Manufacturing Bits: Aug. 21


World’s smallest transistor The Karlsruhe Institute of Technology (KIT) has developed what researchers say is the world’s smallest transistor. Researchers have devised a single-atom transistor. The transistor switches an electrical current via a single atom, which resides in a gel electrolyte. The device also works at room temperature. While others have developed single-atom transist... » read more

A Review of Silicon Photonics


With the end of Moore’s Law rapidly approaching—some say it's already here—new applications of older technologies are gaining attention. One specific area of interest is photonics. The National Center for Optics and Photonic Education defines photonics as the technology of generating and harnessing light and other forms of radiant energy whose quantum unit is the photon. It can also be... » read more

3D NAND Flash Wars Begin


3D NAND suppliers are gearing up for a new battle amid a period of price and competitive pressures, racing each other to the next technology generations. Competition is intensifying as a new player enters the 3D NAND market—China’s Yangtze Memory Technologies Co. (YMTC). Backed by billions of dollars in funding from the Chinese government, YMTC recently introduced its first 3D NAND techn... » read more

Week In Review: Manufacturing, Test


Trade wars It’s difficult to keep up with the U.S.-China trade war. In the latest event, the U.S. Trade Representative (USTR) recently released a 25% tariff on $16 billion in imports from China. This includes 29 tariff lines that represent the heart of the semiconductor industry, according to SEMI. “SEMI, along with hundreds of companies, including Lam Research and KLA-Tencor, submitted wr... » read more

The Hidden Cost Of Tariffs


The impact of tariffs on the semiconductor industry is just now being assessed, but there's a lot more to this picture than import and export duties. In fact, the biggest and longest-lasting effects may have less to do with taxing imports than what happens across the global supply chain that includes everything from manufacturing equipment to materials to investment capital. Import duti... » read more

Memory Startups To Watch


The next-generation memories are finally ramping up after years’ of delays and promises. Intel, for one, is shipping 3D XPoint, a next-generation technology based on phase-change memory. In addition, the big foundries are readying embedded MRAM. And, of course, there are a number of other players in the next-generation memory arena. There are also a number of startups that are flying un... » read more

Optimizing 5G With AI At The Edge


AI touches our lives in many different ways, and while some AI-enabled applications are highly visible, like the increasingly popular Amazon Echo and Google Home voice-controlled intelligent digital assistants, others are less obvious. But by no means are they less important. For example, AI techniques are essential to the successful rollout of 5G wireless communications. 5G is the develop... » read more

Next-Gen Memory Ramping Up


The next-generation memory market is heating up as vendors ramp a number of new technologies, but there are some challenges in bringing these products into the mainstream. For years, the industry has been working on a variety of memory technologies, including carbon nanotube RAM, FRAM, MRAM, phase-change memory and ReRAM. Some are shipping, while others are in R&D. Each memory type is di... » read more

Inspecting Unpatterned Wafers


Unpatterned wafer inspection, which has flown well under the radar for most of the semiconductor industry, is becoming more critical amid the need to find defects earlier in the manufacturing process flow. Finding those defects is getting harder as critical dimensions shrink. It's more difficult to actually detect smaller defects on bare wafers, there is more data to process, and there is mo... » read more

Automotive Electronics: Driving The Semiconductor Market


Automotive electronics is the fastest growing end application in the semiconductor market, but what systems will see the highest penetration rates? Currently, self-driving cars grab much of the media attention, and for good reason. Semico estimates that today’s self-driving car has $21,525 of additional electronics. However, recent tests of ADAS vehicles produced less than stellar results. II... » read more

← Older posts Newer posts →