category: Lam Tech Insights

category: IoT, Security & Automotive

From Sand To Wafers
By Steve Proia - 18 Apr, 2019 - Comments: 1

More than most industries, ours is identified with a single element, silicon. Consider the self-adopted naming conventions of all the places that want to be recognized as members of the club—Silicon Valley, Silicon Beach, Silicon Forest and so on. Silicon wafers are fundamental in manufacturing the electronic “chips” that pervade almost every aspect of our lives. New applications in IoT, ... » read more

Industry 4.0: The Smart Industrial Revolution
By Shelly Miyasato - 20 Sep, 2018 - Comments: 0

As consumers, we see evidence of the Internet of Things (IoT) all around us. A growing number of everyday objects in our homes and cars are now digitally connected in a way that allows us to interact with them. Even mundane items such as keychains and wallets can be made smart with trackers and mobile device apps. A similar revolution is occurring in some workplaces, with the growing ability to... » read more

Semiconductors In Automotive
By Kris Kendall - 16 Aug, 2018 - Comments: 1

It was more than 130 years ago in 1885 when Gottlieb Daimler invented the first prototype for the modern gas engine, and in 1886 Karl Benz patented his three-wheel Benz Motor Car, Model No. 1. Yet even these visionaries might have been surprised by the sophisticated technology running our cars today – and they couldn’t even have imagined the vast range of semiconductor components involved. ... » read more

Etch Techniques for Next-Generation Storage-Class Memory
By Alex Yoon - 21 Jun, 2018 - Comments: 0

Chipmakers make abundant use of two very different functional classes of memory in their products. For operational use (main/primary memory) where speed is critical, DRAM and SRAM are employed, whereas for long-term storage, flash memory – in particular NAND – provides the high capacity at low cost needed. For both classes, efforts to improve speed, capacity, and power usage are ongoing. To... » read more

How Atomic Layer Deposition Works
By Dennis Hausmann - 15 Mar, 2018 - Comments: 0

Imagine being able to deposit a film of material just a few atomic layers at a time. As impossible as that sounds, atomic layer deposition (ALD) is a reality. In fact, it’s being used in an ever-increasing number of applications as an extremely precise and controllable process for creating thin films. Together with its etch counterpart – atomic layer etching (ALE) – ALD is enabling the us... » read more

Understanding Memory
By Alex Yoon - 15 Feb, 2018 - Comments: 10

New semiconductor applications are ever changing and improving our lives, from new smartphones and wearables to healthcare, factory automation, and artificial intelligence. The humble memory chip working in the background plays a critical role in enabling these technologies. For example, that awesome picture you just took would be lost forever without memory. Your computer can’t perform the i... » read more

Robots Get Social
By Elizabeth Pavel - 18 Jan, 2018 - Comments: 0

From Star Trek’s Data to Star Wars’ C-3PO, the idea of humanoid robots has fascinated people for years. Back in the real world, robots build automobiles in factories, mow lawns, and even assist in complex heart surgery. Meanwhile, the use of androids like Data is approaching reality, as semiconductor and semiconductor-related devices like low-power microprocessors, 3D sensors, accelerometer... » read more

All About Interconnects
By Larry Zhao - 18 Dec, 2017 - Comments: 1

It's well known that advanced chips contain billions of transistors – this is an incredible, mind-blowing fact to be sure – but did you know that large-scale integrated chips (about the size of a fingernail) can contain ~30 miles of interconnect “wires” in stacked levels? These wires function like highways or pipelines to transport electrons, connect transistors and other components to ... » read more

What’s What In Advanced Packaging
By Choon Lee - 16 Nov, 2017 - Comments: 5

Ever open the body of your smartphone (perhaps unintentionally) and see small, black rectangles stuck on a circuit board? Those black rectangles are packaged chips. The external chip structure protects the fragile integrated circuits inside, as well as dissipates heat, keeps chips isolated from each other, and, importantly, provides connection to the circuit board and other elements. The manufa... » read more

Controlling Uniformity At The Edge
By Aaron Eppler - 19 Oct, 2017 - Comments: 0

Chipmakers want every part of the wafer to produce, or yield, good die. Advances in process technologies over the years have just about made this a reality, even as feature dimensions continue to shrink and devices grow ever more complex. Now, the last frontier is improving yields at the edge of the wafer – the outer 10 mm or so – where chemical, physical, and even thermal discontinuitie... » read more

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