Week In Review: Manufacturing, Test


Chipmakers The chip industry is buzzing over a Wall Street Journal report that Intel is in talks to buy GlobalFoundries (GF) for $30 billion. In March, Intel re-entered the foundry business, positioning itself against Samsung and TSMC at the leading edge, and against a multitude of foundries working at older nodes. Intel planned to jumpstart its foundry business within its own fabs. But it... » read more

Manufacturing Bits: July 13


Heterogenous III-V packaging At the recent 2021 IEEE 71st Electronic Components and Technology Conference (ECTC), a group presented a paper on the development of a wafer-level fan-out package using heterogenous III-V devices. This paper deals with the packaging of two III-V chips for use in RF transceiver applications in base stations. III-V Lab, CEA-Leti, Thales and United Monolithic Semic... » read more

Week In Review: Manufacturing, Test


Chipmakers and OEMs China has been working on compound semiconductors, such as gallium-nitride (GaN) and silicon carbide (SiC). Now, a China-backed company has taken a big step in the SiC and related markets. Chip supplier Nexperia, a subsidiary of China’s Wingtech Technology, has acquired Newport Wafer Fab (NWF), a U.K.-based manufacture of power and compound semiconductors, including Si... » read more

Week In Review: Manufacturing, Test


Chipmakers and OEMs More delays and product woes at Intel. “INTC disclosed that it is delaying the launch of its next-generation Xeon server processor Sapphire Rapids (10nm) from the end of this year to 1Q22 due to additional validation needed for the chip,” said John Vinh, an analyst at KeyBanc, in a research note. “Production is expected to begin in 1Q22, with the ramp expected to begi... » read more

Manufacturing Bits: June 29


Speeding up ALD with AI The U.S. Department of Energy’s (DOE) Argonne National Laboratory has developed various ways to make atomic layer deposition (ALD) more efficient by using artificial intelligence (AI). ALD is a deposition technique that deposits materials one layer at a time on chips. For years, ALD has been used for the production of DRAMs, logic devices and other products. In ... » read more

Week In Review: Manufacturing, Test


Lots more fabs and capacity The chip industry sees opportunity in shortages, and is racing to meet demand. SEMI reports 19 new worldwide high-volume fabs already have started construction, or will start by end of this year, and another 10 are scheduled in 2022. “Equipment spending for these 29 fabs is expected to surpass $140 billion over the next few years as the industry pushes to addre... » read more

Bumps Vs. Hybrid Bonding For Advanced Packaging


Advanced packaging continues to gain steam, but now customers must decide whether to design their next high-end packages using existing interconnect schemes or move to a next-generation, higher-density technology called copper hybrid bonding. The decision is far from simple, and in some cases both technologies may be used. Each technology adds new capabilities in next-generation advanced pac... » read more

Manufacturing Bits: June 22


5G metasurface antennas At the recent 2021 IEEE 71st Electronic Components and Technology Conference (ECTC), the Institute of Microelectronics of the Chinese Academy of Sciences (CAS) presented a paper on a low-profile broadband metasurface antenna for 5G antenna-in-package applications. The National Center for Advanced Packaging and the University of Chinese Academy of Sciences also contri... » read more

Thinner Channels With 2D Semiconductors


Moving to future nodes will require more than just smaller features. At 3/2nm and beyond, new materials are likely to be added, but which ones and exactly when will depend upon an explosion of material science research underway at universities and companies around the globe. With field-effect transistors, a voltage applied to the gate creates an electric field in the channel, bending the ban... » read more

Week In Review: Manufacturing, Test


Fab tools TEL plans to ship its leading-edge coater/developer system to the joint Imec-ASML research lab, which is working on high-NA extreme ultraviolet (EUV) lithography. The equipment will be integrated with the EXE:5000, ASML’s next-generation high-NA EUV lithography system. The 0.55 numerical aperture (NA) tool is slated to be operational in 2023. Today's EUV is in production, but there... » read more

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