Big Changes In Materials And Processes For IC Manufacturing


Rama Puligadda, CTO at Brewer Science, sat down with Semiconductor Engineering to talk about a broad set of changes in semiconductor manufacturing, packaging, and materials, and how that will affect reliability, processes, and equipment across the supply chain. SE: What role do sacrificial materials play in semiconductor manufacturing, and how is that changing at new process nodes? Puliga... » read more

Bumps Vs. Hybrid Bonding For Advanced Packaging


Advanced packaging continues to gain steam, but now customers must decide whether to design their next high-end packages using existing interconnect schemes or move to a next-generation, higher-density technology called copper hybrid bonding. The decision is far from simple, and in some cases both technologies may be used. Each technology adds new capabilities in next-generation advanced pac... » read more

Brighter Future For Photonics


Photons increasingly are taking over where electrons are failing in communications, but mixing the two never has been easy. There always have been two potential implementation paths — building each on its own substrate and then stacking them, or building them on a single substrate. The tradeoff between the two solutions is more complex than it may initially appear, and ongoing improvements... » read more

Investigation and Methods Using Various Release and Thermoplastic Bonding Materials to Reduce Die Shift and Wafer Warpage for eWLB Chip-First Processes


Today's fan-out wafer-level packaging (FOWLP) processes use organic substrates composed of epoxy mold compound (EMC) created using a thermal compression process. EMC wafers are a cost-effective way to achieve lower profile packages without using an inorganic substrate to produce chip packages that are thinner and faster without the need for interposers or through-silicon-vias (TSVs). One approa... » read more

Partitioning In 3D


The best way to improve transistor density isn't necessarily to cram more of them onto a single die. Moore’s Law in its original form stated that device density doubles about every two years while cost remains constant. It relied on the observation that the cost of a processed silicon wafer remained constant regardless of the number of devices printed on it, which in turn depended on litho... » read more

Manufacturing Bits: Jan. 27


Calibration systems go portable The National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST) is selling a new portable, vacuum-based calibration unit for use in instruments and other systems. The system, dubbed the Portable Vacuum Standard (PVS), is a compact unit that enables precise calibrations and measurements at a customer’s facility. Housed in the white “igloo” enclosure, the syste... » read more

Temporary Bonding, Debonding Remains Challenging For TSV Adoption


By Jeff Chappell One issue with the adoption of TSVs in 3D ICs in mainstream semiconductor applications revolves around the throughput of the temporary wafer bonding and debonding process. This doesn't necessarily equate to a roadblock, but work certainly remains to be done on this and related issues. On one hand, TSVs already are being used in the manufacturing of compound semiconductors ... » read more

Experts At The Table: Stacked Die Reality Check


By Ed Sperling Semiconductor Manufacturing & Design sat down with Sunil Patel, principal member of the technical staff for package technology at GlobalFoundries; Steve Pateras, product marketing director at Mentor Graphics; Steve Smith, senior director of platform marketing at Synopsys; Thorsten Matthias, business development director at EVGroup; and Manish Ranjan, vice president of market... » read more

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