Blog Review: Jan. 21


Keysight's Armando Valim considers the impact of AI on the memory market as AI infrastructure pressure widens the gap between high-performance memory and lower-margin consumer memory and SSD, forcing manufacturers to make strategic decisions and define which markets to serve. Cadence's Reela Samuel breaks down the major 3D-IC packaging methods used today, from wafer stacking flows to hybrid ... » read more

Research Bits: Jan. 20


ALD for Ru wiring Researchers from Ulsan National Institute of Science and Technology (UNIST), Hongik University, and Tanaka Precious Metal Technologies developed an atomic layer deposition (ALD) process for creating chip interconnects using a ruthenium (Ru) precursor with a thermal stability up to 400 °C. The high-temperature ALD process can produce dense, high-quality Ru films without deg... » read more

Chip Industry Technical Paper Roundup: Jan. 20


New technical papers recently added to Semiconductor Engineering’s library: [table id=515 /] Find more semiconductor research papers here. » read more

Big Changes Ahead For Semiconductor Manufacturing


John Kibarian, CEO of PDF Solutions, talks with Semiconductor Engineering's Ed Sperling about the growing role of AI in chip manufacturing, the impact of 3D-ICs on the supply chain, and how to shorten cycle time to get leading-edge chips and multi-die assemblies to market more quickly. To listen, click here.   » read more

Startup Funding: Q4 2025


The promise of AI dominated the last quarter of 2025. Investors were eager to claim stakes in both brand-new startups and more established companies developing AI-specific hardware, primarily for data centers, with over $1 billion alone flowing into the sector. The largest round of the quarter went to a new entrant aiming to fundamentally change how AI compute is performed, while two in-memory ... » read more

Low Temperature Cu-Cu Bonding for Advanced Packaging (NYCU)


A new technical paper titled "Thermal stability enhancement of low temperature Cu-Cu bonding using metal passivation technology for advanced electronic packaging" was published by researchers at National Yang Ming Chiao Tung University. Abstract "This work investigates the thermal stability of Cu-Cu bonding using a thin Ag passivation layer in applications targeting advanced packaging. Co... » read more

Chip Industry Week in Review


Geopolitics Taiwan and the U.S. signed a trade agreement this week, with TSMC and other Taiwanese companies collectively pledging to directly invest at least $250B in investments in advanced semiconductor, energy and AI production and capacity in the U.S.  The agreement also included Taiwan providing another $250B in credit guarantees for additional IC supply chain expansions in the U.S., cap... » read more

Engineering After Orthogonalization: Why Verification Has Become A Lifecycle Discipline


Over the past several decades studying verification practices across the semiconductor industry, I’ve watched assumptions that once held up remarkably well begin to strain under the weight of modern system complexity. This is not a loss of engineering rigor. It is the result of systems that no longer conform to the boundaries earlier design models depended on. For much of the industry’s ... » read more

The Design Challenges Of Clock Integrity And Clock Jitter


Signal integrity is one of the many challenges faced by chip designers. Deep submicron technologies are unfriendly hosts for the nice, clean signals desired. The culprits that compromise signal integrity and introduce jitter include thermal effects, manufacturing flaws, signal crosstalk, IR (voltage) drop, signal loss over long runs, reflections, electromagnetic interference (EMI), ground bounc... » read more

GDDR7 Momentum Accelerates As A Key Solution For AI Inference


The AI hardware landscape continues to evolve at a breakneck speed, and memory technology is rapidly becoming a defining differentiator for the next generation of GPUs and AI inference accelerators. When NVIDIA introduced Rubin CPX, its new class of GPU tailored for massive context inference, it underscored a new industry reality: memory throughput and efficiency are now just as critical as ra... » read more

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