Each year, I publish a Guide to SEMICON West 3D Events in an attempt to integrate both SEMI-sponsored events with those of their partners, and other various happenings about town. With SEMICON West less than two weeks away – I figured it was time to get down to it. (My apologies if something gets overlooked. I generally work from my own list of go-to events.)
Sum of the Minds
The pre-game show starts Monday, July 8, with imec’s “Sum of the Minds” International Technology Forum. This is an invitation-only event. I plan on attending and hope to extract some 3D IC-relevant information. The topic this year is How IC Technology can Affect Cost and Complexity of Your Next-Generation Systems. Upon reviewing the abstracts, only the presentation by Paul Marchal, Design Complexity in Future Technologies directly references 3D integration, but I suspect An Steegan’s talk, Logic Scaling Beyond 10nm; aPerformance-Power Trade-off will also discuss how 3D ICs fit into the scope of consideration.
Tuesday, July, 9 2013
Opening Keynote – Ajit Manocha
I’m looking forward to Tuesday morning’s opening keynote by Ajit Manocha, CEO of Global Foundries, who will address Foundry-driven Innovation in the Mobility Era. Manocha calls it Foundry 2.0, and it involves higher levels of collaboration to handle the challenge bombardment of 3D stacking, 450mm fabs, new transistor architectures, multi-patterning, and the long-term viability of extreme ultraviolet (EUV) lithography. I also plan on hanging around for the Press Roundtable so I can bring readers even deeper detail.
Manocha sets the tone for the Tuesday 10:30-12:30 TechXpot, Generation Mobile: Enabled by IC Packaging Technologies, where session speakers will discuss today’s IC packaging solutions, as well as explore possibilities for future packaging technologies poised to enable ‘generation mobile’ to flourish and infiltrate lifestyles around the globe. By the looks of the speakers, I’m guessing this session will focus more on current wafer level packaging technologies in commercialization than 3D ICs, but we’ll have to see.
SUSS MicroTec’s Technology Forum
Offsite on Tuesday, July 9, from 9am- 5:30 at the St. Regis Hotel is SUSS MicroTec’s annual Technology Forum, where industry experts in materials, equipment and processing will address the status of the 3D TSV infrastructure and recent advances in 3D processing technologies. In addition to SUSS, participating companies include Yole Developpment, Nanium, Lord, Dow Chemical, GenISys, imec, Amkor, GLOBALFOUNDRIES, Brewer Science, Dow Corning, Asahi Glass, and Fraunhofer IZM-ASSID. Here’s the full agenda. Registration is required.
Silicon Innovation Forum
New on this year’s agenda is the Silicon Innovation Forum, which brings together new and emerging companies with the semiconductor industry’s top strategic investors and leading technology partners. The forum includes a conference, panel discussion on the industry’s innovation pipeline, and the Pitch Zone, a dynamic session consisting of short presentations on exciting new business opportunities and technology ideas from a diverse collection of new and emerging companies. I took a look at the SIF showcase and reception list, and there are a handful of companies with products and service offerings that target the 3D IC market. These include Advenira, a materials company; Beam Services, an equipment supplier; and MonolithIC 3D, IP developer. I hope to learn more about them during the event.
Wednesday, July 10
SEMETECH 3D Metrology Forum
On Wednesday, from 7:30am to 1:40pm at the Marriott Marquis, SEMATECH will once again host its 2013 Workshop on 3D Interconnect Metrology in partnership with SEMI. Companies presenting their latest advancements in metrology and inspection for 3D ICs include, CEA Leti, Frontier Semiconductor, PVA Tepla, Rudolph Technologies, EV Group, SSEC, Nova Measuring Instruments, Semilab, Camtek, Sonoscan, FEI, Xradia, Zeta Instruments and North Star Imaging. The full agenda is available here.
SEMI Executive Panel Sessions
SEMI Executive Panels will offer high-level insight on both R&D and business implications for the future of semiconductor technology. Catch The R&D Panel – “A Conversation on the Future of Semiconductor Technology” at 10am on Wednesday, and the business panel “A Promising but Challenging Future”, at 2pm. Both in the Esplanade Hall.
2.5D and 3D Packaging TechXpot
Here’s where it gets tricky and some decisions have to be made. The TechXpot session titled Advancing 2.5D and 3D Packaging through Value Engineering takes place Wednesday from 1-3 in TechXpot North, overlapping with the Executive Panel. This session offers a critical look at supply chain ecosystem participants who are pioneering tools and materials targeting high-volume implementation of 2.5D and 3D packaging. Several keynote talks will be followed by an infrastructure panel (2:15-3:30) co-chaired by Bill Bottoms and Jan Vardaman, with panelist representing OSATS (Amkor, ASE and STATS), foundries (UMC), Materials (Hitachi Chemical) and Equipment suppliers (TEL-NEXX). Looks like I’m going to have to flip a coin to decide which to attend.
Thursday, July 11, 2013
2013 3D InCites Awards
On Thursday morning, you’ll find me at the first ever 3D InCites Awards Breakfast, which takes place from 8am-10am at the Impress Lounge above Moscone North. We’re honored to have Xilinx’ Liam Madden as our Guest Speaker, and welcome Qualcomm as our Platinum Sponsor. Additonally, Mentor Graphics has joined Rudolph Technologies and Formfactor as Silver Sponsors. This event is open to all, but seating is limited, so registration is required.
ITRS Back End of Line Technologies
The last item on the agenda is the ITRS Back End of Line Technologies, which takes place from 1:30pm-3:35pm in TechXPOT North. Significant changes due to market evolution towards customized, highly mobile flexible devices mean that the 2013 ITRS will span from Equivalent Scaling to Customized Functionality. These ITRS working groups present the challenges for future interconnects such as TSVs, the latest roadmaps for semiconductor assembly and more.
Honestly, between executive panels, TechXpots, networking receptions, the 3D InCites Awards program and numerous press briefings with companies introducing their latest 2.5D and 3D IC product offerings, my SEMICON West Dance Card is filling up fast. This year it is not my goal to make an appearance everywhere, but to really focus on areas that haven’t been covered extensively, or bring new perspective to the 3D IC party. I also invite those of you attending various 3D events to consider guest blogging about it. For details on how to do that, drop me a line at francoise@3DinCites.com
