November 2016 - Page 4 of 11 - Semiconductor Engineering


Measuring Atoms And Beyond


David Seiler, chief of the Engineering Physics Division within the Physical Measurement Laboratory at the National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST), sat down with Semiconductor Engineering to discuss the current and future directions of metrology. NIST, a physical science laboratory, is part of the U.S. Department of Commerce. What follows are excerpts of that conversation. SE: W... » read more

Printed Cars, Smart Stints, Personal Breathalyzers


The MEMS and sensor market continues to be a hotbed for innovation, new opportunities and, as with most new frontiers, there are also some disparate views on market dynamics and strategies. All this was evident at the 2016 MSIG Executive Congress last week in Scottsdale, Arizona. First, I’ll cover the pioneering and fun subjects. In addition to the Technology Showcase demos and member pres... » read more

Changes In China


By Jesse Zhang, SEMI China Industry leaders gathered in Beijing at BIMS 2016 — the Beijing International Microelectronics Symposium — to discuss growth opportunities for the semiconductor industry and the mobile communications market. The 17th session of BIMS was co-sponsored by SEMI and the Chinese-American Semiconductor Professionals Association (CASPA). For 17 years, BIMS has provi... » read more

The Week In Review: Manufacturing


Chipmakers Next month, GlobalFoundries will host a job fair in Portland, Ore., according to reports. The company hopes to hire former Intel workers. These are workers who lost their jobs as part of Intel's recent layoff. Anokiwave, a developer of chips for the mmWave market, has announced a foundry alliance with GlobalFoundries. GlobalFoundries will make so-called Silicon Core chips on a f... » read more

The Week In Review: IoT


Deals Verizon Communications reported acquiring the assets of LQD WiFi LLC, expanding its smart city portfolio; financial terms weren’t revealed. Mike Lanman, senior vice president, Enterprise Products and Internet of Things at Verizon, said in a statement: “LQD’s Palo technology hubs capture Verizon’s vision of delivering citizen engagement experiences by connecting people with their ... » read more

The Week In Review: Design


M&A Siemens plans to buy Mentor Graphics for $4.5 billion in cash. The move, if approved by regulators, would greatly expand Siemens’ capabilities in multi-physics design and embedded software for everything from semiconductors to automotive wiring harnesses. The transaction is expected to close in the second quarter of 2017. Tools Mentor Graphics uncorked a new product to measur... » read more

Advanced Packaging Requires Better Yield


Whether Moore's Laws truly ends, or whether the semiconductor industry reaches into the Angstrom world after 3nm—the semiconductor industry dislikes fractions—advanced packaging increasingly will dominate semiconductor designs. Apple already is on board with its iPhone 7, using TSMC's fan-out approach. And all of the major foundries and OSATs are lining up with a long list of capabilitie... » read more

Inside EUV Resists


Andrew Grenville, chief executive of resist maker Inpria, sat down with Semiconductor Engineering to talk about photoresists for extreme ultraviolet (EUV) lithography. What follows are excerpts of that conversation. SE: Photoresists are a critical part of lithography. Resists are light-sensitive materials. They form patterns on a surface when exposed to light. For EUV, they are critical. Wha... » read more

The Limits Of The Lifecycle


In the first article in my series on sustainability, I cited one estimate that attributed most of the electricity consumed by an integrated circuit to manufacturing, not use. Other analyses, however, come to exactly the opposite conclusion, with above 90% of lifetime energy consumption accounted for by the use phase. How can that be? The glib answer is that industry efforts to build more eff... » read more

Software Platforms Bridge The Design/Verification Gap For 5G Communications Design


We are entering the third phase of information connectivity, one that will change the use of wireless technology dramatically. The first phase connected homes and businesses through wired telephony and the early internet via dial-up modems. Over the last few decades, the development of communication networks has been superseded by wireless mobile technology connecting people instead of places. ... » read more

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