Semiconductor Materials Market To Surpass $46 Billion In 2015


By Lara Chamness By all accounts 2014 is going to be a good year for the semiconductor industry; current semiconductor revenue forecasts point to mid- to high single digit growth and quarterly device revenues and silicon shipments are stronger when compared to the same period last year. SEMI believes that the semiconductor materials market will trend with the device market, resulting in an inc... » read more

Materials Matter


By Pushkar Apte Despite formidable technical and economic challenges, the semiconductor technology engine continues steaming ahead, changing the way we work and play in amazing ways. This engine primarily ran on the “Moore’s Law track” for nearly half a century – but now, the tracks are diverging for digital logic and memory, and “More-than-Moore” devices. Continuing progress requi... » read more

This Is What 450mm Wafers Look Like


The first fully patterned 450mm wafers were on display at SEMICON West 2014 in South Hall and also showcased in the 450mm Technology Development Session. Fully patterned 450mm wafers produced using Molecular Imprints’ Imprio nanoimprint lithography (NIL) tool have been shown before (including at SEMI ISS meeting in January 2013). However, the 450mm wafers on display at SEMICON West were produ... » read more

More People Use Phones Than Toothbrushes…


“Business Has Only Two Functions – Marketing and Innovation” — Milan Kundera There may be more to running a successful business than marketing and innovation, but these two functions were front-and-center at SEMICON West 2014. This year’s industry gathering was an important, and positive, step forward together. Because of the gravity of the challenges facing our industry – funda... » read more

Next-Generation Sustainability Gets More Challenging


The semiconductor industry has made major progress on reducing energy usage and water consumption, and effectively abating its emissions, as companies made sustainability a core requirement in their design of new processes and tools. But it’s about to get considerably harder. That means more opportunities to add value with innovative technologies, and also more need for collaboration. Next... » read more

Disruptive R&D


Leading university researchers presented their most promising technologies — describing developments ranging from sustainable metal cluster technology (that’s already spawned three notable startups) to resonance-based detection for more accurate MEMS devices — at the new Breakthrough Research Technologies session and the Silicon Innovation Forum at SEMICON West 2014. OSU metal cluster... » read more

All Together Now!


Consolidation is changing the face of our industry. It is tempting to think that a narrower more consolidated industry is easier to navigate and might require less facilitated coordination and collaboration. However, it turns out the reverse is true. With fewer, but much bigger companies, the bets become exponentially bigger.  At the same time technical challenges — such as advanced tra... » read more

What Comes Next?


The latest manufacturing, materials and production developments for emerging and adjacent markets will be featured at SEMICON West 2014 (www.semiconwest.org), to be held on July 8-10 at the Moscone Center in San Francisco, Calif. The co-location of emerging and adjacent market focused exhibitors and technical presentations within the framework of SEMICON West maximizes the synergies between sem... » read more

SEMICON West Preview: Test


Talking with the speakers scheduled to speak in the programs on IC testing at SEMICON West this year, I was struck by how much this equipment sector is changing as the value moves to software and the cloud. It has to be the first time I’ve ever mentioned PayPal in the same paragraph with semiconductor equipment, to say nothing of the business model of free hardware with software subscription.... » read more

Semicon West Preview: Packaging


By Paula Doe The evolving mobile device market means the packaging, assembly and test supply chain faces a growing range of alternative technologies vying for its investment dollar, everything from Google’s modular electronics with 3D printing, to more solutions for integrating varied chips in smaller packaged systems. One potentially disruptive change is the wider use of more open-source... » read more

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