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Katherine Derbyshire

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Katherine Derbyshire is a technical editor at Semiconductor Engineering.

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EUV Is Key To 450mm Wafers
By Katherine Derbyshire - 31 Jul, 2014 - Comments: 1

Whether the wafers in question are 200 mm in diameter, or 300 mm, or potentially 450 mm, larger wafer sizes have always been justified by manufacturing economics. If the cost to process a wafer stays the same, but the wafer contains more devices, then the cost per device goes down. For processes that apply to the entire wafer at once — etch, deposition, cleaning, and so forth — the equation... » read more

What Is A Technology Node, Anyway?
By Katherine Derbyshire - 17 Jul, 2014 - Comments: 0

The idea of clearly defined “technology nodes” has been more theoretical than practical for quite some time now. Electrostatic and power consumption considerations have long made it difficult to scale transistor dimensions at the same rate as memory density. Meanwhile, lithography has become more and more challenging, particularly for the arbitrary patterns commonly seen in logic design. ... » read more

Not All Qubits Are Small
By Katherine Derbyshire - 30 Jun, 2014 - Comments: 1

While diamond nitrogen-vacancy centers offer one attractive implementation of quantum qubits, many other systems have been proposed. In theory, at least, any system with clearly identifiable quantum states can serve the purpose. The challenge lies in finding a system in which those states can be manipulated and measured by external forces and can be fabricated in large enough numbers for practi... » read more

More To Quantum Computing Than Qubits
By Katherine Derbyshire - 09 Jun, 2014 - Comments: 1

A couple of weeks ago, I posted an article about qubits based on the nitrogen-vacancy (N-V) center in diamond. I’m working on one about qubits based on superconducting loops with Josephson junctions. But it’s important to remember that the qubit technology alone tells only part of the story of a quantum computer. Quantum computers, like conventional computers, need ways to store data and wa... » read more

Engineering For Next-Gen Memory Performance
By Katherine Derbyshire - 20 May, 2014 - Comments: 0

When only a few electrons mean the difference between the ON and the OFF state, it’s difficult to manufacture [getkc id="22" kc_name="memory"] elements with consistent, reliable performance. This is the situation conventional capacitance-based memories face as critical dimensions drop to just a few nanometers. As a result, device designers are considering a wide range of alternative memory... » read more

How To Make A Qubit
By Katherine Derbyshire - 19 May, 2014 - Comments: 4

As discussed in Part 1 of this series, quantum information processing may offer elegant solutions to a number of important problems in computation. Actually building a quantum computer, however, is not so easy. Part 1 used an isolated hydrogen molecule as a model two-qubit system. Molecular orbitals are simple to explain and readily monitored by well-established techniques. A viable qubit te... » read more

Introduction To Quantum Computing
By Katherine Derbyshire - 28 Apr, 2014 - Comments: 2

Quantum computing has attracted a lot of attention lately. Recent revelations about the extent of the U.S. National Security Agency’s data collection programs, along with several large-scale corporate data breaches, have called attention to the need for secure communications. Quantum computing has potentially far-reaching implications for data security, both reducing the effectiveness of conv... » read more

Challenges In 3D Resists
By Katherine Derbyshire - 24 Mar, 2014 - Comments: 2

3D integration straddles the line between CMOS fabs and packaging and assembly houses. Depending on the structure being fabricated, the most appropriate process might be more “CMOS-like” or more “package-like.” For example, in CMOS fabs lithography means spin-on photoresist, exposed by a high precision stepper. Inherent in this approach is an assumption that the wafer surface is flat... » read more

New Challenges For Post-Silicon Channel Materials
By Katherine Derbyshire - 21 Feb, 2014 - Comments: 1

In order to bring alternative channel materials into the CMOS mainstream, manufacturers need not just individual transistor devices, but fully manufacturable process flows. Work presented at the recent IEEE Electron Device Meeting (Washington, D.C., Dec. 9-11, 2013) showed that substantial work remains to be done on almost all aspects of such a flow. First and most fundamentally, it is diffi... » read more

The List Of Unknowns Grows After Silicon
By Katherine Derbyshire - 07 Feb, 2014 - Comments: 3

As discussed earlier in this series, most proposed alternative channel schemes depend on germanium channels for pMOS transistors, and InGaAs channels for nMOS transistors. Of the two materials, InGaAs poses by far the more difficult integration challenges. Germanium has been present in advanced silicon CMOS fabs for several technology generations, having been introduced used in strained silicon... » read more

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