Powering The Automotive Revolution: Advanced Packaging For Next-Generation Vehicle Computing


Automotive processors are rapidly adopting advanced process nodes. NXP announced the development of 5 nm automotive processors in 2020 [1], Mobileye announced EyeQ Ultra using 5 nm technology during CES 2022 [2], and TSMC announced its “Auto Early” 3 nm processes in 2023 [3]. In the past, the automotive industry was slow to adopt the latest semiconductor technologies due to reliability conc... » read more

Enabling New Applications With SiC IGBT And GaN HEMT For Power Module Design


The need to mitigate climate change is driving a need to electrify our infrastructure, vehicles, and appliances, which can then be charged and powered by renewable energy sources. The most visible and impactful electrification is now under way for electric vehicles (EVs). Beyond the transition to electric engines, several new features and technologies are driving the electrification of vehicles... » read more

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

Advanced Packaging Design For Heterogeneous Integration


As device scaling slows down, a key system functional integration technology is emerging: heterogeneous integration (HI). It leverages advanced packaging technology to achieve higher functional density and lower cost per function. With the continuous development of major semiconductor applications such as AI HPC, edge AI and autonomous electrical vehicles, traditional chips are transforming i... » read more

eBeam Initiative Marks Major Milestones Over 15 Years Of Photomasks And Lithography


The eBeam initiative celebrated its 15th anniversary at the recent SPIE Advanced Lithography + Patterning Conference. 130 members of the mask and lithography community attended the annual lunch to mark the milestone. The eBeam Initiative welcomed its 53rd member, FUJIFILM Corporation, having grown from 20 members and advisors at its launch. FUJIFILM is the first company from the chemical supply... » read more

Vast Universe Of Transistors, Worm-Bot Innovation, Glass-Based Processor Enhancement, And Atomically Efficient Chips


What’s a sextillion? It’s the number one followed by 21 zeros — outnumbering the stars in the Milky Way. Industry analyst Jim Handy estimates that 13 sextillion transistors have been manufactured by the chip industry since the first one sprang to life in late 1947. Today, as modern graphics and artificial intelligence chips each contain billions of transistors, and the total continues t... » read more

Package Integrated Vapor Chamber Heat Spreaders


With continuous increases in computational demand in nearly all electronics market segments, even historically lower power packaging is being driven into challenging thermal management situations. Node shrink alone is reaching a limit in maintaining track with Moore’s law. The economics and yield challenges of large monolithic system on chip (SoC) designs are driving the development of silico... » read more

The High NA EUV Imperative: How Computational Lithography Solutions Enable Us To Think Smaller


The future of computing depends on miniaturization, and extreme ultraviolet lithography (EUV) is one key enabler. Until recently, we have relied on low numerical aperture (NA) EUV systems with an aperture of 0.33 to help us reduce the size of integrated circuits (ICs). As with deep ultraviolet (DUV) technology, this has begun to reach its limits. High NA EUV lithography with a 0.55 aperture rep... » read more

ESD Alliance And SEMI Efforts To Combat Design Automation Software Piracy


Piracy is a growing concern for all software providers, especially those of us with complex and specialized software, such as chip design automation software that is expensive to develop and maintain. That’s why the Electronic System Design Alliance (ESD Alliance), a SEMI Technology Community, spearheaded an industry joint development effort to develop a server certification protocol that ... » read more

Intel, And Others, Inside


Intel this week made a strong case for how it will regain global process technology leadership, unfurling an aggressive technology and business roadmap that includes everything from several more process node shrinks that ultimately could scale into the single-digit angstrom range to a broad shift in how it approaches the market. Both will be essential for processing the huge amount of data for ... » read more

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