Keeping Up Power And Performance With Cobalt


Chip designers require simultaneous improvements in “PPAC”: power, performance and area/cost (Fig. 1). Achieving these improvements is becoming increasingly difficult as classic Moore's Law scaling slows. What's needed is a new playbook for the industry consisting of new materials, new architectures, new 3D structures within the chip, new methods to shrink feature geometries, and advanced p... » read more

Adaptation In A Volatile Era


2018 has been a volatile year by almost any measure, and the global electronics industry was at the center of the action. Soaring memory prices and tech stock valuations drove eye-popping growth in the first half, with Samsung solidifying its position as the world’s largest chipmaker and Apple briefly topping $1 trillion of market capitalization. Fast forward to the second half of the year an... » read more

Efforts to Suppress Nanosized Particles in Semiconductor Production Equipment


The currently dominant semiconductor process size is in the range between a few and a few dozen nanometers. That means if a nanosized-particle smaller than a virus (hereinafter simply “particle”) is present on a silicon substrate, it could cause a defect in the semiconductor device, lowering the production yield (i.e., the percentage of good chips produced in a manufacturing process).... » read more

What’s Next For AI, Quantum Chips


Semiconductor Engineering sat down to discuss the latest R&D trends with Luc Van den hove, president and chief executive of Imec; Emmanuel Sabonnadière, chief executive of Leti; and An Chen, executive director for the Nanoelectronics Research Initiative at the Semiconductor Research Corp. (SRC). Chen is on assignment from IBM. What follows are excerpts of those conversations, which took pl... » read more

Defect Detection Strategies and Process Partitioning for SE EUV Patterning


ABSTRACT The key challenge for enablement of a 2nd node of single-expose EUV patterning is understanding and mitigating the patterning-related defects that narrow the process window. Typical in-line inspection techniques, such as broadband plasma (291x) and e-beam systems, find it difficult to detect the main yield-detracting defects post-develop, and thus understanding the effects of process ... » read more

Effects of a Random Process Variation on the Transfer Characteristics of a Fundamental Photonic Integrated Circuit Component


Silicon photonics is rapidly emerging as a promising technology to enable higher bandwidth, lower energy, and lower latency communication and information processing, and other applications. In silicon photonics, existing CMOS manufacturing infrastructure and techniques are leveraged. However, a key challenge for silicon photonics is the lack of mature models that take into account known CMOS pr... » read more

Data Transfer Without Energy Loss


SEMI met with Erez Halahmi, vice president at 0eC SA, to discuss a new way to transfer information not only between chips but also between servers to reduce power consumption while boosting performance. The two spoke ahead of his presentation at the 3D & Systems Summit, 28-30 January, 2019, in Dresden, Germany. To register for the event, please click here. SEMI: What is Zero energy co... » read more

Manufacturing Bits: Jan. 22


Open-source CVD Boise State University has developed an inexpensive chemical vapor deposition (CVD) system to enable the growth of two-dimensional (2D) materials. Using open-source designs and off-the-shelf components, researchers have developed an automated CVD system for $30,000 in hardware costs, according to Boise State in the journal PLoS One. 2D materials could enable a new class ... » read more

Week In Review: Manufacturing, Test


Fab tools and materials Applied Materials is expected to remain the world’s largest semiconductor equipment supplier in terms of projected sales for 2018, according to a preliminary forecast of the rankings from VLSI Research. Applied will have $14 billion in sales in 2018, according to the firm. Applied is the leader in terms of overall projected sales in 2018, followed in order by ASM... » read more

Machine Learning For IC Production


Semiconductor Engineering sat down to discuss artificial intelligence (AI), machine learning, and chip and photomask manufacturing technologies with Aki Fujimura, chief executive of D2S; Jerry Chen, business and ecosystem development manager at Nvidia; Noriaki Nakayamada, senior technologist at NuFlare; and Mikael Wahlsten, director and product area manager at Mycronic. What follows are excerpt... » read more

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