Author's Latest Posts


Exploring Process Scenarios To Improve DRAM Device Performance


In the world of advanced semiconductor fabrication, creating precise device profiles (edge shapes) is an important step in achieving targeted on-chip electrical performance. For example, saddle fin profiles in a DRAM memory device must be precisely fabricated during process development in order to avoid memory performance issues. Saddle fins were introduced in DRAM devices to increase channel l... » read more

How Does Line Edge Roughness (LER) Affect Semiconductor Performance At Advanced Nodes?


BEOL metal line RC delay has become a dominant factor that limits chip performance at advanced nodes [1]. Smaller metal line pitches require a narrower line CD and line to line spacing, which introduces higher metal line resistance and line to line capacitance. This is demonstrated in figure 1, which displays a simulation of line resistance vs. line CD across different BEOL metals. Even without... » read more

Evaluating The Impact Of STI Recess Profile Control On Advanced FinFET Performance


Profile variation is one of the most important problems during semiconductor device manufacturing and scaling. These variations can degrade both chip yield and device performance.  Virtual fabrication can be used to study profile variation in a very effective and economical manner and avoid process cycle time and wafer cost in the fab. In this short article, we will review the impact of STI (s... » read more

Advanced Patterning Techniques For 3D NAND Devices


By Yu De Chen and Jacky Huang Driven by Moore’s law, memory and logic semiconductor manufacturers pursue higher transistor density to improve product cost and performance [1]. In NAND Flash technologies, this has led to the market dominance of 3D structures instead of 2D planar devices. Device density can be linearly increased by increasing stack layer counts in a 3D NAND device [2]. At th... » read more

Advanced 3D Design Technology Co-Optimization For Manufacturability


By Yu De Chen, Jacky Huang, Dalong Zhao, Jiangjiang (Jimmy) Gu, and Joseph Ervin Yield and cost have always been critical factors for both manufacturers and designers of semiconductor products. It is a continuous challenge to meet targets of both yield and cost, due to new device structures and the increasing complexity of process innovations introduced to achieve improved product performanc... » read more