Workplace Safety Lessons From The Deepwater Horizon Oil Spill


The Deepwater Horizon oil spill on April 20th, 2010, was the largest marine oil spill in history, marking a significant change in the oil industry and safety standards thereafter. What data do we have on the Deepwater Horizon oil spill? BP leased the oil rig, however, it was owned and operated by an offshore company called Transocean. The drilling reached a depth of nearly 1 mile, at 5,000 ... » read more

Chemistry Working For Lithography: The Marangoni-Effect-Based Single Layer For Enhanced Planarization


In the field of semiconductor manufacturing, there is still a continuous search for techniques to improve the Critical Dimension Uniformity (CDU) across the wafer. CDU improvement and general defectiveness reduction increase the industrial yield and guarantee high reliability standards. In the KrF Dual-Damascene module integration, at a lithographic level, deep trench planarization is mandatory... » read more

Scaling Bump Pitches In Advanced Packaging


Interconnects for advanced packaging are at a crossroads as an assortment of new package types are pushing further into the mainstream, with some vendors opting to extend the traditional bump approaches while others roll out new ones to replace them. The goal in all cases is to ensure signal integrity between components in IC packages as the volume of data being processed increases. But as d... » read more

Four Types Of Predictive Maintenance Technologies


Through the expansion of our Smart Devices and Printed Electronics Foundry, we have assisted a diverse range of customers to find the benefits of predictive maintenance to improve the efficiency of their production, the safety of their personnel, and the quality of their products. We have identified some of the most prevalent predictive maintenance technologies and some of the most common appl... » read more

Week In Review: Manufacturing, Test


Packaging and test Advantest and PDF Solutions have launched their first jointly developed offering since forming a partnership in 2020. The new product is called the Advantest Cloud Solutions Dynamic Parametric Test (ACS DPT) solution. It integrates PDF Solutions’ Exensio portfolio of data analytics with Advantest’s V93000 Parametric Test System. The ACS DPT solution is designed to op... » read more

Benefits Of Being A B-Corp. In The Tech Industry


Becoming a Certified B Corporation comes with many benefits, most of them extending beyond the walls of the company and into the hands of employees, community members, and industry partners. The designation makes the meticulous and rigorous process to certification well worth the endeavor. In 2021, Brewer Science announced that it’s the first company in the semiconductor industry to become... » read more

System-In-Package Thrives In The Shadows


IC packaging continues to play a big role in the development of new electronic products, particularly with system-in-package (SiP), a successful approach that continues to gain momentum — but mostly under the radar because it adds a competitive edge. With a SiP, several chips and other components are integrated into a package, enabling it to function as an electronic system or sub-system. ... » read more

Are Surfaces Of Silicon Hardmasks Adaptive?


Silicon hardmask (Si-HM) materials used in lithography processes play a critical role in transferring patterns to desired substrates. In addition, these materials allow for the tuning of optical properties such as reflectivity and optical distribution for better lithography. Si-HM materials also need to possess good compatibility with photoresists before and after optical exposure, during which... » read more

Angstrom-Level Measurements With AFMs


Competition is heating up in the atomic force microscopy (AFM) market, where several vendors are shipping new AFM systems that address various metrology challenges in packaging, semiconductors and other fields. AFM, a small but growing field that has been under the radar, involves a standalone system that provides surface measurements on structures down to the angstrom level. (1 angstrom = 0... » read more

Marangoni Effect-Based Under-Layer For A Dual Damascene Via-First Approach


One of the main challenges of a Dual Damascene (DD) via-first process is the control of the Critical Dimensions (CDs) in the lithography of the trenches. The PhotoResist (PhR) thickness presents variations from the via arrays to the open areas, which cause the variation of CDs: the swing effect. The planarization of a DD via-first process is reported. A dual-layer solution is used to demonst... » read more

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