category: Top Stories

category: Auto, Security & Edge AI

Transforming Test For Co-packaged Optics
By Laura Peters - 12 Aug, 2025 - Comments: 0

Data centers are undergoing a dramatic transformation to reduce the power consumption of high-speed data transmissions by 70% or more with co-packaged optics. By moving optical transceivers from the fronts of racks into the same package as the networking switch and HBMs, AI programs that used to take a week to run can now be completed in a day. To enable this change in production manufacturi... » read more

Metrology Under Pressure: Detecting Defects in Fine-Pitch Hybrid Bonding
By Gregory Haley - 12 Aug, 2025 - Comments: 1

As advanced packaging pushes deeper into the sub-10µm realm, traditional inspection and metrology systems are being forced to evolve with it. Hybrid bonding, a critical enabler of vertical integration and 3D system performance, relies on exceptionally tight alignment and defect-free bonding surfaces. But as interconnect pitch shrinks, even nanometer-scale variations in height, tilt, or cont... » read more

Chiplet Interfaces Embrace Failures
By Anne Meixner - 12 Aug, 2025 - Comments: 0

Redundancy in chiplet interfaces is now a prerequisite for achieving sufficient yield in high-performance computing devices, which today are packed with tens of thousands of interconnects. And as the number and density of those interconnects increases, the prospects for yield only worsen. For more than two decades, high-speed I/O interfaces have included reliability strategies to manage in-f... » read more

Easing The Stress For Package-Level Burn-In
By Laura Peters - 10 Jul, 2025 - Comments: 0

Considered something of a necessary evil, burn-in of IC packages during production does a great job of weeding out latent defects so they don’t turn into failures in the field. But as AI and multi-chiplet packages become more common, and concerns about aging circuitry heighten, shifting stress testing to the wafer level looks increasingly attractive from a quality, throughput, and cost standp... » read more

How Advanced Packaging Is Reshaping Inspection
By Gregory Haley - 10 Jul, 2025 - Comments: 0

As semiconductor devices continue advancing into more sophisticated packaging schemes, traditional optical inspection technologies are brushing up against physical and computational boundaries. The growing reliance on 2.5D and 3D integration, hybrid bonding, and wafer-level processes has made it much harder to detect defects consistently and early enough to protect yields. While optical insp... » read more

Detecting Slips, Scratches, Cracks In Wafers And Dies Becoming Harder
By Anne Meixner - 10 Jul, 2025 - Comments: 0

Defect detection requirements on the order of 10 defective parts per million (DPPM) are driving improvements in inspection tools’ resolution and throughput at foundries and OSATs. However, defects that manifest as slips, scratches, and micro-cracks continue to bedevil the prevalent optical inspection methods. These defects can range in size from nanometers to millimeters, some of which are... » read more

Challenges In Using Sub-7nm ICs In Automotive
By Laura Peters - 10 Jun, 2025 - Comments: 0

The automotive industry is producing vehicles with increasing levels of real-time decision-making, enabled by thousands of ICs, sensors, and multi-chip packages, but making sure these systems work flawlessly throughout their expected lifetimes is a growing challenge. Automotive chips traditionally were developed at mature process nodes in five- to seven-year cycles, but much has changed over... » read more

Rethinking Chip Reliability For Harsh Conditions
By Gregory Haley - 10 Jun, 2025 - Comments: 0

As semiconductors push into environments once considered untenable, reliability expectations are being redefined. From the vacuum of space and the inside of jet engines to deep industrial automation and electrified drivetrains, chips now must endure extreme temperature swings, corrosive atmospheres, mechanical vibration, radiation, and unpredictable power cycles, all while delivering increasing... » read more

High-Quality Data Needed To Better Utilize Fab Data Streams
By Anne Meixner - 10 Jun, 2025 - Comments: 0

Fab operations have wrestled with big data management issues for decades. Standards help, but only if sufficient attention to detail is taken during collection. Semiconductor wafer manufacturing represents one of the most complex manufacturing processes in the world. With each generation of process improvement comes more sophisticated fab equipment, new process recipes, and exponential incre... » read more

Identifying Sources Of Silent Data Corruption
By Laura Peters - 08 May, 2025 - Comments: 0

Silent data errors are raising concerns in large data centers, where they can propagate through systems and wreak havoc on long-duration programs like AI training runs. SDEs, also called silent data corruption, are technically rare. But with many thousands of servers, which contain millions of processors running at high utilization rates, these damaging events become common in large fleets. ... » read more

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