Mixed Outlook For Semi Biz

By Mark LaPedus - 25 Jul, 2018 - Comments: 0

Both the IC and fab equipment industries have been enjoying a boom cycle for some time, but they could be facing speed bumps and possibly turbulence in the second half of this year and into 2019. In the first half of 2018, the industry was fueled by the momentum carried over from 2017. DRAM prices remained relatively high, which contributed to the revenue growth in the overall IC industry. M... » read more

FD-SOI Going Mainstream

By Ed Sperling - 19 Jul, 2018 - Comments: 0

Semiconductor Engineering sat down to discuss changes in the FD-SOI world and what's behind them, with James Lamb, deputy CTO for advanced semiconductor manufacturing and corporate technical fellow at Brewer Science; Giorgio Cesana, director of technical marketing at STMicroelectronics; Olivier Vatel, senior vice president and CTO at Screen Semiconductor Solutions; and Carlos Mazure, CTO at Soi... » read more

Prepare For Success With A Failure Mode And Effects Analysis And Control Plan

By Tim Limmer - 12 Jul, 2018 - Comments: 0

In order to proactively handle potential process or product errors before they occur in manufacturing or on a customer’s production line, many organizations implement a Failure Mode and Effects Analysis (FMEA) and Control Plan (CP). Used as a process tool by the US military as early as 1949, FMEAs and CPs have evolved and gained popularity in many industries ranging from automotive, to pharma... » read more

Defect Reduction At 7/5nm

By Ed Sperling - 12 Jul, 2018 - Comments: 0

Darin Collins, director of metrology at Brewer Science, talks about the cause of defects at advanced nodes and how material purity increasingly plays a role in overall quality and yield. » read more

Week In Review: Manufacturing, Test

By Mark LaPedus - 29 Jun, 2018 - Comments: 0

Chipmakers and OEMs Fujitsu Semiconductor and United Microelectronics Corp. (UMC) announced that UMC will acquire all of the shares of Mie Fujitsu Semiconductor Limited (MIFS), a 300mm wafer foundry joint venture between both companies. In addition to the 15.9% of MIFS shares currently owned by UMC, Fujitsu Semiconductor will transfer the remaining 84.1% of its shares in MIFS to UMC, making MI... » read more

Sacrificial Laser Release Materials For RDL-First Fan-Out Packaging

By Brewer Science - 11 Jun, 2018 - Comments: 0

The semiconductor industry is in a new age where device scaling will not continue to provide the cost reductions or performance improvements at a similar rate to past years when Moore’s law was the guiding principle for IC scaling. The cost of scaling below 7 nm nodes is rising substantially and requires significant investment in capital equipment and R&D spending for next-generation lithogra... » read more

The Growing Materials Challenge

By Katherine Derbyshire - 11 Jun, 2018 - Comments: 0

By Katherine Derbyshire & Ed Sperling Materials have emerged as a growing challenge across the semiconductor supply chain, as chips continue to scale, or as they are utilized in new devices such as sensors for AI or machine learning systems. Engineered materials are no longer optional at advanced nodes. They are now a requirement, and the amount of new material content in chips contin... » read more

Temporary Bonding: Enabling the Next Generation of Ultrathin Wafers

By Kim Yess - 11 Jun, 2018 - Comments: 0

Innovative materials are critical for maintaining integrity during advanced semiconductor manufacturing processes. Temporary bonding is being enabled by these new materials and is making a name for itself in the next generation of ultrathin wafer manufacturing. Semiconductor wafers are being forced to become thinner as the push to shrink feature sizes and introduce full-scale 3D integration ... » read more

Surface Modification: Solving Semiconductor Manufacturing Challenges

By Reuben Chacko - 07 May, 2018 - Comments: 0

Process reliability and faster technology deployment are two of the most pressing manufacturing challenges currently facing the semiconductor industry. In a world of ever-evolving technology and innovation, engineers are working to transform materials that don’t possess all the desired functions through a method called “surface modification” – the act of modifying a material’s surface... » read more

The Week In Review: Manufacturing

By Mark LaPedus - 20 Apr, 2018 - Comments: 2

Trade The trade tensions are building between the U.S. and China. In the latest move, the U.S. Department of Commerce has imposed a ban on U.S. companies selling chips to ZTE, a Chinese telecom equipment and mobile phone vendor. The ban has been implemented on ZTE for seven years after the firm “was caught illegally shipping U.S. goods to Iran,” according to a report from Reuters. This ... » read more

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Knowledge Centers
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