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EPTE Newsletter from Japan - SEMICON JAPAN 2007

SEMICON JAPAN 2007, the world's largest exhibition of semiconductor equipment and materials, was held at Makuhari Messe in Japan from December 5-7, 2007. This show probably marked the end of the exhibition season for the global electronics industry, making this my last exhibition review for this year. Although the number of semiconductor trade shows held in the U.S. and Europe are continuously declining, Semicon Japan has opposed this trend and continues to expand the scope of their event. The huge space at the convention center was occupied by over fifteen hundred exhibiting companies and organizations. The booth size for the exhibitors was limited; and many companies did not have enough space to display all of their new products.

I have attended the show only on the first day because of a scheduling conflict. Most of the attendees at the show wore dark suits, and before the show opened, the one kilometer walk way from Makuhari Station was packed with people standing shoulder to shoulder. The lines were also long at the self-registration desk where visitors were required to process profile information on computers before entering the exhibition area. I have estimated the total number of visitors over the three days to be well over one hundred thousand.

The show attracted not only Japanese visitors, but also many foreign visitors. I could distinguish the American and European visitors from their facial characteristics and I have recognized Chinese and Korean visitors though their language. Representation from Korea was predominant; they were probably dispatched from major semiconductor or equipment manufacturers from Korea. It was difficult to distinguish whether these Korean visitors were customers or competitors.

The floor layout at SEMICON JAPAN 2007 comprised of 8 halls for the wafer processing and 3 halls for assembling and testing. The convention center's event hall was reserved for the next generation technologies from the semiconductor industry. The majority of exhibitors were from Japanese companies. European and North American companies also participated in large numbers; however, I did not notice any representation from Asian companies.

It was impossible to review the whole exhibition in one day; I could only dedicate a half hour to the wafer process displays, and focused more on the assembling and next generation technologies. Unfortunately, the premium spaces for larger booths were occupied by test equipment manufacturers and there were not many packaging companies and substrate suppliers. I found that odd, and thought to myself that packaging and its substrate segment may not be very popular. 

On the other hand, future technology topics drew a lot of attention. Many professors and researchers from universities and institutes were extremely excited to be in the limelight and show off their latest results. Their focus at the event was organic electronics, flexible electronics and MEMS, especially organic semiconductors and display materials; a common theme amongst them. Many universities placed emphasis on their research not only in developing materials, but also actual devices; some already reached the market place and are commercialized. Nowadays, Japanese professors thought process has to be geared more towards a business mind set and less on academic research.

Semiconductor industries in Korea, Taiwan and China grew rapidly over the last decade, and they have become the main manufacturers in the global semiconductor industry. However, my observations at SEMICON JAPAN 2007 suggest that leading edge technologies and manufacturing equipment are primarily originated by companies in Japan, Europe and North American countries.

Dominique K. Numakura

DKN Research, www.dknresearch.com

Headlines of the week

(Please contact haverhill@dknreseach.com for further information of the news.)

1. Rohm (Major component supplier in Japan) 11/30

Has developed a series of low resistance chip resistors. 2012 and 3216 chip sizes for 2 - 10 mili ohms.

2. Nikkei (Major newspaper in Japan) 12/1

The registration number of the cellular phone will be over 100 million in Japan by the end of 2007.  The total population of Japan is about 120 million.

3. Sharp (Major electronics company in Japan) 12/1

Has held a grand breaking ceremony for the new LCD manufacturing plant in Sakai, Osaka.

4. Toppan Printing (Major printing company in Japan) 11/30

Will build a new manufacturing plant of color filters of LCD devices in the same yard of Sharp's new LCD plant in Sakai.

5. TDK (Major component supplier in Japan) 12/3

Has developed a new high speed flip chip mounting machine (0.9 second/chip) for semiconductor devices with an accuracy of +/-7 micron.

6. Shibuya Industry (Equipment supplier in Japan) 11/29

Has rolled out a new high speed flip chip bonder "FDB200" with a tact time of 1.6 seconds per chip and an accuracy of +/-2 microns.

7. Konica Minolta Opto (Optical film supplier in Japan) 11/29

Has completed the construction of the 5th manufacturing plant of the protection film "TAC Film" for the LCD panels with an annual capacity of  50 million sq. meters.

8. Rohm (Major component supplier in Japan) 12/3

Has commercialized a new series of bright LED devices introducing a new package with reflection mirror. They are 50% brighter than conventional packages.

9. Nittetsu Materials (Subsidiary of Nippon Steel) 12/5

Has developed a new fine copper wire with special plating as the alternative solution of gold bonding wire. The cost will be one fourth of gold wire.

10. Samsung EM (Major PWB manufacturer in Korea)  12/4

Has developed a new white color LED with a brightness of 2.5 cd for small and middle size LCD devices.

11. JSR (Major organic electronics material supplier in Japan) 12/6

Has completed the construction of the new R&D center of photo sensitive materials for with class 10 clean rooms for photolithography process of FPD.

12. Fuji Xerox (Major copy machine supplier in Japan) 12/6

Has unveiled the new full color electronic paper system with " the Light Writing Input System".

13. Asahi Glass (Major glass material supplier in Japan) 12/5

Has displayed the sample of 0.7 mm thick glass substrates (2850 mm x 3050 mm) developed for the 10G LCD manufacturing line of Sharp in Sakai.

14. Seiko Epson (Major electronics company in Japan) 12/5

Will commercialize the wireless power supply system for MP3 products in the spring season of 2008.

15. Seiko Epson (Major electronics company in Japan) 12/5

Has terminated the business of the rear-projection TV.

16. Nippon Steel Chemical (Major flex circuit material supplier in Japan) 12/7

Will supply a phosphorous molecular material for the organic EL lighting project organized by NEDO.

17. Corning Glass (Major glass material supplier in the U.S.) 12/5

Will invest 795 million US dollars for the new glass substrate plant in Japan for the 10G LCD plant of Sharp.

18. Toppan Printing (Major printing company in Japan) 12/7

Has co-developed a new printing process system to generate TFT organic EL flexible display with Sony.

Interesting literatures about the packaging industry

Articles of DKN Research

1. (New) "Screen Printing for High-Density Flexible Electronics", Robert Turunen, Masafumi Nakayama and Dominique Numakura, Printed Circuit FAB, October, 2007, http://pcdandm.com/cms/content/view/3846/95/

2. (New) "Total Process Solution for the High-Density Multi-layer Flexible Printable Electronic Circuits", (Japanese only) Dominique Numakura, Denshi Zairyo, October, 2007

3. (New) "The latest electronics package, Part XXXI, Cellular Phones", Dominique Numakura, Electronics Packaging Technology, October, 2007 

4. (New) "Coombs' Printed Circuits Handbook, 6th Edition, Part 15-Flexible Circuits", Dominique Numakura, McGraw Hill, New York, September, 2007

5. (New) "DKN Research Develops Film Base Connector", Circuits Assembly, September, 2007.

6. "Flexible Circuit Materials", (Japanese only) Dominique Numakura, Denshi Zairyo, April, 2007

7. "Business Trends and Technology Trends of the HDI Flexible Circuits -

Roadmap for the Ultra High-Density Advanced Flexible Circuits", Dominique Numakura, KPCA, October 31, 2006

From the Major Industry Magazines

1. "20 Years of Interconnect Defects", Michael Carano, CircuiTree, November, 2007.

2. "Creating Ideal Solder Joints", Zulki Khan, Circuits Assembly, November, 2007.

3. "Low-cost Optical Interconnects in SMT", Edward Palen, SMT, October, 2007

4. "Metric Pitch BGA and Micro BGA Routing Solutions", Tom Hausherr, Printed Circuit Design & FAB, November, 2007.

5. "Automatic Optical Inspection of IC Connections", Christian Faber, Advanced Packaging, October, 2007

7. "Under the Hood, Efficiency vs. Speed", presented by EE Times and Techonline, October 8, 2007

8. "Tape Substrate Manufacturers Have Been Facing Conversion Phases", (Japanese) The Semiconductor Industry News, September 26th, 2007