June 2013 - Page 3 of 6 - Semiconductor Engineering

Medical Drives Boom In MEMS
By Ed Sperling - 20 Jun, 2013 - Comments: 0

By Mark LaPedus At a recent event, an executive from a startup called Proteus Digital Health described the medical benefits of swallowing the company’s ingestible sensors or digital pills. First, a consumer would swallow Proteus Digital’s tiny ingestible sensor, along with one’s current medication. With no battery or antenna, the stomach fluid generates the power in the ingestible sen... » read more

Inside A 450mm Metrology Consortium
By Mark LaPedus - 20 Jun, 2013 - Comments: 0

By Mark LaPedus Semiconductor Manufacturing & Design sat down to discuss 450mm metrology challenges with Menachem Shoval, a former manufacturing executive at Intel and chairman of the Metro450 consortium. The Israeli-based consortium is developing metrology technology for the next-generation, 450mm wafer size. The group consists of Intel, Applied Materials, Jordan Valley, Nanomotion, Nov... » read more

Merchant Photomask Makers Remain Relevant
By Jeff Chappell - 20 Jun, 2013 - Comments: 0

By Jeff Chappell For many years the trend in the semiconductor industry with regard to photomasks and chipmakers was to shed captive mask operations in favor of merchant photomask suppliers. This reflected a larger trend all along the supply chain with many companies moving away from vertical integration as, consequently, the foundry model grew. "This was mainly driven by cost consideratio... » read more

Consortium Mania Sweeps 450mm Landscape
By Mark LaPedus - 20 Jun, 2013 - Comments: 0

By Mark LaPedus In the mid-1990s, the semiconductor industry embarked on a costly and problematic migration from 200mm to 300mm wafer fabs. At the time, the 300mm development efforts were in the hands of two groups—Sematech and a Japanese-led entity. The equipment industry was on the outside looking in. And as a result, the migration from 200mm to 300mm fabs was out of sync and a nightma... » read more

The Stakes Are High
By Joanne Itow - 20 Jun, 2013 - Comments: 0

By Joanne Itow Whether you call it a transition or a transformation, evolutionary or revolutionary, the implementation of 450mm wafers is going to be disruptive. There are both technical and operational hurdles associated with semiconductor production on 450mm wafers. The ramp of 450mm is expected to change the semiconductor manufacturing landscape. And what about the changes that may occur ev... » read more

Experts At The Table: Changes In The Ecosystem
By Ed Sperling - 20 Jun, 2013 - Comments: 0

By Ed Sperling Semiconductor Manufacturing & Design sat down with Michael Buehler-Garcia, director of design solutions marketing at Mentor Graphics; Seow Yin Lim, group director for marketing at Cadence; Kevin Kranen, director of strategic alliances at Synopsys, and Tom Quan, director at TSMC. What follows are excerpts of that conversation. SMD: What’s changing in the ecosystem and ho... » read more

Overcoming Shallow Trench Isolation
By Kathryn Ta - 20 Jun, 2013 - Comments: 0

By Kathryn Ta To prevent electrical current leaking between adjacent transistors, state-of-the-art microchips feature shallow trench isolation (STI) to isolate transistors from each other. Key steps in the STI process involve etching a pattern of trenches in the silicon, depositing dielectric materials to fill the trenches, and removing the excess dielectric using technologies such as chemical... » read more

3D-IC Testing With The Mentor Graphics Tessent Platform
By Various Writers - 20 Jun, 2013 - Comments: 0

Three-dimensional stacked integrated circuits (3D-ICs) are composed of multiple stacked die, and are viewed as critical in helping the semiconductor industry keep pace with Moore's Law. Current integration and interconnect methods include wirebond and flip-chip and have been in production for some time. 3D chips connected via interposers are in production at Xilinx, Samsung, IBM, and Sematec... » read more

Extending Copper Interconnect Beyond The 14nm Node
By Various Writers - 20 Jun, 2013 - Comments: 0

Fabricating interconnects is one of the most process-intensive and cost-sensitive parts of manufacturing. To find out more about what's changing in this area and why it's so important, click here. » read more

Marching Orders
By Ed Sperling - 20 Jun, 2013 - Comments: 0

Reports back from the front lines of Moore’s Law are rather consistent—14nm and 16nm finFETs are do-able, but they’re not easy to design, verify or manufacture. In fact, the only high-volume source of production-proven finFETs at this point is Intel, which is turning them out at 22nm. A number of issues are cropping up at the most advanced nodes, and while each is ultimately solvable, ... » read more

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