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Foldable Phones Bend The Limits Of Technology


After years of discussion about flexible, bendable displays for mobile electronic devices, the first and most logical of these devices, foldable phones, will hit the market this year — along with some as yet unresolved issues and challenges. Early adopters welcome the introduction of such exciting new technologies (figure 1). But from a broad industry standpoint, which mobile phone designs wi... » read more

Are You Running Your Equipment Or Is Your Equipment Running You?


Applied Materials, the innovator of the SmartFactory Rx suite of software products, is taking the lead on leveraging Industry 4.0 principles and technologies, such as Industrial Internet of Things (IIoT) and advanced analytics, to optimize manufacturing process performance, asset utilization, and supply chain. SmartFactory Rx Analytics & Control (A&C) collects real-time data from interconnect... » read more

The Future Of Power Needs To Be Exotic


Moore’s Law follows the continual advancement of smaller silicon transistors, which is ideal for faster operating speeds in processors and increasing memory size density. However, not all solutions require smaller transistors, and not all are made on silicon wafers. LEDs are made from gallium arsenide (GaAs) and lasers use indium phosphide (InP), while power devices are transitioning to si... » read more

Wide Band Gap—The Revolution In Power Semiconductors


New government regulations and industry standards are leading companies to adopt wide bandgap (WBG) power solutions, both to reduce their carbon footprint and to meet increasing demand for higher power systems aimed at electric vehicles, renewable energy, datacenters, and other markets. The automotive industry is one of the biggest markets driving demand for WBG power devices. The European U... » read more

Leveraging The Digital Twin In Smart Microelectronics Manufacturing


Among the many tenets of smart manufacturing, “digital twin” solutions represent a significant opportunity for microelectronics manufacturers to leverage existing and emerging technologies to improve quality and throughput, and reduce variability and cost. The microelectronics industry is working vigorously to leverage the big data revolution and tap into smart manufacturing (SM) and Indu... » read more

Generation 10+ Fabs Enable Bigger, Brighter, Better TV Displays


Consumers are moving to larger and larger televisions, attracted by the chance to have a more immersive experience and the ability to see what is on the screen from farther away. TV sizes continue to grow by 1 to 1.5 inches per year, and sales of TVs with 65” or larger screens—so-called Gen10+ flat panel displays (FPDs)—are growing exponentially (figure 1). Figure 1. Television shi... » read more

E-Beam Review And CD Measurement Revolutionizes Display Yield Management


Fundamental changes are occurring in the display industry, driven by demands for higher-resolution screens and other capabilities for both mobile and TV applications. To meet these demands, the display technology roadmap in this article calls for innovations in materials, processes and device technology. Critical requirements include smaller design rules and the adoption of a range of materi... » read more

150MM Alive and Kicking


Did you think chip making on 150mm wafers was a thing of the past? Think again. Many of the megatrends shaping our collective futures—mobility, autonomous driving and electric vehicles, 5G wireless communications, augmented- and virtual reality (AR/VR), and healthcare—depend on innovations created on the 150mm wafer size. While attention is often riveted on the race to the leading-edge n... » read more

Industry 4.0 Reaches Into the Subfab


To unlock the full potential of their manufacturing systems and personnel, companies in many industries are rapidly moving toward highly automated systems and digital data-driven methods and tools. Widely known as “smart manufacturing” or Industry 4.0, the resulting productivity improvements are often so dramatic that many people are calling this shift a new industrial revolution. The se... » read more

New Metrology and Inspection Technologies Needed for More-Than-Moore Markets


The escalating costs of following Moore’s Law have shifted the semiconductor industry’s focus to More-than-Moore (MtM) technologies, where analog/mixed-signal, RF, MEMS, image sensing, power or other technologies may be integrated with CMOS in a variety of planar, 2.5D and 3D architectures. The integration of these and other key technologies is enabling a host of fast-growing application... » read more

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