category: Top Stories

category: IoT, Security & Automotive

The Drive Toward More Predictive Maintenance
By Anne Meixner - 08 Sep, 2022 - Comments: 0

Maintenance is a critical behind-the-scenes activity that keeps manufacturing facilities running and data centers humming. But when not performed in a timely manner, it can result in damaged products or equipment, or significant system/equipment downtime. By shifting from scheduled maintenance to predictive maintenance, factories and electronic system owners can reap substantial benefits, in... » read more

How Overlay Keeps Pace With EUV Patterning
By Laura Peters - 09 Aug, 2022 - Comments: 1

Overlay metrology tools improve accuracy while delivering acceptable throughput, addressing competing requirements in increasingly complex devices. In a race that never ends, on-product overlay tolerances for leading-edge devices are shrinking rapidly. They are in the single-digit nanometer range for the 3nm generation (22nm metal pitch) devices. New overlay targets, machine learning, and im... » read more

Nanosheet FETs Drive Changes In Metrology And Inspection
By Karen Heyman - 09 Aug, 2022 - Comments: 0

In the Moore’s Law world, it has become a truism that smaller nodes lead to larger problems. As fabs turn to nanosheet transistors, it is becoming increasingly challenging to detect line-edge roughness and other defects due to the depths and opacities of these and other multi-layered structures. As a result, metrology is taking even more of a hybrid approach, with some well-known tools moving... » read more

Making The Most Of Data Lakes
By Anne Meixner - 09 Aug, 2022 - Comments: 0

Having all the semiconductor data available is increasingly necessary for improving manufacturability, yield, and ultimately the reliability of end devices. But without sufficient knowledge of relationships between data from different processes and computationally efficient data structures, the value of any data is significantly reduced. In the semiconductor industry, reducing waste, decreas... » read more

Improving Yield With Machine Learning
By Laura Peters - 12 Jul, 2022 - Comments: 0

Machine learning is becoming increasingly valuable in semiconductor manufacturing, where it is being used to improve yield and throughput. This is especially important in process control, where data sets are noisy. Neural networks can identify patterns that exceed human capability, or perform classification faster. Consequently, they are being deployed across a variety of manufacturing proce... » read more

Finding Frameworks For End-To-End Analytics
By Anne Meixner - 12 Jul, 2022 - Comments: 0

End-to-end analytics can improve yield and ROI on tool purchases, but reaping those benefits will require common data formats, die traceability, an appropriate level of data granularity — and a determination of who owns what data. New standards, guidelines, and consortium efforts are being developed to remove these barriers to data sharing for analytics purposes. But the amount of work req... » read more

E-beam’s Role Grows For Detecting IC Defects
By Karen Heyman - 12 Jul, 2022 - Comments: 1

The perpetual march toward smaller features, coupled with growing demand for better reliability over longer chip lifetimes, has elevated inspection from a relatively obscure but necessary technology into one of the most critical tools in fab and packaging houses. For years, inspection had been framed as a battle between e-beam and optical microscopy. Increasingly, though, other types of insp... » read more

Keeping IC Packages Cool
By Laura Peters and Karen Heyman - 07 Jun, 2022 - Comments: 0

Placing multiple chips into a package side-by-side can alleviate thermal issues, but as companies dive further into die stacking and denser packaging to boost performance and reduce power, they are wrestling with a whole new set of heat-related issues. The shift to advanced packaging enables chipmakers to meet demands for increasing bandwidth, clock speeds, and power density for high perform... » read more

Removing Barriers For End-To-End Analytics
By Anne Meixner - 07 Jun, 2022 - Comments: 0

Parties are coming together, generating guidelines for sharing data from IC design and manufacturing through end of life, setting the stage for true end-to-end analytics. While the promise of big data analytics is well understood, data sharing through the semiconductor supply chain has been stymied by an inability to link together data sources throughout the lifecycle of a chip, package, or ... » read more

The Race To Zero Defects In Auto ICs
By Anne Meixner - 07 Jun, 2022 - Comments: 0

Assembly houses are fine-tuning their methodologies and processes for automotive ICs, optimizing everything from inspection and metrology to data management in order to prevent escapes and reduce the number of costly returns. Today, assembly defects account for between 12% and 15% of semiconductor customer returns in the automotive chip market. As component counts in vehicles climb from the ... » read more

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