2015 will go down in history as the year 3D finally got real. It’s not an emerging technology anymore, and as such isn’t a main feature at the 2015 SEMICON West, which gets underway next week, July 13-16, 2015 at the Moscone Center in San Francisco. Rather, this year 3D topics are integrated throughout the program. With a little digging, I pulled together this year’s guide. Here’s where you’ll find me spending my time in between briefings:
Monday July 13, 2015 – imec ITF USA, Noon-6pm
This year, imec’s ITF theme is For the Builders of Tomorrow: Materials and Device Innovation for Smarter Livings. Topics span the spectrum from the Internet of Things (IoT), Silicon Photonics, to disruptive materials and lithography. Presenting imec’s update on 3D integration will be Eric Beyne, who will present 3D Technology Driven by 3D Application Requirements: a 3D Landscape. Beyne will discuss the relationship between 3D technologies and the system-level interconnect hierarchy.
Tuesday, July 14, 2015
On Tuesday morning, after the SEMI Press Conference, I plan to hit the Semiconductor Technology Symposium (STS) session (10:00-12:30), Packaging, the Very Big Picture, to hear Bill Bottoms update us on the ITRS 2.0. I’m also looking forward to the latest from AMD’s Bryan Black on the company’s recently launched Fiji XT, the GPU with High Bandwidth Memory (HBM) stacks. The panel session, Value vs. Cost, moderated by Sesh Ramaswami, Applied Materials, and featuring panelists from AMD, 3MTS, Comcast, and Oracle also promises to be thought provoking from a 3D perspective.
Tuesday afternoon, somebody save me a seat at the TechXpot North session (1:30pm – 3:40pm), Emerging Generation Memory Technology: Update on 3DNAND, MRAM and RRAM, featuring speakers from Micron, Tezzaron, Crossbar and Everspin, as well as Analyst Jim Handy, who will discuss the cost aspect of tomorrow’s memories.
If you are unable to attend LetiDay, Going Vertical, from 5-8pm, (which is the most 3D you’ll get in three hours) because it’s invitation only, I will be briefing some of the key speakers and will cover the key takeaways in a post-SEMICON West blog post.
Wednesday, July 15, 2015
My Wednesday will start with the Keynote by Doug Davis, Intel, who will talk about the IoT and the next 50 years of Moore’s law, and the rest of the day I will be in briefings.
Thursday, July 16, 2015
I hope many of you will join us at the 3rd Annual 3D InCites Awards Breakfast, from 8-10am, to participate in the presentation of this year’s awards, as well as the first ever 3D InCites Individual Achievement Award. The recipient of this award was nominated and selected by our 3D InCites Award judges, to be recognized as an individual who has been instrumental in the commercialization of 3D integration technologies. The guest speaker of this year’s breakfast is Scott Jones, Alix Partners, who will talk about how 2.5/3D Technologies Will Shake Up the Semiconductor Supply Chain and Cost Structure. Space is limited, so please book your spot today.
Lastly, I plan to catch GlobalFoundries’ Ramakanth Alapati, who will be presenting, 3D IC Technology Past, Present an Future, on Thursday morning from 11:30-11:55, as part of STS, Path to Future Interconnects session. This talk examines 3D IC technology of the past, present and future using cost/performance as a metric.
I’m pretty sure this line-up will give me plenty to write about in the weeks after SEMICON West. See you at the show! ~ F.v.T.
