Week In Review: Manufacturing, Test


Chipmakers At its Architecture Day this week, Intel disclosed its roadmap for the company’s next-generation microprocessors, graphics chips, FPGAs and other products. As part of the event, Intel announced some new enhancements for its existing 10nm finFET technology. Basically, it’s a mid-life kicker for the technology. Intel calls it the 10nm SuperFin technology, which is a redefinitio... » read more

Week In Review: Manufacturing, Test


Chipmakers Nvidia is in advanced talks to acquire Arm from Softbank, according to numerous reports. In addition, TSMC and Foxconn are looking at possible investments or stakes in Arm, according to a report from Nikkei Asia Review. Infineon posted mixed results for the third quarter of the 2020 fiscal year. "Infineon has so far coped well with the challenging situation caused by the coronavi... » read more

Next Challenge: Parts Per Quadrillion


Requirements for purity of the materials used in semiconductor manufacturing are being pushed to unprecedented — and increasingly unprovable — levels as demand for reliability in chips over increasingly longer lifetimes continues to rise. And while this may seem like a remote problem for many parts of the supply chain, it can affect everything from availability of materials needed to make t... » read more

The Race To Much More Advanced Packaging


Momentum is building for copper hybrid bonding, a technology that could pave the way toward next-generation 2.5D and 3D packages. Foundries, equipment vendors, R&D organizations and others are developing copper hybrid bonding, which is a process that stacks and bonds dies using copper-to-copper interconnects in advanced packages. Still in R&D, hybrid bonding for packaging provides mo... » read more

Advanced Materials For High-Temperature Process Integration


From the last several lithography nodes, in the 14 to 10nm range, to the latest nodes, in the 7 to 5nm range, the requirements for patterning and image transfer materials have increased dramatically. One of the key pinch points is the tradeoff between planarization and the high-temperature stability required from carbon films used in patterning and post-patterning process integration. Patter... » read more

The Next Advanced Packages


Packaging houses are readying their next-generation advanced IC packages, paving the way toward new and innovative system-level chip designs. These packages include new versions of 2.5D/3D technologies, chiplets, fan-out and even wafer-scale packaging. A given package type may include several variations. For example, vendors are developing new fan-out packages using wafers and panels. One is... » read more

EUV’s Uncertain Future At 3nm And Below


Several foundries have moved extreme ultraviolet (EUV) lithography into production at both 7nm and 5nm, but now the industry is preparing for the next phase of the technology at 3nm and beyond. In R&D, the industry is developing new EUV scanners, masks and resists for the next nodes. 3nm is slated for 2022, followed by 2nm a year or two later. Nonetheless, it will require massive funding... » read more

Super Planarizing Material For Trench And Via Arrays


As device design scales and becomes more complex, fine control of patterning and transfer steps is integral. Planarization of deep trenches and via arrays has always been a challenge. Aspect ratios continue to increase while critical dimensions shrink, and typical trench fill schemes are no longer able to meet the fill and planarization requirements. Traditional design of spin-on carbon (SOC) m... » read more

Metrology Challenges For Gate-All-Around


Metrology is proving to be a major challenge for those foundries working on processes for gate-all-around FETs at 3nm and beyond. Metrology is the art of measuring and characterizing structures in devices. Measuring and characterizing structures in devices has become more difficult and expensive at each new node, and the introduction of new types of transistors is making this even harder. Ev... » read more

Making Chips At 3nm And Beyond


Select foundries are beginning to ramp up their new 5nm processes with 3nm in R&D. The big question is what comes after that. Work is well underway for the 2nm node and beyond, but there are numerous challenges as well as some uncertainty on the horizon. There already are signs that the foundries have pushed out their 3nm production schedules by a few months due to various technical issu... » read more

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