Experts At The Table: The Sky Isn’t Falling


By Ann Steffora Mutschler Semiconductor Manufacturing and Design sat down recently to discuss how the industry is making 3D ICs a reality today with Sylvan Kaiser, chief technology officer at Docea Power; Steve Smith, senior director for 3D-IC strategy at Synopsys; and Ahmed Jerraya, director of strategic design programs at CEA-LETI. SMD: How far are we from having the models we need to ena... » read more

Experts At The Table: The Sky Isn’t Falling


By Ann Steffora Mutschler SemiMD sat down recently to discuss how the industry is making 3D ICs a reality today with Sylvan Kaiser, chief technology officer at Docea Power; Steve Smith, senior director for 3D-IC strategy at Synopsys; and Dr. Ahmed Jerraya, director of strategic design programs at CEA-LETI. For part one of this series, click here. SemiMD: Because CEA-LETI has direct expe... » read more

The Sky Isn’t Falling


By Ann Steffora Mutschler 3D ICs add a new dimension to design with new degrees of freedom possible, even with the added design and manufacturing complexities. Looking at the semiconductor ecosystem today and anticipating what will be needed to enable 3D ICs, it is certain that relationships will need to change. What will be required of the players and who will take responsibility for wh... » read more

DSA: High Stakes Game Of Alphabet Soup


By Mark LaPedus Directed self-assembly (DSA) is making progress for potential use in semiconductor production, but the industry must make some major advances in a sometimes forgotten and unsung segment—materials. DSA is a complementary patterning technology that makes use of block copolymer materials to enable fine pitches in chip designs. But today’s block copolymers based on poly (MMA... » read more

What’s After NAND Flash?


By Mark LaPedus For years, many have predicted the end of flash memory scaling, particularly NAND, but the technology continues to defy the odds as it moves down the process curve. Still, there are signs that the floating gate structure in today’s flash memory is on its last legs. The floating gate is seeing an undesirable reduction in the control gate to capacitive coupling ratio. And ... » read more

DSA Moves To R&D Pilot Lines


By Mark LaPedus Directed self-assembly (DSA), an alternative lithography technology that makes use of block copolymers, is still in the R&D stage for semiconductor production. But as the exotic patterning technology continues to make astounding progress, there are signs the IC industry is accelerating its efforts to bring DSA from the lab to the fab. In fact, DSA suddenly has become a ... » read more

The Hidden Costs Of Directed Self-Assembly


By Mark LaPedus Directed self-assembly (DSA) has been billed by some as a potential paradigm shift in semiconductor manufacturing, but it may not turn out to be quite the panacea its proponents suggest—or at least not yet. There are many questions surrounding DSA, an alternative lithography technology that makes use of block copolymers to enable fine pitches. Key among those questions ar... » read more

3D Integration: Extending Moore’s Law Into The Next Decade


By Cheryl Ajluni At the 46th Design Automation Conference in San Francisco last month, attention turned to a discussion of how to extend the momentum of Moore’s Law into the next decade. One plausible solution, according to Philippe Magarshack, the general manager of Central CAD & Design Solutions at STMicroelectronics, is 3D stacking for complex System-on-Chips (SoCs). The concept of 3... » read more

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