category: Top Stories

category: IoT, Security & Automotive

Legacy Process Nodes Going Strong
By Bryon Moyer - 23 Jul, 2024 - Comments: 0

While all eyes tend to focus on the leading-edge silicon nodes, many mature nodes continue to enjoy robust manufacturing demand. Successive nodes stopped reducing die cost at around the 20nm node. “In the finFET era of processes, esoteric process requirements necessary to move technology forward with each generation have added significant cost and complexity,” explained Andrew Appleby, p... » read more

Precision Patterning Options Emerge For Advanced Packaging
By Gregory Haley - 23 Jul, 2024 - Comments: 0

The chip industry is ratcheting up investments in advanced packaging as it strives to keep pace with demands for increased functionality and higher performance, including novel patterning technologies that can reduce costs and speed time to market. Success in advanced packages is partly dependent on effectively managing the interconnectivity between the chips, which requires increasingly pre... » read more

New Interconnect Metals Need New Dielectrics
By Katherine Derbyshire - 23 Jul, 2024 - Comments: 0

Just as circuit metallization must evolve to manage resistance as features shrink, so must the dielectric half of the interconnect stack. For quite some time, manufacturers have needed a dielectric constant (k) less than 4, which is the value for SiO2, but they have struggled to find materials that combine a low dielectric constant with mechanical and chemical stability. In work presented at... » read more

Controlling Warpage In Advanced Packages
By Laura Peters - 24 Jun, 2024 - Comments: 1

Warpage is becoming a serious concern in advanced packaging, where a heterogeneous mix of materials can cause uneven stress points during assembly and packaging, and under real workloads in the field. Warpage plays a critical role in determining whether an advanced package can be assembled successfully and meet long-term reliability targets. New advances, such as molding compounds with impro... » read more

Single Vs. Multi-Patterning Advancements For EUV
By Gregory Haley - 20 Jun, 2024 - Comments: 0

As semiconductor devices become more complex, so do the methods for patterning them. Ever-smaller features at each new node require continuous advancements in photolithography techniques and technologies. While the basic lithography process hasn’t changed since the founding of the industry — exposing light through a reticle onto a prepared silicon wafer — the techniques and technology ... » read more

Precise Control Needed For Copper Plating And CMP
By Anne Meixner - 20 Jun, 2024 - Comments: 0

Chipmakers are relying on machine learning for electroplating and wafer cleaning at leading-edge process nodes, augmenting traditional fault detection/classification and statistical process control in order to extend the usefulness of copper interconnects. Copper is well understood and easy to work with, but it is running out of steam. At 5nm and below, copper plating tools are struggling to... » read more

Ruthenium Interconnects On Tap
By Katherine Derbyshire - 20 Jun, 2024 - Comments: 0

Chipmakers' focus on new interconnect technology is ramping up as copper's effectiveness continues to diminish, setting the stage for a significant shift that could improve performance and reduce heat at future nodes and in advanced packages. The introduction of copper interconnects in 1997 upended the then-standard tungsten via/aluminum line metallization scheme. Dual damascene integration ... » read more

Opportunities Grow For GPU Acceleration
By Gregory Haley - 05 Jun, 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. W... » read more

Integration Hurdles For Analog And RF In Next-Gen Packages
By Gregory Haley - 23 May, 2024 - Comments: 0

A rapid increase in wireless connectivity and more sensors, coupled with a shift away from monolithic SoCs toward heterogeneous integration, is driving up the amount of analog/RF content in systems and changing the dynamics within a package. Since the early 2000s, the majority of chips used at the most advanced nodes were systems-on-chip (SoCs). All features had to fit into a single planar S... » read more

Reducing Risk In The Semiconductor Supply Chain
By Laura Peters - 23 May, 2024 - Comments: 0

Companies that were hit with chip shortages during the pandemic are changing their strategies to prevent future problems, deploying a combination of supply chain mapping, second sourcing, and digital transformation. Those shortages caused a $200 billion loss for automotive manufacturers, and the disruptions were far more widespread, in many cases lasting for years. Companies of all sorts wer... » read more

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