Both front-end and back-end manufacturing trends, challenges and issues will be discussed at SEMICON West, in the Extreme Electronics stage on Tuesday, July 13 from 10:30 through the day. Get their early because its over booked and there are only 150 seats.
Other LED events in the US don't really address manufacturing so this is an important gathering for the industry.
In the front-end session, Applied Materials are going to show thier new MOCVD tool that may be the biggest development in the sector in a few years. Applied's late to the boom, but they've the know-how and an unique integrated solution that will demand serious consideration.
I also recommend the Ultratech presentation on the interesting challenges in HB LED litho process.
The afternoon session features Philips Lumenleds, but I'm looking forward to QD Vision's talk on Quantum Dot technology. Jan Vardemann and Dan Morrow (no relation) are good friends and I won't miss thier presentations as well.
In addition to the Extreme Stage, we also have Standards Meetings and other LED events.
Tuesday, June 22, 2010
Monday, June 14, 2010
The Center of Gravity is Changing--PricewaterhouseCoopers
“The center of gravity is changing. The only question is how fast…”
This was the theme of the presentation given to the SEMI Sales and Marketing Council (SSMC) at last Tuesday’s lunch meeting by Raman Chitkara, Sr. Partner at PricewaterhouseCoopers, the world’s largest professional services firm.
As part of our regular monthly networking lunch, SSMC often has outside speakers join the group to share their perspective on important industry issues. This month we were extremely fortunate to welcome Raman Chitkara who has had a ring side seat in the key developments in Silicon Valley, and an insider’s knowledge of many of the leading companies in the semiconductor industry. He’s also leading expert on CleanTech, having been a principal leader in PwC’s informative “CleanTech Comes of Age" report. Raman is also one PwC's experts on China as leader of the "China's Impact on the Global Semiconductor Industry" report.
The center of gravity that Raman refers to is geographic. The move of high tech industries to Asia has been relentless. “As US companies extend globally, they spawn indigenous technology companies,” said Raman. Of the 29 firms that went IPO in the Q1 of this year, 1 was on Germany’s exchange, 3 on NASDAQ, and 24 were in China. The China firms raised over $2.5 billion.
The growing importance of emerging markets is part of this shift in gravity, not just in production, but consumption as well. The growing middle class in BRIC countries is driving world chip demand. Even during the recent semiconductor downturn, electronic systems manufacturers in China continued to increase their consumption of semiconductors at a rate three to five times the worldwide rate. As a result, China is remains the largest consumer of semiconductors for the fourth year in a row. In the past, much of this consumption was from US, Japanese and other global OEMs, now it is increasingly dominated by China electronic manufacturing firms with local sourcing authority. Raman sees China chip manufacturing sector to continue to grow, especially if the success of other international fab ventures continues.
The other major shift in the IC industry discussed by Raman was consumerization—not just in total chip consumption—but the fact that new technologies now appear first in consumer markets, not in business IT. Among the impacts this brings is the decline in vertical integration. “How can you sustain competitive advantage when everyone can get the same chips?” Apple is focusing on software differentiation with emphasis on only a few key components.
Raman sees a convergence of software and hardware services—complete solutions that allow companies to achieve dominant market shares. But he admits, “the rules are still being written…”
Another important impact on SEMI members will be he transition from US GAAP to International Financial Reporting Standards (IFRS). China will make the change to IFRS in 2011, well before the US in 2013. Among this IFRS impact will be on leasing and capital equipment purchasing.
This was the theme of the presentation given to the SEMI Sales and Marketing Council (SSMC) at last Tuesday’s lunch meeting by Raman Chitkara, Sr. Partner at PricewaterhouseCoopers, the world’s largest professional services firm.
As part of our regular monthly networking lunch, SSMC often has outside speakers join the group to share their perspective on important industry issues. This month we were extremely fortunate to welcome Raman Chitkara who has had a ring side seat in the key developments in Silicon Valley, and an insider’s knowledge of many of the leading companies in the semiconductor industry. He’s also leading expert on CleanTech, having been a principal leader in PwC’s informative “CleanTech Comes of Age" report. Raman is also one PwC's experts on China as leader of the "China's Impact on the Global Semiconductor Industry" report.
The center of gravity that Raman refers to is geographic. The move of high tech industries to Asia has been relentless. “As US companies extend globally, they spawn indigenous technology companies,” said Raman. Of the 29 firms that went IPO in the Q1 of this year, 1 was on Germany’s exchange, 3 on NASDAQ, and 24 were in China. The China firms raised over $2.5 billion.
The growing importance of emerging markets is part of this shift in gravity, not just in production, but consumption as well. The growing middle class in BRIC countries is driving world chip demand. Even during the recent semiconductor downturn, electronic systems manufacturers in China continued to increase their consumption of semiconductors at a rate three to five times the worldwide rate. As a result, China is remains the largest consumer of semiconductors for the fourth year in a row. In the past, much of this consumption was from US, Japanese and other global OEMs, now it is increasingly dominated by China electronic manufacturing firms with local sourcing authority. Raman sees China chip manufacturing sector to continue to grow, especially if the success of other international fab ventures continues.
The other major shift in the IC industry discussed by Raman was consumerization—not just in total chip consumption—but the fact that new technologies now appear first in consumer markets, not in business IT. Among the impacts this brings is the decline in vertical integration. “How can you sustain competitive advantage when everyone can get the same chips?” Apple is focusing on software differentiation with emphasis on only a few key components.
Raman sees a convergence of software and hardware services—complete solutions that allow companies to achieve dominant market shares. But he admits, “the rules are still being written…”
Another important impact on SEMI members will be he transition from US GAAP to International Financial Reporting Standards (IFRS). China will make the change to IFRS in 2011, well before the US in 2013. Among this IFRS impact will be on leasing and capital equipment purchasing.
Monday, June 7, 2010
MEMS Market Remains Fragmented
Jean Christophe Eloy, CEO of Yole Developpment, told a packed audience at the MEMS Forum at SEMICON Singapore that the MEMS market remains fragmented, but developments in foundries and new startups could accelerate the scale of the industry.
Very few applications have a market size above $200M and long development cycles have impeded the development of a strong ecosystem. Manufacturing is still based on the “one product, one process, one package” principal that constrains the growth of fabless companies and foundries. But standard process blocks are recognized as a key driver and several foundries seem to be optimistic about resolving the barriers to commercialization and scale.
According to Eloy, all the important successes in the MEMS industry in the past 5 years are linked to innovation in usage and packaging:
•The success of ST with accelerometers is linked to usage
•The success of Invensense is linked to packaging innovation
•The success of the silicon microphone is due to packaging innovation
•The success of pico projectors is a combination both new usage and new packaging
Most of the new MEMS developments are happening with startups. Yole has identified 30 startups in exciting new areas such as microbolometers, digital compasses and oscillators.
Check out the announced MEMS programs SEMICON West (luly 13) and SEMICON Europa (October 18-19).
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