Monolithic 3D Inc., the Next Generation 3D-IC Company
  • Home
  • Technology
    • Technology
    • Papers, Presentations and Patents
    • Overview >
      • Background
      • Why Monolithic 3D?
      • Paths to Monolithic 3D
      • Applications
    • Ion-Cut: The Building Block
    • Monolithic 3D Logic >
      • RCAT
      • HKMG
      • Laser Annealing
      • RCJLT
      • 3D Embedded RAM
      • 3D Gate Array
      • FPGA
      • Ultra Large Integration - Redundancy and Repair
    • Monolithic 3D Memory >
      • 3D DRAM
      • 3D Resistive Memories
      • 3D Flash
    • Monolithic 3D Electro-Optics >
      • 3D Image Sensors
      • 3D Micro-Displays
  • 3D-IC Edge
    • 3D-IC Edge
  • News & Events
    • News & Events
    • S3S15 Game Change 2.0 Video/P
    • Webcast
    • Webinar
    • Press Releases
    • In the News
    • Upcoming Events
  • About Us
    • About Us
    • History
    • Team
    • Careers
    • Contact Us
  • Blog
  • Simulators

Paradigm Shift - Semi Equipment Tells the Future

1/29/2014

0 Comments

 
Picture
We have a guest contribution from Zvi Or-Bach, the President and CEO of MonolithIC 3D Inc. Mr. Or-Bach discusses about the new trend in semiconductors for equipment spending. 

  A recent Semi™ report titled SEMI Reports Shift in Semiconductor Capacity and Equipment Spending Trends reveals an important new trend in semiconductors: "spending trends for the semiconductor industry have changed. Before 2009, capacity expansion corresponded closely to fab equipment spending.  Now more money is spent on upgrading existing facilities, while new capacity additions are occurring at a lower pace, to levels previously seen only during an economic or industry-wide slowdown".
   Looking at the semi-equipment booking should be the first step in any attempt to assess future semiconductor trends. While talking is easy, spending billions of dollars is not. Vendors look deeply into their new design bookings and their future production needs before committing new dollars to long lead purchases for their manufacturing future needs. In the past decade it was relatively simple, as soon as a new process node reached production maturity vendors would place new equipment orders knowing that soon enough all new designs and their volume will shift to the new process node. But the Semi™ report seems to tell us that we are facing a new reality in the semiconductor industry – a Paradigm Shift.
  
  A while ago VLSI Research Inc. released the following chart with the question: Is Moore’s Law slowing down?
Picture
Figure 1
  The chart above indicates a coming change in the industry dynamic, and 2013 might be the year that this turns out to be a Paradigm Shift.
  Just few weeks ago at the SEMI ISS conference, Handel Jones of IBS presented many very illuminating charts and forecasts. The following chart might be the most important of them and it is the revised calculation of per gate cost with scaling.
Picture
Figure 2
  Clearly the chart reveals an unmistakable Paradigm Shift as 28nm is the last node for which dimensional scaling provides a per gate cost reduction. It makes prefect sense for the vendors and their leading edge customers to respond accordingly. Hence it easy to understand why more equipment is being bought to support 28nm and older nodes.
  The following table, also from Jones, illustrates this new reality.
Picture
Figure 3
  In the equipment business, more than 50% of demand comes from the memory segment where the dollars per sold wafer are much lower than in logic. It seems that the shift there has already taken place. Quoting Randhir Thakur, Executive Vice President, General Manager, Silicon Systems Group, Applied Materials, Inc -as was recently published in The shift to materials-enabled 3D: " our foundry/logic and memory customers that manufacture semiconductors are migrating from lithography-enabled 2D transistors and 2D NAND to materials-enabled 3D transistors and 3D NAND"..."Another exciting inflection in 2014 is our memory customers’ transition from planar two-dimensional NAND to vertical three-dimensional NAND. 3D technology holds the promise of terabit-era capacity and lower costs by enabling denser device packing, the most fundamental requirement for memory". Which fits nicely with the following illustration made by Samsung as part of their 3D-NAND marketing campaign.
Picture
Figure 4
  As for the logic segment, the 3D option is yet to happen. But as we wrote in respect to 2013 IEDM - More Momentum Builds for Monolithic 3D ICs. The following chart from CEA Leti illustrates the interest for monolithic 3D:
Picture
Figure 5
  It should be noted that monolithic 3D technology for logic is far behind in comparison to memory. Given that the current issues with dimensional scaling are clearly only going to get worse, we should hope that an acceleration of the effort for logic monolithic 3D will take place soon. In his invited paper at IEDM 2013, Geoffrey Yeap, VP of Technology at Qualcomm, articulates why monolithic 3D is the most effective path for the semiconductor future: "Monolithic 3D (M3D) is an emerging integration technology poised to reduce the gap significantly between transistors and interconnect delays to extend the semiconductor roadmap way beyond the 2D scaling trajectory predicted by Moore’s Law." As illustrated by his Fig. 17 below.
Picture
Figure 6
  So, in conclusion, our industry is now going thru a paradigm shift. Monolithic 3D is shaping up as one of the technologies that would revive and sustain the historically enjoyed growth and improvements well into the future. The 2014 S3S conference scheduled for October 6-9, 2014 at the Westin San Francisco Airport will provide both educational opportunities and cutting edge research in monolithic 3D and other supporting domains. Please mark your calendar for this opportunity to contribute and learn about the new and exciting monolithic 3D technology.  
0 Comments

Your comment will be posted after it is approved.


Leave a Reply.

    Search Blog


    Meet the Bloggers


    Follow us


    To get email updates subscribe here:


    Recommended Links

    3D IC Community
    3D IC LinkedIn Discussion Group

    Recommended Blogs

    • 3D InCites by Francoise von Trapp
    • EDA360 Insider by Steve Leibson
    • Insights From the Leading Edge by Phil Garrou
    • SemiWiki by Daniel Nenni, Paul Mc Lellan, et al.

    Archives

    March 2022
    December 2021
    August 2021
    August 2018
    July 2018
    May 2018
    October 2017
    September 2017
    December 2016
    September 2016
    August 2016
    November 2015
    October 2015
    September 2015
    July 2015
    June 2015
    May 2015
    April 2015
    March 2015
    February 2015
    October 2014
    September 2014
    August 2014
    July 2014
    June 2014
    May 2014
    April 2014
    March 2014
    February 2014
    January 2014
    December 2013
    November 2013
    October 2013
    September 2013
    August 2013
    July 2013
    March 2013
    February 2013
    January 2013
    December 2012
    November 2012
    October 2012
    August 2012
    June 2012
    May 2012
    April 2012
    March 2012
    February 2012
    January 2012
    December 2011
    November 2011
    October 2011
    September 2011
    August 2011
    July 2011
    June 2011
    May 2011
    April 2011
    March 2011

    Categories

    All
    3d Design And Cad
    3dic
    3d Ic
    3d Nand
    3d Stacking
    3d Technology
    Brian Cronquist
    Dean Stevens
    Deepak Sekar
    Dram
    Education
    Heat Removal And Power Delivery
    Industry News
    Israel Beinglass
    Iulia Morariu
    Iulia Tomut
    Monolithic3d
    Monolithic 3d
    MonolithIC 3D Inc.
    Monolithic 3d Inc.
    Monolithic 3d Technology
    Moore Law
    Outsourcing
    Paul Lim
    Repair
    Sandisk
    Semiconductor
    Semiconductor Business
    Tsv
    Zeev Wurman
    Zvi Or Bach
    Zvi Or-Bach

    RSS Feed

© Copyright MonolithIC 3D Inc. , the Next-Generation 3D-IC Company, 2012 - All Rights Reserved, Patents Pending