tag: DSA

Plotting IBM Micro’s Future
By Mark LaPedus - 14 Aug, 2014 - Comments: 1

It’s been a wild ride for IBM’s Microelectronics Group. Neither IBM, nor the other parties involved, have made any public comments about the recent events concerning IBM Micro. Much of the drama has played out in the media. Based on those reports, here’s a rough outline of the events. Not long ago, IBM put its loss-ridden chip unit on the block to shore up the company’s bottom lin... » read more

More People Use Phones Than Toothbrushes…
By Karen Savala - 11 Aug, 2014 - Comments: 0

“Business Has Only Two Functions – Marketing and Innovation” — Milan Kundera There may be more to running a successful business than marketing and innovation, but these two functions were front-and-center at SEMICON West 2014. This year’s industry gathering was an important, and positive, step forward together. Because of the gravity of the challenges facing our industry – funda... » read more

Manufacturing Bits: July 29
By Mark LaPedus - 29 Jul, 2014 - Comments: 2

Measuring hydrogen fuel for cars The use of fuel cells to power cars and buses is still in its infancy. Fuel cell vehicles are electric-based systems powered by hydrogen. A fuel cell uses a certain type of proton exchange membrane (PEM). The PEM fuel cells are stacked together to form a fuel cell stack. All told, fuel cell systems are about 60% efficient, or roughly two to three times more ... » read more

The Uncertain Future Of Hard Drives
By Michael Watts - 17 Jul, 2014 - Comments: 0

The future of hard drives has been an iffy subject for nearly a decade. The most recent pressure has come from solid-state drives made from flash memory, which have transformed cell phones and tablets and other portable appliances. But the Internet has driven a staggering demand for data storage and the hard drive business has thrived. The question of what’s next for hard drives first appe... » read more

Manufacturing Bits: July 8
By Mark LaPedus - 08 Jul, 2014 - Comments: 1

Intel foundry deal At the Semicon West trade show in San Francisco, Intel announced that it has entered into a foundry agreement with Panasonic’s LSI Business Division. Intel's custom foundry business will manufacture future Panasonic system-on-chips (SoCs) using Intel's 14nm low-power manufacturing process. Intel’s low-power process will be a derivative of its general-purpose 14nm proc... » read more

DFM And Multipatterning
By Ed Sperling - 03 Jul, 2014 - Comments: 0

Semiconductor Engineering sat down to discuss DFM at advanced nodes with Kuang-Kuo Lin, director of foundry design enablement at Samsung Electronics; Jongwook Kye, lithography modeling and architecture fellow at GlobalFoundries; David Abercrombie, advanced physical verification methodology program manager at Mentor Graphics; Ya-Chieh Lai, engineering director for DFM/CLS silicon signoff and ver... » read more

How Much Multipatterning?
By Ed Sperling - 19 Jun, 2014 - Comments: 2

The latest consensus among litho experts is that extreme ultraviolet (EUV) will appear in the market sometime in coming months in a commercially viable form. The only question is the degree of commercially viability, and what it will actually cost. While some debate lingers about whether EUV will ever get going, the general feeling is that enough progress has been made recently to make it work.... » read more

Has The IC Industry Hit A ‘Red Brick Wall’?
By Mark LaPedus - 19 Jun, 2014 - Comments: 2

In the mid-1980s, the semiconductor industry was in a crisis. Chipmakers were looking for ways to break the magical one-micron barrier. Many thought X-ray lithography would be required to break the barrier, but as it turned out, traditional optical technology did the trick. And the industry marched on. Then, in 2000 or so, the IC industry was nearing the so-called “red brick wall,” which... » read more

Manufacturing Bits: June 3
By Mark LaPedus - 03 Jun, 2014 - Comments: 0

World’s thinnest TFTs The U.S. Department of Energy’s Argonne National Laboratory has devised the world’s thinnest flexible, 2D thin-film transistors (TFTs). The transistors are just 10 atomic layers thick. TFTs are typically used in screens and displays. In the lab, Argonne researchers fabricated the TFTs on both a conventional silicon platform and a flexible substrate. [caption i... » read more

The Bumpy Road To FinFETs
By Mark LaPedus - 15 May, 2014 - Comments: 2

The shift from planar transistors to finFETs is a major inflection point in the IC industry. FinFETs are expected to enable higher performance chips at lower voltages. And the next-generation transistor technology also could allow the industry to extend CMOS to the 10nm node and perhaps beyond. But as it turns out, finFET technology is also harder to master than previously thought. For exam... » read more

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