For decades, the transistor has been the building block of electronic devices, from computers to smartphones. It has seen little change, but a team of researchers at IBM has given the transistor a major makeover, and it may enable the company to build computers that function more like the way the human brain works.

If it pans out, IBM could use the technology to build chips that are highly efficient and use much less electrical power. That could lead to a revolution in mobile devices, which today are bound by short battery lives and electrical inefficiency. The whole process is not unlike the charged electrical fluids sloshing around in our brains. If the brain can do it, an artificially crafted material might be able to do it too.

The new technology is based on materials called “correlated electron oxides,” which can be combined with an ionic liquid, or a mixture where half of the molecules carry a positive charge and half are negative. When you apply a tiny ionic voltage to the liquid, the charged particles move to opposite sides of the surface of the oxide material. The charge leaves the oxide and goes into the liquid, changing its conductive state from an insulator to a metal, or from something that does not conduct electricity to something that does.

And it maintains its electrical state until another charge is applied. That part of the research is new and is particularly encouraging. IBM believes it can create non-volatile memory, or chips that save data whether electricity is on or off. It can also make logic chips that would use less power than today’s silicon-based semiconductor chips, which are the brains of everything electronic.

Big Blue is disclosing the breakthrough in the journal Science today. Stuart Parkin, an IBM fellow and lead researcher on the project at IBM, said in an interview with VentureBeat that the small team of researchers had been working for a couple of years.

“We are using tiny currents of ions of atoms generated by these electrical signals to change the state of matter of this oxide material,” he said. “It is a means to build low-energy, highly efficient devices by turning on and off their conducting state. We turn this material into a metal and maintain it without any need to supply power.”

That latter part is remarkable, as silicon chips require constant voltages to function.

Chips that use electricity have been evolving for decades, with progress marked by Moore’s Law, named after Intel chairman emeritus Gordon Moore, who predicted in 1965 that the number of components on a chip would double every year or so. That prediction has been very accurate, but experts worry that progress will slow as semiconductor technology runs into fundamental limits. IBM is working on new solutions, including traditional semiconductor chips that process data like the human brain does.

Parkin said that by applying a charged ionic liquid electrolyte to a substance, the team has been able to create a stable insulating and conducting state of an oxide material. This discovery has opened a way for making oxide-based transistors and logic gates.

“This is an alternative to a slowdown in Moore’s Law,” Parkin said. “Our inspiration is the brain and how it operates. It is full of liquids and ionic currents. We could build more brain-like devices.”

The picture at right shows a drawing of a nanofluidic circuit, which operates by passing the green ionic fluid through conduits fabricated on top of the orange planar oxide surface. When a voltage is applied to the liquid (the blue part), the yellow balls from the oxide surface in the liquid are metallized. When no voltage is applied, there is no ionic motion and the oxide surface is an insulator, which does not conduct electrons. Circuits can be dynamically formed on the surface of the oxide.

July 9-10, 2013
San Francisco, CA

Tickets On Sale Now

Worldwide semiconductor chip sales fell 2.7 percent to $291.6 billion in 2012, down from the record sales of $299.5 billion in 2011, according to the Semiconductor Industry Association.

The industry trade association was upbeat about the number since it beat forecasts and could have been worse in the face of substantial macroeconomic weakness. The group says that near-term economic and policy uncertainty poses risks for the near-term market outlook. The numbers are a bellwether for the tech economy, since chips are the foundation of electronic devices.

As a region, the Americas showed strength, with sales increasing 13.4 percent in December compared to a year ago, and sales in the Americas were up 12 percent compared to the previous quarter. But for all of 2012, the Americas were down slightly. U.S. sales are more than $150 billion, and the U.S. employs about 250,000 people in the chip industry.

The 2012 sales were the third-highest ever, but fell shy of the long-term goal of hitting $300 billion in sales. Global sales in December were $24.7 billion, down 3 percent from the previous month. Fourth-quarter sales were $74.2 billion, up 3.8 percent from $71.5 billion a year earlier. All monthly sales numbers represent a three-month moving average (a technique to smooth anomalies).

“Despite substantial macroeconomic challenges, the global semiconductor industry outperformed forecasts and posted one of its highest yearly sales totals in 2012,” said Brian Toohey, president and chief executive of the Semiconductor Industry Association. “Recent momentum, led by strength in the Americas, has the industry well-positioned for a successful 2013.”

Some segments were strong. Logic, the largest category, was $81.7 billion in 2012, up 3.7 percent from the previous year. MOS microprocessors (such as the kind that Intel makes for the brains of a computer) were $60.2 billion, down from a year ago. Memory chip sales were $57 billion, also down from a year ago.

Optoelectronics was the fastest growing market on a yearly basis, increasing 13.4 percent in 2012 to reach $26.2 billion for the year. Those include mobile device applications and LED lighting chips that improve the energy efficiency of lighting. s. NAND flash memory chips — used in mobile devices, USB flash drives, memory cards and related products for the storage and transfer of data — grew at the second-fastest rate of 4.1 percent to reach $25.4 billion in 2012.

Sales in Asia-Pacific increased in December by 6.7 percent compared to a year ago, but Europe fell 5.5 percent and Japan decreased 11.2 percent. Total yearly sales in all four regions were lower in 2012 compared to 2011.

“Despite lingering economic and policy uncertainty, the U.S. semiconductor market continues to show signs of strength, posting impressive growth in December,” said Toohey. “As the foundation of all modern electronics, semiconductors are critical to America’s economic strength, national security and global competitiveness. By enacting measures that foster growth and remove uncertainty, policymakers can further strengthen the industry and help unlock its full potential in 2013 and beyond.”

Semiconductor industry executives are planning for a broad industry recovery in 2013, particularly in the second half of the year, according to a survey by audit, tax and advisory firm KPMG.

The $300 billion chip industry is the foundation for the $1 trillion-plus electronics industry. Semiconductor industry fortunes are a bellwether for the overall tech economy. The optimistic outlook is a contrast to a year ago, when chip industry executives surveyed by KPMG anticipated slower growth and showed less confidence. Three-quarters of 152 industry executives surveyed said that revenue growth will increase in the next year, compared to 63 percent a year ago.

About two-thirds expects their workforce to expand, up from just 48 percent a year ago. And 71 percent say annual industry profits will expand next year.

“Our survey findings bolster the belief that we will see the rebound beginning in 2013, with a gradual recovery picking up steam in the back half of next year,” says Gary Matuszak, global chair of KPMG’s Technology, Media and Telecommunications practice. “And unlike past recoveries, this one won’t be driven by wireless handsets and wireless communications alone, as other applications are becoming increasingly important revenue drivers, such as power management given the proliferation of wireless devices.”

The broadening set of significant semiconductor applications could be responsible for the shift in the importance of geographic markets, placing the U.S. ahead of China. For the third year in a row, fewer industry executives believe China will be the most important market for their company’s semiconductor revenue growth three years from today, while the U.S. market’s importance has increased. The U.S. and China markets are followed in importance by Europe, Korea, and Taiwan.

“The decline in Korea and Taiwan may be explained by their high exposure to the Japanese and China economies which are both in poorer condition than 2011,” said Matuszak.

Compared to a year ago, significantly fewer executives placed China among the top three markets for employee growth during the next 12 months, while more placed the U.S. and Europe among the top. Consumer applications of semiconductor chips have supplanted wireless as the big drivers for revenue over the next year. In addition, more executives than in the prior three surveys ranked industrial, medical, automotive applications, and power management as important revenue drivers.

“Semiconductors have become an enabling technology in many areas beyond traditional wireless and computing applications, such as mobile commerce and new features in automobiles,” says Ron Steger, global chair of KPMG’s Semiconductor practice. He adds that “we were not surprised at the increasing emphasis on power management, as the proliferation of wireless devices is making this the most important performance feature today.”

In the survey, 53 percent of the executives said renewal energy, such as battery technologies, will be an important driver of revenue over the next three years, up from 36 percent a year ago. More than three-quarters expect to expand research and development next year. Hot categories include near-field communications and radio-frequency identification chips.

KPMG conducted the survey in September. Half of the companies represented in the survey have annual revenue of $1 billion or more.

[Photo credit: KPMG]

Santa Clara, Calif.-based Applied Materials beat earnings targets for its fiscal third quarter, but chief executive Mike Splinter said in a conference call today with analysts that the outlook is weak.

“Consumer electronics and PCs are at the heart of what’s causing the supply demand imbalance here,” said Splinter said in the call.

He said chip makers are cutting back on orders for equipment because they are worried about the uncertainty in the global economy. Customers are reassessing their investments and pushing out orders, he said.

Applied Materials is a huge company with $9.5 billion in sales last year and 13,000 employees. It is a big player, not only in semiconductor manufacturing equipment, but also in display manufacturing equipment and solar equipment. The latter industry is suffering from a state of overcapacity, Splinter said.

The back-to-school season has been disappointing so far and that has led to weak PC sales. That has prompted makers of dynamic random access memory chips to scale back on capacity expansions scheduled for the second half of the year, Splinter said. Consumer electronics sales have also been weak. TV makers are scaling back orders for displays. Smartphone sales are strong but tablets are in line with expectations of hitting 65 million units this year. Still, these devices can’t offset the decline in the bigger markets.

Foundries, or contract chip manufacturers such as Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Co. (not specifically pointed out by Splinter), are cutting back orders as the capacity utilization of their factories are falling. (That is, their factories are operating at 80 percent full or something like that).

Revenues for the whole industry are now expected to be about $1 billion less, at about $29 billion to $32 billion. Splinter said he sees about two quarters of softness in the sales of wafer fab equipment (or equipment used to make chip wafers). Applied is accordingly scaling back its hiring.

At some point in the future, smartphone and tablet demand will grow large enough to offset falling demand for PCs, but each PC uses a lot more memory than a current smartphone or tablet.

Applied shares are at $11.36 a share, down 8 cents, in after-hours trading. For the third fiscal quarter, Applied’s profits were good due to a strong TV display business. Excluding one-time items, earnings per share were 35 cents, up from 17 cents a year ago. Revenues were up 11 percent to $2.79 billion. Applied had expected 31 cents to 37 cents, with revenue of $2.57 billion to $2.77 billion.

The company forecast a fourth fiscal quarter profit of 16 cents to 24 cents, with revenue falling 15 percent to 30 percent sequentially to $1.95 billion to $2.37 billion. Analysts had expected 30 cents in earnings per share and $2.57 billion in revenues.