Stacked Nanosheets And Forksheet FETs


What comes next after gate-all-around FETs is still being worked out, but it likely will involve some version of stacked nanosheets. The design of advanced transistors is a tradeoff. On one hand, it takes less gate capacitance to control a thin channel. On the other hand, thin channels can’t carry as much drive current. Stacked nanosheet designs seek to reconcile these two objectives by... » read more

Using A Virtual DOE To Predict Process Windows And Device Performance Of Advanced FinFET Technology


By Qingpeng Wang, Yu De Chen, Cheng Li, Rui Bao, Jacky Huang, and Joseph Ervin Introduction With continuing finFET device process scaling, micro loading control becomes increasingly important due to its significant impact on yield and device performance [1-2]. Micro-loading occurs when the local etch rate on a wafer is dependent upon existing feature sizes and local pattern density. Uninten... » read more

MEMS: New Materials, Markets And Packaging


Semiconductor Engineering sat down to talk about future developments and challenges for microelectromechanical systems (MEMS) with Gerold Schropfer, director of MEMS products and European operations in Lam Research's Computational Products group, and Michelle Bourke, senior director of strategic marketing for Lam's Customer Support Business Group. What follows are excerpts of that conversation.... » read more

Using Virtual Process Libraries To Improve Semiconductor Manufacturing


People think that semiconductor process simulation libraries should be developed using a perfect theoretical background that is strongly supported by empirical data. This might be true in academic research, where researchers are trying to develop a systematic approach to understanding a process mechanism. However, it is definitely not true in production fabs, where engineers need to quickly a... » read more

Expanded Material Metrology For Refined Etch Selectivities


Trends in advanced device fabrication require combined lithography-etching multi-patterning sequences and self-aligned multi-patterning to form devices’ finest features at subwavelength dimensions. As EUV lithography (13.5 nm) progresses to larger numerical apertures and new thin resists, new multipatterning sequences must be developed with mutually compatible resists and proximal layers t... » read more

Demand, Lead Times Soar For 300mm Equipment


A surge in demand for various chips is causing select shortages and extended lead times for many types of 300mm semiconductor equipment, photomask tools, wafers, and other products. For the last several years, 200mm equipment has been in short supply in the market, but issues are now cropping up throughout the 300mm supply chain, as well. Traditionally, lead times have been three to six mont... » read more

What’s Next In Fab Tool Technologies?


Experts at the Table: Semiconductor Engineering sat down to discuss extreme ultraviolet (EUV) lithography and other next-generation fab technologies with Jerry Chen, head of global business development for manufacturing & industrials at Nvidia; David Fried, vice president of computational products at Lam Research; Mark Shirey, vice president of marketing and applications at KLA; and Aki Fuj... » read more

Applications, Challenges For Using AI In Fabs


Experts at the Table: Semiconductor Engineering sat down to discuss chip scaling, transistors, new architectures, and packaging with Jerry Chen, head of global business development for manufacturing & industrials at Nvidia; David Fried, vice president of computational products at Lam Research; Mark Shirey, vice president of marketing and applications at KLA; and Aki Fujimura, CEO of D2S. Wh... » read more

Untangling 3D NAND: Tilt, Registration, And Misalignment


The multiple demands of 3D NAND to enable yield and performance increase in difficulty at each generation. First generation devices, at 24-32 layer pairs, pushed process tools to extremes, going quickly from 10:1 to 40:1 aspect ratios for today’s 64-96 pair single tier devices. The aspect ratios increased as fast as the manufacturing challenges. To continue bit density scaling, processing imp... » read more

An Introduction To Virtual Semiconductor Process Evaluation


Process engineers develop ideal solutions to engineering problems using a logical theoretical framework combined with logical engineering steps. Unfortunately, many process engineering problems cannot be solved with a brute force, step by step approach to understand every cause-and-effect relationship. There are simply too many process recipe variables that can be modified to make a brute-force... » read more

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