Complex Precision.

LONDON – Hanking Group (Shenyang, China), a mining and metal processing conglomerate in the north-east of China, has begun building what could become a major wafer fab for the manufacture of microelectromechanical systems (MEMS).

Hanking is looking to make inertial sensors and silicon membrane microphones which are all in high demand in China, but has also talked about tire pressure monitor sensors and microfluidic MEMS for medical applications. China currently imports almost all the MEMS devices used in the high volumes of electronic equipment made in the country. The company should be able to find ready buyers at Chinese system makers for the components which would be lower cost than imported MEMS due to an absence of duties and lower labor costs.

The group has created a wholly-owned subsidiary, Hanking Electronics Co. Ltd., as the means to achieve its goal and recruited MEMS industry veteran Doug Sparks as executive vice president to help execute the plan. Sparks reports to Lucy Huang, president and CEO.

Construction of the wafer fab started in March 2012 in Fushun about 40 miles east of Shenyang. The buildings will sit in the Hanking MEMS Industrial Park (HMIP) which occupies about 160 acres in Fushun Economic Development Zone and for which the roads were laid out during the 2011 construction season, Sparks said.

Hanking has committed to spend 3 billion yuan (about $475 million) on three phases of development there. Although Sparks is looking to install 200-mm equipment initially, the building is being made "compatible with 300-mm wafer production," he said. The transition to 300-mm wafer processing for MEMS, something not yet done by any manufacturers in the MEMS sector, would come in a few years, Sparks predicted.

The first phase of the MEMS wafer fab will be capable of producing about 4,000 200-mm wafer starts per month in 2014, Sparks said. "We'll have the back-end processing – things like electroplating and bulk etch going by 2013 – It may be another year before we have everything running," he said.

But Sparks is not too concerned about delays. Hanking is into MEMS for the long haul and has money to spend, he said. China Hanking Holdings Ltd., one of the affiliates of the Hanking Group, was admitted to the Hong Kong stock exchange in September 2011 and declared a net profit of 670.6 million yuan (about $106 million) on sales revenue of 1.45 billion yuan (about $230 million) for 2011. However, Sparks said total group annual revenue is about $550 million.

***

罕王集团，开建中国第一个MEMS wafer fab。罕王集团，这是我第一次听说这家公司，一家矿产冶金集团，开起来规模不小。有人要问，矿业公司进军半导体，是不是瞎胡闹啊？那请看看日本的Nippon Mining & Sumitomo Metals的故事吧。不过，历史可借鉴，路要自己走。无论如何，期待一下。

Passes 75 Million CMOS Transmit Module Units Shipped
Apr 24, 2012: Press Release in Chinese

LOS GATOS, Calif., — April 24, 2012 — Amalfi® Semiconductor, an emerging leader in cost effective, high performance power amplifier solutions for cellular handsets, today announced that it has raised an additional $20 million from existing investors Battery Ventures, DCM and Globespan Capital Partners. Amalfi plans to use the funds to expand its business operations and accelerate new product development programs of its next-generation CMOS power amplifier technologies.

“Amalfi is experiencing tremendous growth with worldwide Tier 1 and China ODM handset customers, in addition to having a strong CMOS integration roadmap for the 3G market. This commitment from our existing investors demonstrates the confidence they have in our ability to deliver disruptive technology,” stated Mark Foley, CEO and President at Amalfi. “We’ve had a tremendous year and a dramatic ramp up in the adoption of our products. As we grow rapidly, this additional funding accelerates our next phase of product development, while allowing us to guarantee exceptional customer service.”

With over 75 million transmit modules shipped, Amalfi is the industry’s leading CMOS power amplifier company. Amalfi’s current technology is primarily targeted for use in entry-level and ultra-low cost 2G GSM/GPRS cellular handsets in emerging markets. The company introduced its first family of CMOS-based 2G GSM/GPRS transmit module (TxM) integrated circuits (IC) in 2009. In August 2011, Amalfi launched its second-generation AdaptiveRF™ architecture, designed to deliver industry-leading performance at significantly reduced costs compared to traditional GaAs-based modules.

“We have clearly been able to demonstrate the benefits of our CMOS technology at the 2G level,” added Foley. “We will further drive these price and performance benefits for feature and entry-level smartphones while introducing new advanced products that apply these same CMOS integration benefits to 3G and LTE mobile phones and data terminals.”

The quest for increased energy efficiency has re-energised power electronics with new materials, like silicon carbide and gallium nitride gaining market share. SiC will gain a 14% share and GaN, an 8% share.

Thanks to a resurgence in innovation, power electronics revenues are poised to grow to $15 billion for discrete components in four key industry segments in 2020.

It’s also moving beyond its historic dependence on silicon, with significant developments in SiC and GaN technology.

According to Lux Research’s new report, “Beyond Silicon: Plotting GaN and SiC’s Path within the $15 Billion Power Electronics Market,” these materials are taking a 22% market share for $3.3 billion in power electronics sales.

“There’s clearly a growing opportunity in power electronics, but the challenge for both current market players and would-be entrants is finding the places where these emerging technologies meet customer needs at the right price points,” notes Pallavi Madakasira, Lux Research Analyst and lead author of the report.

“While consumer electronics is a ‘here and now’ opportunity, fast-growing industries such as renewable energy and industrial power applications are likely to challenge power electronics manufacturers to innovate on form factor and improve efficiency at the lowest cost,” she adds.

To forecast adoption of emerging power electronics technologies, Lux Research analysts calculated the payback period for SiC and GaN devices and calculated market shares based on the required payback period for each application, as well as delaying or accelerating factors that reflect industry conservatism, design cycles, timing for capacity build-outs, and other industry drivers. Their findings, described in more detail in the report, are described below.

SiC and GaN are vieing for a slice of the silicon pie. With silicon-based power electronic devices reaching theoretical limits, other semiconductors, notably SiC and GaN, are making inroads into the power electronics industry. These materials promise better performance and energy savings, and in SiC will gain a 14% market share and in GaN, an 8% share. SiC, with its better maturity and reliability, has a head start, but GaN catches up thanks to innovators such as Efficient Power Conversion and Transphorm and incumbents like International Rectifier.

SiC grows in renewables, GaN gains in electronics. SiC gains the most in renewables, capturing a 32% market share in solar, and is poised to capitalise on the grid storage boom. Its adoption in transportation is less aggressive, leading SiC and GaN to a relatively even share, at 16% and 15%, respectively, in 2020. GaN eclipses SiC in IT & electronics, carving out 14% share in 2020; and flourishes in smaller-scale applications within buildings in a broad $2.4 billion market.

VCs make big bets and corporations jockey for position. Over the past five years, investors have funnelled over $200 million into developers of advanced materials and devices for power electronics. On the venture side, Transphorm, EpiGaN, GaN Systems and Azzurro have closed notable rounds, while corporate investments and acquisitions such as TranSiC (Fairchild), SiCed (Infineon), SiCrystal (Rohm) and Crysband (SKC) have continued apace. This year promises to be a record-setting one for transactions with particular attention on substrate and GaN technology developers.

Gallium arsenide is still dominating the PA market by far but is poised to lose market share as CMOS PA technology advances. At the antenna switch level, players with early involvement in SOI switches, like Skyworks and RFMD are gaining market share over players involved in GaAs, such as TriQuint.

The radio-front end is a key component in every cell phone, from low cost GSM handset to multi-mode multi-band LTE smartphones. The market is very fragmented in terms of architecture, however there are a few types of components that are key.

Filters or duplexers, power amplifiers (PAs) and antenna switches are at the heart of every cell phone radio. Most antenna switches and PAs currently incorporate III-V compound semiconductors and many employ GaAs pHEMT and to a lesser extent, GaN technologies.

Laurent Robin, Activity Leader, Yole Développement, says that the three key components represented a $3.6 billion market in 2011 and are currently growing at a 5.6% annual rate, expected until 2016.

The market research firm's new report, “RF filters, PAs, Antenna Switches & Tunability for Cellular Handsets,” highlights that as this market becomes increasingly attractive, major technical evolutions and changes are occurring in the competitive landscape for those categories of devices.

Filters and duplexers are the most dynamic market. Driven by duplexers which are growing at a 10.5% rate annually, this market will reach $1.7 billion in 2016. Indeed smartphones are widely using WCDMA bands and LTE is a new strong driver.

Depending on each band, SAW or BAW developments are candidates for further growth. While Epcos and Murata dominate the SAW area, Yole has seen fierce competition between Avago and TriQuint in the BAW segment.

Power amplifiers are another strategic component in the RF part. Although this market is maturing, Yole Développement analysts still see many new technologies which are impacting the PA market. One current trend is that more integrated PAs and broadband PAs are increasingly being accepted on a commercial level.

GaAs is still dominating the PA market by far but is poised to lose market share as demand for CMOS PAs is growing, What's more, another competitor is SOI technology, which could be used for PAs in the near future. There is thus still room for many changes in the competitive landscape dominated by Skyworks, with RFMD, TriQuint, Avago and Murata / Renesas as challengers.

Also, as antenna switches become more mature, Yole Développement anticipates evolutions in two directions. Firstly, the team sees a move towards higher performance in the new LTE bands and increasing number of throws. This is where Peregrine Semiconductor has a leading position. Secondly, they see massive adoption of SOI technology, which they have observed has become more and more poular since 2010.

All the big players are now involved in this technology, which offers a good price/performance ratio. GaAs switches are thus decreasing, although some players still release products with exceptional performances, such as Sony. At the same time, new technologies are coming closer to production, as has been seen with MEMS.

Tuneability and changes in architecture

Tuneability is a new hot topic for radio front end modules. Indeed, after years of development, antenna tuners have been widely accepted since 2011. Apart from GaAs switches, ferroelectric capacitors and MEMS variable capacitors have been successfully integrated into flagship products such as some Samsung Galaxy S2 smartphones.

While there is no consensus yet on this topic, antenna tuners are now providing a very significant value proposition. Yole expects it to be the next very hot market in this area. New types of tuners and massive deployment of LTE within 2014 will be additional drivers for tuneability.

Leading the MEMS field, Wispry will be a key player to watch, while Sony and Peregrine also offer promising approaches based on alternative technologies. The acquisition of Paratek by RIM in March 2012 is also a sign that antenna tuners will be a strategic technology to be integrated in many cellphone platforms in the near future.

All those changes at the component level (PA, ASM, filters, and so on) and the rise of tuneability are having a dramatic impact in the global RF part architecture evolutions. Both technical and competitive challenges and opportunities are shaping the architecture of future front end modules.

Similarly, the trend for integration in various types of modules is driving changes at the individual component level. New packaging technologies now enable compact multi-chip packages: Rx modules, PA modules, multi-duplexers. In total, the front-end modules were already a $2 billion market in 2011 and grew 12% annually. This represents more than three times the revenues of standalone PAs, filters/duplexers and tuners predicted for 2016.

Rapid evolution of technology and competitive landscape

While the analysts’ team starts to see some level of consolidation, the competitive landscape in this RF market is changing quickly. Some companies are concentrating more on vertical integration, such as Murata. Since its acquisition of Renesas' PA business, this may translate into a change in the business model of the company.

As highlighted in the report, there are today a limited number of companies which dominate this RF space, but generally those players are involved in very specific market space, this meaning that significant developments can be expected in the near future.

For instance, Skyworks is leading the PA market and is big in switches but has no activity in filters. Avago, on the other hand, is a large PA vendor and dominates the BAW filter market, but is neither involved in SAW filters nor in antenna switches.

The evolution of architecture towards modules is one driver that pushes each company to enable itself to handle all types of components or to set up specific partnerships. Another driver for competitive change is the speed of technical advancements in this area.

At the antenna switch level, players with early involvement in SOI switches, like Skyworks and RFMD are gaining market shares over players involved in GaAs, such as TriQuint. Yole expects this type of change to also be observed in PA technology.

Specialty foundry TowerJazz (which has fabrication plants at Tower Semiconductor Ltd in Migdal Haemek, Israel, and at its subsidiaries Jazz Semiconductor Inc in Newport Beach, CA, USA and TowerJazz Japan Ltd) and The University of California, San Diego (UCSD), which provides a program in microwave, millimeter-wave and mixed-signal RFICs, have collaborated to demonstrate what is claimed to be the first wafer-scale phased array with 16 different antenna elements operating at 110GHz frequency range.

First-time success was achieved for the RFIC using TowerJazz’s proprietary models, kit and the mm-wave capabilities of its SBC18H3 0.18-micron silicon-germanium (SiGe) BiCMOS process. The device targets applications for automotive radar, aerospace & defense, passive imaging, security, and mm-wave imaging. The collaboration on the phased-array chip was partly funded by the US Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency (DARPA).

Phased arrays allow the electronic steering of an antenna beam in any direction and with high antenna gain by controlling the phase at each antenna element. The radiation beam can be ‘moved in space’ using entirely electronic means through control of the phase and amplitude at each antenna element used to generate the beam. This beam steering technique is more compact and much faster than mechanically steered arrays. Phased arrays also allow the creation of deep nulls in the radiation pattern to mitigate strong interference signals from several different directions. They have been in use in defense applications since the 1950s and have seen limited use in commercial system due to their relatively high cost. UCSD’s design and use of TowerJazz’s existing wafer processes are targeted at greatly reducing the cost of phased arrays, especially at millimeter-wave frequencies.

The wafer-scale SiGe BiCMOS chip measures 6.5mm x 6.0mm and combines the 110GHz source, amplifiers, distribution network, phase shifters and high-efficiency on-chip antennas, allowing a new generation of miniature and low-cost phased arrays for W-band (75-110GHz) applications. TowerJazz says that such an advance better serves the needs of the greater-than-$100m emerging markets of auto radar and passive imaging (security). The antennas are integrated on-chip, eliminating the expensive and lossy transitions and distribution network between the phased array and the off-chip elements. TowerJazz says that the wafer-scale phased array with 16 radiating elements, together with all the necessary CMOS control circuits, is capable of electronic beam scanning to +/-40 degrees in all planes. The architecture could be scaled to 64 elements (8x8) or 256 elements (16x16) due to on-chip antenna integration and the single-chip integration of multiple elements.

By developing the wafer-scale chip, UCSD has demonstrated independent amplitude and phase control at 106-114GHz for all 16 different antenna elements, and provides commercial availability of highly scalable (from 16 elements to 256 elements) RF-IC transmitters for W-band and D-band phased-array applications. The chip was designed and tested by Woorim Shin, Ozgur Inac and Bonhyun Ku, all of UCSD’s Electrical and Computer Engineering Department under the supervision of professor Gabriel M. Rebeiz, and was partially sponsored by the DARPA program GRATE (Gratings of Regular Arrays and Trim Exposures) under the direction of Dr Carl McCants. The work was performed under a subcontract to UCSD from TowerJazz.

The phased array chip was developed using TowerJazz's SBC18H3 BiCMOS, which offers both high-performance 0.18-micron SiGe bipolar and high-quality passive elements combined with high-density 0.18-micron CMOS, to enable high-speed networking and mm-wave applications. The process offers SiGe transistors with a peak Fmax of 280GHz and a peak Ft of 240GHz, suiting low-power, high-performance mm-wave circuits, while replacing the need for more expensive gallium arsenide (GaAs) chips, TowerJazz says. SBC18H3 comes standard with 1.8V and 3.3V CMOS (dual-gate), deep trench isolation, lateral and vertical PNP transistors, MIM capacitors, high-performance varactors, polysilicon as well as metal and N-well resistors, p-i-n and Schottky diodes, high-Q inductors, triple-well isolation, and six layers of metal.

“We have a track record of successful collaboration with TowerJazz, and the ability to bring this innovative design from UCSD to market depends strongly on TowerJazz’s SiGe BiCMOS process, which enables lower-cost phased arrays by integrating many functions and high-efficiency antennas on the same silicon chip,” comments Electrical Engineering professor Gabriel M. Rebeiz (the lead professor on the chip).

***

没有乐趣。