Power protection is paramount in the semiconductor industry. Loss of power can be damaging for many facilities, products and processes. The semiconductor industry is very important as semiconductors serve the core building materials for important electronic products.
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In this interview, Gary Aw, Business Development Manager for Semiconductor Industry, from ABB Power Conditioning talks to AZoM about their power protection solutions that prevent power outages.
Smartphones, PCs, servers, and the Internet of Things (IoT) have been driving the demand for semiconductor chips for the past few years. This trend has driven the demand for more chips, particularly memory chips, which in turn has spurred memory players to invest quickly in new chip fabrication plants.
Companies in China have also increased their investment in chip fabrication and back-end packaging plants, in line with China’s “Made in China ” plan. These newly-built leading-edge technology plants cannot afford to lose time, money, and market share from production losses due to power quality events such as voltage sags and power outages. Hence why power protection is required to ensure that these investments are protected.
Various products are produced by the semiconductor industry that we use in our daily life, including memory, processors, sensors, power devices, optoelectronics, and displays. Facilities can be split broadly into three categories: silicon wafer plants that produce bare wafers, fabrication plants (FABs) which produce the chips, and packaging plants which package and test the chips.
Processes in a silicon plant include growing ingots, wire saws, slicing wafers, and polishing. Typical processes in a fabrication plant include lithography, etching, deposition, and chemical and mechanical polishing. In packaging plants, typical processes include dicing, bumping, molding, testing, and binning.
The cost of lost production, quality, downtime, and eventually lost profit and market share can be at a massive scale for semiconductor FABs that are not sufficiently protected. Every day semiconductor facilities face a potential risk from voltage events. Often we do not read about them in the news, except when a major event occurs.
With over 20 years history in power protection equipment, ABB offers a wide coverage with low voltage and medium voltage power protection systems to protect the semiconductor industry against voltage sags and interruptions. This equipment is designed for various voltage inputs, power ranges, and autonomy protection time and can be fitted for outdoor and indoor conditions.
To cover a range of semiconductor customer needs, ABB offers three products that can be installed to protect these critical facilities against voltage sags and power interruptions.
ABB’s power protection solutions have been installed in many of the industry's leading semiconductor facilities around the globe, however in many cases due to the sensitivity of projects, we cannot reference company specifics. As an example, we recently received an order from a semiconductor test and assembly packing plant that builds discrete, logic, and MOSFET devices and will be using our PCS100 AVC-40 to protect their test equipment line, which has been facing productivity disruptions from voltage sags.
Each semiconductor customer has different needs for their plant protection, so one solution does not fit all. However, the PCS100 AVC-40 does offer the best solution with respect to optimal footprint and cost to our end customers who suffer primarily from voltage sags.
ABB’s power conditioning team engages continuously with our customers and develops solutions to meet their specifications and needs. We also have an exciting pipeline coming through with our next generation products, which will be launched in the near future.
You can find more information about the PCS100 product range, case studies and videos at our ABB website here.
https://global.abb/group/en
https://new.abb.com/ups/ups-and-power-conditioning/industries/semiconductor-solutions
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Gary studied a Bachelor of electrical engineering at the National University of Singapore majoring in power electronics. Gary obtained his Masters of Business Administration in Mannheim Business School in .
Gary has worked as Product Manager and Business Development Manager in the semiconductor and electronics field for the over 15 years at several companies including Infineon, Broadcom, GlobalFoundries and Dow Corning. Gary is currently ABB’s power conditioning Business Development Manager for Semiconductor Industry.
Numerous opportunities in semiconductors with excellent potential in China
The semiconductor manufacturing industry is one of the top 10 global focus industries. Research shows that the overall regulatory goals and policy supports set by the Chinese government are expected to result in huge growth in Chinese semiconductor manufacturing capacity, especially in foundries, packaging, and testing during the 13th Five-Year Plan. Since , at least five 12-inch fabs have begun construction in China. China is soon to become the world's largest base of 12-inch fabs.
Large semiconductor fabs require high quality and reliable power sources for their R&D department, IT, automated equipment, motor loading, and other factory facilities. They have higher requirements for power grid stability. For example, regarding automated equipment on the semiconductor production line, events such as a voltage flicker, a voltage drop, transient interrupted power supply, or loss of power are not tolerated. Even a slight drop in power supply quality may have an impact on production with severe repercussions and large financial losses. According to reliable calculations, any occurrence of equipment downtime at a wafer fab that causes suspended operations can result in losses as high as USD 2 million.
These factors are why semiconductor fabs generally use highly reliable and larger capacity UPS systems. An investment for a single semiconductor fab can also be in the tens of billions of dollars, of which 80% is for the procurement of equipment. The equipment demands are large in volume, highly technical, and with high added value. This is why UPS sales to the semiconductor industry are highly competitive among major UPS companies, with new Chinese semiconductor fabs as the most important battlegrounds.
Delta's innovative new products provide the ultimate reliable solution
Despite the large demand for UPSs in the semiconductor industry, performance does not necessarily have to be sacrificed for a better price-performance ratio. Due to potentially enormous losses caused by equipment downtime, the semiconductor industry requires a larger number of UPS units and higher power consumption compared to other industries. The semiconductor industry has a clearer definition of UPS product requirements: high reliability, high power-efficiency, high flexibility, and smart management.
Dr. Charles Tsai, MCIS General Manager at Delta, indicated that due to the strict requirements of the semiconductor industry, Delta's R&D and manufacturing of UPS products contributed to its absolute advantage. On top of the company's outstanding product performance and best-in-the-industry technology standards, Delta has world-leading R&D design skills that have developed a new product, the UltrOn DPM, which is customized for the semiconductor industry based on unique customer requirements and industry applications. The UltrOn DPM series is the only curve-tracing, high-frequency, high-power UPS in the industry, and it has a significant advantage over all its competitors.
For this investment project, the largest in the history of the global semiconductor industry, Delta's UPS R&D team engaged with semiconductor enterprise users early on to fully understand the specific requirements of the industry, as well as users' desired targets for improvement. The UltrOn DPM is an innovative product series designed for semiconductor R&D and manufacturing. Its "curve-tracing function" makes it one-of-a-kind in the industry with key parameters and curve tracer support for high-level incident analysis and diagnosis, which fully satisfy the special specifications defined by the semiconductor industry. At the same time, the UPS series is designed with highly reliable key component redundancy, a key component warning function, with an eco-mode that reaches as high as 99% efficiency. It is currently the most power-efficient product in the industry that saves on large power bills over long-term customer use. The mode is also a unique design that takes both efficiency and reliability into consideration. It can keep an inverter in operation, run SCR and a connector in parallel, and ensure an uninterrupted supply of power to the load. These significant industry-leading technologies helped Delta use its absolute advantages to win the largest investment project in the semiconductor industry.
Developing semiconductor industrial park infrastructure to create greater business opportunities
In addition to winning the huge UPS procurement project, Delta is looking farther into the future than its peers regarding the wave of new semiconductor fab construction. Semiconductor fabs over 13.333 hectares mostly exist in industrial parks. These could be called small communities which have a packaging and testing facility, a scientific research and design center, an IC foundry, and large living quarters surrounding it. Potential business opportunities also lie within the infrastructure solutions.
Donald Yo, Managing Director of Delta - DGC, has high hopes for Delta's future in the semiconductor industry. He said "The Chinese government is ambitiously creating a local semiconductor industry. With the influence of the recent China and US IC incident, it won't be long before China becomes the world’s largest semiconductor foundry base. This means that there will be even greater business opportunities for Delta in the future. UPS products are only the starting point we will be using to integrate other Delta solutions, such as electric vehicle charging stations and smart buildings. We will be fighting for a bigger share of the semiconductor industrial park investments that are worth tens of billions of dollars."
▲ Delta researched the unique features of industry applications to create the innovative UltrOn DMP high power UPS series, customized for semiconductor foundries.
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