Week In Review: Manufacturing, Test

By Karen Heyman - 19 Aug, 2022 - Comments: 0

The U.S. Commerce Department issued export controls on key technologies, including gallium oxide (Ga2O3) and diamond substrates, which are used at high voltages and temperatures, as well as EDA tools specifically developed for GAA FETs. It's not clear how this will impact EDA companies, because many of the tools that will be used for designing for GAA FETs already are in use today for finFETs. ... » read more

Manufacturing Bits: Aug. 10

By Mark LaPedus - 10 Aug, 2020 - Comments: 0

EUV mask cleaning process TSMC has developed a new dry-clean technology for photomasks used in extreme ultraviolet (EUV) lithography, a move that appears to solve some major problems in the fab. TSMC and Samsung are in production with EUV lithography at advanced nodes, but there are still several challenges with the photomasks and other parts of the technology. Using 13.5nm wavelengths, EUV... » read more

How And Where ML Is Being Used In IC Manufacturing

By Mark LaPedus - 01 Apr, 2020 - Comments: 0

Semiconductor Engineering sat down to discuss the issues and challenges with machine learning in semiconductor manufacturing with Kurt Ronse, director of the advanced lithography program at Imec; Yudong Hao, senior director of marketing at Onto Innovation; Romain Roux, data scientist at Mycronic; and Aki Fujimura, chief executive of D2S. What follows are excerpts of that conversation. Part one ... » read more

Next EUV Issue: Mask 3D Effects

By Mark LaPedus - 25 Apr, 2018 - Comments: 6

As extreme ultraviolet (EUV) lithography moves closer to production, the industry is paying more attention to a problematic phenomenon called mask 3D effects. Mask 3D effects involve the photomask for EUV. In simple terms, a chipmaker designs an IC, which is translated from a file format into a photomask. The mask is a master template for a given IC design. It is placed in a lithography scan... » read more

What EUV Brings To The Table

By Moshe Preil - 15 Feb, 2018 - Comments: 0

After many years of hearing that EUV is almost ready for prime time, the tide is finally coming in. A decade of slow but steady progress has resulted in exposure tools that can expose on the order of 1,000 wafers a day on a regular basis. This may be shy of the requirements for high volume manufacturing (HVM), but it is certainly more than enough to support solid development programs and pilot ... » read more

What’s Changing At BACUS

By Jan Willis - 17 Aug, 2017 - Comments: 0

Jim Wiley, president of SPIE BACUS, talks about this year's merger of the EUV Lithography Symposium and the SPIE Photomask Conference—including what's new and different, the latest updates on the event location, and topics to look forward to such as EUV mask inspection—as well as his predictions on machine learning. https://youtu.be/GNxUmMAU9zs » read more

Manufacturing Bits: June 27

By Mark LaPedus - 27 Jun, 2017 - Comments: 0

World’s brightest laser The University of Nebraska-Lincoln has set the unofficial record for the world’s brightest laser. Researchers have focused a laser at a brightness of 1 billion times greater than the surface of the sun. This feat was accomplished using the so-called Diocles Laser at the University of Nebraska-Lincoln. The laser has a combination of peak power and a repetition ra... » read more

The Week In Review: Manufacturing

By Mark LaPedus - 23 Jun, 2017 - Comments: 0

Chipmakers The NAND market is in flux. Not long ago, troubled Toshiba put its memory unit on the block. Finally, the company has selected a group to buy its memory business. The consortium includes the Innovation Network Corp. of Japan, the Development Bank of Japan and Bain Capital. Rival SK Hynix is also part of the group. Others attempted to bid on the business, including Western Digita... » read more

More EUV Mask Gaps

By Mark LaPedus - 17 Nov, 2016 - Comments: 12

Extreme ultraviolet (EUV) lithography is at a critical juncture. After several delays and glitches, [gettech id="31045" comment="EUV"] is now targeted for 7nm and/or 5nm. But there are still a number of technologies that must come together before EUV is inserted into mass production. And if the pieces don’t fall into place, EUV could slip again. First, the EUV source must generate more ... » read more

The Week In Review: Manufacturing & Design

By Mark LaPedus - 06 Dec, 2013 - Comments: 0

A new study reveals that a majority of Americans are making some costly miscalculations regarding the performance of their existing PCs. The survey reveals that Americans lack financial savvy when faced with slow computers. Germany’s Merck KGaA, a pharmaceutical, chemical and life science company, announced an agreement with AZ Electronic Materials, under which Merck KGaA would acquire AZ.... » read more

Knowledge Centers
Entities, people and technologies explored

Shift Left Is The Tip Of The Iceberg

A transformative change is underway for semiconductor design and EDA. New languages, models, and abstractions will need to be created.

by Brian Bailey

Partitioning In The Chiplet Era

Understanding how chiplets interact under different workloads is critical to ensuring signal integrity and optimal performance in heterogeneous designs.

by Ann Mutschler

3.5D: The Great Compromise

Pros and cons of a middle-ground chiplet assembly that combines 2.5D and 3D-IC.

by Ed Sperling

AI’s Role In Chip Design Widens, Drawing In New Startups

Focus is on letting engineers do much more with the same or fewer resources — and less drudgery.

by Karen Heyman

What Comes After HBM For Chiplets

The standard for high-bandwidth memory limits design freedom at many levels, but that is required for interoperability. What freedoms can be taken from other functions to make chiplets possible?

by Brian Bailey

Memory Fundamentals For Engineers

eBook: Nearly everything you need to know about memory, including detailed explanations of the different types of memory; how and where these are used today; what's changing, which memories are successful and which ones might be in the future; and the limitations of each memory type.

by The SE Staff

Why Small Fab And Assembly Houses Are Thriving

Megafabs churning out the most advanced processors are not the only game in town.

by Bryon Moyer

New AI Processors Architectures Balance Speed With Efficiency

Hot Chips 24: Large language models ratchet up pressure for sustainable computing and heterogeneous integration; data management becomes key differentiator.