Roc Blumenthal
Senior Director, Applications Marketing, SMIC

Biography

Roc Blumenthal has over 30 years of experience driving complex engineering technology development, technology transfer, and technical marketing activities in executive and senior technology positions. He joined SMIC in 2016 as a Senior Director of Marketing to help develop and implement a vertical marketing strategy for the company and is currently responsible for Sensor/Actuator Marketing. Roc has been living in China since 2012 working at his co-owned engineering service and MEMS IP licensing business.

Prior to coming to China, he held Director/Senior Director positions in technology development at Motorola, Cypress, and ON Semiconductor, working with logic, memory, and power technology products. Roc started his career at TI in Dallas developing fab backend metallization processes and integration, and has a MS/BS in Materials Science and Engineering from Stanford. He holds 6 patents and is a Senior Member of the IEEE. He has written/presented more than 30 technical papers (both invited and submitted), and edited two conference proceedings. He has chaired both the Northern California and Texas Chapters of American Vacuum Society and has been active participant of MEMS and Sensors Industrial Group.

Abstract

In order to support the aggressive implementation of sensors required to support the forecasted growth for IOT application over the next five years, it is critical that new MEMS sensor products be introduced into the market quickly and cost effectively. Creating new MEMS sensors require an integrated activity across the supply chain due to the fact that design enablement remains weak for most devices, and the packaging itself is part of the sensor functionality. Also, the value for sensor products is migrating upwards in the value chain forcing sensor companies to not only provide silicon sensors but some level of subsystem integration including additional hardware and software.

The fragmentation of the semiconductor supply chain away from individual device manufactures to the fabless world has led to many huge advantages which has driven CMOS technology forward. It also has created the need for all companies to set up individual and unique product logistics and infrastructure at the onset of product development to support the development and manufacturing activities, adding time and potential interface issues. In addition, the need to move up the value chain requires companies to develop a broad range of capabilities beyond their ability and focus to produce the devices.

All of this adds up to additional time and resources required for new product introduction which will impact the ability of IOT products to enter the marketplace. This presentation will discuss this landscape and describe a “prime contractor” approach as a value addition and to enable faster time to market.