Week In Review: Manufacturing, Test


Materials Wesfarmers, an Australian diversified firm, has made an unsolicited bid to acquire Lynas, one of the world’s largest suppliers of rare earths outside of China. Rare earths are chemical elements found in the Earth’s crust. They are used in cars, consumer electronics, computers, communications, clean energy and defense systems. The big market for rare earths is magnets. In semicond... » read more

Manufacturing Bits: Feb. 5


Multi-beam litho shakeout The multi-beam e-beam market for lithography applications continues to undergo a shakeout amid technical roadblocks and other issues. Last week, ASML announced that it had acquired the intellectual-property (IP) assets of Mapper Lithography, a Dutch supplier of multi-beam e-beam tools for lithography applications that fell into bankruptcy late last year. As it t... » read more

Power/Performance Bits: Sept. 25


Heat transfer in 2D materials Engineers at the University of Illinois developed a way to reduce overheating in nanoelectronics that incorporate 2D components by adding another layer to the structure. "In the field of nanoelectronics, the poor heat dissipation of 2D materials has been a bottleneck to fully realizing their potential in enabling the manufacture of ever-smaller electronics whil... » read more

Manufacturing Bits: March 27


Nanostructure printers Using electron-beam lithography and reactive-ion etching techniques, Singapore’s Agency for Science, Technology and Research (A*STAR) has developed a new high-resolution color nanostructure printing system. The printer enables nanostructures made from silicon. It prints tiny structures with a wide range of colors. In the future, researchers hope that nanostructure ... » read more

The Week In Review: Manufacturing


Packaging and test A*STAR’s Institute of Microelectronics (IME) has formed a fan-out wafer-level packaging consortium comprising of OSATs, materials vendors, equipment suppliers and others. The group is called the FOWLP Development Line Consortium. As part of the announcement, Singapore’s IME has established a development line to accelerate the development of fan-out. Located in IME’s... » read more

Cheaper Fan-Outs Ahead


Packaging houses continue to ramp up fan-out wafer-level packages in the market, but customers want lower cost fan-out products for a broader range of applications, such as consumer, RF and smartphones. So in R&D, the industry for some time has been developing next-generation fan-out using a panel-level format, a technology that could potentially lower the cost of fan-out. But there are ... » read more

Manufacturing Bits: July 3


MacEtch and chips Singapore’s Agency for Science, Technology and Research (A*STAR) has advanced a technology called metal-assisted chemical etching or MacEtch for use in the fabrication of silicon nanowires and related structures. Silicon nanowires are used in several applications, such as electronics, solar, storage, optical, catalysis, drug delivery and sensors. In semiconductors, the ... » read more

Manufacturing Bits: Nov. 1


U.S. to boost IC competitiveness President Obama’s Council of Advisors on Science & Technology (PCAST) has launched a new semiconductor working group in the United States. The new working group will focus on ways to strengthen the competitiveness of the U.S. semiconductor industry. It will provide recommendations to PCAST regarding the challenges facing the U.S. semiconductor industry. Th... » read more

Manufacturing Bits: Oct. 11


Space elevators Last year, Pennsylvania State University disclosed a technology called benzene-derived carbon nanothreads or sometimes called diamond nanothreads (DNTs). DNTs resemble carbon nanotubes. They are tiny hollow cylindrical tubes that are stronger than steel, but they are also brittle. Basically, DNTs are 1D structures with poly-benzene sections, which are connected by Stone–Wa... » read more

The Week In Review: Manufacturing


Fab tools and T&M Applied Materials and the Institute of Microelectronics (IME), a research institute under the Agency for Science, Technology and Research (A*STAR), have announced a five-year extension of their R&D collaboration at the Centre of Excellence in Advanced Packaging in Singapore. The organizations will expand the scope of their R&D collaboration to focus on advancing fan-out wafer... » read more

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