June 2016 - Page 4 of 12 - Semiconductor Engineering


The Road To 5nm


There is strong likelihood that enough companies will move to 7nm to warrant the investment. How many will move forward to 5nm is far less certain. Part of the reason for this uncertainty is big-company consolidation. There are simply fewer customers left who can afford to build chips at the most advanced nodes. Intel bought Altera. Avago bought Broadcom. NXP bought Freescale. GlobalFoundrie... » read more

How Will 5G Work?


Sumit Tomar, general manager of the Wireless Infrastructure Products Group at RF chip giant Qorvo, sat down with Semiconductor Engineering to discuss the development of next-generation 5G wireless networks and other topics. In 2014, RF Micro Devices and TriQuint merged to form Qorvo. What follows are excerpts of that conversation. SE: 5G, the follow-on to the current wireless standard known ... » read more

TSVs: Copper, Silicon, And CTE Mismatch


As previous articles in this series have discussed, advanced packages introduce new materials and new reliability concerns. Diffusion into solder bumps can create brittle, high resistance, intermetallic compounds. Heat transfer through an interposer can degrade the lifetime of even cool, low power chips. Still, through-silicon vias are unique in that they cut directly through the integrated cir... » read more

Pattern Matching In Test And Yield Analysis


By Jonathan Muirhead and Geir Eide It’s no secret that a successful yield ramp directly impacts integrated circuit (IC) product cost and time-to-market. Tools and techniques that help companies ramp to volume faster, while also reducing process and design variability, can be the difference between profit and loss in a competitive market. And while pattern matching technology has been aroun... » read more

Advanced Packaging Options, Issues


Systems in package are heading for the mass market in applications that demand better performance and lower power. As they do, new options for cutting costs are being developed to broaden the appeal of this approach as an alternative to shrinking features. Cost has been one of the big deterrents for widespread adoption of [getkc id="82" kc_name="2.5D"]. Initially, the almost universal compla... » read more

IMEC Partner Technical Week Review


In March 2016, Coventor was invited to the biannual Partner Technical Week (PTW) at IMEC in Leuven, Belgium. IMEC, a world-leading research group in nanotechnology, organizes their Partner Technical Week every six months to present scientific results to their partners. During this week, a number of specialists from IMEC's many partner companies also discuss their progress in areas related to IM... » read more

Why IP Subsystems And Why Now?


At the recently concluded DAC 2016 conference in Austin, Texas, I had the opportunity to participate in a tutorial on IP Subsystems on Wednesday the 8th. Also participating were Marco Brambilla, Director of Engineering at Synapse Design and Drew Wingard, CTO at Sonics. The reality today is that device complexity in many applications has risen to levels that require increasing amounts of disc... » read more

Next Challenge: Contact Resistance


In chip scaling, there is no shortage of challenges. Scaling the finFET transistor and the interconnects are the biggest challenges for current and future devices. But now, there is another part of the device that’s becoming an issue—the contact. Typically, the contact doesn’t get that much attention, but the industry is beginning to worry about the resistance in the contacts, or conta... » read more

Successful FlexTech Integration Providing New Opportunities for SEMI Members


By Michael Ciesinski, President, FlexTech In 2014, SEMI developed a new model – SEMI Strategic Association Partnership – for engaging other associations and organizations in a strategic, long-term relationship that supports and advances the interests of SEMI members in emerging and adjacent segments of the electronics supply chain. The strategic partner brings a community, brand, and pro... » read more

Waiting For 5G Technology


For some time, carriers, equipment OEMs and chipmakers have been gearing up for the next-generation wireless standard called 5th generation mobile networks, or 5G. 5G is the follow-on to the current wireless standard known as 4G, or long-term evolution (LTE). It will enable data transmission rates of more than 10Gbps, or 100 times the throughput of LTE. But the big question is whether 5G wil... » read more

← Older posts Newer posts →