Memory Market: More Than ASPs At Risk


By Adrienne Downey and Jim Feldhan In June 2016, the memory market emerged from its slump after reversing its 12-month ASP decline. Since then, we’ve seen a strong rebound for ASPs in both DRAM and NAND. Contributing to this recovery was the increasing demand in memory content per device across all end markets combined with a more controlled capital investment over the past several years.... » read more

What’s Changing At BACUS


Jim Wiley, president of SPIE BACUS, talks about this year's merger of the EUV Lithography Symposium and the SPIE Photomask Conference—including what's new and different, the latest updates on the event location, and topics to look forward to such as EUV mask inspection—as well as his predictions on machine learning. https://youtu.be/GNxUmMAU9zs » read more

Manufacturing Bits: Aug. 15


Self-collapse lithography The University of California at Los Angeles (UCLA) has developed a technology called self-collapse lithography. The technology, reported in the journal Nano Letters, resembles the combination of nanoimprint, selective removal and a chemical lift-off process. More specifically, though, the technology provides insights into patterning using a chemical lift-off lith... » read more

The Week In Review: Manufacturing


Fab tools Lam Research held an analyst event this week. The company indicated that the industry is in the midst of a memory boom, including both DRAM and 3D NAND. According to Amit Daryanani, an analyst with RBC, here was one of the big takeaways at the event: “The memory spend portion of WFE is more sustainable than previously assumed due to end-market drivers such as big data, automation, ... » read more

Manufacturing Bits: Aug. 8


Ferroelectric films Ferroelectric RAM (FRAM) is creating a buzz again. For years, FRAMs have been shipping for embedded applications, although the technology has taken a backseat to MRAM, phase-change and ReRAM. Using a ferroelectric capacitor to store data, FRAM is a nonvolatile memory with unlimited endurance. FRAM is faster than EEPROM and flash. FRAM performs an over-write function in ... » read more

The Week In Review: Manufacturing


Chipmakers The situation between Toshiba and its fab partner, Western Digital (WD), has gone from bad to worse. As reported, troubled Toshiba recently selected a group to buy its memory business. The consortium includes the Innovation Network Corp. of Japan, the Development Bank of Japan and Bain Capital. Rival SK Hynix is also part of the group. WD attempted but failed to buy the unit, an... » read more

Manufacturing Bits: Aug. 1


Magnetic chips HRL Laboratories—an R&D venture between Boeing and General Motors—has been awarded a contract to develop a new class of magnetic integrated components. HRL has received the award from the Defense Advanced Research Project Agency (DARPA) under the Magnetic, Miniaturized, and Monolithically Integrated Components (M3IC) program. The goal is to develop new magnetic materials... » read more

Planes, Birdhouses And Image Recognition


My recent blog post on the limits of neuromorphic computing took an optimistic view: even neuromorphic systems that are relatively crude by the standards of biological brains can still find commercially important applications. A few days after I finished it, I was reminded that the pessimists are not wrong when a friend of mine shared this image. Fig. 1: Trover Gourds in purple martin nest... » read more

The Week In Review: Manufacturing


Chipmakers UMC has generated sales from its recently-announced 14nm finFET technology. The foundry vendor also plans to enter the 22nm process technology market. UMC will join other players in the 22nm arena, such as GlobalFoundries, Intel and TSMC. “So we do have a plan to introduce our 22nm as well and it will be available around 2018,” said Jason Wang, the newly appointed co-president o... » read more

Manufacturing Bits: July 25


Metrology for the intelligence community The semiconductor industry continues to move full speed ahead with traditional chip scaling. There are several challenges in the arena. One of the big but lessor known challenges is metrology. Metrology, the science of characterizing and measuring films and structures, is becoming more complex, challenging and expensive at each node. Looking to solv... » read more

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