Mark LaPedus

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Mark LaPedus is Executive Editor for manufacturing at Semiconductor Engineering.

Author's Latest Posts

Manufacturing Bits: April 8
By Mark LaPedus - 08 Apr, 2019 - Comments: 0

Designing metamaterials Sandia National Laboratories has developed an inverse-design software technology that automates the design of optical metamaterials. Metamaterials are artificial materials containing arrays of metal nanostructures or mega-atoms. Some metamaterials are able to bend light around objects, rendering them invisible. But they only interact with light over a very narrow ran... » read more

Week In Review: Manufacturing, Test
By Mark LaPedus - 05 Apr, 2019 - Comments: 0

Public policy The rise of the digital economy is creating millions of new jobs, but it’s difficult to fill these positions. So, the Consumer Technology Association (CTA), a U.S.-based trade group, is encouraging hi-tech companies to offer more apprenticeships. This is especially true for software engineering, networking, data analytics, cybersecurity and artificial intelligence. The Semic... » read more

Manufacturing Bits: April 2
By Mark LaPedus - 02 Apr, 2019 - Comments: 0

Bright particle accelerators The High Energy Accelerator Research Organization (KEK) has reached a major milestone in the world’s most luminous or brightest particle accelerator. KEK has recently made the first physics run in the SuperKEKB, a storage ring that combines an electron-positron collider with a new and advanced detector. Electron-positron collisions have restarted at the SuperK... » read more

Week In Review: Manufacturing, Test
By Mark LaPedus - 29 Mar, 2019 - Comments: 0

Materials Wesfarmers, an Australian diversified firm, has made an unsolicited bid to acquire Lynas, one of the world’s largest suppliers of rare earths outside of China. Rare earths are chemical elements found in the Earth’s crust. They are used in cars, consumer electronics, computers, communications, clean energy and defense systems. The big market for rare earths is magnets. In semicond... » read more

Manufacturing Bits: March 26
By Mark LaPedus - 26 Mar, 2019 - Comments: 0

ALD materials database Atomic Limits, a blog site that addresses atomic-level processing technologies, has developed an online database listing all atomic layer deposition (ALD) materials and processes. The database could be useful for ALD processes in semiconductors and other fields. ALD is a deposition technique that deposits materials one layer at a time. In ALD systems, wafers are place... » read more

Single Vs. Multi-Patterning EUV
By Mark LaPedus - 25 Mar, 2019 - Comments: 5

Extreme ultraviolet (EUV) lithography finally is moving into production, but foundry customers now must decide whether to implement their designs using EUV-based single patterning at 7nm, or whether to wait and instead deploy EUV multiple patterning at 5nm. Each patterning scheme has unique challenges, making that decision more difficult than it might appear. Targeted for 7nm, single pattern... » read more

Week In Review: Manufacturing, Test
By Mark LaPedus - 22 Mar, 2019 - Comments: 0

Chipmakers TrendForce released its foundry rankings for the first quarter of 2019. TSMC is still the clear leader, followed in order by Samsung, GlobalFoundries and UMC, according to the firm. It was a tough quarter for all foundries. Samsung has rolled out its new High Bandwidth Memory (HBM2E) product. The new solution, called Flashbolt, is the industry’s first HBM2E to deliver a 3.2Gbps... » read more

Materials M&A Mania
By Mark LaPedus - 21 Mar, 2019 - Comments: 0

The electronics materials business has seen a wave of mergers and acquisitions in recent times. Clearly, it’s important to keep tabs on this industry. Vendors in the electronics materials business are critical to the supply chain—they provide the key gases, materials and other products for various industries, such as display, MEMS, packaging, semiconductor and others. But it takes a s... » read more

EUV Mask Readiness Challenges
By Mark LaPedus - 21 Mar, 2019 - Comments: 0

Semiconductor Engineering sat down to discuss extreme ultraviolet (EUV) lithography and photomask technologies with Emily Gallagher, principal member of the technical staff at Imec; Harry Levinson, principal at HJL Lithography; Chris Spence, vice president of advanced technology development at ASML; Banqiu Wu, senior director of process development at Applied Materials; and Aki Fujimura, chief ... » read more

Manufacturing Bits: March 19
By Mark LaPedus - 19 Mar, 2019 - Comments: 0

Exascale computers Intel and the U.S. Department of Energy (DOE) have set plans to develop and deliver the first exascale supercomputer in the United States. The system, called Aurora, will provide an exaFLOP of performance or a quintillion floating point computations per second. Targeted for delivery in 2021, the system is being developed at DOE’s Argonne National Laboratory. The system ... » read more

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