Uneven Growth Ahead


By Joanne Itow SEMI recently released its silicon shipment forecast for 2012-2014. Total wafer shipments are expected to reach record levels in 2013 and 2014. Semico’s Wafer Demand model concurs with that forecast. Wafer demand is expected to grow at a compound annual rate of 11.7% over the next five years. The wafer demand pie keeps getting bigger but all the pieces are not growing at th... » read more

Epitaxy: Seeking Crystalline Perfection


By Richard Lewington Epitaxy is one of the fundamental processes used to make all kinds of semiconductor devices: LEDs, power electronics and, of course, microchips. The term epitaxy means, roughly speaking, “adding order” and that’s exactly what it does. Hot gases react on a surface to “grow” a layer that precisely matches the underlying crystal structure. Epitaxy was first us... » read more

New Math


It was nice when we had round numbers to work with. It was pretty simple to move from 180nm to 120nm and then to 90nm. Then the half nodes started—45/40, 32/28 and 22/20nm. After 14nm we are poised dangerously over the single-digit process nodes. Intel is working on 10nm, to be followed by 7nm or 5nm. Other companies are looking at 11nm, to be followed by 8nm, 6nm or something even further... » read more

ASML to Buy Cymer


"We have experienced some delay in EUV, basically caused by delays in developing the light source", said Peter Wennink, ASML's financial chief. With that understatement, ASML succinctly explained its rationale for offering $2.6B in cash (25%) and stock (75%) to buy San Diego-based Cymer, the leading developer of EUV sources.  Over the last year, ASML has sent about 500 of their engineers to... » read more

ST’s FD-SOI Tech Available to All Through GF


Posted by Adele Hars, Editor-in-Chief, Advanced Substrate News ~  ~ In the spring of 2012, STMicroelectronics announced the company would be manufacturing ST-Ericsson’s next-generation (and very successful) NovaThor ARM-based smartphone/tablet processors using 28nm FD-SOI process technology. With first samples coming out this fall, ASN talks to Jean-Marc Chery, Executive Vice Pres... » read more

SPOTLIGHT ON FD-SOI, FINFETS AT IEEE SOI CONFERENCE
;1-4 OCT, NAPA


The 38th annual SOI Conference is coming right up. Sponsored by IEEE Electron Devices Society, this is the only dedicated SOI conference covering the full technology chain from materials to devices, circuits and system applications. Chaired this year by Gosia Jurczak (manager of the Memories Program at imec), this excellent conference is well worth attending. It’s where the giants of the ... » read more

Winners And Losers


By Joanne Itow Semiconductor revenues will log in a relatively lackluster growth for 2012, only 3% more than 2011. That is below the 4.8% CAGR (compound annual growth rate) over the past five years and well below the 8.4% CAGR over the past 10 years. On the other hand, semiconductor units continue to show healthy growth, driving up wafer demand. Units will grow slightly faster compared to the ... » read more

A Mischievous Muse


By Marc David Levenson Moorissa, the muse of high technology, enjoys playing practical jokes on the mask-makers, whose annual meeting was the week of Sept. 10 in Monterey. It started long ago…For example, no sooner had mask makers learned how to write precise 1X masks with fancy electron beams than the wafer printing industry went to reduction steppers, negating the advantages of all that pr... » read more

The Rolling Stones Of Chipmaking


By Cheryl Knepfler In 1993, when the Internet was mostly a science experiment, Applied shipped a new P5000 CVD system to the Motorola SPS (now Freescale) Oak Hill fab in Austin, Texas— where it was used to produce processors for Apple computers. A year later, Motorola installed its second P5000 system. Fast forward 20 years and you’ll find both tools on the production line and still runnin... » read more

Materials Market To Top $50 Billion In 2013


By Lara Chamness Given current macroeconomic headwinds, this year is proving to be challenging to forecast. Most analysts recently downgraded their semiconductor revenue forecasts to flat or low-single digits, down from the more optimistic forecasts of 4% to 6% growth presented earlier in the year. SEMI believes that the semiconductor materials will trend with the device market. As such, th... » read more

← Older posts Newer posts →