Back-End Automation Tackles Growing Complexity


Experts at the table: Semiconductor Engineering sat down to discuss back-end automation challenges in advanced packaging 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 follows are ex... » read more

Laser Arrays May Simplify Co-Packaged Optics


Key Takeaways Moving photonic ICs into the same package as silicon helps improve performance, but lasers remain outside. A new monolithic laser array allows hundreds of colors, each individually software-tunable New options are being turned into products, which could help commercialize CPO. The move to co-packaged optics (CPO) holds the promise of putting photonic ICs (PICs)... » read more

Silicon Photonics In The Data Center: What A CMOS Exec Needs To Know


Silicon Photonics is changing the data center, with the biggest changes still ahead. Figure 1: Google Jupiter Network for multi-thousand Ironwood TPU clusters. Source: Google Refresher for new readers: Data centers contain hundreds or thousands of racks. For example, the Nvidia GB200 NVL72 AI compute/switch rack is about 24 inches wide, about 88 inches high and 42 inches deep. I... » read more

An Explosion In Interconnect Complexity


For decades, electronics offered two levels of routing structure to manage signals that originate or terminate in an integrated circuit. Recently, that number has risen to five, and while it adds far more flexibility for structuring electronic equipment, it also brings greater complexity and ratchets up the number of design decisions needed to complete a project. This transition has been evo... » read more

Annual Global IC Fabs And Facilities Report


Semiconductor companies announced a significant number of facilities in 2025 as global onshoring efforts continued across manufacturing, materials, packaging, design, and R&D. Investments came from both industry and government sources. Organizations worked together to solve current technology challenges, including soaring demand for AI chips and advanced memory, as well as complex applic... » read more

Chip Industry Week In Review


Deals: NVIDIA inked a $20B non-exclusive licensing deal with Groq for its inference technology. The startup's founder, Jonathan Ross, and some other employees will join NVIDIA to assist in scaling and advancing the technology. The non-exclusive licensing deal, versus an outright purchase, is a tool other companies have used to avoid antitrust regulation. Samsung Ventures made a strategic inv... » read more

Reliability Risks Shift To The Materials Stack


The semiconductor industry’s push into 3D integration and large-format substrates has fundamentally changed the role of materials in packaging. What were once structural supports and electrical insulators have become critical performance limiters. Modern packages contain far more polymers, adhesives, advanced dielectrics, thermal materials, and composite laminates than previous generations... » read more

What’s Next for 2.5D Packaging?


Interposers and bridges, two of the key elements for interconnecting multiple chips and chiplets in an advanced package, are undergoing fundamental changes in how they're built and assembled. Interposers are becoming thicker and more complex, while bridges are being used to reduce the assembled cost. Both efforts are facing new challenges. Interposers are effectively platforms on which mu... » read more

3DKs: Making Headway On Chiplet Standards


The chiplet model has been proven by the early adopters. Large companies that successfully developed chips at leading nodes have integrated multiple chiplets into systems, where the entire silicon cycle is performed in-house. But the industry’s long-term goal of a free and open chiplet marketplace, in which companies of any size can reap the rewards and economies of scale associated with mult... » read more

New Panel Production Efforts Target Interposer Costs


The rising cost of increasingly large interposers is spurring renewed interest in panel-level manufacturing, which for years has hobbled along due to the massive and collective effort required by the chip industry to change formats. Several companies are developing their own processes, although there is currently no commercial production. And a new consortium called Joint3, spearheaded by Ja... » read more

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