Why does EUV matter?


By Brian Bailey The end of Moore’s Law has been predicted for almost as long as the law has existed. It normally comes down to some great technological barrier that cannot be breached, only to find that a solution is just around the corner and the concerns fade until the next barrier is identified. At DAC this year (2013), there were many predictions about why Moore’s Law will end in th... » read more

Time To Think


The semiconductor industry seems to be running place these days—maybe even sprinting in place. At the leading edge of design, companies are still looking at the ramifications of moving to finFETs. The move to a 20nm process with double patterning on 16/14nm finFETs, depending on the foundry, looks like a fairly safe bet for those companies with the volume and the resources to design and de... » read more

Litho Roadmap Remains Cloudy


By Mark LaPedus For some time, the lithography roadmap has been cloudy. Optical lithography has extended much further than expected. And delays with the various next-generation lithography (NGL) technologies have forced the industry to re-write the roadmap on multiple occasions. Today, there is more uncertainty than ever in lithography. Until recently, for example, leading-edge logic chipma... » read more

Executive Briefing: Soitec CEO


By Mark LaPedus Semiconductor Manufacturing & Design sat down to discuss FD-SOI, solar and various technology trends with André-Jacques Auberton-Hervé, chairman and chief executive of Soitec, a supplier of silicon-on-insulator (SOI) substrates, solar concentrators and other products. SMD: The digital process roadmap is moving in several directions. Some pure-play foundries will offer ... » read more

Experts At The Table: Process Technology Challenges


By Mark LaPedus Semiconductor Manufacturing & Design sat down to discuss future transistor, process and manufacturing challenges with Subramani Kengeri, vice president of advanced technology architecture at GlobalFoundries; Carlos Mazure, chief technical officer at Soitec; Raj Jammy, senior vice president and general manager of the Semiconductor Group at Intermolecular; and Girish Dixit, v... » read more

High NA EUV Litho May Require Larger Photomask Size


By Jeff Chappell With extreme ultraviolet lithography (EUV) potentially being used in pilot production in a few years, it raises the question of larger photomasks sizes—will the industry need them, and if so, when? While there has been discussion of late about the possible need to transition to a larger mask size, veterans of the mask business may feel it's déjà vu all over again. Back... » read more

450mm: Out Of Sync


By Mark LaPedus The IC industry has been talking about it for ages, but vendors are finally coming to terms with a monumental shift in the business. The vast changes involve a pending and critical juncture, where the 450mm wafer size transition, new device architectures and other technologies will likely converge at or near the same time. In one possible scenario, 450mm fabs are projected ... » read more

Inside A 450mm Metrology Consortium


By Mark LaPedus Semiconductor Manufacturing & Design sat down to discuss 450mm metrology challenges with Menachem Shoval, a former manufacturing executive at Intel and chairman of the Metro450 consortium. The Israeli-based consortium is developing metrology technology for the next-generation, 450mm wafer size. The group consists of Intel, Applied Materials, Jordan Valley, Nanomotion, Nov... » read more

Marching Orders


Reports back from the front lines of Moore’s Law are rather consistent—14nm and 16nm finFETs are do-able, but they’re not easy to design, verify or manufacture. In fact, the only high-volume source of production-proven finFETs at this point is Intel, which is turning them out at 22nm. A number of issues are cropping up at the most advanced nodes, and while each is ultimately solvable, ... » read more

Scaling The Lowly SRAM


By Mark LaPedus Chipmakers face a multitude of challenges at the 20nm logic node and beyond, including the task of cramming more functions on the same chip without compromising on power and performance. There is one major challenge that is often overlooked in the equation—scaling the lowly static RAM (SRAM). In one key application, SRAM is the component used to make on-chip cache memories... » read more

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