Materials M&A Mania


The electronics materials business has seen a wave of mergers and acquisitions in recent times. Clearly, it’s important to keep tabs on this industry. Vendors in the electronics materials business are critical to the supply chain—they provide the key gases, materials and other products for various industries, such as display, MEMS, packaging, semiconductor and others. But it takes a s... » read more

EUV Arrives, But More Issues Ahead


EUV has arrived. After decades of development and billions of dollars of investment, EUV lithography is taking center stage at the world’s leading fabs. More than 20 years after ASML's extreme ultraviolet lithography research program began, and nearly a decade after its first pre-production exposure tools, the company expects to deliver 30 EUV exposure systems in 2019. That is nearly doubl... » read more

Selective Removal For Stronger Fins


By Matt Cogorno and Toshihiko Miyashita Remember when we could charge our mobile phones on a Sunday and not even think about it again until the next weekend? There was a time when battery life wasn’t even in the top ten concerns when purchasing a mobile phone. Today however, smartphones are constantly being used for computing, gaming, video streaming and other power-hungry applications, so... » read more

Making Chip Packaging Simpler


Packaging is emerging as one of the most critical elements in semiconductor design, but it's also proving difficult to master both technically and economically. The original role of packaging was simply to protect the chips inside, and there are still packages that do just that. But at advanced nodes, and with the integration of heterogeneous components built using different manufacturing pr... » read more

More Devices Will See In 3D


The 3D optical sensing market is once again surging – and it’s all thanks to Apple. What will we see in the next wave of end products enhanced by this technology, how will other market segments approach – and eventually use – 3D optical sensing, and which suppliers stand to gain the most from this very vital technology? Although 3D sensing, facial recognition and optical authenticati... » read more

EUV Mask Readiness Challenges


Semiconductor Engineering sat down to discuss extreme ultraviolet (EUV) lithography and photomask technologies with Emily Gallagher, principal member of the technical staff at Imec; Harry Levinson, principal at HJL Lithography; Chris Spence, vice president of advanced technology development at ASML; Banqiu Wu, senior director of process development at Applied Materials; and Aki Fujimura, chief ... » read more

Low Ripple Notch Filter Designs Using Apodized Thickness Modulation


An apodized discrete layer thickness design method for notch filters is presented. The method produces error tolerant designs with low ripple in the pass band regions without any additional numerical optimization. Sample designs are presented. Multiple approaches have been used in the past for producing notch filters (also called minus filters). The two main approaches can be grouped into ru... » read more

Generation 10+ Fabs Enable Bigger, Brighter, Better TV Displays


Consumers are moving to larger and larger televisions, attracted by the chance to have a more immersive experience and the ability to see what is on the screen from farther away. TV sizes continue to grow by 1 to 1.5 inches per year, and sales of TVs with 65” or larger screens—so-called Gen10+ flat panel displays (FPDs)—are growing exponentially (figure 1). Figure 1. Television shi... » read more

Slow And Cautious Start To 2019 For Memory Manufacturers


Both NAND and DRAM prices began dropping in the second half of 2018 after a couple years at record highs. Product oversupply and excess inventories are signaling a bleak outlook for the memory market in the first half of 2019. With these conditions in mind, SK Hynix and Samsung have slowed or put on hold their plans for capacity expansion in 2H18 and 2019. The chart below shows DRAM capacity... » read more

Accelerating Adoption of SiC Power


The market has heard for many years about wide bandgap product roadmaps and concepts, touting that many possibilities could be available. However, you can’t design in a PowerPoint presentation or a preliminary datasheet, so this article will reinforce that Wolfspeed SiC power has moved way beyond any hype, talk, and fake news and has pioneered the widespread adoption of silicon carbide power ... » read more

← Older posts Newer posts →