Addressing Yield Challenges In Advanced IC Substrate (AICS) Packaging


No matter how you get your news, it seems like everyone is talking about AI – and it’s either going to usher in a new era of productivity or lead to the end of humankind itself. Regardless, the AI era is here, and it’s just beginning to have an impact on our lives, our jobs and our future. To meet the rigorous demands of AI – along with high-performance compute, 5G and electric vehic... » read more

Data Analytics For The Chiplet Era


This article is based on a paper presented at SEMICON Japan 2022. Moore’s Law has provided the semiconductor industry’s marching orders for device advancement over the past five decades. Chipmakers were successful in continually finding ways to shrink the transistor, which enabled fitting more circuits into a smaller space while keeping costs down. Today, however, Moore’s Law is slowin... » read more

Preventing Process Excursion With AI And Yield Management Software


Process excursion, or any deviation in a certain process, significantly impacts the cost of semiconductor manufacturing process and product yield. During production, process excursion can be detected early during in-line inspections. However, in some cases, excursion isn’t detected until later in the production process such as during wafer testing in the probing area after production. Apar... » read more

How The Doubling Of Interconnect Bandwidth With PCI Express 6.0 Impacts IP Electrical Validation


As a result of the innovations taking place in CPUs, GPUs, accelerators, and switches, the interface in hyperscale datacenters now requires faster data transfers both between compute and memory and onto the network. PCI Express (PCIe) provides the backbone for these interconnects and is used to build protocols such as Computer Express Link (CXL) and Universal Chiplet Interconnect Express (UCIe... » read more

Detection Of Contaminants In Positive And Negative Ion Mode Using In-line SIMS With An Oxygen Primary Ion Beam


Utilizing Secondary Ion Mass Spectrometry (SIMS) for in-line metrology is a newly emerging method of process control that requires contamination-free measurements, enabling SIMS on product wafers. SIMS measurements of negative ions are usually associated with a Cesium primary ion beam. Unfortunately, when Cesium is present in Silicon, it forms trap states in the Si band gap, which can cause ser... » read more

The Data Revolution Of Semiconductor Production


During our insightful panel discussion on “The Data Revolution of Semiconductor Production – How Advancements in Technology Unlock New Insights,” we covered several topics including machine learning, edge computing and cloud-based data management. We discussed questions including: Are we creating the right data and doing enough with it? What needs to be done to make data actionable? Ho... » read more

Silicon Lifecycle Management Advances With Unified Analytics


In a typical day in the life of a product engineer, they have gone through the requisite wafer sort testing in manufacturing with the next step to assemble the resultant good die into their respective packages. While performing a series of parametric tests during final test, yield issues are encountered and the process of finding the source of the issues begins. Luckily, with access to a good d... » read more

Using AI To Improve Metrology Tooling


Virtual metrology is carefully being added into semiconductor manufacturing, where it is showing positive results, but the chip industry is proceeding cautiously. The first use of this technology has been for augmenting existing fab processes, such as advanced process control (APC). Controlling processes and managing yield generally do not require GPU processing and advanced algorithms, so t... » read more

What Is Achievable With A Yield Management System?


Semiconductor manufacturers are under constant pressure to increase yields and cut costs. Yield Management Systems (YMS) are designed specifically to meet the needs of semiconductor manufacturers, enabling them to investigate yield excursions, streamline the manufacturing processes, optimize the supply chain, analyze tools and eliminate workplace inefficiencies. In terms of data challenges... » read more

What Data Center Chipmakers Can Learn From Automotive


Automotive OEMs are demanding their semiconductor suppliers achieve a nearly unmeasurable target of 10 defective parts per billion (DPPB). Whether this is realistic remains to be seen, but systems companies are looking to emulate that level of quality for their data center SoCs. Building to that quality level is more expensive up front, although ultimately it can save costs versus having to ... » read more

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