category: Manufacturing, Packaging and Materials

category: IoT, Security & Automotive

Manufacturing Bits: April 8
By Mark LaPedus - 08 Apr, 2019 - Comments: 0

Designing metamaterials Sandia National Laboratories has developed an inverse-design software technology that automates the design of optical metamaterials. Metamaterials are artificial materials containing arrays of metal nanostructures or mega-atoms. Some metamaterials are able to bend light around objects, rendering them invisible. But they only interact with light over a very narrow ran... » read more

Week In Review: Manufacturing, Test
By Mark LaPedus - 05 Apr, 2019 - Comments: 0

Public policy The rise of the digital economy is creating millions of new jobs, but it’s difficult to fill these positions. So, the Consumer Technology Association (CTA), a U.S.-based trade group, is encouraging hi-tech companies to offer more apprenticeships. This is especially true for software engineering, networking, data analytics, cybersecurity and artificial intelligence. The Semic... » read more

Manufacturing Bits: April 2
By Mark LaPedus - 02 Apr, 2019 - Comments: 0

Bright particle accelerators The High Energy Accelerator Research Organization (KEK) has reached a major milestone in the world’s most luminous or brightest particle accelerator. KEK has recently made the first physics run in the SuperKEKB, a storage ring that combines an electron-positron collider with a new and advanced detector. Electron-positron collisions have restarted at the SuperK... » read more

Week In Review: Manufacturing, Test
By Mark LaPedus - 29 Mar, 2019 - Comments: 0

Materials Wesfarmers, an Australian diversified firm, has made an unsolicited bid to acquire Lynas, one of the world’s largest suppliers of rare earths outside of China. Rare earths are chemical elements found in the Earth’s crust. They are used in cars, consumer electronics, computers, communications, clean energy and defense systems. The big market for rare earths is magnets. In semicond... » read more

Manufacturing Bits: March 26
By Mark LaPedus - 26 Mar, 2019 - Comments: 0

ALD materials database Atomic Limits, a blog site that addresses atomic-level processing technologies, has developed an online database listing all atomic layer deposition (ALD) materials and processes. The database could be useful for ALD processes in semiconductors and other fields. ALD is a deposition technique that deposits materials one layer at a time. In ALD systems, wafers are place... » read more

Improving SAQP Patterning Yield Using Virtual Fabrication And Advanced Process Control
By Benjamin Vincent - 25 Mar, 2019 - Comments: 0

Advanced logic scaling has created some difficult technical challenges, including a requirement for highly dense patterning. Imec recently confronted this challenge, by working toward the use of Metal 2 (M2) line patterning with a 16 nm half-pitch for their 7nm node (equivalent to a 5nm foundry node). Self-Aligned Quadruple Patterning (SAQP) was investigated as an alternative path to Extreme Ul... » read more

Single Vs. Multi-Patterning EUV
By Mark LaPedus - 25 Mar, 2019 - Comments: 5

Extreme ultraviolet (EUV) lithography finally is moving into production, but foundry customers now must decide whether to implement their designs using EUV-based single patterning at 7nm, or whether to wait and instead deploy EUV multiple patterning at 5nm. Each patterning scheme has unique challenges, making that decision more difficult than it might appear. Targeted for 7nm, single pattern... » read more

Virtual Fabrication And Advanced Process Control Improve Yield For SAQP Process Assessment With 16nm Half-Pitch
By Coventor - 25 Mar, 2019 - Comments: 0

This paper uses Virtual Fabrication to assess the Imec 7nm node (iN7) Self-Aligned Quadruple Patterning (SAQP) integration scheme for the 16nm half-pitch Metal 2 line formation. We first present the technical challenge of obtaining defect-free M2 lines with SAQP, and then provide a solution to achieve a » read more

Week In Review: Manufacturing, Test
By Mark LaPedus - 22 Mar, 2019 - Comments: 0

Chipmakers TrendForce released its foundry rankings for the first quarter of 2019. TSMC is still the clear leader, followed in order by Samsung, GlobalFoundries and UMC, according to the firm. It was a tough quarter for all foundries. Samsung has rolled out its new High Bandwidth Memory (HBM2E) product. The new solution, called Flashbolt, is the industry’s first HBM2E to deliver a 3.2Gbps... » read more

A Different Kind Of Material World
By Ed Sperling - 21 Mar, 2019 - Comments: 1

The semiconductor manufacturing world is poised for big change, and the driver will be materials. Materials always have been a critical factor in semiconductors. Silicon is so important that an entire region of California is named after it. Rare earths have raised fears about nationalistic monopolies. And the shift from aluminum to copper interconnects at 130nm caused one of the most painful... » read more

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