Manufacturing Bits: Nov. 29


Supersonic kinetic spraying Low-cost flexible electronics could enable a new class of products, such as roll-up displays, wearable electronics, flexible solar cells and electronic skin. There is a major barrier to enable these technologies, however. The problem is to make flexible transparent conducting films that are scalable and economical. The University of Illinois at Chicago and Kor... » read more

Multi-Patterning Issues At 7nm, 5nm


Continuing to rely on 193nm immersion lithography with multiple patterning is becoming much more difficult at 7nm and 5nm. With the help of various resolution enhancement techniques, optical lithography using a deep ultraviolet excimer laser has been the workhorse patterning technology in the fab since the early 1980s. It is so closely tied with the continuation of [getkc id="74" comment="Mo... » read more

The Week In Review: Manufacturing


R&D Amid budget cuts in the U.S. government, federal funding for R&D at higher education institutions in the United States declined for a fourth straight year, according to a new report from the National Center for Science and Engineering Statistics (NCSES). Overall, universities reported $68.8 billion in R&D expenditures in 2015, a 2.2% increase from 2014, according to the NCSES, part of t... » read more

Manufacturing Bits: Nov. 23


Materials database The Department of Energy’s Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory has published a study that quantifies the thermodynamic scale of metastability of some 29,902 materials. To quantify the materials, researchers used Berkeley Lab’s Materials Project, a large and open database of known and predicted materials. The open and Web-based database has calculated the properties ... » read more

Can We Measure Next-Gen FinFETs?


After ramping up their respective 16nm/14nm finFET processes, chipmakers are moving towards 10nm and/or 7nm, with 5nm in R&D. But as they move down the process roadmap, they will face a new set of fab challenges. In addition to lithography and interconnects, there is metrology. Metrology, the science of measurements, is used to characterize tiny films and structures. It helps to boost yi... » read more

Measuring Atoms And Beyond


David Seiler, chief of the Engineering Physics Division within the Physical Measurement Laboratory at the National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST), sat down with Semiconductor Engineering to discuss the current and future directions of metrology. NIST, a physical science laboratory, is part of the U.S. Department of Commerce. What follows are excerpts of that conversation. SE: W... » read more

Printed Cars, Smart Stints, Personal Breathalyzers


The MEMS and sensor market continues to be a hotbed for innovation, new opportunities and, as with most new frontiers, there are also some disparate views on market dynamics and strategies. All this was evident at the 2016 MSIG Executive Congress last week in Scottsdale, Arizona. First, I’ll cover the pioneering and fun subjects. In addition to the Technology Showcase demos and member pres... » read more

Changes In China


By Jesse Zhang, SEMI China Industry leaders gathered in Beijing at BIMS 2016 — the Beijing International Microelectronics Symposium — to discuss growth opportunities for the semiconductor industry and the mobile communications market. The 17th session of BIMS was co-sponsored by SEMI and the Chinese-American Semiconductor Professionals Association (CASPA). For 17 years, BIMS has provi... » read more

The Week In Review: Manufacturing


Chipmakers Next month, GlobalFoundries will host a job fair in Portland, Ore., according to reports. The company hopes to hire former Intel workers. These are workers who lost their jobs as part of Intel's recent layoff. Anokiwave, a developer of chips for the mmWave market, has announced a foundry alliance with GlobalFoundries. GlobalFoundries will make so-called Silicon Core chips on a f... » read more

Advanced Packaging Requires Better Yield


Whether Moore's Laws truly ends, or whether the semiconductor industry reaches into the Angstrom world after 3nm—the semiconductor industry dislikes fractions—advanced packaging increasingly will dominate semiconductor designs. Apple already is on board with its iPhone 7, using TSMC's fan-out approach. And all of the major foundries and OSATs are lining up with a long list of capabilitie... » read more

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