Author's Latest Posts


Tool And Methodology Changes Coming In Fab And Package Automation


Experts at the table: Semiconductor Engineering sat down to discuss what's changing in semiconductor fabs and packaging houses with Michael Lowman, senior product marketing manager for Data Analytics at Cohu; Aftkhar Aslam, CEO at yieldWerx, Woo Young Han, product marketing director at Onto Innovation; and Lihong Cao, senior director of engineering and technical marketing for ASE. What foll... » read more

Back-End Automation Tackles Growing Complexity


Experts at the table: Semiconductor Engineering sat down to discuss back-end automation challenges in advanced packaging with Michael Lowman, senior product marketing manager for Data Analytics at Cohu; Aftkhar Aslam, CEO at yieldWerx, Woo Young Han, product marketing director at Onto Innovation; and Lihong Cao, senior director of engineering and technical marketing for ASE. What follows are ex... » read more

When Cleaning Chips Isn’t Clean Enough


Key Takeaways Contamination is becoming much more difficult to identify at the most advanced nodes, forcing fabs to rethink how control is achieved. Issues may show up as electrical or statistical anomalies, not particles, and not at time zero. Reliable classification is needed to identify critical contamination and reduce time and effort spent on nuisance failures. For much... » read more

Resistance In Advanced Packages Is Now A System-Level Problem


Key Takeaways Kelvin measurement, which has been in use for decades, is no longer sufficient for addressing resistance in complex chips. The problem is that resistance is no longer concentrated in transistors, and where it does show up isn't always consistent or obvious. Traditional pass/fail approaches need to be replaced by more granular and flexible analytics and methodologies. ... » read more

Every Atom Now Counts In Advanced Chip Manufacturing


Artificial-intelligence workloads are pushing semiconductor design to a point where traditional scaling strategies are running out of room. Performance improvements that once came from shrinking transistors now depend increasingly on how devices are stacked, interconnected, and isolated. Transistor scaling still matters, but advanced device architectures no longer can accommodate the power dens... » read more

Wafer Probe Struggles To Adapt To Multi-Die Assemblies


Wafer probe, one of the key processes for ensuring reliability in semiconductor manufacturing, is becoming increasingly unreliable in multi-die assemblies and at leading-edge nodes. For much of the semiconductor industry’s history, wafer probe occupied a stable, largely uncontested role in manufacturing. It was understood as a screening step, an electrical checkpoint to identify failing de... » read more

Reliability Risks Shift To The Materials Stack


The semiconductor industry’s push into 3D integration and large-format substrates has fundamentally changed the role of materials in packaging. What were once structural supports and electrical insulators have become critical performance limiters. Modern packages contain far more polymers, adhesives, advanced dielectrics, thermal materials, and composite laminates than previous generations... » read more

Adaptive Test Gaining Ground For HPC And AI Chips


Adaptive test is starting to gain traction for high-performance computing and AI chips as test programs that rely on static limits and fixed test sequences reach their practical limits. The growing complexity of multi-die assemblies and power delivery, along with increased stresses, are forcing a shift toward real-time, data-driven optimization at the test cell. “It’s the same old pro... » read more

The Thermal Trap: How Dielectrics Limit Device Performance


The spread of artificial intelligence is forcing an uncomfortable truth on semiconductor manufacturing. Thin films, which are essential for isolating signals and insulating different components and metal layers, are becoming heat traps as physical dimensions continue to shrink in chips used inside AI data centers. That, in turn, is limiting how fast these chips can process data and increasing t... » read more

AI In Test Analytics: Promise Vs. Reality


The semiconductor industry is increasingly turning to artificial intelligence as the solution for increasing complexity in test analytics, hoping algorithms can tame the growing flood of production data. The need to extract actionable insight from that torrent is pressing. AI/ML (AI) models promise to find correlations buried in multidimensional datasets, predict failures before they occur, and... » read more

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