As the miniaturization of advanced logic processes continues, the time from design to commercialization is lengthening.
This is due to the increasing difficulty of the manufacturing process, design, and verification associated with the growing complexity of device structures. However, LSIs, such as processors and accelerators for AI, are evolving at a rapid pace and must be commercialized in a short period of time to meet time- to-market requirements. We will introduce the Rapidus model, which solves this problem and achieves short TAT manufacturing.

The semiconductor industry is in the midst of a paradigm shift together with its applied systems triggered by digitalization accelerated by AI technology evolutions in all the systems like evident trends of electrifications and SDV (Software Defined Vehicle) in the automotive industry. As the magnitude and complexity of its applied systems grow exponentially, semiconductor solutions need to integrate more, execute faster with less power, and realize users much better development productivity. Renesas believes the challenge is resolved by building system-oriented solutions for integrations and improving UX (User Experience) values like easier to develop for users. The keynote speech addresses Renesas’ attempts with innovative technologies like chiplet and digitalization/virtualization for system development environment.

Semiconductor technology has caught the spotlight of global attention, as it is now understood by a broader community and political leaders to be the driving and enabling force for our wealth and wellbeing in the decades to come. It enables progress in communication, entertainment, economy, our life. How to further guarantee prosperity?

Our industry has developed itself over the past decades in a unique, networked and distributed chain of innovation stakeholders, ranging from system houses, ic makers, equipment and material companies and broader supply chain companies, in various continents, which probably is the enabler for the formidable growth and proliferation into essentially all markets.

Success will come through trusted relationships amongst innovators, smart R&D alliances, efficiently bringing together expertise and infrastructure, to meet the required pace of innovation.

Imec has been driving a unique, global, collaborative R&D innovation model over the past 4 decades, building around the opportunities that Moore’s law has been depicting, and further pathfinding to secure healthy roadmaps for our industry in the years to come.

In this talk, we will highlight how imec’s collaborative model can not only be an inspiration, but more so bring key partnering value when aiming for efficiency and global impact on the semiconductor industry. Japan has taken essential investment steps in defining its path for the future, in such collaborative spirit with other continents, aiming for a better world. As proud partners in this ecosystem, we’ll address the challenges on our joint path for success.

The drivers of the semiconductor market have transitioned from a focus on PCs to mobile and now to a data centric “digitalization of everything”, where we are seeing an increasingly diverse end market. While the front-end roadmap is still progressing thanks to EUV lithography and other process technology innovations, it’s no longer sufficient to keep pace with the demand of the new digital society. Different kinds of semiconductor innovation are required to support a diversified end market.

For data center applications, we have seen an acceleration of technical innovations in IC packaging and IC substrates to complement front end wafer fabrication technologies and meet performance, power, and cost requirements.

Heterogeneous integration is actively being implemented with several new 2.5 and 3D architectures, where many integrations are utilizing advanced IC substrates. With interconnect geometry scaling, we see the need and the opportunity to bridge process equipment and process control methodologies across the three worlds of front end, packaging, and substrates.

KLA is partnering with key industry players to bridge these three worlds and this presentation will show the challenges we are facing and problems we are solving to advance the semiconductor technology roadmap for advanced applications like data center.

Similarly, the automotive industry is also experiencing semiconductor innovation as it continues its secular shift towards more electrification, computing, and automation. The introduction of wide bandgap (WBG) materials, like silicon carbide (SiC), have proven to be essential to the proliferation of electric vehicles because of their improved power efficiency over silicon.

WBG power manufacturers are facing significant yield challenges while ramping production to meet industry’s skyrocketing demand. Low yield is impacting both fabrication costs and product reliability and can pose a serious threat to the EV adoption in the market.

This presentation with step through the manufacturing process for SiC power devices to highlight key challenges. From the substrate and epitaxy processes, through device fabrication, wafer singulation, packaging and final test, there are opportunities for optimized processes, advanced process control and inline screening methodologies to improve both reliability and yield.

Keywords: Innovation, Advanced Packaging, Technology Roadmap, Heterogeneous Integration, Substrates, Electrification, Yield, Reliability, Inline Screening, Silicon Carbide

When talking about the power semiconductor market, most outsiders would describe it with words like “mature”, “stable” and “simple” compared to the mobile and digital semiconductor markets. One look from the inside will tell you this is not true. With the continued adoption of Wide Band Gap (WBG) materials along with the market forces driving electrification and renewable energy, you will see that power is anything other than “simple”.

Power semiconductors are becoming increasingly important in the overall semiconductor supply chain and innovations need to keep pace with the need for clean, efficient, and higher power delivery. Although innovations in power generally follow the smaller/better/faster/cheaper engine that continues to drive the semiconductor industry, some interesting dynamics are depending on the application and target market. The traditional market wants to standardize, and the new applications value optimization. These competing forces can create havoc from a supply chain standpoint, and as the power semiconductor market trends towards increasing complexity, then manufacturing strategies will need to adapt. From an OSAT perspective, this presents both a challenge and an opportunity.

This presentation will discuss three key areas of the market from an OSAT perspective and look at lessons learned from past events in our industry to give us some insight into what the supply chain might look like as both WBG devices and power foundry services continue to grow with demand from automotive, industrial, compute and commercial applications.

High Voltage (HV) power semiconductors play a critical role in the mass commercialization of electrical vehicles. Silicon carbide (SiC) based MOSFET’s have become commonplace as a superior alternative to silicon devices in HV applications.

While this shift to SiC devices results in significant attention on wafer substrates, epitaxial layers, and front end technology, it also results in increased focus on backend packaging requirements. Silicon carbide devices run at a higher junction temperature compared to silicon devices, which drives unique packaging trends and roadmaps.

Wolfspeed is leading the transformation from silicon to silicon carbide (SiC), and best-in-class packaging materials, equipment, and processes are needed to unlock the full potential of silicon carbide devices.