A Wrap-Up Of Photomask Japan 2024

By Ingo Bork - 23 May, 2024 - Comments: 0

This year, I had the opportunity to attend the 30th Symposium on Photomask and NGL Mask Technology, also called Photomask Japan 2024 (PMJ), in Yokohama, Japan, from April 16 to 18. This well-regarded symposium brings together engineers from all over the world to share ideas on photomasks, NGL masks and related technologies. It was great being back to an in-person conference after four years ... » read more

Accelerating Innovation With An E-Beam Lithography System

By Al Blais - 23 May, 2024 - Comments: 0

By Al Blais and Johnny Yeap Traditional lithography remains a standard in the industry, providing precision and a relatively cost-effective way to create patterns on the wafer when producing very high volumes of chips. However, cycle times can be long depending on the complexity of the masks that must be made. The emergence of maskless e-beam lithography is providing a complementary path ... » read more

Sidestepping Lithography In Chip Manufacturing

By Katherine Derbyshire - 23 May, 2024 - Comments: 0

Rising lithography costs, shrinking feature sizes, and the need for an alternative to copper are collectively spurring new interest in area-selective deposition. An extension of atomic layer deposition, ASD seeks to build circuit features from the bottom up, without relying on lithography. Lithography will remain a critical tool for the foreseeable future. But it has long been the most expen... » read more

Sparking Climate Action With Earth Month Lightning Talks

By Wojtec Osowiecki - 23 May, 2024 - Comments: 0

In the age of rapidly advancing technology and global connectivity, it’s essential to recognize the impact of our actions on the planet. As industries evolve, so must our commitment to sustainability and environmental stewardship. In this spirit, the Climate Equity and Social Impact (CESI) working group, part of the SEMI Sustainability Initiative, last month hosted the semiconductor industry... » read more

Veterans Could Close The Semi Industry’s Workforce Gap

By Liz Allan - 22 May, 2024 - Comments: 0

Veterans are beginning to form a valuable talent pool for advanced manufacturing and chip-sector positions, helping to fill the current and projected future gap in qualified workers as new fabs come online, and adding discipline and skills that are difficult to find otherwise. The job opportunities are many, and so are the possible job paths. In some cases, veterans are looking to make a qui... » read more

Navigating The GPU Revolution

By Gregory Haley - 24 Apr, 2024 - Comments: 0

Experts at the Table: Semiconductor Engineering sat down to discuss the impact of GPU acceleration on mask design and production and other process technologies, with Aki Fujimura, CEO of D2S; Youping Zhang, head of ASML Brion; Yalin Xiong, senior vice president and general manager of the BBP and reticle products division at KLA; and Kostas Adam, vice president of engineering at Synopsys. What f... » read more

Predicting And Preventing Process Drift

By Gregory Haley - 22 Apr, 2024 - Comments: 0

Increasingly tight tolerances and rigorous demands for quality are forcing chipmakers and equipment manufacturers to ferret out minor process variances, which can create significant anomalies in device behavior and render a device non-functional. In the past, many of these variances were ignored. But for a growing number of applications, that's no longer possible. Even minor fluctuations in ... » read more

Electromigration Concerns Grow In Advanced Packages

By Laura Peters - 18 Apr, 2024 - Comments: 0

The incessant demand for more speed in chips requires forcing more energy through ever-smaller devices, increasing current density and threatening long-term chip reliability. While this problem is well understood, it's becoming more difficult to contain in leading-edge designs. Of particular concern is electromigration, which is becoming more troublesome in advanced packages with multiple ch... » read more

What Works Best For Chiplets

By Anne Meixner - 18 Apr, 2024 - Comments: 0

The semiconductor industry is preparing for the migration from proprietary chiplet-based systems to a more open chiplet ecosystem, in which chiplets fabricated by different companies of various technologies and device nodes can be integrated in a single package with acceptable yield. To make this work as expected, the chip industry will have to solve a variety of well-documented technical an... » read more

Enabling Advanced Devices With Atomic Layer Processes

By Katherine Derbyshire - 18 Apr, 2024 - Comments: 2

Atomic layer deposition (ALD) used to be considered too slow to be of practical use in semiconductor manufacturing, but it has emerged as a critical tool for both transistor and interconnect fabrication at the most advanced nodes. ALD can be speeded up somewhat, but the real shift is the rising value of precise composition and thickness control at the most advanced nodes, which makes the ext... » read more

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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.

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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

Key Technologies To Extend EUV To 14 Angstroms

Alongside high-NA EUV will be better-performing photoresists, reduced roughness using passivation and etch, and lateral etching to reduce tip-to-tip dimensions.

by Laura Peters

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.

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