Using Sensor Data To Improve Yield And Uptime


Semiconductor equipment vendors are starting to add more sensors into their tools in an effort to improve fab uptime and wafer yield, and to reduce cost of ownership and chip failures. Massive amounts of data gleaned from those tools is expected to provide far more detail than in the past about multiple types and sources of variation, including when and where that variation occurred and how,... » read more

Mapping The Impact Of Heat On Photonics


Heat and various types of noise can disrupt optical signals in silicon photonics applications, pushing light into frequencies that generally are filtered out. Unless those filters are adjusted, data may be lost or incomplete, and in the case of streaming data it may be impossible to reconstruct. But predicting when and how physical effects will affect light isn't always obvious, which makes ... » read more

Reliability Becomes The Top Concern In Automotive


Reliability is emerging as the top priority across the hottest growth markets for semiconductors, including automotive, industrial and cloud-based computing. But instead of replacing chips every two to four years, some of those devices are expected to survive for up to 20 years, even with higher usage in sometimes extreme environmental conditions. This shift in priorities has broad ramificat... » read more

Chasing Reliability In Automotive Electronics


Assuring reliability in automotive electronics has set off a scramble across the semiconductor supply chain and unearthed a list of issues for which there is insufficient data, a lack of well-defined standards, and inconsistent levels of expertise. Reliable functional safety that spans 18 to 20 years of service in harsh environments, or under constant use with autonomous taxis or trucks, is ... » read more

Quantum Issues And Progress


Quantum computing is showing significant promise, and research is beginning to move from the earliest stages to a deeper understanding of what works best commercially and why. On paper, quantum computing algorithms are potentially revolutionary. They suggest a way to solve some problems more quickly and more accurately than conventional computers ever could. But out in the real world of prac... » read more

The Growing Promise Of Printed Electronics


Printing electronics using conductive ink rather than lithography is starting to move out of the research phase, with chipmakers now looking at how to commercialize this technology across a broad range of sensor applications. Unlike traditional semiconductors, which use tiny wires as circuits, printed electronics rely on conductive inks and often flexible films, although they can be printed ... » read more

Dirty Data: Is the Sensor Malfunctioning?


Sensors provide an amazing connection to the physical world, but extracting usable data isn't so simple. In fact, many first-time IoT designers are unprepared for how messy a sensor’s data can be. Every day the IoT motion-sensor company MbientLab struggles to tactfully teach its customers that the mountain of data they are seeing is not because the sensors are faulty. Instead, the system d... » read more

Testing Millimeter Wave for 5G


By Susan Rambo and Ed Sperling The telecommunications world is hurtling toward 5G, but there is no consistency about how this next-gen wireless technology will be rolled out across various regions and plenty of unknowns about how it will be tested and how reliable it will be initially. A fair amount of confusion exists around what 5G constitutes in the first place. There is sub-6GHz 5G, w... » read more

The Big Data Shift Has Started


Terry Brewer, president and CEO of Brewer Science, sat down with Semiconductor Engineering to talk about different priorities for private and public companies, why AI completely changes the game for technology companies, and what impact materials will have on innovation and design in the future. SE: What are the next big opportunities for Brewer Science? Brewer: There are broad opportunit... » read more

Carmakers To Chipmakers: Where’s The Data?


The integration of electronics into increasingly autonomous vehicles isn't going nearly as smoothly as the marketing literature suggests. In fact, it could take years before some of these discrepancies are resolved. The push toward full autonomy certainly hasn't slowed down, but carmakers and the electronics industry are approaching that goal from very different vantage points. Carmakers and... » read more

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