category: Manufacturing, Packaging and Materials

category: IoT, Security & Automotive

How To Make 3D NAND
By Mark LaPedus - 23 May, 2016 - Comments: 0

In 2013, Samsung reached a major milestone in the IC industry by shipping the world’s first 3D NAND device. Now, after some delays and uncertainty, Intel, Micron, SK Hynix and the SanDisk/Toshiba duo are finally ramping up or sampling 3D NAND. 3D NAND is the long-awaited successor to today’s planar or 2D NAND, which is used in memory cards, solid-state storage drives (SSDs), USB flash dr... » read more

The Week In Review: Manufacturing
By Mark LaPedus - 20 May, 2016 - Comments: 0

Chipmakers IC Insights released its top chip makers in terms of sales for the first quarter of 2016. The top-20 ranking includes three pure-play foundries (TSMC, GlobalFoundries, and UMC) and six fabless companies. Intel remained in the top spot, followed in order by Samsung and TSMC. The biggest movers in the ranking were made by the new Broadcom (Avago/Broadcom) and Nvidia. Broadcom jumped f... » read more

The Other Side Of Device Scaling
By Ed Sperling - 19 May, 2016 - Comments: 0

The push to 10nm and 7nm is a relatively straightforward path in PowerPoint. In multiple presentations across the semiconductor industry, in fact, it has been portrayed as a straight line progression spanning decades. While most chipmakers are aware that the cost per transistor has been increasing below 22nm, due to double patterning and the challenges in designing finFETs and dealing with d... » read more

Toward Better Acoustic Resonators
By Mattan Kamon - 19 May, 2016 - Comments: 0

After some lively conversations with the top researchers in MEMS acoustic resonators during the 2014 Sensors and Actuators Workshop (familiarly known to the MEMS community as “Hilton Head”), we set to work on a simulation solution to better serve researchers and commercial designers. Acoustic resonators for RF filtering have received a lot of attention in the past few years as the number... » read more

What’s Next For NAND?
By Mark LaPedus - 19 May, 2016 - Comments: 2

NAND flash memory is a key enabler in today’s systems, but it’s a difficult business. NAND suppliers require deep pockets and strong technology to survive in the competitive landscape. And going forward, vendors face new challenges on several fronts. On one front, for example, the overall NAND market is currently in the doldrums, amid soft product prices and a mild capacity glut. Demand ... » read more

One-On-One: Dave Hemker
By Ed Sperling - 19 May, 2016 - Comments: 0

Dave Hemker, CTO at [getentity id="22820" comment="Lam Research"], sat down with Semiconductor Engineering to look at some of the key issues on the process and manufacturing side, and some of the key developments that will reshape the semiconductor industry in the future. What follows are excerpts of that conversation. SE: One of the big discussion topics these days is [getkc id="208" commen... » read more

Bulk CMOS Vs. FD-SOI
By Mark LaPedus - 19 May, 2016 - Comments: 2

The leading edge of the chip market increasingly is divided over whether to move to finFETs or whether to stay at 28nm using different materials and potentially even advanced packaging. Decisions about which approach to take frequently boil down to performance, power, form factor, cost, and the maturity of the individual technologies. All of those can vary by market, by vendor and by process... » read more

Pattern Matching in Design and Verification
By Michael White - 19 May, 2016 - Comments: 0

Pattern matching (PM) was first introduced as the semiconductor industry began to shift from simple one-dimensional rule checks to the two-dimensional checks required by sub-resolution lithography. These rule checks proved far more complex to write, hard to code for fast runtimes, and difficult to debug. Incorporating an automated visual capture and compare process enabled designers to define t... » read more

What’s The Outlook For ICs?
By Mark LaPedus - 19 May, 2016 - Comments: 1

As the semiconductor industry heads into the second half of 2016, it’s time to take the pulse of the IC sector. Based on the current signs, there’s a faint pulse, if that. Simply put, the IC market has been in the doldrums in the first half of 2016. And it looks sluggish heading into the second half. It wasn’t supposed to be like this. At the beginning of this year, many predicte... » read more

Building A Better Resonator
By Katherine Derbyshire - 19 May, 2016 - Comments: 0

The resonant frequency of a beam depends on the mass and stiffness of the beam. Resonance has always been important in the design of musical instruments and amplification systems, as well as the design of bridges and buildings. With the advent of MEMS fabrication techniques, though, came the ability to create very small beams, in the micron or nanometer size range, with resonant frequencies ... » read more

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