Unknowns Driving Up The Cost Of Auto IC Reliability


Automotive chipmakers are considering a variety of options to improve the reliability of ICs used for everything from sensors to artificial intelligence. But collectively they could boost the number of process steps, increase the time spent in manufacturing and packaging, and stir up concerns about the amount of data that needs to be collected, shared, and stored. Accounting for advanced pro... » read more

More Manufacturing Issues, More Testing


Douglas Lefever, CEO of Advantest America, sat down with Semiconductor Engineering to talk about changes in test, the impact of advanced packaging, and business changes that are happening across the flow. What follows are excerpts of that discussion. SE: What are the big changes ahead in test? Lefever: It's less about inflection points and more like moving from algebra to calculus in the ... » read more

Innovative Top-Side Cooled Package Solution For High-Voltage Applications


This application note shows the benefits of using top-side cooled (TSC) power devices in high-voltage (HV) applications. In addition, it should help designers of such applications to understand how the device can be used and how an efficient and easy-to-assemble approach can be chosen to integrate TSC devices into the system. This application note describes Infineon’s new heat-spreader dual s... » read more

Next-Gen 3D Chip/Packaging Race Begins


The first wave of chips is hitting the market using a technology called hybrid bonding, setting the stage for a new and competitive era of 3D-based chip products and advanced packages. AMD is the first vendor to unveil chips using copper hybrid bonding, an advanced die-stacking technology that enables next-generation 3D-like devices and packages. Hybrid bonding stacks and connects chips usin... » read more

A New Dimension Of Complexity For IC Design


Full 3D designs involving logic-on-logic are still in the tire-kicking stage, but gaps in the tooling already are showing up. This is especially evident with static timing analysis (STA), which is used to validate a design’s timing performance by checking all possible paths for timing violations. STA issues began popping up particularly with the introduction of hybrid bonding, a bumpless p... » read more

Future Challenges For Advanced Packaging


Michael Kelly, vice president of advanced packaging development and integration at Amkor, sat down with Semiconductor Engineering to talk about advanced packaging and the challenges with the technology. What follows are excerpts of that discussion. SE: We’re in the midst of a huge semiconductor demand cycle. What’s driving that? Kelly: If you take a step back, our industry has always ... » read more

Metal Thermal Interface Material For The Next Generation FCBGA


Thermal interface materials (TIMs) have been widely adopted for improved thermal dissipation in flip chip ball grid array (FCBGA), flip chip lidded ball grid array (FCLGA) and flip chip pin grid array (FCPGA) packaging. As the next generation devices' requirements for power get even higher, enhanced thermal performance at the package level is increasingly important. A typical TIM applies a poly... » read more

Setting Ground Rules For 3D-IC Designs


Experts at the Table: Semiconductor Engineering sat down to discuss the changes in design tools and methodologies needed for 3D-ICs, with Sooyong Kim, director and product specialist for 3D-IC at Ansys; Kenneth Larsen, product marketing director at Synopsys; Tony Mastroianni, advanced packaging solutions director at Siemens EDA; and Vinay Patwardhan, product management group director at Cadence... » read more

The Gargantuan 5G Chip Challenge


Blazing fast upload and download speeds for cellular data are coming, but making the technology function as expected throughout its expected lifetime is an enormous challenge that will require substantial changes across the entire chip ecosystem. While sub-6GHz is an evolutionary step from 4G LTE, the real promise of 5G kicks in with millimeter-wave (mmWave) technology. But these higher-freq... » read more

Expanding Advanced Packaging Production In The U.S.


The United States is taking the first steps toward bringing larger-scale IC packaging production capabilities back to the U.S. as supply chain concerns and trade tensions grow. The U.S. is among the leaders in developing packages, especially new and advanced forms of the technology that promise to shake up the semiconductor landscape. And while the U.S. has several packaging vendors, North A... » read more

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