July 2014 - Semiconductor Engineering


EUV Is Key To 450mm Wafers


Whether the wafers in question are 200 mm in diameter, or 300 mm, or potentially 450 mm, larger wafer sizes have always been justified by manufacturing economics. If the cost to process a wafer stays the same, but the wafer contains more devices, then the cost per device goes down. For processes that apply to the entire wafer at once — etch, deposition, cleaning, and so forth — the equation... » read more

IP And FinFETs At Advanced Nodes


Semiconductor Engineering sat down to discuss IP and finFETs at advanced nodes with Warren Savage, president and CEO of IPextreme; Aveek Sarkar, vice president of engineering and product support at Ansys-Apache; Randy Smith, vice president of marketing at Sonics, and Bernard Murphy, CTO of Atrenta. What follows are excerpts of that conversation. SE: It’s harder for a fabless semiconductor ... » read more

EUV Light Source Makes Progress


EUV Lithography light source maker, Gigaphoton has developed a laser-produced plasma (LPP) light source prototype model that can produce a maximum of 92 watts. This is more than double the 43 watts produced using a traditional LPP light source. Figure 1 conceptual diagram of EUV exposure. Source: Gigaphoton/EUVA The biggest issue with EUV lithography has been the output power of the lig... » read more

Blog Review: July 30


Mentor’s Colin Walls looks at a free collaborative online tool called codepad, which can be used for compiling, interpreting and executing code quickly. Free is good—sometimes. Cadence’s Brian Fuller followed a recent panel on high-speed, cross-fabric interface design, which focused on why designers need to consider chip, package and board to ensure signal and power integrity. So what... » read more

An Acquisition And A Merged Technology Strategy


A single chip capable of performing two different functions can reduce the amount of wiring needed to just one layer and it can reduce time to market by simplifying the supply chain and the planning process. Nowhere is this more evident than in the LCD chip market, where two different manufacturers were used to supply chips for touch panels. But an effort to consolidate them into a single ch... » read more

Power/Performance Bits: July 29


Cool Magnets MIT researchers believe that magnets on the outside of the refrigerator may someday be used for cooling. Magnons, which are essentially a collective spin wave or quasi-particle, are also conductors of heat. MIT researchers found that when exposed to a magnetic field gradient, magnons can be driven from one end of a magnet to another, carrying heat with them. “You can p... » read more

Manufacturing Bits: July 29


Measuring hydrogen fuel for cars The use of fuel cells to power cars and buses is still in its infancy. Fuel cell vehicles are electric-based systems powered by hydrogen. A fuel cell uses a certain type of proton exchange membrane (PEM). The PEM fuel cells are stacked together to form a fuel cell stack. All told, fuel cell systems are about 60% efficient, or roughly two to three times more ... » read more

System Bits: July 29


Cooper Pairs Researchers at the University of Illinois at Chicago, Cornell University and Brookhaven National Laboratory say they have unlocked what they’re calling quantum glue—the underlying basis for creating energy conduits without current loss. In superconductors, electrical resistance vanishes below a critical temperature and conduction electrons form ordered pairs, known as Coop... » read more

Next-Generation Sustainability Gets More Challenging


The semiconductor industry has made major progress on reducing energy usage and water consumption, and effectively abating its emissions, as companies made sustainability a core requirement in their design of new processes and tools. But it’s about to get considerably harder. That means more opportunities to add value with innovative technologies, and also more need for collaboration. Next... » read more

Changes In NAND Flash Market


Things are changing quickly in the NAND flash market. Newcomers are challenging long-time market leaders and shifting the lineup in this market. A survey of NAND flash vendors, conducted by DRAMeXchange, a Singapore market research firm, shows that in Q1 of this year Samsung was firmly in first place with $2.175 billion in revenues, followed by Toshiba with $1.548 billion and SanDisk with $1... » read more

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