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Week In Review: Manufacturing, Test


Chipmakers and OEMs Several foundry vendors are building new fabs. The memory vendors, such as Samsung and SK Hynix, are also building new capacity. In another example, Taiwan DRAM supplier Nanya Technology plans to construct a new 300mm fab in the Taishan Nanlin Technology Park in New Taipei City. The plant will produce DRAMs with Nanya’s in-house developed 10nm-class process technologies a... » read more

Manufacturing Bits: April 20


SiC power semi R&D Earth Day, which supports environmental protection, takes place this week on April 22. Technology plays a big role in the environment. Governments, companies, R&D organizations and universities are developing a multitude of environmental-related technologies. In just one example, Swansea University has been awarded £4.8 million from the government of the Unite... » read more

Foundry Wars Begin


Leading-edge foundry vendors are gearing up for a new, high-stakes spending and technology race, setting the stage for a possible shakeup across the semiconductor manufacturing landscape. In March, Intel re-entered the foundry business, positioning itself against Samsung and TSMC at the leading edge, and against a multitude of foundries working at older nodes. Intel announced plans to build ... » read more

Week In Review: Manufacturing, Test


Chipmakers TSMC has posted strong results and raised its capital spending budget to $30 billion, up from its prior guidance of $25 billion to $28 billion in 2021. “Its outlook indicates broad-based semiconductor demand continues to strengthen amid supply chain tightness,” said Weston Twigg, an analyst at KeyBanc, in a research note. “TSMC posted another quarter of strong demand for leadi... » read more

The Quest For Curvilinear Photomasks


The semiconductor industry is making noticeable progress on the development of advanced curvilinear photomasks, a technology that has broad implications for chip designs at the most advanced nodes and the ability to manufacture those chips faster and cheaper. The question now is when will this technology move beyond its niche-oriented status and ramp up into high-volume manufacturing. For ye... » read more

Latest IC Forecast: Big Demand, Shortages


Over the last year, the semiconductor industry has seen its share of highs, lows and uncertainties. In early 2020, the business looked bright, but the IC market dropped amid the Covid-19 pandemic outbreak. Throughout 2020 different countries implemented a number of measures to mitigate the outbreak, such as stay-at-home orders and business closures. Economic turmoil and job losses soon follo... » read more

Making Chip Packaging More Reliable


Packaging houses are readying the next wave of IC packages, but these products must prove to be reliable before they are incorporated into systems. These packages involve several advanced technologies, such as 2.5D/3D, chiplets and fan-out, but vendors also are working on new versions of more mature package types, like wirebond and leadframe technologies. As with previous products, packaging... » read more

Applications, Challenges For Using AI In Fabs


Experts at the Table: Semiconductor Engineering sat down to discuss chip scaling, transistors, new architectures, and packaging with Jerry Chen, head of global business development for manufacturing & industrials at Nvidia; David Fried, vice president of computational products at Lam Research; Mark Shirey, vice president of marketing and applications at KLA; and Aki Fujimura, CEO of D2S. Wh... » read more

Manufacturing Bits: April 13


Error-correction DNA storage Los Alamos National Laboratory has developed a key technology that could one day pave the way towards DNA storage. Researchers have developed a technology called the Adaptive DNA Storage Codec (ADS Codex). ADS Codex is software that translates digital binary files into the four-letter genetic alphabet needed for DNA storage. Deoxyribonucleic acid (DNA) is a m... » read more

Week In Review: Manufacturing, Test


Government policy At one point, there was a school of thought that the Biden administration would relax the current tariffs and export controls in regards to China. So far, the Biden administration hasn’t changed any of the previous policies and is doubling down on those efforts. The Department of Commerce’s Bureau of Industry and Security (BIS) this week added seven Chinese supercomput... » read more

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