Transforming Semiconductor Manufacturing: How AI And ML Boost Productivity And Beat The Skill Shortage


In the fast-paced world of semiconductor manufacturing, where innovation and efficiency are essential, there is a serious challenge – the persistent skilled labor shortage. As evident by billboards looking for workers along major highways, this shortage is not just a concern but a pressing reality. Semiconductor manufacturers in the United States face a multifaceted problem—tightened... » read more

The Impact Of Channel Hole Profiles On Advanced 3D NAND Structures


In a two-tier 3D NAND structure, the upper and lower channel hole profile can be different, and this combination of different profiles leads to different top-down visible areas. The visible area is the key metric to determine whether the bottom SONO layer can be punched through and ensure that the bit cells connect to the common source line. Performing channel hole profile splits on a silicon w... » read more

Why Curvy Design Now? Less Change Than You Think And Manufacturable Today


A curvilinear (curvy) chip, if magically made possible, would be smaller, faster, and use less power. Magic is no longer needed on the manufacturing side, as companies like Micron Technology are making photomasks with curvy shapes using state-of-the-art multi-beam mask writers today. Yet the entire chip-design infrastructure is based on the Manhattan assumption of 90-degree turns, even though i... » read more

Looking Forward To The New Chip Cycle


Charles Shi, Principal and Senior Analyst at Needham & Company, LLC., remains upbeat about the EDA, IP and services business, or what SEMI refers to as the electronic system design (ESD) ecosystem. I recently spoke with Shi about his talk “Looking Forward to the New Chip Cycle” during the opening of the 2023 Design Automation Conference, collocated in July with SEMICON West in San Fra... » read more

Reverse Laser Assisted Bonding (R-LAB) Technology For Chiplet Module Bonding On Substrate


By SeokHo Na, MinHo Gim, GaHyeon Kim, DongSu Ryu, DongJoo Park, and JinYoung Kim In the recent semiconductor market, there are many applications including smartphone, tablets, central processing units (CPUs), artificial intelligence (AI), data cloud and more that are expecting and experiencing rapid growth. As most of these applications require high performance, single-die Flip Chip packages... » read more

Why Curvy Design Now? Manufacturing Is Possible And Scaling Needs It


Have you ever seen roots or tree branches take a 90-degree turn? Have you ever seen a river that takes a 90-degree turn? Nature doesn’t do 90-degree turns, or for that matter any sharp angle turns – not even 135 degrees. Yet the entire chip-design infrastructure is based on the Manhattan assumption of 90-degree turns. While it would take time to change, is there any doubt that a curvilinea... » read more

5 Reasons Why Defect Reduction Is Critical In Semiconductor Material Success


Semiconductors may be small, but the impacts they have are significant. Semiconductors used in life-dependent applications, such as pacemakers, defibrillators, life support systems, automotive safety systems, or in aviation need to be fail-proof. A device smaller than a centimeter with features just a few nanometers has no margin of error. This blog shares why it’s important to detect materia... » read more

New Plasma Power Technologies For Next-Gen Semiconductor Manufacturing


As chip designs push the limits of speed, size and complexity, the semiconductor industry has set its sights on angstrom-scale device features. High-speed, precise and repeatable plasma power delivery with sophisticated controls is fundamental to process and device improvements. These factors support inflection points in technologies from chip-scale packaging through advanced front-end technolo... » read more

Enabling A Chiplet Supply Chain


Chiplets have been in the news quite a bit lately. A chiplet-based architecture offers several advantages that chip designers can benefit from as they bring out new products to the market. Over the years, system designers have integrated more and more functions into a system on chip (SoC). As a result, the size of SoCs keeps increasing. Even though SoCs provide several advantages in performance... » read more

FLEX 2023 Takeaways: Flexible And Printed Electronics Move Into Electronics Manufacturing


By Gity Samadi and Paul Semenza The FLEX Conference, held again this year in conjunction with SEMICON West 2023, provided numerous examples of continued developments in flexible, printed, and flexible hybrid electronics technologies applied to sensing, robotics, communications, and other applications. At the same time, there is growing focus on applying various additive manufacturing equipme... » read more

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