Anne Meixner

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Anne Meixner is a contributing editor at Semiconductor Engineering. She has 30+ years in the semiconductor industry. She became fascinated by defects in the semiconductor manufacturing process as a young engineer at IBM. Over that period, she has focused on test methodology with emphasis on mixed-signal and analog DFT and test. As a technical communicator she takes complex ideas and explains them in consumable understandable pieces. Meixner has worked at IBM, Carnegie Mellon University and Intel. She holds three U.S. patents and her peers have recognized her work with two best papers at IEEE International Test Conference. She founded The Engineers’ Daughter in 2015 to consult on semiconductor testing and to coach engineers.

Author's Latest Posts

Detecting Slips, Scratches, Cracks In Wafers And Dies Becoming Harder
By Anne Meixner - 10 Jul, 2025 - Comments: 0

Defect detection requirements on the order of 10 defective parts per million (DPPM) are driving improvements in inspection tools’ resolution and throughput at foundries and OSATs. However, defects that manifest as slips, scratches, and micro-cracks continue to bedevil the prevalent optical inspection methods. These defects can range in size from nanometers to millimeters, some of which are... » read more

High-Quality Data Needed To Better Utilize Fab Data Streams
By Anne Meixner - 10 Jun, 2025 - Comments: 0

Fab operations have wrestled with big data management issues for decades. Standards help, but only if sufficient attention to detail is taken during collection. Semiconductor wafer manufacturing represents one of the most complex manufacturing processes in the world. With each generation of process improvement comes more sophisticated fab equipment, new process recipes, and exponential incre... » read more

Who Is Most Likely To Link Financial And Manufacturing Data?
By Anne Meixner - 08 May, 2025 - Comments: 0

Experts at the Table: Semiconductor Engineering sat down to discuss which companies have the most to gain from linking financial data with manufacturing data analytics platforms with Dieter Rathei, CEO of DR Yield; Jon Holt, senior director of product management at PDF Solutions, Alex Burlak, vice president of advanced analytics and test at proteanTecs; and Dirk de Vries, technical program ma... » read more

Secure Handling Of Financial Data In Manufacturing
By Anne Meixner - 21 Apr, 2025 - Comments: 0

Experts at the Table: Semiconductor Engineering sat down to discuss the advantages associated with linking financial data with manufacturing data analytic platforms, real security challenges and the best uses for AI/ML methods, with Dieter Rathei, CEO of DR Yield; Jon Holt, senior director of product management at PDF Solutions, Alex Burlak, vice president of advanced analytics and test at p... » read more

Hunting For Macro Defects
By Anne Meixner - 08 Apr, 2025 - Comments: 0

Detecting macro-defects early in the wafer processing flow is vital for yield and process improvement, and it is driving innovations in both inspection techniques and wafer test map analysis. At the wafer level, a macro-defect can affect more than one die, and in some cases large regions of a wafer. Finding macro defects can indicate a significant issue with a process module, a particular fi... » read more

Need For KGD Drives Singulated Die Screening
By Anne Meixner - 31 Mar, 2025 - Comments: 2

The move to multi-die packaging is driving chipmakers to develop more cost-effective ways to ensure only known-good die are integrated into packages, because the price of failure is significantly higher than with a single die. Better methods for inspecting and testing these devices are already starting to roll out. High-throughput infrared inspection is capable of catching more sub-surface d... » read more

Cutting IC Manufacturing Costs By Combining Data
By Anne Meixner - 11 Mar, 2025 - Comments: 0

Experts at the Table: Semiconductor Engineering sat down to discuss the benefits of incorporating financial data into fab floor decision-making, including what kind of cost data is most useful, with Dieter Rathei, CEO of DR Yield; Jon Holt, senior director of product management at PDF Solutions, Alex Burlak, vice president of advanced analytics and test at proteanTecs; and Dirk de Vries, techni... » read more

IC Equipment Communication Standards Struggle As Data Volumes Grow
By Anne Meixner - 11 Feb, 2025 - Comments: 0

The tsunami of data produced during wafer fabrication cannot be effectively leveraged without standards. They determine how data is accessed from equipment, which users need data access and when, and how fast it can be delivered. On top of that, best practices in data governance and data quality are needed to effectively interpret collected data and transfer results. When fab automation and ... » read more

Screening For Known Good Interposers
By Anne Meixner - 14 Jan, 2025 - Comments: 0

Ensuring the quality of silicon and organic interposers is becoming harder as the number of signals passing through them continues to grow, fueled by more chiplets, higher processing demands, and more layers of devices assembled in a package. Interposers initially were viewed as relatively simple conduits. That perception has changed rather dramatically in recent years with the growing focus... » read more

Aftermarket Sensors Boost Yield In Wafer Fabs
By Anne Meixner - 10 Dec, 2024 - Comments: 0

Third-party sensors are being added into fab equipment to help boost yield and to extend the life of expensive tools, supplementing the sensors that come with equipment used in fabs. The data gleaned from those sensors has broad uses within the fab. It can measure process module performance, identify defect sources, and alert fabs of impending equipment failure. And when coupled with machine... » read more

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