The Learning Imperative

By Tom Morrow
An often under-appreciated component of Moore’s Law has been the massive learning and education effort required to sustain continuous improvement at the incredible rate predicted by Gordon Moore nearly 50 years ago. The industry regularly calculates the contribution of lithography-based scaling, wafer size increases, and yield improvements necessary to keep pace with aggressive cost reduction schedules, but not enough attention is paid to the enormous contribution of human capital — fueled by training and education in new technologies new practices and new processes — necessary to implement next-generation production requirements.

The SEMI Advanced Semiconductor Manufacturing Conference (ASMC 2013) has addressed this need for more than 20 years. This year ASMC will be held May 13-16 in Saratoga Springs, New York. The event features more than 85 presentations, including peer-reviewed manuscripts, workshops and tutorials covering critical process technologies and fab productivity strategies. To make this event the most valuable and informative of its kind, ASMC is coordinated and managed by an industry-committee consisting of 45 engineering and science leaders from the “Who’s Who” of semiconductor technology companies. This year’s ASMC 2013 conference co-chairs are Russell Dover, Brion (an ASML Company) and Stefan Radloff, Intel Corporation.

ASMC 2013 technical sessions include:

• Advanced Patterning/Design for Manufacturing
• Factory Optimization
• 3D/TSV Technology
• Interactive Poster Session
• Yield Enhancement
• Advanced Metrology
• Defect Inspection
• Advanced Equipment Processes and Materials
• E-Beam Inspection
• Advanced Process Control

This year’s event also features several panel discussions, keynote speeches and other forums to share knowledge on new and “best practice” semiconductor manufacturing issues and concepts. This year ASMC features workshops and tutorials on Computational Lithography by Intel Corporation, 3D-ICs by GLOBALFOUNDRIES, 450mm wafer processing moderated by G450C, and sub-10nm manufacturing.

Conference keynotes include:

• “Fab Material Next Generation Challenges: Affordability & Quality” — Tim Hendry, vice president, director of Fab Materials Operation, Intel Corporation
• “IC Market Trends and Forecast” — Bill McClean, president, IC Insights

ASMC also holds an interactive poster session and reception to enable researchers, suppliers, and manufactures to meet and discuss the newest concepts and solutions in nano-manufacturing, productivity and yield. During this session, participants can engage authors in in-depth discussion of a wide range of issues.

ASMC 2013 is presented by SEMI with technical sponsors: Institute of Electrical & Electronics Engineers (IEEE), IEEE Electron Devices Society (EDS), and IEEE Components, Packaging and Manufacturing Technology Society (CPMT). Corporate sponsors include: Applied Materials, ASML, ATMI, ChemTrace, CNW Courier Network, DAS, Edwards, KLA-Tencor, GLOBALFOUNDRIES, Marcy NanoCenter at SUNYIT, MSP, NY Loves Nanotech, and Valqua.

Registration for ASMC 2013 is available at www.semi.org/asmc2013. For more information, contact Margaret Kindling at [email protected].

—Tom Morrow is the chief marketing officer at SEMI