Panel-Level Packaging’s Second Wave Meets Engineering Reality


Key Takeaways Panel-level packaging is arriving not because the engineering is ready, but because wafer-level economics are breaking down. Glass improves the warpage and dimensional stability problems of organic substrates but introduces a different class of failure modes that require materials solutions, not process adjustments. The central challenges of panel-level processing are m... » read more

Chiplet Standards Aim For Plug-n-Play


Key Takeaways Die-to-die chiplet standards are only the beginning. Many more standards are necessary for a chiplet marketplace. A number of such standards have either had initial versions released or are in progress. Existing work covers packaging, a system architecture, various design kits, a universal link layer, and updates to BoW. Today’s chiplets exist in silos. In a ... » read more

The Thermal And Power Realities Of The AI Era


The rapid growth of AI has created a surge in the global energy consumption at a rate never seen before. Today, data centers account for approximately 415 terawatt-hours (TWh) of electricity globally. To put this into perspective, the annual energy consumption of the United Kingdom in 2023 measured at 309 TWh. The International Energy Agency (IEA) projects data centers’ energy consumption wil... » read more

What’s Failing At The Interface


Key Takeaways The interface is where failures in advanced packaging become visible, but it's increasingly not where they originate. Weak interfaces often don't fail at time zero, but they do degrade due to parametric drift and margin erosion that binary test screens miss entirely. The temporary test interconnect is the largest variable in the measurement chain and must be controlled ... » read more

Preparing For The Multiphysics Future of 3D ICs


3D integrated circuits (3D ICs) are emerging as a revolutionary approach to design, manufacturing and packaging in the semiconductor industry. Offering significant advantages in size, performance, power efficiency and cost, 3D ICs are poised to transform the landscape of electronic devices. However, with 3D ICs come new design and verification challenges that must be addressed to ensure success... » read more

Advanced Packaging Limits Come Into Focus


Key Takeaways: Packaging is now a performance variable. Substrate, bonding, and process sequence determine what can be built at scale. Warpage underlies most advanced packaging failures and gets harder to control as package sizes grow. Every proposed solution, such as glass, panel processing, and backside power, solves one problem while creating another. Moore's Law has shif... » read more

Enabling Seamless Monitoring, Test, And Repair In Multi-Die Designs


By Yervant Zorian and Sandeep Kumar Goel Anyone who follows the semiconductor industry knows that the accelerating performance, scale and energy efficiency demands of the AI revolution are outpacing the advances achievable by simply pushing the chip performance of monolithic, single-die designs. Multi-die design using 2.5D and 3D technologies has emerged as a necessity to keep the pace of in... » read more

Detecting Chemical Variability At Advanced Nodes


Key Takeaways Yield loss is increasingly driven by molecular variability in thin films, interfaces, and contamination rather than visible defects. Reliability issues often appear first as parametric drift or margin erosion under workload and thermal stress. Detection requires correlating molecular metrology, embedded electrical telemetry, and AI-driven wafer inspection. As s... » read more

How AI Is Changing Computing And Why Testing Is Critical


Artificial intelligence (AI) is transforming industries, enhancing our daily lives, and improving efficiency and decision-making, but its need for compute processing power is growing at an astonishing rate, doubling every three months (Figure 1). To maintain this pace, the semiconductor industry is moving beyond traditional chip development – it has entered the era of heterogeneous chiplets i... » read more

Tool And Methodology Changes Coming In Fab And Package Automation


Experts at the table: Semiconductor Engineering sat down to discuss what's changing in semiconductor fabs and packaging houses with Michael Lowman, senior product marketing manager for Data Analytics at Cohu; Aftkhar Aslam, CEO at yieldWerx, Woo Young Han, product marketing director at Onto Innovation; and Lihong Cao, senior director of engineering and technical marketing for ASE. What foll... » read more

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