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ELECTRONIC DEVICE FAILURE ANALYSIS | VOLUME 19 NO. 2
2
PURPOSE: To provide a technical condensation of
information of interest to electronic device failure
analysis technicians, engineers, and managers.
Felix Beaudoin
Editor/GLOBALFOUNDRIES; felix.beaudoin@
globalfoundries.com
Scott D. Henry
Publisher
Mary Anne Fleming
Manager, Technical Journals
Kelly Sukol
Production Supervisor
Liz Marquard
Managing Editor
ASSOCIATE EDITORS
Nicholas Antoniou
Revera, Inc.
Michael R. Bruce
Consultant
David L. Burgess
Accelerated Analysis
Jiann Min Chin
Advanced Micro Devices Singapore
Edward I. Cole, Jr.
Sandia National Labs
James J. Demarest
IBM
Szu Huat Goh
GLOBALFOUNDRIES Singapore
Ted Kolasa
Orbital ATK
Andreas Meyer
GLOBALFOUNDRIES
Philippe H.G. Perdu
CNES France
Rose M. Ring
Qorvo, Inc.
Paiboon Tangyunyong
Sandia National Labs
David P. Vallett
PeakSource Analytical, LLC
E. Jan Vardaman
TechSearch International, Inc.
Martin Versen
University of Applied Sciences Rosenheim, Germany
Lawrence C. Wagner
LWSN Consulting Inc.
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Mergers and acquisitions (M&A) have been a sig-
nificant part of the semiconductor industry for
as long as I can remember, but they have grown in significance in
the last few years, with the business community expecting more in the near
future. M&A activity in the failure analysis (FA) segment of the semiconduc-
tor business has been a more recent development. Several years ago, the
consolidation of FA contract laboratories was in full force. The economies of
scale and the flexibility of being able to use multiple sites to improve cycle
times, plus the ability to provide a wider range of services, were irresistible
motivations to combine contract FA labs into a more national organization.
M&A activity among the tool providers seems tobe exploding recently. The
FEI acquisition of DCG merged two of the most significant manufacturers of
FA tools into the biggest supplier to the FA community on a dollar basis. This
was quickly followed by the acquisition of FEI by Thermo Fisher Scientific.
All of this was amajor event for the FA community. What are the implications
of this business activity for tool users? Obviously, there can be short-term
disruptions as the changes ripple through the FA community, but what are
the long-term implications?
What are some of the benefits to the FA community? For users, the service
base will ultimately become more local and more available. With cross-
training on multiple tools, larger vendors eventually make service available
more quickly on a worldwide basis. This has always been a major concern
for smaller suppliers—where is service coming from? A larger service base
will reduce the need to send in service from other areas of the world, thus
reducing response times. Ultimately, this can also reduce travel costs for the
manufacturer and impact service contract costs.
From an initial cost perspective, the larger company should be able to
negotiate better prices on their components, with the expectation of passing
along some of this benefit to their customers. Costs may be further reduced
by the reuse of software across several applications. The larger companies are
also more likely to have better manufacturing discipline. I have seen several
small company manufacturing sites with less-than-ideal electrostatic dis-
charge mitigation protocols. On the negative side, mergers result in a loss of
jobs, impacting employeeswithwhomthe FA community is very comfortable.
Ultimately, does this provide the FA communitywithbetter tools?Does this
kill the entrepreneurial spirit of the next potential tool developer? Inmuch of
technology, entrepreneurs often plan on being taken over by themajor com-
panies in order to go on to develop the next great thing. Entrepreneurs often
lack the skills to optimally productize their ideas. There have been several
examples of great FA tool ideas that failed due to a lack of business execution.
MAY 2017 | VOLUME 19 | ISSUE 2
A RESOURCE FOR TECHNICAL INFORMATION AND INDUSTRY DEVELOPMENTS
ELECTRONIC DEVICE
FAILURE ANALYSIS
(continued on page 9)
GUEST EDITORIAL
M&A IN FAILURE ANALYSIS
Larry Wagner, LWSN Consulting Inc.