Top Stories
DSA, Multi-beam Make Steady Progress – Lithography is the big sticking point in moving to future process nodes. After pouring billions of dollars into research and development, what’s really possible in lithography, what’s likely to happen—and when? An exclusive one-on-one interview with CEA-Leti’s lithography lab manager.
Experts At The Table: Yield And Reliability Issues With Integrating IP – IP speeds time to market in complex chip designs, but integration issues are also the most common causes of re-spins. What can go wrong, where is the money spent and why even the best testing doesn’t always pinpoint the problems.
Challenges Mount In Inspection And Metrology – New 3D architectures for NAND, transistors and stacked die and new materials are creating problems on the manufacturing side. How do you find defects? How do you control the materials used in manufacturing chips?
Can Intel Dethrone The Foundry Giants? – Intel is taking the wraps off its foundry ambitions. But what does that really mean for the semiconductor industry? Who has the advantage and will they keep it?
Non-Visual Defect Inspection: The Tech of Tomorrow? – The chip industry is conservative when it comes to adopting new metrology and inspection. So will it ultimately see NVD inspection as a wunderkind, or an also-ran?
Blogs
Piecing It Together: Different Economies Of Scale, And Lots Of Questions – Ed Sperling notes that the semiconductor industry appears poised to adopt a number of different approaches, but what does that really mean for economies of scale that have been the backbone of progress?
On The Mark: Defective R&D Funding Models – Mark LaPedus writes that for years, the semiconductor equipment industry has been dealing with an R&D funding gap. So how do we solve the problem?
Cascade Effects: What Just Happened? – Cadence’s Brian Fuller observes that in the period of a year the semiconductor industry has transformed into something completely different.
Semico Spin: 2014 CapEx: Memory Is Leading The Way – Semico’s Adrienne Downey predicts CapEx is expected to be flat this year, up slightly in 2014.
Viewpoints: SEMI: Semiconductor New Equipment Market $32.0 Billion For 2013 – In contrast, SEMI’s Lara Chamness paints a more optimistic future: Sales are down 13.3% this year, but she’s expecting a 23.2% uptick in 2014.
