Week In Review: Manufacturing, Test


Chipmakers Fujitsu, once a major manufacturer of ICs, continues to move away from chip production. On Semiconductor has completed the incremental 20% share purchase of Aizu Fujitsu Semiconductor Manufacturing, Fujitsu’s 200mm wafer fab in Aizu-Wakamatsu. On Semi will now hold a 60% majority ownership in the fab joint venture. Consequently, the name of the venture will transition to On Semico... » read more

Auto Chip Design, Test Changes Ahead


The automotive industry’s unceasing demand for performance, coupled with larger and more complex processors, are driving broad changes in how electronics are designed, verified and tested. What's changing is that these systems, which include AI-oriented logic developed at the most advanced process nodes, need to last several times longer than traditional IT and consumer devices, and they n... » read more

5G Lessons Learned From Automotive Radar Test


Situated between microwave and infrared waves, the millimeter-wave spectrum is the band of spectrum between 30 gigahertz (GHz) and 300GHz. It is used for high-speed wireless communications and is widely considered as the means to bring 5G into the future by allocating more bandwidth to deliver faster, higher-quality video, and multimedia content and services. Automotive radar is the entry point... » read more

The Race To Zero Defects


By Jeff Dorsch and Ed Sperling Testing chips is becoming more difficult, more time-consuming, and much more critical—particularly as these chips end up in cars, industrial automation, and a variety of edge devices. Now the question is how to provide enough test coverage to ensure that chips will work as expected without slowing down the manufacturing process or driving up costs. Balanci... » read more

Digital Fabrication’s Promise And Potential Pitfalls


Semiconductor functionality continues to expand, enabling robotic machines to analyze problems, make decisions and communicate information better than ever. These capabilities open the door for new applications such as Industry 4.0, a term now commonly used throughout Europe and the U.S. (more on Japan’s interpretation to follow). By integrating the performance capabilities of the Internet of... » read more

Some Human Musings On Machine Learning


Throughout our semiconductor industry, there are examples of binary balance. By that, I’m not just referring to the 1s and 0s in binary code. This balance also applies to n-well and p-well device features or the deposition and etching of materials on a wafer. This duality is present in our human makeup, too. We use both hard intellect and intangible feeling in recognizing challenges, findi... » read more

What’s in a Name?


Test Vision 2020 is a specialty workshop held each year during Semicon West. Formerly known as ATE Vision 2020, the program focuses on automatic test equipment and related topics. This year’s edition heard a lot about artificial intelligence, automotive electronics, and machine learning, which have been the leading topics at every tech conference I’ve attended in 2018. The workshop’s t... » read more

Auto Chip Test Getting Harder


Chipmakers and test/validation companies are helping lead the effort to develop self-driving cars, but they are facing a wide range of technical and even cultural barriers. Advanced driver assist systems (ADAS) already are the most complex systems by far in modern cars, the best of which hover between Level 2 and Level 3 on the five-step autonomy ladder maintained by the Society of Automotiv... » read more

Week In Review: Manufacturing, Test


Trade wars After opposing $34 billion in U.S. trade tariffs on behalf of the U.S. semiconductor manufacturing industry, Jonathan Davis, global vice president of industry advocacy at SEMI, recently spoke out against an additional $16 billion in duties on Chinese goods. The tariffs do little to address U.S. concerns over IP loss, according to SEMI. Over the past month, SEMI has also submitte... » read more

Week In Review: Manufacturing, Test


Trade issues China and the United States are embroiled in a trade war. What is the impact? In testimony submitted to the Office of the United States Trade Representative (USTR) on the proposed tariffs on Chinese products, Consumer Technology Association (CTA) Vice President of International Trade Sage Chandler argues tariffs negatively impact businesses and consumers as well as fail to corr... » read more

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