This page is meant to be a place for our sales teams to learn more about the semiconductor industry. A huge thank you to Mark Zwald for compiling much of this information!
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What is a semiconductor?
A semiconductor is a type of material that enables a transistor to be made. A transistor is a very small, low power electrical switch which can be used to construct semiconductor devices.
To explain further...
Computers work with 0s and 1s. So why do we use semiconductors? Because they sometimes conduct electricity and sometimes not. So the output of a semiconductor is sometimes "electricity" and sometimes "no electricity". In other words, zero or one. These materials allow us to construct a "digital world", a world that is made of 0's and 1's.
What types of products have semiconductors?
Semiconductors are used in the manufacturing of various kinds of electronic devices, including:
- Computers
- Cell Phones
- Digital Cameras
- Appliances
- Televisions
- Cars
- Bank ATM’s
- Anything that is computerized or uses radio waves most likely has a semiconductor
Where are the semiconductor companies around the world?
According to the April 2020 D&B report, here is the breakdown of semiconductor companies globally.
What are some of the common terms or acronyms used in the semiconductor industry?
- Clean Room: An area in a semiconductor fab where the environment is controlled to manage vibration, temperature, and the elimination of all dust.
- CPU (Central Processing Unit): A semiconductor device which performs instructions on data. The sequence of instructions make up the programs running on that CPU. CPU’s are designed with specific instruction sets (ex. x86, ARM, etc…)
- Contract Manufacturer: A company which takes a variety of components, including semiconductor devices, and assembles them into the final device to be sold to customers.
- Fab: A factory which manufacturers semiconductor wafers through a complex series of processing steps. Often takes 2-4 months to fabricate a wafer depending on the complexity of the device and how many layers are required to wire the transistors.
- Fabless Company: A company which designs semiconductor devices but relies on foundries to manufacture them. These companies have no Fabs and as a result employ very few, if any, process engineers.
- Foundry: A company which specializes in manufacturing semiconductor devices after receiving the design from another company. These companies typically do not design any devices, but they do develop fabrication processes.
- GPU (Graphics Processing Unit): A semiconductor device with specialized instructions to process graphics data very quickly. Now being used in other applications such as cryptocurrency mining and neural networks which take advantage of parallel processing power of GPUs.
- Integrated Device Manufacturer (IDM): A company which performs all aspects of semiconductor device design, manufacturing, assembly and test. These types of companies will have the most need for JMP.
- Module: A completed semiconductor device where the functional die from a wafer is packaged onto a substrate which can then be used in a system board application.
- Offshore Assembly and Test Company (OSAT): A company which receives semiconductor wafers and packages the functional die into completed modules which can then be used on a system motherboard.
- Pure-Play: A semiconductor foundry that does not producte its own semiconductor designs, and only fabricates the semiconductor design of other companies.
- Prime Grade: The highest grade of silicon wafer
- SOC (System-on-a-Chip): Semiconductor device which integrates multiple types of devices onto the same silicon chip. (Ex. integrating a CPU, GPU, Memory Device, and Front Side Bus all together)
- Semiconductor: A type of material (usually silicon) whose electrical resistance can be controlled by voltage. A semiconductor is the key material needed to fabricate a transistor which is the basic building block of all semiconductor devices.
- Test Grade: A virgin silicon wafer of lower quality than Prime, and used primarily for testing processes.
- Transistor: The basic element of a semiconductor device which transmits current/voltage when switched ON and blocks current/voltage when switched OFF. These ON and OFF states create the bits (0’s and 1’s) in a semiconductor device.
- Wafer: A crystalline piece of silicon sliced into circular discs which are used to fabricate the transistors in a semiconductor device through a series of processing steps. The terminals of the transistors are connected with multiple layers of metal wiring.
How are semiconductors made?
What are the different sectors in the semiconductor industry?
The basic overarching challenge of semiconductor manufacturing is to put billions and billions of these transistors in an area smaller than your fingernail to produce the electronics we use every day - AND doing it at a high enough "yield" (ex: not messing up too much) that you have a profitable operation.However, different sectors have different types of functions, problems and needs.
- Integrated Device Manufacturers (IDMs) or Foundries:
- Semiconductor Equipment and Materials Company:
- Off Shore Assembly and Test (OSATs):
- Fabless Companies:
- Contract Manufacturers:
Once you figure out which sector you are talking to, use the below information to understand how to have a more effective conversation.
Semiconductor Equipment Companies, IDM's and Foundries (common roles, pain points, talking points, etc):
|
Semiconductor Equipment Companies, IDM's and Foundries
|
| What they do |
Semiconductor Equipment Companies:
IDM's and Foundries:
|
| Example Accounts |
- Applied Materials (Equip)
- LAM Research (Equip)
- Intel (IDM)
- Micron (IDM)
- Texas Instruments (IDM)
- TSMC (Foundry)
- GlobalFoundries (Foundry)
- NAICS Codes: 334412
|
Common Titles/Roles
(* = most common) |
- Process Engineers*
- Defect Engineers
- Design Engineers (IDMs)
- Test Engineers (IDMs)
- Product Engineers* (IDMs)
- Reliability Engineers* (IDMs)
- Quality Engineers* (IDMs)
|
|
Typical Pain Points
|
- Reporting on lots of process data (equip and foundry) and process/test data (IDMs)
- Correlating fab data to test data (linking disparate datasets together)
- Identifying process/test excursions quickly and identifying root cause
- Developing new fab processes
|
| How JMP Fits |
- DOE necessary for process engineers
- EDA necessary for product engineers
- Reliability/survival tools for reliability engineers
- Quality/process tools for quality/process engineers
- JMP Live for automated reporting
|
| What to Listen For |
- Do they have a fab?
- Do they have process engineers?
- Are they analyzing large volumes of semiconductor wafer, module or system test data?
- Do they need a reporting solution?
|
| What to Ask/Say |
- Are you fabricating wafers?
- Are you developing processes?
- Do you have an automated reporting solution in place already? (ex. Exensio, Optimal+, Tableau)
|
| Major Competitors |
|
Fabless Companies (common roles, pain points, talking points, etc):
|
Fabless Companies
|
| What they do |
Design and create test programs to make sure the chip and product is functional within specifications. (Not often thought of as semiconductor companies)
|
| Example Accounts |
|
Common Titles/Roles
(* = most common) |
- Product Engineers*
- Design Engineers
- Test Engineers
- Reliability Engineers*
- Quality Engineers*
|
|
Typical Pain Points
|
- Reporting on lots of test data from wafer/module/system test
- Correlating fab process data to test data (linking disparate datasets together)
- Identifying test excursions quickly and identifying root cause
- Correlating design simulation data to silicon characterization data
|
| How JMP Fits |
- JMP’s flexibility is key to performing the ad hoc analysis necessary for characterization data analysis
- JMP Live for automated reporting
- Product/Design Engineers can use DOE for creating characterization plans
- Predicting module/system level performance from wafer data (JMP Pro)
|
| What to Listen For |
- Are they developing electronics or designing circuits?
- Do they have product engineers?
- Are they analyzing large volumes of semiconductor wafer, module or system test data?
- Do they need a reporting solution?
|
| What to Ask/Say |
- Are you fabricating wafers?
- Do you need a flexible analysis tool to handle large amounts of charz data?
- Are you correlating design simulation data to silicon characterization data?
- Do you want to predict module test results from wafer data?
- Do you have an automated reporting solution in place already? (ex. Exensio, Optimal+, Tableau)
|
| Major Competitors |
|
Who are our main competitors in the semiconductor industry?
Semi Equipment Companies
IDM and Foundry
Fabless Companies
OSATs
Contract Manufacturers
- Optimal+
- Minitab
- Test Control Suite
- Excel
- Solutions often provided by their customers (ex. Apple, Microsoft, Amazon, Google, etc…)
How can I find semiconductor companies in my territory?
There are several different ways you can do some research to find semiconductor companies in your territory:
- Search Discover.org (With advanced search, add companies and location filters by industry in your territory using NAICS codes: 334412, 334413, 334416, 334417, 334418, 334419)
- Search Hoovers (use NAICS codes: 334412, 334413, 334416, 334417, 334418, 334419)
- Use Linkedin Sales Navigator (filter on your geography and Industry = "semiconductor". Use the keywords listed below to help narrow your search)
- List of campaigns report - TINA D
What are some of our resources for the semiconductor industry?
Resources to Share:
Internal Sales Resources:
Semiconductor Journals:
Semiconductor Associations:
Semiconductor Trade Shows:
