February 2014 - Page 3 of 9 - Semiconductor Engineering

Power/Performance Bits: Feb. 25
By Ann Mutschler - 25 Feb, 2014 - Comments: 0

SiGe chip sets speed record Researchers from IHP-Innovations for High Performance Microelectronics in Germany and the Georgia Institute of Technology have demonstrated what they say is the world's fastest silicon-based device to date. A silicon-germanium (SiGe) chip has been operated transistor at 798 gigahertz (GHz) fMAX, exceeding the previous speed record for silicon-germanium chips by abou... » read more

EUV Suffers New Setback
By Mark LaPedus - 24 Feb, 2014 - Comments: 8

ASML Holding’s initial, production-worthy extreme ultraviolet (EUV) lithography tool has suffered a setback during a recent trial run at Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Co. Ltd. (TSMC). TSMC disclosed the problem during a public presentation at the 2014 Advanced Lithography conference in San Jose, Calif. During the trial run at TSMC, the EUV source crashed due to a misalignment of the l... » read more

Are Processors Running Out Of Steam?
By Ed Sperling - 24 Feb, 2014 - Comments: 1

Check out any smart phone these days and you’ll find some reference to the number of cores in the device. It’s not the number of cores that makes a difference, though—or even the clock speed at which they run. Performance depends on the underlying design for how they’re utilized, how often that happens, how much memory they share, how much interaction there is between the cores, and the... » read more

Amazing New Chips
By Michael Watts - 21 Feb, 2014 - Comments: 1

Biosystems such as artificial organs, analytical systems and all sorts of component technologies were front and center at Photonics West 2014 in San Francisco.  At this annual celebration of all things optical there were hordes (27K !) of nerds and hundreds of papers. One of the challenges is just picking which papers to listen to, and then which to talk about. One eye-catching subject was ... » read more

New Challenges For Post-Silicon Channel Materials
By Katherine Derbyshire - 21 Feb, 2014 - Comments: 1

In order to bring alternative channel materials into the CMOS mainstream, manufacturers need not just individual transistor devices, but fully manufacturable process flows. Work presented at the recent IEEE Electron Device Meeting (Washington, D.C., Dec. 9-11, 2013) showed that substantial work remains to be done on almost all aspects of such a flow. First and most fundamentally, it is diffi... » read more

The Week In Review: Design
By Ed Sperling - 21 Feb, 2014 - Comments: 0

Synopsys inked a deal to acquire Coverity, a San Francisco-based security startup that builds tools to test source code for defects and security risks, for $375 million. The purchase price is $350 million plus another $25 million in debt. The deal is expected to close in Synopsys’ fiscal Q2. The company announced its financial results for fiscal Q1 ended Jan. 31, as well. Revenue was $479.0 m... » read more

Week In Review: Manufacturing, Design, Test
By Mark LaPedus - 21 Feb, 2014 - Comments: 0

Reports have surfaced that IBM’s semiconductor unit is on the block, and there has been discussion about the reasons and the aftermath. Sources say there are at least two potential buyers for the unit—Samsung and TowerJazz. Apparently, the talks between IBM-Samsung and IBM-TowerJazz have been going on for some time. Multiple sources believe that Samsung is interested in buying IBM’s advan... » read more

A Milestone In Imprint Lithography
By Michael Watts - 20 Feb, 2014 - Comments: 0

The announcement on Feb. 13 of the acquisition of the semiconductor arm of Molecular Imprints (MII) by Canon is a seminal event in the story of imprint patterning. Full disclosure requires me to mention that as a founding team member at Molecular Imprints, my founders shares are now worth something — but well short of not needing to write a free blog as a marketing exercise for my consulting ... » read more

The Search For The Next Transistor
By Mark LaPedus - 20 Feb, 2014 - Comments: 3

In the near term, the leading-edge chip roadmap looks fairly clear. Chips based on today’s finFETs and planar fully depleted silicon-on-insulator (FDSOI) technologies are expected to scale down to the 10nm node. But then, the CMOS roadmap becomes foggy at 7nm and beyond. The industry has been exploring a number of next-generation transistor candidates, but suddenly, a few technologies are ... » read more

Quantum Computer Race Heats Up
By Mark LaPedus - 20 Feb, 2014 - Comments: 0

For years, there has been an intense race among various nations to develop the world’s fastest supercomputers. The U.S. and Japan led the field until 2010, when China stunned the market and rolled out the world’s fastest supercomputer. And today, China continues to lead the field with a supercomputer capable of running at speeds of 33.86 petaflops per second. While the supercomputer race... » read more

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