200mm Shortages May Persist For Years


A surge in demand for chips at more mature process nodes is causing shortages for both 200mm foundry capacity and 200mm equipment, and it shows no signs of letting up. In fact, even with new capacity coming on line this year, shortages are likely to persist for years, driving up prices and forcing significant changes across the semiconductor supply chain. Shortages for both 200mm foundry cap... » read more

Week In Review: Manufacturing, Test


Fab tools A fire broke out this week within ASML’s factory in Berlin, Germany. The fire was quickly extinguished and no one was injured during this incident. The factory manufactures components for ASML’s lithography systems, including wafer tables and clamps, reticle chucks and mirror blocks. The fire took place on Jan. 3. On Jan. 7, ASML provided an update. "The manufacturing of DUV c... » read more

Week In Review: Manufacturing, Test


Chipmakers TSMC has introduced another version of its 4nm process technology. The process, called N4X, is tailored for high-performance computing products. Recently, TSMC introduced another 4nm process, called N4P, which is an enhanced version of its 5nm technology. N4X is also an enhanced version of its 5nm technology. N4X, however, offers a performance boost of up to 15% over TSMC’s N5 pro... » read more

China Accelerates Foundry, Power Semi Efforts


China has unveiled several initiatives to advance its domestic semiconductor industry, including a new and massive fab expansion campaign in the foundry, gallium-nitride (GaN), and silicon carbide (SiC) markets. The nation is making a big push into what it calls “third-generation semiconductors,” which is a misnomer. The term actually refers to two existing and common power semiconductor... » read more

Manufacturing Bits: Nov. 2


IRDS lithography roadmap The Journal of Micro/Nanopatterning, Materials, and Metrology (JM3) has published a paper that outlines the lithography roadmap and the various challenges for the next 15 years. The paper, called the "International Roadmap for Devices and Systems lithography roadmap," projects that extreme ultraviolet (EUV) lithography and a next-generation version will remain the m... » read more

Week In Review: Manufacturing, Test


Chipmakers Apple has introduced its latest MacBook Pro notebooks built around the company’s new, in-house designed processors, dubbed the M1 Pro and M1 Max. The chips, to be incorporated in its 14- and 16-inch MacBook Pro systems, are the most powerful devices developed by Apple. The CPUs in the M1 Pro and M1 Max chips deliver up to 70% faster performance than the first M1 device. Based ... » read more

Gearing Up For High-NA EUV


The semiconductor industry is moving full speed ahead to develop high-NA EUV, but bringing up this next generation lithography system and the associated infrastructure remains a monumental and expensive task. ASML has been developing its high-numerical aperture (high-NA) EUV lithography line for some time. Basically, high-NA EUV scanners are the follow-on to today’s EUV lithography systems... » read more

High-NA EUVL: the next major step in lithography


"In the course of 2025, we expect to see the introduction of the first high-NA extreme ultraviolet (EUV) lithography equipment in high-volume manufacturing environments. These next-generation lithography systems will be key to advance Moore’s Law towards the logic 2nm technology generation and beyond. In this article, imec scientists and engineers involved in preparing this major engine... » read more

Manufacturing Bits: Oct. 5


EUV lithography storage ring At the recent SPIE Photomask Technology + EUV Lithography conference, Japan’s High Energy Accelerator Research Organization (KEK) presented a paper on its latest efforts to develop a free-electron laser (FEL) storage ring source power unit for extreme ultraviolet (EUV) lithography. KEK has demonstrated a proof-of-concept EUV-FEL, which has been in R&D. EUV-FEL... » read more

Inside Intel’s Ambitious Roadmap


Ann Kelleher, senior vice president and general manager of Technology Development at Intel, sat down with Semiconductor Engineering to talk about the company’s new logic roadmap, as well as lithography, packaging, and process technology. What follows are excerpts of that discussion. SE: Intel recently disclosed its new logic roadmap. Beyond Intel 3, the company is working on Intel 20A. Wit... » read more

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