The Week In Review: Manufacturing


In a much-anticipated deal, IBM is close to selling its chip unit to GlobalFoundries, according to Bloomberg. GlobalFoundries wants IBM’s engineers and the IP, and not the fabs. Intel lost its challenge against a record 1.06 billion euro ($1.44 billion) European Union fine handed down five years ago, according to Reuters. The EU said Intel tried to thwart AMD by giving rebates to PC makers... » read more

Blog Review: June 11


eSilicon’s Jack Harding says that EDA and semiconductors need to focus heavily on recruiting the next generation of brilliant engineers. This technology is cool, and even better it makes all the other cool technology work. It’s time to remind the rest of the world. Cadence’s Brian Fuller distills a panel discussion at DAC on computer vision—the sensors that enable driverless cars, a... » read more

Manufacturing Bits: June 3


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 Week In Review: Manufacturing


GlobalFoundries’ campus in upstate New York employs over 2,200 workers. It is looking to add 600-800 more people by the end of 2014. The company is seeking out engineers with four-year degrees and technicians with associates degrees. It is also bringing in engineers from IBM to ramp its fab in New York. Applied Materials introduced the Endura Ventura PVD system that helps reduce the cost o... » read more

The Week In Review: Manufacturing


About 150 to 200 employees from IBM’s chip unit will be dispatched to work at GlobalFoundries, according to the Poughkeepsie Journal. GlobalFoundries said the arrangement is temporary, according to the report. GlobalFoundries is the leading candidate to buy IBM’s chip unit, which is apparently on the block. To date, however, GlobalFoundries and IBM have yet to make any announcements on the... » read more

Blog Review: May 21


Mentor’s Colin Walls offers up some new insights into C++ exception handling, thanks to some input from colleague Jonathan Roelofs. This one involves minimizing overhead and reducing runtime penalties. Synopsys’ Mick Posner is back in the saddle again—literally. This is about as green as it gets. Cadence’s Arthur Marris reports back on the IEEE 802.3 Ethernet standards meeting, in... » read more

The Week In Review: Manufacturing


IC Insights has released its rankings of the Q1 ‘14 top 25 semiconductor suppliers. Outside of the top five spots, there were numerous changes. MediaTek jumped up four positions. Also, last year’s Micron/Elpida merger created a new giant semiconductor company with Micron’s sales expected to be over $17 billion this year. Toshiba will demolish the No. 2 semiconductor fabrication facilit... » read more

New Materials Era In Advanced Interconnects


By Kavita Shah Growth in semiconductors today is driven primarily by mobile applications and this demand continues to increase with no slowdown in sight. Supporting this trend, chipmakers continue adding smaller and faster transistors to chips to maintain the pace of Moore’s Law, and as a consequence copper wiring is being drastically scaled and densities increased. Today advanced chips c... » read more

Atomic Layer Etch Finally Emerges


The migration towards finFETs and other devices at the 20nm node and beyond will require a new array of chip-manufacturing technologies. Multiple patterning, hybrid metrology and newfangled interconnect schemes are just a few of the technologies required for future scaling. In addition, the industry also will require new techniques that can process structures at the atomic level. For example... » read more

The Bumpy Road To FinFETs


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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