Maintaining Vehicles Of The Future


Driving a scalable, consumer-centric vision in the mobility industry, vehicles of thefuture will always be connected and differentiated by software. Advancements in software, hardware and their interaction are expanding the boundaries of performance, providing the foundation for next-generation cars. But the same technology that will make this vision a reality also presents new challenges. O... » read more

Hunting For Hardware-Related Errors In Data Centers


The semiconductor industry is urgently pursuing design, monitoring, and testing strategies to help identify and eliminate hardware defects that can cause catastrophic errors. Corrupt execution errors, also known as silent data errors, cannot be fully isolated at test — even with system-level testing — because they occur only under specific conditions. To sort out the environmental condit... » read more

Bump Reliability is Challenged By Latent Defects


Thermal stress is a well-known problem in advanced packaging, along with the challenges of mechanical stress. Both are exacerbated by heterogenous integration, which often requires mingling materials with incompatible coefficients of thermal expansion (CTE). Effects are already showing up and will likely only get worse as package densities increase beyond 1,000 bumps per chip. “You comb... » read more

A Star Is Born: Gallium Nitride And The Coming Age Of Compound Semiconductors


Not so long ago, Blu-ray was hailed as a technological advancement in the world of digital video. But in the streaming era, Blu-ray’s luster has faded. However, the technology responsible for the blue laser diode that gave the Blu-ray player its name – gallium nitride (GaN) – is emerging as one of a number of exciting new developments in the semiconductor industry. Today, GaN is used b... » read more

Ramping Up IC Predictive Maintenance


The chip industry is starting to add technology that can predict impending failures early enough to stave off serious problems, both in manufacturing and in the field. Engineers increasingly are employing in-circuit monitors embedded in SoC designs to catch device failures earlier in the production flow. But for ICs in the field, data tracing from design to application use only recently has ... » read more

Effect Of RF Plasma Process Gas Chemistry And Electrode Configuration On The Removal Of Copper Lead Frame Oxidation


By Daniel Chir and Johnson Toh Lead frame surface oxidation can lead to surface delamination after molding or wire bonding issues. The application of plasma treatment has been proven to be safe and effective solution to address these issues. However, the effectiveness of plasma treatment for removing oxide is dependent on the correct use of recipe parameters, gas chemistry and electrode conf... » read more

The 5G mmWave Commercialization Effort Is Underway


By David Vondran and Rodrigo Carrillo-Ramirez 5G broadband cellular technology entered its first major rollout phase in 2019. In recent years, 5G adoption has been very visible among the consumer electronics industry, with 5G capabilities now being a key selling point for mid-tier to high-end mobile devices. Behind the scenes, however, there have been a number of developments designed to ... » read more

Engineering Test Station Facilitates Post-Silicon Validation


The semiconductor market is evolving, with devices becoming more complex as chip designers add cores and pursue 2.5D and 3D integration strategies. This complexity presents challenges extending from design and simulation through system-level test (SLT), where a device is exercised in mission mode, booting up an operating system and running end-user code, for example. These challenges arise f... » read more

Scan Pattern Portability From PSV To ATE To SLT To IST


By Ash Patel and Karthik Natarajan Chip testing has become increasingly complex due to the number of variables impacting designs – from design size and complexity, to high transistor counts on advanced technology nodes, to 2.5D/3D packaging, to manufacturing variability. All of these combine to make testing today's chips and packages more complicated than ever before. The number of test pa... » read more

Screening For Silent Data Errors


Engineers are beginning to understand the causes of silent data errors (SDEs) and the data center failures they cause, both of which can be reduced by increasing test coverage and boosting inspection on critical layers. Silent data errors are so named because if engineers don’t look for them, then they don’t know they exist. Unlike other kinds of faulty behaviors, these errors also can c... » read more

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