GaN Application Base Widens, Adoption Grows

By Patrick Waurzyniak - 16 Dec, 2021 - Comments: 0

Gallium nitride (GaN) is beginning to show up across a broad range of power semiconductor applications due to its wide bandgap, enabling fast-charging, very high speeds, and much smaller form factors than silicon-based chips. Unlike silicon carbide (SiC), another wide-bandgap technology, GaN is a lateral rather than a vertical device. GaN tops out at about 900 volts, which limits its use in ... » read more

Batteries Have Moving Parts

By Katherine Derbyshire - 16 Dec, 2021 - Comments: 0

The race is on to make lithium-ion batteries safer, to increase the amount of energy that can be drawn out of these devices, and to reduce the time it takes to charge them up again. Transistors and other electronic components depend on the movement of electrons, which are effectively massless and dimensionless relative to the semiconductor, metal, and dopant atoms that surround them. A batte... » read more

Covid Masks And Forecasts At Semicon

By Mark LaPedus - 16 Dec, 2021 - Comments: 0

Semicon West 2021 was certainty different, if not surreal, this year. The annual event was held in-person from Dec. 7-9, although there is a virtual component that runs until Jan. 7, 2022. In comparison, Semicon West was an all-virtual event in 2020, due to the Covid-19 pandemic. At this year’s in-person event in San Francisco, attendees, exhibitors and speakers were all required to wea... » read more

Design Process And Methodology For Achieving High-Volume Production Quality For HDFO Packaging

By Ruben Fuentes - 16 Dec, 2021 - Comments: 0

Unlike the traditional system on chip (SoC) design process, which has fully qualified verification methods embodied in the form of process design kits (PDKs), chip design companies and outsourced semiconductor assembly and test (OSAT) suppliers have typically had no integrated circuit (IC) package co-design sign-off verification process to help ensure that an IC package will meet manufacturabil... » read more

Understanding Electrical Line Resistance At Advanced Semiconductor Nodes

By Sandy Wen - 16 Dec, 2021 - Comments: 0

When evaluating shrinking metal linewidths in advanced semiconductor devices, bulk resistivity is not the sole materials property for deriving electrical resistance. At smaller line dimensions, local resistivity is dominated by grain boundary effects and surface scattering. Consequently, resistivity varies throughout a line, and resistance extraction needs to account for these secondary phenome... » read more

Six Examples Of Predictive Maintenance

By Jessica Albright - 16 Dec, 2021 - Comments: 0

One of the many tools that condition monitoring enables us to provide is predictive maintenance. Predictive maintenance allows you to improve business efficiency by minimizing downtime and increasing productivity. This is achieved by strategically monitoring assets and conditions specific to your business, which vary significantly based on your industry. While several companies directly be... » read more

Business, Technology Challenges Increase For Photomasks

By Mark LaPedus - 16 Dec, 2021 - Comments: 0

Experts at the Table: Semiconductor Engineering sat down to discuss optical and EUV photomasks issues, as well as the challenges facing the mask business, with Naoya Hayashi, research fellow at DNP; Peter Buck, director of MPC & mask defect management at Siemens Digital Industries Software; Bryan Kasprowicz, senior director of technical strategy at Hoya; and Aki Fujimura, CEO of D2S. What f... » read more

Chillers: A Cooling Product But Temperatures Still Rising

By John West - 16 Dec, 2021 - Comments: 0

In what has been an incredible ride over the past five years for everyone in the semiconductor supply chain, suppliers of chillers have shined as standout performers. These cooling systems that are stuck in the sub-fab space under the clean rooms get little attention, yet revenues have more than doubled in the past five years, clocking a compound annual growth rate of 22% to reach $635 million ... » read more

A Novel Multifunctional Single-Layer Adhesive Used For Both Temporary Bonding And Mechanical Debonding in Wafer-Level Packaging Applications

By Brewer Science - 15 Dec, 2021 - Comments: 0

Temporary bonding (TB) and debonding (DB) of wafers have been widely developed and applied over the last decade in various wafer-level packaging technologies, such as package-on-package (PoP), fan-out integration, and 2.5D and 3D integration using through-silicon vias (TSVs). The materials used to achieve TB and DB are extremely critical and the industry's current best practice is the use of tw... » read more

Manufacturing Bits: Dec. 14

By Mark LaPedus - 14 Dec, 2021 - Comments: 0

3D-SOCs At this week’s IEEE International Electron Devices Meeting (IEDM), a plethora of companies, R&D organizations and universities presented papers on the latest and greatest technologies. One of the themes at IEDM is advanced packaging, a technology enables an IC vendor to boost the performance of a chip. Advanced forms of packaging also enables new 3D-like chip architectures. Fo... » read more

← Older posts Newer posts →

Knowledge Centers
Entities, people and technologies explored

Shift Left Is The Tip Of The Iceberg

A transformative change is underway for semiconductor design and EDA. New languages, models, and abstractions will need to be created.

by Brian Bailey

Partitioning In The Chiplet Era

Understanding how chiplets interact under different workloads is critical to ensuring signal integrity and optimal performance in heterogeneous designs.

by Ann Mutschler

3.5D: The Great Compromise

Pros and cons of a middle-ground chiplet assembly that combines 2.5D and 3D-IC.

by Ed Sperling

AI’s Role In Chip Design Widens, Drawing In New Startups

Focus is on letting engineers do much more with the same or fewer resources — and less drudgery.

by Karen Heyman

What Comes After HBM For Chiplets

The standard for high-bandwidth memory limits design freedom at many levels, but that is required for interoperability. What freedoms can be taken from other functions to make chiplets possible?

by Brian Bailey

Memory Fundamentals For Engineers

eBook: Nearly everything you need to know about memory, including detailed explanations of the different types of memory; how and where these are used today; what's changing, which memories are successful and which ones might be in the future; and the limitations of each memory type.

by The SE Staff

Why Small Fab And Assembly Houses Are Thriving

Megafabs churning out the most advanced processors are not the only game in town.

by Bryon Moyer

New AI Processors Architectures Balance Speed With Efficiency

Hot Chips 24: Large language models ratchet up pressure for sustainable computing and heterogeneous integration; data management becomes key differentiator.