Semicon West 2021
Nanotronics unveils nSpec Turbo inspection tool @ Semicon West 2021
Nanotronics, USA, has unveiled the nSpec Turbo inspection tool at the ongoing Semicon West 2021, the flagship North American semiconductor tradeshow. This latest tool is among the Nanotronics suite of inspection services, and is their fastest to-date, making it the most proficient tool for high-volume industrial inspection.
The nSpec Turbo system runs multiple scans sequentially. User-friendly software makes configuring recipes effortless and easy to synchronize across multiple systems or locations.
Elaborating on the nSpec Turbo for industrial inspection, Dr. Matthew Putman, CEO and Co-founder, Nanotronics said: “While the semiconductor industry is one of the most advanced, the need to combine AI computation with rapid imaging is surprisingly new. There has been a trade-off when it comes to inspection, where speed to keep up with the process, and the ability to do the type of AI that informs the process to improve yields. The Turbo unites those two ideas.
As for the process involved in high-throughput inspection of wafers, he added that a semiconductor process is uniquely complex. The inspection to keep up with the many layers of the process is more crucial, the more complex it gets. The inspection early in the process has often involved looking for particles. As the process continues, and even in the front end, it is becoming more important to not just know where a particular is, but also to distinguish particulars from defect, and furthermore, to classify those defects. If this is done with high-throughput inspection throughout the process causality of defects, and process variations can be assessed and the process improved.
Dr. Putman confirmed nSpec Turbo can be used for bare or patterned wafers, as “we really look at the DNA of the wafers.”
Where has the software for this version been developed? Nanotronics has a research department and a software development team at its facility in the Brooklyn Navy Yards, USA. They are, in many ways a software company, but enabling something in the physical world is something that we cannot forget. “The devs are in the same building as the machines that we use to make our instruments.”
Finally, how has been the reception, so far, at Semicon West 2021? Dr. Putman said: “This is the launch, and the reception has been great. We have had a lot of customers who like our analysis, but due to the throughput being slower than parts of the process, we have not been able to penetrate certain areas of a fab. It has been exciting for all of us to see how we can quickly move into new companies, and increase engagement with those current customers.”
Advancing connection and future of collaboration
Day 2 of Semicon West 2021 began with a message from US Senator, Gary Peters.
Peters said the current chip shortage has shown how much we are reliant on chips from overseas. KLA recently opened a second facility in Michigan. We need to keep our homeland protected from cyber attacks. We must protect ourselves against evolving threats.
Rick Wallace President and CEO, KLA, spoke about advancing connection: the future of collaboration. March 16, 2020, we got an order in California Bay Area for three weeks shutdown. The pandemic took a terrible toll on the healthcare industry. This is the digitization era. KLA had revenue growth till 2019. Suddenly, the semiconductor industry had all these barriers. We could not travel or meet in person. In fact, a lot of people in the workforce were very concerned.
We also had demand, so we did not shut down. We looked at the values for the company. It is perseverance, drive to be better, high-performance teams, honest, forthright and consistent, and indispensable for customers. We kept communicating just the same during the pandemic.
The way we develop solutions is collaborate, innovate, and execute. These have enabled success through Covid-19. KLA priorities kept us focused. We needed to keep the people and their families safe. We continued to deliver customer needs. We continued to invest in R&D. We also activated the various global crisis management teams. Frequent communication became even more important, going forward. Few of us were working from home, but not all the time. We also looked at emotional safety.
The economy was tanking, but not the semiconductor industry. We were all hiring like mad. We started doing Covid-19 testing very early. It was free. We invested in IT support, onsite testing, etc.
I started doing 4-5 minute videos. Today, all the people tell me how valuable the communication was. We had safety protocols for clean rooms. The only way out of the pandemic is getting vaccinated. We kept manufacturing running all through the period. There were hybrid customer engagements, and investments in local teams. We accelerated remote installation and support. We also ramped up IT and cyber security.
Customers also allowed video into their fabs. We started developing 3D models of KLA equipment so we could do remote training. We also started using VR goggles, so metaverse is already here for KLA. We continued to invest in R&D. We need to have people in facilities, and work is going on. We have evolved in thinking and what can be done remotely. We also kept going with the global expansion plans. We did not slow down. We built new clean rooms, in California, Israel, and Singapore. We also expanded in India. KLA opened the second headquarters in Ann Arbor, Michigan, last month. There are hybrid product development teams. We have stayed on in hiring plans.
2020 was another record year for KLA, and it continues in 2021. Automotive guys hit the brakes in 2020, and now wish they had not. All the measures taken has allowed KLA to grow. We have a bright future ahead. Everything that we have learned will help us going forward. Everything will be hybrid in future. We will continue to work with our customers. KLA’s motto is: we keep looking ahead.
Transforming global drug submissions
Frank Nogueira, CEO, Accumulus Synergy, spoke about transforming global drug submissions: first non-profit cloud-based platform at the ongoing Semicon West 2021.
He began with the question: Are you experiencing the same challenges that we do, and can we learn from each other? Ninety percent of new medicines generally fail. Those who do make it through, it takes 7 years. The cost of developing a new medicine is about $2.5 billion.
Development of new medicines are complex processes. Most medicines got approved at nearly the same time during Covid-19. We can imagine a world where therapies are available around the world at the same time. Collaborations can become the norm. We believe that we should democratize the process of collaboration.
Transformative change is needed now. Technology exists that can be brought to life. We can dramatically accelerate critical therapies to people across the world. We can work in collaboration with regulatory agencies around the world. We can leverage the latest software and cloud to develop new drugs. We also want to engage with the industry associations. Today, we look at the ecosystem as collaborators.
Innovative solutions can transform Sponsor-HA data flow and ways of working to reduce regulatory review times. We can look at harmonizing information and data exchange. Real-time collaboration and communication is required. We also need to ensure that security is in place, and look at privacy. We also need to look at compliance across countries.
Our collective future state platform vision is the cloud. A re-imagined information exchange between the stakeholders in healthcare ecosystem can streamline regulatory lifecycle and facilitate real-time, simultaneous and global submissions, reviews, etc. Access to healthcare is a fundamental human right.
TEL speeding innovation via global collaboration
Nate Baxter, President, Tokyo Electron America, talked about changing the paradigm: speeding innovation via global collaboration at the ongoing Semicon West 2021 in the USA. In a video message, Tony Kawai, President and CEO, looked forward to meeting the semiconductor industry in the near future.
Baxter stated that innovation, collaboration and the environment go together. Today, we are in a different global situation. We have been pushed to the forefront. We are seeing new technologies and use cases coming online. We are looking to collaborate, innovate, and take care of the environment. The outlook for the semiconductor industry is about $1 trillion in the next 10 years. WFE market outlook is reaching $100 billion. Two years ago, we were focused on Industry 4.0! Today, we are also seeing digitalization. We are seeing this accelerate. We are seeing customers add capacity on leading and lagging edges. Moore’s Law has slowed down.
Looking at device technology evolution, we have come a long way. There are more transistors, more bytes, more intelligent systems, etc. SRC has said the data-centric world should be able to overcome the energy limitations. We must also be cognizant of bringing new devices online.
TEL is a global company. It has major R&D sites in all major countries. There are currently 77 different facilities, and they will be reaching over 100 over the next few years. Imec, Leti, etc., are offering major areas of collaboration. We are also building R&D sites for future collaborations. We have been in the US for over 30 years, with headquarters in Austin. We are starting to build network of university relationships.
TEL has several centers of excellence. There is equipment integration. Sensors and metrology also help. In leading edge, yield is important to us. Customers talk to us regarding yield and data analytics. Digital twins is another area. In Austin, we have a team doing simulations, besides another in Japan. The synergies are really there. In Fremont, we have a team for sensors and metrology. In Albany, we have PPAC and integration. We need our engineers to be ready with new capabilities. Agile technology prototyping is also there. We are working in partnerships with several companies. We need to take PPAC to the lab. We have lean manufacturing and rapid prototyping at Chaska and Chelmsford facilities.
TEL believes in collaboration. We are looking at perfecting many things. Supply chain partnerships will move the semiconductor industry forward. Innovation has not slowed down, despite Moore’s Law slowing down. 3D allows to relax with line and pitch scaling. On the design technology co-optimization (DTCO) side, we work with customers for line and spacing, and look at cell heights, etc. We have recently demonstrated 2nm GAA technology with a customer. We do the same in memory. Emerging memories are also optimizing ferroelectric memory.
Digital and green have been adopted as company philosophy. Materials and equipment suppliers are at the bottom of the pyramid. Customers ask us for green initiatives. We are pushing limits to what we can do. We look at improving manufacturing for our customers. We also have broad commitments to clean energy. All our US facilities run on green energy.
We are driving the E-COMPASS program with partners. The E-COMPASS (Environmental Co-Creation by Material, Process and Subcomponent Solutions) is a supply chain sustainability initiative for the semiconductor and flat panel display manufacturing equipment industries. TEL aims to align products and entire operations more closely with its environmental mandates, strengthening ties with business partners and solidifying industry leadership. Digitalization and greening of society is expected to become the major trends in the coming years.
Innovation beyond Moore’s Law: New era in gaming graphics
Rick Bergman, Executive VP, Computing and Graphics Business Group, AMD, spoke about innovation beyond Moore’s Law: new era in gaming graphics, at the ongoing Semicon West 2021 at the Moscone Center, USA.
There were several archiac games earlier. Then, the arcade experience moved to the living room. We moved to 2000, and AAA gaming titles. The last decade saw video gaming upon us. Global illumination became equally important.
At AMD, the hardware is the core. We saw some limitations in hardware. Memory bandwidth increased 10X from 1999-2003, and also up to 2012. It continues to grow exponentially today. Barriers to continued performance improvement include process technology. It continues to advance. However, Moore’s Law is slowing down. Costs have continued to increase. There is an insatiable demand for graphics compute. Every two years, you are doubling the number of gigaflops. We expect that to triple again over the next few years.
New approaches are required to extend the performance gains. We are starting to see a gap. We needed new approaches. There are high-performance graphics solutions. We are upscaling technology. We are now pushing the limits of graphics performance, from 4K to soon, 8K. We have also worked on FidelityFX super resolution (FSR) technology. Upscaling also increases the frames. We need 60fps as minimum performance. We also introduced this technology to the world as open source. We think the adoption will explode in 2022.
AMD is also into packaging. We have the AMD chiplet technology. In 2017, we went to multichip module packaging. We then moved to chiplets in 2018, and 2.5D chiplets in 2019. This June, AMD CEO introduced 3D chiplets. Data center GPUs for data centers has opened up new opportunities. There are many benefits of 3D chiplets. We worked with TSMC. There is >200X interconnect density, >3X interconnect energy efficiency, etc. AMD also has RDNA2 architecture. It delivers up to 65 percent more performance per watt over previous version.
AMD also acquired ATI in 2006. We introduced the world’s first APU in 2011. In 2020, we developed the AMD SmartShift technology that dynamically shifts power between Ryzen processors and Radeon graphics to boost performance for the task at hand. You can get the best user experience for gaming.
We are also into cloud gaming. 45 percent people today are on mobile devices, among 3 billion gamers worldwide, and it is growing rapidly. It is also driving resource requirements. Gaming requirements can increase 10X. Cloud gaming can help overcome these obstacles. The future of gaming will look different. Today, metaverse is a highly realistic environment. It focuses on visual computing, immersive, etc. AMD is everywhere! Tesla uses AMD in vehicles, as does Samsung. Let’s go after the next decade.
Accelerate solutions
Earlier, Dr. Megan Smith, 3rd US CTO, and former Assistant to the US President, CEO shift7, presented on innovation nation—how to creatively source and accelerate solutions to our most significant challenges.
There is a long journey of collaboration and navigation. Hawaii had some of these in the past. There were collective genius innovations that helped clean the island. We need to do things together. She also gave an example of Apple. How do we see the tech teams collaborating in future? We had the White House Frontiers conference. We looked at several personal, local, national, global, and interplanetary issues. There are talented people everywhere. She is also very proud of Tesla and Edison.
We now have to work on inclusion. We need to have more women in our teams. At a White House meet-up, there were new kinds of trainings. We also had a Tech Jobs Tour across 25 cities. People are innovating just about everywhere. The Federal Government has a plan for hackathons, and also conducts those for several things. There is an active STEM learning program. We need think to more about safety, as well.
There is data imbalance with unconscious and institutional bias in media. There are data sets that AI and others are crawling that can hurt us. We also need to test them across the various Parliaments. Imagine, if you had the capability to brainstorm and develop solutions to solve problems, like small children do. We can make the transformative change together.
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