BEOL Issues At 10nm And 7nm


Semiconductor Engineering sat down to discuss problems with the back end of line at leading-edge nodes with Craig Child, senior manager and deputy director for [getentity id="22819" e_name="GlobalFoundries'"] advanced technology development integration unit; Paul Besser, senior technology director at [getentity id="22820" comment="Lam Research"]; David Fried, CTO at [getentity id="22210" e_name... » read more

Managing Parasitics For Transistor Performance


The basic equations describing transistor behavior rely on parameters like channel doping, the capacitance of the gate oxide, and the resistance between the source and drain and the channel. And for most of the IC industry's history, these have been sufficient. “Parasitic” or “external” resistances and capacitances from structures outside the transistor have been small enough to discoun... » read more

The Week In Review: Manufacturing


Chipmakers Faced with a huge write-down at its nuclear operations, Toshiba is looking to spin off its semiconductor division, which makes NAND. As expected, Toshiba seeks investors in the new company, according to Nikkei. Western Digital (WD) is one potential investor. Foxconn is another possible investor, according to CNBC. Peregrine Semiconductor has rolled out its latest RF SOI process.... » read more

New Techniques To Analyze And Reduce Etch Variation


Time division multiplex (TDM) plasma etch processes (commonly referred to as Deep Reactive ION Etching [“DRIE”]) use alternating deposition and etch steps cyclically to produce high aspect ratio structures on a silicon substrate. These etch processes have been widely applied in the manufacturing of silicon MEMS devices, and more recently in creating through silicon vias in 3D silicon struct... » read more

New Embedded Memories Ahead


The embedded memory market is beginning to heat up, fueled by a new wave of microcontrollers (MCUs) and related chips that will likely require new and more capable nonvolatile memory types. The industry is moving on several different fronts in the embedded memory landscape. On one front, traditional solutions are advancing. On another front, several vendors are positioning the next-generatio... » read more

Manufacturing Bits: Jan. 24


Trapping antimatter Japan’s Riken has conducted measurements in order to discover the differences between matter and antimatter, namely in the complex field of antiprotons. Antimatter is a material composed of antiparticles, according to Wikipedia. Antimatter has the same mass as particles of ordinary matter, but it has an opposite charge, according to Wikipedia. Basically, neutron... » read more

Integrating Process Models With TCAD Simulation…


Novel semiconductor technologies are creating complex process flows, which are needed to support the manufacturing of advanced 3D semiconductor structures. It can be helpful to model process flows, and their effect on a novel device, prior to physical fabrication. Process modeling is a technique that can predict the 3D structure of a device using an understanding of unit process steps. Durin... » read more

What’s Next For Transistors


The IC industry is moving in several different directions at once. The largest chipmakers continue to march down process nodes with chip scaling, while others are moving towards various advanced packaging schemes. On top of that, post-CMOS devices, neuromorphic chips and quantum computing are all in the works. Semiconductor Engineering sat down to discuss these technologies with Marie Semeri... » read more

Power Management Vs. State Machines


In the last several years, contemporary SoCs (systems-on-a-chip) have become very complex silicon solutions. They now consist of hundreds of millions of gates, 100 or more discrete Semiconductor Intellectual Property (SIP) blocks, high-speed data channels, megabytes of volatile and non-volatile embedded memory, increasing amounts of analog/mixed signal functionality, multiple CPU cores and mult... » read more

The Week In Review: Manufacturing


Chipmakers 2017 is just getting underway and there appears to be more restructuring in the IC industry. Toshiba is looking to spin off its semiconductor division and Western Digital (WD) plans to take a minority stake, according to Nikkei, which added that Toshiba would sell a 20% stake for 200-300 billion yen ($1.78-$2.65 billion). “The arrangement would provide Toshiba with short term fund... » read more

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