Collins, director of Standards and EHS, SEMI Japan

Environment, Health and Safety (EHS) has steadily evolved to become a key element within SEMI’s Advocacy and Standards activities. On November 29th, 2018, nearly 60 members representing equipment, materials and device manufacturers gathered at SEMI’s Milpitas headquarters for our first EHS Summit. The main agenda for the day was related to discussing the new “EHS 2.0” strategy – and priorities – to better align with the current landscape facing members in various parts of the world. “SEMI will not compromise our commitment to EHS,” said SEMI president and CEO Ajit Manocha in is kickoff speech at the Summit, calling on members to rise to the challenge. “We also understand the importance of EHS for our industry. SEMI EHS staff is here to facilitate a program that achieves the highest priorities of our members – but we need you, our members, to be clear on your priorities.” SEMI’s EHS program has had many successes globally, including a strong suite of safety standards, since it launched in the 1980’s. Since then, exponential growth of EHS regulatory requirements worldwide has intensified pressure on members to become more transparent on environmental and social issues. The pressure to disclose on EHS performances has become more visible and challenging for members to manage across the entire supply chain. During facilitated breakout sessions, members were invited to share their views on various industry issues. Some of the most pressing raised related to changes in the REACH European Regulations, or implications from the Stockholm Convention that will affect what products or hazardous chemicals can be used. Some of the topics identified throughout the day included: Circular economy/green/sustainability Global RoHS and REACH regulations Used equipment machine safety Current and future prohibited substances tracking such as Perfluorooctanoic acid (PFOA) After the summit’s success, SEMI is now planning three EHS summits in 2019 and other events to further address the various issues facing members. To receive invitations and stay abreast of SEMI’s EHS activities, please join our EHS interest list by clicking here. Olivier Corvez is senior manager of Environment, Health, Safety and Sustainability at SEMI.

Meeting Attended by More than 100 Tech Company RepresentativesOver the past decade, China has become a central market for the semiconductor industry. China is now home to more than 30 percent of semiconductor end users worldwide. All semiconductor companies, regardless of size, operate in China. The rise of China’s semiconductor market has been enabled by global commerce and a vast network of supply chains that span the globe.With China now a prominent player in the industry, it has become critically important for semiconductor companies to effectively engage with China. In order to help our member companies better understand the challenges and opportunities and navigate what can be a complex landscape, SEMI hosts annual trade compliance conferences in China for trade professionals. This year, SEMI, with CompTIA and U.S. Information Technology Office (USITO), hosted two global trade seminars in China, one in Shanghai on October 30th and the other in Beijing on November 1st.Over 120 representatives from more than two dozen technology companies attended the 2018 trade compliance seminars. Over the course of the two sessions, speakers from government, business, and law firms highlighted the most pressing trade issues in China. Speakers included thought leaders, trade practitioners and senior Chinese government officials.Sessions included a deep dive on China’s draft customs reform law, a panel discussion on U.S. export controls, and a briefing on how best to engage with China Customs and how China’s products are classified. Another well-received session focused on the status of China’s export control law, which has been in the drafting process for years.However, the overarching question for many attendees was U.S.-China economic relations, which are undergoing a sea change, with the U.S. having imposed or threatened tariffs on all imports from China – totaling more than $500 billion in goods – over the past six months. As a speaker noted during a session on the U.S.-China tensions and the surrounding broader geopolitical impacts, the environment is becoming increasingly complex and volatile. In fact, on the morning of the first session, Fujian Jinhua Integrated Circuit was added to the U.S. Commerce Department’s entity list, which effectively restricts exports to the company.As a result of the trade actions, ranging from tariffs to enhanced export controls, U.S. semiconductor companies are beginning to increase prices, reduce research and development (R D) budgets, restructure supply chains and take other mitigation actions that will ultimately slow innovation. Certain export controls and other regulations that prohibit U.S.-companies from conducting business with targeted companies will put the U.S. at a competitive disadvantage.In fact and as we speak, some companies with China-based operations have cancelled orders from U.S. companies and shifted to suppliers that are not subject to U.S. actions to reduce the associated risks of supply interruption and cost increases. Ultimately, U.S. trade policy could backfire, threatening jobs, curbing growth, cutting U.S. R D investments and compromising the competitiveness of U.S. firms.SEMI will begin planning next year’s Global Trade Seminar in the coming months. If you would like to be involved in the planning, or would simply like more information about the seminar, please contact Jay Chittooran, Public Policy Manager at SEMI, at [email protected].

Artificial intelligence (AI) is on the verge of transforming entire industries as it gears up to power semiconductor industry innovation and growth, thrusting the technology to front and center at SEMICON Japan 2019, December 12-14 at the Tokyo Big Sight (Tokyo International Exhibition Center).The SMART Technology Forum at SEMICON Japan will highlight the latest AI developments and trends. Supported by U.S. Commercial Service in Japan, the forum will feature Yutaka Matsuo of the University of Tokyo. An authority on AI, Matuso will give an overview of both AI business and technology. His presentation will be followed by an AI outlook from Microsoft Japan, Amazon Web Services and DefinedCrowd.A number of Japanese startups are on leading edge of AI innovation in machine and deep learning. One is Preferred Networks Inc., a company that applies cutting-edge deep learning technology to Internet of Things (IoT) applications across transportation, manufacturing and healthcare.In his opening day keynote at SEMICON Japan, Toru Nishikawa, president and CEO of Preferred Networks, Inc., will highlight the latest developments and promise of using deep learning for industrial applications. Nishikawa will unpack how AI companies jockeying for competitive advantage will win by harnessing technologies to process massive amounts of data efficiently and quickly.Following is look at Preferred Networks, Inc. and five other Japanese startups that are driving AI innovation. Within Japan's world of AI, machine learning, and deep dearning, Preferred Networks is likely the most well-known Japanese company. The parent company, Preferred Infrastructure, was founded in March 2006 by Toru Nishikawa and Daisuke Okanohara, who focused on search engine development before turning to machine learning and establishing Preferred Networks to commercialize the technology.Preferred Networks established itself as one of the world’s top providers of machine learning technology with the development of Chainer – an open source deep learning framework that has been offered free of charge since June 2015 and was released before TensorFlow, Google’s renowned Deep Learning framework. Established in 2012, ABEJA is thought to be Japan’s first venture company to specialize in deep learning. ABEJA's core technology is its AI platform ABEJA Platform. Based on this platform, the company offers various solutions to more than 100 client companies. ABEJA also offers ABEJA Insight, a specialized package service for the retail and distribution, manufacturing, and infrastructure industries. Data analytics provider BrainPad Inc. was the first Japanese AI venture listed on the Tokyo Stock Exchange. Established in 2004, before the advent of big data, BrainPad Inc. cultivated a vision of analyzing vast amounts of data in increase the competitiveness of Japanese companies. LeapMind Inc. aims to offer deep learning technology that uses fewer computing resources and draws less power. Both are important capabilities since deep learning requires considerable computing resources to perform image and speech recognition. The company’s answer to this deep learning challenge is a small form factor FPGA with low power consumption.In April 2018, LeapMind started offering the tool DeLTA-Lite to support model construction for Deep Learning. The tool simplifies the development of deep learning design models, eliminating the need for model design, hardware, and software expertise. Hacarus Inc.’s HACARUS-X AI technology, which combines sparse modeling and machine learning technology, features low power consumption and small devices such as FPGAs. In collaboration with semiconductor trading company PALTEK, Hacarus is integrating HACARUS-X algorithms with Xilinx's FPGA Zynq UltraScale + MPSoC. Both companies area also implementing HACARUS-X algorithms in a box computer.Sparse modeling is gaining attention as a modeling method by which humans can understand the judgment process of AI by extracting features from a small amount of learning data. With expertise in life science fields such as medical and biology and image processing technology, LPixel, Inc. develops image analysis systems with original algorithms and machine learning techniques. It has developed a cloud-based AI image analysis platform and an AI medical image diagnosis support technology that streamlines the review of large amounts of research data and detects image fraud in research papers and other documents for the medical and biology fields, freeing researchers to devote more time to their core work. Yoichiro Ando is a marketing director at SEMI Japan.

With (most of) the election results in from the U.S. midterms, the expected Democratic takeover of the House and the Republican’s maintaining control of the Senate is now a reality. The day of the election, DC insiders expected that the House would go to the Democrats by a margin of +/- 20, with the Republicans gaining 2-3 seats in the Senate. Not a bad prediction, which is a far cry from what the same insiders called in advance of the 2016 Presidential election.What does that mean for our members and the tech sector in general? Will there be an ease of trade tensions or less of a chance of tighter export controls? Some believe that with the midterm elections over, President Trump will have some room to take a less aggressive stance against China, setting up a “win” that he can carry into 2020. With the recent more aggressive stance by North Korea against the U.S. regarding its nuclear program, China may well have some leverage at the trade table … and the U.S. may want to make a deal that provides a path for a “win” on both fronts. Indeed, there are the makings of a potential win-win leading into the G20 meeting in Argentina when President Xi Jinping and President Trump are scheduled to meet on Dec. 1.One can see a scenario where there is a meeting of the minds and some degree of lessening tariffs; that does not mean that the effort to enhance export controls will go away. The need for tighter restrictions on export controls is driven to a great degree by the U.S. Department of Defense (DoD) and is a follow on from the previous FIRRMA legislation and attempts to curb the loss of U.S. technology critical to global competitiveness and national security. This issue will not go away anytime soon, and cases like the recent one involving Jinhua only add fuel to the fire. In addition, given how these cases can be leveraged at the negotiating table, they will continue to surface.SEMI’s approach has been to educate governments, lawmakers and administration officials on the strategic importance of the globally connected and highly complex semiconductor supply chain, and how some of the approaches will not achieve the attended goals. This approach helps to ensure that when and if it comes time to make decisions based on merit, the principals are informed. It also helps SEMI and its members develop and maintain important relationships and positions SEMI as an industry leader and spokesperson, making it a more effective advocate. As an example, on Nov 8th SEMI released its Global Trade Principles with the intention of providing a framework to all governments to guide various trade talks. It also helps to inform member companies and others from the broader tech sector of our industry position(s) so we are able to speak with one voice. These principles are aligned with our fundamental advocacy pillars of promoting free trade and market access, respect for IP, cybersecurity and national security.Will the fact that power is now split between the two chambers of Congress help or hurt? Will the House focus on investigations limit the ability to move productive legislation? Besides taking time, it may well put them at increasingly worse odds with the Senate and the President (if that is possible), creating deadlock. Some argue that if nothing moves, no harm can be done. Some also say that it may drive the President to take independent and more aggressive actions in order to demonstrate (his) effectiveness to his base. There is another view: that with the Democrats, the President may be able to lead in the advancement of legislation that will show he can get things done when others couldn’t in areas that benefit the greater good…some of which may impact our industry…such as investments in education and infrastructure development. This would be a way that he could pull in some of the votes from the middle that he has lost in his first two years in office. They say “politics makes for strange bedfellows”; one never knows what might happen in this case.Regardless of what happens, some things will not change: the global nature of our business and the needs of our members to have access to markets…and to be able to safely and efficiently leverage their technologies in the way they see fit in order to grow their business. SEMI will continue to advance the interests in what is an extremely challenging and dynamic global policy environment today. As ruling parties and representatives change around the globe, we will continue to build new relationships and educate lawmakers so they are able to make informed decisions that benefit our members. Mike Russo is VP of Public Policy and Talent Advocacy at SEMI.

Environmentally sound policies and the health and the safety of workers in the microelectronics supply chain are vitally important to SEMI and its members. For more than two decades, together we have focused on worker safety by focusing on global environment, health and safety (EHS) compliance and regulatory issues and the advancement of sound EHS practices. Today, EHS has taken on an even higher profile in the microelectronics industry with its growth across Europe, North America and Asia. Never has the industry been under greater scrutiny. The list of regulatory agencies is growing. To keep pace with rising EHS requirements and continue to ensure worker safety, we’d like your help. The SEMI EHS summit will open with a keynote presentation from Russ LaMotte, Managing Principal of Beveridge Diamond, and a recognized expert on EHS issues in the electronics industry. Member companies representing equipment, materials, facilities and devices will then each share their EHS concerns. Finally, working groups will address industry EHS challenges and gaps. Outputs from the working group meetings will form the basis for the future SEMI EHS program. The EHS issues SEMI’s program and company volunteers are addressing include: PFOA – Government efforts to eliminate pefluoro-octanoic acid and related compounds and salts (collectively known as PFOA) from company supply chains REACH – A European Union regulation to strengthen protections against chemical risks to human health and the environment. Other countries – Japan, Korea, Taiwan – have enacted similar regulations. Stockholm Convention – An international environmental treaty designed to eliminate or restrict the production and use of persistent organic pollutants (POPs) Waste Framework Directive Database – The European Commission and the European Chemicals Agency (ECHA) are building a database where all suppliers will be required to register certain articles. Other groups are dealing with country-specific aspects of the Restriction of Hazardous Substances (RoHS) and the Toxic Substances Control Act (TSCA). Complementing our advocacy efforts, SEMI has established 25 primary EHS standards with SEMI S2 (Safety) as the cornerstone. The S2 family of SEMI Standards acts as performance-based EHS considerations for semiconductor manufacturing equipment and has also been adopted by adjacent industries. Sign up for the November 29th SEMI EHS Summit today Team up with your SEMI colleagues to collectively formulate the semiconductor manufacturing industry’s EHS program. SEMI members can register for the November 29th SEMI EHS Summit by clicking here. If you cannot make this meeting but wish to be added to SEMI’s regular communication on EHS and Advocacy issues, please click here and choose Advocacy from the list of topic choices. Michael Ciesinski is vice president of the FlexTech Alliance, a SEMI Strategic Association Partner chartered with building up infrastructure for flexible electronics manufacturing.

Last week, the Office of the U.S. Trade Representative (USTR), on instruction from President Trump, notified Congress that the administration intends to begin bilateral trade negotiations with Japan, the European Union (EU), and the United Kingdom.SEMI stands strong for free trade and open markets, and roundly supports efforts to increase market access and tap into more foreign economies, especially economies like Japan and the EU, both of which are central to the semiconductor industry. The semiconductor industry, which enables the $2 trillion electronics market, is built on global commerce. SEMI members rely on a vast network of supply chains that span the globe, bringing together components and tools made all around the world and assembled into a single sub-system that is then integrated into a larger tool used in the chipmaking process.These free trade agreements will reduce tariffs, which will result in cost savings and productivity gains, and allow SEMI members to expand and grow. But the benefits of modern free trade agreements extend well beyond tariff reduction. Indeed, these trade deals will establish and enhance global trade rules that enable companies to innovate and compete fairly on a level playing field. Trade agreements strengthen certainty and further business continuity.While the exact nature and negotiation timelines for the talks remain unclear, SEMI will engage the administration, urging it to maintain high standards in these agreements, such as: Maintain strong respect for intellectual property and trade secrets through robust safeguards and significant penalties for violators Remove tariffs and non-tariff barriers on semiconductor products as well as products that depend on semiconductors Simplify and harmonize the customs and trade facilitation processes Combat any attempts of forced technology transfer Prevent use of data localization measures and enable the free flow of cross-border data flows End discriminatory and/or burdensome regulatory practices Ensure standards in all forms are market-oriented Create rules for state-owned enterprises to ensure fair and non-discriminatory treatment of all companies According to Trade Promotion Authority (TPA), the U.S. law that guides trade votes in Congress, negotiations with each country can only begin 90 days after last week’s notification. During that period, there will be intensive consultation with Congress and stakeholders. This means, at the earliest, talks can start on January 14, 2019. (Bear in mind that discussions with the UK can only begin in earnest once the UK has formally left the European Union on March 29, 2019.)The Trump administration’s announcement comes after the U.S. imposed or threatened tariffs on imports on all trading partners, including the EU and China. All told, the U.S. has imposed tariffs on more than $300 billion worth of goods. SEMI has weighed in on the detrimental nature of tariffs, arguing that tariffs on China will ultimately do nothing to address the concerns with China’s trade practices. This sledgehammer approach will introduce significant uncertainty, impose greater costs, and potentially lead to a trade war, ultimately undercutting the ability of semiconductor companies to sell overseas, stifling innovation and curbing U.S. technological leadership.Elsewhere, the Comprehensive and Progressive Agreement for Trans-Pacific Partnership, the multilateral trade deal that links 11 Asia-Pacific economies, is well on its way to taking force. Canada will be taking its final steps to ratify the deal, joining Mexico, Japan and Singapore. The deal, formerly known as the Trans-Pacific Partnership, should take effect by the first half of 2019.SEMI will continue tracking ongoing trade developments. Any SEMI members with questions should contact Jay Chittooran, Public Policy Manager at SEMI, at [email protected].

Even for someone who has been in this industry since the days of the TI Datamath 4-function calculator and the TMS1100 4-bit microcontroller (yes, that’s been a LONG time – the movie Grease premiered the same year!), it is sometimes hard to grasp the scope and complexity of what happens in today’s leading-edge semiconductor gigafabs. In fact, the only way to comprehend the enormous volume of transactions that occur is to consider what happens in a single minute – this is illustrated in the infographic we have labeled “The Gigafab Minute.”* It’s amazing enough to think that a single factory can start 100,000 wafers every month on their cyclical journey through 1500 process steps… and have 99%+ of them emerge 4 months later to be delivered to packaging houses and then on to waiting customers. It’s quite another to realize that all of this happens continuously (24 x 7) and automatically. “How is this possible?” you ask.Well, a big part of the solution is the body of SEMI standards which have evolved since the early 80s to keep pace with the ever-changing demands of the industry. From an automation standpoint, many of these standards deal with the communications between manufacturing equipment and the factory information and control systems that are essential for managing these complex, hyper-competitive global enterprises.A significant characteristic of these standards is that they have been carefully designed to be “additive.” This means that new generations of SEMI’s communications standards do not supplant or obsolete the previous generations, but rather provide new capabilities in an incremental fashion. To appreciate the importance of this in actual practice, consider how the GEM, GEM300, and EDA/Interface A standards support the transactions that occur in a single Gigafab Minute.Starting at 1:00 o’clock on the infographic and moving clockwise, you first notice that 2.31 wafers enter the line. Of course, these are actually released in 25-wafer 300mm FOUPs (Front-Opening Unified Pod), but 100K wafers per month translates to 2.31 per minute. Since these factories run continuously, once the line is full, it stays full. And with an average total cycle time of 4 months, this means that there are 400K wafers of WIP (work in process) in he factory at any given time. This number, and the total number of equipment (5000+), drive the rest of the calculations.GEM (Generic Equipment Model) – SEMI E30, etc.The GEM messaging standards were initially defined in the early 90s to support the factory scheduling and dispatching applications that decide what lots should go to what equipment, the automated material handling systems that deliver and pick-up material to/from the equipment accordingly, the recipe management systems that ensure each process step is executed properly, and the MES (Manufacturing Execution System) transactions that maintain the fidelity of the factory system’s “digital twin.”Every minute of every day, GEM messages support and chronicle the following activities: 240 process steps are completed (i.e., 240 25-wafer lots are processed), 300 recipes are downloaded along with a set of run-specific adjustable control parameters, and 600 FOUPs are moved from one place to another (equipment, stockers, under-track storage, etc.). For each of these activities, the factory’s MES is notified instantaneously.GEM300 – SEMI E40, E87, E90, E94, E157With the advent of 300mm manufacturing in the mid-to-late 90s, a global team of volunteer system engineers from the leading chip makers defined the GEM300 standards to support fully automated manufacturing operations. Starting at 5:00 o’clock on the infographic, the number of transactions per minute jumps almost 3 orders of magnitude, from the monitoring of 900 control jobs across 4000 process tools to the tracking of 360,000 individual recipe step change events. This level of event granularity is essential for the latest generation of FDC (Fault Detection and Classification) applications, because precise data framing is a key prerequisite for minimizing the false alarm rate while still preventing serious process excursions. In this context, more than 6000 recipe-, product- and chamber-specific fault models may be evaluated every minute.Simultaneously, the applications that monitor instantaneous throughput to prevent “productivity excursions” and identify systemic “wait time waste” situations depend on detailed intra-tool wafer movement events. In a fab with hundreds of multi-chamber, single-wafer processes, 75,000 or more of these events occur every minute. EDA (Equipment Data Acquisition) – SEMI E120, E125, E132, E134, E164, etc.Rounding out the SEMI standards in our example gigafab is the suite of EDA standards which complement the command and control functions of GEM/GEM300 with flexible, high-performance, model-based data collection. The EDA standards enable the on-demand collection of the volume and variety of “big data” required from the equipment to support the advanced analysis, machine learning, and other AI (Artificial Intelligence) applications that are becoming increasingly prevalent in leading semiconductor manufacturers. As EUV (Extreme Ultraviolet) lithography moves from pilot production to high-volume manufacturing at the 7nm process node and beyond, the litho process area will become a major source of process data by itself, generating 10 GB of data every minute. This is in addition to the 100 GB of data collected from other process areas. The End ResultThe final wedge (12:00 o’clock) in our infographic highlights the real objective – which is producing the millions of integrated circuits that fuel our global economy and provide the technologies that are an integral part of our modern way of life. Assuming a nominal die size of 50 square mm (typical of an 8 GB DRAM), the 2.31 wafers we started at 1:00 o’clock result in almost 3200 individual chips. But none of this would be possible without the pervasive factory automation technology we now take for granted. So, as you finish reading this posting on whatever device you happen to be using, take a micro-moment to acknowledge and thank the hundreds of standards volunteers whose insights and efforts made this a reality!You may not be responsible for running a gigafab anytime soon, but the SEMI standards used in this setting are no less applicable to any Smart Manufacturing environment. Give us a call if you’d like to know more about how these technologies can benefit your operations for many years to come.Alan Weber is Vice President, New Product Innovations, at Cimetrix Incorporated. Previously he served on the Board of Directors for eight years before joining the company as a full-time employee in 2011. Alan has been a part of the semiconductor and manufacturing automation industries for over 40 years. He holds bachelor’s and master’s degrees in Electrical Engineering from Rice University. For more information on SEMI Standards, please click here.