Chip Industry Earnings: A Mixed Bag


Editor's Note: Updated the week of Oct. 31 and Nov. 7 for additional earnings releases. Although most companies reported revenue growth, this latest round of chip industry earnings releases reflected a few major themes: Lower future quarter guidance to varying degrees, due to the recent U.S. export restrictions related to China; Negative impact of the inflationary environment on corn... » read more

Yield Is Top Issue For MicroLEDs


MicroLED display makers are marching toward commercialization, with products such as Samsung’s The Wall TV and Apple’s smart watch expected to be in volume production next year or in 2024. These tiny illuminators are the hot new technology in the display world, enabling higher pixel density, better contrast, lower power consumption, and higher luminance in direct sunlight — while consu... » read more

Bump Co-Planarity And Inconsistencies Cause Yield, Reliability Issues


Bumps are a key component in many advanced packages, but at nanoscale levels making sure all those bumps have a consistent height is an increasing challenge. Without co-planarity, surfaces may not properly adhere. That can reduce yield if the problem is not identified in packaging, or it can cause reliability problems in the field. Identifying those issues requires a variety of process steps... » read more

Week In Review: Manufacturing, Test


Highlights from ITC The hot topic at this week’s International Test Conference (ITC) was tackling silent data corruption, with panel discussions, papers, and Google’s Parthasarathy Ranganathan’s keynote address all emphasizing the urgency of the issue. In the past two years Meta, Google, and Microsoft have reported on silent errors, errors not detected at test, which are adversely impact... » read more

The Drive Toward More Predictive Maintenance


Maintenance is a critical behind-the-scenes activity that keeps manufacturing facilities running and data centers humming. But when not performed in a timely manner, it can result in damaged products or equipment, or significant system/equipment downtime. By shifting from scheduled maintenance to predictive maintenance, factories and electronic system owners can reap substantial benefits, in... » read more

Week In Review: Manufacturing, Test


Government funding President Biden signed the CHIPS and Science Act into law on Tuesday, saying “America is back and leading the way.” That same day Micron touted a $40 billion investment through to 2030, which it expects will create 40,000 American jobs. “This legislation will enable Micron to grow domestic production of memory from less than 2% to up to 10% of the global market in t... » read more

Nanosheet FETs Drive Changes In Metrology And Inspection


In the Moore’s Law world, it has become a truism that smaller nodes lead to larger problems. As fabs turn to nanosheet transistors, it is becoming increasingly challenging to detect line-edge roughness and other defects due to the depths and opacities of these and other multi-layered structures. As a result, metrology is taking even more of a hybrid approach, with some well-known tools moving... » read more

Week In Review: Manufacturing, Test


The U.S. Congress approved the CHIPS Act, a mammoth bipartisan achievement the New York Times called “the most significant government intervention in industrial policy in decades.” As passed, the full package — now called the Chips and Science Act — contains $52 billion in direct assistance for the semiconductor industry, along with $24 billion in tax incentives. In addition, the bill c... » read more

Improving Yield With Machine Learning


Machine learning is becoming increasingly valuable in semiconductor manufacturing, where it is being used to improve yield and throughput. This is especially important in process control, where data sets are noisy. Neural networks can identify patterns that exceed human capability, or perform classification faster. Consequently, they are being deployed across a variety of manufacturing proce... » read more

E-beam’s Role Grows For Detecting IC Defects


The perpetual march toward smaller features, coupled with growing demand for better reliability over longer chip lifetimes, has elevated inspection from a relatively obscure but necessary technology into one of the most critical tools in fab and packaging houses. For years, inspection had been framed as a battle between e-beam and optical microscopy. Increasingly, though, other types of insp... » read more

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