China, geopolitics and the global semiconductor industry
Doug Sparks, CEO of M2N Technologies LLC, a consulting firm specializing in semiconductors, MEMS and sensors, including their supply chains, discusses geopolitics and supply chains, with particular reference to China, AI, sustainability and skills – sharing his considerable knowledge and experience of the global semiconductor industry. Doug has recently published a book on his ‘specialist subject’: ‘A Decade In The Chinese Semiconductor Industry: An American’s Story, which provides insight into the semiconductor and MEMS industry in China – technology, growth, historical background, IP protection strategies, business tips and more.
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Recent Interviews
China, geopolitics and the global semiconductor industry
Doug Sparks, CEO of M2N Technologies LLC, a consulting firm specializing in semiconductors, MEMS and sensors, including their supply chains, discusses geopolitics and supply chains, with particular reference to China, AI, sustainability and skills – sharing his considerable knowledge and experience of the global semiconductor industry. Doug has recently published a book on his ‘specialist subject’: ‘A Decade In The Chinese Semiconductor Industry: An American’s Story, which provides insight into the semiconductor and MEMS industry in China – technology, growth, historical background, IP protection strategies, business tips and more.
Holistic approach to hyper-efficient data movement in agile complex silicon systems
Nandan Nayampally, Chief Commercial Officer at Baya Systems, discusses how, to better support AI and other compute-heavy and data-intensive applications, the company offers a holistic approach to design, analyse and build complex, highly performant multi-die systems that overcome traditional semiconductors’ bottlenecks of data movement and scalability. Baya’s performance-focused, software-based approach, coupled with its unique transport and modular fabric IP, is designed from the ground up to produce complex multi-die solutions that are correct by construction with a simplified design process.
SMU optimised for testing emerging nano/2D semiconductor devices
Chuck Cimino, Senior Product Manager for Lake Shore Cryotronics, explains the company’s new test instrument optimised for characterizing nanoscale and other low-power semiconductor devices. The new SMU-10 Source Measure Unit expands the module offering of Lake Shore’s MeasureReady M81-SSM Synchronous Source Measure (SSM) System and enables engineers to easily source and measure signals that would otherwise be swamped by electrical noise. Primary applications include I-V characterization of transistors used in specialized sensors, nanoelectromechanical systems (NEMS), quantum computer readout electronics, and emerging specialized and integrated circuit nanoscale semiconductor-based devices.
Custom cable solution for semiconductor manufacturing sliding components
Jason Davis, New Business Development at Junkosha, discusses the launch of the company’s EPTFE Flat Cable designed for critical components in manufacturing and inspection equipment. The cables suit demanding environments – valued in applications where high-flex cycles, clean manufacturing and long-lasting reliability are required. Junkosha’s tailor-made and highly durable cable features the industry’s narrowest pitch level for semiconductor manufacturing and inspection equipment manufacturers looking to minimize overall cable width to achieve compact, efficient, and streamlined wiring solutions that meet tighter market windows for next generation logic, memory, and specialty markets.
Optimism overrides any causes for concern
Philip Schluter, and Oliver Markl, both Partners at the leading European M&A and Debt Advisory firm, Pava Partners, discuss the state of the semiconductor industry – its size, its geographical and geopolitical strengths and weaknesses across Asia, Europe and North America, some of the key market drivers – the good and the not so good, concluding that there is every reason to be optimistic as to the future.
Advancing semiconductor research thanks to thermal property measurement
Ron Fisher, VP of Sales and Business Development at Laser Thermal, outlines the company’s recent contract win to supply its SSTR-F, steady state thermoreflectance in fiber tool to be installed within the shared metrology laboratory at Louisiana Tech University's Institute for Micromanufacturing (IfM). The tool’s high-throughput, industry-friendly design and non-destructive testing capabilities will support projects ranging from thermal management in electronics to defect detection and the characterization of innovative materials and structures.
Imec demonstrates core building blocks of a scalable, CMOS-fab compatible superconducting digital technology
Anna Herr, scientific director at imec USA Florida, explains how record-performing NbTiN-based interconnects, Josephson junctions, and MIM capacitors open doors to energy-efficient compute systems for AI and HPC.
Control and connectivity solutions for global semiconductor equipment manufacturers
Marc Engel, CEO of Agileo Automation with headquarters in Poitiers, France, talks us through the company’s new E84 PIO Box, a handheld device offering a new lightweight interface for fab staff to test semiconductor equipment software for compliance with SEMI’s E84 and GEM300 standards suite for automatic carrier delivery. It improves the readability, identification, and validation of E84 signal exchanges and functional aspects in cleanrooms or workshops. The E84 PIO Box is designed to rigorously validate nominal and error cases, ensuring seamless operations and fast recovery, benefiting both equipment manufacturers and facilities alike. Agileo is a key contributor to the development and integration of industry standards such as SEMI standards and OPC Unified Architecture (OPC-UA).
Imec proposes double-row CFET for the A7 technology node
Geert Hellings, Program Director DTCO at imec, explains the organisation’s development of a new CFET-based standard cell architecture containing two rows of CFETs with a shared signal routing wall in between. The main benefits of this double-row CFET architecture are process simplification, and significant logic and SRAM cell area reduction according to imec’s design-technology co-optimization (DTCO) study. The new architecture allows standard cell heights to be reduced from 4 to 3.5T, compared to conventional single-row CFETs.
EHD printhead promises semiconductor packaging revolution
Dr. Patrick Heissler, CEO, SCRONA AG, discusses the company’s recently unveiled 128-nozzle electrohydrodynamic (EHD) printhead, which achieves a three-digit nozzle count in digital EHD technology for the first time. Patrick describes how this major milestone offers precision, material flexibility, and scalability for semiconductor advanced packaging – including die-attach applications, dispensing ultra-small adhesive volumes with unparalleled accuracy and high-resolution printing of conductive interconnects, vital for advanced AI chiplets and chip manufacturing innovations.
A modern MES - a must have for the semiconductor sector
Augusto Vilarinho, Head of Global Sales and Business Development at Critical Manufacturing, discussed how Manufacturing Execution Systems (MESs) support semiconductor production improvement, delivering the agility and control required for competitive advantage in today’s rapidly evolving semiconductor landscape. Augusto provides invaluable insights into the ways in which a modern, or digital, MES should provide a flexible, scalable solution for improving intricate manufacturing processes while facilitating the drive towards Industry 4.0, with 5.0 to come!
Innovation opportunities excite JST’s new CTO
Dr. Ismail Kashkoush, JST’s new Chief Technology Officer, shares his thoughts as to the challenges and opportunities of his new job role - overseeing the development and strategy for JST’s engineering teams in driving product advancement, introducing the company’s products and technology globally and maintaining the technology roadmap to support company growth objectives for all surface preparation and technology nodes requirements.
Paving the way for cost-effective mmWave communication and sensing
imec's Siddhartha Sinha, principal member of technical staff, explains how imec has achieved seamless InP Chiplet integration on 300mm RF Silicon Interposer with excellent performance at 140GHz. Using RF silicon interposer technology to combine high-performance III-V chiplets with silicon-based wafer-scale packaging is a significant milestone in developing compact, energy-efficient modules for above 100GHz communication and radar sensing.
Europe’s semiconductor industry focuses on sustainable growth
Laith Altimime, President of SEMI Europe, discusses the challenges and opportunities facing the European semiconductor industry. Laith talks sustainability, collaboration, technology innovation, skills and geopolitics, sharing his excitement for the industry’s future as it underpins the ongoing development of our digital world.
Cementing semiconductor links between the UK and APAC
Stewart Randall, Global Lead for Semiconductors, Intralink’s UK-APAC Tech Growth Programme (TGP), explains how the programme supports UK organisations looking to business development in key semiconductor markets in the APAC region, outlining the help available and also sharing some of the successes to date. intralinkgroup.com/TGP
US presence enhances ongoing success for AP&S
Patrick Hirt, Director Sales & Marketing at AP&S, discusses the company’s experience of SEMICON Europa before outlining the ways in which it is addressing the challenges of key industry issues such as sustainability, skills and the supply chain. Patrick also provides an update on the company’s US office and the application opportunities for which AP&S is well-placed to help its customers, with some new solutions in the pipeline.
Photonic processor promises 30x energy efficiency improvements
Dr. Michael Förtsch, CEO of Q.ANT, discusses the company's first commercial product - a photonics-based Native Processing Unit (NPU) built on the its compute architecture LENA - Light Empowered Native Arithmetics. The Q.ANT NPU executes complex, non-linear mathematics natively using light instead of electrons, promising to deliver at least 30 times greater energy efficiency and significant computational speed improvements over traditional CMOS technology.
DuPont delivers on significant semiconductor materials expansion plan
Drew Chambers, Global Business Director and Anthony Kluth, Integrated Operations Leader, both at Lithography Technologies, Semiconductor Technologies, DuPont Electronics & Industrial, talk through the logistics and benefits of a significant expansion for photoresist manufacturing capacity at the company’s Sasakami site in Japan, going on to share insights as to the EUV lithography challenges and opportunities on which DuPont is currently focused, alongside its work to address substances of concern. Anthony and Drew also share their thoughts on DuPont’s and the wider semiconductor industry’s future, with sustainability, supply chain, skills and the company’s roadmap discussed.
Sagence AI delivers in-memory compute innovations
Richard Terrill, VP Strategy, and Suhas Nayak, Sr. Director, Product Marketing, both at SagenceAI, explain how the company (formerly known as Analog Inference) is introducing the next leap forward for AI inference hardware. Innovations are across three aspects of in-memory compute techniques: analog multi-level flash and subthreshold compute inside flash memory cells, opening the doors for economic viability of language and vision inferencing at scale and delivering three orders of magnitude improvement in lower power consumption plus lower cost at equivalent high performance, compared to leading providers of digital inferencing silicon.
ZEISS launches FIB-SEM optimised for TEM sample preparation
Dr. Thomas Rodgers, head of business sector electronics at ZEISS Microscopy, talks through the company’s new ZEISS Crossbeam 550 Samplefab. Built for efficiency and throughput in the semiconductor lab, ZEISS Crossbeam 550 Samplefab provides recipe-based automation for the routine TEM sample preparation work of bulk milling, lift-out and thinning at any number of target points on the sample. The solution promises an automation yield of >90% for processing lamellae from bulk to TEM grid without operator intervention.
The world’s first silicon photonic chip for FHE
Nick New, CEO of Optalysys, explains how the company enables the future of secure compute by processing encrypted data at scale, without it being decrypted. It does this by using the power of advanced silicon photonics to enable Fully Homomorphic Encryption, a cryptographic technology to allow organisations to securely commercialise their data, providing several significant advantages to traditional electronic semiconductors.
The perc(s) of polymer residue removal
Fabio Wörndl, Co-CEO and CMO, Siconnex, explains how the company’s perc™ solution cuts costs by eliminating solvents while achieving 100% polymer removal and also eliminates the need for solvents. perc™ offers flexible solutions for removing residues after dry etching, including metal, oxide, silicon, or VIA etching. Fabio goes on to discuss the semiconductor industry’s journey towards NetZero as well as some of the challenges and opportunities which lie ahead in 2025.
Optimising wafer manufacturing yield with proper thermal control
Margaret Brennan, Principal Engineering Lead, Application Solutions, and Doug Nordstrom, Product Manager, both at Swagelok, discuss the importance of the thermal loop when it comes to improving wafer manufacturing yield. Advanced thermal control techniques are an often overlooked subject, where the specification, installation and ongoing monitoring and maintenance of hoses with proper insulation, for example, can mean the difference between success and failure.
