World most Prominent Partner for your IC, Discrete and LED assembly

ASM has produced some of the semiconductor assembly equipment that has made an impact to the world semiconductor industry since 1975.

The Camera module in-line system, about 54% of world CMOS Sensor on your camera is in fact assembled by the ASM solution. Likely your hand phone cameras module was once assembled by ASM equipment. As the larger the number of Pixel on the CMOS sensor, the smaller the foreign particle down to size of 1.5 microns that the CMOS sensor can not tolerate this contamination. As ASM is the only company that has in-line -solution from Die bonding, curing wire bonder, inspection and lens holder attached line with full clean cell solution to prevent FM contamination. Top 3 World EMS company is in fact the users.

Numerous ASIC, SOIC, BGA and QFN was in fact made by ASM auto-line which has only 2 operators to take care one line each produces 8,000 to 10,000 assembled chip with dies at the input and fully functionable IC chips were made at the output… the whole process has undergone Die bonding, curing, wire bonding, inspection, molding, saw singulation, test auto inspection and taping…The turn around time from a new production wafer to finished assembly chip is possible to be made within 30 hours. Only Auto-line can do that.

Industry first auto molding system that can deliver 170Tons Clamping tonnage at the same time handle world largest 100MMx 300MM leadframe size… a few machine are being running in qualification mode in one of the World Largest Subcon houses , with this Hi Density Lead frame solution, the cost of the leadframe, encapsulation compounds could be saved, and that is becoming additive to your profit… the Only way to move into volume production devices like SOIC, TSSOP and in future QFN…

Dual head Flip Chip bonder, dual Dispenser 12 inch Die bonder, and precision die bonder for stack die on 12” wafers. Dual head copper wire bonders for the QFN application, that one US IDM is using the Copper wire bonder for assembling more than 6 million ICs a day.

Not less than 50% of world hi brightness LED is likely using ASM LED equipment for assembly production. Well, the low power LED below 0.2W is different area as there are more choice of equipment from Taiwan, China, and other makers at much lower cost besides ASM. Still ASM is the leader in the LED assembly as they have 25 years experience in designing, manufacturing the LED bonding, testing and assembling equipment.

If you are going Copper from Gold wire, if you are running SOIC, TSSOP with low profit margin, if you are building CIS Camera Module for no matter Apple and Samsung. If you are not using ASM equipment,, it may be good for you to contact ASM for more technical information. This may be a way for helping you to increase your profit margin. Today’s economy situation is dull, and yet this might be the best time for you to Invest…as you may get a better terms of delivery, price...support.

HK Snob

2012 2H Semiconductor Market Forecast

The Semiconductor market

The market is hard to predict as there are many factors which govern this violatile market of electronic products especially under current growing US EU economic turmoilds.

Recalling that there is huge demand on iPhone when it was first launched in USA on July 2007, since then it had created an enormous demand for the latest Model, with added feature on each new model each time it was launched, 3G, 3GS, 4G, 4GS... how about iPhone5?  There have been queries on what new feature that Iphone5 would have!?

Apple Will follow Nokia?

Many people saying that Iphone will be the 2nd Nokia if they still maintain their selling price at a premium, and no known new breakthrough of new feature. Well, yes, there are still a lot of Chinese people in demand of the new iPhone5, however China has no such huge GPD growth as the provious 5 and 10 years anymore. Will they slow down buying luxary Handphone as they do now on the luxuary goods Rolex, Chanel, Dior etc.!? Estimated China will have only GDP 7.6 in the year 2012. whihc is lowest in the past 10 years.

China today

Just in YiWu, a Chinese Industrial City, half the World’s Christmas decorations from Pastic Trees, Christmas lights and Led Santa caps are being produced, those good days are gone, the average shop floor wages jumped up 30% as just in 2011 to about RMB$2,800 a month. Though they have been replaced by automated machine, but there is a certain limit that the product could be automated. Profit is being eroded by up rising cost, like what HK was experience in 1983-1993, whereby HK moved to China for next site for manufacturing.

Back to China , with so many opportunities back home in their hinterland, those poor peasants from have little incentives to seek strenous factory jobs in YiWu. It is difficuties to get workers now; the China Society has changed!

China shoe markers now takes whole team of Ephiopian University graduates bring them to China train them up to gain some leverage between loss of profit, and no labour in the hot market.

What is it in the Market?

When you are asked to take out Apple for the maket, what else is leaving?

RIM is slow down, Nokia is saying to lay off another 10,000 staff last week. Sony has not much new stuff except the floating Touch feature.. Well that is Samsung, but viewing Samsung speed of launching his new product, they have a huge spending on R & D, and their high cost of manufacturing due to tooling cost is high as most of them are still made in Korea. Sooner later there will be 4 handphone makers, others smaller one would either been merged or sold.

Bullish ASE

News popped up as ASE said it could reach its goal of growing shipments by 15%, and that Ultrabooks, Windows 8 and new smartphones would drive growth in the second half. 24 June 2012.

IC makers, Assembly houes are still keep on buying leadframe is 2X, 3X up in their coming Quarter forecas, in vew of the past history, they can not keep growing for more than  4 months. Everyhing goes up must fall down. We believe that everyone is being pushed by Apple to be qualified and once if the business of Apple iphone 5 is not as good as expected, there will be domino effect of falling. That could cause semiconductor economy to slow down the pace.

Foxconn

Well, Foxconn as the major manufacturers of all Apple products is doing conservatively for their iphone5 line preparation, as least not as aggressive as they did for Iphone 4 and Iphone 4S... heard that they cut 3 lines out of ten lien purchase by president Kwok at last minutes. Is that a sign to tell us that Foxconn is also feeling skpetical about Apple because Tim Cook as not as strong as Steve Jobs as an Apple Icon!

LED

LED is still in the hibernating mode, as I expect that there will be some movement for more equipment buy by Oct, 2012. but that could not be so high as we experiencd in 2010. Probably some new line for new process, new special product line to have better cost factor to make next gen. LED, no major Expansion plan for production of mid high end LEDs.

Maintaining Automobile market

Automobile takes just 5-6% of the total Semiconductor market, that is not significant nor inluential at all thpough most of the Automobile is doing OK but under such economic atmposphere, people will tend to delay the new car purchase or replacement programme. Only Limited market Like China and some Asia Countries could maintain the sales.

US EU Situation getting worse?
The US, EU market is slow moving, Rommey and Obama presidential campange still running outright proclamation of who is right who is wrong on CNN every day... see who will be the last crusade for US economy, I would say Obama will continue to be the next president and the US economy will not be too bad in shape but will not have any good surprise in the coming 4 years!

No surprise for 2H

What else we can see new application? new product that could further bring the makert hot!? Seems Nothing?

So as our forecast the overall market or 2012 is not as good as expected as 2011. or be a bit pessimistic, to be about 90-95% of 2011 at best...

HK Snob

Philipines Semiconductor and Electronics Convention and Exhibition PSECE 2012

After Thought of Visiting PSECE 2012

Philippines Semiconductor and Electronics Convention and Exhibition PSECE 2012

Organized by Semiconductor and Electronics Industries in the Philippines, Inc. (SEIPI and support by Major Sponsor ST Microelectronics…

6-8 June 9, 2012 SMX convention centre Manila.

It provided a Presentation platform for technical papers of manufacturing engineers from On Semi and ST other major Semiconductor house in Philippines,  and a glance of the major players and companies supporting the Electronics industry,

Philippines have earned the 4^th most optimistic business leader in the World, after Brazil, Peru and the UAE according to a recent survey conducted by Grant Thornton International Business Report. A global professional business network, The Survey was bases on how business forecast leader foresaw the next 12 months.
Philippines like can have an annual growth of 6.5% which may be the 2^nd highest in Asia. Yet final number will be verified at and of the year.

It is worth a look for business investor to consider the best place for your next Expansion.

China- Rising Salary, hard to find stable work force, political instability, Strong hardware but leak of soft support, . . besides, you can’t put all your investment in one place..

Vietnam- Language and lack of hard soft infrastructure for semiconductor

Thailand- a land of smile, but the last flood does halt a lot of the new expansion plot, as  Rohm decided to close their factory and move to Philippines.

Malaysia – increasing demand for semicon people force them to look for promotion and new job, hard to find stable Middle engineering people. Besides, there is more or less some threat with their political stability and their way to suppress Development of Chinese Society,

Singapore- Industry has been transformed from Manufacturing to Service support and IT 10 years ago basically no more Semicon manufacturing as the other City Hong Kong.

Taiwan- President Ma was blamed not having strong and strategic stimulation to the semiconductor industry; they are now lack of competitive edge as China.

Korea- Focus on 10 big firms who may take up 20% of the Country’s income. Cost of manufacturing forces middle to big company seeks for other business opportunity besides moving overseas like Philippines.

Japan- after 1989, their economic no longer strong as they were in 80's, no Single Electronics Company made real money in 2011. They have to move to other lower cost manufacturing sites like China, Thailand and Philippines.

Myanmar- yet to have any plan to open their market for semicon… may be after Suu Kyi to be the president...

Who will be the next potential candidates for low cost manufacturing consideration?

1. Eastern Europe
2. Ethiopia
3. South Africa

 HK Snob

.

CMOS Image Sensors starts Breaking Sales Records Again

After hitting a rough patch in 2006, CMOS image sensors have finally regained growth momentum,

Driven by a new wave of camera-equipped portable products, such as touch-screen

smartphones and tablet computers, embedded digital imaging applications being designed into automobiles, medical equipment, security networks, and other vision-recognition systems.

And this once high-flying optoelectronics market segment is now expected to set record high sales each year through 2012 to 2016.

HK Snob

IC Market Forecast 2012

2012 brings yet another year to all of us, and once again the industry is bouncing back after a challenging 2011. We welcome a fresh optimistic outlook as perceived by semiconductor industry analysts at large, both domestically and abroad. The sovereign debt and economic worries of the European Union has brought a torrent of dreadful news, yet the industrial indicators within
technology and specifically the semiconductor segment reflect increasing stability and projected growth during year 2012. In Recent two months, seems that more Power Device is coming up, IGBT, Power Clips. Automobile will be stable over the year with some minor growth as comparing with 2011.
Moreover, IDM, Subcon tends to have a new demand for a better cost format on legacy or even QFN, obviously there is a new demand for equipment base on 100mmx300mm leadf rame format on Legacy SOIC, TSSOP and also QFN run in Q4 2012.
Wireless and mobile is everything, no matter, handphone, tablet, Ipad had demand on wire less devices, Iphone5 will follow Ipad3 in March Launch. Samsung has stuck a good balance In terns of performance, flexibility and versatility comparing to Ipad, Samsung will gain market share, and grow with Apple. Solid state Ram in replacing harddisk will create huge demand on equipment. I am speculating that Q2 2012 will have some ramp up for equipment demand. Worse case 2012 business will at par at 2011 or even 5%-7% better than 2011.
HK Snob

World's Most Advance Copper Wire Bonder

As this likely will be the industry standard, wire inter-connect are going mostly for Copper wire instead of gold as for reason of Gold price is too high, and Copper has good reliability for the wire interconnect.
ASM has launched a new and innovative product GoCu Copper wire bonder which has the following feature:
1. Cu wire bonding at the speed of Au and faster
2. Automatic wire rethread system for short tails leading to excellent MTBA.
3. Everybody can do Cu wire bonding with ASM GoCu, you do not need a Pro.
4. ASM Eagle Xtreme and iHawk Xtreme series wire bonders are upgradeable to GoCu.
ASM has run a Larges scale Seminar on 9 Nov at Bellevue Hotel in Alabang, more than 160 engineers, managers and directors from the Philippines Semiconductor houses came to join and share this 9 hours seminar.
The have seen the demo the GoCu machine and was surprise to see the Auto re-thread function of the machine that could possibly reduce dramatically the stoppages on the 2nd bond, a feature that the industry waiting for!

Hi Mr. Pham, Sorry there are some Google technical issue that I can not put comment on your question.,
Price of the equipment would be depending on what application, model you choose. ASM does have Single head or dual head wire bonder also wire bonder for LED application. For more information, you can mail to feverip266288@yahoo.com.hk
Thanks for the comment

HK Snob

2011 Q4 IC market Forecast

Japan Quake
March 11 The Japanese earthquake raised concerns about supply of silicon wafers, batteries, crystal oscillators, substrates material and other specialized materials.
However, the supply shortage has had minimal impact on markets seen.
Performance of 2nd Quarter
2nd quarter the supply of semiconductors is only slightly below the norm; 3rd quarter is less certain.
Semiconductor related inventory levels are rising.
The Commodity price inflation has started to influence consumer behavior. China has had a 6.7% inflation rate and the high fliers have tried to cool down the real estate price throughout 100 cities in China by imposing regulation on purchases. It is hoped that such regulation would result in lowering the inflation rate. The other side of China promises an annual growth as much as 8% for 2011!
IC ASP
IC ASPs elevated in 2H 2010 due to limited supplies. However in 1H 11, ASPs should revert back toward normal long-term trends. The units will come under some pressure in 4Q11 to 2Q12 to get back to current elevated inventory levels.
IC Packaging
ASSP sales dropped by $2.2B and accounted for About 50% of the Downside (2Q11 versus 1Q11 Forecasts).
In 2011 DRAM sales are expected to drop by 7% compared to 2010. However, NAND Flash Rams are expected to rise by 30% and will resist trends from 2010.
Smart Phone and Tablet
PC Mobile Phone sales have dropped by 3B $ in 2Q11 comparing with 1Q11.
2011 production unit growth for 2Q11 will not reach its forecast of 10.2%, as it has decreased slightly to 9.5%. Mobile phone 2Q11 production unit growth increased slightly to 12.9% compared to its forecasted growth of 12.6% in 1Q11. The percentage growth for Smartphone’s keeps on increasing. Media tablet production forecasted to increase to 71.6M in 2011, with production exceeding 320M in 2015.
Automotive production is predicted to be lower, but will have little impact on total semiconductor growth as automotive accounts for 3.45% of total semiconductor business in terms of revenue.
Chip Price
Foundry overcapacity is expected to hit 4Q11 and most of 2012 which will ultimately lead to chip price drops.
The Fear of chip shortages has not translated to increase in ASPs at this point.
Apple as Market Driver
It is expected that Smart phones will gain market a greater market share by 2015 with 30% CAGR.
Apple product Prices have not dropped as fast as we expected, which will affect the type of products purchased.
The Percentage of tablets shipped with WiFi only is higher than expected compared to WiFi+3G.
There is a significant opportunity for application processors, baseband processors, RF and wireless connectivity.
The iPad2 and iPhone, iPad 2 introduction & the prices of its rivals leaves Apple ahead of competitors.
OS and hardware evolution will turn Media Tablets into a more viable PC alternative in most of the cases.
Apple Sales in 2Q11
Apple sold 3.76 million Macs during the 2nd quarter, a 28 percent unit increase compared to last year’s quarter. The Company sold 18.65 million iPhones in the quarter, representing 113% unit growth compared to last year’s quarter. Apple sold 9.02 million iPods during this quarter, representing a 17% unit decline from last year’s quarter. The Company also sold 4.69 million iPads during the quarter.
Apple Beneficiates
Iphone and Ipad component suppliers: TI, Skyworks, Broadcom, Analog Device, TriQuint, Intel, Qualcom, Samsung, will be having growth because of Apple products, by evolving designs based around the application processor. Remove cellular baseband, Transceiver, RF in WiFi-only products.
Smart Phone OS
Android – Outperforming the market, strong OEM and carrier support, expect aggressive pricing for penetration.(market share 14%).
Apple iOS- End to end control, superb usability and developer-friendly ecosystem. (market Share 80%)
RIM - End to end control gives security, growing ecosystem initiatives, major challenge from Android and iOS
Symbian – is losing share rapidly, and Nokia shifting to Windows base Phone.
Windows Phone – Nokia partnership a boost as WP7 vies to be a competitive consumer OS.
Nokia is losing business, typicall some of our Customers like Amkor and ST in affected!
US Consumers
In the 2H11 Consumer confidence level is low and purchases are slow.
The US economic growth is also poor, with short term weakness predicted. The mature PC market is also weak, and the upside index unclear. Consumer PC remains below expectations through 2011, with enterprise replacement growth expected to be healthy.
Smartphones and media tablets represent the majority of semiconductor revenue growth over the next three years. It is expected that entry-level smart phones will be the second wave of growth in the smartphone market.
Market share and strategy shifts amongst the smartphone and tablet ecosystems and vendors will have a significant impact on semiconductor suppliers.
Capitals spending
By 2011 spending is expected to be up by12% driven by Intel, foundry, and NAND spending
2012 will stall a little as production re-aligns with demand
Out-of-phase segment cycles create stop-start patterns in cap-ex profile.
Foundry Shipment, Capacity, UtilizationInvestment Race Leads To Oversupply since 1Q11 to 4Q11.
Positive sign of seeing foundry capital is up from 2011-2015
On said their Q3 and after business will slow down.
Conclusion
Our greatest risk remains in 3rd quarter.
ASPs are under pressure and Japan has not reversed the current trend and stock will remain elevated until supply chain feel more settled about Japan impact.
It is most-likely semiconductor growth for 2011 will be 5.1%, and 2012 forecasts reduced to 8.6%
The will be a brief respite in 2012, before DRAM and foundry overcapacity causes renewed weakness in 2013.
There will be a slight increase for capacity for Q111 compared with 4Q10. 2Q11 is almost on par or slightly below 1Q11.
The rumor that of iPhone5 will be launched in Sept, (news of UK APPLE is employing Temporary sales for iPhone5) means there should be a driver for the capacity to be maintained or increased due to the new demand iPhone5 staring in end July.
So 3Q11 should maintain as forecasted. However, due to the US economy, and high unemployment rate, I am not too optimistic for Q4 which will slash demand compared to 3Q11. LED market will keep nose diving till Q4 as I see no new driver for more equipment purchase, as the world largest LED drivers IC is On and National (now they became one) that would be some effect on our IC capacity.
SMT purchases seem to have softened demand in June and this is likely to continue into the future unless there is an outstanding demand for iPhone5.
CIS makers have to increase capacity due to demand for Iphone4, (iphone3 still making 1m unit a month by now) and Camera module for iPadII. They are optimistic for Apple product going forward.
In Short, Q3 will be slower than Q2. Q4 will be even worse unless there is an up-sign for market growth in the coming three months. Note that the Gold price keep on rising after hitting record $1800 an ounce. S ceiling debt 1.2 trillion Dollars in 10 year, Standard Poor rated US bank credit as AA+ instead of AAA. All this means that US will slow down their spending. They might stat printing money again fo paying debt. At the present time we do not see 2012 being a very good year. At best they will maintain similar growth to 2011, that is about US$338 at a growth rate of 7% as of 2011.
HK Snob

Apple is The King

In terms of Market capital, these are the ranking of the major mobile phone companies.
Samsung 53B
Nokia 22.6B
HTC 25.4B
RIM 13.8B
Motorola 4.2B
LG 10B
Sony Ericsson 3B
If all these companies are added up together will be 132B.
How about the King? Apple market cap is 302B and having cash 70B in the bank.
So who will be the major player for Mobile phone business? Obviously will be Apple,
If Apple takes out his cash I the bank probably could buy up all the Mobile phone company except Samsung.
However the US anticompetition court will not allow Apple to do so.
Apple in 2010 bought 17.5B worth of semiconductor, a 79.6% increase from 9.7B in 2009. So Apple is the key influential player in the chip purchase. Second is HP and third is Samsung amongst 10 major OEM Semiconductor buyers.
HK Snob

Semiconductor Equipment Business Forecast for 2H 2011

Japan Quake Aftermath effect
The Japan earthquake and tsunami that took place on 11 March, has resulted in an overstock of chips at IDM and Fabless. A large stock of chips was built as a result slow demand in the second quarter. Such an excess of chip stock will result in poor sales in the third quarter. For the last five years the third quarter has shown to be an average high season for chip demand. The high unemployment figures in the USA does not show signs of improvement as financial confidence remains low in the market. An oversupply of chips and an uncertain future demand and chip ASP pressure has not helped in the in 2H 11.
The Aftermath of Japan Quake has resulted in production of Non-Japanese supplies of Sensors, Detectors for automobiles and power management devices for note books. Large world players such as Vishay, NXP, Allegro, and Infineon have benefitted from Japans tragedy.
SIA Research
Integrated circuits still remain the most dominant segment of the semiconductor industry, and account for around 84% of the total revenue in 2009 followed by optoelectronics, discrete components and sensors. SIA research projects that future growth will be driven by sensors followed by optoelectronics, discrete and ICs semiconductors with a projected CAGR at around 17%, 15%, 11% and 8% respectively for the period 2011-2013.
Tablet Smartphone’s and tablets including iPadII, have continued to gain popularity, with increased sales from 5% to 25%, as result of the desktop computer is losing its market share from 42% to 28% by 2014.
Troop Pullout
According to statistics, the war in Afghanistan is costing American taxpayers some $10 billion a month. In addition to 100,000 US troops, more than 40,000 NATO soldiers are also stationed in Afghanistan. The wars in Afghanistan and Iraq have cost the US $1 trillion over the past decade. Obama has told the US that the plans for troop withdrawal from Afghanistan (promised 18 months ago) will begin next month.
Unemployment Rate
Obama has promised to create 5 million jobs, although the investment value of government stimulus is debatable. It is clear from the current unemployment figures that Obama's Keynesian policies have failed to create any significant number of jobs, let alone sustainable green jobs. In fact, the Obama Administration seems to be taken by surprise, too at the lack of progress made in this area.
US Presidential Election
2012 is Obama presidential election year, and Obama will be trying to pursue the throne again. He will not consider softening his approach to boosting the economy and has presented a strong campaign based on what he promised three years ago. The top political issue heading into the 2012 election and the Achilles heel of his presidency is to create million of jobs. He has announced a plan to train 10,000 new American engineers every year through a public-private partnership. And through other initiatives such as these he plans to create more jobs.
Smart Phone
Companies like Avago supports the mobile communication sensor business and has a strong order book for their Automobile and Phone Business sector. Both Nokia and RIM has badly affected by the Apple and HTC market share. It is unknown why the RIM stock price dropped 28% in a week ago! Symbian is a sunset mobile platform and Blackberry is also losing ground to iOS and Android. Sooner or later the largest company in the Smart Phone business sector may be over taken by Apple and followed by HTC to be the 2nd largest Smart phone company in the world.
Apple
Assuming Apple iPhone5 will be launched in September, this will prove “Must Have” standard for people to buy and/or replace the older iPhone4. The market will be stimulated, the second phase of higher Chip demand should commence in September.
The expansion plan for semiconductor nest purchase will commence in September to be delivered in an October/November time frame, and we should enjoy a strong demand of semiconductor equipment by September- December Q4 2011.
Summary
The demand for Automobile components will be slow by Q4 11, but this will be balanced by an increased demand for components for non-ipad tablet, IpadII, Smart phone and Iphone . We will see a slight growth of 5% for semiconductor between Q2 and Q3 compared to figures in Q1 Q2. After Q3 we will see some flattening of sales and a down turn of 4-7% by Q4. The next big demand for Chips will result in achieving double-digit substantial growth in Q1 2012, due projected job growth in the US and huge demand from China from the middle class for more mobile communication device, smart phone, electronics consumers products.
The Asian Political situation will remain more or less stable with exception of the situation in the South China Seas. Between China, Brunei, Malaysia, the Philippines, Taiwan and Vietnam, Chinese tensions has risen in the region in the past month with concern that China is becoming more assertive in its claim to territorial waters. It is estimated they are seeking to form a large U-shape area over most of the sea's 648,000 square miles (1.7 million square km), including the Spratly and Paracel archipelagos. Gates of US is supporting the maritime defence capability of the Philippines on 24 June. China Leader Wen Jia Bao told UK media yesterday that he will try to keep China’s inflation below 5% and maintain annual Growth target of 7% or even 8% for this year. If that is the case, this world’s fastest growing and at same time largest market will help to keep Semiconductor Chips and Equipment demand on a healthy growth. We will have to wait and see how this develops!
HK Snob 27 June 2011

The Semiconductor Development from a Single Transistor to 3D-chip.

The first transistor was invented at Bell Laboratories on December 16, 1947 by William Shockley. It replaced Vacuum tubes in the years after gradually, and Radio was marked on the case as Solid State to interpret the durability of Transistor. Shock in a much high order than vacuum tubes, on the other hand it operates in less power and energy than the vacuum tube, and It is pretty SMALL.
In 1959 both TI and Fairchild parties applied for patents of IC. Jack Kilby and Texas Instruments received U.S. patent #3,138,743 for miniaturized electronic circuits. Robert Noyce and the Fairchild Semiconductor Corporation received U.S. patent #2,981,877 for a silicon based integrated circuit. The two companies wisely decided to cross license their technologies after several years of legal battles, creating a global market now worth about $1 trillion a year.
In 1961 the first commercially available IC came from the Fairchild Semiconductor Corporation. All computers then started to be made using chips instead of the individual transistors and their accompanying parts. Texas Instruments first used the chips in Air Force computers and the Minuteman Missile in 1962. The original IC had only one transistor, three resistors and one capacitor and was the size of an adult's pinkie. They used the chips to produce the first electronic portable calculators later.
The first integrated circuits contained only a few transistors. Called "small-scale integration" (SSI), Early linear ICs such as Plessey SL201 or Philips TAA320 had as few as two transistors. The term Large Scale Integration was first used by IBM scientist Rolf Landauer when describing the theoretical concept, from there came the terms for SSI, MSI, VLSI, and ULSI.
SSI circuits were crucial to early aerospace projects, and vice-versa. Both the Minuteman missile and Apollo program needed lightweight digital computers for their inertial guidance systems. The Minuteman missile program and various other Navy programs accounted for the total $4 million integrated circuit market in 1962, and by 1968, U.S. Government space and defense spending still accounted for 37% of the $312 million total production. The demand by the U.S. Government supported the nascent integrated circuit market until costs fell enough to allow firms to penetrate the industrial and eventually the consumer markets. The average price per integrated circuit dropped from $50.00 in 1962 to $2.33 in 1968. Integrated circuits began to appear in consumer products by the turn of the decade, a typical application being FM inter-carrier sound processing in television receivers.
In the late 1960s, introduced devices which contained hundreds of transistors on each chip, called "medium-scale integration" (MSI).
They were attractive economically because while they cost little more to produce than SSI devices.
Later, driven by the same economic factors, led to "large-scale integration" (LSI) in the mid 1970s, with tens of thousands of transistors per chip.
Integrated circuits such as 1K-bit RAMs, calculator chips, and the first microprocessors, that began to be manufactured in moderate quantities in the early 1970s, had under 4,000 transistors. True LSI circuits, approaching 10,000 transistors, began to be produced around 1974, for computer main memories and second-generation microprocessors.
Remember your Texas Instrument Programmable Calculator when you was in the University in the 70’s.
VLSI Very-large-scale integration IC
Upper interconnect layers on an Intel 80486DX2 microprocessor. The final step in the development process, starting in the 1980s and continuing through the present, was "very large-scale integration" (VLSI). The development started with hundreds of thousands of transistors in the early 1980s, and continues beyond several billion transistors as of 2009.

Multiple developments were required to achieve this increased density. Manufacturers moved to smaller rules and cleaner fabrication, through the use of advance semiconductor equipment. They could make chips with more transistors and maintain adequate yield. The path of process improvements was summarized by the International Technology Roadmap for Semiconductors (ITRS). Design tools improved enough to make it practical to finish these designs in a reasonable time. The more energy efficient CMOS replaced NMOS and PMOS, avoiding a prohibitive increase in power consumption.

In 1986 the first one megabit RAM chips were introduced, which contained more than one million transistors. Microprocessor chips passed the million transistor mark in 1989 and the billion transistor mark in 2005. The trend continues largely unabated, with chips introduced in 2007 containing tens of billions of memory transistors.

ULSI, WSI, SOC and 3D-IC
To reflect further growth of the complexity, the term ULSI that stands for "ultra-large-scale integration" was proposed for chips of complexity of more than 1 million transistors.

Wafer-scale integration (WSI) is a system of building very-large integrated circuits that uses an entire silicon wafer to produce few single "super-chip". Through a combination of large size and reduced packaging, WSI could lead to dramatically reduced costs for some systems, notably massively parallel supercomputers. The name is taken from the term Very-Large-Scale Integration, the current state of the art when WSI was being developed.

A system-on-a-chip (SoC or SOC) is an integrated circuit in which all the components needed for a computer or other systems are included on a single chip. The design of such a device can be complex and costly, and building disparate components on a single piece of silicon may compromise the efficiency of some elements. However, these drawbacks are offset by lower manufacturing and assembly costs and by a greatly reduced power budget: because signals among the components are kept on-die, much less power is required.

POP is package on package that is to stack the package on top of another package. The target is to increase the function and minimize the chip size both x and y axis.

On Packaging side, memory Chip is the competitive technology that is to stack up many as 10 chips on top the other on both side of the substrates, whereby, tiny gold wire of diameter 0.008 inch are used to interconnect the chips to the lead of the outer package by using the speed of 20 wires per second provided by the world fastest Gold ball bonder supplied by the major equipment supplier ASM and K & S. and the total package is only 1mm thick. This results that we can have an USB memory stick that can have 32G memory.

While more chips are built on a single chip and is operation in Giga operations in a second, technology is how to do Chip cooling down, the material, the thermal management, and the selection of the substrate matching the chip as not to crack the chip due to temperature rising and mechanical expansion. H how to apply the state of the Art o Cooling system by Air, Fins and Fans, water embedded porous copper material for efficient cooling such as Metaform. When we do Google , the Google server and network will operate and generate certain Kilo of CO2 in the world. As the microprocessor operate and that generate heat, so some one has proposed to install the server in the Polar area.

3D chips are expected to solve a number of problems for chipmakers who are aiming for performance increases in ever-smaller chips. As transistor density rises, the wires connecting them have become both thinner and closer together, resulting in increased resistance and overheating. And that leads to the demand of super accurate Gold ball bonder that connect thousand wires inside the chip here to there. These problems cause signal delays, packaging concern for the chip, limiting the clock speed of central processing units.
A three-dimensional integrated circuit (3D-IC) has two or more layers of active electronic components that are integrated both vertically and horizontally into a single circuit. Communication between layers uses on-die signaling, so power consumption is much lower than in equivalent separate circuits. Judicious use of short vertical wires can substantially reduce overall wire length for faster operation.
Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Co. is vying with Intel to become the first company to sell three-dimensional chips that boost the density of transistors in a single semiconductor by up to 1,000 times.
TSMC, the world's largest contract chipmaker in the world, could make its first 3D chips commercially available before the end of 2011, according to a person close to the situation who requested anonymity. The timeframe for TSMC matches the end-2011 schedule that Intel has set for the launch of its 3D Tri-Gate chips, which the company expects to be the world's first commercial 3D chip and the most significant advance in chip technology since the development of the chip transistor in the 1948.
With several layers of silicon stacked together, a 3D chip can achieve performance gains of about a third while consuming 50 percent less power. For this reason, 3D chips are particularly well suited to power new generations of mobile devices such as tablets and mobile phones, and to offer more operative hours from the battery cell. Businesses where Intel has so far failed to establish a significant presence.
3D chips look more attractive because of their greater density, it is more difficult to make them because of the testing issues. If you have five stacked dies and one of the dies is bad, you have to scrap the whole thing. The Yield is a challenge!
TSMC is developing so-called 2D chips that replace an organic polymer substrate with silicon to boost transistor density. Communications chipmaker Xilinx has contracted TSMC to make its Virtex-7 field programmable gate array (FPGA) using TSMC's 2D chip technology that puts three chip dies on one silicon substrate. Xilinx said on March 8 that it expects the first samples of the Virtex-7 485T FPGA to be available by August.
TSMC has been working closely with chip packagers and providers of design automation software to help commercialize 3D chip technology.
In April 2007, IBM and Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute (RPI) researchers announced the first versions of 3D chips with support from the Defense Advanced Research Project Agency (DARPA). The 3D chips combined several layers of silicon using a technique called wafer bonding.
IBM's technique used a silicon base with active wafers layered on top. This technology allowed a processor to be placed on the bottom of the stack with memory or other components layered across the top, resulting in a thousand-fold reduction in connector length. The greater transistor density reduced the distance data has to travel, reducing processing time.
IBM used through-silicon vias (TSVs) to connect stacks of multiple chip components. TSVs allow for more efficient heat dissipation through the stack to cooling systems that improve power efficiency.