Author's Latest Posts


Is Maskless Lithography Coming Into Its Own?


Lithographers have always faced tradeoffs between speed and flexibility. Steppers are very good at printing hundreds or thousands of identical features onto hundreds or thousands of wafers. They are not especially good at handling surfaces with significant topography, though. Nor is customization feasible. Every exposure uses the same reticle. Direct write e-beam lithography has long been us... » read more

3D In-Memory Compute Making Progress


Indium compounds are showing great promise for 3D in-memory compute and RF integration, but more work is needed. Researchers continue to make headway into 3D device integration particularly with indium tin oxide (ITO), which is widely used in display manufacturing. Recent work indicates that different compounds of indium oxide doped with tin, gallium, or zinc combinations may boost transisto... » read more

Using ML For Improved Fab Scheduling


Expanding fab capacity is slow and expensive even under ideal circumstances. It has been still more difficult in recent years, as pandemic-related shortages have strained equipment supply chains. When integrated circuit demand rises faster than expansions can fill the gap, fabs try to find “hidden” capacity through improved operations. They hope that more efficient workflows will allow e... » read more

Will CFETs Help The Industry Go Vertical?


Device scaling is getting much harder at each new process node. Even defining what it means is becoming a challenge. In the past, gate length and metal pitch went down and device density went up. Today, this is much harder for several reasons: • Short channel effects limit gate-length scaling; • Parasitic effects limit device density, and • Metal resistance limits metal pitch. So r... » read more

Managing Water Supplies With Machine Learning


From wet benches to cooling systems, fabs use vast amounts of water — millions of gallons per day at a typical foundry. In this era of climate change, though, water supplies are becoming less reliable and municipal water systems are becoming more restrictive. For example, local utilities might restrict a fab’s ability to draw from the public water supply, or might supply only treated wastew... » read more

Managing Yield With EUV Lithography And Stochastics


Identifying issues that actually affect yield is becoming more critical and more difficult at advanced nodes, but there is progress. Although they are closely related, yield management and process control are not the same. Yield management seeks to maximize the number of functioning devices at the end of the line. Process control focuses on keeping each individual device layer within its des... » read more

ReRAMs Look To Silicon For Silicon Compatibility


For such a critical material, silicon oxide is not especially well understood. The semiconductor industry certainly understands how to grow high quality oxides with high breakdown voltages, but what happens in less ideal situations? What does the introduction of microstructure do? If there are regions that are oxygen-rich or silicon-rich relative to the stoichiometric SiO2 composition, how do t... » read more

Assist Layers: The Unsung Heroes of EUV Lithography


Most discussions of advanced lithography focus on three elements — the exposure system, photomasks, and photoresists — but that's only part of the challenge. Successfully transferring a pattern from the photomask to a physical structure on the wafer also depends on a variety of films working together, including the underlayers, the developers, and a variety of surface treatments. In fact... » read more

Big Shifts At Very Small Geometries


The number of changes across the semiconductor industry are accelerating and widening. There are more innovations, in more places, and in more applications. What follows is a small peek at just how many significant changes are afoot, where they are happening, and who's getting recognized for their efforts. Quantum computing, but hold the math The modern electronics industry rests on multip... » read more

New Challenges Emerge With High-NA EUV


High numerical aperture EUV exposure systems are coming — as soon as 2025 by some estimates. Though certainly a less profound change than the introduction of extreme ultraviolet lithography, high-NA lithography still brings a new set of challenges for photoresists and related materials. With a higher numerical aperture, photons strike the wafer at a shallower angle. That requires thinner p... » read more

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