Reflections on SEMICON West and the Semiconductor Industry
By David Moreno, Principal, Open Sky Communications
It’s Christmas in July with the annual SEMICON West show – an opportunity to witness innovations in the semiconductor industry and hear from some of the greatest minds on topics such as artificial intelligence (AI), the Internet of Things (IoT) and autonomous vehicles. Working in such a dynamic industry, the show is a catch-all for what to expect in the coming years. This year marked the 23rd SEMICON West show that I’ve attended, which has given me a great vantage point to witness the evolution of semiconductor technology.
With the SEMICON West tradeshow now behind us, I’ve finally had a chance to settle in and think about what really stood out for me at this year’s show. Yes, the usual topics of transistor scaling, EUV lithography, 3D chip stacking and the like were covered in the technical programs and various exhibitor announcements. But as SEMI made clear with their “Beyond Smart” tagline, the industry drivers for semiconductor innovation are evolving, and with that, many of the new device innovations are changing as well.
During one of the programs, Brave New World – Innovations in MEMS & Sensor-based Products, I was particularly struck by a presentation from David Mount of ULVAC Technologies on the rise of the MEMS consumer healthcare market. After reviewing some common MEMS applications and device examples for healthcare, such as retina arrays, implantable defibrillators, and micro-pumps for insulin, David talked about his dream for the semiconductor industry, which he had since his early years in the industry more than 30 years ago. That is, “that people with severed or injured spinal cords can regain complete mobility and feeling through developments and devices that are produced by the semiconductor and MEMS and sensors industries.”
This was prompted by a tragedy that struck the family of one of his favorite football players, Nick Buoniconti of the Miami Dolphins. Nick’s son Marc severely injured his spinal cord while playing in a college football game for The Citadel, and became paralyzed from the neck down at the age of 19. Nick’s story didn’t end there – he became an author and a driving force behind The Miami Project to Cure Paralysis (where he is now president), a leading spinal cord injury research center at the University of Miami Miller School of Medicine.
With that background, David then noted that the brain and spinal cord consist of more than 100 billion nerve cells (neurons). When David first asked the question why can’t we use electronics to cure these types of injuries back in 1985, the latest Intel processor at that time – the Intel386 – had 275,000 transistors. Thanks to the power of Moore’s Law, the most advanced processors today have upwards of 10 BILLION or more transistors, while IBM last year announced a 5-nanometer manufacturing process that could conceivably squeeze 30 BILLION transistors into a chip the size of a fingernail. The industry is fast closing on the point where we can produce a chip that has as many electrical connections as the human body has neurons. Will David’s dream be realized? He thinks so, and so do I.
David’s talk really put some things into perspective for me. For those of us that have been immersed in the semiconductor industry for years, it can be easy to get lost in all of the technical minutia of EUV stochastic effects, overlay accuracy, FinFETs, 3D NAND stacks, etc., but hearing a presentation like this really hits home on how advances in technology can have a profound impact on all aspects of our lives. Breakthrough developments such as using AI systems to design new drugs from scratch, repairing and building bones with 3D printing and developing organs-on-a-chip that can help understand the reasons behind premature births are truly awe inspiring and provide a clear reminder that we are at the center of a technology revolution that will fundamentally change the world and how we see it – in ways that we can’t yet imagine. It’s an exciting time to be in this industry. Thanks for the inspiring presentation, David. We can’t wait to see what comes next.
