Power/Performance Bits: Oct. 26


Printing circuits on irregular shapes Researchers at Pennsylvania State University propose a way to print biodegradable circuits on irregular, complex shapes. “We are trying to enable direct fabrication of circuits on freeform, 3-D geometries,” said Huanyu “Larry” Cheng, professor in Penn State's Department of Engineering Science and Mechanics (ESM). “Printing on complicated objec... » read more

Scaling Bump Pitches In Advanced Packaging


Interconnects for advanced packaging are at a crossroads as an assortment of new package types are pushing further into the mainstream, with some vendors opting to extend the traditional bump approaches while others roll out new ones to replace them. The goal in all cases is to ensure signal integrity between components in IC packages as the volume of data being processed increases. But as d... » read more

Week In Review: Manufacturing, Test


Chipmakers Apple has introduced its latest MacBook Pro notebooks built around the company’s new, in-house designed processors, dubbed the M1 Pro and M1 Max. The chips, to be incorporated in its 14- and 16-inch MacBook Pro systems, are the most powerful devices developed by Apple. The CPUs in the M1 Pro and M1 Max chips deliver up to 70% faster performance than the first M1 device. Based ... » read more

Week In Review: Auto, Security, Pervasive Computing


An investigation by the Automobile Association of America found that lane-keeping assist and automatic emergency braking, both high-profile ADAS features, are prone to failure in rain. According to the report, 69% of tests conducted with simulated rainfall resulted in test vehicles crossing lane markers, and 33% of simulations resulted in collisions at 35 mph. Surprisingly, risk of accidents di... » read more

Week In Review: Design, Low Power


Tools Cadence's digital and custom/analog flows were certified for TSMC's N3 and N4 process technologies. Updates for the digital flow includes efficient processing of large libraries, additional accuracy during library cell characterization and static timing analysis, and support for accurate leakage calculation required in N3 and static power calculation for new N3 cells. Synopsys' digita... » read more

Why Mask Blanks Are Critical


Geoff Akiki, president of Hoya LSI at the Hoya Group, sat down with Semiconductor Engineering to talk about optical and extreme ultraviolet (EUV) lithography as well as mask blanks. What follows are excerpts of that discussion. SE: Mask blanks are components that serve as the base or the substrate for a photomask. Why are they critical? Akiki: If you look at Hoya, we've been positioned as... » read more

The New Technology Solutions For Advanced SiP Devices


For many years, system-in-package (SiP) technology has been a focus for semiconductor packaging to address the ongoing market trend of system integration and size reduction. Today’s increased complexity and higher package density for SiP devices has driven the development of new packaging technologies. In response, compartmental shield technology makes it possible to put several functions int... » read more

Curvilinear Design Benefits For Wafers


Throughout this blog series the focus has been on curvilinear photomasks – the benefits, enablers, and challenges. It leads to the obvious question that Aki Fujimura, CEO of D2S, put to the panel of luminaries. If leading-edge mask shops are ready for curvilinear shapes on mask enabled by curvilinear ILT, multi-beam mask writers and the mask design chain, can we have curvilinear target shapes... » 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

China’s IC Industry Revenue On Track to Top $250 Billion In 2025


In the short span of a decade, China’s semiconductor sector has exploded to become one of the largest in the world and match the region’s prominence as the biggest consumer of chips. From 2015 to 2020 alone, revenue of China’s integrated circuit (IC) industry – consisting of IC design, IC manufacturing, and packaging and test – expanded at a rapid clip of 20% CAGR (RMB) to $128 billio... » read more

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