What’s Different About Next-Gen Transistors


After nearly a decade and five major nodes, along with a slew of half-nodes, the semiconductor manufacturing industry will begin transitioning from finFETs to gate-all-around stacked nanosheet transistor architectures at the 3nm technology node. Relative to finFETs, nanosheet transistors deliver more drive current by increasing channel widths in the same circuit footprint. The gate-all-aroun... » read more

Scaling, Advanced Packaging, Or Both


Chipmakers are facing a growing number of challenges and tradeoffs at the leading edge, where the cost of process shrinks is already exorbitant and rising. While it's theoretically possible to scale digital logic to 10 angstroms (1nm) and below, the likelihood of a planar SoC being developed at that nodes appears increasingly unlikely. This is hardly shocking in an industry that has heard pr... » read more

Distilling The Essence Of Four DAC Keynotes


Chip design and verification are facing a growing number of challenges. How they will be solved — particularly with the addition of machine learning — is a major question for the EDA industry, and it was a common theme among four keynote speakers at this month's Design Automation Conference. DAC has returned as a live event, and this year's keynotes involved the leaders of a systems comp... » read more

Strategies For Faster Yield Ramps On 5nm Chips


Leading chipmakers TSMC and Samsung are producing 5nm devices in high volume production and TSMC is forging ahead with plans for first 3nm silicon by year end. But to meet such aggressive targets, engineers must identify defects and ramp yield faster than before. Getting a handle on EUV stochastic defects — non-repeating patterning defects such as microbridges, broken lines, or missing con... » read more

Planning EDA’s Next Steps


Anirudh Devgan, Cadence's new CEO, and the recipient of the Phil Kaufman Award in December, sat down with Semiconductor Engineering to talk about what's next in EDA, the underlying technology and business challenges and changes, and new markets that are unfolding for floor-planning, verification, CFD, and advanced packaging. SE: Where does EDA need to improve? Devgan: We have made it much... » read more

Next-Gen Transistors


Nanosheets, or more generally, gate-all-around FETs, mark the next big shift in transistor structures at the most advanced nodes. David Fried, vice president of computational products at Lam Research, talks with Semiconductor Engineering about the advantages of using these new transistor types, along with myriad challenges at future nodes, particularly in the area of metrology. » read more

Transistors Reach Tipping Point At 3nm


The semiconductor industry is making its first major change in a new transistor type in more than a decade, moving toward a next-generation structure called gate-all-around (GAA) FETs. Although GAA transistors have yet to ship, many industry experts are wondering how long this technology will deliver — and what new architecture will take over from there. Barring major delays, today’s GAA... » read more

Photomask Challenges At 3nm And Beyond


Experts at the Table: Semiconductor Engineering sat down to discuss optical and EUV photomasks issues, as well as the challenges facing the mask business, with Naoya Hayashi, research fellow at DNP; Peter Buck, director of MPC & mask defect management at Siemens Digital Industries Software; Bryan Kasprowicz, senior director of technical strategy at Hoya; and Aki Fujimura, CEO of D2S. What f... » read more

End In Sight For Chip Shortages?


The current wave of semiconductor and IC packaging shortages is expected to extend well into 2022, but there are also signs that supply may finally catch up with demand. The same is true for manufacturing capacity, materials and equipment in both the semiconductor and packaging sectors. Nonetheless, after a period of shortages in all segments, the current school of thought is that chip suppl... » read more

Fan-Out And Packaging Challenges


Semiconductor Engineering sat down to discuss various IC packaging technologies, wafer-level and panel-level approaches, and the need for new materials with William Chen, a fellow at ASE; Michael Kelly, vice president of advanced packaging development and integration at Amkor; Richard Otte, president and CEO of Promex, the parent company of QP Technologies; Michael Liu, senior director of globa... » read more

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