Addressing Total Overlay Drift In Advanced IC Substrate (AICS) Packaging


For years, many in the semiconductor industry have focused on the march toward advanced nodes. As these nodes have decreased in size, the size of input/output (I/O) bumps on the chip has grown smaller. As these bumps shrink, their ability to mate directly to printed circuit boards (PCB) diminishes, which, in turn, leads to the need for an intermediary substrate. Enter the advanced IC substrate ... » read more

Compiler Optimization Made Easy


In a previous blog post, we discussed the benefits of using automation to maximize the performance of a system. One use case I mentioned was compiler flag mining, and the fact that performance is available beyond the standard optimization flags provided by most compilers. Getting to this untapped performance is a difficult problem to solve, but fortunately there is an easy way. A universe of o... » read more

Advanced Digital Process Nodes Drive Semiconductor Test Innovations


Global internet traffic is growing exponentially, with no sign of slowing, and this demand is driving the evolution of the semiconductor industry. The appetite for more and more data requires sensors for capturing the data, networks for moving the data, storage, and processing power to analyze the data. As the demand for data grows, the underlying technologies must advance to not only meet toda... » read more

Test Gets Ready For Wi-Fi 7


New test solutions are emerging to address the test challenges associated with the forthcoming Wi-Fi 7 standard. Wi-Fi 7 covers the (so far, for Wi-Fi) unused frequency range between 6 GHz and 7.125 GHz, using up to 4096-QAM modulation schemes and up to 320MHz channel bandwidth (see figure 1). Fig. 1: Wi-Fi band ranges are shown here, including the 3x increase in bandwidth enabled by a... » read more

A Journey Of Innovation


When Dr. Shay Wolfling, a physics expert, joined Nova as its CTO about 11 years ago, very little about the company was the same as it is today. Over the past decade, Nova has experienced tremendous growth, acquiring two companies, significantly increasing its revenue and employee count, and shifting its technology direction and product lines. Yet, one constant remains: commitment to innovation ... » read more

Ion Implantation Applications For In-Line SIMS Metrology


By Wei Ti Lee, Sarah Okada, Lawrence Rooney, Feng Zhang, and Benjamin Hickey In the semiconductor industry, ion implantation process has expanded to a wide range of applications with doses and energies spanning several orders of magnitude. Ion implantation is a very complicated process with many parameters and factors that affect the implant profile. For example, shadowing effects from high... » read more

A Star Is Born: Gallium Nitride And The Coming Age Of Compound Semiconductors


Not so long ago, Blu-ray was hailed as a technological advancement in the world of digital video. But in the streaming era, Blu-ray’s luster has faded. However, the technology responsible for the blue laser diode that gave the Blu-ray player its name – gallium nitride (GaN) – is emerging as one of a number of exciting new developments in the semiconductor industry. Today, GaN is used b... » read more

Effect Of RF Plasma Process Gas Chemistry And Electrode Configuration On The Removal Of Copper Lead Frame Oxidation


By Daniel Chir and Johnson Toh Lead frame surface oxidation can lead to surface delamination after molding or wire bonding issues. The application of plasma treatment has been proven to be safe and effective solution to address these issues. However, the effectiveness of plasma treatment for removing oxide is dependent on the correct use of recipe parameters, gas chemistry and electrode conf... » read more

The 5G mmWave Commercialization Effort Is Underway


By David Vondran and Rodrigo Carrillo-Ramirez 5G broadband cellular technology entered its first major rollout phase in 2019. In recent years, 5G adoption has been very visible among the consumer electronics industry, with 5G capabilities now being a key selling point for mid-tier to high-end mobile devices. Behind the scenes, however, there have been a number of developments designed to ... » read more

Engineering Test Station Facilitates Post-Silicon Validation


The semiconductor market is evolving, with devices becoming more complex as chip designers add cores and pursue 2.5D and 3D integration strategies. This complexity presents challenges extending from design and simulation through system-level test (SLT), where a device is exercised in mission mode, booting up an operating system and running end-user code, for example. These challenges arise f... » read more

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